Welcome to Gaia! ::

The other one. It was Chris clone that had worried her more that day than anything, because she'd been hoping that the America clone was a fluke, until she saw that hard face looking down at himself. She shuddered, unable to hide the fact that this entire situation chilled her to the bone. For all she knew - for all she knew, the man she held in her arms could be -

Something inside of her broke before the thought could reach it's inevitable conclusion, and - silent as it was - it was Maebe's turn to cry. "I can't stand this anymore." She admitted, her voice cracking in defeat. "I just want to feel safe again. I don't know why that's so impossible. I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up to be forced to learn how to love people, just so I could slowly watch them get replaced. Why - why can't all this just - stop."

"It's not okay." She grumbled into his collar, after curling into his tugging arms. "It's never going to feel okay again. I keep thinking, what if she's a clone. What if he's a clone. What if - "

Her words melted into nothing but muffled groans, and she let them die before they touched her lips. She didn't want to talk anymore - there was no solution, no way to work things out. And Dawson, God, if their world was replaced, he'd probably just accept the clones just like he had those two. She'd never felt so alone in her life.

"I wish I could just." A sniff interrupted her words, and her thoughts. "Run away."

That was what she missed most, about being a human, and not a hunter. It was always so easy to just run away when things were out of her control.

But that was exactly what she was so afraid of.

She pushed away just enough to see him face to face, and her forehead pressed against his. For a moment, she just looked into the blur of eyes in front of her, before closing her own and breathing in a deep, lingering sigh.

"I can't say I have a lot of faith in that always being the case, Dawson." She admitted with a bittersweet whisper. "Not when the people I've counted on are often the ones that keep disappearing. This is a trend that's starting to severely impede my ability to trust anyone, anymore."

"I'm not scared of you running." Her hands met his, pressing them gently, but desperately, against his skin. Her eyes opened, staring down into his and trying to decide if there was anything she could see, just be looking, so that she would always be sure it was him. "I'm scared of you getting replaced."

He gave her something solid to grab on to, and she clung to them desperately as her only lifeline. It meant that she would always be able to tell whether Dawson was real or not, but that did not mean he would ever be safe from replacement, and it did not mean she would be able to save him, the way Taym had saved America. It did not mean the danger had passed; only that she would know when danger had come to her doorstep, as it was inescapably fated to do. She clung to what he gave her, because it was all he could give her, and she tried to find strength in that.

"Don't joke now, damnit." She begged, the weak laughter betraying her as it interrupted her demand. She brushed her fingers gently against Syn, feeling the energy of the weapon turning her away as other people's weapons did, and she brushed them up to lose her hand in his hair, tipping his hat towards her.

"I will remember." She promised, her mood sated by his assurance, and his presence. "But if they take you, I promise. I promise." Anger bled into her whispered words. "I will come for you."

The sparkle in her eyes made it clear that Dawson had managed to say just the right thing to take her mind off of her troubles - at least, for a little while.

"And that, Sir Grace, is why I'm so damn fond of you. No other reason. Really. Just the snacks." She turned his hat brim to the side with a grin and bent her head upward, smacking his forehead with a kiss too innocent to have come from her. Then she leveled him with a serious stare. "I was born ready to stress eat."

She really wasn't. Her ability to put food away was abysmal, at best. Despite the truth, she never seemed ready to admit that she wasn't a massive junk food enthusiast, because the amount of food never really affected how comfortable it felt to eat something really, really awful for you. It was the thought, that counted.

Scandal was a language she was well versed in. She fluttered her eyelashes, and gave him her best, most effective come hither stare. "Oh, no, of course not, Sir Grace. I love you for every teensy weensy little bit of you, from your head to your toes. But especially for that sweet," She edged closer, dangerous as she'd once been. "Sweet," Her voice hushed down to a whisper, and her eyebrows waggled, ruining her perfect seduction. "Sweet satisfaction."

She grinned, her hands opening and closing in front of him childishly. "Gimme gimme."

The grin disappeared as she gasped dramatically, and her hands flew to press against her heart as if he'd just scandalized her. "Dastardly? Me? How dare you, sir. You insult my honor. You are the dastardly one! What kind of knight holds back from his charge in such a way? This is war, do you hear me? War!"

War, in this case, meant a full attack, leaping against him to try and knock him onto his back while ferociously tickling his sides. It was a less violent war than the typical. And perhaps, a little less important.