the uses of sorrow

by envyzilla, SouthbySoutheast

Summary:

It starts like this: Shauna and Jackie are fighting.

Shauna slams the door as she goes outside, leaving Jackie alone inside.

Lottie doesn't understand what's just happened because it wasn't supposed to happen this way. Right?

Or:

The first snow comes, and somethings different. Someone that was never supposed to go outside gets caught in the cold. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Things will never be the same.

A fic about what happens if Jackie and Shauna switch places, told through the dual POV of Jackie and Lottie. There's angst, sorrow, strife, and somehow just a little bit of happiness found along the way between a girl who had everything and lost it and a girl who had nothing and now has too much.

"Someone I loved once gave me
a box of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift." -- "The Uses of Sorrow" by Mary Oliver

Notes:

This is our first time publishing works together, so we're still figuring out the ropes, and this chapter got a wee bit long, but we hope you all enjoy! Told from both Jackie and Lottie's perspective, this fic should be a good time.

Nothing quite like the butterfly effect. Yellowjackets effect? Something with wings caused a hurricane, or, in this case, a snow storm.

The chapter title is from "I will cultivate within" by E. E. Cummings.

Chapter 1: the snow doesn't give a soft white damn who it touches

It starts like this: Shauna and Jackie are fighting.

 

“None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for you, if you hadn’t–”

 

“Hadn’t what?” Jackie asks as Shauna approaches her. Her arms are crossed. Her eyes are wide. “Huh?” Her eyebrows are raised. “Stolen him?”

 

Shauna just stares at her, unsure of what to say, and Jackie feels… vindicated. It tastes like acid. It’s the first thing she’s been able to taste in weeks.

 

“Wow,” Jackie says. “The irony.” The group seems invested, like they always are with Jackie and Shauna’s spats, and Jackie wants them all to be paying attention as she scoffs and says, “Shauna was fucking Jeff. Behind my back, you know that? Yeah, that’s who’s really responsible for her little bundle of joy .” It’s bitter, too. Closer to the ashy taste that’s lingered on her tongue since she read that goddamn journal.

 

“It was you,” Shauna says, the audacity to be the victim. “You read my journal.”

 

The vindication is gone. Jackie whispers, “How could you? You were my best friend.” Past tense, right, Shipman? In the grammatical past. How could they be best friends after this?

 

(Oh, but Jackie thinks they still could be. She does. She does. It wouldn’t hurt so bad if Shauna wasn’t still her best friend, the most important person in her life, even when Jackie knew that Shauna hated her.)

 

“You– You don’t even like him.”

 

“And how would you know?” Shauna asks immediately, and, ow, that stings. “You’re so obsessed with yourself, I’m surprised you’re aware other people even exist. You know you never even asked me if I wanted to go to Rutgers?” That’s worse. So much worse. Is she throwing back her journal in Jackie’s face? Does she even remember what she wrote? Shauna’s always had a way with words. She’s steamrolling along, too. There’s no stopping Shauna Shipman once she gets started. “You just assumed I’d go wherever you wanted. You tell me what to wear, what to do, who to hook up with. I don’t even like soccer! But you just get everything you want. All the time like it’s nothing. And the rest of us, we’re just extras in the movie of your fucking life!”

 

Shauna knows that’s not true. She knows. She knows what Jackie’s mother is like, she knows how hard Jackie has to try for everything. She knows. She knows, but why does it feel like she’s telling the truth? Why does it hurt?

 

Jackie says the only thing she can think of. “Oh, my god. You’re such a cliché.” It’s all her effort to sound mocking. “Oh is the– is the sad little sidekick mad? Did I force you to live in my shadow, Shauna?” There. Throw her own words back at her. Good girl. The voice in Jackie’s head sounds too much like her mother’s. She scoffs. “It must be hard being this jealous all the time.”

 

Shauna’s laughing now, though, a mean sound, one that Jackie hates is directed at her. She gets defensive. “What? You’re so fucking jealous of me, you can barely breathe.”

 

“Are you quoting Beaches at me right now?” Shauna asks, her tone nasty. 

 

Jackie’s defenses grow. “What? No.”

 

“I’m not jealous of you, Jackie,” Shauna says, and she’s such an awful liar that this must be true. She gets closer. “I feel sorry for you. Because you’re weak. And I think that, deep down, you know it. I’m sure everyone back home is so fucking sad to be losing their perfect little princess, but they’ll never know how tragic and boring and insecure you really are. Or how high school was the best your life was ever going to get.”

 

“I’m worried I’m peaking,” Jackie joked as they laid on Shauna’s bed, facing each other. It was a joke, really, it was, but it was true, too. “Like, homecoming queen. Soccer captain. District champs in the running for state, for nationals . What if this is the best I’m gonna do, Shipman?”

 

Shauna rolled her eyes. “Shut up. You’re awesome, and you know it. You’re gonna get out there and do amazing things.”

 

“Like what?” Shauna always had the answers. Jackie wanted her to give them to her.

 

“Uh…” Shauna floundered, though, so maybe she didn’t have all the answers. “I don’t know. But something amazing, okay? I know it, and so do you.”

 

Jackie hummed, but she was pleased by the ego boost. “You’re right. Fuck peaking. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us!” She sits up, already excited. “I bet there’s gonna be some great parties at Rutgers. We have got to go through your wardrobe. I mean, really, Shauna, all that flannel’s too much.”

 

“Fuck you,” Jackie says, her voice weak. She feels weak. She’s weak. Pathetic. Tragic and boring and insecure. Shauna’s hit it on the head. She did it in her journal, in private, and now she’s airing it out for their team. Jackie’s heart thunders. There’s blood pulsing in her ears. “You know what? That’s it.” She shakes her head, her voice growing stronger. “That’s it. Get– Get out.” She points at the door, and Shauna just stares, even when Jackie shoves her shoulder. She’s more solid than Jackie is, always has been. It’s even more prevalent now. “Go on, get out!”

 

“No.”

 

“I can’t be around you, I–I can’t even f-fucking look at you right now.” She’s trembling. She hates it.

 

Shauna is steady. She’s always been a rock. “Well, that sounds like your problem. So maybe you should leave.”

 

Jackie scoffs, but there’s not a single person that looks like they’ll back her up.

 

Mari’s eyes glint when Jackie looks at her. “Maybe you’d be better off, since we’re all so crazy.”

 

“Okay, everybody just stop,” Coach starts. “Nobody is going outside.”

 

Lottie has been watching the whole time, observing. She’s never had a friend close enough to understand how either Shauna or Jackie feels, but she can feel it now. She doesn’t know why, she doesn’t know how. This feels like something that was always supposed to happen. She doesn’t understand how she knows that, but she does. Like she knows other things. Like we won’t be hungry much longer . 

 

“Stay out it, Coach,” she finds herself saying, and she’s not even looking at him, she’s looking at Shauna and Jackie, and she wants to know who will cave first. She thinks she knows. 

 

It will be Jackie. It’s always Jackie.

 

Jackie starts to cave. She always does. It’s what she’s always done. And she’ll try to spin it like it’s her idea, but they know. Everyone knows. Jackie is weak. She’s tragic. She starts, her voice acid but no longer vindication. “You know what? F–-”

“No,” Shauna starts, sneering. “ I’ll go, Jackie. Because you always get your way.” But Shauna knows that’s not true. She knows. She knows Jackie. 

 

Any self righteousness that Jackie might feel is lost in this moment, fading as her face goes slack as she watches Shauna gather up a pillow and blanket ( Jackie ’s pillow and blanket, an extra level of fuck you , since it’s unlikely anyone will want to share with her.

 

“Shauna, come on. Don’t go outside,” Tai says, sounding tired. 

 

“It’s fine, Tai,” Shauna says, though she’s still staring at Jackie. She gives a mocking bow. “Your highness.”

 

“I don’t even know who you are anymore,” Jackie says quietly, hunching in on herself.

 

There’s tears in Shauna’s eyes, but she still raises her eyebrows a hair and is almost sanctimonious as she says, “Or maybe you never did.” before shutting the door with a harsh slam.

 

For a moment, Lottie doesn’t understand what’s just happened. She doesn’t think anyone does, really. They’re all silent, unsure of what to say. Her eyes search the faces of the girls she can see, but not a single one of them has anything to say. 

 

Lottie doesn’t understand what just happened because it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Right? 

 

Her grip is tightening on the cup in her hands. No one moves, not really. Only idle fingers, lips being worried between teeth, eyes glancing between each other, as if asking for permission. It takes Lottie a long time to realize that more than one of the girls are staring at her. She feels small under their gaze, she knows they want her to say something. 

 

She doesn’t know what to say.

 

“It…” Lottie starts. She still doesn’t know what to say. “Let her be.” Tai has whirled around to look at her, incredulous. Lottie feels scrutinized under her stare. “Jackie will go talk to her later, once she’s cooled off.” And Jackie is supposed to be their captain, but no one has followed her in a long time. Not out here. 

 

Lottie turns her gaze from Tai to Jackie. “Right?”

 

Jackie glances up at Lottie, at the sound of her voice, perpetually wide eyes even wider before she looks away. She doesn’t say anything. After the bear meat fiasco that started all of this (or maybe just thrust it out into the open; was that really just a few minutes ago?), Jackie doesn’t want to deal with the rest of the group, least of all Lottie.

 

Lottie, who pointed out just as clearly as Shauna how little Jackie matters, who knows how useless Jackie is.

 

She no longer feels like the friend Jackie once had, like the girl she asked, a smile on her lips and a carefully written note in her hand, to be her co-captain. Instead, Jackie moves away from the table, towards the back of the cabin. Tai sighs, but most of them get back to eating. They don’t get that this isn’t just another Shauna and Jackie fight. They don’t get that something’s wrong here. Probably because they’re more concerned with eating diseased bear meat.

 

Lottie watches Jackie go, she doesn’t know how to fix any of this. She doesn’t know if she’s supposed to. Something in her tells her that and she’s afraid of it. But the girls all go back to eating once Jackie is gone, and no one goes after her.

 

It’s later when Lottie finally feels like she needs to do something. Dinner finished in mostly silence, just the sound of silverware clacking against tin cups and wooden bowls. Lottie didn’t eat much, she couldn’t, her stomach had felt nauseous, wrong. 

 

Something felt wrong.

 

Still, she pushes through the feeling and finds Jackie at the back of the cabin still. Everyone else is getting ready for bed-- Tai and Van have gone up into the attic and Lottie remembers how Shauna had been sleeping up there, too. She was outside now and that wasn’t supposed to be how it was.

 

“Jackie,” Lottie starts, standing a distance away from her, the same distance that has grown between Jackie and the rest of the team. But closer than the rift Shauna has now torn. “You didn’t finish your dinner.”

 

Jackie has stayed close to the bedroom, trying to ignore the sound of eating, as nauseating and uncomfortable as it is. Instead, she picks at the moss on the wall, watching the dirt trap itself under her fingers before, disgusted, she picks it out. Repeats. It’s a nasty habit, her desire to pick, her disgust at the consequence of the picking.

 

She startles when Lottie walks close, her eyes wary. “I’m not hungry.” She can’t look at Lottie for long. She wanders away, giving Lottie some distance, heads to the window and looks out, frowning. Shauna is fine . She has a fire. Her back is to the cabin. Her shoulders are hunched, set. Jackie can feel her anger radiating into the cabin. Even if there’s a chill out there, between the rage and the fire, Jackie thinks she’s sure to be warm.

 

Lottie knows she’s lying because they’re all hungry, but she doesn’t need to point that out. Jackie is lying because she doesn’t want to talk to Lottie, and Lottie watches her look out the window at Shauna. 

 

Boldly-- odd, for Lottie, she’s never really been that bold, but now she feels like she has to be, because something inside of her has changed and people keep looking at her like she’s supposed to know what to do next. Because she killed a bear with just a knife and she knew they wouldn’t be hungry much longer-- Lottie steps up next to Jackie and looks out at Shauna, too.

 

“Just go talk to her,” she says without looking at Jackie. 

 

Jackie scoffs with as much effort as she can muster. It’s not a lot. “Go away, Lottie.” She’ll go get Shauna. She knows that she will. She’ll give in and bring her back inside. Not that Shauna needs her to, not when she’s just fine out there, in here, everywhere. She’s fine, and Jackie’s tragic. 

 

Her bed’s been taken, and she refuses to ask anyone to share. There’s only one person that Jackie would ever consider sharing with, and they’re not exactly friends right now. Instead, she takes up vigil by the window. She’ll go out eventually.

 

Lottie should have expected that, really, but it still hurts. Lottie still remembers a time when Jackie would smile at her, when she would ask her if she was feeling okay when Lottie’s eyes would gloss over because she’d forgotten take her meds (but no one knew that, thank fucking god no one knew that), when she had passed her a note that asked her to be her co-captain and Lottie had probably smiled more that day than the day she’d first made the varsity team. 

 

She doesn’t say anything else when she turns away from Jackie. It isn’t supposed to happen like this. Instead, she simply grabs her bed and sets it down next to Jackie at the window. She doesn’t crawl in, though, she goes back over to where the others are and sits in the chair and watches the fire and hopes Jackie goes and talks to Shauna because it’s not supposed to happen this way, and Lottie can’t help but feel like something bad is going to happen now.

 

Jackie’s every intention is to go outside and get Shauna. In fact, she does, she knows she does, her breath puffing out, the air growing cold seemingly by the minute.

 

She’s goes outside to get Shauna, her hands tucked into her letterman pockets, her shoulders shivering. “Hey,” she starts.

 

Shauna looks away from her fire, Jackie’s blanket wrapped around her shoulders, to Jackie’s face before she scoffs. Clearly, she thinks the fire is more interesting.

 

Jackie crosses her arms over her chest. “Come inside, Shipman.”

 

“Stop telling me what to do.” Shauna’s words come out in little angry clouds. When they were kids, it was hard to be scared of an angry Shauna Shipman, with her doe eyes and her pouty lips. She’s perfected the art of looking mean, though, and she’s able to back it up. She was a terror on the soccer field, yellow cards constantly thrown in her direction. Jackie and Shauna had gotten into their fair share of hair pulling scuffles over the years, though Jackie says she’s grown out of that.

 

She doesn’t think that Shauna wants to fight her now, though. She doesn’t even think Shauna wants to touch her. She hates her.

 

“I’m sorry I told you to go outside. Quit being such a bitch. This is stupid,” Jackie says, and it’s such a shitty apology.

 

Leave it to Shauna to clock that immediately. “I didn’t come outside because you told me to.”

 

“It’s cold,” Jackie says. “Please come inside.”

 

“If you’re cold, then you go inside. I’m fucking fine.”

 

Jackie huffs. “Not until you do.” She looks up at the sky. Then, quietly, “Please? Everyone wants you to come inside.”

 

Shauna looks at Jackie again. “Everyone?”

 

A beat. Even the wilderness is quiet. “Yes.”

 

Shauna stands. Jackie wants to reach out, to touch her. She doesn’t think she can. Instead, she says, “I– I’m sorry.”

 

“For telling me to go outside.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“For telling me to go outside?”

 

Jackie closes her eyes. “You hurt me. I wanted– I wanted to hurt you, too. Now, I want you to–- to come inside.” To be my friend again. “Will you? I’m asking.”

 

Shauna motions with her hand, and Jackie leads the way, opening the door and letting Shauna walk in first. There’s quiet relief in the sigh she lets out, and she gives Jackie a sidelong glance. “It–- It is freezing out there.”

 

Akilah puts a blanket around Shauna’s shoulders, and Jackie leads Shauna to the fireplace, to get warm.

 

Something feels… odd. She can’t place it. She doesn’t know what it is.

 

But Jackie’s gone outside, and she’s brought Shauna in, and she can’t really feel anything but relief as the others gather around.

 

“I’m so tired,” Shauna says, snuggling into the blankets like she’d do on those rare mornings she let herself sleep in, cold winters in New Jersey where the bed’s just too good and warm to leave.

 

Lottie leans down, her eyes big and brown and glassy, and Jackie thinks it’s odd, just a little, but not enough to warrant too much of her attention. Not when her hands ache to reach for Shauna. Not when she thinks she’s still not allowed. “Here,” Lottie says, “this will help.”

 

Shauna takes the tin cup, drinking what Jackie assumes is hot water before Shauna’s eyebrows actually lift in surprise. “Hot chocolate? How? Where did you find this?”

 

God, what Jackie wouldn’t do for some hot chocolate. What she wouldn’t do to be able to stomach something good . She almost wants to ask Shauna for a sip. She realizes that they’re no longer at that place, anymore. 

 

“Does it matter?” Tai asks from the throng of girls, stepping forward and smiling. “We got it for you.”

 

“Just for you,” Jackie finds herself murmuring.

 

“Jackie,” Shauna starts, like she’s going to say something, like she needs to. Jackie wants her too.

 

That doesn’t stop her from shaking her head. “It’s fine. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

 

There’s a need in Jackie’s chest. A desire. An urge. She can’t stop it. How long has it been since she’s voiced these words? “I love you, Shauna.”

 

Shauna looks like she might cry.

 

Jackie reaches forward, encouraging Shauna to drink more of something warm, something sweet, something good. “We can talk in the morning. You deserve something nice, Shauna. You deserve this.”

 

“You deserve this, Shauna,” the team repeats in unison. 

 

It’s strange. Jackie cannot think about how strange it is. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” Present tense, Shipman. Jackie’s still there if you want her. “You know that, right?” Please know that .

 

“I know,” Shauna whispers. She might even smile. But she faces forward, and she sees something, something that Jackie cannot, her expression falling, growing confused. And then it grows scared.

 

Shauna is scared.

 

Jackie goes outside to get Shauna, and, yet, when she blinks, she’s leaning with her face pressed against the glass of the window, freezing cold, with startling brightness and whiteness in front of her. Whiteness. 

 

Snow. 

 

Shauna.

 

“Shauna!” Jackie trips over bodies, causing groans and curses, and she doesn’t even care, she doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t. It snowed. There’s snow outside. Her breath is a cloud in front of her, even in the cabin, even surrounded by bodies, heat. 

 

Where’s Shauna? Shauna’s smart. Shauna came inside. Where’s Shauna. Where’s Shauna ?

 

Jackie flings open the door, unable to see for a moment from the brightness of the snow in comparison to the darkness of the cabin, but she doesn’t care. Where’s Shauna?”

 

“No,” she breathes. No. Just no. There’s a lump near the firepit, Shauna’s sturdy blaze now nothing, covered completely in snow. Just like the lump. The lump that’s not moving. 

 

No.

 

“Shauna?” she whimpers, rushing out, tripping. She’s never been able to find solid ground out here. “No, no, no, no, no.” She’s brushing off the snow, revealing Shauna’s flannel, fingers trembling as she grabs the pattern. She brushes the snow away. Shauna’s face. Cold. Pale. Like she’s sleeping. Like she’s a statue. “No, no, no, no, no, no.” 

 

More snow is brushed aside. Shauna’s skin is too cold. It’s like holding ice. Jackie’s fingers are turning red. She can’t feel it. She doesn’t care. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” 

 

The others have joined. Jackie doesn’t care. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care. There’s only this. 

 

There’s only Shauna. “No! Shauna?” 

 

Shauna, who won’t move. “No, Shauna!” Jackie shakes her shoulders.

 

Shauna, who won’t tell Jackie to stop crying, wailing, screaming. “Shipman, wake up! Please, Shauna!” She’s begging. She’ll beg for the rest of her life if she has to. “Shauna, please, please, please! Please, wake up! I’m sorry, please!” 

 

Lottie is the first one who wakes up as Jackie trips through their bodies. She’s still sitting in the chair, there’s a kink in her neck-- she’d fallen asleep, too. She hadn’t meant to. 

 

Even without the sound of Jackie’s voice, desperate and trembling, Lottie knew something was wrong. Something was wrong. She stumbles out of her chair and follows Jackie to the door, outside. She stops dead on the porch at the top of the stairs. She sees the unmoving lump near the campfire. 

 

This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. 

 

Jackie is screaming, crying, shaking Shauna-- Shauna’s body-- and Lottie is moving without even thinking about it. She is falling into the snow next to Jackie and wrapping her arms around her and staring at Shauna’s cold, frozen body and it wasn’t supposed to happen like this .

 

The others are all behind them, standing, staring. No one else is saying anything. It’s only Jackie crying into the snow and the ice and the frozen air and Lottie doesn’t think any of this is ever going to be okay again.

 

She doesn’t know how to fix anything.

 

“Shauna, please, please don’t leave me, please, please don’t leave me.” Jackie’s words start to blur together, more choked sobs and wails and screams than human language. She does not feel human. She’s not. She’s ice. She’s cold that clings to Shauna’s clothes. She’s some sort of animal with claws, like the rest of them, now, only they were hunters that night at Doomcoming, and Jackie knows, here, that she is nothing but prey.

 

She doesn’t care who it is that wraps their arms around her. It means nothing. Nothing at all. She simply holds Shauna tighter, crying, her fingers digging into her clothes so that no one can attempt to take her away. 

 

Jackie doesn’t stop, even when her voice is ragged. She’s still begging. She’ll beg forever if she has to. For what? She can’t say. She can no longer feel Shauna’s heartbeat beneath her fingers, more familiar than each beat of her own. They beat in time with each other, she used to think when they were children, before such thoughts became dangerous. 

 

Shauna’s heart doesn’t beat anymore, and Jackie thinks hers has stopped as well. She is no longer holding herself up. All she can do is cling to Shauna. There’s nothing. The cold has faded into the background. The others don’t exist; background in the horror movie of Jackie’s life. 

 

Isn’t this funny, Shipman? Come on, laugh. Jackie’s selfish and obsessed with herself. And Shauna. Shauna, who is just as much Jackie (more, really) than Jackie is herself. There is no Jackie without Shauna.

 

Shauna’s heart doesn’t beat anymore. Jackie wishes hers would stop, too.

 

It never grows quiet because Jackie never stops crying. Too much time passes before other people are moving, realizing they need to do something, realizing that Lottie is tied up with keeping Jackie sitting and out of the snow so that she doesn’t freeze to death, too.

 

And Lottie can’t help but feel jealous of her own actions. When Laura Lee’s plane had exploded and Lottie’s entire world had gone up in flames, who had held her like this? Who had come into the water to drag her back out?

 

No one.

 

Eventually, she’d grown too cold. The cloud of smoke in the sky had disappeared and with it, it had taken all Lottie had left of Laura Lee. Except her memory, her clothes, a suitcase full of things that proved she was real and she’d lived and she’d loved. Proof she wasn’t just in Lottie’s head.

 

Lottie flinches when someone kneels next to them. It’s Tai, and she’s crying, too, but it’s silent and the tears look frozen to her cheeks. Lottie doesn’t remember when she started crying, but her own cheeks feel icy and wind bitten. Slowly, Tai reaches out and she grabs Jackie, too.

 

“We have to…move her,” Tai chokes out. Lottie’s eyes follow Tai’s and she watches as Van and Mari and Melissa have come to stand across from them, staring down at the frozen husk of Shauna Shipman. 

Lottie realizes then that Tai doesn’t mean Jackie.

 

“No,” Lottie whispers, her voice husky, “not yet.” 

 

“Lottie…” Tai starts.

 

“I said no,” Lottie is more firm this time and she doesn’t know where the voice comes from, “not yet.” She’s still clinging to Jackie. “Give her time.”

 

They’d all been out there for too long, shivering in the snow, but Jackie still needed time. They all did.

 

Even with the others speaking, someone’s voice behind her, against her back, Jackie doesn’t care. She bows her head, eyes closed, one hand gripping Shauna’s shirt as the other pets through her hair. It’s stiff, frozen. Jackie wishes she had a brush. She’s long stopped properly taking care of herself, too sad after the journal, after Laura Lee, even if there are some habits she cannot break, but she wishes she could brush Shauna’s hair again.

 

“Please, don’t leave me,” she finally manages to say coherently, her voice raspier, aching in her throat. “Shauna. Shauna . Shauna.” She tries coaxing her awake. It isn’t often that Jackie gets to do that; Shauna almost always rises before Jackie does. 

 

She should have woken herself up. She should have come inside.

 

Jackie should have gone to get her. 

 

There’s nothing left for her, now. There wasn’t anything left the night before. Shauna was… gone. She was gone, and she’d hated Jackie until she left. Found her awful, pathetic, stupid, shallow. And she was right. Jackie’s all of those things. She always has been. She always will be. 

 

It would be so easy to go to sleep here. When they slept over at each other’s house, it would often be Shauna that wormed her way behind Jackie, wrapping her arms around Jackie’s waist, holding her close. The attic space of Shauna’s bedroom was cold and cruel in the winter. Cuddling was imperative, Shauna would say, that mock seriousness in her voice before they both started giggling.

 

Jackie slumps forward, attempting to curl herself around Shauna’s body. She never got many chances to do this, her arms wrapped around Shauna, now. She’d take it one last time. 

 

The way Jackie is calling Shauna’s name makes Lottie’s heart stutter and break. It was the same sound Lottie had made, so loud, so quiet. A scream, but silent. Falling to her knees. Uncontrollable tears until her body ran dry of them. Pain stuck in her throat. She holds onto Jackie tighter and feels her tears being soaked up by the fabric of her captain’s jacket. 

 

Finally, Tai moves again. She places a hand on Lottie, on Jackie. “We have to,” she tells them both, “if we stay out much longer, we might… get sick.” 

 

And they didn’t need that right now, did they? A sick girl to nurse back to health. Even if Shauna’s body wasn’t cold on the ground, losing someone else would destroy them all. Losing just one person felt like it might destroy them all.

 

And it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, the thought worming its way back into Lottie’s head. Something It won’t let her forget. Something had changed and Lottie doesn’t know what or how or why , but it has and now she’s taking fistfuls of Jackie’s coat and letting Tai help her stand as they lift their old captain off the ground and tear her away from her best friend, her other half-- the girl she loved.

 

At least Jackie got to hold her one last time. 

 

The other three are moving, now, to move Shauna’s body. It’s stiff, frozen solid. Her eyes are closed and she looks peaceful and Lottie thinks that’s wrong. Death wasn’t peaceful, not out here. It burned and it froze and it took and it stole. 

 

And it wasn’t just Shauna they’d lost, Lottie knew that. She’d thought maybe they’d lost Jackie long ago, but it was clear to her now, that they’d lost her in this moment. She wishes she would have pushed her more. She wishes she could have demanded Jackie to go outside and talk to Shauna. She wishes she’d been strong enough to do anything, help anyone .

 

There were people looking at Lottie now, looking to Lottie, and she doesn’t know when it changed or why It was speaking to her, but she wishes she could just be the person she’d been when they crashed. 

 

Or maybe she wishes she could be the person they think she is. The person who can see the future in her dreams, the person who has visions of rotting deer, and fire, and light ; the person who can kill a bear with nothing but a hunting knife. 

 

 The person who could go outside and tell Shauna to come back in, it’s cold, you’re going to freeze to death .

 

Lottie, though, is none of those things.

 

And so she helps Tai drag Jackie back inside while the others clean up what’s left of Shauna Shipman.

 

Whatever little is left of Jackie Taylor stirs to life as she’s being pulled away from Shauna. “No!” she cries out, panicking. “No, no, no! Shauna!” 

 

She is crying out to someone who cannot hear her, who would not want to hear her even if she could. Shauna does not want Jackie, but, oh, how Jackie needs Shauna. She cannot be without Shauna. There is no Jackie without Shauna by her side, and Shauna knew it. 

 

Jackie was dead the moment she read that journal. If the plane had never crashed, she would have died when Shauna told her about Brown, or about Jeff, or about how much she hated Jackie’s guts. 

 

“Let me go,” she snarls, but it’s weak. She tries to tug herself free, but the last few months have not been kind on Jackie, and her new diet of nothing has taken away the muscle she’d had from soccer. She used to be so meticulous about her body. 

 

Now, all she wants is to make sure that it’s next to Shauna’s in the end. It’s selfish of her, knowing Shauna wouldn’t want her there, but Jackie cannot help what she needs.

 

She fights more, fruitless. If she was Shauna, she would bite, but she isn’t, even if Shauna used to joke that Jackie’s teeth were better suited for it, those points to her canines that her mother made her self conscious about but that Shauna seemed to like. Or maybe she liked to laugh at them. Maybe Jackie was just a joke she’d kept around to mock and pity in her journal.

 

Another weak tug before Jackie lets herself go completely deadweight. “Please,” she mutters. She should be cried out, but more are forming in her eyes. “Leave me with her.”

 

Jackie could thrash and slump all she wanted, Lottie and Tai were much stronger than her. Even before, when they’d all been in prime shape. Lottie didn’t have the muscle like Shauna, or the steadiness like Tai, but Lottie was sturdy, and Lottie was a defender for a reason. Lottie knew how to steel herself, how to lock joints up and become something so immovable. 

 

Even without Tai’s help, Jackie’s feeble attempts were no match. She drags Jackie inside as Tai shuts the door and stands near it, in case the smaller girl tries to run. Lottie can see the tears in Tai’s eyes still, she knows how close they’ve gotten out here. She knows how cruel it is to have someone for so short a time.

 

Lottie pulls Jackie over to the chair and sets her down in it. She kneels in front of her but she can’t look up at her as she pulls Jackie’s soaking wet socks off and turns her towards the fire. She has to look up at Jackie, though, when she notices how soaked through her jeans are, her jacket, the sweatshirt she’d been wearing yesterday when everything had fallen apart. “I can’t do that,” she tells Jackie quietly, reaching up to begin pulling her jacket off, “I’m sorry.” 

 

She looks back over her shoulder at Tai. It’s all the other girl needs to turn and go back outside. Shauna was gone, now, but the rest of them still needed to eat, to drink, to chop wood, to gather water, to clean their clothes. Shauna was dead, but the world turned on, and Lottie didn’t understand how that was possible anymore.

 

“Please,” Lottie says quietly. She still can’t look Jackie in the eyes. “Lift your arms for me.”

 

Lottie is, for reasons unknown, trying to keep Jackie alive, and she just couldn’t understand it. She blinks  at the stranger she  once called her friend, who won’t even look her in the eyes, even as she manipulates Jackie about like a doll, taking off her socks, her jacket. Jackie is more focused on the door as it opens, her exit gate back to the only thing left that she wants. 

 

“Why?” she finally asks. Why. She doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand what Lottie wants from her, doesn’t understand why she won’t give Jackie what she wants when Lottie obviously doesn’t even like her anymore. None of them do. 

 

Something thick and heavy sticks in Lottie’s throat as she tries to think of what to say to Jackie. Why? That’s the question, really, isn’t it? Why? Why here? Why them? Why now? Why Shauna, why Laura Lee? Just why ?

 

Lottie moves methodically. She hangs Jackie’s clothes near the fireplace to dry them quicker. She stays standing for a moment, staring into the fire. She doesn’t know where the answer comes from, but it’s the only thing that fills her mind. “I have to,” she says, and she thinks it might be the worst thing to say right now, but it’s all she has. She lifts her arm and uses her sleeve to dry the salty tears from her own face before moving back to Jackie, a little more forcibly tugging on her pants to pull them off. The denim feels as frozen under her fingers as Shauna’s body had and she sucks in a breath, choking on what might be mistaken for a sob, if Lottie were allowed to cry.

 

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” she whispers without realizing it.

 

Jackie manages a weak noise of protest when she realizes what’s going on, this attempt to warm her up when she doesn’t even feel the cold. 

 

How ironic; she’s always been cold, always felt even the slightest chill, and yet she can’t feel it at all, now, even though her fingers and toes are red from it. 

 

Lips turning down, Jackie finds herself unable to look at Lottie, either. She had to. She can’t offer Jackie her peace. Perhaps, Jackie wonders, her thoughts no longer spiraling but meandering, she is in hell. Suffering is deprivation, denial from the one thing she craves. 

 

If there is a world without Shauna Shipman in it, then Jackie would rather be out of it. She says, her voice cracking, “I wish it had been me.” 

 

“Don’t.” Lottie’s voice sounds harsher than it ever has before, she doesn’t know where it came from. She thinks it’s because she knows Jackie means it. She thinks it’s because she knows this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

 

But how many more times can Lottie think that before she realizes that it did? It did happen this way. It happened and now the rest of them had to live with it, and that included Jackie.

 

Lottie grabs Jackie’s ankle and finishes pulling off her jeans before she’s standing and moving about the cabin, collecting new clothes and some blankets. She knows if Jackie tries to make a break for the door, she can get there before her in only a few strides. 

 

But she knows Jackie won’t try. She can hear the defeat in her voice and she could feel it in her stiff limbs. 

 

When she comes back over, she sets the clothes down next to Jackie and holds the blanket out to her. “You don’t get to give up anymore,” she says to her as Lottie finally looks down into her friend’s eyes, and she wonders what she might see when she looks back up at her, when Lottie doesn’t feel like herself anymore. When she hasn’t felt like herself in a very long time.

 

Jackie looks at Lottie but doesn’t really see her. She cannot recognize her. Jackie can barely recognize herself. She gave up weeks ago. This isn’t just giving up anymore. She’s already dead. 

 

Taking the blanket but not really bothering with the clothes, Jackie covers herself and pulls her knees up to her chest without a world. She’s already given up. There’s nothing really to say.

 

Lottie feels paralyzed as she looks down at Jackie. She doesn’t know how to do any of this, how to help. She’s always been the quieter one, she liked being in the background, the wallflower. Inconspicuous and unassuming. Just in case. Just in case someone found out about her illness, just in case she did something stupid, just in case someone got too close and realized who Lottie really was.

 

Sick and crazy and dangerous.

 

Lottie doesn’t feel like those things anymore and it surprises her. Laura Lee told her she was special, that her visions were a gift. Lottie still has a hard time wrapping her head around that, but she wants so desperately for it to be true. She doesn’t want to feel sick and crazy and dangerous anymore.

 

Lottie looks down at Jackie one last time and realizes there’s nothing really left to say.

 

Jackie does not move from the chair until the others walk in, her eyes gazing at the fire. Time is nothing. It’s nothing . It could be minutes or seconds or years or hours. She wouldn’t know. She wouldn’t care.

 

Her head lifts and she stands, the blanket still around her body. She doesn’t feel the cold on her bare feet, touching her body. That’s not why she’s shaking. She doesn’t think that’s why she’s shaking.

 

“Shauna,” she rasps out, trying to make eye contact with someone. “Where’s Shauna? Where’s–- Where’s Shauna?”

 

Lottie’s head snaps up from where she’s sitting on the ground near Jackie’s chair, trying to distract herself with mending some of their clothes. As soon as Jackie is standing, so is she, dropping whatever was in her hands and moving to stand behind her, ready to reach out and snag her lest she try and run outside again.

 

It’s Tai and Van coming in first. Tai’s face looks empty, hollow. “The…the ground’s too hard,” she says, clearing the stutter in her throat, “we couldn’t bury her.”

 

Van is standing as close to Tai as physically possible, her own face drawn into a pale sorrow that Lottie feels deep in her soul. Without thinking about it, Lottie is reaching for Jackie, fingers brushing against the blanket around her shoulders. 

 

“She’s in, um--” Van starts but has to stop a moment to swallow-- “she’s in the shed for now.”

 

More girls trickle in behind them, but none of them say anything. None of them look at Jackie. 

 

Lottie bites the inside of her cheek. There’s really nothing to say to that, so she just nods, pulls on Jackie’s arm to try and get her to sit down by the fire again. There’s really nothing else to do.

 

Jackie thinks she’s strangling on some sort of sound that doesn’t know how to claw its way out of her throat, but this is a good thing. Shauna’s not… she’s not in the ground where Jackie can’t reach her. She’s close. She can still reach her. 

 

She’s heading for the door only for the hand on her arm to stop her. Jackie turns to see that it’s attached to Lottie, her fingers somehow warm against Jackie’s skin. She’s confused. She attempts to tug her arm away. “Let me go.”

 

Lottie’s grip tightens reflexively. “Jackie,” she says gently, as gently as she can manage when her throat is still raw and her chest feels like ice. She can’t let her go. It’s already getting dark outside, the looming reminder that winter wasn’t just on the way, but that it was here. 

 

Tai and Van don’t look at Jackie as they walk by, and Lottie wishes she weren’t alone in this. She feels like the only one trying to keep Jackie sane, on her feet. 

 

But Lottie has always been alone, and so she thinks she can do this alone, too. She has to.

 

“We can go…tomorrow,” she tells her, “it’s getting dark.”

 

Jackie feels her breath quicken in her chest, but she doesn’t say anything at first, if only because awareness is starting to sink into her skin. They’d all been out there most of the day. What happened to the day? Why was it already getting dark? Time means nothing, but it’s coming into her periphery, along with other things. The physicality of her sense of self.She’s not wearing much. No one will look at her, and, suddenly, Jackie feels too seen, as contradictory as it is. Too exposed. 

 

She manages to jerk away from Lottie for real this time, and she hates how much that takes out of her. The effort is draining. She wraps the blanket around herself, picks up the clothes Lottie set out for her, and goes to find herself a place to change. When she’s done, she avoids the chair but makes her way back to the window, pulling her knees to her chest on the bench seat.

 

Lottie doesn’t fight much once she’s sure Jackie isn’t going to run outside. She’s thankful she’s still listening to her, at least a little bit. When she turns back to the cabin, she finds more than one set of eyes on her and it makes her feel antsy. 

 

She tries to ignore it as she picks up her pile of clothing she’d been stitching, moving to sit in the chair Jackie had been in. She wishes Jackie would sit close to the fire, but she’s pouting over by the window, staring out into the blank whiteness that the snow has poured over their camp.

 

She can’t really blame her, though.

 

The cabin bustles quietly around Lottie as the girls prepare for the night, cleaning things up to make room for their beds as Mari sets about starting dinner. None of them pay any mind to Jackie or Lottie, working around the two of them as if they’re simply furniture as well.

 

When the door opens for the last time that day, it’s Melissa, and she’s holding the board Shauna always puts-- used to put -- the bear rations on. She also doesn’t say anything as she sets it by Mari and then heads off towards the back.

 

Lottie turns her gaze to Jackie once more, but she hasn’t moved at all. She doesn’t know if Jackie will even eat, but she hopes she’ll at least try.

 

Jackie watches as the world grows dark outside the cabin, snow coating every available surface except for the others’ footprints. If she stares long enough, it will be Shauna coming inside from having been out to butcher whatever meat Nat and Travis hunted that day. Shauna will move beside her and nudge her to scoot over, or she’ll give Jackie a little wave before she goes to chat with Tai. 

