Sleep with you...
warnings: romance, hurt/Comfort, angst, angst with a happy ending, post-war, established relationship, married couple, female reader, gender neutral reader, PTSD, war trauma, nightmares, implied/referenced violence, survivorâs guilt, no smut, kissing & cuddling only.
You woke because you couldnât get enough air.
As if someone had pressed a hand to your faceâheavy, gloved, smelling of iron and soot. As if the snow, flying into your face, had suddenly turned into black grit, settling in your throat. You jerked, sucked in air and sat up, clutching at the blanket with your fingers.
The room was still full of nightâviscous, dense, with a faint blue tinge. The narrow window was only a dull rectangle, with lazy pale streaks of frost creeping across it. There was still a bit of fire in the stove: a thin red line of light ran out from under the castâiron door, quivering, playing along the ceiling beams. The logs crackled softly, and that was the only sound, apart from your own breathingâfast and uneven.
You lowered your hand onto the sheet beside you, groping for the familiar warmth, the solid shoulder, the rough fabric of a shirtâand felt only cold.
Empty.
The cloth under your fingers was icy, like the snow on the porch. The folds of the blanket, pushed toward the edge, saggedâno one had been lying there, no one was warming it. That emptiness hit you just as hard as the dream had: something inside you clenched, deep, deeper than your chest, in an old, familiar movement.
He was sleeping apart again.
You groped for the edge of the pillow, automatically tugged it closer to you, as if that could fill the gap that had opened up between you over these months, and not just the hollow on the mattress. Outside, something rustledâmaybe the wind, maybe a branch tapping the glass. And in that rustle, for a second, you heard other soundsâthe dry whistle of bullets, a cry breaking into a rasp. You squeezed your eyes shut, pushing it away.
You were there again, back in that dream, where the white forest was too quiet, the silence humming like wire. Where Simo walked ahead through the snowâa small, stubborn figure in whiteâand disappeared into the haze, while you stayed at the edge of the clearing, reaching out your hand but unable to shout. Your voice stuck in your throat like ice. Then the snow darkened. Then he fell. Always.
You shook your head. It was only a dream. Too close to the truth to be harmless.
At first you didnât want to look where you already knew you would have to: into the halfâdark, toward the stove. But your gaze slid there on its own, and you saw him before your eyes had even fully adjusted to the darkness.
He was lying on a narrow bench, knocked together from rough boards, by the wall at the foot of the stove. His old greatcoat was thrown over himâits smell familiar to you since those winters when you walked him to the gate and let your fingers linger on the collar for a heartbeat longer than modesty allowed. Now it was just draped over him any which way: one edge had slipped to the floor, and under it his feet stuck out in woolen socks. He lay on his side, with his back to you, knees drawn up, his chin almost tucked to his chestâa posture too small for a grown man, too cramped.
Even in sleep he was huddled in on himself.
You knew his back by heart, every ridge of his shoulder blades, every hollow between his vertebrae, but now that familiar back seemed distant, as if the space between you were not a few paces but kilometers and months. As if he had never really come back, as if this were only a silhouette someone had carefully left in his place.
How many times over the last weeks had you woken to the same thingâhis empty side of the bed and him there by the stove on that narrow bench, as if he had no right to take a place beside you. How many times had you pretended not to seeârolling to the other side, pressing your face into the pillow, trying to fall asleep again. As if, if you didnât look, it didnât exist.
Now you looked.
The silence swelled between you like cold air. Suddenly you felt sharply how fragile this moment was: the room youâd lived in before the war hadnât changedâthe same table, the same curtains you had sewn last spring, the same jug on the shelf. But the walls felt closer, heavier. The familiar things seemed like foreign stage props. Only his profile, barely cut out by the orange flicker of fire, was real.
He hadnât always been like this. Not always from afar.
You remembered how he smiledârarely, with one corner of his mouth, dropping his eyes a little, as if embarrassed by his own warmth. You remembered how, coming back from hunting, he would silently put the game on the table and, walking past, briefly touch your shoulder with his fingers: only the tips, but in such a way that from that simple touch it became warmer than from the whole stove. You remembered how he would get up at dawn, carefully trying not to make noise so as not to wake you, and then still come back to lean down and give you a dry, somewhat awkward kiss on the temple.
