Chapter Text
At first, she is nothing.
A distant hum, a concept more than a being, and she doesn't move, doesn't think, simply floats stationary in an ever-extending field of fog. The light brightens in increments, flashes of colour and pain stick to her skin like spiderwebs, but her hands refuse to respond to her wish to brush them off.
They accumulate, wrapping around her limbs, her shoulders, her chest. Not tight or constrictive — persistent, a cocoon spun to define her outlines, to return her to human form. Not quite a dream, a suggestion, maybe, an offer, an inaudible whisper in her ear beckoning her to follow and reappear.
She listens, stretching her senses until the white fog begins to dissipate, until the spider silk melts into her, until she remembers with increasing urgency that this is not how she dies; she isn't finished yet.
Flinching from the burn settled deep within her, she feels her fingers twitch, her eyes flutter, and there is pain. Suffocated for now, and it's not enough to drive her back into nothingness, because there is warmth, too. She can breathe again, think again, exist outside of the overwhelming need for relief.
Blood, she remembers, on hands that aren't her own, which carried her to oblivion instead of watching her drown. Weightlessness becomes weight becomes an aching numbness, and so she wakes up, herself again.
No blinding lights await her, only a dim glow that her eyes quickly grow accustomed to. Throughout her vision, static mixes with fog, blurring the outlines of the ceiling tiles, spinning and rippling. Remaining half-stuck in the fog she emerged from, the room around her takes a while to stabilize. There's something dark to her right, a blurry object in her periphery, and it takes her several attempts to tilt her head just enough to actually see it.
Grace.
Little by little, her brain puts the picture together. He's right next to the bed, slumped over in a chair and staring blankly at the wall. Knowing him to be incapable of sitting still, it seems wrong to see him frozen in place with his arms loosely wrapped around himself, like he is trying to keep himself from falling apart completely. Even in the half-light and with tired eyes, she can tell there are dark shadows around his eyes and what must be dried blood by his temple.
Barely able to feel her own tongue, Eva has to swallow twice before managing a quiet, "Hey."
No reaction for a handful of seconds, and she wonders if she actually said it out loud or just thought it. Then he blinks, blinks again, and she can see the exact moment he processes the shift in his reality.
Immediately, his body straightens, the chair scrapes across the floor as he shuffles even closer, pushing until his knees are pressed against the bed, and his gaze locks onto her, softening.
"Hey," he says back with relief, with exhaustion, with a voice powered by the kind of hope that isn't optional nor escapable. His fingertips are brushing over her knuckles before he stops himself, pulling back, hovering in the air between them.
There's a tension, a slight tremor in his hand as he restrains himself from the reassurance he needs, and she'd roll her eyes if she could figure out how to do that. Instead, she wiggles her fingers as much as she can manage, giving him the permission he already had anyway.
Grace carefully takes her hand while scanning her face for any sign of discomfort, squeezes it, and then absently presses two fingers to her pulse point in a motion that is almost practiced. Implicitly, she's aware that he has done it over and over again for hours, seeking out proof that she is still alive. Every irregularity in her heartbeat, every hitch in her breath, every jump of her blood pressure has drawn him back to this very same position.
The worst has passed but there's still blood under both their nails.
A smile tugs on his lips for a moment, the slight change in his expression attracting her focus, before it wavers and falls. Eva watches him fight with himself, time slowing down, but it doesn't matter how hard he grits his teeth or bites the inside of his cheeks. After what can't have been more than five seconds, he begins to cry.
Even with tears in his eyes, he keeps looking at her, and she wishes she could say something, anything to make it stop.
Memories appear without warning, incoherent and vivid, flashing and merging, layering on top of each other.
Grace, crying, blacking out the sun, his lips moving without sound. She can't respond, pinned to the ground by pain and blood and his hand on her chest, keeping her alive.
Grace smiling at her from across the hall, always able to spot her in a crowd, mouthing 'Lunch?', and she nods. Because it's him asking, because slowing down for herself feels like a waste of time but not when it's spend with him.
Tears dripping onto her face like sparks, and there's salt and metal covering her lips and burning a line down her throat. Fire spreading, licking at her heart, numbing her to the world but not the pain.
Just the two of them on a plane, flying towards the sun, trading a small bottle of vodka back and forth. Exhausted, worn down, warmth at the bottom of their stomachs, warmth when their hands touch with every exchange.
Warmth on her face when she turns towards the window and closes her eyes, warmth in her chest when she feels him watching her, warmth rising to their cheeks when she tilts her head in question and he shrugs.
Shot. Impact. Heat, unbearable heat and impossibly soft touches.
She sees him tired, she sees him dying with her, she sees him losing a battle he was never going to win. There's a change, a new expression, one that isn't fear nor relief, and they're both helpless against the pull of gravity.
Eva fights her way through the lightning strikes of recollection, listening to his low, subdued sobs as he doubles over by her bedside, one hand securely yet gently holding onto her wrist. He tightly wraps his other arm around himself again, his nails digging into the fabric hard enough to almost rip it.
She can't see his face, can barely hear him through the static returning to her ears. When the shaking sets in, he lets go of her to cling to the side of the bed, struggling to keep himself on the chair without. Nothing is real right now, nothing reaches her, there's only the two of them surrounded by fog.
Despite the heaviness in her limbs and the resistance of her body to the needless expense of energy, she slowly lifts her released hand until she can card her fingers through his hair. It rests more than it moves, so she softly rubs circles into his scalp, a gesture as instinctive as it is intentional, meant to ground the both of them.