 

If Jackie stares long enough, her vision will go black, and her eyes will close, and she will fade into nothingness.

 

She is briefly aware of the food being prepared, the scent of cooked meat reaching her nose. Jackie holds herself tighter. 

 

There’s an eventual nudge against her foot, and Jackie looks up to see Nat. Where was Nat and Travis when Shauna was freezing outside? Did they see her, talk to her, try to coax her in? Did Nat blame Jackie? 

 

Those pale eyes are unreadable to Jackie as Nat says. “C’mon, Jackie. Get up. You need to eat.” 

 

“Leave me alone.”

 

Nat, with her few inches and her retained muscle tone, manages to force Jackie to her feet with ease, pushing her despite her protest towards the table. She refuses to let Jackie attempt to partition herself away from the others, instead forcing her next to Lottie. Nat looks around the group. “We all need to eat. I know… I know what happened was awful. Shauna wouldn’t want us to stop living, though.”

 

Oh, but she would. Jackie knows that she would. Shauna hates her. She’d want Jackie to be dead, too.

 

Lottie is grateful when it’s Nat who finally goes over to Jackie and nudges her up. She would do it if no one else had, but Natali isn’t going to let Jackie starve herself, either. It’s a relief and Lottie feels her body deflate a little.

 

It doesn’t last long.

 

Everyone is looking at her again, as if waiting for her to say something, to agree or disagree with Natalie. Lottie doesn’t understand why they need that from her, but she knows she needs to give it to them.

 

“Nat’s right,” she says, nodding at the food, “everyone needs to eat.” 

 

Akilah sets down the bowls and spoons on the table and begins to hand them out. Quietly, they all begin to start reaching for the food.

 

Lottie looks to Natalie, then, searches her face for something, anything, but the blonde girl just glares at her and Lottie feels small under her gaze. She knows Natalie is mad at her, beyond mad, really, but she wishes there wasn’t something she could say to fix it. She knows there isn’t, though, so she let’s Nat shove Jackie along to make her eat.

 

Lottie will wait until everyone else has.

 

When the bowl of food is deposited in front of her. All Jackie can do is stare at it. The smell of it turns her stomach. The look of it makes her want to gag.

 

Jackie’s used to going hungry. This is a new kind of hunger, a worse kind, and months ago, she’d wanted nothing more than a cheesesteak and a Diet Coke and maybe even splitting a chocolate milkshake with Shauna. But she’d gotten past all of that pretty quick. She just didn’t feel hungry anymore. 

 

“Hey, Lott, maybe you could… again,” Van starts, though she trails off. Jackie looks up, sees the look on Tai’s face, on Van’s. She sees the way Natalie rolls her eyes, likely not even really comprehending what’s going on right now.

 

Jackie’s head’s bowed. Maybe they’ll think she’s praying as she stares at her congealing soup. She doesn’t care if they call her out again, though. It would be a relief to be thrown out in the cold, to right the night before’s wrongs.

 

Lottie blinks as she looks at Van but they need her to do this, and so she will. She feels like this is going to be a pattern. 

 

“Yeah,” she says lightly, holding out her hand, “join hands again.” 

 

Everyone except Nat does so and Lottie wishes she would. Lottie wishes for a lot of things but it doesn’t seem like she’ll get any of them. She bows her own head.

 

“For our meal tonight, we thank the Wilderness,” she starts out, pausing. Van is eager to give her thanks, along with a few others, Misty included. Lottie can hear her voice lofting over some of the other’s. “And though tonight we also mourn,” she goes on, fighting through the lump in her throat, “we vow to live on in her honor, and we thank the gods of the trees and the wind.” She thinks back to the things her mother taught her, about the people she came from. “And most of all, we thank each other,” she finishes off, “for the company we keep.”

 

Lottie takes in a breath before looking up once more. They’re all waiting for her again and she nods. They all start eating and Lottie feels something like dread beginning to take root inside of her.

 

It’s kind of a shitty prayer. Jackie’s parents aren’t the most religious, but she’s been dragged to services on Christmas and Easter. She knows the drill. Never prayed to the trees and the wind, though, and Jackie’s not making any vows. 

 

If she’s got any of the luck so many people seem to think she has, she’ll be holding hands with Shauna in the ground by the time it thaws.

 

Unceremoniously dumping her uneaten stew into the bowl of the person beside her, Jackie stands without a word and heads back to her spot by the window, the cool of the glass against her forehead almost soothing.

 

Lottie doesn’t think she’s good at many things, except soccer and history. She’s certainly not good at making up prayers, or reassuring people that things are okay, or being there for someone who’s grieving, but she thinks she has to try. 

 

She notices Jackie dump her stew into Mari’s bowl and head back over to the window. Lottie stands quickly, gives Mari a pointed look as if to say ‘ Do not eat all of that’ before she moves past her and towards Jackie.

 

Nat is looking over at them as she does so, as if curious to see what Lottie might do or say. Lottie thinks Nat might be better at this than her, but she’s busy with Travis-- Javi never came back last night.

 

But for some reason, Lottie isn’t worried about him. She knows he’s fine. She doesn’t know how, she just does.

 

She’ll figure that part out later.

 

“Jackie,” she says, “you need to eat.”

 

Jackie doesn’t even bother looking at Lottie. “Go away.”

 

Lottie frowns. “I know you’re upset,” she starts, “but you have to eat.”

 

“I don’t need to do anything. I don’t matter anymore, remember?”

 

That hurts. Lottie remembers saying it, but she also remembers not being herself. Not being in her own head. Not that anyone really knows that, not that anyone cared to ask. 

 

They’d all been fucked up that night, Jackie was right about that much.

 

“I didn’t…know what I was saying,” Lottie mumbles, “I’m sorry.”

 

Jackie turns just enough to look at Lottie. There’s a tugging of something trying to pull her out of the hole she’s in: guilt. She should apologize. The last girl she didn’t apologize to is so close but will forever be too far, now, because of Jackie’s mistakes.

 

She still can’t bear to utter the words. “Whatever,” Jackie rasps out, her voice thick. “I’m not hungry.”

 

Lottie half rolls her eyes. “Yes, you are,” she says back, “we all are.” They’re all fucking hungry, they’d been starving before the bear. That’s why they’d had that stupid Doomcoming in the first place. 

 

She picks up Jackie’s empty bowl and scoops food into it. “Eat,” she instructs.

 

Jackie can still manage to be stubborn. She still has that, at least. She stands, Lottie towering over her. One hand grasps the bowl before pushing it back. “I. Am not. Hungry ,” she says, her voice low.

 

“Jackie, you need to eat,” Coach Ben says, but Jackie really couldn’t give a fuck. 

 

Van’s voice is much louder when she says, “If she doesn’t want to eat, you can’t make her, Lot. She’ll get hungry eventually.”

 

Jackie hears Mari mutter something to Gen, who laughs, but she doesn’t care. She smiles up at Lottie. She wonders if it makes her look any more alive. She feels dead. “I’ll get hungry eventually.”

 

She can make her, actually, Lottie thinks. But she doesn’t want to. So she won’t. “Fine,” Lottie says, turning to set the bowl back down. But instead of making one for herself, Lottie heads back over to her chair and picks up her sewing project. 

 

She doesn’t say anything else as she starts working again.

 

For a second, all Jackie can do is watch Lottie as she walks away, as she, too, refuses to eat. She should say something, do something. She does not have the energy. Instead, she sits back down and leans against the window, her eyes closing against the pleasant chill. 

 

Jackie thinks that she doesn’t mind being cold anymore.

 

The rest of dinner is once again silent. Lottie can feel the tension around them all as they begin to prepare for bed-- rise with the sun, set with the sun, it was the only way of life they had out here, now.

 

Lottie scoots her bed back over by Jackie sitting at the window, and while she doesn’t say anything to her, she does set her blanket back down next to her before crawling into the bed and laying down. 

 

She watches Nat and Travis mumbling in the back before they both head to settle bed and she wonders if they’re discussing what to do about Javi missing. She realizes no one else has said anything about it.

 

But Lottie is exhausted from the past few days and so she closes her eyes and thinks that she’ll just bring it up to them tomorrow.

 

She’s asleep even before the last girl has settled down in their bed.

 

There’s no sleep to comfort Jackie, but she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t need it, doesn’t deserve it. Maybe she can sleep soon. Maybe she can rest. 

 

When the others have settled down, Jackie gets up. It’s habit that has her quietly shoving her feet into her shoes. It’s basic need that has her searching for one of Shauna’s flannels.

 

There’s no prickling of shame in her stomach as she sniffs the collar, only an ache in her chest where her heart is. Her heart, half of it gone now, the one that matched its beat no longer present.

 

She heads out the door and trudges through the snow, barely picking her feet up as she makes her way to the shed.

 

“Shauna,” she murmurs as she opens the door. It takes her a moment to adjust to the darkness, the space only lit from moonlight streaming through cracks in the walls. At least the clouds have gone. Her eyes search until they land on a figure leaned a corner.

 

Shauna looks like she’s sleeping. She looks like she’s just curled up for a nap. But there is still snow in her hair, frost along her lips, the color long since drained from her skin.

 

Jackie stumbles towards her, falling on her knees. She crawls until she makes it to her best friend, cold and so very dead. Shauna is dead. Jackie, she knows, is dead, too. It’s only a matter of time.

 

Brushing the snow out of Shauna’s hair, Jackie attempts to sit her up a little bit before she curls up in Shauna’s lap. Between the two of them, there is only one set of working lungs, one cloud of breath puffing out into the air around them. Jackie’s hand goes to Shauna’s flannel, rubbing the material between her fingers.

 

With her head in Shauna’s lap, Jackie can feel Shauna’s abdomen, the bump there. Two lives. She’s killed two people in the span of a day. Jackie is worse than boring and self obsessed and tragic. She’s a murderer, condemning one of the few people she’s ever cared about to freezing with just a few words.

 

Her eyes closed. Jackie thinks, maybe, she can sleep now.

 

Something feels wrong.

 

Lottie’s eyes snap open to the dark of the cabin. There are only embers burning in the fireplace now, the only thing she can see properly as her eyes adjust.

 

But once they do, she knows what’s wrong.

 

“Jackie.” The name leaves her mouth in a puff of air. Her voice is quiet enough to not wake anyone else, even as she scrambles up and finds her boots. She doesn’t know how long it’s been-- she hopes it hasn’t been too long.

 

She opens the door as quietly as possible in her hurry, her desperation. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if she finds Jackie dead, too. She doesn’t know what she’ll say. What kind of person could she be for others to look to if she couldn’t keep at least one person alive?

 

Lottie’s boots crunch in the snow and she sees Jackie’s own footprints. They lead to the shed.

 

She’s rushing over and throwing the door open. “Jackie?” 

 

She’s laying in Shauna’s lap, curled up. Is Lottie too late? She thinks she might be too late. She’s trembling. “Jackie…”

 

She takes a step forward, the dark of the shed preventing her from telling if Jackie’s face is pale blue like Shauna’s. She isn’t sure she wants to find out.

 

Lottie kneels in the snow in front of her, reaches out with her shaky hands. Places one on Jackie’s shoulder. “Jackie.” 

 

Jackie knows, as the door to the shed is thrown open, that this truly is hell because she can never, never get any peace. She died in the plane crash, and all of this has just been eternal suffering.

 

Holding onto Shauna tighter, her mother’s voice ringing in her ear, Jackie at least knows what she’s suffering for.

 

“Please,” she begs, her voice weak as she keeps her eyes closed. “Lottie, please.”

 

Lottie can’t help the choked noise of relief that comes out of her throat. Jackie isn’t dead, but she will be soon if she can’t get her back inside. 

 

“Do you really think…she’d want this?”

 

“No,” Jackie breathes, though she can’t help the way her fingers rub the fabric of Shauna’s flannel between her fingers like it’s fine silk. “No, no, she hates me. She wouldn’t want me to be here. I just–- I can’t-–” She couldn’t help herself.

 

That wasn’t quite what Lottie meant. She lets out a long breath. “You need to come back inside,” she tells her quietly, as if worried she might disturb Shauna in her sleep. They both know Shauna isn’t sleeping. 

 

After a beat she adds, “Shauna didn’t hate you.”

 

Jackie doesn’t really process Lottie’s words. “She was right to hate me. She was right about me. Except that I didn’t love her. She wrote that. She wrote that down, and she said it so beautifully, so cruelly, but I do, you know? I love her.” Her eyes are watery as she looks up at Lottie. “I can’t leave her. Please don’t make me.”

 

Lottie doesn’t have the words to help ease this sort of pain. She doesn’t have the words to make any of this better. All she has are the ones in her head and even those feel so messed up sometimes. “You won’t be leaving her,” she tells her after a moment, “she’ll always be with you.”

 

“It should be me,” Jackie says. There should be comfort in Lottie’s words, but Jackie just can’t find it. “It should be me, and you know it, don’t you? Please.”

 

Lottie stills. She pulls her hand away from Jackie and averts her gaze. Maybe it hadn’t been told to her outright, but Lottie knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Her hands curl into loose fists. “I don’t… know.”

 

“Will you ask them to bury us together?” Jackie asks. “For me. Or at least beside her. I’d be okay with just holding her hand.”

 

“Jackie,” Lottie starts. She can’t fix any of this. “We can’t bury her till the ground thaws.” She knows what Jackie is asking here. She wants Lottie to stand up and leave and let her freeze to death next to Shauna. 

 

Lottie can’t do that.

 

“You need to come inside.”

 

Jackie just shakes her head. “I can wait.” 

 

Lottie is growing frustrated, but her frustration has always come out in waves of fear, of sadness. She feels the cold air stinging her cheeks. “No, you can’t,” she says to her. She unfurls her fists, reaches back out. “Come inside. Please.”

 

“No,” Jackie says, frowning. What a ridiculous conversation to be having. Would Lottie be having this talk with Shauna if Jackie was the one that had gone outside? Would anyone care? Why did Lottie care so much? What made her start caring now , when it was too late?

 

“Jackie,” Lottie sighs, “please. Don’t make me force you.” And she will. They all think Lottie is a pushover-- and yeah, okay, she is, she can be-- but she can be stubborn, too. 

 

Scoffing, Jackie just closes her eyes. “Ask your dirt gods what they think and then get back to me.” The words are sharp, meant to bite. If she cannot beg Lottie away, then she’ll just make her want to leave. 

 

It hurts, it always does. But Lottie is used to it. She’s been crazy all her life. There is something wrong with Lottie and we are taking her to a doctor. She’s used to it but it stings and she pretends her sniffling is because she’s sad for Jackie. For Shauna. For the baby they all lost.

 

Instead of saying anything, though, Lottie takes fistfuls of Jackie’s shirt-- Shauna’s shirt-- and drags her up. “We’re going inside,” she says quietly, wrapping an arm around Jackie’s waist and locking her in place against Lottie’s side.

 

“Lottie!” Jackie cries out, and she wishes it sounded indignant, angry, but it’s just desperate and pathetic like Jackie’s been all her life. She didn’t expect Lottie to pick her up, couldn’t help but be surprised as Lottie pinned her to her side. She was always so much stronger than those lanky limbs looked.

 

Glancing at Shauna, Jackie swears she sees her eyes open, those cow like brown eyes glaring up at her in the dark. Whatever desperation Jackie felt has multiplied, turned feral. Her mother would be furious. All Jackie’s manners are out the window as she starts struggling, attempting to pull herself out of Lotties grip as she cries out Shauna’s name over and over again, determined to get to her and check on her and see that she is okay. She has to be okay. She has to be alive.

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything back as Jackie cries out. She drags her along next to her even though she’s stumbling and tripping through the snow. Jackie is weaker now, they all are, but Jackie hasn’t been feeding properly for a bit, Lottie can tell. 

 

She makes it up to the cabin steps when the door swings open and Natalie is standing there, bleary eyed. “Lottie, what the fuck?”

 

Lottie doesn’t look up at her. “Jackie was trying to--” she gives a huff of air as Jackie accidentally elbows her in the stomach-- “sleep in the shed.”

 

Natalie hurries down the steps and over to them, grabbing Jackie’s arms. “Hey, hey, stop it! Jackie, stop!”

 

“Shauna!” Jackie cries out again and again, only focused on getting back to the shed. “Please, please. I saw-- she’s there , she’s right there! Please!” She feels like she’s on fire, but fuck it. Her nails dig into Nat’s arm, causing the other girl to make a little grunt of pain. 

 

“Jackie, you’ve got to calm the fuck down,” Nat says, and Jackie thinks she sounds a little panicked. 

 

She wouldn’t have to panic if she just let Jackie go back to Shauna.

 

Lottie has to wrap both her arms around Jackie now to keep her from knocking her over as Natalie tries to calm her down. “Jackie, please,” she begs.

 

“You’re going to wake everyone else up, if you haven’t already,” Nat snaps, trying to get Jackie to focus on her. Lottie doesn’t know what to do now. She needs to get Jackie back inside, but she’s worried Jackie just try and run straight back to the shed, to Shauna.

 

“Nat, we need to-- we should--” 

 

Natalie seems to understand enough, tugging Jackie up the stairs with Lottie’s help. Once the door is shut, Lottie lets Jackie go, keeping herself between the girl and the door. 

 

Everyone in the cabin is now staring at the three of them. Lottie holds her hands up. “Jackie, no one’s letting you go back outside,” she says to her, “so please just... please lay down.”

 

Baring her teeth, because this place has made them all animals and Jackie has finally caught up, Jackie attempts to lunge back at the door, only for Nat to catch her again. Jackie doesn’t realize there are tears streaming down her face until she tastes salt. “She’s there! She’s right there, I saw, please. I have to go back.” She isn’t even trying to go back to sleep. She needs to get to Shauna and make sure she’s okay. Shauna needs to be brought inside, too. “She’s going to wake up cold, and she doesn’t like that, either. She never has, even if she won’t complain about it.”

 

Nat is looking at Lottie the same way she had when they were at Mari’s birthday party and the police had arrived while the two of them both had joints in their hands. She’s looking at Lottie like all the times she’d looked at her before their world became this and Lottie had watched Shauna hold a knife to Travis’ throat. 

 

Lottie moves forward slowly. She places a hand on Jackie’s chest, over her heart. “Breathe,” she says to her, voice calm, “just breathe with me. Please.”

 

Every breath shudders through Jackie, painful and trembling, an effort as she tries to figure out how to do it consciously again. She tries to listen to Lottie. She really thinks that she does, especially once such a gentle touch is there. She just can’t figure out how, and she can’t shut up. She knows she’s speaking nonsense, muttering and begging and trying to convince them to let her back outside. Shauna must be so cold. Jackie needs to get her inside.

 

Lottie can feel everyone staring at them, but she ignores them. She concentrates on Jackie, she makes sure she’s the only thing Jackie can see, can hear. They sink to their knees, to the floor. Lottie continues to breathe with Jackie. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, “it’s okay right now.”

 

“No,” Jackie whimpers. “No.” It’s not okay, and it never will be again. Even still, her breathing starts to match up with Lottie’s, her heart slowing when she hadn’t even realized it was pounding. Her body feels too hot. It feels like lead. She finds herself leaning forward unwittingly. 

 

Nat sighs behind them, and Jackie hears just how tired she is as she says, “I’ll watch the door.”

 

Lottie keeps her breathing steady with Jackie’s. For Jackie. And Jackie is right, she knows it, it’s not okay-- but she has to say it right now, or they might all lose it. Jackie slumps forward and Lottie takes her in her arms. She looks up at Natalie, a silent thank you. It’s not returned.

 

Someone else shuffles behind Jackie and Lottie sees Tai appear from the attic. Van is beside her. “Get her up here,” Tai says, just as tired as the rest of them. 

 

Lottie is so tired, but with Tai’s help, she lifts Jackie back up for the third time that day and heads towards the attic.

 

Rather than fight Lottie off, Jackie clings to her, and she remembers the girl that held her hair back what night after drinking in the parking lot, the girl who used to laugh at the stupidest jokes, the girl she first met when they were still kids and Lottie was with her mom visiting the country club. 

 

Jackie misses her friend. She wonders if she has friends anymore, if she ever had them in the first place. She’s unsure where she’s being led, confusion slurring her voice as she mutters, “Where..?”

 

As Tai helps Lottie move Jackie to the attic, Van grabs the blankets Lottie had been using and follows after them.

 

Jackie’s voice sounds weak, feeble again. The fight is gone from her, for now, but Lottie knows it won’t be for long. At least for tonight, they can rest. 

 

“We’re just going upstairs,” Lottie tells Jackie quietly, “it’ll be quieter up there for you.” 

 

Upstairs. There was only one exit from the attic, Jackie remembers. Somewhere to keep her from disturbing the others is more like it, or somewhere that she can’t easily get outside. To keep her from Shauna. 

 

Jackie’s tired, though, that bone deep weariness she’d felt curled up on Shauna’s lap returning. Fine. She lets herself be led, even managing to pull herself up the set of stairs. She hasn’t really been up there much. She doesn’t like it. Jackie’s likes and wants don’t seem to matter anymore, though.

 

Lottie isn’t exactly happy about this, either, but it will work for the rest of the night. Once Jackie is up there and Tai and Van grab their things and leave, it’s just the two of them. Lottie moves and spreads out the blanket, puts down her pillow. Then her jacket next to it, propped up like another pillow.

 

When she’s done, she sits down slowly next to Jackie and tries to prod her over to the bed. “Please just rest for a while,” she asks of her in a weary voice, “I’ll stay with you.” And she would stay regardless of whether Jackie even wanted her to or not.

 

Back home, Jackie would care more about what the others thought of her. She’d care that they’re all basically watching her lose her mind. But she just doesn’t give a shit. Besides, they all lost their minds already. She might as well join then. 

 

Mechanically, she moves herself over to the bedding that Lottie has laid down, curling in on herself like she’s trying to protect a wound. Her eyes remain open, glassy. Jackie doesn’t really have anything to say, but she is glad that Lottie is staying with her. She nods, her eyes closed, her breath shuddering in her chest. She’s starting to feel the cold again, the wetness of melting ice on her clothes. She doesn’t care. Jackie just can’t bring herself to care.

 

Sighing, Lottie is at least glad that Jackie isn't fighting her in this, too. She knows Jackie's clothes are wet again but she doesn't think she has enough energy to make her sit up and remove them, so she pulls her other blanket over Jackie and makes sure it's tucked in tight before laying down next to her, staring up at the ceiling.

 

She thinks about how this room felt like where everything changed. What was supposed to be a fun game turning into something Lottie didn't even remember, leaving the scar that was now on her forehead. 

 

Lottie has never liked it up here, but she feels as if she somehow knows in the coming days, she'll be up here a lot more often. 

 

Lottie turns on her side and looks at Jackie’s back, at the girl curled up into herself, so small and fragile. She scoots a little closer and when Jackie doesn't move away, she wraps an arm around her and hopes she can help her sleep, if even just a little bit. 

 

Lottie doesn't think she'll be going back to sleep tonight. 

 

Jackie doesn’t move when she feels the blankets get tucked around her, nor does she move when she feels Lottie laying down next to her, but she starts to shift when Lottie puts her arm around Jackie, managing to open her eyes and look up at her. 

 

It’s warmer up there than Jackie would have thought, but then she remembers something from science or Shauna about heat rising. Maybe that’s why Lottie, so tall, was also so warm. Jackie scoots a little closer, wrapping her own arm around Lottie and pressing her face into the spot where her neck and shoulder meet. Jackie would never do this back home, not with anyone, not even with Shauna, but she needs something. To be held, maybe. To feel someone still alive and warm in her arms. 

 

Jackie's crying. Pretty soon it turns to harsh, aching sobs that she can't control.

 

Lottie had expected Jackie to pull away, if anything, but Jackie is moving to curl herself up against Lottie and her arms wrap around her and it's hard not to notice, like this, how small Jackie really is. How thin her frame has become. Lottie knows that both of them are held to expectations they can't meet but want to desperately. Jackie had always been good at pretending, though, at being a daughter her parents could be proud of, even if it was eating her alive.

 

Lottie had never been good at that. She didn't think she'd ever be. 

 

And so it feels a little strange, then, when she feels Jackie’s arms around her and remembers how they used to sit together at the country club and hold hands and talk about how silly all the adults looked.

 

But Lottie, for all her uncertainty, thinks this feels nice. It shouldn't, but it does, just like it had with Laura Lee. 

 

Lottie thinks she's always had a lot in common with Jackie, but she also doesn't think anyone else has ever thought that. 

 

She doesn't say anything when she hears Jackie start crying. She holds her just a little tighter, tucked into Lottie's chest, and thinks about how the last person she'd hugged, the last person she'd held, was the last person who had ever seen Lottie for who she truly was. 

 

Lottie thinks about how she understands exactly what Jackie is feeling right now, and it makes her start crying, too.

 

Jackie holds onto Lottie a little tighter, too, and she thinks that she can’t remember seeing anyone comfort Lottie since Laura Lee died. She knows the two of them had been close, had grown closer since the plane crash. Everyone had been growing closer out there for survival, it seemed like. 

 

Everyone except Jackie, who feels every unraveling stitch each day as everyone slowly but surely starts to realize how useless she really is. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Jackie Taylor, and she was good . Good daughter, good soccer player, good friend. Maybe not the best at anything, but still good. 

 

Jackie’s nothing out here, and everyone knows it. She can’t do anything, and she gets frustrated when she tries. Now, there’s just no point. It’s hopeless. Jackie Taylor is dead. Her body just hasn’t caught up with that yet. But, while it’s still moving, it can at least do this. Lottie is doing her best to comfort Jackie, and, while it’s unnecessary and she wishes Lottie would just give up and let her be with Shauna, Jackie thinks that returning the favor is the least she can do. She might not really recognize Lottie anymore, but she’d been her friend, once. That still counts for something. 

 

Lottie thinks she might be imagining things when she feels Jackie hold onto her a little tighter. She's been imagining a lot of things out here, lately, and she doesn't know what to think of them. At first, she thought they were just from her running out of pills. And then Laura Lee had told her they were gifts, visions from God. And then whatever God she was seeing took Laura Lee from her and now Lottie was back at square one, wondering if she was just going insane for real or if she really was the person Laura Lee saw in her. 

 

She wants nothing more than to believe Laura Lee is right, and so she clings to the idea that she might be seeing things that have meaning. It gives Lottie meaning, purpose. And maybe she doesn't recognize herself anymore, and maybe none of her friends do, either, but she'll help them anyway, because it's all she's can do. 

 

Lottie sniffles and closes her eyes and listens to Jackie’s breathing and tries to keep her own calm, and her hand moves subconsciously to rub soft circles against Jackie's back, like she always did when she hugged Laura Lee, and she hopes she can lull her friend to sleep, even if she knows Jackie doesn't want to be her friend anymore. 

 

She doesn't really think any of them do. Lottie is a terrifying creature out here. Maybe they all are. Maybe it doesn't matter as long as they survive. 

 

Lottie doesn't know how to comfort Jackie well, and she knows she'll never be Shauna Shipman, but she thinks she can try and be Lottie Matthews, jersey number five, center defender, at least for a little bit.

 

At least for tonight.

Chapter 2: fear the un-lived life

Summary:

After the Yellowjackets commit to a life of monotony, someone has to break the tension with a minor crash out. Or crash down? Jackie makes a pinky promise she shouldn't keep but does anyway, Lottie pretends like her spine isn't made of paper, and Misty plays Nurse Jackie to Jackie. At least they have Christmas to look forward to!

Notes:

Here we are, chapter two! Wow, uh, these chapters are long, hope that's something y'all like! We've got quite a bit written out already so expect consistent updates for at least a little bit.

Thanks again for coming with us on this journey as we still figure things out and in the meantime I hope we can entertain you! <3
(Trigger warning for force-feeding in this chapter)

Chapter title is from the quote: “Don't fear death, fear the un-lived life.” ― Natalie Babbitt

The night ends, and the day begins, and a cycle is born. 

 

After that first night, Jackie extracts herself from Lottie’s arms, unsure if she’s embarrassed or afraid or just numb. She moves to head outside, to go back to the shed, but Nat’s the one that stops her, her eyes harsh.

 

“I just want to sit with her. I’ll come back inside,” Jackie says quietly. It’s true; after the night before, she knows that there are at least two people who won’t let her sleep out there. Fine.

 

Jackie goes out to be with Shauna every day. For the most part, she is quiet. She sometimes brushes Shauna’s hair. She sometimes says her name. She tries telling stories, but none of them are as good as Shauna’s, and, for the most part, she is alone. Sure, Jackie’s aware that she’s being monitored. Melissa comes in at a certain time everyday to prepare the meat, and someone will come in with her to escort Jackie inside. She’s sat down, a bowl is placed in front of her, and she stares at it until it’s time to go to bed.

 

This is a slow way to die, and it keeps being thwarted, the occasional sharp word or forceful shove of the bowl closer to her making Jackie pick up her food and take a bite or two every now and then. She is aware that Lottie isn’t eating, either, but Jackie cannot see that lasting. Lottie’s actually hungry. She said as much. Jackie cannot see her keeping up the self-imposed starvation diet for long.

 

She wishes Shauna would talk to her, but it’s been quiet ever since Jackie swears she saw Shauna’s eyes open. Sometimes, Jackie thinks she’s breathing. She’ll snap closer, her fingers going to Shauna’s pulse, begging to feel just one beat beneath her fingertips, and she’ll stay like that for hours until someone comes inside.

 

Today, though, she is quiet, her fingers brushing through Shauna’s hair, still skillful as she plaits it, even if her hands shake, these days.

 

The routine becomes mechanical, in a way. Lottie still rises before dawn and she uses the knowledge from her history books to pluck pine needles from the trees and make tea for Travis and Nat before they head out to hunt-- and to look for Javi.

 

The first time Lottie tells Travis that she knows Javi is alive, Natalie is silent and simply rolls her eyes. The next few times, Natalie is visibly uncomfortable and one time she even interrupts Lottie, so after that, Lottie stops saying it out loud. She thinks Travis still believes her, she hopes he does. She can feel it, Javi is alive.

 

Somehow, it turns into a sort of ritual. Lottie isn’t sure when it happens, but she remembers how her mother used to burn sage and rub ash across Lottie’s palm before a game and tell her it was for good luck. And so she does that for Natalie and Travis now, because it’s been too long since they’ve brought anything home to eat and the bear meat is already dwindling.

 

The second half of Lottie’s ritual is usually being the one to go retrieve Jackie from the shed. It falls to her because no one else cares to, and Natalie, the only other person who would, is usually still gone by the time they start preparing dinner.

 

So it’s Lottie’s job and she really doesn’t mind.

 

When food is sat down in front of Jackie, Lottie always waits. The girls look at her more nervously each day she doesn’t eat, but Lottie is hopeful that there’s some semblance of something between her and Jackie to help convince the other girl to eat, for both of them. 

 

But it’s been weeks, months, and Jackie still only chews on a small piece or two, maybe once a day.

 

And so Lottie does the same.

 

She won’t give up until Jackie eats because she tells herself she won’t give up on Jackie. She won’t. Something in her won’t let her.

 

Lottie is losing track of days by the time it happens.

 

She’s helping Tai chop wood, and her entire body feels heavy, her eyelids drooping. Tai asks her if she’s okay but her voice sounds fuzzy and distant. Lottie simply nods and continues picking up pieces of wood to carry inside. 

 

Once her arms are full, she turns to head back in. It takes all her effort to stay standing as she looks down at her feet and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. Speckles begin to dot her vision and she blinks, dazed. Her breath feels ragged in her chest.

 

“Lottie?” Mari’s voice is heard through cotton in Lottie’s ears. She tries to look up at the girl but the world tilts and spins around her.

 

Lottie stops, she feels herself swaying. She knows what’s about to happen, because Lottie has done this before-- she’d been much younger, much more naive, but she hadn’t like the way her new medication made her feel, and so she refused to take it and she refused to eat until they changed it.

 

Before Lottie can say anything, the ground is coming up to meet her and her vision goes dark.

 

“Lottie!” 

 

Jackie’s head moves towards the sound, her fingers pausing in Shauna’s hair before extracting them and stumbling to her feet, heading to the door of the shed. She doesn’t quite know what she expects to greet her, but some of the girls gathered around a figure on the ground isn’t it. Her vision narrows into a pinprick of focus. A body on the ground, the sound of screaming. Shauna, Shauna, Shauna .

 

It’s not Shauna. Jackie just left Shauna, abandoned her in a shed full of dwindling food, the rations growing smaller and smaller. This was Lottie, passed out on the ground, Mari leaning over her and attempting to wake her up. 

 

Jackie moves faster than she has in a while, her knees connecting to the ground next to Lottie’s head. She’s more confused than anything. “Lottie?” she murmurs, reaching out, only for her hand to get slapped away.

 

“Get the fuck away, Jackie!” Mari snaps angrily, defensively. She reaches for Lottie and lifts her head out of the snow as Van comes rushing over as well. “Help me get her inside!”

 

It takes a lot of effort to lift the dead weight of Lottie Matthews. They’re all growing weaker and more weary by the day, but Lottie is still Lottie, the tallest girl on the team, and she’s not light, even after starving for months.

 

They manage to carry her inside and set her on the bench and Misty is rushing over now, worrying about the unconscious girl, asking what happened, but no one really has an answer.

 

Except that they do.

 

Lottie thinks she might be dead and she also thinks that might be okay. But then she remembers that people somehow need her, and even if they didn’t, who would go get Jackie from the shed? 

 

She groans. She feels warm hands on her skin, feeling her pulse, her forehead. Voices declaring she’s still breathing. She can’t open her eyes yet, she’s still too tired, but she thinks she just needs a few more minutes and then she’ll be okay. 

 

Jackie follows behind and lingers in the doorway at first before she moves to sit near where they’ve got Lottie set up. Lottie doesn’t need Jackie standing in the way. It won’t help, not when Misty and Van and Mari are already crowded around her. Her arms wrap around herself, and she plays with the bottom of Shauna’s flannel that she wears under her jacket. She’s worried. She doesn’t know what to do about that. She doesn’t know what she can do about that.

 

“This is your fault,” Mari says, getting up to come stand in front of Jackie and looming over her. Jackie looks up at her, blinks. She can almost see the girl who used to beg to practice with her when Jackie wasn’t partnering with Shauna, the girl who was always eager to volunteer and help Jackie pass things out, the girl who was typically one of the first to agree with Jackie when she had an idea. 

 

Now, Mari looks at Jackie like everything’s her fault, and Jackie’s inclined to agree. She just doesn’t know the specifics. “What?” she mutters, confused.

 

“Lottie hasn’t been eating because you’re not eating,” Van says from where she’s stationed near Lottie, and Tai moves forward to put her hand on Van’s shoulder.

Jackie shakes her head. “I’m not… telling her to stop eating.”

 

Mari scoffs. “Oh, my god. You don’t get it.” The you’re so fucking stupid and I can’t believe we ever respected you is unspoken, but Jackie thinks it’s pretty obvious.

 

Lottie can hear people arguing, but her head still feels like it’s been filled with helium and the first time she opens her eyes, the ceiling above her is spinning as fast as the earth must be. So she closes them again quickly before she begins to feel too nauseous. 

 

Misty is prodding her face with a hot towel. “Lottie,” she coos in that strange, customer service voice Lottie thinks Misty has, “Lottie, c’mon, open your eyes. You need to drink some water.”

 

Lottie doesn’t want to open her eyes, she thinks she’s fine right here, actually. She groans again, trying to lift a hand to push Misty away.

 

“What she needs is to eat something,” comes Van’s voice, more firm than anyone else’s around her. 

 

“I’m…fine…” Lottie tries to tell them, “just…”

 

“You’re not fine , Lottie!” Mari is bouncing between yelling at Jackie and fretting over Lottie and Lottie finally opens her eyes enough to see the girl standing between her and Jackie, who is sat in a chair a little ways away. “You’re starving. Like, more than the rest of us.” 

 

Misty looks down at Lottie, shrugs. “She’s right,” she tells her, “you need to eat.”

 

Van is up and moving, then, crossing the room to grab some of the jerky they have as a reserve. “Here,” she holds it out to Misty, who in turn looks back to Lottie.

 

“Please,” she begs her, her eyes pleading in an almost over exaggerated display. Lottie looks at her, then over to Jackie. 

 

Everyone follows her gaze to the girl sitting in the chair expectantly.

 

Jackie used to love attention. Now, she just wants to shrink until she disappears from their gazes. She meets Lottie’s eyes though. “I’m not hungry,” she says, a little desperate. “Please eat.”

 

Lottie is a little disappointed. Not in Jackie, just that, perhaps, she thought too much of their past friendship. Disappointed that she had somehow convinced herself Jackie still actually cared about her. 

 

But, still. She has to keep trying. She looks away from Jackie and to Misty, who is desperately holding a piece of bear meat up for her. She shakes her head.

 

Misty turns slowly away from Lottie to look at Jackie. Misty’s always been odd (her mother might even call her queer ), but Jackie’s never been afraid of her. There’s something in her eyes, though, that Jackie really doesn’t like.

 

“Jackie, you’re going to eat,” Van says, and she’s steel. 

 

Tai, for once, is taking a softer approach. “She’s not going to eat until you do. Please, Jackie. This is getting ridiculous.”

 

Why won’t they let her be with Shauna? Why? Jackie cannot understand it. She can’t possibly understand. She feels wounded, a little betrayed, as she looks at Lottie, who’s not even looking at her anymore. Why did Lottie have to decide that Jackie mattered after she gave up?

 

Why wouldn’t any of them just let her give up? So she gets more defensive, hoping to push them away. “I’m not hungry! I don’t need you to join me like it’s some sort of hunger strike, Lottie! I’ll eat when I fucking want to. I just don’t want to. Can’t all of you just leave me alone?”

 

Lottie doesn’t really believe Jackie. She knows Jackie is trying to slowly waste herself away, thinking no one will notice that she’s killing herself. It’s not laying down in the snow and dying feeling like sleeping. It’s painful and it’s agonizingly slow and it’s your body eating itself alive, from the inside out.

 

She can hear the desperation in Jackie’s voice, always in her voice now and Lottie has to close her eyes against it. 

 

But they snap back open when she feels everyone around her begin to move. They’re advancing on Jackie.

 

“You’re going to eat,” Misty says in a low, threatening voice to Jackie. There’s not even an attempt to veil it at this point. “One way or another.”

 

Lottie tries to sit up. She knows that voice. You’re going to eat, Lottie, her father says in a harsh tone, or the doctor’s are going to make you . Do you want that, Lottie? Do you?