Now he got up before it was light and left so quietly that you only found out by the cold on his side of the bed. Touches had become fewer, as if your skin had suddenly been burned by something you didnât know.
He had come back. Alive. Whole, as far as war allowed, with his stubborn, silent face. Only it was as if part of him had stayed there, on the white fields, and all he had brought back with him was a shadow and the thunder that only he could hear.
You turned onto your back and stared up at the dark beams. The planks smelled of resin and smoke. Your heart was slowly coming down from the attack, but every beat still thudded in your temples. You pressed your palm to your chest, to where that tight, dark thread of the dream still seemed to pulse. Foolishly, you wanted to cryânot from horror, not from the images, but from this cold place beside you. From the fact that your husband was sleeping away from you, as if you were neighbors and not people who shared one bread, one winter, one fate.
You didnât cry. Habitâholding back, just as he was used to not saying extra words.
How long can this go on? How many more nights would you wake up alone, even when he was only a few steps away?
You slowly threw the blanket aside. The cold immediately seized your legs, your knees, ran over your skin in goosebumps. The floorboards were icy, but you walked carefully so they wouldnât creak too loudly, as if you were afraid of startling not his sleep, but him. Every step felt like an act.
It was only a short way to the stoveâtwo steps, a third already in its shadow. You stopped, looking down at him.
He was sleeping, but not peacefully. Even in sleep his jaw was clenched; you could see the muscle working under the skin. His brows were drawn together, as if he were still listening for distant, invisible sounds. One hand was jammed under his cheek, the other lay on top of the greatcoatâhis fist not entirely unclenched, fingers crooked, chapped, white in the halfâdark.
Next to him, leaning against the wall, stood his rifle, set carefully in its usual place even though the war was no longer here, in this house. Its presence was like a shadow of the life he had come back from: a silent guard at his sleep.
You reached out, almost touching his shoulder, and froze. What would you say if he woke? Come back? Donât go? Why are you sleeping there and not next to me? All those words had risen to your throat so many times these past months and then sunk somewhere down inside, a heavy lump. You were used to talking to him in the language of small thingsâjust as he talked to you. To put a mug of hot tea in front of him, even if he hadnât asked. To sew a button back on before he noticed it was missing. To silently tuck a blanket around his shoulders when he sat at the window and stared into the gray forest.
He answered in his own way: throwing more wood into the stove before you could get cold; fixing the creaky door without turning around, as if he did it simply because the door existed; leaving you a piece of sugar on the table whenever he managed to get some. All of that seemed to have remained, but the simplest thingâto lie down beside youâhad vanished.
The nightmare was still trembling inside you in a thin, icy string. You lifted your hand a little higher.
âSimoâŠâ you called quietly, almost in a whisper. Your own voice embarrassed you; it sounded foreign, hoarse after sleep.
His reaction was instant: as if no months had passed at home, as if he were still there, where every sound meant life or death. His shoulders jerked, the hand lying outside darted toward his side, where a weapon had always hung. He rolled onto his back, sharply, too sharply for a sleeping man. For a fraction of a second something keen, feral, suspicious flashed across his face, but he recognized you in the next heartbeat.
His eyesâlight, almost transparent in the firelightâfocused, blinked. The line of his jaw softened a little.
âYouâŠâ His voice was rough, not fully awake either. âNot sleeping.â
Not a question. A statement. As always.
You swallowed, realizing you were standing in the middle of the night, barefoot, in a long rumpled nightshirt, looking at your own husband as if he were a stranger. The awkwardness suddenly overshadowed everything, even the remnants of fear.
âI woke up,â you said, feeling the word tremble. âA bad⊠dream.â
He slowly sat up, bracing his hand on the edge of the bench. The movements were familiar and careful, despite that jerky, instantaneous reaction. The greatcoat slid down onto his knees. He looked at you more closelyâhis gaze slid from your face to your hair falling over your shoulders, to your hands pressed to your chest. Somewhere deep in that look a flicker of worry appeared.
