Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s been nine months since the stock exchange and you’re so fucking tired of this life; this body. It had to be convincing –at least that’s what She said before you leave the subway for one last time. You had to hold tight, endure the torture and then ‘break’ at the right moment. And you did. You broke and you let them brainwash you and fill your head with bullshit you can’t even remember anymore.

Betraying your friends was the first step –the only step that your handler provided you with-, the next round was up to Samaritan to determine and the last one-

The last one is all yours. The last move of this chess game is up to you to decide whether you’ll drop your king to the floor or demand a Greek gift sacrifice. But you’ve already sacrificed a bishop, haven’t you?

You don’t feel like a bishop anymore though. You are more like the player now. The chess board is placed in front of you for the past seven months and you’re moving both white and black pieces since the day the white team lost its queen.

But you know She hasn’t truly fallen yet, hiding somewhere under the chessboard She’s waiting for the next pawn to be sacrificed and you’re so damned afraid of who might that be.

Seven months you’ve been running around, doing Samaritan’s errands; killing people.

Seven months –because it had to be fucking convincing- and now you see the end of the line, a vending machine waiting for you to key in the password. You stay still for a moment and look at it as if you’re standing in front of the door to heaven.

It feels like it is.

The subway’s still the same, big and familiar. Nothing betrays there’s a god resting in a suitcase somewhere in here. Soon you realize you don’t really care about it -it caused you enough pain already- because now there’s something running to you, something you’re more interested in.

You don’t know when it happened exactly but suddenly you find yourself dropped on the floor while a quite big ball of fur is pinioning you to the ground and an enormous tongue’s licking your face.

“Hey handsome” you say between kisses and regret opening your mouth the exact moment you feel Bear’s tongue brushing up against your teeth.

Losing Bear was the hardest part of your time as a Samaritan prisoner and then asset –or that’s what you were telling yourself in the beginning, you’d never admit the truth, never say you miss her; never miss her!

But that was only in the beginning…

Because after the first month she was the only though you had, the only part of your past that made sense, that anchored you in life; in reality.

And now you’re back, petting Bear just like you used to, absorbing the smell this old subway emits, until you leave again.

You have to leave, one more server to plant the virus is left and then you can come officially back, because now you’re not allowed to be here, you’re still under Samaritan’s watch –his operative- and you have one more –one last- job to do.

Five days, tops, and then you can see her –them- again, only then they are allowed to know you’re alive, even if you don’t really feel alive anymore.

Samaritan has made you do things you’re not proud of, things Harold would never approve, but you had to. It had to be convincing…

And you know you don’t feel guilt –you can’t- but there’s this feeling you have every time you kill someone that makes you sick and you hate yourself for having to be such a loyal soldier. There are moments after assassinating a target who did nothing wrong that you don’t feel much like eating or drawing or drinking or fucking living.

These moments you only stare at an empty wall and try to picture her face, you’re not sure but you think you have forgotten how she looks like, how she smells, how she kisses…

And then sometimes you close your eyes and slip one hand in your pants pretending that she’s there, touching you, kissing you, making you come like you’ve never come for anyone else before.

You can almost feel her these nights; you can almost remember her touch, her body, the scars that you came to know like a map for places of pleasure and pain. But you can’t remember her face, her beautiful smile, her eyes, and you know you should have concentrated more on her face, should have looked her more in the eyes, thus you could add more details to your dreams.

And she wasn’t staring only in your dreams, you kept running in your mind scenarios of your reunion, how she’d hug you and you’d roll your eyes pretending you don’t like it but you wouldn’t push her away either. And you'd tell yourself you’re doing it for the mission or for all the other reasons you wouldn’t give a crap about.

Bear’s bark brings you to the present and you remember you’re not done yet, the Machine had instructed you in which of the expansion cards of the suitcase you should take, days before your captivation. She had also planned for two numbers to appear at this specific date so that the subway would be empty for you to come and go unnoticed.

Everything is going as planned, only nobody considered your nostalgia for your friends, your home –Root. The Machine was always treating you like you’re similar to each other -that's why this task was entrusted to you-, both machines that can only think and act, but not feel. And you used to agree with her in the beginning, you had so many things in common; mainly your inability to understand Root and her feelings.

