Shoutouts to fluttershypegasus1, Peryton, Luvya2103, Chocoholic with a Pen, bellapaige88, MaddieFayeth96, clarawithfitzsimmonsin221b, Hofherrp, Jo, yornma, starrynightshade, Jewelz1642, Eva7673, pengineer, Guest, WhispersOfWings, PossibleAvenger, Oriana8, KatieBug1017, Guest, and breatheoflife for reviewing!

So things have been pretty depressing for Clint and Natasha, and this chapter is fairly depressing, too, but I think the end will hopefully make up for it a little bit? I think the ending's kind of a big deal, sooooo =) There are two flashback sequences to Clint's past, and this is what Clint is reliving when he's unconscious. You get a better idea of who he is and the kind of childhood he had and why he's as resilient as he is now.

Had a question on whether this story is movie-canon or comic-canon since it's kind of neither. It's kind of weird because I don't have a good answer for it. I'm taking bits and pieces from both movie-canon and comic-canon. In the MCU, Clint's deafness is never addressed, so I'm assuming he's hearing, so I'm not going 100% movie-canon; however, a lot of movie-canon stuff that I've included isn't comic-canon. All of my Marvel fanfics are in the same universe, and they're all MCU, so I guess if I had to answer, this story is movie-canon. But with a few comic additions i.e. Clint's deafness. (Though when I'm writing Clint, I'm picturing him the way he looks in Matt Fraction's Hawkeye series. If you haven't seen the pictures, go look. A comic drawing is a total hottie.)

If you want extra emotions, listen to "One" - Ed Sheeran. I promise I'm listening to all the music recommendations y'all are leaving me, and I'm keeping them in mind for future chapters to use =)

As always, keep leaving your thoughts and opinions. The amount of feedback you guys have been giving me is amazing, and see, it really does keep me updating frequently =) Y'all are so valuable. Buckle in for some angst and a little something extra at the end. (Sorry this is so long again.)

Enjoy! =)

Chapter 26

Clint woke up several times over the next few hours, and each time, his eyes searched until he found Natasha. He didn't say anything, and Natasha wasn't sure if it was because he was choosing not to speak or if he were too drugged up to speak, but she knew that he saw her and acknowledged her being there with him. And for the first time, she didn't think about what Coulson or Palmer would do if they saw her with him. When Clint was awake, she sat on the edge of his bed and touched some part of him without saying anything, sometimes occasionally saying his name softly. She touched his hand or his forehead, or most often, she gently brushed her hand through his hair because she knew he loved that more than anything in the world.

Palmer was the first one to bring it up when Coulson was out making phone calls in the hall.

"He loves you," he said evenly in a steady matter of fact voice. Natasha looked over at Palmer, her hand still running through Clint's hair as he finally gave up the fight to stay awake. Palmer looked at her with his light brown eyes. "He really, really loves you."

I hate wearing sweaters more than I have Texas, I love you, and I don't think people who wear sunglasses indoors are douchebags.

She could hear Clint's low, warm voice breaking through the silence of the warehouse, the words melting out of his mouth. She could hear the exact way he'd said "I love you." At the moment, she hadn't paid much attention to it because she hadn't been expecting it—he'd just said it. But later, as she'd played the words over and over in her mind while she'd lightly touched a barely conscious Clint to let him know that she was there with him, she'd noticed more details about the way he'd said it. Soft and gentle and confident. He loved her. He really and truly loved her.

And as she looked at Clint's unconscious face, the square lines of his skull wrapped in gauze bandages, she knew that she loved him, too. God, she loved him the way she loved the smell of his shampoo. She loved him the way she loved listening to him play guitar. She loved him the way she loved watching his perfect form before he relaxed his hand and let his arrows fly. She loved him the way she loved his lips on her neck, his hand on her hip, his skin against hers. She loved him the way she loved the rain.

Just as she'd known for a while that Clint loved her, she knew that deep down, she'd loved him for longer than she'd ever had a clue. She tried to think about the exact moment she'd starting loving him, but she couldn't pinpoint that one, solitary second that had been the starting point for her. She just knew that she loved him now. He was so perfect and so imperfect that it drove her crazy. There were so many things he did that annoyed the hell out of her. She hated that he wouldn't throw his empty pizza boxes out for like, a week, and she hated that he liked dogs over cats. She hated how he could take just one look at her and know that she was upset. But God, she loved him for it, too. She loved each and every little thing she hated about him because it was a part of him, and she loved him.