âYouâre breathing fast,â he noted, and you realized he had been listening to your breathing even in his sleep. âAgain.â
âAgainââa word that contained everything: that this wasnât the first night youâd jerked awake from nightmares, and that he heard and remembered, even if he didnât come. You nodded, confused.
âWater,â he said briefly and stood up.
He moved almost noiselessly, as he always did when getting up at nightâa habit learned somewhere far away. A couple of stepsâand he was already by the table, feeling for the jug in the dark, pouring into a cup. The moon, or whatever passed for it behind the clouds, faintly outlined his profile in the window. The shadow of his hand lay large and a little clumsy on the wall. Although there was never anything clumsy in his movements: only caution.
He came back and held the cup out to you. The fingers on the handle were cold, rough. You pressed your lips to the rim for a moment, not so much out of thirst as to give your trembling mouth something to do.
The water tasted of iron and cold, but slid down your throat gently.
âThank you,â you breathed.
He nodded. Silence settled between you again, thick as smoke. You heard the echo of his breathing in his chestâheavy, measured. You saw how the firelight slid along his cheek, outlining the scarsâsmall, almost invisible in daytime, but now, in this play of light and shadow, they stood out more clearly. Reminders of what had happened there, of what he had never really spoken about.
You only knew snippets: how long heâd had to lie in the snow so he wouldnât be noticed, how his finger cramped on the trigger. How the bones froze so badly they wouldnât warm up afterwards. How once the snow next to him had turned not white, but darkâand then there had been a hospital, and another kind of silence, institutional.
He never told you how many heâd killed. Only sometimes, when the fire crackled especially loudly and the wind thrashed around the house, you caught his gazeâempty, directed nowhere. And then it seemed to you he was countingânot logs, not boards on the ceilingâpeople.
You took another sip and set the cup on the edge of the stove. Your hand shook. Not from the cold.
âYou⊠are here again,â you said at last, packing a lot into that simple phrase. âNot with me.â
He dropped his eyes. For a moment it seemed he was just going to ignore what youâd saidâas he did sometimes when words came too close to his heart. But then he still answered:
âWarmer,â he said quietly, briefly. âHere.â
Yes, it was warmer by the stove. The heat was stronger there than by the far wall where the bed stood. But you both knew it wasnât about that. And that shared knowing made the pain particularly sharp.
âItâs not cold in bed either,â you tried to smile, but the smile didnât come out. âWhen there are two of us.â
He gave the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouthânot even a smile, more like an attempt. And said nothing.
Before, that had been enough. You were used to his quietness, to his speech made up of âyesâ, ânoâ and a few hardâwon phrases. Youâd learned to read gestures and looks. But now this silence wasnât the usual kind. It was like a stone slab.
You felt everything inside you crumbling along the edge.
âIâŠâ You fell silent, picking through words as you would pick through firewood: carefully, so as not to drop everything at once. âWhen I wake up and youâre not there⊠Iâm⊠afraid.â
He raised his eyes. His gaze was usually steady, straightforward, but now something like guilt flickered there.
âIâm close,â he said simply. And that was true. Only a few steps away. You could reach out and touch himâthere he was, alive, warm, breathing. And stillâso far.
âNo,â you breathed, surprised at the firmness in your own voice. âNot close. HereâŠâ You nodded toward the narrow, hard mattress beneath him, at the greatcoat, at the rifle by the wall. âAnd Iâm there. Itâs⊠not the same thing, Simo.â
His name, said out loud, echoed dully in the room. You rarely used his nameâusually it was âyouâ, or âdearâ in a murmur, or just silence in which he was the only one you were addressing. But now you needed to name him, as if that could bring him back.
He hesitated with his answer. The stove flame sneezed, releasing a little cloud of sparks. The shadows on his face trembled.
âItâsâŠâ He ran his hand over the back of his head, down to his neck, the way he always did when he felt awkward. âCalmer.â
âFor whom?â you asked softly. âFor you⊠or for me?â
The words fell like snowflakesâone after another, and you couldnât stop them now. Everything you had carefully stacked away inside, afraid of hurting him, suddenly cracked.
