bakerstreet | Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire

Mutual Healing Shipping Meme

Healing doesn't come quickly, whether the need comes from physical or mental wounds. But you're trying regain your strength - and yourself.

People, as a general rule, are kind, or at least not outright inflammatory to you, it seems. Still, you just can't connect with them. No matter how nice, how caring, they don't understand. They've never experienced anything like what you've gone through, or they're not like you in a way that lets them see what you still go through; they have no frame of reference. Sure, they have sympathy, but it's not the same. So there's no real connection, despite any friendliness. It's so easy, then, to feel detached...

...until you meet them, in this place of both death and healing.

They may not have been through the exact same struggles, they may not be exactly the same as you, but they know what darkness is light. How they handle this fact may be better or worse than how you do, yet you can see yourself in their actions. And for once? There's connection; more than that, too. Slowly, you can feel yourself opening up towards them, and then, falling for them.

Is this something your used to? Will you fight your feelings, or will you jump at the opportunity to be with someone who can begin to get you? You may have little choice in the matter, as your instincts may just reach out to be with whatever compatible contact you can get. That's better, in the long run, though. Who else could have wounds like yours?

Essentially, it's what it says: a "romance," in the loose definition, or "shipping" meme for characters who have been through the wringer or have hangups.
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She trembles a little when he kisses her forehead, so tender that she very nearly breaks down all over again. She closes her eyes to ward the tears off, and though her lashes grow damp again, no more fall down her cheeks. She's as aware as he that they should get up, but it takes her a moment, too, to bring herself around enough to move so much as another inch away.

But eventually, the sounds of the station start to intrude, and even though she finally has the luxury of not caring what they look like or who sees them, she sniffles again and draws back with a watery smile, absently wiping at her face again. She picks up the horse from where it's fallen to rest on the bench between them, pressing it back into his hand, then closing hers over it. "Okay," she says softly, feeling her legs steady underneath her. She picks up her bag with her free hand, looping the strap over her shoulder. "Show me?"

It hits him, when he takes her hand (and he'd offer to take her bag, but those are her only possessions in the world right now besides Tommy himself and he knows he hadn't wanted to hand those things off to anyone) and starts guiding her to a little stall in the corner that's selling warm pretzels and coffee: this is the first time they don't have to worry about being locked up, or worse, just because they're holding hands in the open.

It makes him feel impossibly strong and certain, and he smiles brilliantly at her as he tugs her along. Buys her something with the money his family has been sending him (his family, who knows about Nina, who knows why he hasn't come home yet even if he really, really ought to have done), watches her eat and drink and warm up. People around them don't even look at them anymore, and he looks amazed at it.

Her strength, as always, is a quieter one. She lets him lead her by the hand, lets him buy her meal -- even leans into him a bit as she tears off pieces of pretzel and sips her coffee. She's more than happy to let him take care of her. Her strength is in her ability to adapt: the way she seems to already have just flowed into this new city, new life, without much of a second thought. She glances around at the crowd as they pass through it, but it doesn't seem to faze her. It's not because she's overwhelmed by them that she stays pressed up against him; it's because she needs to feel him there, and would even if they were standing comfortably in the middle of Vladivostok.

She meant what she'd written: she doesn't care anymore what happens next, if it happens with him.

She smiles at him over the rim of her cup, surer, happier now that the initial teary shock has passed. Now her eyes aren't just glassy, but shining. "It's good," she assures him, offering him a bit, like it's important that he know this about what is, technically, their first meal together.

"It is." Honestly, he's not noticing the food, or the coffee- he's just looking at her from up close, smiling at her like he's watching her eat the finest meal in Europe, not a pretzel from a cart. He presses a light kiss to her temple and throws back his coffee in one go.

"Your trip- how was it?"

"There isn't much to say about it," she admits, leaning into him again, reaching for his hand. "A blur. I slept most of the way." She had thought to try to stay awake, to watch the countryside go by -- but at this point, she really couldn't be more sick of the German countryside, and she wanted to be wide awake to look for him if it hadn't been so easy.

She hesitates, then tries to ask again: "How long?" He's been here long enough to have lodgings, to get money... How long has he been waiting here for her?

He threads his fingers through hers, rubbing his thumb against the inside of her wrist. He's still exhilarated at getting to hold her hand in public, at having her here at all- he's a total contrast to her, not natural at all.

