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Danny doesn’t leave campus immediately.
She sits, for hours in an abandoned diner, memories filling her unneeded lungs like water. The ground shakes and debris falls from the dilapidated ceilings and walls to scatter across her table, their table.
She imagines the lights on, bright and fluorescent, definitely not a flattering tone, but Laura had always looked gorgeous sitting across from her, a pie between them. Even when she’d made a mess of sugary substances across her cheeks she’d managed to be adorable.
Danny can almost feel their hands clasped together on the table, she’d never really appreciated how warm Laura was… Not how she would now, with her ice cold skin and unmoving heart, she never truly gets to a comfortable temperature, the tangle of their fingers would be a welcome thaw.
Laura had been worth it. Worth the risks, worth the time, worth being brave for. Danny would’ve done anything for her. She did do everything for her. Danny doubts that if Laura came running through the door right now that she’d be able to turn her away.
Sitting alone, basking in the pain of everything she’d lost, Danny remembers the first time they kissed.
They’d stopped under a streetlight on their walk back to 307, laughing absently about something or another, Danny can’t grasp for the life (or… death) of her what it was they’d found so funny, but Laura… Laura had looked so beautiful, light hair falling just right around her face as snow started to fall, Danny’s oversized letterman wrapped around her tiny shoulders.
Laura had stopped to tilt her head back, snow falling across her peaceful face, and in that moment Danny was sure she knew what it was like to love someone.
“Laura,” she’d breathed, softly as though the name itself was a secret.
Laura looked back up at her, a big smile lighting up the night for Danny as she felt Laura grasp her hand.
“Dance with me.”
“It’s freezing out here. I don’t want you to get sick-”
“Danny, come on. Stop worrying for just a minute.”
It had taken a second, but Danny stepped in to her, doing as she was told, pulling the smaller girl in and wrapping one arm around her waist to give her more warmth (she had to protect her a little).
Laura had rested her head on Danny’s chest as they swayed, the snow landing in their hair. It had been hard to breathe, pressed so close to Laura like that, Danny’s nerves had been off the charts, she had no idea whether her blush was from the cold or being so near to the younger girl.
She’d twirled her, just for the hell of it and as her hair fanned out around her Laura giggled. Not a moment later her shoes had hit a small patch of ice and moments later she went tumbling into the grass, pulling Danny behind her, not that she’d have it any other way.
Danny landed on her back and the cold slush beneath her had soaked through her long sleeved shirt instantly, but she couldn’t’ve been bothered to care when Laura looked at her like that from on top of her.
Laughing, Laura asked: “Are you okay?”
The only acceptable response to Danny had been a, “you’re beautiful,” spoken as though she’d been looking at the most priceless art in the world.
“Did you hit your head on the way down?”
“No… Just… Thinking out loud I guess.”
“Well… thank you.”
Laura’s eyes had been so deeply warm and inviting, it was easy for Danny to get comfortable there. They felt like home, like laying by the fireplace while drinking hot cocoa, surrounded by adoration.
Gently, Danny leaned upward to catch Laura’s lip between her own.
Their cold red noses brushed together, lips barely there against each other. Eventually, it was Laura who leaned into it, her fingers threading through Danny’s then vibrant red hair, connecting them more fully. She tasted like apples and chocolate, a heat to her mouth that felt phenomenal compared to the frosty air around them.
The world had been silent around them, the only sound the soft, pretty smack of their lips.
Any piece of Danny’s skin that came into contact with Laura’s had thrummed with something unknown, exciting and completely consuming.
After a while, it became apparent that it would be hard to kiss each other through their grins. Danny’s hands had been wrapped around Laura’s back, beneath her own jacket, not that she needed it, Laura’s touch was heating her up enough, even as the snow started to pile up all around them, on top of them.
Laura had taken that jacket home after that, Danny almost didn’t get it back, but something about thinking of Laura kissing Carmilla while wearing it terrified her, so she’d gotten it back right after she’d brought Carmilla back to Laura from the pit.
