He is sleeping. The white line in his hair stares at me. Where his brain rebelled and he almost left me. Yet here he is, in our bed, in our shuttle (“… just keep it ready for when I need it and I won’t be charging rent …”), next to me.

Why me?

Why not me?

What makes him love me?

I’m broken. Cracked.

Crazy as all crazy can be.

Lunatic assassin.

Yet he sleeps with me. Stays with me.

Loves me.

Me.

Why? What in the gaps between my molecules does he see?

When the days are hard and I can’t get the words out, let alone make sense to anyone listening, he holds my hand.

When Simon has to give me drugs (hateful, makes the world squishy, pick at the edges and see if it bleeds) and I sleep for hours, he holds my hand.

When the days are good and I can play and run and live and love, he holds my hand. (“…day is a vestigial mode of time measurement, based on solar cycles. Not applicable. I didn't get you anything …”)

When we tuck Caleb into his bed at night, our son, the fruit of our loins, he holds my hand.

And my heart.

I should buy him roses. Sprinkle them over the shuttle. Or ammunition. He would be happy with either, although not admit it about the roses.

We have seen so much, done so many things, and more to come, I wonder at his tenacity. He would call it being stubborn, and be truthful, but there is more. So much beneath the surface shinyness he wears. When he was bad he was determined to be the best bad he could be, and now he is good he is better.

I can’t help myself – I smile. Like the roses, he would never admit to being good. Then I will amend myself. He is … mine.

His chest is rising and falling as the oxygenated air passes in and out of his lungs, his heart beating slowly and sending life through him. I can feel it as my hand tangles in the hair across his pectorals, slicing time into manageable portions.

Those muscles make me weak, and I am not weak. He showed me how to be strong, how to overcome, and if I can’t be