"Henry." He moved closer as she reached out and laid her palm against his chest. "My mother... " The words wouldn't come. She could feel him waiting and finally had to shake her head.
His lips brushed very lightly against her hair.
"You were right," she said instead. "Sleep helped. But... " Her fingers twisted in his shirt and she yanked him slightly forward. "... don't ever do that again."
His hand covered hers. "No promises," he told her quietly.
Yes, promises, she wanted to insist. I won't have you messing with my head. But he messed with her head just by existing and under the circumstances, she wouldn't believe any promises he made. "Get going." She pushed him toward the door. "Even I can feel the sun."
Celluci lay stretched out on top of her mother's bed, shoes off but otherwise dressed. She started, seeing him so suddenly appear in the glare of the overhead light and she had to stop herself from shaking him and demanding to know what he was doing there. On her mother's bed. Except her mother wouldn't be sleeping in it any more so what difference did it make?
"He won't wake," Henry told her as she hesitated by the door. "Not until after I'm... asleep."
"I wish you hadn't done that."
"Vicki."
The sound of her name pulled her forward until they stood only a whisper apart by the closet door.
He reached up and gently caressed her cheek. "Michael Celluci has the day; I cannot share it with him. Don't ask me to give him the night as well."
Vicki swallowed. His touch drew heated lines across her skin. "Have I ever asked that of you?"
"No." His expression twisted and slid a little into sadness. "You've never asked anything of me."
She wanted to protest that she had, but she knew what he meant. "Not now, Henry."
"You're right." He nodded and withdrew his hand. "Not now."
Fortunately, the closet had plenty of room for a not so tall man to lie safely hidden away from the sun.
"I'll block the door from the inside, so it can't be opened accidentally, and I brought the blackout curtain you hung in my bedroom to wrap around me. I'll be back with you this evening."
With memory's eyes she could see him, rising with the darkness after a day spent... lifeless.
"Henry."
He paused, half through the door.
"My mother is dead."
"Yes."
"You'll never die."
The four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old bastard son of Henry the VIII nodded. "I'll never die," he agreed.
"Should I resent you for that?"
"Should I resent you for the day?"
Her brows snapped down and the movement pushed her glasses forward on her nose. "I hate it when you answer a question with a question."
"I know."
His smile held so many things that she couldn't hope to understand them all before the closet door closed between them.
"Vicki, you can't possibly agree with what Fitzroy did!" When she suddenly became engrossed in sponging a bit of dirt off her good shoes, he realized she did, indeed, agree. "Vicki!"