Angela dismissed Jack since he got off the easiest with nothing more than a couple of nasty cuts and bruises and one suspiciously bruised rib. Having received a clean bill of health, Jack went out to see how Em'brel was fairing.

He found her digging into a plate of barely cooked meat. Although Jack had gotten used to seeing S'haar tear apart half-raw steak, it was somehow more disturbing to see someone ordinarily shy and quiet do the same. Jack mentally shrugged and reminded himself he was on their planet, and any discomfort was his responsibility to deal with.

As he sat down at the table, Angela appeared beside him to translate. Jack decided it was best to avoid small talk and get right to the matter at hand. "We're trying to figure out where to go from here, and we wanted your opinion. What would you like to do now?"

Em'brel sat and thought for a moment, the plate of meat forgotten. After a few moments, she looked Jack in the eye and presented her case. "I don't have many skills that would be of use to a wealthy man such as yourself, but I'm willing to work hard. I can cook, clean, and even sew a little, and I'm willing to learn that which I don't know!"

Jack held up both hands, palm out. "Whoa, slow down, by my people's laws, it is unconscionable to put someone your age to work. You should still be focusing on growing and learning. To that end, wouldn't you be happier living with a family from your home village? Maybe a distant aunt or uncle? I'm sure plenty of families would be delighted to take you in."

Em'brel shook her head and looked down at her plate in a dejected manner. "The only family I have left is my uncle, who is likely concerning himself with consolidating the power from the lands he will inherit from my father. He wouldn't welcome the presence of a niece who could threaten his claim by swearing an oath to another male. If I am lucky, he will make me his bride to avoid the issue. If not, he may have me killed to avoid any complications."

Jack's face became a mask as he locked every muscle to prevent the rage and disgust he felt show through. Apparently unaware of his reaction, the girl continued. "I was raised to run an estate on behalf of my future husband, but those skills are of no use to a girl with no wealth or land to tempt a lord into marriage. The best future I can hope for is as a maid at an inn, or perhaps to be taken into some lord's house as a concubine."

Angela turned to Jack and switched to English to quietly offer her own two cents. "We could have her perform a few light but time-consuming chores, like cooking and cleaning, which would free you and S'haar up to focus on other jobs that keep getting backed up. In return, I could put together a few classes to teach her math and sciences that no one in this world likely knows. It would be like she's attending school. As a result, she'd have more control over her destiny than she does right now."

Unaware of what was being whispered between the two, Em'brel decided that she needed to make her final and best attempt. Getting down on her hands and knees and bowing her head to the floor, she begged. "If I am to spend the rest of my life in servitude to another, I would rather it be in service to the ones who saved me. Please allow me to stay!"

Jack, now thoroughly uncomfortable, knelt down beside the girl and grabbed hold of her shoulder. "Listen, you don't have to beg for anything, ever. You've made your case. You can stay."

Em'brel shot up, wrapping Jack in another embrace that would likely leave a few new bruises. Jack continued speaking in a somewhat strained voice, trying to overcome his smothered diaphragm. "Though I do have a condition!"

Em'brel released Jack and sat back attentively. Jack caught his breath a moment before continuing. "Every day, Angela will give you a series of lessons. Math, science, and whatever else she deems appropriate. I expect you to do your best to learn whatever she teaches you. As far as I'm concerned this is more important than any cooking or cleaning you might do. Is that understood?"

Em'brel launched herself at Jack again, crushing him a second time as she responded. "Of course, I will learn whatever you ask me to learn!"

Angela was enjoying her human's discomfort a little too much. After Em'brel finally released him, the AI spoke up again. "Before I put her under, S'haar told me to tell you, 'Once Jack gives in and decides the girl can stay, tell him I said she can share my room.'"

Jack shook his head and wondered how everyone always seemed to know what he was going to do before he did.

-

After an unbelievably long day, Jack was getting ready for bed. This might be the most exhausted he'd ever been in his life. It was hard to believe that just this morning, he and s'haar had loaded up the cart for their second trip to the village and enjoyed a pleasant walk for the better part of the morning. Looking back, that seemed an entire lifetime ago. Since then, he'd survived the second-worst fight of his life, saved a young noble girl, introduced a second person from this planet to his world, and accepted that same girl into his home. Honestly, that would have made for a full week, let alone a single day. However, now he could finally rest.

As he stumbled out of the bathroom, Jack found Angela waiting on the side of his bed, obviously wanting to talk about something. Jack almost snapped at his sister, but he fought down the urge to throw a tantrum born of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. Instead, he closed his eyes for a second and took a breath to calm his frayed nerves.

