"Your bow… I-It's undone."
She didn't care. She didn't care at all. He might as well criticize her clumsily buttoned top, her messy hair, or her disheveled clothes. None of it mattered, not after what they had just shared.
Theodore lowered his gaze to the girl's lap, where her trembling hands quietly lay. Her palms imprisoned one of his white gloves, clenching it as strongly as the grip of Time, refusing to let the fabric so much as breath in fear that it would be stolen away.
Gently, he placed his ungloved hand on top of the girl's, attempting to comfort her (or perhaps, in reality, himself), but she only clenched it more fiercely. After all, he couldn't leave without one of his belongings, she reasoned.
"Theodore, no," the girl murmured meekly, a subtle, obstinate strength lacing her voice. "You can't have it. I won't let you."
A guilty chill seeped through his skin, traveling throughout his body and attacking his deeply beleaguered heart. Was the punishment of his sin beginning, so soon after he committed it? Surely, if he were to commit another act of disobedience, his pain could only be multiplied tenfold.
And yet, he too, didn't care.
He allowed his pale hands to touch her cheeks, wet from the silent tears she shed. With his thumb, he wiped dry a droplet that leaked out of her eye, before it could serve to remind him that it was he who caused such cursed liquid to appear.
Casting away the sole glove he wore, he pulled the shivering girl towards his chest as he did before, tightly embracing her, trying not to cry.