 

She reaches out for the girls. “S-stop…” but she’s too weak, too tired. The world is still teetering around her, leaving her dizzy and unsteady and she collapses back down. “It’s…please…”

 

But they’re not listening to her. When she needs them to, they don’t listen to her.

 

“You can’t make me,” Jackie says quickly, her eyes wild as she moves to get away from the advancing group of girls. There’s only so much space in the cabin, though, and her back meets wood far too soon.

 

“This would be easier if we had a feeding tube,” Misty says in that clinical sort of way she gets. “Somebody needs to make sure her mouth stays closed so she doesn’t try to spit it out.”

 

“Make sure she doesn’t puke it up, too,” Van adds, resigned. 

 

Tai has the audacity to look hesitant, but Jackie can’t possibly imagine that it’s genuine. Not when they all hate her.

 

Mari and Van grab Jackie by her arms and pin her to the wall. Misty has the food in one hand, the other hovering near Jackie’s jaw. Something flickers in her eyes. Worry, maybe, like she doesn’t want to do this.

 

Or maybe it’s the opposite, and she really wants to do this. Jackie can’t tell.

 

“You’re going to eat,” Misty repeats.

 

“ You can’t ma– agh!” There’s a finger in Jackie’s mouth, prying her jaws open. She bites dow, and Misty hisses, but it’s not enough to make her stop. The coppery taste of Misty’s blood hits Jackie’s tongue, and her mouth opens a little wider as she tries to get it out, leaving the perfect opening for Misty to shove the food in her mouth as far as she can, to the back of her throat, trying to force Jackie to swallow as she pulls out her fingers and forces Jackie’s mouth to remain closed.

 

It’s violating and dehumanizing, really, and Jackie doesn’t feel like she’s helping with that as she chokes and struggles and groans. She definitely doesn’t want to eat now , now that it’s being forced on her, now that there’s no choice. Misty’s grip on her face is tight, both hands, now, blood and spit getting on Jackie’s cheeks as Misty makes sure she can’t open her mouth to spit out the food that tastes like bile and blood on her tongue. 

 

She doesn’t know how long they stand there, Mari and Van refusing to look at Jackie as she struggles, Misty refusing to look away. When the fight leaves Jackie, she’s breathing heavy, barely chewing before she swallows down the tough meat, her throat raw. 

 

“Do not puke,” Misty commands. “Or I’ll do it again.” She grabs a little more food, handing some to Lottie before she moves back to Jackie, still trapped in Mari and Van’s grip. Misty says, “Are you going to eat, or do we need to do that again?” she asks sweetly.

 

Jackie’s eyes are bloodshot. She doesn’t even remember when hot tears started trailing down her cheeks. Sometime in the struggle, she guesses. She’s such a baby. She rasps out, “I’ll eat.”

 

“Good!” Misty says, holding the food near Jackie’s face. “Open wide.”

 

Lottie is horrified by what’s happening, but she can’t do anything about it. Her eyes burn as she tries to sit up again, tries to protest, but the girls aren’t looking at her and they’re not looking at Jackie, even as Misty shoves food down her throat and Lottie can viscerally remember how it felt. She remembers that they strapped her down and they shoved a tube down her throat and they pumped food into her stomach as she cried and choked and her parents, on the other side of the glass, did nothing.

 

Lottie is crying now, fully, unabashedly. Misty sets a piece of food down by her but she doesn’t take it yet. She can’t look at Jackie anymore. She closes her eyes and tries to calm her breathing and tries to drown out the sound of Jackie’s struggling.

 

And when it stops, it doesn’t feel any better. 

 

Someone kneels near her head. Lottie opens her eyes to see Tai. “She’s eating, Lottie,” Tai tells her and Lottie doesn’t understand why they would do this. Tai looks tired, defeated. Lottie can’t blame her.

 

 She doesn’t want to encourage what the girls have just done, but Lottie is so hungry. And so she takes the piece of jerky and sits up just enough to bite into it.

 

She steals only one glance at Jackie before she feels her chest squeeze tightly enough to make breathing harder. 

 

She doesn’t look at Jackie as she finishes eating. 

 

Jackie thinks, now, that this is more an exercise in humiliation than any sort of genuine kindness, but she eats the food out of Misty’s hand, bite by bite, until, for the first time in a very long time, it stops feeling like her stomach is eating itself. 

 

She doesn’t bite Misty again, even though she wants to. Jackie can swear she hears Shauna’s voice in her ear. “She hurt you first. It’s okay to hurt her back. I can’t do it for you like we’re on the field, Jax.”

 

She doesn’t bite Misty again, just waits to be let go when she finishes her food. Van lets go first, shuddering a little, and Mari still can’t look at Jackie as she goes back to the fire. Jackie slides down the wall, not saying anything. 

 

Never again. She will never let them put her through that again, even if it means eating at every fucking meal.

 

Lottie feels violated and she doesn't think she's allowed to be. It wasn't her they were force feeding, but it was her fault. She'd just been trying to help, but Lottie was bad at that, too, apparently. 

 

When the girls finish feeding Jackie, they all leave, as if ashamed of what they'd done. All except Misty, who double checks on Lottie and tells her she has to take it easy the rest of the day, before she's off to finish her chores as if she hadn't just force fed one of their friends. 

 

Lottie stays sitting for a while before she tries to stand again. Her legs feel wobbly, weak, but she manages to stay upright and makes her way over to Jackie, sliding to sit next to her. 

 

Her voice cracks as she says, “I'm sorry.”

 

Honestly? This is the most Jackie’s felt alive in months. Since before reading that stupid journal. She feels something . It’s not exactly good, but it is living. It’s more than just that crashing sea of numbness.

 

She almost feels like Jackie Taylor again. She almost manages to joke a little, “I don’t recommend the Misty Quigley table side service.”

 

Lottie doesn't quite laugh, doesn't quite smile, but it's something close. It's good enough for now, she thinks. 

 

Lottie doesn't look at Jackie as she slowly reaches over and takes her hand, squeezes. She's still so tired, weaker than she's ever felt before, even back then. 

 

“I never wanted…I never meant…” she can't quite get the words out. “I just wanted you to eat.” If not for herself, then maybe for Lottie. It was probably just too much to ask. It wasn't like they were friends anymore, Lottie knew this. 

 

Still, she hoped. She wished. 

 

“I’ll eat,” Jackie says, glancing over at Lottie. She wasn’t going to do that again. She couldn’t. The cold. Starving. Those were quiet ways to get back to Shauna. Jackie’s always hated suffering. She’s always hated feeling gross . Nothing was worse than fingers in her mouth, hands forcing her jaw shut until she swallowed.

 

This couldn’t hold, anyway. They’d start running out of food soon, and Jackie didn’t contribute to the group anymore. They’ll start to resent her. Soon, she won’t have to make any sort of choice.

 

It’s such a quiet relent. No arguing, no push back. Just Jackie giving in. Just Jackie giving up. Lottie doesn’t like how it sounds, how it tastes on her tongue. She should be happy, Jackie is going to eat. Jackie hasn’t tried to sleep outside since that first night. Lottie should be happy, but she’s not. She thinks it’s because there’s something wrong with her.

 

“Okay,” Lottie says quietly, and she doesn’t know how to tell Jackie she understands how she feels. She understands how humiliating it is, how disgusting it feels. She doesn’t know how to tell her and she doesn’t know if she wants to tell her. Most of the girls aren’t aware of who Lottie really is, what’s really wrong with her. She doesn’t want them to know.

 

“I’m sorry they did that,” she says again, and she thinks it’s the closest she can get to admitting anything, “that you had to…go through that.” She swallows. “I won’t let them do it again. I promise.”

 

“I’m not going to give them another reason to do that again,” Jackie says quickly. She’s not. Misty mentioned something about a tube , and maybe that wasn’t available in the cabin, but she bets it would be so easy to find some sort of fuel line or whatever in plane, and Jackie was not doing that. She’d eat. She gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze back. “No more… no more not eating. For either of us.”

 

Lottie nods. Good , she thinks. Good. And, really, Lottie wasn’t going to let them do anything to Jackie again. She didn’t understand their cruelty but maybe it was her fault in the first place. She’d started this, hadn’t she? That fateful night.

 

Maybe that’s why Lottie still feels guilty. She knows she is doing some of this out of guilt, she knows that, because Lottie has a lot guilt, over many things. But especially this. She doesn’t know how to not be.

 

“Deal.”

 

Jackie wants to forget about all of this. She wants normalcy. 

 

(She wants Shauna, but she can’t have Shauna, so she will settle for trying to cling to a life where she once had her. If they won’t let her die, then she should at least be able to have this)

 

“Been thinking about you and your TJ Buxx,” she murmurs. “Never took you for a thief, Lott.”

 

The nickname makes her feel warm. Sure, Lottie itself was a nickname for Charlotte, but Lottie appreciates it nonetheless. She smiles a little more. “At least I don’t pause movies on dicks,” she murmurs back.

 

“It’s a nice dick,” Jackie says, the response immediate, even if it was a lie. She didn’t give a fuck about Bruce Willis’ dick. Or Brad Pitt’s, or Jeff Sadecki’s. She didn't really like them that much, to be honest. But it’s easier to admit that than anything else.

 

Maybe the plane crashed because Jackie was a fucking liar. Still, she bumps Lottie’s shoulder slightly. “Better than coupons for TJ Maxx.”

 

Lottie doesn’t think Jackie is really telling the truth. She’s seen the way Jackie looks-- looked?-- at Shauna. It was the same way Van looked at Tai, or Lottie looked at Laura Lee. Lottie doesn’t think she really cares for any of it. Or that it just doesn’t matter. She hasn’t done enough to have figured that out yet. She’s afraid to. Getting too close to someone means they might find out. She doesn’t think anyone could love someone like her.

 

“I don’t even spend them,” she admits quietly. She thinks she doesn’t know why she does it, except that she does know. Of course she knows. “They don’t expire, you know?”

 

“No, I did not know that,” Jackie says, her eyes brightening a little bit. She feels a little more alive. She only feels alive these days talking about the past, about a time when she fucking mattered. How goddamn sad is that? “How much do you have?”

 

Lottie shrugs. She doesn’t know the exact number, she doesn’t really keep track. She takes whatever receipt they print off for her and only looks at it once before tearing it up and throwing it away. “Close to um…five grand? I think?” 

 

Jackie lets out a low whistle. “Wowza.” How had Lottie managed that much shoplifting? How long had she been doing it? Jackie finds herself curious for the first time in a long time. “Well, you’re gonna have to take me shopping if we ever get out of this place. Might be fun to splurge a little bit, even at TJ Maxx.”

 

Lottie grows quiet at that. She doesn’t think about life after this place often, she doesn’t think it’s a good idea. She thinks that focusing on the present is what will keep them alive. But now, for a just a moment, when she thinks about it, she feels scared. Because she knows that she won’t be able to go to TJ Maxx if they get back. She knows already that she’s too far gone. She knows exactly what will happen to her if they go back.

 

“Yeah…” she finally says, her face twitching with what should be a smile that won’t quite form, “okay.”

 

Jackie wants to ask Lottie why she stopped eating. She wants to know why Lottie acts like she cares so much. Why won’t Lottie let her go? Is it just guilt? Does she just feel bad about Shauna? Jackie thinks that everyone feels bad about Shauna. Shauna was friendly. Shauna was helpful. Shauna was pregnant . Shauna was one of them in ways that Jackie hadn’t been in months. What had Jackie done to deserve such… devotion? Care? Stubbornness? 

 

Why is Lottie doing it?

 

Their actual dinner is being worked on, Melissa having slipped out at some point and come back in with the day's rations without their notice. Jackie does notice Nat and Travis, the dejected look on their faces meaning that there was neither food nor Javi to be found. Jackie watches them trudge through the cabin to the back to change into warmer clothes. Nat looks around the cabin, her face worried, but, if she can sense the tenseness in the air, she does not make an immediate comment on it, only looking over to Jackie and Lottie as she walks by.

 

Lottie looks up when Nat and Travis finally come back from the day’s hunt. She wants to ask, but she can see it on their faces already. Still, she turns to Jackie and gives her a short smile before letting go of her hand and bracing against the wall to stand. She’s still dizzy and tired, but she hopes now that her body has food in it, she’ll start feeling better soon.

 

“Travis,” she says, moving after the two as they head towards the back, “Nat.” They both look back at her before they let her follow them into the back room where they begin to strip off their heavy jackets. “Anything?”

 

Nat just shakes her head. Travis is looking more and more haunted by the day. Lottie wishes there was something more she could do to help. She keeps her voice low when she looks to Nat, nudging her slightly to get her to look at her. “Jackie is eating now,” she tells her quietly and Nat finally has a reason to be relieved.

 

“Fuck. Good,” she sighs, rubbing her eyes. “She finally get hungry enough?”

 

Lottie worries her lip between her teeth.

 

“Lottie,” Nat says in that voice, the way she always says Lottie’s name, the way her thick accent hangs on the word. “What happened?”

 

Lottie swallows. “The-- yes. Not a bad something, just…a few of the girls, they, um, they forced her. Held her down.” Lottie picks at her sleeves. “I tried to-- Jackie says she’ll eat now.”

 

Nat looks horrified. “What the fuck ?” she breathes. She steps towards Lottie. “Why would you let them do that? Jesus fuck, Lottie!”

 

“I--” Lottie starts, but stops. Nat is always angry at her now. She doesn’t want to fight. “I’m sorry.” 

 

Nat presses her lips together and glares at Lottie hard before storming out of the room and to where she’d last seen Jackie, leaving Lottie and Travis standing alone.

 

Lottie lets out a long breath. Travis puts a hand on her shoulder. “She’s just stressed,” he says to her. She looks over at him. “We’ll keep looking.”

 

Jackie’s not expecting Nat to storm up to her, still in her snow covered clothes, holding out her hand. “Can you stand up?” Nat asks, her voice tight.

 

Without even accepting the hand, Jackie scrambles up quickly, nodding, “Yeah, I– Yes. Obviously.”

 

“Are you alright?” Nat asks, still tight, her jaw clenched. “Don’t answer that, I know you’re not.” She looks at the rest of the room that has gone silent in her rage. Jackie can’t blame them. She doesn’t know what to say, either.

 

“What the fuck?” Nat barks out. “What the fuck is wrong with you guys? You held her down and fucking force-fed her?”

 

“She wasn’t going to eat on her own,” Misty says quickly.

 

Mari looks defensive. “Lottie wouldn’t eat until she did. She passed out. Jackie was killing her.”

 

Coach Ben, who Jackie hadn’t seen all day, didn’t even realize he was still in the cabin, comes out of the bedroom, bleary eyed. “What’s happening here?”

 

Lottie can hear Nat’s angry voice and she doesn’t wait for Travis before she’s making her way back into the front room, pausing by the table. Nat is standing defensively between Jackie and the rest of the girls and the tension is almost palpable.

 

“Nat…” Lottie starts but Coach is asking about it all and no one really wants to tell him.

 

Lottie moves forward, then, unintentionally standing opposite Nat, looking around the room, before turning to Ben. “It’s okay now,” she tries to explain, “it’s over and it won’t happen again.” It’s not just for Coach, though, it’s for the entire room and Lottie gazes out at them all to make sure they know she’s serious. She thinks they get the picture.

 

“Oh like fuck it is!” Natalie says, her voice raising again. She storms over and shoves Lottie, who stumbles back into the table. “You let them force-feed Jackie! How the fuck is that okay, Lottie? Huh?”

 

Coach Ben blinks, shakes his head as if can’t believe what he’s just heard. “I’m sorry, what ?”

 

“Nat, wait,” Jackie says, moving over to Lottie quickly, forcing herself between the two of them. Nat’s not that much taller, but she feels it, all righteous anger and hard features. “ Wait ! Lottie didn’t let them do anything. She could– she could barely do anything herself. She passed out in the snow because she hasn’t been eating either. She didn’t let them do anything.”

 

Lottie can feel Natalie’s anger directed at her, even as Jackie is suddenly between them and trying to explain to Natalie what really happened. 

 

Lottie doesn’t really know what’s going on, though. She’s never been in this position. No one’s ever tried to defend her like this. Not in a way that mattered. Not like how Mari tries to justify her because of her blind faith in her, or Van because of her deep belief in her. Jackie is trying to explain to Natalie that Lottie had tried but couldn’t.

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything when Natalie looks at her again. “You what?” her anger isn’t receding, but Lottie can feel it’s not all for her anymore. “Jesus fucking christ .” Her eyes meet Jackie’s. “But you’re gonna fucking eat now, right? No more of this bullshit?”

 

“I’m going to eat now,” Jackie says, and she’s shooting for resolute, but, really, she just sounds resigned. She’s going to eat. She doesn’t want to. It all tastes like ashes. But she’s going to eat.

 

“So it wasn’t that bad!” Misty says, trying to sound chipper, and Jackie sees Kristen (why does she want to be called Crystal, anyway?) nodding along quickly, but both of them are looking at Nat and Lottie with the same nervous eyes as the rest of the group.

 

“Good,” Nat says to Jackie, before turning to look at Misty, giving her a shake of her head. “No, Misty, it was that bad.” And then she’s giving Lottie one last glare before she’s heading to the back once again to find Travis.

 

Lottie lets out her breath. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding it. Everyone is doing that thing where they look at her, waiting for her to say something so that the day can continue on. She hates that this has become normal now. “Just give her some space,” Lottie tells the others, “she’s just tired.”

 

And everyone knows that’s not exactly true but they accept it and go about finishing up chores as Mari prepares dinner.

 

Lottie moves away from the table enough to see Jackie’s face. “You didn’t have to do that,” she murmurs to her.

 

“I didn’t do anything but tell the truth,” Jackie says, raising an eyebrow at Lottie when she looks away from Nat’s retreating form. “I wasn’t going to let her blame you for something you didn’t even do.” Besides, if Jackie hadn’t spoken up, then surely one of the others would. They thought Lottie hung the moon; of course they’d defend her.

 

Lottie scrunches her face because she doesn’t quite understand. “Natalie is just…frustrated.” She doesn’t blame Natalie for being angry with her. It’s mostly Lottie’s fault, anyway. They’d been close before the crash, but then Lottie had changed, and now Lottie didn’t think things would ever be the same between them. It made her heart hurt quite a bit. “I’d rather her take it out on me than anyone else.” That even included the girls who had pinned Jackie to a wall and force fed her.

 

Really, Lottie would take a knife or a bullet or a fall for any of them. Even Natalie. Especially Natalie. 

 

Jackie frowns at Lottie, crossing her hands over her chest. “Well, I’d rather she not take it out on you, especially when you didn’t do anything wrong.” All Lottie was doing was stubbornly, desperately trying to get Jackie to cling to life. And maybe it sucks a little bit because life is awful and Jackie just wants to curl up in Shauna’s lap and go to sleep one last time, but it’s hard to feel angry at Lottie for that. Confused, yes. A little bitter, maybe. But she’s not angry.

 

Lottie looks at Jackie, tilts her head ever so slightly. “It has to go somewhere,” she says to her, and it’s in that voice that Lottie finds inside herself sometimes, the voice that makes her sound like maybe she’s not actually there with them. 

 

Before either can say much else, Mari announces that dinner is ready. Lottie nods at Jackie. “Go sit,” she tells her, “I’ll get you a bowl.” 

 

Jackie rolls her eyes and starts to speak, but the thought of food sits unpleasantly in her stomach, and she must resign herself to eating, now. She takes her seat and wants to fold in on herself, but instead she waits patiently. Some of the other girls watch her, wary. Misty looks curious, if anything, wondering what Jackie will do. But, when Lottie returns with the bowl and her odd little dirt prayer, she reaches out and takes it, and she slowly starts eating it, bite by bite.

 

There’s no way for Jackie to explain that she’s not hungry. But she’s not. It’s so hard to force herself to eat. Her body no longer wants to. It doesn’t help that her throat is still sore. She’s forgotten what it’s like to enjoy food. Tumultuous relationship with eating aside, Jackie really did have favorite foods. She had cravings. She had things she wanted to eat. At this point, though, she thinks she’d feel content with never eating again. None of them believe her, but she really isn’t hungry. Still, she’s making an effort. This is the most she's had since Laura Lee.

 

Lottie makes sure to not fill Jackie’s bowl too much. She knows that after starving for so long, eating too much is bad. But they need to eat at least a little bit, so that the others know that Jackie is trying. It’s all she really wants.

 

She stays sitting next to Jackie the whole time in case someone tries to do anything. She doesn’t think they will, but she won’t let them try. 

 

It’s much later that night when everyone is settling down that Lottie tries to approach Natalie again. She’s picking at her sleeves once more before she gets there. “Nat,” she says and the blonde lets out an audible groan. “Can we talk?”

 

It’s odd that Jackie’s gotten used to settling down for the evening with Lottie’s presence near hers. It shouldn’t be odd. They typically slept near each other, both before during sleepovers and even in the cabin, though there was always a Shauna Shipman-shaped form taking up Jackie’s space, and ever since the seance, Lottie’s been particularly distant. She’d had Lauar Lee, but Laura Lee was gone. Now, Jackie supposes that she’s there.

 

But Lottie isn’t, instead moving to where Nat has set up her space near Travis. Jackie sits up, watches them, then lays back down, watches them. She turns over, pretends she isn’t listening. This feels odd. She’s not too bothered, she doesn’t think. She’s just worried. That’s it. It’s worry, especially with the way Nat shoved Lottie earlier, with the way that Lottie was weaker now. That’s it.

 

Natalie relents when Lottie doesn’t move away. “What is it?” she asks, resigned, her voice low. 

 

Lottie looks over at Travis, then back to Nat by the fire. They usually sleep towards the back of the cabin, but for now they’re warming by the fire. “I just wanted to…explain about earlier.” 

 

Natalie raises a brow. “Thanks but I think Jackie got the point across.” She turns to sit back down but Lottie reaches out, stops her.

 

“Nat, I--” Lottie pauses when Natalie whirls on her and she’s got that dark look in her eyes again. She pulls her hand away, tucks it into her chest.

 

“Can we, like, do this tomorrow? I’m tired.”

 

Lottie’s jaw quivers with what she actually wants to say, but instead she closes her mouth and nods. “Yeah, that…that’s fine.”

 

Without so much as a nod of her own, Natalie sits down next to Travis and Lottie steps over the other girls as she makes her way over to Jackie and the bed they share. She settles down without a word, but she’s laying on her back and staring up at the ceiling and wondering if she’s too far gone to ever get Natalie back.

 

Jackie strains her ears to listen to Nat and Lottie’s conversation, but she can’t really make it out, and it doesn’t last long. She feels Lottie settle in next to her, but she knows Lottie’s not actually trying to sleep. Not really sure what else to do, Jackie turns around and puts an arm around Lottie’s waist, holding onto her before pressing her head against Lottie’s shoulder.

 

She tries not to do this often, you know. Not after that first night. She tries not to do it with anyone, her mind always going back to a morning after Shauna went home, all of the happiness and contentment draining out of Jackie as her mother pulled her into the kitchen and gripped her by the jaw, telling her off for how she’d apparently been wrapped around Shauna like some sort of dyke whore in her sleep. Are you like that , Jacqueline? No, Mom, it’s not like that. It’s not. You know it’s not. Jackie was just cold. That was all. 

 

She had extra blankets on her bed from then on. If Shauna came over, Jackie’s mom insisted with saccharine sweetness that she take one of the guest bedrooms. If Jackie stayed with Shauna, her mother was told that Jackie took the couch.

 

Jackie always preferred Shauna’s house. 

 

Right now, though, Jackie’s mom isn’t here, and she thinks Lottie might need this. Besides, Jackie’s cold. She’s just cold. That’s all.

 

Lottie doesn’t really move when she feels Jackie’s arm slide around her. It’s still surprising, though. They haven’t really held each other like this since that first night, and Lottie had stayed up all night just to make sure Jackie was sleeping. She doesn’t think she’ll sleep much tonight, either, but it’s nice to know Jackie wants to help. That Jackie wants to…comfort her.

 

That’s where the strangeness comes in. Lottie didn’t really let people comfort her. They’d have to get too close and she was always afraid of letting people get too close.

 

But Jackie is pretty close, now, and she’s laying her head on Lottie’s shoulder and she can’t help the warmth that spreads through her.

 

She swallows. She wonders if she’s comfortable to sleep on. She’s always been tall, lanky, gangly limbs strewn about. She often slept curled up in her bed because even with the queen size that it was, if she stretched all the way out, her feet hung off the edge. 

 

Lottie just moves an arm to cover the one around her waist as she watches Nat and Travis by the fire. They’re murmuring about something and Lottie thinks she might know what, but she doesn’t think it’s any of her business, either. She’s glad they have each other, even if she misses being the one sitting by Nat’s side next to a fire, passing a joint between and laughing at the dumbest jokes.

 

“Go to sleep,” Jackie murmurs, her eyes drifting shut. “You used to be able to nap anywhere.”

 

Lottie just hums softly. She did remember that. Lottie often fell asleep in the grass or under a tree, or at the table. It was usually because the nights were far crueler to her than most. Anxiety onset by medication. But it’s worth the trade off , her mother had said one day when Lottie told her she was having a hard time sleeping through the night, are least you’re not hearing voices anymore.

 

Lottie thinks she was probably right.

 

Her eyes are just about to close when she hears a familiar and horrible sound-- someone gasping for breath as their chest seizes up. In fear, in panic. 

 

Lottie is up out of the bed in an instant. It’s Travis. Natalie looks scared, confused, she doesn’t know what’s happening to him, how to help.

 

Lottie does. She moves quickly over to him, kneels in front of him. Akilah has sat up in her bed behind the two, she’s asking what’s happening, worry in her voice.

 

“I-I don’t know, I think he’s having, liken a panic attack or something,” Natalie quickly explains. 

 

Lottie reaches out, places her hand over his heart. Her voice is calm as she says, “Travis, look at me. Breathe with me, okay? You can do that, okay?” She focuses on him, only him. The world falls away. “Breath is the only thing in the world right now. Breathe in.” She takes in a deep breath of her own, urging him to mimic her. “And out.”

 

She thinks it’s working, she can feel something in him shift. His breath comes easier. “You’re doing great,” she murmurs to him, “one more.” She breathes with him again, just like she had Jackie. Until his breathing is no longer labored and she can see color in his face again. “Okay…” she whispers, relieved.

 

Jackie was almost asleep when she heard the sounds from the other side of the room, when she felt Lottie pull away and move. She sits up, confused and tired, looking around to see what’s going on. She doesn’t expect to see Travis, doesn’t expect to see that sure, gentle way that Lottie guides him through his panic. 

 

She’s not surprised, though. Of course not. Not when Lottie’s already done it for her.  

 

Lottie smiles at Travis, breathing a sigh of relief. She wants to tell him something to help keep him this way, but her eyes accidentally catch the lump in his jeans. “Umm…” she doesn’t want to say anything out loud, she doesn’t want to embarrass him. He quickly tugs a blanket over his lap and doesn’t make eye contact with Lottie.

 

“Your brother’s alive,” Lottie says, then, so sure of herself, of that feeling. Like she can feel Javi’s heartbeat in the forest. “I know he is.”

 

Nat comes back over and hands Travis a cup of hot tea.

 

“Y-you should get some rest,” Lottie says, wanting to avoid Nat suddenly.

 

But Nat follows her over and grabs her arm. “Can I talk to you?” she hisses and Lottie turns around, frustrated.

 

“I thought we were talking tomorrow?”

 

“I mean about what the fuck just happened. What was that?” Nat is more than angry at her now. She shoves Lottie a little and Lottie lets her. “Javi is…” she chokes on the word, even she can’t say it. “Look, giving him false hope is just going to make things worse.”

 

“There’s no such thing as false hope,” Lottie whispers back, shaking her head. And despite it all, she really does believe that. “There’s just…hope.”

 

“Did you read that in a fucking fortune cookie?” Nat snaps.

 

Lottie gives her a bewildered look. “What do you want from me, Nat? I just said what I felt.” And she doesn’t want to take it back.

 

Natalie leans into Lottie’s space. “I want you to say less, Lottie, a lot fucking less.” And then she’s storming off back over to Travis, leaving Lottie standing like a lost fool in the kitchen.

 

Lottie’s breath comes out trembling and she has to gather herself a moment, press a sleeve to her eyes, before she returns to Jackie, sitting down but not laying. She’s really not tired anymore.

 

It’s going pretty well until Lottie mentions Javi, and Jackie wants to flinch like it’s a blow. There’s no way Javi’s alive. It’s just not possible. Shauna froze in a few hours. It’s been weeks, months since they saw Javi. There isn’t really any hope. 

 

False hope. Jackie wishes she had even a glimmer of that. She doesn’t really feel much of anything now, though. Some false hope might be nice, even if it was worthless in the end. She still thinks Nat was a bit cruel. She also thinks that Lottie was… well meaning but wrong. Maybe that was a bit cruel, too. Cruelty without meaning it. 

 

Jackie sits up with Lottie, moving to drape part of the blanket over her long legs before crossing her own and staring at her lap. “Are you…” she starts, quiet. “Are you alright?”

 

Lottie was running the words over in her head again and again, staring down at her hands in her lap, at the blanket under them. She blinks and looks up when she hears Jackie’s voice. She isn’t, but she doesn’t think she should say it. So she just gives a shake of her head and says, “I’m fine.”

 

Jackie sighs, and she doesn’t really believe Lottie, but she wants to take her word for it. If she changes her mind, if she wants to talk, maybe she’ll consider Jackie. 

 

Two can play this stubborn game, and even though the only thing that Jackie even remotely wants is to lay down and go to sleep, she keeps sitting up, waiting for Lottie to settle back down.

 

It takes Lottie a while to realize that Jackie is sitting up because she still is. She’s using her own tactic against her and Lottie sighs. “Lay down, Jackie,” she tells her, “I know you’re tired after today.”

 

“I will when you do,” Jackie says, unflinching as she meets Lottie’s eyes. 

 

Lottie huffs. “I just want to make sure Travis is okay,” she tells her, “just in case.” Even though Nat is next to him and they’re now settling down on their own beds in the corner. She just wants to make sure he doesn’t panic again.

 

Jackie rolls her eyes. “He’ll be okay, Lottie. Besides, you’ll be able to tell if he wakes up. We’re all in the same fucking room, not on the other side of town from each other.”

 

Lottie frowns as she looks back over at Jackie. She doesn’t like feeling like this, but Nat’s outburst over her makes her feel itchy inside. When she finally relents, she doesn’t say anything to Jackie. She just lays down, her back facing the other girl, and keeps her eyes trained on Travis and Nat on the other side of the room. It’s dark and she can’t make them out well, but she can see them enough and so she feels okay for now.

 

Jackie starts to reach out but hesitates, swallowing in a way that was still painful on her raw throat before scooting just a little closer, her arms still at her sides. She wants to touch. She can see, now, how that isn't a good idea. 

 

 

Lottie is up before even Nat or Travis begin to stir. They’ve agreed to be getting up earlier and earlier to search for Javi, and Lottie will rise before them, to prepare them tea and help set up for the day.

 

She does hesitate, though, when she looks over at Jackie still passed out. For someone so small, she takes up so much room. But Lottie doesn’t really mind, she’s always been used to taking up as little space as possible. She was good at it.

 

She tugs the blanket up around her a little more and tucks it in, before standing and sliding on her jacket. She starts up the fire, grabs the pot, and heads outside quietly to gather snow to melt. The chill in the air is crisp as she bends down near a far bush to gather some snow, away from their footprints and work, where the snow is the cleanest.

 

For a moment, her eyes go to the shed. She looks around, as if to check to make sure she’s alone, before she sets the pot on the porch and heads over to the shed.

 

Last time she was in here, she’d found Jackie curled up in Shauna’s cold lap. Her eyes feel unfocused as they find her body in the corner, sitting up against the wall. Lottie moves over to her, sits. She looks at her, wonders if she might hear her voice in the whispers of the wind. 

 

But it’s silent.

 

Slowly, Lottie reaches out and puts her hand on Shauna’s stomach. She thinks about how it was all supposed to be different. She doesn’t understand why it happened like this.

 

Lottie is having a hard time understanding anything, really. She likes to think she does, but she doesn’t, and she’s not sure how much longer she can pretend before the others notice. Until they realize that Lottie isn’t the person they think she is.

 

After a long few minutes of silence, Lottie finally stands back up. “I’m sorry, Shauna,” she whispers, before she turns to head back inside.

 

 

Jackie knows it’s getting bad when even she feels the ache of hunger angrily gnawing at her insides, unavoidable and real. Maybe it has to do with eating regularly again only to watch the allowed rations dwindle into almost nothingness. They’re starving. They’re all genuinely starving.

 

“I’m glad you’re not having to deal with this,” Jackie murmurs to Shauna, watching the light outside the shed grow dark, knowing that she’d about to have to go back inside. “It’s kind of awful. I can’t imagine needing to eat for two.”

 

She’s actually really fucking lucky that sleeping with Travis (could she even call it that? Their brief excursion into sex. Doing it. You know, fucking. Whatever) didn't end like that. Getting knocked up out here seems like a fucking nightmare. No wonder Shauna had been so cagey about it. 

 

Lottie knows things are getting worse by the day. Nat and Travis come back each night without any game and without Javi. They’re all starving and she doesn’t know what to do. She’s not a hunter. She killed that bear but it wasn’t as if she’d gone out and found it. The Wilderness had provided it to them and Lottie had simply accepted the gift.

 

As the sun began to dip, Lottie has made her way out to the hollow stump she’d found, the one they used as an altar. Melted candles were still stuck to the top of it, decorations still hung, frozen. 

 

Lottie kneels in front of it, puts her hand to the bark. It feels warm despite how cold the air is, it’s how she knows this is a conduit for the Wilderness. She closes her eyes, whispers a quiet prayer. Begs the Wilderness for a sign, or an offering, for anything.

 

When she opens her eyes, the world is just as she’d left it. Breathing in deep, Lottie removes the knife from her belt and holds up her palm. Maybe it just needs an offering. Il veut du sang . She sets the blade against her skin, presses down--

 

Voices jerk her away from what she’s doing. 

 

Mari is saying something and her voice is warbling in worry. Lottie stands up quickly, tucking the knife into her pocket and heads back towards the cabin.

 

Natalie and Travis are back, and Travis is holding something bloody. A pair of ripped pants. 

 

“Are those…Javi’s?” Akilah asks and Lottie can tell she already knows the answer.

 

“No…” Lottie breathes. “No, that…”

 

Nat’s anger is growing and Lottie can feel it before she even hears it. “ Don’t ,” Nat hisses.

 

Jackie’s almost cautious as she peeks out from the shed, looking at the scene in front of her. Nat and Lottie, about to butt heads (or Nat wanting to butt heads and Lottie just looking at Nat with those big, sad eyes), Mari and Akilah looking concerned, and Travis… Oh. 

 

Those are Javi’s.

 

She moves closer to Lottie, reaching out to pat her arm, not quite putting herself between the two of them, but almost. Nat’s got this look on her face. Betrayal? What’s there to betray? She’s always wondered if Nat even liked her. She certainly hasn’t liked Jackie out here.

 

Maybe, once upon a time, there might have been solidarity between the two of them against the weird shit. At this point, though, whatever dirt gods Lottie prays to are kind of a nonfactor to her. She doesn’t think they’re really hurting anyone, but she knows they’re sure as fuck not going to save them, either. Sometimes people just need faith. Some of the girls out there were hopeful, alive. Jackie isn’t really among their numbers, but still. She doesn’t think it’s hurting anyone. 

 

Except maybe Lottie, but Jackie worries she’s doing that to herself.

 

Lottie isn’t looking at anyone or anything in particular as she says, “It can’t be.” She just knows and she can’t explain how, but she does. She feels it so deeply in her bones.

 

She doesn’t register Jackie standing next to her, or Nat moving towards her. “Not another fucking word,” she growls.

 

“No, Javi’s alive,” Lottie continues, shaking her head, “I can feel it.”

 

“For fuck’s sake --” Nat is in her face suddenly, quickly and Lottie steps back, staring wide eyed down at her, scared, confused-- “shut up! Don’t you see how much damage you are doing?”

 

There’s a certain desperation to Nat’s voice that makes Lottie’s gut wrench and she glances over to Travis, who is staring hard into the snow, clutching Javi’s bloody pants.

 

“Why, Lottie, why ?” And it’s the most emotion Lottie has heard in Nat’s voice while talking to her since they crashed. “What is making you fucking do this?”

 

Lottie doesn’t have an answer. “I…I don’t…”

 

Nat gets in her face. “You can’t just keep making him believe in some bullshit feeling!” And Lottie thinks Nat might actually hit her this time, but she’s kind of okay with that. As long as it’s just her.

 

“Come on, Nat,” Jackie says, a little desperately, and she’s trying to summon that girl that got in Natalie’s face all those months ago, who flipped off a girl with a gun like it was nothing, but she’s tired. Still, she steps a little closer to Nat, attempting to reach out. “Lottie’s not trying to… It’s not like that, right?” She looks at Lottie, begging . She’s just not sure what she’s begging for.

 

Lottie doesn’t really register what Jackie is trying to do. All she can think about is that this is wrong. Javi isn’t dead. Something so deep in her bones keeps telling her Javi isn’t dead. 

 

But Nat won’t listen to her. Why should she? Nat has never really believed. 

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything as she watches Travis head over to the firepit. He throws the cloth into it and says, “Goodbye, Javi.” And Lottie still thinks that this is wrong, and she thinks maybe she should say something else, but as she steps forward, Natalie stands in her way, pushes her back.

 

“Just leave it alone, Lottie,” she tells her, before turning and heading off after Travis.

 

Lottie’s brow furrows and she remembers Jackie is standing next to her, too. Her eyes are still pleading for something Lottie can’t give her. “It’s not…right.”

 

“Nothing’s really right out here,” Jackie says, looking up at Lottie before her eyes move to Nat and Travis, mourning over a dead little boy. Jackie barely remembers seeing Javi at Doomcoming. He was always so quiet, hanging around either Travis or some of the juniors and Akilah or Shauna. It was cute, his little crush on Shauna. Jackie wonders what Shauna would think about him missing.

 

“I know you don’t believe me,” Lottie says quietly. She didn’t think anyone really did at this point. But Lottie was more sure of this than most anything in her life. “But I can’t just ignore this feeling.” 

