Waiting for sleep

She could hear her heart thumping still, almost feel the caffeine coursing through her veins. What hospital coffee lacked in taste and quality it more than made up for with strength.

They'd sent her home; he'd nodded his agreement.

"Get some sleep," they'd said, all of them.

As if.

She wasn't sure if she was unable to sleep as much as she was plainly unwilling, vaguely superstitious that her staying awake was somehow keeping him alive.

She thought about reading but the words danced meaninglessly in front of her strained, puffy eyes. Sure, there were magazines, with photos and bright colors and no need to focus, but the glossy smell made her faintly nauseous and probably always would, carrying with them the recent memory of furiously flicking from page to page in a hospital waiting room, as though that would make time past faster somehow, bring him back to her sooner.

She flung her arms behind her head and waited for sleep, but waited with her eyes open. Come if you must, but don't expect to be welcomed.

"Get some sleep," he'd said, the way you might say "be careful out there", or "look after yourself". Meant, fully meant, and yet fully meaningless.

She buried her face in her pillow, and wondered if she might cry, but the pain, the anxiety, the loneliness, the fear came from a deeper place than tears do.

"Get some sleep," he'd said, and she thought about that. She thought about the tenderness in his eyes, his concern for her in the midst of her own emergency. The way he had lacked the strength to squeeze her hand. Their story did not feel finished. There had to be more. Had to be.

She thought about -

A button and a distraction

Her button was undone.

He wished he hadn't noticed, but there it was, he had, and he could not go back and un-notice it.

Just that one button. Just enough so that he could see the little pink bow on her bra, a chaste Midwestern bra, he liked to imagine, because when would she have time to be anything other than chaste? He'd seen to that.

Someone should probably tell her. But how to do it subtly, subtlety not being his strongest suit at the best of times? How to say the words Donna and button without finding himself saying bra and betraying his wandering, iniquitous thoughts?

Through the crack in his door he saw the solution: Carol. Probably coming to pore over the Lemon Lyman website with Donna. He supposed it was an activity best enjoyed with friends.

"Just the person," he said, breezing - hopefully breezing - past the bullpen.

"Hi," said Carol, uncertainly. "Me?"

"Hi." He still didn't know how he was going to word it. "Could you step into my office?"

"Sure." She followed him, then waited. "Was there -"

"Yes. Listen, I know this is going to sound -"

Sitting at his desk, he looked at Carol and then past her: it was a reflex of which he was no longer conscious, this constant glancing towards the bullpen. He noticed, with a little disappointment, that Donna had already, well, rectified the situation.

"Never mind."

"Okay," said Carol, slowly, as if talking to a dim-witted child.

He heard them laughing, her and Donna. He imagined them exchanging rolled eyes. And he felt a little wounded at his thwarted act of gallantry - of selflesness, even, because although the barely open shirt had been a distracting sight it had certainly not been an unpleasant one, just a glimpse of what could be their future, if only, if he only, if circumstances only, the familiar scenarios running through his mind and always the same conclusion, the same defeated conclusion that the little pink bow on the chaste Midwestern bra was a long way out of his reach, years perhaps, forever perhaps, because surely she would get tired of waiting, if she was in fact waiting, waiting for him, and why shouldn't she, he was, after, all the picture of gallantry.

But. Yeah, yeah. He knew the reality of it.

He put his head down on his desk and counted to ten slowly.

Thanks to Judy Reeves for the writing prompt in her Book of Days, "her button was undone".

All her smiles

He rolled onto his side, propped up his head with his elbow, and took in the sight of her. He had always loved her smile, all the versions of it: flirtatious or deeply contented or even snide. Perhaps his favorite was the one that told him she was humoring him, or perhaps it was the one from that night months ago: no. The no that signalled that do you want another drink was not the right question.

"So," he said now, when he'd watched her for almost longer than was polite. "Where do you want to go?"

"On honeymoon?"

He knew she loved that word, with its promise of sweetness. There's going to be a wedding, he'd said, kissing her neck, and whispering into her ear. And everybody is going to be looking at you and wondering how I ever got you to say yes. She hadn't faltered. They don't know you like I do, she'd replied, and he wondered why he'd allowed something so petty and insignificant as his job to delay this moment; he could have been kissing her like this for nine years.

She always sensed his pensiveness in those moments and pulled back, made him articulate his regrets so that she could reassure him again: We're here now, and that's all that matters. One day she would tell him about the letters she wrote him and then tore into a million pieces, about the enormous tubs of ice cream, about the soggy pillows, but not yet, not until he'd learned she wasn't going anywhere.

"There's a place somewhere called Paris," she said, leaning on her own elbow.

"In Wisconsin, I think."

"There are actually two in Wisconsin."

"Well, you pick one, and that's the one we'll go to."

She punched his arm, not much of a punch, really more of a tickle.

"Oh," he said. "Wait. There's another place called Paris, somewhere, no? Somewhere with a romantic language?"

"And amazing shopping," she said, a little too quickly, he thought.

"We are not going on honeymoon so that you can go shopping," he said.

"Even if I were buying lingerie?" She said it, lingerie, with an almost perfect French accent, as though he weren't enthralled already.

"I guess in that case that might be okay," he said, kissing her nose, her cheek, her hair. Thinking about taking her shopping, thinking about the dresses she would wear, thinking how amazing she would look, thinking about her smile when he would tell her so, realizing that was his favorite one of all.

Thanks to Judy Reeves for her prompt in A writer's book of days: "there's a place somewhere called Paris".