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"Mortem non esse finem," you whisper, as she dies in your arms.
Death is not the end.
England, 1552
The first time you see her, her gaze burns across your skin like the fires that burn constantly in the forge, only these flames seem to lick at your very insides, freezing you in place rather than turning you to ash. You know that you should avert your eyes, drop your gaze and kneel as is customary whenever a member from the royal familiy happens to cross your path –which isn't often, for no one from the castle makes a habit of venturing outside of the walls- but it takes you a moment to remember how to make your limbs work. And even still, even as you bow, pressing your knees to the ground still damp from the night's rain, you can't seem to remember how to lower your eyes.
You've heard of the princess before, of course. The royal family seems as abstract and useless to your daily life as the fairytales that some of the children still believe in but you know them all the same. The king and his queen, their only child a girl when the kingdom is so desperately in need of a son and heir. But you've never seen her before and now that you have, you can't seem to peel your eyes away.
She doesn't seem to mind. Her eyes rest on yours, curious and you think maybe, maybe there might be a small smile on her lips. Which is, of course, completely abusrd because why would she bother to take her time to smile at someone like you?
It's only when one of the guards walks past that you remember to drop your eyes, ducking your head and hoping that no one has noticed you staring. The guards don't bother with you, just one kneeling peasant among many and eventually the party moves past and you feel comfortable lifting your head again.
She's gone now, of course, out of sight, swallowed by a sea of finery. It's odd, the longing that you feel for her, a residual effect of a few seconds of eye contact. But there was something...a pull, a push. The urge to follow after her and see what she would do.
Of course, you don't because you know what others would do.
When you get to your feet once more, your dress is damp and dirty from being pressed to the earth and it's an obvious, painful reminder that you're doing nothing but wasting your time entertaining thoughts of the princess. These are the same fairytales that the children around you are always wasting their days with; you laugh at the dirty little boys who think they can be knights and the dirty little girls who pretend their scraps are palace finery. And what are you doing? Thinking the princess smiled at you?
You push through the crowd, tired and angry and hungry, hoping to find a bit of bread or maybe even some meat. These are the things you should concern yourself with, not the pretty princess in her castle.
It's hard to forget the fire in your skin, the burn in your bones when she looked at you. It keeps you warm at night, thinking about her and wondering...always wondering.
Salem, 1692
You watch her while she works, the heat from the fire warming your back and it makes you sleepy, makes your eyes heavy and it's hard to keep your head up. You rest your chin in the palm of your dirty hand, willing yourself to be silent and still so she doesn't make you leave like last time. If she minds the feeling of your eyes on her, she doesn't say, keeping her head bowed and her lips pursed in focus as she works.
The smell of the crushed herbs is tart and sharp in the small room and you think that particular smell will always remind you of her. Along with the fragrance of dried flowers hanging from the eaves and lavender, which always seems to tangle in her hair.
You know the poultice is nearly ready when she finally sets the pestle aside, lifting her head just enough to meet your gaze. You give her a sleepy smile and wonder if anyone would notice if you just stayed here forever and neither of you ever opened the door again.
Maybe people would notice if she was missing; they come to her with ailments and questions, needing cures that they don't trust anyone else to create. But maybe you could convince her to lock the door and pretend like no one was home.
"I swear, Skye," she says fondly and her smile makes you feel warmer than the fire ever could, "I think you invent reasons to come to see me."
You shake your head, feigning innocence. "Of course not." You assure her, holding out your hand so she can see the angry welt of a burn there on your skin. "You know I'm clumsy in the kitchen."
She snorts, shaking her head. She's not fooled but neither of you mind. "Yes, and clumsy everywhere else." She says, returning her focus to the mortar on the scarred table. "You need to be more careful with yourself."
You smile, pleased. "You worry about me." This probably shouldn't make you as happy as it does. You aren't used to people worrying about you and even knowing that she does is a welcome change, a novelty.
She smiles at you, indulgent, placating. "Sometimes I doubt you are capable of worrying about yourself."