âYou go to bed like youâre going on watch,â you went on, stepping back a little so you wouldnât stand so close. âYou lie down apart. I wake upâyouâre gone. In the daytime you also⊠sort ofâŠâ It was hardest to find the word. âAs if youâre looking through me. Or⊠past me.â
He listened without interrupting. That, too, was in his natureâto endure silently everything that fell on him. But now there was something foreign, frozen, in that selfâcontrol.
âIâm not complaining,â you quickly added, suddenly afraid youâd gone too far. âItâs just⊠I donât know⊠where you are. Here⊠or there, where the shots were. AndâŠâ Your voice broke. âIâm afraid that at some point⊠youâll decide itâs easier to sleep alone. To⊠live alone, too.â
The room tilted slightly. You bit your lip so as not to cry and tasted blood.
He lifted his chin a little, shifting his gaze from you to the stove, to the floor, back to you. Tiny sparks of fire danced in his pupils.
âYouâreâŠâ He paused, searching for a word. âWrong.â
Those two words came out hard, almost sharp. But not as a reproach. More like a stone placed in the middle of a stream so the water wouldnât wash the banks away completely.
âAbout what?â you exhaled.
He ran his tongue over his lips as if theyâd gone dry. His eyes dropped to his handsâbrown, rough, like bark. His fingers twitched, clenched into a fist and uncurled. Then he said, looking somewhere off to the side, into a corner where the shadow lay thicker:
âIâm afraid.â
You stopped breathing for a moment. The admission sounded out of place in his mouth. In all the time youâd known him, heâd seldom admitted to any weakness. And did he even call it weakness? More often it was just a fact. âCold.â âHurts.â âDark.â And nowââafraid.â
âOf what?â you asked cautiously.
He gave a brief, humorless huff with the corner of his mouth.
âOf myself,â he answered shortly.
You took a step closer, all but forgetting your bare feet on the freezing floor. Your heart jumped to your throat.
âYourself?â
âIn my sleep,â he added after a pause, slowly, as if weighing each word. âWhen⊠Iâm not here.â He nodded at the walls, the stove, the table. âBut there.â
He rarely said âthereâ. Usually he got by with silence. But when he did say it, that âthereâ was a dark, heavy place that followed him even here.
âIâŠâ He swallowed, as if the words scratched his throat. âI donât know what Iâm doing when I sleep. In the hospitalâŠâ He flinched, like from pain, and quickly averted his eyes. âThey said⊠I⊠grabbed. By the throat. Shouted. Fought. One⊠orderlyâŠâ The words fought their way out through long pauses. âRibs. I broke. I didnât remember.â
The silence after that was thick. You stared at him, unblinking. For the first time he was giving you any details of what had happened after the wound, and this was what they were like.
âYou think youâll⊠do that to me?â you asked.
He grimaced, not denying it.
âI donât think,â he corrected grimly. âI know I could. My handsâŠâ He looked at them as though they belonged to someone else. âThe war⊠didnât leave. Inside. In sleep itâs⊠closer. Than you.â
Behind that you heard more than a fear of physical harm. There was something elseâshame. As if he secretly believed he had no right to touch you with these hands. Hands that had held a weapon, had too long been just an extension of his rifle.
âThatâs why you⊠sleep apart,â you summed up quietly.
He nodded.
âI⊠thereâŠâ He gestured vaguely toward the window, where the forest began and beyond it his white fields. âIâm⊠alone. Used to it. There, all aroundâŠâ He broke off, but you understood anyway. âWhen someone breathes⊠close⊠in my sleep⊠the body thinks itâs the enemy. Warmth⊠foreign. ItâsâŠâ He exhaled. âBad.â
He raised his eyes. His gaze was tense but open now. Harsh, naked honesty lay in it.
âIâm afraid Iâll wake upâŠâ his voice dropped to almost a whisper, ââŠand youâll⊠beâŠâ
He didnât finish. Couldnât. His lips shaped the word without sound.
Dead.
