A hoarse cry came from Christopher's bedroom, and she couldn't help but rush to his side. He was having another nightmare - damn the war and its horrors, she thought with a passion - and she shook his shoulder until he awoke with a start.
His eyes were wide with fear, and he clutched onto her like a drowning man. Pity and anger warred in her heart; it wasn't fair that her husband should suffer like that, and yet there was nothing she could do in order to take away his pain. "Shh," she murmured gently. "You're safe now. Go back to sleep."
He looked at her for a long moment, as if debating whether he was allowed to show his weakness in front of his wife - his unfaithful wife, whose presence surely wasn't of any comfort to him. Her hand instinctively reached for his cheek, only to pull back at the last moment; he didn't want her affection, didn't need to be reminded of everything he'd been through because of the woman who had trapped him into a loveless marriage.
"Stay," he begged in a soft whisper, his fingers closing around her wrist like a vice. Sylvia welcomed the discomfort, the marks he was going to leave on her delicate skin - don't let me go, Christopher, never let me go - and leaned closer so that she could rest her body against his own.
He shuddered, drinking in her warmth, his eyes falling shut when she pressed her lips to his brow. "Why can't you love me?" he muttered under his breath, and for a moment there she couldn't remember how to breathe.
I would love you, if only I knew how - but no sound would be pushed through the tightness in her throat, silence closing in around them like a prison of their own making.
She listened to each of his breaths until the first morning light filtered through the curtains, a temporary respite to the darkness that always threatened to swallow them both. "Why don't you hate me?" she whispered to the room at large; but she got no answer, a deafening silence her only companion as she retired to her own rooms.