"What is your problem?" Phill said, planting her hand flat in the middle of Will's chest and stopped him on the steps of Divine's Emporium.
With her other hand, she snapped her fingers and flung a shield around them, sliding them into a parallel dimension. They were effectively invisible and mute to anyone who might come to the doorway of the shop. Anyone who used the door could even walk through them. Phill was determined to get some things out in the open, even if they had to stand there all day.
"Problem?" Will looked down at her hand and shuddered, ever so slightly. Then he summoned up a cocky grin. "What makes you think I have a problem?"
"Besides running around like a madman, always wanting to do something, see something. You're all fun-fun-fun since the moment we dropped Lori practically on Brick's head. What's the rush? We're not under some deadline. Or are we? Something you're hiding from me?"
She held her breath and stared him straight in the eyes and waited. For good measure, she crossed her fingers, two sets on each hand, as well as managing to cross her big toes over the ones next to them, despite the tight quarters inside her boots.
"No deadline." His voice cracked on the second word.
"What is going on with you? Why can't we have fun like we always do when we remember to get here for Christmas?"
"We're not having fun?" Will settled on the railing of the porch. Because they were in a parallel dimension, he didn't disturb the snow that had piled up overnight. Phill wished that he could feel the cold of the snow, or even have it melt into his clothes, but that was impossible right at the moment.
If she had to, she would lift the dimensional warping shield and knock Will onto his back, sit on his chest, and wash his face with snow until he confessed--or drowned. Whichever came first.
"Aren't we having fun? We're doing everything we always do. Caroling and playing Secret Santa with half the town and helping the kids with their Christmas pageant rehearsals, unseen, as always. And isn't it even more fun than usual, since we can hang with Maurice? And going sightseeing. That's a blast, playing tour guide for Lori. Right?"
"All that, and more. It's like you have to cram ten Christmases into just a few days. It's like you think we'll never have another Christmas again." Phill gasped and nearly lost her grip on the shield. Then a gaggle of children, escorted by a dozen adults, ran right through her, and she almost did lose her grip.
She watched the children go through the door of the shop. What were they doing out of school? Had she lost track of time? Wasn't it still morning, barely ten?
"Christmas storytime," Will said, leaning to one side to look around her and watch the children scurry into the shop. He flinched when the door slammed shut. "Don't you wish you were a kid, a Human kid, believing that magic is real even without much evidence? And then coming to a place like Divine's where you get just enough proof to keep believing, even when adults tell you magic isn't real. Sometimes I envy Humans. Life is so much more of an adventure, when you don't know, when you don't see and--" His eyes widened and his eyebrows raised up almost past his hairline when Phill slapped her hand over his mouth, silencing him.
"Are you sick?" She glared when he didn't answer. Then she realized she still had her hand over his mouth. "Is that the problem? You're sick and you think you're dying, so you're cramming everything in?" She took her hand off his mouth and stepped back.
Maybe that was the problem with them both. Need wasn't turning on because Will was dying. How could she bond with her best friend, her partner in crime-and-adventure, if he was dying? It was kind of like a protective reflex, according to some Fae physicians and philosophers. The first two or three decades after Need bonded a couple together were the most dangerous, because if something deadly hit one partner, the other could die just from the snapping of the bond.
Please, no. I can't lose him now, just when I'm getting up the courage to do something about how I feel. I don't care if we're not bonded, he's mine!
"Not me," Will said slowly, shaking his head, his eyes big and dark with sorrow. The light around them actually dimmed, and it had nothing to do with the dimensional shield. "I'm scared it's you."
"Me? I'm perfectly healthy." She would have laughed, even accused him of making a very bad joke to distract her, but the sorrow clear in his eyes was too real. "Will, I'm fine. I promise. I even went to visit Great-Uncle Throckmorton before we came here--What? Don't give me that terrified, the-sky-is-falling look."
"You're worried about it too, aren't you?" he whispered, sounding like he choked.
"About what?"
"About not--" His face got red.
