[Home Plot] Paris Holds the Key, Pt. III

[manwithoutfear]

I wake up slowly, a luxury I haven't been afforded in days. Above the smell of exhaust and dust lies the more tantalizing one of fresh baked bread and laundered cotton sheets and the surprisingly nice floral of the hotel shampoo used the night before. The scraping of brooms over the cobblestones outside nudges open my unseeing eyes, and I sit up in the bed, careful to not jostle Ellen.

It's been a whirlwind of two days, but we're finally in Paris. Natasha and I had had this planned out for months before I ever showed up on Tabula Rasa, this strange little failsafe in case, for whatever reason, I decided not to stand trial and prove my innocence. Maybe I'll go back, eventually, but I need to get my bearings. I need to sit back and think -- plan. If Ellen is stuck with me here for good, there are steps we'll need to take, provisions we'll need to consider, and I can't do any of that if I'm stuck in a trial for months on end. In the meantime, I can splurge on a hotel and better clothes than the ones hastily grabbed for a transatlantic flight, and treat Ellen to something nicer than front row seats to my latest battle with the Hand.

I reach a hand to smooth back her hair and press a kiss to her forehead, breathing her in and finding comfort. My back protests at the movement, but I push ahead, uncaring. I don't have use for my injuries anymore. We're safe.

"G'morning."

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[shewaswarned]

The moment they'd found themselves in the hotel room, Ellen had collapsed into bed and fallen asleep before her head had even hit the pillow. She sleeps hard now, exhausted by the whirlwind that accompanies literally fleeing the country, but Matt had seemed to breathe a little easier once they were above the Atlantic, and she'd taken his hand in her own, seeking comfort in the warm and familiar. She'd almost cracked a joke about him not needing to fly her to exotic locales to impress her, but it hadn't felt like the right moment.

Now, of course, she's not thinking about that. What she is thinking about is the lazy mood of the morning and how she rouses from sleep slowly, stretching in bed as her face scrunches into a yawn. Her ankle still twinges from time to time, but it seems to be doing okay, and when she rolls over, her hand rests flat over Matt's chest as she curls into him.

"Morning." The curtains are drawn, but there's some early morning light peeking through into the room, and she squints. "'Time is it?"