The realization left her breathless, and she found her throat growing tight as she lowered her hand from his hair and moved it to rest on top of his hand. Even his goddamn callouses were perfect. He'd touched her a million times with those hands, and she would never get tired of feeling the hot burn of his touch because he was hot like the fire that existed inside him. He was fire and water all at the same time because his passion and his energy and his enthusiasm burned brighter and hotter than God could have ever made the Sun, but he was soft and soothing, and he molded to her better than any sea, ocean, or lake. He was a sentence she never wanted to finish but always wanted to begin.

She loved him as Clint Barton the SHIELD agent, Clint Barton the archer, Clint Barton the former rogue, Clint Barton the orphan who'd grown up with the circus, and Clinton the damaged little boy who'd been abused so badly by his father that every time he mentioned his injuries, the first memory he thought of was of his father nearly killing him. She loved him because he was her partner and her best friend and someone who'd saved her but would always insist that she'd saved him, even though she would never be able to give him what he had given her. He was fucked up, and truthfully, he fucked up a lot more than he would ever willingly admit, but Natasha loved him all the more for it. He was perfect and beautiful and fucked up and everything she ever could have wanted in someone.

It struck her then that she'd always known that their agreement to never risk their lives for each other was stupid because she would risk hers for him—she'd done it before during the Voloshin mission when she'd pulled the trigger and fired a bullet into Voloshin's brain. If she could keep him safe forever, she would. If she could have protected him from those arrows driving into his ears, rupturing his ear drums, and robbing him of one of his senses, she would have.

She wanted to drown in him simply because he was him but also because she knew he would never let her drown completely because he always had her back and because he loved her and because he was her partner and because he loved her the way she loved him, too.

Overwhelmed, she finally looked up at Palmer and met his eyes, and she spoke the only words she could bring herself to say in that moment of realization. "I know."

She'd never felt more vulnerable or more alive.

Coulson was the second person to draw attention to it.

"I totally called your…your romance," he said, his voice somewhat smug. She found herself smiling as she looked at the man who'd never once made her feel as though she didn't belong at SHIELD.

"How long ago?" she asked.

"About a month before Budapest. I'd suspected a little bit sooner, but I didn't want to jump the gun too soon." His smile spread into a wider, smugger expression that looked more like a smirk than an actual smile. Natasha wrapped her hands tightly around the millionth cup of coffee she'd ingested in the last God knew how many hours since she'd been at the hospital, and she smiled.

"Well. You're not wrong," she quipped. Sometimes she felt ok enough to smile for just a few seconds, and then she'd look back at Clint and remember that he was now deaf, and her smile would slowly fade away. As her smile slipped away this time, she remembered the feeling of what it was like to smile and to feel good, and she bottled it away in the back of her brain to use for when Clint came back to the world of the living again.

That night when the nurses tried to escort the three agents out of Clint's room, all three of them refused to budge. No one wanted to leave Clint alone, even if he were sleeping so hard that Natasha would have thought he was dead had it not been for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Selfishly, she wished that he were awake so that she could reassure herself that he really was ok, but selflessly, she was glad that he was asleep, oblivious to the pain that he would be in when he woke up.

She wanted him to be without pain as much as possible, even if it meant that he was lost to the world around him.

The next day, Natasha woke up to find herself curled up uncomfortably in the same chair she'd occupied the entire night before. Coulson was already awake, but Palmer still appeared to be dozing a little bit. Slowly, Natasha straightened her legs out and stretched her muscles, wincing as she felt her cramped muscles start to release.

"Natasha. Here. I managed to dig up a few of these," Coulson said. She looked over at him and saw him holding out a brand new toothbrush and tube of toothpaste that looked like it'd been bought in the gift shop on the first floor. Eagerly, Natasha took it and held it in her hands.

"Thank you," she said. Her gaze drifted over to Clint. "Has he woken up?"

"No. The last time he was awake was about two hours ago when the nurse came in to give him another dose," Coulson replied. "She said they're going to start trying to wean him off a little bit today."

"Did she say when he's going to be stable enough for us to transport to a SHIELD hospital?" Natasha asked as she brought the heel of her palm to her eyes, rubbing the sleep out of them. Grimly, Coulson shook his head.

