Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When you were a happy hacker for a decent amount of time, you got caught in all sorts of weather over the years. It was nothing unusual, though the weather still sucked.  Ned had his head bent low against the freezing wind blowing sharp snowflakes into our faces. I was huddled as best as I could into my thick ski jacket. It kept me perfectly warm on most days. But not for sitting in a snowstorm and wind for like two hours. Now, going out in this weather might have been a shit plan, but then again, the weather hadn't been that bad when we set out originally. 

Ned was an absolute angel though being an OTTB, his grey coat blended in perfectly into the landscape and if anyone had been out here, I’d be worried we’d get run over. 

I was getting colder by the minute, my fingers were so stiff I didn’t even want to risk getting out my phone, but I was grinning like a lunatic because snow was fun and I could never get enough of it. The way it quieted the world, made everything sparkle, the grey haze and how it crunched under my feet.  Snow made everything better, beautiful and it was always cold when snow was around, so it was an added bonus. Not to mention usually you could use it as an excuse to not go out and see people, which was an absolute delight. The less I had to see people, the better my day was. 

I squinted at the landscape. Roughly another half an hour back to the barn. I dared to pick up the reins and urge Ned into a trot. I knew the ground of the field road was steady underneath. I didn’t want to risk Ned stumbling otherwise and he was being calm enough that I wasn’t worried about him speeding back to the barn.  I mean I wanted to speed back to the barn. I was frozen through to the bone, couldn’t feel my feet and just wanted a hot bath and chocolate. Not sure about the order of that. 

I slowed Ned down when we approached the road leading to the barn. No headlights cut through the thick blizzard I’d have to drive home in now. Oof hopefully the weather was better at Cipher’s place. She’d throw a fit if she had any idea how bad the weather was out here. 

I finally reached the shelter of the barn and rode into the inner courtyard. I had a good thirty seconds of staring at the floor reconsidering all my life options. Dismounting with cold feet from a horse sucked. Like your feet shattered on impact. 

I sighed and dismounted, holding onto the saddle to soften the blow. Ned shook himself and snow slid off his back, his winter coat keeping it from melting as it was very well insulated. I tacked him off, got his blanket, picked his feet, gave him food and all the usual after ride care before I put him back in the young gelding herd. 

As per usual when walking past the mare herd, I got sad, thinking about Emma. She had been gone for eight months now and while having Brego and Ned helped, especially Brego, the death of the mare had hit me hard.

I took a deep breath, definitely not warmed up even with the walk up to the herd and back, tidied up my locker before finally settling into my car. First thing I did was turn up the heater, missing my lada as this one would take a good ten to fifteen minutes to work, while my lada had been heating up in under 5 minutes. 

I glanced at my phone and found no signal. Oh great. The blizzard must have knocked out the connection. I huffed, turned on my music and drove away, practically crawling along the bumpy road down the soft mountain. My wheels had a better grip than expected, but traffic was still slow. 

I sang to the music, but not as carefree as I usually would as I focused on the road, bemoaned the fucking heating and that I wasn’t getting warm. Like at all. I mean, sure my fingers were less stiff and nothing was turning blue, obviously, but I still felt frozen to my soul. 

The driveway up to Cipher’s house came into view. At this point technically Cipher's and my house really. The gate beeped as I approached and opened. I parked in the garage next to Cipher’s three cars and two bikes and just. The woman and her cars. It was half a workshop down here. 

I got out, picked up my waterbottle and headed inside. 

“Lark!” Cipher shouted and appeared around the corner in a frenzied storm of blonde hair. “Where have you been?”

I stopped abruptly, my fluffy socks slipping on the hardwood as I had left my riding boots by the door. “I, uh, I was in the barn?” I had told her that before leaving. I always told Cipher when I was leaving and I mean there were not many places I left to generally. 

