Wynonna Earp (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pacificator) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2024-10-11 11:45 am
pacificator) wrote in singillatim2024-10-11 11:45 am
Entry tags:
you did your worst, you tried your best
Who: Wynonna Earp & others
What: October catchall for closed & open starters
When: Throughout October
Where: Multiple locations
Content Warnings: General Wynonna warnings of alcoholism, mentions of past traumas and violence including accidental patricide and child abduction, others tbd. She's so very fine, y'all.
& March [backdated to post-September event] (cw: blood)
The golden wedding ring swings on its chain as she moves, clinking gently against the key and beads on her necklace as she makes her way up March's steps, onto his porch. She doesn't knock, just reaches for the door handle with one blood-stained hand and lets herself in. ]
Holland?
[ Please be here. Please be alive. She can't take another loss, near or real, today. ]
no subject
The biggest thing, however, is March laying completely face down in the middle of the floor. ]
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[ Her heart stops.
For the second time today, she falls to her knees next to a man she-- can't bear to lose, and reaches for him in desperation, her gut tangling and freezing. She's going to be sick.
Wynonna grips his shirt and rolls him over, leaning down to look into his slack face. There's no blood, but she doesn't notice, too lost in a spiral of fear. All the confident bravado has been dragged from her voice, and her words come with the terrified, tearful panic of a much younger girl. ]
Holland-- Holland, Holland, wake up. Please wake up.
& open
& Little
There was no way to keep herself from doing it; it's the same compulsion that might drive someone to pick at a scab or press on a bruise, like there's something unwanted in healing, as if seeing fresh blood or feeling a sharp ache will somehow help. Wynonna recalls the precise spot where she stopped and watched as Edward Little was stabbed and fell to the ground; she finds it again easily.
No one has attempted to clean this place. Why would they? It's simply a patch of snow, now messy and dark with old blood. It'll be covered over with new snowfall soon enough, and then no one would ever know a man lay here dying and that she'd lost her mind in her rage and pain and killed another. She walks slowly around the perimeter of the spot, her boots sinking into snow, and only leans over to touch the darkened, frothy mess of it when she realizes that something had been left behind in her desperate attempt to get him up and to safety: an officer's cap, the gold ribbon smudged and muted with mud and worse things.
Wynonna picks it up, considering it, and brings it with her as she leaves. But it's almost a week before she brings it back where it belongs.
It's not that she's been avoiding him, exactly. She's come by to see Kate a few times, and it's been sheer coincidence that it happened to be during times when Irving was there to open the door and let her in. With a little luck, that'll be the case this time, too.
It's far from the first time she's walked up to Little's porch and knocked on his door with something she has to give him. She wishes it were alcohol again. Not for him, for her. She'll never be able to look at this porch again without remembering how it felt to drag his dying weight up over the stairs and the creaking wood into the house. Her hand curls into a fist, relaxes again. In her other hand, the hat hangs against her hip. She knocks. ]
Anybody home?
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Not without cost. There's been— an immense price to pay; as he'd woken after sleeping for countless hours in a feverish haze, he'd learned the state of her. How she'd suffered, so that he might heal. It's almost unbearable to contend with, and he's horrified by the reality of it all. The guilt makes him sick, and he stays faithfully close by her for the days to follow that gruesome attack on the town. He isn't the only one she healed that way. There were many, and it's a wonder she hadn't....
died from it is the thought he can't shake.
He only leaves the cabin less than a handful of times. Crozier calls all of the Expedition members together for a meeting, one that... reveals and addresses many of the truths that Edward has been keeping such a tightly-locked lid on. The pocketwatch chain stays with him no matter where he is or what he's wearing, tucked into his pocket or even kept inside of his glove, pressed to the palm of his hand — leaving a soft imprint whenever he removes it again.
He's on the couch in the living room when the knock comes, staring at a book that he hasn't managed to read more than three sentences of for the past half-hour. On the coffee table, there's an untouched cup of tea that's gone cold. Little finds himself almost relieved by the distraction of that knock, though it's just as quickly followed by a sweep of dread. He doesn't know how to... talk to most anyone, right now. Everything is very strange.
Kate is sleeping, as she so often does these days, still exhausted from her efforts. John is out for the moment — Edward's still so fretful to let him out of sight, but things seem to have calmed down again in the town, at least for a while. He gets up and heads to the door himself, moving quietly. He heard the voice through the wood, and knows who it is, and opens it without calling out to ask first.
