She was asleep. That is what he was told. He said he'd wait and they told him that she had just fallen asleep after a very emotional and physical day. He said he'd wait. He had nowhere else to go. Deakins had ordered him to take time off. At home he would just be restless. And it was too far into the evening to venture out somewhere else. So he stayed.
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Alex woke up with the sun in her face and smiled. The smile was fake. It was a show for the people who supported her, for the people who loved her and who were undoubtedly indebted to her, but mostly it was a show for herself. Yesterday had been hard. It had been great, a completion in a chapter of her life that she was lucky to be a part of given the unusual circumstances. It had been hard, but fulfilling and satisfying—sort of.
Inside she burned for something that was physically hers, but on paper, in the legal world in which everyone lives, she had no rights. The government would see it as an act of charity, one from someone so giving and loving that a part of her was lost forever. Or that's how the government should see it, though her being split in two would never live anywhere but on her mind.
"Miss Eames? You have a visitor." She nodded, thankful for the distraction she knew would lead her right back to what she didn't want to think about.
"Eames! How did it go?" He pulled a chair right up next to the bed and leaned forward so his face seemingly hovered over hers. That's what he did, all the time, but especially now. He hovered over her like a child waiting expectantly for something from his mother. Ok, so that was a bad analogy at the moment.
"Fine, everything went fine." She smiled, hoping that the mask that was failing to fool her would work for him even though she knew it wouldn't. She brought her eyes up to meet his; if she didn't, he would know she was lying.
But it didn't matter. She couldn't hide anything from him. She never had been able too and soon after meeting him she discovered she never wanted too—that was until now. But she wouldn't hide from him. He owed her nothing; he expected nothing from her. They were equals together, willing to share any joys and sorrows.
She tried to hold it back, but he quickly caught on, his eyebrows coming together, a sympathetic look crossing his face. She liked that about him. He always knew what she felt and how he should feel in return. She knew she would never find another man like him and that, coupled with the previous months, scared the hell out of her.
She had never entertained the idea, always letting it be pushed from her mind by an obscure fantasy that her husband was still lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity to reveal himself. But after twenty years she had lost count of perfect opportunities.
And yet, here was a man she knew well, one that knew her. One she could talk to until she fell asleep knowing that he would stay up through the night just watching her sleep. She always felt comfortable around him, even when his emotions flared as they so often did.
They say it is common for women to become depressed after. She attributed it to the fact that, for three quarters of a year, her life had been turned upside down in a way she had never before imagined it would and within a few painful hours, another week in bed and a few weeks of extra exercise, no one would ever know. There would be scars, but only in private areas that she kept locked away.
In this moment though, with his eyes looking into her, begging to know why she was trying to hide from him, she decided to wait before locking up the emptiness. The smile faded, her eyes turned glossy and his arms pulled her in so that he was hiding her sadness from the outside world. They could never know, their joy was fresh and new and her pain was just beginning. But he was there for her and she let him be there. He was the one she wanted to stay, the one she wanted to be completely open with. He wanted to know how she was feeling, wanted to know her. That he was there, doing for her what she couldn't do by herself, was almost enough to make the pain go away. Maybe one day she could experience this again. Or so she hoped, though she knew it was slipping away with time.