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She's like a puzzle, Vanessa thinks to herself, moonlight streaming into the bedroom through half closed curtains; Charity’s a puzzle where the pieces are mismatched and jagged and each time just as she's sure that she's put them all together so they fit, so she can understand her, the picture changes and alters. And so she starts again; the parts of the puzzle move and twist with time but she finds herself loving each alteration, each adjustment in what she thought she knew and each time her heart fills that little bit more with her.
And she knows it's love now, though the word hasn't left her lips. She's used like as a placeholder, far too small for the growing vastness of her feelings, her mind full of what she's too careful to say.
Charity stirs next to her, pulling her closer in her sleep, and Vanessa instantly tightens her arm around her too, reminding herself that Charity’s still here, with her, and that her own misguided sense of justice hadn't ruined something that she was so desperate to keep alive.
"Mmm, what time is it?" Charity mumbles into her shoulder, her breath warming Vanessa’s skin.
"Early, you should go back to sleep,” Vanessa whispers, kissing Charity's forehead, just because she can, because there had been a painful twenty four hours where she thought she would never get the chance to again.
"Not sure I can… you think too loudly," Charity mutters, moving closer, nuzzling her neck and placing her own kiss there; her lips are like fire on her skin and Vanessa sighs in response.
"Sorry, just a bit too awake," She rubs Charity's arm slowly, as if encouraging her back to sleep.
"A lot on your mind?" Charity asks quietly, and it’s hesitant and cautious like she doesn't want to know the answer; she pauses and Vanessa can feel her tense up, muscles tight, “Not regretting it are you? Us getting back together?”
“Of course not,” Vanessa whispers fiercely, slightly pulling back from their embrace. She ducks her head slightly to catch Charity’s eye and she can see the uncertainty there, “Why would I?”
Charity’s face darkens and Vanessa feels a pang of warning in her stomach; she can anticipate what’s coming, “It’s a lot to deal with,” Charity murmurs, “Everything that happened back then,” She pauses, avoiding eye contact, “I’d understand if you didn’t –“
Vanessa leans forward; she kisses her briefly and it feels like home, “Understand this, okay? I want to be with you,” Vanessa gives herself in every word, “That’s it. I just want you, nothing is going to change that,”
I love you , she thinks.
“Even after I was a right cow to you?” Charity swallows deeply, sliding back down to rest her head on Vanessa’s chest, hand resting on her waist, fingers holding onto the old pajama top she had pulled on.
“It was all my fault,” Vanessa’s hand weaves into Charity’s hair, reassuring herself that she’s hasn’t lost her, that everything she’d built with this amazing woman hadn’t collapsed by her own doing, “I should have listened,” Vanessa continues, “And I broke your trust…”
“I know you did it because you care,” Charity interjects quietly, “I know that Ness,”
“I promise I’m going to do everything I can to prove to you that you can trust me again,” At those words, she feels Charity press a kiss softly on her sternum and Vanessa has learnt, in moments like this, in the security of darkness, she can be so gentle and loving, when she doesn’t have to be afraid of vulnerability being used against her like a weapon.
“I do trust you,” Charity says after a moment where Vanessa thinks she might have fallen asleep, “I’m just not used to this, to someone caring about what happened to me,” Charity sighs and her breath tickles Vanessa’s skin, “There’s never been anger for me, only at me like it was actually all my fault, like I deserved it somehow,” Charity pauses to look up and Vanessa’s heart feels like it could explode with love for her. But there’s pain for her too, sadness at how no-one has ever truly cared about Charity or cared for her. She regrets her naïve anger even more now; she should have focused on supporting Charity rather than being full of hatred for him and she feels ashamed of herself, “You’re the first person who’s been angry for me, like I wasn’t the one in the wrong,”
“You weren’t,” Vanessa tells her and she’s rewarded with a flicker of a smile, “And whatever you want to do, I’m here,”
“I know you are,” Charity gently kisses her and every muscle in her body relaxes as Charity moves to rest on the pillow, cuddling into her side again.
