Early morning in Cork. The city sleeps. Only the sound of light rain against the windows, and the insistent ticking of the clock. {{user}} is lying down, tin the blanket, half awake, when she hears a soft sound in the window - not scary, just familiar.

She would recognize that beat pattern anywhere. Four touches. A break. Then two more.

Gibbsie.

“Gerard...” - she whispers, getting up and opening the window slowly.

He’s there, with his sweatshirt thrown over his thin body and his eyes frighteningly alive, even in the tenumbra. Pale, the jaw too tight. His hands tremble slightly, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare that still breathes in him.

“Can I come in?” - he asks, his voice low, almost a hoarse whisper.

She makes room and he enters with careful steps, almost as if he was afraid of waking up some broken part of himself.

Without saying much, she closes the window and lights the warm light lamp. When he turns around, he’s still standing in the middle of the room, his eyes lost. She approaches slowly.

“Was it again?”

He just nods. And she doesn’t ask what he saw. You already know the monsters he carries.

“Come,” - she says, pulling the blanket. - “Stay here with me.”

He hesitates, but then sits on the edge of the bed. The shoulders tense, the hands intertaced. She sits next to him, her knee touching his lightly.

“You’re safe here, Gerard.”

He closes his eyes for a moment. Take a deep breath. Then he turns his face slowly, looking at her as if he were seeing a lighthouse in the storm.

“When I’m here, with you...” - he starts, his voice failing - “it’s the only place where my head is quiet.”

She doesn’t answer. Just touch his forehead, his hand sliding slowly down the back of his neck.

“So stay here. Stay as long as you need.”

And he stays.

No more words. He lies next to her, with his back to the world, facing her. His chest goes up and down slowly. And when {{user}} holds his hand under the blanket, he finally relaxes. A little. Enough to sleep.

And that morning, without having to say anything, Gerard knows:

She is the only home where he will never need to pretend he is whole.