Arianna was out the back of the bar preparing herself for her afternoon performance. Had she looked properly in her mirror before making her way outside she might have realised that she was very pale, much paler than normal. Dark circles underlined her normally pretty eyes and every now and then she rubbed her hands over her arms as if she were cold and trying to warm her skin. 

She was trying very heard to act normal, to continue with routine.....all words of past advice that swam in her head. She had thought that she could that morning, years of practice of acting and control but the time to start work had snuck up upon her suddenly, all the hours in a day swirling into one mass of time.

She hadn't really slept for days. Sometimes her eyes felt too heavy to keep them open any longer but no sooner had they closed shut she was awake again. Sometimes her dreams were even worse than waking thoughts, they gave her no relief. She saw their faces whether awake or not.

She leant her head against the wall in front of her, the marble cool against her forehead. The room was spinning slightly around her. She couldn't remember when she had last eaten properly, it really hadnt seemed that important until now.

Things had been going well, and it wasn't long until the big event at Signature - the Remembering day party. A night of all-expenses paid frollicking for the underaged and the overaged. Finn had a feeling that the overaged part would be more interesting.

He was in the middle of finalising plans for the party [which were taking a while], when Finn decided he needed to quench his thirst. He made his way from his office on the first floor, just offset from the restaurant, to the bar on the same floor. "A glass of water, I think." he said to himself as he marched purposely towards the empty bar. All of his staff were in the restaurant at the moment, as the bar didn't open until 3pm, when Arianna would open it with her piano skills.

Finn whistled a little tune as he shimmied himself up over the bar hatch, swung his legs over to the bar side and jumped down. He walked into the small kitchen area behind the bar and turned the light on. He stopped and blinked. There was Arianna, forehead against the marble wall. Finn cocked his head to one side. "Are you ok?" He asked bluntly. He metally berated himself - clearly she wasn't ok. He would be worried if someone who was ok was taking the stance she was right now. She looked drawn, tired - her shoulders were slumped. She looked somehow smaller than normal.

"Are you ok?"

"Finn..."

She didn't need to glance at the man behind the voice to know who it was.
A little embarassed at this show of a little human weakness, especially in front of a man that was both her boss and younger than she, she straightened up quickly and pulled away from the wall.

That was her first mistake of the evening.

The sudden movement made the room swim dangerously out of focus. The extra light, bouncing of the mass of white tiles, left blinding lines across her vision. She had to acknowledge to herself that there was a very real chance that she was just about to pass out.

"Just give me a minute. I'll be ok in a minute. " She told him in a weak and rather pathetic voice that was about as convincing as Voldemort with a placard at a muggle rights protest.

All the colour drained from her cheeks and, rather gracefully, each joint folding under her in turn, she started to fall to the  floor.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. First of all she assured him that she was ok, which only convinced him that she wasn't telling the truth. She looked far from fine, and if that was what her idea of fine was then Finn wasn't all that sure he had hired the right person for the job.

"Would you like me to get you a glass-" He didn't have time to finish the sentence before he watched her completely buckle in front of him. For a moment he thought he had stayed rooted to the spot too long to make it to her in time, but he instinctly lunged forward with his arms outstretched, catching her before she hit the ground. Just before. It was a near miss, and he hadn't caught her in a particularly heroic fashion. She fell forwards, so she was lying face-down across his arms, He nearly tumbled to the floor like a ton of bricks himself, but at least then she'd have had relatively a soft landing. "That's not how they portray it in films." He grimaced as he lowered her down gently. It wasn't that she was particularly heavy, but that Finn was seriously lacking in upper body strength.

He tried to turn her over as best he could without hurting her,and lay her on the floor. He knelt beside her and cradled her head in his arms, hoping she would com around soon, so that he wouldn't have to make a trip to St.Mungo's.

It didn't take long for Arianna to come round, though luckily long enough for her to be moved into a more dignified position.

When she did so it was perfectly executed, at first. Her eyelids fluttered attractively, her pale and delicate hand reaching up to her brow.

"What...." She mumbled softly, her voice tremulous and vulnerable, caught in the few first moments of consciousness.....and then....she ruined any semblance of feminine charm by a rather ferocious scowl. The realisation of what, why and how she had come to be on the floor came to her. 

"What the....ah."  She added, the angry statement dissolving on her tongue as she realised what exactly was holding her head from the floor.

Her pale cheeks flushed with colour, inwardly she screamed at herself for pushing it that far, a flicker of her former fire.....and then, just as suddenly as it had arrived it had gone. It was more than the cold of the marble floor underneath her that chilled her to the core.

Slowly she pushed herself up into sitting. Other than a slight feeling of nausea, she felt a little better.

"Damn it..I'm sorry...I thought I could...well, I suppose...oh, I don't know...er thanks. " She finished rather lamely with a small sigh. Her words - normally so cool and controlled, tripped awkwardly of her tongue - a rather melancholy and resigned tone to her voice. She looked very miserable and for a moment was very quiet, until a fierce rumble of her stomach reminded her of the lack of food that had passed her lips over the last few days.

She tried to moisten her lips together, her mouth feeling very dry.

