He awoke lying close to her side, his head angled badly on his lumpy rucksack. There was a painful crick in his neck now, he felt, but he was more concerned about Kitten.
She was stirring fitfully as if she'd been seiged by nightmares, and she looked pallid and weak. He extended his arms to help her right herself to sitting, then offered her his uneaten apple and located her waterskin. She ate with relish, devouring every last soft bit of the fruit's flesh and nearly gnawed the seeds from the core. He dug around in his rucksack again for any other leftover food, and discovered a battered carrot covered in pipe-weed particles. He wiped it off as best he could and she ate it as well.
The bear twitched its legs as it slept still, and she seemed to be at ease with his condition.
The traveler asked what he could do to make her more comfortable - move her to shade? Fetch her some more water? She looked down to her blood-encrusted clothing and said that she wished to clean up. She still carried some of the halfling laundry with her and believed that some of the larger pieces could fit.
He offered to leave her to give her privacy, but she haltingly asked if he could help her instead, as she was too weak to stand on her own. He nodded and pulled her up to her feet gently. She grasped his shoulder and his hands moved to her sides to help her keep her balance.
She seemed indifferent to him being so close to her as she disrobed, which suited him at first. But as she pulled her tunic over her head and bared her flesh, he unthinkingly let his eyes wander over her flawlessly smooth skin and he found himself admiring her figure.
How long had it been since last he had a woman in his arms, catching her scent faintly while her hair lightly brushed his toughened skin? He had believed his passions were deadened with the loss of her, and such thoughts had not come to him in all his time abroad.
And then he felt a sense of intense guilt, as if he had betrayed anew the woman who lived on in only his heart and memory.
Kitten finished dressing, and his mind was in turmoil.
She wanted to sit down by the nearby waterway, so she wrapped her arm around his shoulder and leaned heavily on his support as he helped her to walk. Her colouring appeared better now, after the food and change, and he was glad that she did not seem to suffer permanent harm.
She now spoke even more candidly than she had before, and expanded upon the story of her humble beginnings before adding the explanation for her lonely sojourn throughout the world. He listened intently, and understood that she now saw him as a fast friend to entrust him with such secrets.
She seemed convinced that she was a risk to people, and explained that she shied away from keeping close company for fear of hurting them. The traveler threw his head back and laughed, as he now understood her interest in him - she had found the one man in Bree who was utterly disposable; no one would come looking for him should peril befall him, there would be no one to shed one bloody tear for his loss.
She took offense to his self-deprecating mirth and vehemently denied that she had deliberately selected him for his expendability.
Before they slumbered for the night, she turned her eyes toward him and suggested that perhaps he could share his secrets with her, one day.
The traveler nodded, but he had no intention of doing so.
