Tina's point of view.
***
Tina could feel Bette's eyes boring into her back; it had been more than a year since she had shared her bed and yet she still...felt...her.
She thinks she always will.
She hesitated to turn, knowing that if she did, Bette would feel the need to turn away, to stop watching her. She wasn't ready to lose the warmth.
It amazed her that they still had...this. This connection to one another. She had never shared that with anyone else and, if she was honest with herself, she didn't think she ever would again. There was something about the way that she responded to Bette, even when she had her back turned, that was inherently magnetic. She could always feel...sense...her power, her strength.
It felt like home.
And it made her want to cry because this distant observation was all they had now. All she dared herself to have. Anything else would have been too much and she wasn't ready to let Bette back in. To her heart, to her soul.
She still hurt. Her stomach still clenched uncomfortably when she was too close to remembering the way in which Bette had touched that girl's hand. Even now, her shoulders hunched in forgotten pain.
She had come a long way; a few months ago, she wouldn't have been able to stand in the same room as Bette. Thinking about her would have killed her a little bit.
So, she knew, this was enough. For now.
***