Fear, memories, and war.
Who: Noah Connell (THE WOLF) and Lillian Maine (THE LION)
When: After she meets Charlie. Late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning.
Where: His apartment.
What: Your tales aren't always pleasant bedtime stories. Sometimes, they're nightmares.
Rating: PG-13. Some unpleasantness.
LILLIAN: The bedside clock read 4:34 AM.
Without glancing at the man sleeping beside her, Lillian Maine untangled herself from the sheets and slipped quickly, quietly to the floor. Her bare feet made hardly a sound as she moved across the bedroom, picking up a robe - not hers - as she headed for the door. Once she was outside, easing the door shut softly behind her so as not to disturb Noah, she stopped. The robe slithered over her arms, shoulders, and she pulled it tight around her otherwise bare figure. It was dark in the apartment, or at least as dark as any New York apartment could get without thick blinds and drapes. For some innumerable moments, Lillian just stood there, hugging herself in the half-light, feeling her heart beat fastfastfast, and breathing deep, to try and slow it down. Finally, she lowered her arms, and knotted the sash to keep the robe around her. She headed for the kitchen.
One light flickered on, in the middle of the kitchen, reaching as far as its fluorescence would go, still leaving long fingers of shadows beneath cabinets and along drawers. Leaning on the counter, Lillian closed her eyes. Black marble. Cold, black marble. The cool crept through the skin of her forearms, clammy with cold sweat and trembling with memories. Again. She'd dreamt of her time as a soldier so many times in the past few weeks, each night worse than the next. And nightmares about past lives were not like normal nightmares. They didn't fade when you turned on the lights, they didn't go away when you closed your eyes.
Rain, rain, torrents of rain and mud and she - he - could barely see, there was mud in her - his - eyes, mud and blood, and she - he - they, couldn't hear, they were deaf with the sound of the shells and the screams and gunfire and the desperate prayers skewered on bayonets.
Lillian's eyes snapped open again, and she cursed under her breath. Pushing off from the counter, she used that momentum to get to the phone... only to stare at the glowing green time display, sigh, and put it down again. (Louise didn't need another late night of calming her down.) Breathe deep. Think of anything but England. Lil turned around again, and went to the cabinet. Flour. Sugar. The refrigerator: butter, ice cold water. A bowl, some measuring cups, clattering onto the countertop as she pulled them down. For a moment, she stared at the knife block, and then impulsively grabbed it and shoved it under the sink, out of view. Breathe in, breathe out, measure out the flour.
NOAH: It took a while for Noah's consciousness to sidle its way out of sleep. Some nights he was on edge, a lost and wary predator jumping at every sound; but other nights, he was calm and pleased with himself, and perfectly content to remain in the idle, wispy dreams of lions and hounds and shepherds and rolling green fields. Those were his dreams tonight, and even as he slowly found himself waking, he tried to hang on to the last vestiges of sleep left to him.
But as he woke, eyes flickering and opening to the sight of his own bedroom, Noah growled a little to himself. It was late. He could tell because of the way his gaze dragged, the way he so desperately wanted to fall back into the ease of unconsciousness. Glancing over, and noting the conspicuous lack of a silhouette by his side, Noah concluded she'd most likely gone to the bathroom - the movement and subtle shift of weight in the bed had probably woken him. He breathed in deep and rolled over, intending to bury his face in the pillow and go back to sleep.
No dice. Even as he breathed in, Noah's nostrils suddenly flared, and he shook his head rapidly to clear the sleep from his eyes and the smell from his nose. Something was going on in the kitchen. The cooking was good, but - there was something else, a new and unfamiliar acrid scent layered on top of it. Scrubbing at his face, Noah stumbled out of the bed and moved towards the doorway, bumping himself on a corner of one of the glass endtables.
He swore, softly and under his breath.
"Lil? You up?"
