She watched him from the doorway, half hiding behind the frame and peeking through in some childish manner. She didn't want to embarrass him if he caught her, not like she would be completely invisible in the span of the half-open door, anyway…and she was in no way fast enough to escape his sight. He'd moved back in after this latest fiasco. She was so beyond elated that he was back in their lives that she took extra care to make him feel welcome and refrained from encroaching on his personal space. She let him keep his distance, so much smaller now, but still there and coveted.
The few private effects added did wonders for the sparse and harshly lit room that had previously only consisted of a bike's spare tire, bed, and desk with scarce trinkets. She spared a glance at the dreaded fax and telephone - with inappropriate dread - that had brought news of the trouble and which still called him away so often before shooting back over to him. There he stood, blacks, gear, sword, and back to her, unmoved; either just getting back from a job or about to go on another. Both were likely. A leather-clad hand gently held an unframed photograph. From this angle, she could just see the soft curve of a pale cheek around fair hair as darker lashes furtively searched the shot.
He put it back down. And although she couldn't hear it, she saw the sigh in the expansion of shoulders and back. It slipped over the edge of the desk and through fingers of the hand that chased it, weary body failing to move quickly enough. It settled with a soft swoosh at booted feet on the wooden floor boards. She caught a glimpse of golden petals as he bent to pick it up, gloved fingers gently sliding underneath and carefully moving it to rest atop the many more already upon the desk.
Flowers, pictures of flowers, endless upon endless fields of them, and he had more than one picture of it. He never had enough, never tired of looking. It was all 'never enough'.
She'd questioned him about it, of course, tentively, always tentively, lest she push him away again. She wanted him to stay. She wanted him to stay.He wouldn't tell her where it was, what it held, 'though she had a pretty good idea. He would only say that it calmed him, that every so often he would go there, to or from missions that took him out that way. It wasn't terribly often, she didn't think, but then again, it was something he wasn't willing to share. A private treasure.
She dropped her gaze to the floor where she stood in the hall. His fingers had begun to sift through the photographs laid out before him as his mind drifted, wandering wherever it always took him. Her lip curled in, held prisoner to a canine in worried thinking. She released it with a sigh, casting one last glance at the oblivious man. She moved back down the steps to finish prepping for the night's opening of the bar.
He coveted his distance, after all.