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It’s been nearly a month since they left the ocean behind, but Jaxx is still getting used to waking up to the sound of birdsong.
Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she slowly sits up, blinking at the brightness of the sun filtering in through the half-open blinds as she glances at the other side of the bed. Unsurprisingly, it’s empty – Suyin has always been one for waking up early. Jaxx hopes that she didn’t sleep in too late; they only have three more days left in their vacation, three more days before they have to return to navigating the world of inquests and inquiries and interviews relating to the Meg, three more days before reality sets in and Jaxx will have to start thinking about finding another job.
She wants to spend every last moment of those three days with her partner, enjoying every moment that she can.
They’re staying at a place owned by Suyin’s father, tucked deep into the German countryside, a vacation estate that, due to how busy the entire family is, has seen limited use over the last few years. It’s surrounded by lush forest and looks out over a small lake that glimmers bright sapphire blue underneath the sun. While the water is utterly gorgeous and would probably provide some welcome relief from the summertime heat, Jaxx has done nothing more than dip her toes in as she watched Meiying tentatively splash around. Suyin has also stayed out the water, content to remain on the dock beside Jaxx, read a book, and occasionally cast wary glances out at the lake.
Jaxx knows their caution is a bit foolish - it’s a spring-fed lake, with no connection to the sea – but nonetheless, after the thrashing that the Meg gave her, the number of times she found herself in the sea swimming for dear life, she plans on staying out of the water for a few more years.
For the last two weeks, it’s just been the three of them, hiding away from the rest of the world, although Suyin has called her father every day, monitoring his recovery. He’ll still be in the hospital for some time, but considering how poor his initial prognosis was, Jaxx is certain that further time in the hospital is a price he’s willing to pay. It’s been years since she had this much uninterrupted time off in a row. When she was working on the Mana One, even when she had a day off, it still felt like she was working, unless she fled to the mainland. If she was hanging around the station, even if she genuinely meant to spend her time reading a book or catching up on some television, she always managed to get dragged back in. She somehow ended up in the command room covering for someone while they took a lunch break or helping solve some urgent problem. Even during the time that she and Suyin carved out for each other, the hurried lunches together and the evenings back in their shared room, she was always aware that their time could be interrupted at any given moment. She was always on edge, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
When they’d initially planned their vacation (or rather, agreed to go on it after Suyin’s father demanded that they take some time to their selves), Jaxx had been worried that three weeks would be too long. As excited as she was at the prospect of finally getting some quality time in with Suyin and Meiying, she was worried that they’d run out of things to do. She was concerned that, if they got bored, they would end up lapsing into terror, reliving the Meg’s attack over and over again.
But, while they haven’t been entirely in the clear, while all three of them have woken up from nightmares, things have, for the most part, been fine. More than fine, actually. They’ve done all of the things Jaxx has longed for since she and Suyin officially became a couple. Each night, before she goes to bed, they read Meiying something together. Sometimes, they’re children’s books about science, mainly in English. Sometimes, they’re Chinese novels, and Jaxx gets to practice her Mandarin, work slowly through the pages with both Meiying and Suyin there to guide her. They’ve gone for long walks through the forest, weaving through the trees for hours at a time. They’ve cooked elaborate dinners together and eaten at the few tiny restaurants in the nearby small village. They’ve had movie nights, where they made popcorn the old-fashioned way, popping it on the stove before they settled on the couch. On most of those nights, Jaxx had drifted off, woken up only when the movie came to an end and Meiying tugged at her hand, leading her away for story time.
On the surface, it may not be the most exciting of vacations, but frankly, Jaxx doesn’t care. She’s had enough excitement for several years, maybe even for an entire lifetime. For the time being, all she wants is some damn peace, and this vacation has given her exactly that.
Once she’s yawned wide enough to make her jaw crack, she leans over and checks the time on her phone. Thankfully, it’s just after seven – the day has barely begun. She gets out of bed, changes into a loose pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and pops into the bathroom. Once she’s done, instead of heading towards the kitchen, she returns to their room and pulls her suitcase out from under the bed. At the bottom of it, hidden underneath some clean clothes, is a large box, covered in blue wrapping paper. The box goes with another smaller one, which is hidden inside a pair of socks, and she carefully fishes it out (but only after quickly glancing behind herself, to make sure she shut the door when she came back from the bathroom).
Inside the black velvet box, there’s a simple, thin band. There are no gems, no diamonds to distract – the only ornamentation is on the inside of the band, where Jaxx had carefully carved a single, small heart, done so with a laser one day before they left for vacation, when Suyin was representing her father at a business meeting. She made the ring herself, nearly a year ago. At that point, she didn’t have any solid plans for proposing to Suyin - she wanted to marry her one day, but she hadn’t given any particular thought to the particularities of how she might go about asking for Suyin's hand. But, after she had finished designing the polycarbonate shark cage that had gone on to save Suyin’s life, she had absently crafted a ring, fiddling with the 3D printer in the Mana One lab until she had a polished and smoothed finished product.
