Chapter 9

Of the two of them, only he would suddenly get up in the middle of the night, remember that they are lying fully naked next to each other, and then seize the moment to lift her leg and slide inside of her. He knew that she would accept him without protest, but it was still a treat to feel her adjust her leg and position to accommodate him, to join him, really. Although much faster and less sensual than when they first entered the hotel room, in the end, his daring left them thoroughly satisfied, so he can at least confirm that he didn't interrupt their sleep for nothing.

They might or might not suffer a little fatigue for the rest that they aren't getting before their activities tomorrow, but for the price of lying lazily awake on their backs with their knees leaning up against each others', he'd sacrifice his sleep over and over on this trip. It feels so good to have her all to himself without worrying about anyone else, reminding him of their first trip together. The memory of that time instantly bombards him with an affection for her that he can't resist looking at her, his absolute everything - she could ask him to drive all the way to Istanbul for a breakfast bun right now and he'd do it.

'Do you want to something eat?' he asks, partly amusing himself and the bigger part only interested in serving her; after all, he did wake her from sleep.

For an immediate answer, she turns to him too, repositioning her whole body onto her side, using her elbow to prop herself up as her eyes roam his face as if looking for something specific on it.

'I want to confess something to you,' she finally says.

First mimicking her position, he then shifts a little closer to ask, 'What is that?' with a smile because he loves her and he really wants to hear that she's been hiding a pregnancy from him.

'I love you,' she answers, sounding rather serious, like it's a revelation that he should store for later use, that he can't help it but burst out into a short, tickled laugh.

'You can never convince me of that,' he jokes just as his laugh dies down. 'You know how to pretend, but not that well. I know that you've been faking it all this time.'

'Then how can I convince you that I love you?' she answers with a small smile. 'What do you want me to do?'

Strangely, her smile doesn't reach her eyes, rather, there's a sadness in her eyes that he doesn't quite understand. Clearly, they're only fooling around, and neither of them doubt her love for him, so he brushes that detail aside, choosing to think nothing more of it than a side-effect of being woken up before time. Besides, she asked him a question and he wants to voice his answer.

'Our baby…' he answers, his eyes moving downwards and his free hand settling on her naked abdomen, 'Here.'

It's not a requirement to prove her love for him, but it is something that he wants for them. He's wanted it earlier than she ever asked him for a baby. Truthfully, he will go as far as to admit that from as early as he wanted to sleep with her, he wanted to see the fruit of that union.

He thought that she would say something to his request, expecting her to either make a joke about babies or to agree to them actively trying while on this trip, but the silence between them stretches on for far too long that he is forced to look up from her belly to her face.

'You don't want a family anymore?' he wonders, not yet concerned, just a little curious about her silence – what's going through her mind?

'The whole idea of a family...' she starts in a low, somewhat struggling tone, dropping her eyes to stare mostly at his chest, if not space, 'Of having people that you love enough to do anything for... The reality of sacrificing everything for those people without hesitation just so they are protected and have the freedom to live a normal, happy life...' pausing again, this time she lifts her eyes up to his and then only asks him, 'isn't it scary to you, Ilgaz?' to complete her train of thought.

A ready, non-hesitant 'No,' easily leaves his mouth for an answer, according to how he feels about family. 'That's the meaning of life, my love. We come into the world and we add something to it by creating families for the world. It's the order of life, and I don't have any fears of creating a family with you, believe me. Okay, I will admit that I've thought about what could've happened had I made different choices with a different woman, and I can't imagine being happy in that situation.' At ease, perhaps, not miserable, maybe, but not happy. 'I think it would've been like Eren's situation; loving my child, but having a complicated relationship with their mother.'

As good a person as Neva was, had they married and had children, sooner rather than later, they would've felt a strain in their relationship due to his lack of love for her. He expects that Ceylin would understand who he didn't explicitly name, but her silence brings doubts to him. He shouldn't have strayed from the topic, more than he should've assured her that he will never shy away from wanting a family with her – he will rectify that.