But now, after so many months away, you don’t feel like a machine anymore, you have regrets and desires and feelings you never had and never thought you’d have.

And here you are now in an empty subway wishing someone would forget his gun, or his glasses -or something- and come back and find you here, all alive and kicking.

You feel tired; tired of pretending -of living. Tired of trying to remember the features of her face, the spark in her eyes, the passion in her voice…

Suddenly a crazy idea emerges and as much as you try you cannot repress it.

It’s overwhelming and it makes you walk to the screens on Harold’s desk, Bear following you with eyes that beg you to stay, though you have other plans, plans that not include what you’re about to do.

You open one screen and wait. Wait. Wait...

The blank monitor displays nothing; it feels like it’s mocking you. And maybe it is. It’s mocking how naïve you are as you stand still and stare at a void that you’re pretty sure looks like your heart.

You’re about to grab the monitor and smash it into the wall when you spot the earpiece behind the keyboard, you look at it for a moment-certain that you’ll be disappointed again- before placing it in your ear.

’I’ve been rabbiting about my ex pretty much the whole time, what about you? Have you found your soul mate yet?’, a voice you’ve never heard before, one of the number you assume.

But then there’s a voice you’d never forget, a voice that caresses your ears like a bird call.

’Well, i don’t really believe in soul mates. In this crappy world we are living it’d be frivolous to think there's someone out there just for me’

You smile unconsciously. Classic Root you think and try to repress the feeling of the bulb in your lungs -not that it’s easy when you strive to breathe.

’Why do I have a feeling you’re avoiding the question?’

Huh, she’s dating a freaking psychologist now? There’s no way Root would-

’Maybe I am…’, the sound of Root’s broken voice makes you wanna throw the earpiece to the ground, you don’t need to hear this; you can’t. And you don’t, before you realize what are you doing, you find yourself holding a disposable phone and texting to a number you still remember, unlike her face.

To Root: Hey Root, how’s you date?

You wait a couple of moments, trying to ignore your mind’s warnings, until the phone buzzes.

Root:Boring, are you done with the perpetrators already?

She thinks you’re John, but you need to make your presence noted, to stop feeling like a ghost in others’ lives –and maybe in yours too.

To Root: Not as good as hood and zip ties in a CIA safe house with ten hours to kill, huh?

Only five seconds pass and the phone rings again. It’s not a message this time though and you drop it to the desk as if it burns.

This was a mistake; a mistake you’re not allowed to make now -now that the curtain is ready to come down. Because it will find you in the middle of the stage with a script that is not written yet and an audience that will either cry or shoot you.

And right now you would give everything for someone to shoot you; for someone to stop this phone from ringing –someone to unfreeze you so that you can avert your eyes from the screen that you are now piercing with your gaze.

When the phone finally turns silent and you regain the ability to move, you find yourself almost running to the exit ignoring Bear’s barks.

The cold air is caressing your face and you welcome it like salvation and catharsis at once. Out here you’re nobody, neither asset nor ally; neither bishop nor player. Out here you’re irrelevant, there are no ghosts hunting you out here, you’re alone; a lone wolf that doesn’t need a pack to survive.

You don’t need anyone anymore! You don’t need them –her!

Suddenly the phone is in your hand and you bring it to your ear.

‘You have one new message: Sameen? Is that you? Please come back. I need you. Please. I-‘

These phones are called disposable for a reason and you understand that reason the moment the phone leaves your hands and drops to the ground, a car crashing it under its wheels and then another and another, and you watch it as it turns into a million pieces while your mind keeps reminding you of how wrong you’ve been. Because you’re far from a lone wolf anymore…

Chapter Text

One server was left. One fucking server to plant the card into and you’d be done; you could go back not as a traitor, or brainwashed, or broken. You could go back as one of them, like you always were.

But it’s never that easy, is it?

Four days after your visit to the subway and the only thing you’ve managed to do is break into the last Samaritan’s facility and find the right server. And that would be enough if it wasn’t for that damn light that hasn’t turned green yet.

