(no subject)

She sat on the sandy shore, drawing her legs up to rest her chin on her knees, while Lyssa slept in the carrier beside her. She didn't look up when he sat beside her, and she didn't react when his arm went around her shoulders. After a moment he sighed, and his grip became more tentative, but he didn't take his arm away. "Talk to me." The request was made in a voice surprisingly soft; she shivered, and looked up at the sky, picking a star and not taking her eyes off it as she answered. "What about?" He shrugged. "Whatever it is that has you so quiet. I was expecting fireworks, I suppose. You were full of fight before." It was her turn to shrug. "That was before." "So what's changed?" "Nothing. Everything." He sighed, and fell silent. She stared out at the water and the broken, rippling reflections of the moon and stars.

When she spoke again, it was so softly that he had to strain to catch the words at all. They were, in fact, not for him at all; he just happened to be there. She seemed to have forgotten that he was there; she was talking to the sleeping baby, rocking the carrier gently and tucking in the edges of the blanket. "If you have to say it, then they don't really understand and never will. And if you say nothing, then it's your fault they don't understand." A little smile played at the corners of her mouth. "But that's how it goes, baby girl. That's the world I brought you into. You'll learn the rules. You'll learn how to keep them -- and when to break them. And I guess I will, too, hmm?" She dropped a kiss on the little forehead, wrinkled in sleep under the warm cap. "We'll learn together," she murmured. She turned back to him, then, and she was smiling.