Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
Just before nightfall, they reached the second stop. They parked beside a large building, and the man and his son appeared, beginning to offload the crates of chickens from the truck and taking them inside the door.
"I should help them," Kurt murmured to Jane. "It'll go faster."
"We should help them," she corrected him.
"You should rest." He looked at her sternly, but he had a feeling he wasn't going to win this battle.
"I've rested all day, just like you," she reminded him. "Come on." She stood up, and he could see there was no use arguing with her. Instead, he just followed her as they climbed out of the truck, and Jane once again spoke to the man on their behalf. Kurt watched as the man nodded and gestured affirmatively. After climbing over the side of the truck, they walked around to the back and helped the man and his son transfer the rest of the chickens to the storage building. When they were finished, the man offered what Kurt thought were his thanks for their work, Jane appearing to deflect the thanks, since, of course, they were in the man's debt already for the ride.
A few minutes of unintelligible conversation later, the two men seemed to be saying goodbye to Jane, then they turned and walked away in the direction of another nearby building. Kurt looked at her in surprise, waiting for an explanation of what was happening.
"So, the bad news is, there's no spare rooms in town, because there's some sort of festival and people have apparently come from all over to be part of it. Everyone he knows is already filled to capacity with relatives," she told him, hoping he didn't mind too much.
But Kurt just shrugged, stepping closer to her now that the other two men were gone and taking advantage of yet another chance to put his arms around her. "Okay, but you want the good news?" he asked her.
A smile crept across her face once again, as she looked up at him in surprise, knowing that he hadn't understood a word of what was said. What in the world was the good news that he allegedly knew?
"Sure," she replied, humoring him. "Tell me the good news."
Turning to look directly into her eyes and draping his arms over her shoulders, his voice dropped to a whisper. "We're close enough together that I can do this." With that, he leaned down to kiss her. It was an innocent kiss since, though no one was around, they were two foreigners with nowhere to go in a town whose name they didn't even know, and they didn't want to offend anyone. But it was enough to make his point. As he pulled back to look at her, he began speaking again immediately. "And I don't care if we sleep on the ground right where we're standing – though honestly that's probably not our best option – because I'm here with you."
She stood still, surprised at the unexpected sweetness of his words. He'd been surprising her that way a lot lately, but she had yet to get used to it – the warmth she felt in her chest was equally strong as it had been the first time, when he'd appeared in her tent on the mountain. There was some other force holding her gaze on him as well just then, and she couldn't look away. After staring into his eyes without speaking for long enough that he began to look concerned, despite the smile on her face, she just shook her head, but continued to gaze at him.
"He said that we could sleep in the back of the truck," she told him quietly. "And that there was a very… basic bathroom around the back of the same building where we put the chickens." Despite the utilitarian nature of her words, she was still staring into his eyes with a force that refused to let go.
"Perfect," he replied. "We get to sleep under the stars again." Not, of course, that they'd paid much attention to the stars on any of the other nights that they'd slept outside. How could they, when they had each other there so much closer?
Jane didn't mind the lack of accommodations either. It wouldn't be nearly as comfortable as the bed they'd shared the night before, but the day had, after all, been far easier. Besides, they were a day closer to getting home.
"But first," she told him, "we go inside and join them for dinner."
"Seriously?" he asked her in disbelief. "And you didn't lead with that?"
"Sorry," she chuckled. "I guess I'm out of practice with…" Shrugging, she was at a loss to come up with a word. "All of it," she finally added.
"You're perfect," he told her without missing a beat. "The only thing you're out of practice with is realizing how wonderful you are. But I can fix that."
Again, he caught her off guard with his words, and the warmth in her chest once again surged, moving quickly outward through her body all over again as she smiled at him.
"Come on," he said, stepping back and climbing up onto the truck bed to get their bags. "Let's go see about that dinner. Just tell me you know which of these houses we're supposed to go into."
"I do," she replied. "Stick with me."
"I have every intention of doing that," he assured her as he climbed back down with their things and they started walking across a narrow, unpaved street.
An hour and a half later, having eaten with the driver of the pick-up truck and his extended family, Jane and Kurt were settled in the sleeping bag in the back of the truck. They'd taken the mattress that Kurt had leaned back against down from where it had been tied, and were lying on it, so their "bed" was more comfortable that they'd expected – though still not a real bed. What made this particular night even better was that, while in the house of the truck driver's family, the matriarch of the family had insisted that they should each have a shower. While it felt like a godsend to them, both Jane and Kurt had a suspicion that it had also been partially selfish on their hosts' parts, because by this point, they were both shockingly dirty.
