He dreams of Ana singing.
She is blurry and indistinct before him, her form wavering like liquid as she often appeared in his dreams. Her voice, however, is clear and immediate tonight, sounding as if she were singing directly into his ear. The words are unknown, but he strains towards them all the same, relishing the sound of the flowing Arabic in her low, rasping voice.
He reaches for her, as he always does, but he finds that she is beyond his grasp—as she always is. The irony does not escape him; Ana has been the only one to avoid the long reach of his limbs, forever positioned just in front of his fingertips. The distance could have been kilometres for how close he is to bridging the gap between them, and he finds himself now waking with a start as his hand brushes the wall beside his bed.
Reinhardt sits up, feeling more tired than he had when he went to bed, but realises that Ana's singing has not stopped—rather, it's not singing. He can hear the low growl of expletives just outside his window, a constant stream of Arabic that must have fuelled the clarity of his dream.
He lets the air deflate from his lungs. It had been just that; a dream. She is no longer just a mercury figure dancing beyond his grasp. The frown on his face is quickly replaced with a grin, and he hurriedly gets out of bed to see what has her so upset in the middle of the night.
He moves to the glass door that opens up onto a small balcony, where she sits on the cool concrete. Her headscarf is down, hair unbraided and flowing free in the moonlight.
"Ana?" He pulls the door open and she jumps, surprised to see him awake.
"Hello, asad," she says as a greeting, the nickname achingly familiar to him. She smiles, looking embarrassed at her sudden appearance on his balcony. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to wake you," she continues, and stood up in one graceful motion. Always so graceful.
"I am glad you did," he replies, and her smile turns more genuine.
"I remember your balcony gave a wonderful view of the ocean," she explains, gesturing to the water and cliffs below. He can't tell if the red on her cheeks is from the wind or his words, but they are lovely all the same. "I was restless, and so…."
"You decided to swear at the sea?" he finishes for her, and to his delight she laughs at his joke. Her face crinkles in humour, and old, unused laugh lines appear on her cheeks.
"Ha! No. My hair is tangled from the wind." She gestured to her exposed head, where knots disrupted the liquid flow of her silver hair. "And my comb is only making it worse."
Reinhardt sweeps a hand into the room. "Come in, then. I will help."
She hesitates at that, her lone eye switching from him to the dark interior of his bedroom. "It's late," she begins, slipping her comb into her pocket. "I shouldn't be bothering you at this hour."
"Ah, but I want you to." He extends his hand to her then, offering his palm. She stares at his broad fingers, rough with callus and scars.
"Are you sure of that?" Her eyepatch is not on, replaced only by a small square of gauze. It is enough to cover her eye, but does nothing to hide the scarring that pulls at her skin, or the deep lines that collect beneath her eye. It is both a reminder of her death and a resistance to the bullet that broke her, and he finds himself torn between aching to hold her close and roaring in pride at how resilient she is. She looks at once old and young, her shoulders set ridged in defense of her own hesitance, yet her expression is exposed and vulnerable to him. He is again taken aback by the beautiful duality of her, and thinks that he cannot bear another moment of the space that separates them.
"Please, liebling. I could not think of a better way to spend the night than with you."
His words are enough to break her of her immobility, and her hand slips into his with a relieved droop of her shoulders. He holds back a sigh at her touch, and she rewards him with a smile that is just large enough to hold a hint of playfulness.
"Oh?" she replies, and follows him into the room. "Going straight to the point, I see."
He realises then how his words sound, and a flush heats his face as he quickly turns to explain himself. "That is not what I meant—"
She touches his cheek, and he quiets at the soothing coolness of her hand. "I know. But it's fun to tease." She steps away and casts about the room, as if to make sure no one is listening. "And I wouldn't mind if you did," she adds, almost as a whisper.
He finds there's not nearly enough oxygen in the room for his lungs to work properly, even with the door open and the wind blowing in cool misty air, and he flounders at how to respond. The years between them have left him unprepared for her sudden arrival back into his life; what had once been easy is now unfamiliar to him, but he is nothing if not determined to remediate that.
"Not that it'd be that exciting anyway," she continues when he doesn't respond, going to his dresser to search for a proper brush. The spot where her fingers had laid against his cheek is cold now, and he follows her closely. "I've become a saggy, soft old woman."
Her matter-of-fact tone makes his chest hurt. He decides to risk a hand on her shoulder, if only to anchor himself more firmly in place, and she turns to look at him, armed now with a brush.
"You are beautiful, Ana. Especially in the moonlight," he tells her softly.
"And you are rather magnificent yourself, asad," she replies with a grin. She reaches up to his face once more, this time to tug on the hair collecting around his jaw. "Even with that scruff of yours."
He rubs at his beard and catches her hand in his. "You said you preferred my hair long."
She shrugs and hands him the brush, then pulls a chair towards them for her to sit down on. "I can't decide which I like better."
He stands behind her when she sits, and they're quiet as he begins to brush her hair. The sound of the bristles against her scalp matches the soothing tempo of the waves outside, and Reinhardt continues to run the brush through her hair long after he's removed the tangles from it. It's incredibly soft under his hands, as if her hair truly was crafted from liquid mercury. It's lighter than he remembers it, but the silver suits her dark skin well.
When her shoulders lean back to rest against his ribs, he realises she's fallen asleep. He sets the brush down on the dresser and reaches under her legs, pulling her away from the chair and tucking her against his chest. She blinks awake momentarily at the jostling, and looks up at him. Her expression is soft again, open but unafraid.
"I can take you back to your quarters, if you like," he offers, careful not to sound too hopeful that she'd say no.
"Don't be silly," she says, the words coming out almost as a reprimand. "I've slept alone enough to last a lifetime."
His smile splits his face. "As have I."
Reinhardt walks her to his own bed instead, drawing the covers up around her shoulders and slipping under the blanket beside her. Half-asleep and bereft of her earlier hesitance, Ana eagerly curls into his side. He presses his grin into the crown of her head and wraps an arm around her, pulling her close enough to make any space between them disappear. She hums a contented noise low in her throat, slips her hands beneath his shirt as he remembers she always liked to do, and whispered something that could have been a goodnight or a thank-you.
He decides it doesn't matter, content to fall asleep to the sounds of her breathing, a privilege he'd long thought he'd never have the chance of enjoying again.