[private] I couldn't utter my love when it counted; birthing

[bethlehem]

I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.

He does not believe her.
Not that he thinks her dishonest.
But he had seen the edge in her gaze, had heard the barbs on her tongue.
He does not push it, though.
He just takes what she gives him, swallows it down, and allows it to become his truth.

It’s fine, despite the way their daughter seethes and wedges space between herself and her mother. He thinks her fierce, unyielding. He gets this from her mother, certainly. He has always been steadfast, certainly, but never in the same way. He had never set his jaw and flared his nostrils in defiance. He had simply been unmovable.

She reaches for him and their daughter spits and hisses again. He watches her, the child, as she glowers. He had not anticipated the feel of Adna’s tongue, had not expected her to collect the venom in her mouth, and a vicious shiver steals down the ladder of his spine. It hitches his breath and she is gone before he can fully absorb what has happened.

Their relationship has not lacked in intimacy and it shows in the child watching them with narrowed eyes, but it feels like a secret, the way she touches him and then pulls away again so that she can mutter her apology into the space between them.

The corners of his mouth quirk upward in the ghost of a smile and he shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry,” he murmurs, the words thick and clumsy. He does not know if she is apologizing for touching him or for their daughter doing it to him in the first place, but he does not suppose it matters when the apology is not necessary to begin with.

BETHLEHEM

I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.