Fic: These Scars We Wear - 19/?
Obligatory disclaimer: Not mine and never will be. All credit goes to GRRM. I’m just playing with his toys while he’s not looking. I promise to return them in as good a shape as I found them.
Summary: Sandor Clegane discovers that death does not always mark the end of a life. Sometimes it's only the beginning. Spoilers up to and including A Feast For Crows. AU
Rating: M
Pairing: Sandor/Sansa.
Word Count: 3,005
Warnings: Underage, just to be on the safe side.
These Scars We Wear - 19/?
He gains the top of the staircase just as a parade of children pass him heading down, all with empty buckets in hand. He gives each pup the eye and they stare up at him in turn, their faces naked with surprise, the last and smallest a girl no more than six. She gapes at him and then stops three steps down the stair and looks over her shoulder, offering a timid smile. It sets him aback and, shaking his head in bemusement, he walks to the open door at the end of the hall. The frame is built lower than he's used to and he has to duck his head to step through.
He is in a solar. It is not a large room and has none of the fancy dressings of those in King's Landing, but it more than meets his approval. A fire is crackling in a welcome stone hearth and candles burn all across its mantle, adding fresh molten wax to the dried rivulets that drape its edge like pale, gnarled vines. More burn on tables and cabinets set along the wall. Two low overstuffed chairs with frames of heavy oak flank the fireplace. Dark curtains hang at the leaded glass windows, open just enough to allow the rays of the setting sun to shine through, and dust motes dance wildly in the beams of light that cut across the wide plank floor. Turning, he sees flagons of water and wine placed next to a covered tray on one of the tables and steps to it to lift the lid. Cold roasted duck, a round of bread, a wheel of cheese, and three small yellow apples have all been laid there. He hears Sansa and looks toward the inner doorway just as she follows a tiny wisp of a woman out of the bed chamber beyond.
"You have been such a help," Sansa is saying to her. "I thank you."
"It's my pleasure, sweetling. If you should need-"
The innkeep's wife spots him and her mouth falls open. "Oh," she says after a small silence. And then, "Well, you're a right big one, aren't you?" as she looks him up and down. "We've just now filled your bath, m'lord; it's nice and hot. If there's anything else you need … "
She trails off and goes to leave but then pauses as she reaches his side, and tugs at his arm for attention. She tilts her face up and gives him a sidelong look. "Your lady, she's a sweet girl, that one is. You take real good care of her, you hear? She's special."
Sandor draws back and peers down at her. Unflinching mossy green eyes stare back at him and he finds himself murmuring, "Aye, I will."
It seems that's what she wants to hear, because she pats his arm and slips out the door, closing it behind her. Sandor follows and throws the bolt, turning back to Sansa.
She is in different clothing than before, obviously not her own. She is wearing a dressing gown of deepest green, tied at the waist and unadorned. Her feet are bare and several inches of her legs show beneath the hem. Face scrubbed clean and damp hair draping in thick ringlets over her shoulders, she smells faintly of lavender.
Sandor settles into one of the chairs and waves at the table bearing the food and drink. "Your doing?"
Shyly she explains, "I may have said something about how long we have been on the road and how far we have come. Perhaps I mentioned we might be too weary to venture below for this evening's meal."
"Perhaps? You're such a proper little bird, aren't you?" he teases, stroking the unruly beard on one side of his face. "And the gown?"
"Their daughter's." Sansa glances down at her legs. "She was tall for a Crannog, but still… The innkeep's wife has offered to wash and mend our clothing. I gave her what was in our bags, and you need only leave what you have on outside the door and she will collect it later."
"What am I to wear, then?" He gestures at her. "Breeches high enough they'll fit me like smallclothes? Or am I to go without?"
He cannot dismiss the tension humming between them - unabated since their parting in the common room, despite the few hours that have passed - nor does he want to. It is much more pleasant to begin exploring it anew. He can feel the anticipation in her and an anxiousness that comes not from fear, but from taking her first steps onto untested ground. And though he is far from being able to claim any sort of innocence, Sandor cannot deny he shares a portion of her uncertainties. He knows what she has offered him and what it means, and he wants all to be right for her, and good as it can be.
She stammers as she tells him, "I … I set aside a pair for you, the cleanest you had, and … and a tunic."
"That was thoughtful, but I don't reckon I'll need them for awhile. And you …" He skims his eyes slowly up her length until they come to a stop on hers. "Lift the hem of your gown, girl."