Either way, they now lay together in the sleeping bag, clothed in borrowed, ill-fitting versions of the local people's attire because the woman had also insisted that she would wash every garment they had with them. As much as they might have liked to go without clothing, they weren't alone in the middle of nowhere any longer, but smack in the middle of a town, without even the privacy of walls and a door. There would be no sleeping unclothed that night.
While the attire was markedly too small on both of them, but on Kurt especially, they could not complain. Considering that they were guests, and that they were being shown such hospitality, they didn't feel that they were in a position to say no to anyone who insisted on doing their filthy laundry. And besides, the idea of clean clothes was so enticing, they had no desire to say no.
Jane nuzzled her face into Kurt's neck happily, overcome for the thousandth time by the buzz of happiness. She swore that she would never, ever get used to this. Indeed, she hoped that she wouldn't. No, she wanted to continue to feel this much joy every second that they were together – though she knew that it was probably impossible.
Once again, he was on his back and she was draped halfway over him, his arms around her protectively. "I love you," she murmured happily, and then felt him kiss the top of her head.
"Love you, too," he whispered. "Now go to sleep. There's no way we're sleeping through half the morning out here." She nodded, chuckling. They would undoubtedly be getting an early start the next day and after an extended good night kiss, they settled down to sleep.
The next day the sky was gray, with ominous looking clouds already present when they were awakened by the sounds of the town at dawn. Whatever the sky held, however, it kept it to itself as they had a quick breakfast with the truck driver and his family, and then climbed back into the truck. He would drive them to the next town, a few hours down the road, and there they would meet up with that man's cousin, who would, they hoped, take them the rest of the way to Lhasa. Assuming that they made good time, they could be there that night.
Traveling once again in the back of the truck, wearing their own, now clean – though still slightly damp – clothes, they were now without their noisy feathered passengers, and the space felt strangely open and quiet compared to the day before. During the hours that it took to get to the next town, they were even able to talk to each other a little, though once again they took advantage of the chance to nap on and off, Kurt still holding onto Jane securely as she snuggled close to him. It was still bumpy and still noisy, though less so, but at the same time it was all still perfect.
It was late morning when they met up with the truck driver's cousin, a man who was somewhere in age between the truck driver and his son – possibly in his early thirties. The cousin was also very kind, though slightly shyer, even when he learned that Jane could indeed speak their language fluently. He'd brought a supply of large boxes – their contents unclear – for his cousin, their original driver, to take back home with him, and was on his way back to his own home in Lhasa. As they'd hoped, he was happy to take the two foreigners who had come so far, and who had been spoken so highly of by his own cousin and by the elder of the village in which he had been born, to the airport.
The trip to Lhasa took the rest of the day. The cousin's truck very much resembled the first one in which they had traveled; it was old and dusty and in disrepair, but it ran, and that was all that was important. Even better, this time, Jane and Kurt were able to squeeze into the cabin with the young man, who was only slightly younger than they were. Kurt sat on the passenger side, Jane in the middle but leaning against him, his left arm around her securely. The cousin wasn't one for conversation, but every now and then he and Jane exchanged a few words.
They stopped in yet another, bigger, town in the early afternoon and they found bowls of noodles from a street vendor, stretching their legs, and then climbed back into the cousin's truck. On and on they drove, on a road that wound up and down hills, the scenery so beautiful that Jane swore it was like driving through a painting. Kurt slept on and off beside her, his left arm around her, his right propped up on the edge of the window and holding his head upright. The ominous clouds above them continued to hold onto whatever they wanted to release, for which Jane was eternally grateful. All she wanted, after all, was to get home.
The light was once again fading from the sky when they saw the outline of Lhasa ahead of them. The cousin said something to Jane, who nodded and smiled widely, her exhaustion from the day of travel appearing to be forgotten.
"He'll take us directly to the airport," she told Kurt, leaning closer to him to speak simply because she could. "We can figure out when there's a flight, and how long we have to wait. As far as I'm concerned, if we have to sleep in the airport… I'm good with that."
"All things considered," he breathed into her ear, "I think that would still be a step up from most of our recent nights."
She felt him chuckling beside her, and she leaned into him, turning to put her head on his shoulder.
