Their eyes locked as they stared and stared at each other.
Could he really be here?
No, this was just a mirage. A clever tool to fool her into having hope. The blackness seeped into her vision once again as she began to stare at nothingness.
There was tugging on her arms. Fingers gripping her cheeks, shaking her head back and forth. Soft tapping against her face. Muffled shouts. Pleading.
The nothingness made her feel comfortable and numb. It felt so pleasant just to drift away on the black cloud of non-existent dreams. The fingers, however, kept trying to pull her back into the light.
When you're dying, they always tell you to step into the light. She was avoiding light like the plague. The light brought hurt, misery, loneliness.
No. Here was better.
Time passed, though she couldn't tell how long. Warm sunshine filtered in through the window, heating her skin. If her body would obey, she would have moved away from it. The cold was what she wanted, but nobody knew that. It's not like she would tell them. Not that she could anymore.
"Wasting away."
"Will to live."
"Do something!"
The voices grew louder, impatient.
Downy soft hair tickled her chin, as something nuzzled her neck.
"Please, you have to..."
Have to what? It was too hard to concentrate.
Loud, sobbing sounds hurt her ears and the cool breath tickled. That was a new sensation. It was...welcomed. The breaths panted over the skin of her throat, her pulse point screamed for contact.
She gasped as lips rained down soft kisses there, along her jaw line, her cheeks, her half-open eyelids. For the briefest of moments, she wanted to return them. And now that she wanted to, she couldn't, her body immobile. Frozen.
"I know you feel it."
She did. She felt it seeping into her bones, her muscles, spreading into every nerve ending and sparking like a live wire. Yet, she was helpless. A fixed point. Always helpless.
The lips hovered over her mouth, the sweet breath inviting her with its hypnotic flavor and fragrance. They pressed tenderly against her and she willed her mouth to move in tandem. Her jaw twitched a hair's breadth, then stilled. An involuntary spasm. Her body rebelled and no longer obeyed her brain. Not that her brain was presently working to full capacity, or even half capacity.
"You'll come back to me. You'll see."
She wanted to believe that was true. Really, she did. Unfortunately, the question came to mind, what if this was a hallucination? What if she woke up and he wasn't really there? What if this was all her brain's coping mechanism and she couldn't return to the black void of security she'd come to grasp onto these last few...weeks? Months? Years?
How long had she been there? Day melded into night, which in turn melded into the blackness. Had he waited for her into old age? Would she wake to find her wrinkled hands clutching at the smooth marble of his?
"Been gone so long, baby..."
Oh god, she had! The realization of this sucked her a bit further into herself.
"Come back, sweetheart..."
She wanted to. So badly. It was more tangible this time. Wrinkled or not, the urge to see his face, even if it was for the last time, was too exquisite to bear.
"That's right, my sleeping beauty."
Fairy tales. And her prince was here to awaken her with a kiss.
"Wake up, my love."
His mouth covered hers once again. Pulled each lip, first the top and then the bottom, between his own. A slick tongue snaked out and traced the outline of her mouth, darting between and coaxing her lips between his once more.
A whimper escaped from her and the tantalizing mouth pulled back.
No! Come back!
"Bella?"
Eyes fixed on her, blacker than the last time their gazes met. It hadn't dawned on her that the blackness had receded from her own vision and she was peering at him with clear, wide eyes for the first time in what felt like forever.