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The late-morning sun shines through the tall window of their apartment, and Eurydice squints against its light. She nestles her head deeper into her pillow, twitching when an arm tightens across her waist.
Orpheus laughs, that bell-chime joy that’s filled her heart for as far back as she cares to remember. She feels his breath ghost over her cheek. “It’s time to get up, my love.”
Eurydice rolls into his touch, slinging a leg over his hip, effectively trapping him beneath her. “Five more minutes.”
“It’s nearly noon.”
“Ten minutes.”
His voice is laced with amusement. “You’re going in the wrong direction.”
“You need to be more imaginative then.” Eurydice's words are muffled by her pillow as she squeezes her eyes shut, though she can feel the fog of sleep retreating with every second that passes.
Orpheus’s fingers brush against her back, years of calluses grounding her to the present moment. When they were young, those calluses were new, fragile, untested. “If you get up in fifteen, we can make it to Maria’s for lunch.”
Eurydice smiles against her will, shifting impossibly closer to Orpheus. “I love you.”
He presses a kiss to the top of her head, his reciprocation obvious in the tenderness he holds her with. “You shouldn’t.”
“Too bad,” Eurydice murmurs, tightening her grip on him with the surety of someone who has done the same action thousands upon thousands of times. “You’re stuck with me.”
When they finally rise from their bed, the sanctity of their shelter broken, Orpheus is never more than an arm’s length from her, never turning his back to her. He likes to pretend that these days aren’t hard for him, but they’ve been with each other too long for Eurydice to know anything but the truth.
The keys jangle in his pocket as he holds out her coat for her. She slips into it like a lady of old might, delicate, relishing the layer of warmth that blankets her. They know better than most the power of tradition, of practiced ritual repeated over centuries. Words are slow to come on days like today, heavy with a past neither are in a hurry to remember but equally unable to forget. Still: “Thank you.”
The smile on Orpheus’s face is a barely-there quirk at the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t answer in words, instead brushing her shoulder with his hand, her cheek with his lips. It’s a funny thing, this day: turning the poet into a silent observer, the survivalist into nothing more than an unsteady girl.
Even with the reliable arrival and departure of their Lady, the onset of winter can be sudden and fierce, matched only by the capricious appearance of summer. It’s not yet cold, though Eurydice shivers as soon as they step outside. Orpheus’s hand is in hers before her body has stilled. He tugs her close to him, sharing his heat, and Eurydice tries to relax into his touch. Her torso stays clenched even so, her free hand balled into a fist, her lungs tight with the burn of non-existent frost.
Orpheus turns the heater on when they get into the car, even though he starts sweating the moment he hits the switch.
“You don’t have to—”
He shakes his head, cutting her off with a squeeze of his hand on her knee.
Her foot bounces, half for warmth and half from nerves. “Are you okay?”
She knows the answer, of course she does; she can see the line of tension in his neck, the set of his shoulders. His eyes, normally soft with wonder, are as hard as flint, and his hands, always flowing and moving, now wrap white-knuckled around the steering wheel. Even so: “Fine.”
Eurydice doesn’t believe him, but she’s not meant to. These are the checkpoints they have between each other, established over more than one lifetime. They’re doing well so far, all things considered. Usually, at this point, there would’ve been at least one breakdown. Today, there haven’t even been any tears yet.
Eurydice very much hopes that she’s not jinxing it.
Maria’s Diner is packed full when they come in, bustling with the crowd of half-starved artists that descend upon it at every mealtime, but Maria nevertheless beams when she sees them come through the doors.
“Fischer! Daisy! It’s good to see you!” Her voice easily carries over the buzz of the patrons. “It’s been too long! Your usual table?”
Eurydice smiles, and it’s only slightly forced. It really is good to be back. They have to be careful of staying in any one place for too long, but it’s only been a couple of years. They should be safe for a while yet, and in the meantime…well, Maria and her restaurant deserve their acclaim. “If it’s not taken, please.”
“Anything for my favorite twosome. Go ahead, go ahead, get seated! The usual?”
“That would be great, Maria,” Eurydice answers, reluctantly releasing Orpheus’s hand in order to sit across from him at the table.
Orpheus doesn’t react much more beyond a tightening of his mouth, though this loosens as Eurydice presses her ankle against his under the table. “This was a good idea, Phee. Thank you.”
He shrugs, but the blush across his cheeks betrays his sheepishness.
Eurydice smiles with fondness at the sight of it. “I’m going to steal your fries, by the way.”
Orpheus taps his fingers against the top of the table. His throat works for a moment to find the words, and though they sound bitten and monotone, she appreciates the effort. “Get your own.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Eurydice teases, reaching back across the table to twine their fingers together. A significant amount of Orpheus’s tension leaves his body from that one action alone. “Besides, the first meal of the day should always be breakfast, no matter when it’s occurring.”
Orpheus rolls his eyes, but the smile on his face is almost fond as he shakes his head.
That they can afford this luxury now, that they can discuss what breakfast means and not if they can afford it, is a miracle that still astounds her. And when Maria sets their plates in front of them, Eurydice is comforted even more by the sight of real, tangible food in front of her. On days like today, she’s half-convinced it’ll vanish before her eyes.
