Alistair had gone down to the docks to help coordinate the supply count. It was Murdock’s idea, not his, but he’d gone anyway. He came back with everything on the list, plus one extra thing. He held it behind his back, sidestepping the shelf, shoulders angled forward as if trying to be smaller than his leathers allowed.
Emma looked up from the book and noticed immediately, with that one-sided smirk. His heart skipped a beat. He could see her seeing it. She didn’t say anything.
“It’s nothing,” he answered. “A thing. In my hand. Behind my back, where you can’t see it. Very mysterious.”
It was pungent, even from a distance. He surrendered it. “It’s a lemon.”
Pale yellow, slightly soft at one end, with the waxy smell of something that had traveled a long distance and not recently. Emma turned it over in her fingers.
“Where did you find this?”
“One of the dock workers. Tomas—the one at the bridge, you know—” Emma nodded. “He said they’d been holding it back. From a shipment that came through before the roads went bad.” Alistair scratched the back of his neck. “Apparently the rest went to the castle cellars, probably all smashed now. But he thought—he said to give it to whoever saved his cousin during the siege.”
Emma had saved his cousin and barely remembered her, because she never did, because there had been almost two dozen people to save. She looked at the lemon.
“His cousin was the woman by the south barricade,” Alistair added. “The one who—”
“Oh. Yes,” She slowly remembered sealing a puncture wound while Alistair held the line three feet away.
He slid down to sit on the floor, planting his elbow on the edge of her cot. Emma pressed her thumb into the skin. It gave slightly. The air sharpened with citrus and pith.
The smell was, actually, good.
“Citrus,” said Alistair, watching her take in the smell. “I’d nearly forgotten.”
Emma: “What do we do with it?”
We, when he’d meant to give it to her.
“It’s up to you,” he glanced at the puzzled knot in her brow, “Well… I used to suck on them, when I was a kid. You can put it on things. Or in the tea,” he gestured to her cup, “or maybe on the fish, at supper.”
“I’ll try,” she said. She split the lemon and handed him a segment, then squished another into the tea.
He sucked on it. The sourness was aggressive, immediate, nothing like anything that had passed for food in the last several weeks, which ran toward salted meat and hardtack and stews made from whatever Morrigan had harvested in passing.
Emma shook her head, bewildered.
“I can’t believe it. You’re really sucking on it.”
“Lie to you, dear lady? Perish the thought.”
He grinned at her as she rolled her eyes over the edge of the cup. She tried the tea which had been, in the first place, more functional than pleasant. Even a reluctant drop was a lot. She made a face. Alistair looked very pleased with himself.
“You know,” he said, “most people, when given a gift, say something like thank you, Alistair, how thoughtful.”
“Thank you, Alistair.”
“You’re welcome. See, that’s—that’s all I needed.” A pause. “Though I notice you’re not saying it was a good gift.”
“It’s a lemon.”
“It’s a nice lemon.”
The lemon had improved the situation. It was now bitter and sour, totaling to something that was a bit numb.
Emma would have set it aside, once. Now she was sitting behind a bookshelf in a chantry, holding a dockworker’s surplus citrus like it was something, and it was. Her bar had moved considerably.
She considered this, turning the rind over. “It is.”
They sat there for a moment, in the relative quiet of the chantry partition that had become their base. The sharp acid of citrus sweetly overrode everything outside, still carrying the smell of ash.
And Emma kept drinking it, inhaling deeply. The smell was the better part.
“Tomas asked me,” Alistair added, “whether we’d be back through. After. When this is all—” He waved a hand. “He said it like it was obvious we would be.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said probably.” He paused. “I didn’t know what else to say. I don’t know what after looks like.”
“Neither do I.”
“No, but you—” He stopped. Started differently. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“You could have left. You had a plan. But then you didn’t. You could have had a much easier time of it,” he said. “Definitely had better food.”
“Probably.”
“Why did you stay?,” he asked. “To do this, I mean. Save villages. End the Blight. That sort of thing.” She was quiet, so he continued. “I’ve been… afraid to ask, honestly.”
“Why?”
“You were just—So sure. I know I didn’t convince you. I couldn’t have. I was a mess. So why—”
“My gut,” Emma said, but then heard how it sounded, and paused. “It was—there was something telling me we were more likely to make it together.”
“That sounds like a gamble.”
“Yes,” she sipped the tea steadily. “We’re still winning.”
“Almost offensively practical.”
“Offended, are you?”
“I’m glad,” he said, softer. She looked up.
He had that look, watching her the way Muffin watched doors. Patient, attentive, with no apparent concern of how transparent he was.
“Also,” she added, settling back, “I couldn’t leave you to get yourself killed.”
“I would have,” Alistair said lightly. “Gotten myself killed.”
“I know. I didn’t want to find out what happened to you if I left.”
He didn’t answer that immediately. He looked at her, trying to decide whether she meant it the way it sounded.
“That’s… a bit less practical.”
“Somewhat.”
“Right. Well—I’m—” He stopped and reset. “I’m grateful, then. For your gut.”
“It’s been reliable. If audacious.”
“Did it tell you we’d survive?”
“Just that it’s more likely we survive together than separately.”
“And now?”
She considered the question with the same attention she gave to a serious problem. Genuine computation. He appreciated this about her even when it made him nervous.
“Now,” Emma said, “I’m still listening.”
He didn’t know what to do with that. Somewhere in the village a bell marked the hour.
They kept talking. Not about anything in particular. The supply count, the state of the road north, whether Morrigan would accept the fish or simply become a different animal and leave. At some point the candle burned low. Alistair slumped over with a long exhale, and rested his head on his forearms bent over the side of the cot.
“You don’t have to stay up,” said Emma. Everyone else had simmered down to sleep.
“Mmmhmm,” his baritone rumbled low, fading away. The candle drowned itself and flickered out. His fingers uncurled loosely and brushed against her wrist.
Emma rolled to her side and took his hand in both of hers.
He’d been halfway to sleep. Not anymore.
“Alistair,” she whispered. His eyes adjusted to the dark. She was already looking at him, very alert. “You must be uncomfortable.”
“I’ve slept in worse places,” he looked away, a near meaningless distance with them both so close. “Are you… uncomfortable? With this?”
“No,” she looked at the angle of his arm. “But you’re going to lose feeling in your hand.”
“I haven’t yet,” he pushed himself up a little and squeezed her fingers. “See? Fully functional.”
“Suit yourself.” She squeezed back.
He could feel her breath on his arm. His skin tightened to goosebumps. He heard her soft giggle in the darkness.
Maker, losing feeling in his hand would probably be necessary for him to sleep like this. He should have gotten up and found a place to lie down.
He didn’t.