The Armor (Prince Harry fanfic #1)

Chapter Seven

Without sleep for either of them, Harry and Lucy went to the schoolhouse, Lucy taking a bit longer to get all the blood off of her skin. When Harry had approached her to help, to gently wipe the now crusted and brown blood to the ground, she had let him, trying to get the blood from under her fingernails. Lucy hissed when he pushed too hard and took her hand back, beckoning for him to go get ready to teach. Harry nodded to her and gave her space.

"Harry," she whispered, and he turned, "thank you."

He left in silence.

Harry wrote out the lesson plan on the board and realized his handwriting never would compare to Lucy's, where his handwriting was chipped and slanted, dropping off. The students started to file in and he was alone with them. They waited for him, complete silence and stillness. What was he supposed to say? He wasn't ready yet, but thankfully, he didn't have to be. Lucy walked in, smiling as if nothing bothered her.

"Good morning." Lucy's voice was higher than usual, a little tighter as it rung in the room; her body was tense and eyes were hard, put together accidentally in the morning light, her armor back on fully. She did wear it well with the training she had, ready to destroy anyone who got in her way. All she needed was a sword. "How's it going?" Her ability to act like everything was perfectly okay concerned Harry, to put on the face of happiness and joy when she was impaled on the inside.

All the students were overjoyed to see Lucy, and Harry was excited too, less likely to be put on the spot. With concern in his eyes, Harry was well trained at acting, the best of the best, but the award would go to her.

She clapped her hands. "Who's ready to learn?" With the happiness in the students' eyes, she went on, writing on the board, changing only slightly whatever Harry wrote. The students responded quickly to Lucy, actually caring what she said over him; he did too.

Her tone began and ended on a happy note, continuing as she paced around the room, and the students were forced to follow her. This was her tick, Harry decided, what she had to do to prove she was okay; she needed to move. She had whispered to that herself before; she needed to keep going. Her foot replaced the other, in a march, put together in a beat. Her voice went to the beat, like a drum, like her heartbeat, still alive. Questions were asked and the corresponding answers came. Lucy at least went around the room ten times, sometimes pausing if she needed to make a strong point, before she continued walking. Harry realized her path once, just to see if she would break the pattern, which she only stopped and waited for him to move patiently. Under her gaze, he moved and she continued walking and talking.

When the break hit between course work, the students ran out into the thick air, and Harry went with them only for him to stop. He told himself not to say anything to her, not to bring it up, but at least he needed to talk to her as a human. "Hey, American."

"Don't call me that," she snapped.

"Aren't you from America?" he asked before he stopped himself. There had been a reason she snapped, and he thought just to push her. He immediately cursed himself for being so stupid. He should have been serious.

"Do you think Canada would claim me?"

He tried to be serious, to be better than before, to actually learn something about her. "Where are you from in America?"

"Basically Canada, because no one cares if you're not from California or New York or Florida or Texas. I'm from the north, touches Canada. That's all."

His knowledge about America wasn't a lot, just the basic places of the common states, not naming to name most of them of the north."Tell me about it." Naturally poised to be politically polite, he did so, but his human side came out when he looked at her.

Her eyes found him, still so strong, but there was a smile at least on her lips. "Pace yourself, Harry. We have two months together."

They did. Two months together, barely in together, barely had time to get to know each other, and yet there was a moment that Harry just wanted to be with her, as her friend. This was her true self, a person who didn't care what others said, what he said; he was just another person to her, no one famous.

"We're friends," he said.

Her eyes came hard but softened. Yes, he was her friend. Yes, she was his friend. This was friendship. Neither of them wanted something more, because that wasn't life here and now. She never wanted that, due to her past, to lose someone else, to lose another life to this damned world.

"Friends," she agreed. His eyes rested upon hers, never looking down or up, but they were equals. "You should go play with them. They need a human."

He shuddered. "You could be a human too?"

"Not today." Her voice shook then, a little tremor, but her body was thick, destined to be build in stone, a sculpture for history.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

Harry smiled, the only thing to give her, but he thought better of it. "Lucy, I don't know your past, and you don't have to tell me, but we're friends. I've never had one of those." He hesitated, unsure what to do next. "Please don't hurt me." He walked over the door, scared of her gaze, her judgement, the ability to be fierce in sadness.

"Harry," she said and he turned, "I haven't had friends for a while. Please don't hurt me."

"I'll try not to."

"That's all we can ask for."

Harry waited, hoping she might say more, thinking that he might say more. The stinging silence hung in the air. There was so much to say, to tell, to give away. He wanted to give it to her, and she felt the same way, deep and dark, twisted in with her intestines, all the words she never spoke to anyone else. She wasn't broke but she wasn't fixed. There were things that just weren't talked about; she was one of those things that weren't talked about.