Work Text:
“He saved me,” you mutter in a haste, pushing your way past the flood of reporters. The struggle to walk away mirrors an age-old feeling – the weight on your chest, the slow paralysis, now creeping up your veins as if you were poisoned.
You do not know what you mean, or if you mean it. Logically speaking, fragments of reason tell you it is true; you were grabbed, with or without your conscience, and pulled off the train tracks leading to your murder. But the path you tread, lone and silent, is unlike anyone else’s, and the asphalt cracks before your misty eyes like a chasm.
There is no telling, not now. So you tread on, your rib cage crushed by terror.
In the staged security you have practiced for a lifetime, the rhythm of your steps drowns your heartbeat. Underneath it all, however, the embryo of a thought lingers.
Whatever comes next, your life is split in two – all that was before him, and all that will be after.
“He saved you,” an accusing voice thunders from within. You found out early into your exile; the nightmares never stop, they merely change. There is nothing else you can call this suspension, nor the pain of your healing – the way some images, vivid like truth, run you through with the force of blades. Ungrateful, your sleep growls in your ear. Traitor. Coward.
This is not what it feels like, something inside you screams back, tearing you asunder on the creases of your bed sheets. It was no blessing, no miracle. It left you alive to look at yourself, to see the stains, the cuts, the blood. Your plan to wipe them off the world had no backup; dead people cannot fail. Or so you thought.
But if you turn to look, in wake or dream, at the face of your past self, you cannot ignore that it isn't the face you remember. The rough angles of your skin get smoother with every breath. And amidst the noise – the shot, the scream, the crying – his soothing voice echoes like a song, in perpetual motion, refusing to leave you behind.
It wasn't a blessing, the dawn says to your eyelids. It didn't have to be. It was an act of love.
“You saved me,” you whisper on his lips, caught in the middle of where your lives are going. It comes sudden, delicate like petals, and almost gets lost in the rustle of fabric where he leans against your jacket.
The answer you are used to seeing – the smile that can shatter and rebuild worlds – you feel this time, and it stops your breath. He gifts you all the words stuck on his tongue that he doesn't care to speak, like it does not matter now. You agree. You couldn't care less either; you care for his arms and his hands, for his eyes that illuminate the evening. You feel him trace warm lines along your shoulder blades, where your blood always used to turn to ice.
Whatever fear still lies there, frozen into place, he melts in a cascade. You drink him in, speechless, with all the gratitude you mustered over years spent in a desert.
There is no space in you to linger on regret, or calculate in thoughts what was and wasn't worth it. All you perceive of yourself is filled with him. As long as you remain, willing or not – he is never, ever, ever going to leave.
To be honest with yourself, neither can you.
“It's not an easy choice,” he says gravely, holding your hands with a softness that denies his statement. It may not be, for anybody else; for him, it is like breathing. You know him well enough to see where his heart is set.
It doesn't matter to you either. You reassure him with all you have – with everything he taught you, as close as you can get to the wonder residing in him. You will help, whether it is easy or not. You share his choices. For better or worse, you are together.
He clutches your fingers with warmth, showing his first true smile since the evening party. He knows.
You walk him to the doorstep of his bedroom. The little girl tosses and turns, caught in a sleep just heavy enough to trap her in her nightmares. Your heart sinks so low, touched in passing by memories now far, that you must wrap your arm around his waist.
The gaze he rests on her, you have seen many times. Teary-eyed with relief, with Maya in his arms; moving quietly over crowded tables, touching all he looked at like a caress. But the memory of it behind thick glass, full of hope and belief you had not even imagined could exist, never ceases to embrace your heart. Let me defend you.
His badge is just where you saw it years ago, glinting in the quiet light of the apartment.
He laughs softly, close to your ear, not to disturb her. As used as he is to not getting paid, this is different, and his tone turns to wistful and concerned. A daughter is not what he expected to get out of his latest case.
But the ease you move in, as you turn around to kiss him, is enough to be sure you will be fine.
“It's what you always did,” you tell him, holding him close. “You saved us all”.