[fic] wonders (pt. ii)

She keeps a water-damaged photograph in her purse of the two of them from the night of the ball when the library in Kashtta opened. Sometimes, when she doesn’t think it’ll hurt too much, she’ll take it out and look at it, her fingertip tracing over the outline of his face – the crooked curl of his smile.

She thinks about how his voice sounds: the relaxed sigh when she made him coffee; the quick, soothing words when nightmares snatched her from sleep; the warm laugh when she did something funny; the whispered ‘I love you’s early in the morning when she dozed slightly and he lay awake next to her.

She thinks about his slender fingers curled beneath her chin; the smell of ink at his fingertips; the way his glasses slid down his nose; the bright colours of his odd socks. She thinks about those dark brown eyes not too different from her own in their varying shades of emotion. She thinks about how he makes her smile when he makes a coin disappear from her eyes, the patience in his face when he tries to teach her.

She thinks about his head on her lap as they curl up to read at night, quietly holding hands. She thinks about when he’d curl her hair around her ear, brush her fringe from her face; the kisses brushed against her skin like a thousand tiny secrets between them.

She’s never happy. He’s not here with her. She doesn’t know how long it’ll take before she is happy again.

But she always thinks about him.