“Here you go! Waffles for you, Miss Daisy, and a burger with fries for young Fischer here.”
Eurydice smiles. Calling either of them young, at this point, is almost laughable. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome. Say, Fischer, you’re awful quiet today. You alright?”
On most of their visits here, Orpheus brushes shoulders with the students. They’re all students to him now, so many years thrown into poetry and music and, for a little while, painting that he is considered by the local artists to be something of a master.
Orpheus shrugs and smiles and tightens his grip on Eurydice’s hand, two quick squeezes. She’ll have to speak for him then.
“He’s feeling a little under the weather today. Right, baby?”
Orpheus nods, and Maria’s face folds in sympathy. “Oh you dear! Let me get you some tea. On the house.”
He shakes his head, brow so deeply furrowed that Eurydice thinks he might actually try to speak up, but this time it’s Eurydice that squeezes his hand, effectively preventing his protest.
“You’re too kind. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing, dear. Nothing at all,” Maria says, stepping away with a wink and a not-so-subtle glance of concern towards Orpheus.
“What would she say,” Eurydice murmurs, quiet enough for only the two of them, “if she knew we were old enough to be her grandparents?”
“Older,” Orpheus replies flatly, eyes sparkling with a humor that doesn’t have the momentum to reach the rest of his face.
Eurydice taps her finger chidingly against his wrist. “Well of course we are. But you know what I mean. She’s quite fond of you.”
There’s something in her words, a wistfulness, that Eurydice doesn’t want to broach even in her own mind. She picks up her fork and begins digging into her waffles with a gusto she wishes she could temper. Not today though.
Maria returns with Orpheus’s tea. “Feel better, sweetheart.”
He smiles back, weak at the edges though only Eurydice would be able to tell. He takes the tea with thankful eyes.
Maria seems to get what he’s saying. “You drink up now. Let me know if you need anything.”
“We will. Thank you,” Eurydice says, only dropping her smile when Maria turns her back.
She sighs, and then frowns at Orpheus’s still-untouched plate. “You should eat.”
Orpheus raises his eyebrows, makes a big show of drinking his tea, then turns his plate so that his fries are nearer to her.
“Well, I won’t say no to those,” Eurydice concedes, snatching a few fries from his plate and placing them on her own. “But that doesn’t get you out of eating!”
Orpheus smiles, wan but present. She counts that as a success.
Eurydice settles her head into the curve of Orpheus’s shoulder as they walk outside, his arm around her waist, a physical barrier against the wind. “I don’t want to go home yet,” she says, soft into the space between them.
He barely turns his head, but she can feel the question in the movement even so.
“I don’t know. Somewhere…open. Alive. Before winter really sets in.” The chills that run through her now, mostly echoes from a distant past, will only worsen as the cold weather tightens its grip.
Orpheus squeezes her waist in acknowledgement and steers them to the car and then out of the city and into the forests. The maple and birch are far from the fir and pine of their youth, but their leaves are still a healthy green. The air isn’t yet crisp, still sweet with late-summer flowers, and Eurydice can’t stop the smile from crossing her face as grass brushes her ankles.
Their fingers tangle back together once Orpheus reunites with her on the other side of the car, and Eurydice sways in the still-warm afternoon air. The cold seems further away now than it has all day.
Orpheus is looking out at the clearing they’ve found, a little ways off the road, his profile outlined by the sun. She glances at him; he looks most like his father in these moments, painted almost golden, otherworldly and closer to divinity than Eurydice could ever hope to be.
She swallows. “Do you ever think about going back?”
He turns slowly to her, head blotting out the sun so he appears crowned in its rays. His face is in shadow, but she knows the question in his eyes without him having to voice it.
“To Greece,” she clarifies. They’ve been back twice since they left, brief trips that could barely be called visits. She doesn’t miss it, really, except that sometimes she does. Sometimes she grows tired of being older than almost every man-made structure on this continent.
He draws in a breath that she can hear rustle in his lungs. It takes him a long moment to pry his jaw apart to speak. “I could go back to Pieria. Back home.”
“Not to Lesbos? I hear they have a shrine to you there,” Eurydice teases, swinging their hands between them.
Orpheus snorts, shaking his head with a smile. “Foolish. They picked the wrong one of us.”
Eurydice flushes as she looks away, but Orpheus tugs her hand to get her attention. She looks back up as he begins to hum something, low enough that she can’t make out the details of his melody. Then a flower blooms in front of them, vibrant color against the monochrome of the grass. It’s a red hyacinth, out of season and on the wrong continent, and a moment later, more follow it. Soon, the whole clearing is filled with them.
“You’re just showing off now,” Eurydice says, not without fondness, bending to run her fingers along the petals. Her hands are gentle, feeling every groove of the flower with no small amount of awe. He sings for her all the time, she could pick his voice out of a crowd of thousands, but when he does this …it’s almost like they’re meeting for the first time, like all of the loss they’ve shared is yet to happen.
