She waited for the apology. The first week went by in silence and without incident. Wendy came back from her job dusty, smelly, and too tired to think. Her money was being put into three separate piles: food, savings, and necessities. The Food pile always had the most money in it, and Wendy and Viator generally ate enough. Nothing amazing or rich, but enough to keep them both sustained throughout the day.

The money she kept in a purse under her mattress was partly going towards a certain doctor's fee she felt she owed, and partly towards an imagined future. It wasn't too far fetched, and it was better than her present life, if only by a little. Although she wouldn't care to admit it, her father had taught her that having extra money was never a bad thing. Over the past month away from the confines of the Brunnhold walls, she had realized how true this was.

The last amount of coins was going towards new clothing. This was no girlish desire to look good. This was survival. Wearing bright blue might be acceptable in the wick festival, but she came home every day covered in tan coloured wood shavings, and with splinters embedded in her hands. Her eyes watered painfully from the dust, and her skirts made her skittish around the machines. Wendy was a practical sort of person. If wearing a dress was going to get her leg amputated in a possibly painful and horrific way, she wasn't going to wear a dress anymore. It was very simple, in her mind.

The silence extended, and still, she waited for his apology. Occasionally he would attempt to talk, but Wendy became adept at ignoring him, at treating him like just another object in the room. It was a special sort of cruelty, and she knew it. She had used it as a weapon before, on Pascual, of all people.

It was difficult to keep up the act. Wendy was no stone. She was in a new place, and she was afraid, and volatile. She wanted to tell him about her day at work. About how hard it was. About how she had never thought this was what it would be like to be free. The more she found herself ensconced in this bubble of silence that she was creating, the more she wanted to speak to him. To forget the day at the doctor's. To go back to being friends.

Wendy's pride was measurably bigger than her loneliness. She wasn't about to give in to the meek, submissive Adalare. Nevermind that Adalare wasn't there anymore. That it was only Viator in the room, staring at her woodenly with golden eyes. Only Viator bringing in his wages and combining them with hers so they could pay the rent and eat.

That is, until he didn't. Until Wendy found that they were relying on her money alone for food. Until she found that this stranger she was living with was coming home later every night, and was less and less coherent.

Until she found, one day after work, that his things were gone along with her savings. He didn't return that night, or the next. A small fee had been left with the landlord to ensure Wendy could remain in the building for at least a month, but nothing more. No word. Not for days.

There was silence in the room she lived in, and it only seemed to emphasize the great chorus of voices that were rising in Wendy's mind.

Is he alright? Where has he gone? Maybe I just lost that bag... He'll be back soon, surely... What if he's hurt? Why should I care? He shot that doctor... He's unstable-- I should try to find him--

Wendy shut her eyes as she swept. This needed to stop. She needed to move on. She just didn't know how.