Just One Word
Title: Hair
Character/Pairing: Wash/Taylor
Word Count: 830
Genre: Romance/Friendship
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: She doesn’t notice how long his hair is until they’re caught in the rain.
Author’s Note: prompt "hair" bymakesometime Prompted BYzapf_chancery.
Hair
She doesn’t realize how long his hair has grown until they’re caught in the rain. It’s a silly sort of thing to observe, especially considering where they are. It’s a routine patrol mission, nothing more, simply checking their borders outside one of their more distant outposts. It’s halfway through the summer of their second year here when they have this misfortune of being caught in one of those summer storms. The rain beats down hard on the Rover; the wind blows it through the open side of the vehicle, drenching the Lieutenant and Commander. It leaves his hair plastered to his skull, acts as the genesis of her revelation.
In the past, he’s worn his hair short, kept in regulation with the strict military standards. She remembers times where it had barely been longer than the length of her nail. The gray had been less evident then; now there are streaks of silver through the once dark mass, the colors fading to the duller hues.
It’s a strange sort of juxtaposition, she supposes. He looks younger, so much younger, here. The color ages him and the world lends him a vivacity she had lost the hope of seeing again. The man flashes her a smile (an actual smile, open and alive and everything she’d never thought to see turning his lips after Somalia) as he brings the vehicle to a smooth stop. Rationality says they push forward. Rationality says that they continue on with their task.
And for the moment, rationality is ignored in favor of living.
The rain is nothing new. She remembers weeks spent in monsoons before, remembers pushing through in those hellish conditions. She remembers that rain had been icy, bugs and undergrowth nipping at arms, legs. Their skin covered with filth as they pushed unflinchingly forward.
This is nothing like that. It takes less than a thought to throw herself into that storm after him, into the warm summer air, the water, kissing her skin as she moves through it. This is refreshing; this is life. This is their life now; their home now. Wash brushes a stray bit of foliage aside with her arm, following the man.
Taylor stops not far in front of her, staring in wonder at the sight presented to them. The precipice they find themselves on offers an uninhibited view of the jungle stretching out across the horizon. In stark contrast to the grays and red, the oranges, the omnipresent browns that had stained the very air in their lungs, there is only green. There is life, stretched out as far as the eye can see. The jungle positively hums with it around them, a reminder of the precious chance they have been given.
It’s a chance to live where before they have survived; the notion resonates deep within the Lieutenant’s chest, stirs something within her. A second chance…
She glances to the side, finds the man is already staring at her, finds those preternaturally blue eyes fixed solely on her, dancing with a mirth that was foreign to them for so long. He’s still smiling, that too long hair plastered to his scalp, clothes clinging to him. They must cut an image, both smiling for no reason, looking half drowned. He tilts his head lightly to the side, reaches up to catch a stray bit of her hair; the dark strands have grown nearly to her chin again.
Taylor gives a gentle tug, “Hair is getting long, Wash.”
And perhaps it’s too intimate, and perhaps it’s simply not them, and perhaps she’s toeing a line that they will not even admit to drawing until years later. None of those things matter to her; for the first time in years, they are happy. For the first time in years, they feel alive, are allowed to feel alive. The Lieutenant permits herself to smile back at him, feels the rain beating down on her skin, kissing and cooling, smoothing away the tension of the day, reaches up to absently brush his hair back from his forehead. The strands, now a steely grey, fan out through her fingers, bending with the motion of her hand.
“So is yours.”
Three words that have very little meaning unto themselves; it’s a nonsensical sort of reply, matters little. But there is history and memory in her tone, all those raw remembrances of Somalia dragged back to the fore, soothed by something as simple as the rain. It’s this one moment of freedom. Her lips turn up ever so slightly at the corners, gives a final brush of her fingers over his scalp (both memorizing the feel of the other). He has no response for her and none is needed.
She doesn’t notice how long his hair is until they’re caught in the rain.
