Chapter two! Par-TAAAY! And yeah, yeah, Descole is evil at the start. Whatever.

Rose awoke to a room so dark she couldn't see her fingers in front of her face. She groaned as she attempted to get up off the carpeted ground, then realised that her body felt like it was on fire.

She mentally inspected the damage. Nothing broken, three bruised ribs though. Lots of bruises everywhere else, too, she thought. The faint scent of chloroform clung to her clothes. She struggled to her feet, dizzy. The evening gown she was still wearing was tangled around her feet. She searched with her hand for a light switch.

She clenched her eyes shut as bright light flooded the room. She allowed her eyes time to adjust and squinted her way around. There was a huge bed in the centre, with coral red and white satin sheets, a dresser, and a door.

Curiosity killed the cat, they say, and the saying was very much in her mind as she creaked open the door, hoping not to find more guards.

To her relief, it was just a fancy bathroom. She fixed her fluffy shoulder length hair and rubbed her blue eyes. Her mind wondered to wether the Professor had a concussion or not. She wandered back into the room and tested the door. Locked, of course. She slipped a bobby pin from her hair and proceeded to pick the simple lock with considerable ease. She changed into a light blue knee length dress that she found in the dresser (that fit disturbingly well) and inched open the door.

She stepped out into the hallway. It was deserted, despite it being almost ten O'clock. She snuck down the hallway to the huge staircase when she was spotted by a muscular butler walking past.

"Stop! you there! How did you get out?" he yelled across the hall, running towards her. She gave a slight squeal and ran down the staircase with as much speed as she could muster. She didn't notice the man making his way slowly up the staircase until she collided with him at full speed, throwing her down the rest of the stairs and into a jumbled heap at the bottom.

The man looked extremely annoyed as he watched her try to hoist herself up. She was sure she had sprained an ankle, because now she couldn't walk on it at all.

"Ow…" she muttered.

The man had walked over to her now, and towered above her. Her foggy brain calculated something familiar about him, mixed with thoughts of champagne.

…...

Jean Descole was tired.

He made himself trudge up the stairs because if he didn't get up and eat his breakfast soon, his stomach was going to start eating itself. So really, it wasn't his choice.

Out of nowhere, a speeding little figure smacked into him full force, making him fall back and sending her to the bottom of the stairs.

It's a good thing he had these carpeted.

He stormed down the staircase, fuming. How dare they? Careless house staff, charging around.

He found himself towering above the girl he was keeping for his plan. She was obviously awake from her poison-fume-induced coma. She was trying to get up, but her right ankle was blue and purple, and looked like it was horribly sprained.

He nudged it with his foot. He was rewarded with a scream of pain. His sadistic side… oh wait, that was all of him. Never mind.

"What was that for?" Miss Rose Grey asked in a small voice.

"You tried to run away." it was a statement, not a question.

"Where is Luke? What did you do with him?" she shouted.

"He is safe with the Professor… I wouldn't be surprised if he had a headache, though." Descole said in a bored tone. He really couldn't care less. "Now get up and get out of my sight."

The girl lifted herself to her feet and stoically hobbled along on her sprained ankle. By the time she got back to her room, she and the stair banister where very well acquainted.

Rose sat on the bathroom counter and ran cold water over the ankle. Not as good as ice, but oh well. A strip of bandage was brought to her by a maid and she carefully bound it up, just the way the Professor had taught her ages ago.

A few fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she thought of him. He was like an uncle, and she would probably be the reason for his demise at the hands of Descole.

It was half past one now, and she was falling asleep on her feet already. She didn't really want to sleep, especially since she was so hungry she could eat the bedposts. But her brain won over and she promptly fell asleep on the soft satin bed.

…...

Descole sneered. The girl's pathetic attempts at walking up the stairs amused him. He floated past her and turned the corner into the dining room, having no time or interest for her pain.

He glanced at his arm, where a bruise was forming from hitting the stair railing when they collided. He poked it, and sighed when he felt it ache. Just another bruise. Like he didn't have enough of those.

