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The ocean thrashes against the cliffside, wearing away the coast year by year until eventually one day Castle Caladan and all its inhabitants will fall into its icy depths. It has always been its fate. She just hopes that when the tide comes, it will be merciful and take her too.
She is an old woman now.
Has been for a long time.
Her partner gone longer than the years they had together.
The room they shared has been closed off for many decades. One of the first orders when she returned to their home. The master suite forbidden for all but her.
But her memories of this place still feel like newborn things. A doe’s first steps. A fine mist on a winter morning.
She enters now. A palm brushing away a layer of dust from his pillow, the indent of her head still visible from the last time she visited. It no longer smells like him, his scent faded long ago but still there are remnants of him amongst the old belongings; a stray hair trapped in the fibres of an old coat, a flake of skin she decides can only be from him, the edge of a nail found wedged in the corner of the bathroom tiles. Treasures he left just for her. She's sure.
Time has not stopped, as much as she wishes it would, Caladan seas escaping through the gaps in her fingers like sand in an hourglass. And she tries so hard to move with it, tries so hard not to dwell in the memories of her past life. But how is that possible when it seems like only yesterday she felt his lips against hers.
The intricate details of him are not easily forgotten. Warm eyes in the morning sun. A large hand at her cheek. Heat radiating against her.
She remembers on the nights he allowed himself to rest. How he removed the signet from his finger as he entered their room, as if wanting to leave his Dukedom at the door and be just Leto with her. He had told her once of his heart, breathed the depths of his devotions against her neck and she chose to believe them when she could have just easily brushed them off as foolish, lust-filled murmurings. But he had not once lied to her. Kept things from her, yes, just as she had to him. But Leto confessed more truths than anything, especially to her. Always to her.
They were alike in so many ways.
Before she met him her nights were restless, living things. Terror-filled and ripe with disturbances conjured by her own mind. But with Leto, that is when she finally found sleep.
Peace.
During the winter, when the season's storms raged, and her fears swelled, she loved curling against him. On those evenings he would always leave his duties early, returning to wrap his arms around her and stroke the soft planes of her back. Fingers in her hair as he massaged dangerous thoughts from her skull until her eyes could no longer stay open, the cold tip of her nose pressed into his neck and her arms clinging tight.
His tendency to overwork himself was always a concern from the moment they met. And as their love bloomed, eventually she would only allow so much. Often when she saw the toll such tasks took, she would lure him back to their bed. Her fingers at his temple until he drifted and even in his wake-less state he would never allow her far, tugging her close when she attempted to detangle limbs. His breath in her hair and heartbeat along her spine.
Those were some of her favourite nights.
There were many moments that the prickle of her stare alone was enough to wake him. A nail tracing strong features and her eyes soaking in the perfection of him in the moonlight. He would wake softly and all at once, a deep breath in and eyes finding her instantly. There were nights she woke him in other ways. A hunger so insatiable that she could not resist touching her lips to his chest and he would always wake with a pleased hum, rolling closer until sleep was the farthest thing from either of their minds. He was no better. Her desire not the only cause of such awakenings. Lips at her nape, hard against her as eyelids fluttered and a smirk broke across her mouth as he slinked down to devour. The Duke of House Atreides worshipping as if she was a deity.
On one of the early nights that their anger overtook, the first to be exact, she decided that distance was the greatest punishment for them both. Her for the foolishness of falling for her mark and he, for the betrayal of loving her fiercely in return. Not the cause of the argument but at that time she did not have words for these emotions. Frustration radiated from him but his mouth was silent as he stole into the room she was assigned upon her arrival and moved beneath the covers, careful not to touch her.
“If you have come to grovel then you needn't bother. I have no forgiveness in exchange for your apologies,” she has said, refusing to turn to him.
“That is not what I am here for,” he had responded, low and deep.
“Then why?”
Her question was met only with silence, because at that time she did not think even Leto himself knew. There were no words for their unexplainable connection or why they acted the way they did; why he was here and why she knew space was the utmost cruelty. She felt the tip of his finger trace down her spine. Softer than a butterfly's wings. And that was the only answer she needed. She allowed him to stay.
Eventually his room became theirs. Her things moved alongside his and she tried not to think of the day when they would be moved back, that the softer bedding and flourishings that she chose would be replaced by another's preferences. Thoughts like those only worked her into a rage. So much so that she snarled and skittered away at his touch.