The word never passed his lips, but you heard it louder than a shot.
You slowly came closer and lowered yourself into a crouch in front of him, so your eyes were level. You used to do this before, when he came home exhausted and sat by the stove, and you, stirring the stew, told him about something insignificant. The neighbors, the chickens, the weather. Back then it brought you closer. Now that posture gave you, again, at least the feeling you were not on opposite sides of a chasm.
âSimo,â you said softly. âBut youâre already⊠hurting me. Not with your body. With leaving.â You put your hand on the floor to give your fingers something to hold. The boards were rough. âWhen I wake up alone⊠Iâm there too. With you. In that emptiness. Only⊠without you.â
His gaze flickered with something like confusionâunfamiliar, almost boyish. He was used to dealing with concrete danger, with things you could shoot, endure, outwinter. And here your âit hurtsâ was different, formless, illogical by his standards.
âIâŠâ He faltered. âIâm trying⊠to keep you⊠safe.â
âBy leaving?â You shook your head. Your hair brushed your cheeks. âI understand what youâre afraid of. But you forgot to ask me⊠what Iâm afraid of.â
âIâm afraid⊠of waking up alone. In emptiness. And realizing you⊠already left⊠a long time ago. Not with your body. Inside. So far that I canât reach you, even if I scream. Like in that dream.â You hugged your knees tighter. âIâm afraid the war⊠took not only the boy I walked to the altar with, but also this⊠man who came back. That all thatâll be left of you is⊠a shadow sleeping by the stove.â
Your voice shook. The tears youâd been holding back still gathered under your lids. One hot drop rolled down your cheek and you hurried to wipe it away with the back of your hand.
He noticed. Despair flickered in his eyesâalmost the same as youâd once seen in wounded dogs when Simo, before the war, would bring them home to nurse them.
Slowly, as if against resistance, he reached out and touched your cheek. His fingers were rough, warm. Clumsily, he traced the damp track. The movement was angular, unskilledâhe had never known what to do with tears, yours or his. But there was something in it that made everything inside you tremble.
âDonât,â he whispered. âCry.â
As if that solved anything. As if, if you didnât cry, that meant it didnât hurt.
âHow⊠else?â You managed a faint smile through the water. âIâm alive, after all.â
He fell silent. His hand still rested at your cheek, his thumb just touching the corner of your mouth. You dared, for a moment, to lean your face into his palm like a cat. His fingers twitched barely noticeably, but he didnât pull away.
âI donâtâŠâ he searched for a word, frowning, ââŠdeserve it.â
You raised your eyebrows.
âWhat?â
âThis.â He nodded towards the bed, towards your tears, your closeness. All of it together. âWarmth. PeacâŠâ He almost choked on the word as if he wasnât used to saying it. ââŠpeace. AfterâŠâ He broke off and gave a short, hard smile. âToo much⊠of the other. On my hands.â
You didnât ask what he meant by âotherâ. You didnât need to: you knew. Blood, death, the fear heâd seen through his sights. All the things heâd borne alone, giving you not a single detail so as not to stain you. He seemed to have already sentenced himself to this eternal watch by the stove.
âAnd IâŠâ You tilted your head. âDo I, in your opinion, deserve something?â
His gaze snapped to you, sharply, as if at a shot.
âYes,â he said without hesitation, unexpectedly firm. âEverything.â
That âeverythingâ pierced you to your depths. For a moment the old Simo surfaced in itâthe one who had looked at you as the only warm piece of the world. Perhaps he had never been talkative, but there had been⊠more life in him back then. Not just duty.
âThenâŠâ you said gently, meeting his eyes, âlet me⊠decide for myself what Iâm afraid of and what Iâm not. And⊠who I want to share my sleep with. Even⊠if itâs heavy.â
He was silent for a long moment. The crackle in the stove grew quieter; the room grew darker. In that halfâlight his face looked carved from wood, deeply lined. You could almost hear some secret argument going on inside himâbetween the habit he had lived by for so long and what he had just heard from you.
At last he exhaled, almost inaudibly:
âYouâre askingâŠâ he said, âfor me⊠to lie next to you.â
You nodded, not hiding either your plea or the fear that he might refuse.
