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[annapeace.livejournal.com]

Title: Sunday Morning
Rating: G
Involving: Hoogenband/Thorpe
Summary: The toughest decisions are always made with the most careful considerations.


Was it worth it?

After everything is said and done, it really is something you must consider. Between the packing and the unpacking, the moving and the moving in, he’s hardly had a chance to think about it.

Now it is an early Sunday morning, and he is lying amidst rumpled white sheets, staring up at a ceiling that is rapidly losing its shadow as sunlight fills the windows. Around him are some left over cardboard boxes that he has been to lazy to put away or throw away, and he knows he’ll have to soon or he’ll trip over them late one night, or be nagged into taking them out while he is in the middle of something important.

You like to take your coffee with just a bit of cream and a dash of sugar, and you like to drink it while standing by a window that faces the ocean. Not that you’d ever open the window, for that might wash away the fresh coffee smell you love so much, but the only thing that goes better with your coffee than a Danish is the sun rising over the waters of Sydney Harbor. It starts with just a bright line over the horizon and a faint graying of the sky above. Then the dark water laces with gold and the clouds burst into brilliant pinks and oranges, and it makes you smile. Sleeping in has its own perks, but on Sunday mornings, this is all you have ever wanted. Well, almost.

It gets a little too bright in the bedroom, so he buries his head in a pillow, half heartedly wishing the shades were drawn. Back home he would never have had this problem. There is a large leafy tree that grows just outside his bedroom window, and while that never takes out all the sunlight, it creates lovely dappled patterns on the covers that he would trace and dance his fingers in. Sometimes, if he wakes up early enough, the leaves would filter the light into a strange kind of violet, and he would always watch the color change with a sense of wonder. He misses this a little, but not too much, because he reminds himself that there is no ‘back home’ anymore. On this Sunday morning, this is where he chooses to be. And, he hopes, breathing in the faint scent of cologne the pillow holds, that the next time he calls anyplace home, it will be here.

You turn away from the window now, because looking out any longer might make you blind. Besides, there are other things to do. Your empty mug is left in the sink, sitting disconsolately by itself, wanting you to wash it now. But it is Sunday morning, and as neat as you are, you can afford to have a single cup lie dirty for a while. You walk to the bedroom quietly, your feet silent on the wooden floor, because yes you can walk without clomping despite your large feet, thank you very much. At the doorway, you pause.

He is curled into a ball like some young thing, perhaps a kitten or a puppy. But he is also balanced precariously on the edge of the bed, and one wrong move will send him tumbling over down a waterfall of white linen. He seems unaware of his predicament, so when he unfurls and stretches…

…you catch the edge of the sheet he is lying on and use it to roll him towards the middle of the bed.

He laughs, says something like ‘oops’ and laughs some more.

You grin and wait, sitting down on the corner of the bed.

When he stops giggling, he opens his eyes wide and looks up.

Eyes meet. There is a single pulse of emotion, a moment of clarity, almost an epiphany but far more fleeting. All the images they have built, crafted, maintained, that they have left behind in a stroke of defiance, the people, places, paths they’ve abandoned, rise to the surface and evaporate. This is a leap of faith, and both of them know it. It is a fresh start for something maybe unbelievable, but they still believe.

Was it worth it, parting from everything that was familiar and easy and dear?

Was it worth it, asking something new to be part of the life you were content with?

The moment is broken by tickling fingers and gasping laughter.

You want every morning to be just like this Sunday morning.

He wants every morning to be just like this Sunday morning

So of course it was. Of course.