'It's my biggest dream to have children with you,' he delicately tells her, hoping that it sounds every bit of a promise to commitment as he means it to be. 'We will probably have to sacrifice a few things, but I promise that I will be involved from the very beginning. I don't plan on leaving everything to you. We will be together as parents from conception to birth and beyond.'

He immediately lowers his face to hers and seals his promise with a lingering kiss on her lips. It's not sensual in the least, at least, he didn't mean for it to be, but she cups the back of his neck to keep him in place, their lips and now foreheads pressed together. If he didn't know any better, he would say that she was enjoying the remnants of a kiss that completely stole her heart. She releases him after a short while, moving back so that their eyes are on each other again.

Ah, he loves her eyes; it's so lovely to just look into her eyes and be unconcerned about saying anything. Small moments like these are part of why he fell so deeply in love with her, so fast. Her true beauty shines in her eyes, and he -

'Am I loving you right?' she softly wonders, slightly smiling, and beginning to trace his cheek with her thumb. 'I wonder if... Maybe I'm not. Or, I don't know. If something happened, or people doubted me, and you had to reflect, would you say that I am loving you right?'

What a suspicious question.

That's his immediate thought. It's what he least expected to come from her, to be honest. Considering that he claimed this trip solely for and about them, however, he suddenly understands her wanting to know if she's lacking something in their relationship. It could be the reason why she's apparently fearful of having a baby with him.

'I love driving with you in the mornings and hearing about your plans for the day,' he begins to list from his many memories. 'When you call me for no reason during the day, it's like I won every prize in the world. I look forward to coming home knowing that you will be there, and we can eat together and talk about important and not so important things. You're the first person I want to share everything with, and I always want to be around you even if we're doing nothing. I worry about you more when we're in a fight. I always want you. You're my best friend. Enough?'

'You didn't answer my question,' she responds with a tiny smile as her thumb pulls the corner of his mouth down in what he believes is supposed to be a frown reflective of what she feels.

Not because he doesn't like her playing with his face, but because he wants her full attention, he removes her hand from his face to instead hold it on his own between them.

'It wouldn't be like that if you didn't love me right,' he then clarifies it for her. Truth be told, if he wasn't satisfied with her love, he would still be focused on courting her. 'In fact, you love me more than I could've expected. When I think about what you said to me, I'm still floored that you chose me.'

Pulling a frown, she wants to know, 'What did I say to you?' because of course she forgot which conversation he's referencing.

'That I'm not your type,' he reminds her. 'You've called me righteous and boring. You always remind me to seize the moment and not hold onto my perfection so much, but you still choose me every day...'

They once had a brief conversation about who found who between them, and they settled on being thankful that he was the one to find her, but he never thanked her for choosing him when she easily could've chosen Pars, Umut or some other man that he didn't know at the time.

'Thank you for choosing me,' he completes. 'You make me very happy.'

Instead of giving him an answer, she moves her face into his chest but not quickly enough for him to miss the tears that well up in her eyes. Seeing as she's normally sensitive to the things that he says to her, he doesn't prioritise analysing her behaviour further than releasing her hand to pull her into him. With her pressed into him and potentially hearing the beating of her heart, his mind travels back to a time when she accused him of not having a heart. He won't lie and say that it wasn't one of the more hurtful things that she said to him at the time, although, he is glad that she did, because it gave him the freedom to always show her where his heart was through his actions. Still, he can't be overly confident that she always sees his heart towards her, so he must ask;

'Am I loving you properly?' he asks while they close – he can assume that he is, but maybe she needs him to love her differently.

'I wish that we could stay here, frozen in time,' comes her answer. 'I don't want to reach the day when I don't live with and experience your love.'

And that last part comes from where? They're better than ever. She helped in bringing all their families together, and everything is looking good for them, so why would she worry about that?

