Vive Hodie

[Pippi]

It was a good-sized room, all things considered. Enough space for a bed, for a desk, for a wardrobe, and boxes, and clothes scattered across the floor. It was warm, too, something greatly appreciated during the rainier, windier days, somewhere to look forwards to returning to after each tentative venture outside. It was always a little too clean, a little too white and spotless, always a little something to remind her that it was a holding room, rather than her own bedroom in her own house. But it was infinitely less sterile than the surgery rooms, or the rooms she’d spoken to MI6 agents in, and if she stopped paying attention, or whenever she closed her eyes, it really did feel like a new home. If there was anything she could say against it, it was the fact that it could get too dark, too quickly - the position of the window meant that natural light came and went faster than other rooms. It could get a little gloomy during the evenings.

And on nights like these, at 1AM, when the world was silent and still, it could get crushing, enveloping the room and seeping into it, making it shrink smaller and smaller, as the darkness pressed in on her and surrounded her, monsters hiding in the gloom, murderers in the shadows, waiting for you to snap, waiting for you to scream, waiting, watching.

Always there.

Nanna-Fiora sat up in bed, and she waited, waited for her breathing to slow down, and her heart to stop pounding. Her duvet was a tangled mess around her legs, and one pillow had fallen to the floor. She brushed the hair covering her eyes away with a shaking hand, feeling the cold sweat on her forehead cling to her fingers.

She thought she’d been getting better at this.

No, that wasn’t fair. That wasn’t fair to herself, or to the progress she’d been making over the days that had passed since she’d first arrived in the safehouse. It had been a strange curve; the first week or so of nights had been quiet, although that could be chalked down to her being too exhausted and too weak to do much more than sleep. Then, when she’d first been moved to her new room, she’d woken up every single night, in floods of tears, or a puddle of sweat. She would dream of something, or her mind would replay memories back to her and distort the features and surroundings, and she’d jolt and buck awake. It had taken hours, sometimes, to find the strength to lie back down and sleep again.

The worst part was that the dreams were never exactly the same.

But she had gotten better. Slowly but surely it had gone from nightly to every few nights. She could go practically a full week, now, with a good night’s rest, nothing disturbing her dreams or rousing her from her slumber.

It still happened though. Every now and then. Especially when she began to hope she might have seen the back of it for good. She’d dream of shadowy figures surrounding her, closing in on her, pushing and jostling and moving in and stopping her from even being able to cry out. She’d dream of the scrapyard, and of the boy who’d stabbed her plunging his sword into Derrick as well, before slowly walking back towards her. She’d dream of the cottage, with her fight with Yvonne, and dream of it turning physical, turning violent, turning deadly.

She dreamed of her parents, punished because she had lived.

Nanna-Fiora liked to think of herself as a rational girl. She knew that there was no point in harming the families of the abducted children; no matter how obscure the military’s goal was, attacking the families of those who had been lost couldn’t have been a part of it, and all it would do would be to incite outrage and stoke the fires of rebellion. But her dream self lived in a world of irrationalities, and it was able to make those thoughts, those loose and drifting worries seem so very very real, realities that would always end up with screams, or sweat, or tears.

She hadn’t heard it, but the roughness in her throat told her that she’d been screaming this time.

And her breathing still hadn’t slowed down.

[Ohm]

Derrick laid on the bed in “his” room. Since he got here, a lot of questions had been asked of him. They would point at the wound on his face and ask "Who did this to you? Was it the same one who hurt the girl that was with you? What did they give you? How long were you together?"

It felt neverending. He knew why they asked, information, curiosity and all, but after a point it felt trivialised. He just had to repeat himself over and over as if it were factoids he was sharing and not a personal story, as if these horrors weren't his or hers.

It was when questions about his family came up that he truly struggled to answer. There were so many things he could say and none of it would matter. They weren't there and he wasn't either. He kept it short and simple. Small answers for all of it.

It felt cold. He hated every second of it.

And the room he was in didn't help with that. Gray everywhere and a blank look to everything. A reminder of where he was, in a hospital in a foreign country far from everything he knew.

He hoped they would soon tire of asking, if only for some piece of mind.

---

He was walking down the hall to get himself some water. Well, that was his excuse. He needed some time out of that room. Look at something different, if only briefly. Quietly. By himself preferably.

Though there were a few he wouldn't mind being there...