It should work, the Machine’s instructions were clear, ‘Card, Suitcase, First Row, Last Column, it wasn’t that hard to memorize or execute. It’s just a matrix not a freaking labyrinth!

First row, last column, first row, last column… it has to be the right card, you can’t be wrong about it, this is-

Except if it’s not! Except if they have tampered with the cards or the suitcase...

fucking Harold and his trust issues!

*

You don’t have a choice. You’ve run every possible scenario in your mind, every option you might have but there is no other way. You have to do it; it’s been a month since you took that fake card from the subway and you’re still out here, away from all your friends -and her-, helping Samaritan control the world.

You need the right card and there is only one person that can help you without compromising the mission.

Without a second thought -you’ve already been thinking enough about going home- you pick up the burner phone –Samaritan has stopped checking up on you after the first three months- and start dialing.

It’s ringing for ages when you finally hear a familiar grumpy voice coming from the other end of the line.

“Whoever you are, I’m not in the mood”

“Hello Lionel” you say and instantly hear the sound of sheets moving aside.

“Shaw? You’re alive? Where are you? How-“

“Oh shut up. I’ll explain everything, but right now I need you to do something for me. Can you hear me without blabbering for a second?”

This was too easy, talking to him like you used to, like nothing’s changed –and yet everything is!

“Okay okay, speak.”

How do you start? Two machines are fighting to conquer the world and you’re stuck in the middle of it without even realizing it? Also I’ve been tortured for months by an evil AI and then I pretended to break so that I destroy it but in the process I killed several people to maintain my cover?

Fuck this…

“So there’s this machine-“

“I know, they’ve already told me”

Thank god…

“Good, have you heard anything about a suitcase?” you ask but your question only meets silence. Maybe that was too fast for him to take in.

Before you start wondering if the line is dead, he replies hesitantly.

“I might have” he responds and you feel the wind changing its course for the first time since ages.

“The real suitcase?”

“What do you want Shaw?”

Trust issues. It must be contagious. Harold’s ruining everyone! You don’t have time for this though, you have to finish what you’ve started and that’s how it needs to be done; you have to get to the point.

“I need a specific card from that suitcase; you see the one I got a month ago is not really working.”

Too much for him? Maybe you should talk slower. Or at least stop throwing at him information like ‘you thought I was dead but sometimes I drop by the subway when no one’s there’!

“How do I know I can trust you?

For fuck’s sake. Well there was that time when i saved your kid… Oh and then I fucking died so that you can catch an elevator?!

“I think you already know”

That’s enough and you know it. You can’t convince someone you’re trustworthy just by saying it. He stays silent and you think you’re done, you can’t keep playing this game, it’s draining your soul and you’re sure you just ran out of it.

“Fine but I can only tell you where it is. Some scumbag shot me in the leg and I don’t feel like walking any time soon”, he speaks as if he’s sending you to the supermarket or something and yet you feel like he just gave you the keys to the Garden of Eden.

You have to contain your excitement though, this is Fusco and you’re still Shaw –or part of her- so you have a profile to maintain.

“Whatever, just tell me and I’ll go get it”

“The small bathroom next to the room your cot is”, he pauses for a second and then continues with a voice lower than the usual, as if he’s sharing a secret that hurts, “was.”

The subway?! Of fuck, you can’t go in there. You can’t go and then leave again…

“Okay” you hear your voice harsher this time and you clear you throat to hide everything, “but I’ll need some privacy and of course this has to stay between us for now.”

“Look John is bringing me food any time now and Harold and Root are somewhere doing nerdy things, so i guess if you go now it might be empty.”

Root?! Why not Coco-puffs or Banana nut? How many things have you missed?

“Nice” you’re about to hung up when you hear him calling your name again.

“Shaw?”

“What?”, you sounded angry and frustrated and you really are. Not because he persists in asking questions though, you just can’t keep this act up anymore. You can’t keep pretending –mostly to yourself- that everything is fine, it’s not.

And you realize it when Lionel finally raises his question.

