A desperate phone call

Nerissa noticed a light shade of red creep up on Andrew’s cheeks and wondered if her own, sudden feeling of awkwardness was visible on her own face. She didn’t exactly understand her strange embarrassment with the situation, but she tried to make things feel a bit less tense by speaking once more, replying to Andrew’s question, “I think so…” she said slowly before recalling the night she had been tortured with a blank mask in place to hide her displeasure by the sudden return of that memory to her mind, “I mean… No, no I don’t think I am, but I will get over it,” Nerissa added, honestly that time around. She sighed and tilted her head to the side, examining Andrew’s face, taking in every detail as if taking a mental picture to keep with her forever. Her eyes stopped when they reached his eyes, holding his gaze for a moment, “Does it hurt?” she asked abruptly, speaking of the injuries he had received.

She brought the towel over her head and ran it through her hair for a moment, drying the small droplets of rain with it in order to keep it from dripping onto her clothes and down her neck. She knew she must have looked like such a mess with her hair all tangled and her clothes dirty, but that really didn’t matter to her at the time. Andrew mattered. Nerissa was safe, and that mattered. There was no room for anything else.

Andrew was about to say something, but Nerissa had beat him to it. He looked at the bandages on his arms and grew cold throughout his body, his face turning into a small frown. "Yeah," he said quietly "the battle at Grimmauld Place got pretty intense. Thought I was going to die for a moment back there. A lot of us did." he looked away from the bandages, the painful flashbacks still burning within his head "but I'm alright now. And I've got a couple of scars for bragging rights as well," he chuckled. He smiled again, and then felt himself warm up again. Without warning, Andrew moved closer and gently pressed his lips on Nerissa's, feeling more warm as he did. He quickly realized what he had done, and moved away, his face red and his blood warm. "Umm..." he said awkwardly "sorry. No idea what just happened there."

Before Nerissa even had a chance to reply she felt Andrew’s lips upon hers, and her mind melted down completely. She didn’t respond at first, and just as she began to enjoy the fact that Andrew had kissed her, he had pulled away, his face still close to hers. Nerissa opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out, so she decided that speaking wasn’t exactly the best idea when she was feeling so lightheaded. She closed her mouth and despite all that had happened to her, all the fear she had felt and all the painful memories, she laughed a genuine laugh that almost made her stomach ache.

She shook her head with a smile, telling him not to apologize, though her usually fair skin had turned as red as Andrew’s had. She couldn’t think at the moment; her thoughts had come to an abrupt halt as soon as he had kissed her, even when she tried to force some sort of activity to commence in her brain, it simply disobeyed her order and left her sitting there with no possibility of speaking any time soon. Instead, she fallowed Andrew’s lead and brought her lips to his, feeling safer and more content than she could ever remember feeling.

Andrew kissed her back, feeling his stomach begin to turn knots over and over again as she kissed him. He brought his arms around her waist and held them there as he pressed his lips harder on hers. He had been waiting for this day to happen, for a while. He moved his lips carefully over hers and felt his face light up with blood. His heart raced against his chest, faster than any other time in his life, and every part of his body wanted to stay there, almost locking him into place. He could almost feel his blood flow through his entire body, if it hadn't been for his rapidly beating heart.

The fact that Nerissa wanted to find that remote that controlled the way life worked, and press the ‘pause’ button, made her realize how glad she was to be there with Andrew, and how wonderful it felt to have him hold her there, as if he were some sort of shield from the rest of the cold world that she had only just escaped. It occurred to Nerissa that perhaps it hadn’t been simply a coincidence that Andrew had shown up in Egypt when Ne’Os had brought Nerissa there, and the idea that he could have been there to get her back made her heart flutter, even though she tried to tell it to calm down- neither her brain nor her heart seemed to be listening to her anymore.

“What if he comes back?’ Nerissa asked, those being the first words she had uttered in quite a bit. She didn’t exactly want for Andrew to let go of her, or to ruin what they had at the moment, but she was still afraid of being taken away from him again, and she wanted more than anything to demolish those fearful thoughts completely, though she doubted Andrew would be able to say anything to convince her that she was safe for good now that Ne’Os had been killed.

