Side By Side

[Rhett Keyes]

Rhett: So this is what the shadow realm is, Rhett thought to himself as he looked around the dark, dismal place that looked a little familiar, but not quite right. Almost comparable to the place he had just come from, but there wasn’t a fence right outside the building he had been inside while in Harper Rock.
Before he died.

Rhett knew he was going to die. He knew it before it was too late, but he told Dhara something else. He told her he would be as careful as he could be when she said she was worried about him the night before the battle. It wasn’t a lie. He had been careful, but Rhett wasn’t a fighter. He would never be a fighter. It wasn’t in his nature. But, it was in his nature to help Jesse out. They had been friends once upon a time, he was his sire now and even though their relationship was strained for a few reasons, Rhett wasn’t that kind of guy. To hold grudges and say screw it and screw Jesse just because they got into a few disagreements in the past couple of months. Even if he knew he was going to be screwed.

Some guy Rhett didn’t know died right in front of him after he had summoned some zombies to protect either himself or the both of them when they went north. Error in judgement, they should have went south and maybe got lucky and avoided traps they laid down. Even though by then, the other guy was looking to be in bad shape, and Rhett not much better.

The zombies had been easily destroyed by the approaching thugs after they’d been summoned and Rhett almost did the same thing, but he was so tired and thirsty. And sore. He drew his knowledge into his own body and replenished a little of his blood supply while the goons came looming down on him. And as he did this, Rhett saw Clover and then she was gone. Had she died too? He couldn’t tell during all the chaos and the distance, but Clover was long gone. Rhett gave it what he could until the last second of his life, being shot square in the head by a guy packing a big gun he had never seen before.
And so, here he was.

Not long after Jesse arrived, Rhett could tell by his voice, followed by Renee and one male, that he presumed to be the other guy he didn’t know. So where was Clover? Four guys and one girl made five, but they were one girl short. Jesse told them to ‘eat,’ but Rhett had no idea what that meant and soon people he didn’t know were by the small group that failed to abolish the human thugs. So, Rhett didn’t eat and he wandered off in hopes of finding Clover.

Dhara: Dead. Rhett was dead. And so were people she’d never met, Jesse, Renee, a couple others whose names escaped her. She sat on the bare wooden floor, knees drawn up, thin arms wrapped around her covered legs. Amber eyes stared emptily into nothing. Her portal hopping had been abandoned. As soon as she learned Rhett was dead, it was like her brain checked out. She asked for answers and didn’t receive any clarity. Rhett hadn’t told her they could die. But everyone said he, they, would all be back.

All she could think about was nothing. The only thought in her mind, the all consuming thing that had her sitting and staring at nothing was that Rhett was dead. Rhett was dead, Clover was alive. But how was that possible? How did the woman not know what happened? How had she survived? Those were questions she hadn’t gotten answers to either. She was out of questions for now. She had asked to be alone, and to be perfectly honest, she wasn’t even sure where she was right now. She was trying to think through what she’d been told, trying to process what she had learned. She thought she knew so much about being a vampire, and now that she was one, she realized she didn’t know a thing. After all, here she was, a little over two weeks in her new ‘life’ and she was utterly alone.

Rhett: He hadn’t found Clover in all his wandering around and Rhett was starting to get tired. It seemed as if his feet had carried him for miles and they probably had. Where did it all go wrong? How did it go wrong so quick and so fast? Why were there so many guys hanging around in one spot? Did they know? Could someone have told them that they were going to get attacked tonight?

Rhett sighed, exhausted from the hours of travel and took a seat on the sandy ground beneath him. He wasn’t mad at Jesse, but Rhett was mad at himself. Disappointed with himself. He knew he wasn’t going to do much good and should have stayed away. Not because Rhett was a coward. He had responsibilities. Dhara was the first one. He hadn’t intended on making her a vampire but she was. And now she was alone. No one would look after her. No one probably even knew they were all dead. Or cared. Dhara wouldn’t know anything for however long it took Rhett to get out of here. Was it days? Weeks? Months? Years? Rhett didn’t know yet, but one day was one day too long away from Dhara.