“Are you okay?”

Why would he have to do this? Why couldn’t he just let it be? You executed it perfectly, grumpy voice, bored just by talking to him, apathetic behavior, everything was perfect.
You’ve even tricked yourself too with all those thoughts and comments. It was the best show you could give. But now you can’t. Now you’re broken and terrified of yourself. Now you miss them again. You miss her. Now you’re this bishop you couldn’t stand; this werewolf that’s lost its pack.

And all that because he exposed you with just a simple fucking question that you have no idea how to answer.

No you are not okay. You don’t know if you’ll ever be. You don’t even know who you are anymore.

But he doesn’t need to know that, does he?

“It’s good to hear your voice again Lionel.”

*

Stepping into the subway doesn’t feel like the first time. You can’t shake the feeling that you’ll leave again, that you’ll find the card and come away for god –Samaritan- knows how many months before you get the chance to plant the virus into the last server.

But now it’s not the time to think about the future. Now that you’re in your old room –just a cot, a closet and a bathroom- you can’t let your guards down. Not now- not now that you can almost picture her dragging you into the room after tranquilizing you with a needle.

Not now that you think you can smell her wetness from the next day; that day that you pinned her up against the wall and made her come with two fingers inside of her and lips on her own to shut her up.

No you can’t think about how it was your last time, in this room with promising kisses that only you knew what exactly meant. Because, now that you think about it; your kisses, your touches, your moans were saying ‘goodbye’. And as much as you’re not ready to accept it, hers were saying ‘I love you’.

Not that it matters anymore. You deceived her, lied to her and then left her on her own to fight a war she could never win and that’s something you have to live with every day, even if it hurts more than Samaritan’s electroshock or Martine’s lash.

The bathroom is still the same; small with just a toilet, a faucet and a cabinet. Nothing more than the basics: liquid soap, a towel and-

What the–

Three vials of your cologne and four bottles of your deodorant- most of them empty or half empty.

You don’t remember buying so many supplies and definitely not finishing them. Somebody finally must have improved his –her- taste in perfumes.

There’s work to be done though and with that realization you start knocking on different spots of the wall to find the hidden cavity.

It doesn’t take you long to find the suitcase buried inside the wall –Harold really outdid himself this time. The card is there, sticking out like a sore thumb, and you don’t even have to check the rows and columns twice to make sure it’s the right one, because even you can tell that there’s one card in there that has nothing to do with the others, that shouldn’t be in this suitcase.

You put the card in your pocket and insert the case carefully back to its secret place. Everything’s going as planned and you’re ready to open the door when suddenly you freeze. There’s a sound of heels outside the bathroom, moving closer, and you find yourself unable to breathe.

You’re not sure if it’s because of the risk of getting exposed or the fact that she’s just ten feet away –thousand feet less than you’ve ever been this last year- with just a thin wall separating you, but you feel your heart ready to burst out of your chest.

When the footsteps stop where you presume is your cot, you hear Bear sniffing around. He must be close because you can almost hear his breath and grumble and when he barks you realize with terror that he’s exactly outside of the bathroom’s door.

Shit…

Fortunately, someone –she- opens the closet making him instantly stop and judging by the sound his paws make he’s moved to the cot as well.

You stay still for a while, hearkening to their breaths as they synchronize, and suddenly you realize you’re grasping the door’s handle as your forehead is forcefully pressing against the door. Your throat is dry and you think you might not be able to swallow any time soon- or move.

She’s too close; so close that you can smell her perfume mixed with your own and you wonder how’s that possible –if she’s using both you’re gonna end her someday soon.

Someday…

You’ve been waiting for that day for fucking too long, so long that you can’t keep doing it anymore. You can’t feel her so close and not be able to touch her, kiss her, see her. You just need to see her face –to remember it- just for one moment, even if it is your last moment on earth. Just her face and then you can die happily, that’s all you ever wanted after all.

Only her beautiful face…

You’re about to open that goddamned door and take a peek when you hear her voice, so sad and broken that doesn’t sound like hers anymore.

