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Three minutes.
Just under halfway into a seven hour flight, that's how long JJ has been asleep, his mouth slightly open, his head an anchor weight on Kiara's knee.
It's been a while since she's been able to look at him like this, open and unguarded. There's something precious about it, but at the same time almost voyeuristic in nature - with every whistle of breath or incremental shift of his head, her eyes flicker away with a childish guilt, an arrest reminiscent of a thief caught in the act. She would never fool herself into believing that he would be entirely comfortable with being observed like this, and such knowledge in itself sparked an urgency in her to drink him in, and memorise the corners and edges of his skin, the colour of his hair in the dim glow of the emergency light, the way his hands curl in his sleep.
Some of her registers the significance of the ease with which he drifted off, and the implication of security that accompanies it. To let his guard down so bluntly is, in a sense, to concede to being observed. And for JJ, somebody who reocognises peace only as a capricious and deceptive adversary, the idea of being exposed in such a way must not be an easy one to give in to.
They had been running on fumes by the time they got to the plane, all of the blood in their veins replaced by a combination of terror, anticipation and pure adrenaline. She remembers, with a skip of her heart, the electricity that had raced along her skin the whole way back, the way her pulse had hammered against her wrist where his hand was loosely wrapped around it from the front seat of their getaway car, his fingernails skating along her radial artery. The feeling of blind craving had kept the exhaustion at bay, kept a current of white hot tension between them as they outran certain doom. Despite the empty, bleak road that had seemed to stretch out for miles before them and almost certainly condemn them to the waiting arms of law enforcement, sirens would not have been enough to distract Kiara from the way JJ was looking at her through brisk exchanges with Barracuda Mike, the sharp, glass-shard glint in his eyes that seemed to travel all over her skin and map every last inch of it in spite of the severe lack of light.
She certainly doesn't consider herself sheltered at this stage in her life - while she might not have had quite the go of things that JJ always did, she has been on her own adventures enough by now that it takes a lot to really awaken that fire beneath her skin again. After the events of the last few months, everything always manages to seem somewhat dull in comparison. That moment, though, she recalls in her state of fatigue - the walk up to the base of the plane, with the wind screaming through her hair and the certainty that radiated from JJ as he gripped her hand and pulled her on board, the delirious joy with which their hands touched again - that would do it.
She holds her breath as he moves ever so slightly, as his face turns into the juncture of her legs. She had been so sure, collapsing into a heap on the floor with him - so sure as she felt the burn of his skin, saw the heat in his eyes - that the fire that had been snaking its way through them since he kissed her in the cabin was going to reach a breaking point, going to combust, and the seven hours of airtime had stretched out in front of them like a glorious fever dream. It was, after all, the culmination of what felt like a lifetime of moments, and of feelings. There was a significance to it that seemed almost mandatory, as if after all they had put themselves through, all they had been put through, it wasn't cosmically right to stand on the edge of a cliff like that with their hands intertwined and their fears thrown to the wind, and not leap into the void.
The depletion, though, she had not factored in; she had failed to take into consideration the lead that would seep into their bones as soon as they hit the floor, and the hours of euphoric vitality and adrenaline caught up with them both. Fingers intertwined, they had quickly leaned into each other's weight, too shattered to touch, to kiss, to so much as wrap their arms around one another. Instead, they had allowed themselves to fold into each other's space, had settled for a soporific exchange of quiet, melodic words as they accustomed themselves to the turbulent motion of the airplane. Even in their state of weakness, sleep was not something that necessarily came easily; they both were still in something of an emergency mode, a presence of alertness that stubbornly played sentry to their flickering vision, nudged their eyes open and settled them into a haze of lucidity, rocked back and forth like children by the rhythmic movement of the airplane and the low, consistent drone of the engine.
She smiles to herself, absently, when confronted with the thought that she has beaten him; that in the hours they have spent in the air, he has been the first to succumb to the relief of sleep. Her thoughts still race too much to release her to rest, her body still fighting against the idea of her environment being a safe one to drift off in. She raises a hand absent-mindedly and pushes it through his hair, and thinks about what will happen when they both sleep, and wake up; whether or not that spark will be renewed inside them, and the first lock of their eyes will carry more of those exhilerating, unspoken messages. How it will feel the first time she gets to touch him without condemnation nipping at their heels, the first time she gets to feel his lips on hers again somewhere where they aren't surrounded by teenage girls and torn apart by the ticking of a too-short clock. She thinks about the luxury of time, the slow pace at which they may have the liberty to relearn one another, and it makes her heart race all over again as she feels the rise and fall of JJ's chest under her palm. Despite the addiction they all seem to have to danger, the hunger with which they run headfirst into adventure, a part of her longs for the calm that is anticipated after the storm - a time to breathe once this is all over, to find somewhere safe and wrap herself in his arms, and not worry about gold, or murderers, or the big black dog that always seems to follow her around and chase her away from every aspect of her life that has ever made her feel like she belonged.
Faintly, she reasons that it shouldn't be an unrealistic dream for someone of her age, of her circumstance. To be a part of something. To have people, and somewhere to call a home, and to be able to close her eyes without listening for footsteps creeping up behind her. She makes a mental note to string up another hammock, right down by the edge of the water where two oak trees stretch their arms out beseechingly from the looming stone forest wall, somewhere where she and JJ can sit without looking behind them. This is the thought that swings her off to sleep, her mind drifting with the image of their hands intertwined again, their bodies wrapped around one another, safe and quiet.
Exactly where they belong.