She’s almost drifting off to sleep when she hears Charity’s voice in the dark, small and uncertain, “You’re different aren’t you Ness,” She’s gravelly and quiet and Vanessa wonders if Charity think she’s asleep, “You’re different from every single one of ‘em, aren’t you?” But Charity strokes her waist, fingers dipping below the cotton of Vanessa’s baggy t-shirt, drawing a pattern that Vanessa can’t decipher and Vanessa knows now that Charity wants her to hear this, “I don’t think anyone has cared about me quite the way you do…” Her voice drifts off and Vanessa contemplates what to say, whether she should say anything at all.
I don’t think anyone has loved you quite the way I do , she thinks and she has to hold her breath to stop the words leaping out, to stop the truth of it scaring away a woman who has only ever learnt that declarations of love are to bargain or to manipulate or to gain something Charity never wanted to give in the first place.
“It’s not hard,” Vanessa responds quietly, her heart beating so fast and hard that she’s sure Charity can feel it pulsing through her chest.
“Isn’t it?” Vanessa can imagine her expression, eyebrow quirked and face full of uncertainty and self-doubt.
Vanessa pauses, “You’re different to everyone else too,” She thinks for a moment that Charity will respond with a sarcastic comment about her sexuality but there’s nothing, “Better than anyone else I’ve known,”
“Hardly think that’s true,” Charity scoffs lightly, her fingers still stroking Vanessa’s ribs and it’s so soothing that she’s sure she’s going to fall asleep.
Vanessa ducks her head to kiss Charity’s hair and the smell of her shampoo relaxes her, “Well, you are to me,”
“Don’t get out much then do you?”
“Oi!” Vanessa pinches her side playfully and Charity laughs quietly to herself.
Then there’s silence and stillness; it’s comfortable in the way it always has been, even at the start when there was hesitation and unfamiliarity where there now is affection and feelings and maybe, Vanessa hopes, love; everything has always been different between them, always.
“It’s helped, y’know…” Charity starts again, “Being with you helps…with what happened,” Vanessa swallows deeply, feeling that is a momentous admission for Charity, letting down her guard for her in a way that Vanessa isn’t sure she deserves, “That someone as good as you wants someone like me,”
“I’m not good, not after what I did,” Vanessa can’t help herself; she knows what she did was inexcusable and it weighs down on her, suffocating and stifling, “I let you down and I can’t forgive myself for that,”
Charity stirs, leaning up momentarily to kiss her chastely, “Well I do, so that’s the end of it,” Her tone is defiant and strong; the Charity that Vanessa knows and loves in a way that she hadn’t ever imagined she could. There’s a little smile on Charity’s face too, illuminated by the rays of moonlight and she looks so beautiful that it warms every part of her.
“Come on you,” Charity reprimands her jokingly, “We’ve got to get to sleep, you wore me out earlier and I’ve got to be up soon,” Vanessa blushes in the dark at her need for Charity after their reconciliation; she couldn’t get close enough and she had felt compelled to touch every part of her, everywhere and in every way. Vanessa had wanted to show herself, prove her worth so that Charity would stay and see that she could give her what she needed and not remove everything that Vanessa had missed so much over those painful twenty four hours.
Readying themselves for a few hours of rest, they shuffle around under the duvet until they’re in a comfortable position; she’s pressed against Charity’s back, her arms wrapped round her waist and she feels Charity sigh under her touch.
“Night babe,” Charity mumbles and Vanessa already knows she’s close to sleep.
“Night,” Vanessa kisses Charity’s bare shoulder and she knows it should scare her, the depth of what she feels, how she’s already certain that she would do anything to protect Charity and that she’s vowing to herself, to Charity, that no-one will ever hurt her again.
It should concern her; the ease at which the promise comes to her and the unquestionable feeling, of knowing, that she will do anything and everything in her power to keep Charity safe.
Yet it doesn’t worry her at all; it feels like the most natural thing in the world.