![](https://i.postimg.cc/VLWj8rrs/C1-B18583-F360-4-DA3-BDF2-B5-C5-E2-EB6-DDB.jpg")
I need you like a heart needs a beat
but it's nothing new.
The world spins on without them, and she finds that she doesn’t care at all. They linger in the shadows of Taiga, where the trees are their tallest, and the sunlight struggles to reach. She cannot remember the last time she left this place, and maybe it was unhealthy how tightly she wanted to cling to him. Leaving his side felt like she was being ripped in half, and maybe it is because she will never forget that impossibly long stretch in time when she was sure she had lost him. Even though years, and three beautiful children of their own, have passed since that time, there will always be the creeping fear that he will come to the realization that she was not what he wanted.
That he will realize he could have someone brighter and better, that life with her is not what he thought it would be.
That deeply rooted fear – of being left – is what shapes her nightmares now. She isn’t sure when they started, when they changed from that same recurring nightmare that she had for years (the one that used to make her run, as if she could outrun the monsters that lived inside of her own mind) to the kind that she has tonight. This wasn’t the first time her sleeping mind reached into the depths of her and twisted that fear into something real. Until the nightmare felt so tangible that even though she is curled against him her body begins to tremble, and there is something similar to a strangled cry clawing at her throat.
Something makes her jolt awake – maybe once he was finally gone, maybe once in her nightmare she had already lost him and cried herself raw – with a gasp, the skin of her neck glistens with sweat and her face damp with tears. She reaches for him, and of course she doesn’t have to move far. He is right there, where he always is, and she shifts closer to press her cheek into his chest. “Ether,” she whispers, because saying his name made him feel real. But her heart still thunders in her chest, and the ache in her throat makes her think the cries had been real. She breathes him in, feels the solidness of him next to her, and she reminds herself for the hundredth time that he would never leave, no matter how badly her nightmares wanted to convince her he would.
That he will realize he could have someone brighter and better, that life with her is not what he thought it would be.
That deeply rooted fear – of being left – is what shapes her nightmares now. She isn’t sure when they started, when they changed from that same recurring nightmare that she had for years (the one that used to make her run, as if she could outrun the monsters that lived inside of her own mind) to the kind that she has tonight. This wasn’t the first time her sleeping mind reached into the depths of her and twisted that fear into something real. Until the nightmare felt so tangible that even though she is curled against him her body begins to tremble, and there is something similar to a strangled cry clawing at her throat.
Something makes her jolt awake – maybe once he was finally gone, maybe once in her nightmare she had already lost him and cried herself raw – with a gasp, the skin of her neck glistens with sweat and her face damp with tears. She reaches for him, and of course she doesn’t have to move far. He is right there, where he always is, and she shifts closer to press her cheek into his chest. “Ether,” she whispers, because saying his name made him feel real. But her heart still thunders in her chest, and the ache in her throat makes her think the cries had been real. She breathes him in, feels the solidness of him next to her, and she reminds herself for the hundredth time that he would never leave, no matter how badly her nightmares wanted to convince her he would.
Briseis
