"Do you still miss home?" Meg asked one day, regretting it immediately.
She had noticed the way that some days he seemed to be entirely lost in his thoughts, his eyes seeing things that were not in front of his face and she started to wonder if he was seeing his past life, that maybe the time he shared with her were not enough to occupy his thoughts. She'd hardly blame him, she had nothing more to offer him than the mediocre stability of this old house on the outskirts of a small town, nothing compared to the excitement and wonders of his old world.
Some days he was gone for a lot longer than others, when she would hardly see him at all, the daylight hours dragging by with a dullness that quickly began to wear at her nerves. These were the days that she felt a reticence in waking him, feeling more and more selfish for needing him to keep the cold at bay. She wished sometimes that he would talk, that he would tell her what was going on behind his eyes, what it was that made them flash and darken or stare at her with a disquieting guardedness. What it was he thought of when his hands paused as they held her face, the tremble that shook his fingers when they traced the curves of her body.
Some nights he would hold her with a gentle fierceness, would kiss her with a new depth and she could almost believe it wasn't just about sex anymore, that it was love. But whenever she looked up at him, her hands pulling the hair away from his face, his eyes were closed, and it hurt her to think that it wasn't her face he saw, that he thought of someone else.
So when she asked him if he missed home she kind of wished that he would just brush her aside with one of those soft smiles of his, that he would tell her that he never thought of home, that he never thought of her.
But he didn't, inclining his head as he looked at her. "Yes."
It was such a simple reply, but it held the weight of a thousand conversations, a multitude of heartbroken dialogues hidden in that one softly breathed word.
Meggie bowed her head, expecting as much and wishing she hadn't asked, she struggled for a moment to find something to say but was saved the awkwardness when he spoke again.
"At least I think I do." He held her eyes when she looked up, he sighed softly and closed the book that he had been reading. "I've been gone for so long I don't even know what home is anymore, whether my memories of it have become softened and idealised, it probably isn't at all how I remember it." He laughed softly, a bitter and ironic sound. "I used to dream about it so much, so bright and vivid that it became hard to separate the dream from reality." he fell silent and the moment stretched and became an eternity.
"And now?" She couldn't help it, asking him.
"Now?" The corners of his lips twitched, very nearly a smile. "I try not to dream."
Something cold and leaden filled her heart at the hopelessness in his voice.
That was the first night she didn't go to him, when she realised how she might be hurting him, that holding her might impress on him the memories of another long ago lost love. She had lain awake all night just thinking about how selfish her actions had been, to think of only herself on not give any thought to how she could be tormenting him. She closed her eyes and wondered with a sharp guilt exactly what he thought of her.
How could he have told her.
He couldn't admit that she meant more to him than anything in this world or his, that he would do anything for her, would give everything up for her if only she would ask. But she would never ask, so he would never say. She didn't really need him, not the person he was, just his presence. He knew what he was to her, he was her escape, the only person she could talk to that knew her past.
So he told her what she expected him to say, and in some part it was the truth, there were things he missed about his world, the colours of the leaves, the smell of the forests, the way he could control the fire so much better. But he wouldn't call it home anymore, because a home is where you longed to be, where your heart called you to, and that place now was this cluttered book lined house where they could pass the days in silence, where he could look up and watch her as she wrote, her fingers tracing out the beautiful lines that he would sometimes read over, marvelling at her command of language.
He could never tell her that he had fallen so completely and utterly in love with her, lived for those precious moments when she would smile up at him and she was the only thing he could see. That when she woke him in the quiet hours of the night he felt his heart burst with a searing and blinding love that he had to press his face to her neck so she couldn't see it in his eyes.