The companion piece of this one-shot, because I can. Dedicated to @clarkesyd, who keeps encouraging me to write about our beloved OTP, EyMer. I have incorporated one of your ideas in the fic, love - you’ll know which one. Thank you for the inspiration.
His eyes are just as she reminds them from their childhood.
Of course, Umut is not that child anymore, Eylem knows that. He’s a man grown now, he saw so many bad things. He did so many bad things.
But there’s something about his eyes, the way in which they warm up when he looks at his mother, at Sarp, at her. The pure wonder and joy that reflect into his eyes whenever they do something together, even if it’s just sitting down at the table to have dinner.
He used to be such a happy kid, she remembers. It’s good to see him happy again now.
And she’s grateful to know that in spite of everything he had lived, in spite of all the nightmares he had to deal with, his eyes remain clear.
*
He’s so beautiful when he sleeps peacefully at her side.
Well, truth be told, she finds him beautiful all the time, but there’s something about him being asleep in their bed that really touches her heart. It hasn’t been easy, she reflects; he used to have so many bad dreams, full of memories of his awful life as Mert Karadağ, and it saddened her so much, but she was determined to do everything in her power to help him, even if it meant having to sleep less just to be there for him.
The nightmares didn’t disappear completely. Probably they never will. But the pleasant dreams exceed them now. She knows that for a fact.
She feels it whenever he smiles through his sleep and pulls her closer to him.
*
His sense of humour cracks her up, even if she pretends to be annoyed by it most of the time. He is sarcastic without being cruel, and he absolutely loves to tease her. Well, she teases him back as well, but deep down inside, she has to admit that he is the one with the better, more inspired jokes.
Such as that moment when they randomly met one of his former highschool classmates on the street, while they were going shopping. He introduced him to her, and then added with the most serious expression in the world:
“She’s Eylem, my ex-girlfriend.”
She punched him in the arm lightly, and told him to stop calling her that, then she explained to his surprised classmate that she was actually his wife.
What a moron he can be, she thinks affectionately.
*
He has a soft spot for kids who have lost their families. There’s no wonder, considering he used to be one of them as well.
After the time he had spent in prison, he knew there was no way he could have come back into the police force anymore, but he managed to make amends with everyone there. Sema, who had befriended Sarp and knew their story in more detail than the others, was more willing to forgive him than Musa and Selim at first, but even those two ended up accepting his apologies.
It had been his idea to work with orphan and abandoned children as a social assistant, and it worked very well, because the kids adored him. His former colleagues soon discovered that he could be a very valuable ally when he infiltrated a gang who abused children, and then helped taking it down. So even if he wasn’t a policeman anymore, they all agreed that future collaborations weren’t excluded.
Eylem knows he’ll be a good father. The kind of father she never had, not exactly, as her own father was more of a friend than a parent.
They’re still young now, but it will happen in the future. She’s looking forward to it.
*
The first time with him was beautiful - she had expected it to hurt, but he took his time, and turned her on so much that it didn’t hurt, and she thought nothing in the world could ever be better than that, until they did it the second time.
He’s a tender and considerate lover, but he has moments when he likes to make her beg for it, moments when he can be more rough. It’s always if she wants it too. He always asks, he never assumes.
But no matter how they do it, she’s always in his arms afterwards, and he never gets tired of telling her how beautiful she is.
Her best friend, her lover. There’s no universe in which they could ever be apart.
And if there would have been such a universe, she would not have wanted to live in it.