“I know buddy, I miss her too.” she says and instantly you feel like chocking on the lump in your throat.

Your body goes numb, your legs can’t hold your weight any longer and the next moment you watch your body through the mirror slip down slowly until you feel the cold floor beneath you and the wooden door against your back.

It’s like drowning but not dying. An endless torment you’re bound to endure until you return, only then you can see her, that would be your price for all these months you’ve been running around being someone you’re not, and it would definitely be worth waiting for.

The back of your head softly hits the door and you catch yourself wishing she heard it. Because then you wouldn’t have to hide anymore, then you could throw her on that cot and make her understand how much you’ve missed her, the things you’re feeling but can’t express, the thoughts that have been torturing your mind; thoughts about her, naked, in your arms.

But nobody moves and you want to scream and tell her you’re right here and that you don’t mind cuddling or holding hands or anything she ever wanted and you couldn’t deliver. You just want to see her and touch her and let her touch you too and catapult you into space.

Two hours have passed and you’re still here, hiding from the woman you miss more than anything from your former –and real- life, until you hear her moving again and before you can even realize what’s happening she’s gone, up and away from your life again.

You feel the emptiness filling up your heart and you don’t know what to do with it, what to do with the voice inside your head that begs you to go after her; to grab her wrist and turn her around and hold her so that she’ll never be alone again.

But then you’re still here, in an empty subway with a soul so harassed that it feels like you’re dragging it with you for an eternity.

Suddenly the air in the bathroom is suffocating and you think you’ll collapse if you stay there for one more second.

You open the door and there is a whole new kind of air out there. It doesn’t smell like abandonment or hypocrisy, it’s clean and full of the things you desire most in this world. You can almost smell her perfume and yours-

How?

Your gaze falls at the cot that was empty before and now- now has something on it, something familiar. You step closer. It’s yours, the leather jacket that you wore in your mission with Tomas; the one that Root had helped you take off -not exactly gently.

You take it in your hands and bring it close to your face, it’s almost damp from your perfume and deodorant and at this moment you realize how foolish you’ve been.

Her taste in perfumes has nothing to do with this.

It’s not just a perfume, it’s yours and it’s mixed with your deodorant. Yet the jacket doesn’t smell exactly like you do, it lacks something; something you can’t buy from the market and store it in a bottle. It’s your own scent, the mix of your body’s smell with all these chemicals is what makes it yours and you think it’s kind of sad that nobody can produce that.

You don’t know why you’re doing it but suddenly you are wearing the coat and then you lie in bed. It’s pointless and stupid and you’ll never admit the true reason behind your actions, but deep down, however silly it seems, you know you owe her at least that...

Ten minutes later you’re walking down a street with the card in your pocket and a promise to return, whatever the cost.

Chapter Text

“She knows” he says and you think you’re about to throw up. Something squirms in your stomach, something like a blade that slowly penetrates your organs leaving behind nothing more than blood and fire. It’s anger, you know that feeling damn well.

“What are you talking about? I told you no one should know.”

Lionel was never an idiot. Sometimes maybe naïve or sloppy but not an idiot. And yet he made the only mistake that could blow this whole operation up. Almost a year of ‘undercover’ work and it’ll be lost for nothing.

”I know. I didn’t have a choice, she was about to go Rambo on Samaritan’s facilities because she thought you’re held there. What’d you want me to do? Let her go on a suicide mission to save someone that doesn’t need saving?”

Fuck, why does she keep looking for you? You betrayed her, abandoned her, deceived her…

This wasn’t supposed to last so long. She wasn’t supposed to continue searching for so long and you definitely weren’t supposed to miss her so much.

Nothing’s going as planned so far and this last development makes it even more complicated than before –if that was even possible. Because before she didn’t know you were alive and free to roam around whenever you want –well, whenever Samaritan doesn’t give you a mission-, before she didn’t know you had abandoned her nine months ago.

”Shaw? Are you there?”

You don’t get to reply though, the computer you’re resting on your lap suddenly emanates a weird sound and the next moment a chat window pops up covering the entire screen.