But his thoughts were brought to a standstill as Derrick stopped dead in his tracks halfway down the hall.

He heard a scream.

He had heard it before.

Memories flooded his mind of a particular night, one he has had a few choice dreams of. None of which had ended well.

Before he had time to fully place the dots, his legs were moving. Sprinting down the hall towards the source, a few doors down before stopping in front of a familiar door.

It had her number on it. And the cold sweeping sensation across his back, one he hadn’t felt in a while, was back.

It couldn't be american's having found their way here? There was no way right? Just no way...

If so, could Derrick even do anything?

Shaking hands were forced onto the handle and the door was opened.

"Fiora?!" His voice wavered in it's conviction as he entered, afraid of what he'd find.

[Pippi]

There was somebody at the door.

And the rational side of her knew that it was probably one of the soldiers, or one of the doctors, or one of her other rescued classmates, alerted by her screaming and coming in to check she was okay. But her brain was still caught in two worlds, part of her still sleep-deprived thanks to her tumultuous dreams and midnight wakeup call. A British soldier was a US general. A doctor was a medic ready to bag her up and carry her away. And one of her fellow survivors was the boy with the sword, ready to finish off the job he’d started in the scrapheap.

So she flinched when she heard the handle turn and click, and whimpered as the door swung open, scooting backwards and pressing her back into the corner of the room. She raised her arm up, squinting and blinking as the light from the corridor flooded into the room, momentarily blinding her.

It took a moment for Nanna-Fiora to recognise the voice coming from the doorway. Slowly, she lowered her arm, still blinking, letting her eyes adjust to the change in light, and letting her brain comprehend the shape of the boy standing in the entrance to her room.

“Derrick?”

She hadn’t seen him enough, since they’d been escorted off of the helicopters. He’d been allowed to see her when she was still confined to a hospital bed, after the most major surgery had been and gone. And they’d managed to find time to eat together, to hang out together. But she’d been kept in the medical wing for longer than she had - something that tended to happen when one person had been stabbed with a sword, y’know - and even after she’d been given the go-ahead to move into her own room, the doctors had still recommended she take things easy. Plenty of rest. Plenty of time for the wound to heal properly. Plenty of time alone.

“I’m… I’m okay. I’m okay.”

She wasn’t, she so very obviously wasn’t.

“Just… just a bad dream.”

‘Just’. As though it being all in her head stopped it from hurting her.

[Ohm]

Derrick's breathing stopped entirely as he stared at the bed and saw it was empty. He felt his grip on the door handle go slack and his knees weaken. As if he was going to crumble to the floor. His feet, however, stood firm.

His shaking right hand reached up to his hair; he placed it on top and gripped as he leaned his head downward and he let go of the handle. The worst of thoughts and scenario's wormed their way into his brain and for a second he had to fight back the notion of crying.

He felt himself exhale once he heard her voice. She was still here.

His eyes darted to where her voice had come from. He wanted to smile once he heard it, it was a lovely voice, but the tone of it. It had a pitch of fear.

He saw her where she sat in the corner, huddled. She looked scared. He listened as she spoke in that tone.

A bad dream, that's all it was. In a way that was both a relief and yet, a distressing sign of their future. Derrick have had bad dreams before the program, but after? That was something else.

He'd seen things that would stick with him for the rest of his life. Corpses laying around, mangled and damaged in different ways. Faces contorted in fear and pain. He hadn't seen cruelty like it before, he'd abstained from seeing anything from it before. Hearing about it was enough to make him feel sick.

And the less said of the ones his family starred in, the better. Those were for the therapist to deal with.

I...I see. Uh..." His voice was still tinted with that uncertainty. His right hand went slack where it lay as he looked behind himself to see if anyone else had come. No one yet. His hand went down beside him as he suddenly felt very self conscious where he stood.

He tried to regain some nerve into his voice. "Is there anything I can do?" He was not sure if he succeeded, but he had to try. If not for himself, then for her.

[Pippi]

Derrick didn’t seem like he had any real idea of what to do, and honestly, who the fuck could blame him? Helping a friend deal with a regular nightmare about ghosts or snakes or evil clowns was one thing, something that Nanna-Fiora had never had to do before and knew she’d be awful at, but one that she knew was perfectly doable, perfectly feasible for someone her age to do successfully.