He doesn’t try to deny it, grinning widely and squeezing her hand. When she straightens up, he lifts their hands above her head and she obliges, giggling like a child as he spins her, heels turning over the flowers underfoot. They slow to a stop eventually, Eurydice falling forward into his arms, dizzy.
“Easy,” he murmurs, steadying her.
“You started it,” she shoots back, leaning closer until her head is on his chest.
They stay in the clearing until the sky starts to dim and Eurydice can no longer suppress the shivers running beneath her skin. As they move back towards the car, she casts a look toward the flowers, still blooming scarlet.
“You’re just going to leave them there?”
Orpheus looks back with her. The flowers glow faintly in the near-dusk, not entirely natural. “They won’t spread beyond this grove. They’re woven too tightly to each other. And someone else may need them.” He pauses. “Do you know the healing properties of hyacinths?”
Eurydice shakes her head. She’s always been more than happy to leave that area to Orpheus.
He swallows, staring off into the mid-distance as if he is looking at something very far away. “Snake bites. They treat snake bites.”
Oh.
The phantom press of two coins into her palm, as cold as the dead; a taunting rattle of coins merging with the teasing rattle of a viper. A sting at her ankle, poison in her veins, and then a long period of nothing but the rattling of a train car deep, deep into a tunnel.
“Orpheus…” she murmurs, taking half a step towards him, hand outstretched. Eurydice wonders, for number immeasurable, what exactly she’s done to deserve him.
He meets her eyes, and she sees there’s moisture gathering at the edges of them. He takes her hand and raises it to his lips, pressing a kiss on the edge of her palm.
He releases her hand, but she doesn’t lower it, wiping the tears away from beneath his eyes before they can fall. Orpheus holds himself still for a long moment before he seems to cave in towards her, head heavy against her palm.
“Let’s go home,” he says, barely loud enough for her to pick up.
She smiles, stroking her thumb lightly over his cheek. “Lead the way.”
When the door of their apartment closes, Eurydice feels truly warm for the first time all day, rolling her shoulders and neck as her muscles relent to the heat. Orpheus rests his back against the wall, clearly tired from the way his head tilts back but refusing to close his eyes as he watches her move further from the door.
Eurydice tugs her coat off and lays it across a chair. “I’m not going anywhere,” she murmurs.
“You don’t know,” he responds, voice fraying at the edges. “You can’t—what if…”
“Hey,” she says, probably too sharp but only because she fears him slipping into a place she can’t pull him back from. “Phee, I’m not leaving.” Eurydice steps closer to him, feet silent across the floor as tries to make up for the brief harshness. “I chose you. I choose you, every day. You can’t get rid of me that easily.” She cups his cheek with her hand, moves a strand of his hair away from his face so he can’t hide. “Haven’t I proven that to you yet?”
Orpheus sighs and tilts his head forward to rest against hers. “That’s not what I’m afraid of,” he admits, more air than sound. “It’s…”
He shakes his head. “I can’t protect you from everything.”
Eurydice’s first instinct, before they married, would have been to shy away from that statement, to burn with indignation at the implication she can’t protect herself. After all, when they first met, she was more worldly than him, had dealt with struggles his apprenticeship to Hermes had sheltered him from. But she’s been through millennia of these moments with Orpheus, and she knows how to manage them.
At first, they didn’t talk about it. The anniversary of her first and only death would pass without remark, indicated only by the sleeplessness in Orpheus’s eyes as he stayed up all night, watching. Later, he told her this was because he was afraid she would vanish sometime in the night when he couldn’t see her. It took them decades, years longer than was probably healthy, to be able to talk about it without shutting the other out. They each dragged their feet at different points, making one compromise or another harder on the both of them, but eventually they settled on something they could both agree to. It’s been more than a thousand years since then, and even though there’s always a fear that Orpheus will pull back into some place she can’t follow, experience has told her that’s not the case.
“Do you think I should protect you from everything?” she asks.
Orpheus wrinkles his nose, knowing what she’s getting at and not wanting to admit it just yet. “No, of course not! But—”
“I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere. And if they try to take me from you, I’ll climb up from the Underworld before you even have time to notice I’m gone.” She pulls him away from the wall and into her arms. “Okay?”
“I wouldn’t not notice if you…” Orpheus protests, aiming for joking but landing firmly on guilt.
Eurydice closes her eyes against that memory of seeing him in that dark hell and asking if he heard her call out for him and hearing him say no.
But he came anyway. He found her, and he’ll always find her, and that’s what matters.
“I trust you,” she murmurs, holding tight to his waist and back until he relaxes against her. “More than anyone, I trust you.”
Orpheus’s breath tickles her cheek as he exhales. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She feels his smile more than sees it. “Thank you, my love. Have I ever told you you’re the smartest of us?”
Eurydice grins back, pleased to hear the distress in his voice recede. “A few thousand times.”
“Only a few? Are you sure?” he asks, eyes wide as if this is his greatest failure.
She nods, content to play along.
“I’ve got some catching up to do, then,” he says, and she laughs.
“We’ve got all the time in the world, my love. All the time in the world.”
The temperature outside continues to spiral downwards, but Eurydice pays no mind to it. Spring will come again.