LILLIAN: By the time Noah found his way to the doorway, Lillian had finished cutting sticks of butter up into little cubes, and had started the long, tedious process of cutting the butter into the flour. These days it's a task left for food processors, and if not a food processor, then at least a pastry cutter. Lillian was doing it with her hands. Pick up, rub, pick up, rub, pick up, rub. A tiring process, one that put cramps in her hands, but it was repetitive, mindless work. Work with her hands.
Usually, when Lillian was cooking and baking, she smiled. There was music, and humming, and even a little bit of dancing as she moved effortlessly around the kitchen. Now? She stood in the half-shadows cast by the single light, her tousled and tangled hair a curtain over her face as she stared into the bowl, making beads of pastry with her hands. When Noah spoke, she looked up, made an attempt to throw her hair back over her shoulder. "Hey, puppy," she greeted softly, smiling, but not smiling.
NOAH: She'd taken his robe, so Noah simply settled for wandering out in his boxers. There was already a morning chill in the apartment, but the heating was good and human warmth was even better. So he sidled up alongside her, quiet and thoughtful, rubbing the last of the sleep out of his eyes. He didn't say anything else until he reached Lillian's side, and scrutinised her handiwork while gnawing the bottom of his lip.
She seemed calm enough now, but Noah could see and smell it on her. The fear hung in the air, lingering in the room, thick and pungent in the room. It coiled itself in knots in her hair. He knew nightmares, and he knew lovers waking up in the middle of the night, startled and off-guard. He even knew a woman who occasionally had night terrors, and the way her heart beat rapidly afterwards.
But this was something different. This was sheer panic; this was fight or flight, sheer survival. This wasn't even dreaming of being attacked one single time - this was prolonged terror. The flour and butter were sweet and aromatic in the kitchen, but Noah was almost retching. It took him the longest time, and a stretching moment of silence, to even have it dawn on him that it came from Lillian.
He watched her, amber eyes glinting. His look was unreadable, for once.
"Bad dreams?"
LILLIAN: Lillian's fingers worked through the flour and butter, churning out crumbs of pastry. Every now and then she stopped and flexed her hands, rubbed her palms, and then went back at it - she had enough in there for three, four pies, easily, and it was going to take a while. Good. Because kneading and watching the bowl of pate brisee form kept her anchored, kept her present, kept her from completely breaking down as nightmare-memories of two terrible wars roiled instead her head, keeping her pulse fast and her breathing shallow. Breathe deep.
Letting out a long, low sigh, Lillian nodded. "Bad dreams," she affirmed. Pick up, rub, over and over. Ignore the pain in her hands, because it was incomparable to the pain she was remembering. Bullet wounds and severed limbs and gaping tears and shrapnel and not enough morphine not enough nurses not enough. Her own look was unreadable as well; keep calm, breathe deep, it'll recede, back to that place where the memories of all her past lives go.
NOAH: Noah watched her working, because it was less painful than watching the flicker of emotions - or the distinct lack thereof - playing across Lillian's face. He looked at the clock dial above the oven, seeing the time display for the first time, and he winced. This was not the right hour to deal with this. But then again, what hour would be? Five AM was the time for nightmares, and waiting for the sun to rise and dispel whatever remained of last night's darkness.
He'd never sensed fear on her before.
Noah reached out and gently tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear, hand then trailing to squeeze Lil's shoulder lightly. He said nothing else. He knew the reek of terror, but had no idea what this was all about. And thinking back on it, he didn't know of any terrifying events in Lillian's past. It wasn't like they spent hours digging into each other's histories; but as far as he knew, she wasn't hiding anything from him.
LILLIAN: The tension in Lillian's shoulder - the tension in her whole body - eased, gently, under Noah's touch. It chased away some of those nightmare visions, trench warfare and falling comrades. (She never watches war documentaries. She couldn't sleep for days and days after Saving Private Ryan.) The reek of fear ebbed, slowly. Again, she sighed, and then she paused her dough-making, lifting her hands to her face as though in prayer, and then lowering them again, each taking turns kneading knots and cramps out of the other. "Sorry," she said, turning towards Noah, attempting an apologetic smile because smiles and laughter is who she is. "I'm sorry. I must be overwhelming you. It'll be done soon. Just... stay, okay?" Not a plea, just a simple request. Stay, because having someone else nearby keeps her in this lifetime. Because even just talking to him makes those phantom memories fade away, and with it that horror that drives her to make four pies worth of pastry dough at five am because if she didn't she would be calling her cousin and sobbing hysterically in an apartment that wasn't hers.
