A/N Beta dilemma solved. Thanks M and thank you to all the other people who kindly offered their services!
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Heading up to his bedroom, Albus reasoned that the newly crafted potion he carried was a more than adequate cause for a visit to Minerva. All too frequently he found himself pausing in his work to go and gaze upon her sleeping form. He had spent so much time checking on her the first few days that he had accomplished little else. Now that Minerva was managing to stay awake for longer periods of time, he found himself being all too frequently enticed to do more than simply gaze.
While some of her exhaustion was because of her injuries, the blood replenishing potions had contributed greatly to her tiredness. Albus had arranged for Poppy to come by his office to examine Minerva a few days earlier. The school nurse had approved of cutting back on the potion schedule. Now that they were able to reduce the potion frequency, the exhaustion too had lessened.
The potion he now carried was not one of replenishing. It was a potion to prevent…well all the things that Minerva – and truth be told he as well - desired. It was the same potion that he had been brewing for her to drink every month for fifteen years.
The potion slipped from his hand as he entered the chamber and saw her. A pile of pillows had her propped into a sitting position, but her eyes weren't open. Crimson covered one of her hands and the quill in it. More blood had stained the papers scattered on the bed before it pooled on the bedclothes.
A relapse? Poppy had sounded so confident in her assessment that things were going well. Or was it that Hogwarts was not as secure as he had thought?
Hastening forward, he saw the overturned inkwell and realized his error in time to avoid disturbing her. It was not blood, but red ink spilled everywhere. Glancing at the parchments on the bed he recognized them to be letters to potential first years. She appeared to have finished only two before succumbing to exhaustion.
He was relieved, but it was frights like this that made him never want to let her out of his sight.
He watched her peaceful expression and the steady rise and fall of her chest for a moment before pulling out his wand. It was a purely irrational act, but he couldn't stop himself from casting a spell to change the color of the ink. Reassured, he cast a spell to return the now green ink to the bottle. Watching all of the ink return to the bottle, he cringed slightly realizing the carelessness of his spell choice. Minerva would be none too pleased to discover he had unwritten the letters she had finished – however few they were.
Of course, her displeasure at that would be nothing compared to her wrath when he finally worked up the resolve to tell her that he had given the task of writing the first year letters to Filius the week before.
Again looking down at her curled against his pillow, Albus was alarmed to see her expression was no longer one of contentment. The whole of her body was tense. Her eyes were still closed, but he could see her eyes darting around beneath the lids.
"Minerva."
She tossed at his speaking of her name, but didn't wake. She needed her rest, but this sleep looked anything but restful. Leaning over her, he softly stroked her cheek and spoke her name again to try to wake her.
She woke with a scream. Without opening her eyes, she began to tear at the hand on her face.
"Minerva! It's all right! It was just a dream! You're safe! You're with me!"
When he finally got her to open her eyes, she was horrified to see the marks she had made on him. "Albus! Your hand!"
Albus was far more worried about the gouges she had made on her own cheek. "It's all right. Fawkes will take care of it."
Fawkes was already there singing a song to try to calm her. He had all the wounds gone before Minerva had even noticed her own. Albus spoke words to reassure and comfort her, but made no further attempt to touch her. For her part, she remained on the bed, but she too kept her distance. From Severus, Albus knew what had occurred that night, but he had, for reasons purely selfish, never discussed it with Minerva. Now that he thought about it, to his knowledge Minerva had never had occasion to talk about it with anyone. Not, he realized, the best of methods for dealing with such a traumatic experience.
When she seemed as collected as she was likely to be for a while, he tried broaching the topic. "Would you like to talk about it?"
She shook her head without meeting his eyes.
"We really should talk about what happened that night." When she still said nothing, he stated the obvious. "Minerva, you're having nightmares about it."
Her denial started off adamantly but lost something by the end. "It wasn't about You-Kn…" She couldn't even not say the name.
"Minerva-"
She began speaking very quickly and not at all convincingly. "-It was just a nightmare. It wasn't about that. It was…it was…about Mrs. Norris."
He would remember it ever after as the first time that she had lied to him. The first time that she had betrayed his trust. It was to be the first of many.
He realized that she didn't want to tell him of her ordeal for fear it would persuade him to again seek to drive her away. He started to formulate in his mind another attempt at getting her to talk about it, but she intruded on his thoughts.
"Just-please just hold me."
Looking into her eyes and again stroking the cheek that Fawkes had just mended, he spoke one word before enveloping her in his arms. "Always."
She wasn't the only one to tell a lie that day.