Sleep deprivation does things to me. Like taking a fleeting feeling and turns it into a fic as I desperately try to fall into something more than a doze. Thanks to the usual suspects, Cls2011 and Lala-kate for the encouragement, beta and read through of a really rough draft.
She watched where George was marching about, imperiously pointing at various items about the summer lawn, babbling constantly to Charles who sat at the edge of chair, laughing and answering him back as if he understood every word. Her little boy was rapidly losing his soft baby roundness, his features becoming more defined, hair a shade lighter, eyes still that same piercing blue. The toddler was hinting to the boy he would be, the youth to follow. There were glimpses at moments of what he would be like grown, or perhaps those were flashes of the father he never knew.
Nearly two years. She had endured two winters, wakened through two springs, blossomed through two summers, and lain fallow and untouched through two autumns.
Autumn was approaching again, and she ached at the thought. Untouched, unloved. No, not unloved. But not loved the way she missed, the way she was slowly beginning to acknowledge she wanted, the way she needed. A love too great had enveloped her, tendrils seeping through her, twining with her soul and given her the taste of a bliss never imagined, of the keenness of life fully lived in every sense. To never know that again? To fear it? The ghostly touch of what remained, memories shrouded in those tatters, wasn't enough.
Her breath was a shuddering sigh. He knew what she clung to, what she still wrapped herself up in at night, the shreds she used to hold her heart together. She had learned to live, but not completely. Part of her still danced with the dead, still wished for phantom fingers to wrap around hers, a cold chill to turn to warm skin next to her cheek.
Something had shifted in her, some small seed of hope stirring to life, pushing through that part she kept cold and barren, sacrosanct only for him.
The letters, an occasional call — always to check on estate matters, — a rare visit. She realized she had come to crave those the most. Maybe because he wasn't always at her side. Excuses to attend to other business in the area, a day spent with Tom checking for new equipment. But he knew when she needed to see that grin, a shared laugh. And this, a lazy sunny afternoon enjoying watching her son play. Every moment, every flash of a memory, was slowly breaking away that part of her that clung too tightly to what couldn't be held. Every joyous giggle and face splitting grin from a chubby toddler giving her the strength, the reason to move one more step. Every grasp of her neck with round arms, the scent of his head tucked below her chin telling her it was all right, nothing was truly lost. This is where he was and wasn't. Her memories, her living reminder. He was in the land of the living; when would she stop seeking him in the land of the dead?
She watched that physical embodiment of a love too great as he ran and laughed on sturdy legs, waving a found stick over his head. She had missed too much, hidden from him too long. The feel of him in her arms, the weight of him against her breast, how perfectly they melded together upon meeting was but a faint reminiscence. But to try and remember his face was only the image of him older, cold, perfect in his stillness save the dirt and blood that lined the edges.
She hugged her arms tighter round herself, wishing there was a way to go back, to burn instead the images of that child into her heart instead, to give him the love he deserved instead of feeding him the bitter sorrow of lament. A tug of need nudged her, so great she had to physically shake it off, tilting her face to the bright sun. A breath. Warm air. Strength to step forward, moving to stand closer, to be in life that galloped, laughing and free.
"Alright?"
His voice was a rich murmur beside her, one word holding so many questions, knowing she would hear them all and answer the one she needed. She looked down at him where he sat, jacket off, shirt-sleeves rolled up. He glanced up at her briefly before shifting once more to watch her son play. But their shared gaze was enough for her to see all he understood, all he offered. A simple nod, glancing back across the grass, long fingers playing over each other, dancing past the rings that were settled on her right hand now.
Chubby toddler fingers tugging at her skirt, reaching up for her. "Kiss, kiss, Mummy?"
That sweet smell of him, a fleeting hint of the baby he was as she bent to press her lips against his silky cheek.
"Kiss, kiss, darling." And she ruffled his golden waves of hair as he smacked his lips in return before letting out a giggle and wriggling away.
"Kiss, kiss, 'Tarles?" Wee fists tugged at a waistcoat, a lively laugh followed, a kiss to the forehead, a tickle to the side.
"Wee scamp!"
Life and promise skipped with the pure joy of a child's belly-giggle into the verdant haze of sunlight and shade. The breeze stirred a warm caress across her back, the nape of her neck. No chill, no cool fingers of memories pulled her away.
Warm and very real fingers encircled hers, and she squeezed them back, no tears stinging the back of her eyes.
He was standing beside her, a different feel, a different sense of him, but just as stirring, just as powerful in turning every emotion in her over and over, every nerve alight and aware of him.
And she wanted. Her body craved and yearned and tumbled to life, desperate to feel the softness again, the warmth, the sun on what she held at bay to heal. She wanted hands to trace over her again, to find curves she had forgotten, to find that unfurling seed of hope, feed it, call to it with hot whispers against her skin.
That extra space, that boundary for herself and her memories that he always gave her she no longer wanted. She stood in the circle of his arms, alone, no ghosts. The one that had been with her for so long, present for every touch and every kiss, was laughing across the lawn now, letting her stand alone. She was given leave to feel the arms that were actually around her, the very real heartbeat of another under her palm. It was a wondrous awakening to who she was, what she had become, what power she had in herself to be.
He had always held her loosely, open, never fully encompassing her, as if he knew there was another always present with her. But this time she pressed forward, closer to him than ever, touching him with her own hands instead of leaving a ghostly shadow of space between them. Lips whispered across each other, and she let the vertigo take over her, the wash of it through her a spring rain. Different skin under her fingertips that made her want to laugh with a sudden joy. Hands tracing a waist, and suddenly a desperate rush, a need for him to know more than these curves. For him to know her body alive and living with him, a tugging at her very core for him to know the richer, fertile curves of her body with child. She trembled at the realization she was truly alive again, that she could be.
Small hands tugging again about her legs, a warm chuckle breathing more life against her lips as she smiled and met eyes as warm and promising as the fierceness she had in her heart at this moment.
"Kiss, kiss!"
She could hear the echo of a different voice somewhere, the same words, the same benediction. Standing there in the warmth of his embrace, she was ready to welcome another autumn, one that would be rich with harvest this time.