Red Queen One-Shots

Resurrection Part III

A/N: Just to warn you: Emo! And smut. And a cute baby. Have fun ;-)

The words blurried before her eyes. Farley tried stretching herself while sitting before her desk, despite knowing that it wouldn't help. She'd been reading this paragraph for 10 minutes now and she didn't make sense of it. This isn't difficult, she reminded herself. It's my bleeding job. I have duties, and people rely on me. Lives depend on me. Pull yourself together, General –

She was woken by a pat on her shoulder. She startled, her eyes widened, and she flinched back.

"It's just me," Shade said, his hand still touching her. A part of her wished he'd never let go, another one felt terror. "You should sleep a little," he went on and cocked his head.

She straightened herself. "I'm only-"

"Overworking yourself?" he interrupted her. "I heard you say you didn't sleep tonight."

"Well, I'm a general-" she started, but the rest of her sentence was swallowed by a long yawn. How awkward.

Lucky for Shade, he merely grinned and put his arm around her shoulders. "Would you agree to a nap?"

She shrugged. "Probably Clara will wake the moment I lay down. As she's occupying my bed." Shade had sat beside their daughter before he came over. Now he was staring at her, waiting for her to give in. Finally, she inclined her head to agree.

He smiled mischievous in turn. It couldn't mean anything decent. "What," he began, "would do for me if I bring Clara to her cot without making her cry or wake up?"

She frowned. "Are you turning your newfound fatherhood into a game?"

His amusement became serious. "Diana, our lives are hard enough. Don't tell me Clara isn't the one who brings you joy?"

A lump rose in her throat. He was only back to life, back to her, for a few hours, but he grasped what their daughter meant to her, and what her life had become like, perfectly accurate. She cleared her throat. "She's not the only one. Nor is she only joy. She's a shitload of work and responsibility-" Shade raised his eyebrows – "and I'd be dead inside if something happened to her." Tears were in her eyes.

His embrace didn't help. She was crying and didn't know why. He's with us again and yet I'm not happy.

He held her, stroked her back, her neck, her hair, and she wanted to sink into him, just for a moment, and forget the package she carried.

"Am I the other one?" he asked. "The one who brings you joy?"

She cackled despite her tears. "How conceited," she replied, then added, "yes, you are."

They sat down carefully on her folding bed. The colonel's old office was truly too small for three people. Yet Clara slept on and Farley felt the familiar urge to touch her and to listen to her breathing and heartbeat, just to be sure. Shade noticed it, of course. "I think she's getting better, isn't she?" he said and she leaned back against his chest.

"I named her for my mother," she said. "Because I'd like to be like her."

"That's beautiful," he answered. Although his fingers on her bare arms felt beautiful as well, she thought.

"I wish you'd tell me about those things," he added. "About what I've missed. How she is like, how she developed, how she was ... born. Was it okay, Dee? Were you .... ?" He shrugged, a little nervous.

Her own hand had come to rest on his chest, searching for his heartbeat. It was like she needed as much assurance about his well-being than about Clara's. "It wasn't terrible. No, it was worth it." She pondered for a moment. "That's what I told myself the whole time. That it'll be worth it, to carry this child, to endure the pain, to fight on, to do everything I could to achieve liberation: But the worst was always to miss you."