Chapter Text
It’s daybreak when she and Callum wake, and for the tenth day in a row…Rayla isn’t sure what they are.
But…it’s okay now, she thinks, lovesick like she’s been since dawn, looking at him lying there beside her—so very handsome, so uninhibitedly happy.
She may not know what they are—not a thing like they’d been before, not the couple the innkeeper had teased last night, probably not even lovers for long now that it’s morning—but it’s more than just trust that he still holds for her, more than just keeping her comfortable and at home there at the castle, more than just wanting her safe and happy and here.
Whatever they are…Callum loves her.
She knows that much at least, from the familiarly-fond haze in his stare, the slight, sideways smile he’s had since sunrise, the comforting weight of his bare chest against her back, the echo of his hands and lips and body on hers last night, showing her so…
He loves her—still.
…even if he can’t quite say it again just yet.
But…that’s okay too, Rayla thinks, content as she nestles in closer under his heaviness, deeper into the same cozy embrace they’d slept in all night.
It’s okay if things aren’t quite the way they were before.
They will be—she’s sure now—and, in the meantime, if this is what their whatever-they-are is going to be like—waking up with Callum lying here beside her, all warm and naked and happy—then…
Yeah, it’s definitely okay, she thinks, interrupting their sleepy-still peace only to brush a sleep crusty from his face, only to press her lips to the soft corner of that lazy smile that’s been beaming back at her all morning, only to sigh as those pretty, grass-green eyes blink slowly shut then open again.
She doesn’t need to know what they are.
He loves her: that’s all that matters, all she wants, all she can ask for.
Things won’t stay like this, though—not right now, not while he’s still hurting beneath this little bit of bliss. The inevitable weird-and-awkward is just waiting for them once they get out of bed—Rayla knows that, of course—and so she leaves her forehead resting against his, determined to make this last as long as he’ll let it.
It’s okay.
They’ll be fine.
Just…not yet..
This won’t last…but they’ll have it all back before long, she tells herself. He just needs time—that’s what he’d said last night, anyway—and who is she to deny him that when she’d stolen away two years worth? So what if it’s a little weird for a while still? So what if he can’t forgive her quite yet? So what if she has to go back to missing the way they were for a little while longer?
Ten days to get over two years is nothing—obviously—so she can deal with weird-and-awkward, especially knowing now what she hadn’t been so sure of since she’d come back:
He loves her
This is what he wants.
That’s all that matters.
He wants to sleep close like this, his bare rune-marked arm slung across her back, the both of them over-warm from being so close, his palm a little sweaty on her skin…
He wants to stare at her like this, still and silent since sun-up, the both of them totally surrendered to the same lovestruck, smitten flush…
He wants to stay like this, just as badly as she does, she thinks, convinced by the streak of bright sunlight through the window and the both of them still decidedly in bed…
But, of course, there’s breakfast, and Bait and Stella, and the Bookery, and that early start they’d promised themselves…
…and—for the first time all morning—Callum stirs.
He yawns to match her sigh, his slack fingertips falling lightly across her shoulders, and she watches him, her beaming halfway buried in her pillow, not even minding his morning breath all that much. His eyes squint and water just a little, his dark hair rumples against the bedspread, his flushed cheek squishes into his pillow…and her heart skips a beat as his warm hand curls around her arm. He draws her gently in, even closer, his touch just as tender and sweet and sure as the night before…
Her pounding heart settles to a dull ache, though.
This is it.
His warm lips on her brow are just prelude to words, and, any second now, he’ll say they ought to get up. In a minute, he’ll go wash up, and she’ll get ready for breakfast, and…that’ll be it.
His thumb drags delicately across her skin…and it’s less like wanting.
It…feels a lot like farewell.
Just…for now, though. Just for a little while, she thinks, reminding herself:
He loves her.
He won’t say it, but he does, and…their whatever-they-are will be just fine—eventually—even if it’s back to weird-and-awkward for a while now.
The kiss on her forehead hadn’t been farewell enough, apparently, though. Callum nuzzles against her temple too, sighing a slow, deep breath in her hair, and Rayla flushes as his hand presses to the small of her back. His lips drop softly—sweetly—to kiss lower, at her cheek, at her jaw, at the corner of her mouth…
And…it’s their last, she reasons—or at least their last kiss for a while—so she doesn’t hesitate to push up to her elbows to meet him, the sheet pooling at her waist, her tongue pushing between his lips. She lets herself replay last night behind her closed eyes, lets herself shiver at his taste in her mouth, lets herself imagine straddling his warm body like she hadn’t…
He won’t deny her, she thinks, trying to convince herself that it’s hardly seducing him when they’re both already nearly naked…but after just a few too-good-to-be-true seconds, Callum pulls away.
