pretty please
In the time that Jamie has been working for the Wingrave's, and has been working at this house, she’s seen and heard a lot of strange things. Shadows moving around corners, voices in another room long after the children and Hannah have retired to bed. Cabinets flung wide open first thing in the morning, before anyone has even woken up, most of them higher than the children could reach even standing on a chair.
And other things too: footsteps, that strange feeling that someone is watching you over your shoulder, Flora talking, seemingly, to thin air. The list goes on.
These things are eerie, yes. Perhaps, when catching her at a bad time, even frightening.
But none of it could ever be quite as terrifying as waking up from a good dream to find you’re being watched.
Her first reaction, strangely enough, is to lie very still and hope that the figure standing at the edge of Dani’s bed goes away. Part of her thinks that she could still be dreaming, and if she waits long enough, she’ll blink and nothing will have been there after all.
But seconds pass and nothing changes, save that Jamie’s eyes begin to adjust to the darkness. In the beam of moonlight coming in through the curtains on the other side of the room, Jamie is able to see that the figure is small. Short. Definitely small enough that Jamie could shove it or toss if she needs to. It also appears to be corporeal, which makes sense, really, because Jamie has never seen a ghost in her life. She thinks she’d know if she had.
This is not a ghost.
A few beats later, she realizes what it is.
It’s—
“Flora?” Jamie whispers sitting up suddenly and turning so that her feet hang off the edge of the mattress. “Flora, what are you doing in here?”
The little girl jumps at the sound of Jamie’s voice, and then takes a few careful steps towards Jamie’s outstretched hand. “I had a bad dream,” she says, her voice cracking with the slightest lingering trace of sleep. As she draws near, Jamie leans down and picks her up by the waist, hauling her up until she’s sitting on the edge of the bed beside her.
“You had a bad dream?” Jamie asks, arm around Flora’s tiny shoulders. “What happened?”
Flora shakes her head, leaning her drooping weight against Jamie’s side. “I don’t remember,” she answers. “But you were there. You were there and I was there and Miles was there...and Uncle Henry. But Miss Clayton wasn’t.”
Jamie nods and presses a kiss to the crown of Flora’s head. She’s certainly had dreams like that before. “I’m sorry, love,” she whispers.
“Did you have another nightmare?” Flora asks, her arms coming out to wrap around Jamie’s middle as far as they can. “Is that why you’re here again?”
This gives Jamie pause: the last time her and Flora had a late-night chat had been in the girl’s bedroom and she’d been—
Well, frustrated isn’t quite it, but she can’t think of a better term because she’d been in Dani’s bed just moments before. She’d been lying on her back, head pressed into Dani’s pillows, thighs spread open and legs bent, Dani’s head bobbing between her legs, the blankets half thrown over them both. And then there’d been a noise from the door. A gasp and a creak of the floorboards and then the patter of footsteps running down the hallway.
Nightmares. That had been the lie Dani rapid-fired in Flora’s worried direction the moment she started questioning Jamie’s overnight presence in her governess’s bed.
So she nods. Says, “Yeah, I did.”
She’s about to say more when there’s movement on the other side of the bed as Dani rolls over, stirred to wakefulness by the sound of their conversation. She reaches out one hand and fumbles to find Jamie. When her arm hits empty air, her eyes crack open and she blinks in the darkness, looking around a little frantically. Jamie reaches back and grabs her hand, squeezing it to reassure her.
“Jay,” Dani breathes and her voice is ragged and low in a way that never fails to make Jamie shiver, “you okay? What’s—” Finally, she must see Flora sitting there with her arms around Jamie’s torso because she sits up a little too quickly, blinking in surprise. “Flora? What’s going on?”
“She had a nightmare,” Jamie tells her softly and Dani’s eyes are wide with the shock of the whole situation, her tired mind trying to catch up. Finally, her gaze softens and she fixes it on the little girl again.
“Oh, no. You did?” she asks and Flora nods. Dani pushes herself up right a little and opens her arms, saying, “Come here.”
Flora does, releasing Jamie so she can crawl across the bed and fall into Dani’s embrace. Her arms go around Dani’s neck and Dani’s arms wrap around her, eyes finding Jamie’s in the darkness. She mouths the word, “Sorry,” but Jamie shakes her off.
Tries to make a face that conveys, “No need.”
Her breath is caught in her chest at the sight of Dani and Flora together, the way the girl willingly and so lovingly trusts that Dani will fix it. Save her from the monsters lurking in her sleep. Fix it all. And she loves Dani so fervidly as she sits there that the feeling goes right through her, tongue thickening in her mouth.
“Let me just take you back to bed, okay? And I’ll stay with you,” Dani is saying to Flora.
Jamie imagines this hypothetical scenario: her girlfriend sleeping on a tiny bed made for a child with a child already in it while she lies in her girlfriend’s bed alone.
Quick as she can, she shakes her head, reaching out one hand to rest it on Flora’s back. “She can just stay here,” she offers. “I can...I can take the couch for the night.”
Dani looks like she very much wants to argue but, before she can, Flora turns pulling away from her a little to do so. She looks half-asleep already and she shakes her head, fixing Jamie with the most puppy-dog-eyed expression she’s ever seen. “No,” she says, “Jamie, stay. Pretty please.”
Without deciding to, Jamie nods. Lets Flora grab her hand and pull it close.
“Is that okay?” Dani asks, the question aimed at Jamie, eyes begging nearly as much as Flora’s.
There’s the feeling of something stuck in her chest, her heart struggling to beat around it. Somehow, loving Dani has made her soft. Made her tremble. Made her want to stay forever, however. Anywhere Dani is. Even if Flora’s there, too.
“Of course that’s okay,” Jamie says and Flora smiles, reaching out for her, and who is Jamie kidding, really?
Especially if Flora’s there too.
After some shuffling and redistributing of the sheets and blankets, they’re lying down together. Flora is in the middle between Dani and Jamie, tucked into each of them as closely as they can manage. Jamie and Dani each have an arm around her, Jamie using her hand to fist the sleeve of Dani’s sleep shirt in her hand. Dani’s fingers brush softly up and down Jamie’s upper arm.
“Goodnight,” Flora whispers, already drifting off, her breath coming out as little puffs of air as she snuggles further into their combined warmth.
“G’night,” Jamie echoes, and then Dani says much the same, running her fingers through Flora’s hair to calm her, to help her fall asleep.
Their eyes meet and Dani smiles, tired eyes and slow grin. She mouths, “I love you,” and Jamie loses her head to the swirl of emotions inside of it, the heat blooming beneath Dani’s soft, loving gaze.
“I love you, too,” she mouths back, the air of her breath brushing over Flora’s forehead until it reaches Dani, still smiling across from her.
And the thing is: there’s nothing at all terrifying about that.
..