pairing: Garth Chapin x f!reader | genre: drama |
summary: you're quite happily as happily as you could in Gilead married to Garth for two years. He comes home one evening and tries to tell you something that will change everything.
warnings: Gilead being Gilead
Requests are of cors open!
Late spring rain shimered against the windows like spilled glass.
The garden below the veranda was drowning in white roses, their branches climbed the stone walls greedily, heavy with blossoms, bending beneth the rain. In another life perhaps the house would have looked romantic. In Gilead, beauty often felt like something arranged carefuly over a grave.
You sat near the bedroom window with embroidery resting untouched in your lap, listening to the clock downstairs tick deeper into the evening.
Garth was late again and you told yourself not to be foolish about it. Commanders worked late. Meetings, councils, inspections, ceremonies. The higher men climbed in Gilead, the less they seemed to belong to themselves.
Still, your stomach twisted every time darknes settled before he returned home. You heard the front door open downstairs and relief came so quickly it irritated you.
A Wife should be composed, graceful and most of all patient with her husband. Not sitting awake counting minutes like a lovesick girl.
You rose before you could stop yourself. A moment later footsteps sounded in the hallway, familiar even through the thick carpet and rain.
The bedroom door opened, Garth stepped inside quietly, removing his gloves with tired hands.
The candlelight flickered gold across his dark uniform. A Commander now, important. The silver insignia suited him less than it should have. Sometimes you thought Gilead dressed him in authority the way people decorated sacrificial altars with something precious they intended eventually to destroy.
His eyes found yours imediately and softened; you had never seen him look at anyone else the way he looked at you.
A faint smile touched his mouth as he closed the door behind him. "You disapprove my love?"
"I was taught wives should worry for their husbands"
That earned a quiet breath of amusement from him. He loosened the collar at his throat slightly and murmured "You were taught many unfortunate things i'm afraid"
You laughed softly before you could stop yourself. Not loudly as women in Gilead learned quickly to make themselves smaller even in happiness. But Garth’s expression changed imediately at the sound like hearing you laugh physically eased something inside him.
You loved him so much it frightened you sometimes.
Two years of marriage and it still startled you; the depth of it, the tendernes and the way he touched you like you were something breakable and beloved at once.
Not duty and not ownership like you once fought you'll find but love; real love. Rare enough in Gilead to feel almost criminal.
You crossed the room toward him and began helping him remove his coat. Damp from rain. Cool beneath your fingers.
"You missed dinner" you said quietly.
"You’ve missed dinner three times this week"
"You hate council meetings"
You smiled faintlly, then paused.
His shoulders were tense and not ordinary exhaustion. Something sharper sat beneath his skin tonight. You noticed little things about Garth because you had spent two years loving him in silence filled rooms.
The way he rubbed his wrist when anxious. How he went unnaturaly still when angry how his eyes darkened whenever certain Commanders spoke at gatherings; and tonight he looked haunted.
Your fingers lingered against his sleeve. "What happened?"
He asnwered too quickly, you looked up at him.
His jaw tightened briefly. Outside, thunder rolled softly somewhere beyond the hills.
He stepped away then, moving toward the dresser, carefully placing his gloves beside the silver watch you’d given him last christmas. The one thing he wore every day besides his wedding ring.
You watched his reflection in the mirror. Beautiful.
That was the terrible thing.
Garth carried gentleness in a country built to crush it.
Sometimes you feared someone would notice.
"You’re staring" he murmured.
That made him close his eyes briefly, only for a second but you saw it. Your chest tightened.
Slowly, cautiously, you approached him from behind.
"When my mother worries" you said softly, 'she starts reciting scripture until everyone else becomes nervous too"
That finaly earned a real smile from him. Small, tired, but genuine.
"I wait for you to tell me what’s wrong"
His expression faded again.
Rain whispered against the windows.
For a long moment neither of you spoke then quietly, without turning toward you, Garth asked:
"If I told you something difficult… would you listen until the end before deciding what to think of me?"
Fear curled imediately through your stomach as you hated the carefulness of the question. It sounded rehearsed like he’d been carrying it alone for a long time; like he’d been carrying it alone for a long time.
You tried to keep your voice light. "That depends how difficult..."
He looked at you then through the mirror and suddenly you remembered the first time you ever saw him.
Not as a Commander yet but as a guardian then.
Young still, serious but as nervous as you were during one of the courtship visits your father arranged. You remembered barely paying attention at first as men came and went constantlly through your father’s house, but then tea had spilled accidentaly across the tablecloth. One of the Marthas panicked immediately, apologizing over and over.
Your father became furious; the room turned cold with it.
And you remembered seeing the young guardian, watching the terrified Martha with unmistakable distress on his face; not with annoyance, not with disgust but distress.
It shocked you enough that you looked at him twice and actualy started to listen to what he was saying. For one impossible moment your eyes met across the small table. You looked away first.
Afterward, you kept noticing him during visits. Always quite quiet and always watching everything too carefully. And somehow, months later, your father announced your engagement.