Angela knew Jack better than anyone, maybe even better than he knew himself, so she had to realize how close to his limit he was. If she was waiting patiently to talk to him, it was obviously about something important.

Opening his eyes, Jack plastered the best smile he could manage onto his face. It wasn't the kind of smile that would fool anyone who knew him, but Angela would understand he was trying. When he spoke, all he could manage was a somewhat strained, "What's up?"

Angela's expression was sympathetic as she nodded her acknowledgment of Jack's attempt at patience. However, obviously felt the situation required his attention. "The girl, Em'brel, is having a breakdown. She's crying... hard."

Jack cocked his head to the side. "What's unusual about that? She lost her father, and her world was turned upside down. A little grief is natural and healthy."

Angela's look of concern deepened as her brows furrowed. "Grief is natural and healthy, but this is something more. She's dealing with more than loss and uncertainty. She was abused repeatedly. On top of that, she's starting to show signs of suffering from survivor's guilt. I think she's starting to turn that pain in on herself and convince herself she's to blame for all this. She shouldn't..."

Jack was familiar enough with survivors' guilt and what it could do, so he could see what she was getting at. Finally, enough of his brain pulled itself away from the idea it would get to rest to see where Angela was going with all this. He finished her thought for her. "She shouldn't be left alone right now."

Letting loose a deep sigh as he ran his hand through his unkempt hair, Jack continued. "Yeah, I agree. I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be right now, but a warm body is better than nothing... no offense... Let's go see what we can do."

Jack walked over to the bathroom long enough to splash some water on his face before leaving his room.

-

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

As he approached the door to S'haar's room, Jack could hear the sobbing coming from within. Angela was right. This wasn't the sound of someone in grief. These sobs had an unhealthy edge to them, bordering on a dangerous mania. That sound finished waking Jack up as he knocked on the door.

The sobbing took a few moments to slow to a halt before a shaky voice responded. "Ye... yes?"

Jack tried to adopt as soothing a voice as possible, knowing Angela would be translating the same tone through the speakers rather than appearing in the room. It would help the girl avoid feeling embarrassed at her worn physical state. "It's Jack. I wanted to speak to you a little. Could you please come out to the main living area?"

There was a full minute of silence while Em'brel tried to gather her thoughts enough to speak. Finally, a soft voice called out. "Yes... of... of course. Just give me a moment."

Jack smiled. He'd been worried she would turn him away. "Take your time. I'm in no rush."

A few more minutes passed while Jack waited. Just as he was starting to worry she'd changed her mind, He heard the door open. The poor girl was a wreck but had obviously done her best to clean up the evidence. However, she wasn't fooling anyone.

As she looked around uncertainly, almost fearfully, Jack motioned her over to the table again. As she sat down, he sat opposite her. He took a moment to just get a good look at her.

Even though Em'brel had obviously washed her face clean, it was still blotchy in a way that spoke of violent crying. Her clothes were slightly torn in a few places where she'd ripped at them in her hunger to feel something, even if only pain. Even now, her breathing was perfectly even in an unnatural way that indicated she was consciously controlling it to try and seem like she wasn't as bad off as she was. Angela was right. Em'brel was walking along a dangerous cliff.

Jack took a deep breath before speaking. Angela was doing her best to be as uncharacteristically unobtrusive as possible while still translating. "When I was about your age, both of my parents were brutally murdered in front of me. Immediately after that, Angela and I were thrown into a life or death fight against the killer. Honestly, it's all kind of a blur these days, but somehow we didn't die. That was the worst day of my life. It took me years to learn to live again after that night."

Em'brel started to take a breath to respond, but Jack continued, never letting her get a word out. "I'm not telling you this because I'm asking for your sympathy or trying to diminish your pain. This was years ago, and I've mostly dealt with it. Though I won't lie to you, the pain of an experience like that never goes away completely."

The girl waited this time, wondering where Jack was going to go with this. He didn't make her wait long. "I'm telling you this, so you understand that I at least somewhat understand what you're going through and that I know a little of what I'm talking about."

Jack looked into the distance, trying to recall feelings he'd rather have left buried in the past. "Afterward, all I could think of is all the things that I could have done to save at least one of them. Knowing what I know now, I can think of several things that might have made a difference. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it's complete and utter shit."

Em'brel seemed shocked by the sudden change in tone of the story, but Jack continued without pause. "At that age, and with what I knew at the time, and with the shock of what I was going through, there was nothing I could have done. Nothing that happened that day was my fault."

Jack suddenly focused his eyes as directly as he could into En'brel's eyes, forcing her to look back through sheer force of will. "Nothing, NOTHING that happened to you or your father is your fault. It doesn't matter what you know now or what you would do differently if you had another chance. None of that matters because at the end of the day, sometimes you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's not your fault!"