"Hope you like pie," she added as she turned back to the bowl. An attempt at a joke. She rubbed her fingers through the mixture once more before she reached for the ice water. First she submerged her hands, then poured a little tiny bit into the mix. Again, kneading and forming and working with her aching hands.
NOAH: Noah had cursed having his ability about as many times as he had praised having it. Tonight was an eerie mixture between the two. He was attuned to Lillian's emotions now, his senses stretched wire-taut to actually feel her fear slowly subsiding. That was the good part. He could tell when she'd calmed down, and when things settled back into balance.
But Noah had only spoken about five words so far, because if he didn't... well, if he didn't focus on breathing, on drawing each ragged breath of fresh kitchen air and flour, he just might vomit from the smell of wartime fear. That was the bad part. It was all jagged edges and a rancid taste in the back of his throat that just wouldn't leave.
When Lil's balance seemed (mostly) restored, he finally started speaking again.
"That one was bad. You've never had night terrors before."
Except it was different from a night terror. It had been sharp, almost tangible; it tasted different.
LILLIAN: Lillian looked up from the pie dough she'd finally completed - no crumbs left, just one whole mound of dough, ready to be divided, wrapped, and refrigerated. "Night terrors?" she repeated, reaching for a cloth and wiping her hands clean. She smiled, but ironically, and shook her head. "No, that was just one of those side effects of being a nursery rhyme symbol of the might of the great nation of Britain." With a sigh, equal parts weary for the hour and the ordeal, and relieved, she turned her back on her workstation and leaned against the counter, facing Noah. "Do you remember them? The lives before this one?" Lil was tired, it showed in her face and her posture, but she offered a soft, lopsided grin anyway, because she at least owed Noah an explanation for waking him at this godawful hour of the night with her godawful nightmares and stomach-turning fear.
NOAH: He absentmindedly pulled out one of the stools by the kitchen island and settled himself into it, elbow propped on the black counter as he listened. Noah nodded. While Lil was trying for the reassuring grin, his own face had ironed out and become carefully serious, a balancing act between sombre or blank. He was trying not to let his own reservations about the issue show. But the deadpan expression itself made it appallingly obvious. Because this was Noah, of all men, who usually sported his easy-going smile.
"There are..." Pause. "... so many of them. But I remember. Bits and pieces. Some of it not good."
And he was looking at her askance now; his voice had lifted slightly on that last syllable, and it wasn't clear whether it was a question or a statement. Probably both.
LILLIAN: "Yeah," Lillian agreed, her expression softening with concern and understanding. "Hey," she started, placing a hand on Noah's arm. "Don't worry. We're not discussing the previous lives of the Lion and the Wolf. I just wanted to explain." Her voice was warmer now, fueled by the need to erase that non-expression off Noah's face; there wasn't a smile on her face, but it couldn't be expected of her. Not with the next words out of her mouth, her hand withdrawing back to her own arms: "World Wars one and two." She paused, thoughtful and melancholic. "Being a front-line war hero apparently isn't all it's cracked up to be. If it's cracked up to be anything at all." Her eyes found Noah's again, and that reassuring little turn of her lips returned. "That's it. That's the nightmare du jour tonight."
NOAH: A chill ran down his spine. Yes. He understood. He understood completely. In fact, the memories that most haunted Noah were from the exact same time period. He would often wake up in a cold sweat with fleeting images of the second world war... but he knew it from the other side. His contribution hadn't been heroic at all.
