there’s time enough for now
The entire night is a blur of quiet terror, the squeezing of cold fingers around her throat, the chill of the water. But when it’s over—when she’s standing up to her knees in the cold lake, Flora in her arms, Jamie wrapped around them both—Dani still feels like she can’t breathe.
Hannah is gone and Miles is himself and Henry is there—finally, finally. And Dani has no idea how much time has passed since she walked into Flora’s bedroom and saw a woman who was supposed to be dead sitting on the little girl’s bed, but there’s cold sweat on her neck and face and chest.
No one is sure what to do.
Dani sets Flora down on dry ground and Flora runs off, wrapping her arms around her uncle with Miles, and nothing makes sense. None of it. Dani can’t think clearly.
Jamie turns to her immediately. “Are you okay?” she asks, her voice low and panicked. She jolts forward and skims her hands up Dani’s side, cupping her face, looking for injuries or changes or anything that’s off. Dani shakes her head, both in answer and in an attempt to put a semi-normal amount of space between them again.
There’s nothing she wants more than to fall into Jamie’s arms and stay there, but she can’t. Not right now. Not with Owen running off and calling out for Hannah, not with the children crying and being held in the arms of the only blood relative they have left.
She can’t let it be about her right now. It isn’t about her right now.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m okay.”
She tries to sound as sure as she can manage, but she truly doesn’t know how. For all she knows, she could be seconds away from collapsing—from being dragged back into that lake and under the water.
Owen’s yelling is reaching a fever-pitch. Jamie stares after his form, retreating into the fog of the night, and Dani grabs her hand to start pulling her after him. To find Hannah.
They search for hours, for what feels like years, really. Dreaming up the worst case scenarios that they can manage and they’re still not prepared for the moment they actually find her.
Down at the bottom of that well.
Owen collapses to his knees and Dani falls with him, wrapping her arms around him. She’s trying her damndest to keep him together—to keep everyone together—because she’s not sure how much she can manage that for herself.
Jamie has spent the entire time walking beside Dani, a fierce expression on her face that only falters in that moment. It’s been to keep Dani feeling safe. To make sure that she knew that if anything were to happen again, Jamie wouldn’t hesitate to end the person at fault.
But now, her straight spine slumps and she kneels beside Dani, touching Owen on the shoulder. She’s crying, her shoulders shaking silently. Dani presses her face into Jamie’s coat and lets herself sob.
________
There are things to be done. Henry has to call the local police, get a team out there to pull Hannah out, and the children are exhausted. They fall asleep on the couch in the sitting room together, and Owen eventually joins them in a restless slumber, his head lolling on the back of the armchair he’s sitting in.
Jamie drapes a blanket over him and puts his feet up on an ottoman, and then helps Henry carry the children to their beds. Dani trails after them on autopilot, not saying a word.
Her panic, for the most part, has not come even close to dissolving. It buzzes, aching through her bones, resonating through her chest. This, she thinks, is only part of the emotion, the half she can handle right now. As soon as she’s alone, she knows that the weight of everything will probably take her out at her knees.
“You should get some rest,” Henry says once they’re back in the hallway. He looks between Jamie and Dani, an affectionate—almost fatherly—expression on his face. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
He squeezes Dani’s shoulder in passing, giving her a look that is probably meant to be reassuring, and then drifts back down the hallway and down the stairs.
And Dani does feel tired—so, so, so bone-tired and weary—but all she can think about is that faceless woman, Flora in her arms. How she had come so close to ending everything, all of it, and she would have succeeded, too, if it weren’t for those simple words Dani had found within herself. Without them, she would have killed Flora or Miles or even Jamie, which would have been the same as killing Dani herself.
It’s such a terrifying thing. The love of her life. The children in her care. Two things she’s practically already lost once. Two things she’s been so lucky to find again, that she cannot bear to lose.
Her heart aches with every beat and it’s only by some stroke of luck that she hasn’t started weeping yet. She hates this, hates herself for everything that’s happened. Whatever she missed and could have done better. She doesn’t know yet what the consequences of saving Flora are and she selfishly wants to go back and find a different way. Figure out how to save Flora and be selfish as well. To put her health, safety, and security first for once.
But it hadn’t been that simple.
In the hallway outside of Flora’s room, where she and Jamie kissed not even twelve hours before—so carefree and unaware of what was to come—Dani finally falls into Jamie’s arms, sobbing in a way that feels like it might never end. Jamie holds her and kisses her and whispers nonsense to try and calm her down, but Dani knows that she’s only putting on a brave face.
“You’re okay,” Jamie tells her, holding her closer and closer. “We’re okay.”
It’s true enough, at least, to let Dani breathe. To pull back and move to her own bedroom, pull Jamie inside and shut the door.
Behind the closed door, Dani pulls her clothes off piece-by-piece. She fumbles with her belt and zipper and sighs with relief when she finally manages to get her pants off, kick off her shoes. Jamie finds pajamas for her in her dresser and she helps Dani dress.
Dani feels very, very young for the first time in as long as she can remember as Jamie buttons up her pajama shirt. Even after having left all of that danger behind—for now, at least—she feels exposed and vulnerable within the drafty hollow of her bedroom.
She sits down heavily on the edge of the bed once she’s dressed, watching Jamie kick off her boots and drop her coat to the floor. For a moment, Dani thinks she’s going to join her on the bed, but she doesn’t. Instead, Jamie leans heavily against the dresser by the window and crosses her arms.
Dani can still taste the lake water at the back of her throat, the press of those fingers into her neck.
“I don’t even...What exactly did I miss, Dani?” Jamie asks, and that’s how Dani knows how serious she is:
The solemn use of her given name, no nicknames or pet names between them and her point.