“I’m gonna have to call you back”

You toss the phone to the rotten bed of the crappiest motel in history and you’re about to close the laptop’s lid when a notification sound pierces your eardrum making you wanna shoot the damn thing.

Your gaze drops to the floor for a moment unable to turn to the screen; it makes you uncomfortable knowing who this is, what she wants, yet you can’t help but cast a glance.
This woman always had that effect on you –irresistible.

(22:34) Anonymous: Sameen where are you?

A couple of seconds pass and you’re still standing there, stunned and unresponsive, staring at a screen that displays your name –written by the one that makes it sound like a prayer and a vulgarism concurrently- and you don’t know what to do with yourself.

(22:36) Anonymous: Please come home

You can’t take it any longer; it feels worse than Samaritan’s tortures. It twists something inside you and it makes you sick of yourself, of this life.

It only takes a moment for you to smash the laptop to pieces and leave the motel like a fugitive that has just been caught.

The steering feels tempting in your hands as you slam on the gas and speed down the street. You can’t go home; not yet. Not until you accomplish your mission. Otherwise you’d be a traitor, a deserter, a coward…

You’re driving on autopilot for the past two hours and you curse loudly when finally realize you’re heading to New York, fast and decisively. The only thought in your mind that last image of the laptop’s screen, a chat window and in it a phrase you might have seen or just created.

’I miss you’

*

_2 Months later_

You open your eyes, there’s something like a floodlight above your head facing you and there isn’t much you can see.
But you can feel.
And all you feel is pain.

*

_4 Months later_

You are not in so much pain anymore. Pain is the least of your worries right now. Time though, time’s a new kind of torment. It’s cruel and unbearable. All it has to do to hurt you is just go by. It passes and you feel like a thousand knives are tearing apart your abdomen while from your brain pass thoughts you never had before.

Is she still searching –waiting- for you? Does she remember you? Your face? Because as much as you’ve tried, you can’t picture hers. It’s like time has left a hole in your memory, the most important part of it, and you blame yourself for this. It’s a defense mechanism, one you yourself have activated unconsciously to remain sane -to stop missing her.

In vain.

Physically, you’re still a mess. After your successfully executed plan to break into the correct Samaritan facility and plant the card you took from the suitcase, you were left with a spinal column so damaged that walking has been an unreachable act for the past four months.

Of course it wasn’t the breaking in part that caused you these problems; it was the breaking out. Once they realized what you were doing in that server room half of the Samaritan agents that operated in DC chased you to the infinity and back.

And you would have been home by now, if it wasn’t for the bullet that caught on your spine.

“How are you today Sameen?”

You turn your wheelchair. Grice is standing behind you, a hand extended with what seems to be a sandwich in it and you snatch it without a word. You haven’t been talkative lately –for the past two or three months- but he knows you’re grateful for preventing your imminent death, even though you haven’t really talked about it. He’s been busy trying to find Control and hide your little safe house from Samaritan.
As for you-

You are being a parasite; a parasite in your own life.

Then you look at the laptop that rests on the table and you feel like you’ve done something, that you’ve helped. Because you did it, you infiltrated into Samaritan’s heart and took a piece of it; a piece that now lies on the table and makes you feel useful. As useful as you are not sure if you can ever be again.

Not with legs that don’t accept commands from your brain or these bedsores that makes your back uglier than the scars from Martine’s whip or this mind that keeps thinking about a woman; a woman you don’t even know if she’s real anymore, if she exists.

And this mind is the one that provides the worst torture. This mind that can’t stop replaying that moment six months ago, a decision in a highway half a mile before the next exit and then the fading image of New York through a mirror.

*

_6 months later_

You should go back home now. You’ve started walking two months ago and yet here you are, in a safe house that Grice has turned into a mini gym, getting stronger day by day but still not going home.

There’s a mark you put when you opened your eyes after your surgery, a mark you’re now ready to beat. 120 pounds. You just have to walk thirty feet while carrying 120 pounds.
That’s how much she weights –or you think she weights- and only when you’re able to hold that many you’ll allow yourself to return.