Usually, he'd have asked for a moment to make himself decent, first. He looks like a mess, hair unbrushed and overgrown again; he's overdue for another trim. His sleep schedule's gotten odd, he stays up nights and sleeps days, has odd hours; there's dark circles beneath his eyes, an extra tiredness clinging to him. But maybe most damning of all is his clothing... all his starchy wool traded for more lounge-able things these past few days, and this cabin had several items in it when they'd moved here. No one ever thought they'd catch Edward Little in a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms, a teeshirt, and a thin, loose, cardigan over that... He actually looks comfortable. It's bizarre. ]
Miss Earp.
[ There's another sharp jab of guilt that hits right in the place his body still insists he's damaged, having to contend with the fact it should still have wounds and doesn't. It feels like it's been too long since he's seen her. A week feels like so much more, in this place. And he knows what she did, for him. Edward stares at her for a long moment, not even noticing the cap at her side, eyes locked onto her face instead. What comes is— dumb, and not thought out beforehand. ]
Hi.
cw: trauma flashbacks, blood
An unpleasant hammerblow of surprise jolts through her, twisting her gut, when the door opens and Edward stares back out at her. Once again, she finds herself hanging around in his doorway, caught for a moment like a fish on a hook, whatever words she'd had even semi-prepared flowing right out of her head. He stares back at her, and for a second she's lost in the panic of a too-fresh memory: the brief moment of clarity in his eyes after she'd snugged her makeshift bandage tight. She can feel the snow under her knees, hear her own desperate breath rasping in her ears. If she looks at her hands, she knows she'll see them bright red and wet with his blood.
Her glance flicks down, fast, looking for blood soaking into his shirt, for a hole torn through the fabric and into his skin and flesh. For a second she almost sees it, fear shifting reality sideways into the nightmare she's had over and over during the last week, the one where she can't get him to any magical healing, the one where he dies again and again under her hands.
But there's no blood, or sign of injury. He looks tired and unkempt and... are those. Flannel pants?
Wynonna blinks, giving him an up and down glance that has her eyebrows lifting. She looks the same as ever, if maybe a little more pale, a little more tired, the skin beneath her eyes translucent and darker than usual. But she has her black leather jacket, Peacemaker at her hip, her necklace dangling over her shirt. The only difference now is the addition of a simple gold ring, hanging from a chain around her neck, gently nudging at the cord of her other necklace.
Hi, he says, like this is normal, like she hadn't made a fool of herself the last time she saw him. With any luck, he was too out of it, won't remember the things she said and did that have been turning and turning around in her mind ever since.
She taps the hat gently against her hip and looks up to meet his eyes. It's easy to tug an insouciant half-smile onto her lips. If she makes it look good enough, pitches her voice lightly enough, maybe he'll miss the haunted shadows in her eyes. ]
I see how it is. You survive one little near-death experience and suddenly it's back to 'Miss Earp,' huh?
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The necklace is new. The glint of gold catches his eye and he looks down to it before he can stop himself — not yet truly grasping what it is, just that it's there. Then he's looking quickly back up, but he's almost too tired and strange to be self-conscious by the act. What happened last week was.... Do they even know how many bodies there were? Has anyone tallied that yet?
He doesn't remember most of what happened after he was stabbed. Her words catch hold of him and he hesitates, frowning slightly in thought. ]
Did I—.... I called you informally?
[ It's this that finally pushes him back towards some sense of anxiety regarding his closeness to this woman, but it's lighter, muted. She saved his life. She and Kate combined are the only reasons he's alive now. ]
I apologise. And I apologise that you had to— to see me that way.
[ And here he stands now, in a modern man's loungewear..... ]
Are you all right?
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(But if he were to call her by her first name again, maybe she'd stop hearing it in his breathless, fading voice over and over again. Wynonna... you saved me.
She'd tried. Hell, she'd tried.)
Her eyebrows push up toward her hairline as he goes on, as he apologizes for... what. Seeing him that way. What way? Almost dead? Actively dying? It's absurdly unnecessary and not nearly enough all at once, and, as usual, he's apologizing for the wrong thing. The worst thing he's done hasn't been to drop all pretense at formality while rapidly bleeding out, it's everything he's done up until that point that made it seem like the world would end if he did. He's given her a brand new vulnerability, a new way to break.
