A/N: Warning for body image issues.
It's the shuffling that wakes her up, the quick, barefooted shuffling across the bedroom floor, the shuffling that seems every morning to be louder than it has any right to be. She hears it every morning, the familiar sounds of Tim getting out of bed to start his day, and though she's willing to concede that he sometimes keeps long hours at work, going in early and leaving late, there's no way he's heading into the office at 0430.
"Tim," she hisses. She's wide-awake now, still laying still (besides the way she's craning her neck trying to make eye contact) but definitely well inside the gates of the land of the living. Though she can't say whether it's working for the DOD, being paralyzed in a drone attack, worrying her husband could be dead every time the phone rings, or life with twin infants ("twinfants," as she and Tim like to say) that did it, when Delilah wakes up, she wakes all the way up, and she does it quick.
His eyes are wide as his head whips back over his shoulder, clearly startled to learn that he's not being as quiet as he thought. After the half second or so that it takes him to recover from his initial surprise, Tim is leaning across the bed, kissing her on the forhead and whispering, "Shh. Go back to sleep. I'll be back soon."
Back soon? She blinks several times, scrunches up her nose, and frowns. "Timothy. It's four in the morning. Where are you going?' The kids are away at her parents' for the night, so he's not going to check on Johnny and Morgan, and though she briefly entertained the notion that he could be getting up to have a glass of water or use the restroom, the sneakers he's tugging on as he leans against his side of the bed pretty well refute those theories.
"I'm, uh, going for a run," he says quickly, almost stammering. It takes Delilah several full seconds of playing that back in her head before she realizes what he's said and what he means, and then it all comes together and her breath catches painfully in her chest.
She can't for the life of her remember the last time Tim just up and went for a run. In fact, she's not sure he's done it a single time in the six years they've been together, and she's nearly certain he hasn't since she got back from Dubai. She's noticed him behaving differently in over the past few weeks – never having time to eat breakfast with her before going in to work, sitting a little far away instead of cuddling when they lounge on the couch watching bad television, avoiding changing his clothes in front of her in a way she told herself wasn't intentional. Honestly, she's been afraid that he was distancing himself from her, worried that she did something wrong somehow, too afraid of what she thought he'd say to ask him what was going on. In conjunction with this morning though, the way he's avoiding eye contact and nearly blushing as she watches him tug on his favorite hoodie, all the pieces of a totally different puzzle are falling into place.
His keys jingle a little as he starts to slide them into the pocket of his gym pants, and she pushes herself upright. "Tim," she says softly, and she's not surprised that he's already halfway to her side, having heard her movement and wanting to make absolutely sure that she's okay. She always is, but he always makes sure.
When she doesn't say anything else but leans back against a pillow propped up on the headboard, he stills, and she forces eye contact. She stares at him for a long moment, then jerks her head towards his side of the bed. "Lay down."
He shakes his head. "No, D, I've gotta – "
She scowls. "Lay down, Timothy," she insists. "Put your keys back on the dresser, take off your shoes, and lay down."
Tim's never big on arguing, least of all this early in the morning, so it nearly breaks her heart to watch the long, painful pause before he finally sighs and gives in. There are very few causes, she knows, for which he would even consider starting a confrontation at this hour; this whole thing is clearly very important to him. How did I miss this?
He does drop his keys back onto the dresser, and he does toe his shoes off without untying them, and he does back down beside her. The bed creaks as he does. It's always been a pretty creaky bed, but he cringes regardless, his face openly contorting into something Delilah can only identify as shame.
When he's finally laying against his own-propped up pillow next to hers, Delilah finally asks, "What's going on with you?" She wants to touch him in some comforting way, her hand on his, maybe, or a stroke to his cheek, but she stays still, afraid that breaking the uncomfortable tension of the situation will make one or both of them lose the nerve to talk about it.
She doesn't bother trying not to roll her eyes when Tim stares pointedly at the ceiling and mutters some stupid line about not knowing what she means. Hostility on her behalf isn't going to help, though, so she keeps her voice soft and gentle even as she prods, "C'mon, Tim. Talk to me."
His sad sigh seems to shake tears from his eyes, and then Delilah doesn't hesitate to grab his hand, because she loves him and he's crying and it might be her fault and this is not at all how she pictured this morning going. (Actually, she should still be asleep right about now.)