She doesn’t fail to notice that he keeps it that particular length from that day on.
Title: Lies
Character/Pairing: Ayani/Taylor/Wash
Word Count: 750
Genre: Romance/Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: Alicia Washington is a liar of the highest caliber.
Author’s Note: prompt "lies" for makesometime
Lies
It is the simplest, basest, most human sort of sin. To lie.
Alicia Washington regards liars as the worst representations of humanity. It is the sole domain of humans to deceive others (and themselves) into believing impossibilities, to warp the truth to better suit their own ends. In her youth, lies are singularly demonized. There is black and white and these truths are incapable of ever over overlapping. There is the truth and there is a lie. If the truth cuts more deeply then it will only better serve its purpose in the end.
As she grows older she cannot be so sure.
There are lies and there are truths. These things do not overlaps. Lies harm; the truth heals. Such thoughts are those of a child, torn from her grasp now.
The truth she has clung to has left her. She clutches at nothing, searching for some brace where there can be none. That truth she has so admired for years is stripped from her, leaves her as the very thing she once despised above all else.
Alicia Washington is a liar of the highest caliber. The insidious things are weaved seamlessly into the very fiber of her beings, the stitch work so effective that she has to squint to pick them out from the truth. They are small at first (she is not in love with her Commanding Officer; this is a passing infatuation, nothing more), growing over the years until they eclipse her life. The lies are integral to her survival, the truth too impossible to face.
She lies to the woman she loves every time she returns on leave. The lies to Ayani cut the deepest, are rationalized away (she’s protecting her, has to protect her from this world). The simplest quirk of her lips when asked how she is doing rather than a more concrete answer. The medic will offer an indulgent tilt of her head, permit the other woman to fuss over her injuries and swear she is alright, this is nothing new, nothing to worry over (to hide the fact that she is decaying, that she is dying, that everyday in this place eats away at her). And when the Taylor woman clutches Wash to her in a grip that is nothing short of desperate, dotting kisses over the bruised planes of her face, she lies again.
“I’m fine,” those words have lost their meaning; more rhetoric that no one believes. She will catch the delicate hands in her own, voice soothing, “Ayani, it’s nothing.”
And she lies to herself when she says the emotion flaring to life in the depths of those green eyes is only concern, not hurt, not betrayal.
She lies to the man she loves every day she serves with him, beside him. The veneer of confidence she wears is tattered after so long in this place but remains for him. Outwardly, she is a beacon of confidence, assured in his decisions, to hide the fact that she’s little more than a terrified girl inside. That she lives in constant fear of the day when he will not return to her, when she will be a moment too late, when she won’t find him. He lies to himself when he simply smiles, refuses to recognize that her kisses are suddenly colored with desperation as she pulls him to her.
And she lies to herself when she says this is a passing thing. That the day she lives in fear of will never come; she lies when she tells Ayani everything is alright, when she swears that she will return to her, that she will bring the woman’s husband home safely.
This place is nothing more than a lie, her life is nothing more than a lie, the strands hopelessly intertwined to leave neither beginning or end.
There is a moment of clarity, of truth, as she lies beside her lovers, Nathaniel’s hand folded over her hip, her own head tucked beneath Ayani’s chin. This is her home and she is loved. These are two things she does not doubt, will never doubt.
But even she cannot lie effectively enough to convince herself that either of these things are permanent. She cannot convince herself that she is capable of protecting them or keeping them. There is only the truth that one day even this, especially this, will be taken from her.
Washington twines her fingers through her Commander’s, seeking the solace only offered here. She clutches Ayani more tightly to her side as if that will prevent her from being taken. She tells herself the next morning will be no different, that the next week will be no different.
She lies.
Title: Death
Character/Pairing: Wash/Taylor
Word Count: 912
Genre: Romance/Family
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: The day she will lose him is fast approaching, just on the horizon and her mind has prepared for each and every scenario.
