closed: half of a whole of a half

[george_goesboom]

He’d forgotten how many days it had been.

That’s how it started, that morning. He’d been holding his infant daughter against his chest, lips muttering soothing nonsense against the top of her head as she finally dozed back to sleep after hours of untimely squirming and jabbering (boy, that little girl could talk), and he’d suddenly remembered. He

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[ccecilia]

She could feel the shift in the mattress as George rose from her side. The cry had been expected, even if the yelp from her newborn daughter's nursery still gave her a start. She was becoming used to the sound, the delicate whimpers from the room next door, the typical barely morning cries that seemed to happen at the same time every single morning. Frances knew was she was doing, training her parents to rise and feed and dote and coo. She was smart, just as her brother was when he was that young. But Cecilia didn't mind. Let her have hours in the nursery, rocking her daughter in their favorite rocking chair- she would relish in it

[george_goesboom]

Even with his eyes shut, his mind reeling, and his heart feeling like a whitehot weight that was all at once trying to shrivel in on itself and burst apart, George somehow sensed Cecilia's arrival somewhere at the back of his mind before she actually walked through the door - a slight lightness, a shift in the tone of the air.

The softness of her voice was an instant anchor, straightening the world back into place again. George let out a slow wavering breath and, though still hunched with eyes squeezed closed against the foggy darkness of the office, extended an arm out towards the sound, open palm facing up, reaching for her.

"'m sorry, love," he replied quietly. "Didn't want to wake you."

[ccecilia]

Cecilia moved toward him, as if his hand reaching for her was a magnetic weight against her. Her body yearned to be near him no matter when or where. She let her hand travel down his arched back, her fingers running against the fabric of his tank top. She curled against his body, feeling the warmth of his skin against her bare legs, her ruffled pajama shorts peeking from underneath her tee shirt.

"It wasn't you," she told him, her lips turning up slightly into a smile. "Frances' cries go right through me-"

Her fingers traveled from his back to the nape of his neck, curling at the hair that ended there.

"What's going on?" she asked then, knowing likely what the answer was.

[george_goesboom]

George instinctively wrapped his outstretched arm around Cecilia's hips as she pressed in against him, pulling her in that much closer with something bordering on desperation. He sat up from his weighted slump, turning towards her and nuzzling against the softness of her stomach, stubble catching against the worn fabric of his commandeered t-shirt, breathing in the steadying warmth and soft scent that was uniquely, perfectly her.

He let the question hang unanswered for a few moments, letting the vice of guiltangerheartbreakpanic loosen and fall away, the dust of this reality settling over it.

"I forgot," he said finally, quiet, barely above a whisper, slightly muffled by the press of his cheek against Cecilia's abdomen. "For a moment, I just- I didn't feel him missing. And then I realized, and- it felt like I betrayed him-"