A long pause. The flame in the stove dimmed a bit, making the room darker. In that gloom his face seemed carved from wood, deeply scored. You could almost hear the quiet clash inside himâbetween the longâlearned habit and what heâd just heard.
He finally slowly rose to his feet. Your hand slipped from his. You suddenly felt very small, sitting at his feet.
âItâs cold,â he said unexpectedly. âMy feet.â
It was almost a joke. His kind of joke. You couldnât help the little halfâsob, halfâlaugh that escaped you.
âMine too,â you replied.
He held out his hand to you, helping you stand. His fingers wrapped around yours firmly but carefullyâas if he were holding something fragile for the first time and was afraid to break it. That touch alone was enough for a thin, hot warmth to spread through your whole body.
He threw a couple more logs into the stove, closing the door, as if checking that everything in his little world was in order before allowing himself to lie down. Then he turned to the bed.
Approaching it, he moved as though walking on ice that might crack. Every step was a choice. You watched his back and thought how often you had seen it moving away from you, into the snow. And how now, for the first time in a long while, he was walking not away from you but toward you.
He stopped at the edge of the bed, bent a little, kneaded the blanket with his fingers as if checking whether it was thick enough. A silly, mundane gestureâand because of it everything around suddenly felt alive. Then, not looking at you, he carefully sat down on the edge.
You slipped under the blanket, pushing it up, making room. Your heart was pounding so hard it seemed audible in the silence. Of course you had lain together beforeâbefore the war, when everything was different. But after these months apart, even this simple âlie next to meâ felt⊠almost forbidden.
He lay down on top of the blanket at first, like a guest, like someone who came only for a short while. The hard lines of his body took shape beside you, casting a shadow on the wall. He stretched out on his back, hands laid flat along his thighs, as if lying on parade.
You rolled onto your side and for a while just looked at his profile in the dimness. The line of his nose, the firm chin, the shortâcropped hair, a pale old scar at his temple. His chest was slowly rising and falling. He looked tense, as if given a task he didnât yet know how to carry out.
You hesitated. Any movement might seem too quick to him, too insistent. But lying like strangers now was just as unthinkable. All you had asked for was that he not leave. Now it was your turn to take a step.
Very slowly, as if afraid of startling a bird, you slipped your hand out from under the blanket and gently touched his palm lying on top of the covers. Your fingers met the roughness of his skin, the calloused knuckles. He flinchedâbarely. But did not pull away.
You went still, giving him time to get used to it. Then, just by the thickness of a fingernail, you shifted your hand, offering, not demanding. His fingers slowly lifted, almost of their own accord, and settled over yours. Hesitantly at first, then more firmly. No big gestureâjust the warmth of hands, intertwined fingers.
He still lay stiffly, but there was something in this clasp that outweighed any embrace. You felt his thumb carefully stroke the back of your handâup, down. The way heâd once petted dogs when he thought you werenât looking.
âIs thisâŠâ he asked hoarsely, ââŠall right?â
You let out a tiny laugh, tangled with a sniffle.
âMore than,â you answered.
For several minutes you simply lay like that. Your breathing gradually synchronized with his. The tension in his shoulders eased; you saw it in the way the fabric of his shirt now lay more softly over the line of bone. The fire hummed lowly in the stove; the world outside the walls seemed to have stopped existing.
Cautiously, almost soundlessly, you made a small shift closer, leaving only a few fingersâ width between your bodies. His warmth became noticeable, like the stoveâs, but alive. He turned his head a little toward you. His gaze met yoursâfilled with so much weariness and guilt that you wanted to wrap your arms around him entirely, to shield him with yourself from all shadows. But you held back, remembering what heâd said about his nights.
He took the next step himself.
Very slowly, with pauses, as if asking your permission in every movement, he rolled onto his side to face you. His hand, the one holding yours, drew your palm closer to his chest. His other hand hesitantly settled on your shoulder, over the blanket. The touch was lightâhe seemed afraid to press too hard.