“Have you seen the weather?” Cipher put her hands on either side of my face, betraying her harsh tone. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I didn’t have service”, I said, my voice empty of emotions as I was still playing catch up to the situation as I wasn’t sure whether we were being angry or scared of confrontation and Cipher's warm hands against my frozen skin distracted me as well. 

“The entire drive?” Cipher’s eyes flew over my face and body. 

“I didn’t want to risk calling while driving in the snowstorm.”

“You could have used voice activation.”

Shit she was right. “Absolutely, I forgot”, I put my hands over hers. “I’m sorry, CeCe, I forgot. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Cipher sighed and the worried anger bled from her body. Her hands slipped from my face and her arms twitched as she wanted to pull me into a hug and then scrunched her nose. Her hands swiftly found the zipper of my jacket, much faster than my stiff fingers could have. Cipher pushed the jacket off my shoulders, leaving it in an uncharacteristically heap on the floor and pulled me into a hug.

“You smell of horse.”

“Shock horror”, I hugged her back. 

Cipher flinched and cursed when my fingers brushed the back of her neck. “Fuck your fingers are freezing.”

She pulled back to cuddle them in hers. “Lark”, her tone was softer now. 

“Well, to voice a formal complaint”, I said with a tilted head and slightly bemused smile. “My old car had a better heater.”

Cipher glowered, rubbing my hands in between hers in a feeble attempt to warm them up. “Your old car would have never braved this storm.”

“Of course it would have”, I argued at once, “not only have I done it before in the Lada but it is literally a russian car. It’s supposed to drive in this weather.”

Cipher sighed in exasperation. Her eyes rested on mine, the exasperation and glower fading to be replaced by something else. Much softer, making my insides warm where everything else had failed. She breathed a kiss on my lips, my hands still cradled between the two of us. 

I went on tiptoes, leaning into the kiss, relishing in her closeness and warmth. I pulled back first. “Love, I need a hot bath.”

“I agree”, Cipher let go and picked me up before I could react. 

“Cipher!” I giggled. 

Cipher smirked and carried me up the steps. I was impressed by how effortless she made it look. 

I nuzzled into her neck. “You better plan on joining me in the bath.”

“Nothing could keep me from it”, Cipher said, her voice dropping several octaves. 

I sighed happily, resting my head against her shoulder. I knew Cipher had been worried and I should feel bad about it, but apart from absolutely loving the weather, Cipher always got extremely cuddly and affectionate when she was worried about me and I could never get enough of her either way. 

Chapter Text

My head throbbed rhythmically. The far too bright overhead lights made my vision focus and unfocus periodically. Or maybe that was the concussion. I didn’t know. 

I reached up to my face. “Does my face feel as funny as it looks?”

“Please don’t touch that”, the nurse said and gently pulled my hand away. “Did your emergency contact arrive yet?”

I squinted at the nurse. I couldn’t tell if she was pretty or not. She was a blonde blob in blue scrubs. I mean not that it mattered if she was pretty or not except that maybe Cipher would be more pissed if there was a pretty woman talking to me. 

“Oh believe me, if she was here, you’d know”, my lips quirked making my face hurt even more. “She’s a force of nature and will probably shout a lot.”

The maybe not maybe pretty nurse hummed. “Well, maybe you should text her and tell her not to shout when she comes in here.”

“I would but I can’t actually see very well.”

The doctor switched from whatever he was doing to shining a light in my lights. “Pupils not reacting right. Can you follow my finger?”

“No”, I said, “unless you want me to move my eyes independently like a chameleon.”

The doc sighed. “Well, sass and speech are not affected.”

My phone buzzed. “Can I take that call?”

“Yes”, the doctor said. 

I pulled out the phone and held it up to him. “What’s the caller ID?”

“Michelle Nichols”, the doc said with that exasperated tone of voice again. 

I took the call. “Hey Elle, is Ned okay?”

“Yes”, Michelle said, “that’s why I called, to tell you he’s okay. I got his legs all patched up and called the vet. They’ll come by tomorrow. Do you think you’ll be there?”

