I let my fingertips run lightly through his hair and over the slight lift of skin that would forever be a reminder of the things he had been through.

“How’s your head?”

He looked up at me, brown eyes tired and worn  “Much better.” His fingers danced along my bare chest, palm pressing to rest over my heart. He let his head lay next to it, his eyes closing as he got comfortable.

“So she fixed you? I mean they fixed you? For good this time?” my hand slid up and down his arm in an effort to comfort. I enjoyed being close to him, holding him, just existing without worry.

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment. His eyes opened and he stared out at nothing. I could see the thoughts mulling around behind those eyes. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Physically? I was feeling much better.

But mentally? I was a bit of a disaster.

“A little stiff, a bit achy, but I’ll live.” I watched his eyes dart to mine, searching for any sign of untruth.   

“Honestly.” I slid my hand over his back in reassurance.

He burrowed into my chest, shifting about and adjusting his body much like a restless child. He was just trying to get closer.

I chuckled, the sound deep in my chest and Mitch finally settled with a rather dramatic sigh as he found his comfy spot.

We were silent for a long while, and I was just about to doze off when his quiet voice brought me back to full awareness.  

“Do you hate me? Really?” He was hesitant. There was always such a hard edge to Mitch and yet such a soft innocence that it was hard to think of him as the dangerously unique being that he was. 

“Sometimes I think I do, but I don’t really. It’s them I hate. I hate what they’ve done to you, to us. I hate how they make me feel, that they make me think I hate you sometimes.”

“Sometimes I hate me too.”

“Babe…” I squeezed him tighter, but he kept on speaking.

“Sometimes I wish that they had never existed.”

“I wish they had never existed.” 

“No!” His head shot up to look at me as he protested.

I was baffled. After everything? After the pain? The years we’d never get back?

“But, look at what they’ve put us through ”

“If they had never existed I would never have met you. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in this world… not a normal life.. not anything.  I’d live those 6 years in hell all over again if it meant I could be with you. I hate myself for letting them get to you and I hate myself for what they did to you, but I’m not going anywhere ever again. I won’t ever leave you alone like that.”

I wanted to believe him, but hadn’t he told me before that he would never go away again?

Did I trust that? Not immediately. My trust is a hard thing to earn, especially since its been broken so many times before.

“I guess without them you wouldn’t even exist, huh.” I tightened my hold on him, trying to imagine a world where he'd never existed. What would my life be like?

“Maybe it would have been better that way.”

“Shhh… please don’t say things like that.” I reached out to caress his cheek, to run my fingers over his head lovingly. “We’re together now. You’re safe and we’re home.”

Mitch gazed into my eyes for the longest time, reading my expression. He stared for so long that I wondered if he could read my thoughts. If he ever developed that ability he never told me. He knew me so well, sometimes I wondered, but I never dared to ask.

After a moment he simply closed his eyes and held tightly to my body. I stared down at him, letting my eyes drink in every bit of him I could.

My Mitch. My beauty. MINE.

I know it sounds childish, but that’s all my mind could comprehend at that moment...a neverending loop of MINE, ALL MINE, all just for me.

My gift. Lord only knows I’d been through enough to deserve that moment.

We were happy…  content and serene.

I’d almost dozed off once again, my inner thoughts lulling me into relaxation, but a quiet voice made my eyes flutter open once again.

“Can we just stay here forever? In this room just like this?”

It was so sweet, so honest.  

I laughed just a little. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. He was too adorable and I squeezed the man tighter to my now grossly smaller frame.

“Sure, but we’d eventually starve to death, me much sooner than you and we’d start to smell. Also, I’m pretty sure a bathroom would be needed ”

The way Mitch wrinkled his nose was too much. Even in the most stressful times, he still found a way to make me smile, to make me forget all of the evil we’d encountered and all I could see was him.

Someone so lethal , so dangerous  

How could he be so...   

cute? Lovable?

Absolutely adorable? So damn gorgeous it took my breath away?

“It wouldn’t take you much longer to starve to death. I need to bake you a cake or two.”

“You can make me anything you want.”

“I’ll hold you to that ” He smirked as he nuzzled his nose beneath my chin, his eyelashes tickling my jaw-line as he repositioned yet again.

I let out a sigh, content in the feel of him there against me.

“We’re gonna be okay, right?” He whispered.

“Well, one things for sure.. I’ve been through the gauntlet to be able to be with you. Now you’re stuck with me for good!”

He laughed. His body shook slightly with his laughter and the corners of my own mouth couldn’t help but twitch up just a bit further.

“Good. Everything’s going exactly as planned.” he joked.

“I should have known it was all just a ploy to get me naked in your bed.”

“Is it working?”

I smirked and his brown eyes met mine with a mischievous look. That eyebrow raised just enough to make my stomach fill with butterflies.

Oh yeah, it was working.