Author’s Note: Prompt "death" by bellebby
Death
Whether or not she breathes in that moment is debatable. There is no sound, there is no color in the world beside him (red, always red), her vision narrowing to a single point. There is only him as she moves, darting through the chaos, through she underbrush. She’s aware of Shannon calling out to her; she is aware of the hand on her shoulder calling her back to his side, growing fainter as she closes the impossible space between them in impressive bounds. But she’ll never quite make it, will she?
The inevitability of the situation never loses its supposed novelty. She will arrive and fall at his side as she has hundreds of times in the past. She will check for a pulse and find none, hands attempting to stem the blood flow. Every night there is the slightest variation in the pattern. Sometimes he’s dying in the jungle, sometimes the Badlands; sometimes it’s a carnivore and other times it is Lucas.
But she will always arrive too late, always have the sticky sensation of blood on her hands (his blood on her hands and the notion tears at her more than it should). She will awaken from that sleep covered in sweat, disoriented, sheets tangled about her body as he sleeps at his side, peaceful, alive. It's that, and that alone, the feel of his warm skin beneath her touch as she brushes her fingers over his shoulder, through his hair, that assures her it's nothing more than a dream. Just a colorful image painted in her head, a vent for the worries eating away at her.
And while they are frightening at first, the dreams no longer bring tears with them, only that feeling of crushing inevitability. The day she will lose him is fast approaching, just on the horizon and her mind has prepared for each and every scenario. Wash brushes a hand through her hair, forces the tightening in her chest to cease.
It’s her over tired mind, nothing more, nothing less.
That day not come. It’s seven years after they’ve retaken the colony and that day has yet to come. The dreams plague her less frequently now, death pushed from her mind as she straddles his lap, smiling against his lips as his hands roam her back, assuring her how entirely he’s here with her. Death is pushed from her mind as she rests at his side in their bed, their sons curled between them.
It’s eight years, and that day has yet to come. Sam is seven, so much like his father, and Jaime is just recently four, both reminding her of the good fortune she’s had to make it to this point, the contentment she’s achieved. She brushes a hand through their hair (midnight dark and sandy blond), smiles at them as her husband arrives home once more. The dreams cease to come after that, are a memory rather than a facet of her day.
It’s ten years and the dreams never come true. He’s never killed; his blood is never on her hands. It’s nothing so dramatic and nothing as suited to him as that. There is simply a day when life and age catch up to him. He’s nearly seventy and his life has been nothing if not strenuous. It seems strange, disquieting, that he goes peacefully rather than fighting, at odds with everything she knows of the man. She lays beside him, brushes her thumb over the rise of his cheek, his lips. There is no great panic that sets in, her world does not shatter.
Only a dull ache, accompanied by the realization that this is the one end she has not planned for. That where she had awoken from her dreams now she must continue on. The notion is as foreign to her as his departure; she rests her head on his shoulder, indulges in the beads of moisture slowly making their way down her cheeks (tears, though it registers absently in her head).
It’s fifteen years and the weight still hangs about her neck. There is no forgetting and there is no moving on, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. This place is a shrine to him and she wears his name and his title like a cloak around herself. She is Commander Taylor, offers the people that sort of continuity as she steps into his shoes, plays the stony faced leader, the pillar of strength, they need. Outwardly, she moves on. And inwardly, she blankets herself with years of memories, with ten years spent blissfully happy at his side.
She copes; she functions. She is more than they could have hoped for even as the memories slowly eat at her.
It’s twenty years, twenty five, and then thirty. She resigns her title to her son (another Commander Taylor, struck again by how desperately he resembles his father). The hair once midnight dark is now gray, her beauty still present, if faded as she sits in the home that was once theirs. The hurt is still there but she has functioned all these years, will continue to function as long as she is needed to. She does not break, does not shatter; to do so would be selfish.
She dreams now of the day she will meet him. Sometimes he welcomes her back; sometimes he simply smiles. Subtle variations on a theme, her mind planning for each and every scenario; it’s the day she lives in expectation of. But that day has yet to come.
