I stopped. There had been dreams like this. The nightmares where you would appear as if it had been a weekend out-of-town that kept you from me instead of months of uncertainty. I should turn away, walk back to the kitchen, pinch myself, check for head trauma, anything that would prove that you're really there, but I can't, not yet, not until I know you are.
Hair that has grown longer, clothes I had never seen, the silhouette of weapons visible only from the years of watching them slip into place and that smile that made me wonder how we managed to get out of bed, but it's the eyes that stop it all. The blue light no longer stares back and as they take in my form a spark strikes my skin, promising that were both fully aware of how long it has been.
It's our first moment together again. Your terrified how it's going to end, that this strange world will be where they lock you away, and I can't stop myself from reaching out.
Your skin is cold and I stroke your cheek until you place a soft kiss on my pulse point. Such a simple display and I can no longer hold on. I had imagined this end to all the terror. A passionate embrace, collapsing in grief, having to pry Kenzi away why she's shouting words in Russian I dread our children learning, but maybe that's because your arms around me and mine around you was too much to hope for.
The moment lasts until it can't, until one of us, or both, shifts and everything happens at once. The kiss is one of desperation and a habit that speaks volumes about our life together.
When we stood over the woman I thought I had been the love of my life. Yet it was your lips I wanted to feel for the rest of it.
Facing the end of the world everyone else intended to give to the Garuda and you didn't leave until I was thoroughly reminded what would await me when, not if, never if, you came back.
Just an hour before you said I do. Everything had been very traditional considering our lives, but I managed to get away from Kenzi long enough to break one. Too everyone's surprise, except our own, I wore the white dress and you looked incredible in the custom tux. I had to give you an out, a chance to break cleanly before you couldn't escape the stigma of being married to a human, and if Kenzi hadn't shown up we might have started the honeymoon early.
This feels like all three. A total sum of our years together and as I pull away enough to see your brown eyes I know whatever happened, happened.
The human doctor that brought down the Fae is a title you bestowed on me the morning you left. It would be your source of strength and my burden, a tradeoff for your role as the champion that I had come to accept. In the morning their deaths will weigh on me and that will trouble you, but tonight, when we're lying in our bed, and your hand is tickling my stomach despite my insistence that I'm the only one that feels it, we'll take a moment to hope it was enough.
Of course the big bad world will be the least of our worries as we have to survive Kenzi with power tools after hearing the news that we were too busy night scaring her niece and nephew with horrors they'll only feel safe revealing in therapy to call her.