 

If she were someone braver, she’d go out looking for Javi alone. But she’s not really allowed to leave the cabin without someone following her, usually Mari, sometimes Van if Tai is busy. Misty, asking her if she’s feeling alright. 

 

It makes Lottie’s skin crawl a little. She’s used to being alone and left to her own business. Now she can’t fucking sneeze without someone either worrying about it or someone yelling at her about it.

 

She turns away from the fire pit and heads back towards the cabin, not bothering to say much else to Jackie as she does.

 

For her part, all Jackie can really do is blink after Lottie. It’s not that she doesn’t believe her; she doesn’t really believe in anything anymore. Maybe it’d be better if Lottie’s dirt gods were real. At least that’d give her something to blame all of this on. But there’s just Jackie, causer of bad times and killer by abandonment of best friends. She could go inside, but there’s still a little extra light before Melissa comes out for the bear, so Jackie heads back inside to the meat shed, anyway. 

 

Jackie’s gotten into the habit of brushing Shauna’s hair almost every day, so gentle in the action so as not to damage the frozen strands, arranging them and braiding them. She’s always been good at it. If she thought it would make her look more alive, Jackie would do Shauna’s make up, but she worried she didn’t have her color. She’s distracted, a little more forceful than usual as she braids, her fingers moving too fast. The braid looks a mess, and, frustrated, Jackie takes one of Shauna’s hands and squeezes.

 

A pinky breaks off in her hand, so cold and brittle that it just snaps.

 

“Oh, fuck .” Jackie is, of course, horrified. Horrified and disgusted with herself that she’s damaged Shauna’s body even further, that she’s hurt her, she’s hurt her. She keeps hurting her, and Shauna hates her for it. She really does.

 

It’s another one of those tight feelings in Jackie’s chest, the trouble breathing, the inability to suck in enough air. But she needs to hide what she’s done. She’s done something awful again , this time by action rather than inaction. 

 

The pinky goes in her pocket. Jackie arranges Shauna’s hands and flannel to hide the missing digit, and then she leans against the wall, still shuddering to find her breathing once more. 

 

Lottie makes it back into the cabin and forgets what she’d been doing, anyway. The distraction of Travis and Nat claiming Javi was dead is making her head spin a little and so she goes to the back where they keep the bucket of water for hand washing and splashes some on her face. It’s cold and she shudders but she does it again before using her jacket to wipe her face dry.

 

It doesn’t make her feel any better.

 

Van steps up beside her, suddenly, and Lottie jumps a little.

 

“Shit, sorry, Lott,” she says, reaching out to put a steadying hand on Lottie’s arm. Lottie just shakes her head.

 

“Um, did you need something?”

 

Van casts a wary glance behind the two of them, to the girls who are shuffling limply about the front cabin area, preparing things for dinner, which means Melissa will be heading out to start cutting up the meat soon and Jackie will be coming inside. 

 

“I just…I dunno, Lott. Things are getting kinda…bleak? You know?” Van’s voice is low, so that it can only be heard by her and Lottie. “I just, I think maybe we should…do something.”

 

“Like what?” 

 

At that, Van just shrugs. “I don’t really know, but, think on it?”

 

And Lottie feels a little annoyed, because why does it have to be her job and her job alone? Why does it all have to fall on her ? But she doesn’t show it, she doesn’t think about it. She just gives Van a nod.

 

“I will,” she tells her, “maybe after dinner we can…open up the conversation to the group.”

 

Van thinks that’s a good idea, smiling as she agrees before heading back over to where Tai has started setting up bowls.

 

Lottie looks up to the door and waits for Jackie to come through after Melissa leaves while she tries to think of what could possibly cheer up a bunch of starving people.

 

Jackie’s hand is holding onto the pocket of her jacket tenderly when Melissa comes into the shed, she barely spares Jackie a glance (she can remember when Mel looked at all of them with stars in her eyes) before going over to the meat, and Jackie knows that means it’s time for her to wrap up her day. 

 

Her nose and cheeks are red from the cold, and Jackie always forgets how much warmer the cabin is until she steps back inside. 

 

“If you’re going to be out there all day, the least you could do is help Melissa, Jackie,” Mari says, her tone smarmy. Smarmy: wheedling, insincere, grating. Mari, sometimes. Lately, all the time, in terms of Jackie. Smarmy. Shauna taught her the word, one in a long list that she might need to know for the SATs. Maybe. Sometimes Jackie just thought Shauna wanted to torture her by making her read a thesaurus. And also know what a thesaurus is. 

 

Jackie just ignores Mari, heading over to Lottie instead. She can barely stomach eating the food. She doesn’t think she’d like cutting it up while it’s raw and gross. 

 

Lottie shoots Mari a look that makes the other girl shirk away and go back to watching the pot of boiling water and pine needles. She’s at least glad Mari listens to her, despite how much of a reversal it was from the way she had treated her back home.

 

Home. What a strange way to describe that place. Wiskayok, New Jersey had a house in it that Lottie lived at, but it had never felt like home. She didn’t really think anywhere had.

 

“You need to stop staying out there so long,” Lottie says to Jackie, then, reaching up and pressing the back of her hand to Jackie’s frozen face. “Or at least take an extra scarf.”

 

“Thanks, Mom ,” Jackie says, managing a slight smile, though she blinks and has to pull back and covers her face as she sneezes. “Ugh. Next you’re gonna tell me my nose is gonna freeze off or something.”

 

“It might,” Lottie teases back quietly, though she isn’t smiling. She frowns, instead, and hands Jackie a rag. “It won’t be good if you get sick.” She motions Jackie to the front room. “Go sit by the fire and warm up.”

 

Jackie just laughs quietly, though it’s not particularly funny as she says, “It’s already not good. I doubt getting sick’s going to increase or decrease my odds.”  Still, she moves by the fire, hands shoved in her pockets. One hand finds Shauna’s finger, the tips of hers brushing against it, feeling the skin against hers. Cold. She takes a seat, sighing quietly. 

 

Lottie also sighs, but moves to help Tai finish setting up dinner. They’re all sitting idly around when Melissa finally comes back in, cursing about how cold it is outside and setting the rations down, shivering. Lottie bites her lip as she sits by the window behind Jackie and glances at Van, who urges her with just a quirk of her brow.

 

She hasn’t really had much time to think of anything, but she knows she needs to. For them. “Must be, um, close to the holidays,” she says tentatively at first, “if it’s getting dark and cold so soon.”

 

Van tilts her head questioningly at Lottie, who swallows. “I was thinking maybe we could…do something?” she suggests quietly. She doesn’t know how to do this. She thinks about all the fancy White Elephant parties her parents made her attend. “Like…make gifts for each other. To celebrate the holidays.” 

 

There’s a part of Jackie that wants to take that suggestion and just say, Yeah, no. Fuck that . Because what’s the fucking point? Celebrating? The last time they all celebrated shit, they’d also all gone crazy and howled at the moon and almost killed Travis, so maybe they shouldn’t do that. Maybe that was a bag fucking idea. “Well,” she starts, trying to sound something like her old self. Her old self loved the holidays and parties and giving gifts. “At least we won’t have to put the Yule Log on tv, since we’ve got one in person.”

 

Mari perks up at the idea, and Lottie is again relieved she follows her without question for some reason. “We get to have a party?”

 

Lottie shrugs. “Maybe not like a… party , but, just something light. Fun.” Something to keep them distracted from the rumbling of their stomachs. 

 

Lottie can’t help but nudge Jackie in the back at her comment. “Yeah,” she says though, raising her brow at her, “maybe we can make a bonfire outside.”

 

“Your elbows are like knives, Matthews,” Jackie murmurs, but it’s kind of nice. The idea, not Lottie’s bony elbow digging into her back. “Gifts, a bonfire, we can boil the good snow, have a treat. It might be nice.” She shoots Lottie a smile, hoping to let her know that she’s sincere. “We should draw names, right?”

 

It is the first time Lottie thinks she’s seen any sort of real content in anyone’s eyes. More of them light up as Jackie lists off ideas. 

 

“Yes!” Misty pipes in, clapping her hands. “We can draw names and make themed gifts!” Crystal nods eagerly along next to her.

 

Lottie smiles, for real. “Then I guess it’s settled.”

 

After that, as dinner is passed around, everyone begins to mumble about it all to each other, neatly pairing off as they do, and Lottie hands Jackie her bowl, still not as full as the others. The same with her own. She supposes they’re both still struggling with eating enough, but at least Jackie is eating, that’s what Lottie cares about the most.

 

“Thank you,” she tells her quietly, “for…supporting me.”

 

There used to be a time where Jackie and Lottie worked really well together. Jackie picked her as her co-captain for a reason. She was steady, calm, a little quiet but still patient with the new players, and, maybe she didn’t see it, but Lottie was really good with people. 

 

Being out there proved that to Jackie more and more each day. She shrugs, picking at the meat in the stew before taking a spoonful of the watery broth. “You’re welcome. It was a good idea. And, you know. I have your back.”

 

Lottie looks down into her own soup. She misses when things were easy between her and Jackie but she thinks maybe they can get somewhere close. Even if Jackie never believes her, Lottie thinks that’s okay. She doesn’t need her to believe in It, she just needs Jackie to…believe in her. She prods a piece of meat around.

 

“You know you don’t have to,” she tells her, “but I am…grateful. To have you.”

 

Well, Jackie thinks, you won’t let me go to sleep, so… “It probably sucks, but I think you’re stuck with me, Lottie,” Jackie murmurs, wondering if anyone’s listening in or too engrossed in their own conversations. She gives Lottie a smile, hoping it looks light and easy. “Sorry. It’s too late now.”

 

Lottie knew that a lot of Jackie’s bravado back home was a front. Lottie had tried to be like that once, but she’d found it so much easier to fade into the background than pretend to be someone she wasn’t. “It doesn’t suck,” Lottie says before taking a bite of her soup.

 

Jackie just looks at Lottie for a second, a little confused, a little warm. Maybe Lottie was right; she might be getting sick from being outside too long. She needs to get it under control before Misty finds out. She’ll force herself to do something about it as opposed to Akilah or someone else who would occasionally try to doctor them all up, and after sticking her fingers down Jackie’s throat, Jackie isn’t exactly looking forward to a repeat of Misty’s bedside manner. 

 

She can’t look at Lottie as she mumbles, “Thanks.” Shauna’s finger weighs heavy in her pocket. 

 

“You know,” Van starts from the other side of the room, grinning. Tai’s looking at her with such affection, and Jackie’s trying to think of a time when anyone looked at her like that as Van continues, “It’s been awhile since we had a story time."

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything else to Jackie, but when everyone turns to look at Van, she quietly slips her arm into Jackie’s before she takes another bite of her stew. “I think that’s a great idea, Van,” she tells her, encouraging the red head.

 

And it also makes her feel warm when Van smiles back, already shifting in her spot to begin her story. It’ll probably just be another fun retelling of a movie, like she did for them back in middle school, and even sometimes in high school. But whatever it will be, Lottie knows it’ll be nice to feel something normal for once.

The story for the night is Heathers , and Jackie thinks Van takes way too many creative liberties, but it’s still fun, and some of the girls even laugh. The promise of a party (or whatever they’re going to call it) is enough to raise everybody’s spirits a little bit. Jackie actually manages to scrape the bowl clean before she pushes it aside, her eyes locked on Lottie’s bowl to make sure she does the same thing. If Jackie’s stuck out there, then Lottie is, too.

Notes:

Phew! Chapter 2 down and so much more to go. I think we're getting the hang of this!

Thanks for reading! Please check out our other works, as we both have one shots and other longfics here on ao3! You can also find us on tumblr as lottiezilla (envyzilla) and jackietaylorsversion (SouthbySoutheast). Again, thanks for reading!

Chapter 3: "hope" is the thing with feathers

Summary:

Christmas time's a' coming, and the Yellowjackets are eager to share some holiday cheer! Everybody draws names, and there's some real winners among the group. Who's the best gift giver in the cabin? Lottie? Nat? Mari? Perhaps it's the Wilderness, who always provides.

Notes:

Let's give it up for chapter threeeeeeee. It's another nice sized chapter, a solid meal as opposed a snack. We're trucking along, so we should have consistent updates for quite awhile!

We appreciate you guys! Thanks for stopping in!

The chapter title comes from "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson.

The next morning, everyone seems to be rushing through chores. Lottie was up with Travis and Natalie before the sun again, but neither of them looked her in the eyes as she handed them their tea and pressed an ashen thumbprint into Travis’ palm. Natalie has stopped doing that and she’s outside before Lottie can even offer.

 

Once the others are up and moving about, Lottie sees Jackie making her way towards the shed. She hurries over. “Jackie,” she calls out, “wait.” She gestures to the pile of sticks they’ve begun gathering for the bonfire. “Help me gather branches?”

 

Jackie’s immediate thought is, No. She has Shauna’s finger in the pocket of the pale flannel she’s wearing, tucked against her chest, her heart, and she really needs to figure out a way to get it back on Shauna. But she doesn’t really know what to do in this situation. 

 

Lottie’s right there, though, and she’s asking with those ridiculously dark eyes of hers, all soft and pleading. “Yeah, I can help,” Jackie says, and, rather than head to the meat shed, she helps Lottie collect tree branches. She hopes Shauna doesn’t hate her even more than she already does for leaving her alone for the day.

 

Lottie knows it’s probably not fair of her to ask Jackie to help her when she also knows all Jackie wants to do is be with Shauna. She can’t blame her. They were best friends-- probably more than friends, not that either of them could see that-- and she’d lost her in such a cruel way. 

 

But she also thinks the others need to see that Jackie isn’t just sitting in the shed all day. Even if this isn’t technically a chore, it’s something easy. It’s a good start.

 

As Lottie snaps another branch off, she holds it out to Jackie. “So whose name do you think you’ll draw?” she asks her nonchalantly.

 

“Oh, shit,” Jackie mutters as she starts picking up some of the smaller sticks, frowning slightly. “I don’t know. I forgot I said that.” Or she forgot she’d be included in it. Honestly, Jackie has nothing to give anyone, and she doesn’t have any skills to figure out how to make something. She feels a little screwed by her own design. 

 

“Do you remember those gift exchange parties at the country club?” Lottie asks, glancing over at Jackie as she dumps her current handful of sticks into the pyre. “Everything was so stupidly expensive, like they were all trying to outdo each other.” She remembered all the fancy wines and jewelry her mother had shown up with. “Like, who could bring the most expensive one.”

 

Jackie snorts. “God, it was ridiculous. And my mom was always complaining about something. Somebody giving her something that was too gaudy or too cheap or ‘look at this, Jaqueline. It’s clearly fake.’ I mostly just remember sneaking wine on the stairs and you spilling some.”

 

Lottie smiles, gives a breathy chuckle. It's nice to see Jackie like this, something resembling normal. “I was still growing into my legs,” she says, “I think I grew like five inches over night before that happened.” She remembered stumbling over the stairs as Jackie bounded up them with ease, always the one most light on her feet. She supposed that was why she made such a good striker. Lottie figured Jackie was just always good at whatever she did.

 

She was jealous of her, sometimes, and it seemed a little unfair. But while Jackie’s mom hovered over her and complained all night, Lottie's mom went off and drank too much wine and then forgot to tell Lottie she was leaving and left her behind. “I can't believe they left us so unsupervised,” she mumbles, “we probably drank more wine than anybody else there.”

 

Jackie groans a little bit as she picks up sticks and adds them to the same pile Lottie started. “I miss booze.” Sort of. Missing was for people, one person in particular these days, but she still wouldn’t mind that numbing sensation. She didn’t try any of Mari’s fermented berries, though she’s surprised nobody went blind or got sick off that shit. Then again, the mushrooms were doing plenty that night.

 

Van comes out, smiling at Lottie with a few torn up pieces of paper in her hands. “We’re going to draw names in a bit so that everyone has the rest of the day to work on their presents.”

 

Lottie hums. She misses it, too. She misses a time when she could just relax and let everything go, if even for just a little bit. She didn’t think she was good at all this leading stuff. Jackie had always been the one good at that, but it seemed like without Shauna, Jackie only had half of herself left. Like Shauna dying had taken all the best parts of Jackie. Lottie didn’t think so, but she figured Jackie did. She wished she could help convince Jackie it wasn’t true.

 

Lottie glances up when Van comes out. “Okay, thanks, we’ll be right in,” she tells her, nodding. She adds the last few sticks to the pile before she bends down to start propping up the larger logs so that they can light the kindle under it. “You can, um, go to the shed now,” Lottie says, looking to Jackie. “If you want.”

 

For just a second, Jackie looks to the shed, to where Shauna waits, a thick, aching longing gumming up her chest. Her hand goes to her pocket, where the finger waits, and shame fills her chest. She should go to the shed. She knows she should. To apologize or fix it or just do something. But Shauna never talks back. It’s not like a fucking pinky was the worst Jackie’s ever hurt her, not when she was responsible for Shauna’s death. 

 

She should go to the shed. Instead, Jackie shakes her head slightly and looks at Van and Lottie. “I’ll help you finish up before going inside to do the name thing.” It’s not like Shauna was going to walk away. If she did, well, Jackie would have bigger problems than a pinkie in her pocket.

 

Lottie is pleasantly surprised. She was sure Jackie would jump at the opportunity to go be alone with Shauna. Lottie was no expert on the subject, but she knew how hard it was to grieve someone, let alone grieve someone who was so intrinsically a part of your life. She didn’t think she’d ever have someone like that, or have someone who would feel that way for her. She’d figured she was okay with that.

 

She smiles at Jackie and doesn’t realize it. “If you’re sure,” she tells her, gesturing to the stack of branches. “Help me stack these up, then.”

 

Jackie’s not sure of anything, but she likes that Lottie’s actually smiling. That’s a bit of a rarity, these days. She is aware, on some level, that Lottie should make her more wary after their failed Doomcoming. A part of her still sees that girl, the one that hunted down a teenage boy and poked and prodded at Jackie, the one that told her she doesn’t matter. But, at the same time, Jackie also still sees her friend, and, more than that, she sees the sad girl that’s taken her place over the months they’ve been out there, and it hurts. 

 

Jackie should be wary, but instead she’s found herself growing closer to Lottie, as frustrating and difficult and different as she is now. Because Lottie refuses to give up on Jackie, and, in those first few weeks, she refused to go away. Jackie knows where she’d be without Lottie. Sometimes, she wants that. More lately, though, she’s been grateful to have a friend. “Okay, why are we stacking it like this ? Does it actually matter, or are we just going for a particular look?”

 

Lottie hums. “We have to stack them like this if we want the flames to catch,” she explains, “wood logs don’t actually light up that well, especially since most of our wood is wet from the snow.” Lottie doesn’t remember where she learned this, probably sometime out here, in those first few hard weeks, but she feels like she’s always known it, now. “We put the kindling under here,” she points to the empty space beneath the stacked sticks, “and light it, then it catches the logs on fire, and--” she gestures with her hands, trying to imitate a flame going up-- “bonfire.” 

 

This feels like the most she’s talked in weeks. Usually, it’s in little bursts, just sentences or instructions to others. Lottie was always the quiet type, she kept to herself, even in group conversations. She knew she could talk a lot, but sometimes she was afraid of saying something wrong. Other times, she just didn’t care. 

 

Now, she had to make sure to not do either. She needed to say the right things, and she needed to care. She felt more and more tired each day.

 

“Did your family ever go camping?” She finds herself asking.

 

Now, it’s Jackie’s turn to scoff, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. My dad would never have taken a girl , and I doubt my mother would have let him. Soccer was bad enough. Can you imagine Marilyn Taylor letting me go camping?”

 

Lottie felt a half grin grow on her face. She shook her head. “No, I guess not,” she says. “My mom took me once. I didn’t even last a day, before I had--” a hallucination, she would later realize, but she didn’t want to say that out loud. She had barely been able to talk about it when it had happened-- “a nightmare. I begged her to take me home.” 

 

And yet now, somehow, Lottie was the one the Wilderness had picked to be its conduit. She tried her best to listen, she really did, but it was still hard to understand, to know. She was still fumbling around with her newfound responsibility. It was wearing her down faster than any pills or doctors had.

 

“You’re doing pretty great out here. I’d never guess the nightmares would chase you away,” Jackie said, though, actually, she kind of could. She remembers the early weeks, how freaked out Lottie had been by the cabin. The seance, and all the bullshit Jackie had caused with that. Lottie had been one of the people to vote with her to stay at the crash site. Maybe coming to the cabin had been better, but Jackie still thinks the place is creepy. 

 

Lottie doesn’t think she’s doing good at all. She thinks she’s floundering and that she’s failing everyone. She thinks that, soon enough, they’ll all realize that, too, and then she’ll become nothing again. She really wishes she could go back to when no one really paid much mind to her, when the noises and voices and visions could still just be a symptom of her illness and not the Wilderness talking to her.

 

“Even if they did,” she says quietly, “where would I go?”

 

Jackie glances over at Lottie before looking away and offering up a shrug. It’s the only thing she has. “I don’t know,” she admits just as quietly, “but you better take me with you if you figure it out.” Because Lottie had told Jackie she didn’t matter, but now it’s like she’s changed her mind, and now it’s like Jackie’s only really got Lottie in her corner. Lottie, and maybe Nat, even if she looks so fucking frustrated and tired all the time. 

 

She leans back, surveying the soon to be bonfire. “So… Do we light it up now or wait for later?”

 

Lottie pauses what she’s doing to look over at Jackie in surprise and confusion. “You’d want to…go with me?” she asks. She shakes her head, looks back to the pyre. “We’ll light it up a little later, we don’t want it to burn out of control.” 

 

“Yes, I think I would,” Jackie says. Though, she looks at the shed, where she knows Shauna is, and she wonders if she could leave Shauna behind. She doesn’t really see that being an option, honestly. They’re never going to get rescued. She’s accepted that. The cabin guy fucking died out here alone. So Jackie just hopes that, when they bury Shauna, she’ll at least be able to be buried with her when she eventually croaks, too. But there’s a dream out there somewhere, one where Lottie finds a way out of this place, one where Jackie thinks she’d get to go. 

 

“Why?” Lottie asks immediately without even thinking about it. She doesn’t really get why. She thinks Mari or Van would try and follow her because they believe so fully in the Wilderness, in her, but Lottie knows Jackie isn’t like that. She knows Jackie only tolerates her because no one else will tolerate Jackie. She doesn’t think Jackie would be by Lottie of her own volition.

 

Just then, Van comes back out. “Alright, it’s time, c’mon, we’re gonna draw names now.”

 

Jackie doesn’t get a chance to answer by the time that Van comes out, and she’s almost grateful for it. She doesn’t know what she’d say. Because Lottie’s one of the only people keeping her alive, and Jackie can sometimes find it in herself to be grateful for that? Because somewhere, under everything being out here has done to them, this is still Lottie, and Lottie is still her friend? Because she doesn’t think she’ll know how to sleep at night anymore without Lottie there?

 

Lottie, too, is grateful. She shouldn’t have asked Jackie that, it was unfair. She didn’t need an answer, really. She thought she might know. She probably didn’t know anything at all. 

 

They head inside, and Jackie looks at where Mari and Gen are wheedling Melissa to give up her grungy hat so that they can hand out slips of paper. There’s a notebook on the table that makes Jackie freeze, but that’s not Shauna’s, just somebody’s biology notebook. She sighs because she doesn’t know what she’d do if someone had taken Shauna’s journal. 

 

That reminds her that she needs to find Shauna’s journal.

 

Lottie closes the door behind her as Mari snatches Melissa’s hat straight off her head and pushes the girl out of the way as she passes it over to Van. Lottie can’t help but feel a little warm at how familiar this all feels, like they’d all just gotten done with a scrimmage and were teasing and joking around in the locker room.

 

Van dumps the names into the hat and offers it to Lottie. “Do the honors?” she says and Lottie fumbles a moment before taking it.

 

“Sure.”

 

She wonders how anyone ever does this, being a constant point of attention. It still makes her feel an anxiety that she’d thought was long buried. But Lottie knows things like that never really go away, no matter how much medication they shove down your throat.

 

Once everyone has settled down, Lottie offers the hat full of names to Van first, who stirs the slips of paper around before finally picking one out. “No one look yet,” Van instructs, “we can all look at the same time.”

 

Lottie shrugs, then diligently waddles around the room letting each girl pick a slip in turn. She reaches Jackie and pauses, smiles at her. “Fingers crossed you don’t get Mari,” she teases on a whisper.

 

Jackie smirks. “Really, I should be hoping Mari doesn’t end up with me,” she murmurs back, taking a slip of paper and holding it in her hands. 

 

The rest of the cabin receives their slips of paper, even Coach Ben, though he doesn’t seem the most enthused. He doesn’t seem the most enthused about anything, anymore. Jackie can relate. They all happily start looking at their slips of paper, and Jackie’s stomach drops. Lottie. Her eyes flicker over to Van, taking care to keep her face impassive. What the fuck is she going to get Lottie? Jesus, what would she get anyone, but especially Lottie?

 

Once everyone has their slip, on the count of three, they all look. Travis. Oh, Nat won’t like that. But Lottie thinks she might be able to give him something nice. She hopes. There’s not a lot of stuff just for him, between him and Ben having to share. She has an idea and she just hopes it’s not weird.

 

With that all settled, everyone begins moving about the cabin again, going off in different directions to gather different things for their gift ideas. Lottie sees Misty and Crystal off in the corner, giggling as they show each other who they got, thinking no one else can see them.

 

She doesn’t say anything, though.

 

Instead she goes back over to Jackie and sits next to her. “It’s nice,” she says softly, “seeing them like this.”

 

Jackie’s found a place on the floor, propped back on her elbows and glancing around the room, watching everyone get into… what? The holiday spirit? Even Nat and Coach look happier, chatting to themselves near their map. Jackie glances at Lottie when she sits next to her a little hum, a nod. “It’s good, I think,” she agrees. “It’s hard to be happy when it’s so cold.” Hard to be happy when you’re cold and starving and awaiting the inevitable end.

 

“That’s what the fire is for,” Lottie says back with a ghostly grin. She watches everyone around the room and she feels a little bit lighter. She wishes this could last, but she knows it can’t and it won’t. There will be another thing tomorrow to deal with, and more cold and more dwindling rations. Lottie feels her gaze fall. She looks at her hands in her lap. 

 

“You were good to us, Jackie,” she murmurs, remembering how many times Jackie had to pep everyone up. How many times she stood on a bench and gave them encouraging words and enthusiastic smiles. And how many times she’d tried her hardest to keep their fiery spirits alive when it all seemed lost. But that was back there, and this was here. Lottie was kind of a terrible Jackie replacement. “You were a good captain.”

 

You were a good captain. Dammit, she had been. Jackie had been a good captain. A soccer captain. A high school girls’ soccer captain. “That was a different life,” she said, her voice a little more raspy than normal. She had been, but that was a life of cheap booze and high school drama and Shauna Shipman still being alive. Fucking her boyfriend, too, but Jackie’s already forgiven her for that. She’d forgive Shauna for anything. She’d forgive Shauna for killing her. No, she’d told Shauna early on that she wasn’t made for this, and Jackie was right. She’s still right. “Now I’m just grateful I get to sleep near the fire.” Most nights. Jackie hates the cold. 

 

Some nights, she craves it.

 

Lottie looks over at Jackie. “It was a good life,” she tells her, as she takes her jacket off and sets it on Jackie’s shoulders before she stands again. “In case you get cold.” And then she heads off towards the attic and the shared pile of clothing that was always up there.

 

Jackie’s always cold. She wonders if Lottie knows that. Instead of lingering on that, she heads over to where some of the other girls are using their limited resources to work on arts and crafts. It really does feel like a different life. Jackie used to love this shit. She’d make little gifts for everyone on the team, just little notes with happy sayings to slip in their lockers before games. She’d remember their favorite cookies, and, though she couldn’t bake for shit, she’d go buy the bakery and make sure to get everyone something fresh. It made her feel good. The smiles and thanks certainly helped, too. 

 

Now, she has no idea what to do. Especially not for Lottie . What the hell could she even get Lottie? What would she like? What was a decent gift for anyone in this place? It was driving her a little nuts.

 

The rest of the afternoon is spent in soft bliss as everyone works away at their gifts, and Lottie can’t help but try and guess who got who based on what they were making. She’s always been observant, in the background, watching others. It feels like the most comfortable place to be and she likes that, right now, she can be that again. No one’s looking at her with reverence or anticipation, or waiting for her to give them the next gospel from the Wilderness. 

 

Lottie was bad at that stuff. All she knew about were the things her mother had taught her as a child, and the things her therapists had taught her. It didn’t seem like anyone out here really knew the difference, though, between breathing exercises and Wilderness prayer circles. 

 

When the sun began to set, Lottie set her project down and dug out the matches, before coming back over to Jackie, nudging her with her foot. “Wanna see how to set a fire finally?”

 

Jackie has watched and fretted and paced before sitting back down, stressing over what the fuck she’s going to do. 

 

“I don’t think you can think a gift into existence, Jackie,” Mari says, and Jackie frowns and rolls her eyes.

 

She says, “I’ve got it figured out, don’t worry about it.” She does not, in fact, got it figured out.

 

“Yeah, Mar,” Van says from whatever trinket she’s working on. “Worry about… whatever that is.”

 

Mari huffs at whatever mess she’s working on, setting it down before she seems to get a great idea and goes to enact it.

 

When Lottie nudges her, Jackie moves, stretching out her legs and standing, dusting off her pants. “Alright, fire time. Fun.”

 

Van smiles up at Lottie and Lottie gives her what she hopes is enough of a smile back, before she heads to the door with Jackie and pulls off one of the heavier snow coats, tugging it on. When they’re outside, she hands the box of matches to Jackie. “Lucky you, we still have matches left,” she says, before leading Jackie over to where they usually chop the wood. She reaches into a pale next to it, removing the lid and scooping out a handful of wood shavings, then heads over to the firepit.

 

“This is the kindling,” she instructs, placing it under the little tent of sticks they’d made. “Just…spread it around under like this--” she pats them down and around, making sure the top chips are still dry-- “then you just…light it.”

 

Jackie sighs. “Lottie, I can barely light a fire with a lighter.” Still, if this is what Lottie wants her to do, then Jackie feels a little obligated. She feels a little like she has to. Fiddling with the box, Jackie pulls out one of the matches. She hates the way her fingers shake these days. It’s likely from the lack of food, from still not eating properly, from being too cold and too tired. It’s likely a lot of things. 

 

It takes too long, but, finally, the match catches fire, and Jackie carefully places it against the kindling, watching carefully as a small fire begins to form.

 

“That’s why you should practice,” Lottie says simply, watching her patiently as it takes Jackie a few strikes to get the match to light. Once it is, and the chips begin to smoke, Lottie leans over and blows gently on the embers, helping to urge the sparks to catch. Soon, the first set of sticks they’d set up catches, and then more and more as the fire grows. She sits back, admires their work. Sometimes, she thinks it’s incredible what they can all do together. “See?” Lottie doesn’t look away from the fire. “Easy.”

 

“Practice is for soccer,” Jackie grumbles, but it is nice to see the fire start to grow into something solid, substantial. Something worth being a little proud of. She did that. At least part of it. The pride is diminished, of course, when she thinks about the fact that Shauna can’t see it and she likely wouldn’t care if she could. Would she? She’d been so cruel, that last night, in her journal. Like she hates Jackie, sometimes. Like she can’t stand her. Would she even care that Jackie lit a fire? She’d been encouraging to Jackie once, twice, all their lives. Were those just lies? Jackie blinks up at Lottie, trying to clear up the cobwebs in her mind. “Not bad, five.”

 

“It’s for a lot of things.” Lottie shrugs. They did all practice soccer a lot . They had to. And for the most part, they all liked it. Except Shauna, apparently. Lottie never knew. Maybe there were a lot of things about Shauna that nobody knew. It was hard to know a girl who kept all her thoughts in a journal. “Thanks, cap.” 

 

She stands and holds out her hands for Jackie to help her up as well. “Let’s go tell the others.”

 

Jackie takes Lottie’s hand, solid and warm in her own. Lottie’s got this way of being so solid, even if she looks willowy, like she’ll blow away at a strong wind. Standing as tall as she can manage, she shoves her hands into the jacket Lottie gave her and motions towards the cabin with her head. “After you.”

 

Once they tell the others the fire is ready, they all file out and Melissa heads to the shed to finish preparing the rations for dinner. Lottie thinks it’s a little unfair, but Melissa doesn’t seem to mind, frowning about how her hat has gone missing after the draw, a hood pulled up in its place. 

 

And though it’s cold out, the fire warms them all, and Lottie stares into the flames for a while, before closing her eyes. She gives a soft prayer to the Wilderness. She begs for it to give them some food, or some sign of it. They’re all starving and she doesn’t think It wants them to starve. Not yet. She draws in a breath and listens to the world around her. The crackle of the fire, the breeze in the pines, the voices of girls just trying to survive sounding as happy as they can get in the moment. 

 

The meat is cooked over the fire outside, like they did it in the beginning, rather than in the pot. They make skewers, and it’s meager, but they’re all chattering as they eat. Jackie watches them all, her eyes taking in the faces of girls she can recognize again.

 

Tai and Van are sitting together, Van’s head on Taissa’s shoulder, her eyes closed, her face soft. Mari’s bothering Akilah, convinced that the other girl drew her name, wheedling in an attempt to figure out what her gift is. Travis is standing near Nat and Coach Ben but not with them, looking out into the forest even though he knows the truth, and Jackie aches for him, a little bit. 

 

She doesn’t know what leads her to going over to him, but she does, her hands in the pockets of her borrowed jacket. 

 

“Hey, Travis,” she murmurs. 

 

He looks at her, a little surprised, and, oh, right. She doesn’t think they’ve talked, actually talked, in months. Since Doomcoming. “Hey, Jackie.”

 

“I know you’re…” she stops, trails off. She doesn’t know what to say. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

 

“What… for?” 

 

That’s a loaded question, isn’t it. She wants to look away from him, but she forces herself to stay looking at him. “I don’t know how it feels, about– about Javi, but I think I know something close.” Neither of them will ever get back the pieces of themselves that have been lost. And she has something to actually apologize for, something that Jackie fucking sucks at. “And, Jesus, I know it’s been forever, but I’m sorry about the whole Doomcoming thing, too. I didn’t know you were tripping or whatever.”

 

His face softens, and, yeah, she thinks he knows that she gets it. She gets the loss, the grief, the pain. At least he knows, now, though. At least she knows, too. But it doesn’t help, not really. He says, “I didn’t know I was tripping, either. You didn’t, you know, hurt me.”

 

“Still.” 

 

“It could have been worse.”

 

She snorts. “Ha, yeah, I guess.”

 

“I don’t think we should do it again, though. Sorry,” he says, looking a little sheepish. 

 

Jackie raises an eyebrow at him. “I didn’t think we would, no.”

 

“I just mean, you know, if you were coming over here to…”

 

“Travis,” Jackie sighs. “I’m not trying to get in your pants.”

 

“Oh. Okay. Good.”

 

“Good.”

 

He looks at the ground. “Who’d you get?”

 

“Not you,” she tells him, offering up a small smile. “You?”

 

Travis manages a little smile of his own. “Not you, either.”

 

Lottie hears Jackie's voice over the crackle of the fire, and then she hears Travis, too. She opens her eyes and watches them, curious. They all know what happened between the two of them at Doomcoming, and it's nice to see Jackie actually trying to apologize. Trying to connect with someone who might understand her grief. 

 

Even though Lottie still knows Javi is alive. She can feel him through the energy of the ground, if only she could find him, bring him back. She thinks it would help make everyone happy. 

 

Lottie picks a piece of meat off her skewer when Van sidles over. She'd been resting against Tai before and Lottie looks at her confused. 

 

“Hey, Lott.”

 

“Hey.”

 

Van shuffles awkwardly for a moment. “So…you and Jackie seem to be getting close.”

 

Lottie raises a brow. “She…needs someone.”

 

Van nods. “Right, yeah, I just--” her eyes flick to Jackie and then the shed. “You don't, like, owe her anything.”

 

At that, Lottie frowns. She does owe Jackie, she owes her a lot, actually-- she owes her from even before they crashed. Jackie looked at Lottie and saw a girl, instead of the shadow of her parents. “I'm not…helping her because I feel like I owe her, Van,” she says back, “she's grieving and I…just want to help.”

 

Van just hums as a reply, before giving Lottie a pat on the shoulder. She trudges back over to Tai and the two are back to cuddling once more and Lottie thinks about all the times Laura Lee would sit by Lottie and brush her hair, working her way gently through the tangles in the thick strands. 

 

Lottie thinks about how she hasn't bothered to take care of herself like that in a long time.

 

She sets her skewer down, only half finished, and starts off towards her hollow stump again-- she'd never finished what she started the other day and she thinks it might be time for another offering.

 

Jackie has been nibbling on her food near Travis before she starts looking around the bonfire, her face setting into a frown as she watches Lottie set down her food and head off away from the group. Jackie goes over and picks it up before jogging after Lottie, slipping a little in the snow. She used to be a championship winning athlete less than a year ago, goddammit. “Hey! You can’t just walk away and not finish your food. Especially since you won’t let me ever just walk away and not finish my food.”

 

Lottie startles as Jackie comes up behind her, waving her discarded skewer. “Sorry,” she mumbles, “I was going to finish it later.” She doesn't know if it's really a lie, but she can't also say it's the truth. Lottie is happy that everyone seems to be in good spirits for now, but she knows it won't last. She can feel it and it makes her stomach churn. 

 

She keeps walking, though, wondering how long Jackie will follow her for. Being away from the fire only makes the chill in the air more noticeable and Lottie shivers a little as she tucks her hands in her pockets. After a while of Jackie still following her, she stops and turns around. “You don't…you should go back to the bonfire.”

 

“Sure,” Jackie drawls, rolling her eyes. She recognizes the words, the posture. She doesn’t believe Lottie, and she keeps trudging after her, her feet unsure over the terrain. Stupid forest with its stupid snow and all the stupid leaves and sticks and rocks hidden under it. She hates it. “Oh, so, when I go off on my own, I’m apparently going to do something bad for me, but when you do it, it’s fine? Sorry, Lott. I keep telling you that you’re stuck with me.”

 

Lottie can think of a million cruel things to say back to Jackie, but she doesn't voice any of them. “I'm just going for a walk,” she tells her instead. She didn't think anyone would follow her, they all mostly keep her at a distance-- except Jackie. Maybe she should have expected this. 

 

Lottie sighs. 

