Would she ever admit she was in love with this guy?
And would he?
He'd never, ever, been a player, old-fashioned and romantic as he'd always been - it did take him a long while to get used to it. It seemed this was how things would work with her – despite the shame and the loneliness, despite the feeling in his gut he was doing something wrong and the heartbreak. Pretending nothing was going on at work was easy, being used to putting on a mask as he was. Pretending not to smell her scent when she was beside him and falling for her crooked smile and the way she brushed hair away from her face. Pretending he wasn't thinking of her body because that wasn't the most gentlemanly thing to do.
Well, he was no longer a gentleman, but a player, if that's what she wanted him to be. So long as she kept coming back to him with that lust in her pretty eyes. So long as he could touch and taste and hear her… he'd do it.
"Henry?" she asked, pointing to a dead body. He snapped out of his reverie and knelt down, blushing fiercely as he began his observations on the case, missing entirely on the little sly smile she tried to hide.
A quick glance at the alarm clock told her it was barely four, and she sighed heavily, praying the knocking would go away.
It repeated itself after a few long seconds, and she grudgingly got up.
Door open, her eyes flinched at the light barging into her nerves and shaking her mind awake. She looked at Henry on her doorstep, wrapped in warm layers of clothing and burgundy scarf up to his chin. Small flakes of ice on his hair, looking as adorable as ever for a man who was at her doorstep at not even four a.m.
"What the hell are you doing here?", she grumbled and stepped aside to let him in.
"I was in the neighborhood.", he quickly answered with a crooked smile.
She thought it would have been cute had it not been so early, and nothing was cute so early. Specially with how, recently, she had been so sick as soon as she woke up.
She paced quietly back to her room and sat on the edge of the bed, and he did the same.
He kissed her cheek and touched her barely-noticeable protruding stomach, running his hand over it sweetly.
"I'm sorry, I know it's late, or early, but I needed to see you. I just… I couldn't sleep, and I kept thinking of all these things I needed to tell you."
She nodded and put her hand on his. Quietly, she pleaded. "Tell me."
He sighed. For good five to eight minutes, he did not say a thing, lost in his thoughts.
Six months.
It had been that long since that first night.
In those six months a lot had happened. The drunken nights, the nights that involved no alcohol, the nights spent awake at home, worrying over what to do next and how long they could go on doing this.
The day she had fainted at work, and wouldn't tell him what the doctor had said.
The morning she came into the shop and told him over his spilled coffee that she was carrying his child, and the complete fear mixed with delight and elation and mirth of fathering her baby. Jo's, of all people, the most incredible woman he'd met in the past fifty years. The strong, and incredibly sweet, and caring, and wild woman turning his life upside down.
For the past six months since then he had barely gotten any sleep. All those thoughts of his secret and shame, and love, and fear, and immortality chasing his sleep away every other night, until he could no longer bear it.
He had to tell her.
Face whatever reaction she'd have. Face his fear of rejection and loneliness.
"I… have been keeping a secret from you.", he spoke quietly.
She kept quiet and did her best to tame the wilderness in her chest.
"Not… because I don't trust you. I trust you. I was just… afraid of your reaction."
A million thoughts rushed through her mind and yet she kept it together.
And so, slowly, he opened up about his secret, about what had happened aboard that ship, and about the water, and the War, and not aging, and his elderly son, and ultimately, about his fear of passing it onto their child. It was his curse, and he wouldn't want it for anybody else. He feared it every day, and it was in such constant clash with the joy of seeing her beside him like that, it haunted him so much that he could barely keep it together in front of her. He was so afraid of what could happen to her if others knew about their relationship. He was so afraid of losing her when she found out.
And all this time, she was tormenting herself thinking he'd lost interest in her, or was never interested in the first place. The Henry she thought she knew was not the Henry she saw on her bed, and it scared her too, because, how much did she really know about him? Were all those corky manners just to conquer her and toy with her feelings? She never really thought they were, and she really thought he was genuine, but there were so many times when she'd doubted him.
Admittedly, she was the one to start this whole mess, and if he only got so far was because she let him and indulged herself in his attentions. If they were here now, at such ungodly hours discussing their messed-up relationship and a baby due in four months, could she really blame him?
She could, and she did.
Because he'd always been secretive, she had always known something was up, and although this was not exactly a crime, was it fair to keep her in the dark, given her current state?
Was it fair, to keep it all from her from that very moment she looked into his eyes and told him she was pregnant, and he barely reacted, and he barely said anything besides "Are you sure, about me?" and she clearly remembers she had gotten stark mad, yelling, asking if that was what he made of her? If he was asking her if she had been sleeping around enough to not know it was his child? Because what the hell was he asking? Why wouldn't he answer? Why wouldn't he defend himself or say she was wrong, or… or… do anything she had expected him to do? She was no giddy young girl seeing the world for the first time and believing in true love, but she did believe him. She had faith he was worth her while.
Was that fair? That she had to wipe angry tears as she stormed out, full of regret and hate and feeling so alone? Why couldn't he just talk to her then, and instead of drifting away for weeks on end, why didn't he hug her? And tell her it would be alright, and he would be there, and he wouldn't leave her to deal with it on her own? Why did he just let her walk away with a heart so full of despair?
She sniffed and wiped away her tears.
"I'm so angry at you.", she said quietly. "I'm so, so angry at you, Henry."