It's the worst thing he could have done, making her care about him. ]
Well, none of us are at our best when we're bleeding to death.
[ Even she can't quite make it as airy as she wants. Her free hand squeezes into a fist at her side, relaxes again as she forces her fingers to uncurl. She can still feel the wet wool of his coat bunched in her hand as she half-carried, half-dragged him back to this very porch.
Her breath rushes out in a disbelieving huff of laughter; she shakes her head, glancing away. ]
Sure. I got stabbed way less than you did.
[ She taps the hat against her hip again for a second, then lifts it up, quickly, as if to forestall any other uncomfortable questions. ]
Brought you something.
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He doesn't flinch away from it. He almost feels... relieved, in some sense. Maybe it's because she can say those things he can't, because she won't try to make any of what happened prettier or more palatable, and it's exhausting to try. But then she says the next part and he exhales, harder and faster than he means to, like someone's hit him in the chest all of a sudden.
She was hurt, too. She could easily have died, too. His horror of it all feels fresh all over again, and maybe some of it crosses his face; he's stricken for a moment as he just stares at her, something twisted up helpless and tight under his sternum. Why can't he just keep everyone safe? Why can't she just be safe? Of course it isn't the first time that Wynonna Earp's gotten hurt because she was jumping into a situation — there was the burning house, and the brawl in the middle of town, there was the Forest Talker incident, and there's this, and—
What would he do if something happened to her? If she didn't come back from it one day?
He blinks at the cap she lifts, eyes flitting to it; her distraction works exactly as intended, at least for a few seconds, enough to stop him from saying or doing something really inappropriate, like crossing the distance and begging her to stop trying to save and help everyone, including him. ]
—Oh, [ he breathes, staring at that now, and then drawing a slower breath in and out of himself. ] I hadn't even noticed that I— had lost it. Thank you.
[ He reaches an arm out for it, slow and unsure where to look as he takes it. When his fingers brush hers, he swallows. ]
Will you come inside? There's tea. I'm alone.
[ He adds that part for some reason — maybe to make her feel more comfortable, hopefully, knowing that Kate and John aren't home just now. Not that he thinks Wynonna wouldn't enjoy seeing either of them, but... he knows this must be awkward for her. Being here. Talking to him again. It's awkward for him, too.
....But not unwelcomed. His eyes lift again as his hand slowly withdraws, fingers pressed to the stiff edge of his cap, faded and a little less stiff now, over so much time. He finds her face, something in his features softening, and something becoming a little desperate, yearning. He doesn't want her to go and he's weirdly afraid she might, slipping off as quickly as she came, now that she's returned this to him. ]
Please.
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Pretty sure Irving's going to read you the riot act for having tea alone with a... me.
[ As excuses go, it's more threadbare than most. She doesn't give a shit about Irving's conniptions about propriety, and she knows he knows that about her, and to be perfectly honest she thinks he's stopped feeling like it's improper to hang out with her. She licks at her lip and lifts her eyebrows in a blasé shrug. ]
Which is as good a reason as any to go ahead and do it, so. Yeah.
[ She should get the hell out of here, but when was the last time she made a good decision, honestly? ]
Sure. I'll come in.
[ She suits actions to words, stepping forward even before he's moved back. It's the kind of thing she'd have done just to tease him before — and why doesn't it suddenly feel as though there is a before and and after, now? — and now she does it just to prove to herself that she can. She can move into his space and own it like she always did. It's just Little, even with modern pajamas and soft, mussed hair that makes her want to comb out the tangles with her fingers.
But it is a mistake, it turns out, because the first thing she sees on coming inside is that couch, the one she and Kate together dragged him onto, where he'd lain gasping and choking and dying. She'd left to get help knowing he would probably slip away while she was gone. She'd never have forgiven herself for not being there if he had.
Wynonna takes a breath and forces her glance back to him, consciously lowering her shoulders and trying to relax the muscles that have tensed. ]
Tea sounds great.
no subject
You know of The Riot Act?
[ Somehow, he hadn't expected her to.... (and one can practically hear Little capitalising the words as he says them, taking it quite seriously...) but he has to acquiesce to something that feels like amusement in the next breath, as he realises what she means. ]
He has nothing to fear. I don't plan to involve you in anything unruly today.
