To be entirely honest, he can't much think of a time in their lives where they didn't have something to discuss. Admittedly, it hasn't always been something as weighty as what still stands between them, but it's never been hard for them to find something to fill the spaces between them.
For now, though, he waits because it's the only thing he can do. He has laid himself bare, and though he knows that she has to recognize it for what it means (the way her expression softens is enough to tell him that) the ball isn't in his court right now. This moment, and what she does with it is hers, and hers alone, and if those few seconds seem to stretch very nearly into eternity, it's only because he's never been great with patience and less so, when he's left himself so deliberately vulnerable besides.
Still, her comment goes a good way towards improving his mood. Not enough to counteract the rawness of what her earlier comments had pulled out of him, not yet, but enough to give him space to start pulling himself together. To patch up the holes that have been left in him, and have been left unaddressed since the fall of the Old City Sanctuary.
He doesn't get far. But that's only because he's just gotten started when Helen takes his face gently in hand and is pulling him into a kiss, and oh, he would have gladly suffered any of a number of things for this. For this singular moment that is at once answer to (at least some of) his answers and apology both; like her he simply take the time to live in this moment, this act, as he lets himself melt into it.
Which is not to say that he's in any way passive about it. Far from it! There's a brief flicker of surprise, yes, but after that he gladly takes it is far as she lets him, hands rising almost unconsciously to her shoulders as he does. And that, more than anything else, is his answer; he can no more say what he wants to say - thank you and I missed you, and yes, even I love you - than she can, but the emotions are there to be read all the same in his actions. He's glad, too, of the the fact that it's neither soft nor gentle. This moment is neither, really, born as it has been of anger and any of number of other things besides and it would have - somehow - read wrong if it had been. There's too much they need to say, in these few actions, and in any case, there will be time for soft and gentle later, he suspects.
(Forgiveness - true forgiveness - on the other hand, may take a while yet. But this moment she has given him is enough to more than reset the board, as it were, to wash clean the anger and bitterness of the last few months. Enough to settle him in himself again, and it is, somehow, like coming home.)
no subject
For now, though, he waits because it's the only thing he can do. He has laid himself bare, and though he knows that she has to recognize it for what it means (the way her expression softens is enough to tell him that) the ball isn't in his court right now. This moment, and what she does with it is hers, and hers alone, and if those few seconds seem to stretch very nearly into eternity, it's only because he's never been great with patience and less so, when he's left himself so deliberately vulnerable besides.
Still, her comment goes a good way towards improving his mood. Not enough to counteract the rawness of what her earlier comments had pulled out of him, not yet, but enough to give him space to start pulling himself together. To patch up the holes that have been left in him, and have been left unaddressed since the fall of the Old City Sanctuary.
He doesn't get far. But that's only because he's just gotten started when Helen takes his face gently in hand and is pulling him into a kiss, and oh, he would have gladly suffered any of a number of things for this. For this singular moment that is at once answer to (at least some of) his answers and apology both; like her he simply take the time to live in this moment, this act, as he lets himself melt into it.
Which is not to say that he's in any way passive about it. Far from it! There's a brief flicker of surprise, yes, but after that he gladly takes it is far as she lets him, hands rising almost unconsciously to her shoulders as he does. And that, more than anything else, is his answer; he can no more say what he wants to say - thank you and I missed you, and yes, even I love you - than she can, but the emotions are there to be read all the same in his actions. He's glad, too, of the the fact that it's neither soft nor gentle. This moment is neither, really, born as it has been of anger and any of number of other things besides and it would have - somehow - read wrong if it had been. There's too much they need to say, in these few actions, and in any case, there will be time for soft and gentle later, he suspects.
(Forgiveness - true forgiveness - on the other hand, may take a while yet. But this moment she has given him is enough to more than reset the board, as it were, to wash clean the anger and bitterness of the last few months. Enough to settle him in himself again, and it is, somehow, like coming home.)