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Harvard stared for long minutes at his phone, feeling his brain slowly shut down. It wasn't the first confession he'd ever received, of course. He'd had students confess (these he typically refused), teacher's aides, co-workers - all of those had been flattering, but easy to brush off if he found them inconvenient. And, if they were too easy to snare, they were boring, which was another word for inconvenient. Caroline was... different. It was something he'd actively avoided thinking about, but he wasn't sure why. Abruptly, he pushed away from his desk in the Life lab.

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

Not helpful, Miserere. His strides lengthened, footsteps echoing down the hallways of the dorm. He wasn't running, not necessarily, but walking quickly, Power-walking, even. Harvard had no idea what he was going to say, or do, or anything, but it was going to be face to face and not through a tiny screen with an even tinier still picture of her face.

Harvard slowed as he neared her room, pausing to lean against the wall a moment. Finding nothing new coming to mind, he pressed onward. Placing both hands on her door, he pushed it open. It was always ajar - she never wanted to be trapped, even within the comfort of her own personal spaces.

"Caroline," he said, and nothing more.

"I decided." He said, and moved to sit next to her. Harvard wriggled his arm between her back and the wall, trying to enfold her into him. She seemed very small, and very vulnerable. Sighing, he buried his face in the wild tangle of her hair and breathed deeply.

There were things he'd avoided thinking about, avoided examining, but she... She always tipped both their hands, spilling all the cards to the table in a confusing pile. The time they'd forgotten had weighed more heavily on him than he liked to admit - he'd laughed at himself for being put out by some words on paper. They'd burned them.

Now he was here, and for all the languages he knew, he couldn't think of what to say.

You don't have to tell me anything - a platitude neither of them believed. For appearances' sake, or because she was always so careful not to cover any exits, she said it to him anyway. Harvard would not have said it. He felt no qualms in blocking up exit-ways with words or the lack thereof. If someone really wanted to be free, they would find their way and he'd let them. But with her, well, he wouldn't make it easy. Maybe... he couldn't let her at all. He shook his head. When had he become this kind of man?

His hand moved in small circles and it was his turn to feel oddly exposed. Maybe he should have done this over twitter, Harvard thought belatedly. "One last time? Didn't I tell you I wouldn't let you go, would follow? There are no last times for us, Caroline." He didn't want to say the word love - he wasn't sure entirely what love was and didn't want to give the word a power Harvard wasn't sure it held. But he hoped that, even without the word, everything would still be enough for her.

"I want it all."

Her throat, arched up like that, bare, pale, was so inviting. It would have been more inviting if he hadn't been mulling over her words. Caroline was demanding, and he knew she'd deny it if he asked. She was demanding an answer he did not have. By giving it a name, she assumed the same of him when he wasn't ready to speak in such definite terms. Harvard wanted to play it off with a light joke about the apocalypse, but he held his tongue and narrowed his brown eyes. The idea of admitting that he simply did not know was to call it was appalling. And he would not... would not call it 'love' unless he knew. Harvard ground his teeth, his fingers tightening a little. He could not meet her smile with one of his.

Finally, he spoke. "If it's permanent, then give me all your nines. Your first, your third, your twenty-seventh nine." His fingers reached up to stroke the side of her neck gently, almost as though he expected something to be there. "I need them all and the spaces in between. Show me your patterns." She would not lie by keeping it secret, he would not lie by naming something he was unsure of. It was suddenly important to make sure she knew he wasn't withholding out of spite, or anything so petty, despite being angry she was making him say even this.

"You have to understand that I won't name it. That I don't give names to things I don't understand, Caroline." Her last name, Kercher, rested at the tip of his tongue, a bit of cruelty he could inflict on her. But he wouldn't; he didn't want to. Harvard hated that last name and everything it represented.

"I'll take everything you give me. " I'll use them to build a cage around you, he didn't say. I'll hold you here with gilded thorns and invisible bindings, he didn't say. His hands moved to rest over hers, touching each finger as it twisted and moved. Harvard did not force her hands to still, but gave her the option of entwining her jittery fingers in his. She was so like a small bird.

through day and space i saw you close muttered Miserere softly. It was the close of doors and not meters. Harvard ignored it, focusing on the way each of Caroline's breaths caused her body to shift against his.

Eventually, he spoke again. "When I know, you will know... Then there will be other words than the ones I can tell you now." His thoughts, sentences, came in odd spurts, following the stutter of his mind as he tripped over his own thoguths and picked himself back up again. "Nothing I feel for you is tame. I'll hold every nine in your deck, Caroline. And if we mix our numbers up together, maybe that's the best thing of all."

He smiled. "As wild as they come, Caroline." It was wonder the spirit hadn't been crushed out of her. It made him hate victor more for even trying. Harvard wanted to catch her in his hands, feel her pulse's erratic beat like the fragile flutter of a small bird's wings. It was a little startling, how utterly possessive he was of her - not her body, she could sleep with whomever she choose. It was different. He wanted her to be his, to always come back to him, an unbreakable string connecting them.

"What if I want to muddle your numbers with mine? I'll mess up your count." HE paused. "You know, in Delta, you helped keep things going." He leaned his face into her hair. She smelled good - it was probably one some fancy shampoo s**t that girls did, but it was nice. Harvard didn't specify more, that he meant not for everyone, but for him. "You are essential."

"What if you could have it?" Harvard was tempted to close the distance when she leaned in, but he waited. And, as thought she knew he was waiting, Caroline spoke, her tone low and almost husky.

His hand slid up her side, touching the curve of her waist, her ribcage. He wondered briefly if she found it funny that she held a cage within her in more ways than one. But now wasn't the time for talk of cages. "Everywhere," Harvard said, and kissed her.

He let her pull him down, bracing his weight on his elbows so he wouldn't crush her. Unable to help himself, Harvard grinned. "I think I like this angle." Harvard looked down at her for a long moment - her bright stare, her wild, red hair, her wet lips. There was something about her that was different from everyone else.

"More and more it doesn't feel like an 'if', I think. Maybe it's already happened and we were too busy to notice."