Wisely, you remain silent.
She takes the mortar and crosses over to where you're sitting, settling herself down onto the bench beside you. Her presence catches fire to your insides and the flames lick your belly. You aren't touching but just the promise, the suggestion, the possibility is enough.
"You do have to be more careful." She says gently as she scoops some of the poultice onto her fingers, taking your wrist between her other hand.
You shiver and you're sure that she notices judging by the way that her lips part slightly and she shifts marginally closer to you. The poultice stings the smarting flesh on your wrist and you grimace, trying instinctively to pull away. You aren't the best patient, something that she reminds you of time and time again,
But she knows how to handle you by now. When you try to twist away she only pulls you closer, catching your lips with her own and hooking one of her ankles around yours, like she needs the extra reinforcements to keep you in place. She doesn't need to bother with all that; the kiss is more than enough to keep you right there. There's no where else you can imagine wanting to be in that moment.
Even after she's spread the poultice and bound your wrist in clean linen, you stay that way on the bench, pressed together; these lazy kisses are more than enough to get your heart racing and it's harder to breathe but you'd rather suffocate than pull away.
Her fingers twist in your hair, brushing lightly against the base of your neck. You sigh into her mouth and move closer against her and this time you can feel her shivering.
*~*~*~*~*~*
"You should be more careful." Now you're the one saying those words, your tone guarded and tight, betraying the worry that's been coiling inside your stomach for the past several days.
She looks at you, touched but unconcerned. "I don't have anything to worry about." She assures you and you wish that you felt as confident as she seems to. "I'm not doing anything wrong."
"I know that." You protest, stepping away from the door and moving closer to the table where she works. This time, she's not busy with something for you and that worries you even more. You would never go to the church with a bag of herbs that she had ground and try to claim it as something other than a headache remedy or something to ease the ache the cold causes in the bones. "But do they?"
"Skye," she finally turns away from the herbs that she's been grinding into a powder, "all of this is nothing but childish fancy. It will pass."
You shake your head. "Have you not heard?" She doesn't respond. "They took Dorcas Good down to the jail today."
This catches her attention and she looks up, eyes wide in shock. "A child?"
You both know the girl well; she's fond of sneaking away from her mother to play in the fragrant garden outside of Jemma's house and always shyly asks you for a bit of bread when the smell permeates through the town. She's just a babe, no more than five you think, and she's just one more of the accused.
"Please, be careful." You say again, going to Jemma and taking her in your arms. "They seem to be pointing fingers at people for less."
Her fingers smell bitter as they reach up to brush across your cheek and tangle themselves in your hair gently, absently. "Even the minister comes to me when his arthritis bothers him."
You kiss her because you don't really know what else to do. Here, in this room, you feel just as safe as she must and it's easy to allow yourself to believe that she's right, that nothing terrible can touch you here. That the hysteria passing through town will somehow skip you over because here, when there's no one to see you like this, when you don't have to pretend that you're nothing more than neighbors, you're safe.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Sheriff Ward watches you as you walk by with her beside you and you try not to notice because you don't want to invite his attention any further. Everyone seems to be watching everyone closely these days and you would much rather just go back your business as usual, skirting underneath the watchful gaze of your once kind and friendly neighbors.
You've just come from the woods and the basket settled in the crook of Jemma's elbow is full of a variety of plants and herbs, all harmless and helpful to the very people who are so quick to point an accusing finger at whoever is bothering them at the moment.
This is an errand that you've run together many times before, not that you find a great deal of interest in the healing properties of the herbs that grow in the woods around the village but you enjoy listening to her try and explain them to you, you enjoy the way her eyes grow brighter and how she lovingly seems to collect each stalk and stem. And you enjoy the privacy, the way that she laughs when you pull her to you, pressing her against the trunk of a massive oak that shades you from view. Out in the woods, it feels like there's no one else on earth but the two of you and when she tries to shush your sighs and whimpers you can hear the smile in her voice that suggests that she doesn't really mean it.
