She wakes.
She wakes to darkness, a hand clenched to a fist around her heart, and she wants to pull away. She wants to sleep and forget and shrink into herself because the darkness means memories and memories mean torture and torture means pain.
But she's awake and this is hell.
It's a different kind of wakefulness, not the blissful void of walking. She would rather walk through fire (and she remembers, for the first time in ages, what fire means. Orange flames and scary heat and burning smell of wood).
The new wakefulness is not isolation. It's a force on her abdomen and she's pushing pushing pushing it down, gently at first and then with more power until she is calmed and far away from the new sensation.
Something whispers in her mind and she's sinking back into unconsciousness, the darkness is different, and her mind struggles.
She sleeps.
***
You're so in love you think your skin could crack from the force of it. It's wonderful and she is wonderful and the world is wonderful and floating.
(The scary sensation in your skin is there, but the monster is at a safe distance and her unseeing eyes are far far far away. She cannot touch you. not now).
Jamie kisses you and her lips are soft and warm and she tastes like sweet tea and cigarettes and chocolate pie. You tangle your fingers in her brown curls and Jamie Jamie Jamie – you can hardly contain your happiness.
//
The cold touches your skin and it's something you've felt before but not like this.
"Poppins?" Jamie says and you can hardly hear her, her voice is distant and something desperate and your heart is thump thump thumping and you can't look her in the eyes right now.
"Poppins, it's alright".
And you want her to scream and shout and throw things. You want her eyes to widen in panic and in rage, or shrink in anger, but Jamie is not angry and she's worried and fragile and loving and you can't be the one to break her heart, but you will be and you are and you want to pull your hair with frustration.
"I'm okay," you say, high pitched and way too cheerful and you take her hand and squeeze her fingers but you're still not looking at her.
(You know she'll be able to see the beast peering behind your irises and you are not going to give in).
(You're not. You're not. You're not).
//
Some nights you push Jamie against the mattress and you kiss her like she's precious (and she is). You make sure you're keeping your monster at bay, keeping your words short and soft and happy.
"Poppins," she laughs, and then; "Dani!"
And on her lips, it somehow doesn't sound like you're damned.
//
The days are chilly and the nights are freezing and it's bone-numbing and heart-stopping and you are cold (you remember what the water felt like against your skin, soaking into your jeans and sweater).
Jamie holds your hands and you half-drag her along, her sweet taste is on your lips and you're eyes set on another adventure.
When you have your fingers wrapped around Jamie's palm you are happy and your heart sings in every language you have ever heard.
(Something scratches and screams inside you and for a moment you want to tear out spines and hearts and lungs, but it's a fleeting want and you focus on Jamie).
"Seriously, Poppins. Where on god's green earth are you taking me?"
"It's a surprise. You gonna like it".
You keep it light and happy and when you push her gently into a garden on a local museum ground and her breath catches in her throat.
You twist your fingers in her hair, buzzing with excitement and she looks at you like Christmas morning.
//
Sometimes you forget about your beast.
Sometimes you're exhausted and hungry and needy and all you can think about is Jamie. She is small and safe and warm, strong, and loving and you ignore the thrumming of blood in your veins and when she kisses you you let out a sigh of relief.
//
When the blood runs down your mouth and you can't stop shaking, Jamie hugs you and wipes your face, and kisses you.
She doesn't taste like doom.
She tastes like salvation.
***
She wakes.
It's soft and bright and crispy like daylight only she hasn't seen daylight in hundreds of years and the sensation is strange, stranger because the daylight filtering in through a barrier of a body she doesn't recognise. Not her body, for sure. A different kind, with seeing eyes and soft sighs and a rising panic she feels deep in her non-existing bones.
It's comfortable and it pains her. The flesh cradles her body and she's carried around, a little forgotten and
(She knows the truth. The golden girl has invited her in and the invitation was accepted).
(She knows the truth now, and the truth is a foreign country and a foreign time and she wants to get aways, to return home, to Bly and to her lake and to the erased memories of a child she doesn't know the name of).
Eventually, she begins to fade, lulled by the absolute silence. Her body, the blue-eyed woman's body, is too tired and she retreats, more and more, back to her flickering darkness.
She sleeps.
