Liz spent the whole day collecting small victories like fragile things she was not sure she could keep.
She made tea without crying.
Sat on the sofa without flinching when Will moved beside her.
Let him touch her hair without the ground shifting under her feet.
Tiny things.Massive things.
But none of them stopped the quiet truth sitting under her skin:
Her body did not feel like hers yet.
By evening, she moved around the kitchen on muscle memory alone, chopping vegetables, stirring a pan too loudly, breathing the way Will had shown her. But the motions felt borrowed, like an old life she was trying to mimic.
Behind her, Will sat at the dining table with his laptop open, illuminated by its cold glow.
He was not typing.
Was not pretending.
Just staring.
He had been motionless for almost ten minutes, shoulders rigid, jaw tight, something silent and vicious circling behind his eyes. It was not thinking. It was drowning.
Liz dried her hands and crossed the room.
She stood behind him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and pressed a soft kiss to his neck.
“Should I send in a Saint Bernard with some booze?” she murmured.
It hit him like a switch being flipped.
The storm behind his eyes cut out.
He turned to her slowly, gaze sharpening, noticing her properly for the first time in hours.
There was more Liz in her eyes.
More Will in his.
She exhaled, something loosening.
Then she looked at the untouched pan, the oven humming pointlessly, and shook her head.
“Right. Enough of this,” she said quietly.
She switched off the hob, turned the oven dial to zero, wiped down the counter with a sweep of her hand, and took Will’s hand firmly in hers.
“Come on.”
She led him down the corridor, their steps soft on the floorboards, and into the en-suite. The lights were gentle, the air slightly cool. She turned on the tap, letting hot water roar into the tub, and reached for something bubbly that smelled soft and warm, something normal.
She poured it in.
Steam curled upward.
Then she began to strip.
“Come on,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder with a small, tired smile. “Or are you waiting for my arse to cool it down for you?”
Will huffed something like a laugh, quiet and real.
Liz lowered herself into the heat and let it climb her ribs and throat, loosening things she had not known were clenched. She scooted forward and nodded behind her.
When Will stepped in, the water shifted around her hips and thighs. His legs moved to either side of hers, his chest fitting to the line of her back. The warmth of him spread through the water before it touched her skin.
She leaned into him fully, letting her spine rest against his sternum. His arms came around her automatically when she guided them, but she kept one of her hands over his, holding it in place. His forearm pressed gently beneath her breasts, not sexual, only steady and solid. She felt his breath on the top of her head, felt the rise and fall of his ribs behind her own.
She lifted one of his hands and pressed it flat to her sternum, letting him feel the uneven rhythm of her breathing. His thumb brushed slowly across the centre of her chest, a quiet reassurance rather than a caress.
The steam softened the edges of the room. Her head tipped back against his shoulder, and his cheek found her temple, barely touching, just enough to let her know he was there.
“Stay like this,” she murmured, not needing anything else.
His arms tightened slowly around her torso. She threaded their fingers together and rested them low on her abdomen, grounding herself in their joined hands.
The heat, the weight, the stillness all wrapped around her like a blanket. She breathed in time with him until the rhythm felt natural again.
For the first time all day, the inside of her skin felt inhabitable.
⸻
WILL POV
Will had been staring at the laptop screen for so long his eyes had stopped watering.
The cursor blinked in the corner of an empty document.
Mocking.
Pulsing.
A heartbeat that was not his.
He was not reading.
Was not thinking.
Barely breathing.
The thoughts looping in his skull were not thoughts.
They were images.
Flashes of the night he kept trying not to replay.
Movements that did not belong to him but had been made with his hands.
And Liz, her body responding to things she should never have been asked to endure.
Every time he blinked, something darker surged up, whispering through the seams of his mind like oil seeping through cracks.
“She liked it. Every second she melted was mine.”
Will’s jaw clenched. The voice was not loud.
It did not need to be.
It curled around the base of his skull like a hook, tugging.
He told himself to move.
To breathe.
To do anything other than sit there and let it scrape through him.
But he stayed frozen.
He did not notice Liz walk over until her arms slipped around his shoulders.
Warm.
Steady.
Human.
He inhaled sharply, the first real breath he had taken in minutes.
“Should I send in a Saint Bernard with some booze?” she whispered against his neck.
The noise in his head stopped.
Not faded.
Stopped.
He turned slowly, heart thudding, and met her eyes.
There was something stronger in them than there had been that morning.
Something returning.
Something hers.
And it hit him, like guilt and relief at the same time, that she was fighting to come back to herself while he was quietly losing pieces of his own mind.
Then she moved. She switched off the hob, shut down the oven, brushed her hair behind her ear like she was making a decision that mattered.
“Right. Enough of this.”
She took his hand.
He followed.
Down the corridor.
Into the en-suite.
Into the warm light and the rising steam.
She ran the bath.
Poured something that smelled soft and clean.
Stripped without hesitation.
“Come on,” she said lightly. “Or are you waiting for my arse to cool it down for you?”
It should have made him laugh.
Instead it made something in him steady.
Because she was not folding in on herself anymore.
She was taking the moment back with both hands.
When Liz leaned forward in the tub and nodded for him to join, Will stepped in without thinking. The water rose around his thighs and hips, warm and fragrant, but the warmth did not settle in him until his body touched hers.
She fit back against him like she was meant to be there. Her spine rested along his torso, her shoulder blades touching his skin, her head finding the place beneath his collarbone where she always seemed to settle.
She drew his arms around her, and he let her position them however she needed. One arm came across her chest, the other rested around her waist. Her hand closed over his forearm, holding it there. Not possessively. Not urgently. Simply needing contact.
When she lifted his hand and pressed it to her sternum, he felt her heartbeat under his palm. Unsteady. Brave. Hers.
He let his thumb move in a slow arc, not a stroke, just enough pressure to say I am here. His cheek came to rest against the side of her head, his breath stirring the damp strands of her hair.
She guided their joined hands to her lower abdomen. The gesture was not sexual. It was trust. Weight. Warmth. She wanted to feel connected to something inside her own skin again.
So he held her there, palms together, the weight of his hands anchoring her to the water and to him.
Her breathing shifted. First uneven, then gradually syncing with his. He felt her ribs rise against him, felt the small tremors that left her body in the heat.
Something in him loosened as she melted back into him. The silence in his head held. The Witness did not stir. All he felt was her body resting with intention against his, her trust offered without ceremony.
He tightened his arms around her slowly. Not to claim. To keep her from drifting in any direction she did not choose.
For the first time in a while, he believed he might hold himself together.