Work Text:
Karkat stared at the calendar, barely breathing. Today was the day. Today was the day the person he cared about more than anything in the world would be coming home after so many long months away.
The house was clean from top to bottom, her favorite tea was restocked, her bed was made up, a bouquet of those lavender-tinted roses she loved so much was in a white vase on the table. Now, there was nothing to do but wait for Kanaya Maryam to come home.
It had been so long. Karkat was jittery, wondering what might have changed, both in her and in him. He had been spending a lot of time alone since Kanaya had been drafted, something he knew she would scold him for. He knew he had moped. On bad nights he had even slept in her bed, for god’s sake!
She would scold him, but she would understand. At least, he hoped she would. She had been gone for nine months, and on the front lines at least part of the time, if he’d read her letters correctly. The letters had become almost frighteningly infrequent recently, and a while ago there had been a terrifying period of over a month when there had been nothing at all.
Calm down, he told himself, and his inner scolding-voice still sounded like her. She’ll still be Kanaya.
Won’t she?
A knock on the door made Karkat jump. He swore loudly. I am going to strangle whoever is out there. This is not the day for surprise visits.
He stormed to the door and yanked it open, fully prepared to shout the intruder right off the porch. Then he actually looked at said intruder, and suddenly he couldn’t remember how to breathe.
Kanaya Maryam stood only a few feet away. She was still wearing her military fatigues, worn but neat as only a Maryam could be. A green bag sat on the floor beside her, another behind. Her hair was a bit shorter, her skin even darker now than it had been before, but her green eyes were the same.
Karkat couldn’t say anything. He was still trying to breathe; words were entirely beyond him.
Kanaya smiled. It was familiar, but there was hesitation in it. Nine months was a long time, and war was far away, both physically and emotionally. “I wasn’t sure whether I should knock at my own house, but I thought I ought not to startle you too much by barging in unannounced.” Her smile grew more stable. “I have missed you, Karkat.”
There was the breathing. Karkat gave a huge gasp and fell rather than ran to Kanaya, but she caught him (like she always did). Strong arms, more muscled than he remembered but just as gentle, wrapped around him, and he could feel the warmth of her body through her fatigues. Her breathing shuddered a little – he felt the movement against his face as he leaned into her – and there was a butterfly-like sensation as she pressed a kiss to his head.
Home. She’s home. We’re home.
*
It took ages for them to unwrap from each other, and even then Karkat didn’t let go of Kanaya’s hand as they dragged her things into the house and closed the door on the rest of the world. She didn’t let go of him, either.
The bags were abandoned as soon as they were inside. After a moment of somewhat-awkward hesitation, Kanaya suggested she go shower and change, and Karkat agreed. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t like seeing Kanaya in her fatigues. She was home, and he wanted her to look home.
Nine months was a long time. A lot had changed. Karkat wasn’t going to try to ignore that time, those events, but the selfish part of him wanted Kanaya to be home and with him and never leave again, to have everything like it was a year ago, before she was drafted, before he was denied for “medical reasons” (stupid blood issues – always a problem, but now they mean that he couldn’t follow her, couldn’t watch her back and keep her safe. He had to stay home and wait. And wait. And wait.).
As he poured boiling water into a mug, silvery-green like wet leaves with a teabag waiting inside, while his coffee steamed quietly in its own slate-gray cup, Kanaya returned.
Karkat’s heart leapt into his throat. She was wearing her red skirt, the old one that was so familiar that when he thought of Kanaya he thought of that skirt. A black top, long-sleeved and soft, completed the outfit. She was barefoot, uncommon for her, and wore no jewelry except the ring he had given her, a blood-red stone in a gunmetal-gray setting. It was on her hand now, but he knew from her letters that she had kept it on a chain with her dogtags while she was serving.
The talking came easier than Karkat had expected. Tea and coffee were drunk, cookies were eaten (snickerdoodles, Kanaya’s not-as-secret-as-she-thought favorite), and they talked. Karkat updated Kanaya on what had happened in the neighborhood and with their friends over the past nine months. She was interested and attentive, but they didn’t talk much about what had happened on her side. Karkat wanted to know, but part of him was afraid to ask. In the end, Kanaya would tell him what she wanted to tell him. He wasn’t going to pry.
Talk and talk, and before they knew it the sun had gone down and it was time for bed. It would be the first time in nine months that Kanaya would be able to sleep without being on alert for gunfire. It would be the first time in nine months that Karkat would not spend the night more awake than asleep, curled in a bed that was not his and that smelled like someone who was far away from him. It would be the first night that they would be together again.
Karkat finished washing the dishes, Kanaya drying beside him, familiar in a way he had missed like a lost limb for nine long months. She dried the last plate and set it down, then hung the dishtowel up and turned to him with a set to her face. Karkat was suddenly reminded of the moment when she told him she had been drafted. That was never a face of good news.
“Karkat, I need to tell you something.”
Karkat’s heart stuttered. She had just gotten home. What could possibly have happened for her to have that face, resolve to do something that would be difficult and painful but had to be done – what was it?
She took his silence for permission to continue. “There is no easy way to tell this. I have tried to think of some way – somehow – for weeks and weeks –” she stopped herself. “But I have to tell you. You would find out, sooner or later, anyway.
“You know I was in the 413th division. What you don’t know is that there is no more 413th. They are all dead.”
Karkat stared at her. He didn’t know what to think, what to say. But Kanaya continued, relentless, as if, once she had started, she couldn’t stop herself.
“We were – attacked. A single soldier, some kind of berserker, caught us by surprise. He – he slaughtered us. He shot me, but… I didn’t die. I fought him. I killed him.” Her eyes were closed. “I – I was wounded. Grievously. I…” she stopped. “You would have found out sooner or later.” Moving slowly, as if forcing her arms to shift, she wrapped her fingers around the hem of her shirt and lifted it.
Karkat wanted to throw up. Where before there had been just a smooth expanse of skin was now a mass of scar tissue, running from the bottom of her bra to the waistband of her skirt and spanning almost all the way across her sides, impossibly huge. The logical part of his brain was astounded that anyone could survive an injury that would result in such a mark, but the rest of him was trapped in the fact that Kanaya had been hurt like that, had lost her entire division, had almost died miles away from him just because one man attacked a group of soldiers.
She almost hadn’t come home.
“The doctors said I should have died.” Kanaya’s voice was flat as she released her shirt, the black fabric covering the destruction. “Maybe I did.”
Karkat was jolted back to himself. “You didn’t.” It came out harsher than he had intended, but at least it made Kanaya look at him. “You didn’t die, you’re not dead, you’re home, you’re with me.
“You’re alive.”
Kanaya stared at him, shock evident on her face, and then, suddenly, she smiled. Radiant, glowing, alive. The kind of smile she had had before she left. “You’re right,” she said, very quietly, but there was something brighter in her voice now. “I am. I am alive, and I am home. And, my dearest, I am with you. That is all I need.”
*
That night, they both slept in Kanaya’s bed. Beneath clean white sheets and a thick green blanket, two figures curled around each other, both sleeping more soundly than either had in nine long months. He still had his health problems, his mutated blood, and she still had more scars than any living person should, they both had nightmares and insomnia and struggled with past and present and future, but they were not alone.
She had come home. He never left, but only now did it feel like home again.
Later, there would be difficulties, problems to be faced. He always had things going on, loving too much and too deeply and unable to show it properly, and she had never been a simple person even before the blood and the fighting and the dying, but they were there to help each other. They would make it.
They were home.