But nightmares like these? Nightmares that featured friends and family, dreams that were more like memories in technicolour than anything else? Nightmares that, good fucking God, weren’t gonna disappear even after years of therapy? Nightmares that she was sure Derrick was suffering from as well?

Yeah. No wonder he was just hovering, hesitantly, in the doorway.

Her breathing had started to slow down, but it was still heavy, almost painfully so. Her heart rate, too, was returning to normal, but she felt like any sudden movement, from Derrick or herself or anything at all, would make it spike right back up again. His presence had given her some semblance of calm, or at least the beginning of calm; it would have taken her another hour or so before she could have fallen back to sleep otherwise. Her hand played with the edge of the duvet, still wrapped around her legs. She remained in her huddled form, pressed into the corner of the room.

“Could you… could you stay here, for a bit?”

She looked up at him, a few locks of hair falling down in front of her vision again.

“Please…”

[Ohm]

Derrick was not unused to helping others with night time terrors. His siblings, especially his sister struggled after their father passed away. They would dream of him, wake up and cry in their beds as he sat there trying to comfort them.

But this was something else. These dreams, or rather; nightmares as they were. They crept in on them. Festering and haunting them. It would take years before the program would leave them beyond just the memories. One final gift from America.

And beyond seeing his family, beyond seeing his friends. He saw Stan.

Stan Astley. The boy that had attacked him at the church for his supplies. Derrick swore he was going to stop him, he was a danger to others. In his dreams he did. One final fight between them and Derrick would win.

And nothing would change. America was still the same. And Fiora would not be there with him.

And then there was him.

The mystery man who hid in the shadows. Prowling the scrapyard for prey. He never got a proper look at him, but that never stopped his shape from showing itself to him. Succeeding in his goal.

Those were the worst ones.

So when she asked him to stay. There was no hesitation in his answer.

"I'm here; as long as you want me to be, Fiora."

None of the doctors or nurses were here. None of the soldiers either. Not his classmates. Just him.

He'd have to manage.

Derrick moved a bit out of the way and turned towards the door. His right hand took hold of the door handle; his left placed palm first as he softly started to close before stopping in his tracks and turning his head towards her. "D-do you want me to close the door or?"

[Pippi]

Now that she was approaching lucidity again, now that she was in the prep stage for returning to some feeling of normalcy, Nanna-Fiora realised just how badly she wanted to avoid anybody else finding out about these nightmares. The doctors and nurses and psychologists all knew she’d had them; back when she was still in the hospital wing, and dealing with them on a nightly basis, it would have been harder for them to have missed it. But she had hated that at the time, too. She had hated having to recount exactly what she’d seen and felt in her dreams, she had hated having to tell them that she felt weak and helpless, she had hated the vulnerability that came with the nightmares being fully on display. She still had weekly meetings with doctors and therapists. When they asked about the nightmares, she simply told them that they were getting better, and refused to elaborate further.

She had been unbelievably fortunate, really, that nobody, student or soldier or scientist, had wandered past her door up to this point.
Derrick was the one, sole exception to that, the only person in the whole of this compound she was willing to let see her like this. They’d both survived an assault on their lives, they’d spent a full day glued to each others’ sides, they’d talked about their lives and their families and their pasts and the stars and the world and everything in between. Whatever bond they shared, it was, with the exception of her immediate family, stronger than any other she’d ever experienced.

Besides, he’d already seen her half undressed and covered in blood and screaming in pain, it wasn’t like she could be more vulnerable than that.

“Yeah. Please.”

She brushed the hair that had fallen in front of her vision out of the way again, using her other hand to start untangling the duvet.

“But… turn my desklamp on first, maybe.”

It was a small little thing, not particularly powerful, enough to illuminate songbooks and star charts and not much else. But a tiny little beacon was preferable, right now, to a moment more of darkness.

[Ohm]

"Yeah, I'll do that." He said as he turned and swfitly moved through the darkness towards, what he assumed, was the desk. Maybe too swiftly, as he bumped into it with a short grunt and a "I'm okay!" as a response.

Derrick carefully guided his hands around the desk. Gentle hands bumping into the light source before hovering downwards towards the back, gripping the cord and following it towards the switch. A small press and the light was on. It was not a strong light, but it was enough to brighten that part of the room a bit.

He could see different books and charts of stars on it. Fiora liked talking about the stars, naming constellations to him in conversation. She knew them like they were on the back of her hand, even when her life was in danger and could have ended at any moment. In the brief time he'd gotten to know her, he had learned more about it from her than he ever had from school.

