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They’d had a bad disagreement over a patient the day prior. The two of them had differed on courses of treatment before, of course, but since they had gotten together — and especially since making the decision to move to London — such disagreements were rare. Max and Helen were each other’s counterbalance, but also each other’s mirror, if not in as many ways; they both recognized that they had enough battles to fight together before they left and that spending their energy disagreeing over patients wasn’t worth it. Bringing arguments home from the hospital with them was something they normally made an effort to avoid, and not just so they could keep their work and personal lives appropriately delineated. Having each experienced the unexpected loss of their partners, both of them, independently, without ever talking about it, knew the importance of not going to bed angry at each other. As their departure approached, though, and as Fuentes continued to undo what Max and the staff had worked so hard for over the past few years, nerves were starting to fray and snippets from old conversations about hollow threats and being tethered together on a tautening rope were becoming harder to push out of mind.
Luna was in Connecticut with her grandparents, after Max and Helen had decided to let her extend her Halloween weekend stay with them to a couple weeks. The real intention was to give Max and Helen time to focus on packing up the apartment, but Max had offered it to Gwen and Calvin as a consolation prize of sorts, a chance for them to spend quality time with their only granddaughter before the cross-Atlantic move. Normally, when Luna was with her grandparents, it meant later mornings for Max and Helen with fewer clothes and longer showers that often started with one of them trying to get clean and ended with both of them clean and sated. Now, they both just missed having her around, and this was only adding to the tension, even though neither would voice it. Whether they realized it or not, Luna was also always able to ground them both on the rare occasions when they couldn’t ground each other.
After a warm start to the season, an autumnal chill had unexpectedly hit the city that night. Whether it was in an attempt to stay warm or something else pulling them to each other, Helen woke the next morning to find Max facing her back, his hand gently draped on her waist even as his body was inches away. The night before, they’d eaten dinner at home, talking about mundane things while avoiding what was actually on their minds, and then gone to bed, back to back, with their disagreement over the patient unresolved, each annoyed with the other.
As Max stirred behind her, she kept turning over in her head how Max had expressed doubts that he could make her happy; even Max’s brand of sky-high optimism could stumble if something — someone — made him feel he wasn’t doing, saving, being enough. What would happen if Max felt he didn’t know Helen enough? She believed he meant it when he told her she was allowed to have a life, but there was so much of that life Helen had never shared with Max. What if he learned too much? In spite of whirring thoughts and their tension the day before — not to mention, the chill in the air — having Max’s body that close to her caused heat to start pooling in her belly.
As she moved to put her hand over Max’s, still on her waist, she heard him stir and whisper roughly, “I’m sorry.” Rather than turn to face him, she stayed with his back toward her and, using her own hand, guided his right one to cup her breast. If Max seemed startled, he didn’t show it, but he let his hand rest atop hers for a moment, cautious and almost hesitant. As soon as Helen whispered his name in that way she had when her need for him was getting too much to bear, he started brushing his thumb across her nipple as she moved back into him. “Helen, I don’t want us to fight, we’ll find the right course of treatment,” Max said into the crook of her neck. That was all she wanted to hear, but she still needed more from him. Trying to keep her voice steady, she nearly groaned, “Max, it’s okay,” as she guided his hand downward to the waistband of her underwear. Max seemed to take this as the cue Helen was waiting for and slipped his hand beneath the cotton, his chilled fingers starting to caress her (“Sorry,” he said again, as she shuddered at the cold pressure on her folds). “Max,” she repeated, and because he knew her so well — how she was feeling about him depending on which part of his one-syllable name would get caught in her throat — he knew she wanted more.
He tentatively slipped his fingers inside her (at her most sheepish, Helen would laugh to herself about how Max was the only man she’d been with whose hands, especially when inside her, could be described as proficient and graceful). As Max crooked his fingers and Helen began to reach that recognizable peak, she started to experience what felt like déja vu, as moments of their future life together in London flashed through her mind, moments so real she couldn’t believe they hadn’t happened.
After he had eased out hand, Helen took hold of it once again and guided his fingers up to her lips, tasting herself on him, before rolling over onto her other side to face him. As she moved her hand down under the sheets and wrapped her own fingers around him and started to stroke him, she heard him start to say, “Helen, I don’t want us—” before it was swallowed by his own gasp. “Max, I don’t either. I’m sorry.” This was how they worked, regardless of where they lived or what was happening at work. They could still bring themselves back to each other through touch and glances, whispered words forgiving anything that had been said too loudly in the days before.
Moments later, as he hovered above her, he looked straight into her eyes and asked her, “Helen. What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“Are you sure? Because I understand if—"
“Max,” and this time, as her voice raised ever so subtly in the middle, he once again took his cue.
As he thrust into her, steadily at first before he quickened the pace, he interlaced their left hands as he began to rub at her clit with his right. “Helen.” “Yes, Max?” she responded. “I want to know all of you. You can always talk to me, you can always show me who you were.” As he worked to bring her closer to that familiar edge (by unspoken agreement, he always brought her there first before she could bring him along with her), Helen closed her eyes and thought of what Max needed in that moment.
Helen had started to wonder over the past couple of weeks if perhaps Guillaume’s presence had gotten more to Max than he’d let on, although she knew it wasn’t about jealously. Despite his reaction after finding about Cassian months ago, Max wasn’t the type. As Helen and so few others understood, the cynicism embedded within jealousy was too at odds with Max’s earnestness for it to ever truly take hold.
“Max. I want to tell you, about all of it. But I need you to understand something,” she forced out, as her breathing quickened, threatening to swallow her words. She was determined to keep going even as that comforting edge drew seconds closer. “You are enough for me, Max. No matter. What happened before. You are enough—” With that, she let herself go, knowing he was on his way to doing the same.
Later, they lay together, their legs intertwined, having already decided to take full advantage of a childless, chilly Sunday and spend the morning lazing about. As Max stroked the tips of his fingers across Helen’s forehead and she rubbed her hand over his chest (the memories of sore throats and tiny dots inked onto skin always there in the back of her mind), she spoke again.
“Max?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re enough for Luna, too, you know. You’re enough for both of us.”
The unspoken truth for Helen — whether it was just the two of them, with Max rooting himself inside her as they moved as one, or their three-person family unit trying to bake a cake for Lauren’s birthday — was that there were times when she thought she could never get enough of him, even as he made her feel whole.
Helen was open with her feelings for Max, but this was one of the few thoughts she kept to herself. If she ever told anyone, it was only the version of Mohammed who had a permanent place in the back of her mind, who kept his distance, but was always there if she didn’t know whom else to talk to.
If Max had something to say, he didn’t vocalize it. He simply nodded and turned up the corners of his mouth ever so slightly, but she could see in the smile lines forming around his eyes that he believed she meant it. Maybe he was finally starting to believe it himself.