Follows Red Label and Flight, but stands alone as well.
When his fingers close around hers in the dark she starts awake, her head lifting an inch off the pillow, her muscles stiff and sore. She had tried to make herself wait for him but the muted laugh track had whispered her into oblivion, punctuated the image of him spinning from the impact of a gunshot, pirouetting, over and over, with shrill hysteria.
"Ned."
He makes a soft noise in the dark. His head is bowed and she traces the line of stubble along his jaw with her gaze alone, blinking slowly in the sterile blue light.
"Ned."
The side of his mouth quirks up in a smile and it holds nothing like joy. Her heart squeezes off two hard beats before her fingers tighten against his. The muted brown leather of the briefcase she'd given him the day he graduated standing beside polished black shoes. She forces herself up with a soft moan and pushes the lapels of his jacket back over his shoulders, unbuttons the shirt beneath. He makes no movement, his head still bowed, and when his shirt hangs open and his chest is bare she slips her cool palm against the flesh over his heart.
"She's gone."
He mumbles it, just louder than a breath, and the tears that had been waiting to pool seep into her eyes, slide down the edge of her nose to touch the corners of her mouth. For five days their interaction has been limited to hasty sandwich lunches and the few hours of sleep he finds at her side. When he does relax, it is with her; he pays rent on his apartment but it's only so they can answer with straight faces, when her father makes the carefully casual inquiries about their living situations. When his partner calls to wake him out of a dead slumber, it is here.
She looks up at him and wonders how much of him she will be able to claim as hers on their wedding day, how many hours of the rest of his life will be spent forming close intimate relationships with another missing child, another lost soul, their displaced interaction defined by uncertainty and undone by some pale resolution. After forty-eight hours the crime scene photos blurred into each other and he gave another piece of himself to keep going and she went to sleep with a mug of warm tea and a promise that he would come back to her, but only once it was over.
He is shaking when she wraps her arms around his shoulders and holds him tight to her. He shakes without crying and she pulls him down to her, her fingers stroking the back of his neck, and he follows without comment. He breathes warm and harsh against the base of her throat.
"It's not supposed to be like this."
Because of her, he developed the taste for it. Justice and gratitude and the last few pieces falling into place, perfect, for that moment it was all perfect in a way she had never otherwise experienced. Because of her, he wanted to help. He wanted to be the one.
Now he is hers for a fistful of moons alone.
He finds no words for his grief, and by degrees the trace of her fingers over the back of his neck slows until she is nestled in the warmth of his embrace. His mouth finds hers and she can taste her tears on his tongue, and the kiss doesn't end until he pulls away in one smooth movement. Badge and heavy gun on the table on his side of the bed, and he leaves his suit in its component parts, trailing their way to the bathroom, and she stares after him, unseeing. Five days ending in a loose bundle of splayed limbs and bloodied flesh and the pale drawn faces of the parents losing the last of their hope at the sight of the cap tucked crisp under a forearm and the pause of lashes against a cheek made dark with insomnia and dread.
When he returns to her bed she wraps herself around him and holds him until their hearts slow, the diamond he gave her glittering mute on her finger. He will not sleep, bathed in blue glow and mindless buzzing laughter. He will not sleep but for tonight she will not dream of him swept away in a motionless ballet of senseless blood.
"I love you, Nan."
"Sleep," she murmurs, and he makes a soft incredulous sound against the crown of her head.
"You sleep for me," he whispers against her hair. "Sleep and tell me what you dream so I can get through tomorrow."
She reaches up without bothering to look, finds his face in the dark, trails her fingers over his cheek. His hand holds hers against his skin.
"I'll only ever dream of you."