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Beau can feel the energy in the air as she bikes home from work. Heavy gray skies overhead, clouds closing in like they’re listening closely to the earth below. There’s something in the air, a zing or a hum or a charge she can’t quite understand.
Part of her is unhappy - she hates storms, after all. She’s never liked them. Not many people know that, since Beau’s got an image to maintain.
The other part of her is secretly delighted, but that’s for more… private reasons.
Her bike picks up speed as the wheels crunch over the gravel road that leads her home. In a few minutes she’s pulling into the driveway of the apartment building. She spends a few seconds under the carport, locking her bike to one of the support posts, and stares up at the sky. From far away she hears a rumble of thunder.
Nott’s on the landing with a plate of cookies. The plate seems to have a conspicuous open space, almost as though there were, at one point, more cookies. The smear of chocolate on her face seems to confirm this.
“I brought you some cookies,” Nott says around a mouthful of something.
“For me?” Beau asks.
Nott shrugs. “And whoever else you want to share them with.”
Beau ruffles her hair. “You’re the best, you know that?”
Nott steals one more cookie before she gives the plate to Beau, and darts away, up the stairs to the third floor.
Beau unlocks the door to Apartment 2B and heads in, closing the door quietly behind her. She hangs up her work bag and her sweatshirt, and kicks off her shoes. Then, with a sigh, she pairs them up neatly under the coat hooks, next to a pair of dirt-flecked combat boots.
The apartment is cool and quiet, curtains drawn over the windows. Beau’s gotten used to moving about softly, gently, padding around in sock feet. She heads past the kitchen, noticing there’s another bowl and spoon in the sink, next to the one she used for cereal several hours ago; it makes her happier than she can express in words or coherent thoughts. She sets Nott’s cookies down on the counter.
She reaches the closed bedroom door and knocks gently. “I’m home.”
She waits.
After a long moment the bedroom door opens and Beau sees Yasha standing in the dark room, her eyes cast towards the floor. “Hi,” Beau says.
She’s still not sure how she ended up with Yasha. It floors her every time she thinks about it. They’re a completely mismatched pair. Beau’s all excited energy, lanky and goofy and forceful when she has to be. Yasha is… something else entirely. She’s sturdy and solid and unmovable; she’s gentle and reserved, but she can be absolutely ruthless when necessary.
They’d been together almost a year when Yasha was brutally attacked by a gang of men, petty assholes she’d expelled from the theater company where she worked security since they were all drunk and rowdy and making lewd comments towards the performers. They waited in the alley behind the stage doors and then jumped her. Beau doesn’t have a lot of details for what happened other than hearing that Yasha fought back as best she could, but she still remembers the phone call from the hospital and the one from Molly, who’d been just inside but hadn’t seen anything, and she remembers running downstairs, screaming for Fjord, the only one of them who has a car, to take her to Yasha now.
It changed everything. Yasha’s recovery - her physical recovery - took months. Beau has a hard time reconciling her strong, solid, gentle girlfriend, the one before the attack, with the bruised, broken woman who came home from the hospital. She tries very hard not to remember the jagged rows of stitches on Yasha’s limbs; the leg that eventually emerged from a cast, now withered and even paler; the bruises dappling Yasha’s entire body.
The mental recovery lags behind. It’s been six months, and Yasha still stays in the apartment all of the time, mostly in the bedroom, huddled in one corner. She doesn’t speak much. She doesn’t eat much.
It’s taken her a long time to understand the rules of what they have now. At first she wanted to fix everything for Yasha. She wanted to touch Yasha, to hug her, to try to conquer all problems with her usual mix of enthusiasm and force. It broke Beau’s heart when that didn’t work, like, at all - in fact, it seemed to make Yasha worse. There were many nights of screaming, of night terrors, of Yasha moving around the apartment in a blind haze, destroying whatever got in her path, seemingly unaware of anything about her.
Beau cried a lot then. Not in front of Yasha. Mostly at work. Or in Jester’s apartment while eating doughnuts.
Rain patters against the windows and Beau looks up to see a slow, small smile cross Yasha’s face.
“Yeah,” Beau says. “That’s right.”
She holds out her hand, and a thrill of delight runs down her spine when Yasha reaches out and takes it, meshing their fingers together.
Beau leads Yasha out of the bedroom, down the hallway and to the front door. She peels off her socks and leaves them next to her shoes, then unlocks the door and looks back at Yasha.
