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The older woman looked at herself in the mirror, smoothing and fretting at the imaginary creases in her dress, velvet done in midnight blue. She leaned in, fussed with her bangs and pulled a lighter blue scarf to drape over the silvery-white hair that was neatly plaited, dangling against one shoulder.
“You are worrying too much about this, he’s seen you with blood and dirt all on your face.” Ana thought, pulling the scarf off her head with a smile. She leaned back and pressed a few fingers to the satin eye-patch over her right eye to adjust it into place and smiled warmly at the reflection. A proud woman stared back, not a teenager. A radiant, experienced woman. Her posture straightened and she pulled on her pea-coat and stepped into the night air.
The sights and sounds of Stuttgart were in full force as she watched girls and boys around the same age as Fareeha laughing and stumbling around the beer gardens, their faces lit up from holo-screens. She smirked a little as she remembered being that age, before she had responsibilities and duties - to her country, to her daughter. So lost in thought, she almost didn’t notice Reinhardt standing outside of the restaurant.
“Who is this lovely flower I see?” A booming laugh followed.
She stopped and blushed, the giant German man grinning from ear to ear.
“Oh, it’s just me, Wilhelm, you old charmer.”
He took her hand, warm and sinewy, responsible for so much death, dwarfed in his palm. He leaned over and kissed it gently, bending her fingers with their crescent moon nails to his lips.
“And that is why I said lovely, Ana.”
They both had a good laugh as he escorted her into the restaurant.
All proceeded as planned: they both tried the offerings of the menu, exotic and traditional, with quite a bit of beer, reminiscing about the old days. They sidestepped all the pain and misery, when she had cradled his bloody head in her lap, as the rain of the battlefield ran in rivulets through his wounds. Instead, this protector, this man she had fought beside, mopped up the juices from his steak (medium rare at best) with a scrap of bread. It was like none of that had happened, with his almost too-small suit and neatly kept beard, but the joints in his hands showed the wear and tear of 40 years of fighting, the tiny nicks and scars where his metal suit had pressed into his skin from being crushed.
“To life.” Both of their glasses clinked.
“To all those who were not so lucky.” A somber set of nods.
The night stretched on, and they walked hand in hand along the river. They had lapsed into silence, but not unpleasantly, Ana catching glimpses of the knight admiring her, in the darkness. The strands of decorative lights that were strewn about the streets glinted off his own silver hair. She felt safe next to him, a feeling she thought she had forgotten.
It was there when he swept her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs to her apartment. When he looked into her one amber eye before he kissed her tenderly on the mouth. Morning would come and it would be another day and her bones would ache. But for this moment, perhaps others, the weight of her life would be shared and kept preciously in the dark.