“Uhm, I don’t know. Doc do you think I’ll be there?”

The doc looked up from my chart. “Be where exactly?”

“At the vet appointment for my horse?”

“Absolutely not”, his tone switched to strict, “you need rest. You have a severe concussion.”

“No, Elle, sorry I have a bad concussion and Mr. Dr. Dr. says I need to rest”, I said my lips twitching again, pulling at the scratches on my face. 

“Okay, sure, is Cecilia there yet?” Michelle’s boots clacked against a stone floor and I could imagine her walking down the stable isle. 

“No”, I said, “But that’s really strange. I half expected her to appear out of thin air.” I focused on the doctor. Well focused was a big term, I couldn’t actually focus on him. You know that was actually really bad. I wanted to look at Cipher when she was here. “Doc, when did I come in?”

“About 45 minutes ago.”

“Yeah, Elle, 45 minutes, that’s really long.”

Elle chuckled. “Well take care of yourself and have fun cleaning your tack when you’re back.”

“Haha, very funny, thank you so much for everything”, I said with a huff and hung up. 

“No you don’t need to fucking show me”, Cipher’s voice snapped through the general hospital noise. That was definitely something I could focus on. Didn’t need my eyes for that. “I know where they fucking are and if you don’t fucking get away from me, I’ll leak nudes you never even knew you had.”

She came into view. Well, the tall angry blonde figure came into view. She wore something in cream and light grey tight pants. Or at least I assumed they were tight. 

Cipher’s presence zoned in on me like a hunting dog. I leaned back on the hospital bed as if I could get away from her, which was ridiculous because if I stood up right now, I’d fall straight on my face. And nothing in my life had ever been straight and my face already hurt enough.

“Oh my god, Lark, look at you”, Cipher’s hand ghosted over the side of my head. “What happened?”

I scrunched up my face and instantly regretted that decision. “Ouch, I thought I told you. I fell off my horse.”

“You fell off- I thought that couldn’t happen!” 

Oh my god, I didn’t think the ringing in my head could get worse. “Why are you shouting? Please don’t shout, CeCe.”

Cipher took a deep breath and pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. “I’m sorry, baby. But my question still stands.”

I wanted to raise an eyebrow at her. She was being ridiculous, but I didn’t want to risk another facial expression. It hurt. Everything hurt, actually. “Cipher, it‘s a horse. They were made to be fallen off of. It‘s like you getting in a car accident.“ 

“I don’t get in accidents.” Cipher glared. I didn’t need to see her face in detail to know it. 

I levelled her with an unimpressed look. 

Cipher didn’t back down. “You said this horse was good!”

Oh dear lord. I knew she was protective, but she was really losing it.  “Yes, that‘s why I’m still alive! Because Ned is a great horse”, I intertwined our fingers and squeezed her hand. 

“Take it back.”

She was not for real. “Over my dead body.”

Cipher grunted in frustration. “Horse riding is one of the most dangerous sports in the world.”

“Do we want to talk about your dangerous job then?”

Cipher wanted to pull her hand away to cross her arms but I didn’t let her go. “My job isn’t dangerous.”

“Don’t make me raise my eyebrows, my entire face hurts where it doesn’t feel numb.”

Cipher sighed and her fingers brushed over my knuckles.

“CeCe”, I said softly, “I’m alive because of Ned. He and I both fell, he could have stepped on me, but he didn’t. He saved my life. He was careful. He’s not just a horse to me. He’s my best friend.” 

Cipher sighed again. “I know, I know what your horses mean to you.”

She had been the one to support me through my mare dying two years ago. She knew exactly how heartbroken I had been back then and by heartbroken I meant I thought my entire world was ending, had fallen into deep depression for two weeks and if she hadn’t found Brego for me I’d probably have gone entirely off the rails. 

Cipher turned and was instantly all business. “So, doc, what’s the verdict?”