"No," he said. "She said the doctor had some things he wanted to share with us in regards to Clint's condition."

Natasha's face became worried. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Coulson said honestly. "We'll just have to wait and see."

Worriedly, Natasha got up and went to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and winced at her hair in the mirror. It looked dirty and messy from having been unwashed in over 24 hours, and she wished that she could shower to get it clean again. Self-consciously, she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and hoped that it hid how dirty it really looked.

When she walked back out, Palmer was blinking himself awake with a tired, pained look on his face. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, blinking hard several times. "Coffee. For everyone."

"That sounds amazing," Natasha murmured in response. Without saying another word, he got up and left the room. She was quiet as she waited for her coffee, and she was quiet when she took the coffee from Palmer's hands. She was quiet all the way up until Dr. Parker walked into the room.

"Good morning," he greeted.

"Good morning, Doctor," Coulson said. Gratefully, Natasha glanced over at him, relieved that he was willing to take the lead for them when she felt as though she couldn't handle it. "One of the nurses said you had an update for us on his condition."

"Yes. I got the results of the tests back. It seems that he's doing fairly ok for himself, but his heart is the problem at this moment in time," Dr. Parker said.

"What do you mean?" Palmer asked with a frown.

"When a person goes into shock, it can put a lot of stress on the heart. As I said yesterday, we nearly lost Mr. Barton on the operating table as a result of his body going into shock. His heart started to work overtime to keep him alive, and right now, it seems like he's going to need to take it easy," Dr. Parker explained. "Too much stress isn't a good thing for him right now."

"Doctor, he just found out that he's deaf. How can he not be under too much stress?" Natasha asked incredulously. Dr. Parker gave her a regretful look.

"I know it'll be difficult," he said slowly. "But that's the fact of the matter."

"When will he be stable enough to move?" Coulson asked, frowning.

"That's hard to say. I would like to think that after another day or so, he'll be stable, but that's only if he remains as calm as possible. Upsetting him could lead into cardiac arrest, and that could lead to—"

"Him dying," Natasha finished flatly. She stared at the doctor as if he were to blame for all of this, even though she knew he wasn't. Reluctantly, Dr. Parker nodded.

"That's another reason why we've been trying to keep him as sedated as possible over the course of the night." He paused and shook his head with a tired sigh. "I admit—this has been a, uh…a brand new injury for me. I've never treated anyone who's been stabbed in the ears with—with arrows before. This is the first time I've seen anything like it."

"When will he able to receive fittings for hearing aids? Hearing aids will help, won't they?" Coulson asked, his voice sounding concerned and worried. Dr. Parker nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes—yes, hearing aids will help. He should be able to use them. I wouldn't advise a fitting for at least another week. We want to avoid the risk of infection or anything that could come as a result of his injuries. We also don't want to put him in any more pain by inserting something into his ears," he said.

"Right. Of course," Coulson said gently. "Of course."

"Do you guys have any questions or anything else?" Dr. Parker glanced at each of the agents.

"Where's the closest hotel?" Coulson asked.

"It's about a 10 minute drive. The Holiday Rest Inn," Dr. Parker replied. "If you turn left out of our main entrance and drive 10 minutes straight in that direction, you'll find it there on your right."

"Perfect. Thank you," Coulson said. And with a nod, the doctor was gone. Natasha looked over at Coulson as he dug around in his pocket for a cell phone. "I'm going to see about securing us a room at the Holiday Rest Inn. Looks like we'll be staying a little while longer."

"Ok," Natasha said.

"I could use a shower," Palmer added. Natasha allowed herself to smile.

"Me, too," she agreed. Coulson smiled back at all three of them.

"Hell, I think we all could use a shower and a nap at some point today," he said. "I'll call if anything comes up, alright?"

Natasha nodded to show that she'd heard, and she went right back to the seat she'd kept vigil in all night, and she waited. That seemed to be something that she was good at these days, so that was exactly what she did. She sat, and she waited.

"Oh, Clint. Come here, sweetie. He doesn't mean it. He just…he gets angry sometimes, and he takes it out unfairly on you."

Clint stared up at his mother through tear-filled blue eyes as she looked at the cut on his lip. He wished she would stop his dad when he started yelling. He wished she would stop him when he started swinging his fists around.

