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Title: Goodbye, Goodnight
Fandom: Post-Tawny Man Trilogy
Characters/Pairing: Fitz/Molly
Summary: Some vigils are kept more for oneself than for another.
I sit at the bedside and wonder what to do. I fold my hands in my lap. One of them twitches with the urge to reach out and tuck back his hair like a small child’s, and I turn it into a motion to brush back my own hair. The other hand reaches involuntarily out and touches his hand. I snatch it back fiercely, not wanting any contact. Not even for the little thrill it brings me. I don’t know what to feel. Horror? Surprise? Anger? Wonder? So many emotions demand my attention at once that I can only sit here, numb with the weight of the knot in my throat, clenching my hands so I do not touch his, toying with my own hair so I do not brush back his.
His face is harder than I remember. There are new scars, a broken nose, a slash down his face. I wonder vaguely where they came from. My hands ache with the need to trace the familiar lines of his face. I refuse that need, remind myself of Burrich, try to tuck my hair behind my ears and find cropped, ragged strands where once there was a thick, full mane. I should leave. How long, I wonder, has he spoken to my Nettle? How long has he known her? Does he know that she is his daughter?
I close my eyes and try to remember Burrich, but the images that come to mind are of him. Sitting beside me on a rocky beach. Making love to me in a servant’s room in the keep. Saying goodbye to me with so little resistance. How could he let me go so easily? I think bitterly. If he loved me at all, why did he let me go without a fight? Perhaps he has fought too much, for his king. Perhaps he did not want to fight for love. And perhaps I should have told him of a daughter. I wonder what happened to him, between the times I last saw him. He was killed, but he is alive. I do not understand anything. Thoughts swirl in my head. I remember going to bury a candle on his grave and I remember seeing a wolf in the distance, watching me out of yellow eyes. I remember Burrich coming to my door for the first time, with his kind words and strong hands and voice. I remember him weeping about Fitz’s death, months after he was declared dead in Regal the Pretender’s dungeons. Did he know, even then?
I brush at my eye with my hand and find that my other hand is clenched around his. I pull it away, ignoring my traitorous heart’s twinge of reluctance. Part of me wants to offer a prayer for him, to Eda, to El, to any who might listen. But more than half of me selfishly wants to shake him awake and scream Why? If you knew I had a daughter, why? Why did you abandon me? I bow my head and continue my vigil.
He sleeps deeply. Now he turns and murmurs something in his sleep. I catch the words Nighteyes and once, just slightly, my name. Molly. I shiver and stand up, not wanting to get to close to that word, whispered feverishly in a voice unused for too long from the throat of a man who might be dead for how deeply he sleeps. I pace for a few moments. I sit down, put my face in my hands, stand up, look out the window. I could ask the Queen. She might be able to tell me of the years I have lost. Stubbornly, I turn away from that. I will leave him. I have a new life, children. He is no part of my life, now. No part of it.
I wish I could believe that.
I glance back at the bed. Fitz’s eyes are closed, his lips slightly parted in some dream or memory, his brow harshly and deeply furrowed with lines of fear and worry. He cries out. I try not to wonder what it is he dreams of, and turn toward the door. I pause for just a moment, reach out, and lay a trembling hand on his forehead, brushing his dark hair away from his well-shaped face. He would have been handsome, once. He still is, now. I try not to think of that.
I walk away from him, half-hoping that he will wake and call me back. He does not stir. I turn and leave silently to find Nettle. It is time that I spoke to her of her father.