They watched the lights of the city getting closer, the buildings growing bigger as they approached. In another thirty minutes, they were pulling up to the curb beside the airport, uniformed security guards standing watch and signaling that they were really and truly back in the civilized world. The airport was much larger than they had expected, and while older looking than some of the airports in the US, it had also clearly been modernized.
At that moment, however, after the varying amounts of time they'd each spent in the wilderness since leaving the US, it looked both huge and modern to them. They slowly sat up, and Kurt climbed out of the truck then turned and held out a hand for Jane. She gave him a strange look as she scooted forward towards the door.
"I know you can get down," he mumbled. "That doesn't mean I don't want to help you anyway."
Her face creased into a smile then, and she took his hand. She knew that she was sometimes frustrating to him, but old habits died hard.
At the back of the truck, they took out their bags and set them on the ground. The cousin, their driver, had walked around to talk to them and to wish them well, and once again Jane launched into conversation with the man. Again, Kurt smiled at him and bowed when he saw Jane do so, confident that she had taken care of thanking him profusely on their behalf.
When the cousin's truck finally pulled away, Jane and Kurt stood for a moment outside the doors of the terminal, their bags at their feet, breathing in yet another milestone on their journey. The milestones seemed to be coming faster now, even though another few days had elapsed since they'd arrived in the village at the base of the mountain. Hopefully, the most difficult part was over.
Kurt had wound his arm around Jane's shoulders, and now he tugged her toward him so that he could kiss her forehead. "What do you say we talk to someone about some plane tickets?" he asked, his face tilting down in her direction and his head resting against hers. "Well, you do some talking to them, anyway."
"I think, that that's music to my ears," she replied. For another few seconds they just stood there, unwilling to break contact with each other even to pick up their bags so that they could move inside.
All too soon, however, Kurt mumbled, "Well, we won't get home just standing here." And he was right, of course, so they reluctantly let go of each other and reached down for their backpacks. Carrying them didn't seem so bad now that they didn't have to walk with them on their backs for hours at a time.
Inside the terminal, which wasn't empty, but which also couldn't be described as busy, there was the hum of people. Of civilization. It was both jarring and soothing to Jane's ears at the same time, since it had been so long since she'd been living up on the mountain. Even though she didn't feel herself stiffen at all, she felt Kurt squeeze her hand, and she wondered how he'd known that she noticed a difference.
This is Kurt. Of course he notices a difference, the voice in her head reminded her.
She squeezed his hand back as they walked up to the ticket counter for China Southern Airlines, and the woman behind the counter smiled and greeted them in heavily accented English. They both replied with "Hello," but then Jane launched back into a language that Kurt did not understand. He noticed that the young woman looked notably relieved to find that she wouldn't have to conduct the whole transaction in English.
A few minutes into the conversation, Jane looked at him with uncertainty in her eyes. "The next flight leaves tomorrow morning," she told him, "but we didn't talk about how we… um… it's pretty expensive…"
Kurt smiled broadly, reaching for his wallet, something he hadn't needed for quite a while. "Finally, something that I can take care of," he replied, handing the young woman his credit card.
Jane bit her lip, standing there looking at him uncertainly as the ticket agent swiped his card, nodded, and handed it back to him.
"Thank you, sir," the woman replied timidly.
Kurt could feel Jane's eyes on him, but he smiled at the woman who was now printing out their receipt. They would come back and print out their boarding passes in the morning.
"Is there a hotel nearby?" Kurt asked slowly, glad that this woman seemed to speak at least a little bit of English.
"Hotel? Yes, sir. Very nice hotel," she replied, nodding enthusiastically. Then, apparently frustrated with not being able to find the right words, she launched back into the words that only Jane could understand, turning to look directly at her.
Jane had been staring at Kurt, as she had since he'd handed his credit card to the other woman and bough two plane tickets home from Tibet as if it was absolutely nothing. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to happen when it was time to pay, but somehow, that wasn't it. However, when the woman started talking to her, telling her about the nearby hotel, Jane snapped back to attention. For a few minutes, Jane simply nodded, taking in the information, as the woman directed her to the phone from which they could call a driver to pick them up. Nodding over and over, and then finally bowing to the younger woman, who did the same in return, Jane turned away from the counter, Kurt close behind.