“They have a bad concussion. They should be resting as much as possible for the next five days. No physical activity. Certainly no riding for at least three weeks.”

I groaned. “Oh come on! If I don’t get on Ned for three weeks, he’s going to actually murder me.”

“No”, Cipher said and I knew that tone of voice. “You will rest.” 

“CeCe.”

“No, that baby voice isn’t going to do it and neither are the puppy eyes, especially when you are looking slightly to my left.”

Shit, I had focused on the wrong Cipher. I focused on the other one. “Well, there are two of you and I took a bad bet.”

“Really?” Cipher sighed, “they’re seeing double?”

“That should go away within the day. If the symptoms get worse or new ones come up like more frequent vomiting, the dizziness gets worse, seizures, you need to instantly come back here. Otherwise they only have light bruises. They were lucky. I have seen many worse horse falls.”

“Told you I was lucky.”

“Their face doesn’t look like a light bruise.”

“Well, their bones weren’t damaged”, the doc said, “you can take them home right now.”

“Yes, please”, I half jumped off the bed but thought better, instead just slipping until my feet hit the ground but I still leaned against the bed. “Anywhere with less lights.”

“Okay, we’re going”, she kissed my hand again, “considering you’re seeing double, you probably won’t walk straight, will you?” 

“C, honey, nothing about me has ever been straight”, I said with a smile. 

“Oh god, you’re worse than when you’re drunk.”

“I’m cute when I’m drunk.”

“Yes, and now you’re just being insufferable.”

My smile turned into a grin and then a wince because my face hurt. “Home?” 

“Yes”, she wrapped an arm around my waist and we walked out of the ER. I rested my head against her shoulder. 

Cipher rubbed her nose against my hair. “You smell of horse.”

“Admit it you like it.”

Cipher snorted. 

The cool night air brushed over my face and I let out a sigh as we left the too bright lights behind me. 

Cipher made sure to securely place me in the passenger's seat of her fancy corvette. Living with Cipher I learned far more about cars and internet security than I had ever wanted to, but I was pretty sure she knew more about horses and general zoology as well, even if she didn’t want to admit it. 

Cipher got into the driver’s seat and the silence felt oppressive. She put the car into gear and sped off the parking lot. I closed my eyes because the fast movement made me sick. 

Cipher’s hand landed on my thigh. “I love you and all, but please don’t throw up in my car.”

I let out a light laugh, making me feel all the bruises in my body. “I love you too and I would love me less as well if I threw up in your car.”

“See, I know there are good reasons why I fell in love with you.”

I sniggered and then winced. “Please don’t make me laugh. Everything hurts and I literally mean everything… except my feet maybe.”

“Oh geez, good thing your feet don’t hurt! My non-existent foot fetish is screaming.”

Her dry tone made me giggle again. I could deal with the pain just to laugh for Cipher. 

Cipher let out a little breath. I opened my eyes and in the darkness of the car my eyes had less trouble focusing. I think I caught a moment of her fear fighting with her relief. 

We reached the fortress of our modern home in what felt like the blink of an eye but my mind might have blacked out or fallen asleep, I couldn’t actually tell. 

Cipher opened the door of the passenger side and ducked into the car. “We’re home, baby.” 

“Wherever, whenever you are”, I said with a smile and it sounded corny, but it was the truth. I was a creature of ultimate habit, I was autistic, I loved hiding out in places, but with Cipher, who sometimes travelled for months in her plane, I’d do it all for her, because being with her was more important than being without her and my routine. “Do I have to walk?”

“I thought your feet don’t hurt?” Cipher teased but picked me up anyway. “And the first place you’re going to go, now that I have you, is the bath.”

“Bath?” I echoed and actually lifted my head from her shoulder. “I thought I needed bed rest or something.”

“Yes, but as much as I love you, you don’t come into my bed smelling of horse and being covered in mud.” 

“You know, sometimes I question how we ended up with each other.”