[ There's that bit of playfulness that even Edward Little has been able to find around Wynonna Earp, a contradiction to the usual severity he's known for, but it comes out even more easily now, somehow. They're both tired.
(She makes him nervous, as she nearly always has, but not in a way he wants to get away from. She's warm and familiar and he wants to keep her close. Safe.)
Though he does startle, just so slightly, as Wynonna moves forwards like that (but isn't that also familiar? and before he's known it, he's grown to know her habits and behaviours, and for a moment there's something that feels normal between them, and he's weirdly not as awkward anymore). He lets her in (she lets herself in), reaches to close the door, leaning forwards and aware of her body so close for a second or two before she's stepping into the house. ]
Please, make yourself comfortable.
[ Oblivious to the reaction in its entirety, but at least aware enough to feel some of that tension as they flit between relaxed and awkward, eased and tense with each other. He's never entirely sure where the puzzle piece of himself fits into Wynonna Earp, only that it does. Edward moves to set his cap down and to fix her a cup of tea using the kettle they keep hot at the fire. He touches up his own too, mostly untouched for the past however-many-minutes and colder than ever, and returns to her, holding out the cup. He hasn't thought about how the couch might be a strange place to be, barely remembers being there at all. He'd been moved to his bed at some point to rest properly there, and that's where he'd stayed for— a long time. ]
You've been recovering, as well? I know you were healed by the Doctor, Miss Marsh told me, but..... [ She's still needed to recover, like he has, hasn't she? ]
...How are you?
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You don't, huh? Well a girl can hope.
[ Not that she can imagine straight-laced Edward Little ever being unruly, not in the way she knows the word. It conjures images of cowboys and roughnecks slinging back shots and then slinging punches at a bar; breaking chairs, smashing glass. Unruly is Doc and his stories and lies and that smile that rucks up the corners of his eyes.
Definitely not Edward Little, still giving her that faintly alarmed look when she comes too close — except then he leans forward to reach past her, and he's much too close for much too long of a moment. For a second she feels the ghost weight of him against her, heavy as cordwood under her arm, against her side and hip.
Frustratingly, she's the one to step back, gaining some distance, first, as her hands slide into the back pockets of her jeans and she twists as she walks, looking back at him. ]
Just kidding. The most unruly thing about you right now is your hair. Well, and those pajamas. Which is not to say I don't like them, just that I thought you might burst into flame if you let modern clothing touch your skin.
[ It's easier by far to ramble as he goes to take care of the tea, shuffling around in those plaid pants while she turns to face the couch and considers it for a long moment before shucking off her jacket and settling at one end, the charms on her two necklaces — ring and beads and key — all gently jangling against each other as she moves. Her coat she slings over the seat of the next chair over, freeing up her hands to take the cup of tea he offers her. It's hot and it smells nice, and she's really gotten a whole hell of a lot more used to drinking tea now that she lives with Tommy.
And this is far from the first time she's sat alone in a cabin, in front of a fire, with Edward Little, but somehow it always throws her, just a bit. If she could just figure him out, if she could just figure out what he wants, what's going on behind those big sad basset hound eyes, she'd be able to get a handle on this. Right?
But every time she thinks she's figured him out, he does shit like this: invites her in for tea, fixes his gaze on her face, and asks her with absolute wholehearted sincerity, how she is.
And just like every time, she finds to her horror that she wants to tell him. She wants to tell him about the memories March saw, about her birthday passing unmarked and how she worries about Waverly back home because she's been gone so long. She wants to shake him and say how the hell can you think about my recovery, you almost died, I almost lost you, I don't know what I'd do if I lost you.
The tea is warm in her hands as she licks her lip and swallows, shakes her hair back with a smile. ]
I'm fine, Little. You know me. I'm always fine.
[ Her expression shifts, watching him; the smile dims; her glance drops to that unmarked spot where she'd desperately tried to staunch his bleeding, reddening her own hands in the process. She looks back up at him. ]
How are you? Really?
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She's teasing him, he understands that much, and maybe that's enough for the moment, that he understands that much. It flusters him the way it always does, but it also bemuses him, too. He finds the line of a smile at the corners of his mouth, and one might almost think it to be a fond expression as he fixes the tea, moves around, purposefully but slowly.