He pulled out a chair and sat on it sideways, his legs dangling off the side. The serving staff came in, putting a plate of food in front of him. He didn't even want to know what it was, no doubt another of his eccentric chef's concoctions.

"Sir, might I…take something to the girl? She seemed awful hungry…" said a butler in the corner, timidly. Nobody used her name, he doubted anyone even knew her name. they just called her 'the girl'. well, she wouldn't be here much longer anyway, so it was of little consequence.

"Fine. Be quick." Descole granted, and the butler sped out of the room.

Descole mused over the thought of paying her a visit. Gloating a bit about Layton. What could it hurt? He pushed away his half-finished plate and slid off the chair. Checking his reflection to make sure his mask was still properly in place, he climbed up the stairs. His heart beat a little bit faster, for reason unknown to him. Since when did he get nervous? Since when did he have feelings at all?

He slowly turned the brass doorhandle to the guest room. She was lounging on the armchair, reading a book from the shelf in the hallway. As soon as she saw him, she dog-eared the book (one of the things that annoyed him to no end) and rested it in her lap.

"Yes?" she asked, irritated by his intrusion.

" err…Just checking on you." he muttered like an idiot.

She gave him a quizzical look and went back to reading. He walked around the room, not sure why the hell he had come up here in the first place. He rolled open the door to the balcony and leant on his arms there, feeling the breeze ruffle his boa.

"Mr. Descole?" Rose asked from the doorway. How long had she been there?

"What?"

"Would I be able to look around the garden for a while?"

Descole paused. Why on earth would someone want to look at flowers and shrubs in their free time? It was one of the things he just didn't understand.

One of the very few things, mind you.

"Not without someone making sure you don't run away, you can't." he sighed. He already knew none of the idiot staff he employed would go outside with her. They where all too busy stealing spoons and playing cards, and very rarely, working.

She looked at the ground and blushed slightly.

"Fine. Get a coat or something, it's cold outside today." said Descole, preparing himself for at least an hour of boredom and flowers.

They stepped into the chilly air, and Descole led Rose around to the back path of the garden. The grounds where huge, and rather conspicuous for an evil scientist mastermind, but bribing most of the townspeople nearby and all of the police had given him some security.

For now.

He struggled to remember the quickest way through the godforsaken garden.

"So what university did you go to?"

He was momentarily sidetracked by the sad attempt at small talk.

"Gressenheiler."

Rose's eyes widened slightly. "Did the Professor teach you?"

"No. I didn't study archaeology." (A/N: Let's just pretend here, okay? :/ I have no idea of his past. )

"oh."

The conversation fired up, and soon they found themselves chatting about everything from cupcakes to alarm clocks and everything in between. The landscape soon became unfamiliar to Descole, and it seemed they had wandered off his land altogether. The sky was a dark grey promising rain, not the best thing for people lost in a garden.

"Where the hell are we?" Descole asked no-one in particular. The rain started and tiny spitting drops came down. "Come on."

Rose hobbled along behind him. She had managed when they where walking slowly, but she couldn't walk fast yet. Descole rolled his eyes and picked her up bridal style.

They dashed to an oddly-placed yet convenient stargazing platform in a clearing, just as the rain started for real. They could barely hear themselves think over the hammering of the rain. After a few games of rock-paper-scissors and some more talking, the rain calmed enough to dash back to the house. Although, it was hard for Descole to run holding a girl with a sprained ankle, He managed. They burst through the doors, soaking wet and giggling their heads off.

Rose was at a crossroads with her thinking. Was he evil or not? He seemed to have some sort of feelings.

"You know what I think?" she asked.

"What?" Descole replied.

"You really want to know?"

"Yes, I wait with baited breath. Hurry up."

"You're not as horrible as the Professor made you sound." Descole stopped shaking raindrops off of his cloak and looked at her. It was a look that made him seem vulnerable.

"oh. Um… thank you."

With that, Rose left the now-profusely-blushing-and-trying-to-hide-it Descole and climbed the stairs to her room.

Well… yeah. I just felt like adding a little friendly interaction between these two :) lol. Hope you liked it!