"Everything okay?" he asked, and Jane just nodded. He knew that there was something she wanted to talk about, and he wondered just how urgent it was. Meanwhile, relatively sure that she would tell him when she was ready, he took care of thinking about their immediate needs. "We should grab something to eat. There's some kind of food around the corner over there… at least, I think that's what that picture means…" he squinted at the strange drawing on the sign halfway down the hall. "Otherwise, I really don't want to know what that stick person is doing." Grinning at his own joke, he looked into Jane's eyes and saw that something was definitely on her mind.
They were now standing by the window at the edge of the hallway that ran the length of the terminal. "Jane, what's wrong?" he asked, concern now written all over his face. He took her hand, and clasped it between both of his, moving his thumbs back and forth over the back of it.
But she shook her head. He had misunderstood her silence, because there was absolutely nothing wrong. "You just…" she started faintly.
Focus, she told herself, and she started again.
"You just bought two plane tickets home from Tibet, just handed the woman your credit card as if it was nothing…" She knew that what she'd said didn't necessarily sound like anything to be in awe over, but she couldn't properly explain why this had moved her so much just then.
"Of course I did," he replied as his smile returned. "Did you think I'd leave you here? Because they insist that you pay if you want to buy a ticket…"
"No, that's…" She shook her head. He didn't understand. "It's my fault you had to do that."
Sighing heavily, he lifted her hand up and laid it over his heart, pressing it against his shirt so that she could feel his heartbeat underneath. "Let me try to explain something to you, Jane Weller," he told her slowly. "There are only a few other people that I'd pay to bring back from Tibet, but I would give them grief about it and I'd make them pay me back, no matter how long it took."
She couldn't help but chuckle, despite her discomfort just then, because she knew that he was referring to his sister, and the other members of the team, and she could easily imagine him giving them never ending grief about it, indeed.
"But you… you are the exception. You are always the exception.You've always been the exception, even from the beginning, even when I couldn't see that you were the exception and our friends tried time and time again to tell me. Listen to me carefully, okay?" He paused and waited until she nodded her head, indicating that she was listening before he went on.
"I would pay anything to bring you back home from anywhere. And I do it happily and without complaint because I need you with me. And no, I'm not completely over how all of this happened, and I probably won't be for a lot time. But as I've tried to explain to you, what happened doesn't matter. It's over. I know that no matter what else happens, I am better and happier with you than without you. I know that I don't want to be without you again… not ever. So yes, of course I put the plane tickets on my credit card like it was nothing. It was nothing. And I would do it again. Though…"
He closed his eyes for a moment and a look of pain came over his face, and Jane realized that her husband was in pain at the mere thought of her leaving him again.
"You won't have to," she whispered. "I promise."
He smiled then, and opened his eyes. "Those plane tickets, the money, that's nothing. You… you are everything." His voice had cracked slightly on the last word, but he was satisfied that he'd managed to get it all out. He wasn't an emotional guy, never had been, but Jane brought that otherwise completely invisible side out of him and put it on display. Anyone else who'd managed to do that would have pissed him off, but for Jane… if it was for Jane, he didn't mind at all. There was nothing that wasn't worth it if he could have her.
"Now can we please get some food?" he asked as she stood in stunned silence, fighting back another round of happy tears.
"Anything you want," she whispered, squeezing the fingers of both of his hands that were curled around hers and holding it tightly against his chest.
She remembered that first day that he'd held her hand there, to calm her, and remembered Reade coming out into the hallway and how she'd literally wrenched her hand out of his grasp to get away from him and the dizzying swirl of emotions that he caused her. She hadn't understood it then, and it had frightened her. Now… well, now she wished that she never had to let go of him, never had to take her hand off of his heart.
Of course, getting dinner would be rather awkward if she didn't, and little by little they managed to break the contact, though neither of them wanted to. A minute later, he was holding that hand in only one of his and they were walking down the length of the terminal to check out the food situation.
It turned out that there were indeed multiple food options on the second floor, far more than they'd expected. They could have stayed and eaten there, but the light and the noise of the airport began to wear on both of them quickly, so they opted for something simple that Jane ordered – rice and meat with sauce, of which Kurt neither knew nor required any more details – that came in small boxes and that they could take with them as they went in search of the hotel.
The woman behind the ticket counter had been right, it was, all things considered, a very nice hotel. It wasn't five stars, but Kurt was pretty sure that it would be at least a three, which put it far above any accommodations that either of them had had for quite some time. In the center of the room there was a giant bed, but they sat down on the floor beside it and ate their take out dinner with wooden chopsticks, once again leaning their shoulders and knees against each other.