Worry flooded him for a moment, before he calmed himself down and reminded himself not to be paranoid. Very few of his memories of being Nikolaus Godard involved frontline fighting or soldier activity. The man had rarely turned himself against clear-cut, uniformed British forces. Most of it involved metaphorically tearing out the throat of people who trusted him. Other Germans. Jews. Traitors to the reich. Most of it involved closed dark rooms instead of open fields and moors.
Noah shook off the memories. As swiftly as he'd fetched it, he detached himself from the stool and took a quick step over to Lillian, suddenly grabbing her and pulling her into a kiss. It was not soft. It was not gentle and meant for comfort; but it was comfort anyway, a signal of companionship and solidarity and human touch.
You're not alone.
"Other people's problems, babe. That's how I choose to think about it."
LILLIAN: It was comfort, and not the sort of comfort soft and gentle would have been able to give; Lillian returned the kiss, arms tight around Noah's neck and shoulder pulling him as close to her as possible, the counter top edge digging into her back. This human touch, this rough gesture cemented her, and him, cemented them both in that moment, sometime past five am in the city of New York. Flesh and breath and now, this life, her life, their life, and the only one they had, regardless of the sleeping tales inside them.
She clung intensely to Noah for a long moment, and when she pulled away her smile was dazed and sleepy and completely her own. "Yeah, seems like," she murmured thoughtfully in reply, drawl of her Southern childhood more evident now than ever. Her thoughts cast back to Charlie, encountered earlier in the day - seemed like a lifetime ago. A glance at the clock, and then back to Noah (her arms still loosely draped around his shoulders), she gave another half-smile. "Thanks. For staying." A pause, and she cocked her weary blonde head to one side inquisitively. "I think the damn pie dough can wait a few hours. Back to bed?"
NOAH: He gave a rumble of a laugh at that, deep and sardonic. "It's my apartment, chickie, I couldn't very well run out on you." But there was that regular smirk. Noah's walls were being built back up. They hadn't had a several-hour-long discussion about this; no, they hadn't talked away the shadows, nor dug through every last detail of the nightmare. But they didn't need to. Because they were lion and wolf, and the vulnerability that had been so apparent a few minutes ago was already melting away.
But he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
For the sake of it.
When: After she meets Charlie. Late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning.
Where: His apartment.
What: Your tales aren't always pleasant bedtime stories. Sometimes, they're nightmares.
Rating: PG-13. Some unpleasantness.
LILLIAN: The bedside clock read 4:34 AM.
Without glancing at the man sleeping beside her, Lillian Maine untangled herself from the sheets and slipped quickly, quietly to the floor. Her bare feet made hardly a sound as she moved across the bedroom, picking up a robe - not hers - as she headed for the door. Once she was outside, easing the door shut softly behind her so as not to disturb Noah, she stopped. The robe slithered over her arms, shoulders, and she pulled it tight around her otherwise bare figure. It was dark in the apartment, or at least as dark as any New York apartment could get without thick blinds and drapes. For some innumerable moments, Lillian just stood there, hugging herself in the half-light, feeling her heart beat fastfastfast, and breathing deep, to try and slow it down. Finally, she lowered her arms, and knotted the sash to keep the robe around her. She headed for the kitchen.
One light flickered on, in the middle of the kitchen, reaching as far as its fluorescence would go, still leaving long fingers of shadows beneath cabinets and along drawers. Leaning on the counter, Lillian closed her eyes. Black marble. Cold, black marble. The cool crept through the skin of her forearms, clammy with cold sweat and trembling with memories. Again. She'd dreamt of her time as a soldier so many times in the past few weeks, each night worse than the next. And nightmares about past lives were not like normal nightmares. They didn't fade when you turned on the lights, they didn't go away when you closed your eyes.
Rain, rain, torrents of rain and mud and she - he - could barely see, there was mud in her - his - eyes, mud and blood, and she - he - they, couldn't hear, they were deaf with the sound of the shells and the screams and gunfire and the desperate prayers skewered on bayonets.
