I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
He is not privy to her thoughts.
But if he were, certainly he would have done everything in his power to chase them away.
Certainly he would have tried to prove her wrong.
She is not the one at fault here.
He is.
But he knows nothing of the web they have weaved for themselves. He knows nothing of the chaos they will become. For the moment, there is only perfect stillness as she ducks her head into the heat of his chest and listens to the strong, steady heartbeat underneath. He presses a series of chaste kisses into the tangles of her forelock and then heaves a steady sigh.
He does not notice there daughter’s blood or her tears until Adna reels her in. He should go to her, take some responsibility, kiss away her tears in the same way that her mother does. But he remains. He watches instead, as if he might somehow learn something from the way they interact.
Gospel hates the tears that she cannot stop. She does not know that they are born from exhaustion just as much as her first bitter betrayal, her mother choosing this stranger over her. She cannot know just how tired she is until her mother kisses her cheek and her eyes fall heavy closed. She has not eaten, swallowed only the blood that pooled in her mouth, but she lets her knees buckle anyway. She settles into the cold space at her mother’s feet and lays her weary head on her own knee, finds some comfort in the heat of her own skin.
She doesn’t know what love is and she doesn’t think that it matters, whatever it is. It is this she thinks about as she falls asleep and dreams about blood and flesh and the bitter taste of anguish.
“I think she hates me even more than you did,” he murmurs, quiet, one corner of his mouth tied up in a smirk despite how viciously the truth smarts.
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