She thinks that she’s been waiting long enough to propose, and today seems as good a day as any.
Gently smoothing her finger around the ring and making sure, for the hundredth time, that there aren’t any sharp edges or protrusions, she closes the box and returns it to her suitcase. She wants to do it before she loses her nerve, but she wants to have some breakfast first. Hopefully, having food in her stomach will absorb some of the nervous energy that is already flooding through her.
She steps out into the hallway, noting that Meiying’s door is still closed. Deciding to let her sleep some more, she goes to the kitchen. The smell of coffee lingers in the air, and there’s a pot still sitting on the warmer. She gratefully pours a mug, finds some thick rye bread, and pops it into the toaster, sipping on her coffee as she waits. The kitchen and living room are one large room, crowned with vaulted ceilings that reach up overhead, and Suyin is nowhere to be seen. That in itself isn’t entirely unusual – her favorite spot about the cabin has been the wraparound porch, which offers a stunning view of the lake and surrounding forest, and Jaxx is willing to bet that she’ll find Suyin there, in one of the Adirondack chairs, working on her tablet.
Once her toast pops, she slathers on a thick layer of peanut butter, gathers up her plate and mug, and, on second thought, the coffee pot, in case Suyin needs a top-up. After that, she steps outside onto the porch, the wood slightly scratchy against her bare feet. Padding around the corner of the house, she finds Suyin exactly where she expected, in one of the chairs overlooking the lake. She’s dressed for the day, in a loose pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt, but her hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail, she’s not wearing a stitch of makeup and, even from where Jaxx is standing, she can smell the sunscreen that Suyin must have applied before she came out. She’s scrolling on her tablet, fingers slowly inching along the screen, frowning slightly.
“Good morning,” Jaxx says quietly. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Looking up from the screen, Suyin’s frown transforms into a smile, and she shakes her head.
“Not at all,” she replies, setting the tablet onto the wide arm of the chair. “Just reviewing some reports. They can wait. Is that coffee?”
“Sure is. Want some more?”
“Yes, please.” Suyin holds out her empty mug and, after carefully placing her own plate and mug down onto the arm of the chair beside Suyin’s, Jaxx fills the mug up to the top and sets the now empty pot of coffee onto the ground. Suyin’s smile grows a little as she brings the mug to her nose and takes a deep inhale. She looks completely at peace, and while Jaxx knows that whipping out her phone would ruin the moment, she wishes that she had a photo of Suyin like this, a photo that she could look at during more hectic times.
Instead, once Suyin has lowered her mug, Jaxx leans down and presses a kiss to her cheek before she settles into her own chair. The wood has been warmed by the sun, and it feels like sinking into a hot tub, albeit a drier, less comfortable one. Peering down at the beauty of the lake, stretching out before them like a giant sheet of glass, she takes a bite of her toast.
“How did you sleep last night?” she asks, licking a smudge of peanut butter away from the corner of her mouth.
“Very well,” Suyin replies, reaching over and pushing loose strands of Jaxx’s hair away from her forehead. Jaxx leans into the touch. “No dreams. You?”
She doesn’t say the word bad before dreams, but Jaxx knows that Suyin is referring to the nightmares that have plagued them. Thankfully, last night was a good one for Jaxx as well – she had some bizarre dreams that were definitely inspired by the movie they watched with Meiying before bed, but they were merely strange. She can handle strange.
“No dreams,” she answers in turn, taking a sip of her coffee.
Suyin smiles at her.
They spend the next few moments in companionable silence, drinking their respective coffees, basking in the warmth of the day. After the incident with the Meg, there had been a few days where Jaxx was afraid that she would never feel warm again, days where it felt like the freezing cold of the sea had sunk down into her very bones. Thankfully, that hadn’t been the case, but that doesn’t stop her from savoring the sun as it beats down on the two of them, filtered through the tree branches overhanging the porch.
Once they’ve finished up with their coffees and Jaxx has polished off her toast, she gathers up their dishes and heads back inside to deposit them in the sink. There’s still no sign of Meiying emerging from her bedroom, which is the incentive that Jaxx needs to go grab the wrapped box from her suitcase, together with the ring box.
It’s not that she wants to hide the proposal from Meiying – she wants to be a part of her life in a more permanent way, and Meiying, who has never bothered to hide her feelings on the matter, definitely wants the same thing. It’s just that she wants it to be something between her and Suyin for a few minutes at least.
Tucking the ring box into the pocket of her sweatpants, she grabs the other box and heads back outside. Suyin hasn’t moved – her head is resting against the back of the chair, chin tilted up towards the expanse of the sky, and her eyes are closed. There’s a small smile resting at the corner of her lips, and she looks so astoundingly beautiful that Jaxx almost whips the ring out of her pocket and drops to her knees then and there.
Instead, forcing herself to remain patient, she clears her throat as she settles back into her chair, the box resting against her lap. Suyin opens her eyes and glances over, eyebrows raising at the sight of the wrapped box.
