"Home" Again

Exhaustion is what I keep being told.

I've asked every day for three days and every time I'm given the same answer accompanied by an apology that I am not allowed to see her just yet. Anne has been a rock while I wait. She's been tending to my every want. If I need a towel for a shower, she provides one. If I'm feeling hungry, she'll return with something small to snack on. In the morning she makes sure that I don't oversleep and waste my day. She's been making sure I'm going to bed on time as well for adequate sleep.

She's been a rockstar and I would be lost without her at the moment.

I've never had the chance to live on my own and while what I have is considered some realm of freedom there is still one major stake that keeps me grounded, Madam Odette. She's always there. Even when she's working, she is always around. When she is out of commission, everything is different. Everything in the air just shifts differently.

As Anne has been helping me, I have been helping her. She still wants to pursue her interest in baking. Penny has been doing her best to teach her new things. She and I had an agreement but after our last encounter, she seems rather hesitant to make me pay for it now. I may have gone a bit too far. Or maybe she's still processing what Madam Odette and I have done.

Who knows? Maybe one day she'll bring it up again. What am I going to do though? Do I follow through and make good on our deal or do I play coy and just let her think what she wants? I'll have to weigh which will be better for both of us.

"Sir Red, it is 10 pm. I recommend you go to bed." This has been our nightly ritual. I'll be at my desk reading while Anne takes the reclining chair by the fire. At 10 pm she'll close her book to let me know I should be sleeping. "Thank you, Anne. I will finish this paragraph and head there. You are dismissed for the evening."

"Thank you, Sir Red."

She always bows so daintily. No matter what I tell her, she just reverts to habit. I tried to squash the "Sir Red" title but it lasts an hour before it's back. She doesn't need to show me such respect with how she acts. The bowing, the reporting to me the progress of her work, it's all too much for someone like me. I am just another person. Not the royalty she treats me as.

The days blur together until it begins to snow once again. It was a light flurry all day that left a little over three inches on the ground. It wasn't hard by any means to move around. There's still a wound that has not healed. I noticed I hesitated when I approached the door for my daily visit. That chill is still there. The tail may have grown back but the empty feeling is still there.

Once again I was turned away. They're very polite about it. Before they used to treat me as though I was a trespasser. Now I'm almost one of the family. The trek through the snow is tiring. It might just be the worry getting to me. Physically, I feel fine. I'm as strong as ever. Even with the lack of proper nutrition for a week. Now that I am back, I am being fed properly. I can feel the weight coming back. Still lean though. Anne compliments me all the time.

I'm still spending my afternoons reading. I've moved away from my educational materials for the moment. I still pick one up for at least one hour a day but I need the escape. The various adventure books I have at my disposal are great for it. Far-off lands with impossible situations that put the hero into the throws of perils. Well, maybe they're not as impossible as I thought. I thought magic was a work of fiction yet here I am. I light my fireplace with magic every morning.

I lean back in my desk chair after closing my book. I've caught myself reading the same paragraph a few times now. It's nowhere near evening but I'm dragging. "Anne, I think I'm going to call it an early day. You can stay if you would like but I think I'll lie down."

She closes her own book to reduce some of the light in the cabin. She shuts the curtains and it quickly becomes warm. The only light is from the slow-burning fire across the room. Anne takes a seat in the recliner once again with her reading material. I nestle myself under the covers sinking into the spot I seem to make for myself.

All the stress and worry are catching up. I'm drained from the inside so sleep comes easy.

It's a very unrestful sleep. My mind never really shuts off. It's just my body resting. I'm just in a half-lucid state where I can feel what's around me but I'm half drifting into the realm of sleep.

I have no sense of time. Hours could be minutes. Seconds could be days. I just rest. It's been needed for a while.

My eyes open to the dull glow of the fire still going. I sat up to see Anne had placed a fresh log on the fire to keep it going through the night. Something else I noticed is that Anne is next to me laying on top of the covers sleeping peacefully. Is that why I calmed down? I can't tell what time it is but I am wide awake. She is not. She is peacefully sleeping with a light snore.

