She found her hand was soon around both of his, where she rested her cheek, her eyelids then seemed to feel heavy as they flickered with the jittery contentment of touching him. He smelled like nothing she knew, but everything she wanted to know. She turned onto her forehead and inhaled. It was engine oil, something plainly scented and Palmolive, or you could describe it as woody like an old book. His hand was warm and somehow soporific, now gripping her back.
"Oh God, you're not weepin are you?"
"Bernes...? Oh, hello," Edith turned her head and coughed.
He grinned down at her, craning his neck, stubble growing around his angular chin.
She wiped her eyes quickly and swallowed. "I'm not the weeping type."
Bernes would have jested back questioningly, if it wasn't for something fragile that he read on her new face. "Look at you," he brushed her shoulder gently, and raised an eyebrow at her framed arm, and as he looked up again at her face, there was a quiet compassion for her bruises in the way his eyebrows were assembled, the eye contact was so warming that the both of them had to look somewhere else.
Edith surreptitiously gestured. "Look at you. You've got more bandage than limb. At least I'm standing."
He shrugged his shoulders, then winced. "I will be too, how long do ribs take to heal anyway? Does his lordship know you're here?"
"Mamma does, I don't think she'll tell him. This is the first time I've been out of bed since-"
"You know you shouldn't have."
"What?" She blinked in silence. Then nodded. "Oh... oh I know what this is!"
He looked at the foot of the bed thoughtfully. "Look, you know that this is just... you'll never... we could never..."
"Don't start! We've both just survived a bloody car crash! And, and if that isn't cause for care on my part, or yours, then I'm sorry but you cannot just ask me to abandon you and resume living upstairs like you don't exist, like you never went through anything for me, because I know exactly what you're going to ask and, and I'm not having another person push me away, and not now when-" Bernes had hastily covered Edith's mouth.
"Put a sock on it M'lady! Please, we're in the middle of a quiet hospital, remember?"
Edith exhaled in fury. "Just, just-"
"Okay, okay..." he was looking at her so sternly, it was torture, his solid face, affectionate eyes. "I'm sorry, just you calm down." His hand was still on her face, he moved it back to his lap.
"I almost killed you. I almost ended your life! and you saved mine and I, I-"
"Enough with all the sorry, we've had this conversation."
"Oh but that was before we both nearly died!"
"Which wasn't your fault!" Bernes was wide-eyed as he silenced her.
"...How do you feel? How much better are you?"
"Why do you even ask?"
"Because... I'm fond of you, Jason." Edith looked at him side-ways. "Why are you smiling?" she added and her face dropped.
"That's the first time you've called me Jason," he scoffed in satisfaction and beamed at the wall.
Let me know how you are all feeling about this right now.
Thank you so much for reading! Really!
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