"My lip hurts," he said, his voice quivering. He knew Barney was watching him, and he knew Barney would probably hit him later for crying about this, but he couldn't help it.

"I know it does, baby. I know. Just…let me take care of it for you. I can do that at least. I can at least do that," his mother said. He waited for her to wet the washcloth in her hands, and he mentally prepared himself for the sting of the alcohol against the open wound. Despite himself, tears began to flow freely down the sides of his cheeks again. "It's not that bad. Look. It'll be all gone before you know it."

"Stop crying," Barney whined from off to his right.

"Barney, stop," his mother gently chided. She smiled brightly down at Clint, though he was sure that if he looked closely, he could see tears in her eyes. She smiled at him with a closed mouth. "You're good as new. You know your father loves you, right, Clint?"

"Yeah," Clint replied, but he only said it because he felt that that was the right answer.

"Good. Because he does. He loves you just as much as I do." His mother smiled at him with that watery look on her face again, and he wished she didn't look like that. He wished she didn't look so sad all the time. Most of all, though, he wished she didn't have a bruise on her cheekbone that foreshadowed what his lip would look like in a matter of days. "You know that, right? You know he loves you?"

"Yeah," Clint repeated.

"Good," his mother said, patting him gently on the side of the cheek that wasn't bruised. "Good."

Coulson managed to pull Natasha away from Clint long enough to drive her back to the motel and get her showered. Her duffel bag from the mission was on one of the beds, and she silently breathed a sigh of relief to know that she could finally change out of her uniform and back into some regular clothes. She tried to remember what she'd packed, but she found herself unable to remember.

"I'll be quick," she murmured as she snatched up her bag and hurried to the bathroom. Once inside with the shower running to get the water heated, she started to dig through her bag. She'd packed comfortable clothes the way she usually did for missions. Whenever she packed for missions, she preferred to pack a pair of leggings, a cami, and a cardigan to wear on her way back home. She spotted the three simple pieces of clothing and eagerly pulled them out. All she wanted to be right now was comfortable.

Quickly, she undressed and got in the shower and began to wash her hair with the motel shampoo. She normally wasn't a fan of motel shampoo, but at that point in time, she didn't give a fuck. Getting clean and getting back to Clint was the most important thing to her at that point in time. Suddenly, as she was washing the shampoo out of her hair, it hit her that Clint would never hear the pattering sounds of the shower hitting the porcelain floor of a bathtub. He would never hear the shampoo in his hair or how the snap of opening the cap to a bottle of shampoo slightly echoed in the hollow space.

Swallowing hard, she picked up the bottle of conditioner and put it in her hair before she started to wash her face. Clint loved music. He loved his guitar. He wouldn't be able to play his guitar without his hearing aids—he wouldn't be able to hear AC/DC or Led Zeppelin blaring through his speakers as he drove in such a way that was probably considered unsafe. God, how had he even passed his driver's license?

It was funny how these thoughts came to her in the shower. It was ridiculously funny how she realized all of these tiny, seemingly insignificant things about him when he had suddenly become more significant to her than she'd ever acknowledged before. Quickly, she pushed the thoughts out of her head and finished out the rest of her shower in numb peace. The quicker she was done, the quicker she would be able to get back to Clint in case he woke up.

Natasha climbed out of the shower and swiftly got dressed in her relaxed clothing that she realized Coulson had never seen her in. He'd always seen her in either SHIELD uniforms or undercover clothing. Maybe he'd seen her in some jeans and a jacket, but that would have been the most casual he'd ever seen her. At the thought of him seeing her so casually dressed, she felt strangely vulnerable. She made herself walk back out into the main room. Coulson was seated on the bed with his feet propped up. As soon as he saw her, he sat right up.

"Ready to go back?" he asked. Suddenly, a wave of unexpected emotion hit her. All the things that Clint would never be able to hear…all the times she'd wanted to protect him and had, but the one time she'd failed…all the moments she would never be able to take back. Everything started rushing into her head, and she felt hot tears sting her eyes.

"Um…hold on a moment," she said shakily. "I think I need a minute."

"It's ok. Take your time," Coulson said gently. Natasha blinked several times and looked up at the ceiling, but her eyes kept getting hotter and hotter, and the burn was getting more intense. Finally, she blinked and closed her eyes, and she felt tears start to roll down the sides of her face.

