“I did. And I do,” Susan murmured quietly, watching her evenly for a moment as a smile quirked the corner of her mouth, “By the grace of God, actually. Sort of. I’ve got some pretty good luck most of the time.” Her secondary statement would have to remain unspoken, however, because she knew that they were both highly aware of the truth in her words. It was the non-physical scars that were the worst to be honest. She knew it…and she knew that Gwyn knew it too.
Chuckling slightly at her words, Susan fought down another slight shiver as she breathed in deeply. “You keep hinting, but we both know I’m not going to bite. I get better info by observing, anyway.” She couldn’t help the rougher edge her voice had taken, not when the situation was quite so surprising and spontaneous.
“I—no. It’s just….sensitive,” she said softly, “Both surgery scars are. The burns…quite the opposite. But it’s the nature of burns, I suppose.” Shifting slightly, the agent shifted and brushed her fingers up through her slightly sweaty hair to give her a small grin. She didn’t know what was going through her head exactly, but she could see some of the turmoil on her face. The desire to do something yet the hesitance of possibly offending her was written clearly, that much Susan could see. She’d gotten relatively good at reading Gwyn, after all, and the other woman had been giving off a little more than she had to begin with.
She simply hummed in response to Susan’s words. She put little stock in faith and religion, but did not begrudge others their views. By the grace of God. Or something like it. Whatever the reason behind it, though, she was glad that Susan had survived the horrors that she had faced through the war. She was glad, in a selfish way, because if she had not, then Gwyn would have never had to opportunity to know her, and in a slightly less selfish way for all of the other changes that would have cascaded downwards and outwards, like some kind of cosmic ripple effect.
“Maybe it’s because you don’t bite that I continue to hint,” Gwyn tossed back, tone both playful and still bordering on distracted. “Perhaps I simply enjoy the thrill of the chase -- so to speak.” She leaned in as she spoke, pressing a feather-light touch of her lips to the edge of the scar in question, before rising once more. And finally, finally the pieces began to fall into place for her, for the woman whose current body was no more than a magical construct, who could be so observant to some things, and so blind to others. It was the rough edge to Susan’s voice that finally did it -- something she had never heard from the Agent before, at least not like this.
“Or maybe I want you to bite,” she continued the thought, chin tipped back slightly to meet the agent’s gaze, a small smile of her own mirroring Susan’s. “You already keep secrets on my behalf -- I do not want to burden you any further, in that regard,” she noted, smile fading and her lips pursed in thought. “Were you to ask, however...it would be another matter entirely.
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