Dhara: At some point she had moved from the floor where she sat, to her apartment. Their apartment. The silence was deafening. She had gotten used to the sounds of their conversation, or music playing in the background. Used to the way the apartment felt. Filled with life. Now it felt empty, dead and lonely, just as she did. She had come home because it wasn’t fair to lurk about like a ghost and make Clover feel guilty for not having answers. She didn’t know what she didn’t know and staring her down wasn’t going to help any one.

So she had come home, hoping maybe Rhett was here and that it was just a sick and twisted joke. But he wasn’t. It wasn’t. Moving to the dresser, she pulled out a t-shirt of his and found something strange. A journal. It looked as if he wrote in it. He probably always kept it there, but since she didn’t search through his things, she never knew. Well now it was going to be her journal. She changed into his t-shirt and grabbed a pen before shuffling to their bed.

Crawling in on his side, she burrowed beneath the covers, catching the lingering scent of him on the pillow. Her throat felt tight and she swallowed a few times as she bent her knees and propped the book against them. She flipped past the pages that were filled, noticing only that Rhett had nice penmanship. She wasn’t going to read his private thoughts. However, she was going to invade his space with her thoughts. She put the pen to paper, the words came haltingly. She was a musician, not a writer, and journaling didn’t sit well with her. Neither did Rhett’s little stunt. She didn’t realize a tear had slipped free until it splashed on her hand. Mumbling something unladylike beneath her breath, she grabbed a tissue and blotted her eyes. She hated crying. Detested it. Only two people had seen her cry and both of them were gone. At least the tears hadn’t come in front of any of what remained of the Fforde line. She found some comfort in that small fact.

Rhett: As he sat there wondering these things and thinking about Dhara, he replayed everything that went down in the thugs home base. Rhett was stuck on a singular person. Clover. Where had she disappeared to?

The male generally saw the good in people, case in point, Jesse and Dhara, and wanted to believe Clover was here. But deep down, Rhett knew she wasn't. That when he looked for her, it was her back he'd seen and not some muscle head gang banger. How could she have left them? How could she have left Jesse? Rhett wouldn't have ever left Dhara. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself had he abandoned her and she had died.

Rhett wasn't mad with Clover. But he couldn't help but compare her to Grey. Rhett was positive Grey wouldn't have left Jesse. He couldn't say that about the whole family, not knowing her that well, but from their emails Rhett couldn't see her abandoning Jesse. She had loved him. You don't leave the people you love to die. So how much did Clover love Jesse? How much did she love Fforde? In the end, none of those mattered because while Rhett wasn't mad at Clover, he wouldn't ever respect her or follow anything she said was the good for Fforde.

Dhara: It had been three days, bleeding slowly into four. Dhara hadn’t done much and she knew Rhett would lecture her for giving in to grief. For moping around and doing nothing. But it wasn’t totally nothing. She had talked to someone. A girl named Kaelyn. She had been to the realm, the dark hell where vampires go when they die. She had learned a great many things from Kaelyn. Most importantly, she had learned what happened and how.

It was the last thing on her mind as she curled up to sleep and the first thing she thought about when she woke on day four. Obsessively keeping count, pacing holes in the floor. She worried that Rhett was suffering, that he was being tormented in that forsaken place and that he would be different when he came back to her. If he came back.

She also wanted to know, almost more than anything, why Clover ran. Why did she leave and let everyone die? From what Dhara had learned, she honestly did not think any of them would have survived, even if Clover had stayed. She would be just as dead. But shouldn’t she? Kaelyn said they were all family. If that was true, if they were family, why did Clover abandon them? That just wasn’t something you did.

With a sigh, she curled up tighter and pulled the blankets over her head, determined to just stay where she was. She worried that if she got up, she’d find Clover and ask her why she ran. She worried that she would say things that weren’t nice. And she knew that the other woman was suffering. Dhara was loathe to make it worse and so she thought the best thing she could do was to stay in bed.