But it was the books that intrigued him. Song books. He knew she was in choir, she had talked about singing before when they were on the road, but he never got to hear it. Her voice when she was singing. She couldn't with the state she'd been in and the danger around them, peering behind every corner. It made him wonder what it would sound like.

Derrick, however, was not one for singing. Keeping a tone without his voice crackling like a preteen going through a voice change was too difficult for him. He thought that was fine back then, his dreams laid elsewhere where those talents wouldn't benefit him and he was too busy to really regale others with that lack of ability anyway. Not anymore.

He turned his head towards her and saw her more clearly with the light. She was untangling something from the bed. He gripped the book with his left hand as he deftly made his way back to the door, forming a grip on the handle with his right hand before carefully closing the door.

"Going back into singing?" He said as he turned around, tone held light as he lifted the book up high. Derrick tried for a smile, but his cheek still hurt from the wound that was given to him in that scrapyard. At least with the bandages he could no longer put his tongue through it.

[Pippi]

She felt herself smiling, in spite of everything.

There was always something endearingly earnest about what Derrick had just done; the natural reaction of people who had just smacked their knee, or taken a spill, or gotten the wind knocked out of them, to immediately stand back up and declare how safe and sound they were, even if that was very visibly apparent, or even better, if they had a bloody nose or scraped knees.

‘Earnest’ nicely described Derrick, really. There was a lot to like about him, but that basically encapsulated everything good about him, everything that had helped her to trust him when she was bleeding out in the middle of the scrap heap. He’d meant it when he said he was going to help her; of course he had, otherwise she wouldn’t be sitting here looking at him now. He had been honestly invested and interested in everything she had to say about her family and about the stars above them. And she could tell, now, that he was interested in her own interests, in her singing.

And, because of that, she knew that he was truly invested in helping her recover from these night terrors.

She studied his face for a moment as he stood by the door, song book in hand. She saw the bandages on his cheek twitch as he spoke, face still unaccustomed to their new coverings. It wouldn’t have been a fatal wound, at least, Nanna-Fiora didn’t think so with her limited medical knowledge - but it was still painful even to look at, even under the bandages. It was highly likely Derrick would be left with a pretty serious scar.

She wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to their assailant. Had he perished, back in the village, before the helicopters could arrive? Or was he still alive, and within the walls of this compound, walking and eating and living in the same space as the people he’d attacked and almost killed?

Nanna-Fiora didn’t know what she’d say to him, if the latter was true. Or do to him, for that matter.

“Trying to, at least,” she murmured, voice soft and low, still attempting to untangle herself from her duvet. “I’ve had to pick up a bunch of new song books and new sheet music, so I’m basically starting from the top all over again. Which is… fine, but…”

She gave another small, soft smile.

“It’s hard not to feel a little self-conscious, practicing something brand new in a building full of people. Can’t really tell how soundproof these rooms - Fuck!”

She shifted as she moved the duvet off of her, and as she did so, searing pain erupted in her side, twisting through her body, making her gasp and hiss. She doubled over, hand hovering just above her stomach, tears springing up in the corners of her eyes.

“Ah, that’s… fuck…”

[Ohm]

Fiora smiled and to Derrick, it was the most comforting sight over the past few days of drabness and strangers.

He could not explain as he stood there watching Fiora where she sat trying to untangle the duvet- but when she smiled at him the way she did, full of warmth and care, it made his heart almost skip.

It was something about it. It made him feel something inside, it did so back then at the scrapyard, it did so when they travelled the road together, hand in hand and it did so now.

That feeling- If someone were to ask, he'd have to stammer out that he did not know. Before they met, they had barely talked to one another. They went to the same school and lived in the same country, but their worlds were different.

All because of their skin color.

She dealt with things that he never had to. People calling her things, arguing and hurting her. There were times he'd see it happen, but he never stepped in. Always an excuse at the ready not to. He didn't approve, and yet he did nothing when he could have.

Was he really any better than Stan?

Derrick was taken away from those thoughts once Fiora started to speak about singing, having to pick everything up again. Self-conscious of people listening.

Derrick was about to offer to join if it'd make it less awkward for her when a sudden gasp of pain from her jolted him. Almost dropping the song book.

