meraki.

The Realization and The Choice

During the whole exhibition day at Villa Orsini, Anna had thought that all the tension and the hard work she had done would've been rewarded with an amount of sleep that would've made up for the one she had lost. 

That belief had only gotten stronger after her breakdown on the roof, when Harry had hugged her. She tended to sleep a little more soundly after discharging that many tears. So, for half of the afternoon, she had been anticipating the moment she would've gone back home, stripped down of all of her clothes and gotten into a comfy pajamas, only to climb in bed, next to Harry and hold hands with him - and perhaps talk a little about what had happened that day. 

Nothing had been farther from the truth. 

Dr. De Angelis' proposal to her had rained on her parade, fucked with her mind and managed to outshine everything positive that had happened that day. 

Anna didn't sleep one single second that night. She simply lied down on her side, facing a peaceful and beautiful Harry sleeping next to her, their hands tightly entertwined over the safety pillow, his long fingers almost reaching the base of her wrist. 

Her mind was too much of a mess to allow her to quiet it down and manage to get some well deserved sleep. 

Anytime she closed her eyes all she could see and hear and think about was the fact that each second, minute, hour that passed was one second, minute, hour closer to the moment she would've had to take a choice and communicate it to Dr. De Angelis. 

And the options were loud and clear - almost a little too much: accept, move to America, work in an unprecedented project that would've changed the way people would see and think of archaeology forever, and leave Harry back there or refuse the offer, search for a less spectacular and more ordinary job there that would've helped her pay her bills until she could've no longer stayed without people noticing she wasn't aging, but not leave Harry. 

And the rest of her friends, of course. 

To the naked eye, her choice was a simple and direct one: anyone who would've gave up that job offer was an idiot, reckless, irresponsible and with their head in the clouds, thinking they could've ever be able to find a job offer as good as the one that had been presented to her. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and the rational side of Anna was leaning towards it, telling her it would've only made sense for her to accept the proposal. 

It had been literal decades since the last time she had earned enough money to live comfortably and not have to worry about accomodation and bills for a while - it had been, approximatively, around the same time she had written her poetry book, the same one she had given to Harry on Valentine's Day. This was surely a huge factor to take into consideration when deciding what she would've done. 

Harry. 

She looked at him again, studying how the moonlight was dancing on the right side of his face, casting shadows over his cheek and playing tricks on her. 

Accepting the job would've meant saving his life, undoubtedly, because what better way to keep him alive than her living across the globe? None. 

Slowly she disentangled her fingers from his death grip, as silently as possible, to not wake him up. Harry groaned in his sleep and muttered her name, puffing his cheeks a little and pouting, and for a moment Anna feared that he would've woke up and whined loudly about the fact that their hands weren't linked. 

But the danger passed, and after a couple of long moments in which Anna held her breath, Harry was peacefully sleeping again, hugging the safety pillow to his chest, his forehead pressed into it.