"Link? Oh, my spirits, Link!"
Link could hear as if through water: muffled, indistinctly. He floated nearer to consciousness, but the heavy gray fog of pain and exhaustion kept him submerged. He was dimly aware of movement and the presence of voices. He strained against the weight of his own mind to gather what was happening, but he could make sense of none of it before he slipped away again.
He woke to her eyes.
Hena leaned over him, hair hanging around her face in wild banners, her brown eyes wide and dark with concern. They were slightly bloodshot and swollen, as if she'd been crying.
Her hands were clutched near her chest and streaked with blood. Link was alarmed, but he realized shortly that it was his own blood. A rush of emptiness stole what was left of his breath.
"You bloody fool," was the first thing out of her mouth.
Then she flung her arms around him and buried her head in his shoulder, trembling slightly with fear or sadness or relief or some combination of all three.
Link ashamedly lowered his eyes, raising one hand to rest against her back for what little comfort he could offer. As he did, he realized that he was back in bed. He wondered without much care if Hena had lifted him all by herself.
The fisherwoman was pulling herself away from him as Link raised his eyes again. Her devastated expression sent a spike into his heart. This was exactly the thing he'd tried to avoid by leaving. Midna twitched an 'I told you so' from the fringes of his shadow. Link felt too empty to acknowledge her.
"What were you thinking?" Hena whispered fiercely, eyes gleaming with fresh tears. "You could have died. I—I could have lost you." Her voice rose and she demanded, "After all I've done for you, everything we've been through, why would you run?"
Link squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the pain of his mistakes. He opened his mouth to speak, but he could not find the words. He struggled, caught between the truth and the desire to hide his thoughts and emotions away as he'd always done.
After a moment that strained at the seams with tension, Hena prompted, "Well?" In her voice was not anger, but betrayal so deep that it threatened to sting Link's own eyes with tears. He was afraid of the emotions that Hena stirred in him. He was not an open or vulnerable young man, but she… If Link was not careful, she might turn him into one.
"I had to," he finally said, his voice rough from pain and feeling and disuse. Hena waited for more, but Link did not offer it.
She shook her head, at a loss. "Why?"
"You almost died once already," Link said. In that single statement was a whole well of emotion: sorrow, bitterness, and most of all, shame. Link twisted his fingers together miserably, avoiding her eyes once again.
All at once, Hena sighed and all the hurt in her voice melted away, to be replaced by sorrow. "Oh, Link," she said gently. She reached to stroke the side of his face with one hand. Gradually her sun-kissed fingers eased his chin up so that he looked into her eyes. They were deep as the heart of the pond, soft as the breeze in the trees, warm as the sun on the water as she told him, "That's not your fault."
"Yes it is!" Link maintained. "I—" He searched for the words as a wave of emotion tangled his tongue.
Hena leaned in toward him. "What is it?" she pressed tenderly. "Tell me so I can convince you you're wrong."
Link's chest went tight with a sudden rush of something unfamiliar. He found it difficult to breathe for a moment, and it was not because of his wound. He searched Hena's face desperately, trying to make her understand. He couldn't stay. It was for her own good. She was…she was precious. Her life was too precious to risk it by being with him.
Hena's face grew earnest as the silence stretched longer. "Listen, pretty boy," she finally said. "The only thing that matters is that I didn't die. I'm all right. You know why? You were there."
Link shook his head, pulling away from her lingering hand. Finally a response formed in his mind. "You were in danger because I was here."
Hena looked slightly hurt by his motion. "That doesn't make sense."
"Danger follows me. If you're with me, you're at risk."
She snorted. "Don't be silly."
"I left because I was trying to protect you."
"I would rather be in danger with you than fat, dumb and happy without you." Hena's caramel eyes were alight with a conviction that caught Link off guard. One of her small, deft hands curled into a fist as she continued. "You scared the chum out of me, Link. I thought you were going to die." She let her hands drop limp into her lap. "I don't ever want to feel like that again."
Link was silent again for a long moment, working his jaw. His heart was beating a bit too quick. Hena's words touched some feeling in him that he'd tried to push away for a long time. He still did not want to face it. So he pushed it away again. "I can't stay here."
"Yes, you can."
Hena was not making this easy. The worst part was that the small flame of feeling was evading his best efforts to extinguish it, and it was telling him that she was right. Link's brows drew together in frustration. "I won't be responsible for ruining anyone else's life," he said decisively.
Hena took his face in her hands again. Her eyes crinkled a bit with the hint of a smile and it was like the sunrise. "You've far from ruined me, Lincoln," she whispered.
Link opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again. He couldn't look away from the fisherwoman's eyes. They were so bright, so brown, full of so much emotion.
It took him a few seconds to gather his thoughts. When he spoke, they came out broken. "I…I'm…afraid. Afraid that you'll get hurt."
Hena gave a one-shoulder shrug and smiled again, a bit regretfully. "There's danger everywhere, Link," she said. "If you never let yourself live because you're afraid of something going wrong, you'll look back and realize you've let life pass you by."
"It's safer that way."
"But it's not better," Hena stated. She looked at him steadily, openly. "Listen to me, Link. I don't know your story. I don't know everything about you. But I'm not slow. I can see how you're living; always looking over your shoulder. Looking everywhere else but inside."
Link felt the truth of her words like salt in a wound. His thoughts ran before he could rein them in. 'When I look inside, I see things that scare me, like how much I…'
He caught himself abruptly.
Hena was continuing: "You can't worry about everyone else all the time. You're a person too, Link." She leaned in again. "When was the last time you did something you wanted? I mean actually?"
Link said nothing. He had no answer. He had never done what he'd wanted. He'd been alone for as long as he could remember, barely scraping by, and employed for the greater part of that time. Someone else had always reaped the benefits of his hard work.
Hena saw the truth in his face. "Exactly," she said. "Let me be the one to tell you, Link: life is too precious to waste it staring into the shadows. You have to look up and notice the beautiful things every once in a while."
Link's gaze went of its own accord to her lips. Like the rest of her, they were gentle, expressive, full of life. And very distracting. His thoughts wandered. The tingling feeling in his chest encouraged him to consider Hena's words. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to do as she suggested. Maybe, as long as they kept to the sanctuary of the pond, Link and Hena would be safe.
Well—no matter what, Link would keep her safe.
He flicked his attention back to her eyes as she grinned. "All these expert tips and I haven't even charged you a rupee. You've swindled me again, pretty boy." Without warning, she bent down to him and rubbed her nose briefly with his. It was an affectionate gesture, if odd. It threw Link off balance for a moment and he felt his cheeks grow warm.
Hena straightened up enough to meet his eyes. "So you're staying, right?" she pressed. The tension in her tone betrayed her true feelings.
For a long moment, Link didn't speak. Against his better judgment, he wanted to stay. He wanted to spend his days on the pond with Hena. He wanted to let the burdens of Hyrule slip from his shoulders and live in peace instead. He wanted to look up and notice the beautiful things, as Hena had said. He wanted to notice her, who was just as beautiful as her little corner of the world. He wanted…
He wanted too much.
But maybe it was time to let himself.
So slowly that his neck creaked with the motion, Link nodded.
"Good," Hena said immediately, smiling widely. The word carried a note of relief. Quickly, before, Link could change his mind, Hena hopped off the bed and swept toward her small kitchen space, her bright voice chasing away any danger of silence: "Let me change your bandages again, and then I'll whip us up some supper. Yeah?"
Link felt the barest trace of a smile pull at his lips. "Yeah."
...