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“Alex, where are you taking me?”
Alex smiled as he guided Farah with hands on her shoulders. A blindfold was wrapped around her eyes. A simple do you trust me followed by an immediate of course when he asked to put it on.
It had taken some effort to get them here. After hours of being stuck in hotel rooms, conference rooms, and on airplanes, Alex had been desperate for some fresh air, and could tell that Farah was, too.
“Are you excited to go home?” Farah had asked as they’d sat in a bland, nondescript hotel room, waiting to hear from Laswell about travel arrangements.
The question at the time had caught Alex off guard. He’d spent so much of his career travelling, and the last few years by Farah’s side that he wasn’t sure what home even felt like anymore. One thing he did know was that there was a warm, Farah shaped beacon in his chest when he thought of the word.
“I guess,” Alex had replied.
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“It’s just…been a while since I’ve been back. Not really anything that ties me there.”
The wind off the water is cold, whipping at their clothes as they step from the solid concrete of the sidewalk onto soft uneven sand. “Alex, where are you taking me?” Farah asked again, her voice slightly higher, a note of concern tinging the edges.
“You trust me, remember? Don’t worry. We’re almost there.”
There was a fizzling crackle then pop behind them followed by an explosion of light–kids out for Halloween setting off firecrackers. Alex felt Farah’s shoulders tense, and he soothed her by rubbing his thumbs against her shoulder blades. “Just some kids,” he said in a low voice.
“What is America like?” Farah asked, eyes drooping with sleep. Her head rested on her fist where she leaned against the arm of the seat.
“Depends where you are ,” Alex answered. “Mostly, it’s busy. A lot more people. Lots of lights and sounds.”
Farah hummed, eyes sliding shut. “Tell me about where you grew up,” she asked, voice soft as she drifted towards sleep.
Alex smiled at the way Farah’s features softened, launching easily into stories about growing up in California, spending afternoons at the beach with friends riding skateboards, and summers spent out on the water with surfboards.
“I’ve never seen the ocean before ,” Farah commented idly, blinking tired eyes open at Alex with a soft smile. There was a wistfulness to her voice that made Alex’s heart ache. Though they could see the ocean beneath them through the window, at thirty-thousand feet over the Atlantic, Farah was hardly getting the full experience.
Another few paces and he stopped them, removed the blindfold from Farah’s eyes.
Farah blinked, adjusting to the light, taking in their surroundings. Her eyes narrowed, nose scrunching in confusion, before softening, and then she turned to look at Alex, searching for understanding.
“You said you’d never seen the ocean before.”
Farah turned back around, taking in the seemingly unending expanse of water before them. The waves crashed against the shore in a mess of swirling white froth, the wind carrying the spray to them, catching their faces.
The air was rich with the smell of salt; briney and earthy. Beneath it was the residual acrid chemical scent of smoke from the fire crackers being set off.
Somewhere nearby along the boardwalk a small child let out a piercing scream which dissolves into a delighted giggle at the fizzling crackle and then a series of pop-pop-pops as another firecracker went off.
When Farah turned to look at Alex again there were tears in her eyes. “It’s beautiful,” she says.
“Yeah, it is,” Alex said, but his eyes never left Farah’s face. He reached up to cup her cheek, wiped away a spot of ocean spray with his thumb.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his entire life.
He wanted to tell her that she is his home. That so long as they were together, he felt safe. Grounded. Sure. He thought she knew this, that the sentiment was shared, but he still wanted to say the words out loud.
“Farah–” Alex started, but she ducked her head, turned to approach the water, though she kept a careful distance.
He followed behind. Her faithful hound; ready and willing to follow her to the ends of the world.
When Farah wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her hands against her arms against the breeze, Alex stepped close behind, wrapping his arms around her. She tensed briefly before relaxing against him. So few were the opportunities for her to exist in herself like this, without the weight of responsibility on her shoulders, without the weight of a gun in her hand, without the lingering anxiety of the next attack they would need to defend against.
“Farah–” Alex said again. Farah tipped her head to the side. Suddenly the words on the tip of his tongue a moment again were lodged in his throat.
“Alex?” Farah asked, turning in Alex’s embrace at his sudden silence. “Alex, what’s wrong?” she continued, taking in the glassy sheen to his eyes, the high flush of colour on his cheeks.
He cupped her cheek in his hand again, eyes tracing over her face. He leaned in, pausing to give Farah an opportunity to pull away, before pressing his lips against her own. The kiss was brief, and when Alex pulled away, Farah was studying him curiously, her dark brown eyes searching. “Alex…”
“Farah… when you asked me if I was excited to come home, I didn’t know what to say. You are my home. Wherever you are, so long as we are together, is home to me.”
He brushed his thumb across her cheek again.
The moment was broken as a series of screaming explosions went off, jolting the pair into action, darting down the beach several feet in search of cover. As they slid to the ground on the sand, huddling together, they broke into nervous laughter, embarrassed at their over reaction to childish activities.
“So, this is normal for you then,” Farah said. “Being surrounded by explosions?”
Alex laughed, falling flat against the sand. “Yeah, I guess so. The scale is a bit different.”
Farah smiled. Her eyes were warm and fond. “Thank you, Alex,” she said.
“For what?”
“For this.” She leaned down, braid falling over her shoulder, pressing her own soft kiss to his mouth. She laid down, resting her head on Alex’s chest. They laid there together, listening to the rush of waves against the shores, the whisper of wind through the trees, and the occasional pop-pop-pop of firecrackers exploding along the boardwalk.