Yasha takes a deep breath and raises her head, looking directly at Beau. Beau loves her so deeply in that moment that her brain goes a little fuzzy. It’s just like when they first met.
Beau unlocks the front door and they step out onto the landing. Yasha hesitates, but Beau’s fingers are still laced through hers and she gently, carefully, tugs her forward.
They make it down the stairs before the first strike of lightning zaps the earth and they’re at the building’s side door when the ensuing thunder ripples through the air. Yasha’s fingers, in Beau’s grip, seem to relax.
Beau pushes the door open and they’re under the carport, the sweet lightning-charged wind swirling around the grass. Raindrops splatter the plastic roof of the carport, a luscious overhead drumbeat. Beau turns back to Yasha and is unsurprised to see a look of calm on her girlfriend’s face, that slow smile growing larger.
Another zing of lightning slams to earth, lighting up the neighborhood. Thunder rolls nearly immediately afterwards and Beau watches as Yasha laughs.
Yasha lets go of Beau’s hand and strides out from under the carport, out into the rain. In her bare feet she stands on the driveway, looking up at the sky. Rain speckles her clothing and dampens down her hair, but she shows no signs of distress. She seems absolutely at peace.
Beau stands under the carport, watching Yasha watch the storm. Yasha keeps her head tipped back, letting the rain fall on her face. Her arms hang down loosely, but her fingers move back and forth slightly as though they’re weaving the rain. Her body vibrates with each slash of lightning, with each drumbeat of thunder.
The storm is so loud that Beau doesn’t hear the door of the building open, doesn’t hear Jester patter up next to her until she feels a small hand touch her elbow. Beau turns to her friend.
“She is so lovely,” Jester says.
Beau can only nod.
“The storm makes her lovelier,” Jester goes on.
Beau knows what Jester means - that Yasha will never be diminished by what happened to her, and she’s just as wonderful as she’s always been, despite the small, fragile life they have right now, but seeing Yasha during a storm makes Beau believe in the beauty of the world again. She understands the kind of raw strength and power and grace that lives in Yasha’s heart, and while it only shows up every now and then - just like a thunderstorm - it’s always there.
But she doesn’t know how to tell Jester any of that, so she just nods again.
“We are making dinner,” Jester says. “See you later.”
Beau squeezes Jester’s hand and is rewarded with one of Jester’s dazzling smiles.
Yasha stays out in the storm until it’s faded to nothing more than some light rain, and then turns to Beau, relaxed and soaked and happy. She strides back under the carport and without hesitation throws her arms around Beau, hugging her tightly, lifting her up a few inches. Beau leans into it and finds herself nearly crying; she can’t imagine loving anyone else so much, or being as proud of them as she is of Yasha after a storm.
There’s the usual after-storm ritual, which is a bubble bath for both of them, clean, dry clothes, and Beau combing out Yasha’s hair, leaving it soft and fluffy. Beau clumsily braids parts of it, and she thinks it looks terrible, but Yasha kisses her afterwards and that seems to say more than any words could; it’s the only seal of approval Beau needs.
And then they go back downstairs to Jester’s apartment where a warm meal and all of their friends are waiting. They sprawl out on the carpet in the living room, eating around the coffee table, laughing and chatting in the somewhat-quiet way they’ve become accustomed to when Yasha is in the room. Molly stays close to Yasha throughout the meal and kisses her on the top of the head when he gets up to get another drink. Nott eats far too much; Caleb cuts her off but then keeps sneaking her little tidbits of things. Jester grins at everyone while Fjord tells some of his terrible “dad” jokes.
And then it’s just the two of them, back in their apartment. Beau changes the sheets on the bed while Yasha brushes her teeth, and at some point they’re curled up together in fresh pajamas. Beau looks directly at Yasha, squeezing her hands. “I had a wonderful time tonight,” she says.
Yasha’s breathing is slow and her expression is soft, and she smiles dreamily. She hasn’t spoken all night, but Beau knows what’s coming.
“I love you,” Yasha whispers. “Thank you for tonight.”
Beau’s heart almost explodes with love; it runs from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and she kisses Yasha. “As it turns out, I love you too."
“I am so lucky,” Yasha says, and then she doesn’t speak again.
Beau stays awake, watching Yasha fall asleep, her heart full with the kind of joy only a storm night can bring.
She hates storms, but she loves storms, because she loves Yasha, and Yasha loves storms.