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The morning comes with two raps at the door, and Nathalie opens her eyes.
“Mm? Come in.”
In the time it takes for the man on the other side to turn the knob and enter, she looks over the state of the room. It’s early. It’s always early. The season has advanced and now the light presses into the windows by the time he comes around, breaking between the narrow gaps in the curtains, reposed across the floor in narrow bars of gold. Her things are not as she’d seen them last; there is no number of books fanned across the other side of the bed, no discarded sheets of paper in wrinkled balls on the rug. Her robe, which she remembers leaving tossed over a chair nearby, hangs on a hook by the bathroom door. And he was here, amidst her mess. Several hours ago. Now, he’s coming back.
Nathalie pulls a blanket around her shoulders as she hears the hinges give their quiet whine. She sniffs. She takes a slow breath. Her chest is always tight when she wakes up, and when she coughs, a dormant headache emerges, pounding with the gravelly bark of her lungs.
“Good morning,” she hears him say. A tray lands on the bedside table, its contents softly rattling. Nathalie reaches for her glasses. Then, the sleep in her eyes is the only thing keeping him out of focus as he sits down before her, but she can see the smile in his eyes.
“Good morning,” Nathalie replies, smiling back.
She blinks her vision clear and watches the steam rising from the tall white mug in his hands. He takes a sip and looks at the light on the floor. In the mornings, he doesn’t seem real. Her head feels like the steam, trailing aimlessly through the air.
“How did you sleep?” she asks, as she gathers her hair in her hands and twists it into a bun at the nape of her neck.
“Alright." Gabriel's hair is damp from a shower. Silvery-blond strands have been combed back over the top of his head, but a few of the shorter ones fall loose over his brows. He’s half-dressed. A white shirt is tucked into his trousers with the buttons on the sleeves undone. Elsewhere are his waistcoat and jacket, and neither are his brooches to be seen.
Nathalie takes her own mug off the tray and breathes in the dark, bitter aroma. “What is 'alright'?”
“A few hours. Maybe four or five.”
One long sip, and the morning starts to feel a little more material. The heat in her throat is good. She can feel it running down to her belly. “That is alright for you.”
“I didn’t make it to bed until one.”
“What were you doing?”
“I was here,” he says, like he knows she knows that.
Gabriel has always been more of a night owl than she is, but since becoming ill, she’s found herself nodding off as early as 8 PM some nights. She remembers sitting up in bed with a book, Gabriel in a chair across the room responding to emails on his tablet, when the world started fading away. She doesn’t know what time it was exactly, but she was sure she had been curled up on her pillow for hours before Gabriel took his leave, then picking up the books, then turning off the light, then telling her good night as he shut the door.
She is pretty sure she remembers that now. All his shuffling about had roused her, briefly, long enough to notice the light go out, to hear his voice by her ear as he stood there at the bedside table and whispered as she turned, “Sleep well.”
“Thank you for cleaning,” she tells him.
“The books were taking up two-thirds of the bed. Soon, they would have evicted you.” He glances back with a faint shimmer of humor in his eyes as he raises the rim of his mug to his lips. “I shelved them all, still with their bookmarks.”
“I don’t even recall what most of them were.”
“If they were important, you will.”
“It might sound absurd, but I think I have exhausted my material.” She gestures around the room, at the rows of texts lining the walls. “The material that is relevant to our current interests anyway.”
“The work you’ve done has been outstanding,” he says.
She likes his voice in the morning. She likes the way sleep distorts sound, forcing people to lower their voices in the first waking hour of the day, holding their words at the top of their throats until the veil of early sun breaks from haze to shine. Gabriel speaks softly to her. The commanding clarity of his tone trembles withheld by a low, cautious rasp.
After a pause, he moves closer, just by an inch, and crosses an ankle over his knee. He hasn’t put on his shoes yet either. “How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Right now?”
Gabriel nods.
“I’m okay. Same as ever, really.” She takes a sip and then sets her mug aside. “I think things have evened out.”
A silver eyebrow arches. “Evened out?”
“My condition. Nothing has changed in the last couple weeks.”
“Is that good?”
“It is…” She blows out a long breath, “what it is. Gabriel?”
“Yes?”
The thought she plans to voice dangles off her tongue and then slides back into composed silence. She reaches out a hand. “Can I try your coffee?”
Wordlessly, he hands it to her, and she tastes it.
“Let’s switch.” She takes her own mug on the tray and gives it to him. “You added too much sugar to mine.”