 

She reaches the clearing with the stump and stops walking-- it's also where they had all gathered first during Doomcoming and some of the decorations they'd put up in the trees are still there. Lottie lets the feeling of the quiet calm take over her as she breathes in deep, closes her eyes. She can feel It all around her, above her, inside her. She wonders why no one else ever can.

 

When her eyes open, Jackie is still there. “I'm sorry,” she says suddenly, her voice loud against the thick snow at their feet, the kind that captures most sounds and makes the world feel too quiet. “For what I said…that night. It's not…I don't believe it.”

 

Jackie feels a little wary as she takes in where exactly it is that they’re headed, but she doesn’t say anything. She might as well trust Lottie, when Lottie was probably the only person that still wants Jackie alive. It’s not like anything matters, really, though she still looks at Lottie in surprise when the taller girl apologizes. “It’s fine. It was forever ago.” She still clings to the words, and she notices the way that Lottie stumbles over her own. She might not believe it now, but she did in the moment, Jackie knows. She knows .

 

That night isn’t exactly a blur to Lottie, but it’s not clear. She knows they all did some terrible things. She knows it was trying to tell them something, tell her something. “I wasn’t me.” Her eyes wander to the hollow stump and Lottie is drawn to it. “You do,” Lottie mutters as she heads over to the shrine, “matter.” She drops to her knees in front of it, reaching out to touch the warm bark. Does everyone else feel its warmth, or is it just cold and dead to them. “At least, to me.”

 

To Lottie and no one else, it seems, but Jackie wants that to mean something. She wants that to count for something. The loss of Shauna is still all consuming. Jackie thinks Shauna would be doing just fine without her, but Jackie can’t find it within her to keep going without assistance. It’s a shame that Lottie seems to have taken that on herself. Does Jackie matter to Lottie, or do all of them, and Jackie’s just included in the mix? Does Lottie just think that she has to… take care of Jackie because she thinks (knows) Jackie won’t do it for herself, or does she genuinely want to be around her? 

 

It’s weird to feel so insecure. Jackie’s no stranger to the feeling (Shauna was right about that), but she’s used to positive affirmations and feedback. She doesn’t get that anymore. It’s weird. Still, she says, “Thanks,” as she moves closer to Lottie, hesitating before getting on her knees as well. “So, what’s with the tree?”

 

Lottie doesn’t expect Jackie to kneel with her and she opens one eye to look over at her before sighing and sitting back on her feet. “It’s a…conduit.” Or something like that. “I think.” She’d never be so questioning of things with anyone else. The girls need her to be firm in her affirmations of the Wilderness and Natalie would just throw it back in her face. She feels so caught between two places she doesn’t even ask to be, let alone want to be. 

 

She doesn’t have a knife with her, but she does have the sewing needle she always keeps with her, and so Lottie digs in her pocket and pulls it out. She pricks the tip of her finger and lets blood well up on it before holding it out over the inside of the stump. A few drops stain the white snow red and Lottie knows it's not enough, but it’s all she has to give right now.

 

“Jesus, Lottie,” Jackie mutters as she sees the blood, reaching for Lottie’s hand and pressing her sleeve against where blood wells up from Lottie’s finger. One time, when they were kids, Shauna got a paper cut at their table in class. There were tears in her eyes, and Jackie didn’t want to get blood on her clothes but she also didn’t know what else to do, so she’d stuck Shauna’s finger in her mouth. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do, but seeing Lottie do that reminds Jackie of the memory. “You know that’s supposed to stay inside your body, right?” She doesn’t really get what Lottie thinks the dead tree stump’s a conduit for, but she knows it’s important enough to her. That doesn’t mean she needs to hurt herself, though.

 

Lottie doesn’t fight when Jackie takes her hand and wraps her sleeve around her bleeding finger. She frowns, though. “It’s just a few drops, Jackie,” she mumbles. She thinks it’s silly to worry about just a little bit of blood. After a beat, she adds, “We should get back.”

 

“Yeah,” is all Jackie says. It’s just a few drops. Then it’s more. It’s skipping a meal, maybe two. Jogging an extra mile when she doesn’t need it. It’s just one small thing that maybe gets a little out of control. Jackie stands and helps Lottie up, removing her sleeve and using her fingers to wipe off the last little bit of blood carefully. Just a few drops. “Alright, let’s go. Finish eating. It’s probably present time.”

 

Lottie is still as Jackie wipes away the rest of the blood. She wonders what Jackie would think if she knew this was the least amount of blood she’s spilled for It. She decides Jackie doesn’t need to know. No one does. Lottie takes the skewer that Jackie has chased her with and pulls off another piece. “Can’t wait to see who you got,” she tells Jackie as they head back towards the others.

 

Groaning, Jackie says, “I think we should’ve taken more time to prepare. I’m a better gift giver when I can, you know, take notes and be sure to get the perfect thing.” There’s no perfect thing out there, though. None at all.

 

“It’s not about getting the perfect thing,” Lottie says as the walk, “it’s just about…the thought.” It wasn’t supposed to be about anything except each other, really. It wasn’t about anything except maybe distracting them for a few more days before things got worse. She takes another bite. 

 

It doesn’t take them long to get back to the bonfire and Van spots them from across the way, jogging over. “Hey, there you are.” She’s looking at Lottie, though her eyes go momentarily to Jackie and back. “We were gonna do the exchange now.”

 

Lottie nods. “Sure, yeah,” she agrees and Van, as if having waited for Lottie’s go ahead, grins and turns to face the rest of them.

 

“Alright gang, it’s present time!” She shouts out, clapping loudly to herd everyone inside. “Let’s go, get your asses inside!”

 

It’s definitely about the perfect thing, but Jackie doesn’t say so, instead she just keeps walking, feeling a little of Lottie’s tacky blood on her fingers. When they make it back to the bonfire and then trudge inside, Jackie goes to the window, pulling a knee to her chest as she sits on the bench and waits to get started.

 

Apparently, the idea is to put the slips of paper on the table (the hat is gone, much to Melissa’s increasing distress) and Van picks one. Whoever’s name is called receives their present. 

 

Lottie is happy to let Van take the reins on this one. She sits next to Jackie, like she always does, and leans back, watching curiously as everyone waits with bated breath.

 

“Okay,” Van says, grinning from ear to ear, “first up we’ve got--” she pauses, for dramatic effect, of course, before pointing at-- “Crystaaaaal! Come on up, contestant number one!” 

 

Crystal and Misty both squeal happily, jumping up and down as Misty urges her bestie towards the front. “Okay,” Van says when she’s there, “who got Crystal? Fess up now.”

 

Robin, one of the shy, younger girls from JV, raises her hand. Lottie thinks she always looks on the verge of tears, but she doesn’t need to say that. “Um, I’m bad at, like, making things, but--” she shrugs, handing over what looks like a hastily made ‘ticket’-- “as a gift, I’ll sing with you next time we do chores together?”

 

At that, Crystal starts jumping and clapping happily again, running over to hug the other girl and Lottie smiles. “See,” she murmurs to Jackie, “doesn’t have to be anything amazing.”

 

Jackie rolls her eyes. She thinks about what she would have gotten Kristen. A cassette of a musical she likes, maybe Phantom of the Opera. Jackie knows that one’s pretty popular. Possibly some of the cookies Kristen used to seem to like the most, like peanut butter. Or was it snickerdoodles? She used to be better at remembering this.

 

“Next up is Cooooooach,” Van says, grinning at the man as he offers up a sigh and hobbles over. 

 

Mari stands, looking smug, and holds something behind her back before she hands it to Coach Scott. “I figured you might like these, since I think Travis hogs them all the time.”

 

“Shut the fuck up, Mari,” Nat says, but she burst out laughing when she sees that Mari’s given Coach the porn magazines. Misty makes a horrified face, and Jackie scrunches up her nose in distaste. She doesn’t want to think about their coach’s sexual habits. Or Travis’, for that matter.

 

“Gee, thanks, Mari,” Coach says, a pained look on his face.

 

It goes pretty quick after that. Tai gives Melissa her hat, much to the other girl’s delight and relief. That hat hasn’t been so clean in months. Gen gets the rights to pick the next storytime, courtesy of Van. Coach Scott gives Misty one of his books, and she smiles so genuinely that Jackie would almost think she’s sweet if she could forget about being held down with food being shoved in her mouth. Travis offers Akilah one of Javi’s little figurines, though he looks melancholy to part from it. It’s sweet, though, the way his fingers brush over the roughly carved head before he gently puts it in her hands.

 

Lottie watches with a bittersweet happiness as gifts are given and received, with different levels of appreciation. When Natalie laughs, Lottie can’t help but laugh, too. It’s small, short, but she laughs. She remembers the sound of Natalie’s laughter echoing in the locker room when it was just them, hiding in a shower stall smoking a joint during lunch time. Their hidden stash is probably still there, behind the loose brick.

 

When Lottie’s name is called, Jackie’s fingers go to the latch at the back of her neck as she undoes the necklace without really thinking about it. She doesn’t really think about it. What else does she have to give? She waits until Lottie’s standing in front before she gets up and walks over. The necklace rests in her palm. There’s a finger in her pocket that feels heavy.

 

Jackie clears her throat. “I… I used to say it was protection.” Maybe Shauna should have been the one to wear it that night. “But it’s… it can be whatever you want it to be.”

 

When her name is called, Lottie takes in a breath and stands. She doesn’t really care who’s gotten her, she had thought about telling Van to leave her out, but that would leave an odd amount of people. 

 

But when it’s Jackie that stands up, Lottie isn’t the only one who goes silent. Everyone seems to be staring at them as the shorter girl holds out her hand, the golden heart necklace sitting in it. She’s holding it like it might be the most precious thing in the world. It probably is.

 

“Jackie…” Lottie starts, clears her throat, “I-- I can’t take that.”

 

Letting the necklace dangle between her fingers, Jackie shakes her head. “It’s rude to turn down a gift, Lottie.” She makes a little motion with her hand. “Turn around, and, like, crouch a little so I can put it on.”

 

Lottie’s eyes go from Jackie’s face to the necklace, to the girls she knows are staring at them. She doesn’t say anything more, just does as Jackie instructs, avoiding looking into anyone’s eyes, but she can feel them all burning on her. Just one glance up has her catching Van’s eyes as she feels the cool metal of the necklace against her collarbones. She doesn’t know quite what to think as she watches Van’s eyes narrow ever so slightly and her head tilt. Lottie knows she’s just concerned, but why would she think Jackie is any sort of threat?

 

Once the necklace is on, Jackie puts her hands back in her pockets and heads back to her seat, not meeting the eyes of anyone else around them.

 

Van takes a second, but she eventually gets back to picking names. Van is given a wrist band by Akilah, which causes the redhead to actually blush. Kristen gives Britt a pinecone with feathers in it (“A good luck charm!” she tells her). Misty stands in front of them all and starts performing a scene from Fried Green Tomatoes for Natalie, having Kristen come up to help her recite the parts. Jackie thinks it’s a little unfair to be able to tag team a gift, and Mari actually says as much, but it’s pretty harmless, if a little weird. Nat ends up just blinking and offering up a really confused thank you.

 

When it’s Jackie’s turn, she stands in front of them and watches as Natalie sifts through her bag and pulls out two notebooks, journal’s. Shauna’s. Jackie takes them like they’re precious. They are. She hates them.

 

“I found these,” Nat says. “I thought you should have them since…” The sentence trails off there.

 

Jackie cradles the journals to her chest. “Thank you,” she whispers. She’s already read one of them, and there likely isn’t much in the other. She doesn’t think she’ll ever open them, but the words, Shauna’s handwriting, will be nice to have near her. Another piece of Shauna that she can collect, keep.

 

Lottie feels a pang of sadness as the journals are handed over to Jackie. She knows they’re both the best and worst thing to give her. She watches her carefully as Jackie sits back down, but she doesn’t say anything.

 

Mari is called up next and Britt hands her a piece of wood with ‘Kiss the Cook’ carved into it. Surprisingly, Mari is really happy about it and she sticks it to the front of her hoodie as she sits down next to Akilah.

 

Travis is finally called and Lottie sits up a little straighter, watching him slink over from where he was seated by Natalie. She reaches behind her and pulls out the blanket she’s sewn. She’s used part of one of Javi’s shirts, carefully placed in the middle where it’s less likely to get torn. She stands and holds it out to him.

 

“So he’s always with you,” she tells him quietly and though Travis is silent, she can see his eyes growing misted. 

 

He nods, sniffles. “Thanks, Lott.”

 

She’s about to smile when Natalie’s voice cuts through the moment. “Is this supposed to be funny or something? I-I mean…”

 

Incredulous and a little confused, Lottie says, “What? No.” She shakes her head, why would Nat think that? Say that?

 

“Then why would you put that creepy symbol on the blanket? Or don’t you remember how we found it all around a dead guy’s fucking corpse ?” Natalie stands up, gesturing emphatically with her hands like she always does and Lottie realizes that, once again, she’s upset Natalie. How many more times will she do this to her? They’d been friends once, good friends.

 

She wants to try and diffuse the situation but she doesn’t know how. “Yeah, I remember, but…I think he was using it as protection.”

 

“He died , Lottie!” Natalie balks.

 

Lottie feels something akin to anger and hurt inside of her. It feels familiar, from a long time ago. “Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s evil!”

 

But before she can do or say anything else, Natalie is stepping forward and snatching the blanket from Travis’ hands and Lottie just watches in utter shock and disappointment.

 

Jackie’s standing up before she even realizes it. “Hey, hey!” she starts a pale approximation of her old captain’s voice, but it’s close enough. “Nat, come on. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

 

“Oh my God , Jackie,” Nat groans, holding the blanket tighter. “Not you, too. Seriously, you’re the last person I’d expect to buy into this shit.”

 

That’s fair because Jackie doesn’t, not really, but she certainly doesn’t think Lottie means anything malicious with it, especially not now, well after all the Doomcoming craziness. At this point, she genuinely thinks that Lottie believes this is helping, and she’s not the only one. If it brings her and the others some sort of sense of comfort, then, fuck. Maybe they should have it.

 

“I just don’t think that yelling or taking away Travis’ gift is going to help anything, Nat,” Jackie says, attempting diplomacy. 

 

“This is bullshit,” Nat sneers.

 

“No,” Jackie says, reaching forward and grabbing at the blanket, forgetting that some of Lottie’s blood is on her fingers, though it’s dried at this point. “No, Nat, it’s a blanket.”

 

“Well, I trust Lottie,” Mari says immediately, standing as well.

 

“Yeah, so do I,” Misty quips.

 

“Oh, yeah, big surprise there,” Natalie drawls angrily.

 

“Well I do, too,” Akilah steps in and Lottie feels like this is all getting so out of hand. “She knows things the rest of us don’t.”

 

Whatever protests Nat’s about to make dies on her lips as a thudding sound hits the roof.

 

They all pause, looking around. There’s another loud thud.

 

And then another. Until it sounds as if heavy globs of rain are pelting the rooftop. Lottie looks up and around as the others glance about wildly. 

 

“What the fuck is that?” Van says, rushing towards the door. 

 

Everyone follows.

 

The world is much too quiet outside. The fire has dwindled down, now, but with just enough of it left to illuminate what’s on the ground-- birds. Dozens of them.

Dead birds.

 

Van is the first to wander out, slowly, as if in awe. “Woah…” she breathes, bending down as if to pick one up. 

 

“Holy crap,” Mari says, arms folded over her chest against the cold, “did these guys just suicide on our roof?”

 

Lottie thinks it’s tacky to say but she just rolls her eyes when no one’s looking. 

 

“Don’t touch them,” Natalie instructs when she notices Van examining one closely, “they might be diseased.”

 

Lottie doesn’t think so. She thinks she knows what they are. She’s almost afraid to say it.

 

“We know that there’s, um, a lot of iron in the ground,” Misty starts off in way of explanation, “so maybe it, like, messed with the birds’ navigation.”

 

No one says anything after that and Lottie can feel what It wants. She draws in her breath and summons her courage. “We should gather Its blessings.”

 

Van is, of course, the first one to bring a bird to Lottie. She sets it down at Lottie’s feet and Lottie understands it’s an offering-- from Van and from the Wilderness. Whatever they’d done, It was pleased. Gently, Lottie strokes the back of the bird, silently thanking it. They’ll have a little more food now, a little longer. If they can just last until the spring, perhaps not all hope is lost. 

 

Jackie’s near Nat as the others start gathering up the birds, her face blank. They’re almost out of bear meat. They’re almost out of food.

 

“Jackie,” Nat says in a low voice, almost pleading. “You know there’s something fucked up about all of this.”

 

“The braindead bear didn’t kill us, Nat. I don’t think a couple of braindead birds will, either,” she says back, trudging down the stairs to help collect a couple of birds.

 

Lottie watches them all gather the birds, the blessings, and she’s once more surprised to see Jackie helping, too.

 

Behind her, Tai and Nat roll their eyes, go back inside. Lottie wishes she could make them understand. She wishes she had the ability to give them hope, too.

 

Jackie would actually rather be doing anything in the world than touching dead birds, but this is her life, now. Dead birds, dead best friends, frozen wilderness where no one could ever find them. This is Jackie’s life. All their lives.

 

“We should probably take these to the shed, Mari? Mel?” she asks, and both of them look a little surprised to be referred to, surprised that she’s not looking to Lottie like the rest of them, but Lottie’s not in charge of the food. She’s in charge of the prayers and the symbols and the blood spilling, apparently. 

 

Mel nods, but Mari glances in Lottie’s direction, just to be sure.

 

“Yeah.” Lottie nods back to her and Mari starts gathering them up in her arms with the others. 

 

Lottie meets Jackie’s gaze and gives her a silent thank you before she stands to head back inside. Van follows her in and the tension is already clear. Lottie doesn’t know where Travis’ blanket ended up, but she feels like she needs to say something, maybe clear things up.

 

Misty is walking up behind Lottie quickly. “Did you do that?” she asks and Lottie blinks, looking at her.

 

“I--” she doesn’t think it was her, no. 

 

“Cause, I mean, the blanket and the symbol.”

 

Lottie furrows her brow. “No, no, I…It was just what It wanted.” She keeps moving past Misty, despite the girl trying to keep up.

 

“You think so? What makes you say that?”

 

“Misty,” Lottie says, a little exasperated as she turns on her heels, “I don’t…I’d like to just be alone.”

 

Misty’s face falls. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay. Sorry.”

 

Relieved, Lottie scrubs at her face and looks around for Travis but doesn’t find him in the kitchen area. Natalie is, though, and Lottie stops where she is, considers turning around and heading back out.

 

But she wants to fix things. Fix something. “Nat,” she says softly and Natalie only turns her head to look at Lottie over her shoulder. “I just wanted to-- I didn’t mean anything by it, I just--”

 

“Can’t you just fucking leave him alone, Lottie?” Natalie snaps. “In fact, how about you just leave both of us alone, yeah?”

 

Lottie is taken aback and she has that sinking feeling in her chest again. “Yeah,” she sighs, before turning to head back out, unsure of what to do with herself now. So she just climbs the attic ladder and sits on the floor, looking up at the cracked window that still had her blood stain on it.

 

Jackie gathers up a few more birds before heading to the meat shed, bumping into Van along the way. 

 

“I never expected you to share your stuff with anyone whose last name wasn’t Shipman,” Van starts, and Jackie looks at her warily. 

 

“Want one of my sweater vests, Van? You might like the argyle,” Jackie murmurs, moving to get past Van, but a hand on her arm stops her. Jackie can’t help it; she flinches, remembering hands holding her down. 

 

Van has the decency to pull away and look guilty. “Look, Jackie, you might not mean anything by it, but if this is some attempt to replace Shauna…”

 

“No one can replace Shauna,” Jackie snaps. “No one.” And she does shove her way into the shed, shutting the door behind her and breathing heavy as she drops the birds off on the table. She glances in the corner. Shauna sits like always, eyes closed, waiting. One hand is gently tucked over the other, hiding the missing digit that rests near Jackie’s heart. 

 

“No one can replace you,” Jackie murmurs quietly, moving to sit near Shauna. She doesn’t know if they’ll eat again. But she’s got a little time to herself now that all the birds are gathered, and she just wants to take a moment when she hasn’t seen Shauna all day. 

 

Lottie hears the front door open and close which means the other four are back from gathering the birds, so when she hears footsteps up the ladder, she mostly expects to see Jackie coming up it.

 

But a crop of orange hair tells her it’s Van.

 

“Hey,” Van says, crawling the rest of the way up, but staying near the hatch, shifting from foot to foot, “can I talk to you about something?”

 

Lottie gives a ghostly smile and turns, patting the floor. “Of course.”

 

Van takes a spot across from her. “I just…am concerned.” 

 

Lottie’s brow goes up but she waits for Van to say more.

 

“About Jackie,” Van continues, and Lottie thinks that might be the rest of it until Van adds, “and you.”

 

Lottie’s hand subconsciously goes up to the necklace and she sees Van’s gaze drop to it, too. “You don’t need to worry.” Even though Lottie worries about Jackie every day, it’s because she knows Jackie is grieving. She knows what loss feels like out here. “She just needs a friend.”

 

“What she needs is Shauna,” Van says sharply, “or someone who she thinks can be Shauna.”

 

Lottie sits up straight, face drawing in suspicion. “What…are you suggesting?”

 

“Just that-- people need you, Lottie. All of us. Not just Jackie.”

 

And Lottie hates that fact; really, she does. She wishes they’d all chosen someone else to look to for all of this. Lottie thinks she’s doing a pretty shit job at it. “I know,” she says quietly.

 

Van sighs, too, slumping. “I know you’re just trying to help her, Lottie, but just make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, okay?”

 

And maybe Van sees something Lottie doesn’t, because she can’t understand what she means by that. 

 

She nods anyway. 

 

With that, they sit in silence for a little longer, before Van finally gets up and heads back down to find Tai and get ready to clean up the front room so they can all lay out their beds, while Lottie lays back on the floor and wraps her hand around the golden heart now resting around her neck.

 

She doesn’t think Jackie is trying to replace Shauna. No one could ever replace Shauna.

 

Just like no one could ever replace Laura Lee.

 

They’re both gone and that’s all there is to it.

 

Being in the shed, holding Shauna’s journals, Jackie feels her mood shift away from some of the lightness it had carried for the day. Dark, twisting, she watches the shadows grow thicker and feels something close to anger sitting in her chest. She gets up, though, knowing that, if she doesn’t, someone will come and get her. 

 

She heads inside, looking around for a tall head of dark hair but not finding it. “Where’s Lottie?” she asks Misty. 

 

“Upstairs,” the other girl chirps. “But she says she wants to be alone.”

 

“Okay.” Jackie makes her way towards the kitchen and up the ladder. 

 

Behind her, she hears Misty huff. “Why does no one listen to me?”

 

Lottie doesn’t know how long she’s up there before she hears someone climbing the ladder again. When she sits up, she feels a little stiff but it’s not just from laying on the hard floor-- they’ve been sleeping on these wooden floors for months now. 

 

Jackie’s head pops up from the open hatch and Lottie smiles, a little relieved it’s not someone else coming to tell her how important she is, or how much they need her. “Hey,” she greets her, rubbing her eyes. She’s tired from the day, and a little more than sad it was ruined and that she was the one who ruined it. 

 

She’s tired and she misses being friends with Natalie. 

 

“I, um, never said thank you.” Lottie rubs the heart on the necklace between her fingers. “If you want it back, though, I-I won’t…I mean, you can ask.”

 

“It’s a gift, Lott,” Jackie says immediately. “I wouldn’t have given it to you if I just wanted you to give it back to me.” Her hands rest on the journals, and she rubs her thumb over the cover of one before sighing and going to put it in the hiding spot Shauna had for it. She doesn’t need to keep them on her. It’ll just drive her crazy. Crazier. 

 

Lottie is patient as she watches Jackie cradle Shauna’s journals, before deciding to place them somewhere safe. She wonders if that’s where Shauna had put them originally. “If you’re sure,” Lottie says. 

 

She can hear the other girls milling about downstairs and thinks they’re all probably busy enough to not want to come bother her up here, so she stands and heads over to the stack of suitcases they’ve gathered to keep all their clothes in. 

 

From inside a denim blue one-- the same one she’d gotten Laura Lee’s dress from-- she pulls out an old, green jacket. The tag inside says Shauna Shipman.

 

“Here.” Lottie offers the jacket to Jackie. “I, um-- figured while I made Travis’ gift I might as well fix this for you. It, um-- it should fit you better now.”

 

It’s just Shauna’s old jacket, but Jackie takes it from Lottie’s hands like she took the journals from Nat: something precious that she cradles to her chest, closing her eyes. She’d mostly been wearing Shauna’s clothes over the last few weeks, but she hadn’t put on the jacket. Her fingers brush over the tag, stitched in by Shauna’s mom one night after she’d gotten off work. Shauna thought it was lame, but Jackie thought it made sense. How could Shauna ever lose it when that loving hand stitching let everyone know it was hers?

 

(Somewhere, inside Jackie’s chest, is her heart, still beating, still pumping blood through her body. If somebody were to rip her open and pull it out, they’d see ‘Shauna Shipman’ in scar tissue, lovingly carved by someone’s knife.)

 

“Thank you,” Jackie whispers, holding it close. Jackie looks at Lottie and takes a deep breath, nodding her head. “I owe you something, too. One nice thing. From– From the party. I got distracted that night, and everyone paired off, and I guess I was trying to make sure everyone was taking it seriously before…” Before she got caught up with Shauna, like always. She takes one of Lottie’s hands and looks into her eyes. “Lottie Matthews, you–” are the only reason I’m still alive, “– are one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. You’re rarely cruel without reason, and you only want to help people. You’re also, apparently, a bona fide bandit, and I think that’s pretty damn cool.”

 

Lottie feels warm as she watches Jackie take the coat, holding it against her chest. It's something precious, something far more valuable than most people can understand. But Lottie understands-- she's still wearing Laura Lee's dress, and she thinks that taking it off might ruin something in her. 

 

When Jackie takes her hand, Lottie is still. “You don't --” she tries to protest but Jackie goes on anyway.

 

She feels lost for words when Jackie is done. She supposes it's all mostly true, Lottie only wants to help people, especially here, especially now. She just wants to give them hope that they can make it to the other side of this, even if, sometimes, she's not sure of that herself.

 

Lottie swallows. “Th-thank you,” she murmurs, though she can't seem to look Jackie in the eyes. She thinks it's too kind of a statement, even if it's mostly true. 

 

Jackie gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze. “Come on, let’s get down stairs before people come looking for you.”

 

Lottie doesn’t want to go downstairs yet. “Wait,” she says, tugging Jackie back. “Just…a few more minutes.” She just wanted a few more minutes up here. A few more minutes where she wasn’t the person everyone was looking to, a few more minutes where she didn’t have to be someone she didn’t know how to be. 

 

Just a few more minutes where Lottie Matthews could just be Lottie Matthews.

 

“You wanna crash on Tai and Van’s space?” Jackie asks, but she makes no move to leave, giving Lottie a small smile. “Upstairs sleepover with the senior girls? We could invite Nat and Misty, too, really make it a party.” Though, that’s a bad idea on both accounts. Misty because… Jackie doesn’t want to be around Misty. And Nat because, well, Jackie doesn’t think Nat wants to be around Lottie.

 

It’s odd; Jackie can see where Nat’s coming from, and it’s a little heartbreaking, especially when Nat’s shouldering so much out there just to try and keep them all alive. But Lottie is doing something similar. Giving Travis hope isn’t terrible. It’s not whatever wrong that Nat’s trying to find in it.

 

Lottie blew out a puff of air, rolling her eyes. It was just a lot. She didn’t know how to explain that to anyone, though. It was so much for Lottie, someone who was too used to being in the background. “Funny,” she says back to Jackie instead. She’s grateful, though, that Jackie isn’t pushing it, pushing her. “You can go back down, I’ll be there in a sec,” she relents, but she doesn’t let go of Jackie’s hand yet. She sort of doesn’t want to and that’s a new and strange feeling.

 

“Nah, it’s alright,” Jackie says, “We can stay up here for a little bit longer.”

 

Lottie feels an urge she doesn’t know how to express. It wasn’t as if her parents were ever that physically affectionate with her, but she remembers sitting close to Laura Lee and liking how warm her arms felt draped around Lottie’s shoulders, or her waist. 

 

She didn’t know if she was allowed to want something like that from Jackie, even just a little bit. She doesn’t quite know what to do. She definitely doesn’t know how to ask for it. 

 

So she just stands there, holding Jackie’s hand and pretending it’s enough. It can be enough, for now.

 

Eventually, she hears Tai and Van shuffling around below, heading for the ladder, and she lets go of Jackie’s hand finally. “We should…” she gestures to the hatch. She wants to have more words to say, more actions to give, but she can’t bring herself to find either. She wants this to be enough.

 

Jackie hums. “Yeah, yeah, uh, here.” She goes to take off the jacket that Lottie had draped around her shoulders earlier in the day, smiling as she stretches onto her toes to tug it around her. She shrugs on Shauna’s jacket, wondering if it’s real or just her imagination that she can smell Shauna’s house.

 

As Van and Tai make their way into the space, Jackie moves around them to the ladder as starts heading down, offering them both a quiet goodnight as she heads towards where she and Lottie usually sleep.

 

Lottie doesn’t miss the look Van shoots her as she sees Jackie moving away from her and down the ladder. Lottie grabs her jacket that Jackie has draped back around her and sighs, giving Van a smile before following Jackie down the ladder and over to their shared bed.

 

Somehow, something feels different as Lottie lays down that night, and she can’t help but glance over at Jackie and wonder what she’s thinking. Her hand goes up to the necklace, wrapping fingers around the heart. 

 

She doesn’t want to replace Shauna, she knows she never could, and she quietly hopes Jackie doesn’t want that, either. She doesn’t think she would. She doesn’t know why she would question that, but Van’s words are stuck in her head and Lottie thinks that, actually, maybe, she’d be okay with it if it meant she got to keep someone like Jackie around.

 

Jackie’s eyes are closed, and she’s trying to sleep, but all she can think about is Shauna. Shauna, whose journals are hidden upstairs, whose jacket, flannel, clothes are covering her body, whose finger burns from its place in her pocket. Jackie imagines she can feel the rest of them wrapping around her heart and clenching. She hates you, and she died because of you. And what is Jackie doing? Being happy? Continuing to live? Does she even deserve it?

 

No, Jackie doesn’t really think so, nor does she think she deserves whatever sort of devotion or pity that she’s inspired inside the girl sleeping next to her. Lottie’s efforts were the only reason Jackie was still alive. She just couldn’t understand it.

The worst part is that there’s a part of Jackie that doesn’t even mind it, either. When she can manage to break her head above water and see that it is possible to be alive without Shauna, having Lottie there is nice. It’s the only good thing to come out of the crash. But she certainly doesn’t deserve it, and she worries, like the rest of them probably do, that Jackie’s just going to cause Lottie suffering, too. Just like with Shauna.

Notes:

The Wilderness provides. Thanks for reading, guys!

Please check out our other works here on Ao3, and hit us up on tumblr. We love chatting about Yellowjackets and being mean to each other. Again, thanks for reading!

Chapter 4: toeing the line

Summary:

Lottie and Nat compete in a bit of friendly competition before hitting the sauna together, something they used to do a lot back in Wiskayok, probably. Unfortunately, neither of them win, which means no one else wins, either, and Mari was really banking on winning. Guess it's more starling soup for dinner, and the girls better make extra, cause Tai and Van are bringing a guest home.

Notes:

WOWZERS chapter 4 already, huh? This one is a tad shorter than the others, but I promise we'll make up for it next week, you'll see :)

Thanks again for reading and hope you enjoy!

The next few days consist of chores, fruitless hunts, and starling soup. The weather doesn’t improve, but it hasn’t gotten worse, so Lottie thinks that’s probably good. No news was good news, right? 

 

They’re all mostly sitting around that morning, not even Nat and Travis had gone out to hunt, staring into their measly bowls of starling bones and pine needle broth as Misty and Crystal sweep the kitchen and sing together. Lottie thinks it would be cute if her head weren’t pounding that morning, but she’s been developing the increasing feeling that something wasn’t right for a while now, and she’s simply waiting for the shoe to drop.

 

Mari has sat next to her, knowing that Jackie usually does and she's probably done it on purpose, but Lottie is leaning against the wall, trying to calm her head, when the cabin door flings open and Melissa is standing there, an irritated look on her face.

 

“Thank god,” Akilah exhales, “because I am so tired of starling soup.”

 

Melissa slams the board of bear meat down. “Alright,” she says in her gruff voice, “who did it? Who’s the thief?” She looks around, arms folded. “Someone totally stole some bear meat, so who was it? Fess up.”

 

“Well, we know it wasn’t Jackie,” Misty says, looking at the rest of the group.

 

Jackie, for her part, offers up a sarcastic thumbs up, already not looking forward to another meal of freezer burned bear meat.

 

Mari leans over to Akilah. “I bet it was him,” she whispers as Coach Ben hobbles by, though it’s plenty loud enough for the rest of the group to hear.

 

It’s a bit of a left field accusation, and Ben turns around, an eyebrow raised. “No, Mari, it wasn’t me. Okay? And in case you forgot, I’m not exactly nimble in the snow.”

 

Mari makes a face. “Well, I mean, it’s obviously Nat’s fault.”

 

Nat stands up. “Excuse me?”

 

“We don’t have any meat because, when Lottie tries to bless you for the hunt, you’re MIA, or when you do show up it’s like you’re practically holding your nose.”

 

“Are you joking? You actually think that’s why we can’t find any game?” Nat asks, scoffing. “Because of me?”

 

Jackie thinks that this, right here, is a really fucking bad idea. She knows Mari likes to shoot her mouth off; Jackie’s gotten pretty good at ignoring it. But Nat gives back as good as she gets, and she’s been irritable and upset for months now. 

 

Jackie wouldn’t really blame her if she pops Mari in the mouth.

 

Lottie has to sit up, then, watching whatever is unfolding closely. She can sense a conflict beginning to arise, but whenever she tries to intervene or talk with Nat, it only escalates the situation. So, she stays sitting for now and hopes the two can settle this without it getting physical.

 

“I’m the only one even trying. Me and Travis!” Natalie is advancing on Mari, she points to Travis, and Lottie thinks that she’s pretty much right. They’re the two hunters, it’s their role, just like she’d told Travis before-- they all have their role. “And the rest of you guys? Well you’re just all sitting on your asses.”

 

Okay, well, that’s kind of unfair. The rest of them keep the cabin clean and the clothes washed and the fire running. Doesn’t Nat understand that, too?

 

Before Lottie can register anything else, Mari is already shooting back at her. “If there isn’t any game, then how did Lottie get the birds?”

 

Lottie looks up at Mari, stunned. There’s not even time for her to say anything before Tai is chipping in. “Um, Lottie didn’t get the birds. They flew into the cabin.”

 

“Because she told them to,” Mari snaps, as if that were somehow even a thing she could do. Lottie doesn’t think she did that at all.

 

Seriously, Jackie thinks. Nat’s so close. She could just pop her in the mouth. Or get her in the throat like she used to threaten overly touchy boys at parties. It’d make her shut up, at least.

 

“It did happen when blood got on the symbol on the blanket she sewed,” Akilah interjects quietly. 

 

Jackie looks between Lottie and Mari and Nat before offering up, “Okay, we don’t really know if that’s why it happened.”

 

“Yeah, you see, that’s what we call a coincidence, okay?” Coach Scott says. “Those birds were just… like, confused, or they had a disease or something.”

 

“No, no, if they were diseased, then we would’ve gotten sick from eating them,” Misty says.

 

“What about the bear?” Van asks. “I don’t think anyone who saw that can call it a coincidence.”

 

Jackie snorts. “It was obviously a little braindead. Like the birds.” No offense to Lottie. She glances over at the other girl. “It’s great that you killed it, but something was definitely wrong with that thing. Animals just don’t do that unless they’re a little fucked up.”

 

Mari still manages to look smug. “It doesn’t matter. It all goes to show that the only food we’ve had in months is thanks to Lottie.”

 

Lottie doesn’t like where any of this is going and it feels like she can’t get a word in edgewise. Mari is practically talking for her and she doesn’t know how to stop her. She's never been good at standing up for herself.

 

Before she even can, Nat is speaking up again. “Then we should have a contest. Yeah?” Nat is looking around, sounding petulant, and when her eyes meet Lottie’s, Lottie shrinks under her gaze. Now she really doesn’t like where this is going. “One-on-one. We both go out, just her and me, then at the end of the day we see who makes it back here with more food.”

 

“Come on, Nat. That’s not fair,” Travis says, his voice somber, “Lottie isn’t a hunter.”

 

Lottie isn’t even a good leader, but that’s beside the point right now. 

 

“According to them,” Nat says, turning to look at Lottie once again, and this time their gazes hold, “she’s better than one.”

 

Lottie feels everyone’s eyes turn to her. She’s not a hunter, she’s not a provider, she’s none of the things these girls seem to think she is. But it’s what they need her to be, so she stays silent, brows furrowed in worry, as she stares back at Natalie and hopes the other girl understands that Lottie doesn’t think any of this is her fault.

 

“Nat, this isn’t fair,” Jackie says, echoing Travis’ sentiments, actually looking at him with gratitude that at least one other person gets it and isn’t afraid to voice it. 

 

“Lottie will be fine,” Mari says, and several of the others agree. “She’s got this.”

 

Jackie thinks this is the stupidest fucking idea, and she looks at Lottie, waiting for her to say as much.

 

Too many people are looking at her and Lottie hates it. She kind of really hates it. Everyone wants her to say something but she's shrinking into herself. She looks back at Jackie. “I--” she doesn’t think Jackie will like her answer, but she says it anyway-- “okay. I’ll do it.”

 

Mari gives another smug grin, folding her arms over her chest triumphantly. “See?” Even Van seems a little intrigued by this all and Lottie thinks she’s probably going to regret agreeing to it, but how could she say no? When they were all depending on her so much? They just need some hope. She hugs herself a little tighter but doesn’t say anything else.

 

“Well,” Misty starts out, “we’ll need to decide rules and everything.” She looks way too excited as well, Lottie thinks. “Like, how we determine a winner and make sure no one cheats.” 

 

Tilting her head back against the wall, Jackie says, “This is so fucking stupid.” She meets Nat’s eyes, and she looks like she agrees, like she knows this is stupid, but she’s about to force them all to go through with it to prove a fucking point. 

