The first time he wakes (properly wakes, sedation lightened and intubation removed), his eyes empty and glazed, he doesn't know her. She very much doubts he even knows himself. That verdigris gaze, so sharply piercing normally and so dull now, flicks tiredly over the unfamiliar room, landing on her at last. She manages a smile for him, and squeezes his hand. His brow twitches into the barest frown, before his eyes slip closed again.

And the questions that lurked in his eyes for that brief moment feel like a punch to the gut. She can't breathe with it, can't think, can only kiss his fingers and fight the tears from her eyes.

Suddenly, it's so much easier to speak. The words that for so long have clogged her throat rush forward in a torrent, spilling forth and she can't stop them, can only go with them.

She tells him of Saint Petersburg, of the way the world shifted on its axis when she laid eyes on him for the first time in a year and half. She never believed that he was dead, always harboured those doubts deep in her heart because if anyone was going to survive it would be him.

She tells him of Toledo, of the way her heart fluttered when he laid his land so lightly on hers. His hair was auburn, and it burned with beautiful righteousness beneath the setting sun.

She tells him of Tehran, of the shining of his eyes when he swallowed and leaned across the table to press his lips to hers at last. He tasted of the wine they were drinking, mouth hesitant as a schoolboy and she had so much to teach him, and oh how she looked forward to it.

Stockholm, and she shivered when the rain wet her dress through, so he took off his heavy cloak and wrapped it around her. She never asked him where he found such a cloak, but the way it swirled as he moved took her breath away. It smelled of mint, and tobacco, and the deep cologne he wore those six weeks through, and that night they huddled in the bed they shared and she kissed his throat and he pulled her close.

In Monaco, they masqueraded as a prince and a duchess, technically dispossessed of their titles and lands, but nobody cared because most of them lost their titles too in their grandparents' times. That party the homing ground for long-lost nobility. What was one more pair of strangers in the mix?

And she talks of London, when they came home, of the way they wove a new life for themselves together in Baker Street, earning back John's trust and forging a friendship with Mary. (Why did she ignore the alarm bells? Why did she not reveal all when doing so would have made a difference? Why? Why? Why? A litany of whys and she had no answer for any of them except that she was an idiot and let sentiment interfere and how she regrets every choice she made that led them here.)

She thinks of Mary, at least, but she doesn't mention her and the name is a drum beat inside of her head but dammit the woman almost killed him and she's not going to remind him of that when she wants him to come back to her.

She doesn't tell him she loves him. She wants him to know her, and know his own feelings, when she says that.

But she talks until her voice cracks and her throat aches and still she keeps talking until her voice is only a whisper, and then it dies.

He wakes several times, regarding her hazily from the bed, and she is never sure if he knows her or not, though she hopes the memories and the softness in her words bring it back to him.

She drops a kiss to his forehead, soft and gentle, and lays her head on the pillow next to his. His fingers twitch, and curl around hers, but he doesn't speak and neither does she. There is no need to, not really, and if she were not afraid of disturbing all of the wires and tubes connected to his now-frail body she would lie down on the bed with him and take him in her arms, and with her touch promise him a lifetime. How she craves to be closer to him, but she must make do with this small bit of contact, hands curled together and lips to hair.

She dozes, or she must do, because she wakes and the light is different and he's shifted in the bed, not much, but enough that he can look at her now, and the soft recognition clear in every line of his face soothes the ache in her chest.

She bows her head and kisses him carefully, tongue slipping between his lips and he sighs, smiling into her mouth. She pulls back and his eyes drift closed, fingers still twined with hers.

"I wondered…when you'd wake," he whispers, his voice hoarse and unrecognisable, all beautiful sensuality lost and yet it's the sweetest music to her ears to even hear him speak. And for the first time since this whole dreadful business started, she knows he's going to be all right.