Chapter 276 Just you and me.

Chapter 276 Just you and me.
Fabian

Indigo hadn’t said anything to me since we left the hospital.

She sat curled into the leather seat across from me on the jet, a blanket tucked around her legs, her eyes fixed somewhere out the window at the clouds sliding past beneath us. 

I’d arranged everything myself, the private airstrip instead of a crowded terminal, the nurse seated quietly a few rows back in case she needed anything, the doctor’s clearance I’d all but begged out of him before we boarded. 

I’d wanted to wait longer. He’d wanted her to wait longer too, if I was honest, murmuring something about blood clots and healing tissue and the risks of altitude on a body still knitting itself back together. 

But I’d looked at her lying in that hospital bed, in that city, surrounded by everything that had tried to destroy her, and I knew staying was its own kind of danger. So I’d paid for the clearance to happen faster. I’d paid for whatever needed paying for. I wasn’t leaving her in that place one day longer than I had to.

She hadn’t argued when I told her we were leaving. She hadn’t argued about anything, really, not since the doctor’s words had knocked the breath clean out of her lungs. 

She’d simply let the nurses dress her, let me carry her to the car, let me settle her into the seat beside me on the plane, all with this quiet, distant compliance that frightened me more than any amount of shouting or crying could have. 

I watched her now, the curve of her shoulders pulled in on themselves, her fingers absently picking at the edge of the blanket, and I felt entirely useless in the face of it.

“Little fairy,” I said gently, reaching over to still her hand with mine. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t look at me either, her eyes staying locked on the window like the sky held something I couldn’t see. “Talk to me.”

Nothing. Just the quiet hum of the engines and the soft rustle of the blanket beneath her fingers.

I let the silence sit for a while, remembering what Isaiah had told me back in that hallway — that she didn’t need me to fix this, only to be there for whatever this turned out to be. So instead of pushing, I shifted from my seat and settled onto the small space beside her, careful of the tubes still taped along her arm, careful of every place I knew still ached beneath her clothes. 

I didn’t say anything else. I simply took her hand fully into mine and pressed a slow kiss to her knuckles, then laced our fingers together and let them rest against my thigh.

Somewhere over what I guessed was open ocean, her head finally tipped sideways, coming to rest against my shoulder. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t the woman who’d rolled her eyes at me in that hospital bed, who’d threatened to slap my hand for making her laugh through the pain. But it was something, this small surrender of weight against me, and I let myself hold onto it like it might be enough for now.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked, her voice small, hoarse from disuse.

“Somewhere quiet,” I said softly, resting my cheek against the top of her head. “Somewhere none of this can follow us. Just you and me, baby. For as long as you need.”

She didn’t answer, but her fingers tightened faintly around mine, and for the first time since we’d boarded, I let myself believe that maybe, given enough time, enough quiet, enough of me simply staying, she would find her way back to herself. However long it took. However far I had to fly her to get there.