Comfort

He overcame her with patient tenderness.

She wanted to pull away, to run, but he stroked her hair and told her that she could trust him, that the running world was large enough for a few eddies of peace. She hesitated and then let down her guard enough stay within arm's reach.

It was a tenuous arrangement that lasted only moment by moment, but those moments stretched on into years, and she began to soften.

The wounds she carried still festered down in the deep tissues of her heart. They rose up in fits of rage when she was reminded of the slights of her young life.

In those times she would spit her rage at him, even though he was not the cause.

He did not waver but carefully studied her  intensity.

He found what he lacked in her, that drive to survive, to face the hardest of questions. She gave him raw, unadulterated fear.

And so they danced until time came for one of them, and they found that the price of comfort and a companion was paid in full through the redemption of the other.