After

With a cup in each hand, she steps outside the backdoor into the perfect kind of winter night. The snow is falling, thick and heavy, but the air lacks any real bite. It’s the kind of night for magic, if she wasn’t too tired to contemplate such things. Snowflakes dot the sky like the stars they hide. For a moment, complete peace sweeps over her, glorious and heady. It’s a strange thing: she’s used to stress, used to exhaustion, used to bone weary determination. The thought of jingle bells is a wry one; then the burning ember of a cigarette off to her left distracts her, and the emptiness is almost back.

“If it isn’t you,” drawls the owner of the cigarette, “come to bring peace and goodwill to all men.”

Irritation flares up inside of her. After all this time, after all these secret moments, stolen during wartime, this has dampened but never disappeared. The beginnings of a friendship, the promise of future trust, and the fact that she has almost grown to respect him just can’t quite stamp that out. In fact, for a moment, the urge to throw his drink at him crosses her mind.

But then, they've come a long way, the two of them. Sometimes, she enjoys his company.

She pastes on a smile and holds out the cup. “Don’t choke,” she advises, making her voice just the kind of patronizingly airy she knows used to aggravate him just as much as he used to aggravate her.

Something close to a smile flashes across his features before he catches it and mars it into a smirk. Snowflakes, whiter still, have landed in his hair; there is one clinging to his eyelash. He looks tired, as tired as she feels. Something stirs inside of her and she thinks of a night many months ago, the first night they’d gotten stuck in a safe house together. The first time they’d managed a civil conversation, out of boredom, of course, and no small lack of perseverance. Talking to him has always been like pulling teeth. She looks away before the fleeting feeling can become a full-blown thought.

“Eggnog,” he snorts, peering into the cup. He takes a cautious sip, before arching an eyebrow. “Rum.”

She raises her cup in a mock salute. “Happy Christmas.”

The cigarette gets flicked off into the white beyond; he moves over so she can lean on the railing beside him. This close, their shoulders are almost touching. Even in times so dire, he would wear a coat so fine. She examines it with a weary sort of attention. The fleeting feeling is back, persistent and tugging. She tells herself it’s all sorts of things—homesickness, fear, exhaustion; anything that isn’t the culmination of quiet evenings that feel like an escape. And quiet evenings with him! The thought makes her stomach flip. She tells herself it’s revulsion, but it feels more like apprehension. Abruptly, she misses her friends; wonders where they are. If they're still alive.

“Why aren’t you at home?” she asks to cover it.

“Ahh,” he says, rubbing a random pattern onto the railing with a gloved finger. “I always knew you were a smart one. Would you spend Christmas there? Honestly.”

He rolls his eyes, but his voice doesn’t match his expression. It’s twisted into something unrecognizable, something too soft for him, something she wasn’t meant to see. She thinks of lingering eye contact in the past, moments stretched to breaking, and shuffles slightly closer. No, if she was playing and spying and sneaking, betraying, she wouldn’t want to be at home for Christmas either.

“I miss my parents.” It’s not what she meant to say at all and she blinks, surprised with herself. She expects his mockery, but he chuckles softly instead. Doesn’t move away either.

Everything is starting to feel off, so she sips the eggnog in her cup to cover it. Too much rum, maybe; she was never good at these things. Strange, since in school... She cuts off an internal tirade, too tired for it. The ache inside of her has spread and she misses everything: her parents, her friends, disliking him, normalcy, everything.

“War is not the time to be all sentimental,” he says abruptly. “Who gives a shit about missing anyone.”

We’ll all be dead soon, she hears.

“Lovely. Of all the people in the whole entire world, I’d get stuck with you on Christmas.”

“Rather be making doe eyes at some boyfriend?” He pauses; bats his eyelashes for dramatic effect. She can't tell if the jealous undertone she hears is real. “Think I’m a definite upgrade. Think you should be counting your lucky stars, think you should—”

“I think you miss your parents.”

It’s a bold statement, and she’s ready for a fight. But his jaw only clenches, and he goes silent. Sad for the passing of that distraction, she stares off the porch again. He, she’s noticed, has moved even closer, quiet and stealthy. Her shoulder, when she moves, brushes his upper arm.

Taking a sideways glance, she studies him. Mostly, what she’s feeling is Christmas longing; still, she’s feeling something and she’s too analytical of a person to let it go. She loves knowledge, all knowledge, and maybe that is her flaw. There is nothing right to know, nothing wrong to know. Like the time she’d had one of his cigarettes to try it—to know--and had almost vomited on his shoes. The memory lifts the corner of her mouth.

Those first few times, they’d fought like cats and dogs. Then, they’d lapsed into a silence that was surprisingly easy. She’s not sure when this new tension invaded, but she knows, without the crowd, without the show, without the fuss, it’s just him and her… and they don’t hate one another. It is what it is.

Standing beside her, he is what he is. He looks dangerous and sad and lost and empty and lonely and strangely perfect, for everything wrong about him. She gets him, always has.

“Stop staring at me,” he orders, knocking into her to make it teasing. For whatever reason, he is almost smiling. “I’ll start to think you fancy me.”

She hmphs at that and sips her eggnog. Looks anywhere but at him. On the railing, he moves his hand. On the railing, his little finger curls around hers.