Rhett: He had done a lot of thinking while the minutes, hours and days passed. Maybe days hadn’t even passed. There was no way to know. Nothing indicated time in this place. Rhett had to go by the fact that Clover was around one day and not another and back again, along with some other woman Rhett didn’t know. They were all ‘related,’ but none were known to him as well as Dhara or Jesse.

Every time they came around, Rhett left. He couldn’t be around Clover. While Rhett wasn’t mad at her, he didn’t trust her. And Rhett didn’t hang around people he didn’t trust or like. Rhett had come to the conclusion while he wandered, looking for Dhara, that he was not Clover’s biggest fan. Twice she has rubbed him wrong and well, he wasn’t giving her a third time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Three times? Was just idiotic.

After he reconnected with Dhara, Rhett decided he was going to check up on Grey. Maybe take some space from Fforde. The place had been going to crap since he entered it and it wasn’t getting any better with Clover at Jesse’s side. Everyone was expendable to Clover and Jesse didn’t seem to mind from all the conversations going on around Rhett before he walked away.

Dhara: Victory was hers, sort of. Some time in the dragging minutes and agonizingly long days she had dragged herself from the bed, to the shower, to the couch and back to the bed again. She was miserable like she hadn’t been in a very long time. The only other time in her life she had been so sunk in depression like this was when her mother had died. She wasn’t even sure what day it was any more, or how long he had been gone. All she knew was that at some point she had showered, changed into a clean t-shirt of his and was on the couch, staring morosely at the floor.

Well... mostly on the couch, one arm hanging off, fingers trailing on the floor. She must have been attempting to get up, but she just didn’t have it in her to move. Her amber eyes were empty of emotion, half closed. She sighed softly, then moved, just enough to hang her head off the couch, her white hair trailing on the floor now. Her eyes closed and she began to drift off. She had spent almost every night and day asleep since Rhett had died. She was utterly convinced that he was never going to come back, despite what Clover and Kaelyn said.

Rhett: Jesse had come back for him and shown Rhett the way out the night he could come back. Why did they have to wait this long to get out? Were there only so many doors? Were they that difficult to look for?

He had come back naked. That was a little unexpected. Especially when Rhett showed up in the busier part of the city, right outside the morgue and there was a guy and some girl smoking cigarettes using the building as a shelter of sorts to keep warm from the bitter cold. A hand went to cup the only things that mattered in the eyes of the public, waved to them with the other out of modest embarrassment and then bolted away from them and towards the flats.

Rhett ducked into a place called Sanctuary, or The Sanctuary, hoped through a portal and was in the main floor of the flats in a blink of an eye. More people were seen, as was expected before Rhett did the same fast, single wave to them and shot for the elevator.

His fist jabbed the button, as if it would hurry it down to the main level, a hand still covering what Rhett could of all that he was blessed with when born. When it finally opened, Rhett shot past people coming out of it, some gasped, some asked if he was alright and others had to be shoved out by Rhett so he could go to his and Dhara’s floor before more people noticed a very naked Rhett.

****. He had no key. What if Dhara wasn’t home? Rhett hoped and prayed that she was as he left the elevator and headed to their apartment. He tried the knob, to no avail before Rhett knocked on the door with his one free hand, lightly and rapidly.

Dhara: She dragged herself off the couch and moved to the door. She didn’t bother to see who was there, she simply turned the knob and opened the door, letting it swing open. Almost no one knew where she lived and so she knew it was someone with an invitation into the tiny apartment she shared with Rhett. She shuffled back to the couch and flopped on it, mumbling in a flat voice. “You know where everything is, help yourself.”

She figured it was probably Fors since they hung out on occasion, but to be honest, she wasn’t the best company right now. The single, bland sentence was the only thing she’d said in days and her accented voice was slightly husky, coming from unused vocal cords. She sighed again, resuming her former limp doll position on the couch, expecting to hear the fridge and cupboards opening soon.