(When she teases him, it means she's enjoying him. He knows this, underneath all the things he can't quite understand, the things she says and does that make him feel as though he's in the wrong time period, which— isn't quite inaccurate.)
He remembers a time she wasn't like that, a time she was hurt with him, and he wants to keep this. She's his— friend.
He moves to sit beside her, polite at the opposite end of the sofa but not distant, one leg turned in slightly, body turned towards her. Now he really does smile, even if it's a little shyly. ]
We found them in this home, when we moved in. Someone's clothing, from before. They're... strange pieces. But comfortable.
[ The night clothes he's more accustomed to are... very different. Wynonna's incredibly fortunate not to have to be subjected to seeing them, actually.
He's staring up at her now. Something shifts — his smile fades at the same time hers does, maybe a beat or two after.
It isn't proper, really, to burden a lady (...or anyone) with his feelings (though much less so a lady.) It's impolite, and thoughtless, and too free, too open, too much. But he's shared those sorts of feelings with Wynonna before, and... it didn't feel too anything. It felt like just the right amount. He inhales, and it's a full-bodied thing that lifts his shoulders and some of his spine until he exhales and everything falls again. His eyes drift to his own cup, warm against his palms. ]
I feel.... strange. Physically, I'm fine— everything's fine. But Miss Marsh.... It's taken so much out of her. She's fallen ill from it. I would almost rather be worse off than I am.
[ A thin smile, aimed at Wynonna as he looks up again. (It isn't proper to say what he does next, either, but he doesn't even consider that much, this time.) ]
You always survive, but you aren't fine. How could you be, after that? [ It isn't a challenge, voice soft, non-confrontational, just— concerned. After a moment he adds, even more quietly. ]
You might have died, trying to help me. I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve that.
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Abruptly, she takes too large a swallow of her tea, wishing it were something a thousand times stronger, and sets the cup down on nearby table. The liquid does nothing to wash away the tightness in her throat, in her chest. Nothing can. It feels like a rock tucked neatly up under her ribs, immovable and cold. She feels like a piece of barbed wire, strung too tight along a lonesome stretch of frozen prairie; rusted and dangerous to the touch. Even in keeping people safe, all she does is hurt them. ]
You would have died.
[ She can't look at him. She wants to get up and pace around. She wants to shift into wolf form and run, run away, lose herself in the immediacy of the physical. The words are like ashes in her mouth as she watches the fire without seeing it.
For a moment, she lets herself feel it: the panic and pain and the core-deep fear that drove her; the heartsick emptiness of loss. In her nightmares, she weeps as he dies, over and over again. And not just him: Kate, March, Tommy, Bigby... sometimes it's Willa she's trying to keep from bleeding out in the snow. Sometimes it's Daddy. But over and over it was Edward, limp and cold and pale and gone.
She swallows against an aching throat and finally looks back over at him. ]
What was I supposed to do?
[ It's almost childish in a way she almost never is, anymore. She hasn't really been a child since she was twelve and Peacemaker cracked under her hands for the first time. Daddy, Willa, Shorty... she can't lose anyone else. She won't lose anyone else. She can't lose him, too. ]
That guy tried to kill you. I wasn't exactly thinking all that clearly.
[ No; she'd watched him fall and it had set something off in her, slipped some leash on her sanity. She barely remembers what she did to the Forest Talker; it's lost in a haze of red and black. She only remembers what came next, the fear and the exhaustion and the way she tried to bully him onwards, refusing to let him slip away. ]
And even with everything, no matter what I did, you still would have died, if it weren't for Kate. I wasn't enough.
[ She has the wrong power. She can't heal. She could kill the man who killed him, she could defend this house, but her hands aren't made for helping. She looks down at them now, uncurling her fingers from her palms, remembering how brilliantly red they were with his fresh blood. When she rubs her fingers slowly together, the pads of her index and middle fingers circling gently against her thumbs, they aren't slick and wet, but she remembers when they were.
He's right. She isn't fine. How could she be?
But what else can she do, except keep going? ]
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'What was I supposed to do?'
It's the question he's asked himself, in regards to so many of his own dark empty places. Back even before here, when he started walking off across the shale and there were men left behind, rotting and alone. Then, when he took a young man's life in order to save Kate's. He doesn't remember any logical reasoning to the action. All he remembers is knowing if he didn't act, she'd die. What was he supposed to do?
