365 Days (Part 1) | ✓

48. The Stars

48. The Stars: Take inspiration from a night sky.

She traced his face lightly with her fingertips. Over the nose with just a hint of a bump to its bridge, over the cheeks covered in stubble. Over the eyebrows two shades darker than his hair. It was a face well known to her. It was better known to her than her own face.

"Promise me you'll write."

He was the one that said it, staring into her eyes like he would never be able to tear himself away. He would have to; tomorrow he would depart for France. Gone, like the rest of her dreams.

"I promise." She wanted to add more, to enforce her earnestness, but sometimes simplicity is more powerful.

He smiled his heartbreak. "Let's run away," he whispered, like they weren't alone on this hilltop, with only the stars to keep them company.

It wasn't real, his words. He was speaking of a place beyond reality: the alternative to their pain, where fancy met fantasy. She didn't respond, but let her head fall back onto his shoulder, hair splayed across his chest. She stared at the sky. He looked at her.

"Orion's belt," she said, pointing to the collection of stars glowing in the velvety darkness. "He loved a woman, Orion."

"I know the feeling," he said, his mouth against her hair, his breath tickling her scalp.

A tear slipped out. "I love you."

He just hugged her to him. "Keep yourself safe."

"Me?"

"Don't let your demons take you."

She closed her eyes, shutting away the tears. The implications of his leaving never fully stopped hitting her. Like tons of pricks aimed at her chest. Like a bullet. Would she sink into her old depression without her lover? With him in the trenches of France, artillery exploding over his head? "Darling, I won't," she said, without knowing if she was lying.

For a moment they lay there, staring up at the twinkling lights scattered across the sky. Simply there, with and for each other, for now. They were suspended. They were not frozen in time, but out of time. Life could not touch them, on a hill under the stars, because for the briefest of moments, life did not exist. Life was not life. Life was laying on the grass with the one you loved. Life was ignoring the hard future to enjoy the present.

"It's one sky," he murmured.

She clenched his shirt under her hand: She was scared of him ripped away from her, and wished she could hold something less physical. Wished she could chain herself in every way to him.

"It's the same stars."

"It always has been."

"Yes," he said wonderingly. "We'll be sleeping under the same stars."

Her heartbeat faltered. The breath in her lungs seemed to compress. Of course he would say this. Him, with his love of stars. Yet now, with maybe the last time he would be able to view the night sky in peace, he looked at her.

"When you miss me, look at the stars," he said. "I'm under them, too."

Their time without time was ending. They were being flung into reality. She twisted to look at him. There was no reason for her to mentiom him missing her. He would. She knew that.

"I promise."

"If I die, will you make a constellation for me?"

He was already thinking about walking toward death. The way he made his morbid request let her know that he had fought an internal struggle and won: He would not be afraid to die, when it was time. He had accepted it calmly.

She was not surprised. He would be friends with the reaper of his soul, be on good terms.

"Do the same for me."

"I already have. So I may look at you in insanity and be sane."

She was crying, but she looked at him steadily. He was not crying, but he looked at her desperately.

It was his sacrifice to be a soldier, to fight for her safety. It was her sacrifice to let him do it, because she knew he would need to protect her. As much as she didn't want safety if it meant without him. But she let him to do it. She let him do it.

*

A/N: What the heck is this story? I have no clue.

By the way, remember how much I hate chickens? Guess what we got today? Six baby chicks. Whee.