You leaned in of your own accordâonly for a second, only a few centimetersâand rested your forehead against his collarbone. His shirt smelled of smoke and something elseâsomething that would forever be, for you, the smell of home, a home with war living inside it. His skin was warm, a little rough. His heart was beating under your cheek quickly, almost as quickly as yours. He wasnât calm. But he was there.
Simo bent his head. You felt his lips briefly touch your hairâa dry, cautious kiss, almost not a kiss at all, as if heâd at first changed his mind and then, at the last moment, decided to do it anyway. That awkwardness was more moving than any passion.
âIâm sorry,â he breathed into the crown of your head.
âFor what?â you whispered.
âForâŠâ He paused, looking for one word big enough for months. âThese nights.â
You pressed yourself a little closer to him, as far as the blanket allowed, and gave a slight shake of your head.
âYou⊠were just trying to survive. In your own way.â You thought for a second. âAnd I was surviving in mine. Letâs now⊠try to do it together.â
He didnât answer with words. Only his hand on your shoulder grew a little heavierânot pressing, but more assured. As if he at last allowed himself to admit: you were here. And so was he.
You didnât remember when you fell asleep. It felt as if your body simply surrendered to the slow, increasingly even rhythm of his breathing and the creak of the houseâs beams. The nightmare the night had started with moved off to the side, dissolved in the warmth of his chest. But you knew the war hadnât gone anywhere. It lived in his muscles, in his scars, in his sudden night jolts.
You woke again because someone was gripping your hand tightly.
This time it wasnât emptiness. It was his fingersâclamped so hard the knuckles had gone white. His whole body had gone taut as a drawn bow. He wasnât crying outâhis mouth was pressed into a thin line, his brows knitted. His breathing was ragged, uneven. You understood: he was there again.
Between youâonly a few centimeters and an invisible front his sleep carried him back to.
Carefully you turned to face him, not pulling your hand from his. You slid your pillow a bit so you could see him better. The shadows from the dying fire played on his face, making him look older. Somewhere deep in his dream his own battles raged.
âSimo,â you whispered as softly as you could, your free hand lightly touching his cheek. âIâm here.â
He didnât wake immediately. The muscles under your fingers were trembling. He seemed to be trying to say something in his sleep, but only hoarse, broken sounds escaped his throat.
You began to stroke his face slowlyâhis cheek, his temple, his short hair. Your fingers slipped over familiar unevennesses, lingered on a scar. You didnât pull your hand backâon the contrary, you exaggerated the gesture, tracing it as if acknowledging every line of his past.
âThere are no⊠enemies here,â you murmured, not knowing whether he could hear anything. âOnly me. And the stove. And⊠our roof. Youâre home.â
His fingers tightened around your hand even moreâfor a moment, to the point of pain. You winced but didnât yank away. Instead, you covered his cramped knuckles with your other hand like a lid and, gently, patiently, began to pry them open.
âItâs me,â you repeated. âMe. Not snow. Not forest. Not that⊠orderly. Just me.â
Something wavered deep in his sleep. You saw a thin bead of sweat roll down his forehead. His lips moved. Then his lids shuddered and rose. For a second his gaze was as sharp as a blade. He didnât recognize the room. Didnât recognize you. The shadow of war had wholly filled his eyes.
You didnât retreat.
âSimo,â you said softly, but firmly.
He blinked. Again. The edge in his pupils dulled, as if someone had blown on a flame. The figure in front of him stopped being an enemy. The room, a forest. The stove, a flash.
He drew a sharp breath. His fingers loosened on your hand, then let go. You felt the prickling return as blood flowed back.
âYoâŠâ He rasped the first two sounds, as if about to call you by the name only used back there, but caught himself in time. He just stared. All of it was in that look: apology, fear, relief, shame.
You smiledâa tired, crooked smile.
âMe,â you confirmed. âJust⊠me.â
You both lay there, catching your breath. He was the first to reach out, gingerly, almost shyly, to touch your hand, right where he had just left his marks. His thumb ran over the reddened skin. The movement held a kind of reverence, as if he were touching something sacred.
âDoes it hurt?â he asked.
