For the lovely kiwi-tastic, on tumblr.

She has changed.

He doesn't know what happened. He remembers her radiant beauty (tired, world-weary), her fiery, intriguing exterior (and interior, and everything in between, pain and anger right down to her bones).

He remembers dreaming of fear and fire and searing agony

and then, nothing at all.

And then he woke up the next morning, as whole as he's ever been in this place, and asked Gregory where to find the lovely señorita.

"Somewhere around here, I suppose," he'd responded. "It's her home now, after all." He'd chuckled, and gone back to reading the ledger, and that was the end of it.

It has taken days of searching the twisting labyrinth that is Gregory House, but he has found her at last, and seeing her face reminds him harshly of the dream

searing agony, nothing at all

and the sick feeling in his gut that has been there since he heard Gregory chuckle tightens.

"Señorita?"

She leaves off staring into her drink to look up at him. "It doesn't work," she says, her voice shaking. "I try to forget but it just gets clearer and clearer. Why won't it work?"

He isn't sure how to respond to this, so he doesn't. "I-I would like to show you something, señorita." It's the first thing that comes to mind.

She laughs bitterly. "What's there to see? I've been through every damned inch of this godforsaken—" She breaks off abruptly.

"Surely not," he says without thinking. "My sister and I have been here for a long, long time, and I still sometimes find myself in unfamiliar places."

She scoffs. "Maybe you're just an idiot."

"Perhaps. Come with me, and we'll see." He raises an eyebrow in what he hopes is a smoldering, debonair gaze.

It isn't, but she sighs and pushes her drink away, rising from her chair. "Fine," she says flatly. "Show me."

He puffs up his chest and struts happily out the door and down the hall, occasionally glancing behind to see if she is still following.

Slowly, limply, not really caring, but yes, she is.

The underground cavern is huge and dank and carpeted with luminous moss, and there is a steady dripping from several unseen sources.

"Smells like dead earthworms," she says, but she stares at the glowing moss all the same, and looks almost peaceful.

"That, I think, would be because of the dead earthworms," he says.

She chuffs through her nose.

They sit in silence, looking out over the vast empty darkness of the cave, edged by the soft glow of bioluminescence.

"You know, you're right," she says eventually. "I haven't seen this place before." She scrapes moss from the floor, examines it. "I wonder what else I haven't seen?"

She doesn't see it, but he beams under his moustache, his red eyes bright in the dark.

They go exploring after that, sometimes.

She is still exasperated by his attempts to flirt (when she even seems to notice at all), and she is still caustic and cold, and when she doesn't know he's looking he sees something broken in her eyes.

However, while her irritation at his advances never really goes away, they slowly become comfortable with each other. She rolls her eyes at his swaggering, and angrily reprimands him when he isn't careful enough with his guns, but she is more and more awake and alert every time they set out.

One day, when he has dropped his gun for the umpteenth time while declaring her loveliness to the sky, he looks up and realizes that she is smiling.

It is small and wry and gone immediately, and the memory of it aches in his throat.

They walk on in silence, through the high reeds of the marshland that surrounds the hotel, and neither of them can quite make themselves look at the other.

Muffled swearing fills the tiny closet they are confined to, as heavy footsteps pound up and down the halls.

"Cheese sandwiches in my kitchen?" the Chef's guttural voice roars. "Come out! I will show you true cuisine!" Metal scraping against wood, a massive kitchen knife trailing along the floor.

"I told you!" she hisses, her face pressed against his ear. "I told you we shouldn't have gone in the damn kitchen!"

He is dazed and terrified and she is very, very close, and he can smell her perfume (roses and adrenaline and despair), and he would be turning up the charm like his life depended on it except that the shouting is so loud and so close and the memory of broken eyes and almost-not-there smile paralyze him somehow

and moments pass, and then she is quiet and still, and by the sliver of light shining under the door he can see that she is staring him intently in the eyes.

And then she is kissing him, and instead of the glorious blaze of passion that he imagined, it is awkward and hesitant and the angle is a little strange, and he could not care the slightest bit less.

She stops fighting him for room in the confined space. Instead, she tangles herself up with him as closely as she can, and kisses him with a desperation that speaks of loneliness and heartache that he can't begin to imagine.

Confused and pleased and understanding that she needs this like air, he returns the favor, follows her lead, and lets himself go.

(At one point, the Chef nearly discovers their hiding place. Thankfully for all involved, a whiff of cigarette smoke instantly strikes them from his mind, and sends him charging down the hallway after the offending unfortunate.)

(Neither of them really notices.)

They continue to wander Gregory House in search of new, secret places, and are never disappointed. Who knows? They might even find a way out, one day.

To be perfectly honest, though, they're in no great hurry.

After all, who knows what else there is to see?