As far as the two of them were concerned, this was perfect.
When they'd finished eating and had the chance to take advantage of real, modern bathroom facilities for the first time in longer than they could quickly pinpoint – Jane especially – they found themselves finally in the large bed in the center of the room. The sheets were white, and, while not expensive or overly soft, to the weary travelers, it all felt heavenly. They didn't need to shed their clothes because of the need for body heat, but they did so purely because they wanted to.
They didn't go to sleep right away, since once again they had the luxury of privacy in what felt like the softest bed they could remember. Despite their tiredness, sleep wasn't the first thing on their minds. However, a little later, when they had worn themselves out completely, they lay pressed together just as they had in the sleeping bag. At first, they had lay close together out of necessity. As things had improved between them, they'd also wanted to be that close. Now… there was not a shred of necessity left, and they could easily have slept three feet away from each other. But that was now absolutely unthinkable.
They were both lying on their sides, facing each other, snuggled close together with the sheet only half covering them. Jane could feel herself drifting off, and yet she didn't want to fall asleep. Not yet. This all felt like a dream, and she'd had too many dreams of him over time when she'd woken up to a much harsher reality. Even though she knew that this wasn't one of those dreams, still, it just felt too good to be true.
"What's wrong, Jane?" he asked, seeing her pull herself back from the brink of sleep again and again.
"I don't want to fall asleep," she whispered, fighting to keep her eyes open.
"But you're exhausted. Why don't you want to sleep?" he asked her softly.
"This feels like a dream," she murmured, unsure if she'd even said it loud enough for him to hear her.
He chuckled softly, brushing her hair back from her face. "Is that a bad thing?"
"Of course not, except…" She took a deep breath and looked down at the space between them. "You know how I told you about that dream, the strange one that started out sweet and ended up with Remi killing me? Well around that time, I… I was having a lot of those. Not the same kind. Just… They were just sweet and we were deliriously happy, and then…"
"We, as if you and I?" he asked gently, to which she nodded, still not looking up. "Okay, and then… what?"
"And then after I woke up, I went to work, where you acted like you hated me – or, okay you did say that you didn't hate me, but it felt like it for a long time. And things were awful between us. Even when they got better… it was like torture." Her eyes went up to his slowly then. "An even worse kind than the CIA's torture, and I hadn't thought anything could be worse than that. Because even though we'd never been… a couple or anything, every day was just a reminder that we never would be. It wasn't even something that was possible. I just knew it wasn't."
Kurt lay there, stunned. Apparently the ways that I hurt her have no end, he thought in despair. "Jane…" he started, feeling helpless, like some kind of unfeeling monster.
But she just shook her head, smiling sadly at him. "My point is, slowly, I got used to waking up and realizing that it had all been in my head. After a while, it didn't hurt as much… I guess because I stopped letting it." The emotion of this memory was suddenly threatening to overwhelm her once again, but she struggled to keep her face her from crumbling.
"And I guess… these last days, since you showed up… it's all been so…" her head was shaking, because she was at a loss for words. "I just… I can't. It feels like a dream, and I remember how badly they hurt to wake up from and… I just can't go through it again."
Kurt took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and realizing something at that moment. It seemed like the unlikeliest of coincidences, and yet the anxiety that she was feeling over the idea that she would wake up and realize that the past week had been a dream… that was almost the same way he felt deep inside, his fear that she would simply disappear as she had before, when she'd left, if he turned his back. Or that he'd wake up and she'd have left.
"Sssshhhh…" he whispered quietly, leaning forward and pulling his arms around her. "If you are dreaming, then so am I. Shall I pinch you?" He didn't wait for an answer, simply gave her a faint pinch on the back of her neck, where one of his hands was gently moving across her skin, feeling her breath catch in her chest in something that was probably supposed to be a laugh. "There, see? Not a dream. And I guarantee to you that I'm far too imperfect to be a dream. If I was in your dream, I'd have to be perfect, right? Too perfect to be believable. And that, as we both know, I am certainly not."
"But you are. This is all perfect, and I can't possibly…"
She gasped for air then, her breath catching in her throat, and he could tell that if she wasn't crying for real already, she was about to be. Without another word, he shifted so that he was lying on his back, and before she even realized what he was doing, he had pulled her up so that she was lying on top of him, their faces only inches apart.
"Jane," he whispered, "Look at me. Please." He waited a few minutes as she tried to slow down her breathing and compose herself.