Wash copes, waits patiently, does as she has for years. Blankets herself in the memory of her two beautiful sons, in the life they shared. She replays the ten years worth more to her than a lifetime. The day she will return to him is fast approaching, just on the horizon and her mind has prepared for each and every scenario.
It’s forty years when that day finally comes.
Title: Hold
Character/Pairing: Wash/Taylor
Word Count: 303
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: In these halfway normal moments, she finds she can say only one thing.
Author’s Note: Prompt "hold" by inu_midoriko
Hold
“Wash....”
She lets out a small groan as her response, shifting to lay on her opposite side as he addresses her again, hand coming to rest on her bare shoulder. The woman simply pulls the thin sheet up higher, smiling into the fabric of her pillow as he lets out a chuckle. It’s barely after three A.M. and she’s not due up for at least another hour. The man, newly returned from OTG, does not pester her further. She listens as he goes about his evening routine, sitting on the end of the bed to remove his boots, his fatigues. The same order of things he’s performed hundreds of times before.
The woman smiles as he goes through the familiar ritual, counting the time in her head until he will inevitably slide into bed behind her, freshly showered, exhausted. And while their days are so often filled with satisfying moments now she cannot deny that this is one of her favorites. He sighs as he slides beneath the sheets, moving so his chest is flush to her back. His hand will fold over her hip, gently pulling her back against him. She’ll lose herself in his warmth, his scent. Pathetically romantic drivel that has yet to lose its novelty (and never will).
He presses a kiss to her shoulder, another to her neck before resting his head against hers, breathing leveling out as he slides into a much needed sleep. The Commander’s tone is laced heavily with exhaustion, something like contentment, as he breathes his greeting against her skin, wishes her good night.
In those moments, halfway normal and nearly domestic, she finds she can say only one thing, means it with the entirety of her being even as it sends a wave of warmth careening over her senses, leans back to clumsily catch his lips in a kiss.
“...Welcome home, sir.”
Character/Pairing: Wash/Taylor
Word Count: 830
Genre: Romance/Friendship
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: She doesn’t notice how long his hair is until they’re caught in the rain.
Author’s Note: prompt "hair" bymakesometime Prompted BYzapf_chancery.
Hair
She doesn’t realize how long his hair has grown until they’re caught in the rain. It’s a silly sort of thing to observe, especially considering where they are. It’s a routine patrol mission, nothing more, simply checking their borders outside one of their more distant outposts. It’s halfway through the summer of their second year here when they have this misfortune of being caught in one of those summer storms. The rain beats down hard on the Rover; the wind blows it through the open side of the vehicle, drenching the Lieutenant and Commander. It leaves his hair plastered to his skull, acts as the genesis of her revelation.
In the past, he’s worn his hair short, kept in regulation with the strict military standards. She remembers times where it had barely been longer than the length of her nail. The gray had been less evident then; now there are streaks of silver through the once dark mass, the colors fading to the duller hues.
It’s a strange sort of juxtaposition, she supposes. He looks younger, so much younger, here. The color ages him and the world lends him a vivacity she had lost the hope of seeing again. The man flashes her a smile (an actual smile, open and alive and everything she’d never thought to see turning his lips after Somalia) as he brings the vehicle to a smooth stop. Rationality says they push forward. Rationality says that they continue on with their task.
And for the moment, rationality is ignored in favor of living.
The rain is nothing new. She remembers weeks spent in monsoons before, remembers pushing through in those hellish conditions. She remembers that rain had been icy, bugs and undergrowth nipping at arms, legs. Their skin covered with filth as they pushed unflinchingly forward.
This is nothing like that. It takes less than a thought to throw herself into that storm after him, into the warm summer air, the water, kissing her skin as she moves through it. This is refreshing; this is life. This is their life now; their home now. Wash brushes a stray bit of foliage aside with her arm, following the man.
