Chapter 63: The Morning Light
Morning light came soft through the boarded windows, a pale gold that found them tangled together on the wide couch in the common room. Roy blinked awake to the weight of Rosa's head on his chest, her breath warm against his collarbone, her hair spilling over his arm in a mess of dark waves. For a moment he just lay there, feeling the slow rhythm of her breathing, the familiar heaviness of her.
His throat tightened with something he couldn't name. He'd been big for less than a day, but already he missed it. The way her pulse used to drum against his tiny body, a heartbeat the size of a thunderclap. The way the world had smelled like her skin, all soap and sweat and the particular warmth of home. Now she was just Rosa, an ordinary weight in his arms, and ordinary had never felt so strange.
He pressed a kiss to her hair. She stirred against him, a low mumble curling out of her throat.
"Rosa," he said softly. "You awake?"
"Five more minutes," she murmured, her face buried in his shirt.
He smiled, his hand finding the curve of her shoulder. "You said the cot was too stiff."
"The cot is too stiff. This is evidence." She shifted, and then winced, a small hiss of air through her teeth. "Ow."
"Your arm?"
She lifted her head enough to look down at herself, at the sling cradling her broken arm, and grimaced. "Feels like someone used it to beat a walker to death."
"Someone did," Roy said dryly. "You did."
"Ah. That explains the stiffness." She pushed herself up, and he moved with her, his hands coming up to steady her, to adjust the sling's strap where it had slipped crooked across her shoulder. Her skin was cool beneath his fingertips, and he took care with the knot, easing it back into place. "There," he said. "Better?"
"Better." She blinked at him, squinting against the morning light. "You slept out here with me all night?"
"Where else would I sleep?"
"Your own bed?" She said it like a question, and then her mouth curved into something tired and fond. "You could have left me here. I would have been fine, you know."
"My room's on the third floor. You were already settled." He kept his hand on her shoulder a moment longer than he needed to. "Sandy came up to check on you when we were relocating. I told her about the concussion."
Rosa's eyes flickered. "You told her."
"She needed to know. You hit your head hard enough to throw up for an hour in the bathroom. I'm not keeping that a secret." His voice came out steadier than he felt. "She said you need rest and no stairs for the next day at least."
"So I'm a prisoner on the first floor."
"Basically."
Rosa sighed, leaning back against the couch cushions, and her gaze drifted across the common room, over the dark shapes of the hydroponic shelves, the ember-glow of the stove, the maps pinned to the corkboard. A half-empty thermos sat where someone had left it, and the half-built radio scanner caught the light in a tangle of wires and solder.
"It's quiet," she said.
"Everyone's still asleep. Or Sandy is." Roy shifted, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders. "You want water? I think there's some left in the thermos, and the stove's still warm."
She shook her head. "I just want to sit here for a minute."
So they sat. The fire crackled and settled. Roy watched the light slide across the floor, and he thought about the pulse in her throat, the one he used to feel pressed against his cheek when she carried him, the one he could feel now with his bare hand if he reached out. He didn't reach out. He just stayed close, his knee touching hers, and let the quiet hold them for a while.
"I keep forgetting," Rosa said finally. "You're big now."
He turned to look at her. "How'd you forget?"
"Every time I look up." She gestured vaguely at the distance between their faces. "Haven't gotten used to it yet."
He swallowed, a sudden ache in his chest. "Was it weird? When you woke up and I was there?"
"Weird." She said it gently, then reached out with her good hand and laid it flat on his chest, over his heart. "Not bad weird. Just... different." Her smile came slow, a little crooked. "I guess we both have to learn a new way of being close."
He pulled her snug into his side, resting his head on hers. Her good arm came up across his chest, and she let out a breath that felt like surrender. They sat like that, the fire crackling, the morning light creeping across the floorboards.
"Maybe we can convince Lee to show us how the device works once you're healed," Roy said. He felt her go still against him. "It works both ways, so I can still cuddle up on your throat once in a while."
Rosa turned her head, her chin digging into his shoulder as she looked up at him. "You want to be small again? After everything?"
"No," he said, then corrected himself, "Not all the time. But sometimes. When I miss it." He swallowed. "When I miss hearing your heartbeat like it's the whole world."
She was quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing idle patterns on his chest. "I miss carrying you," she said finally, her voice rough. "The way you fit against my neck. Like a second pulse."
"So we figure it out." He pressed his mouth to her hair. "I don't want to lose that. Even if I stay big most of the time, I want to know I can go back. That we can have both."
Rosa exhaled, a shaky sound that could have been a laugh. "Both. Big Roy and pocket-size Roy."
"Whatever you need to call me, I'll come running."
"Even if it's just three inches tall and running means walking across my palm?"
He grinned into her hair. "Especially that."