âI can bear it,â you said honestly. âLess⊠than here.â You tapped your own chest with a finger.
He twitched his lipsâalmost a smile.
âI⊠triedâ He searched for a word. ânot to sleep.â
âAnd I⊠tried not to wake,â you answered. âSee neither of us managed it. But⊠at least weâre waking⊠together now.â
He watched you for a while, as if checking whether you were lying. Then, very carefully, like handling a fragile cup, he leaned closer and rested his forehead against yours. His skin was hot, damp with sweat. You closed your eyes, breathing him in. In that contact there was nothing but the pure need to be sure: you were both here.
His breath brushed your lips. Something pinched in your chestânot from pain, from tenderness. He shifted a little, getting more comfortable so that your foreheads lay evenly against each other. His fingers sought yours and twined with them again, this time more gently.
âLetâsâŠâ he whispered, ââŠtry.â
You nodded, though your forehead was against his and he could feel the movement anyway.
âTogether,â you echoed.
The night stretched on, but you no longer listened for its sounds with the old fear. Yes, he still jerked in his sleep a few more times. His fingers squeezed your hand, sometimes too tightly. Sometimes he moaned softly, hoarsely, exhaling words you couldnât make out. But each time you murmured âIâm hereâ, after a while the tension eased, his brows smoothed out. Perhaps it was only your imagination that he heard you. Perhaps not. The important thing was that he no longer fought his night battles alone.
You woke for good closer to morning, because of a strange sensation on your skin. The room was unusually bright. A pale, almost white light was leaking through the curtainâthe winter sun had risen above the forest, bringing no warmth, only a muted, even clearness. In that light everything seemed a little more fragile and slightly⊠real.
You turned your head.
He was asleep. A real, peacetime sleepâor you wanted to believe so. His face was still serious, even in rest, but his mouth was no longer pressed into a hard line. His breathing was deeper. His brow was still a bit furrowed, but not with dreadâjust his natural expression. His hand still lay in yours, warm, heavy. Your fingers had grown used to each other in the night and hadnât let go.
A shaft of sunlight that had slipped through a tiny gap in the curtain fell across his cheek, picking out the thin white scar at his temple and his short eyelashes. The light was coldâit didnât warm like summer sun, only highlighted every curve and every shadow. But it existed. After long months when it had felt as if the world only came in shades of gray, black and white, this faint gold almost dazzled.
Careful not to wake him, you brought your joined hands to your lips and brushed his knuckles with a kissâlight as breath. The rough skin tickled your mouth. In his sleep, he feebly squeezed your fingers, as if answering.
You knew there would be many nights still. With nightmares. With his sudden gasps and yours. With him sitting bolt upright in bed, listening for a whistling that didnât exist, and you reaching for him through your own sleep to pull him back here. You knew that the war wouldnât leave just because youâd decided to sleep together. It had settled in him deep, like a piece of shrapnel the doctors hadnât been able to remove.
But now between you there was not only that war. Between you there were also his hand and yours, clasped tight. His forehead touching yours. His quiet âletâs tryâ in the halfâdark. And this winter sun outside the window, cold but still managing to force its way through the frost.
You tightened your grip on his hand just a little, giving yourself and him a silent promise. Maybe you would never go back to how it was âbeforeâ. Maybe that world truly had endedâthe way worlds always do. But in this new, damaged, creaking world you still had one possibility leftâto not let go of each other.
He stirred, opened his eyesâslowly, heavily. Looked at you, at your twined fingers, at the stripe of light on the sheet. Something soft, weary and grateful flickered in his gaze. As if he himself hadnât quite believed he would wakeâand see you still here.
âGood,â he rasped, without specifyingâmorning, sun, or simply this new day.
âGood,â you answered.
You knew it would be a hard one. Like all the rest. But as long as the winter sun pushed its way through the frost, as long as the fire in the stove didnât go out, as long as his hand lay in yours, there was still room in this fragile, thin strip of light for hope. Cold as the day itself, perhapsâbut still light.
He tilted his head a little, in that familiar gesture he used when listening for a distant sound in the woods. Now he was listening to you.