Rhett: The Necromancer just stood there in the doorway in disbelief. Yeah, he knew where everything was, but that didn’t matter to him. That was all she had to say to him was that he knew where everything was? “Dhara.” Rhett moved in after her, a few seconds after she plopped down on the couch and basically ignored him. His voice wasn’t the same, it was scratchy and gruff. He had barely used it in the last week. Maybe three sentences at most to any of the Fforde people in the shadow realm when they popped over by him for a visit or whatever. He hadn’t wanted visitors then, he just wanted to get out and find Dhara. Take care of his responsibilities. She was hist first and primary responsibility and if no one understood that, Rhett didn’t care.

Rhett moved in front of the couch, still naked as the day he was born, arms reaching out for Dhara. “Dhara.” Rhett said again, this time with more oomph behind it. “You’re okay.” He was relieved to see she was still here and still alive. No one else was here it appeared, so had she managed to survive all alone? He hoped someone had checked in on her nightly, but Rhett suspected better. “I tried to be careful.” He started at his apology. “I came back as soon as I could. I’m so sorry.” He came crashing down to his knees in front of the woman he loved and looked up at her. “I’ll never do something like that again. Ever.” It wasn’t right for him to leave her, Rhett realized that right away. to put himself in that position when she was so young and new. “Please forgive me.” A hand went to her leg as he kneeled there at her feet, waiting for some sort of positive recognition that he was back.

[Dhara]

Dhara: She heard her name but ignored it. At least until the person invaded her space. Amber eyes tracked up a body she knew almost as well as her own. She blinked owlishly as he began to speak. Surely her mind was playing tricks on her. Rhett was gone and he wasn't coming back.

When he fell to his knees, she pulled back slightly, wondering what her hallucination was doing. The touch on her bare leg was all too real, and so so familiar. She stared at him for a long, quiet moment, then reached out and touched his cheek. “Rhett…” she breathed his name, a soft whisper as her fingers met solid flesh.

In the blink of an eye, she tumbled from the couch and into his lap. Her arms twined over his shoulders, face buried in the crook of his neck. She clung to him as if he was life itself, using all the strength in her delicate body to hold him in place. She didn't say anything, afraid that if she did, she would start crying, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Rhett: There was the recognition he was looking for. A little stronger than he anticipated after the initial encounter with Dhara at the door, but one the guy was going to take. “Dhara.” He said again as there was recognition in her face of who he was and what he was doing here as he felt the caress of her hand against his cheek. Something so simple, so easy to do, was so easily missed for the length of time he was gone. And only made him feel that much worse for abandoning her, the feeling doubling when she was in his lap and clinging to him.

“I’m back. I walked and walked and walked some more until I found a way out. Until Jesse told me how to get out a little while ago. What day is it? What time is it? How long have I been gone for?” A lot of questions were thrown at Dhara, before he stopped and asked the most important one of them all. “Are you okay?” She hadn’t seemed like it a couple minutes ago, but now with her in his arms, Rhett felt as if Dhara might be okay.

Dhara: “Um…” Well that was certainly an elegant answer in response to all of his questions. She nestled closer as she wracked her brain for answers. “It’s Monday, I think… and you’ve been gone forever.” It really wasn’t forever, it had just felt like that, and her iron grip on him reflected the depth of her emotion, even if she appeared calm. “I am better, now that you are here. Clover and Kaelyn said you would come back.” She paused and held him even tighter. “I did not believe them, I should have.” She murmured. “I missed you so much… do not ever leave again.” She looked up at him with those large eyes of hers. “Promise?”

Rhett: Monday? Which Monday? How many did he miss? She said he was gone for forever. Was it one Monday, or five? Ten even? Rhett looked down at the woman in his lap when she mentioned Kaey and Clover. The latter he could do without mentioning or hearing about for a while. At least for couple days. “They were right. I had to come back. Wanted to. For you. Us.” Rhett clarified before sighing. “I won't leave. Not like that. I'm not doing that again. I don't care if the Queen herself asks.”He chuckled before securing his arms around her more. “It was a stupid idea.”

