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I found Benedict in the library with a cold cup of tea beside him and an old cloth-bound book turned upside-down on his lap. He did not make any move to greet me, not indicate he had noticed my entrance, even when I walked up to him and made obvious my intention. Only after I cleared my throat disapprovingly did he show some sign of life. His head jerked, his eyes blinked, and he let out a groan.

"If this is a bad time, I can come back," I said to him, but it wasn't a caring suggestion, more a damning indictment of the fact he clearly had all the time in the world to give me, and therefore rightfully should do just that. "Benedict Westcott-Hollingsworth."

He finally lifted his eyes to mine. His expression was totally dead, emotionally. His lips seemed to be moving slightly, as if he wanted to say something.

"What?" I demanded of him haughtily. "Can you not speak?"

His eyes dropped back down and he reached for the tea sitting next to him on the table. Though it was cold, he cupped it in his hands and seemed to find in this action some reassurance. He focused on his own reflection in the cup. I was prepared to chastise him yet again, but finally he spoke in a quiet, strained voice. "What do you want?"

"So you can talk," I said, a little resentful that he had spoken before I could throw in a new zinger and using this opportunity to verbally express my anger at the missed opportunity.

He seemed more than a little tired, as if this was a line of questioning he had been through before. "Yes, I can talk," he said in that overly posh accent of his. "Did you have something you wanted of me or can't you leave an old man to his peace?"

I snorted just a little because he was only forty, though he did have some grey growing in near his cheek. "Benedict Westcott-Hollingsworth, born April 25th, 1892, in Cambridge, parents William and Beth, attended--"

"I am aware," he tried to cut me off, but I simply kept going. I had the schools he attended, the major dates of events in his life, his membership in the Adventurer's Society, magazine articles published about him and he sat there listening to me rattle off his life story in factually impersonal form.

"--Until August of 1921, after which point there is no record of you anywhere until you were admitted to the Triumvirate's citizenry register."

I let this fact hang in the air and did not say anything more, waiting. It seemed to take halfway to forever for Benedict to finally speak again, and then the only thing he said was, "Yes."

That tiny little acknowledgment was all I needed, the signal that it would be possible for me to engage him. I wasted no more time with frivolities. "What happened in August of 1921? Where did you do that there is no further record of you in any recorded history?"

His answer was so soft I could not hear it. I leaned forward, asking, "What did you say?" but he could not repeat the answer again. His face suddenly contorted with anguish and I knew he would cry, which disgusted me, but I held my ground.

My assessment was mostly correct. He bent his head into his lap with that horrible expression on his face but did not begin to sob or shed any tears. He just sat there with his head down and after a long moment gasped for air and exhaled slowly.

"What is it that can turn a man once so successful into such a wreck?" I mused aloud, not really expecting him to provide any further answers.

He was full of surprises, that Benedict. He sat up looking still panicked but somewhat composed. "What turns anyone into anything?" he said quite clearly.

"I do not know, that is why I am asking."

He looked at me and for the first time I think he actually saw me and registered my presence in his head. "You're so young," he said, sounding surprised about this. "You're too young to understand this." With a shaky hand he returned his teacup to the table.

"I'm older than I look," I tried.

He frowned. "I think not. If you were old enough you'd understand it."

How utterly and completely infuriating. Not only he was implying that I was physically youthful, but also that I was mentally and experientially too young for his adult problems.

I did the only appropriately mature thing to do. I stomped on his shoe. He flinched and scooted his foot away from me, looking up at me with dubious hurt in his eyes. "I'm not the one sitting in this library all the time bawling like a baby," I said to him, and while it was true he had not bawled once since I had been here, it was no secret that he had cried here in the past because several of our neighbors had mentioned it and I had even seen him do it once. "But if you are so old and wise about everything, then why pass up the chance to give me some sort of meaningful life lesson? Your wisdom clearly isn't doing you any good."

For a moment, he seemed to hesitate like he was considering my demand, but then his hesitation turned to silence. He gazed down at the book laying face-down in his hap and picked it up, turning it carefully over and beginning to read. It seemed he had every intention of ending our conversation for the moment.

Just as it takes two people to have a conversation it takes two people to end it, because so long as one party refuses to admit defeat and give up, some form of conversing will continue, no matter how one-sided. Most people when confronted with the cold shoulder treatment will become annoyed and turn away, but not me, because I hate losing and had all the time in the world to devote to this endeavor and was tired of hanging out with Sam constantly this week.

"I understand more than you ever could," I said to Benedict. "The workings of the human brain, how hormones drive emotion, how the psyche is nothing more than the sum total of an individual's brain chemistry. I understand the function of varying modes of flight, how every item ever produced is manufactured, how light waves create colors. I understand why the Roman Empire fell and how mountains are formed. What could you possibly think I am too young to understand?"

He looked up at me again and I knew my bid for continued conversation had worked.

"Love."

How utterly ridiculous. The mere suggestion that a four-letter-word known to every kindergartener would be beyond my comprehension! "I understand love."

