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And in the middle of the night
I may watch you go
There’ll be no value in the strength
of walls that I have grown
There’ll be no comfort in the shade
of the shadows thrown
But I’d be yours if you’d be mine
It is the silence that wakens him, a sudden stillness that catches the air. He listens, his own breath held deep within his chest, as his heart skips. One pause. Two. His eyes slide open and turn, but finally, at the third pause, he hears it: the gentle vibration of the air resuming its course. Slowly in and slowly out, a soft snore following its wake as Ellya begins to breathe again.
Shifting the blanket wrapped across their bodies, Abelas rolls to face her as she sleeps. She is doing it more often lately, drifting between the realm of dreams…and beyond…as her body and mind grow weary. He slips his hand towards her, the very tips of his fingers edging across her gown, desperately desiring the reassurance of her touch, but he hesitates. Sleep is where she can find respite, perhaps where she can renew her strength in order to face another day. So, he pulls himself back, swallowing away his selfish need for comfort and steels himself to simply observe.
His eyes land first on the uneven rise and fall of her chest, increasingly strained as the years go on. The winter hasn’t been kind to her, despite the eternal warmth of her spirit. Sickness has settled and rattled the aging, but never frail, confines of her body. He has done his best to soothe the aches, applying the compresses to the scar tissue of her left arm and massaging away the trembling that has consistently plagued her joints, but he knows she is tiring. She tries to smile and hide, but he knows.
Silence once more and Abelas’ eyes dart to her face. Her lips are parted, thinned and lined by age, and her dark brows are furrowed. Sudden panic clenches itself tight to his chest at the sight, a weight he cannot undo, and despite his earlier hesitations, he reaches to touch her cheek. A gentle caress, barely enough to disturb, but he craves it, something to anchor himself against the cold promise of loss.
Her stomach expands, ever so slightly, and the air stirs against his palm, reassuring, but he cannot let go. The years have not been enough. Sixty-two is such an infinitely small number, but the deep creases across her face, the smiles and frowns and laughs that have etched themselves into her features, are testament to their effect on her. Ellya sighs and rolls onto her back, away from him, his hand slipping from her form, but Abelas hastens closer. He is not ready. Not yet.
The white within her once lustrous red hair mingles with his own and he presses into her side. The strength of his body is not enough to keep her, the magic within his veins no match for the will of time. He doesn’t know when it will happen. He has already blinked and the years are gone, his immortality a curse against his heart.
It’s not enough.
His arms pull her tighter, pressing her small body against his chest, as if it would save her from the inevitable fate that lay between them. He has always known, but never quite understood, not until recently, when her weathered but no less beautiful form sat stark and unforgiving in its reality before his eyes. She would die…soon, perhaps…and he would not.
Abelas’ eyes squeeze shut, but he forces them open. He cannot look away. He wants to remember every last breath she takes, fearful that if he forgets to watch, he will miss the moment she slips from his grasp forever. One breath in. Two pauses. One breath out. The darkness creeps and the deafness surrounds him. He begins to plead, knowing no one will answer, but still his voice whispers, bargains, until his throat closes against the invisible pain.
She shifts against his hold. A deep, waking sigh fills her, and her body stretches and creaks, molding to his. He grips her tighter again.
“Abelas?” It is a fearful murmur, a question born out of dreams as her hand fumbles for his own. He is both elated and destroyed at its sound.
“Shhh,” he soothes against her hair, his voice a poor semblance of strength in the shadows of the night. A shudder passes down his body, fighting against the terrible sobs of despair that wish to consume, but he holds her close. She is his and he is hers, and he will not give in. “Go back to sleep, m’er’asha.” His fingers twine with hers and he feels her body become heavy in his arms. “I will be here when you wake.”