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[It's honestly probably a very good thing that Alex had her phone in her hand otherwise there's no way in hell that she would have been able to hear it ring. When it does she just stares at it before she shouts over the din of the loud tech music:]

Hold on.

[There's the sound of her moving through the club, and finally out the door of it where the background noise fades to something more like crowd noise. Alex moves past that before she speaks, and she sounds a little drunk but not shitfaced.]

How the hell do you even know where Excessus is? And yes, Amalia is fine. Trust me, she's a very good Domme who is much in demand. I am fine. And Warren didn't even know I was there!

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Before she goes, Alex just leans over and presses a reassuring kiss to his temple. She knows that this is going to be hard for him--after all she was there the night that Coralee left him that time. Alex had stood in the wreckage and held his hand and they had talked, but not before she gave him a little bit of time to collect himself. She knows that she's doing it again right now and that's okay because he needs it. Besides, it's not like she's going to be anywhere but on the plane right now.

I'll be here when you're ready Alex just promises him silently as she moves onto her feet and to the stateroom with it's bed and luggage on top of it. When Alex opens the bag, there's comfortable pajamas for her on top and she just lets out a relieved sigh. Comfortable pajamas are just the thing, even if they aren't strictly speaking her own. They'll do and she knows without him saying so that Nic will pack up her stuff in Seattle and throw it into storage for eventually.

Alex makes a mental note to send him some money for that, and for upkeep on Howard's house as well.

She's not ready to believe they're not going back to Seattle at some point.

But her shower is quick for Alex, and she takes to heart not leaving the water on while she's soaping up or washing her hair. Wanting to make sure that there's enough water for his shower is second nature, and when she comes out, she's wearing the blue pajamas and she kisses him gently. "Your turn, my love."

Edited 2020-05-28 23:05 (UTC)

Rising slowly he leans against her like a crutch before staggering into the bathroom. One he's in the mirror, he stares.

There are scars. They crease his face along his jaw like he's been burned or had some kind of infection - long red thick lines but it could be worse. A lot worse. Pulling back his hair he stares at the circular burns covered by his hair. They go down his neck and chest dissolving into broader marks, burn marks, down his chest.

Tiamat.

He feels vain. Vain and sad and he shoves it aside because he's alive. The world is alive. Charlie is alive. Alex is alive and they are together and she saved him.

His fingers trail along his jaw before he sets it down. Guess that's it for symposiums and conferences. Maybe I'll write books.

He's thinking to himself but it hits him Alex can pick up on it. You and I can't sit still.

Alex is waiting, because she knows that Richard is a vain man, and she knows that the intense scarring on his face would have been a lot for anyone to handle, as well as the scarring on his chest. She takes a deep breath, and wishes that she could have spared him from that but she knows that she's lucky that she managed to talk Anu into letting Richard have his eyes back.

His eyes, she thinks, are more important than the scars are.

We wouldn't be us if we sat still. Alex just answers him honestly, and just like her normal voice, her mental voice has an audible smile in it as well. She loves him, and Alex knows that it's going to be okay. Eventually. They need time to heal.

But first a very long vacation. We've earned that, Richard.

It's been a very long three years, that was for sure. They need time to rest and reflect and to mourn for what was, and for what could have been and the people that they'd lost along the way.

I'm pretty sure I can just sleep for a week at this point.

Which when you're Alex Reagan, may be the equivalent of people wanting to sleep for a year.

Maybe I'll write too.

A week in bed sounds incredible.

He's adaptable. More adaptable than he was. Alex Reagan has that affect. She's a river that wears people down, a tree with strong roots that can break up soil. She's broken his bedrock and he feels ...renewed.

In a nice little cottage in a small town where no one knows who we are with a little general store and a garden. I've actually always wanted to learn how to garden.

Stepping out of the shower dressed in his pajamas the scarring is a lot more evident but shambling over to her he seems unbothered, sliding beside her to wrap his arms around her waist and hold her close to kiss her neck.

"...Don't tell anyone I'm so ridiculously sentimental Ms. Reagan."

"Never, Dr. Strand." Alex just hums the words, and she means them. It's funny, she'd always thought that when this was done, when they stopped it and stopped hiding that she would record a show and tell people what had happened. Tell the world about how the two of them had saved it. Now that they had, Alex doesn't want to do it anymore. Let people live in their ignorance and let it be bliss and never let them know how close they'd come to ruination, or the cost of what it had taken for them to stop it.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, Alex just kisses his cheek softly, gently, as if she's worried that doing it somehow might hurt him, even with the scar tissue. It feels to her like she's hurt him far too many times lately, and all she wants to do is to stop hurting him. And to spend a week in bed with him. Or the rest of their lives, that works too.