“I don’t...I don’t even know,” Dani says, frustration bubbling inside of her chest, licking flames up her throat. “There was...Peter and Hannah were going to...take over Miles and Flora’s bodies and then—I got Flora out and we were going to run, but that...that thing grabbed me and I thought I was going to...So when she took Flora instead, I had to stop her. I had to...Flora would have died if I hadn’t.”
When she looks up, Jamie is staring at her with a look she can’t quite read in her eyes. “You might have been killed, Dani. That...that thing could have killed you.”
As if a switch has been flipped, Dani’s irritation turns into anger, so boiling that it’s near-incoherent.
“I know that!” she yells. “I know what could have happened and I know that I almost...but I...she was going to kill Flora, Jamie, I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t just—”
Every muscle in her body is trembling, shaking, and they have been since she stood at the edge of that lake. This is the reality of that emotion she’s been swallowing since then. This is what her heart had been protecting her from.
There’s silence for a few moments. Dani keeps her eyes down, her hands flat and tight as she grips her knees, silent tears tracking down her face and dripping onto her shirt. Something touches her shoulder and she jumps, pulling away.
It’s Jamie, who withdraws quickly. “Sorry,” she says, sounding broken and longing.
Dani looks up at her and reaches one hand up, beckoning her closer. “Come here. Please touch me.”
At once, Jamie is kneeling in front of her, brushing hair out of Dani’s face and wiping away her tears. The bed is low but Jamie is still a head shorter now. She holds Dani’s hand, always anchoring her down when she’s at risk of blowing away.
“I’m sorry,” Jamie whispers, and Dani leans down to press their foreheads together. She closes her eyes. “I was just so scared. I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life.”
Dani cups her face in her hands. “I’m okay,” she says. “We both are. It’s okay.”
“I know that we haven’t really…” Jamie trails off, swallowing thickly. “I’m just really fucking terrified of losing you, Dani.”
Dani wants to say that she is, too, but she knows that she’s already made that pretty clear. Of course she’s terrified. She has every reason to be. She doesn’t exactly know what’s going to happen next.
“Come here,” Dani says, pulling away from Jamie to give her an earnest look. “Come up here and hold me.”
“Always,” Jamie promises, rubbing her hands up and down Dani’s thighs, warming her up. “Try and stop me.”
And, despite it all, Dani can’t help but smile. Jamie is the only person who’s ever cared for her this fervently. She can’t help believing every word that comes out of her mouth.
“I would never,” she says.
Jamie gets to her feet and crawls onto the bed, pulling Dani with her until they’re lying beneath the blankets, facing one another. Beneath the sheets, Dani feels her warm hand slipping beneath her shirt to rest on her hip, drawing idle patterns there.
It’s hard to believe that this woman is real sometimes. That Dani just happened upon her by some stroke of luck and that she plans on sticking around. That she’s still here after it all to offer a steady hand, a warm embrace, loving words. Dani doesn’t think she’s ever been able to lean on anyone the way she’s leaning on Jamie right now.
Maybe that’s because she doesn’t think Jamie could ever come close to letting her down. Falling in love with her is as easy as breathing.
“Jamie,” Dani whispers, shifting close enough to feel Jamie’s breath on her face.
Jamie kisses her chin, her nose, her eyelids. Everywhere she can reach with as much tenderness as anyone has ever had. Her touch is engulfing, the press of her lips reassuring.
“You’re so beautiful,” Jamie whispers. She tucks her face into the space between Dani’s neck and shoulder and kisses the skin she finds there.
Dani rakes her nails down Jamie’s back, through the fabric of her t-shirt, and smiles at the words—the same ones Jamie whispered over and over just the night before as her lips and fingers found every yielding inch of Dani’s body. She wonders if she’ll ever get tired of hearing them.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jamie whispers next.
Dani sighs, boneless with the safety of exhaustion in Jamie’s arms. “Me too. Please just...stay.”
Chuckling, Jamie pulls back and kisses Dani’s forehead. “As long as you like.”
They’re quiet for a while. Just Jamie’s fingers making circles in the skin of Dani’s hip, pressing her mouth against her forehead and cheek. Dani closes her eyes and listens to the sound of Jamie breathing.
“How’s forever sound?” Dani asks, her brain filled with soft cotton and a calm fog that’s making everything—the house, the events of the evening, the world—feel distant and hazy.
Jamie is still for a moment, and then she laughs. Dani feels it against her body. “You’re serious, are you?” she asks.
Dani smiles, pressing a kiss to Jamie’s sternum. “Yes,” she says.
Guilt pricks at her stomach. She feels like it’s a promise she can’t offer. Whatever is inside of her—whatever’s just happened—neither of them know what’s coming next. They’re flying blind and she can’t help wondering: what if something happens? What if this doesn’t work out?
But those are questions for another time. Another Dani. One who’s had time to rest and sleep and breathe in the arms of the woman she loves.
Jamie pulls away so they can look at one another and her smile lights up the room. “Then you’ve got me,” she says. “S’long as I have you?”
Dani can’t help but grin. “Of course you do.”
Silence falls between them again and Dani snuggles a little closer. She’s not sure what time it is, and because of this, part of her is worried that they’re going to be interrupted by something else—something terrible or even mundane—any moment. She’s just about to ask when Jamie tightens her hold around Dani’s body.
“I’m not gonna let you get away, you know,” she says, so quiet and desperate she doesn’t really sound like herself.
Dani presses a kiss to the skin she’s lying against. “Thank you,” she says. Her eyes drift closed sleepily. “What time is it?”
Jamie kisses the corner of her mouth and shifts even closer. “There’s time,” she says. “Just rest.”
Dani does.
...