But, unfortunately, you have to leave the woods eventually.
Ward steps in front of you before you can make it back to her home. "Goody Simmons, Goody Johnson." He nods, his tone forcibly polite.
In unison you murmur your replies, appropriately demure. You wonder if he can see how your lips are still kiss bruised; you wonder if he can hear how your heart flutters against your ribs.
"What business do you have in the woods?" His words are directed toward Jemma and you feel your tongue heavy in your mouth, useless and frightened, even though you know there's nothing you could say.
Ward flicks back the cloth covering the basket but she doesn't even flinch, either foolish or fearless, you can't decide. "I was in need of more herbs and plants. My stores were growing low."
The silence is heavy and you wonder if time has stopped because it truly seems to drag on and on. Ward looks at you, his eyes traveling across your body from forehead to feet. There's a hardness in his eyes, a bitter jealousy that makes you think that maybe he knows something; you've always worried that you wear your love for her on your body, the desperate longing that you've long stopped trying to fight. He seems to have smelled it on you, a hound after a fox.
"I see." He says finally, stepping back to let you pass. "Good day."
You waste no time continuing on your way, moving toward her home. She turns to with a soft smile on her lips. "Nothing to fear."
They arrest her the following morning.
*~*~*~*~*~*
There's a trial, of course, but it doesn't matter. Girls and women that have exchanged only a few dozen words with her take the stand to testify against Jemma, launching into hysterics at the sight of her sitting there looking bewildered. Her herbs, her pestle and mortar, the flowers drying from the eaves of her home, the book she carefully logs her discoveries and remedies in all serve to condemn her. As if there was ever any alternative.
You try, you do. Stammering words, whispered half sentences, your healed wrist as your only piece of evidence. They don't hear you. Your fear isn't for yourself but you tremble anyway.
They won't let you see her in jail but you manage to convince one of the other women to pass along a message, though it's nothing like the words you truly want to say to her.
They find her guilty, along with so many other baffled and frightened women and you can see that she finally realizes what all of this means.
The day is surprisingly clear and balmy when they hang her and you watch with the others in town, unable to keep her name from tearing out of your throat, screaming past your lips. You don't care who sees, who hears; you don't care what they think. It doesn't matter. You already know they will come for you before too long.
Lexington, 1775
"It's simply not right." She says primly and her tone suggests that's going to be the end of the argument.
You've heard this all before. There are still too many Loyalists for your taste, plenty of neighbors who still open their doors and stores to the British soldiers who are forcing themselves into homes and onto streets where they aren't wanted. You're tired of seeing the sea of red, of seeing the proclamations and decrees nailed to doors and posts. Your father sits up most nights at the table in the kitchen, his ledgers a jumble of numbers that grow smaller and smaller by the day thanks to the tariffs and taxes and you wish there was something more you could do to help other than sneak into meetings where you aren't wanted and muddle your way through the pamphlets that frequently change hands.
You aren't sure how your father would feel about the fact that you often spend your time with the daughter of a well known and outspoken Loyalist, especially because she shares his beliefs.
"You know what isn't right?" You begin, even though you know the argument will be useless and she's a stubborn as the cobblestones. "Oppression by a tyrannical king."
She looks unimpressed. "Reading propaganda again?"
You sigh, blowing a twisted strand of hair away from your face. The gesture is one you're used to, your hair an untamable mess since your mother died and your father stopped insisting you brush your hair and look like a lady and it makes her smile, almost in spite of herself. You can see the grin creeping up on her lips before she swallows it back down.
"It's not propaganda," you roll your eyes, "it's truth."
"You're infuriating." She informs you frankly, jabbing a finger at you. Her tone has lost most of its combativeness and you're both too lazy to truly fight. "Have you heard the phrase 'biting the hand that feeds you?'"
A glare is a sufficient enough retort, you think. "We shall see."
"Yes," she huffs with a roll of her eyes, "we shall."
