Page 22 of Legacy Ascended

"You don't.” His forehead comes down against mine.

Torres hasn't let go of me since Doc finished. He's got two fingers on the inside of my right wrist, eyes somewhere else, counting.

"That's the fourth time."

"Yeah." He does it again immediately, entirely unashamed. "Going to do it again in a minute, too."

"Torres."

"I know I'm doing it." He looks up, and his eyes are red. "I could feel you all day and I couldn't get to you. You went out in that field and there was nothing, and I stood in the grass with a dead guy's shirt in my hands. So if I want to check your heart's going, I'm checking. Yell at me tomorrow if I am still doing it."

"I was just going to ask how you are doing."

"Good. Hang on." He leans in and kisses me, and it isn't careful at all, one hand hot at the side of my throat and the other still flat on my wrist, and my brain goes off line. "Right. That. I've been wanting to do that since about nine o'clock this morning and it has been a really long day."

"Do it again."

He does it again.

Then he sits back and says, at the frozen mud, "I'm going to be angry about today for about a year."

"That's allowed."

"Not at you."

"I know."

Soren is standing four feet away with his hands open at his sides, and he has been standing there for a while.

I hold out my good hand.

He takes it immediately, like he's been waiting to be asked and sits, and puts my palm flat against his sternum and holds it there with both of his.

“I am so glad you could shift when you needed to, however you shouldn't have had to do that alone." He presses my hand against his chest. "But I'm proud of you."

Ander is at the edge of the light with his coat over his arm, close enough to be useful and far enough to be nobody's problem.

"You're hovering," I tell him.

"I'm remaining available."

"You can come here."

He doesn't move. "I'm good right here."

"Ander." I turn my left wrist over on the blanket, and the fourth arc catches the lamp. "You can stay. That doesn't settle everything."

His shoulders relax. He comes and sits on my right, but doesn't touch me, just stays.

"Your professor hasn't stopped watching you," he says.

"I know."

Jon is a few feet away with Doc's folder under his arm. He's been looking at me and he hasn't stopped.

I want more than this. I want a door shut, all five of them on the other side of it, and about nine uninterrupted hours. My body has extremely firm views, but my shoulder has veto power and exhaustion is starting to win.

"What?" Torres says.