Prompt: "I'm not what you think I am." & "You're keeping me from my coffee, kid... This is a dangerous situation." & lost

Theme: angst, shenanigans, & angst

Words: 690

"Are you a wobber?"

Startled, she looked down at the small mite. "A what?"

"A wobber. You look like one." The child's eyes were large, dark pools of curiosity.

"A robber?"

She nodded, curls bouncing against her chubby cheeks.

"No." Micah kept walking, but a small hand tugged on her sleeve and she pulled away with a frustrated grunt. "You're keeping me from my coffee, kid, this is a dangerous situation. Don't touch me. What do you want?"

"Since you'w not a wobber..." She ducked her head sheepishly, peering up through her dark curls. "Can — can you find Mummy?"

Micah groaned from the depths of her soul, rolling her eyes skyward as if the clouds could offer a way out. "No."

"Please?"  the mite begged, clasping her chubby fists. "I got disjacted in there."  It was a toy shop.

"Can't you ask someone else?"  Micah pinched the bridge of her nose, glaring at the child as her head began to throb.

"I was gunna, but you looked like a wobber."

The longest silence reigned as Micah tried desperately to work out which side of the world was up. It didn't help.

"Fine," she growled at last, "but — don't touch me —" as the girl reached to take her hand. Unnerved, she broke into a hasty walk away from this fearless, frightening small creature, heart beating wildly in her chest.

This one couldn't hurt her, though; this one she'd promised to help.

"Where did you last see your mother?" she asked the pattering feet tightly after a minute or two.

"At home."

Micah covered her mouth with her hands to swear. "Which is where?"

"That way." Back they way they'd come.

"Thanks for telling me," she said angrily. The little girl reached to hold her hand again, almost without thinking, but she yanked away with a hiss of annoyance and alarm. Why did she insist on trying to touch?

"You can come with me," she said shortly, forcing her voice to remain steady, "if you please... don't touch me."

"Why? Are  you a wobber?"

"No."

"Then why not?"

"I'm not what you think I am."

"So you are a wobber!"

"No!  I wish I were. Not really," she forced a laugh, catching sight of the little girl's face. "They're, um... bad people."

The child nodded seriously, walking uncomfortably close by. "That's what Mummy says, too."

"What about your —" she hesitated, trying to think of the word — "dad?"

The mite nodded happily, skipping down the footpath in a way that made Micah dizzy.

"Why couldn't you just have walked home on your own? You seem to know the way," she observed dourly.

"'M not supposed to go outside without adult soup-vision."

"And I'm a suitable adult?"

"I dunno; you're not a wobber, are you?"

"...no..." In all honesty, she wasn't 100% sure anymore. "Wait — what were you doing out here without adult 'soup-vision' in the first place?" she demanded.

"I told you! I got disjacted." The kid sounded aggrieved, and Micah gave up. They walked the rest of the way in one-halved silence.

Micah's head was pounding like a snare-drum by the time they reached the little girl's home, and the world whirled precariously; she felt like the centre of a spinning-top. She stumbled into a fence and slumped against it, struggling to breathe.

"Thank yoou!" the girl sang, and short arms wrapped in a grateful hug around her waist. Micah couldn't move.

She couldn't breathe.

The world ground to a stop for one awful, crunching moment.

And then she was tearing herself away, stumbling free of the clinging arms and slipping wildly on the gravel drive in an effort to get away, get away, geT aWAy!  Stones sprang from her feet like planets knocked out of orbit, crashing against one another with the roar of a tidal wave in her ears.

She ran down the driveway, coat flooding out behind her, every nerve burning and frayed by remembrance of the contact.

It wasn't 'til she reached her usual coffee-shop haunt that she stopped running, a faint cry of thanks still ringing like alarm-bells in her ears.