Her mouth works silently for a few moments and he thinks she means to protest but then, blushing, she gathers the cloth in her fists and starts to draw it up. "That's far enough," he says and she stops and waits. "Just as I thought: you've knobby knees. Felt them pressed in my back often enough. What is it? Did you think I meant to have you out of your clothes already? No, I'll be doing that myself when the time comes, but not till I've rid myself of this stink. Help me with my boots, girl, and point me to the bath."
The inner chamber is much the size of the solar, filled with candlelight as well, and the bed takes up most of the room. He looks it over as he moves to the folding screen in one corner, and can tell already that his feet will hang off the end. But it is wide and dressed in thick furs, piled high with pillows and bolsters. He steps behind the screen where the tub is and sees another door he assumes opens to the privy. A low table sits next to the bath, laden with scrub brush and sponges, soaps and oils. He spies a razor and scissors on the edge as he uncorks one of the half-empty bottles, sniffs, and recognizes the scent as what Sansa has bathed in.
Unbuckling the straps at his sides, he manages to shed the studded jerkin and is quickly out of his mail and all the rest and slipping into the steaming bath. The metal tub is deep but not nearly long enough to stretch his legs, leaving his knees and toes poking up from the water. He takes a deep breath, holding it, and slides down until he is folded almost in half and fully submerged, making sure he's all the way wet before resurfacing. He skims his hair back from his face and slumps into the curve of the tub, sighing with pleasure as the hot water soaks away the dirt and loosens sore muscles.
He can hear the girl humming quietly to herself in the other room. His eyes slip shut for a few minutes, and he is content to be doing nothing more than this. When he opens them again he sees a thin layer of scum already collecting on the water's surface and reaches for brush and soap. He gets busy scrubbing himself head to toe.
"Sansa," he calls out a few minutes later, "come here, girl." Before long she is poking her head around the edge of the screen, eyes politely averted - a courtesy he finds amusing, considering the circumstances. "Have you ever shaved a man?"
"No," she tells him. "I've seen it done but have never attempted it."
"More's the pity," he grumbles, "I've no wish to be your first and end up bloodied for want of a shave. Can you trim a beard, at least?" She agrees to meet his eye and nods. "Pull up that stool, then, and do what you can."
She is soon perched at the side of the tub and wielding scissors. He lifts his arms from the water and drapes them over the tub's edge and she freezes. "Your arm. What's happened to it?"
He lifts and studies it, the scars still pink with new some two years after the fact. "It's a burn," he tells her, though he thinks it should be obvious.
She clucks her tongue. "I can see that. But how did it happen? It's not from Gregor."
"No. This was a gift from a lightning lord and his bloody god of fire." Seeing the question on her face, he shrugs it off. "A story for another time, bird."
She gets to work with the scissors, thumbing his chin to turn his face toward her as she combs through his beard with her fingers and snips at it, casting appraising eyes at her handy work. Meanwhile he watches her, and their gazes lock for brief moments before she'll look away again. Finally she sets the scissors aside and folds her hands in her lap.
He scrubs his hand over his cheek and jaw. She's trimmed it short and close to his face. "How do I look?"
She moistens her lips. "Like a Northman."
"Half of one, anyway. Not much to be done for the other side."
She looks at him for a long time then, and he has the sense that she is collecting herself to do something. His hunch proves true when her eyes begin wandering across his arms and shoulders and then to his chest, exposed above the dingy water. He is not a vain man by any measure, but he knows he's strong and that his body is not unpleasant to look upon, despite the horror of his face. And so he accepts her silent consideration and waits for whatever may come.
Soon she is peering up at him, declaring, "You're quite hairy."
He shouts in laughter and then breaks into a verse of The Bear and the Maiden Fair, and she laughs along with him and joins her voice with his for the last few lines.
I called for a knight!
But you're a bear!
A bear! A bear,
All black and brown,
And covered in hair!
Their laughter fades and she goes back to her study, but this time hesitantly reaching to lay her hand on his unburnt arm. "You have so many scars," she whispers, tracing the closest and most notable with a fingertip. "So many. Do you remember where they all came from?"
"No. I stopped keeping count a long time ago."