"Fiora!" He let out as he deftly moved towards her before kneeling down. His right hand hovering near her, unsure of what to do. "D-do you want me to get some medicine?"

[Pippi]

She was frozen in place, curled up and huddled in on herself, even as Derrick rushed forwards, hands hovering over her, ready to help but with no clue how to do so. Each heavy breath sent another ripple of pain shuddering through her body, the wound on her stomach feeling like it was getting ripped open and scorched over and over again.

She needed to say something to Derrick, to let him know what the situation was, but she felt that if she stopped gritting her teeth, she’d either scream or throw up, neither of which would be a particularly pleasant thing to do when he was right in the firing line for both. She shook her head rapidly, biting her lip hard enough for her to taste copper in her mouth, as the pain began to subside with agonising slowness.

It took several more seconds, each one feeling like a full year, before the pain settled down to manageable levels. Her mouth hung open slightly, panting, and all the hard work she’d done to clear her face and back of sweat had immediately become undone. She could feel the gauze with her fingertips, through the fabric of her oversized t-shirt. It still felt dry. At least she hadn’t actually ripped her stitches out. A small mercy, but she’d long learned to take each and every mercy that came her way.

“I’m… I’m okay…” She muttered, looking up at Derrick, blinking away the last remaining tears in her eyes. “Really…”

Slowly, painstakingly, Nanna-Fiora unfolded herself until she was sitting upright again, propping herself up against the wall. She gave Derrick a small, awkward smile.

“I know… I know it doesn’t look it… I just…”

She lifted the hem of her shirt, just a fraction, just enough for Derrick to see the bright white bandages against her dark skin.

“If I move suddenly or awkwardly… it can make the wound flare up again. I must have… twisted too far, or pulled the muscles there… or something.”

She let her shirt fall back down again, as her breathing slowed once more. She studied Derrick’s face, vision flicking from the wound on his cheek again, before moving back to look into his own soft, warm eyes. She smiled again.

“Don’t worry. It’s getting better.”

[Ohm]

She said it was fine, she said she was getting better. That didn't take the worry away and Derrick did not know what to say. Words of comfort failed him at that moment and his hands were hovering near her uselessly in the air.

Was there really anything he could do?

That's when she looked him in the eyes and it was the first time he noticed they were hazel, and he felt himself getting lost in them for a second or two before realising what he was doing and having to look away.

"I'll... uh, take your word for it." He said as he reached his left hand up and nervously scratched at the bandage covering his cheek. An unfortunate habit he had developed.

His face felt oddly heated at that moment. There were moments like that back then, when he first got to truly see her, but this felt different.

He had been worried back then when they were in the dark of the scrapyard, when she was dying and all she had for company was someone like him. When she walked besides him and would stop on occasion as the pain would get too much before powering through it. When she laid in that hospital bed and he worried she had died and left him all alone in this foreign country.

But she was stronger than that. Stronger than him. She had been with friends before losing them, she had to deal with racism and crap that he could not even imagine.

She refused to play into their hands - that was the big difference between them.

Now? He was afraid to say. He liked her company, when she talked about the stars and her family and her different ancedotes about them and the things she enjoyed. The way she listened when he talked about his interests, his family and his dream. She didn't look at him like he was a joke for talking about it, he'd gotten that before, but honest interest.

He was scared to lose that.

It's why he had to do something, even if it was something small or it didn't matter. He had to.

That's why he decided to, as smoothly as he could, move besides her against the wall; putting his back to it. His hand grasping her's as tenderly as he could.

"Y'know." He found himself saying out loud." G-getting a sense of de-deja vu here."

[Pippi]

She didn’t think much could surprise her anymore. But then, that was the whole point of surprises; you weren’t supposed to expect them.

She had expected a handful of potential outcomes after her assurance that she was all fine and dandy in regards to her stab wound. Either Derrick would refuse to accept that she was alright, and that he would insist on getting her some medicine - and she would most likely let him, because it wasn’t as though it would do any harm, and God the flare up had hurt like a bitch. Or he would begrudgingly believe that she was fine, and then ask whether he could sit next to her, and of course, she would say yes. Or he would say nothing at all, and she would have to ask him if he could sit down next to her for a while.

But this? Oh, no, she certainly could not have expected this.

Her eyes widened as his hand found hers, fingers lacing together. His hand was a little uncomfortably warm, sweat on his palm sticking to her own. But the secure yet tender grasp, the familiar sensation of their hands locked together, that all made up for the downsides by a long, long margin.

