Page 73 of Propriety
Guinevere pushed herself up slowly, blinking against the dark. “Lance, love?”
“I couldn’t get to you.” His voice cut like glass. “I kept tryingand — Arthur-” He stopped, as if realizing he was speaking aloud.
Her fingers grazed his shoulder.
He jerked away.
“Don’t… Don’t touch me. I’m sorry-” He buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know where I am.WhoI am.”
“You’re home,” Her voice was softer now. “It was just a dream, Lancelot.”
“It wasn’t.” He rasped, “It’s not.”
He finally turned to face her. His face was pale, drenched in sweat. His bottom lip was bleeding. His whole body was shaking.
“I heard you scream,” he whispered, voice like gravel. “He… Arthur… was holding you down and I…” His words trembled at the edges as he tried to speak. “I couldn’t get to you. I was too far. I couldn’t stop him.”
Her mouth was dry, she couldn’t swallow. Her hand hovered lamely between them, desperate to soothe.
“I’m not clean, Gwen.” His words turned sour. “I tried to kill him in the dream. I would have done it, too. Not for honor, not for justice. Just rage. Just hate.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “That’s the kind of man I am.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. She crawled to him, kneeling in front of him but not touching. “You’re the man who brought me back to life. The man who saved me with his touch alone.” She brushed a lock of his hair off of his cheek. “You’re the man that brought candy and flowers to orphans,mon amour.”
A gentle grin fought for freedom at her use of his pet name, and his arms came around her like he was drowning. He tugged her closer to him, settling her in his lap as he clung to her. “I didn’t deserve to make itback.”
“Don’t you dare say that to me.”Guinevere, still curled in his lap, stroked his hair back from his damp forehead. “You don’t have to speak,” she whispered. “Not until you’re ready.”
“Ihaveto,” he choked out. “If I don’t say it now, I never will.”
She went still in his arms.
“I hate him,” Lancelot whispered. “Not just for what he does to you. Not just for how heusesyou. I hate him for what he took from me.”
She blinked. “What did he take?”
“You.” His voice cracked like thunder in a storm. “You.I should have fought harder to stay by your side. I should have refused him.”
“You would have died!” She snapped, tears in her eyes. “You don’t get it, Lancelot. I would have waited a decade more if it meant that, eventually, you returned to my side.”
“You’re thin as a rail, queen. You wouldn’t have made it to your twenty-fifth birthday.” His words might have been harsh, but there was truth to them.
“I might have been wilting, but I was not lost, Lancelot.” She steeled herself, holding his chin in her fingers. “Better wilting and waiting than having to bury you and becoming nothing.”
That did it. That broke him all over again — but differently this time. His eyes flooded, but this time with no shame. No guilt. Just aching, ragged love.
“I was never whole,” he whispered, “not even before I met you. But now, after you… I couldn’t be whole without you, either. You’re in everything I do. You’re the name I said in my sleep. You’re the face I saw when I found the Grail.”
She gasped, barely breathing. “Youfoundit?”
He nodded, pressing his lips to her hair. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t take it. It disappeared before my eyes, repelled by me, I guess.” He laughed, a bitter sound. “I’m impure, Guinevere.”
“You’re not a monster for having rage, Lancelot. You’re a complex man with emotions and feelings. I’ll never hold that against you.” She rubbed her thumb along his jawbone in a swiping motion.
“If anyone tries to take you from me again,” His eyes were molten, “Iwillbecome a monster.”
She stretched up to kiss him gently. “Together,” she whispered, “We will be monsters together.”
They eventually drifted back off to sleep, clinging tighter, pressed as closely together as they could be.