"I remember every one of mine. I used to worry so, when I was young and would fall and scrape my knee or accidentally cut my finger. I didn't want to have scars, I thought they were ugly and no true lady would have them. But then I left Winterfell and found myself in a place that scarred me far more deeply than any blade might. Those are the ones that can't be seen. You have them too."
She dips a cupped hand in the water, brings it to his shoulder and empties it there. Her hand follows the water down, smoothing over the flat pad of muscle that covers his breast and then draws it back up. She fingers the scars along his chest, leaning in to follow one that begins above his heart and trails off beneath his arm and down his ribs.
He shivers at her touch, light enough that it is both tickle and caress, and follows the graceful line of her arm to the open neck of her gown. He watches the rhythmic pulse of blood beneath the skin and his memories of his small tastes of her flood his mind and begin racing through his veins. He can feel himself growing hard, a perfect and primal dichotomy to the softness of her hand against his skin.
"I have other scars too, now," she is murmuring as she pets him. "There are those on my thighs and back, no more than welts really, from Joffrey's games." He flinches, blinking hard, but she does not seem to notice, lost in her own thoughts. She looks sad and yet wears a faint smile as she talks, and he knows what it is to feel both emotions at once. "And more I've gained along the way. They are not ugly, as I had once thought; they are simply reminders of where we have been and what we have endured. And some of them," she reaches and cups his face with both hands, "some of them can even become beautiful, to eyes that know how to look."
A dozen things spring to his mind to say to her but only one comes out, ragged and low. "Why are you crying, little bird?"
She laughs through her tears. "Oh, you silly man, don't you know? It's because I love you." She leans in and kisses him, and he is lost.
He gives no thought to what he does next, reaching for her as she goes to end the kiss, pulling her into the tub and onto his lap as she squeals against his hungry, seeking mouth. He grabs a fistful of hair at the nape of her neck as her lips open under his, and skims his hand down her back and over the curve of her arse, squeezing, as their tongues meet and the kiss deepens. She shifts on his lap and they moan as she straddles him and grinds her hips against his.
"Bloody hells," he growls after the kiss, groping at the sash of her gown. She peppers his face and neck and shoulders with more kisses as his clumsy fingers try to manage the wet knot. Of its own accord, one hand lifts and briefly palms her breast and he can feel the hard point of her nipple through the sodden cloth. He goes back to the sash, snarling in frustration.
"Fuck! Sit back, girl, and let me get this off you."
She pushes back against his bent legs and then comes up on her knees, till the water is at her hips. Biting his lip in concentration, he works the knot until it finally comes loose in his hands. She is gripping the sides of the tub as he reaches up and pushes the gown from her shoulders. The dagged sleeves slither down her arms and pool at her wrists and she shakes them loose. The water swallows the gown but he does not see this. He is transfixed by the sight before him. She is more beautiful than he had imagined - all milky white skin, marbled with fine bluish veins and sprinkled with faint freckles. Her teats are round and full, her nipples pale pink, and a waist small enough to encircle in his hands gives way to the full flare of her hips. She is warm and she is real, she is his and she is …
"Perfect," he murmurs, setting two fingers at the hollow of her throat and pulling them down the center of her chest to her flat belly. "I'm a starving man and you, my little bird, you are a feast." Grasping her hips, he pushes her down past his knees so he can pull them up and shove to his feet, and he takes her along with him.
And then they are touching, everywhere and all at once, skin on skin as he gathers her into his arms and holds her tight. She shifts her weight and molds to him, a missing puzzle piece slipping effortless into place. He fills his lungs and then empties them in a long sigh and she kisses him over his heart.
Letting go enough to manage it, he bends and grabs a sheet from a pile on the floor and drapes it over her shoulders. She studies him with intent, and when he's bundled the cloth around her, he looks down into smoky, infinite eyes and cradles her face in his hands.
"Sansa …" he begins.
"Yes," is all she says. And all she has to say.
He scoops her up in his arms and steps out of the tub, trailing water all the way to their feather bed.
…
A/N Part Two: This is where we fade to black, kids, and let our imaginations take over. I thought about writing a full-out smut scene; the gods know I wrote my share of them during the glory days of The X Files online fandom, but the muse and I decided it just wasn't right for this story or for these two people as they are now, in my little 'verse. I'm not going to shy away from portraying this newest facet of their relationship, but this is not erotica, it's a simple story of love and healing and redemption. More than that, I wanted to give them some privacy this first time; it just felt like the right thing to do. I hope you'll find yourself agreeing with me and stay for the rest of the story. I promise I'll do my best not to disappoint.