Lillian's eyes snapped open again, and she cursed under her breath. Pushing off from the counter, she used that momentum to get to the phone... only to stare at the glowing green time display, sigh, and put it down again. (Louise didn't need another late night of calming her down.) Breathe deep. Think of anything but England. Lil turned around again, and went to the cabinet. Flour. Sugar. The refrigerator: butter, ice cold water. A bowl, some measuring cups, clattering onto the countertop as she pulled them down. For a moment, she stared at the knife block, and then impulsively grabbed it and shoved it under the sink, out of view. Breathe in, breathe out, measure out the flour.
NOAH: It took a while for Noah's consciousness to sidle its way out of sleep. Some nights he was on edge, a lost and wary predator jumping at every sound; but other nights, he was calm and pleased with himself, and perfectly content to remain in the idle, wispy dreams of lions and hounds and shepherds and rolling green fields. Those were his dreams tonight, and even as he slowly found himself waking, he tried to hang on to the last vestiges of sleep left to him.
But as he woke, eyes flickering and opening to the sight of his own bedroom, Noah growled a little to himself. It was late. He could tell because of the way his gaze dragged, the way he so desperately wanted to fall back into the ease of unconsciousness. Glancing over, and noting the conspicuous lack of a silhouette by his side, Noah concluded she'd most likely gone to the bathroom - the movement and subtle shift of weight in the bed had probably woken him. He breathed in deep and rolled over, intending to bury his face in the pillow and go back to sleep.
No dice. Even as he breathed in, Noah's nostrils suddenly flared, and he shook his head rapidly to clear the sleep from his eyes and the smell from his nose. Something was going on in the kitchen. The cooking was good, but - there was something else, a new and unfamiliar acrid scent layered on top of it. Scrubbing at his face, Noah stumbled out of the bed and moved towards the doorway, bumping himself on a corner of one of the glass endtables.
He swore, softly and under his breath.
"Lil? You up?"
LILLIAN: By the time Noah found his way to the doorway, Lillian had finished cutting sticks of butter up into little cubes, and had started the long, tedious process of cutting the butter into the flour. These days it's a task left for food processors, and if not a food processor, then at least a pastry cutter. Lillian was doing it with her hands. Pick up, rub, pick up, rub, pick up, rub. A tiring process, one that put cramps in her hands, but it was repetitive, mindless work. Work with her hands.
Usually, when Lillian was cooking and baking, she smiled. There was music, and humming, and even a little bit of dancing as she moved effortlessly around the kitchen. Now? She stood in the half-shadows cast by the single light, her tousled and tangled hair a curtain over her face as she stared into the bowl, making beads of pastry with her hands. When Noah spoke, she looked up, made an attempt to throw her hair back over her shoulder. "Hey, puppy," she greeted softly, smiling, but not smiling.
NOAH: She'd taken his robe, so Noah simply settled for wandering out in his boxers. There was already a morning chill in the apartment, but the heating was good and human warmth was even better. So he sidled up alongside her, quiet and thoughtful, rubbing the last of the sleep out of his eyes. He didn't say anything else until he reached Lillian's side, and scrutinised her handiwork while gnawing the bottom of his lip.
She seemed calm enough now, but Noah could see and smell it on her. The fear hung in the air, lingering in the room, thick and pungent in the room. It coiled itself in knots in her hair. He knew nightmares, and he knew lovers waking up in the middle of the night, startled and off-guard. He even knew a woman who occasionally had night terrors, and the way her heart beat rapidly afterwards.
But this was something different. This was sheer panic; this was fight or flight, sheer survival. This wasn't even dreaming of being attacked one single time - this was prolonged terror. The flour and butter were sweet and aromatic in the kitchen, but Noah was almost retching. It took him the longest time, and a stretching moment of silence, to even have it dawn on him that it came from Lillian.
He watched her, amber eyes glinting. His look was unreadable, for once.
"Bad dreams?"
LILLIAN: Lillian's fingers worked through the flour and butter, churning out crumbs of pastry. Every now and then she stopped and flexed her hands, rubbed her palms, and then went back at it - she had enough in there for three, four pies, easily, and it was going to take a while. Good. Because kneading and watching the bowl of pate brisee form kept her anchored, kept her present, kept her from completely breaking down as nightmare-memories of two terrible wars roiled instead her head, keeping her pulse fast and her breathing shallow. Breathe deep.
