Thanks to everyone who looked this over at one point or another.
Providence
by Timesprite
She stared up at the ceiling, white and utterly unremarkable; pondered reaching across her bedmate to switch off the lamp that dimly illuminated the room but decided that in the dark or the light she'd still be awake, so it wasn't worth the effort of moving, nor the risk of waking the man beside her. Not when he'd finally drifted off into a normal sleep. She shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position, but the heat was stifling.
It'd rolled out of nowhere, the last traces of an Indian Summer, and
was making the bedroom miserable despite the fan in the window. Whirring
at high speed, the little breeze it was managing to cause in the muggy
air was like the breath of a dragon, flickering over her sweaty skin but
doing absolutely nothing to cool her. With a soft sigh she climbed out
of bed, sleep was obviously not going to be an option tonight. With a glance
back at the bed to make sure Nathan was still asleep, she closed the bathroom
door. She turned the cold water on the tub faucet on full blast, splashing
some of the cool water on her face as she waited for the bath to finish
filling.
She slipped into the tub; cold water sending
a momentary shiver up her spine as it contacted her hot skin. Much better.
She leaned her head back against the lip of the tub and closed her eyes.
He'd been gone for three weeks. A pretty long time for him, without so much as a note to let her know he was alive. And they hadn't fought before he'd left this time, which made his silence doubly worrisome. If there were harsh words between them before he left on one of his missions- and more often than not, there were- she could count on his bullheadedness to keep him from contacting her again until he was fairly sure her anger had faded. But this time- she sighed. When he'd told her he was leaving, she'd seen something in his eyes, something she couldn't quite put into words, a sort of keen pain that seemed to be begging her not to say a thing. So, against better judgment, she'd given him a quick kiss on the cheek and told him to be careful. She'd wait for him to get back.
It had been one of those surreal moments, when he'd come back. She'd
been taking advantage of the sudden warm weather to take care of things
in the yard before fall set in for good and it got cold and damp. She'd
been performing the less than glamorous task of cleaning debris out from
under a set of bushes when she heard him pull up and walk across the small
lawn. His tall form blocked out the sun as she turned to look at him.
The moment was still frozen in her mind all
these hours later. The sun had been a blazing halo behind him for an instant,
painting him as the martyr she'd always accused him of being. This time,
his eyes reflected nothing. The gardening went unfinished.
With a sigh, she dunked her head under the water and sat up again, rolling her shoulders before leaning back against the edge of the tub.
They'd ended up in bed- they always ended up in bed, it seemed.
There was probably a good reason for that, outside the obvious. They isolated
themselves so much the majority of the time, physically as well as emotionally-
and it was a simple fact of nature that human beings needed physical
contact.
There was something haunting him. She'd known
that even before he'd fallen asleep in her arms and the nightmares began.
She'd known it the moment she saw how flat and emotionless his eyes were.
He could play the stoic all he wanted, but after so many years, she'd gotten
adept at reading the moods reflected in his eyes, and that afternoon, standing
on the lawn with the sun at his back there'd been nothing there. Just a
dull, dead stare.
Her heart constricted a little as she remembered the same dull weariness
that'd come through in the few words they'd exchanged- just enough for
him to assure her that he was fine, and that he'd done what he had set
off to do. Then his mind seemed to shut down, as if it hurt him to even
think. She knew there was probably no chance he'd tell her what it was
he'd gone to do, also realizing that, more likely than not, she didn't
want
to know.
It was no secret that his 'mission' sometimes
required him to do things he found distasteful, if not flat out morally
wrong. It was this expression of conscience, primarily, that allowed her
to stay after all this time. If none of it had ever bothered him, she probably
would have given up on him years ago. It was a fragile distinction in her
mind- he was committed to his cause, but not so much that he followed blindly
without question.
Evidence that his conscience was alive and well was more than apparent
when he curled up into a big ball on the bed, shaking from whatever nightmares
had decided to accost him for his actions. She'd spent more than a few
nights like this before, and the experience served her well- normally all
she had to do was hold onto him and talk softly, as if soothing a stricken
child. The dreams had been more tenacious than normal, refusing to release
him without a fight.
She swiped at her cheeks with the back of
her hand. It wasn't fair, really. Whatever god had chosen him for this
miserable destiny had made a poor choice- he never should have been a soldier.
She firmly believed that under the myriad layers of scars and conditioning,
he was a man of simple desires. But he was also a man of devotion, and
one who believed firmly that the needs of the many outweighed those of
the individual- especially when the individual was himself. And so although
he hated the path his life had to take, he'd see it out to its bitter end,
no mater the costs.
What could she do, faced with this morbid
truth? It would have been easy to let him go- easier on herself, anyway,
but every time she saw him in this condition she knew she couldn't be that
selfish. Even messiahs needed saviors on occasion. And if that was her
role in the huge cosmic web she could never hope to understand, so be it.
"Dom?"
The voice that reached her ears was shaky- he'd woken from something unpleasant, no doubt, and expected to find her there beside him. "I'm coming, Nate." She reached over and opened the drain, climbing from the now tepid water and walking back into the bedroom. "I'm here."