“What’s that?” she asks softly, twisting in her chair so that she’s closer to facing Jaxx head-on. Jaxx didn’t expect to feel this nervous – this isn’t even the proposal after all. This is the accompaniment to the proposal. She hadn’t wanted to just give Suyin a ring – she’d wanted to get her something useful as well, something that signified their relationship and had a purpose, not just ornamentation. But she’s still nervous, heart thudding rapid fire, palms already sweaty. She’s afraid that she’ll leave visible marks behind on the wrapping paper if she holds it for too long, so she sets the box at Suyin’s feet.
“It’s a present,” she replies. “For you. Well, for all of us, actually.”
Suyin carefully picks the present up, as if she’s somehow realized that the contents are breakable, and turns it over in her hands, so that the underside, where Jaxx spent far too much time carefully tucking and sealing the edges of the wrapping paper with tape, is facing up. “Is it for a special occasion? Our anniversary isn’t until-“
“I know,” Jaxx blurts, immediately kicking herself for interrupting her partner. “This is a ‘just because’ present. Or, I guess it’s more of a ‘hey, we survived a giant killer shark and I’m forever grateful for it’ kind of present.”
They’re still at the point where joking about the incident can go one of two ways, depending on how they’re feeling that particular day. Sometimes, a joke takes the edge off, makes them feel more removed from the incident. Sometimes, it feels blasphemous to treat the incident with humor. Today, thankfully, is one of the former days, based on the way Suyin’s smile widens. She even laughs quietly as she starts meticulously peeling the wrapping paper away. Underneath the paper, there are three tall, thin cardboard boxes, stuck together by even more tape. Carefully, moving the three boxes as one, Suyin turns them back over, revealing the nature of the product.
Depicted on the front of each box is a small lamp, sized to fit on a nightstand. Each of them is a different color – one pink, one a soft lavender, and one the green of fresh bloomed grass. Each of the lamps has a metal design overlaying the colored glass, so that the final result looks like a monochromatic stained glass window. The purposes of the lamps are listed in fuller detail on the back, but Jaxx decides to step in, if only so Suyin doesn’t have to turn the lamps back over.
“They hook up to each other through an app,” she says. “Once they’re all set up, if you touch your lamp, the other two will light up as well. I thought it might be nice to have when the three of us are separated. Might help to feel connected, y’know?” At the time that she bought the lamps, stealthily arranging to have them delivered on a day that Suyin wasn’t home, they had seemed like a great idea, had seemed to embody the something useful that she was looking for, but now that she’s looking at them in person, they almost seem silly. After all, it’s not like they’re lacking in ways to stay connected – when the three of them aren’t together, they video chat constantly, and Suyin is always a mere phone call away.
Maybe she should have ordered something else.
That doubt lasts only as long as it takes Suyin to look up at her with a wide smile, fingers carefully trailing along the front of the lamps.
“I love them,” she says, and her voice is so sincere that Jaxx doesn’t doubt her for a minute. “And I know that Meiying is going to love them too. Although she might want to take hers apart to see how it works.”
“Well, I can always help her put it back together if she gets stuck,” Jaxx replies. While her stomach is still churning with anxiety, while the ring box in her pocket is burning a hole in her leg, it still feels like a weight has lifted from her shoulders. She stays quiet for a moment, watching Suyin turn the boxes over and read the text on the back as she slips her hand into the pocket of her sweatpants and closes her fingers around the box, heart beating even faster.
However, before she can actually draw the box out of her pocket, she hears quiet footsteps on the porch behind her. When she peers back over her shoulder, Meiying is rounding the corner, rubbing at her eyes, her fine black hair a mess of frizz and flyaways around her head.
“Good morning,” she says through a wide yawn.
“Good morning, my love,” Suyin replies in Mandarin. Meiying clambers up into Jaxx’s lap, and Jaxx settles back against the chair and wraps one arm around Meiying, hoping the whole time that Meiying is too tired to notice her sweaty palms and ask why she’s nervous. She’s a hell of an observant kid, especially for her age. Jaxx is a little scared, in the best way possible, to see how smart she gets as she grows older.
If she’s anything like her mother, she’s going to take over the world.
“What’s that?” Meiying asks, pointing at the lamps.
“A present,” Suyin says, peeling away the tape holding the three lamp boxes together. “From Jaxx. Which color would you like?”
As Suyin explains how the lamps work, Jaxx contents herself with listening and watching the scene, smiling down at Meiying and brushing her hair away from her forehead when Meiying thanks her profusely for the lamp, having chosen the green one. The whole time, she’s very much aware of the weight of the ring box in her pocket, but for the time being, it’s a weight that she's content to carry.
At some point soon, preferably before they have to leave the haven they’ve carved out for themselves here, she would like to propose, if only so that she doesn’t lose her nerve and end up putting it off for months to come. But if she has to wait a little longer before she makes anything official, she’s okay with waiting.
After all, she muses as she hugs Meiying a little tighter and reaches out to take Suyin’s hand, she already has everything she needs, right here.
The ring will just be the icing on a cake that is already more wonderful than she ever could have imagined.