"I'm sorry," she said immediately apologizing and wiping her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm just stressed out and worried."

"Don't apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for." Coulson stared at her levelly. "Barton's hurt. You care about him. It's only natural to have a strong emotional response."

"You and Palmer are keeping it together pretty well, and I can't seem to make it through the day without having some kind of meltdown," she muttered as she sniffed. She wiped her face again, feeling embarrassed.

"Emotions aren't something to apologize for, Natasha. I know you like to pretend that you're a robot who doesn't feel anything, but you're human. It's ok. This is normal. And if you think Agent Palmer and I are having an easy time of keeping it together, you're wrong," Coulson said mildly. Natasha turned her green eyes towards him. "Agent Palmer's a mess. I'm worried out of my mind. Nothing is easy for anyone right now."

Tightly, Natasha nodded. "Yeah. I just…don't like this side of myself."

"Well, it's ok," Coulson said, his voice still gentle. "Just remind yourself of that."

She swallowed and nodded again, frowning thoughtfully as she listened to his words. "Thank you."

"No problem. Do you feel ok to leave?" Coulson looked at her patiently. She briefly considered putting make up on, but then she brushed it off. Putting on make up would mean she would have to take more time out of her day, and she didn't want to do that. She just wanted to get back to Clint.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm ok."

She had always been a gifted liar.

"What the hell did you do this time?"

Barney scowled at Clint as he examined the younger boy's busted up nose. Clint glared up at his older brother and kept his mouth shut. Barney looked annoyed.

"You going to tell me, or am I going to have to punch you to get it out of you?"

"They were calling me a circus freak," Clint said dully as he avoided his brother's eyes.

"What? Who did that?" Barney demanded. "Was it those entitled assholes in the audience?"

"Yeah."

"That's stupid. You're not even part of the freak show," Barney said dismissively. Clint's blue eyes shot back defiantly to his older brother. He looked up at him and thought of a million things he could say, a million names he could call him, a million ways to punch him, but he didn't do anything. "You need to let it slide."

"I can't," Clint protested.

"Yeah, you can. You trying to get your ass beat up every night?" Barney's face twisted into another annoyed scowl. "I can't bail you out of all your fights."

"You don't have to do that for me anymore," Clint snapped angrily. "I can do it myself."

"Yeah, your broken nose speaks worlds about that," Barney sarcastically drawled with an eye roll. "Look, you need to learn how to fight."

"I know how to fight," Clint defensively answered, his eyebrows furrowing into an angry glare. He was totally lying his ass off. He didn't know how to fight. He just started punching and hoped he connected.

"No, you don't. If you keep fighting the way you do, you're going to end up dead somewhere. I'm sick of you getting your ass kicked, so I'm going to teach you how." Barney's tone showed that there wasn't any room for argument. However, Clint didn't give up without a fight. He felt a flash of anger deep down in his stomach.

"I'm not learning from you," he said.

"Don't be a dumbass. Of course you are." Barney shot his younger brother another annoyed look. Sometimes it was hard to believe that they were brothers. Barney had dark hair and dark eyes that their father had had, whereas Clint had inherited his mother's blonde hair and blue eyes. Looking at the two of them, there was no way anyone would have been able to tell they were related. Their personalities and mannerisms, however, were just similar enough to give away a tiny hint to the average stranger.

"No, I'm not!" Clint growled. Suddenly, Barney swung his hand out and smacked Clint on the side of the head. Clint lunged at his older brother, succeeding in knocking him down to the ground, but it wasn't long before Barney was sitting on top of him with his arms pinned down at his sides.

"Stop it!" Barney ordered. "I ain't going to be here to always keep your ass out of trouble. You're going to have to do your own fighting. When the other adults start hitting you, those entitled little shits, you hit them back, ok? Fight for yourself. You hit them back, and you hit them back right."

Natasha walked through the doorway into the room and saw Clint awake. Instantly, her heart leapt into her throat, and she walked towards him. His blue eyes lifted up to look at her. Usually, where she saw clarity and sharpness in those beautiful eyes of his, she saw fogginess and dullness.

"Clint," she said out loud. He looked at her, and his lips moved into a tiny fraction of a smile, but it was so small that she nearly missed it.

"He was able to brush his own teeth and everything," Palmer said. "We've just been talking."