 

So, sure. What the fuck ever.

 

 

As Nat and Lottie both start getting dressed for the cold, Jackie lingers near Lottie, frowning. Mari and Van help with the jacket, but Jackie refuses to be involved in this. “You can still back out,” she mutters, glancing over to where Travis helps Nat.

 

Lottie let’s Van and Mari do most of the work, really. They bring her the coat Travis usually wears and it fits her well, considering they’re practically the same size. Mari fastens an old repurposed plane seatbelt around her waist to keep things tucked and cozy, and Lottie can feel her heart beginning to beat faster inside of her chest. She pats down the jacket and lets her hand linger on Jackie’s necklace before she looks over at her. “It’s fine,” Lottie reassures her, but she doesn’t think it sounds reassuring at all. “I’ll be fine.”

 

After a bit, Misty clears her throat. She’s ready to announce whatever fucked up rules she’s decided for their little contest. “Okay, so, one-on-one means no assistance of any kind. If you get a kill, just leave it where it is and we will come and help you bring it back.”

 

Lottie thinks she sounds a little like a school teacher, standing at the head of a classroom while explaining the homework assignment. It’s kind of a funny thought, Misty being a teacher.

 

“You, yourself, have to be back before sundown or you’re automatically disqualified,” she continues, “if you’re not back by then, then we’ll come out and we’ll find you.” She gives what Lottie supposes Misty thinks is an innocent, happy smile. It kind of weirds Lottie out.

 

“Oh, and…for weapons,” she bends over to retrieve the gun, “we only have the one gun, so, um, maybe we can draw cards--”

 

“Lottie doesn’t need a gun,” Mari states. 

 

Once again, Lottie blinks, bewildered, and looks at Mari with a stunned glance.

 

“Mari, holy shit,” Jackie says, incredulous, one over the fact that Mari would just fucking say that, and two over the fact that Lottie says nothing . She’s just letting this happen, except, newsflash, Matthews, you’re the subject of this story. “Oh, my God. Jesus.”

 

But, then, Jackie remembers that Lottie didn’t even try shooting the gun with the rest of them. Maybe this was for the best. With a sigh, she just shakes her head.

 

Misty looks between Mari, Lottie, and Jackie before saying, “Okay,” as she hands the gun to Nat, and then they’re all trudging outside into the snow to do the final touches.

 

Lottie follows the others out, where she lets Mari help her put on a hood, a face cover, her scarf. The atmosphere feels tense, strangled, but still Lottie says nothing. She glances to the side, catches Natalie’s gaze, sees her eyes just barely from beneath her face mask and hood. Like this, Lottie thinks she can see the girl who used to be one of her best friends.

 

Then, as they both turn to leave, Lottie makes eye contact with Jackie one more time. She doesn’t think it’s reassuring, but she tries to give her a smile, and then she heads off into the forest, armed with only a knife and what she hopes is the Wilderness’ favor.

 

 

“This is a dumb idea,” Jackie mutters, her hand going to feel her flannel pocket before she looks at Lottie one more time, her eyes soft and sad. 

 

“You of all people should have faith,” Mari says sharply. 

 

Jackie doesn’t even look at her, instead glancing to see Tai go off, knowing that Van’s eyes are on her as well. She shoves her hands in her pockets and starts off towards the meat shed, telling Mari. “This isn’t about fucking faith, though. Is it?”

 

 

It’s eerily quiet out here, alone in the woods, walking through frosted trees and untrodden snow. It swallows sound but relfects the light and makes the world feel like something no from Earth.

 

Lottie doesn’t have even the slightest clue of how to hunt or look for animals or food. But she figures she has to at least try.

 

As she makes her way through the frozen wasteland, she pauses. The atmosphere is lofty around her and she does the only thing she really knows how to do. She closes her eyes and listens. She can hear her own heartbeat, can hear the crackling of snow under her unsteady feet. The wind blowing gently through ice coated pines.

 

Something in the distance snaps and Lottie’s eyes open as she inhales sharply, her hand going to the knife on her belt. She looks around but there’s nothing there.

 

Nothing except just her and the snow and a tree, the symbol carved into it.

 

Slowly, Lottie approaches it, holds her hand out and presses her palm against the bark. It's cool under her touch, even through the sleeve of her sweater, fingers bare against the wood. She closes her eyes again, she thinks maybe she’ll feel something, sense something.

 

It only takes her a few moments to realize it’s not working. “Fuck me,” she breathes before rolling her eyes and heading off back through the trees.

 

She wanders more, not sure where to go, or where her feet might be taking her. She doesn’t know how long it’s been before she finds herself in the same old clearing she always ends up back at. The stump is coated in a new layer of snow since she’d last been out to it, but it looks the same, feels the same. 

 

She kneels in front of it, pulls her knife from the sheath. She can hear voices whispering to her. She pulls her hood and her scarf off, staring into the snow and the dirt.

 

Slowly, she lifts her hand, places the blade to her palm. She thinks of Jackie, of how she’d jumped at just a little finger prick of blood. Lottie presses in and slides the blade across her skin, feels it splitting her flesh. Blood wells up quickly, pools along the seams of her palm. She squeezes her fingers into a fist, lets it pour onto the ground inside the stump. She prays that this will be enough, somehow.

 

And somehow, she knows it’s not. 

 

It’s been longer now. Lottie hasn’t seen anything that resembles animals or food of any type. She feels dizzy, tired, she’s breathing heavy. Her hand burns and she can’t feel her feet anymore. 

 

Lottie parts through a line of trees, and she sees the plane. Laura Lee’s plane. Blood drips from her fingertips.

 

There’s a frost covering it that feels the same as the frost inside of Lottie’s bones, frozen to the windows and the wings and every other inch that’s exposed to the elements.

 

Lottie walks towards it without hesitation, brushing a hand across the window. Blood smears against the glass and her fingers shake. 

 

It’s hard to see inside through the dirty window but Lottie can make out a shape, sitting on the seat in the same place Laura Lee had left him.

 

The door swings open easily and Lottie reaches in. “Hey, Leonard.” She makes sure to hold him only with her good hand, she doesn’t want to upset Laura Lee by getting blood on him. He’s too precious. She wonders how he got here.

 

A golden glint catches her eye next.

 

Laura Lee’s necklace is laying on the floor of the plane and Lottie pushes the seat forward to reach for it. It’s coiled up in a circle, the cross laying flat. It’s heavy in her hands as her fingers hold it delicately, precious where Lottie is something disposable.

 

Blood stains the gold chain.

 

Her eyes drop to what it had been laying on. A hatch. She reaches out to tug it open and there’s a ladder inside. Lights lining the tunnel to the bottom. Lottie cheeks are burnt with frost and she climbs in, grasping the rungs tightly, leaving a smear of red along each one as she makes her way down. It’s not strange to her, about it being here. She’s gotten used to seeing things that aren’t there, to being places that aren’t real.

 

The blinding light at the bottom has her raising her hand to shield her eyes. She squints into it to try and make something out, but there’s just white. As she steps into it, she feels her heartbeat echoing in her chest. 

 

A ding! sounds, the doors shut. Lottie turns to watch them.

 

They open to indistinct chatter. Dim music. She’s back in the Wiskayok mall, bodies walking around her, by her. The world has turned on without them there, and it would continue to do so, whether they ever got back or not.

 

Lottie’s feet lead her stumbling through the open walkways, vendors abound, carting out racks of clothing or accessories or food. Lottie is drawn to one with coats hung up, frilly, woven sweaters and skirts. The kind she would have slipped off the hanger and folded into her bag unnoticed. 

 

“That would look beautiful on you.” A voice to her right draws Lottie’s attention. There’s a woman staring at her, crooked smile, all wrong but plastered like dried paint, stuck there. “Would you like to try it on?”

 

No, Lottie doesn’t think she would like to. “Uh, n-no, that’s okay.” She tries to give the same smile back. It stretches her skin and tears at the corners of her mouth. “I’m-I’m just looking. Thank you.”

 

“Here if you need me.” The woman is gone and Lottie’s attention is quickly drawn away, too.

 

Laughter. 

 

She knows the sound of it well. She’s memorized them all, observing from afar. 

 

The tables are pulled together, like they always used to do when the team gathered at the mall. There’s Mari and Akilah and Nat and Tai and Van. Jackie and Misty, too, sitting across from each other, laughing like they’re friends. Like they’re all friends again. Teenagers goofing off in the mall food court, despite the dim lights and empty stalls behind them.

 

At the head of the table, though, Lottie sees her. All perfect blonde hair, curled up at the ends. Blue eyes sparkling as they catch Lottie’s own. 

 

“I got that for you,” Laura Lee beckons, “you look hungry.”

 

And Lottie is starving. She tumbles into the chair at the opposite end from her, picks up the plastic fork. There’s bits of rice in the container, sitting in front of her on the table. Her hand is bleeding all over the linoleum top. Her other one shakes, she can’t seem to scoop up any of the rice. She just wants to eat it, she’s so fucking hungry.

 

Her whole body trembles.

 

“Wait.” 

 

Lottie’s gaze pulls up to look at Laura Lee agin. 

 

“Don’t you think you should say something first?” 

 

Because Lottie had started that, hadn’t she? For this meal, we thank the wilderness. She blinks, heavy. Her body feels like sand, she’s drooping in her chair. “I-I didn’t think that I’d have to.” She doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to.

 

“Oh,” Laura Lee gasps, “you’re shivering.”

 

“I think I saw a coat for sale at Abercrombie,” Van says to her left. Her voice is distorted, it doesn’t sound like it’s coming from her mouth. Her scar is gone.

 

“I don’t…I don’t think I have a credit card.”

 

“When did that ever stop you?” Nat mocks. And Lottie looks at her, really looks at her. Red lipstick and wavy hair, smirking at her like she knows all of Lottie’s innermost secrets.

 

Lottie can’t catch her breath. She’s panting, shivering, she just wants to eat.

 

“I think we need to get you out of here.” The concern in Laura Lee’s voice is so real, she sounds so real , it scares Lottie.

 

“But I just g-got here. I don’t, I don’t wanna…I don’t wanna leave you.” She doesn’t want to leave her. She wants to stay.

 

“Lottie,” Laura Lee is stern, now. She’s walking towards Lottie with purpose, and she looks so damn real Lottie wants to cry. She wants to reach out and hug her, hold her, never let go. She wants to stay here with her.

 

“If you don’t get warm, you’re going to die.” 

 

Lottie thinks she might be okay with that, actually. Maybe she’s tired of fighting it all, maybe she’s tired of failing everyone. 

 

“You have to go.”

 

“But I…” Lottie is too weak to protest, to fight it. She wants to stay. Snow drifts around her, blankets her shoulders, her hair. 

 

“Go,” Laura Lee demands and Lottie just looks at her, tired and defeated and frightened. 

 

She doesn’t want to leave.

 

Laura Lee won’t let her stay. She shoves Lottie’s shoulders. “Go!”

 

 

Lottie’s back hits the ground. She can’t feel anything. She tries to sit up, but she fails. She falls back to the snow. She knows she needs to get up, but she can’t find the strength. She can’t find the will.

 

So instead Lottie just lays back in the snow and closes her eyes and she apologizes quietly to Jackie. She really did want to stick around for her.

 

 

Sometimes, Jackie takes the finger out of her pocket and looks at it. It has, admittedly, gotten fucking gross. She’s picked away a lot of the skin, exposing Shauna’s bones, and she’s apologized the entire time, but she just can’t bear to part with it.

 

Shauna, for her part, doesn’t complain, but she also can’t write in her journals anymore to express all of those pissed off thoughts. Which, yeah, Jackie keeping her fucking pinky would definitely inspire those pissed off thoughts.

 

And it’s definitely super weird! Jackie can acknowledge that it’s super weird. Her mother would be so upset with her. A human finger, Jacqueline? That’s disgusting. Get rid of it immediately. Where’s she supposed to put it, though? It’s not like she can reattach it to Shauna’s hand. Learning just how brittle and cold Shauna is now has made Jackie even more careful when she brushes her hair or straightens up her clothes to make sure that, even like this, Shauna still looks presentable, dignified.

 

She’s leaning back against the wall with her eyes closed when she hears noise outside, the cabin door bursting open. Jackie scrambles out of the shed, running up behind Nat. 

 

“Guys,” Nat says, breathing heavy, “I found a fucking moose.” 

 

Jackie’s eyes widen, and she can see the cabin standing and moving to action from in front of Nat.

 

“Found, but didn’t kill?” Travis asks.

 

“It’s already dead,” Nat tells them. “It’s frozen in the surface of the lake. I’m going to need a lot of help to get it out of there.”

 

Coach Ben hobbles forward. “Nat, here.” He hands out the axe. “Take this. And everybody dress as warmly as they can.” He sounds like their coach again. 

 

Mari looks anxious. “Hey, I thought the rule was no assistance.”

 

“Oh, my God, Mari, this is food,” Coach tells her, looking so disappointed.

 

Jackie steps inside the cabin, her heart pounding in excitement. Even if she didn’t care about all of this, she’d still feel how excited most of the girls are at the prospect of food.

 

Nat hasn’t looked this relieved in so long. “If we can get this out, this moose will probably feed us until spring.”

 

Most of the girls are getting ready to go help Nat, shrugging on any warm clothes that they can find.

 

Mari makes one more attempt. “Misty, you literally made up the fucking rules. I’ll tell Lottie.”

 

“Do it,” Misty says, meeting Mari’s eyes with cold determination, axe slung over her shoulder. “Tell her I didn’t want us to fucking starve.” 

 

Before she walks out, Jackie grabs Nat’s sleeve. “Good luck,” she says, giving Nat’s arm a squeeze. “We’ll see you when you get back. I’m going to get Lottie.”

 

Nat gives her a sharp nod, steady and frantic at the same time, and she follows after the others, telling them to head for the lake.

 

“I hope Lottie’s okay,” Jackie hears Akilah murmur, the two of them and Mari the only two that stayed back. 

 

Jackie didn’t see Tai and Van, but she doesn’t have time to worry about the two of them right now. “Get dressed. We’re going to get Lottie.”

 

“She can still win this,” Mari says like a petulant child.

 

Stepping closer, Jackie does her best to channel being a captain again, but that’s not enough. She channels being like Shauna. “Get. Dressed. Now.”

 

Akilah’s moving, but Mari tries to maintain eye contact before she sees something she doesn’t like and starts getting on warmer clothes.

 

Turning to Coach, Jackie tells him. “We’ll be back,” before leading the two younger girls outside and in the direction of where they’d seen Lottie head off to. 

 

When they finally find her, it takes too long, and Jackie wonders if they’re too late. They see the trail of blood, and Jackie’s heart is in her throat.

 

At least it’s not actively snowing, so Lottie in the cabin guy’s old jacket is clear to see, splayed out in the snow.

 

Even still, Jackie doesn’t see Lottie at first. She sees Shauna, covered in snow, frozen and sleeping. Not sleeping. Dead.

 

It’s Lottie again. Lottie, in the cold, frozen and sleeping.

 

“Lottie!” Jackie cries out, rushing towards her and falling to her knees. She can’t be dead. She can’t be dead. She can’t be dead. Jackie’s lived this moment before. She can’t live it again. “No. No.”

 

“She’s breathing!” Akilah says.

 

Jackie still can’t move.

 

So Akilah makes her, pushing Jackie out of the way and moving to try and wake Lottie up. “Lottie? Can you hear me? You need to get up. We need to get you out of the cold.”

 

“Come on, Lottie,” Mari says, and she sounds about as stable as Jackie feels, but at least she’s doing something about it. Jackie’s struggling to remember how to move, how to breathe.

 

Sounds echo around Lottie and she thinks they might be voices. Familiar voices. She wants to hear Laura Lee’s voice again, she sees her still on the back of her eyelids. 

 

Something solid clamps down on Lottie’s shoulders. She can feel her body being moved, being shaken. She doesn’t want to open her eyes. She sort of wishes she’d been able to stay there, with Laura Lee. She doesn’t really want to wake up.

 

But the voices don’t stop. Lottie can’t really move, can’t feel her body. She’s trembling uncontrollably when she finally is able to bend her arm, tilt her head, trying to speak. It comes out as a groan. Her fingers are stiff and frozen and she can barely make a fist. Her palm burns where she cut it.

 

The noise moves Jackie into action. Until that point, she wasn’t sure. She saw Shauna and Lottie and both of them at once, frozen and cold, but there’s redness in Lottie’s cheeks, even if her lips are turning blue, and, when she groans, Jackie lurches. She throws Lottie’s arm around her shoulder and starts pulling her up, much to Akilah and Mari’s protests.

 

“Help me,” she rasps out. “Help me.” Because Lottie’s too tall for her to do this herself, and Jackie’s too weak. The hand slung over her shoulder is covered in blood, and Jackie takes the sleeve of Lottie’s borrowed jacket and pulls it down, trying to cover the wound. Mari quickly puts herself under Lottie’s other arm, and Akilah gets behind them, and, together, the three of them manage to help Lottie stand.

 

That’s not even half the battle. 

 

The walk back to the cabin takes too long , and there’s nothing Jackie can do about it because there’s no way to rush them any more than they already are. Akilah changes between jogging in front of them and walking behind them, her hand on Lottie’s back to steady her as Jackie and Mari somehow manage to support most of her weight.

 

When they finally make it back to the cabin, Jackie barely comprehends that the other group is there, too.

 

“Oh, my gosh,” someone breathes.

 

Coach Scott starts towards them. “Oh, shit.”

 

“Is she okay?” Misty asks, rushing towards them. 

 

Mari and Jackie lay Lottie out on the floor, and Jackie moves to her head, grabbing one of Lottie’s hands and trying to rub heat into it. 

 

“Not really, no!” Mari tells Misty, and, really, Jackie appreciates her ability to state the obvious.

 

Everyone is surrounding Lottie, but it’s Akilah who manages to explain things. “We followed a trail of blood and found her near where the hunter’s old plane used to be.”

 

“Help me get her jacket off,” Jackie snaps, though she’s already unbuckling it and pulling it off, working on the next layer. They need to get Lottie out of her wet clothes.

 

Lottie doesn’t really register what’s going on. She’s being lifted onto her feet and she tries her best to keep herself standing up right, but when she can’t feel her legs, the best she can do is make sure they don’t trip over her feet. 

 

She doesn’t know how long it takes them to get back to the cabin. The world is going by her in a blur as she struggles to even keep her head upright. She’s being set down and then there are so many different pairs of hands reaching for her, more voices chiming in, asking questions. Really, Lottie just kind of wants to go to sleep. She’s so cold yet so warm.

 

Through all of it, Lottie hears a familiar voice. “Get her back here,” Nat rasps, her voice fried and raspy. Did something happen to Nat, too? Lottie worries, wants to ask, but she doesn’t have enough of herself to do anything but let the others lift her up again. “We can get her in the tub.”

 

“Come on, come on, get her up, let’s get her up!” Jackie commands, putting as much force behind it as she can. This is the most alive she’s felt in awhile. It doesn’t feel like a good thing.

 

She’s at Lottie’s head, pulling her up and tucking herself under Lottie’s arm while some of the others help with her feet. “I’ve got you,” she tells her, her voice soft as she tries to push down how fucking scared she is. “I’ve got you.” 

 

When they make it to the tub, Jackie forces everyone out except for Nat, even Misty, even though she insists she can help. Jackie doesn’t care. Mari and Akilah hang around the longest, but even Akilah puts a comforting hand on Mari’s shoulder and guides her away. Nat helps Jackie as she moves to strip Lottie’s clothes off, careful as she tugs off her boots, her pants, all the layers. Her feet look horrible, Jackie realizes, but she doesn’t say anything about it as she and Nat help Lottie to the tub. 

 

“I’ve got it,” Nat tells Jackie. When Jackie’s eyes narrow, Nat’s turn pleading. “Please. I’ve got it.” 

 

Jackie gives Lottie’s cold hand a squeeze and hopes she doesn’t regret this. “I’ll be outside.” Dealing with the others, apparently, as she shuts the door and gives the two their privacy.

 

Lottie really wants to just collapse but everyone is moving her again and frantic voices sound around her as she’s carried off towards the back. She can feel hands on her skin, just barely, as she feels the sting of it trying to warm up, like tiny needles pricking at her nerves endlessly. 

 

She doesn’t register Jackie leaving, but Nat is pulling her over to the tub and holding her up and helping her in. “It’s gonna get better,” Nat tells her, and it’s the first time Lottie has heard this kind of worry in her voice since before Doomcoming.

 

The water burns and Lottie inhales sharply, still trembling.

 

“Come on,” Natalie is urging her further and Lottie puts her other foot in, grunting in pain as she does so. “Come on, come on.” Her feet feel like they’re on fire as she sinks down into the water, Natalie’s steady hand on her arm as she does so.

 

Lottie is a little more conscious of things now, but all she can concentrate on is how cold and tired and in pain she is. She’s panting like she’s just run a marathon, shivering despite the steamed bath she's sitting in, holding her bloodied hand up out of the water as it shakes.

 

She watches as Natalie rips up some strips of cloth then comes to sit on the stool by the tub. She’s holding her hand out for Lottie, who relents and lets her take her injured one. Natalie begins to wrap it, but she won’t meet Lottie’s eyes.

 

“I’m really sorry,” Nat says and Lottie just listens. She doesn’t think Natalie has anything to be sorry about, really. “This is all my fault.”

 

It feels different in here, for some reason. It’s just Lottie and Nat, and they’re just two girls who are friends, who might’ve gone a little overboard with some stupid competition, and gotten both of them into more trouble than they’d meant. So Lottie just smiles. “Good game,” she croaks, “you fucking loser.”

 

And it’s so familiar, the way Natalie scoffs, her lips turning up into a smirk. “Are you talking shit?” She shakes her head and they’re both chuckling now. “You little bitch.”

 

Natalie is looking at Lottie now, the same way she always has and Lottie thinks that, at least for right now, they’re okay. “I’m fine,” Nat says, holding out her hand once more. Lottie takes it, squeezes. She’s never felt more relieved, she thinks. “Good game.”

 

They don’t really say too much after that. Lottie sort of doesn’t want to let go of Natalie’s hand, either, but she eventually lets the other girl take it back. 

 

“Nat,” Lottie starts after a bit of silence, “I-- I’m--”

 

“Don’t,” Nat says, still slumped on the stool, “I know.” Lottie wishes Natalie would let her say it, but she knows she won’t. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

 

And even if Lottie doesn’t know if tomorrow they’ll be okay or not, she’s happy to know that for the rest of tonight they are. She leans her head against the side of the tub and closes her eyes. For now, she’s just grateful Nat is staying with her. She’s even still holding her hand.

 

Lottie isn’t sure how long it is before Nat stands up, finally, and says, “I’ll go let Jackie know you’re okay.”

 

 

Jackie has snapped more times in the last thirty minutes than she has since halftime of an especially close game, trying to get everyone to pay attention and work as a team. Except, now, she’s trying to stave off the attention of a bunch of girls bombarding her with questions until she finally asks, “Shouldn’t you all be getting ready for bed?”

 

They disperse reluctantly, and Jackie leans against the wall beside the door, her arms crossed. When Nat comes out, Jackie moves forward. “She’s okay,” Nat says. “She’s going to be.”

 

Jackie brushes a hand through her hair, and she realizes she needs to actually brush it. It’s been awhile. Sighing, she says, “You didn’t see her.”

 

“No, but you guys got her back. You saved her life.”

 

Swallowing, Jackie nods. She can’t look at Nat. She still asks, despite already knowing the answer. “The moose?”

 

Nat stays quiet for so long that Jackie actually has to turn to her, and she hates the way Nat’s face has crumbled. She looks young. She looks her age. “Gone,” she says, her voice choked. 

 

“You tried. That’s what matters,” Jackie says. It’s a different song and dance than all those months ago when Jackie had berated Natalie and Travis for dicking around instead of hunting, but she’d been desperate for Shauna, back then. Now, Jackie was desperate for something else. She can’t stop herself, though, from quickly throwing her arms around Nat and giving her a squeeze, pulling back just as fast. “I’m going to check on Lottie.” 

 

Lottie wants to sleep, she thinks, but she knows falling asleep in the water would be just as bad as falling asleep outside. Which she had almost done. She hadn’t meant to, really. It wasn’t like she wanted to die. She didn’t think she wanted to.

 

But inside her dreams, she’d seen Laura Lee. She hadn’t wanted to leave her. She didn’t want to go. But the other girl, her friend, her everything, the only one that had seemed to notice Lottie slipping from reality, had told her to go. She’d pushed her away.

 

And now Lottie was here.

 

She hears the door open again but doesn’t lift her head, already knowing it’s Jackie. She waits for her to sit before she says anything. “Sorry,” she murmurs, her voice still hoarse.

 

“Fuck, Lottie,” Jackie says, slumping against the side of the tub. Something prickles in her eyes, and she rubs it away quickly, but she can’t stop sniffling. She keeps her eyes open, staring straight ahead. If she closes them, she’ll see Lottie lying in the snow. She’ll see Shauna. She’ll forget which one is which.

 

Jackie isn’t looking at her and Lottie wonders if she’s done something wrong. It seems like that’s all she can do these days. Still, she shifts enough to lean against the other side of the tub, where she can at least see the side of Jackie’s face, and she lets her hand hang over the edge of the tub, in case Jackie wants to take it, as something solid and real to remind her that Lottie isn’t dead.

 

And maybe Lottie kind of wanted the reminder, too. 

 

She thinks about Laura Lee and feels guilty. She thinks about Jackie and feels guilty, too. She’s never been the best at comforting people, but she thinks she needs to try. “I’m okay,” she tells her. It’s kind of a lie, but she isn’t not okay, so it’s the truth, as well.

 

“You’re not okay.” Jackie’s voice is thick, and she takes Lottie’s hand, holding it in both of hers before bringing it up to her cheek. “You’re not okay. You– I– I thought you were dead.” Lottie’s hand is still cold, but it’s warmer now. The water’s helping. Even still, Jackie’s fingers are trembling, searching, moving to Lottie’s wrist to feel her pulse moving underneath her fingertips. Jackie still needs the reminder. It’s almost not enough.

 

Lottie’s face falls. She knows what those words mean. She knows that Jackie has already watched one person freeze to death, the person who had mattered most to her in the entire world. It feels like a much slower death than burning up in the sky. Lottie lets Jackie hold her hand close and Jackie’s skin feels so warm, warmer than the water. She hopes she doesn’t get blood on her face. She doesn’t know what else to say.

 

“I’m not,” she tells her after a long moment. 

 

“Please don’t do that again,” Jackie whispers. “Please. You… have made me stay here. You have made me wake up. You have made me eat. You won’t let me drift off like I– like I wanted to. So now you can’t do the same. You… Lottie, you get that, right?”

 

Lottie doesn’t really get that. She thought she was just doing what anyone would. If Lottie hadn’t done it, she was sure at least Nat would have tried. She just wanted to help, like Jackie had said before. All Lottie wanted to do was help people.

 

“I won’t.” She makes the promise quietly but wonders if she’ll actually be able to keep it. There’s things she misses, things she wants to go back to. But she promises. She won’t do that again.

 

Eventually, the water begins to grow cold and Lottie has to get out, but her body is rigid still, and she struggles to lift herself, arms shaking. She doesn’t really want to ask for help, though. They’ve all already done enough for her, she thinks. This whole mess was mostly her fault, anyway.

 

Jackie’s already standing as she hears Lottie start to move, her arms going to wrap around Lottie and help her stand. “I’ve got you,” she tells her. She doesn’t care that Lottie’s heavier, taller. She’s going to help her, anyway. And she doesn’t care if Lottie doesn’t want the help. She’s going to get it, anyway.

 

It’s a bit more of a struggle than it needs to be, but Jackie helps Lottie stand and grabs a blanket to help Lottie dry off. “I’ll grab you some clothes in a second,” she tells her.

 

Lottie is grateful for the help, don’t get her wrong, but she feels a little silly about it, too. She’s never been this indisposed before. She’s never had to ask for help like this before. She wraps the towel around herself tightly, shivering in the cool air of the bedroom, though feeling has actually returned to her body. Most of it, at least.

 

She can’t help but notice how black some of her toes look on her left foot. She can’t feel them, either. She can’t move them. She ignores that for now, though, and looks back to Jackie. “Thank you,” she says to her. It’s not a lot to offer, but it’s what she has for now.

 

“Try not to fucking freeze to death,” Jackie mutters, giving Lottie one last look as she goes out to gather Lottie’s clothes.

 

Eyes greet her as she walks out of the bedroom, and Jackie blinks at the attention, having grown unused to it. “She’s– She’ll be fine. Clothes?” Most of the girls move out of her way as Jackie gets something for Lottie to wear and slips back into the bedroom. 

 

“Here,” she says, holding it out for Lottie to take.

 

Lottie waits patiently, moving to sit on the bed as she does, staring down at her feet and trying to move each toe individually. Most of her right foot is fine, but there’s more than one on her left foot that won’t budge. She hopes that by tomorrow it’ll be better. Maybe it just needs time.

 

When Jackie comes back in, she takes the pajamas gratefully and begins redressing herself, thinking about when she’d dragged Jackie back inside after she’d found Shauna frozen. How Lottie had pulled off all of her wet clothes and helped her replace them with warm, dry clothes. How Jackie hadn’t fought but hadn’t helped, either. 

 

Once she’s dressed, Lottie finally feels warm. Or, warmer at least. Warm enough. She thinks she should probably go sit by the fire, but she’s not sure she wants to go out into the front room just yet. 

 

She looks up at Jackie and reaches out to her, takes one of her hands. “I’ll stay,” she tells her quietly, “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Jackie waits for Lottie to get dressed, looking at a spot on the wall where there’s an irregular pattern in the wood. The hand that slips into hers is warm again, solid, real. Lottie is solid and warm and real and with her, and Jackie tries to take comfort in that. The hand isn’t enough, though, can’t be, and Jackie doesn’t stop herself from wrapping her arms around Lottie and pulling her close, nodding against her chest. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

 

Lottie supposes she shouldn’t be so surprised anymore when Jackie hugs her, but it’s still hard for her to wrap her head around it. She knows how tactile Jackie is, she’s watched her hold Shauna’s hand, or wrap her arm in her’s, or drape them over Shauna’s shoulders. The two of them were always like that.

 

It’s just that Lottie has never been that kind of person. Still, she moves her arms to wrap back around Jackie and pulls her in close. She doesn’t feel like this is something she’s allowed to want or to like, let alone need -- but she also knows it’s all three of those things now. Selfishly, she wants to be okay with that.

 

“C’mon,” she mumbles after a moment, “let’s go sit by the fire.”

 

Jackie pulls away and wipes at her eyes. Boring and tragic. A baby. That’s what she is, and she hates it, a little, as she gives Lottie a nod. She moves to wrap Lottie’s arm around her shoulder again because, even if Lottie doesn’t want to admit it, Jackie gets that she definitely needs a little help right now.

 

Lottie doesn’t resist as Jackie wraps her arm around her, and she even lets a little of her weight rest on the shorter girl, but she tries her best to hold up her own weight as she hobbles along, feeling the soreness and pain shoot up her legs as she does.

 

When she makes it to the front room, more than one of the girls jump to their feet, excited. 

 

“Lottie!” Mari is running over, not even minding Jackie, and wrapping her arms around Lottie, who again doesn’t exactly know how to react. Akilah and Misty stand just behind her, both smiling. 

 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Misty says and Lottie just nods at her. She wants to sit down and curl up while they wait for dinner to be prepared. “I’ll need to check you over for any wounds. I mean, besides the one on your hand. What even happened out there?”

 

Lottie, pleadingly, looks at Jackie. She wants her to make Misty go away because Lottie is too weary to do it herself.

 

“After dinner, Misty, yeah?” It’s not really a question, although Jackie’s voice is a much softer rasp than the harsh bark she was using with the girls earlier. She even gives Misty a smile. 

 

Misty just blinks. “Oh. Okay.”

 

Jackie maneuvers them to sit near the fire, helping Lottie get situated as Akilah starts handing out their small portions of food.

 

Lottie is grateful for Jackie’s help, sinking down into the chair. She takes the offered cup of warm broth and wraps both her hands around it, letting it warm up her palms. She almost wants to close her eyes and just go to sleep, but she knows Jackie won’t let her do that until she eats. They’re both stuck with each other now, though Lottie wouldn’t call it such. She enjoys Jackie’s company, she always has. She thinks Jackie’s soft voice and gentle smile were part of the reason Shauna was so drawn to her.

 

They’re settled into dinner in mostly silence when suddenly the door is flung open.

 

A gust of cold air follows Van in. She’s dragging someone behind her, panting.

 

It’s Javi.

 

“That’s not possible,” Jackie breathes, moving to stand, her hand squeezing Lottie’s arm.

 

Melissa says, “Holy shit.”

 

Misty’s smiling, incredulous. “Javi.”

 

Javi. Javi’s alive, while Shauna froze in a matter of hours. Neither of them should have made it, so why is this boy still here? Jackie is grateful he’s alive. She is. She can’t help but be because he’s just a kid. But she’s devastated, too.

 

Nat looks like she’s feeling that devastation as well.

 

So many of the girls are moving to crowd around him, ask if he’s okay, but it’s Travis who shoves his way to his brother, looking like he sees a ghost. “How… how the hell are you alive?” he asks, wrapping his arms around Javi tight. But he seems to sense something’s wrong. “Javi? Hey. You okay? It’s me. It’s your brother.” He looks beyond Javi, and Jackie follows his gaze, watching as Nat turns and gets up.

 

Nat must have lied, Jackie thinks. Even if it was wrong, though. She gets it. Travis needed closure.

 

Too bad the door had been busted wide open.

 

Everyone is shocked, but Lottie thinks she might be the most shocked, aside from Travis. From Nat. She stares at the young boy who is standing in the middle of the doorway, looking around with wide, scared eyes. She doesn’t know what he’s afraid of, but maybe it was all of them. 

 

“This means Lottie was right,” comes Mari's voice, because of course it’s Mari, it’s always Mari.

 

Lottie stiffens but doesn’t move. 

 

“She’s the one who said Javi was alive.”

 

The worst part was that everyone seemed to agree with Mari. She’s smirking from ear to ear. 

 

“Three cheers for Lottie!” Misty shouts. “Hip-hip--”

 

But one glare from Mari stops Misty dead in her tracks. Lottie can’t see her face but she’s pretty sure if Misty could feel embarrassment, it would be in this moment. Either way, Lottie doesn’t like where this is going.

 

Van, still panting, interrupts. “Lottie knew he was alive, but Taissa knew where he was.” She points to her girlfriend, who is curled up on the bench near the window. She looks terrified of her own revelation.

 

“No, but I…” She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to admit it, Lottie can tell. She hadn’t wanted to at first, either.

 

“No,” Van states, kneeling in front of Tai, “you can’t deny this anymore. There is something deep inside of you connected to all of this.”

 

Tai looks up, as if searching for an answer in someone else’s eyes. No one has one for her.

 

Travis hugs Javi tight and Lottie looks from Tai, to Javi, to Jackie. No one knows what to say now.

 

Jackie doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. She doesn’t know how Tai found Javi, or how Lottie even knew that he was even still alive. That doesn’t matter, though, not at the moment. “Someone get him something to eat, okay? Some water.”

 

“He might need rest,” Coach finally says, speaking up. “Get him to the bedroom.”

 

Squeezing Lottie’s arm again, Jackie doesn’t know what else to say. She watches Travis shuffle Javi into the back room, Misty trotting along behind, likely to check the boy over and traumatize him a little bit more. 

 

Javis is moved into the bedroom with Travis and Ben and Lottie is still dumbfounded. She doesn’t understand what’s just happened. Van is still whispering something to Tai and Lottie looks up at Jackie as she feels her squeezing her arm.

 

None of this really makes sense. Sure, Lottie had felt it, felt that Javi was alive, but when weeks had gone by with no sign of him after Travis found those bloody pants, she’d just figured she was wrong. 

 

But once again, she’d been proven right.

 

She worried this would make things worse. Because the girls who hadn’t looked at her like she was something otherworldly were doing so now, and Lottie shrinks under their gaze. She hides behind her cup, trying to finish her food despite how sick she feels to her stomach at the moment.

 

“Just eat,” Jackie whispers, moving to shield Lottie a little. She doesn’t feel particularly hungry, either, but she knows that they both have to. They’ve all been out in the cold, but Lottie got the worst of it. She needs to eat. She needs to stay warm. “It’s been a long day.”

 

Lottie feels even more grateful for Jackie in that moment and she moves one hand from her cup to slide into Jackie’s, squeezing to let her know that. She doesn’t feel like talking anymore, or saying anything to anyone, even though she can tell some of them want her to.

 

From the other side of the room, she can feel Van staring at her, at her and Jackie’s intertwined hands, but she opts to ignore it.

 

Eventually, Tai and Van retreat upstairs and the others begin cleaning up dinner, setting up for bed. Lottie doesn’t feel as achey as she had earlier, but she’s growing more and more exhausted as the evening drags on. By the time she’s laying down on the floor, her eyes are already drooping closed, but she’s forcing herself to stay awake until she feels Jackie laying down beside her.

 

When she does, Lottie is almost reaching out subconsciously for her, still stiff fingers curling against the fabric of Jackie’s-- Shauna’s-- jacket.

 

There are fingers holding onto Jackie’s sleeve, and Jackie turns towards Lottie. She reaches for the blankets and pulls it over both of them as her eyes close. 

 

Lottie is about to fall asleep she thinks when someone is shaking her.

 

“Lottie,” comes Misty’s voice, “hey, Lottie.” 

 

She groans but opens her eyes. “Misty?”

 

“Hi, so, um-- Javi is fine, he still won’t talk, but that’s probably a symptom of being off on his own for months now, but--”

 

“Misty, please,” Lottie grumbles, “get to the point.”

 

For a moment, Misty looks annoyed. Then, she smiles and it looks plastic. “Right. Um, well, I should probably check you over. It’s likely you have at least some frostbite or something else, depending on what all happened, and it’s probably best if we--”

 

Lottie interrupts her again. “Misty…” she gives her a pleading look. “Tomorrow, please?” When Misty doesn’t budge, Lottie adds on, “I just…want to rest for now.”

 

Jackie hasn’t actually been trying to sleep. Her eyes being closed is nightmare enough, the way that Lottie laying in the snow plays on a repeat. Shauna will be in her place, foggy breath puffing out of her mouth. Sometimes, Lottie will take Shauna’s place, her skin pale, her eyelashes frosted over. 

