(Winter, after Mik's assisted escape from being a prisoner of the Nuke Captain.)
He washed up before he went up. After seeing to it that Macy was settled securely, he went up to find Bliss. His wife. That was why he'd washed up. He'd have no blood on him or his weapons -- it was a purity issue... the issue being how many good things did he bring to their relationship rather than bad. That mattered to him.
He stepped into the apartment and stood there, listening to the relative quiet. It was too quiet here without the boys. It felt like he stood there a long time...
Quiet and dark. When Bliss had escaped the hospital for home, she hadn't bothered turning on any of the lights. She knew where everything was. She'd gone directly to the bedroom and curled up in a ball. The crying had stopped. Her control returned but she didn't bother to get up and remove her coat, she just closed her eyes and hoped it would all go away.
He stripped out of his weapons and hung them on the pegs in almost the same way Ric would have, after having put them on once again post clean up. He tossed his head to clear his bangs from his eyes and untied his boots to set them aside. Silently he entered what he liked to consider their bedroom and searched the darkness for her. It didn't take long.
There on the bed, still in her coat. She must have been exhausted when she came home. Yelling at a paraplegic could do that to a person.
He moved over slowly, still making virtually no sound until his knees brushed the side of the mattress.
Exhausted, no. Mad as hell would be closer to the mark. That and for the first time she felt like she was the bad guy. She didn't like having to be mean to Ric but with Roan just being all smoochy-faced with him, she knew she had to be the bad guy. Ric was going to really hate her by the time she was done with him and that knowledge brought her pain. He was so hurt and scared...it hurt to see him like that. She mumbled about not getting up at the slight shaking of the bed caused by his knees.
"No need to get up."
His voice got through to her sleepy brain. "Mik?" She unfolded herself so she could turn to look at the source of the voice, dark orbs opening.
"Yup. S'me." He poured lithely onto the bed and his one hand found her liquid locks while the other plucked at the sleeve of her coat. "You coming or going?"
"Neither, hiding."
Softly he asked, "What did you do that makes you want to hide?"
She sniffled then rubbed her nose with the back of a hand. "I barked at Ric. And he kept telling me to leave." Her bottom lip stuck out giving her a childlike appearance. "He wants me to run away."
Mik knew she'd done it, but he didn't know all the details so he waited as she unfolded them for him, stroking her hair gently, studying the faint highlight of her cheek in the darkness. The part about running away he'd known. "He should know better by now than to tell you to run from anything."
"He's mad at me now." Bliss said it so softly, so full of sadness. She let out a deep sigh. "I couldn't give him a gun and let him die. I know he's really hurt. I've got enough training to know he's really hurt but he's not allowed to die."
He scooted up closer and wrapped around her, his mouth brushing against her temple and whispered, "No, he's not allowed to die. I'll tell him too. So he knows for certain. You were right not to give him a gun." It terrified him in a way that he couldn't express intelligently that Ric wanted to die.
It was automatic, snuggling closer to him even if her guns did poke her when she did it. "How's your head?" There was too much going on at once, too much that was emotionally connected to her and she was having a problem processing it all. "Can you talk to him, hear him?"
He began to unbutton her coat while she snuggled. He wanted to be close to her, not fabric. "I can talk to him. That doesn't hurt me. But my head ... hurts. Still..." he said, slipping one of her arms out of the coat arm. "It's the kind of hurt that tells me it will be okay. I'm not nearly as dizzy - but that comes and goes. I think the nausea is over." His voice dropped lower. "Trouble is, I can't seem to ... be still." To prove that, he shifted slightly and rose up on the coverlet on his knees so that he could finished divesting her of her coat.
His eyes unfocused slightly, briefly. "Ric's out right now..."
She assisted in a boneless manner in the removal of her coat and started unclipping her holsters as soon as it was gone. "Nappy time for him. I'm glad you're doing better. You had me worried." Scared to bloody death was more along the truth but why tell him that. She concentrated on kicking off her boots. "You've probably caught some of Ric's restlessness since he's locked in traction." Somehow that made perfect sense to her, this bleed through of traits between the two.
"Maybe he'll ..." he was going to say that maybe he'd get some rest... but the very notion of Ric tied down, unable to be the sword he was born to be twisted him up inside. "Maybe he'll be up and around soon." he finished instead. "I'll confess, I was worried 'bout me too." He smiled slightly. "I wonder if catching some of his restlessness means I'll wind up with his randiness." It was a tasteless joke. "Not that I haven't enough of my own…"
"It's going to be a long time." She said of Ric's being up and around. Then she glanced up at him, her husband. "I was going to say that...you don't need any assistance in that area." She frowned. "But then you aren't sleeping with a former hooker."
"Good thing too..." By now he had her out of not just the coat, but pants as well and stripped off his shirt. Her rigs were pushed to the side, given a second thought to. He murmured, slid up to gather them and set them somewhere safe.
He wasn't trying to lie to himself, only trying to hope for a future that looked darker every day. Ric hurt so badly he might not recover... the Nukes were going to be searching for him, if they weren't already. He didn't even like to think about the implications of the hospital's involvement, or the man who'd followed them to the upper floor and had shown something to the Nuke Sergeant. He wanted to believe it was his imagination that everything was getting slowly and subtly worse. Then he looked at Bliss. And smiled. Some things were only getting better.
