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There’s no winning in a war. No glory in survival. No words in the shadow – and sometimes not even in the light.
“You made eggs”, Reda says, startling James from sleep.
Years after the war against the Reapers ended it is still an instinctive reaction for him, being alert in a split second at the slightest noise. But years of war have also left a mark on him and it’s not so easy anymore coming back from sleep to reality. It takes him a moment to add the smell of their apartment and the weight of the blanket covering them like a nest and the lack of the constant low hum that had surrounded them in space to the picture, forming a whole thing, reality slowly dripping in to years of conditioning under a constant state of galactic emergency.
“What?”, he mutters, mind still half where between sleep and awake.
“Eggs”, Reda repeats quietly.
He realizes by the tone of her voice that she is sleep drunken-tired, not exhaustion-tired, and his body slowly relaxes. His arms wrap around her just a little tighter, as to make sure she is really here, in front of him, under the same blanket, in the same apartment, down on Earth – not on some cold spaceship or under a pile of blood and dirt and rubble.
Eggs.
“When?”
“At the…”
The slow movement in his arms stops. Freezes.
“On the…”
Another instinct kicks in as James hands gently lay on Reda’s bare skin, seeking connection, applying soft pressure, trying to be an anchor in what is to follow.
“When we were–“
The warm, indistinct feeling that her dream had carried is gone in a heartbeat, leaving nothing but grey and soul crushing emptiness in Reda’s chest.
Eggs.
There had been something in her mind that had whispered: it wasn’t all bad. Remember me, not them. But it is gone and instead, there is a dread lingering somewhere deep down inside of her. Tenacious. Relentless. Erratic.
Inevitable.
“I’m here”, James whispers, words getting lost in the dense fog inside Reda’s head.
James was fast to say:
It’s okay.
Don’t worry.
It’s fine.
– but it wasn’t.
On a good day Reda had gotten angry on him, yelled at him (though it wasn’t proper yelling, it wasn’t even raising her voice, it was trying at best but her body refused, and it made her just angrier), blamed him he was basically telling her to just give up, they all did, everyone told her that it was okay when it wasn’t, she wasn’t, her brain wasn’t–
So he stopped.
It killed him to see her fight like that. To see her in a constant war with herself, with her brain, with her body that was broken beyond repair, and he didn’t know if it would be easier if she would just accept it or if that was giving up. Giving in. Admitting defeat. But what did giving up even mean? Was it the end or a beginning? A necessary step on the way to recovery or just closing the door to whatever could be coming?
Whatever it was, it was okay. They were still here, after all. Alive. Whole enough for it to count.
But he didn’t say it’s okay, or don’t worry, or it’s fine.
He lay with her in bed, in their apartment, under the blanket that covered them like a nest, without the constant hum of a space ship, feeling the battle she fought in her tense shoulders, in the heaviness of her breath, in the movement of the blanket under her fists, while she was desperately searching for words and thoughts and memories that had been there just a second ago but were gone now that she was aware of them. She knew they’d been there, but they weren’t.
He didn’t tell her it was okay because for her it wasn’t. And he didn’t tell her that by now he knew what she meant because he did remember, even if she didn’t. Because telling her would just upset her, even more so, because it was her battle, not his, and all he could offer was enduring it with her and not leaving her side.
Not giving up.
He wanted to tell her it was okay, because it was. It was okay that the words weren’t there. The memories. It was okay that she was upset about it. And that while none of it was good, they were still here, alive, and the goddamn war was over, so it was okay.
– but he didn’t. He had told her too many times, and it upset her. So he stopped and just lay there with her, enduring it, patiently, quietly, arms wrapped around her, waiting for her to dictate the terms of war, not him, nor the world. Because it was her war after all.
“Help me”, she whispers, because it’s a battle she can’t win, just like the war, no matter how hard she tries.
“We had a party on the Citadel on shore leave”, he calmly says, “and I made eggs for breakfast. You told me it was the best eggs you ever had in your whole life.”
Reda half sniffs, half snorts. “I did not.”
James smirks against the back of her head, face nuzzled into her hair, his breath warm and damp on her skin. “Who knows? You should try my eggs and prove me wrong.”
Some of the tension in her body eases up again and James draws her a little closer.
“I don’t want eggs”, she mumbles and closes her eyes.
She’s bloody tired.
Exhausted.
How can hunting down words make her so God awfully tired?
“I know”, James repeats quietly.
I’m sorry, he adds in his thoughts, but doesn’t say it.
There’s no winning in this war.