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What they needed, could not be afforded. A chance, a happenstance, something earned if sought enough. A faint glimpse, a small opening. Time, just a bit, if any at all. That was all they needed, just time.
Between the messages, between the calls, ones where they showed each other their faces, others where only their voices rang through the connection. Where tears had fallen, joy or not, where lips were bitten, of lust or frustration. That barrier between, could be lowered, even if for only a time.
When schedules align, when flights and deployments settle, when patients and papers file out. When they could rest, only then could that barrier be peered over.
A few days was all that they had, all that they needed, or at least that’s what they told themselves.
Regardless so, excitement would rise, quick bookings and barely checked bags were prepared. Untimely flights but whatever got them together the soonest.
Nothing mattered other than each other, being with each other, nothing more, nothing less.
That was all they were thinking.
Even now, a thick crowd she’d been buried between, waves and flows she maintained in distracted step with, eyes peering desperately over the heads.
She felt deprived, starved and exhausted, the dry lights above, blinding at this time of night, burning like ice behind her sinking eyes.
As she walked further, the feet around her thinning, the grand entrance of the port in view as her nerves begin to soak. Her eyes pry, watching the feet around her finding unison with those waiting for them.
Her throat clogs, and her breath steepens. The luggage in her hand wrenching her shoulder. And lightly a prickle at the edge of her eyes begins to sting.
“Angela!” It was a faint yell, one so hidden, yet so visible, accented and unique amongst the shuffle and blurbs of every other voice around her.
Her body responded before she did, turning and drawing, urging yet freezing at the same time. Her knees nearly buckling when they catch eyes. Even from afar, watching as broad shoulders weave their way with little regard through the other heads, she could still feel that simple weight of her presence curling around her own.
“Fa-ree,” her voice died within her breathless chest, forgotten and stolen as her body locked, barely even moving, almost falling forward as her feet refused.
Tipping, falling, vision blurring, throat drying, fingers numbing, spine aching, but never alone, never with her.
Before she shifts to far over her feet, a body catches against her own, long heavy arms draping around her, collecting her and holding her together. The press of large palms bracing tight against her.
A weight she could no longer bear, finally relieved off her shoulders. The muscles in her neck failing, letting her head fall directly into a warm collar, warm and oh so flush as her nose basks with foreign nostalgia.
Earthy, yet metallic, like an engines fuel mixed with the planes of Cairo’s sands.
She weeped, she sobbed, ugly and depressing, but it did not matter, nothing did, because they were together.
They stayed embraced. They stayed together. Holding eachother, breathing eachother, together with eachother.
She would have stayed as such forever, they both would have, but the slug in her posture began to stake.
“Angela?” Fareeha’s voice, like a smooth hydraulic piston, ragged and low, nearly breathless like her own, tired and gravelly.
A sound deep in her throat whined, and she felt as the shielding warmth around her retracted. Vice like hands releasing and gently smoothing over her back, rounding the sharp of her shoulders and down her arms.
“I-,” Felareeha’s voice caught as Angela looked up to her, their eyes honing and grappling. Angela’s eyes, like visage of blue, wet around the edges and puffy with tears, as if a glacier of pure salvation to the heavy and mudded eyes of Fareeha, grayed and engraved with shadow under thick eyebrows.
Angela could have laughed, even giggled, watching the stone of Fareeha’s stoic crumble, her mouth open and freezing, whatever words clipping and pausing, rethinking and closing back up. Angela could see the line of Fareeha’s jaw flex, eyes like earth roaming deep into her own.
As if reverting to an awkward teen, cheeks flushing and nerves dancing, eyes averting and realization that standing in a busy port minutes after midnight was revealing, Angela broke eye contact.
She saw the shuffle in Fareeha’s step, leaded hands flinching and retracting. The loss of pressure like a puncture to her heart. Before she could do so herself Fareeha had picked up her fallen luggage, hefting it without thought, and nodding earnestly for Angela to follow.
She froze again, spine locked and feet cemented. But this time she was ready. With the patience of Fareeha, and a lended hand, large scarred palm face up and waiting for her own, she thawed out. One step at a time, placing her own in Fareeha’s hand.
They were together again, even if temporarily, even if it was merely a delay of the inevitable, it will be worth it. For it’s the only reason they keep going, simply for each other.