“We should probably, uh…” he starts, eyes darting to the door as he sits up, leaving her lips parted and wanting as she watches all those self-imposed boundaries go right back up.
Immediately she misses him: his morning breath in her face, his sweaty hand on her back, his messy hair all tickly against her forehead…but he needs time, she reminds herself.
They’ll be fine, just…not yet.
She nods, sitting up all the way to match him, clutching the bedsheet to her chest: “Yeah, uh…we probably should.”
Rayla hesitates there as he withdraws to the other side of the bed, acutely aware of the inches he’s put back between them. A harsher ache settles in her chest, seeing tension tighten across his shoulders, seeing red spread down from his neck, seeing his brow knit…but she forces herself not to follow him.
She knows he needs time, knows she’s the reason for all the weird-and-awkward anyway…so she stays put, nevermind how badly she wants to follow.
If she just…touches him, though, he’ll relax again, she thinks, knowing his firm shoulders would melt, knowing his blush would be hot to the touch, knowing his forehead would unfurrow itself under her fingertips, but…
He needs time.
She stays put.
He doesn’t, though…and she can’t help the flutter of relief in her chest, seeing him turn back to face her, realizing he’s reaching for her again.
“Hey…it’ll be okay,” Callum says, low and comforting,…which means she must look as heartbroken as she feels, Rayla figures. This has to really be it, she knows…so she leans right back in, heartache soothed for at least this brief moment. Gently, he cups her face in his palms, pressing his forehead to hers, no care for how the covers fall away, and tells her exactly what she’s been repeating to herself all morning: “I still need some time, Rayla, and we probably need to talk—really talk—but…we’re going to be okay, alright?”
She answers him with a nod, then a kiss—just one more—and shudders as his hand falls from her cheek to her chest, gasping away when his fingertips ghost across sensitive skin, humming contentedly in hopes he’ll linger…
“I, uh…well, I wouldn’t let myself do this…all of this,” Callum stammers a little, and she gets the feeling that he can’t help how he looks down at her bare skin, that it’s an effort to pull back the hand that’s drifted down, over her breast…but he remembers himself. His hand goes to her waist, his eyes finding hers. “If we weren’t…well, I mean—if I didn’t…”
Callum trails off, blushing…but she knows.
If he didn’t love her.
“I know,” she says, breath catching as his fingers fall ticklishly away from her ribs, seeking out her hand to hold instead.
“I wouldn’t lead you on, I promise. I…couldn’t hurt you like that, Rayla.” His grip pulses tight before he starts tracing her knuckles with his thumb, eyes wide and sincere and…apologetic, she thinks, bothered that he’d found a reason to even look sorry when she’s the one who’d messed all this up.
Of course he wouldn’t hurt her—
“I know you couldn’t, Callum,” she answers, tugging their joined hands to her lips.
—but she had hurt him.
Rayla catches his thumb mid-stroke with a kiss, flipping their hands so she can kiss every other finger too, lingering for a full breath at each in every beat.
“But...I know that I hurt you. I lied, and I left, and I…I let you down, but I’ve loved you the whole time, Callum. I meant it last night—and in the letter, and at the Nexus, and every single time I’ve ever said it—”
She fixes a finger to his lips before she says it again: she doesn’t need an answer.
“I love you, Callum, and I’m—”
And I’m so, so sorry.
That’s what she’d intended to say…but his lips find their way around the silence she’d insisted upon, and he kisses her, hard and soft all at once—pressing her back against the headboard, his hands feather-light in her hair, lips firm against hers, his breath a gentle sigh when he breaks away.
“I know,” is all he says, eyes piercing and warm, apologies replaced now with understanding…and he understands, of course, because he’s known that from the beginning—since last night, since she’d shown up again, since the Nexus, since the start.
She doesn’t need to say any of it—nevermind that she should—because he knows. He knows she loves him, knows she’s sorry, knows she wants everything he’s willing to give. She says it anyway—
“I’m sorry, Callum.
—but it really doesn’t feel like enough.
He deserves more than that, she thinks, and more than this…whatever-they-are.
He deserves two years worth of mornings like this, and last night on loop. He deserves love notes in the margins of his sketchbook, and a listening ear to let him ramble, reciting terrible, cheesy poetry and recapping every single book he reads. He deserves the same unwavering trust and truth he’s given back to her so quickly, so readily, so completely, and every single ounce of the affection she’s saved up for him. He deserves someone he can lean on for a hand or a laugh or a hug, and—
He’d deserved to have her here.
…and Callum understands all that too, obviously.
