There's a million things he wants to say, wants to do, when he sees Gaby in the doorway.
Her purple brocade dress is ripped and bloodstained, hair plastered against her face, and silver pumps dangling from her left hand. Illya barely registers Napoleon in the doorway behind her or the soft click of the door when he closes it to give them privacy. For once, the Cowboy uses tact and leaves them without a razor sharp quip.
Right hand outstretched and shaking, he's almost afraid to touch her. Afraid she'd vanish before him and leave him in the state of anguish he's been in for the past three days and four nights. Days he spent combing the French countryside for any sign of her. Nights he's spent wide awake, afraid and angrier than he's ever been in his life.
Afraid she was bleeding out - dying - alone somewhere, and angry at himself for not being good enough to save her.
Even seeing her standing before him, alive and relatively unharmed, fills him with the worst feeling of inadequacy.
Yet, there's also pride for how she managed to escape without any help. He's read the report. It was a performance worthy of his chop shop girl.
It's all very confusing for him.
Without giving his body permission to, he drops to his knees before her, his neck bent and forehead pressing against her abdomen. When she touches him, softly and without hesitation, it's like he's breathing for the first time. He revels in the way her palm rests against his temple; the way it leeches out the tension he's been holding onto ever since he heard her scream as he lost consciousness four nights ago.
He loses himself in her touch.
With Gaby, he has no government, no allegiances, no name but for the sigh she gives when his hands grasp her hips to hold her close.
In four minutes, there will be yelling and furniture destroyed. There will be repressed emotions distorting their fight into something bigger than two non-lovers have the right to have.
But that's in four minutes.