Do I move? Do I just stay here? My eyes dart across the dark ceiling trying to think of a way out. It's not a bad position. Rather, it's quite enjoyable. But, Anne has this very proper air about her that if she wakes up, and I know this has happened, she may be beside herself about it. Maybe… I don't want to be cruel about it.

I roll over to my side with a grip on the blanket. Just enough so that I can pull it to nudge her. I just want to jostle her enough that she wakes up. Maybe she will be able to leave under her own power. It didn't seem to get her. With one light pull, I hear her breathing shift. She moves in place as she begins to stir.

I close my eyes pretending to still be asleep hoping that she will realize that she's on my bed. I feel the bed shake as she stretches but the mattress shifts. She didn't get up like I thought she would. Instead, she rolled in the other direction, close to me. Her arm wraps around my midsection pulling herself closer. I feel her head rest between my shoulder blades as her body relaxes once again. This didn't work the way I wanted it to.

There's not going to be a nice way to do this is there? I shuffle myself so I can turn to see her. "Anne? Is that you?" Maybe feigning ignorance will help. I get no response though. I roll a bit more, disturbing her again. I can see her eyes open this time to where she's more aware. As she looks around I smile at her, "Good morning, sleepy head."

This was the reaction I was trying to avoid. Once her brain caught up with what was happening her eyes shot wide. "Oh Red! I am so sorry!" She scrambled her way out of bed almost falling to the floor. I roll over trying to stifle my own laughter as she straightens out her own uniform. She must have been out of it if she was this much of a mess.

She was still straightening her hair as I sat myself up cross-legged on the bed. "I am curious how this came about. Mind telling me?" She sputtered and stuttered as she tried to come up with a good answer. "Anne, calm down. I"m not mad. What happened?" I even added a laugh at the end of it so she would realize that I am not upset.

It worked, at least a little bit. She was still thrown off, "Well, it got late, it's snowing, and there was a lot of room in your bed so I thought that you wouldn't even know I was there if I took shelter here instead of trekking across the grounds." That's as good a reason as any I guess. It's been a pretty harsh winter when it comes in full swing. Any time it snows here, everything seems to shut down to an absolute minimum.

I nod my head affirmatively as she tells me her story. I can't really blame her either. "OK, I guess I can allow it." I'm giving her crap for it.

"Really though, I have no issue with you staying if you need to." I brush off the issue. Or was there really an issue? Either way, she seems pleased and still a little disheveled.

I look at the clock on the wall to find it's only 2 am. I go to offer her a spot back in the bed, "Well, still plenty of dark to get some sleep. Want to actually sleep under the covers this time?" I take my place first offering her the space next to me. She's hesitant; unsure of what to do. It looks like she's having an internal struggle. "I… I will but you need to face the other way first."

Weird, but I shrug it off. I lay down with the blanket still off her portion of the bed. I hear her shuffling around behind my back as she does… something. I feel the mattress shift as she makes her way. The comforter moves and there is one last bump before everything lays still. I move my head to look behind me and sure enough, she is huddled under the blanket. She sees my head move, "You'll want to stay that way. I'm not… decent…"

"Not decent?"

"Well, on top of the blankets, I needed my uniform to keep warm. But under the blankets, I would get too warm. So my uniform is on your chair."

"...oh… Oh!"

There it hit me! I'm so used to sleeping in just shorts that I forget other people sleep differently. I hear her whisper again, "But if you really wanted to know, I sleep naked normally."

What… what is happening here? What is she doing? "If you don't believe me, you can look for yourself." Her paw touches the middle of my back ever so softly. I can feel my heart. My ears are on fire. What is happening here?! She's never like this!

"Remember Red, I'm here to serve you. Anytime you need it." She places her head against where her paw is sitting. Her voice trailed off near the end of the sentence. Is… is she trying to tempt me? I turn my head to see and… she's asleep. Her eyes are closed, her breathing has changed, and she is unresponsive.

It must have taken everything she had to break out of her shell for that little bit. She's something else sometimes. But there's still something that remains…

What the hell just happened?!