He just nods, his sweet, handsome face all frowny again…and she doesn’t expect to be forgiven, not with how tortured—how conflicted—he looks.
He’s not ready.
He needs time.
…and that’s okay.
They’ll be fine, she repeats. Just…not yet.
Even if he loves her, wants her, trusts her…last night can’t undo two years, obviously.
She can accept that.
Still, it’s painful, seeing the misty chill flash in his eyes, hearing the edge in his voice when he finally repeats himself:
“I know,” he says, and she’s about to touch his cheek, hoping he knows how much she means it, but—
There’s a knock on the door…and it's reflex. They spring apart like they’re fifteen again—her under the covers, Callum to his feet—before the innkeeper explains, calling out to announce their much-discussed free breakfast, ready in the dining room.
And…this is it. Really it, Rayla realizes as the flash of panic fades for the both of them.
Callum shuffles away, startled into separating too soon, and the heartache’s even sharper than before with the why for all the weird-and-awkward just laid bare like that, raw and unresolved…
He stops short, though, turning, clothes in his arms, halfway across the room already…and softens. His voice a low, gentle balm for the hurt she knows she’s caused them both, he repeats himself, just one more time:
“I know.”
All the care and concern he can’t seem to help but hold for her rings true as ever, and he smiles, eyes heartachingly shiny and bright, clearly struggling to say more, but…
She knows.
He doesn’t need to say it.
He loves her.
He needs time.
Callum stalls a moment longer, just until she smiles sadly back, just until she nods—just until he sees that she understands—before slipping away into the washroom…and Rayla sighs.
She ought to get ready too, for breakfast, and Bait and Stella, and the Bookery…
…and getting back to whatever-they-are.
—
It’s definitely weird again when Callum comes out of the washroom fully dressed, holding the rest of her abandoned clothes, his face bright red and his eyes on the ceiling…
And it’s definitely awkward again, how he swivels around to stare at the wall while she pulls her pants on, fastens her collar, fixes her hair…
But…it’s okay, Rayla reminds herself.
They’ll be fine.
Just…not yet.
It’s not so bad, anyway, being back to their weird-and-awkward whatever-they-are.
He still takes her hand, at least, once he’s done blushing in the corner—all adorably sweet and dorky—and she could get used to walking down long corridors hand-in-hand like this, like before…
The hand-holding is an act, though, of course, she realizes as they round the corner for breakfast, greeted immediately by another good-natured comment calling them a couple. Callum squeezes her hand—tight and warm and reassuring—and she understands now, remembering how she’d wondered about what it’d meant last night: he doesn’t want to embarrass her, of course.
But…that’s okay, too.
She knows now.
Callum loves her.
He just needs time.
So, it’s fine when he drops her hand, even knowing he probably won’t take it again.
There’s breakfast to eat, anyway, and Bait and Stella there to scoop up, and the Bookery that they were meant to leave for at dawn, she tells herself.
Things are hardly weird-and-awkward at all, actually—not like Rayla had thought they’d be, at least. Sure, it’s an effort, keeping herself together when his knee touches hers under the table, and sure, it’s not easy, holding back from reaching for him…but knees and hands aside, it’s better now, actually, than it’d been, without all the guessing at how he’s feeling, without all the unexpressed regret and longing, without all the pent up wanting in the way of them being…them.
So, they talk—her teasing him over the elaborate list he’d made of roads and pathways they could take to the Bookery, mostly.
They eat—the most human, most Katolis-y breakfast she can imagine: some kind of bread, of course, all layered up with everything else in between.
They laugh—over Bait’s grumpy early-morning groans, over the little star soap she’d kept for Stella, over both the pets piling pastries in a portal for later…over everything.
And…it’s okay—more than okay—even if there’s a long pause here and there when they’re tempted to drift closer again, even if Callum gets super weird-and-awkward over her mention of telling Ez about the sandwiches at the inn—for some reason?--and even if things still aren’t exactly the way they’d been before.
It’s okay.
He just needs time, she tells herself again as they finish their food and gather their things, Callum’s hands decidedly to himself as they head out.
They’ll be fine,
Still, Rayla flinches at the innkeeper’s littler daughter whispering loudly, asking her mother about the prince and princess coming back. She flushes and freezes, about to correct her—
But, despite the weird-and-awkward, despite their whatever-they-are being whatever-it-is, Callum doesn’t hesitate with an answer, breezing right by with hardly even a blush, promising they’d be back…and Rayla beams the whole way out to their mounts, even more certain than before:
She doesn’t need him to hold her hand, doesn’t need him to kiss her, doesn’t need him to say it, even.
Whatever they are...
He loves her.
She knows.