Book 3: Chapter 70: Seth

Book 3: Chapter 70: Seth
Seth

For a week I follow Lexy around everywhere she goes. I hardly let her out of my sight. She was annoyed with me, but more than that, she was more than a little broken, even though she did her best to hide it. She hardly spoke. She hardly breathed if I was being honest. She was a shell of herself, moving through daily routines that kept her physically busy, but I knew her mind was locked away somewhere dark that she never shared. 
"You're doing it again." She snapped at me tiredly. I don't think she's slept in two days. I don't think I've slept either. 
"Doing what?" I asked from across the desk of her make-shift office. 
"Staring at me instead of working." 
"I can't help it, you're beautiful." 
She looked up at me in disbelief, and I couldn't help but smirk. 
"And you're flirting. Again." 
"You say that like it's a bad thing." 
"We agreed no flirting." 
"You agreed no flirting. I agreed to no such thing." I teased her gently. 
She gave me a small, disbelieving smile before turning back to her work. 
She had gained some color back over the last couple of days, but her eyes still held shadows. Proof that there were things out there that I couldn't protect her from. No matter how much I wanted to. 
"Seriously, Seth," She said after a few more minutes. "Don't you have you have work to do?" 
"No." I answered with a shake of my head. Watching her was my job these days. She even had Alex worried with how much she was avoiding him, and that was hard to do. 
She thrust the papers she was working on at me, and I gave her a puzzled look. 
"I'm tired, read them to me?" She asked sweetly. 
I wanted to tell her that it was late and maybe we should go to bed, but I knew how that would go over. She'd refuse, I'd get annoyed, then we'd fight. My eyes were tired too, but I took the papers anyway and began reading the reports aloud. 
She leaned over her desk, bending her arm to lay on, her pen still in her other hand jotting down notes as we went, but I was only on page two when her eyes started to droop. I stuttered, but without opening her eyes she demanded that I keep going. However, by page 4 her breathing had evened out, and she was fast asleep. 
You would have thought it would be an easy choice about what to do next, but I hesitated. She was asleep for the first time in days, and I didn't want to be the one to wake her... But she was also hunched over a desk, and I knew her body would hate her in the morning if I let her sleep like that, not that her body didn't already seem to be protesting most days for one reason or another. Not that she shared such things. Not with me. Not with anyone. If it wasn't "work" related, she didn't speak. Not to me. Not to Alex. Not to Matt. Not to Annabeth. It was like she had put a wall up between us all, effectively shutting us all out. Not that she was super open after coming back... I used to be able to read her like it was second nature, and now, all I could do was worry. 
I took the pen from her hand gently and brushed the fallen tendrils of hair from her face. Even exhausted, she was beautiful. She was always beautiful. I just wish I knew how to take that weight she carried all the time off her shoulders... 
I closed her notebook, and hesitated. I knew she was a light sleeper, and that she hadn't slept in days. Was it worth potentially waking her to move her to her bed? 
I sighed. I couldn't let her sleep slumped over her desk like that... Regardless of how mad she might be if she woke up in a different place. 
I closed my eyes and scooped her into my arms. Her head lolled against my chest, and my breath hitched at how domestic it felt. How after all this time, she still felt right in my arms. Like nothing had changed between us, even though I knew everything had. 
"Is she okay?" 
Matt stepped out of the shadows from the tent across from ours. He had been standing guard a lot lately. Wherever Lexy went, Matt seemed to follow. The thought sent a surprise wavy of jealousy through me. 
"She's exhausted." I answered through gritted teeth. 
"She hasn't slept well in years." He said quietly as he fell into step beside me. 
I hated that he knew her when I didn't. That he had been there for her at some of her lowest moments. That it was him she trusted... Not me. 
"I know." 
"She won't talk to me right now..." I could hear the bitterness in his voice, and I wasn't sure why he was telling me. Maybe it was his way of making me feel better, or maybe he wanted me to fix it for him. 
"She's not really talking to anyone right now." I grumbled. 
Matt nodded absently as we stopped in front of her tent. 
"Is she getting better at all?" 
"I don't know." I admitted. "She's scaring me a bit, if I'm being honest." 
"She's scaring everyone." He acknowledged. "We'll keep an eye on her. She's been through a lot. She just needs time." 
I wanted to think that he believed it, that he wasn't just saying it for my benefit, but I knew he was mostly just hopeful. I knew better to believe much of anything. 
Lexy stirred in my arms, and I pulled her closer to me. 
"Get some rest, man." I told him. 
He nodded, and slipped into the shadows again, but I knew sleep wouldn't come easy for him. He didn't like being outside of Lexy's bubble. None of us did. But none of us had a choice either. We deserved to be shut out by her. I just hoped we'd be able to prove that we deserved to be trusted again.