for Will

[notsocommon]

She hadn't meant to fall asleep. She'd been reading, a little, and then playing a game, and then she pushed the laptop beside her and stretched out on the bed, sleep falling over her.

She napped quite a bit lately and it bothered her; other than when she was pregnant with Ashley, Helen rarely slept. Here on the island she regularly got eight hours or more a night and, given Will spent most of his days busy with seeing patients and teaching classes, Helen found herself with a lot more available time than she normally ever had or wanted.

So she'd been taking to having long naps in her hut during the day, lest Will think her life rose and set on his schedule. She didn't want to seem desperate or clingy and push him away and trying to occupy herself had seemed the best idea.

...or sleeping. Either way.

Comments

[inabmovie]

When Will finished his day's work in the office, he didn't see Magnus anywhere. Not that he expected her to hang around or anything, especially now that the snow was gone. He didn't have anything else to do, so he went by her hut to see if she wanted to grab dinner.

He didn't expect to find her sprawled on the bed, half-dressed, as if she'd started to get undressed and found it too much effort before falling asleep. Her laptop was open beside her--Bejeweled, of course, she loved the damn game--and he closed it, setting it aside.

Will leaned over and stroked her hair softly. One gray hair caught in the early evening sun, silver in the fading light. He knew Magnus hated those, and plucked them out whenever she spied them; she mustn't have noticed this one yet. Will didn't care. Gray hair, brown hair, it was all the same to him, except that he knew that it stood for the loss of the immortality that had defined her for over a century, and that loss bothered her despite her saying to him before that she had lived too long, that her immortality was a curse. It was one thing to say that when she had it, and another to actually lose it.

[notsocommon]

Normally, having her hair stroked put her to sleep rather than woke her up but Helen had been sleeping lightly and the touch was enough to make her stir. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight as Will's face came into focus. Damn. She must have slept for hours if it was that late.

"Done already? Or just late lunch?"

[inabmovie]

"All done." He slid his hand into her hair a little, enjoying the feel of the soft strands against his fingers. He'd always been very tactile, but Magnus brought that out in him a lot, and he liked to find excuses to touch her. "Sleepyhead. Want dinner?"

[notsocommon]

"Not yet," Helen said thickly, still in the hazy place between sleep and wakefulness. "Stay for a little while? Don't want you running off again."

[inabmovie]

"I had a late lunch," he told her. "Not hungry." He toed off his shoes and stretched out beside her, tweaking her nose a little. "How was your day?"

[notsocommon]

"Nothing special. I beat my high score," Helen said, stretching as she tried to wake up a little. She rolled over on her side and propped on her elbow, watching him.

"What about yours? Anything exciting?"

[inabmovie]

"Exciting? No. Just a little draining." Sometimes his sessions with patients were like that; it was just part of the job. "Had a couple of appointments today, that's all."

[notsocommon]

"Lucky having patients," Helen said, laughing softly. "I should respecify so we can spend time together again. Not many surgeries, you know. None I get to do anyway."

[inabmovie]

"I guess people can manage to keep from getting hurt too much, but they can't help that this place screws with everyone's head a little," he said quietly. Will watched her for a minute, stroking her hair again, curling the ends around his finger. "It's hard on you, not having your work, isn't it?"

[notsocommon]

"I feel like I've been put out to pasture," Helen joked, but it fell flat. "I miss knowing I could make a difference in my world. Now I mostly laze about and grow older and more sedentary by the second. It's dreadful."

[inabmovie]

"I'd say you earned it," Will murmured, still toying with her hair. "There's no law that says you have to be working your ass off all the time." Will wasn't entirely convinced that they were going to be stuck here forever, so if she wanted to treat it like a vacation, he didn't see anything wrong with that.

"If you could do something here, what would you do?" he asked. "Doesn't have to be related to your work, just... anything." Weirdly enough, it was kind of the question he'd asked Peter earlier today.

[notsocommon]

"Hmm. Something just for me," Helen said, mulling it over. "I'd grow a garden or learn to make jewelry or work with the children who don't have parents. No medicine, no research. Something I might not be amazing at, but that I'd work hard toward becoming amazing. Does that make sense?"

[inabmovie]

"Then you should do that," Will suggested. "Think of it as a vacation. You've worked more in your life than most people would in three, and you never had time to do any of that stuff just for you. So do it now. Just do something you want to do for you."

[notsocommon]

"It's not a vacation, it's a gilded cage," Helen said, sighing wistfully. "I don't do well being idle. I used to only take a long weekend every seven years, you know. I hate this."

[inabmovie]

Will laughed a little. "One long weekend every seven years means you have a lot of stored up vacation time you need to take, then," he said. "Look, why don't you start with a garden? That'll give you something with a tangible product, something you can keep working with while you figure out what else you want to do."

[notsocommon]

"Perhaps I will," Helen mused. "My sense of agency is gone. My identity was always wrapped up in scientist and mediator, never in just plain Helen. It's a difficult adjustment. I haven't been just Helen since I was a girl."

Helen shifted to stand, tugging her pajama bottoms back on. "I shouldn't have been napping either. Damn mortal body."

[inabmovie]

Will sat up, watching her. "Well, I didn't mean 'get out and start plowing right now'," he teased. "You okay?"

[notsocommon]

"You're off the clock," Helen warned before letting her face set into something approaching relaxed. "And I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm just testy because I don't get to see you as much and I just woke up from a nap. That's all."

[inabmovie]

"Technically, I'm always off the clock," he said. "No paycheck." He patted the bed beside him, inviting her to sit back down. He was a little worried about her; not to a panic-level degree, but enough to make him a little concerned. Her increased sleepiness could be due to several things: low iron or thyroid levels or even boredom, but he wanted to make sure it wasn't depression creeping in over her mortality and lack of purpose.

[notsocommon]

Helen settled, nervous energy leading her to tap her fingers against her thigh instead of straightening up as she'd intended.

"It really is nothing, Will."

[inabmovie]

He watched her restless fingers, took in the tone of her voice and her posture. "Really?" he asked quietly, and then just waited, watching her.

[notsocommon]

Helen sighed. "Sometimes I just feel like my life revolves around your schedule now. I miss you so much, because I have nothing to occupy me, and God forbid you got tired of me, you know?"

She gave him an awkward smile. "It's pathetic, isn't it? I'm used to having you to myself."

[inabmovie]

Will reached over and took her hand, squeezing a little. "Not pathetic," he said. "You're just adjusting. To a lot of things. And I'm not going to get tired of you... God, no. Not going to happen."

[notsocommon]

"Bit needy," Helen conceded, sliding closer and laying her head against his shoulder. "And a bit clingy. I apologize."

[inabmovie]

"It's an adjustment," Will insisted, sliding his arm around her shoulders. "Not needy, or clingy, or anything else. Not as far as I'm concerned, and since this just involves you and me..." He squeezed her shoulders a little.

"This whole relationship thing is still kind of new for us, so we're both getting used to it. It's a shift in how we look at each other. It might not slide perfectly into place, and that's okay."