Chapter Text
He awoke to her sitting at the edge of the bed, her back to him and her face towards the window. She had a teacup in hand—her right hand, of course—and the blanket she had draped about her sagged beneath her bare shoulders. Even in the dim light of early dawn, Thancred could make out the jagged scar curving over the left one; much, much better than it had looked nearly a moon ago, but still a tender, painful pink against her pale skin.
After a quiet grunt to tell her he was awake, he commented with a frown, “You’ve been up and about, I see.”
Mauve cast him a cursory glance. “Down the hall and back,” she confirmed wryly. “I can handle that much.”
“That and more, I’m sure.” Sitting up, he set his chin on her good shoulder. “Ill-advised nevertheless.”
She snorted softly. “The more I heal, the more you fret over me.”
“The more you heal, the closer you come to running off and doing something reckless again. Aye, I worry.”
A pause, and then she leaned her head against his. “I’m not planning on anything immediately reckless,” she promised him, but he didn’t reply. Whether or not she planned it didn’t matter. When the next threat loomed, she would fly to the frontlines like always, be it tomorrow or a year from now, regardless of what her injuries had to say about it.
After a moment, Thancred’s response was to slip an arm around her middle in a close but careful hold, still conscious of her recently repaired ribs, and press his mouth against her shoulder with a quiet exhale. He watched as she set her cup in her lap, freeing her hand to reach up and run her fingers through his hair. Her left hand remained motionless at her side.
“I’m here now,” she murmured. “So are you. And I’m going to take advantage of that for as long as I’m able.”
He smiled somberly into her skin. She wasn’t promising to stay out of danger—she couldn’t, and he would never ask her to change the part of herself that insisted on helping, protecting, saving others—but she was assuring him that this was where she wanted to be until then. Where she would return when the rest of the world didn’t demand her full attention.
“See that you do…but I’m afraid my fretting will carry on for a while longer.”
Mauve hummed as she kissed his temple. “Because it’s you, I’ll make an exception and tolerate it.” Another kiss, her tone softening with a gentle, meaningful weight. “Because it’s you.”