"So, do you remember anything yet, Nanalie?" Break asked, sifting through a number of old, thick books on a wooden shelf. He had dragged her off to who-knows-where in the Vessalius mansion and locked her inside of a room. Thus, she didn't listen to a word he had said and sat on the couch with a prominent pout.
"Nope." She huffed, irritated with the white-haired man's abduction.
"Oh, stop pouting." He complained. "Do you hate being away from Raven that much?" He rolled his single red eye.
"No!" She defended much too quickly. "I just... It's rude to abduct people!" In that moment, Break fell to the floor in a fit of laughter. Thus, he rightfully earned a pillow being thrown in his face.
~+-+-+-+~
"You can't tell her any of this." Gilbert instructed in a threatening tone.
Sharon narrowed her caramel-colored eyes. "You haven't told her anything?"
He shook his head. "She hasn't even really looked at the notebooks and I just remembered all of this last night."
"Why the hell haven't you told her?!" Oz yelled.
"You're treating her like a freaking baby." Alice grumbled even though she seemed disinterested with the conversation.
"I'm not." Gilbert retorted with a frustrated golden glare. "I just want to tell her when I feel it's safe for her to know..." He trailed, even questioning his own mindset.
"When it's 'safe?'" Sharon began to raise her typically sweet voice. "The poor girl woke up not remembering a single thing about herself. She's confused and lost! You can't honestly keep something this important about her past from her! Not only are you treating her as though she were a child, but you're disregarding her situation!" She scolded.
"If you think I'm being inconsiderate, you are wrong." Gilbert tried to assure. "My job right now is to protect her. I will not fail this time."
Sharon opened her mouth to disagree with the man, but she was abruptly interrupted when Oz stood. His emerald green eyes were shielded behind the dark shadows of his bangs as he spoke in a low voice. "You're wrong about this one, Gil..." He gritted his teeth angrily. "There's a huge difference between protecting her and not telling her anything!" He yelled and left the room.
After Oz's leave, Gilbert prepared to storm out of the room himself, but Sharon's voice stopped him from doing so. "We're not going to tell her. But we do think that you should tell her as soon as possible."
With an irritable click of his tongue, Gilbert headed to the grand stairwell of the mansion to search for Nanalie. After about fifteen minutes of searching, he finally burst through the door that held her captive.
Nanalie's surprise was evident when she realized her companion's angry demeanor. He grasped onto her wrist tightly, roughly pulling her down the stairs and to the main entrance of the Vessalius manor. She kept asking questions along the lines of 'what's wrong?' or 'what's going on?'
When they finally got back to the main hall, he answered. "We're leaving."
"But, why? What happened?"
Again, Gilbert didn't respond. Thus, the two of them returned to his apartment in complete, uncomfortable silence. And for the following few hours, the dark-haired man seemed so wrapped within his thoughts that Nanalie avoided speaking with him.
Later in the afternoon, Gilbert searched though his cabinets to find hardly anything to eat. "I'm going to go buy some food. I'll be back soon." He announced monotonously.
Nanalie blinked, surprised by his sudden words. "Oh, okay." She mumbled as he quickly left the apartment. With nothing else in particular to accomplish, she settled on doing a bit of research on herself.
Yet, no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find the notebooks. By the time that Gilbert returned, she had searched around every corner, behind every shelf, and above every cabinet. But she still searched for the old journals frantically, almost as though her life depended on finding them.
"What are you doing, Nanalie?" Gilbert asked as he set bags full of produce on the counters of his tidy kitchen.
"Do you know where the notebooks are? I can't find them anywhere..." She sighed, placing her small hands on her hips to express her exhausted efforts. But the man clenched his jaw, clearly hesitating. "Gilbert... where are the notebooks?"
Slowly, he pulled the stack of tattered books from the top shelf of a very high cabinet, obviously knowing that Nanalie wouldn't be able to reach that high.
"Why would they be there?" She questioned suspiciously. "Were you... trying to hide them from me?" The young woman couldn't stifle the pain in her voice.
"No..." Gilbert sighed. "I just -"
Nanalie interrupted him before he offered excuses. "Why would you...? These notebooks hold my history, my past, most likely who I am... and who knows what else..."
"Nanalie, they're no-"
"What makes you think that you have any right to hide them from me?" She interrupted again.
Gilbert gripped onto her arms tightly, sitting her down on the couch along with him. "Nanalie, I don't want you to determine who you are based off of these books."
She seemed taken aback by his statement. "Determine who I am?" She repeated in a question-like tone. "At this point, I have no other way to figure out who I am! Those notebooks are the only things that give at least a little bit of insight into my past! Why would you..."
"That's exactly it, Nanalie!" Gilbert yelled. "Those books provide insight into your past! Not who you are!"
Nanalie's violet eyes narrowed accusingly, yet her voice became cracked as her heart ached. "Did you look at them without me?"
He paused, clenching his jaw. "That's not the point..."
"Not the point?! Why... Why do you think that you can monitor what I know about my past and what I don't? Why are you hiding these things from me? I thought..." Her eyes became watery as she averted her pained gaze.
"I want to protect you, Nanalie! The last thing I want is for you to be afraid of what happened in the past!"
She wrenched herself free from Gilbert's grasp and stood. "I'm already confused! And I'm scared, and lost, and... and the last thing I need is to have more things hidden from me..."
"I know more about your past than you do at this point. And you're better off not knowing until we find out more!"
"You say 'we...'" She scoffed. "Do you mean 'you?' If you know so much about me then why are you hiding it?!" A tear finally slipped down her cheek.
"Nanalie, I wanted to protect you, you-"
He was interrupted again. "I don't want to hear all of this 'protecting me' crap. How are you supposed to 'protect me' if I can't even trust you?"
Gilbert reached out his hand to brush the wet droplet from her face, but she stepped away.
"You're just a secretive liar... no different than the Doctor." Nanalie said painfully. Gilbert took another step closer to her, and she took another step away. "Don't touch me."
She retreated to the small bedroom of the apartment, slamming the door with a loud 'bang' and locking it, sealing herself inside as she erupted into a fit of tears. Amongst all of the confusion she was experiencing, she felt that she was never alone. Yet, in the current moment, she felt more alone than ever, curling into a helpless ball on the bed and sobbing.
Meanwhile, Gilbert cursed himself, calling himself many undesirable negative names as he sat on the floor, leaning against the locked wooden door of the bedroom. When he looked at the candle in the middle of the room, he couldn't help but shed a few tears himself.
He then struggled to whisper a few words to himself as he cried. Nonetheless, the words assured him of the reason he had stayed by Nanalie's since finding her helpless, injured body in an alley. He looked as his shaky hands and whispered through his tears.
"I did all of this... because I'm in love with you."