"You know," she says softly, with a little bit of an Alex Reagan laugh. "I can garden. I can't cook for the life of me." Which is something that's not exactly a secret considering everything. "But I can grow things, as long as I'm like actually around to make sure they're weeded and watered and stuff. I used to grow tons of things at my parents house. I can teach you. You know, once we figure out what grows in Ireland other than like. Potatoes or something. Even you can't work miracles with constant potatoes."

"Sadly you're right." He laughs, "Stews get really boring after awhile."

He could hold her forever. Brushing a lock of hair from her cheek his eyes are full of love, "I'd get bored. But I'd like to learn to garden. My mother was a lot of things but she wasn't...the dig in the dirt type."

He actually manages his breathy chuckle, her laugh, just for her, "You though. You move heaven and earth on a regular basis."

The plane is smooth and crisp but there's food laid out on the table that makes him smile.

"...I heard you. When I was in the other place. I heard you ask for my eyes back." His voice is soft, gentle, "Thank you."

Alex just brushes her hand lightly against his face, his eyes before she says entirely honestly: “I’d miss them.” Not as much as he did obviously, but it had twisted something inside of her heart when he had gotten her out and had told her that Tiamat had stolen him. Everything twisted her heart, but she’s fairly certain that the sound of his voice when he’d said that is going to become a permanent fixture in her nightmares for a while. In the past nine days when she could sleep and Tiamat wasn’t looking for her, they already had.

Alex wants to question him about what Anu had said about her having gifts of her own, but she also doesn’t and for the first time in a long time Alex Reagan doesn’t ask the question that’s on her lips. That can come later. For now all she wants to do is be them and they can leave any and all gods at the door until they’re ready to talk about it.

For now, she just kisses him softly. “Well, I’ll teach you to garden and you can try and teach me to cook. We’ll go the village store and lament the fact that they don’t have good sushi and Mexican. We’ll read too many books and watch too much Netflix and just be for a while. With a week in bed.”

Edited 2020-05-29 05:55 (UTC)

His smile is positively roguish as he kisses her back, slow, ever so slow, "...Might be looking forward to that part the most."

The certainty in his voice when he next speaks is strong and clear.

"And you'll be able to sleep. I'm not letting you sleep alone again for as long as I'm alive."

"Well, that's good because I'm not letting you sleep alone for the rest of our lives either, Richard." Alex believes that her sleep will get better. It might never be great, but it also is something that won't be as bad as it had been for the last three years. It definitely won't be anywhere near as bad as the last nine days where when Alex had set a clock to wake her up every twenty minutes or so that she didn't stay asleep long enough for Tiamat to find her location.

Laying here, warm and next to him, Alex feels safe and she can feel some of the barriers to her lack of sleep falling away already as she just lets out a little bit of a yawn. "I guess talking about it reminded my body that I've probably got a sleep debt that's like a hundred years long at this point." Alex just curls up against him more fully in the bed, and she rests her cheek against his chest. This is new, and she likes it more than she can say actually. "Is this okay?" She asks at the last moment, starting to half-sit up while she's doing it.

"It's perfect."

It feels right, and good, "...I never thought there'd be magic in the world until I met you Alex. And here we are. Living our own fairy tale filled with magic and wonderful. The world's brighter with you in it."

Not Tiamat, though he does mourn her. It may be a long time before he wakes up without steam on his too-hot cheeks crying for some long lost...

He sighs with content and kisses the top of her head.

"We fit together. Do you feel that?"

“Of course I do, my love? How could I not?” Alex just says the words softly, and she nuzzles her cheek against his chest again. “I always thought we would you know. Fit together I mean.” Because Alex has thought that the two of them were heading this way for longer than she wanted to admit either to herself or to him. But she had, there was no doubt of it. Alex Reagan has loved him since she walked into his office and refused to let him give her the canned lecture that he gave to everyone else.

But when he mourns Tiamat, he won’t be the only one. Alex will too, she will mourn what Marduk did and how he had betrayed her and how he had created the monster of chaos that she’d become.

There’s always going to be a small part of her that blames herself for that. But those are later thoughts.

You should try and sleep my love. I know you must be exhausted.

I'm not letting you go while I do.

He almost deflates, but he wraps his arms around her, twisting to his side and holding her against him.

And he sleeps deep, hoping she's sleeping just as deeply.

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