And then, abruptly, someone else is there. He flinches as though struck, his foot catching on something, root or rock, he doesn't know, doesn't matter, doesn't care, and then there's a pair of hands steadying him. His heart hammers sickeningly at the roof of his mouth, at the very edge of something, and he can barely track the edges of her hair glinting beneath the irregular moonlight, the shape of arms and then face and then - finally, pulling everything together with the added stammer of her voice.

His teeth chatter from the October chill or the encroaching panic or worse, but Tim's mouth doesn't work and he can't manage much more than some choked-up, feeble rasp of sound.

"What're you - "

What is she doing here? Why do people keep finding him when he wants least to be found?