Thanks to a combination of exhaustion and emotion, it was harder to pry her eyes open than she'd expected. When she finally managed it, she saw him looking back at her patiently, and she felt herself on the verge of losing it again. Somehow, she maintained her composure this time as he began speaking softly.
"The expression 'dream come true' is just that. An expression. Or, it is for most people. I, on the other hand, am lucky enough to know what it's like to have a dream come true. Except that, of course, I could never have dreamed up this exact situation because… well, that would be more than a little of a weird dream…" She couldn't help but smile though her tears as he tried to lessen the tension in the air.
She brought her arms up and rested her elbows against the pillow on either side of his head, threading her fingers through his hair little by little as he continued talking. Smiling at the slight but intimate contact, he continued.
"I'm going to tell you this, and I want you to listen to me, okay? I want you to believe me." When she nodded, still waiting, he went on. "You are not dreaming. This is not something that your head is making up. This is not something that's going to go away, and unless you sleepwalk and end up somewhere else, you are not going to wake up without me. Okay?"
The tears were in her eyes all over again. I really need to stop having emotional conversations with him when I'm exhausted, she couldn't help but thing, but it was too late now. That was, perhaps, her biggest fear just then – waking up to find that he was nowhere to be found, and that she was just as alone as ever. Whether it was because he hated her, as she'd once felt that he had after he'd arrested her, or whether she was alone because she'd sacrificed herself for him, the feeling had been almost the same. The fear of waking up and of all of this having disappeared was, at that moment, suddenly paralyzing. His words helped, but they were words, words that someone in a dream could have just as easily said.
She felt his hands on her cheeks, his thumbs again swiping at her tears, and she looked down at him again. "We have the same fear, you know. Waking up without the other person." He hadn't even meant to say that, but after he had, he realized that it might just have been what she needed to hear most.
Those words cut through the emotional fog in her head more than any others had. He was right. Thanks to him, though not on purpose, the pain of waking up from those dreams had been seared into her memory. And thanks to her, though it had been for a noble cause, he'd woken up alone far too many times when all he'd wanted was her. It was the same. He understood. Somehow, though that didn't stop her from being afraid, it soothed her fears enough that she could breathe again.
As he watched her, waiting for his words to sink in, he was relieved when a smile crossed her face, even with leftover tears still falling from her eyes. Slowly but surely, the corners of her mouth turned upward and he could breathe again.
I did that. I, Kurt Weller, the man who was always so bad with communication. I found the words that stopped her tears and made her smile. Suddenly he felt like a superhero.
"It's going to be okay," he reminded her again, and he watched as her eyes closed. Her smile was still intact as slowly, her head bent down towards him. Her forehead came to rest against his face, and he wondered if she'd meant for it to land where it did, because just by tilting slightly upward, he could plant a kiss between her eyebrow and her hairline, where just moment ago the skin had been so creased with unhappiness.
"This is not a dream," he whispered again. "If you want to get rid of me, you're going to have to try a lot harder than just waking up, alright?"
"Very funny," she whispered tiredly. "Let's not even joke about that."
"I'm sorry," he told her soothingly. "It's not a dream. It's better, because it's real. I promise." She nodded against him, having turned her head to the side and moved down slightly to rest it against his left shoulder, as she'd done one of the nights in the sleeping bag on the mountain. Feeling her calming down, he murmured, "Can we go to sleep now? We don't have too many hours to sleep before we need to get up and ready."
"Ssshhhh," she whispered, "I'm trying to sleep."
Chuckling to himself, he asked softly, "Do you want to turn back on your side? Or do you intend to sleep right there on top of me?"
"Right here," she replied, quietly but firmly. "Now go to sleep." She'd secured her arms around him, loosely draped around his shoulders and yet somehow, firmly fastened behind his neck. It wasn't the way they usually slept, but if that was what helped her sleep, he certainly wasn't going to complain. It wasn't as though she was heavy. Actually, right now she was much too thin, and the small amount of weight on top of him just then concerned him. As he drifted off to sleep, he made a mental note to be more conscious of getting her to eat.
"I love you, Jane," he whispered, once again feeling like no matter how many times he said it, it could never be enough for her to grasp just how much he did.
Her arms tightened around him, but she said nothing, and he could only assume that she had already fallen asleep. Knowing this, he could let himself sleep as well, knowing that, despite the fear that wouldn't quite leave him, she would be there in the morning.
