xx
You're here like a silhouette when the darkness rules,
you're the brightest moon, and I am safe.
The story binds us like right and wrong,
your hand in mine, marching to the beat of the storm.
And we walk together into the light
and my love will be your armour tonight.
We are lionhearts.
xx
Lionheart | Demi Lovato
She floated through the next week, her focus shot again but resulting now in a dreamy middle-distance stare, as far from her anxious pacing as it was possible to get. Tex and Kathleen traded looks, moving around her, but the atmosphere was loose and positive, everyone quietly hopeful in their own way.
That Sunday, they didn't make it into the kitchen. Rachel kissed him at the door, walking him backwards until his back was against the wall, and pushed up on her toes, wrapping her arm around the back of his neck. She kissed him until she was dizzy and then settled back on her heels, blinking up at him until her vision cleared.
"Can you say it one more time?" she asked quietly, and he stared at her. "One last time," she amended, and his hands tightened on her waist.
"I won't leave you again," he said, matching her tone, and then the words that she never would have accepted or wanted to hear before this very moment: "I promise."
Her lips curled up just slightly as she kissed him again and then said, "Bedroom?"
He frowned. "Are you sure?" She narrowed her eyes and he grinned. "You're sure," he corrected, kissing her again. "Of course you're sure."
Taking her by the hand, he led her down the hall to the bedroom, and at the side of the bed they kissed again, Rachel's hand slipping under the hem of Tom's shirt and smoothing up over the skin of his back. She pushed at the fabric ineffectually with her one good hand, and Tom took pity on her, pulling the shirt off himself.
While the kiss was broken, Rachel took a moment to admire his chest, tracing her fingers over the muscles and then pressing her lips to his skin, the flesh hard under her caress as she kissed down his abdomen, bending her knees and then tugging just as ineffectually at the waistband of his pants.
She frowned up at him and he smiled again, shaking his head and drawing her back upright.
Releasing her hand, he motioned to her sling and said, "May I?" and she nodded. With gentle hands, he unfastened her sling and slipped it off of her arm, before very carefully easing her shirt off. Before touching her bra, he met her eyes again, and she nodded again, holding her bad arm close to her chest as he unclasped the bra and slipped the straps down over her arms.
He didn't stop, didn't gawk, just picked her sling up again and tucked her arm into it, fastening it again and running his hands down her back to her waist.
She loved him, God, she loved him, and as he stilled and waited for her next move she surged up to kiss him again, her hand pressing flat on his stomach as she walked him back toward the bed. It hit him at the knees, forcing him to sit, and she leaned down to whisper, "Take your pants off."
He did so, Rachel's own pants easy enough for her to remove with one arm, and Tom reached over to the bedside table for a condom. She stood in front of him as he put it on, and now he did gawk, staring at her body as he tried to put the condom on without looking away from her for one second. Once he got it, he reached for her, his hands on her waist as he brought her forward and kissed her, first her belly and then moving up to her breast.
Her breath caught in her chest, her eyes falling shut and her body swaying forward automatically as she kept her hand braced on his shoulder and locked her knees against the sudden weakness in them. She couldn't bear the tenderness in his touch, choosing instead the ache between her legs, shifting forward and kneeling on the bed over his lap, kissing him properly as she eased herself down on top of him. A whimper caught in her throat as he groaned into her mouth, and her hand slid down his back, bracing herself and holding his body close to hers.
With their foreheads pressed together, he whispered, "I love you," and she said, "I love you too," just to see the look on his face. It was worth it, as he pulled his entire body back to stare at her in amazement and she grinned in response, utterly thrilled.
"I love you," he said again, and she laughed, kissing him and saying against his lips, "I love you too." He groaned again, and she rocked her hips, her hand gripping at the back of his neck as she instructed herself to breathe and then rocked again, seating him deep inside her before pushing up, her forehead meeting his and her breaths panting against his lips.
It was breathtakingly intimate, their upper bodies pressed together and their faces never more than a few inches apart. Even with her eyes closed, Rachel could feel his breath on her skin as his fingers dug into the flesh on her hips, and the build-up was so easy, pulling a cry out of her as she came. She rode him through his own release and then settled on his lap again, their foreheads pressed together as they steadied their breathing.
"I love you," she said one more time for good measure, and he laughed what almost sounded like a sob. She drew back to look at him, his eyes closed and his eyelashes wet, and then pressed her lips to his cheek, stroking the side of his face.
After another minute, he took a deep breath, his hands sliding up her back, and said haltingly, "I missed you—so much."
"I know," she murmured back, her hand still moving soothingly over his skin. "I know."