He chuckles. “Pardon me.”
“You don’t mind, right?”
“Not at all.”
For a few minutes, they sip from the mugs without saying anything. Eventually, Gabriel stands up and goes to pull apart the curtains, drenching the room in sun. Nathalie leans forward and catches a glimpse of the clear sky, but her eyes linger on Gabriel. He stands tall with one hand in his pocket, with the other arm bent at an angle that just makes his bicep flex against the crisp white fabric of his shirt sleeve. The light catches in white gold on the still-drying locks of his hair and sets his jaw in sharp shadow. He hasn’t shaved yet. She’s only noticed now.
His coffee isn’t as sweet. It’s perfect. Nathalie’s mind is clear. She cradles the mug in her hands and feels the warmth course up her bare arms. She was hot last night, slightly feverish, and slept in a camisole. Woke with a bit of a chill. She pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
“I have to meet with Madame Tsurugi this afternoon,” he says, still gazing out of the window.
“Right, to arrange having Adrien in her commercial?”
“It should go smoothly. We’ve been discussing it for a while already.” He looks at her. Nathalie pays close attention to the way the shadows shift across his face. His eyes seem to glow at her. “She asked about you recently.”
Nathalie blinks in surprise. “Me?”
“She asked if you were well.”
“What did you tell her?”
“What everybody knows. You’re on sick leave but are managing. She wanted me to tell you that she hopes she will see you again soon.”
There’s very little emotion in her voice when she says, “That’s kind of her.”
"Yes."
Staring down into the black surface of her coffee, Nathalie scrutinizes herself. Her head sears with pain when she moves too quickly. There’s pressure idling between her lungs. Her body aches. She’s managing. That’s all she can do. “Gabriel?”
“Yes, Nathalie?”
She should tell him. It’s not like it would come as a shock. “Come here,” she hears herself say instead, “Let me button your sleeves.”
Gabriel tilts his head at her, swallows another mouthful of coffee and then returns to the bed to set his mug on the tray where she has already placed her own. He holds out his forearm, and Nathalie tries to ignore the upward tug at the corner of his mouth. His gaze presses right into her face. She can feel it across every inch of her. Like sunlight.
“I can take care of my own sleeves, Nathalie,” he murmurs, as she pinches the first button between her fingers.
In a quiet, flinty voice, she asks, “Then why are you letting me?”
“Because I can tell you’re stalling.”
Nathalie doesn’t let his words throw her off. Without hesitation, she moves on. Gabriel switches wrists but to her dismay, she watches her fingers quiver so badly that she can’t get a grip on the next button.
A weak breath wisps from between her lips.
“Nathalie?” His teasing tone is gone, ironed into plain concern.
His morning voice is now clear as day. It startles her.
Hands hovering around his skin, Nathalie doesn’t know if she can force the trembling to stop or if she should withdraw and change the subject as quickly as possible.
She can’t decide before he clasps her hands, before the warmth of his touch sinks deeper than a hot coffee mug ever could, before she feels herself shrink and fall closer to him.
“Nathalie,” he says again, mouth a mere inch from her forehead.
“I love spending my mornings with you,” she tells him. With her eyes shut, she tries to memorize the gentle ripple of his thumb over her knuckles, a feeling she hopes to carry into her sleep the way she’s carried his voice and his eyes and his arms, those few times he’s carried her, let her lean into his strength. “You make me feel okay.”
Nathalie glances up. He’s close, and she can smell the coffee on his breath.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to get better,” she confesses.
The creases of worry in his forehead etch deeper.
“I think this is it.”
“Nathalie,” says Gabriel urgently, squeezing her hands, “You don’t know that.”
“I’m pretty sure. I’m sorry.” She doesn’t know why she’s apologizing.
It’s the look on his face. Her heart twists as his eyes go dark, and she drops her gaze again.
“But don’t stop,” she whispers.
“Don’t stop what?”
“Making me feel okay.”
The air in the room is still and light. Gabriel’s breathing is all she can hear, and her own. After a moment, she pulls her hands out of his grip and sits back against the pillows.
“You’ve made me feel okay too,” he tells her.
He reaches for the coffee and hands her her mug, the one with less sugar.
“Like...just like a person.”
He sips and swallows hard, then lets out a sigh.
“Like I’m making it through. Day by day.”
“You are,” she murmurs.
A fond smile ghosts across his lips. He holds his mug out between them.
Whispers, “So are you.”
Nathalie clinks it.
They drink.
It feels like enough for now.