Wallace
He looked like he might laugh or smile, and she was glad he didn't. She wasn't sure if it would have been a good thing, or how she would have responded, if she'd only lash out again or somehow find comfort it. Most likely she would become hostile again, and she didn't really want to. He didn't deserve her sharp moods and biting tongue. All he'd ever been was kind, and still she attacked him, put up walls and kept him at a distance.
Reilly, she repeated in her mind. Yes, it sounded right. Maybe she had known his name, had only forgotten it. He'd seen her in the forest, and her face flushed at that. Of all the times to come upon her, he'd managed all the worst ones. When she was soaked in sweat, blood, and sex, when she was drowning in her own lonely misery and forced to give birth alone. Or almost alone. His interaction with her would always be colored with the gross and the ugly, the weak.
She kept her face blank, though. Up until little Kharon spoke her name, her other name. She tensed and jerked away, her heart stopping. How could he know it? Her eyes were wide as she faced the wall, her mind reeling as she waited for him to answer that question, as Reilly voiced it for them. She was glad he spoke it, couldn't trust her voice not to be too harsh just then, sharp and lethal to an innocent child. But she also didn't want Reilly to hear his answer, whatever it was, to know any more of her troubles than he already did.
But she was locked in place. Couldn't turn, couldn't face them. Instead she reached for pretty Kylin, quiet Kylin, craning her neck around and methodically licking her teeny hip as she nursed as Reilly had done for her earlier to clean her. He was a better parent already, perhaps he had many of his own children, but she could at least pretend. Tried to keep herself busy, maybe appear not as shaken as she was, though her glass eyes told the truth.
