Disclaimer: No ownership.
Promise
Hannah drifts, in her movements and in her thoughts. The war was over and done—finished. The relief she feels in her bones was nothing short of overwhelming.
Peace. Peace at last.
Her body, oh she feels so weak, drapes itself across a sofa. She's looking out the window and her stomach is clenching and doing back-flips because the mere sight of the outside world, the mere knowledge that there is still a world outside is enough to send her into hysteria. A good hysteria. A really, really good hysteria. One where her tears are hot and flowing and she's smiling and blabbering on about how so many things can be made good again now that the worst was in the past. She's gotten into one of those more than once. She isn't the slightest bit ashamed.
She draws out a long, deep breath, making a point to let go of all the air as she breathed out. It comes out as a shudder and she wonders idly if she's going to cry again. She shouldn't be crying. She is a leader. She's made a promise to be a leader and as a leader, she has to plan. She has to rebuild.
(But for right now, she'll be content to lie down and just be. She has all the time in the world to make good on her promise)
She doesn't realize how late it is until she starts to see the first signs of night falling—look there, that's a star—and she's struck dumb once again by how natural everything feels. Was it not just yesterday she was tending the wounded, giving rites to the dead? Was it not just last month, when she was surrounded by solemn faces of determination? Are these arms by her side really the same arms that led her faithful and wary troops into battle? The same arms that held loved ones? Ones that were fallen, beaten, lost...
How could anything feel natural after that?
But it does. Oh, goddess, it does. The window is open and the air is clean and her lungs are breathing just as they were one month or one week or one hour before the war and they'll continue to breathe just so now—until the very day she dies.
If there is one thing Hannah has learned in this one life is that it goes on.
"It goes on," she says to herself in a whisper, "it just goes on."
There's a knock on her door before she hears it crack open, and she certainly has no more energy to be surprised or tense or anything so she just blinks and raises herself with shaky arms to see this intruder. Any flicker of annoyance is gone once she sees who it is.
"I'm sorry, were you asleep m'Lady?" Ash Redfern. Such a gentleman now. "I can come back later."
She looks him over once and sees immediately the effects of the war: eye bags, disheveled hair, rumpled clothes, even a gauze wrap around his left wrist and a visible cut running from his forehead to his left eye.
And yet there's something else. Something in the way he carried himself, like he was walking on air. Something in the way his eyes snapped. Yes he's obviously spent, but Hannah senses something underneath and she's so curious to see if that something is the same something they talked about before they headed into the long days of the war, when there was a great chance of never coming back. It really gets to you, that possibility. When you suspect you're going to die there are things you think of that you would give anything to be able to do—sort of like a 'wish-I-could-have-done-that' list. There was one thing on Ash's list that Hannah fully supported. He had sworn up and down that if he got out alive, he'd do it. Could it be?
There's a certain glow to his whole demeanor, and it elates her.
"No, no, please," she says and with a wave of her hand he enters, leaving the door slightly open. She gets up from her seat with newfound gusto and faces him smiling. His smile is bigger than hers, easily outshining the brightest of lights.
She looks at him hopefully, "Well?"
His hand goes into his jean pocket and pulls out a small black box, as dark as the night sky. Hannah's breath escapes her as he clicks it open.
It was empty.
"I did it."
And that's all it takes for Hannah to burst into tears once again (she was so damn emotional nowadays) and once again, they were happy tears. And she may be an Old Soul, she may have just survived the apocalypse, she may be in charge of the rebuilding of the whole world, but she is still a girl. So yes, goddammit, she squeals.
She laughs when his cheeks turn pink and she has to ask the question. "What'd she say?"
Ash's smile gets impossibly wider and his eyes turn into a delighted blue. Hannah's vision starts to mist up.
She is so happy. Because she knew, she always knew, from the very day she met him, in this very room—the day that seemed like a whole lifetime ago—she knew that if anyone in any life ever deserved a happy ending, it was Ash.
Maybe it was stupid to get excited over this one thing after all that's happened, but this is it, Hannah thinks, this is what it's all about. This simple happiness. A spark of promise for a future. It's what they all fought for. Just a little spark of promise.
He beams at her and she looks at him expectantly.
He nods.
Author's Note: Something like this was meant to be the epilogue for Moonlit Mist. I don't think I'll be finishing that up now though, so I thought: Why wait? This would make a good lil' ficlet on its own wouldn't it?
Thierry's not dead, and the ring was for ML if you didn't know ;). No Hannah/Ash intended
Sorry if I'm a bit rusty, I haven't posted anything in a long time.
-xoxo, panini999