Warrior Wounds

AN: Post-ep to 6x04, 'Number One Fan.'

He wakes on a stuttered breath, dredged up from the dark depths of murky sleep. His chest is heavy with dull, roaring pain, weighing him down, down. Awareness comes slowly, travels with the trickle of fingertips, so light over his skin, trawling across his chest, seeking, drawing him into the light. He breathes, smacks his lips, his mouth dry like cotton balls.

Her fingertips drift up his sternum, tangle at his jaw. "Shhh, go back to sleep." Her voice a hum, an almost-imagined whisper.

"Kate?" The word grates in the darkness, seems suspended in the quiet of the night as her fingers smooth down his neck, linger at his collarbone.

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to wake you." She's warm against him, the length of her smudged to his side and her leg claiming his thigh; naked, sweaty skin that reminds him of last night, of tangled limbs and hands clasped tightly together. Of Kate draped across his lap, gorgeous and regal, and the burning, wet quest of their bodies, the vigorous, life-affirming ride into white-hot oblivion.

He's drifting, in and out, boundless in an eddy of dreams and memories until her fingers start moving again, the tips cool on his flushed skin as they tremble down his chest and circle, circle, circle; as she maps the spheres of his bruising. The pain roars just underneath the surface but her touch is tender, reverent; soothing like a healing balm. Like magic.

He hums, his eyes coming open to hazy darkness, the bedroom dipped in silvery-blue moonlight that sneaks through the half-opened blinds, drips off the corners of his furniture, splashes onto the hardwood floor. Her face is painted in shadows, sharp cheekbones and wide eyes, too awake for the time of night.

"You 'kay?" He grunts, his voice barely cooperating. He palms the back of her head, fingers curling into the tangled mess of her hair, his arm hooked heavily around her neck, limp from her weight where she must've slept on it, coiled into his embrace.

Her fingers linger, the heel of her hand a light weight resting against his stomach. "I should be asking you that."

"I'm alright. Doesn't hurt much if I don't move." It's not a complete lie; the pain just a dull presence for now if he keeps his breathing shallow, and her caresses are a lovely distraction, his blood thick and sluggish with it.

Kate shifts onto her arm, lifts herself above him. Their stomachs brush but she's careful to keep her weight off his chest as she looks down at his bruise. The ends of her hair tickle his shoulders and ribcage, and her fingertips trail once more, skim the outline of the contusion, soft so soft as they round inwards, her eyes following the path of her touch.

The silvery moonlight dulls the vivid colors that mar his chest, the concentric circles of purple-black splotched with flaming red that rim the angry red welt sitting dead-center on his chest. She lingers over the point of impact, her thumb hovering above the mark for a moment. Her eyes lift to his, her gaze dark and so solemn that his heart slams against his ribs.

"Now we match," she sighs, brushing the pad of her thumb over the bullet almost-wound, caressing the swollen, ridged mark.

He swallows hard, his heart in his throat, the truth of it almost unexpected, how close it really had been. The bullet hitting dead center between his breasts, right above the heart – just like hers.

Mirroring warrior wounds.

He lifts a hand, presses his thumb to the round scar between her breasts, his palm cradling her ribcage where he can feel the reassuring rhythm of her breathing.

"How was it for you?" He asks, finally asks what they'd never truly talked about before. The months of distance, the way she'd kept herself away, suffered alone still threatens to break him sometimes. He ached to be there; would've done anything, everything for her. Sometimes he imagines her curled up on her bed in a cabin in the woods, dried tear tracks caked to her cheeks and so lonely in her sorrow, weighed down by pain, and he wants to travel back in time and wrap his body around her, hold her against his warmth, share his strength until she had recovered hers.

"Agonizing, at first." Her lashes lower, her fingers soothing his bruise as she recounts the details, her voice almost detached so the words stand out, stark and brutal. "Burned like fire. Like I was being ripped apart. Sharp stabbing when I was breathing. Everything was sore, every muscle of my body. The meds helped, dulled the pain at least; dad was relentless about keeping me medicated as per doctor's orders. I was tired a lot, drowsy most of the time. I could hardly eat, didn't really taste anything. I didn't sleep well, just felt sad a lot, afraid, helpless…."

She trails off, draws her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes like deep dark wells he could drown in. His insides contract painfully and he rises for her, ignores the harsh thud of pain that's like a hoof stomping on his chest. He draws her to him, kisses her, sipping at the solemnity of her words.

He doesn't say how it hurt not to be there; she knows. She doesn't say she's sorry and he doesn't want her to; he knows that too. They kiss instead, find solace in the warmth of mingling breaths, of lips soft and lingering, in all the ways they do this now.

"I'm so glad you don't have to go through that," she sighs into his mouth, her fingers splayed across the width of his bruise. "So glad you're okay."

Her lips track across his jaw, down the cords of his neck and the hollow between his collarbones. She scatters soft kisses to every patch of his skin until she arrives at his chest, her mouth hovering just above the round welt, her breath fanning his bruise.

And then he watches as she sinks her lips to the puckered round, reverently kisses his bullet mark. Her mouth lingers and it's warm and soft and achingly familiar. A mirror to the moment when he worshipped at the mark of her survival for the first time.

A reminder of how they've come full circle; are where they were always supposed to be.

Together.