They ate dinner in silence, much like that first night except that now the weight in their gazes was altogether different. Tom still looked at her with longing, but it wasn't hopeless anymore, and she could return a smile, an attempt at reassurance.
He drove her home and Rachel paused in the hallway with her key in hand, trying to school her face. She could wipe the smile off her face but she couldn't do anything about the light in her eyes, and she knew that as soon as Tex saw her he would know.
Walking into the living room, she found him waiting up on the couch, a book in his lap, and he looked up and smiled—stopped smiling for a second—and smiled again as she folded herself into the opposite corner of the couch. She smiled back, relieved, and he dropped his book onto the floor and held his arm out to her, letting her curl up against his chest.
"I'm proud of you," he said, and she laughed. "I'm serious. Forgiveness is a beast. Hard as hell and not for the faint of heart." He paused, just as she was getting ready to squirm under the prospect of praise, and then went on, "Possibly harder still for a girl who's stubborn as a mule with walls around her heart seven foot tall and made of granite."
"Okay," she said, mock huffy, sitting up beside him and meeting his eyes. "What about you? Ready to break bread?" He raised an eyebrow and she looked down, shifting her jaw. "I have to meet the kids. I thought maybe we could… have them over for dinner. I know this isn't… I'm a guest here, but I thought…"
"Sure, darlin'," he said quickly, and she gave him a dry look, which he returned. "Yeah, I'm still pissed, but it's not about me."
"You were friends," she said regretfully.
"Yeah, and maybe we will be again. I imagine I'll be seeing more of him than I'd like whether I forgive him or not." He thought a second, then added, "Of course, if he'd step into a boxing ring with me, we could probably work it out right quick."
"He probably would," Rachel replied. "He just wouldn't hit you back. If you feel like beating the tar out of a man who won't fight back…"
"Take all the fun out of it, why don't you," Tex grumbled.
They planned the dinner for Friday night, with Tex cooking and everyone showing up in clothes far too formal for a family dinner. Rachel opened the door for Tom and the kids, accepting flowers and a kiss from Tom and greeting the children nervously before sending them into the living room with Kathleen and following Tom into the kitchen.
While Tex turned away from the stove to face off with Tom, Rachel skirted around them to find a vase, eyeing them warily.
"Tex," Tom said with a nod, stopping in the middle of the room and putting his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
"Captain," Tex said back, a wooden spoon in one hand and the other curling into a loose fist at his side.
"Thank you for being there when I wasn't," Tom said frankly. "I owe you…" He glanced over to Rachel, meeting her eyes and then looking back at Tex. "More than I can possibly say."
"Yeah." Tex turned back to the stove, sticking the spoon back in its pot and stirring. "You do."
There was no malice in it, and Rachel smiled, leaving the flowers in the sink as she walked over to Tom and patted her hand on his chest, leaning up to kiss his cheek and then ushering him out of the room. Walking up behind Tex, she laid her hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek too, saying, "Try to be kind," as he ducked his head away and blushed.
"I'm tryin'," he muttered, and Rachel went back to the flowers.
When she had them arranged (and had maybe stalled a minute or two pretending to arrange them), she carried the vase out into the living room and joined the others. The kids had settled in a little, chatting with Kathleen and relaxed with their dad in the room, and when Rachel sat down Ashley turned to her and said, "So, you're dad's Rachel?"
She couldn't help but grin at that, glancing over at Tom before turning back to Ashley and saying, "I suppose I am."
"He talks about you all the time, and I mean all the time. It would be really annoying—"
"Ashley!"
"—but the stories are so cool! Did you do anything other than kick butt and save people's lives?"
Rachel pretended to think about it for a moment, and then actually had to think about it when she didn't come up with anything on the first pass. "I slept," she said eventually, "and ate. Other than that, yep, kicked a lot of butt." She laughed. "I'm a doctor, though. Most of what I did was in the lab and caring for patients."
"Which is still pretty cool," Ashley insisted. "You cured us! You cured practically the whole world."
Rachel squirmed a little, smiling and dropping her eyes, and said, "I didn't do any of it alone. I was lucky to have a great team, and none of it would have happened without your dad. I bet he doesn't tell you half as many cool stories about him kicking butt, does he?"
Ashley rolled her eyes. "If you ask him, he followed along behind while everyone else did all the work. Maybe…" She glanced at her dad and back at Rachel. "Maybe you could tell us stories sometime. To make up for all the stories he's told about you."
"I like that idea," Rachel said, smiling.
Sam, who had been sitting shyly quiet beside his sister, spoke up now to say, "Yeah! He doesn't tell us anything unless it has to do with you. Which is great," he hastily amended, "but we must be missing a lot."