Jack could see Em'brel trying to fight deep emotions back down, but he continued on mercilessly. "Whenever you start to think of a 'what if,' or 'I should have,' or even, 'it should have been me,' I want you to remember this moment. I want you to remember the look of complete certainty in my eyes and the conviction in my voice as I tell you right now, none of what happened was your fault!"

After that final repetition, Em'brel broke down. Her sobs were deep and gut-wrenching and tore at Jack's heart, bringing back vivid memories of his own pain. Jack shoved the old feeling aside for now as he walked over to the girl's side. As painful as they were to listen to, at least this was the sobbing of someone mourning rather than the manic filled self-hatred he'd heard earlier. This was the right kind of crying, the type which meant she was embracing her grief rather than fighting it.

For the third time that day, Jack held the poor girl as she cried herself out. He knew she wasn't suddenly past the danger, never to look back. There was still a long road ahead of Em'brel. But this was a step in the right direction down that road, and a big step at that.

When she finally pulled away from Jack, Em'brel looked like a mess. Just as she was starting to become self-conscious about her face, Jack interrupted her thoughts once more. Running his hand through his hair turned rat's nest, Jack laughed as he spoke. "You know, there are times when it's positively indecent to look clean and collected, and I declare now to be one such time. I doubt either of us is going to fall asleep right after that, so what say we watch a movie?"

Em'brel looked confused as she blinked a few times in rapid succession. "S'haar mentioned that before. What is a movie?"

Jack explained the concept of movies as recorded plays for a second time while thinking desperately of an appropriate title. What in the world should he show a fifteen-year-old girl who went through what will hopefully be the worst day of her life? Given what she lost, definitely nothing with princesses, prince charming, or about father-daughter bonding, and it had to be uplifting. What did that leave?

Just as Jack was about to give up and throw on something abstract, he remembered a childhood classic, The Labyrinth. Angela helpfully dubbed the movie, programming the argu'n language to come through a near-perfect imitation of the original actor's voices, although she refused to dub over David Bowie's singing. Maybe it was Em'brel's young and accepting mind, or perhaps it was the magic of Jim Henson, but Jack had to explain far less than he did with S'haar.

Partway into the movie, Jack's prediction proved at least half wrong when he finally passed out.

-

When Jack finally woke, he was stiff all over. Additionally, he was having trouble breathing, though he suspected that might have something to do with the young argu'n latched onto his side. As his eyes sleepily wandered the room, Jack saw S'haar sitting in the chair beside the couch. She was grinning as though enjoying some private joke at Jack's expense.

S'haar broke the silence before he could. "You look like quite the fatherly figure sleeping there, protecting young Em'brel from her nightmares. There might be hope for you yet!"

Jack couldn't help but let a little of his morning grumpiness, brought on by aches and pain, show through in his voice. "After yesterday, I would think I earned a little more than just 'hope.'"

S'haar nodded in agreement, her smile fading from mockery to genuine affection as she spoke. "That you did. You came through, and we all got out alive. Although between each of us, there are a few new scars to go around, outside and in. But a good scar just means you survived the fight. That's nothing to be ashamed of!"

All the talk of scars drew Jack's attention to S'haar's shoulder. It was wrapped in bandages and clearly still oozing blood. Following his gaze, S'haar flexed her arm. "Angela tells me we're a bit more than halfway done, but also said I needed to take a break and get some food. It hurts like hell. On the other hand, it's better than losing my arm."

Em'brel began to stir, allowing Jack to slowly extract himself from her sleepy clutches. "True enough. Besides, the last thing I need is to have you rubbing in the fact you're still far stronger than me, even with only one arm."

S'haar looked like she had a thought or two on the subject, but Jack cut her off. "Any thoughts on breakfast?"

S'haar had to think for nearly a half-second before replying. "Bacon! If I'm going to celebrate unexpectedly living to see another day, we need to start it off right! On that note, Angela said we were all under something called 'doctor's orders' to take the day off and recover."

Jack was just opening his mouth to respond when Angela appeared to put in her own two cents. "Before you start complaining about time tables, I'd like to point out that any or all of you collapsing from mental, emotional, and physical strain will slow you down a lot more than taking some time to recover!"

Angela looked to be working herself into quite the lecture. "And furthermore, I'd like to point out..."

Angela suddenly stopped talking and tilted her head to one side. Jack grinned and started pointing out that her lecture would have more impact if she could focus long enough to finish her point when Angela cut him off. "My motion sensors are picking up movement at the mouth of the cave. Someone is here!"