“Tell me what I have done and let me fix it,” he had requested on one of those nights when he had tried for closeness only for her to roll further away, the cool of the mattress freezing her very marrow.
“It is not about what you have done, but what you will do.”
“Your anger comes from hypotheticals?”
She had finally glared at him, “But they are not hypotheticals are they? Your fate is set as much as mine. Why tell ourselves anything different?”
“Jessica,” he whispered softly, touching his forehead to hers, accepting a wrath that may or may not come. “In every lifetime, under any circumstance.. I am yours.”
She had gasped for a breath she did not know she was withholding, and he did not flinch away as her hands clung to him, nails digging deep as if trying to embed herself in his flesh.
When Paul was born, there were nights where neither Leto nor herself could bear the distance of the nursery. A dim light kept on as between them, their child slept soundly. Bated breathes when he stirred, and a conspiratorial smile shared when the tiny creature settled once again. She liked when eventually Leto reached across, touching her chin tenderly and gently ordered, “Sleep, love. I’ll take watch now.”
And so she did. Knowing they were safe in his care.
Even in their later years and their patterns became ever-changing things, between their sheets was where they reconnected. She woke in the hazy morning hours when frost coated the ground and it was still too early for the sea birds to take flight to find him watching her. His smile widening when she rolled her eyes, and pressed her own smiling face into the pillow. “It is too early for whatever is on your mind.”
“Who said anything is on my mind? Can I not just enjoy looking at you without nefarious intent?”
“Nefarious,” she mouthed in amusement. “Is not how I would categorise your intentions.”
“No?”
“No. Sinful more like,” she murmured moving towards him. “Debauncherous even,” she said, pressing a quick kiss to his neck. “But never nefarious.”
“Mm, you make me sound like some sort of fiend,” he teased, brushing a hand over her skull until she looked up at him.
“I am not complaining… The opposite in fact.”
“I’ll make a note of that.”
Her fingers trailed his eyebrow before smoothing across his temple gently, “Why are you awake?”
“Need there be a reason?”
“I’d prefer if there was. Your sleep schedule is frightful as it is, let's not add insomnia to my worries,” she lightly reprimanded. “What is it?”
His breath was shallow, eyes full of warmth as his thumb grazed the edge of her lip, tracing where pale skin met pink flesh. “A dream,” he sighs, frustrated. “A nightmare really…” So rarely did her partner speak of the images that plagued him when she first arrived. The nights where he tossed and turned, brows furrowing and skin slick with sweat. It had been many years since such things disturbed him enough to pull him from slumber.
Jessica’s hand presses against his hot chest, the beat of his heart beneath sinew and bone thumping strongly against her palm. “Will you tell me about it?”
Leto hand captures hers, bringing it to his mouth where he lets it linger, inhaling deep as if trying to memorise her very essence. His next words are soft, far off like he is trying to create distance between their syllables and the existence of them in the morning air. “There is nothing to tell. We were here, you, Paul and I and then you were gone… I kept searching, calling for you but—“ he runs a hand over his face, sighing. “You weren’t there anymore. I’ve never been so scared.”
She notices the deep exhaustion under his eyes. Purple blooms much deeper than what comes after a night well rested. “How long have you been awake?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, kissing her hand once more.
“It does to me. You should have woken–”
“No,” he says firmly, a fingertip running down the line of her nose. “Not when you look so at peace. My fears are mine to own. There is no reason for you to bear them too.”
Jessica frowns, scratching softly through coarse beard until her partner's eyes closed. A large hand wrapping around her wrist, halting a retreat that will never come. “Wake me next time, Leto. Let me share the burden.”
She recalls his nod, agreement in the form of the softest kiss as she opens her eyes, years in the future. The room now dark and she is alone.
As she will be until the day she dies.
She has not rested well in years.
Not since that final night when he was taken and their lives were changed forevermore. He did not wake her then either. She wondered if he saw peace on her face then.
Maybe it is guilt that keeps her awake. Perhaps her broken heart is what prohibits her from pleasant dreams. The knowledge that she is well and truly alone. The sound of his voice whispered in her ear as she drifts but always out of reach…
She has not slept in decades. Eternities.
She doubts she ever will again.