“I failed.” The words fell blunt and absolute. “I gave the order that set events in motion, and I could not undo what followed. These scars—” He raised his damaged hand, studying it in the moonlight. “They are what I earned for that failure. A daily reminder of what occurs when I attempt to protect those who depend upon me.”
“That is not what they are.”
He looked at her, faint bewilderment crossing his face.
“They are not reminders of failure,” Eleanor said steadily. “They are proof that you tried. That you walked into fire for others. That you risked everything—your life, your future—for people you did not know.”
“It was not sufficient.”
“It was more than most men would have attempted.” She met his gaze, refusing to yield. “You bear this guilt as though you lit the blaze yourself. You did not. You were the man who sought to fight against it.”
Benjamin said nothing. In the wavering light, she saw something shift behind his eyes—some belief loosening, some long-held certainty faltering.
“I have never—” He stopped. Started again. “No one has ever said that to me.”
“Then no one has looked clearly enough,” she replied, squeezing his hand. “You are not monstrous, Benjamin. You are a man who made a decision amidst the confusion of war and has punished himself ever since for not possessing impossible foresight.”
His breath caught. She saw his control falter, the barriers he maintained trembling.
“Stay,” he said.
The word escaped him, raw and unguarded. Almost at once, something like alarm crossed his face.
“I did not mean—” He began to withdraw his hand. “Forgive me. That was improper. You should—”
“Yes,” Eleanor said.
He stilled.
“Yes,” she repeated quietly. “I will stay.”
***
She did not climb into the bed beside him.
That would have been too much—too swift, too far beyond the careful boundaries they had preserved. Yet neither did she leave.
Instead, she shifted, settling more comfortably against the headboard while remaining perched upon the mattress’s edge. His hand remained enclosed within hers, their fingers still interlaced, and she made no attempt to withdraw.
“You need not—” he began.
“I know.” She looked down at him—at this scarred, wounded, astonishingly brave man who had spent years persuading himself he was something far darker than he truly was. “I wish to.”
Something altered in his expression. Some last reserve yielding, some final defence falling quietly away.
“Why?” he asked.
It was such a simple question. Yet the answer lay tangled in emotions she had only begun to understand—feelings she had spent weeks attempting to name and failing.
“Because you remained with me,” she said at last. “When the cat frightened me in the corridor. When I spoke of my mother. When I lay wakeful and heard your footsteps pause outside my door.” She hesitated. “You remained—even when you had no obligation. Even when departure might have been easier.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
He had no answer. She watched him search for one—watched him attempt to construct some argument that would render his care duty and hers indulgence—and fail.
“I am not good at this,” he said instead. “At... accepting help. At allowing anyone to see—” He gestured vaguely at himself, at the sweat-dampened sheets, at the evidence of his vulnerability. “This.”