Letting out a long, low sigh, Lillian nodded. "Bad dreams," she affirmed. Pick up, rub, over and over. Ignore the pain in her hands, because it was incomparable to the pain she was remembering. Bullet wounds and severed limbs and gaping tears and shrapnel and not enough morphine not enough nurses not enough. Her own look was unreadable as well; keep calm, breathe deep, it'll recede, back to that place where the memories of all her past lives go.
NOAH: Noah watched her working, because it was less painful than watching the flicker of emotions - or the distinct lack thereof - playing across Lillian's face. He looked at the clock dial above the oven, seeing the time display for the first time, and he winced. This was not the right hour to deal with this. But then again, what hour would be? Five AM was the time for nightmares, and waiting for the sun to rise and dispel whatever remained of last night's darkness.
He'd never sensed fear on her before.
Noah reached out and gently tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear, hand then trailing to squeeze Lil's shoulder lightly. He said nothing else. He knew the reek of terror, but had no idea what this was all about. And thinking back on it, he didn't know of any terrifying events in Lillian's past. It wasn't like they spent hours digging into each other's histories; but as far as he knew, she wasn't hiding anything from him.
LILLIAN: The tension in Lillian's shoulder - the tension in her whole body - eased, gently, under Noah's touch. It chased away some of those nightmare visions, trench warfare and falling comrades. (She never watches war documentaries. She couldn't sleep for days and days after Saving Private Ryan.) The reek of fear ebbed, slowly. Again, she sighed, and then she paused her dough-making, lifting her hands to her face as though in prayer, and then lowering them again, each taking turns kneading knots and cramps out of the other. "Sorry," she said, turning towards Noah, attempting an apologetic smile because smiles and laughter is who she is. "I'm sorry. I must be overwhelming you. It'll be done soon. Just... stay, okay?" Not a plea, just a simple request. Stay, because having someone else nearby keeps her in this lifetime. Because even just talking to him makes those phantom memories fade away, and with it that horror that drives her to make four pies worth of pastry dough at five am because if she didn't she would be calling her cousin and sobbing hysterically in an apartment that wasn't hers.
"Hope you like pie," she added as she turned back to the bowl. An attempt at a joke. She rubbed her fingers through the mixture once more before she reached for the ice water. First she submerged her hands, then poured a little tiny bit into the mix. Again, kneading and forming and working with her aching hands.
NOAH: Noah had cursed having his ability about as many times as he had praised having it. Tonight was an eerie mixture between the two. He was attuned to Lillian's emotions now, his senses stretched wire-taut to actually feel her fear slowly subsiding. That was the good part. He could tell when she'd calmed down, and when things settled back into balance.
But Noah had only spoken about five words so far, because if he didn't... well, if he didn't focus on breathing, on drawing each ragged breath of fresh kitchen air and flour, he just might vomit from the smell of wartime fear. That was the bad part. It was all jagged edges and a rancid taste in the back of his throat that just wouldn't leave.
When Lil's balance seemed (mostly) restored, he finally started speaking again.
"That one was bad. You've never had night terrors before."
Except it was different from a night terror. It had been sharp, almost tangible; it tasted different.
LILLIAN: Lillian looked up from the pie dough she'd finally completed - no crumbs left, just one whole mound of dough, ready to be divided, wrapped, and refrigerated. "Night terrors?" she repeated, reaching for a cloth and wiping her hands clean. She smiled, but ironically, and shook her head. "No, that was just one of those side effects of being a nursery rhyme symbol of the might of the great nation of Britain." With a sigh, equal parts weary for the hour and the ordeal, and relieved, she turned her back on her workstation and leaned against the counter, facing Noah. "Do you remember them? The lives before this one?" Lil was tired, it showed in her face and her posture, but she offered a soft, lopsided grin anyway, because she at least owed Noah an explanation for waking him at this godawful hour of the night with her godawful nightmares and stomach-turning fear.