"I might have to leave the room for storytelling time," Tom grumbled from his seat in the corner of the room, and Rachel turned to smile reassuringly at him. Of course, he wouldn't want to relive his own traumas over and over again, might not even be able to turn them into stories, into words. Of course, he would deflect and make it about tooting his own horn rather than flashbacks and panic attacks and a creeping terror that Rachel was all too familiar with.
"Don't worry," Rachel said, "I won't force you to listen to tales of your own heroics. That would absolutely ruin your self-effacing reputation." The kids stared at her blankly and she added, "I mean, your dad is very modest. We should definitely not praise him for anything ever."
"Hey now," Tom said mildly, "you can praise my cooking all you want."
Rachel and Ash and Sam all giggled together on the couch, and Rachel felt a tightness loosen in her chest.
Tex called them for dinner, and the kids swapped school stories with Kathleen at one end of the table while the adults sat at the other in a moderately tense silence.
"So…" Rachel ventured, "I was thinking about possibly getting my own place…"
Tex and Tom looked at her with matching frowns and she almost laughed. They were far too similar to be at odds this long.
"You don't particularly want to live alone, do you?" Tex asked, which was extremely valid.
"Are you recovered enough?" Tom asked, which also held validity.
She looked to Tex first. "It's not that I don't love living here," she said, "but… I'm going to need more privacy, you know." She couldn't help the blush that heated her cheeks at that, so she turned to Tom and said, "I'm getting stronger and my physical therapy is going well. I believe I'm ready."
"You'll always be welcome back here, day or night," Tex said, and Tom glanced at him before saying essentially the same thing with slightly more emphasis.
She stared down at her plate, a little overwhelmed, and then Tex said, "I can talk to the building manager if you want—" and Tom interrupted with, "I think my building might be more—" and Tex bit back with, "She's comfortable here—" and Rachel felt frantic and uncertain and pulled apart and before she could think better of it she'd bolted from the room, crashing through her bedroom door and collapsing on the bed.
The room was dark and she pressed her forehead to the comforter, gulping breaths and trying to slow them, trying to convince herself she wasn't going to die or pass out.
Someone walked into the room and shut the door and she didn't know until he sat down beside her and lifted her head gently into his lap that it was Tom. He rubbed her back, murmuring soothing nonsense, and she clutched at his knee, taking deeper and deeper breaths until she was slightly dizzy but calmer.
"We make quite a pair," he said quietly.
"Panic attacks for all," she said back, ironic tone muffled by the fabric of his slacks. Sighing, she sat up, tucked under his arm as she kept her knees folded up in front of her. "You have nightmares?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I have nightmares."
"Me too. The only time—" She stopped short, her hand covering her mouth, and he angled his head to look down at her questioningly. "Um," she said, curling her hand against her cheek. "The only time they weren't as bad was when I… wasn't sleeping alone."
He pressed a kiss to her temple, skipping over the implication there. "I'm sorry it's complicated. I would much rather the both of us sleep peacefully together."
"This is why I need my own place."
"Okay." He rubbed his hand up and down her arm as she rested her chin on her knees. "You wanna delegate that decision to me and Tex?"
She huffed a laugh. "As much as I love the idea of you and Tex working together, I somehow don't see that ending well. No, I… just give me a few days. I'll figure it out."
"Take all the time you need."
Stretching her legs back out in front of her, Rachel slid to the edge of the bed and turned to offer him a smile and her hand.
"You wanna finish your dinner?" he asked, taking her hand and standing up.
"Not particularly. I can eat later. Unless you're starved."
"Nah, I'm fine," he said as they walked back out into the living room where Tex and the kids were on the floor gathered around the coffee table, playing some card game that involved a lot of yelling and hand-slapping.
Everyone looked up at once and Rachel gave a half-smile, raising their clasped hands and wigging her fingers in an approximation of a wave.
"You guys wanna join?" Tex asked, his eyes on Rachel, and she met his eyes and squinted a little, making sure he knew her smile was for him too.
"Not me," Tom said, walking over to the arm chair and sitting down. Rachel perched on the arm beside him, her good arm across his shoulders for balance, and he looped his arm around her waist. By the time the game was over, she'd slipped down off the arm and into his lap, falling asleep with her head on his shoulder.
He carried her to her bed and she woke up just enough to say, "I hope your kids don't think I'm…" She was too sleepy to come up with a proper conclusion to that sentence, finally going with, "Bonkers."
"I'll make sure to ask them when we get home," he replied quietly. "'Hey kids, did Rachel seem kind of bonkers to you?'"
She breathed a laugh, still mostly asleep. "Text me what they say."
"Okay," he said soothingly, stroking a hand over her hair. "Goodnight, my love."
She sighed, her lips curling up into a smile, and was asleep again before he left the room.