Fitting Back Together

To Risk it All

A/N: so we get a little bit of Magna's side in this chapter. Still in Miko's POV (this entire fic is) but we get some of Magna's thought process

. . .

In the end, they'd wound up tangled around each other under the thin covers of Magna's bed. The room was cold, something Yumiko hadn't been able to notice earlier when she was burning up from the inside with arousal. But now their bodies had fallen still - the desperate urgency that had driven every touch long since faded - and she found it a lot harder to ignore.

Equally hard to ignore was the fact that this was the temperature Magna had to endure every night. There was no heater, nor fireplace in sight. And the blanket they currently hid beneath was as threadbare as anything. Not only did it not cover the whole mattress but she'd already discovered two holes in its surface, having accidentally caught her finger in one.

Just as she'd been doing all night, Yumiko added this latest item to her growing list of problems to contend with in the future, and shifted, wrapping her leg more closely around Magna's in an attempt to absorb more of her heat - and to provide some.

Magna, for her part, didn't seem to notice the chill.

Instead, her eyes burned softly, a lukewarm contentment simmering in the darkness as she gazed back at Yumiko, mouth crooked ever so slightly in a smile.

In this moment, the lack of sex seemed anything but a loss. They'd needed this more. The chance just to be close. To hold. And be held.

They'd needed the pause.

The peace.

Delicately, not taking her eyes off Magna's, she gently moved some hair behind her ear, feeling the texture of her skin, the warmth.

She'd missed this. The quiet moments. When it was just them.

Just the heat of each other's skin and the low beat of their breaths.

So many hours of her life had been spent just like this. The happiest hours. The ones she kept tucked safely away inside her, treasured memories to light a candle in the darkness. She was relieved that she'd have a new memory now to add to the trove. A new memory to fall asleep to at night.

Magna mirrored her gesture, reaching out. Yumiko closed her eyes at the sensation of soft skin against her temple, fingertips smoothing through her hair, tickling her ear.

Until tonight, no-one had touched her hair in months. And the last person to do so had been Magna: a light touch sweeping a lock from her cheek before dawn; the softest of kisses coming to land on the space that had been left behind. Half asleep, exhausted and mind muddy from sex, Yumiko had barely felt it. Barely noticed. Had drifted back into the darkness just as she felt the space beside her open up, the mattress shifting, familiar heat falling away.

That was the last time anyone had touched her hair.

She hadn't realized that she'd missed the feeling until tonight. Until gentle fingers had combed through newly shortened strands, sliding smoothly into place.

Hadn't realized that she'd been aching for that touch.

Yumiko still couldn't quite grasp how they'd gotten here. How the look of betrayal on Magna's face in that kitchen had melted into this soft expression of love before her now. And she needed to know. Needed to know if she was to feel safe enough to trust it.

"What made you change your mind?" she murmured, daring to break the sanctuary of silence that had cloaked them for the last half hour.

"About what?"