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May. 18th, 2005 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prydefulWhen she comes in the bar, Edmund notices that her walk isn’t quite right. And her head is tilted downwards, a bit, so you can’t quite see her face.
And so he goes to her a bit faster than he might, normally, and when Kitty looks up and smiles faintly at him, part of his heart drops to see the new scar on her cheek, fresh, healed well by technology he doesn’t understand, but obviously from something that hurt like hell.
He suspects that her walk might be do to a similar injury.
And, Edmund notes, almost absently, he is angry now.
“Bad day,” Kitty says after a moment.
“Yes, I gathered that.”
She winces at his tone. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“I know.” More gently now, and one hand touches her cheek on the red line that now crosses it, before moving. Fingers trace his face, and he finds that he’s reassuring himself that she’s whole, if marked.
Marks don’t matter. That she was in pain does. Is, perhaps, for her leg is being favoured.
But he thinks he’d like to hurt whoever did it to her, anyway.
And perhaps it says something that Kitty hasn’t worried once that he might think her less attractive now.
“I’m fine.”
“If you’re fine,” reasonably, and sometimes she hates how damned calm he can be, “why are you not putting weight on your left leg?”
She’s silent, because she refuses to state the obvious.
Edmund’s hand is still cupping her face for a moment before it drops and he leads her to the painting to the House without word.
He does not ask her to stop putting herself in danger and getting hurt.
She does not promise it won’t happen again.
He doesn’t ask what if she dies and doesn’t come to Milliways. What if she dies, period.
Which is good, because she doesn’t have an answer.
Instead, entering his room and closing the door behind them, Edmund carefully undresses her, still not saying anything, before laying her out on the bed, noting the bandage on her leg without comment.
One hand drifts over her stomach as he lies on his side next to her, and he begins to talk now. He tells her about Narnia, and the day he recalls for Kitty isn’t one she’s heard about before.
He did promise he’d tell her everything, once, and so he tries. And he keeps talking, even when his hand is higher and stroking her breasts, making her catch her breath.
Tales of knights, and Talking Beasts, and horribly boring political dealings. He tells her about how he decided to lay out a section of one of the gardens, and for all that his hand is more than a little distracting, Kitty listens intently.
She listens, still, when he tells her about the drought that had caused the western orchards to lose their fruit the one summer, even though his hand has slipped between her legs, and she’s having to bite her lip to not make a sound. If she makes a sound, she can’t hear him.
And when she comes, a strangled, quiet, whimper of a noise in her throat, she’s still listening to Edmund tell her about how he’d snuck out of boarding school at fifteen just to go look at the stars.
Her eyes have been closed, but they open, slightly, lazily, as she breathes, and looks at him.
Edmund bends down and kisses her lightly, repeatedly, words in the moments when lips aren’t touching. “Tu es ma couer, et mon amour, et ma femme.”
“Yours,” she answers simply, quietly, wrapping her arms around him.
Femme has multiple meanings in French.
She thinks no matter which he meant, they apply, really. But some things he won’t say ever in English. In English, the meanings have to be clear and specific. The vagueness of French lets him say things without saying them.
And when she whispers, “I love you,” it’s in a language from a country she’s never been to, and won’t ever see, but she’s heard so much about, she feels like she has.
Edmund smiles, holding her close, and whispering the same back in her ear.
At some point, he will ask what happened.
And at some point, she will tell him.
And, at some point, she will get up, and dress, and leave through the front door.
For now, they simply lie there, listening to each other breathe.
And so he goes to her a bit faster than he might, normally, and when Kitty looks up and smiles faintly at him, part of his heart drops to see the new scar on her cheek, fresh, healed well by technology he doesn’t understand, but obviously from something that hurt like hell.
He suspects that her walk might be do to a similar injury.
And, Edmund notes, almost absently, he is angry now.
“Bad day,” Kitty says after a moment.
“Yes, I gathered that.”
She winces at his tone. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“I know.” More gently now, and one hand touches her cheek on the red line that now crosses it, before moving. Fingers trace his face, and he finds that he’s reassuring himself that she’s whole, if marked.
Marks don’t matter. That she was in pain does. Is, perhaps, for her leg is being favoured.
But he thinks he’d like to hurt whoever did it to her, anyway.
And perhaps it says something that Kitty hasn’t worried once that he might think her less attractive now.
“I’m fine.”
“If you’re fine,” reasonably, and sometimes she hates how damned calm he can be, “why are you not putting weight on your left leg?”
She’s silent, because she refuses to state the obvious.
Edmund’s hand is still cupping her face for a moment before it drops and he leads her to the painting to the House without word.
He does not ask her to stop putting herself in danger and getting hurt.
She does not promise it won’t happen again.
He doesn’t ask what if she dies and doesn’t come to Milliways. What if she dies, period.
Which is good, because she doesn’t have an answer.
Instead, entering his room and closing the door behind them, Edmund carefully undresses her, still not saying anything, before laying her out on the bed, noting the bandage on her leg without comment.
One hand drifts over her stomach as he lies on his side next to her, and he begins to talk now. He tells her about Narnia, and the day he recalls for Kitty isn’t one she’s heard about before.
He did promise he’d tell her everything, once, and so he tries. And he keeps talking, even when his hand is higher and stroking her breasts, making her catch her breath.
Tales of knights, and Talking Beasts, and horribly boring political dealings. He tells her about how he decided to lay out a section of one of the gardens, and for all that his hand is more than a little distracting, Kitty listens intently.
She listens, still, when he tells her about the drought that had caused the western orchards to lose their fruit the one summer, even though his hand has slipped between her legs, and she’s having to bite her lip to not make a sound. If she makes a sound, she can’t hear him.
And when she comes, a strangled, quiet, whimper of a noise in her throat, she’s still listening to Edmund tell her about how he’d snuck out of boarding school at fifteen just to go look at the stars.
Her eyes have been closed, but they open, slightly, lazily, as she breathes, and looks at him.
Edmund bends down and kisses her lightly, repeatedly, words in the moments when lips aren’t touching. “Tu es ma couer, et mon amour, et ma femme.”
“Yours,” she answers simply, quietly, wrapping her arms around him.
Femme has multiple meanings in French.
She thinks no matter which he meant, they apply, really. But some things he won’t say ever in English. In English, the meanings have to be clear and specific. The vagueness of French lets him say things without saying them.
And when she whispers, “I love you,” it’s in a language from a country she’s never been to, and won’t ever see, but she’s heard so much about, she feels like she has.
Edmund smiles, holding her close, and whispering the same back in her ear.
At some point, he will ask what happened.
And at some point, she will tell him.
And, at some point, she will get up, and dress, and leave through the front door.
For now, they simply lie there, listening to each other breathe.