You think she looks beautiful like this, every part of her in place and perfectly coifed and composed aside from the fire in her eyes and the scowl on her face. You'll never tell her this, however, because it doesn't matter what you think. You mentioned this once, let the words tumble out of your mouth; you were powerless to stop them, desperate for her to know how you felt about her. She's your dearest friend and something more.
The night is so fresh in your mind even after the months to have gone by since. She'd kissed you softly and you'd sworn you could see stars even though you were in her father's barn. And then she'd said the words you'd known she would, told you that she loved you and cared for you deeply but you couldn't, you shouldn't. It was dangerous and wrong and there had been tears in her eyes when she'd spoken and you'd known that you weren't the only one who felt the way you did but it didn't matter.
You think of that kiss often but there has been no repeat occurrence. Nothing but friendly chats about the cost of rebellion and other town gossip. You love her still, too much to let her go.
*~*~*~*~*~*
When you return home, you find your father not in the kitchen but in the small barn behind the house, one that has fallen into disrepair from years of disuse and disinterest. He isn't alone, standing in the doorway with five other men, none of whom give you a second glance. Your father frowns, tired and concerned, and waves you away, banishing you inside. You go, only because you know if you keep quiet and stay at the periphery that it will be all the easier to discover what it is that he's planning, what he's hiding.
You discover soon enough, when your curiosity gets the better of you and you creep into the barn after dark, your bare feet silent against the stones. The barn is stocked with supplies: food, guns, steel, boots. You feel a shiver of excitement, followed quickly by the sting of fear. This is treason.
The weight of what you've found settles heavy in your chest, keeping you from drifting off to sleep, her mind swirling with worry and the thought of what might happen to your father if the Red Coats discover just what he has hidden in the barn.
It seems like the words fall from your lips effortlessly the next time you see Jemma, two days later, after you've been tossing and turning and worrying at every footstep and whisper. At that moment, you're not talking to the daughter of a prominent Loyalist but only to your friend, the girl that you love.
Perhaps, you're only the sad, foolish girl that everyone seems to think you are; perhaps you've sold out your father and the other rebels because of the tugging in your heart. But she takes your hands, her touch managing to soothe you even before her words do and you trust her.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Your father leaves to go to war, kissing you goodbye shortly after that fateful night when the war first began as the sun was coming up outside your window. You're not the only daughter to say goodbye to a father; many men leave each day: husbands, fathers, brothers, sons.
She comes to tell you goodbye a few days later, stepping into your empty home with tears in her eyes. Her father has gone too and because of this, her mother is taking her and her siblings elsewhere, somewhere she believes they'll all be safer. You don't know where this mysterious place is but you wish you could go too, only because that's where she will be.
You've never been without her, not since you were little girls growing old among the whispers of rebel and dissatisfaction. How are you supposed to be without her now, when you have no one else?
In the quiet secrecy of your lonely home, you dare to kiss her again, tasting the salt of her tears on her lips. She kisses you roughly, clumsy and desperate and you know it will be even harder to let her go.
Detroit, 1812
The bed is empty when you wake up and you lay there for a while, staring up at the ceiling and watching as the light starts to fill the room, bringing with it the sounds of the early morning shipyards. That's the only music you hear these days: steel and wood being worked and bent, the sounds of desperate and impatient yelling providing a chorus, drowning out the once comforting sounds of the lake. You can't remember the last time you looked outside and felt comforted.
You also can't remember the last time you woke up to find him resting on the mattress beside you. You'd only been married five months before the war came and stole him off to the shipyards and the promise of approaching battle. Honestly you aren't surprised. If it wasn't war and battle lust it would have been something else. The marriage was neither of your ideas but you were wed all the same and it's left you with nothing but an empty bed and a dullness in your chest that you don't have a name for.
You roll over and press your palm against the cool side of the mattress. It feels like he's never been there at all, the warmth of him is completely gone.
It's not him you miss, though. The longing, the need, goes much deeper than that. It seems to exist too deep inside you to study or contemplate, impossible to understand. You miss something you've never even had, but even that doesn't seem entirely true.