On second thought, if he wasn't choking, she might just do it for him.
"Not what?" She took a step toward him, then realized her hands were going up, aiming for his throat. She tucked them behind her back and strategically stepped backwards, out of the danger zone. "I'm not what?"
"No, you are. You're dying. You're sick, at the very least. Because you aren't... You know."
"No, I don't!" To her shock and amusement, her voice was loud enough to penetrate the dimensional shield and make three icicles fall from Angela's porch. "Spit it out!"
"Need," Will whispered, and turned even brighter red.
"What about it?"
"You aren't--you haven't--you won't--you know." Now he went pale and stood up tall, straightening his shoulders like he braced himself for bad news.
"Idiot!" Fury made an entire asteroid belt of sparks burst out of her and swirl in crazy orbit around her head, penetrating the side of the house, going through the door and coming back out on the other side.
At the same time, Phill wanted to burst out laughing. Was that what people were saying about her? That she was dying and that's why she hadn't hit Need, even though she was due for it maybe thirty years ago? Privately, she thought all the time she spent in the Human realms had knocked her cycles out of whack, but she couldn't get Throckmorton or the half-dozen other Fae physicians to listen to her theory, let alone consider it. They always brought up handfuls of cases of other Fae women who went into Need right on time, despite spending their entire lives among Humans. That just proved Phill's point, as far as she was concerned--her life was unstable, so why shouldn't her body clock be as well?
"Aren't you worried about it?" Will braced himself against the porch support post, as if the volume of her voice threatened to knock him off his feet.
"Yes, I'm worried. Any sane woman would be. But honestly..." All her roiling emotions suddenly fled, gone, as if a trap door had opened up and they just plummeted out of her. She felt empty, exhausted. "Maybe it's all for the better."
"That's crazy." He shook his head as if a swarm of bees had decided to pester him. Which was ridiculous. Since it was winter, bees were hibernating, and even if some kamikaze bee braved the cold, it couldn't get through the dimensional shield anyway.
"The last thing I want is for Need to kick in and shackle me to someone who won't be any fun, who will come between us--or worse, someone who wants to take over. And still come between us, instead of making me stay home in the Fae realms all the time. I'd rather go the rest of my life like this than break up the team."
"Yeah?" Incredibly, the big goofball grinned.
And that got her angry again.
"You blithering coward!" Phill wished she had a pair of wings, even something as frilly and glittery and stupid as Maurice's. She wanted to rise up in the air, beating them furious, battering Will with the hurricane-force winds she felt generating inside her. "That'd be just fine and dandy for you, wouldn't it? No risk. No fear of getting ambushed. That's been your problem all the time, hasn't it? That's what's been killing our fun. You're keeping us busy because you're afraid Need is going to hit me at any minute. You think if you run me ragged, I won't feel it, won't let it take over--and won't trap you."
"Trap?" he squeaked, and slid off the railing, stumbling away from her.
"I don't know what made me think I was in love with you, when--" Phill inhaled so hard and fast, she nearly swallowed her tongue. She slapped her hands over her mouth and wished she knew a time reversal spell, so she could take back those words.
Especially when Will stared at her, so pale he made the sparkling, white, diamond blanket of snow look dirty by comparison.
The only four-letter word capable of striking more terror into a Fae male than Need was Love.
"You're hopeless. We're both hopeless." Phill let out a shriek and propelled herself up, through the roof of the porch, into the chilly morning sunshine. She popped the bubble of the dimensional shield, raining snow down on Will as he stumbled down the steps and looked around, searching the sky for her.
Who needed wings when she had embarrassment and fury to propel her?
She needed to get away. Far away. Somewhere quiet and calm and isolated, so she could think things through.
"Phill, listen, you've got it all wrong." Will propelled himself up into the sky.
"Stay away from me, you big, sniveling coward!" she shrieked, and tore open a slit into whatever available dimension she could find. She hung around on the other side just long enough to seal it closed and keep Will from following her, then she took off.