Home Late...Again

[Stern]

Captain Michael Stern entered his home without a sound. A single light-jump was all it took to get into the bedroom he shared with his wife, Anita.

He softened his glow to resemble the moonlight, and started to undress. He laid his badge on the dresser with care. He didn't want to wake up Anita. She lay in their bed with her back to the middle of the bed. With her back to him. Stern frowned and looked over at the clock. 3am. Balls.

It had been like this for weeks. Or had it been months? Awake before her, home after she went to sleep. Sometimes he could get home in time for dinner. He hated it.

Work was stressful, long, and tiring. Some days he wished he hadn't taken the job at all and stayed in New York. Stern hung his uniform up without any real effort and slipped into the clothes he used for pajamas that were wadded up on the floor at the foot of the bed.

He released a sigh, removed his goggles from his face, and by memory (It was amazing he could remember in the first place), peeled back the covers and started to climb in bed next to his wife.

She sighed and shifted. He froze. Had he woken her?

[Anita Stern]

“Hnngh…” A muffled, vague-asleep sound. She awkwardly rolled in her sleep-drunk stupor to turn and face the side of the bed her back had eyes on. Sleep-drugged mumbling. “…Michael.”

She drew the covers up over her eyes and they seemed to shift this way and that as she rubbed her tired and rudely-awoken eyes.

“I…” A yawn stole her words and she stifled it, partly with hand, partly with comforter. “…I waited for you. You said…”

Anita drew the covers down and away from her face to view the dark-cloaked form of her husband, her cottoned brain still too drawn into sleep to see the shadow of the look of a deer caught in headlights on his face. She failed to battle down yet another raging yawn.

“…you said you’d be home for dinner.” She sighed, deeply tired and sunk into the pillows on ‘her’ side of the bed. “I’ve heard that before. More than once.”

The brunette squinted up at him, moonlight slipping in through the curtains.

“What time is it, anyway?”

[Stern]

Stern's face registered pain as though someone was twisting a knife in his heart. It was just as well. The guilt and shame he felt every time he let Anita down compounded on itself until he couldn't think of going home without feeling stress and a special sort of self-loathing. After all, he had made her a promise.

A promise to be home for dinner. A promise to go shopping with her. A promise to be home in time to read together before bed.

A promise to be a good husband.

"Somewhere shortly after 3am," he whispered.

Now that he had woken her, Stern finished settling into bed. He propped himself on one elbow and embraced her with his other arm. Now that she was awake he didn't feel quite so bad about touching her, even if he was reluctant to show her his feelings in that moment. When your wife knew your entire mind with every touch, you wanted to be careful. Stern had decided long ago that the only thing to do was to just be honest with Anita about everything, so she wouldn't be suspicious when they touched. He had also resolved that he would do everything in his power to make sure each touch radiated calm and love.

Anita's husband gently brushed some of her hair from her face, and offered an awkward smile. Even though he was still hurting from his inability to keep his promises to her, her voice still soothed him, and the feel of her cool, soft skin offered him comfort.

"I'm sorry, Sweet Pea," he whispered. He made no attempt to excuse himself. He never did. "But believe me, I was looking forward to it. I never forgot. And I'm just as upset about it as you are."

Stern scaled back his light to nearly nothing for just a few seconds--it was an incredibly hard thing to do, even with regular practice--and opened his eyes long enough to take in her beauty. The guilt-knife twisted and plunged deeper.

"I--I--"

[Anita Stern]

Anita tensed slightly at his touch, more from the fact that the land of sleep and dreams still had its claws deeply entrenched in her psyche than anything else. When her rational mind caught up, she relaxed, though she was somewhat flummoxed with him, she didn't want to give off the wrong idea. After all, she was happy that he elected to come home at all when she was certain most would just fall asleep in the office if it got late enough.

"No excuses, please." She sighed, stifling another yawn and shifted onto her side, facing him. "As you said, it's three o'clock in the morning and I'm not certain I have the energy right now to hear it."

She closed her eyes, enjoying the pull of rest briefly before forcing them open again. Her eyes held a weary look to them.

"I don't know how you manage. Do you even try to take time for yourself?"

[Stern]

The knife twisted a little more. "Here and there," was all he managed to say.

Stern collapsed into his pillow. She was right. She was absolutely right. even as her words hurt him, they made him love her more. This was why he asked her to marry him: she kept him honest. Kept him grounded.

"I'm sorry I woke you. Tomorrow when I go to headquarters I'm going to see what I can't do about getting some time off or see who can help me manage all this red time. Maybe Duquesne can help."

He needed...well, he didn't know what he needed. He wanted to hug his wife. He wanted things to be normal. Maybe he shouldn't have gone into the police force at all.

"I love you," he said at last.

[Anita Stern]

It was hard to stay mad at him, but she was tired and dull. But his words... he had no reason to be anything less than truthful with her - even despite the fact that she could easily find out otherwise, he still had no reason. He was an honest man. And he loved her. And that mattered.

"I love you too and..." She closed her eyes again, a smile trying to fight its way up to the top while tired and frustrated tears threatened at the same time. "...I just love you. I'm sorry things are so hard for you. Isn't there anyone you can..."