The first contact punches a raw sound out of him, which is followed by an increase in tears, and he buries his face in the mattress, quieting himself. If it weren't for the tremors wrecking him and the occasional muffled sob, she could hardly tell he is crying harder than she's able to comprehend in her liminal state.
It ebbs and flows, slowing whenever he has to force himself to breathe and returning the moment he is no longer actively suffocating. Paralysed, she watches the flood wash over him, feeling nothing of herself except the warm point of contact they share and a deep familiar ache in her chest.
A late night early on, finding him in his lab with letters scattered around him on the floor, tears drying on his skin. Colourful drawings, imperfect handwriting, figures made of cheap crafting paper, and a small box with crocheted bean bags. On top, a card filled with signatures, many written in glitter pen, and a message: For you and your new friends! We believe in you, Mr. Grace! Come back soon.
She sits with him then, too, with their backs to the wall, close enough to read along as he goes through all of them again and again. They don't touch, not until he turns to look at her and says, They're all going to die.
It's easy to close the gap, to press herself against him, knowing there is nothing she can say, knowing he might be right. Grace looks at her differently after that.
Time passes, minute after minute until she stops being able to keep track, and she reluctantly pulls her hand away once he straightens his back again and reaches for a crumpled tissue in his pocket. Puffy-eyed and breathless, he avoids meeting her gaze, focusing on fixing his clothes and drying his cheeks. Embarrassed, though he has no reason to be, and if she could find the energy to speak, to tell him over and over, maybe he'd eventually believe her.
"Sorry," is the first thing he sniffles after clearing his nose, "I shouldn't- this isn't about me."
Grace's disregard for his well-being is a thorn digging into her skin, a wrinkle to smooth out, a problem to fix. Reflexively, she opens her mouth to say what she always says when he shows any concern for her and none for himself — he interrupts her before she can as much as try to get out a single sound.
There's no anger in his voice, only a hint of humour that surprises them both, and she counts that as a win.
"Don't you dare say you're 'fine', Eva, for fuck's sake you got shot."
Doubtful she could actually speak let alone argue with him, she simply hums; the mere task of thinking words requires enough energy already. Whatever pain medication they have hooked her up with is keeping her in a semi-comfortable numb state physically, while simultaneously wrapping her brain in cotton.
The all-encompassing burn she gets flashes of has been turned into a kind of fizzling static, which is radiating from… some part of her upper body. All of her aches. Not painful just quite but clearly indicating that it will be, eventually.
She's been awake for what seems like a short blip in time, and yet she can feel the exhaustion pulling her back in again. There's a fragile warmth in Grace's glassy eyes now, relief tinged with fear, and so, so much concern she's hesitant to allow herself to give into the urge to sleep. Not that it's a really her choice to make, her eyes are already beginning to slip shut no matter how hard she fights it, and the crease between his brows deepens.
Worry or panic — probably both. Scared she won't wake up again, scared of the pain she might be in, scared of letting go. With the last of her energy, she flips her hand palm up and wiggles her fingers a little. After a second of hesitation, he covers it with his, carefully squeezing, and his face softens again.
"Tired," she tries to explain, emphasized by a sudden yawn. It's almost completely inaudible, and he guesses the word more by the shape of her lips than the actual sound.
"Yeah, yeah, of course," he says quietly, his eyes never leaving her face, and his fingertips absently wander up to her wrist once more, pressing down on her pulse. Steady, strong, alive.
"Do you want me to leave?"
With the room blurring and her mind rapidly fogging up, she almost misses his question.
The thought of doing so seems to pain him, his grasp on her momentarily tightens, but she knows he would without complaint if she asked him to.
A profoundly stupid question, really.
Having him by her side is as natural as breathing, he's been following her around for over two years now, and the thought of waking up to an empty space where he should be pains her, too. They slipped into this odd companionship without noticing, without trying, and the ease of it terrifies her sometimes.
Grace's thumb is rubbing light circles across the back of her hand, and it occurs to her that they never actually shook hands when they met.
It's something she has done countless times over the course of her career, never liking the experience of a stranger touching her, but she understands the social importance of it. Getting people to do what she needs them to do is often easier when she treats them with a calculated degree of respect and, depending on the size of their ego, a smidge of deference.
Then she suddenly had all the power one could possibly imagine, and her requests for cooperation became orders. Play by her rules or not at all, and it relieved her of the pressure to shake hands, to make small talk, to give people access to her time. A feeling of satisfaction whenever she ignored stretched out arms and watched it dawn on them that they will have to sit, listen, and do as she says anyway.
So, no, they never shook hands, but she found herself touching him constantly without thinking. Leading him through a busy hallway with a hand on his back, pulling him back to his seat and only letting go once he did. Eva Stratt does not enjoy physical touch as a rule, and yet he skipped past her walls and neon warning signs with a smile and she let him.
She doesn't want him to leave, she wants him to stay, and those two are, to her, fundamentally different; she wonders if he knows how big of an exception he is. Maybe she doesn't even know herself.
When she shakes her head, the tension marking his body leaves as quickly as it had appeared, and this time the smile carefully tugging on his lips sticks. The sight is oddly comforting, familiar, and the world is exactly as it should be.
It feels right, better, fixed, if only for a while.
"I'll be here when you wake up then."
Grace's voice washes over her and she stops resisting the exhaustion. Everything fades again, first the noise, then his face, and the last thing she registers is the warm weight of his hand in hers.