Healing
The night was far advanced but the pair coiled in the large bed was still awake. Having passed the earlier hours in pleasurable dalliance, they lay warmly relaxed in mutual satisfaction.
"I have something for you," her voice was muffled against the smoothness of his chest.
"Something else?" he responded teasingly.
"Be serious. You wanted to know what the Maesters had in mind, so I had some of my people steal the sphere of the discussion when they decided to save you. I was there, you know, but you never heard what was said. They're not at all secret about what they expect from you." She didn't mention her careful editing of her own role in the decision.
Nooj lazily shifted to raise himself on an elbow. "Will the spheres be missed?"
"Not to worry, I had duplicates made and left the originals." She laughed deep in her throat as he reached for her, "No, don't thank me; I was just trying to be useful."
"And you are and you shall be," he whispered, his fingers twisted in her silver-gilt hair.
As the viewer continued its monotonous hum, Nooj slumped back in his chair. The spheres had left him numbed. It was one thing to know what had happened in that last encounter with Sin and quite another to actually see the results of the clash. Turning his head away from the images still flickering on the monitor, he saw with his mind's eye his body lying on that gurney, slimed with blood, his skin as white as that of his mistress, and the awful absence of half of him. He put his spectacles down on the table and cupped his fingers tightly over his eyes but the phantasms remained. He had not visualized the full extent of the damage he had taken. Half of him destroyed! As though a monstrous foot had stepped down and, twisting, torn away half of his body. He had seen what had taken place at the moment of his destruction but the aftermath was so much worse than he had imagined; he was not sure he would ever be able to accept those pictures. There was a horrible difference between his internal memories of the attack and the sight of that obscenity splayed out on the gurney.
LeBlanc, standing behind him, was astonished at the vehemence of his reaction. She had assumed he had seen the file records of his injuries and had become as inured to them as had she. With a gesture of compassionate support she placed her hand on his shoulder only to have it shrugged aside as he struggled to his feet.
"How can you bear to look at me, much less let me touch you?" he demanded in a sort of agony of rage. He was pale with fury, not at her, but at the realization of what had been done to him both by Sin and his human caretakers. Was he to be permitted no illusion, no matter how small? He stormed vainly, helplessly within his mind. And she had seen that laid out before her, nothing hidden, nothing to soften the awful sight, no merciful gauze drawn over the scene.
"How can you look at me?" His pain was tangible.
Silently, she lifted her hands and gently untied the belt of his robe, slipping it from his trembling body. When he was naked before her, she stepped back two steps and deliberately looked, passing her gaze over every inch of him, neither lingering upon nor avoiding any part.
Dropping her own robe to puddle around her feet, she tenderly brought his hands to her warm flesh and said, with utter simplicity, "I love you."
He could not speak but stood holding her carefully like a vessel that might break as she knelt and began healing him.