"Do you?" asked Benedict, and I could feel the lecture coming on. "Do you understand what it means to be willing to sacrifice everything for another person, even your own life, because living without them is utterly devoid of meaning?"

"That's not love," I said. "That's foolishness."

Benedict sighed. "Would that I possessed your callous youth and unbroken heart." He went to pick up the teacup again but his hand was too shaky and he spilled it across the front of his pants and over his book. "s**t."

It was so pathetic I finally had to turn and leave. Benedict Westcott-Hollingsworth. He was almost as bad as Sam. The only farewell I offered him was, "I'll be back."

Unfortunately, I was not able to so easily escape Harry that afternoon. I continued my stormy exit from the library all the way up to my room and Harry accosted me on my doorstep as I was reaching for my keys. He was angry. "Ylaine!"

As much as I would have liked to have said that I got my keys out and slipped into my room, Harry jumped between me and the door before I had the chance. "We need to talk."

"If it's about your horrific lack of manners, your apology is not accepted, now get out my way!" I sneered at him.

He responded to my jibe with open contempt. "So help me, Ylaine, I have never hit a woman, but in your case I just might make an exception!"

I let my keys fall back into my pocket. If I was going to be righteously indignant, I would do it without the distraction of a set of keys in my hand. "Go right ahead and do it, then! I'm not scared of you." I threw my shoulders back defiantly, lifted my chin, and dared him to do it. I was a little scared he would, not because it might hurt -- physical pain does not worry me -- but simply because I had never been in this situation before, could not tell how Harry would react, and did not want to be overpowered and lose control of the situation. I could have walked over to my closet entrance, but I wasn't ready to give up on my main door quite yet. I scowled at him. "What are you waiting for?"

With a stern frown, Harry crossed his arms and leaned against my door. His threat of violence was totally empty. "Let me make something clear. This hotel and the people who live here and not here for your amusement. You prance around treating people like crap to satisfy your sadistic sensibilities and them I'm the one who gets stuck cleaning up after your s**t. Well guess what, princess, I'm tired of playing your maid, so I'm putting an end to it."

"What ever are you going on about?" I said indignantly with a dismissive shrug, as if he had not just called me out directly. Harry was being hyperbolic, anyway. So what if I was trying to kill a few hours of my otherwise boring life digging around in strangers' lives? It hardly made me a sadist, and Harry my maid.

"I'm talking about you running around here, treating everyone like your goddamn servants, never lifting a finger to help anyone, running roughshod over people's feelings and skipping off on your merry way before you ever have to deal with the repercussions of your actions!"

"You're exaggerating," I said flatly.

"Am I? Just last week, did you not cause Benedict so much distress he spilled tea all over the damn library, and then I got stuck with the dry cleaning?"

I rolled my eyes and exhaled. "No one forced you to do that, Benedict could well have taken care of it himself. If it's a matter of the bill, juts tell me how much and I'll pay it."

Harry retaliated with an anger cold and deep. "It's not an issue of money! You don't know what Benedict can and can't do! You're not responsible for him!" Harry's anger was obvious even to himself and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath to clear it lest he succumb to the temptation to make good on his earlier threat. "I get it, Ylaine. You didn't come here the rest of us did, you didn't work with us in the gods-damned war, you don't give a flying ******** about anyone here but yourself. Well, I do give a damn, this place is supposed to be a place where people help one another and you're ******** taking advantage of the system and my generosity."

"Ha!" I retorted, throwing a hand into the air. "Generosity? Generosity? And what, pray tell, have you ever done that's been generous towards me! From day one you've belittled and insulted me. Not once have you ever done a single thing to help me that wasn't for your own personal benefit! I had to pay you! Am I to understand that were I anyone else, you'd simply offer to help without charge? That I am for some reason undeserving of the selfless consideration you give everyone else who lives here!?"

As I listened to myself make this argument, I began to grow upset. There was a gnawing kernel of truth in there. Harry treated me differently from everyone else. So did Reginald, and the scientists who had "birthed" me at the lab, and the school faculty who held me firmly in place with their academic-developmental stranglehold. Any other child was allowed to expand into whatever arena of maturity best suited them but I, who had arrived already deserving of an adult arena, had been denied because my path differed from the usual long, meandering lifelong journey. I had taken the express line and they had refused my ticket because I had not had it stamped at all fifteen waypoint stations.

I did not have much chance to wallow in my upset because Harry held up both of his hands in a parody of helpless surrender. "As you have made it more than abundantly clear, Ylaine, you don't want or need my help!"

I froze. It was true, I did not want or need his help, but did that mean he should not offer it to me, same as he did every other resident of the building? "You never even tried to help me!" I concluded, shrieking it at him. He seemed a little stunned at that, enough for me to grab my keys, push past him, and stumble into my room.

"Ylaine--"

I locked the door as fast as my fingers could fumble and took a step back. Harry knocked on the door and repeated my name. I waited. After a minute, he gave up.

The nerve of that b*****d. If anything, though, I had probably shamed him into leaving me alone for the next week or two. I smiled.