You wouldn’t let them witness that broken Shaw that needed help even to pee or eat. You had to be strong again; to be yourself. And that’s what you are now, a badass former operative who overcame whatever adversities had to deal with, the marks on your body can irrefutably prove this.

You lift the weights and start walking. One step, two steps, three…

Eleven and you put it down slowly. You smile.

There’s a later you’ve written a long time ago with Grice’s name on it, you place it on the table and before leaving this house for good you grab that damn laptop that stole two years from your life.

*

Two years away from her, two years trying to remember her face, her touch, and here you are now, in front of a door that hides the person you’ve been thinking about –wanting- more than anything.

Maybe she’s moved on, maybe she’s forgotten you, maybe she hates you, but as you knock on the door you realize you don’t really care. You just want to see her face; that’s enough.

And there it is, as the door opens, astonished and beautiful. She’s skinnier than you remember -120 pounds were more than enough eventually- and paler. The absence of that gleam her eyes used to have is killing you as you are both in a still state staring at each other as if you are seeing a ghost and then like a miracle she cracks a big beautiful smile and your heart goes crazy.

“I knew you’d come back for me” She says but you don’t listen, you can’t. All you can do is slowly extend your hand and touch her cheek faintly as if she’ll vanish at any moment like something imperceptible and elusive.

You touch her with the tip of your fingers and her eyes immediately shut, as if she can’t manage seeing and feeling at the same time. It’s too much.

And yet not enough. The next moment you have her face between your hands and you look at it closely before crashing your lips together. It’s intense and desperate and all you ever wanted.

When she breaks it and as you slightly part you vaguely discern the tears that fall from her eyes like a river of acid that burns your insides and you want to wipe them away and never make her cry again. But then she springs forward and wraps her arms around your neck and you can’t think of anything else to do other than hold her until you both stop breathing.

“Please– please stay.” She whispers between sobs and only when you feel hot tears on your neck you place your hands on her shoulders and push her away, only to see her face.

Her gaze’s turned to the right, anywhere as long as it’s not on you, and you shake her slightly to catch her attention. Two years you were thinking of these eyes, you won’t let them out of your sight now that you found them.

And then she looks you in the eye, a stare too scared to request what she needs –to expect what you can’t give-, yet you had time to think about it, a lot, and now that you have her here you can say it with certainty, there is nothing you wouldn’t –couldn’t- give to this woman.

“I’m not leaving you” again

You say decisively and sound like you could convince anyone, especially the one who needs to believe you more than anything, and she does, because now a faint smile is reappearing on her lips and you’ll be damned but you feel your own lips slightly curving upwards as you bend until your hands slide under her thighs and within a second her legs wrap around your waist.

You’ve been dreaming of this since the day you started walking again, carrying her to the bedroom -30 feet tops-, taking care of her as you should be doing all this time, loving her…

And that’s exactly what you’re gonna do to her. It’s not something you’ve done before, keeping the pace slow and gentle, but it flows naturally from inside you now and all you have to do is let it consume you both.

And it does.

You make love to her for the first time, you make her feel good for the first time since what seems to be ages and her moans prove it beyond doubt. It’s like an instinct that after two years your hands still remember the spots of her body that are slightly more sensitive than others, that when you kiss or touch them with a specific order she makes a sound as if she caught a glimpse of Eden’s garden but can’t talk about it.

Her body’s like a piano that you press the right keys and create a song so melancholic and simultaneously so ecstatic that makes you the greatest composer of all time.

And now that she comes undone in your hands you most certainly feel as one. She moans and shakes and loses herself, but you’re there to catch her and hold her until it fades and leaves her worn out in your arms.

She seems like she hasn’t been sleeping in ages and you let her sleep beside you with the promise that you’ll be here when she wakes up and an arm around her waist, but you won’t allow yourself to sleep yet. You take in her face, her characteristics, the softly closed eyes, her smile that even when she sleeps looks a little bit crazy, her hair that tickles your nose; all of her…

You take in her image and you promise you’ll never forget her face again, not her loving face that makes the best home you could ever have.

A home you’ll never stop seeking, because arriving there truly is what you’re destined for.