The Morning After

I wake up and you are gone.

Exactly as I expected. Only, it seems part of me had started to trust, had given in to blind, un-scientific faith. My heart has, against all biological odds, sunk to my belly.

I laugh aloud. You are coming through the door, laden tray held in two hands. I smell coffee and hot bread and us. Your face shifts into mock anger; you think I am laughing at your burdened entrance. But you can't keep it up. Soon it is pleasure and bafflement on your face--you haven't been especially clumsy.

I don't bother to explain my laughter. I stroke your face as you sit beside me, holding our breakfast. You knew I would be hungrier than usual. There are cubes of sharp cheese and slices of apples with our croissants.

Your smile is slight and I know it is because your emotion is strong. You turn your face into my hand and kiss my palm. You shift to free a hand and hold up an apple slice. You bring it to my mouth, so gently.

"This, Beverly. This is what I really wanted for breakfast."

I know the conversation you're referring to, and I stamp down a surge of regret for lost time and unnecessary pain. I bite the apple in half, chew for a moment, and respond, with mouth still full, "I was scared of complications." I gesture to my mouth with one hand, to the cheese platter with the other.

A pause while I watch your eyes soften even more. You know I'm not talking about food anymore than you were. You put a finger over my lips. "Don't talk with your mouth full, Doctor."

I feel my lips curve against your finger as I smile. I am forgiven. You pop the rest of the apple into your mouth, smiling, and move to turn and sit beside me and I scoot to your side of the bed. You slept in one spot all night. I know I must have been all over in my sleep, probably kicked you and hogged the blanket. You settle back against the bulkhead, legs crossed neatly at the ankles, tray in your lap. I kick my legs free of the blanket and sit cross-legged beside you, facing you. Eager. Excited. Thirty years younger, at least.

I am going to complicate your life and delight in it. You will love it while you grouse about it. And you, you are like an anchor. I'm going to revel in the stability you lend to my life the entire time I work at stirring things up. I grin and you, having turned expectantly to look at me when I settled, raise a brow. Your eyes widen. You smile.

"Another complication?" you offer, holding out a cheese cube.

After we've finished and the tray is on the deck beside the bed, you whisper to me as you curl my hair around your finger. "You've always been my favorite complication, Beverly."

My grin is wicked.
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