Manassas, 1864
You tense at the sound of footfalls but it's too late. By the time you turn around, you're already face to face with the barrel of a gun. The rifle shakes, trembling in the hands of the person holding it. You lift your head slowly to see the face of the person who is probably about to shoot you right between the eyes.
It's a woman, young and afraid. Something you can relate to. She seems equally surprised to see you kneeling there and you can only imagine what she was expecting: you hear stories and you see, first hand, what the war has done to people. What it has made them into. Men are monsters masquerading as soldiers and deserters.
The barrel lowers and you can't help but think that this girl has never fired a gun in her life. But people can still get lucky. "What are you doing?"
"I…" You look at the half-eaten, browning apple in your hands and your mouth waters with longing. You can't remember the last time you had something other than stale bread to eat.
The woman's eyes narrow and she tries to stand a little straighter, tightening her jaw. "You're trying to steal from me." It's not a question, just an accusation.
"I'm hungry." You bite back, too tired to care. If she shoots you, fine. She'll just beat someone else to the punch.
Her chin lifts, her eyes defiant despite the exhaustion that you can see being reflected back at you. "I don't have enough food to spare." Her hands are still shaking. "I can hardly feed myself so you'll simply have to move along."
You start to stand slowly, holding tightly to the rotting apple. You've had plenty of experience with running as quickly as you can without looking back. And yet, you find yourself faltering, your steps uncertain. "I thought…this place seemed empty. Your fields are overgrown, your roof needs fixin'."
"Yes." She scowls. "I am aware of that. Thank you for reminding me."
Instead of turning and leaving this place behind and trying your luck somewhere else, you just look at her curiously. "Your husband is fighting in the war?"
She shakes her head. "No husband. There's only me."
You think that maybe you could frighten the woman, take her gun before she could do anything about it; she clearly doesn't know how to use it. There's no one else on the farm to stop you, no one to protect her. Whatever food and shelter she has could be yours.
But you don't. Instead, you start thinking.
And you soon discover that the gun was never loaded in the first place.
*~*~*~*~*~*
You start with the fields, weeding and clearing them out until your hands are raw and bloody and hers are too and you're both so tired in the evenings that you're lost to sleep before the moonlight even stretches across the yard. The mattress is lumpy and threadbare but big enough for two and far more comfortable than the hard packed earth.
It doesn't take you long to be grateful to her for what she's done. At first, you thought that you were helping her, suffering through these arduous chores and long days for her benefit, that you were doing her a favor but helping her sow the fields and by providing an extra set of hands for labor. But when you wake up in the early, gray dawn hours and hear her breathing softly and evenly beside you, you start to realize that maybe she's the one helping you. After all, she took you into her home, sharing her bed with you and what little food that she has, trusting you when years of war has suggested that to trust anyone is foolish and deadly. It feels good to be trusted, to be useful to someone and reliable. Maybe that's worth more than anything else she's given you so far.
Slowly, steadily, the work you do together starts to pay off. The grin on her face when the first shoots of green appear between the dirt warms you in a way that nothing ever has before. The smile on your own face comes easily then as you look at her and she's dirty and sweaty and you wonder at what point she came to mean so much to you.
She makes you laugh, makes you feel looser and more relaxed during the nights when you sit together beside the fire even after you've finished supper. You love to hear her talk, love to hear the stories of the family that she once had before sickness and war took them away from her. A brother, lost to Union troops; a mother, dead from fever long before.
When she takes your hand, you see that her fingers and palms are hard with calluses now, just like yours and her hands no longer shake when she holds the gun. "I'm glad you're here." She whispers softly in the flickering embers of the fire. "I'm glad you stayed."
There's a thickness in your throat, something you've never felt before and you aren't sure what it means. It makes it hard to speak, to say, "I'm glad you let me stay" and you realize that you mean it not because you have food and a bed and a fire but because you have her. Someone to talk to, to smile with, someone who makes you feel less lonely and like there's a promise in the world all of the sudden.