 

There is a world, Jackie thinks, where they both leave her. There is a world where she is alone again. And she’s forced to keep doing this. Jackie wonders if living is a punishment.

 

She keeps wondering that through the sound of Misty’s voice, even though she pretends to be asleep, pretends that her unconscious body pulls itself closer to Lottie, wrapping around her to keep her close, and maybe to ward Misty Quigley off. 

 

Lottie can see through her heavy, lidded eyes that Misty’s brows furrow when Jackie moves to wrap herself around Lottie. And Lottie knows Jackie isn’t asleep, but she doesn’t say anything.

 

“Right,” Misty finally says, backing off, “okay.” 

 

When she finally moves away and over to where her and Crystal sleep, Lottie turns back to Jackie. She prods her. “I know you’re not asleep,” she mumbles.

 

“That’s not what ‘thank you’ sounds like,” Jackie whispers. She doesn’t actually move away, though. “She should… probably check you out in the morning, though. You were in the cold for a long time.”

 

Lottie doesn’t really want to tell Jackie that she can’t feel much of her left foot. It’s not important right now. “I know,” Lottie mumbles, an answer to both statements, really. She’ll let Misty look at her in the morning, she will. She just sort of doesn’t want to move right now. She thinks it feels kinda nice, having Jackie’s arms around her.

 

She turns back on her side, looks at Jackie through tired eyes. “Thank you,” she finally says. 

 

Blinking awake at the words, Jackie just looks at Lottie for a minute before softly telling her, “Get some sleep.” There isn’t anything for Lottie to thank Jackie for. 

 

The finger in Jackie’s pocket weighs heavy, almost as heavy as her heart. She almost lost Lottie. They all did, but Jackie is selfish, remember? She feels cold like ice in her veins at the thought of Lottie dying, of Lottie leaving her like Shauna did. Because her heart feels raw, too, like a mark is being carved next to Shauna Shipman’s name, and Jackie doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

 

(It doesn’t feel completely horrible, either, and maybe that is the worst part.)

Notes:

Bing, bang, boom! There we are. What do you think is gonna happen next time? Did you like the title pun?

Chapter 5: cut your losses

Summary:

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, catch a Lottie by the... well, you know. Misty tells Lottie that some things have just got to be cut out of our lives, or maybe off of them, while Taissa helps Jackie learn the same. Sometimes, we have to burn the things and people in our lives that are keeping us stuck.

Notes:

Look alive, it's Chapter 5! As promised, this one's a bit beefier than last chapter.

Title is a pun. You'll see :)

It doesn’t take much for Lottie to fall asleep that night, and though she literally almost froze to death earlier that day, she feels the warmest she’s been in a long time.

 

She dreams of warm water, of a plane, of soft hands, a golden necklace. Arms wrapped around her, holding her close. Combing through her hair, braiding it gently.

 

Someone is shaking Lottie awake again the next morning. When her eyes open, she realizes it’s far past when she usually wakes. The sun is already shining through one of the windows and Jackie isn’t next to her anymore.

 

It’s Misty above her, shaking her gently to wake her up. “Lottie,” she says to her, “I need to look you over now.”

 

Right, Lottie had almost forgotten about that. Stiffly, she moves herself to sit up, glancing around the cabin. She sees Melissa folding up some of the clothes that have been washed and dried from last night, and Crystal sweeping out the kitchen, but other than that, it’s empty.

 

“Give me your hands,” Misty says, “I’ll check your digits first, those are always what freeze the fastest.” 

 

“Where’s Jackie?” Lottie asks instead, but she does hold her hands out to Misty, who gives a thin lipped smile.

 

“Where she always is,” Misty says back and Lottie thinks it sounds a little too stilted to be genuine. “The shed.”

 

Lottie sighs. She should have figured.

 

“Your fingers look fine, can you feel this?” Misty pulls out a needle and prods one finger. 

 

“Ow!” Lottie gasps but Misty just smiles.

 

“Good.” Misty prods each finger in turn and Lottie winces each time in reaction. No frostbite on them, though they still feel stiff and achy.

 

Misty moves down towards Lottie’s feet and Lottie swallows as she pulls the blanket away. Lottie doesn’t need to be a doctor to know it’s not good. They’re still black, still numb. And Misty’s face gives the rest of it away.

 

She reaches out and prods Lottie’s right foot first. Pricks the needle against her skin and Lottie’s foot twitches. That one is okay.

 

The other…Misty is prodding her toes but Lottie doesn’t feel a thing. Then Misty is poking the needle against her skin and Lottie doesn’t even realize it’s being dug into her toe before Misty stops.

 

“Okay!” Misty says, pulling back. “So, um--- good news! You’ll still be able to walk--”

 

“What-- still?” Lottie breathes, looking at Misty.

 

“Yeah, I mean, you really only need a few toes to balance, so once we amputate the others, you should be--”

 

“Amputate?” Comes a voices from the other side of the room. Lottie looks over to see Crystal coming out of the kitchen and over to Misty. “Oh my gosh, Lottie, are you okay? Do you need something? I can get you some water! Or some breakfast! It’s still hot.”

 

Even Melissa has stopped what she’s doing and is staring at them both.

 

And Lottie doesn’t really understand what’s going on right now. She’s still stuck on the last words Misty had said. It shouldn’t be a surprise, she thinks, but she also thinks it’s an overreaction, right?

 

“I-- we don’t-- need to , right? It should be…”

 

Misty frowns, furrows her brows again. “If we don’t, they could become necrotic and then you could get gangrene and if that spreads, it could necrotize more of your leg, and then, well,” she shrugs, “then I guess you’d be sharing crutches with Ben.”

 

Jackie had actually gotten up before Lottie, a rarity, though she supposed it helped that it felt like she’d never actually dozed longer than a few minutes. 

 

It only makes sense to let Lottie sleep, to let her get that rest that she obviously needs. And maybe Jackie needs just a little bit of space to get away from the images of Lottie being actually cold and dead, not just cold. 

 

Of course, being around Shauna isn’t much better. 

 

Jackie ends up pacing, her hands going to the pinky in her pocket and picking at it. She looks over at Shauna and mutters, “I wish you’d talk to me. Haunt me. Do anything. Do you really hate me that much?” 

 

There’s no reply. Jackie’s desperate for any sort of words from Shauna though that she tucks the finger back into her pocket and heads to the cabin, deciding to get out Shauna’s journals and read them, no matter how horrible they feel. She’d do anything to hear Shauna’s words, but reading them is just going to have to be the next best thing. 

 

She’s surprised to see Misty examining Lottie when she steps inside, and Jackie is unable to stop herself from walking over to them, even when she has a mission. “Hey,” she says. “How’s the patient?”

 

Lottie is still staring hard at her feet when the door opens and Jackie comes in. Misty looks like she wants to tell Jackie to go away, and she doesn't look at her as she says, “Good news or bad news first?”

 

Lottie wants to say good news, but she already knows that the good news is still technically bad news. 

 

Melissa and Crystal are still hovering nearby as well, and Lottie is reminded of just how private being an only child is. She never had to worry about people being in her space without her wanting them to be, or about people simply walking in on what could be described as a horror show. 

 

She thinks Jackie should just go back out to the shed. 

 

“It's fine,” she tries to tell her, finally wrenching her gaze from her-- what had Misty called it? Necrotic?-- foot and looking over to Jackie. “Just sore.”

 

This earns her a cocked brow from Misty, who finally turns to look at Jackie, as if waiting to see if she'll fall for the lie.

 

Jackie might believe that if Lottie wasn’t staring at her black fucking toes. “Bad news, please,” Jackie says to Misty, frowning at Lottie.

 

Misty looks a little smug, Lottie thinks. “We're gonna lose a few toes,” She explains and Lottie is frowning. She isn't sure if Misty sounds chipper to be encouraging or to be cocky. Maybe a little of both.

 

Jackie glares at Lottie first for the lie and then takes a deep breath, her eyes closing. She can’t maintain it for long without images flashing through her mind, so she stares at the ceiling. “And the good news?”

 

“Well as long as it doesn't get infected, she'll still be able to walk,” Misty goes on and Lottie decides she doesn't like being upright anymore, so she lays her head back down on her jacket pillow and puts her hands over her face. 

 

“I'll have to get some supplies prepared, but really we should do this as soon as possible.” Misty sounds so clinical, so straight forward, as if cutting off a few toes was a routine day. Then again, Lottie can't really be surprised, when Misty was the one who stomped through the wreckage and chopped off Coach Scott's leg without a second thought. 

 

With that, though, Misty gets up to start gathering what she needs, instructing Crystal to go get Akilah for her, cause she'll probably need a second pair of hands. That doesn't bode well for her, Lottie thinks. 

 

But she's somehow more worried about what Jackie is going to say to her now. She drops her hands and looks up at her, waiting.

 

It doesn’t really matter that Jackie was on a mission, does it? Not anymore. She sighs and plops down beside Lottie, bringing her knees up to her chest. “It’s fine,” she mimics. “Just sore.” 

 

Shauna used to hate that Jackie would do that sometimes, clinging to words and tossing them back like live grenades. For the most part, it was movies. If she liked something enough, she’d memorize it. She was constantly trying to memorize details of classmates, friends, characters, Shauna. Lottie, now, too, she supposes. She can’t help herself. 

 

Sighing, Jackie asks again, “Are you okay?”

 

Lottie isn't used to anything like this. She's been a loner all her life, really. And while she could fake blending in in large social groups, things like this were strange to her. While Van would often joke around with her one on one, it was always in a playful manner. And Nat was simply deadpan and sarcastic with her teasing.

 

This didn't feel like either of those. 

 

Lottie lets out a long breath before scooting to sit up again. She tries in vain one last time to wiggle her toes, but nothing has changed in the two minutes since Misty last checked. 

 

“Yeah,” she finally answers, but she's not sure that's the complete truth. The real truth is that Lottie doesn't know. She shrugs with one shoulder. “Or-- I…don't know,” she amends.

 

“At least it’s… just a few toes,” Jackie says, looking at Lottie’s frostbitten foot. It could be worse. It could be the whole foot, or her hands, or both feet. It could be so much worse than a few toes. 

 

But that also feels awful and makes Jackie a little queasy to think about. 

 

Going to the attic just isn’t going to happen today, as Jackie decides to wait around with Lottie and offer her incredibly paltry support when Akilah comes back in with Kristen and Misty comes back over with some supplies. 

 

Lottie hums a reply. It feels incredibly underwhelming, but she can't seem to form words. She knows Jackie likes to talk, and she knows that Jackie also likes to be talked to. Usually it only took a few glasses of cheap wine at the country club to get Lottie babbling, but there's none of that out here and old habits die hard, she supposes.

 

When Misty comes back over, she sets the supplies on the bench, then gets the others to help her set up the larger bench as an “operating table” as she calls it. It sort of makes Lottie's stomach churn. She's been strapped down to beds called those before and her hands tighten into anxious fists. 

 

Finally, Misty is standing in front of her and Jackie. “Can you walk or do you need help?”

 

Lottie contemplates a moment. She wants to say she's fine, but she thinks Jackie might just smack her if she does.

 

“Probably,” she decides on, looking over at Jackie. It's something, right? Improvement?

 

Probably she can walk or probably she needs help, Jackie wonders, but she’s not going to ask, moving to help Lottie up by herself before Misty gets on the other side and assists her, looking a little put out that she wasn’t actually asked. 

 

“You’re just so tall,” Jackie huffs out as they (two of the shortest people in the cabin) move Lottie to the bench. “It’s not fair.”

 

Lottie tries her best to help them, making sure not to put pressure on her bad foot as they help her hobble over to the other table. 

 

“I'd give you some of my height if I could,” she mumbles back to Jackie as they sit her down. Misty has a cloth spread out, a bucket of water, one of the knives, whatever little bit of disinfectant they have left, whether it be Travis’ Grandpa cologne, or the bottle of make up remover from someone's suitcase, and cut up strips of cloth. The strangest thing, Lottie thinks, is the lighter. 

 

“So,” Misty starts out, “this is probably gonna hurt a lot, since, you know, we don't have any anesthetic. I can get a stick for you to bite down on, if you want. That helps sometimes. Or something to squeeze! Up to you.”

 

A little more than horrified, Lottie glances to Jackie then back to Misty. “Um…” she flounders a little, not sure what the better option would be, “I--I can just squeeze…something, I guess.”

 

Jackie slips her hand into Lottie’s. “You might want to bite down on something, too,” she murmurs. “So that you don’t bite your tongue.”

 

Kristen jogs to the door. “I’ll get it!”

 

Lottie grows even more horrified at the thought. She's already squeezing Jackie's hand tightly and she thinks back to Van, squirming and writhing on the table as Akilah and Tai worked as fast and delicately as possible to stitch her face back together.

 

Lottie feels suddenly nauseous. They've seen a lot of shit out here already, but Lottie had never considered having to be the one on the table. She can't hold her hands over her ears and block out the sound when she'll be the one making the noises.

 

Crystal comes back in with a stick, proudly presenting it to Lottie, who takes it with a trembling hand. Misty flicks the lighter on and runs it over the blade. 

 

“You might wanna hold her leg down,” she instructs Akilah, “don't wanna cut off any more than we have to, right?”

 

Lottie doesn't say anything. Akilah looks at her with a pitying glance before she puts her hands on Lottie's leg and applies pressure.

 

Misty takes one of the strips of cloth and ties it as tight as she can around Lottie's foot, just below where the black skin ends. 

 

She looks from Akilah to Lottie, almost pointedly ignoring Jackie. “Ready?”

 

Jackie offers what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze as she tries to pull dredges from what used to seem like an endless well of encouragement for the people she cared for. She couldn’t look when they had to work on Van’s face, but she’d had to stay behind with Allie all those months ago as the coaches made sure she was seen off in the ambulance. Jackie had tried to be comforting then, too. She didn’t think it translated well in the locker room. 

 

Out here, though, for Lottie, she tries harder. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be fine.” She urges Lottie to put the stick in her mouth.

 

Lottie takes in as deep of a breath as she can, squeezing Jackie's hand so tight she can feel her knuckles turning white. She puts the stick in her mouth and bites down. Looks Misty in the eyes. Nods.

 

She really wants to keep her eyes open, but the moment Misty is leaning forward with the knife, her eyes screw shut.

 

She feels the hot metal against her skin. It burns and then it slices, and then Misty is digging the blade in as quickly as possible to get to the joints and Lottie bites down on the stick and tastes bark and she really tries hard not to scream, but she can't help it. 

 

She thinks it sounds a lot like when she'd screamed as Laura Lee's plane exploded.

 

Jackie actually wonders if she’s imagining the smell as hot metal cuts through Lottie’s flesh, burning it, digging away at the dark, unfeeling bits until it gets to something that causes Lottie so much pain that she’s screaming around the stick in her mouth. The sound is heart wrenching, familiar, and Jackie squeezes Lottie’s hand and her eyes shut tight. 

 

“You’re okay,” Jackie whispers as she holds Lottie’s hand. “You’re okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

 

There are hot tears in Lottie's eyes, streaking down her face. She's trying so hard to keep herself still but her leg muscles are jerking and Akilah is working her hardest to hold her down while Misty works as quickly as she can to dig the knife in and find the joints. 

 

Speckles dot Lottie's vision, the world beginning to spin around her. She squeezes Jackie's hand and hopes she isn't hurting her, too, because she doesn't think she'd be able to let go at this point. 

 

Lottie's head lolls backwards. She hears Misty's half panicked voice. 

 

“Don't let her pass out!” She snaps before she's wedging the knife back in to cut out the next one.

 

“I’ve got you,” Jackie says, jerking forward with her free hand to grab Lottie’s face, fingers gripping her jaw and tapping her cheek and forcing her to keep her head upright. “Do not fucking pass out right now, Lottie.”

 

Jackie can barely feel the hand that Lottie’s gripping, except to know that the bones feel like they’re grinding together. She doesn’t really care. The pressure means that Lottie’s still awake, which is apparently pretty fucking important. 

 

Lottie thinks she should be allowed to pass out because this is torture. It's just a few toes, but Lottie's entire leg feels like it's on fire. She feels the stick in her mouth bending under the pressure, feels the bones in her hand and Jackie's grinding together. Feels Jackie's hand on her face and she blinks heavy lids. 

 

Misty digs the knife in one more time, and Lottie feels her entire body spasm with white hot, blinding pain. She wants so badly to get up and run, to do anything to get away from this, but she knows she has to stay put.

 

By the time Misty pulls out the knife for the last time and goes to close up the wound, Lottie isn't sure she's even in her own body anymore 

 

“There,” Misty says, smiling. There's blood on her hands, on her face. Her voice is echoing. “All done. I just need to clean it up and then wrap it and you'll be all good!”

 

Lottie is still whimpering and shuddering and she feels a little pathetic about it, trying not to cry out too much despite the burning pain in her foot.

 

But she made it. Somehow. 

 

“Oh, wait, catch her--” 

 

It's the last thing Lottie hears before the world goes blank and her head falls backward.

 

Jackie just barely manages to keep Lottie’s head from hitting the bench, her own breathing heavy as she supports Lottie. Apparently, it’s okay for Lottie to pass out, now, and Jackie hopes that she’s not in too much pain in her unconscious state. Jackie maneuvers herself to sit behind Lottie, resting Lottie’s head in her lap and brushing her fingers through Lottie’s hair. 

 

“She’s going to be okay, right?” Jackie asks as she looks at Misty. Akilah slowly removes herself from Lottie’s leg and starts helping to bandage Lottie’s foot.

 

Misty doesn’t even look at Jackie. “It’s just a few toes.”

 

Right. That’s what Jackie had said, too. Still. It feels like it’s something more after all the suffering Lottie just went through.

 

Lottie isn't fully unconscious, she doesn't think, but she's not conscious either-- except for the feeling of gentle fingers brushing through her hair and Lottie thinks she can almost smell the light, vanilla scented perfume Laura Lee always wore. 

 

Her eyes open slowly, the world is still blurry, and she looks up at the face staring down at her, haloed in light from the window. “Laura…” Lottie mumbles, her mind still trying to grip reality as she becomes more aware. She kind of doesn't want to wake up, though. Both times she's passed out, now, she's seen her. 

 

Lottie doesn't really want to leave her anymore. 

 

But she knows Laura Lee is dead and when she blinks again she sees Jackie above her. “S-sorry,” she manages to breathe.

 

Jackie doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know if Lottie even wants her to as she breathes out that soft little apology. Jackie doesn’t even know what she’s apologizing for. She brushes some hair off of Lottie’s forehead, feeling sweaty, clammy skin under her fingers. “You’re okay. It’s okay.” It’s like a mantra at this point, to will Lottie being okay into existence with just her words. 

 

“You need to stay off your feet for at least a few days while it heals,” Misty tells Lottie as she and Akilah finish bandaging the open wound.

 

Lottie can still feel the pain pulsing in her foot, and it thrums all the way up her leg and into her head. But Jackie's fingers feel nice on her skin, cool against her too hot forehead. 

 

A few days sounds a little like torture, too. It feels so long out here, just a few days. Especially when they're already low on food. Lottie wishes there was something she could do, but there isn't and she knows it. 

 

She nods at Misty, who finishes cleaning up the supplies and stands. “Okay, well, I'll come check on it again in a little bit. I'll bring you some water and broth, too. Gotta stay hydrated after all that!”

 

Lottie groans but doesn't say anything. She still feels nauseous and somehow more tired than when she woke up. 

 

Jackie is still sitting with her, Lottie's head in her lap, and Lottie wants nothing more than to bury her face in Jackie's chest, but she also knows she shouldn't want that. She doesn't think Jackie would really want her to. 

 

She doesn't realize she's still holding Jackie’s hand until she goes to move it, but pauses before moving the other one, brushing salty tears off her cheeks.

 

“You…don't have to stay,” she murmurs. She doesn't want Jackie to stay if she doesn't want to. Lottie doesn't want to make her do anything she doesn't want, unless it's to eat, or sleep inside. That seems fair to her.

 

“I know I don’t,” Jackie says, but, honestly, where would she go? To the attic, to pour over the words of a girl that hates her? To the shed, to remind herself of what she’s lost and how much she craves the cold, even when she knows she’s not allowed to have it? 

 

If Lottie is going through all of this effort to keep Jackie alive, then Jackie feels that it’s only right to return the favor. “Do you want me to stay?”

 

Lottie wants to immediately say yes. Yes , she wants Jackie to stay. Yes , she wants someone to be there with her. Yes , she wants to feel like she's not alone. If even just for a little bit. 

 

But she can't find her voice when she needs it most. So she just nods. 

 

“Then I’ll stay.” Jackie moves to sit more comfortably against the wall, trying to make sure that Lottie’s head is comfortable in her lap as she brushes her fingers through Lottie’s hair again. She hopes the gesture is just as soothing for Lottie as it is for Jackie. It’s grounding, reminding her that Lottie is still warm flesh and blood, living, her pulse still strong when Jackie’s fingers brush down over Lottie’s neck. 

 

The others come in and out, Akilah having gone over at one point and likely told them what happened. A few of the girls start an approach towards Lottie, but Jackie shakes her head, letting them know with her eyes that Lottie needs rest more than she needs to be bothered. Maybe they think Jackie is bothering her, too, but Jackie doesn’t really give a shit, not when Lottie wants Jackie to be there.

 

(She’ll change her mind. Jackie knows she will. She wonders if it’ll be a relief, when Lottie finally just decides to let Jackie die, or she wonders if she’ll want to hold on despite everything.)

 

Lottie drifts in and out of sleep, lulled by the soothing feeling of fingers brushing gently through her hair, but disturbed by the occasional jolt of pain from her foot. She hasn't looked at it yet, she doesn't want to. She thinks that's okay for now. She hopes it is.

 

And she knows she can't stay like this forever, she knows the team needs her and she wants to be there for them, to be what keeps them going, what gives them hope. 

 

If this is the price for that, then Lottie is okay with paying it. 

 

Eventually Misty comes back over and checks her foot before getting her to sit up and drink some broth. It soothes her sore throat and reminds her that she'd been screaming the entire time. She hopes the others didn't hear it. 

 

When Lottie falls asleep she'll sometimes see Laura Lee, and she's sitting across the table from Lottie. She smiles, so sweet, and then she's climbing into the plane and leaving Lottie behind.

 

And one time, it's Jackie. And it's a plane, and there's fire. 

 

And then there's a flash of the shed. Wind howling. Lottie can't see her, but she can feel her, and she can feel that Jackie is lost. And Lottie can't seem to reach her. She calls out into the wind and it steals her voice. Other voices bombard her head, they whisper things to her but Lottie doesn't want to listen, she needs to find Jackie. 

 

She jolts awake, calling out Jackie's name. A few of the girls who are milling about pause to look at her but Lottie doesn't want to face them yet. She turns her head and presses her face against Jackie's leg. 

 

“How long…” she tries to speak but her throat is raw. She just wants to know how long she's been out.

 

She wants to know how long Jackie stayed with her.

 

Jackie’s neck is sore and her back aches from the way she’s stayed so still for so long, but she doesn’t actually move that much unless she’s helping Lottie drink some of the broth and water that Misty brings. That is, until she startles at the way Lottie calls out her name. 

 

She just isn’t expecting that. What was Lottie dreaming about? Why was Jackie there?

 

“Hey,” Jackie murmurs, letting Lottie adjust in her lap. She doesn’t pay any attention to the other girls. She tries not to, at least, though she’s started to hate the feeling of so many eyes on her out here. It’s becoming ironic. “Just a few hours. You’ve been in and out.”

 

A few hours sounds like a lot of time for someone to be sitting on such an uncomfortable surface. Lottie shifts and tries to sit up, but she's so tired. After yesterday and then this, today, Lottie feels completely drained of any energy she might have had stored up before the hunting competition. 

 

And now that they're low on food, gnawing on starling skills and bear ribs, energy is even harder to come by. 

 

She settles for shifting enough onto her side to look up at Jackie and not have to crane her neck.

 

“You should probably…get up for a bit.”

 

And, really, Lottie feels selfish for bogarting Jackie's time like this, when she's sure Jackie would rather be doing something else.

 

Jackie just shrugs. “I’m fine. You needed the rest.” Besides, it wasn’t like Jackie was going to go anywhere important.

 

It's probably true, and by the way Misty shoots her a glance, she figures it was for the better. 

 

Oh. That thought eats at her, guilt thick like tar, reminding her that she did have a plan for the day, even if it was just torturing herself with Shauna’s scathing words in the attic.

 

If Jackie lingers on that for too long, she’ll get lower than she already is. Instead, she asks, “What were you… dreaming about?”

 

Lottie doesn't answer the question right away. She reaches out and traces her fingers over a hem on Jackie's jacket 

 

“A storm,” Lottie relents finally, “you got lost.”

 

“Oh,” Jackie says quietly. A storm where she got lost. She’s been wondering more, in the few hours that Lottie’s been asleep, if there’s some merit to what Lottie’s been seeing, worshiping out there. Dirt gods. The wind. The trees. Lottie was right about Javi, after all. 

 

Jackie glances over at the bedroom door, knowing that Javi and Travis are inside. She heard Coach Ben earlier talking to them, the words muffled by the wood.

 

Maybe Lottie’s dream means something. Jackie thinks her dreams only exist to haunt her. 

 

“I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t really get out too much, right?” Jackie says. “Kind of hard to get lost between here and the shed.” 

 

Lottie closes her eyes again, she listens to Jackie's heartbeat against her ear. She hears the quiet creaking of the wood in the cabin, and the soft sounds of her teammates milling about.

 

She doesn't really feel like talking, and she hopes that's okay. She can feel eyes on her, drifting from her bandaged foot up to the way she's clinging to Jackie, curled up in the smaller girl's lap as if she weren't a whole head taller than her. 

 

It's only when Lottie hears Nat’s voice that she opens her eyes enough to see what's going on. 

 

The girl has come back alone from hunting, panting and cold, and Van is asking how it went, but Natalie is apparently ignoring her, standing in the doorway, staring at Lottie and Jackie. 

 

“The fuck happened?” Natalie breathes.

 

“Frostbite,” Jackie tells Nat, looking over at her without making any real attempt to move. As Lottie stirs, Jackie even smooths her fingers through Lottie’s hair just a little more in an attempt to keep her laying down. It might be a little uncomfortable, but Jackie finds that she doesn’t really want to move. She doesn’t want Lottie to move, either.

 

Instead, Jackie manages a smile towards Misty, tired but genuine. “Misty’s kind of a hero, you know? She’s totally the reason Lottie’s still going to be able to walk.”

 

Lottie wasn't really going to try and get up but as Jackie's fingers comb through her hair, she thinks that she definitely doesn't want to get up now. 

 

She does meet Nat‘s eyes, though, and she likes to think she sees something akin to worry in them.

 

“Fuck, Lottie…”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I'm--” she stops, restarts, “I'll be okay.”

 

Misty is in the corner, and while she smiles at Natalie, she still seems to be avoiding Jackie's gaze and Lottie is beginning to wonder if something has happened between the two. Other than Misty shoving food down Jackie's throat.

 

Jackie appreciates that Lottie corrects herself because she could tell that the dumbass was going to say that she was fine, and she’s not. She just had some of her fucking toes cut off with a hot knife. That’s not fine. That’s probably not going to be fine for a while.

 

“Do you want to try and sit up a little bit?” Jackie asks softly. “It might be good for you to drink something.”

 

Natalie looks at if she wants to say more, but instead she just hangs the gun up and heads towards the back. Everyone knows Travis has been avoiding her all day, ever since Van and Tai brought Javi back. 

 

Lottie feels a pang of guilt. It's her fault all of this was happening, and while she was glad Natalie wasn't mad at her anymore, she wished she would blame her anyway. 

 

When Jackie prods at her, Lottie blinks up at her. She probably should, she thinks, even though she feels rather comfortable just like this. 

 

Still, she nods, starts to shift enough to help lift her body, remembering how it had taken two of them just to lift her from the floor.

 

After helping Lottie sit up, Jackie moves to stand, her joints and bones cracking as she moves out of the position she’s been maintaining for several hours at this point. 

 

She walks over to the water, getting Lottie a cup when she overhears Gen and Melissa. 

 

“… running out. It’ll all be gone in a week at most,” Mel whispers, but it’s not exactly quiet. Jackie pretends to be busy, wanting to eavesdrop. 

 

Gen stays quiet for a moment. “So, what do we— what do we do?”

 

“I mean,” Melissa leans forward, and Jackie takes special care not to glance over at her. “There’s still… something else in the shed.”

 

Jackie drops the cup of water. “No.”

 

Gen and Melissa both look up at her, and they both look guilty. Melissa in particular, sad, too. She starts, “Jackie…”

 

“No!” Jackie says again, louder. “We’re not— No. We’re not doing that .”

 

Gen says, “We can’t… We can’t bury her. And we’re so—”

 

“I could not give less of a fuck,” Jackie snarls. “We’re not eating Shauna.” Saying the words makes her feel sick, and they make the whole cabin quiet.

 

Lottie is sitting up straighter the moment she hears the distress in Jackie’s voice. The cup of water splashes on the ground. 

 

The words strike the entire cabin silent.

 

Even Natalie, from back in the kitchen, is staring out into the space. 

 

Gen and Melissa look from Jackie, over to Lottie, as if asking her for permission. Asking her what to do. Lottie feels her chest begin to constrict.

 

“We’re not eating Shauna,” she reaffirms, though her voice doesn’t sound half as commanding as she wants it to.

 

“Jesus christ,” Natalie says from the back of the cabin, “are you guys fucking serious?”

 

“We’re running out of food!” Melissa tries to argue. “And, news flash, neither of you brought back any game, either!”

 

“No one else is going out there and trying to do anything!” Jackie says. “It’s just been Natalie and Travis, and then yesterday Lottie , and Lottie doesn’t even know how to hunt, but she still did it!” She looks at Melissa, her eyes hard. “And, what? Say we do eat– Let’s say we fucking do that . What about you? Are you going to be the one to cut her up? Look her in the face? Serve her up on a fucking platter?”

 

Jackie looks around the rest of the room. “We’re not eating Shauna.” She wouldn’t let them.

 

It’s Natalie who is standing up next to Jackie now, glaring down Melissa and Gen. Everyone else is holding their breath, wondering what’s going to happen. “Back the fuck off,” Natalie growls, “we’re not going to eat our fucking friend.”

 

Lottie has never been more grateful for Natalie than she is right now. She’s moved herself to the end of the table, wants to move over towards Jackie, wants to take her hand and reassure her that she won’t let them do this. But even just moving her foot makes Lottie’s entire leg jolt in pain.

 

“So, then, what happens when we all start, like, actually starving?” comes Mari’s voice. Lottie looks over to her. “We just…let it happen? After all this?”

 

That’s what Jackie planned on doing, but she gets that the rest of them aren’t exactly thinking like that. She frowns. “No, that’s not– Nat’s still going out, every day.” She looks at Nat, standing beside her, steady and confident.

 

Even still, Jackie can see the worry in Natalie’s eyes, the tension in her shoulders, the way she grows more and more desperate. 

 

“And– And the bear. The birds. Those happened when we– when we needed them,” Jackie says, trying to appeal to whatever weird spiritual bullshit (that may or may not be real) that so many of them seem to be into these days. “We’re not eating Shauna.”

 

“We’re not.” It’s Tai who agrees, and Jackie’s grateful to have yet another person backing her up, though she knows this is more for Shauna’s sake than Jackie’s. “But we… we do need to do something with her. I know the ground’s frozen, but… It’s been months. I think it’s… time to say goodbye.” 

 

Oh. No, that isn’t what Jackie wants at all. “Wait, what? No. No, we have to bury her. We have to–” How would they bury Jackie beside her if they didn’t bury Shauna? “What would we even…” But Jackie trails off, knowing the answer.

 

Lottie looks between Tai and Jackie, a sudden franticness to her.

 

“We can cremate her,” Tai says, and her voice is wavering with tears.

 

No one is protesting. Not even Natalie. Lottie doesn’t think this feels right. “She--” Lottie tries to stand, forgets, her leg buckling under her. Misty is rushing to her side on the floor. “She was her best friend, Tai,” Lottie begs, but Tai can’t look at her and she can’t look at Jackie. Lottie pushes Misty away, trying to stand again. “We can’t just…”

 

All the girls are looking at her again, except Tai. Lottie looks to Jackie, she feels her heart wrenching. Because Tai is right and Lottie can’t really argue with it. Getting rid of the body will at least stop all this nonsense talk of wanting to carve her up as if she were just another animal in the shed. 

 

She stays on the floor.

 

“Tomorrow morning,” Tai says with a cold finality, “we’ll do it tomorrow.”

 

They’re going to cremate Shauna, and there’s nothing Jackie can do about it. She feels unsteady, swaying, and Natalie is there, steadying her, telling her that it’s okay even when they both know that it’s not. 

 

The sound’s a bit distorted, but Jackie knows, at least, that Lottie’s trying to defend her, trying to help her even when she’s not even supposed to be walking. And Jackie’s grateful, she is. It doesn’t stop the ice in her veins, the creeping numbness under her skin.

 

“Tomorrow evening,” she says, looking at Taissa with big, pleading eyes. “Please. She-- She likes the sunsets.” 

 

Lottie doesn’t think Tai wants to wait that long, but she nods anyway. At least there’s that, she thinks. At least they can give Jackie that much.

 

Lottie doesn’t realize Misty is still trying to get her to sit on the bench again until the girl actually tugs on her arm and Lottie looks at her sharply, which makes her immediately stop what she’s doing. “I told you to stay off it,” she says under her breath, trying not to interrupt whatever else was going on. 

 

But Lottie doesn’t want to get back on the bench, she wants to go to Jackie. She just wants someone to comfort Jackie. And maybe her silent pleading reaches Nat, or maybe Nat feels it herself, but Lottie watches as Natalie takes Jackie’s shoulders and leads her over towards the bench. “C’mon,” she tells their former captain, “sit down.”

 

If Jackie goes out into the shed tonight for a final time, there won’t be anyone to stop her, and that’s all she can really think about as Natalie leads her back to the bench, to Lottie. She sits down, unable to look away from the fire across the room. But she stops, blinks, gets up. She moves to help Misty with Lottie, and then she settles down for real.

 

No one would be able to stop her. Lottie can barely walk, and Nat… Jackie glances at her, at the way she lingers in the main room before looking at the bedroom door, torn and tired and so unsure about what she needs to do. Nat’s exhausted. She’s not going to be on Jackie lookout duty tonight, Jackie doesn’t think. She figures the others have stopped caring about her weeks ago. 

 

If she goes out into the shed tonight, no one will want to stop her, and maybe, just maybe, Jackie can finally have peace. Hell, if they want to eat her and Shauna both at that point, Jackie wouldn’t care. She hopes they choke on her, but she wouldn’t care. 

 

She thinks about it. She thinks about not doing it, too, though, and that almost feels worse. For the first time in a while, her hand goes up to reach for her necklace, only to realize that it’s not there. The gold glints on Lottie’s neck, instead, and Jackie thinks about that. 

 

How upset would Lottie be if Jackie left her now, after she put in so much work to keep her alive?

 

Lottie doesn’t miss as Jackie’s hand goes up to grab for a necklace that isn’t there, because it’s sitting around Lottie’s neck instead. She doesn’t think there’s anything she can say to make any of this better, but she needs to try something. She reaches up to remove the necklace, moving to hold it out to Jackie. “Just for tonight,” she murmurs to her, and she wants to hug her. She wants to hold her in her arms and tell Jackie it’s going to be okay, but she knows it’s not going to be, and she can lie to herself all she wants, she can’t bring herself to lie to Jackie that way.

 

But she offers her hand if Jackie wants to take it, or her arms, if Jackie wants the comfort. Whatever she needs, Lottie will give her. Everything except death.

 

“Lottie…” Jackie starts protesting, but she swallows, taking the necklace and nodding before she puts it on. “Okay. Just for tonight.”

 

Jackie’s not crying, not yet, and she doesn’t think she will tonight, not while she debates exactly how long she plans to stay on this mortal coil. Is she going to take the easy way out, or is she going to starve and suffer with the rest of them? She’s still deciding, even as she takes Lottie’s hand and wraps herself around her arm, going back to staring at the flames.

 

Lottie wishes there was more she could do. She’s grateful that Jackie takes the necklace and that she wraps herself up in Lottie, but she still wants there to be more she can do. She leans them both back and rests her head against Jackie’s, looking out into the cabin as the others all shuffle around silently. She catches Natalie’s eye, who is looking more and more hallowed by the day, and Lottie wishes there was something she could do for her, too. Instead, she mouths her a silent thank you and Nat gives what Lottie assumes is a smile before she sets her bed down and curls up on it.

 

She looks lonely over there.

 

But Lottie knows Jackie needs her more right now. They’re going to burn Shauna’s body tomorrow, and all Lottie can think about is how painful watching something like that was.  

 

“Do you need to lay down?” Jackie eventually asks, though she doesn’t release her grip from Lottie’s arm, and Lottie doesn’t seem inclined to let her go, either. Jackie actually starts to think that, no, she wouldn’t be able to make it outside that night, just from the way that Lottie holds onto her. Getting out of her grip might wake the cabin, and, even if Lottie can’t walk, the rest of them can.

 

Lottie shakes her head. “Not right now,” she says back to her, lifting her free hand to rub gently along Jackie’s own arm, hoping the action was soothing, comforting. It’s a reverse of just a little bit ago, except that Lottie wasn’t very good at being comforting at all. She tried, really. She wanted to be someone like that.

 

“Okay,” Jackie whispers. If Lottie wasn’t there, she knows she’d be dead. She knows it. It’s an indisputable fact. Lottie is, through willpower and kind words and being a fucking giant, keeping Jackie alive despite any desire she has to the contrary. It would be so much easier. She even thinks she might be happier, going to sleep next to the person she loves most for one last time.

 

If she tries, though, she has a sinking feeling that Lottie will be right there next to her. Still, she can’t help but confirm it. “You’d follow me if I went outside tonight, wouldn’t you?”

 

“Yes,” Lottie says plainly, astutely. There’s no hesitation, room for argument in her voice. She won’t let Jackie or anyone convince her not to. She would crawl her way out there and drag Jackie back in if she had to. Maybe it had started out as some strangled sense of guilt, but it’s grown into so much more than that, even Lottie can tell. 

 

Maybe, all those months ago, Lottie could have made it without Jackie. But now, the thought scares her more than anything else out here. She doesn’t think she wants to face the rest of this without Jackie. She doesn’t think she can. 

