paint the sky with silver lining
Characters: Kay Hamilton, Charles Mayer
Summary: There is still hope.
If Charles Mayer would have to describe his wife after her return from Ishbal, he would use only one word: empty. She is pale and flinches at any sudden noise, nearly freaks out when someone approaches her from behind and is generally jumpy. To him, this is scarier than anything he has imagined while he has waited for her to come back. He could have dealt with nightmares and sudden outbursts of violence and self-hatred but not with this.
He sometimes wonders how he can stay with her, how he can hold her the way he used to when he is constantly scared that he will break her by accident. And this is not what they deserve. They deserve happiness. They have not done anything wrong – she has followed orderes and he knows that she is still the same kind and forgiving soul behind all that fear and terror.
But he stays.
He stays even though it rips him apart. He stays even though it feels like someone is tearing out his heart and neatly cutting it into tiny pieces. He stays while she breaks while she cries and punches the walls. He stays because there is nowhere he can go without her because even after everything, he is still bound to her and he will forever love her, his wingless bird.
He watches how she slowly begins to heal, how the physical wounds fade away, leaving scars that vanish more and more as well. He dares to love her the way he has loved her before the war again. He no longer touches her like she is made of glass because he recognises her old fire again. She stops flinching more and more, only reacts when something sounds like a gunshot, but after more and more months pass, he realises that – if anything – she is calmer now than ever before.
Her sister mentions that Kay's skin is no longer made of paper. It is leather now and he sees it too. She is recovering and suddenly, he can see hope in her again. She has not been broken in the desert. She has been bent out of shape but in the fires of guilt and emptiness, she has forged herself into something stronger, into something that will never be broken again.
He holds her closer now, no longer scared to break or bruise her. There is hope now and he holds onto her because he knows that she still needs him. Leather turns into stone, she becomes unbreakable, her strides are wide and purposeful – she is the queen of the South and no one dares to doubt her again because she just does not tolerate this.
Their daughter is born in March 1909, exactly nine months after her return – she has been sent home early because her superiors have doubted that she will be needed anymore. (She fights one-to-one and this always carries the risk of losing a battle and High Command is long done playing games.)
Laila is their silver line, their ray of sunlight because she is the child of hope and future. He watched the content way she tends to their daughter, he soaks in the little smiles and the way she patiently brushes the golden locks.
But her appearance is still deceiving because she is not weak and soft now. No, she is stronger than ever after everything.
Her skin is made of steel now.