“Opposites attract”, Cipher kicked the door shut with her foot and the security system went online. “Dim lights”, she said, before the full glory that was Cipher’s lighting system came into effect. 

“And always with the logical answers.”

“Look who’s talking”, Cipher said, walking up the stairs as if she wasn’t carrying me in her arms. 

I smiled. She put me straight down in the little window sitting corner in the bathroom. Don’t ask why it was here. The house was full of curiosities like this.

She turned on the tub faucet and added some scented bath oils. “Alright, love, let’s get you out of all that.”

“Yay”, we worked me out of my tight jodhpurs and everything else. Since the bathroom lights were also dimmed I could catch a better look at Cipher’s face and how her brows furrowed with every new scrape and bruise she discovered. 

I narrowed my eyes, focused very hard and reached out to smooth the valley between her brows. 

Cipher took a deep breath. She pulled my hand away, wrapping one of hers around it, her icy blue eyes focused on me. “I was scared today, Lark”, her free hand brushed a stray strand of hair from my face. “I don’t get scared. Never.”

“I’m sorry”, as someone who lived with near chronic anxiety, I never wanted anyone to be afraid. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“I don’t know what to do when I’m scared”, Cipher’s voice cracked. “I’ve never felt so helpless before. I control the entire cyberworld. I can bring it down with the press of a button, cripple entire countries' economies just as easily. And yet, when I got that call, I couldn’t do anything.”

I squeezed her hand because I didn’t know what to say. 

“How do you do it?” she levelled me with her full attention. “How are you constantly afraid of things and still function?”

“Oh, well”, I scowled which made my face hurt. I reached up to prod at my cheek, but Cipher caught me before I could. “How bad does my face actually look?”

“You can look in a mirror after the bath and when you’ve answered my question”, Cipher said gentle as ever. 

“I just ignore it, feel miserable and keep going.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, anxiety, for me, is you know this feeling in my stomach. It makes me feel sick, stressed, fizzy, like I want to run and hide and just generally terrible”, and I hated it with a passion, “but as I learned, anxiety only gets worse if you give into it. And sometimes we just have to feel the unpleasant emotions and roll with it.”

“Just like that?” Cipher frowned, “you’re telling me to do nothing?”

“You could do nothing”, I straightened, “control is an illusion. I bet you know the statistics on car accidents better than I do, spontaneous heart failure and all that. We don’t have control over anything except ourselves.”

Cipher’s frown turned into a scowl. Then she abruptly turned away to turn off the tap. The bath now filled with steaming water and bubbles. “Come on, let’s have our bath.”

“So now it’s our bath?” I said with a smile and stood up, holding out my hand to her because while the dizziness was getting better, it wasn’t that much better. 

Cipher took my hand and guided me to the tub, still fully dressed. “Lark, my love, my bird, do you really think I would let you bathe alone, in my giant, drowning risk bathtub, while having a fucking concussion so bad you’re pupils aren’t focusing and you can’t walk straight?”

Excellent point. “Well, if you want it to be our bath, you need to get undressed, because dressed baths suck.”

“Sugar, shut up your smart ass mouth for a hot second.”

“How about a kiss?” 

Cipher huffed and kissed me. It wasn’t nearly as passionate as usually but to be fair, I wasn’t sure if my head and neck would respond very well to that. “See, this is what worry does to me”, she grumbled, “I forget to kiss you hello. That’s just not right.”

“You can make up for it with a hundred kisses”, I said, “and now help me into the tub.”

Cipher obliged and I sunk into the water with a groan and a flutter of my eyes. All the painfully knotted and tensed up muscles relaxed in the warmth. “Hmmmm, I might love the hot tub more than you.”

Cipher laughed and kissed the top of my head, before she swiftly undressed. Of course, as soon as my brain caught onto that fact, I opened my eyes and watched her. It wasn’t really a sexy striptease or anything. She literally just tugged off her clothes, but it was still beautiful and made the corners of my lips curl up. 