Dhara: Her head tucked under his chin and she managed to pry a single arm free so her fingers could stroke up and down his bare arm. She was loathe to let him out of her sight again, but he was very naked and she wondered if it bothered him. Her eyes roamed and she spied the small calendar that hung on the wall. “Sunday, 17 January.” She corrected quietly, giving him the date and day so he would know.

“I am glad you came back. I cannot describe what it was like without you. When you told me that it was going to happen, I thought there was a very very good reason. You didn’t tell me you were recreating the old west and fighting over land. That, beloved, is a very stupid thing to do.” Her tirade was quiet, and even though she didn’t yell, Rhett would be able to hear the pain and anger in her soft spoken words.

Rhett: Rhett knew he was still very naked, but it didn’t bother him any. Dhara and he had been….close, closer than this now, and she was the only one here. Rhett wasn’t a self-conscious individual, and had no reason to be. His job prior to being sired was physically demanding and Rhett walked anywhere and everywhere just about on his commute to work, a store and any other place in the city. Rhett enjoyed walking and keeping in shape. He knew how important it was to treat your body good. Usually little to no heart problems and a longevity to one’s life span was what happened when people took care of themselves.

“Sunday.” He repeated after her, then nodded his head. “Not a whole week.” He sighed, slightly relieved. It could have been longer, even if it felt like an eternity to Dhara. It could have been months, and had it not been for Jesse, it very well might have been. “It was stupid.” Rhett concluded, having already figured that out while he was in that dark place. He had nothing else to do but think about the series of events that tore him away from his main, underlying responsibility. What tore him away from Dhara.

Dhara: His quiet agreement relaxed her, though she remained tense, if only because she didn’t want to cry. She hated crying, especially in front of someone else. She could literally count on one hand the number of times she had cried in front of someone and she wasn’t about to increase that number. Her eyes half closed as she sagged against him, fingers still stroking his arm. “You must be hungry.” She said at last, realizing that a week without blood had probably left him ravenous. “Or perhaps you’d like a shower?” She tipped her head back and gently kissed his lips. “You cannot have clothes though. I think I rather enjoy seeing you walk around naked.” Her soft laugh slipped from her lips, tinged with hysteria. She recognized the wayward emotion in the sound and managed to stop before falling over the edge in to crazy.

Rhett: There were a lot of things he was. Hungry was one of those things. Tired. Even though Rhett had done nothing but wander around the shadow realm, he was tired. Was it physical, or was it more mental or emotional? Maybe both. And finally, Rhett was ravenous, but not for food. “Shower sounds good. Great even.” Rhett muttered as his lips found the crook of Dhara’s neck. “You need one too?” She was still in pajama’s. Did she shower already and get ready for bed, or fail to shower yet and start her day? Rhett was guessing his final thought was the right thought, but he understood. He literally was in a daze as he walked the dark place for days and days.

Dhara: Her head tipped back and she clung just a little tighter to him. She had missed everything about him, from the small smile she caught when he thought she wasn’t looking, to his appetite for her and all points in between. The apartment that had been so huge and empty with him gone now seemed small and cozy, filled with life at his return. “I could use another shower… I couldn’t quite reach the middle of my back…” She chuckled as she held him tightly. “And a shower with you would be… the height of my night.”

Rhett: “Would be the height of my week.” Rhett admitted with a small chuckle as a hand came across the small of her back and stroked it tenderly. Rhett inched his way up, hand still on Dhara before coming to the flats of his feet. Part of him did it because he missed the feel of Dhara, her company and her very presence. The other part still was in a little shock that he was actually back here. Letting go of her might suck him back to that dark, dismal place without her. That he had died twice in less than a year, and come back both times by some stupid, sheer, dumb luck both times. “Come on.” He coaxed Dhara before Rhett picked her up, with one hand under her knees and the other behind her back. Holding her close to him, as Rhett walked them to the bathroom, brought a sense of reality and legitimacy to the fact that he was alive and he was here with Dhara.

