Will didn't know where his head was some days. There were nights where the memories of the water burning its way down his nose and throat and the memories of hunger burning a hole in his gut in the dungeon and the memories of Clio burning alive in an inferno all melted together in a violent cacophony from which he woke sweat-soaked and sick. Times like that, he could feel the weight of the things he still wasn't saying, and he remembered what Clio and Tuck had both said about opening up and how he'd promised he'd try, and he felt like a damned liar. But I'm fine was such an easy lie, and he was so practised in telling it, there were plenty more days he could fool even his own self.
And when he came home to Clio and Ella, the rest of the world fell away. In the hospital, he had promised her he'd stay with her, that he'd be right there by her side every night, and he'd been true to his word. It'd been a lot of sleepless nights those first few weeks, fear clawing into his chest as he'd lain in the dark, but the fear had been for her as much as it had been his own secret terror, and he knew he'd have lost a lot more sleep without the sound of her breath slow and even by his side. He'd pushed on through it stubbornly, but not stupidly; he dropped in at the parsonage and the Fox every day, kipping there an hour or two if he needed, which was less and less as the weeks rolled on. He hadn't officially moved in, but at this point he'd slept in Clio's bed more times than he'd slept in his own bed at the Fox.
So yeah, he wasn't always sure where his head was at, but he knew right enough where his heart resided.
As Clio returned to the living room, he put aside the book he'd been flicking through and shifted to make room for her on the sofa. His arm settled comfortably around her shoulders when she sat down beside him, and he smiled. "From you? Always. You got one in mind?"