Re: Woods: Claire/Daniel
"No. Cris told me. He is the sheriff." Just in case she didn't know, but of course she knew, because small towns, everybody knew. "He doesn't know.... what I am. Too long after sundown and I'm still out, he said he would come looking. He doesn't know the danger. If he did he would not let me near Sam or her small one." He was babbling, but he'd been doing that all afternoon, byproduct of the exposure and a need to distract himself from the pain.
He made a wet exhale of annoyance from within his crimson tent. "If I need to peer through this bright mess, I will wear them. In my day, civilized men wore hats." Except a stubborn young man who liked to irritate his elders. He conveniently forgot about his faults whenever it suited him, Daniel. He let time pass between his answers, growing vague and silent in patches, eager for the afternoon sun to wane.
It wasn't a reprimand, and he wasn't sure she had interpreted as such. Instead it was s fear that he could hurt him, this time through transfer of the results of his folly to her. He wasn't certain how this removal of pain worked, and he thought that she took it into herself, and he wasn't having it. He discerned that she wrapped herself up smaller, something Sam did when she was distressed. "It is my fault I am here, not yours."
Daniel mulled over the explanation of the ritual, and her implication it could be better handled with possessions. "I can think of no physical object that is close to me. Perhaps a trinket or two. Few things survive the ages." He sighed. "What if I had something of yours?"