Dhara: She always enjoyed how he could maneuver himself and her as if she weighed nothing at all. Her feet barely touched the floor before she was lifted off them again, snug in his arms and being carried bridal style towards the shower. Once again, her arms twined over his shoulders and she lay her head against his chest with a contented sigh. “I am still very mad at you.” She pointed out quietly, then swallowed hard, her voice a little husky when she next spoke. “And… I should warn you… there may be tears…” She sniffed, sounding rather pathetic, but she was still trying not to give in to the “lost, lonely girl” stereotype. She wanted to be strong for him. After all, he was the one who died, not her. What right did she have to cry when she was safe and secure and he was god only knew where? “But I am going to try really hard not to cry, okay?”

Rhett: He looked down at the tiny woman in his arms as she spoke. Rhett nodded his head, his head then ducking sheepishly at the mention of her still being mad at him. He knew, no, he expected she still would be and if he were in her shoes, Rhett would probably still be mad too. “I know.” Rhett acknowledged her feelings as he kept moving them to the bathroom.

Tears. Would it bother the guy to see them? No. But Dhara was apparently trying to be strong for him. Maybe for them. “And if there are tears, then so be it.” Rhett wouldn't think any less of Dhara’s strength of character if she did cry. She had been left alone, didn't know when he was coming back, or if he ever was coming back.

Her feet were placed on the bathroom floor, so the male could turn the faucet to the tub on before he sighed. “Just be mad at me tomorrow, alright?” Rhett asked as he turned back to the petite woman next to him. An arm weaved out for her as he sat on the tub’s edge and pulled her to him gently. He wanted a proper welcome home kiss and snatched it as his lips melded against Dhara’s.

Dhara: “Okay…” She barely managed to say before he pulled her.close. She pressed against him and met his kiss with unrestrained passion. As usual time seemed to vanish, lost in the haze of pleasure. They made it into the shower at some point, and even managed to get out before the water got cold.

Hours later found them entwined on the couch together in contented silence. She had cried at some point, and he had held her as she did. It wasn't a storm of tears but rather a silent weeping that expressed more about her pain than anything else could have. Now they simply lay together, quietly reveling in being reunited.

Rhett: Rhett had decided as he held Dhara that she would be the first he always thought of when making his decisions, as it should be. Even if neither of them asked for her to be sired, she was now his responsibility and her feelings mattered a lot to Rhett. A hell of a lot to Rhett. “Any chance a guy can get a date with his girl, even if she’s supposed to be mad at him tomorrow?” Rhett asked as he looked down at the petite woman in his arms, a small grin on his face. He hated seeing Dhara like this and hoped if his mood was light, that hers would change and lighten too.

Dhara: Her head tipped back and a smile curved her lips. She chuckled softly as she looked up at him. “I think there’s better than a chance. I think a date would be nice. And I’ll even try not to be mad.” She looked thoughtful for a moment as she snuggled with him. “Maybe I will make you take me dancing to make up for it.”

Rhett: He cracked a broad smile on his face as she mentioned dancing after trying not to be mad at him anymore. “I don’t think anyone could be anything but amused by watching me dance.” Rhett murmured softly as his arms were repositioned around the woman they were around. “But, if that’s what it takes.” He nodded at her idea, even if Rhett knew he’d make a baboon out of himself tomorrow night. Rhett was not skilled at dancing. He wasn’t born with two left feet, but he didn’t really do dancing a lot. He was probably average. A little less than average, when it came to dance, in reality. “Whatever you want. You deserve a good laugh after all this anyways.”

Dhara: She chuckled quietly and snuggled against him with a small yawn. Conversation turned to murmurs turned to silence as she drifted off in his embrace, sleeping easily for the first time in a week. She couldn’t say how long she slept like that, or when Rhett decided they were going to bed, but she had a hazy memory of being lifted as gently as if she were spun glass. Her eyes closed and she nestled into him as he walked to the bedroom and slid into their bed. She was a bit unfair to him as she had woken enough to tighten her hold on him so he couldn’t put her down. And so, when the sun rose and stole the life from the two vampires, they remained twined in each other's arms, unmoving, to sleep the day away.