"I'm so sorry, Delilah," he gasps, and though he seems absolutely distraught over whatever way in which he perceives himself to have wronged her, she can't for the life of her figure it out. She thought all this nonsense was about his body image, but maybe it isn't. Maybe she was right before; maybe he's having doubts about their marriage, and Oh my god – was he sneaking off to see another woman? She'd have to be close by – oh god, is he sleeping with Jennifer down the hall, because I always knew there was something off about her and if he is I swear -
A choked sob distracts her from her thoughts, and though his whole body is shaking with tears now, he manages to get out, "I'm trying to lose the weight, D, I swear."
Her brain comes to a screeching halt, because she genuinely does not know what to do with the information that not only is Tim struggling with the way he looks, he's so upset about it that he's reached the level of sobbing out heartbreaking apologies before sunrise, a category of distress she firmly believes should be reserved only for hypothetical cases of infidelity and going to Comic-Con without her – a standard she had hoped he would never reach.
"I – Tim," she tries, then blinks slowly and swallows back unexpected tears before continuing. "I'm not sure I understand. Why are you apologizing? Did you – I – did you do something wrong?"
With the most difficult hurdle – admitting to Delilah what's really going on – behind him, his crying has subsided a little, and though a few tears are still streaking down his face, he takes a few deep breaths and is much easier to understand as he tries to explain, "I was so much thinner be – before. When we first got together, I was smaller than I am now, and our wedding? God, I was so thin. I – I looked so much better. I'm sorry, Delilah." He finally peels his eyes away from the overhead light fixture to look into hers. "This – being stuck with the fat guy – this isn't what you signed up for, and I'm gonna lose the weight, I swear."
It would seem that perphaps this conversation has a minimum total tears threshold, because while he's mostly calmed down, frantic tears replaced with nearly disturbing earnesty, all things considered, she's crying now. She can practically feel the shame radiating off of his person as he brushes away her tears with the pad of his thumb, and she's suddenly struck by the sickening realization that he could be reading her tears as agreement, misinterpreting them to mean, "Why, yes, dear, you look absolutely awful, and I've been agonizing over your weight for weeks now, and I'm so glad to hear you're going to fix this problem."
"No," she says abruptly, horrified that any hypothetical version of herself in either of their minds would treat him that way. He recoils physically at her too-loud-for-the-situation voice, so she tries again, much more quietly this time, holding his hand between both of hers like a lifeline and holding eye contact as much as she can. "No. You look gorgeous, Tim. You always have, and I feel very confident that that trend will continue."
He blinks dumbly, then looks away, because she's obviously lying to protect his feelings, and he wishes more than anything that she didn't have to do that, that his feelings didn't need protecting because he really was still attractive. "I know I'm fat, Delilah," he whispers.
"So?" she snaps back fiercly, and his eyes dart back to hers, searching for signs of insincerity but, to his genuine surprise, finding none. "There are several things wrong with what you're saying here, Tim," she informs him, and though he feels like he's going to break open from the sheer force of overwhelming emotions – shame, surprise, dare he say hope? – he smiles at her seamless switch to clear, matter-of-fact communication. That's always my girl.
"First of all, you've obviously gained weight, Tim – " he cringes, but keeps listening – "but I get the feeling you're overestimating how big you are. You're fatter than you've been sometimes, sure, but 'the fat guy' isn't how anybody's thinking of you, least of all me. Secondly, even if you were to put on another hundred pounds –" Why would she say that? God, that isn't even funny – "Fat and attractive are not mutually exclusive. Do you hear me, Timothy?" She pauses, squeezes his shoulder, and looks at him fiercely until he finally swallows hard and nods. "And god– " the way her voice cracks has his own heart pounding hard against his ribs – "'Not what I signed up for?' Really? I signed up for you, Timothy. You. Whoever you are, whatever you look like, for the rest of our lives. I am not going anywhere."
She squeezes his hand tightly, places a kiss gently on his cheek, then adds in an almost conspiratorial whisper, "Not least of all because you can definitely outrun me."
And though everything isn't quite okay, and though he's still dreading searching his closet tomorrow morning for a flattering shirt, and though just the thought of what his father would say if he saw him still makes him feel sick to his stomach, those are problems for later. For now, he laughs, and he kisses his beautiful, brilliant, hilarious wife, and he gets some sleep.