User:Slade81/sandbox

'''This is one of my fan fiction sandboxes. You shall not pass! Y'know...Spoilers and all that. I'll publish when it's finished.'''

Chapter One
I slowly become aware of birdsong through my foggy, tipsy, just-woke-up mind. I'm mystified for a second, staring into plum-colored cloth, then I remember that somewhere over the course of the last evening I had ended up in my bed. My so, so soft bed. I press my face into the covers and meet a puddle of red.

I sputter into wakefulness, panicking until I taste only wine on my lips. Not blood. Charlie is okay.

I smile as I see him next to me, still asleep, still glad to be home and alive, sprawled over the bed with traces of last night's contentment on his face. The love of my life. My anchor. So willing, but so unsteady. At any day of his life, young as we both are, he could leave me a widow.

I love him so much.

I set my head back down on the bed and don't say a word, just let him sleep. A yesterday was a long day at the office for him, and a long day at home for me. He did his job, I just worried about him doing his job.

See, Charlie's a private detective. Not the obscure nutcase cases anymore; now he's getting involved with serious criminal activity. And he's good at his job...Too good for them to ignore him forever. One day he'll get a little too close to the truth, and a bullet will get a little too close to him. I married him before there was that chance, but I haven't thought about divorce ever. Not to say I don't cry sometimes. But no matter how much I worry, I keep dinner warm and wine ready for when he comes home. Sometimes he's late, and both of us are so relieved to see each other again that almost all the wine runs out.

I don't know how long I lay there before I begin to drift back into sleep, so I get up and open the curtains and look out at the kind of sky only Starlight Shores can offer. I love this city. All and all, I love my life, when it doesn't feel like it's gonna be pulled out from under me.