There were many morning where he'd thought that the life he had been leading was a dream, of course, with the help of the gentle breaths that comes in relaxed rhythms, the quick and subtle batting of her eyelashes against the other as she quietly stirs in her sleep and the harmonious sound of her heart beating accompanied by soft whispers and murmurs from her mouth that told him all was fine. The gestures, the beauty, the touch, the memories, it was all vivid and loose to him, like a lucid dream he has been dreaming during nights where he would command an entire massacre to take place. A drop of unattainable normality for someone like him, were what he used to see those moments.

Something too out of reach for someone as marred with death and anger as him but nothing too far that he couldn't dream for it. Her body would shift and turn, facing him as she slept, whether through conscious thought or no, a smile always plastered on her angelic face. This would calm him. It would remind him that the man he used to was just that, the man he used to be. The Man that had to kill, steal, lie and cheat was gone only to be replaced by the doting parent and dreamy husband that was him.

Her face that breathed evenly and with tonal coordination would sing to him the gentle spell of normality, the voice that he would brag belongs to his wife always brought him comfort. He wouldn't dare miss a single second of the life of his wife

Those peachy rose-colored cheeks, puckered plum lips of hers that was he has the pleasure of kissing with his, a second flew by and his eyes were glued to another part of her face, her sharp beautiful nose, her eyelids that seemed to shine with her natural snow white pallor no longer sporting the dryness of powder she used to hide her eye bags back then - not that she'd wear makeup before sleeping.

Another second passed and his mind went adrift into another image of his wife's everlasting beauty and the pleasant bubbly feelings it would invoke inside him, an everglow that would last through until his rich red hair bleached from old age. His former brooding self would surely take a blade to his wife before pointing the same blade towards him after the deed had been done. He's molt from his that shadowy visage of his past.

And, if ever, it came to be, a battle between his former self and his new, changed self - a soldier with nothing but cult-like fanaticism against a family-oriented husband, father and soldier. A blade fashioned from rage has no ground against one from love and pure desire to protect, it was simple, a clear-cut answer for his mind's skeptics, his blade and conviction was stronger.

There was no fanatical discourse running constantly through his mind about empty freedom and liberation, only the admiring, simple and heartfelt emotions he had for the love of his life, for his children, for those he wants to truly protect.

The quiet stillness of the morning caught up to him and through all that admiration he found himself shocked and pleasantly surprised, she was about to wake up. He's slept beside her for long enough to tell when she was about to take a nap and when she was about to rouse into her morning routine. His point: she would always try and grasp for him - as she was doing so right now.

A smile surfaced from his neutral, gawking expression, allowing his hands to flow through her hair he enjoyed the feeling of being the one she choose, being the one to always be by her side before standing up and cooking something for his family.

It was his turn to cook, he didn't want to disappoint his wife and allow her to wake up to the scent of nothing and her stomach aching for a meal. Especially not his twins, the thought of his son and daughter running about the house, spending what little energy they have and cause a small ruckus seemed to much of too much of a bother so early in the morning, no matter how cute the sight of his children pouting at him with their faces upturned into small, adorable seething ones.

This home, his wife, his twins . . . those were something truly worth protecting.