She doesn't sleep well anymore.
She had thought it would be better once he came back to himself, but hope has replaced her comfortable despair, and with hope comes fear. So she sleeps restlessly when she sleeps at all, feels guilty for disturbing him when he gathers her against his chest and wordlessly soothes her back to sleep.
Then at least she knows he's still with her, and she can rest for a few hours, until the fear grows again and she's fighting the urge to wake him, talk with him, and dawn comes both too slowly and too soon.
"Jess, you don't have to keep checking up on me," he chides, because he can't admit even to himself that his distraction was caused by the need to be sure he remembered her face, her name. He twines his fingers with the ones gripping his shoulder, hating how broken and old he feels. "I'm fine."
"I know," she says, and she's lying, they're both lying, and he hates that too, hates wondering if his lies are as transparent, if they wound her as hers wound him.
He rests his cheek on their joined hands, and the lies stand between them.
He's always...not angry, but impatient, with her, with himself, with the healers who tell him he needs to give himself time and a body that doesn't act with the thoughtless ease he remembers. Mostly with her, and she can't blame him, any more than she can stop the obsessive worry which annoys him. They don't argue about it, of course; after losing him, she can't, won't. She suspects that, too, annoys him.
The days stretch. They gradually stop talking.
She wouldn't have thought it possible, but this silence is infinitely more painful than the weeks of silence before it.
He tells himself she isn't doing it intentionally.
But he feels trapped, by the house, by her, by her damnable good intentions. The more his strength returns, the worse the trapped feeling grows.
Once, they would simply have cleared the air between them, then made up with equal passion. It was a predictable, comfortable pattern, one which he would give a great deal to resume. Unfortunately, passion - like his freedom - is in distressingly short supply these days.
He feels like an obligation, and in its way, that's worse than feeling trapped.
Because he feels like he's trapping her, as well.
She doesn't know why she's so shocked the first night he gathers her close and his hands, instead of offering the usual caresses to lull her back to sleep, begin to venture across her body in ways designed to keep her awake.
She doesn't know why she pulls away from him, heart pounding with something closer to panic than desire, or why she curls the hand he kisses into a fist, tucked safe against her body. Or why she closes her eyes when he says her name, when she wants him so desperately.
She does know why he turns away.
He has his answer, no matter how unwanted.
With precious little else to occupy his time, he broods over it, not wanting to believe it. But how can he explain away the wide-eyed look of horror she gave him as she withdrew to the far side of their bed, curled in on herself to maximize the distance between them? How can he dismiss the way she turned her face aside, eyes closed, when he spoke her name?
He doesn't try to talk to her about it. The air grows thick with things left unsaid, until he feels he can't breathe.
The servants haven't seen him since mid-afternoon, and he's nowhere in the house.
Jessica can't seem to get her mind past those facts to actually do something about them.
Hours later, when he does finally return - weaving a bit with exhaustion, smelling of smoke and alcohol and cheap perfume, looking entirely too pleased with himself - a part of her mind remains frozen with hurt and fear.
Her voice shakes when she asks him where he's been. He looks away in answer.
She doesn't realize she's going to slap him until his already-flushed cheek is reddening and her palm is stinging.
It's a petty thing, refusing to answer her; he'd feel guilty, if the answers springing to mind weren't worse. He's almost relieved when she slaps him, gives him permission to be angry.
Her hands fly to her mouth, her face goes from red to pale and back; instead of anger, he laughs, catches her around the waist and tumbles her onto the bed. "Finally," he murmurs against her lips. "I wondered where my wife went."
"I'm sorry. I..." Her breath catches, and she's crying, brutal sobs like the ones he first woke to.
He wraps protectively around her and waits.
She sleeps, really sleeps, for the first time since he woke, and in the grey of pre-dawn finds him watching her, the shadow of a bruise on his cheek.
"I'm sorry."
He catches her hand, kisses the palm, holds on until the impulse to pull back passes. "Far preferable to being treated like a pris...like I'm made of glass."
She looks away; she can feel him studying her.
"I even think," he says, in teasing, hopeful tones she once knew well, "I could survive the horror of seeing you naked."
She tries to frown at him, and smiles instead.