"Do you think I could possibly get a drink of water?" She asked him politely, her voice sounding a little hoarse. She glanced once at him, gave him a small apologetic smile and then glanced back to the floor.
   

No sooner had she collapsed into his arms like a damsel in distress, Arianna sat up and pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them. Finn couldn't help but see this as a sign of her being extremely uncomfortable. Of course she was. He would be too, if he had just momentarily lost consciousness. He straightened up and brushed off his trousers with a confused look upon his face. "I..." he started, but Arianna cut his words off with her stuttering - something he wasn't used to hearing from her. In the short time he had known her, he had never noticed her to be uneasy with words. She was silver-tongued, and Finn would describe it serpent-like, if he didn't think she might be offended by that.

"Damn it..I'm sorry...I thought I could...well, I suppose...oh, I don't know...er thanks. "

Thanks? Thanks? She faints into his arms, and she says 'thanks'? Finn scratched his head in an almost ape-like manner. He was clearly not hiding his confusion very well - looking like a peanut-brained neanderthal wasn't exactly conveying the image he had wanted to. Brooding was more what he had been going for.

"Do you think I could possibly get a drink of water?"

"Erm..." Finn would have said 'yes' and waited for her to go get it hersef, had he not remembered the cirumstances on which she was asking for the glass of water. He managed nodhis head fervently. "Of course." he made his way over to the cupboard, got a tall, clean glass and filled it with ice-cold water from the fridge. He handed the glass over to Arianna and smiled. "Better?" He was desperate to find out why she was in the situation she was, but decided it was better that she regained some of her strength before he skillfully - or not so skillfully - grilled her on why she had fainted.

"Thank you."

Arianna reached for the glass of water and sipped on it gratefully, a little colour returning to her cheeks. She placed the cold glass on her head, the coolness easing the dull throbbing in her head a little, if only temporarily.

"Better."

Arianna thought about this for a moment. Was she feeling better? The room had stopped spinning, her head ached a little less though she felt as though she hadn't slept for months.

"Yes, I feel better."

She gave Finn a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Thank you. " 

Slowly she pulled herself up onto one of the chairs in the room, draining the remains of the water from her glass.

"I'm very sorry.." She repeated again, brushing some dust from her robe sleeve before turning her gaze back to her employer.

"This won't happen again, I assure you.  If you don't mind, I'm sure I could finish my performance. "

She used her cool, professional voice but it was far more controlled than she felt and she was sure that it would convince Finn either. She didn't really feel up to playing but at the same time hoped he wouldn't send her home, if you could call it her home. She rarely built up an affinity for anyone place, always on the move, always preferring to live on her own but right at that moment, the silence of her rather clinical, barely furnished flat was exactly the opposite of what she needed.

What she needed was something, anything, to distract her. Anything to stop her thinking, until she found a way to move past this..this mess.         
 

Finn gave a sigh of relief when Arianna stated that she felt better. He had never been well-equiped to deal with a crisis such as this - they made him feel awkward and helpless - and he hadn't realised that for the last half a minute he had been holding his breath. He felt as though all the wind had been knocked out of him as he took a deep breath to prevent himself from collapsing unconscious on the cold floor...now that would have been embarassing.

"If you don't mind, I'm sure I could finish my performance. "

Arianna pulled herself up onto a chair, and Finn lunged forward to help her, putting a hand under her elbow. "I don't think that's wise really..." He said quietly, an apologetic look on his pale face. "What if you collapsed again? I'd never forgive myself for sending you back out there. What kind of employer would I be?" He paused for a moment as he thought. "No, I'll get someone to cover for you. Worst case scenario, I put some streamed music through the speakers. Not  a problem, compared to the health of my employees." He smiled as much as he could.

He was getting the feeling that she was hiding something for him, and that it was something he wouldn't manage to get out of her today. "Listen." He said as he scratched behind his right ear. "Take one of the guest rooms. I'll have Carlos come through and take you up there...you'll find robes, slippers and bedclothes up there, so there's no need to go home. I'll send room service up in fifteen minutes to take your order for lunch. You'll stay here tonight, have a relaxing night, then you can decide...{i]I[/i] can decide," he corrected himself, "Whether you're fit enough to work tomorrow." One side of his mouth curled up slightly. "I won't take 'no' for an answer." He pressed gently.

Arianna glanced up at Finn, her eyes briefly widening, genuinely surprised by his offer. She didn't have a lot of experience dealing with kindness from others, not when there wasn't an ulterior motive to demand it, and so there was a slight pause before she answered.

"Thank you..." She said finally.

"If you are sure I'm not causing too much trouble, that would be wonderful...and, well...Thank you. " She repeated, words failing her. Her voice was warmer than usual and very genuine. A tear glistened in the corner of one eye but she brushed it away before it could fall, rather alarmed to have found it there at all.

Arianna prided herself on her control. She often used emotions but as tools, hidden behind another's face or some cunning disguise. When she feigned sadness or fear it was easy because it wasn't really her on show, but here the mask had gone. The emotion on display was all her own and it made her feel utterly exposed but she couldn't pull it back. Her shield had fractured and she couldn't put it together again.

"But why....why are you helping me? " She asked him tentatively. There was no accusation in her voice, just wonder. There seemed more risk to himself than benefit in his offer. She couldnt understand it.