Something crashes behind Danny, forcefully removing her from the past. Her teeth clench, too sharp now to fit just right, wishing she could go back, live in that night forever. People outside scream, reminding her that as hard as she tries, Danny will never go back to that silent moment of serenity.
She does her best not to worry, she knows Laura hates it when she does that, after all, it had ended their relationship what seemed like lifetimes ago, and it had almost wrecked their friendship.
She wonders if Laura remembers all of that too. If it pains her the way it does Danny.
The ground shudders again and Danny squeezes her eyes shut, wills her legs to remain still in her seat, to not go running towards the battle that she no longer has a real reason to fight.
A single sob rips through her body and her bones tremble under her skin.
She’s scared. She doesn’t even have the will to pretend she’s not anymore. Waiting to see if Laura is okay feels like dying all over again, although the fear seems to be even stronger, more desperate.
It lasts for hours, the waiting. She knows that eventually it will have been too late and the terror outside will be permanent. That eventually, she’ll be one of the last things to remain, that as the world rots she will stand still, observing and mourning, but unwilling to step in, her self-righteousness a thing of the past.
When the shaking stops, and the darkness lifts, Danny heaves a hug sigh of relief. They did it. Laura is alive , or at least, Danny assumes, for her own sake. She sits up, glancing around the completely destroyed diner, it looks as different as Danny feels. Slowly, she gets up from the booth, hand resting on the edge, to be close to Laura, if only once more.
It takes her a minute, but from the seat, she picks up her only possession from her past life.
The jacket.
It fits her all wrong, her body now too slim to fill it out the way she used to, but it still smells of Laura. It smells like her joy, it feels like her arms, wrapping around Danny in a hug. It’s not warm in the way it used to be, her coldness lingers just beneath any sort of relief she gets from the fabric, but it’s okay. It’s something.
She’d gone to get it right before coming to the diner, she hadn’t been planning on it, but somehow, she’d decided to stop on the way out, a part of her knowing she would regret not going back for it. When she’d stepped into the Summer Society house it had felt like a stab to the well, back. Upon opening the door it had been incredibly apparent that she was the only person to step inside for months. The dust upon all the surfaces reminded her that her friends are dead , that every single object in that house belonged to someone six feet deep in the earth, the place she should be sleeping beside them. Moving softly through the house, she was careful not to disturb anything.
Pushing her door open caused a rush of emotions like water from a spring.
A museum of her life sits stagnant in her old room. The pictures on her wall of dead girls smiling, of her and Laura holding hands, of Kirsch laughing at her behind the camera, made her heart split open with what feels like a thousand tiny paper cuts. The Moose Blood poster above her bed brought lyrics flying back into her head, some of them all too prevalent at times in her life to ever be forgotten. Her bed lies unmade, comforter thrown back as though she’d been in a hurry, she didn’t remember if that had been the case, her final rest there felt as though it had been life times ago. Opening her closet had been an ordeal all it’s own, every piece of clothing bringing a moment back to the forefront of her mind. The red-white baseball tee that she’d worn to the town hall, the day her and Laura started to gather evidence towards the investigation, the green pants she wore on the day she first talked to Kirsch, her best and by now only friend, the orange ones she wore when they realized what Carmilla was, the countless sweaters and flannels she’d allowed Laura to borrow.
It had been hard to take only the letterman.
She slowly steps through the place where the glass pane used to be in the diner’s front door, Danny decides to carry the jacket and her coldness with her, as a reminder, of who she was, of her best memory… Of why she loved. Of who .
It’s not Laura, but it’s suitable, comfortable, familiar.
Danny decides to wear it despite the tear stains.
Leaving, she carries only four things from her human life. The jacket, her key to the Summer Society house, worn on a string around her neck as a reminder of her sisters, pictures of her family back home that she will never return to, the one of Kirsch she’d hesitantly removed from the wall of her room, and finally, her unmoving broken heart.
She feels all of their weight upon her with each heavy step.