Cipher joined me in the tub. It was easily big enough for two and she pulled me against her, massaging my neck and running her hands all over my body, being gentle with the bruises and relentless with the mud. 

I was always puddy in her hands. Really, always, but as the rest of the adrenaline bled out of me, I would probably have actually drowned in the tub if not for her. She kept one arm around me at all times as if she knew exactly how little muscle tension I had. 

“Do you want to eat anything?” Cipher whispered in my ear. 

“No. I just want to cuddle up in bed, take ibuprofen and forget my face and head are both throbbing.”

Cipher kissed the sensitive spot right below my ear. “Ibuprofen on an empty stomach is a bad idea.”

“I don’t have a problem with it ever.”

“Yes, but you also don’t usually have a concussion. So let me fix you something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“At least do a meal replacement drink.”

I sighed, “Okay, chocolate please.”

“Deal”, I heard her smile and felt robbed of not seeing it. 

Cipher didn’t smile often. She liked to hide her facial expressions. Of course, over the course of our relationship she had gotten much more open but she was literally a fortress and letting down all her defences she had for most of her life was very hard. 

So both of us had a very good facial hiding expression thing going on. Me with flat face effect, her being even better at masking or acting in her case, than I was and just. Yeah, facial expressions were icy around here. 

Cipher and I got out of the tub, she dried me off with a big fluffy towel and I got a good glance at all the bruises on my body. Ouch. Yeah, no wonder my entire body hurt. 

And then I got a look at the bruises on my face and yeah damn. The entire left side of my face was blue. There was a single red scratch along my cheekbone, where I had gotten slammed with a branch and the rest was from me kissing the ground coming from a full canter. 

“Oh wow, my face looks as funny as it feels”, I said standing in front of the mirror. 

Cipher came up behind me, wrapping her arms around me and resting her head on my shoulder. I leaned against her and both of us let out a long breath at the same time. “Everytime I see the bruise, I can only think about how you could have died.”

Okay, no, we weren’t doing this. I wriggled to turn around in her arms. When I could see her face for real and not with the mirror, I put my hands on either side of it. “Cipher, any time I look at the bruise, I think ‘hot damn, I survived a very bad fall’. I survived! I’m here. I’m okay and any time you look at it, I want you to think ‘look at this stubborn person, who’s still here, who survived a bad fall and will be dumb enough to get back on that horse’.”

Cipher’s brows twitched, but like she couldn’t decide in what direction they were supposed to go. 

“That’s actually how you deal with anxiety. Well, sometimes, you stop catastrophizing. If you can have bad thoughts, force yourself to have good thoughts instead”, I tried to be serious, but my surroundings were still a little fuzzy. 

“So, when I worry about you dying?”

“You think ‘they’re going to live’ instead. It’s neurology 101. The more often you think a thought”-

“The easier for the brain to recall it. I get it.”

“Good”, I went on tiptoes and claimed her lips for a kiss. 

Cipher kissed me back, but she was still tense. I guess the fear of the accident might take her longer to leave than me. I had fallen off horses quite a few times during my life. It came with being an equestrian. I was just glad I hadn’t broken anything and could at least visit Ned as soon as my dizziness worked out. Well, and Cipher let me. 

She tucked me into bed with my fav jammies on and then headed downstairs to get me the food and ibuprofen. She came back with two drinks, the fancy lachi one for her and the as she called it boring chocolate for me. And the ibuprofen. I always had some in my nightstand, but that was my period and headache stache for middle of the night emergencies. 

I took the pills together with half of the chocci drink. Cipher cuddled up in bed next to me, emptying hers in one go. “TV?”

“No, please no flashing lights.” 

“Okay”, she kissed my temple. 

I curled up against her. “I love you, CeCe.”

“I love you too, Lark.”

My eyes fluttered shut and I was asleep within minutes, wrapped in Cipher’s arms and scent.