hands
[drabble challenge for Sakki]
She is skilled at her professions, the both of them. In her hands are the memories of fighting, cooking, and the proper way to dress a recently-slaughtered cow or deer. Give her a piece of chalk, and she knows she can still draw a perfect circle, even though it's been years.
One thing she does not know, however, is to be a mother. The baby might have had her eyes and her husband's mouth, or his hands and her stature--but she will never know.
Her fingers are sure and steady around the hilt of a knife, but they don't know the delicate, fragile curve of a newborn's skull. Her arms know the weight of different cuts of meat, or and how much strength it takes to flip her husband--but they don't know what it feels like to carry a child's sleepy, trusting weight.
"Tomorrow will be the thirtieth day," Sieg says from the doorway of their bedroom. "Are you going back for them?"
She turns the page of her book. The texture of the page is not completely smooth under her fingertip, and she knows this, too, the faint impression from the presses over each letter. "Mason will have made sure they're not too badly off," she says. "I suppose I'll have to."
He crosses the room in four long steps, and sits down on the bed beside her. It dips only slightly under his weight: this is their bed, and like her hands, it has learned the different balances of them over the years. "You knew you'd take them in from the beginning," he says.
She shrugs, eyes still on the page. "They still have to answer my questions," she says. "I don't necessarily have to accept them as my students, if they fail my first lesson."
He makes a rumbling sound that is not quite a laugh. "They have no mother, and you have no sons," he says. "You'll suit each other well."
She considers this for a moment, then smacks his arm with her book. "You, shut up," she says. "It's not a given that I'm going to train them." She leans back against her pillows then, scowling as he shifts fully into the bed.
"We're too old for children," she says, quietly, once he's settled. The hand that is not holding the book curls, and she swears she can feel each individual wrinkle and callus, like battle scars carved into her skin. The book rests against her empty stomach, and over that her fingers curl, loose and twitching.
"Tell that to the brats that come begging for 'Ms. Izumi' every day," he rumbles. "I'm 'Mr. Curtis' to them, but they know you by name."
She says nothing. He takes the book from her hands, and sets it aside before he reaches to the bedside lamp and flips it off. In darkness, he moves easily, avoiding collision despite his bulk, and lies down.
"Go to sleep," he advises, his voice gentle. "You'll have to leave early tomorrow if you want to pick up those boys in time."
After a moment, she shifts and lies down herself. She keeps one hand over her stomach, as though she can reach through skin and muscle and close her grip around something she will never recover. Her hands are skilled, but they are not enough: she walked through that doorway and lost more than she bargained for.
They never had the chance to become a mother's hands. She is not sure how well they will suit learning to become a teacher's hands.
"Izumi," he says, in that same deep rumble. "Go to sleep." And then his hand reaches out to cover hers, huge solid broad fingers that engulf hers entirely.
She turns her head towards him in the darkness, and smiles wryly. Within his grasp, her hand turns and squeezes back, gently.
Then she closes her eyes, and waits for tomorrow.
--end--