Andrew had felt himself be released back into reality as Nerissa spoke. He had been dazed a few seconds and then finally spoke, his arms tigher around Nerissa. "If Ne'Os comes back," he said softly "and he tried to hurt you, I would take the bullet. You just have to trust me and believe that I would." He felt his heart drop a bit and fear was reinstated into his body. What if he did come back? Andrew had proven that he could at least get close to Ne'Os to a point where he could kill him, but what would happen then? Would he be able to stop him though? He really hoped so, and prayed that he would be able to.

“Yes and then I’d have to live with unimaginable guilt for the rest of my life”- well, she would have said that had the courage to do so, but something inside of her told her that there was no need for such words, that she would be fine, and that Andrew wouldn’t have to face Ne’Os again- those comforting thoughts were what Nerissa was clinging to in order to keep her fear somewhat under control.

Without a word Nerissa rested her forehead against Andrew’s and closed her eyes, breathing slowly in order to steady her heartbeat, which had felt as if it would burst only moments before. She stood there like that for a moment until she felt relatively calm before straightening, feeling a little embarrassed and nervous, “Well… um, Thanks for that…” she tried, but couldn’t help but laughing softly, “You don’t have anything to eat do you? I wasn’t exactly fed properly over the past few weeks,” Nerissa asked, tilting her head to the side out of amusement, feeling rather giddy even though she tried to stop herself from feeling so.

Andrew could sense that she was having doubts about what he had just said, and decided not to say anything. He didn't want to think of the problems now, but rather wanted to concentrate on the present. Snapping back to reality, he shook off the thoughts he just had and then smiled warmly. "Yeah, I've got a lot of stuff," he said chuckiling at his own vocabulary. 'Yeah' and 'stuff' seemed to have been his favorite words. He let go of Nerissa and then walked over to the Kitchen area and searched through the fridge. He had too much food inside, since he had went to the store earlier. "Uhh..." he said moving many things around "is there anything specific that you want? I've got stuff like steak, corn, apples, and all that jazz."

When Andrew made his way into the kitchen Nerissa touched her lips and smiled, forcing down a giggle that she could feel creeping up on her- she didn’t want to be that girl; that girl who seemed to cling to everyone she knew and had that sense of desperation about her. She exhaled slowly, plopping down on the sofa, resting her feet on its arm. She had that expression on her face, the expression that let everyone that knew her well know she was thinking hard about something; the bite of her lip and her scrunched up nose- it was the famous Nerissa Hatts expression of thought.

I’ll always be that girl who needs someone to come save me- the damsel in distress who can’t seem to stay out of trouble for long. People get tired of that, I’m gonna drive off all of the people who I care about- Andrew, how many times has he had to rescue me so far? Nerissa frowned, she didn’t like her thoughts at the time- they were too abusive towards herself - and decided that it was better to shut them off for the moment.

She flicked the metaphorical switch and listened as the thoughts faded out completely.

“Jell-O, do you have any? Its my favorite, I’d eat it for every meal if I could manage not getting sick in the process,” she said with a grin; now that her head was out of the way, she could enjoy the time she had to spend. The young girl rolled over so that she was on her stomach, and could see the dining room from where she lay, resting her chin one of the sofa’s arms, “and no one says ‘all that jazz’ anymore, just to let you know,” she added with a laugh, covering her face to stifle it a bit.

"Alright then," he said, seraching through the refrigerator trying to find the package of Jell-O that lurked being many different contents. He wondered if he hadn't bought any and just got everything he saw, because he couldn't even see the back of it anymore. He was getting annoyed by the constant searching but was relieved when he found a small package of Red Jell-O. He grabbed it, and carefully navigated it out the the refrigerator, so that he didn't knock anything over. Once he got it out of the refrigerator, he closed the door and walked over to the couch. "Here you go, oh and I say it because I'm awesome like that." he said smiling and handing it to her. He still felt like his entire body was numb and couldn't exactly use his left arm correctly at the moment.

He sat down next to Nerissa and then looked at her, his hazel eyes brighter due to the light. "Soooo...." he said traling on the O "how was it?" He chuckled a bit and then felt a sharp pain in his left arm. He held onto it for a second, trying to make the pain go away. He was glad it was an acute pain as it started to drift away slowly.