Turns out amongst all that wrong he must have done something right because they spend that evening on the couch, quietly reading. She curls up on the opposite end, tucked into the corner, her knees up against her chest and her whole body sort of braced against the arm of the couch. Once she gets in that position she doesn't move for ages. He'll sense a small tremor in her and he'll get up to turn up the heat.
Even with the heat blazing, she's still trembling, and he doesn't know why she won't just take the afghan hanging over the back of the couch. So finally, unable to bear this shivering person next to him any longer, he takes the blanket himself, reaches over and drapes it over her. She freezes up but for once she doesn't protest and, being careful not to actually touch her, he tucks her in like a child.
She's biting her lip when he's done, but she's smiling, so he takes a chance and strokes her head, and for the briefest moment he feels the warm, soft texture of her hair before she ducks away.
"Sorry," he mutters and returns to his side of the couch. But her smile hasn't gone, not completely, anyway, and she curls into the afghan, eyes on her book and tooth in her lip but smiling. John's heart almost bursts.
Is this what family feels like?
She cooks for him the next day. From the cooler she takes a vacuum-packed piece of meat – a heart, he sees, too big to be anything but beef, split neatly in two, and she puts it into a glass bowl filled with salt water. She tucks it into the bottom of the fridge and washes her hands.
The next morning she's up earlier than him to rummage through her cabinets. He lies in bed, half-awake, listening to the cozy sound of doors opening and shutting and he rubs his face into the softness of his pillow. In a minute she pokes her head through the kitchen door and announces that they need to go shopping.
He drifts off and when he opens his eyes again she's kneeling on the floor at his bedside, swathed in coat, scarf, hat. He blinks to clear away the fog of sleep.
"It's going to take all day to cook," she whispers at him. "We need to go now."
He presses his face into his pillow again and his eyes flicker shut. "Mm, five more minutes." he says. He's awake enough to see her grin at him and she jumps to her feet, flings the word slugabed at him as she rips the covers from the bed. Awake and cold now he decides to get ready before she tries anything drastic.
After they come back she runs into the kitchen and he goes take the shower she didn't allow him time for before. After, he pads into the kitchen on his bare feet to see her at the stove caramelizing two onions, all slithery and slippery around her spoon. She enlists his help manhandling the skillet over the Dutch oven while she scrapes the onions in. He bites his lip and doesn't quite lean into her but lets her bump into his side when she's trying to help him tip up the skillet, and his laugh is a bit shivery but he doesn't think she notices.
She makes him a stew, onions and carrots and celery and potatoes and good browned heart meat, and she seasons it with salt and pepper and simple herbs. She tops the pot off with beef broth and plenty of the dry red wine. She mockingly asks if a toddler like him should be drinking. He shakes his head at her but laughs at the way she waggles her eyebrows at him.
It's that night, for the first time, both of them a bit tipsy on the rest of the wine and the success of the stew (and the heart, which was like the most butter-smooth steak John had ever eaten), that she comes him before going to bed and embraces him, gingerly. He's never tried to hug her because – well, it seemed selfish at the time and he can't bear it when she jerks away from him. But now her arms are around his waist, loosely clasped at his lower back, and he drops his nose to breathe in her fragrant hair, and he has to bite his tongue, hard, to keep from reacting, but he can't help the way his hands come up to her shoulder blades, trembling, on the verge of just crushing her to him.
But she pulls off and hurries to her room, avoiding his eyes, as if she was worried he'd seek them out.