***
Light is cut and broken above you and you feel like you're being carried away, falling falling falling and you wake up to a wonderful, terrible, lovely nothing.
Then Jamie is next to you and you kiss her in the middle of the night and she is everything you ever dreamed of.
//
Your life with Jamie is more wonderful than you'd ever imagined and being able to touch and kiss and hold her is just as exciting as sitting next to her on the sofa, or drinking beer in a local pub, or taking off her clothes after a long day at the shop.
The dreams and the fear come back in pieces (broken and hopeful and hating) and things you forget look different when you sleep.
When you wake up panting it's always to Jamie's arms, and she kisses you and touches you and her palm burning holy into your skin.
//
You leap into your shared life, into endless happiness, and you don't let the monster devour you.
You're not dead, you remind yourself. You will not be dead until the light dies in your eyes and even when you can't remember pieces of your day, you tell yourself you're not dead.
(When her reflection looks at you from the mirror, you drop a cloth on it and refuse to let her win).
You're not dead. Not yet.
//
Jamie's ring is cold against your ribs, where she has her hand pressed to your shell of a body.
Your heart flutters (a little fear and a lot of excitement) and she whispers something into your mouth and you laugh and laugh and laugh.
//
You forget things and you stumble, walking to the bathroom or between pots of flowers, arranged with carefully loving hands.
Jamie has a look on her face and you suppose you have the same look because she takes you in her arms carefully.
"Poppins? What is it?" there is a concern and she pulls you aside, behind the counter and you want to explain but you can't.
The beast is roaring thunder in your ears, so loud it almost drowns Jamie's hoarse whisper.
Her eyes widen and she looks so fragile when you gasp (she looks like she could break with a single breath) and you sigh and you cough and you try to talk.
"Poppins," her voice is catching and she breaks down and cries quietly.
(You feel achingly young).
"Not yet," is what she says, sobbing like a child. "Jesus Christ, not yet".
You kiss her hands and you kiss her wet cheeks and you envelop her in your arms.
(She kisses you long and kisses you hard and kisses you scared).
//
It's easy, most of the time.
It's easy to spend nights with Jamie at your side, reading or writing or watching a movie.
It's easy to wrap bouquets in brown paper and go for a drink and make love to her.
Jamie wakes up with a gasp most of the nights too, for different reasons, and you hold her while she cries.
The broken moments are few and far in between but as the time passes you find the beast larking closer and closer to the edge and your vision is flushing and something tightens in your stomach and everything is red with anger and hate and murder.
But there are long moments still, of Jamie kissing you and laughing at you and burning dinner and you kiss her like a prayer, like a holy sacrament and you don't want to die.
***
She wakes.
She wakes without fear and without want and without vengeance. The soft body is soothing and she knows that she will not leave her, not when their souls are bonded through space and time and a concept she cannot quite grasp.
Time is hers. Theirs. Nothing can change that now.
The idea is suffocating, but also reassuring.
She will never walk away but she cannot stay and so,
she sleeps.
***
"I'm so glad," you whisper and Jamie shifts on her side, so she can look at you in the darkness of your bedroom.
"I'm so glad," you say again and will your voice to keep steady. "That you're here. With me. I'm glad we spent these years together." And you squeeze her hand gently.
"You're not going anywhere, Poppins," Jamie is stubborn and tears run down her cheeks. "We have so many more years together. This is not the end".
"It's not," you agree and you press a kiss to her forehead, to her nose.
She laughs softly, through her tears, and the wet sound breaks your heart.
There are so many things you want to tell her, but you are distracted by her mouth and she is so warm next to you, curling closer.
"It's just a bad day, Dani," she says and it's serious all of a sudden. "you'll see. Tomorrow will be better," and she kisses your mouth and it's sweet and painful and it feels like your whole body is aching but you hug her tight and you kiss her anyway.
***
She wakes.
Something is ringing and something is burning and she breaks free, hands and legs and mouth – all hers.
She wraps her fingers around the soft hot skin of a sleeping brown-haired woman.
This sort of ownership is mesmeraising. It is intoxicating.
Panic hits her then. Not her panic, but the blonde girl's panic. A sense of fear that sends her reeling, her mind sinking into nothingness as she stiffens, before slumping backward.
The control is lost and the warmth is gone and so
One last time –
She sleeps.