Nanna-Fiora studied Derrick for a while as he spoke. Her eyes moved slowly, taking in the bandage on his cheek, his soft and gentle eyes, the nervousness visible on his lips as the words left his mouth. She found herself smiling again, and there was no trace of fear in her smile this time around.

“A little bit, yes.”

She’d always been self-conscious of her laugh. Too deep, too short, too quiet. Incognito in a crowd, embarrassing and spotlight-casting when she was by herself. She laughed now, smiling warmly at Derrick.

“Although, I’d hope my bedroom is a more welcoming location than the scrapyard. There’s no sword-wielding maniacs here, for a start.”

She shuffled closer as she spoke, shoulders touching, thigh gently pressing against his. Her thumb traced its familiar, welcome path over the back of his hand. She squeezed, gently, and she kept her gaze fixed on Derrick’s face as she spoke again.

“I’m glad everything else remained, though. I missed it.”

Unexpected? Absolutely. Unwanted? That couldn't be further from the truth.

[Ohm]

Derrick was worried when he looked at her where he sat, her eyes widened in suprise and he'd wondered if he'd overstepped some bounds without asking. He was worried that she would pull her hand back and it would be an awkward night for the two to sit through in silence. Her dealing with her pain alone and closed off.

He was worried she wouldn't talk to him anymore - he knew it was a selfish fear, but it was one he could not shake.

It was his turn to be suprised when she moved closer and her grip tightened around his hand despite how sweaty it was. Maybe he'd been out of it when he sat besides her before, but he felt more conscious of Fiora. When her shoulder touched his as she leaned into him or their thighs touching as she moved, he'd never felt more conscious of another person before.

Derrick was still worried about her till he saw that smile and those worries vanished into the night and relief settled in. He could not see a trace of the fear or pain from earlier on her face.

Her wound was still going to hurt for a while. It could flare up at any moment when she moved near him and yet, she still...

He felt her thumb trace his hand. "M-me too." He said as he gave her a smile. It made his cheek hurt and he could feel it twitch, but it didn't matter. She gave him hers so he would give her his.

It was only fair.

He found himself adding something, it was something he'd meant to say for a while. "I-I'm glad I m-met you." He had wanted to say it properly, without his stuttering. His voice could not handle it.

[Pippi]

There was a dull ache in her side, gently pressed against Derrick as it was. Moving closer to him had not come without consequences, but she had no intention of moving away again. Her smile didn’t falter, even as her wound jabbed at her, and each time she felt that shallow pain jolt through her body, she gently squeezed Derrick’s hand, letting him know she was still right there, right next to him.

Because with God as her witness, she’d pledged to be happy in the face of adversity, and she wasn’t about to let this goddamn wound of all things stop her.

Her vision shifted, hovering over the bandage on his cheek, watching it twitch and shift as he smiled back at her. She was not, of course, the only one carrying battle scars. He had picked this up in the scrapyard too, no doubt, trying to help her, trying to fight off their sword-wielding assailant. A gash to the face to match the scar that would blossom on her stomach. Nanna-Fiora could tell that it hurt when he smiled, and most likely whenever he spoke as well. Her own smile, momentarily, faltered a little.

But she could tell it wasn’t pain or worry that was making him shake and his voice to stutter - at least, it wasn’t worry about his injuries that was causing this. She managed to stifle another small laugh - not one that had been aimed at him, of course. It was just fascinating that he had come in here to help her from her fears and nightmares and panic, and now, less than five minutes later, he was the one sitting there all sweaty and nervous. It was, as she’d thought earlier, wholly endearing. Earnest. Cute.

Slowly, very gently, Nanna-Fiora raised her free hand, softly resting it against Derrick’s cheek. Her thumb slowly, delicately traced across his bandages, mirroring the actions of its opposite number, careful not to apply too much pressure or force onto the wound. She smiled again, looking into his eyes. The gauze on his face, and the scar lying in wait underneath, did nothing to diminish the smile on his face, the expression in his eyes. It was warm, and it was welcoming, and it was safety, right in front of her.

“I’m so glad I met you too,” she murmured. “You truly mean a lot to me.”

She was safe, and she was free from the nightmares, and her thoughts were clear of all stress and worry and despair. And yet her heart, once more, was pounding away inside her chest.