The Nightingale

Chapter Twenty-Nine

That night, long past an hour where she should have been asleep, Natasha sat on the floor at the back of John's quarters, looking at the stars above her and the dark waters that churned underneath her as the boat sped through the night. On any other night the waves, illuminated by the full moon and countless stars, would have been calming enough to lull her to sleep, but her conversations with both John and Alexander earlier in the evening had prevented her from getting any rest. She resigned herself to watching the night pass by her, trying to make sense of the conversations she had had with both John and Alexander.

Having John answer her interrogations had only left her with more confusion and more questions. Everything about him was contradictory, from the way he moved in her presence and acted so gently with her it was just to two of them to the way he distanced himself from her when they had an audience, the way he spoke to her so curtly most of the time to the rare instances that he really spoke to her. Even after his attempt of an explanation, the way he so abruptly left after helping unlace her dress only reinforced the mix of emotions she felt towards him, and more questions of how he felt about her.

As for Alexander, a part of her, as much as she hadn't wanted to admit it, had begun to suspect that he did care for her in that way She had noticed it in the way he looked at her, the happiness when it was just the two of them and the jealousy he tried to hide whenever she mentioned John. She had seen that expression before, it was the way Ky had used to gaze at her in the moments they had together before he disappeared, so she was no stranger to what it meant. Yet, she had never spent any time thinking about the possibility that Alexander felt that way about her. Instead, far too much of her spare time had been trying to figure John out, and now she felt more conflicted than ever.

"Natasha?" Lost in her own thoughts, she hadn't heard the door to the room open slowly, but she turned immediately at the sound of John's voice. She watched as he lit a lamp on his desk, bringing a warm glow to the space around them that she had left to darkness, casting shadows across both of their faces.

"Don't you think you should be sleeping?" John questioned, remaining on the far side of his desk. The shadows from the light darkened the circles around his eyes even more, making him tired and older than he was. She wondered when the last time he got a decent night's sleep was.

"Don't you think you should be?" She replied quickly, watched an amused smile twitch on John's lips at her retort. He seemed more relaxed than when he had left the room earlier, the kind of attitude he'd had the first time they spoke on The Nightingale, the easygoing confidence he/d shown when he strode into the Governor's party as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be there. This was the John she preferred.

"Come on, then," John said as he rounded the desk towards her, extending one of his hands towards her. Natasha looked between his calloused palm and his face. "You need sleep. I could do with some as well. Castille and Maverick can mind the ship for a few hours."

Two weeks ago, the idea of taking John's hand and walking with him towards a bed that they would share would have made Natasha flush, but so much had changed since then that she felt little hesitation in taking his hand and letting him pull her from the floor.

Knowing John would likely leave before she woke, Natasha settled herself onto the inner section of the mattress that pressed against the wall, curling onto her side and watching as John sat on the edge of the bed. He hunched over, unlacing his boots, and Natasha's eyes carefully studied the way his shoulders and arms worked with the movements. When his boots were set at the edge of the bed, John stood again for a moment to extinguish the candle on his desk, so his body became nothing more than a faint shadow, barely visible with the light of the moon and the stars that bathed the room. She watched his figure as he lowered himself onto the bed, feeling the mattress shift under his weight as he settled onto his back beside her.