Swedish, sure. Silas should have guessed, since he remembered Rae mentioning something about her heritage once. “Probably should’ve figured that one out,” he admitted. “My gran used to call me something close to that when I was a kid. Except it was in Yiddish, so not really the same, but…” he trailed off. “You can count on me,” he said seriously, switching gears. “Even when he’s taller than you and thinking he’s an adult.” It didn’t help to think about whether or not EJ would make it that far, or the world would, and even if he wondered about it sometimes there was no way he was saying anything to Rae. Parents wanted to see their kids grow up, even in the apocalypse.
“Don’t worry about it. It was the first real conversation we had,” he shrugged off her forgetfulness, even if it didn’t feel like what she was like usually; they’d had a lot of conversations between then and now, things were bound to be forgotten, even by her. “I never said it, no. It’s in my file though,” he said and raised his eyebrows, amused by the way she explained her own middle name. “Mine’s not much more normal than yours. Until I was maybe six months old it was Joel, ‘cause that was my dad’s name I guess, but my grandparents had it legally changed to Efraim.” Which he had actually never minded; he liked it a lot better than Christopher, and wondered sometimes why his grandparents hadn’t just legally changed his whole name. Probably some respect thing to his mother, even if she never bothered to show her face. “”It was the same kind of deal actually, they wanted me to have some of my heritage.”
He laughed at her musings and skated his fingers up and down her side almost absently. “Dunno whether I should tell you thank you or not to do shit just ‘cause of me and what I like,” he joked.
“They were probably pretty kickass, yeah,” Silas agreed. “The three of you got me figured out, so yeah, just you three. I like thinking I’m still a mystery to everyone else.” Except for maybe Brooks, but he seemed to be able to figure people out pretty easily, so that didn’t really count. It was probably some super-ability of his. “I’m not as much of a Boo Radley as I used to be, but I’m still not gonna be the first person anyone looks for for conversation.” Regan was better at that, hell even Brandon was better at it. “
It didn’t take a lot for him to get attached to the idea of getting back into the city and doing their version of sight-seeing. “Yes to the warmer weather. Motorcycle rides are fucking hell in cold weather,” he agreed. “It’ll be fucking awesome to be just the two of us,” he admitted then glanced down at EJ and added, “Not that I don’t love having you around, little man, but you cramp my style sometimes.” He didn’t always need to be just the two of them, but he was selfish and liked having Rae’s undivided attention once in awhile.
The reddened cheeks didn’t escape Silas’ notice and he was quick to tell Rae, “Don’t apologize, babe.” It was her opinions, and they didn’t have to match his. Hell, he was his own toughest judge. “And if that’s the case we’re just complementary to each other then,” he tacked on, adding to the way Rae’s statement had lightened his mood a little.
It was like slow motion. Silas was just opening his mouth to respond to her when Rae first hit the wall then crumpled completely. His heart stopped, he was sure of it and he muttered a string of curses, trying to both keep EJ comfortable and bend far enough to check on Rae. All while trying to swallow the panicked voice in the back of his head. “Rae,” he coaxed, fingers sliding into her hair to check where her head had hit the wall. She’d have a bump there for sure. “Babe,” he muttered a little more panicked, wondering how the hell he was going to deal with this.
They weren’t that far from the party, as much as it pained him he wondered if she leave Rae to find medic, or try to somehow carry her and EJ back, but the longer she was out the harder it became to think straight.
She wasn’t coming back around. It had been almost a couple minutes and she was still out. What the hell had just happened?