Summary: Sandor Clegane discovers that death does not always mark the end of a life. Sometimes it's only the beginning. Spoilers up to and including A Feast For Crows. AU
Rating: M
Pairing: Sandor/Sansa.
Word Count: 3,005
Warnings: Underage, just to be on the safe side.
These Scars We Wear - 19/?
He gains the top of the staircase just as a parade of children pass him heading down, all with empty buckets in hand. He gives each pup the eye and they stare up at him in turn, their faces naked with surprise, the last and smallest a girl no more than six. She gapes at him and then stops three steps down the stair and looks over her shoulder, offering a timid smile. It sets him aback and, shaking his head in bemusement, he walks to the open door at the end of the hall. The frame is built lower than he's used to and he has to duck his head to step through.
He is in a solar. It is not a large room and has none of the fancy dressings of those in King's Landing, but it more than meets his approval. A fire is crackling in a welcome stone hearth and candles burn all across its mantle, adding fresh molten wax to the dried rivulets that drape its edge like pale, gnarled vines. More burn on tables and cabinets set along the wall. Two low overstuffed chairs with frames of heavy oak flank the fireplace. Dark curtains hang at the leaded glass windows, open just enough to allow the rays of the setting sun to shine through, and dust motes dance wildly in the beams of light that cut across the wide plank floor. Turning, he sees flagons of water and wine placed next to a covered tray on one of the tables and steps to it to lift the lid. Cold roasted duck, a round of bread, a wheel of cheese, and three small yellow apples have all been laid there. He hears Sansa and looks toward the inner doorway just as she follows a tiny wisp of a woman out of the bed chamber beyond.
"You have been such a help," Sansa is saying to her. "I thank you."
"It's my pleasure, sweetling. If you should need-"
The innkeep's wife spots him and her mouth falls open. "Oh," she says after a small silence. And then, "Well, you're a right big one, aren't you?" as she looks him up and down. "We've just now filled your bath, m'lord; it's nice and hot. If there's anything else you need … "
She trails off and goes to leave but then pauses as she reaches his side, and tugs at his arm for attention. She tilts her face up and gives him a sidelong look. "Your lady, she's a sweet girl, that one is. You take real good care of her, you hear? She's special."
Sandor draws back and peers down at her. Unflinching mossy green eyes stare back at him and he finds himself murmuring, "Aye, I will."
It seems that's what she wants to hear, because she pats his arm and slips out the door, closing it behind her. Sandor follows and throws the bolt, turning back to Sansa.
She is in different clothing than before, obviously not her own. She is wearing a dressing gown of deepest green, tied at the waist and unadorned. Her feet are bare and several inches of her legs show beneath the hem. Face scrubbed clean and damp hair draping in thick ringlets over her shoulders, she smells faintly of lavender.
Sandor settles into one of the chairs and waves at the table bearing the food and drink. "Your doing?"
Shyly she explains, "I may have said something about how long we have been on the road and how far we have come. Perhaps I mentioned we might be too weary to venture below for this evening's meal."
"Perhaps? You're such a proper little bird, aren't you?" he teases, stroking the unruly beard on one side of his face. "And the gown?"
"Their daughter's." Sansa glances down at her legs. "She was tall for a Crannog, but still… The innkeep's wife has offered to wash and mend our clothing. I gave her what was in our bags, and you need only leave what you have on outside the door and she will collect it later."
"What am I to wear, then?" He gestures at her. "Breeches high enough they'll fit me like smallclothes? Or am I to go without?"
He cannot dismiss the tension humming between them - unabated since their parting in the common room, despite the few hours that have passed - nor does he want to. It is much more pleasant to begin exploring it anew. He can feel the anticipation in her and an anxiousness that comes not from fear, but from taking her first steps onto untested ground. And though he is far from being able to claim any sort of innocence, Sandor cannot deny he shares a portion of her uncertainties. He knows what she has offered him and what it means, and he wants all to be right for her, and good as it can be.
She stammers as she tells him, "I … I set aside a pair for you, the cleanest you had, and … and a tunic."
"That was thoughtful, but I don't reckon I'll need them for awhile. And you …" He skims his eyes slowly up her length until they come to a stop on hers. "Lift the hem of your gown, girl."
