But all your flaws and scars are mine

Chapter 1

Trapped. I felt fucking trapped.

How the buggering hells is it the first of March already? I knew months ago, the very minute that someone had signed a lease to move into the vacant apartment on my floor. Usually I am on top of that shit. I have countdowns on, prepared to avoid new people.

However, thanks to my great reputation, which I'm cursing today, I was so bloody busy with work that clocks and calendars meant nothing on a personal level. Now, here I am, in my flat, my fucking empty flat. No beer or food to be seen and I can't even leave.

It's not that I mind going out. I enjoy it really. But on my own damn terms. I go where I want, when I want, with who I want and for as long as I want. And today was one of those days, well I had planned it to be.

I was going to get a roast and a pint with Bronn, do some grocery shopping and then deal with dinner. Tomorrow was an office day and the rest of my week was also sorted. Until this bump in the fucking road came along.

I sit and wait out the sounds of the elevator dinging, of voices and movement for what feels like days. It really doesn't go on as long as I thought it would but the move did begin later in the day, perhaps this will start up again tomorrow. Bloody wonderful. At least I won't be here.

After hearing nothing but silence coming from the hallway for over an hour I attempt my escape. It's pitch black outside, save for the moon, and almost nine o'clock by the time I finally make it back to my building, bag of groceries and an obscene amount of take out in tow.

The elevator is waiting when I approach and I lean against the wall, after swiping my fob and pressing the second-floor button. I'm about to release a sigh of relief that instead turns into a gruff of frustration. Just as the doors start to shut I hear a muffled, delicate, female voice ring out.

"Wait! Can you hold the lift please!"

I'll be honest, I'm usually one of those button pushers in this instance. The button in question being the "close the fucking door button". Honestly, if I was to do nothing right now, she never would make it in time to slip through the metal doors.

But fuck me. Something about that voice, I've never been affected by the very sound of someone before, yet the simple request and barely veiled tiredness behind it have me launching forward to hold down the "open door button" as well as slinging my free arm across one side of the moving metal, keeping it in place.

I can't see anything of the woman as she scurries along the floor and over the threshold into the lift with me. She has at least three bags spread out between her two shoulders and a big box firmly in her grasp. Her face is leaning around the opposite side of the box from me so she can see where she's going and not fall flat or walk into a wall.

As soon as she's safely through the doors, she places her belongings down in the far corner, digging through one of the smaller bags and I see her whip out her own security tag and then she makes her way to the keypad as I had just done.

That's when I stop watching what she's doing and instead take her in, well the back of her.