thirty

Poppy

Someone was crying. Which was not unusual, except:

It wasn't her.

Usually, it was her.

A dark head was leaning against the mattress, shining black curls spilling over her sheets. She lifted her hand—she hadn't been able to do that before, had she? The man had tied her wrists together, then he had hit her so hard she had fallen unconscious. She lifted her hand and buried her fingers into that delicious hair.

Alexei jerked, turning his head.

His eyes were red and puffy, his face wet with tears. He sniffled and his eyes shone like twin lakes under the moon, water pouring out of them.

"Poppy," he murmured and his breath came short, stopping abruptly.

"Don't cry, you idiot," Poppy told him, and was at once seized by coughing.

Which might have been what she deserved for calling him an idiot first thing after dying, but she couldn't help herself: he was one. Immediately, Alexei leaped to hold her up with a hand on the nape of her neck.

"Breathe," he said, wrapping his other arm around her waist. "Your lungs are still fragile from being…from…"

"Now who is the one who is suffocating?" Poppy said.

"It's not funny, Wyatt," Hades gasped. He sounded as if he were in pain.

"We have been through so much, you and I, my lord," Poppy told him. "We have to start finding things funny at some point, or we won't survive our own memories."

"That may be so." Alexei sat back, still sounding far too serious, as he usually did, and fluffed her pillows. She leaned back into them gratefully. "But now is not the time for levity," he said.

"If not now, when?" Poppy whispered and finally, she got a small, watery smile out of him. He turned his head away abruptly. "Oh. You are angry with me," Poppy observed.

He was angry, that much was clear. And usually, when people were angry in her vicinity, it was with her: it was not a stretch of logic to draw that conclusion.

"What on earth did you just say?" Alexei thundered.

He wasn't angry: he was incensed.

"I realized, after you left, how weak I had been," Poppy explained. "I realized that what was being done to me…And by whom." She did not want to refer to her brother; she hated to even mention him. "But suddenly, it was so easy to stand up to him. It was the easiest thing in the world. I despise myself for not doing it sooner. For being so weak. And surely you must despise me too."

"Despise you?" Alexei's voice was a screech. "You cannot be serious. I've been worshipping the ground you walk on for weeks!"

A delicious shiver travelled down her spine, and Poppy looked down, hiding her face from him. A long, white finger tipped up her chin.

"Look at me, please," Alexei said in a hoarse whisper. She didn't. His voice dropped to a tender whisper. "Why on earth would you think that, my dear?"

"Because I was weak!" Poppy burst out with sudden vehemence. "I am! Even though I fought that bloody murderer tooth and nail. ‘Twas probably the reason why the damned cat found the time to hide there in the hole with me."

"I appreciate your language," Alexei smirked.

"I do too," she replied.

"I know you fought him."

"Good." Her previous vehemence seemed to have evaporated, taking her shame with it. Good riddance. "Because I did. You taught me well. Even though he ended up killing me."

"Almost," Alexei said, gulping air. "Almost."

"It didn't feel like almost," Poppy said frankly, and his cheeks turned chalky white. Right. I should probably stop talking about nearly being killed as soon as possible. "Now what?"

"Will you marry me and stay here?" The question was uttered at once, without hesitation, as if the thought was prominent in his mind at all times. Poppy cursed herself for allowing the conversation to veer to dangerous waters.

Alexei looked as if he were braced for pain.

Dammit.

"Do you still mean that?" she asked carefully.

"Do you even have to ask," Alexei scoffed. It was not a question.

"I can't…I can't bring myself to say that I want to get married," she said and he inhaled sharply as if he had received a blow to the stomach. "But I do want to stay with you. I would be your mistress, if you prefer. I just want to be near you; it hurts being apart, worse than it hurt being in that coffin."

"Please don't ever refer to that," he said quickly, "for I shall surely die if I think of you in there for one more second."

"I thought of you," she replies. "It comforted me."

His arms came about her gently, but the movement had the restrained violence of a desperate man.

"What if I was there to comfort you in person always," he said, "heart, body and soul, until the end of time?"

I would actually love that, she thought. It would be heaven.

"It scares me…marriage."

"Marriage is nothing else but a way to become each other's family," he said. "I want to be your family, Wyatt. I want to be your everything, but let's start with being your family, shall we? I don't want to scare you."

"You already are my everything, Alexei."

His eyes shone with tears.

"Look," he said and his voice was scratchy. "I never had a family, not a real one, and you…I wish to God you didn't have a family, if I'm being honest. Will you take me as your family?"

"It doesn't sound so bad, if you put it like that."

He breathed out, shuddering, and then leaned weakly back as if a great burden had been lifted from his chest. Poppy's heart fluttered, fit to burst out of her chest. And yet they just sat there quietly, as if nothing monumental had happened.

Was this what marriage to him would be like? Quiet? Happy?

Easy?

Nothing had been bloody easy for her, ever.

How do I dare hope? Is it stupid to hope?

Or is it the wisest thing I will ever do?

"You know the real reason I refused to marry you, it wasn't my lameness, or the fact that I…" she started.

"Stop this, right now." Alexei's eyes flashed.

"Well, it wasn't that."

"What was it then, Persephone?"

"I…" It was hard to get the words out. But one thing she had discovered these past days was that courage was not easy, not for her. But she still could be brave, even if she was afraid. "I am still so deeply broken," she said.

"So am I," he replied at once. He tangled his fingers through hers, idly playing with them. "But I cannot think of better company, as we attempt to build ourselves from the beginning, than sharing it with you."

"You…you would be willing to do that?"

"Would you?"

"Of course."

She looked away. Her throat still hurt as if it was being shattered from inside, but apart from that, she felt all right. Her limbs ached from being in bed for so long, and her lungs felt pressed down. She longed to breathe in real air.

"Besides, I cannot live without you, as has been proven. You don't want me to die, do you?" Alexei was watching her.

Poppy laughed.

"I would not," she replied. "Not after going to all that trouble seducing you."

"You finally admit it, you minx." Alexei flicked her nose with his long finger. "But I did not think you were aware of the effect you had on me while you were doing it. I did not think you knew how many deaths a day I died, just watching you, just being near you and unable to touch you."

"I don't know about deaths," she said, "but I knew you were nothing more than a big sweetheart as soon as I walked into the Underworld."

"Did you call me a ‘sweetheart'?" He sounded affronted.

"I did. A big one."

He leaned down and kissed her.

And she kissed him back. And back.

"So how did you know all of this, little one?" He sounded out of breath, his chest coming up and down rapidly, but he was smiling down at her, his voice laced with teasing. But underneath it all, he sounded close to tears again.

She laughed. "It was the cats, of course," she said and he threw his head back and laughed.

I am happy, she thought. I didn't ever think I would be. But I am. I am happy.

And then she thought: There is my answer.

Alexei was still laughing, and she didn't want him to stop, ever. So she repeated it, just to hear that peal of laughter:

"It was the cats."