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It’s been so long since anyone’s touched you. At home, with six siblings and Emma Carstairs and any number of other kids in and out of the Institute, everyone was underfoot. You couldn’t go a meal without someone’s elbow in your face or shoulder pressed against yours. Sometimes you’d wished for peace and quiet. All the noise and closeness of your family was too much, and you’d steal away to your room for an hour, seeking solitude.
Solitude was the only option now.
You miss the weight of a younger sibling in your lap as you watched mundane films. The ease of brushing against someone in the kitchen or knocking heads in the training room is gone from here, and only the ghost of the raucous laughter that had spilled down the hallways of the Institute can follow you here.
It’s so lonely.
It isn’t fair to Aline, how withdrawn you’ve become. She’d looked bigotry in the face and told the Inquisitor to shove it. She’d followed you to the literal ends of the earth, when you told her not to, when you told her it wasn’t worth it- that you weren’t worth it.
“Helen. Don’t be stupid. I love you. You’re my wife! I will always go with you, whether it’s into exile or Faerie or the freaking grocery store, okay? Of course you’re worth it.”
You can’t believe how much you love her. She did this for you, a half-fey Shadowhunter, neither one nor the other, unable to fit in anywhere.
The one place you’d always fit in had been the Institute. Andrew Blackthorn had his faults as a parent, but he’d never made you or Mark feel like outsiders. Your siblings loved you. You’d thought your family was unbreakable, and when you stood with them, you were too. But exile had taken you away from them, and you were stranded, lost and afraid and alone.
“Honey?”
Not completely alone.
“Helen, baby, what are you doing? It’s late. Come to bed.”
“I was just- thinking.”
Aline comes closer, concern etched across her face. “You miss them.” It isn’t a question.
“They are half of my heart. Being away, it’s- almost unbearable.”
“I know.” Aline doesn’t have siblings, but she’s always been a little in awe of the Blackthorn family. She understands the days when you’re like this, unfathomably miserable, missing them. She wraps her arms around you, holding you close. “Come to bed.”
She stays pressed to your body, stroking your hair and rubbing your back. You melt under the touch, feeling something release in your chest, a knot unwinding. “You are the other half of my heart,” you say. You need Aline to know how much she means to you. “I couldn’t bear this without you.”
“Oh, baby.” Aline sighs, hands stilling, eyes across from yours full of something familiar, aching.
“I mean it, A. I love you so much.”
“I love you too. I would do it all over again if it meant we could be together.”
You can’t imagine doing this twice. It’s hard enough as it is. But Aline is your level ground, your balance. Aline is half your heart. You will weather this exile together. You could do anything with her by your side. But right now, you just want to sleep. So you do, in your wife’s arms.