Her mouth works silently for a few moments and he thinks she means to protest but then, blushing, she gathers the cloth in her fists and starts to draw it up. "That's far enough," he says and she stops and waits. "Just as I thought: you've knobby knees. Felt them pressed in my back often enough. What is it? Did you think I meant to have you out of your clothes already? No, I'll be doing that myself when the time comes, but not till I've rid myself of this stink. Help me with my boots, girl, and point me to the bath."
The inner chamber is much the size of the solar, filled with candlelight as well, and the bed takes up most of the room. He looks it over as he moves to the folding screen in one corner, and can tell already that his feet will hang off the end. But it is wide and dressed in thick furs, piled high with pillows and bolsters. He steps behind the screen where the tub is and sees another door he assumes opens to the privy. A low table sits next to the bath, laden with scrub brush and sponges, soaps and oils. He spies a razor and scissors on the edge as he uncorks one of the half-empty bottles, sniffs, and recognizes the scent as what Sansa has bathed in.
Unbuckling the straps at his sides, he manages to shed the studded jerkin and is quickly out of his mail and all the rest and slipping into the steaming bath. The metal tub is deep but not nearly long enough to stretch his legs, leaving his knees and toes poking up from the water. He takes a deep breath, holding it, and slides down until he is folded almost in half and fully submerged, making sure he's all the way wet before resurfacing. He skims his hair back from his face and slumps into the curve of the tub, sighing with pleasure as the hot water soaks away the dirt and loosens sore muscles.
He can hear the girl humming quietly to herself in the other room. His eyes slip shut for a few minutes, and he is content to be doing nothing more than this. When he opens them again he sees a thin layer of scum already collecting on the water's surface and reaches for brush and soap. He gets busy scrubbing himself head to toe.
"Sansa," he calls out a few minutes later, "come here, girl." Before long she is poking her head around the edge of the screen, eyes politely averted - a courtesy he finds amusing, considering the circumstances. "Have you ever shaved a man?"
"No," she tells him. "I've seen it done but have never attempted it."
"More's the pity," he grumbles, "I've no wish to be your first and end up bloodied for want of a shave. Can you trim a beard, at least?" She agrees to meet his eye and nods. "Pull up that stool, then, and do what you can."
She is soon perched at the side of the tub and wielding scissors. He lifts his arms from the water and drapes them over the tub's edge and she freezes. "Your arm. What's happened to it?"
He lifts and studies it, the scars still pink with new some two years after the fact. "It's a burn," he tells her, though he thinks it should be obvious.
She clucks her tongue. "I can see that. But how did it happen? It's not from Gregor."
"No. This was a gift from a lightning lord and his bloody god of fire." Seeing the question on her face, he shrugs it off. "A story for another time, bird."
She gets to work with the scissors, thumbing his chin to turn his face toward her as she combs through his beard with her fingers and snips at it, casting appraising eyes at her handy work. Meanwhile he watches her, and their gazes lock for brief moments before she'll look away again. Finally she sets the scissors aside and folds her hands in her lap.
He scrubs his hand over his cheek and jaw. She's trimmed it short and close to his face. "How do I look?"
She moistens her lips. "Like a Northman."
"Half of one, anyway. Not much to be done for the other side."
She looks at him for a long time then, and he has the sense that she is collecting herself to do something. His hunch proves true when her eyes begin wandering across his arms and shoulders and then to his chest, exposed above the dingy water. He is not a vain man by any measure, but he knows he's strong and that his body is not unpleasant to look upon, despite the horror of his face. And so he accepts her silent consideration and waits for whatever may come.
Soon she is peering up at him, declaring, "You're quite hairy."
He shouts in laughter and then breaks into a verse of The Bear and the Maiden Fair, and she laughs along with him and joins her voice with his for the last few lines.
I called for a knight!
But you're a bear!
A bear! A bear,
All black and brown,
And covered in hair!
Their laughter fades and she goes back to her study, but this time hesitantly reaching to lay her hand on his unburnt arm. "You have so many scars," she whispers, tracing the closest and most notable with a fingertip. "So many. Do you remember where they all came from?"
"No. I stopped keeping count a long time ago."
"I remember every one of mine. I used to worry so, when I was young and would fall and scrape my knee or accidentally cut my finger. I didn't want to have scars, I thought they were ugly and no true lady would have them. But then I left Winterfell and found myself in a place that scarred me far more deeply than any blade might. Those are the ones that can't be seen. You have them too."