You never learned whether Garth had asked for you but part of you had always been afraid to know that part.
"You’re doing it again" he said softly.
You blinked, pulled back into the present. "You looked sad"
Something unreadable crossed his face "I’m just tired"
"That isn’t the same thing..." You croached your nose.
"No"he admitted quietlly. "It isn’t"
Your heart ached suddenly, you reached for his hand instinctivly. He let you lace your fingers together, his wedding ring pressed cool against your skin.
"You know" you murmured carefully, "Aunt Vidala mentioned a handmaid again today"
The moment the words left your mouth, something shuttered instantly in his expression; cold anger, brief but unmistakable.
"She thinks she does" you sighed
Your thumb brushed across his knuckles gently. "It’s been two years" you whispered.
Garth finally turned fully toward you then, there was something almost painful in his gaze.
"No" you answered immediatelly. "Never"
And you didn’t, you knew what other marriages looked like in Gilead.
You heard enough whispers, ceremonies treated like obligations, wives treated like furniture. Handmaids brought into homes like wounds everyone pretended not to see.
But your marriage.... your marriage was unbearably tender as Garth kissed your forehead absentminddly while reading reports. He held your hand beneath tables and brushed hair from your face when you were half asleep.
At night he loved you carefully; carefully enough that after two years there was still no child.
You were not naive, maybe you did'nt know exactly how babies were made but you still understood what he was doing during your passionate moments. He never said it out loud but you understood.
Garth rested his forehead lightly against yours "I will never bring a handmaid into this house"
The certainty in his voice made you shiver.
"You can’t promise things like that in Gilead"
"I just did. We will have children but on our terms"
Rainwater rolled slowly down the windows behind him, distorting the lights outside.
Something was wrong tonight, not only that but deeply wrong. You could tell.
You touched his cheek softly. "Tell me what’s frightening you"
His eyes closed at the word frightening, then finally, after a long silence, he whispered: "If I asked you to trust me completely… could you?"
You frowned slightly. "You already know I do"
"No" he said quietlly. "Not like this"
Your pulse quickened as fear rose slowly now, like dark water.
He hesitated; actually hesitated as though each word required choosing between life and death.
Then carefully you watched him build the sentence: "There are people inside Gilead who believe this country is… wrong"
The room went still, your breath caught immediately not because of the words themselves but because of the danger inside them.
You pulled your hand from his instinctivelly "No"
His face tightened slightly, like he expected that reaction. "You asked me to tell you"
"You shouldn’t even be saying this..."
"You could be executed..."
The calmness of that answer terrified you more than panic would have. You stepped backward.
"No" you repeated shakily. "No, Garth, stop talking"
But now that he’d begun, something inside him seemed unable to retreat fully into silence again."I need you to understand something" he said softly. "If anything ever happens_"
"Listen to me" The sharpness in his voice startled both of you. Garth immediately softened again.
But now you saw it clearly; the fear for you and suddenly your own fear became unbearable.
"What have you done?" you whispered.
His expression broke slightly, not with guilt but grief and somehow that was worse. He crossed the distance between you carefully, like approaching a frightened bird.
"I would never let harm come to you"
"No" he whispered hoarsely. "But god, I want to..."
Tears burned unexpectedly behind your eyes because you finally understood.
This wasn’t confession not fully, you knew that. This was preparation, like he was standing at the edge of something ireversible and trying desperately to decide whether he could pull you with him or whether loving you meant leaving you untouched by it.
And that realization frightened you more than the word Mayday ever could.
Mayday. The whispered disease beneath Gilead’s skin. Your father spoke of them with hatred sharp enough to curdle the air.
Traitors, insurgents, enemies of god.
Your eyes shot to his. You didn’t and that was the horifying part.
You should have been terrified. Furious and ready to report him. Instead your heart was breaking because he looked so tired.
"They’re arresting people" he continued quietly. "Commanders, guardians and wives. Anyone they could suspect"
Garth lowered his voice further. "I can get us out before they come for me"
Beyond Gilead. The idea itself barelly felt real. You had spent your entire life inside these borders, raised on rules so strict they shaped your bones.
Women did not leave, they obeyed, survived.
"What would be out there for us?" you whispered.
His eyes softened then with something painfuly gentle. "A life"
The word nearly undid you, because you realized sudenly you had never truly imagined having one; the thought alone felt sinful.
"You remember the world before?" you asked shakeily.
"You remember enough" he touhed your face with such delicate manner.
"What if I don’t belong anywhere else?"
Garth stepped closer until his forehead rested lightly against yours.
His voice broke when he answered "Then I’ll spend the rest of my life helping you find a place that feels like home"
You closed your eyes and for the first time in years, Gilead felt small around you. Not eternal and definitly not holy; just small like a cage built by frightened men.
Outside, lilacs trembled in the rain soaked dark, spilling their sweetness through the open window.
And somewhere beneth your terror; beneath all the years of obedience something inside you began, quietly to bloom and you coudnt wait for it with your beloved husband at your side.
