If I can stop one heart from breaking
If I can ease one life the aching
If I can ease one life the aching
As soon as the door opens and he looks up instinctively, Harper knows his own single-minded focus has triggered the wrong reaction in his partner. Even before her tremulous words fill the space between them, he is rising and abandoning his tea, skirting around the table to gently take the bags from her arms and deposit them on the floor. Taking her hands he squeezes them gently. "No, no, nothing like that. I was just stuck in my head." He has learned the lingering veins of trauma in her mind through years of learning her, and Harper gently pulls her forward to sit her down in one of the dining chairs. Kneeling in front of her, changing his plans on the fly as was his strongest skill.
"It's nothing bad. At least...I hope not." Harper sucks in a deep breath and exhales it slowly. He had wanted to build up a little to the topic, but he also can't afford to let her fear ruminate. His own comfort has to be forsaken. "While in Torchline I've been visiting with Maeve and her son Edmund. She told me you helped with his birth?" Leading with the question to hopefully distract her with thinking back to that time, prompting responses to get her talking. "I don't -" exhaling in a huff of frustration as his words fail him, he leans forward and presses his forehead to her hands, chilly from the cold outside. It's easier to say when he's not looking into her face, stricken and pale for the wrong reasons. "I'll just...say it. I want to know what you think about...about starting a family? With me?" With his eyes closed and bowed over her hands, it's like he's just practicing the words again, as he had been for days now.
"It's nothing bad. At least...I hope not." Harper sucks in a deep breath and exhales it slowly. He had wanted to build up a little to the topic, but he also can't afford to let her fear ruminate. His own comfort has to be forsaken. "While in Torchline I've been visiting with Maeve and her son Edmund. She told me you helped with his birth?" Leading with the question to hopefully distract her with thinking back to that time, prompting responses to get her talking. "I don't -" exhaling in a huff of frustration as his words fail him, he leans forward and presses his forehead to her hands, chilly from the cold outside. It's easier to say when he's not looking into her face, stricken and pale for the wrong reasons. "I'll just...say it. I want to know what you think about...about starting a family? With me?" With his eyes closed and bowed over her hands, it's like he's just practicing the words again, as he had been for days now.
I shall not live in vain
HARPER
