the habit from being around humans so much and, recently, from trying
to eke out the small amount of nutrition he received—in synchronicity,
and both feeling the other’s warm body beside them…it was almost too
much. Then, almost tentatively, Stefan groped for Elena’s hand, and
catching it, held it in both of his, turning it over wonderingly.
Elena was swallowing and swallowing, trying to make a start in a
conversation, felt herself practically radiating bliss. Oh, I never want
anything more, she thought, although she knew that soon enough she
would want to talk, and to hold, and to kiss, and to feed Stefan. But if
someone had asked her if she would have accepted just this, sitting
together, communicating by touch and love alone, she would have
accepted it.
Before she knew it, she was talking, words that came like bubbles
out of molasses, only these were bubbles from her soul. “I thought that
somehow I might lose this time. That I’d won so many times, and that
this time something would teach me a lesson and you…wouldn’t make
it.”
Stefan was still wondering over her hand, bending industriously to
kiss each separate finger. “You call ‘winning’ dying in pain and sunlight
to save my worthless life—and my even more worthless brother’s?”
“I call this a