'That day will never come,' he assures her, also pushing her back so that they are eye to eye when he confirms that, 'I will always love you. You are the woman of my life, but you also didn't answer my question.'

'Nobody has ever loved me like you do,' is her version of an answer. 'You do, and that's why I don't want to be separated from you.'

'It won't happen again,' he promises soothingly. 'We've overcome everything, and now we're just missing our little addition.'

'A dog?' she laughs.

'A baby.'

Still laughing, she insists, 'I want a dog. We'll name her… Eh, I don't know yet, but it will be a fun name. Maybe Suzy. It's in English, but it's a nice name for a dog.'

Of the two of them, only she would be that invested in the idea of owning a dog and he absolutely loves it. Whatever she is excited for, he is more than happy to indulge her in.

'Okay, we can get a dog,' he agrees, dropping a small peck on her forehead, 'but we also need a little human of our own, my wife.'

'But think about it, if we separate, a dog will be easier to share than a little human,' she reasons, surprising him with how quickly she jumped to a separation. 'Maybe you won't want to see my face when it's your turn to watch the child, or you won't want to hear a little human say my name when you're together. A dog won't be able to bark my name or talk about me.'

What nonsense. The idea is as foreign as Germany is to him, because, 'Why wouldn't I ever want to see your face?'

'Because I cheated on you and broke your heart.'

Her seriousness mostly, is the reason that he bursts out into a big, hearty laugh. Like anyone who knows them would believe that! In the same way that his father once told him that if he came home with his hands bloodied, and a murder weapon in his hand, his father wouldn't believe that he committed murder, he also wouldn't believe that she would break his heart in that way.

'Don't laugh,' she lightly hits his chest. 'You never know what could separate us.'

Well, whatever it could be, it won't be that, he's sure of it.

'Didn't you just ask if you love me right?' he asks as soberly as he can manage to be. 'Didn't I just give you an answer?'

'That doesn't mean that I can't change and love someone else,' she disputes, softening it with a teasing smile, which he is all too glad to see; they're returning to joking again.

'Then I have to beg you not to love someone else. Love only me until we die together.'

'Let's get a dog first,' she bargains, 'and I will think about it.'

She said that knowing exactly what was coming, whereas he blissfully continued on, engaging her about a dog and how it would be good practise for a baby later on, and now here he is, staring at the divorce petition that he has to sign before it's handed in. In hindsight, he realises that the clues were there all along. Stupid him had been too focused on them being alone together to notice the signs, but they had been there. If he'd just paid careful attention to her reaction when he told her that they were leaving the city, he would've seen that she wasn't as excited about his spontaneity as she would've normally been. Instead, like a man completely in love with her, he only saw a good window to spend two to three uninterrupted days with her. He couldn't wait to be alone with her, in fact. He remembers opening their hotel door, and pouncing immediately, but had he just taken a moment to hold her hand and ask her to trust him, things would've been much different now.

Now, his life is over.

His throat hurts too, feeling tight and blocked, and there's a deep discomfort in his stomach, but it's his life that he is concerned about. His life is over and he is just so damned angry.

He's angry with himself for not realising that he didn't do enough to make her feel secure enough to know that he would've looked for a way to help Parla and the rest. He's angry with her, not really for hiding what she knew and lying, but for finding it so easy to throw away what they have. And he is mostly angry with all the people involved for putting them in a situation that made his wife feel helpless enough to sacrifice herself for them. And maybe, yes, he shouldn't have gone to the airport with the police, and maybe he should've trusted that she would listen to him without the police. What does any of it matter anymore, though? The evidence is right in front of him in black and white, his life is over now. He has an identity, he knows who he is, and that he has the clear purpose of being a responsible citizen to add something valuable to the world, but who is he without her, what will his life look like without her? His loves her so unconditionally, even recklessly at times, disregarding things that he shouldn't, and he's about to lose it all.