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The funny thing about a dream is that everything makes sense when you’re in it.
You could wake up with a bloody tail and you’d still just be like, “right then.”
So when Jamie feels the familiar tickle of hair against her collar and warm weight tucked in the crook of her arm, she doesn’t panic.
Instead she thinks, Home.
“Poppins?”
She gets a barely there hum of acknowledgement, feels Dani’s warm breath puff against her skin.
“What’s the time?”
“Keep sleeping,” Dani whispers back.
“What time is it,” she asks again.
She gets no reply.
Jamie grumbles to herself and shifts around. She opens her eyes.
Jamie is alone.
The hair tickling at her collar is her own.
And then she jerks awake.
It’s not so unlike so many other dreams she’s had, but this time when she sits up with a start, gasping with her newfound consciousness, she hears a strangled, “shit!”
She looks across the room and there she is.
Dani Clayton is standing just at the window, caught mid-step. She’s gone stock still as if that will make her invisible.
Jamie scrabbles out of the bed and inches closer, afraid to somehow lose her. Again.
She stops a foot away. Dani looks exactly as she did all those years ago. Both eyes are blue again. She looks perfect, albeit terrified.
“Am I dreamin’ ?”
“Yes…..no,” Dani says, sheepish. “You weren’t meant to see me.”
They continue to stare at each other. Jamie barely blinks. She tries to rememorize the lines of her lover’s face.
“I miss you, Dani. I even miss your tea. No one can make it quite as shite as you did.” It’s meant as a joke, to lighten the moment, but the final word is choked out on a sob.
Dani returns her pained half-smile. “I know.”
“Shop’s still open. I changed the name.”
Dani grimaces. “I know.” A tear falls and Jamie has half a mind to reach out, but then her brain catches up.
Jamie’s eyebrows knit together. “Wait -have you --- you’ve been here before, since...?”
Dani’s doe eyes grow even wider. It’s quiet for awhile. The only sound in the room is Jamie’s heavy breathing. “I’ve been here the whole time.”
Something ugly twists in Jamie’s gut. It boils up and up until spills out. She thinks of all the hours staring at her reflection in the sink, the bathtub, hell, sometimes even her watering can.
“Nice of ya to show yourself after all these years.” She then adds bitterly, “You know I left the door open. You know--” She cuts herself off, swiping her hands across her tear streaked cheeks.
Dani looks down. “I know.” Jamie would be really sick of hearing those words again if it wasn't the first time she’s heard that voice in so long.
Dani cocks her head to the side. She does that little grin, the one where her nose crinkles up. Jamie feels it through her whole body. Something shifts in her chest.
“Someone had to be here to close the door and keep it locked until morning. I mean the bedroom door, I get, but Jamie...leaving the apartment door open like that? And your hotel room? It wasn’t just me you could have been inviting in.”
“Are you mad?” Dani asks after a long moment, when Jamie doesn’t reply.
All at once, all the anger rushes out like a balloon deflating. Dani always had a way of doing that.
What she’s left with is an aching.
Suddenly, she feels nervous. Insecure. She remembers herself.
“I’m older.” Jamie says at last, “You’re ---” Stunning. Beautiful. Angelic. “---Not.”
“Jamie,” Dani scoffs, “You're perfect. You're alive."
“ I love you, Dani.” She doesn't mean to say it. It slips out like it's been on the tip of her tongue for so long she couldn't hold it any longer.
Dani exhales slowly, nodding, and goes to speak.
Jamie interrupts her. Through her tears, she cracks a cheeky smile.
“I know, I know. You already know.”
Dani looks down at her feet, as shy as the morning she brought Jamie god awful coffee at 6AM.
"Thank you, you know, for naming the shop after me. You didn't have to."
Jamie smiles, despite herself. "I know."
Moments later, she's standing alone.
She lets out a long exhale.
Then again, maybe she's not.
Maybe she isn't alone at all.