She dips a cupped hand in the water, brings it to his shoulder and empties it there. Her hand follows the water down, smoothing over the flat pad of muscle that covers his breast and then draws it back up. She fingers the scars along his chest, leaning in to follow one that begins above his heart and trails off beneath his arm and down his ribs.
He shivers at her touch, light enough that it is both tickle and caress, and follows the graceful line of her arm to the open neck of her gown. He watches the rhythmic pulse of blood beneath the skin and his memories of his small tastes of her flood his mind and begin racing through his veins. He can feel himself growing hard, a perfect and primal dichotomy to the softness of her hand against his skin.
"I have other scars too, now," she is murmuring as she pets him. "There are those on my thighs and back, no more than welts really, from Joffrey's games." He flinches, blinking hard, but she does not seem to notice, lost in her own thoughts. She looks sad and yet wears a faint smile as she talks, and he knows what it is to feel both emotions at once. "And more I've gained along the way. They are not ugly, as I had once thought; they are simply reminders of where we have been and what we have endured. And some of them," she reaches and cups his face with both hands, "some of them can even become beautiful, to eyes that know how to look."
A dozen things spring to his mind to say to her but only one comes out, ragged and low. "Why are you crying, little bird?"
She laughs through her tears. "Oh, you silly man, don't you know? It's because I love you." She leans in and kisses him, and he is lost.
He gives no thought to what he does next, reaching for her as she goes to end the kiss, pulling her into the tub and onto his lap as she squeals against his hungry, seeking mouth. He grabs a fistful of hair at the nape of her neck as her lips open under his, and skims his hand down her back and over the curve of her arse, squeezing, as their tongues meet and the kiss deepens. She shifts on his lap and they moan as she straddles him and grinds her hips against his.
"Bloody hells," he growls after the kiss, groping at the sash of her gown. She peppers his face and neck and shoulders with more kisses as his clumsy fingers try to manage the wet knot. Of its own accord, one hand lifts and briefly palms her breast and he can feel the hard point of her nipple through the sodden cloth. He goes back to the sash, snarling in frustration.
"Fuck! Sit back, girl, and let me get this off you."
She pushes back against his bent legs and then comes up on her knees, till the water is at her hips. Biting his lip in concentration, he works the knot until it finally comes loose in his hands. She is gripping the sides of the tub as he reaches up and pushes the gown from her shoulders. The dagged sleeves slither down her arms and pool at her wrists and she shakes them loose. The water swallows the gown but he does not see this. He is transfixed by the sight before him. She is more beautiful than he had imagined - all milky white skin, marbled with fine bluish veins and sprinkled with faint freckles. Her teats are round and full, her nipples pale pink, and a waist small enough to encircle in his hands gives way to the full flare of her hips. She is warm and she is real, she is his and she is …
"Perfect," he murmurs, setting two fingers at the hollow of her throat and pulling them down the center of her chest to her flat belly. "I'm a starving man and you, my little bird, you are a feast." Grasping her hips, he pushes her down past his knees so he can pull them up and shove to his feet, and he takes her along with him.
And then they are touching, everywhere and all at once, skin on skin as he gathers her into his arms and holds her tight. She shifts her weight and molds to him, a missing puzzle piece slipping effortless into place. He fills his lungs and then empties them in a long sigh and she kisses him over his heart.
Letting go enough to manage it, he bends and grabs a sheet from a pile on the floor and drapes it over her shoulders. She studies him with intent, and when he's bundled the cloth around her, he looks down into smoky, infinite eyes and cradles her face in his hands.
"Sansa …" he begins.
"Yes," is all she says. And all she has to say.
He scoops her up in his arms and steps out of the tub, trailing water all the way to their feather bed.
…
A/N Part Two: This is where we fade to black, kids, and let our imaginations take over. I thought about writing a full-out smut scene; the gods know I wrote my share of them during the glory days of The X Files online fandom, but the muse and I decided it just wasn't right for this story or for these two people as they are now, in my little 'verse. I'm not going to shy away from portraying this newest facet of their relationship, but this is not erotica, it's a simple story of love and healing and redemption. More than that, I wanted to give them some privacy this first time; it just felt like the right thing to do. I hope you'll find yourself agreeing with me and stay for the rest of the story. I promise I'll do my best not to disappoint.