Taylor stops not far in front of her, staring in wonder at the sight presented to them. The precipice they find themselves on offers an uninhibited view of the jungle stretching out across the horizon. In stark contrast to the grays and red, the oranges, the omnipresent browns that had stained the very air in their lungs, there is only green. There is life, stretched out as far as the eye can see. The jungle positively hums with it around them, a reminder of the precious chance they have been given.
It’s a chance to live where before they have survived; the notion resonates deep within the Lieutenant’s chest, stirs something within her. A second chance…
She glances to the side, finds the man is already staring at her, finds those preternaturally blue eyes fixed solely on her, dancing with a mirth that was foreign to them for so long. He’s still smiling, that too long hair plastered to his scalp, clothes clinging to him. They must cut an image, both smiling for no reason, looking half drowned. He tilts his head lightly to the side, reaches up to catch a stray bit of her hair; the dark strands have grown nearly to her chin again.
Taylor gives a gentle tug, “Hair is getting long, Wash.”
And perhaps it’s too intimate, and perhaps it’s simply not them, and perhaps she’s toeing a line that they will not even admit to drawing until years later. None of those things matter to her; for the first time in years, they are happy. For the first time in years, they feel alive, are allowed to feel alive. The Lieutenant permits herself to smile back at him, feels the rain beating down on her skin, kissing and cooling, smoothing away the tension of the day, reaches up to absently brush his hair back from his forehead. The strands, now a steely grey, fan out through her fingers, bending with the motion of her hand.
“So is yours.”
Three words that have very little meaning unto themselves; it’s a nonsensical sort of reply, matters little. But there is history and memory in her tone, all those raw remembrances of Somalia dragged back to the fore, soothed by something as simple as the rain. It’s this one moment of freedom. Her lips turn up ever so slightly at the corners, gives a final brush of her fingers over his scalp (both memorizing the feel of the other). He has no response for her and none is needed.
She doesn’t notice how long his hair is until they’re caught in the rain.
She doesn’t fail to notice that he keeps it that particular length from that day on.
Title: Lies
Character/Pairing: Ayani/Taylor/Wash
Word Count: 750
Genre: Romance/Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: Alicia Washington is a liar of the highest caliber.
Author’s Note: prompt "lies" for makesometime
Lies
It is the simplest, basest, most human sort of sin. To lie.
Alicia Washington regards liars as the worst representations of humanity. It is the sole domain of humans to deceive others (and themselves) into believing impossibilities, to warp the truth to better suit their own ends. In her youth, lies are singularly demonized. There is black and white and these truths are incapable of ever over overlapping. There is the truth and there is a lie. If the truth cuts more deeply then it will only better serve its purpose in the end.
As she grows older she cannot be so sure.
There are lies and there are truths. These things do not overlaps. Lies harm; the truth heals. Such thoughts are those of a child, torn from her grasp now.
The truth she has clung to has left her. She clutches at nothing, searching for some brace where there can be none. That truth she has so admired for years is stripped from her, leaves her as the very thing she once despised above all else.
Alicia Washington is a liar of the highest caliber. The insidious things are weaved seamlessly into the very fiber of her beings, the stitch work so effective that she has to squint to pick them out from the truth. They are small at first (she is not in love with her Commanding Officer; this is a passing infatuation, nothing more), growing over the years until they eclipse her life. The lies are integral to her survival, the truth too impossible to face.
She lies to the woman she loves every time she returns on leave. The lies to Ayani cut the deepest, are rationalized away (she’s protecting her, has to protect her from this world). The simplest quirk of her lips when asked how she is doing rather than a more concrete answer. The medic will offer an indulgent tilt of her head, permit the other woman to fuss over her injuries and swear she is alright, this is nothing new, nothing to worry over (to hide the fact that she is decaying, that she is dying, that everyday in this place eats away at her). And when the Taylor woman clutches Wash to her in a grip that is nothing short of desperate, dotting kisses over the bruised planes of her face, she lies again.