You don't want her to let go of your hand and there's some small relief when she doesn't.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The weather turns colder and the days are full of work, preparing for the time when the fields will be barren and useless once more. It seems like a miracle to have things stored and saved, to make it through every day with the sounds of the fighting in the distance and remain untouched by the war. You think that, inevitably, all of this will have to come to an end but perhaps that's just the pessimist in you; there's a part of you that's still waiting to wake up one morning and have all of this snatched away from you. To have her taken away.
Snow falls and the windows are thick with frost and you worry about the sight of the smoke twisting up from the chimney but if you don't have the fire going, you know you'll both freeze to death so it seems a necessary risk. The soldiers will come or they won't.
There's less work to do now and it seems odd to have this leisure time, to be able to sit around with her and listen to her voice as she reads to you from one of the many books that have survived in the cabin when so many of the other occupants have perished. She doesn't mind when you rest against her when she reads; at first you use the pretense of trying to see the words or images on the pages but you can't make heads or tails of them anyway and you figure that she knows this but lets you keep up the charade anyway. And then you just rest with your head on her lap, feeling the vibrations of her words against your skin.
One of her hands falls down to your head, her fingers slipping through your hair to brush against your scalp. The sensation threatens to take your breath away and your eyes flutter closed and you wonder what it would be like to always be this close to her.
The first time she kisses you, she does take your breath away and at first you aren't sure what to do, how to respond. You've never been kissed before, not like this, so gently and tentatively and with so much fire. But soon your body catches up with your stuttering heart and you kiss her like it's the only thing that you've ever wanted to do. Like you've just been waiting for the opportunity.
And maybe you have been.
Eventually, you learn the other things that your lips and hands can do and you hold her close in the dark coldness of the cabin, feeling safe and warm with her arms around you and her lips on your skin. She whispers words and promises in your ear and you always believe them because it's hard to remember the world that tears itself apart outside your door.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Eventually, news of the end of the war reaches your small corner of the world and instead of elated and relived, you suddenly feel fearful. What if it's only the necessity and the war that has kept you here and the two of you together? What if the return of so many soldiers from the battlefields will change everything? What if she doesn't need you anymore?
Despite your fears, you force yourself to ask, to bring yourself to say, "What will happen now?"
She smiles at you, reaches to touch you softly. "I suspect we will carry on as we always have."
Boston, 1928
"I could do that," she whispers, mostly to herself, as she looks at the newspaper spread out on the floor in front of her, "I could fly all that way. And farther."
You love when she sounds like this, so childlike and determined in her seriousness. Her fingers are stained with ink from the constant turning of the pages, the reading and re-reading of the story of the first woman to fly across an ocean.
"Yes," you whisper into her hair, your lips brushing against her temple. She presses against you, unaware of her actions, her focus still on the paper. You can feel your love for her singing through your veins, feel the pull of your body to hers. "You could."
Honestly, you think, she could do anything.
New York, 1953
The air is hot and thick and made even heavier by the continual buzz of suspicion, droning on like flies as people are all too happy to whisper about their neighbors. They don't bother to do it behind closed doors anymore, not since they executed the Rosenbergs and the idea that anyone could be a spy has become more en vogue than frightening. People seem desperate for a little excitement in their lives.
You don't worry about the bomb, not the way that everyone else seems to. You have more important things on your mind; after all, if death is so imminent why bother to waste time thinking about it.
You pass through the park, already sweating from the oppressive heat that feels like it's never going to leave the city and you can hear the sounds of people all around you. Mothers with children, people playing with dogs; too much activity for this heat. And you can hear the sounds of the protesters, a common sight and sound these days; there seem to be plenty of things to raise your voice about. People have stopped calling for the release of the Rosenbergs but their names are still being used on banners, spear-heading cries of injustice. People protest the bomb, the Russians, the communist witch-hunt, the laws of the South, anything they can put on a pamphlet and shove in someone's face. You don't have time for that either; after all, if the bomb is coming, you aren't going to be bitching when it does.
