Work Text:
She would sleep. She would wait. She would wake.
She would look for her lover's reflection in the mirror.
It became a routine a few weeks later after Dani's funeral. First, it only was looking at the mirrors for a little longer than usual; the whole thing took months to become a consistent night and morning routine. The therapist said it was okay, that it was a quite healthy way of dealing with her lost. It should stop at some point, she said, and the years passed by, and the door stood open. Just a little. Just for Dani to know she could come in.
The gardener waited, she was good at it. She waited until Dani was ready to kiss her, and she would wait for her since that very first kiss. Every night she would sleep, she would wait, and she would wake.
Once, she would've sworn she felt the touch of her lover's hand over her shoulder. Too afraid to move, or to speak, she was totally unable to open her eyes. The idea of that gentle touch being just a slip of her imagination was way too hard to accept; she just whispered a soft "please, stay".
Dani stood there a few more minutes.
That was exactly a week before the day she came back. But it wasn't exactly what she could've imagined. She would sleep, she would wake, and she would realize she never woke up that morning. Her body would stay on the sofa, with the most peaceful smile she had worn in years. She would look directly at her lover, as young as the day she went back to Bly. Both eyes the same colour she felt in love with, a shade of blue that would sometimes look greenish.
"You're late, Poppins"
But the au pair wasn't really late. She would come home every night at the same hour- to do the same thing her lover did for the past few years.
She would wait for her lover to come back to her.