'You would have died.'
Wynonna saved him. If she'd hesitated, or tried anything else, he would have died. Edward meets her eyes as she finally looks back up, and all the desire he feels to make her understand, to make her understand that she has to be safe, feels foolish and unfair, because he knows he'd have done the same for her. Maybe it was there before, when he'd stepped into the middle of the fight in the street. In retrospect, he could have easily been killed, if things had gotten worse. He was out-numbered, out-muscled, out-everything, but he hadn't even considered walking away. Not when he thought she was in trouble.
But Wynonna's next remark has him startled, feeling like the wind's been knocked out of him a little. He exhales again, a quick breath of surprise as he stares at her. She thinks she wasn't enough. She saved his life, drug him through the snow while she was bleeding from her own wounds, and she thinks she wasn't enough.
(He knows what that's like, too.)
This, finally, is what has Edward setting down his tea, too. With a soft clink, and then he turns towards her. ]
You were the only reason I reached Miss Marsh at all. If you hadn't been there... done what you had, I— ....yes, I would have died.
[ He draws a breath as he finally voices that truth. And then another, voice quiet and thoughtful. There's no alcohol this time to help fuel things he ordinarily might shy from voicing, but he needs her to know. ]
You have always been a source of strength. Might I admit something to you now? Your proximity even makes me feel stronger. It may sound strange, but that is how I feel.
[ He almost smiles again, something fond and sad. ]
You were enough. You are enough. I am so grateful for you. That you were there then, and... that you are here, now.
no subject
She's never been enough. Not for anyone, not for anything. The only reason Dolls cares is because of Black Badge. The only reason Doc stays is for Wyatt and his own revenge. Even Waverly — who is maybe the only person in any world who loves her completely, without reservation and without apology — thinks she shouldn't have been the Heir. She was never meant for any of this. You are enough.
But maybe only Edward Little, who has his own worries and sorrows and regrets, can understand it. Maybe only he really knows how much it means to have someone, anyone — but especially someone whose good opinion, whose respect, for whatever reason, she craves — say those words. To tell her she's enough. That he's grateful for her. And not just then, when she'd tried so hard to save his life, but now. He wanted her to come in. He wanted her to stay. He'd said please, like he knows exactly how much she's always needed someone to wish she were around. To want her nearby.
Her throat is tight, and it aches, the way it does when tears collect behind her eyes. She doesn't cry much, never has, and has swallowed it down time and time again here; it's too cold, and tears won't make anything easier. But Little's sincerity, the way he opens his heart to her like he can't imagine her simply taking aim at his most vulnerable point, tugs, as it so often does, at her own softer feelings, the ones she stows as deeply and distantly as she can.
She doesn't cry now. There's small curve to her lips when she looks over at him, taking in the way he watches her. ]
Bet you never could have imagined saying that to me when we first met.
[ But the teasing tilt to her lips and in her glance fades after a moment. Right now, despite all the ways they're different, he reminds her of Doc, who so often flummoxed her with sudden and wholehearted sincerity. He feels... stronger when she's around? She's the biggest fuck-up Purgatory has ever seen, and it's not like she's going to win any 'most helpful person' sashes here. But he means it, and because he means it, something in her own head and chest slips into place, a realization clicking like a seat belt.
It's not like with March, who makes her feel like all he ever wants her to be is herself, the best parts and the worst. She thinks Little does like her for her, now that they know each other, now that they've spent a year in and out of one another's company, but being with him makes her wish she were the person he sees in her. The person he believes her to be. He's helped her navigate her way through the thorny paths of her own thoughts, the waiting traps of her self-loathing.
And, in his own gentle way, he bolsters her. Supports her. If he were to be ripped away, she thinks she'd lose her balance all over again. ]
You make me stronger, too.
[ Certainly her fury and heartbreak at seeing him fall had sent her into a murderous frenzy, and she's pretty sure she could have taken out almost any number of Forest Talkers. But it's not just that, is it? It's this. He makes it safe for her to say things like this, to bare her own heart — warily, and only a sliver at a time — to him in return. He lends her a different, quieter kind of strength. ]
You're... important. To me.
[ That feels like far too much, and not nearly enough, but her eyes and mouth are still soft, lacking most of their usual edge, as she looks at him over her shoulder. ]
I'm really glad you're okay.