Eva doesn't follow him immediately, but she doesn't take her hand away either. As much as she respects the Doctor, their level of trust is still tenuous (mostly because he never tells her anything), and she has an instinctive reaction deep in the canals of her guts against being ordered around.
But, after a moment of staring at his hand as if it's some toothed thing about to bite her, she places her hand in his. "Alright. On one condition. And it's not a condition you'll much like."
She hoists herself off the log, gentle on her injured ankle and feeling, between the cold and the stress of the day, so very old. Bones pop like fireworks in her ears and joints creak like doors on untended, rusty hinges. Even her hands feel brittle and full of knuckles, more fist-like than dainty, in this ice and snow.
"Oh, I am ancient as the crypt," she says, laughing because she knows he's much older, and yet her spryness is the result of stubbornness while his seems inborn. What an irony it would be to survive the Yeerks and everything the Phantom Tollbooth has thrown at them today only to die of natural causes in thirty or forty years. "Why don't you have to get all crone-like like me? It's hardly fair."
And remembering that she gave him conditions, she starts to follow him. "If you know about some danger lurking in this forest that I don't know about, it's in my interest that you tell me. I wasn't exaggerating when I said information was my best weapon."
no subject
But, after a moment of staring at his hand as if it's some toothed thing about to bite her, she places her hand in his. "Alright. On one condition. And it's not a condition you'll much like."
She hoists herself off the log, gentle on her injured ankle and feeling, between the cold and the stress of the day, so very old. Bones pop like fireworks in her ears and joints creak like doors on untended, rusty hinges. Even her hands feel brittle and full of knuckles, more fist-like than dainty, in this ice and snow.
"Oh, I am ancient as the crypt," she says, laughing because she knows he's much older, and yet her spryness is the result of stubbornness while his seems inborn. What an irony it would be to survive the Yeerks and everything the Phantom Tollbooth has thrown at them today only to die of natural causes in thirty or forty years. "Why don't you have to get all crone-like like me? It's hardly fair."
And remembering that she gave him conditions, she starts to follow him. "If you know about some danger lurking in this forest that I don't know about, it's in my interest that you tell me. I wasn't exaggerating when I said information was my best weapon."