Talking is hard for Sunny, and the more stress she's under, the harder it is for her language centers to work. Part of her knows she should keep talking to Carl, so that he knows she's with him, but that's not terribly useful advise when she simply can't talk.
So she hums some
Bach. It's not very good, as Bach isn't terribly hummable, but it's the music she listens to the most.
She's filthy from the workshop, so she starts to strip down. She doesn't want to leave him long enough for a shower. Maybe just change into clean pyjamas?
Or maybe not. She'd never been undressed in front of him before, because it had made her afraid, but now that seemed unimportant. Or maybe more important than ever. But what mattered now?
They'd taken everything so slowly. Holding hands, kissing, light petting, heavy petting - she knew all the terms. She'd read the books that were designed for teenagers making their first tentative explorations into their own sexuality, rather than for adult women who should be able to handle an adult relationship.
And then he was gone. And of course part of her blamed herself for not being able to take that last step in time. But then, did it matter? It was just a single step, after all. And they were so close in every other way. Did it matter that there was one physical activity that they had not engaged in together? There would always be something. No relationship could ever end without regrets of some type. These were things that Sunny understood somehow, wordlessly.
She didn't know he'd been tortured in Hel. That knowledge had been carefully concealed from her. But she knew that time for him had been longer than the few days it had been from her. And she knew that being close to her seemed to comfort him.
And she knew that she trusted him, completely.
She didn't put her pyjamas on, and instead slipped under the covers with him, undressed. She reached out to untie the robe he was wearing and push it off of him. And she pulled him close to her, skin against skin, curling up behind him spoon style, holding his smaller body against hers.
Come back to me Carl. I won't give up on you. Come back to me.