"Four and a half weeks," he replies, squeezing her hand once. "My family's- sent me money to stay here."

Which means both that he had enough faith in her to wait here for over a month, and that surely, his family must know why. She feels, suddenly, like a leaky faucet, because she very nearly starts to get weepy all over again. "Tommy--"

She manages to fight off any further tears, but she drops his hand to wrap both her arms around the one of his nearest her, pressing her face briefly into his shoulder. Even when she looks up again, she keeps walking like that, clasping his arm tightly.

"I'm sorry," he says, weakly- unsure of why she's crying, what he's apologizing for. He pulls her into a little corner to wrap his arms around her anew. The mere fact that he gets to comfort her physically, instead of waiting weeks for a letter to arrive, makes him unashamed about doing this right now.

"You're here now, eh?"

She nods into his shirt, returning the embrace tightly, though she doesn't need to linger in it this time as she had before. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting so long," she murmurs, explaining as she draws back to look at him. She reaches up to clasp his cheek briefly. "But thank you." For waiting, for being here, for trusting her.

"Let's go--" She hesitates. Go home isn't right, when she knows this is just a stopover, but there's nothing she can think of in either language that feels more right. "Let's get away from all these people," she decides instead, linking her arm through his now. "Show me where you've been while you've been waiting?"

He nods, feeling new tears sting in his own eyes, but he's able to shake them off with a smile and a squeeze to her arm.

"Mostly here," he quips, weakly but with intent. "It's a small walk. Close to the station- convenient. It's small, but my landlady's nice. French."

Mostly here, he says, and she glances around and gives a little shiver, squeezing his arm in turn. She can't imagine how lonely it must have been--

No, she can imagine it exactly, because she had been just as lonely in the camp hospital, fighting her own ravaged body and trying to hold onto scraps of letters in her mind until she was well enough to write new ones. She had been lonelier still in the days before the letters, so sure then that she would never see or hear from him again, so sure that there was no one left for whom her life held any value at all.

"Show me," she says again, a little more adamantly, urging him to a faster walk. "You can teach me French when we get there," she tries to joke, though her voice doesn't quite carry the humor. In a crowd like this, they could both still be lonely; alone together, they can both be so much happier.

He laughs softly, curling her closer against him as he walks.

He's renting an attic room in a small house in an alley- it's small within small within small, and it's not the best part of the city. He holds his arm tightly around her, though, wants to protect her even as he usher her up the stairs.

It's just a room- a single bed pushed against the wall, a dresser, a bowl for water on top of that. He has his military-issued bag standing in one corner, still packed. It's bare, of course, but it's cozy enough for such a small space. He closes the door behind him, and then-

They're alone. They're finally alone, and they're not in the woods, they're not scared.

It's perfect. Not for forever, but for right now, it's all they need: a door, a lock, a roof over their heads, and a place to sleep. It's so quiet and calm here that it feels almost like a dream; like she might open her eyes and still find herself in her hard little cot in her old camp room, with nine other girls packed in around her like sardines. She stands in the doorway with him, though, looking all around, and the seconds pass, and nothing happens but dust motes floating through the air, illuminated by the pale light from the window.

She lets out a soft sound, not quite a laugh, but just as happy. She lets her bag drop to the floor, then slips the horse into her coat pocket and quickly unbuttons it, allowing for just the slightest nicety of hanging it from the doorknob. Underneath, she's wearing a dress he knows well: the same one that had gotten soaked that first night in his barracks. She smooths it down, then turns to him, smiling helplessly.

He's tempted, at first, to joke around a little more- ask her what she thinks of his little palace, whether it was what she expected. But the words dry up on his tongue when he seems that smile, and he softens immediately and takes a few steps back towards her.

His hands rest on her waist comfortably, so familiar. "I remember this dress," he whispers, smiling, and then another step closer: "I want to kiss you, now, very badly."

She shivers a little as his hands find her waist, as if not a day had passed since he'd last touched her. There are words forming on her lips, maybe something about the dress in turn, but they die in her throat when he whispers that. For a second, just a split second, something murky and worried flashes through her eyes.

He has to know, she thinks, what she's been doing in his absence. He must know how she's been literally making her living. She knows he must, but the thought still makes her hesitate, suddenly guilty, because she's never actually told him. Should she--?

