Christian rose and came to stand beside her chair, his movements slow, almost cautious. He looked down at the drawing resting in her lap.
Fiona watched his face as he studied it.
Surprise flickered there first. Then uncertainty. And then something softer—something very like wonder.
“You made it…” He hesitated. “You made it look…”
“Beautiful?” she suggested gently.
“Important,” he said at last, his voice scarcely above a whisper. “You made it look as though it belongs there. As though it matters.”
“It does matter.” She rose, holding the page between them. “It is part of you. And you are the subject of the portrait.”
He looked at the drawing again.
“This is how I see you, Christian,” she continued quietly. “Not in spite of it. With it. Whole, and exactly as you are meant to be.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he reached out and took the paper from her hands, holding it with surprising care, as though it were something fragile.
“I don’t…” He stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “I have never seen myself like this. In all my life, no one has ever…” He shook his head faintly. “I did not know it could look...”
He did not finish the thought. He did not need to.
Fiona stepped forward and slipped her arms around him. He kept the drawing carefully to one side as his other arm came around her, his face resting briefly against her hair.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you, Fiona.”
“You needn’t thank me,” she said softly. “I only drew what I saw.”
“That is precisely why I am thanking you.”
He drew back just enough to look at her. His eyes were bright, though there was no attempt to hide it.
“For seeing me,” he said. “Truly seeing me.”
She kissed him then—gently, with quiet certainty.
“Always,” she murmured. “I shall always see you, Christian.”
***
Later—much later—they hung the drawings in his study.
Hers was placed above his desk, where it would be the first thing he saw whenever he sat down to work.
“A reminder,” she said lightly, “of what I think of you.”
His portrait of her was hung on the opposite wall, where it would greet her whenever she entered the room.
“Now we can see each other,” she said, surveying their work. “Even when we’re apart.”
“I do not intend for us to be apart very often.”
“Neither do I. But the world has its claims.”
He slipped an arm around her, drawing her closer.