“I’m fine,” those words have lost their meaning; more rhetoric that no one believes. She will catch the delicate hands in her own, voice soothing, “Ayani, it’s nothing.”
And she lies to herself when she says the emotion flaring to life in the depths of those green eyes is only concern, not hurt, not betrayal.
She lies to the man she loves every day she serves with him, beside him. The veneer of confidence she wears is tattered after so long in this place but remains for him. Outwardly, she is a beacon of confidence, assured in his decisions, to hide the fact that she’s little more than a terrified girl inside. That she lives in constant fear of the day when he will not return to her, when she will be a moment too late, when she won’t find him. He lies to himself when he simply smiles, refuses to recognize that her kisses are suddenly colored with desperation as she pulls him to her.
And she lies to herself when she says this is a passing thing. That the day she lives in fear of will never come; she lies when she tells Ayani everything is alright, when she swears that she will return to her, that she will bring the woman’s husband home safely.
This place is nothing more than a lie, her life is nothing more than a lie, the strands hopelessly intertwined to leave neither beginning or end.
There is a moment of clarity, of truth, as she lies beside her lovers, Nathaniel’s hand folded over her hip, her own head tucked beneath Ayani’s chin. This is her home and she is loved. These are two things she does not doubt, will never doubt.
But even she cannot lie effectively enough to convince herself that either of these things are permanent. She cannot convince herself that she is capable of protecting them or keeping them. There is only the truth that one day even this, especially this, will be taken from her.
Washington twines her fingers through her Commander’s, seeking the solace only offered here. She clutches Ayani more tightly to her side as if that will prevent her from being taken. She tells herself the next morning will be no different, that the next week will be no different.
She lies.
Title: Death
Character/Pairing: Wash/Taylor
Word Count: 912
Genre: Romance/Family
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: The day she will lose him is fast approaching, just on the horizon and her mind has prepared for each and every scenario.
Author’s Note: Prompt "death" by bellebby
Death
Whether or not she breathes in that moment is debatable. There is no sound, there is no color in the world beside him (red, always red), her vision narrowing to a single point. There is only him as she moves, darting through the chaos, through she underbrush. She’s aware of Shannon calling out to her; she is aware of the hand on her shoulder calling her back to his side, growing fainter as she closes the impossible space between them in impressive bounds. But she’ll never quite make it, will she?
The inevitability of the situation never loses its supposed novelty. She will arrive and fall at his side as she has hundreds of times in the past. She will check for a pulse and find none, hands attempting to stem the blood flow. Every night there is the slightest variation in the pattern. Sometimes he’s dying in the jungle, sometimes the Badlands; sometimes it’s a carnivore and other times it is Lucas.
But she will always arrive too late, always have the sticky sensation of blood on her hands (his blood on her hands and the notion tears at her more than it should). She will awaken from that sleep covered in sweat, disoriented, sheets tangled about her body as he sleeps at his side, peaceful, alive. It's that, and that alone, the feel of his warm skin beneath her touch as she brushes her fingers over his shoulder, through his hair, that assures her it's nothing more than a dream. Just a colorful image painted in her head, a vent for the worries eating away at her.
And while they are frightening at first, the dreams no longer bring tears with them, only that feeling of crushing inevitability. The day she will lose him is fast approaching, just on the horizon and her mind has prepared for each and every scenario. Wash brushes a hand through her hair, forces the tightening in her chest to cease.
It’s her over tired mind, nothing more, nothing less.
That day not come. It’s seven years after they’ve retaken the colony and that day has yet to come. The dreams plague her less frequently now, death pushed from her mind as she straddles his lap, smiling against his lips as his hands roam her back, assuring her how entirely he’s here with her. Death is pushed from her mind as she rests at his side in their bed, their sons curled between them.
It’s eight years, and that day has yet to come. Sam is seven, so much like his father, and Jaime is just recently four, both reminding her of the good fortune she’s had to make it to this point, the contentment she’s achieved. She brushes a hand through their hair (midnight dark and sandy blond), smiles at them as her husband arrives home once more. The dreams cease to come after that, are a memory rather than a facet of her day.
