Page 85 of Uncharted

“It is, and I’m really hoping you’ll say yes.”

He took a deep breath and, just like the absurd moment of fear that he had abandoned me in the woods, I felt a terror that he was about to tell me no. That I had taken too long and his brush with death, his second one in a month, had shown him that wasn’t what he wanted.

“I woulda said yes if you’d asked me the first week,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh,” I said, throat tightening. “And now?”

“Now I’m just gonna say that it took ya long enough,” he chuckled and my body relaxed. “Ya really thought I was gonna say no?”

“I did not,” I said, but then winced. “Fine, there was…a moment. I had…something similar in the woods.”

The bed shifted and dipped as he leaned up, frowning at me. “Did you think I left you?”

“Saying yes sounds awful,” I told him. “But I guess that’s as good as telling you yes, isn’t it? Sorry.”

“Aren’t ya the one always gettin’ on at me for apologizin’?”

“Yeah,” I grunted, frowning up at him. “But this isn’t a good part of me. It’s not a fair part of me. And it’s not…your fault. I guess it’s not really my fault either.”

“Your parents?” he guessed.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s…never been a problem before. Sometimes I assumed the worst of people, but usually I could just…shove it away, and it wasn’t a big deal.”

“So why’s it a problem now?”

“Because it’s you.”

“I don’t understand.”

I kept my eyes closed as I collected my thoughts. Which was hard since they had me on something that, while not making me a drooling mess, was enough to make the edges of my thoughts fuzzy and the connections wobbly. But the answer was still there, waiting for me deep in my thoughts. I wanted to retreat from it, but I couldn’t keep running away when it came to him, no matter how scared I was.

“Because you’re important,” I told him finally, opening my eyes and meeting his. “Because at some point, you became a really big deal to me. And then things changed, and it scared the shit out of me. When things change, sometimes you lose things, and I don’t want to lose you. It’s why I’ve been such a dipshit about everything, and that kind of fear is why I felt terrified you had left me, or why I thought you were going to say no. So…not your fault.”

His fingers could only brush against me, restrained by the cast, but he did his best to hug me and kiss my temple. “Not your fault either.”

“Maybe my problems came from them, but I’m the one who chooses what to do about those problems,” I reminded him.

“And what? Ya didn’t actually think I left ya, did ya?”

“No. Not really.”

“No, that’s why ya didn’t take off or hide somewhere. It’s why ya stuck around and had my back, just like I had yours. And yeah, maybe ya took your time with all of our, uh, shenanigans, but ya were workin’ your way around to it eventually. I knew somethin’ was gettin’ to ya, I knew it was eatin’ at ya, and when the time came, I knew ya would talk to me. Ya always do.”

“Oh, to have the faith in me that you do,” I said, turning toward him and brushing his nose with mine. I could feel his chest pushing against me, his leg lay atop one of mine, and his fingers continued to brush my skin. All I wanted was to be back at the outpost, in the too small for the two of us but we made it work anyway bed. To see him sleeping, moonlight covering his face and peace filling him so I could soak some of it up and breathe easier. “I love you; you know that, right?”

“I do,” he said, and then grunted. “God, sorry. Not the right thing to say.”

“It was the perfect thing to say, actually,” I told him and laughed when I saw his confusion. “You’re so funny sometimes. You act like you know you’re bound to say the ‘wrong’ thing, but it’s funny. But then there’re times when it’s obvious you’re scared shitless that you said the wrong thing.”

“With you,” he said softly. “Because you’re important to me.”

“Hmph, I heard someone say once that love makes the greatest of fools out of the greatest of men. But I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“No, fear does. Fear made me run and hide from you, even when all I wanted was to be as close to you as possible. And fear has made you so afraid of saying the wrong thing around me, when the truth is, I love hearing you and the things you say. Hearing you say you know I love you, even before I said it, and you knew how I meant it when I said it…it was like…I didn’t have to explain, I didn’t have to find a way to make it make sense. You just…knew, just like you’ve always known things over the years. I love you, and you know it. That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“When ya say it like that, yeah, it is,” he said softly. “I really look forward to being able to cuddle you without bein’ fucked up. No cast, no staples, nothin’.”