Her hands balled inside the blanket, she pulled it up to wipe at her eyes.

"...you can't be the only one working in that department. I'm sure you can delegate. I miss you like you're on the other side of the world, I hate sleeping alone, I have to suspend disbelief to process that you're even here and..."

Her words only devolved into exhausted sobs and she buried her face in the pillows and balled up blankets. She waited up for him every night, fell asleep in her favourite chair every night and woke to the sound of deafening silence in that same chair after midnight, only to drag herself to an empty bed.

[Stern]

Stern sighed. "I can delegate. I have. I sent Duquesne to check on an altercation at the airport. It's not so much the red tape and the types of crimes as it is my power. I've tried to get them to send Hu or Jackson. But they want me. I'm the Captain, so they want me to be out there so the cameras can see me. The department fears the press, and so they put pressure on me to be out there. The other day they tried to get me to stop three crimes in progress at once." That's what he would have said.

But seeing Anita curled up in a ball, fists wiping her eyes, he couldn't say any of it. He brushed her bangs out of her face and kissed her forehead. He had to make things right. He had a duty to her as much as to Los Angeles and it's police department. He'd see it done.

Stern never could take seeing Anita cry, even when the tears were happy. The knife gouged out more of his heart. Now no longer willing or able to sleep, the Light Knight sat up in the bed. Then he cradled his wife's head in her hand, slid his other arm underneath her knees, and then finally lifting her up and into his lap. He lay her head on his shoulder--the one with the scar from a bullet hole left by Neutron--and stroked her hair.

Stern held up a finger that bore a golden ring. His wedding band. "I made you a promise on September 17th, 2007 to love you always, and see that you were well taken care of. I'm going to make good on that promise." He spoke with a determination born out of his past: a determination that meant things were going to get done, no matter the cost. That determination got him home from the Middle East and got himself off the dead list.

He would be a good husband to Anita. For the moment it meant he would comfort his wife. He cradled her fair face in his strong hand. "Let me kiss those tears away," He said in a whisper. Then he started to put small kisses all over her nose and cheeks.

[Anita Stern]

His flurry of kisses brought a deluge of tired giggles out of her and washed away all the negativity she had been feeling, though ultimately, she still desperately desired to go back to sleep.

“Oh, stop it! Sweetie!”

She pushed at his other shoulder, halfheartedly, the giggles subduing to a laugh then a smile.

“I don’t think I have the…”

The last of the laughter came out with a long, wide-mouthed yawn that she stifled with one hand.

“…the energy. I love you, I trust you’ll do what needs to be done, but I’m so tired.”

[Stern]

"Ok, then." Stern smiled and then helped Anita get comfortable again.

He lay down next to her, slowed down his breathing, and listened for the soft sounds of her breathing to tell him she was asleep. Stern stared at his wife. He loved her. He hated his life. There was so much about it he hated. He hated the red tape of his job. He hated the long hours. He hated feeling his uniform against his skin. The pay he earned in overtime gave him so much financial freedom, but what would he use it for? He couldn't find twenty minutes to spend with the woman he loved the most.

He wished he were dead. Not actually, but legally. Like before. Stern winced at the thought. One of the worst times in his life--a time that left him scarred, hungry, and purposeless--was beginning to look so simple and refreshing. Oh, but now nice it had been to be back in New York and seeing Anita's pretty face! Hearing her voice and seeing her smile validated all the difficulty he endured.

And now?

He suffered just as badly or worse at the hands of the police chief. He suffered from public opinion. Prejudiced, ignorant gang members were getting the better of him on a regular basis because they could always play the "gene card" and escape justice. Judges consistently released non-mutant criminals committing crimes against mutants because people still feared people like Stern.

Stern wasn't a light of hope or justice. He was just another cop to hate, only more so because he was a mutant.

Finding jobs was a hard task, though. Being a mutant made it harder still. Even so, if he really tried he could find something to help support his wife and pay for the house and utilities.

Couldn't he?

[Anita Stern]

She knew. Later, she always felt bad for resenting his work - it was valid work, work that needed doing, and her husband was one of the best people for it. It was hard not to, though - the police force wasn't something she had any involvement in beyond dipping her metaphorical toes in the metaphorical lake.

As she lay there drifting off to sleep, Michael watching over her like the battered angel she knew he was, Anita's half-cooked thoughts tried to work out for herself how their situation could be better and despite all the hardship of absence and failed plans, she knew it would all work out in the end. Her last hope as sleep took her once again, as unlikely as it would seem since moving to Los Angeles, was that her husband would still be there when she woke with the sun.

It was hardly characteristic of her to give up hope, after all.

[Stern]

Stern woke up the next morning well before his wife. It was the curse of the biological clock: feel tired and nasty after your body's bed time, but always wake up at the same time even if you still feel tired and nasty.

Stern put on his goggles. He checked his phone, pager, and the alarm clock. No one was asking for him. No one needed him to do something or chase bad guys. So instead, Stern decided to do something else.

In a literal flash, Stern was in his own kitchen in his own home, silently starting the coffee pot and getting things arranged for Anita's favorite breakfast. He could hardly wait to see the look on her face!