It’s ten years and the dreams never come true. He’s never killed; his blood is never on her hands. It’s nothing so dramatic and nothing as suited to him as that. There is simply a day when life and age catch up to him. He’s nearly seventy and his life has been nothing if not strenuous. It seems strange, disquieting, that he goes peacefully rather than fighting, at odds with everything she knows of the man. She lays beside him, brushes her thumb over the rise of his cheek, his lips. There is no great panic that sets in, her world does not shatter.
Only a dull ache, accompanied by the realization that this is the one end she has not planned for. That where she had awoken from her dreams now she must continue on. The notion is as foreign to her as his departure; she rests her head on his shoulder, indulges in the beads of moisture slowly making their way down her cheeks (tears, though it registers absently in her head).
It’s fifteen years and the weight still hangs about her neck. There is no forgetting and there is no moving on, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. This place is a shrine to him and she wears his name and his title like a cloak around herself. She is Commander Taylor, offers the people that sort of continuity as she steps into his shoes, plays the stony faced leader, the pillar of strength, they need. Outwardly, she moves on. And inwardly, she blankets herself with years of memories, with ten years spent blissfully happy at his side.
She copes; she functions. She is more than they could have hoped for even as the memories slowly eat at her.
It’s twenty years, twenty five, and then thirty. She resigns her title to her son (another Commander Taylor, struck again by how desperately he resembles his father). The hair once midnight dark is now gray, her beauty still present, if faded as she sits in the home that was once theirs. The hurt is still there but she has functioned all these years, will continue to function as long as she is needed to. She does not break, does not shatter; to do so would be selfish.
She dreams now of the day she will meet him. Sometimes he welcomes her back; sometimes he simply smiles. Subtle variations on a theme, her mind planning for each and every scenario; it’s the day she lives in expectation of. But that day has yet to come.
Wash copes, waits patiently, does as she has for years. Blankets herself in the memory of her two beautiful sons, in the life they shared. She replays the ten years worth more to her than a lifetime. The day she will return to him is fast approaching, just on the horizon and her mind has prepared for each and every scenario.
It’s forty years when that day finally comes.
Title: Hold
Character/Pairing: Wash/Taylor
Word Count: 303
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG
Spoiler Alert: None
Summary: In these halfway normal moments, she finds she can say only one thing.
Author’s Note: Prompt "hold" by inu_midoriko
Hold
“Wash....”
She lets out a small groan as her response, shifting to lay on her opposite side as he addresses her again, hand coming to rest on her bare shoulder. The woman simply pulls the thin sheet up higher, smiling into the fabric of her pillow as he lets out a chuckle. It’s barely after three A.M. and she’s not due up for at least another hour. The man, newly returned from OTG, does not pester her further. She listens as he goes about his evening routine, sitting on the end of the bed to remove his boots, his fatigues. The same order of things he’s performed hundreds of times before.
The woman smiles as he goes through the familiar ritual, counting the time in her head until he will inevitably slide into bed behind her, freshly showered, exhausted. And while their days are so often filled with satisfying moments now she cannot deny that this is one of her favorites. He sighs as he slides beneath the sheets, moving so his chest is flush to her back. His hand will fold over her hip, gently pulling her back against him. She’ll lose herself in his warmth, his scent. Pathetically romantic drivel that has yet to lose its novelty (and never will).
He presses a kiss to her shoulder, another to her neck before resting his head against hers, breathing leveling out as he slides into a much needed sleep. The Commander’s tone is laced heavily with exhaustion, something like contentment, as he breathes his greeting against her skin, wishes her good night.
In those moments, halfway normal and nearly domestic, she finds she can say only one thing, means it with the entirety of her being even as it sends a wave of warmth careening over her senses, leans back to clumsily catch his lips in a kiss.
“...Welcome home, sir.”