______

We’d been home just over a week when I woke in the middle of the night. The nightmares had gotten better, but this one had been really bad. I reached for Mitch but I was met with nothing but cold, empty space. 

I sat up and looked around. The numbers 3:12 glared through the darkness from the digital clock on the nightstand.

I wondered where the hell my boyfriend was. I could hear hushed voices from down the hall. I pulled on my glasses and adjusted my pj pants before making my way out of the bedroom and towards the quiet noise.  It was coming from my office.

I definitely was not expecting the scene before me.

Mitch was in front of the computer screen, both hands clutching the armrests of the chair he was perched on, his knuckles white. His entire body was completely tense, and tears poured down his cheeks.

On the screen was me. The sounds I was hearing were me.

I was mumbling, pleading, crying, screaming.

This was footage from my stint in hell.

I didn’t know what to do. My eyes were glued to the screen as I watched myself speak complete gibberish before I'd let out another scream. 

This particular moment must have been during the first couple of weeks when I wanted to rip my skin off and every touch had been agony. I was connected to all kinds of machines and my hands clawed at my clothing and the tubes around me. 

I must have been delusional. I don’t remember saying anything. I don’t remember crying out for Mitch but there I was, screaming his name, begging for him to save me and in the next breath begging him to stay away. It was tough to watch, tough to listen to and I was the one who had lived it. The memories were like a punch to the chest. 

Why the hell was Mitch watching this? How the hell had he even gotten it.

“Mitchie…” I whispered.

He had been so in his own head he hadn’t even heard me come in. He quickly snapped out of it and turned the video off. He tried to wipe his tears away.

“Why do you have that?”

Mitch stared at me for a moment. I guess he didn’t know what to say. He sidestepped a bit and instead told me how.

“Arya had someone hack into their mainframe. We were trying to find out what exactly is inside of me. They needed to know what they’d done to make me the way I am and also how to fix me.

Before the take down we also needed to know where you were so I could get to you.”

His lip trembled again, the tears falling like rain. “When I saw what they had done to you…”

I took him in my arms as he threatened to fall apart.

“I didn’t know… I didn’t even know they had you until a week before we got you out. They didn’t tell me. They kept it from me until they’d figured out how to fix my headaches and even then until after I’d healed. I would have been there… I SHOULD have been there.”

“It’s over now. We’re ok. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It does! I was supposed to protect you. You don’t deserve any of this. I never should have left you. I should have just let them kill me…”

“No!" I took him by the shoulders holding him at arms length so i could bend a bit to look him in the eyes.! "Don’t you ever, EVER let me hear you say that ever again! NEVER.”

I pulled him back against me and held him in my arms as he broke down into sobs. I moved him over to the loveseat against the wall and he curled into me, letting out everything he’d been holding inside.

I hated having to be strong again, but I managed once again.

Eventually he began to calm and I decided I could continue.

“Babe, why are you still watching it?”

His eyes were so sad as he lifted his head to look at me. I hated seeing him that way.

“Because, it’s my fault you had to go through that. Now I need to watch it. I need to go through it too. It’s my fault.”

“Please don’t do that to yourself.”

“I have to. I have to do this.”

“No, no you don’t. Please.”

“It shouldn’t have happened! You shouldn’t ha-”

I put my fingers over his lips to stop him. “It happened. It happened and it can’t be helped now. But I need you to stop this. I need you to let it go so I can let it go. I need you get back in bed with me and hold me in your arms so I don’t slip into the nightmares again. I need you to help me heal, not damage yourself.”

He wanted to protest, I know he did, but he didn't.

“Please delete them… any of those videos, just delete them. I don’t want you to see me like that. I don’t want you to watch me be weak and vulnerable, broken and completely out of my mind. I want your memories of me to be better than that.”

“I deserve this punishment.”

“But I don’t.”

He sighed and his shoulders drooped as the fight left him. He nodded a bit and briefly took my hand in his, playing with my fingers before releasing me.

I watched as he got up and deleted the files. He hesitated, but he did it.

“That’s where you kept disappearing isn’t it, after I got shot. You were gone for hours.”

He nodded. “I watched a couple of hours a day. When we got home I watched while you were sleeping.”

I took his hand in mine again and kissed the back of it.

“That’s why you’ve been so tired and distant.”

He looked at the floor, almost as if he was ashamed that I had noticed.

“Come back to bed. Please. I need you. I need to hold you.”

He gave me the first tiny hint of a smile. I slid my hand along his jawline, my thumb slipping over the beginning hint of a dimple.

“I love you.”

“I love you more than anything.” He replied.

I knew he meant it.

As he curled up next to me I wrapped him tightly in my arms. He continued to quietly cry a bit more, but eventually his tears stopped and his body relaxed in sleep.

I knew that seeing myself on that screen would tempt the nightmares to return, but I could only hope that the tiny man in my arms would help chase them away.

I closed my eyes and held tight to the man who held my heart.

We would find our way back to the light... some day...