Choking On Sapphires

44 Hold On (NSFW)

The sun was setting, giving it's last light through the windows behind you as you sat in your bed. The first extended amount of time you'd been left alone since Alfie had brought you back home.

He'd kept his word, staying with you all night. Having a protective arm around you when Claire inevitably came charging at you as soon as you walked in the front door, her voice loud and accusing and defensive. How could you put her through that? Why would you act like such a child? All valid and probably deserved questions, but Alfie holds his hand out, the other squeezing your upper arm as he keeps you moving towards your bedroom.

"She's had enough for tonight Claire, right?" he says in a strong tone. Claire blinks fast, taken back by his defense of you as she expected him to be even angrier than she was. "She's apologized, yeah? She's not herself, you should know her best to be able to recognize that." he scolds as he escorts you to your bedroom.

Claire stays back, still wanting to yell, still feeling hurt herself, but it all was just a side effect of her grief and her sense of failure for not protecting you through yours. She retires for the night, hitting the bottle hard and crying it out alone. As she usually preferred to do.

So Alfie is an absolute gentleman the whole night, through giving you a good scrub in the bath to wrapping you up in something warm and soft and having tea and biscuits taken to your room as he hops in your tub to have a bath himself after having the worry and sweat and grime of the city on him from chasing after you. You're exhausted, wiped out completely, full of warm tea and affection, you fall asleep beside him, you on your stomach, hand out holding his, resting near his thighs, fingers interlaced and pressed against your lips as they pout and hum as you sleep. He sits up and reads to help ease his nerves before he can also fall asleep.
He'd woken you up by brushing your hair back, a single kiss to your forehead announcing he was getting breakfast for you both and instructing you to stay where you were. You ate together, and he'd brought paperwork in with him to look over as you slept. You didn't want to be awake, you didn't want to think or do anything actually. Everything ached. Not just your body from the abuse of the night before, but your heart hurt, radiating out into your chest. Your brain throbbing, sluggish in its attempt to have normal functions as the heavy blanket of grief lay over it. He doesn't judge, he lets you rest, a warm hand touching you periodically on your shoulder and hip, a quick pat to let you know he was there and to check you were still alive as your breath was very shallow and your body still as a frozen lake. Tears fell silently, sometimes not so silently, his face falling when he'd hear the sniffles and see your ribs expand and shake while you purged your emotions. He never shushed you, merely lay a hand on your shoulder, and if you were awake and not crying in your sleep, you'd lift your hand to rest over his, finger intertwining for a moment as you'd let out a ragged breath in your attempt at composure. How would you have kept yourself in one piece during all this if he hadn't been around, you wondered?

Now with no Aggie, no Alfie in the room with you, you're sat up against the headboard, knees to your chest as your face is chilled from the cold night air coming through the windows to caress your damp cheeks. He's gone off to find a favorite book of his to read to you, having finished his work as you'd slept already and still not wanting to leave you alone he thinks perhaps it would be comforting to you to do such a thing.

So you have the bottle of wine upturned in his absence. The pain already creeping back up from your chest to your head again. Everything still hurt. You just wanted to feel something besides this pain. You're sad about Elizabeth, you're worried about your father, you're fearful of your feelings about Alfie. You're ashamed of what you did the night before. There are too many things weighing down on you at once and you just want to feel lighter, less defeated and to find a brief solace from this unbearable amount of pain that you feel in every level of your being.