"You've been talking?" Natasha looked at Clint, half-expecting him to reply. He stared blankly in return.

"No," Palmer said with apprehension to his voice. "He hasn't been talking. He won't sign, he won't speak…he's just quiet."

My signing's a bit rusty. Can you understand me? Natasha signed to him, her hands moving slowly as she wracked her brain in an effort to remember the ASL she'd learned a long time ago. She knew Clint saw her, and for a second, she thought he was going to ignore her, but then he nodded.

Are you hurting? She signed. He nodded again. The nurse said they were going to start weaning you off some of the painkillers today.

Clint nodded again. She knew he understood her and that he wasn't just doing it to breeze over the fact that he didn't understand.

"Hey, we're going to go make a food run. We'll be back," Coulson said. She glanced over at him, watching him beckon to Palmer, and then she looked back at Clint, making the sign for food. As Palmer walked past her, he handed her the notebook and pen he'd been using to communicate with Clint. Then it was just the two of them, and they were alone.

Clint kept his gaze on her, and she tried to recall that happy, laughing feeling she'd had earlier with Palmer and Coulson, but she couldn't quite remember it. All that she saw was the sadness and the anger and the confusion in his face, and it killed her all the way down to her very soul. She desperately wanted to tell him everything she was feeling about seeing him awake, but she didn't know how. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but he wouldn't be able to hear them if she allowed her mouth to let them spill over.

Carefully, she crossed over to the edge of his bed and sat down the way she always did. She put her pen to the paper and began to write, all the while feeling Clint watching her like a hawk. When she was done, she held the notebook up.

You have no idea how happy I am to see you're ok. I was worried sick.

His eyes skimmed over the message, and then he glanced over at her with a tiny, worried frown on his face. Instinctively, Natasha wanted to reach out and wipe away the wrinkles in his forehead with her thumb, but she didn't.

I thought I'd lost you.

She held the notebook up again. Tentatively, as if he were afraid of the pain, Clint shook his head. His entire face looked exhausted and haggard, defeated. This was the lowest she'd ever seen him, and it made her chest shatter on the inside. She leaned back over her notebook and wrote.

You can speak. You don't have to be quiet.

Clint wet his lips, but he didn't say anything. Taking a risk, she reached out and took his hand, gently curling it into a ball. Curiously, he watched her bring his hand up to her mouth, and she kissed the back of his knuckles the way she had that one night he'd told her about his broken hands. She held his one hand between both of hers and looked back up at him, only to see his eyes wet the way they'd been the night before after she'd told him his diagnosis. His lips were trembling, and she could see that he was making a conscious effort to breathe as slowly and as steadily as he could so that he wasn't giving anything away.

And then she got an idea. Releasing his hand, she picked up the notebook and pen, and she began to write again.

I prefer wearing socks instead of just going around in my bare feet…

He frowned in confusion, tilting his head just a fraction to the side. She went back to writing.

I can do 10 consecutive pull ups…

Clint kept staring at with that confused look. If he weren't drugged up and horrifically injured, he'd look adorable, Natasha thought to herself. Lowering the notebook, she set it down on the bed and picked his hand back up, bringing it up to her mouth so that he could touch her lips.

"And I love you," she said out loud. Clint's gaze was blank for a few seconds, and then raw understanding passed over his eyes. His face went from being confused to disbelieving. Carefully, he moved his hand from her lips to the side of her face so that the flat of his palm was against her cheek, his touch warm and hesitant as if were trying to figure out just how real she was. He stared at her quizzically, and she nodded tearfully at him. "I love you."

"Come here," he said quietly, his voice a low, husky rasp from lack of use. And Natasha didn't hesitate to follow his order. She would do whatever his rumbly voice told her to do in that moment because she loved him and wanted him to never forget it. She moved closer to him and let him draw her face down to his, her lips colliding with his own warm ones. He tasted of mint and sadness and love, and she swallowed as much of him as she could.

"I love you, Clinton," she murmured against his lips. "I love you."

And even though he couldn't hear it, she knew he could feel it because he nodded against her mouth. His kisses were groggy and pained, but they were perfect the way he was: flawed and beautiful and just everything. He was alive and the farthest thing from perfect, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered to her.

This pain will pass, she wanted to tell him.

You are not damaged, she wanted to say.

You are enough, she wanted to whisper to him.

"I love you," she said.