You can see her in the crowd, standing toward the side with a stack of papers in her hand while her friend -the tall and slightly scary blonde one- does most of the shouting and commands all of the attention.
This isn't the first time that you've seen her here and you think the you're probably paying attention to the protestors and what they have to say for the wrong reasons. The pretty girl with her hemline still below her knees first pressed a paper into your hands two weeks ago and you've found an excuse to come back and see her nearly every day since then. You should be grateful, you suppose, that they have so much to protest about.
She doesn't look surprised to see you, peeling away from the rest of the group to step closer to where you're standing. "Here to join us today?" There's a teasing tone in her voice, like she has you and your casual indifference pegged. And maybe she does.
"Maybe tomorrow." You say with a shrug and you both know you're just humoring her. "Have you thought about my invitation?" You smile dangerously at her, mischievously. "Come dancing with me."
She matches your playful look with a sparkle in her eye. "Maybe tomorrow." She teases and for the first time you think that maybe you might be in over your head. Her smile makes you feel like stolen sips of whiskey and just as off balance.
"Tomorrow then." You say and she quirks an eyebrow. "I'll pick you up."
At first, you think she's going to shake her head, laugh and shrug you off, assure you that she's busy or disinterested or not that kind of girl or occupied with trying to save the world through protests and marches. But then she says, "I'll meet you there."
And she does, much to your pleasant surprise. Some of her friends are in tow, which is fine with you because you came with a few of your own. The groups fall in together and you lose yourself in the sound of her voice over the sounds of Big Mama Thorton and Doris Day.
It doesn't take much convincing to get her out on the dance floor and when you hesitate to put your hands on her, she laughs and takes them in her own, threading your fingers together and smiling. Your feet ache by the end of the night and you're pretty sure you haven't stopped smiling since she walked through the door but it's the best kind of tired, you think.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The window unit does little to cool the room or banish the sticky heat but you don't think about pushing her off you, about rolling away in an effort to get cool. She traces curling circles against the skin of your hips, her head pillowed on your chest, comfortable and boneless. This is a position you've grown quite fond of in the month since she first went out dancing with you. You quite like the heavy weight of her on your chest and the way your pillows smell like her shampoo even after she's gone.
On the dresser, the radio drones on and on, the newscaster's voice dull and lifeless despite the news that he delivers. Reports of Russia testing the bomb and returned hysteria are all that seem to populate the airwaves these days.
It's a little ironic, you think. You're falling in love at the end of the world.
Los Angeles, 2013
"Coulson told us that you would be joining us. I'm Simmons. Or, well, Jemma. Er…Jemma Simmons. Whichever you prefer."
"Skye."
"Yes," she smiles, "hello Skye."
Another Time in Another Place
The first time you see her, you feel like there's something about her, something familiar. Something that sings to you of the times and places and people that have come before you, something that makes you stop mid-sentence, turn away from your friends and look across the expanse of space currently separating you, to meet her gaze. Something that makes you smile at her, relieved when she looks at you and smiles in return. There's something in that smile that seems to suggest that she feels the same odd, déjà vu feeling currently flooding your brain.
You feel strangely bold as you get up, walking over to her. She smiles like she's expecting you. "Hey." You feel nervous but oddly at ease, like you've done this all before. "Do I know you?"
Immediately, you cringe. It sounds like nothing but a terrible pickup line all of the sudden.
But she just smiles at you. "It certainly feels that way, doesn't it?"
And, again.
The city is burning down around you, the air thick with heat and the smell of ash and the heaviness of hopeless inevitability.
But, for some reason, you are not afraid. You hold her tightly in your arms and she's solid and reassuring, one hand on the small of your back, the other curled around your neck.
You both know what's coming and that makes you want to kiss her and never stop until it's the end.
You settle for just the soft brush of your lips on hers.
"Are you afraid?" She asks in a tone that doesn't betray her own feelings on the matter.
"No." You shake your head and hold her closer. "Death is not the end."