She watched him, just watched him, her beautiful husband. She smiled back. "I swear you get better looking every time I see you." She was oddly embarrassed to be clad in only her shirt and a pair of pink panties, like he wasn't supposed to see the pink panties. Sometimes the mind did work in strange ways. "Did Roan tell Sparky the secret?"
He blushed in the dark and ran a finger around the lower curve of elastic that hid the delicate, delicious things beneath those pink panties, his hand coming to rest, palm hot, against her thigh. Then as he lay again beside her he said, "yes... She did."
The second he was down she twisted, setting a hand on his chest. "I'm really, really mad at her, ya know." She cuddled, her body drinking in his warmth. "And I'm happy for her too." And someday she'd figure out how she got so lucky as to get to have Mik in her life.
"I gave Sparky nineteen days to get out of that bed." She said then, as her finger started to trace designs on his chest. There was so much in her head that she was having a problem expressing it in a clear manner.
His body shivered as she cuddled close, but not from cold. "Mad at her? You don't think she did this to trap him do you?" Mik felt panic flutter in his chest and stomach... or was that the remains of the concussion? Who knew? "She was the girlfriend of *the* Cult leader." The report of the bombing of the cave in hadn't come in yet. But what if it were ... god... "Bliss? She wouldn't do that to him... right?"
She huffed, blowing warm air over his shoulder. "Don't be silly, she wouldn't do that sort of thing. She's not trying to trap him, she was just stupid for not using some sort of birth control. She of all people knows better." Bliss gave him a small smile. "But I think being around Ric makes her brainless."
"God. Oh God I hope so Bliss. You're sure? You trust her?" He was ready to beat himself up for this, race back to the hospital to be sure if Ric's sleep was natural or something else... the paranoia that usually stoked Ric to extreme caution was burning a fire in his gut. "Maybe telling Ric about this baby right in front of Macy ... was planned ... ?" He didn't want to believe that of Roan. But what *if* Mal wasn't gone... what if getting to Ric this way was a way to control, first the man, then the Legion... then Sabattann?
She blinked, she didn't know that part. "Hon, I don't think Roan even knew about Mace unless Ric told her because I didn't. I'm betting Mace didn't take it well." More problems on top of the ones already present. "Believe me this wasn't on purpose... not even the best actress could fake the terror Roan was showing when she first began to suspect."
"I hope not. I hope not." He shivered again and fussed and tugged the blanket until it was over them, then he got out of his trousers and kicked them out from under the covers. Clearly, he wasn't panicked enough to get up now and go back to see... the damage, if deliberate, (or not) had already been done and couldn't be undone with a thoughtless flight back to Ric's room. "He needs her now, so much, Bliss. To know love again... to feel it, believe in it. And no, Macy didn't take it well at all. I brought her back here... I think she's sleeping. If that's not okay, tell me because I can find another place. This is just the safest and the best." And his lips twitched in a smile at that, at Bliss. "It's where the most beautiful woman in the world lives."
"Bet Myri won't like it either." The blanket brought more warmth, she didn't realize she was cold until he settled in beside her. "It's fine. Mace'll be well taken care of here." She couldn't stop the words. "I'll let Ariadne know you think she's the most beautiful woman in world but she'll just laugh." She didn't feel beautiful, she felt like a mean beast. "Don't fret about Roan. I do trust her more then I do most."
He found a strategic spot and pinched. "I *meant* you and you know it. As for the Sinlarshh..." He mulled her over. She'd assisted in his escape, he owed her. But Ric didn't. "It doesn't matter what she thinks of Ric and Roan or their baby," he said definitively. Mik shifted, got closer, set his hands upon her hips and lifted her to lie atop him, against him. "If you trust Roan, it's enough for me. I just..." He stared up at her, how incredible she was! "I need to protect Ric."
"She still cares. Love doesn't evaporate just because things get difficult between two people." Ah, his Bliss. Ever the romantic. "If she didn't still care she wouldn't have helped us like she did."
She grinned down at him after finding her position shifted. She didn't have a problem with it. Being on top was easy -- it was being pinned she didn't like. "And I knew you meant me. I'm just not feeling very beautiful right now." She brushed a kiss across his chin. "We'll protect him love until he's strong enough to believe that he's once again taking care of us."
His whisper came out awed. "You are beautiful. More beautiful from skin to heart than anyone I have ever known. It's that and a million other things I need Ric whole to protect." He grinned at what she said. "I know it seems like he only believes he's doing the care-taking but without him," there was a catch in his voice then. "Without him, I'd have to hope to God you could love half a man."
"You're a whole man even without Ric," Bliss argued. But it was something she hoped would never happen. "Together you two are beyond expression." An impish grin formed on her lips. "Since I've know there were two of you, I've always seen individuals. I love Ric but I fell in love with you."
Mik gripped her tight around the waist, his hands resting, wrapped around her on her ribs. "Stay in love with me forever?"
"Since I've already planned out my entire life and you are there throughout..." She placed a soft kiss on his lips. "I'd say I'm going to love you until long after I join the spirit walk."
He shook his head, his eyes bright even in the darkness. "No talk of spirit walks tonight... just you and me and the forever of now." He tangled his fingers in her hair and turned her soft kiss into a searing fire.