She bites her lip, then goes up on her toes to kiss him once, very softly, very sweetly, her hands coming to rest on his chest. "Could we..." For once, she struggles with the words. "I'm not... like I was before." She glances up into his eyes, uncertain. "I need a little time."

When he sees that worry he doesn't expect her to kiss him at all. This- he got carried away, and he knows it. He knows, rationally, what must have happened to her, but since he doesn't know the details it's still possible to ignore most of it.

He ignores it even now, preferring to rest a hand on her cheek and nod. "I don't expect a single thing from you, Nina. I won't do anything you don't want."

If there is something else than love and trust in his eyes, it's because he's thinking very briefly of the people who have changed her, and what he would like to do to them.

Another little shiver when his hand meets her cheek, though her eyes stay fixed on his, watching the minute changes in them intently. She has to know: if he understands, if he knows, if he's disappointed, if he's angry -- and with whom, if so.

She's not quite as confident as she wishes she were in what she sees, so she moves her hands up to clasp his jaw between them, speaking earnestly, if softly: "I want you," she whispers. "I want to make love with you." And she does, she does. She remembers how good it was before, how much better it could be now that there's no part of her trying to stay detached from him, now that they have no distractions between them.

She does, just-- "Just-- slowly?" she pleads.

He leans down to press the softest kiss to her forehead, both of his hands now on her cheeks.

"We can wait, love," he whispers, surprising himself by calling her that. "I missed it terribly, but I missed you more. Eh?"

She cannot let herself start crying again for the -- third? fourth? -- time in less than two hours, so she closes her eyes and breathes deep until the urge passes, sliding her hands past his jaw to wrap around the back of his neck and hold him close.

"I didn't want anyone else," she murmurs once she trusts her voice to be steady; a tacit admission of the thing neither of them are exactly putting to name. "I thought about you every time. The way it was back by our tree..."

But maybe it's cruel to remind him of that when she's also temporarily denying it to him, so she trails off, makes herself smile as she opens her eyes and looks back up at him. "I love you very much, Tommy Shelby," she whispers. "I love you more than I can say." The time for apologies between them is past, maybe, but she makes this as much of one as she can: for this, now, and for keeping him waiting, and for everything she's put him through in between.

He very, very briefly lifts her up, playfully, to make her stop tearing up like that- but the effort is ruined when she says that, and worsened still when she tells him she loves him. He ducks his head and presses his nose against her temple, hitching in short breaths.

"I- love you too, Nina Sergeevna Krilova."

He's practically whispering as he says it, for the first time. He feels infinitely tender right now.

There was a time, once, where this had been something of a game for her. Not that there had been much that was funny about her old relationship with Tommy -- not that she had ever enjoyed playing him the way she had -- but it had been a little challenge for herself, a way of pushing herself at work. Could she make him say it without her doing the same? In a way, she had: I fell in love with you, he'd told her back in that little room, in a voice she'll never forget. It had been an accusation, then, and it had hurt like one.

Now, the games are past, too, and she wants so badly to make sure he knows that truth. Something to offer for all the pain she's caused him. Repentance in the form of confession.

She does kiss him now, tipping her chin up and nudging his down to catch his lips, still soft, but not so brief this time. She lingers there, savoring the sensation.

His hands fall to her shoulders and he sighs against her mouth before kissing her back- just feeling the pressure of her lips against his, where she's soft and where there's chapped parts, and reveling in both. His eyes slip shut while they kiss, and that way he can smell her, feel her warmth much more acutely.

The lack of pressure, both literally and figuratively, settles her nerves a little bit. It lets her try kissing him again, a little more deeply, moving in a little bit closer to him. She traces her fingers over his jaw, very slowly, mapping his features out with her hands anew. Is he different? Is he the same?

His lips feel the same on hers, she thinks gratefully, even if there are differences now. She sighs softly, breath warm against them.

He is more scarred, now, and his hands are less calloused than they were before- softer when he takes one of her hands to stroke his fingertips over her knuckles. He kisses her bottom lip once, then pulls away, smiling.

"I love you," he says, with more certainty this time, needing her to understand.

"I know," she whispers, curling her fingers into his grasp, leaning in to rest her head beneath his. "How could I not?" When he'd written to her, waited for her, stayed for her. When from his first letter, she had seen the scratched-out marks of My dearest--

She thinks of something else from those early letters and smiles suddenly. "If I remember correctly, the real question is, do you like me?" she asks, a wry, teasing note creeping into her voice.

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