She let go of him, stepping back, her deep blue eyes staring at him, studying him, as they had done those two trials they'd spent together. She was always watching him, searching him, looking for something. But he never knew as to what. It was different under her eyes as compared to the eyes of potential buyers. He had been sold several times and had grown immune to being under their gazes, where they sought reasons to drive down his price, injuries, scars, deformity. But now, her eyes were seeking reasons to help him, seeking things to make right, things to heal. Just as she had helped to fix his hands when they first met, just as she had seen him being underfed and demanded change, just as she had seen his rags and worked to get him better clothes.

Under her gaze, he felt safe and cared for, and a soft smile answered hers in return. He felt her fingers find his and allowed her to pull him up onto the porch, happy to follow. He still couldn't believe his luck. He'd walked by the house she'd let him stay the night in, but he never saw her. It was often empty, no glow of candles or fire in the windows. He had assumed that she had left.

Guilt was on his face now.

He hadn't ever given it dedicated thought, but now that she was back here, part of him had thought she had left him behind. It was there, just under the surface, disturbing his sleep, adding to his pains of adjusting to his new freedom. He'd always thought she'd be there, that she would've been a part of it. But she wasn't. She wasn't at her home. Ezner had approached the Institute, having asked someone where it was. He had spoken to a couple of people, but they either didn't know her or said they hadn't seen her in a long time. And he had left, saddened.

It was only now that she was back that he realised that he'd been feeling that way. And so, when he sat in the chair across from her, his shoulders were slumped and his eyes couldn't find hers as he stared at his hands, slipping deeper into his guilt. He began to speak, his voice strained, starting to crack.

[b]"It wasn't much of an adventure. A few trials after..."[/b] he took a deep breath, [b]"After we last saw each other, I was at the Order of Adunih. I had some pretty extensive injuries after a fight at the Pit. The healers there patched me up. When I woke up the next trial, I found myself face to face with Faith Augustin. She had Mr. Dey, and others arrested, for abuse of slaves. For abusing me. She bought me. I... I was kept in a safe house while Mr. Dey and the others were taken and tried in court. Afterwards... I was a freeman."[/b] 

But what should've been a happy story, what he thought was going to be happy. The story he had practiced and rehearsed over and over in his excitement to see her again, had crumbled as he broke down completely. His dirty face fell into his even dirtier hands as he sobbed openly. He couldn't say another word. He didn't know how to tell her about the loneliness of his freedom, about the pain he felt walking past her old house, about telling people at his job that he was a freeman before he could tell her. He didn't know how to tell her how his new house terrified him with how big it was. And he didn't know how to tell her that he had wished for and hoped that she would've been there waiting for him.

And he didn't know how to tell her how heart broken he was that he had never found her.

All he could do was sob.