NOAH: He absentmindedly pulled out one of the stools by the kitchen island and settled himself into it, elbow propped on the black counter as he listened. Noah nodded. While Lil was trying for the reassuring grin, his own face had ironed out and become carefully serious, a balancing act between sombre or blank. He was trying not to let his own reservations about the issue show. But the deadpan expression itself made it appallingly obvious. Because this was Noah, of all men, who usually sported his easy-going smile.
"There are..." Pause. "... so many of them. But I remember. Bits and pieces. Some of it not good."
And he was looking at her askance now; his voice had lifted slightly on that last syllable, and it wasn't clear whether it was a question or a statement. Probably both.
LILLIAN: "Yeah," Lillian agreed, her expression softening with concern and understanding. "Hey," she started, placing a hand on Noah's arm. "Don't worry. We're not discussing the previous lives of the Lion and the Wolf. I just wanted to explain." Her voice was warmer now, fueled by the need to erase that non-expression off Noah's face; there wasn't a smile on her face, but it couldn't be expected of her. Not with the next words out of her mouth, her hand withdrawing back to her own arms: "World Wars one and two." She paused, thoughtful and melancholic. "Being a front-line war hero apparently isn't all it's cracked up to be. If it's cracked up to be anything at all." Her eyes found Noah's again, and that reassuring little turn of her lips returned. "That's it. That's the nightmare du jour tonight."
NOAH: A chill ran down his spine. Yes. He understood. He understood completely. In fact, the memories that most haunted Noah were from the exact same time period. He would often wake up in a cold sweat with fleeting images of the second world war... but he knew it from the other side. His contribution hadn't been heroic at all.
Worry flooded him for a moment, before he calmed himself down and reminded himself not to be paranoid. Very few of his memories of being Nikolaus Godard involved frontline fighting or soldier activity. The man had rarely turned himself against clear-cut, uniformed British forces. Most of it involved metaphorically tearing out the throat of people who trusted him. Other Germans. Jews. Traitors to the reich. Most of it involved closed dark rooms instead of open fields and moors.
Noah shook off the memories. As swiftly as he'd fetched it, he detached himself from the stool and took a quick step over to Lillian, suddenly grabbing her and pulling her into a kiss. It was not soft. It was not gentle and meant for comfort; but it was comfort anyway, a signal of companionship and solidarity and human touch.
You're not alone.
"Other people's problems, babe. That's how I choose to think about it."
LILLIAN: It was comfort, and not the sort of comfort soft and gentle would have been able to give; Lillian returned the kiss, arms tight around Noah's neck and shoulder pulling him as close to her as possible, the counter top edge digging into her back. This human touch, this rough gesture cemented her, and him, cemented them both in that moment, sometime past five am in the city of New York. Flesh and breath and now, this life, her life, their life, and the only one they had, regardless of the sleeping tales inside them.
She clung intensely to Noah for a long moment, and when she pulled away her smile was dazed and sleepy and completely her own. "Yeah, seems like," she murmured thoughtfully in reply, drawl of her Southern childhood more evident now than ever. Her thoughts cast back to Charlie, encountered earlier in the day - seemed like a lifetime ago. A glance at the clock, and then back to Noah (her arms still loosely draped around his shoulders), she gave another half-smile. "Thanks. For staying." A pause, and she cocked her weary blonde head to one side inquisitively. "I think the damn pie dough can wait a few hours. Back to bed?"
NOAH: He gave a rumble of a laugh at that, deep and sardonic. "It's my apartment, chickie, I couldn't very well run out on you." But there was that regular smirk. Noah's walls were being built back up. They hadn't had a several-hour-long discussion about this; no, they hadn't talked away the shadows, nor dug through every last detail of the nightmare. But they didn't need to. Because they were lion and wolf, and the vulnerability that had been so apparent a few minutes ago was already melting away.
But he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
For the sake of it.