 

Lottie shifts, then, moves her arm to wrap around Jackie’s shoulders, and pulls her into her gently, loose enough if Jackie wants to pull away. Lottie doesn’t think she does. She envelopes Jackie in her grasp and tucks the girl against her body. She can’t say the words out loud but she hopes Jackie can hear them in her heartbeat, Please don’t leave me.

 

With a sigh, Jackie allows herself to be tucked against Lottie’s body, so warm and solid and real. She’s warm and solid and real. Jackie still closes her eyes and sees Lottie lying in the snow, but, for right now, she can let this comfort her. She can let this be real. “Fucker,” she rasps out, no bite to the word, no heat. She knows Lottie’s telling the truth, though, with that one word. Lottie would follow Jackie out there, she’d hurt herself, and that would be an extra layer of guilt that Jackie would be forced to deal with since no one seems inclined to let her die anymore.

 

Lottie smiles, lets out a breathy chuckle. Maybe it wasn’t fair of her to want this from Jackie, but Lottie just wanted someone, anyone. She wanted someone to see her. She always had. She’d thought she’d never feel something like that, and she’d told herself she was okay with it. But things had changed once they’d crashed out here. She’d let herself need Laura Lee, trust her.

 

And then she’d been torn from her violently. 

 

And Lottie had watched that same thing happen to Jackie. How could she not feel empathy for her? How could she not want to do anything in her power to ease her grief just a little? 

 

it wasn’t fair and she knew that, but for once, Lottie wanted to be a little selfish. 

 

Jackie smiles when she feels Lottie’s laugh more than hears it, and she wraps her arms around Lottie’s waist, technically snuggling closer. It’s a little embarrassing, if she thinks about it. Jackie’s always craved touch. Always. She never got enough of it at home, but she’d always been rather touchy with her friends. Nothing lingering. A pat on the shoulder in congratulations, a quick hand squeeze, brushing hair out of faces and tucking it behind ears. Everything that could be explained away. Nothing like this. This was, typically, reserved for one person, especially as Jackie got older and her mother berated her for how clingy she could be. Shauna never seemed to mind when Jackie was clingy, but Jackie knows that was a lie, now. 

 

She wonders if this will start to annoy Lottie, too, but she can’t help herself from leaning in a little more, her fingers gripping Lottie’s shirt. Something awful shudders through her without her wanting it to, and she doesn’t cry, not yet, but it’s there.

 

All Lottie can really do is hold Jackie. Her eyes scan the room, still, as she watches all the others begin to settle down for the night as well. Misty gives her a look and Lottie shakes her head, so she huffs away and goes to lay down by Crystal and Natalie again. 

 

Melissa and Gen are sitting in their own corner, mumbling about something again and Lottie lingers on them a moment before deciding it’s not worth the energy. 

 

As Tai and Van make their way to the attic once again, Van stops by the end of the bed. She looks sad, too. Lottie can tell they’ve both been crying. But the way she looks at Lottie reveals that she’s not there for her condolences. She just gives Lottie that knowing glance and Lottie looks away from her.

 

She doesn’t move until she hears Van go up the ladder.

 

The cabin eventually goes quiet as the girls even stop whispering, and it’s just soft breathing, the creaking of wood, and the whistle of wind outside. Lottie closes her eyes, listens to it all. She listens to the sound of Jackie’s breaths, feels the beat of her heart against Lottie’s side, feels the grip of her fingers curled up in Lottie’s shirt. 

 

The cabin is dark when Lottie presses a soft kiss to Jackie’s temple.

 

Jackie hasn’t slept in well over twenty-four hours at this point, so she can’t quite tell if she imagines the feeling of soft lips against her skin. But they seem so warm and real, like everything else about Lottie. How does she stay so warm? Jackie can’t help but wonder about the way that heat practically seems to pool off of Lottie’s skin, so comforting. 

 

She thinks it’s real. She can’t decide what to do with that information. It’s not like it’s a real kiss, either. It’s just… comfort. That’s all. Lottie’s just comforting her. Jackie thinks that maybe it’s working. “You need to rest,” she finally says. “We should lay down.”

 

Lottie sort of doesn’t want to move, but Jackie is probably right. She’s still exhausted from the day and also from the day before, too. She thinks Natalie is as well, even though all she can see of the other girl is the outline of her form by the fireplace.

 

She shifts as much as she can without letting go of Jackie, scooting them down until they’re laying on the bench, though Lottie’s legs are too long and hang off the end, so she curls them up until she feels her bandaged foot pulse with pain. She tries to hide the wince, blinking away speckles in her eyes from it again. She can’t believe how much it still hurts, but without any sort of painkillers or numbing, she supposes all it can do is hurt.

 

“Try and sleep,” she whispers to Jackie. “Please.”

 

Jackie attempts to rub comforting circles onto Lottie’s arm as she notices the way that she winces. She can’t actually take any of the pain away, but she can still be there for her. She’s making herself be there for her. “I don’t-- I don’t think I can,” she manages to choke out. “But I’m not going to go anywhere. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

 

Lottie wants to insist. Jackie needs sleep, too. She knows she didn’t sleep much last night, either, and that had been Lottie’s own fault. Sometimes, she still felt the chill inside of her, despite knowing she wasn’t freezing anymore. She wonders if Shauna felt it, when she was freezing. Had she been warm in the end, too? Lottie presses her face into Jackie’s hair.

 

“You better be,” she mumbles.

 

“I don’t think I’d be able to leave, anyway,” Jackie whispers. “We’re all tangled up now.” Physically, yes, but somewhere in her chest, too, Jackie thinks that Lottie is starting to tangle herself into Jackie’s heartstrings. A mark has started carving itself into Jackie’s heart, right next to Shauna’s name, and Jackie thinks she knows what it’ll say when it’s finally done. 

 

As if to punctuate that statement, Lottie takes her free leg and wraps it around Jackie’s, tangling them further. This is…new for her. Lottie has fallen asleep on people or near people or even holding people, but never so close, so intertwined. Never with someone she didn’t want to let go of. Not even Laura Lee really held her like this, which she didn’t blame her. Lottie was like a space heater, not many people liked cuddling up to her. She also wasn't exactly a light or still sleeper. She tosses and turns with dreams or visions or nightmares, sometimes all three. 

 

She hums softly. Rubs her thumb soothingly against Jackie’s back, just like she always did with Laura Lee. She quietly hopes the other girl doesn’t mind.

 

Well. There’s no getting up after that. Jackie feels Lottie’s weight, and it might be one of the most comforting things in the world. Heat and pressure, warmth and something solid and steady and real. Things that she had craved before the crash but needed even more, now, and it reminds her that she’s alive.

 

Even if she doesn’t always want to be.

 

She burrows herself into Lottie, and, without really wanting to, feels herself start to drift off. She clings to wakefulness, clings to the feeling of being solid and awake and alive, but she’s exhausted, and she can’t fight off sleep any longer.

Lottie wakes up more than once during the night, mostly when her unconscious mind makes her leg move and her foot sparks with pain. She’s thirsty when she wakes up the first time, but she doesn’t want to move and she certainly isn’t going to wake Jackie up, once she realizes she’s fallen asleep.

 

And so Lottie goes back to sleep again and tries to stay as still as possible, but she’s awoken a few more times before she wakes for the last time when others start to wake as well, sitting up and shuffling about. Most of them go about their own business and Lottie is grateful they’re, for once, not minding her and Jackie any attention.

 

It’s not long before she feels Jackie stir, too, and she reluctantly loosens her grip. She doesn’t save anything to her yet, letting her come back to the world of the waking first. She reaches up, instead, and brushes some of Jackie’s hair from her face.

 

When Jackie wakes up to the world starting to stir around her, she can’t tell if the lack of dreams is a blessing or a curse.

 

Jackie wants to just pretend, for as long as she can, that this day isn’t happening. By the end of it, she will never see Shauna’s face again except in her mind. There’s no picture of the two of them out here, even if they’re in her room, in Shauna’s, spread over multiple lockers at the school. There’s no escaping the effect that Shauna has on Jackie’s life back home, but she’s certain they’ll never make it back there again. 

 

No, this is the last time Jackie will ever see Shauna’s face. So she needs to start moving. 

 

She can lean a little into Lottie’s touch first, though. 

 

Lottie remembers how Laura Lee would tuck a strand of Lottie’s hair behind her ear and press her warm palm to her jaw, and she remembers how comforting and soft it always felt. She lets her own fingers brush against Jackie’s cheek before cupping her jaw, thumb brushing soothingly against her cheek still. 

 

It was hard to find something to say that wasn’t going to shatter whatever quiet calm this was. Even with the sounds of everyone else moving around them, Lottie doesn’t really hear much except her own heartbeat in her ears and Jackie’s soft breathing.

 

“You slept,” she finally says.

 

Lottie’s gentle touch is exactly what Jackie’s always wanted but never properly allowed herself to have too much, and it feels like an indulgence to let it continue for as long as she has. She’s never allowed herself too many indulgences. It always felt too wrong. But everything’s wrong out there, so what’s it fucking matter?

 

“I slept,” she says, letting her eyes blink open and gaze into Lottie’s. Deep and dark and endless, like night. A few shades darker than even Shauna’s but somehow softer. What is it with soft, sad eyed girls and their ability to make Jackie do whatever they want her to? All Shauna would have had to do was tell Jackie to jump, and the only question she would have asked would have been “how high?” 

 

She thinks it’s turning into something similar with Lottie. Maybe. Jackie doesn’t think she should think about that too much. “Did you?” she asks instead, reaching up to brush some of Lottie’s hair out of the way of her eyes. 

 

Lottie is grateful Jackie slept, even if it doesn’t seem like Jackie is grateful she slept. She just hopes she’s not too upset Lottie wouldn’t let her go outside. And maybe it’s a little cruel, now that they all know in a week’s time they’ll be out of food if no one finds any, but she’s selfish, she thinks. Maybe it would’ve been a kinder death for Jackie to fall asleep in Shauna’s lap and never wake up, but Lottie didn’t want that to happen. 

 

None of it was supposed to happen this way.

 

She hasn’t thought about the words in a while, but they’re coming back into her head now as she thinks about how tonight, they will burn Shauna Shipman’s body. She smiles as much at Jackie as she can manage. “Enough,” she answers. Because she’s learned to stop trying to convince Jackie she’s okay when she’s not, and she selfishly likes that, too.

 

“How’s your foot?” Jackie asks. She wishes they hadn’t run out of painkillers months ago, but, with Van’s injury, whatever they had left had been quickly depleted, and, as far as Jackie knows, no one had gotten their hands on any proper booze. 

 

Lottie furrows her brow and gives a pout. Her first instinct is to say it’s fine, but they both know it’s not. “Painful,” she settles on. And it probably will be for a long time, but she knows she’ll have to get used to the pain, so she’s trying her best to let herself feel it less as something of a hindrance, and more so as something that can open her up to the moments of her life. Pain didn’t have to be a bad thing, even if the memory of it from yesterday still made Lottie shudder.

 

“You should go…be with her,” Lottie tells her after a long moment. She doesn’t want to be the reason Jackie won’t get enough time with her best friend before she was gone for good.

 

Jackie wishes that there was something she could do for the pain. For both of them. For Lottie’s foot and Jackie’s heart. Then again, Jackie thinks she deserves her heartache for killing a girl that she loved, even if Shauna hated her. 

 

“I know,” Jackie says, slowly untangling herself from Lottie in the gentlest way possible. She has to go say goodbye. She has to somehow convince herself that she can say goodbye. “But if you… if you need me, just have someone come get me, okay?” Even if she doubts Lottie will actually need her, not with everyone else around. 

 

Lottie feels just a little colder when Jackie untangles herself from her limbs. She can already see the sorrow building in Jackie’s eyes, the grief a weight on her shoulders, making them sag. She doesn’t want to think about how much worse it’s going to get. Lottie moves her hand from her cheek as they move apart and she sits up, her whole body stiff, her leg throbbing. She lets out an involuntary groan, rubbing her thigh. “I will,” she says back to Jackie, but she sort of has decided she’ll let Jackie have her alone time today. She doesn’t need to bother her for anything.

 

“Okay,” Jackie says softly, moving to stand. “Okay.” She doesn’t pay anyone else any mind, doesn’t take in the somber air of the cabin, not much different than it had been the day Shauna died. 

 

They all know they’re going to be saying goodbye to her. 

 

In the shed, Jackie is slow to move, slow to sit herself in front of Shauna, slow to pull her legs up to her chest and gaze at Shauna’s face, looking for a sign of life that she knows cannot possibly be there. “Please, Shipman,” she whispers, hoping the nickname will summon Shauna forward. “I need you.”

 

There’s so much she never got the chance to say, so much she never let herself say. She never told Shauna how much she meant to her. It’s been years since she told her she loved her, the words clogging her throat whenever they tried to come out, so devastating in their truth that she couldn’t bring herself to say them to Shauna’s face, even if she remembers slurring it out to Lottie the night she tried to sleep in the shed. 

 

“I love you,” Jackie whispers into the quiet. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m so sorry. I love you.”

 

As soon as Jackie is out the door, Misty comes over to Lottie and pulls her leg up a little forcibly. “Oops,” she says with an innocent grin, “sorry.” She unwraps Lottie’s foot and Lottie has to look away before it’s done, the cloth already soaked in blood. She doesn’t want to see what’s underneath it.

 

Behind her, Lottie can see Mari beginning to prepare the stew for the morning and when Lottie looks to the door, she notices the gun is missing, which means Nat has already left. She probably woke before everyone else again and slipped off. Lottie worried for her, going alone like that. If she got hurt, there’d be no one there to help her.

 

Misty rewraps Lottie’s foot in a fresh strip of cloth. “It’s looking good, no sign of infection. We should probably wash it with some hot water tonight, though, just to be sure.” 

 

Lottie nods and Misty is off to start doing her chores for the day, Crystal not far behind her. The cabin is mostly empty, now, and Lottie feels a bit useless, so she leans back against the wall and draws in a deep breath, closing her eyes. She murmurs a quiet prayer to herself, to the Wilderness, and asks for forgiveness. She asks for a sign. She begs for It to give them more food. She’ll do anything, she thinks. Anything.

 

There are tears spilling down Jackie’s cheeks, but she doesn’t bother with them too much, hanging her head when she knows that there is no possible way that Shauna will answer her back. She can’t. She’s dead. 

 

Instead, Jackie finally moves closer, taking Shauna’s hair down and working in a few small, careful braids. She takes her time with it. If she’s too rough, she’s scared another piece of Shauna will come off, and Jackie doesn’t know what she’ll do with that. 

 

She hears the others outside eventually start gathering wood, like when she and Lottie made the bonfire. They’re going to burn Shauna’s body. In a few hours, there will be nothing left of Shauna Shipman out here. Jackie will die without ever seeing her face. 

 

Eventually, Tai and Van come with a few of the underclassmen. Tai is also crying. Jackie knows she and Shauna got close. She looks like she wants to say something to Jackie, like she wants to offer her something, comfort, but Jackie thinks that she’ll break if she feels anything good in this moment. The other girls pick Shauna up and start taking her outside. Jackie follows them and breaks off to go to the cabin, searching for her letterman. If she gets Shauna’s jacket, it’s only fair that they trade. 

 

The day crawls by because Lottie can’t do much except sit around. She finds it hard to ask people for anything, but she finally asks one of the JVs to bring her any clothes that need mending, and so she’s just been sewing up holes and tears in their communal clothing all day. Her hands shake as she works, but she knows it’s not from being tired or the pain.

 

Misty checks on her and her foot a few more times. By the time she hears everyone shuffling around outside, Natalie has come back empty handed again. She hangs the gun by the door and slinks off towards the back, staring at the door that leads to the bedroom-- and to Travis and Javi. She doesn’t go in though.

 

Lottie scoots herself to the end of the bench, making sure to keep her bad foot elevated enough to not bump on the floor. She wants to say something to Natalie, wants to reassure her that everything will be okay, but even Lottie is beginning to wonder if that’s true. Still, she has to try.

 

“He just needs time,” she says finally.

 

Natalie looks up from where she’s sitting at the kitchen table. “Right,” she scoffs. Lottie can already feel how guilty Natalie is. “It’s not like I lied to make him think his brother was dead or anything. Surely time will heal that.”

 

Lottie feels like she’s said the wrong thing again. It’s been like that a lot with Nat. “You were trying to help,” she offers, “I don’t think that’s as unforgivable as you might think.”

 

Natalie’s about to say something more when the cabin door opens and they both glance over to see Jackie coming inside. “Shit,” Nat says, standing, “is it time?”

 

Jackie looks at Nat, wiping her face. “It’s… yeah I’m just— I’m getting her a jacket. So she’s not cold.” It’s probably the stupidest fucking thing they’ve ever heard her say, but she just can’t stop herself. She has to do this. She has to. Shauna also got cold. She’d never complain about it like Jackie did, and she’d always be the one to offer up her jacket, but Jackie remembers long nights of Shauna shivering beside her in that little attic bedroom before the two of them would curl up together, laughing a little bit, and Jackie would feel equal parts giddy and guilty because she knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing that. 

 

She trudges to where the pile of clothes that belongs to her is, though some of her stuff has been added to the communal pile while more of Shauna’s keeps getting added to it instead. Jackie grabs her letterman, not having worn it since Lottie gave her Shauna’s green jacket, and she grips it tightly as she heads to the door, stopping before turning back to see that Lottie was still sitting down. She’d need help. 

 

They won’t start without her, right? Jackie walks to Lottie and sets the jacket down beside her, her movements mechanical. “Where’s your jacket?”

 

Lottie and Nat share a look as Jackie moves through the cabin to the attic. They’re both worried, more than worried. Lottie doesn’t foresee being able to put her boot on her injured foot, but she watches as Natalie picks them up anyway and brings them over to her. “Thanks,” she mumbles, moving to put on at least her right shoe. 

 

It doesn’t take long for Jackie to come back down and Lottie sees the letterman jacket in her hands. It hurts to think about. Jackie is losing a part of herself with Shauna, Lottie knows that.

 

She watches Jackie pause and turn back around. “It--” 

 

“I’ve got her,” Natalie says, grabbing Lottie’s jacket, too and coming over. “Just…go on outside, Jackie. We’ll be right behind you, okay?”

 

Jackie hesitates. She’s being torn in multiple directions, guts and blood spilling out, her insides where everyone can see them. She is losing the better half of herself. She is trying to still be good with the pieces that are left. “Okay.”

 

Taking the letterman, Jackie stumbles outside, heading to where the others have laid Shauna’s body on a bed of wood. 

 

She almost looks like she’s seeing, and she can remember Mari and Akilah talking about how Van had woken up when they’d set her on fire after the wolf attack. A horrible way to wake up. That won’t happen to Shauna. Not after this long. 

 

Jackie drapes the jacket over Shauna, too scared to actually try to slip her arms through it in case some other frozen piece breaks. She knows they’ve moved Shauna’s hands. 

 

Tai proves as much when she quietly but forcefully asks, “Jackie, where’s her pinky?”

 

“It broke off.” She leaves it there. She's allowed, at least for now, to leave it there.

 

Akilah, from somewhere behind them, says, “Maybe we shouldn’t be burning the jacket… We might need her clothes.”

 

“She keeps her clothes.” Jackie doesn’t even look back, her voice hard. They wouldn’t strip Shauna of the rest of her dignity.

 

Lottie tugs on her jacket after Jackie leaves, then looks to Natalie. She doesn’t think saying thanks will really make up for any of this. She takes Natalie’s hand as the other girl holds it out to her and Lottie stands, stumbling a little bit, keeping her bad foot off the ground. 

 

“Maybe I should’ve swiped one of Coach’s crutches,” Natalie grunts under her weight.

 

Lottie looks down at Nat. “I just need to get to the stairs,” she tells her. Natalie hooks Lottie’s arm around her shoulders, then, and the two hobble to the door. Lottie hasn’t been this close to Natalie in a while, and she finds she missed it, the contact. It’s nice to feel some semblance of normal, if only for a second.

 

Once they’re outside on the porch, Lottie can see the bed of sticks they’ve made for Shauna’s body. It looks too much like the fire they’d all danced around just the other night. 

 

Lottie can hear them talking as Natalie drops her off by the stairs and heads over to the others.

 

“Well, it’s not like she needs them anymore,” Mari says, moving forward, then, to reach for the jacket.

 

Jackie’s hand shoots out, grabbing Mari’s wrist. “She keeps the jacket.” There’s not much about Jackie that’s intimidating these days. She’s short and starving like the rest of them; the only person that she really has any height on is Misty, and it’s not by much. But her grip is as strong now as it’s ever been, and her fingers don’t tremble. “She keeps her clothes. We owe her that much. Since everyone else wants to fucking eat her.”

 

“Hey, hey,” Natalie is the one who intervenes, stepping between Jackie and Mari, “back off, Mari.”

 

This time, it’s Mari who looks like she wants to punch Natalie. She glares at Jackie, though. “What? Now you’re defending her? Too little, too late.”

 

“Mari!” Nat says and Lottie is standing, nearly forgetting she can’t walk but managing to stop herself just enough. 

 

“Mari,” Lottie repeats, and though her voice is softer, it carries more weight. “Leave it.” She wants to be over where Jackie is, wants to be next to her, but she’s having a hard time standing here, clinging to the wooden post on the porch. 

 

There is something inside Jackie that wants to claw out and be vicious and fight back, something that she rarely acknowledges. Something that doesn’t usually exist. But it’s fighting against the knowledge that Mari isn’t wrong . Jackie’s the reason that Shauna’s dead because Jackie couldn’t go outside and get her. She meant to. She meant to. Jackie didn’t mean to fall asleep. She didn’t mean to leave Shauna in the cold.

 

Tai has the torch, and she’s lighting it, standing next to where they’ve decided to lay Shauna’s body to rest one last time. Her eyes close, and she offers it to Jackie. 

 

Lottie stays standing as Tai lights the torch, passes it to Jackie. She can already feel her eyes beginning to grow hot with tears but she doesn’t move to wipe them away. 

 

Jackie’s hands don’t shake. She holds the touch in her hands, feels the heat of the flames as she looks over at Shauna for what will probably be the last time. “Shauna Shipman,” she starts, her voice tight. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You know that, right?” She echoes the words she said all those months ago, feels them rattle around in her chest and break like glass. “I love you. I didn’t-- I should’ve-- I love you. I’m sorry, and I love you, and I don’t think I’ll ever really be me again with you gone.” 

 

She doesn’t look back at the others, just lets her head hang, tears dripping onto the snow, as she touches the torch to the bed of sticks and watches the flames catch.

 

Everyone is quiet as Jackie speaks. They move back and let her light up what is essentially a funeral pyre. Lottie knows Jackie is already crying, just from the way her body droops. For a long moment, they all stare in a silent vigil, the only sound the crackling of burning wood.

 

Then, slowly, a few of the girls start retreating back inside. They walk past Lottie on the porch, but when Natalie turns, Lottie looks to her, pleading. She just needs to be there with Jackie, she needs to. It feels hard to breathe with so much distance between them, knowing how much pain Jackie is in.

 

Natalie gets the cue. She takes Lottie’s arm around her shoulders again and helps her walk over to where Jackie is. They just stand there, silent, but Lottie brushes her hand ever so against Jackie’s, just to let her know that if she wants it, she’s there for her.

 

Jackie doesn’t want to leave Shauna. She doesn’t really know if she can. Her shoes are frozen to the ground now. They’ve taken root, managing to firmly plant her in the snow, in the soil. She could not move if she wanted to.

 

But she also cannot watch as the flames start licking at Shauna’s body, starting at her feet before moving upwards, eating, devouring. Shauna makes no sound. There’s no miracle of her being alive. There is only her body being consumed by the flames, taking with her the parts of Jackie that she understood. 

 

They were a unit, a pair, and now there’s only one of them. Jackie is missing a limb. She’s missing half of her body, her organs, her heart .

 

The only comfort is Lottie’s hand brushing against her, and Jackie startles from it, not even realizing that people had left, not even realizing that Lottie and Nat had moved closer. Jackie takes Lottie’s hand, shivering. It’s not from the cold. She doesn’t even think she feels the cold. It’s as if Jackie’s body is being burned right along with Shauna’s.

 

Lottie is more than grateful to Natalie in the moment, as she feels Jackie take her hand. It's hard to watch the flames eat away at the girl who was once their friend. It seemed not long ago that Shauna was holding Lottie through her breakdown up in the attic during the seance, or working methodically to carve up whatever kill Natalie had brought back. 

 

Lottie thinks that maybe everyone has lost a little piece of themselves as Shauna Shipman is burned away. 

 

All three of them cry, but the only sound seems to be the cracking fire. Lottie squeezes Jackie's hand as she feels her tremble, and she tries her best to keep herself from trembling, too. It feels like Nat doesn't seem to care, though, and Lottie can't feel her shuddering under her arm. She squeezes Natalie's shoulder reassuringly, too, letting her know she's there if she wants it. 

 

She feels Natalie move away and Lottie knows it's hard for her to let herself feel these things. Nat’s always been like that 

 

Whereas Jackie has never really shied away from expressing her anger or hurt or excitement. At least not around the team. 

 

Lottie doesn't think she's ever had to feel this deep sadness before. She's had no one to feel it over. But the girls on either side of her now, and the ones in the cabin, and even the two boys and coach-- they feel like family. 

 

They feel like each loss is going to take a part of Lottie's heart with them. 

 

It gets to the point where Jackie knows that, if she stays any longer, there will only be two options for her: curl up in the cold or on top of Shauna’s body. And no amount of Nat or Lottie attempting to drag her away will stop her. So, for them (not for herself because most of herself is on fire), she slips under Lottie’s arm and moves to support her weight. 

 

Nat seems to notice, and Jackie thinks that she can feel her relief as she moves on Lottie’s other side and the two of them help Lottie out of the cold. 

 

Jackie can’t look back. She thinks it will kill her. Whatever parts of her aren’t already dead.

 

Lottie would have stayed out there all night with Jackie if that’s what she wanted, but she’s glad, for Natalie’s sake, that eventually Jackie moves to head back inside. She hops along the snow and realizes that the biting cold actually feels pretty good on her burning foot, but the rest of her feels chilled and she can’t help the squeezing in her throat at the familiar feeling.

 

Jackie doesn’t look back, but Lottie does. She thinks she sees a face in the flames. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

 

Natalie deposits Lottie on the bench again and goes to head back to her bed, but Lottie stops her, just a moment. She doesn’t say anything, just holds her arm a beat, squeezes ever so, and Natalie understands.

 

But she looks away, as if ashamed, and goes back over to her bed in the corner by herself, and Lottie’s heart breaks a little bit more.

 

She turns to look over at Jackie and her heart feels shattered. There’s nothing to say. What are you supposed to say when the person you love most has gone up in flames? Maybe that’s why no one ever said anything to Lottie. 

 

Still, she moves enough to settle next to Jackie. She thinks maybe she should just let Jackie decide what she wants, but maybe Lottie needs it, too, as she wraps her arms around Jackie and pulls her into her chest. 

 

Jackie sits next to Lottie on the bench, staring at nothing for a long time until she feels Lottie wrap around her. It doesn’t cause a dam to break. Jackie doesn’t suddenly start sobbing. Her face crumbles a little, though, and she presses herself into Lottie, and she cannot stop crying. There are slow and steady tears slipping down her cheeks. She feels Lottie’s arms around her, holding her close. 

 

A hand brushes itself through her hair, but it’s not Lottie’s. Jackie jerks, pulling her head away to look around, but the two of them are alone on the bench. 

 

It felt real.

 

Lottie loosens her grip when Jackie startles in her arms, her head looking around as if she’d just heard or seen something. But there’s nothing there.

 

That feeling is much too familiar to Lottie.

 

“What is it?” she asks her softly, her voice barely a whisper. She doesn’t want to wake the others if she can help it.

 

“I don’t--” Jackie starts, hesitates. She wipes at her eyes. There’s nothing there. Nothing. No fingers in her hair. No warmth at her back. Just Lottie. There’s just Lottie. “I don’t know. I must have just… just imagined things.” She leans back in, against Lottie once more. Real. This is real. Shauna is dead and burning, and this is real.

 

Lottie thinks she understands that, maybe a little too well. No one knows that about her, though. No one except Laura Lee. Sometimes, she thought she still saw her. Standing in the distance, between the trees. Or sitting on a log outside. Standing in the lake, smiling at Lottie, skirt blowing in the wind.

 

She presses Jackie back into her body. “I’m here,” she tells her, “I’m real.” Things her therapist always taught her to say. Can she feel it? Can she touch it? Can she see it, smell it? Hold it? Those things are real, not the things in her head.

 

She isn’t sure that’s true anymore.

 

“You’re here,” Jackie says, and the words choke her. “You’re real.” You’re alive. I’m alive . She’s trying. She’s going to try. She has to try. She has to, she thinks, because she’s not allowed to give up anymore. 

 

Lottie draws in a deep breath slowly, then lets it go just as steady. She hopes it helps Jackie breathe, too. Another thing her therapist taught her. In for three, out for five. She can feel her own heart slowing, the rhythmic beat of it against her chest and Jackie’s ear. 

 

She waits until she can feel Jackie’s breathing match hers before she speaks again. “C’mon,” she murmurs to her, rubbing her back soothingly, “let’s lay down.”

 

Jackie moves with Lottie, the two of them laying down, tangled together like they were the night before. There’s no sleep that will come tonight, but there is comfort here, with Lottie. Jackie aches. She’s in pain. She’s on fire, burning on a pyre. But there is comfort here, in this moment.

Notes:

We're on the edge of something great, we can almost taste it. Thanks for reading, folks!

Please check out our other works here on Ao3, and hit us up on tumblr. We love chatting about Yellowjackets and being mean to each other. Again, thanks for reading!

Chapter 6: i'll eat you whole, i love you so

Summary:

Grab your napkins, wet wipes, and bibs and BYOB-- bring your own body! Because who doesn't love a nice, winter bar-be-que? Meanwhile, Jackie practices her cartography and Lottie tries to stay off her feet. They're both mildly successful, but being a perfectionist means Jackie has to go out and lose herself in nature. It's just too bad she does it in the middle of a snowstorm. What could go wrong? Well, knowing the Yellowjackets, everything, probably.

Notes:

this is crazy we're at chapter 6!!! these girls just keep getting worse and worse and we love it so i hope y'all love it, too <3 another hefty chapter for y'all, enjoy!

tws: cannibalism (in a yellowjackets fic? it's more likely than you'd think)

title from "breezeblocks" by alt-j

The comfort lasts in the moments that follow for hours, until a smell wakes Jackie up. She leans over, pulling herself away from Lottie, her eyes bloodshot and confused. The others start waking up as well, bleary.

 

And hungry. 

 

Jackie looks up, hearing creaking as Van and Tai shuffle out of the pantry, their clothes askew. That doesn’t matter. 

 

There’s no words as they all start shuffling outside, Jackie helping Lottie along as if she’s in a trance. She stops on the steps to help Lottie lean against one of the posts. Jackie takes a look at where Shauna should be burning.

 

What awaits her is a horror. Shauna isn’t burned. She’s cooked, and the smell is so good that it makes her sick. But Jackie cannot stop herself from taking a step forward, and then another, and another, until she’s in front of the pyre, kneeling next to what used to be Shauna.

 

“What are you going to do, Jax?” Shauna whispers in Jackie’s ear, and she’s right there, in the corner of her eye, alive, not this thing in front of her. “They’re going to eat me. You know that. Are you going to let them? Or are you going to stand in their way?”

 

A knife is slipped into Jackie’s hand, and she looks to see Melissa standing next to her before moving back, waiting. They’re all waiting.

 

It’s Jackie rustling that had first awoken Lottie, but the moment her mind did, it was the smell that had her moving. Hopping along with Jackie. Pausing on the front steps of the cabin.

 

Shauna’s body is smoking. She looks alien. She’s not Shauna anymore. 

 

Lottie swallows. They’re all in some sort of trance. Even Natalie, who stops near Lottie. She waits for her to hook her arm around her shoulder and they hobble over behind Jackie. Jackie, who is now holding the knife. Jackie, who is looking at Shauna with both horror and hunger. A different kind of hunger.

 

They’re all starving.

 

They wait, though. They wait to see what their captain will do.

 

“What are you going to do?” Shauna asks again. No, not Shauna. Shauna’s dead and in front of her. Not Shauna. But it has to be Shauna.

 

The smell is making Jackie dizzy. She says, “She wants us to.”

 

Shauna laughs. “Liar.” Her fingers pet through Jackie’s hair.

 

The first cut with the knife is made with trembling fingers, and Jackie brings the meat up to her mouth. The first bite is all that’s needed. Nothing has tasted so good and so awful at the same time. One bite is not enough.

 

It’s all the permission they need, really. Lottie is kneeling next to Jackie, now, Nat on her other side. The girls swarm the body. They’re hungry, they’re starving .

 

She wants them to.

 

Hands claw at the body. At the meat. They aren’t themselves in the moment. They're ravenous, feral animals. They’re laughing, eating at a table that doesn’t exist. There’s wine and fruit and vegetables and meat. All the things they’ve been missing, craving, needing.

 

The taste is so wonderful, but so wrong at the same time.

 

Lottie can’t help but think It wasn’t supposed to happen like this . Even as her hands peel away flesh. 

 

They’re all starving and now they’re all eating. Shauna Shipman wants them to. 

 

Jackie has to admit that after a few bites, she starts choking. She cannot match the frantic energy of the rest of them, not at first. She’s always had issues with food.

 

“Please, Jax. Eat. For me.” Jackie has not heard Shauna’s voice in months, but she comes out now, dead and being consumed, to haunt Jackie in all the ways that might work. Fine. Jackie cannot bear to disappoint Shauna any more. 

 

It’s all a blur, but Jackie knows, at some point, that she’s holding Shauna’s heart in her hand, and it’s the only thing she’s ever wanted. She consumes it bite by bite, until it’s gone.

 

They eat until they’re full, until there’s barely anything left, just bones nearly picked clean. For the first time in a very long time, Jackie knows that their hunger is satiated.

 

She does not think this has saved them.

 

No one says a word as they all wander back inside. Nat helps Lottie walk mechanically. Both of them are silent, eerily so. 

 

The cabin is too quiet as they all lay back down in their spots. No one is actually sleeping. The sun is beginning to peek through the trees. 

 

Lottie is staring at the ceiling. She doesn't know what to do, none of them do. For the first time in months, they're not starving. 

 

But none of them can seem to enjoy it.

 

Jackie doesn’t actually lay down for long, instead moving to the fire, to the window, to the door. She puts the knife on the table. She feels disgusting, like she needs to clean her skin, under her nails, in her mouth. She feels so fucking dirty that she cannot stand it. Nat heads outside to sit on the porch, and Jackie thinks about joining her, but if she goes outside she’ll be sick.

 

“Try not to waste anything,” Shauna tells her. She puts off no heat, just lingers around Jackie’s shoulder, whispering quietly in her ear. 

 

Tai eventually heads out, Van not too far behind her, and Jackie can hear something going on out there, something that ends in Tai screaming. She thinks about going to check on them. She knows better. 

 

Nat comes back in. The others start putting away bedding. Jackie paces. 

 

“I guess… no one wants breakfast,” Mari says.

 

Lottie glares sharply at Mari. “I don’t think anyone’s hungry.” 

 

They all clean up their beds in more silence. Tai’s screaming is visceral. They all remember what happened, even if they can’t remember . They know. 

 

Lottie watches Jackie pace. Back and forth, back and forth. 

 

There’s nothing to say to make any of this any better.

 

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this .

 

Lottie closes her eyes, puts her head in her hands. She feels sick but she holds it in. She won’t let Shauna go to waste. None of them can. 

 

Every bite of food out here counts.

 

But what now? It will feed them for the rest of today, maybe into tomorrow. But after? The next day? Next week? Are they still going to starve?

 

Lottie feels her hands shaking. Was this a gift? Or a curse? Did it give them food, in the worst way possible? 

 

She leans her head back, looks up at the rotting ceiling. Finally, someone speaks up.

 

“We should move her,” Natalie finally says.

 

“We still can’t bury her,” Travis says, not looking at her. He’s looking at Javi instead. Javi, who was out there with them.

 

Jackie thinks about the fact that they were so hungry that a child ate a person last night. 

Shauna was pregnant. Jackie wonders which of them ate that part of her, and she tries not to get sick.

 

“I’ll take her body or her remains or her… whatever to the plane and,” Nat takes a deep breath, letting it out as she continues, “she can be buried with the others when the ground thaws.” Jackie thinks that’s so long for her to be out there by herself. “Jackie.”

 

Jackie looks at Nat, finally stopping her pacing. She can’t say anything, though.

 

“She wants you to decide what to do with me,” Shauna tells her. “They’re going to make you responsible for me for the rest of your life.”

 

“I–” It’s all Jackie can get out.

 

“Well at least if you bury her out there it’ll look like she died with the rest of them,” comes Coach’s voice and Lottie can’t help how her gaze snaps to him and she’s angry. 

 

Travis rolls his eyes, steps away and heads back over to Javi. The boy hasn’t said a word since returning and he’s doing nothing but staring at the floor now.

 

Lottie looks back over at Nat, who moves, then, and starts gathering up supplies and putting on her warm clothes. She wants to offer to go with her, but she knows she’d just slow Natalie down. Still. She manages to hobble her way over to the pot of boiling water as Nat heads outside and Lottie gathers the ingredients she always does-- pine chips and pine needles-- and steeps a cup of tea.

 

“Mari,” she says after a moment, “help me?”

 

The other girl doesn’t hesitate, coming over to hook Lottie’s arm around her shoulders and she helps her outside and down the porch, over to Natalie. Lottie nods at Mari, who steps back and heads inside again.

 

“Here,” Lottie offers, kneeling in the snow to offer Nat the tea. “You’re doing the right thing. Even though it’s…not easy.”

 

Natalie shakes her head. “Whatever.”

 

Lottie sighs. “Nat…”

 

Natalie stops, then. Looks at Lottie. Her eyes are sunken, hollow. People always thought Natalie was so closed off, so angry. But Lottie could always tell she was one of the most empathetic people out there. Natalie felt too much, it's why she is the way she is.

 

“Please just, be safe,” Lottie encourages. Natalie takes the tea. She sips at it.

 

“Go back inside, Lottie,” she tells her before she stands, hefts up the tarp full of Shauna’s bones and the gun. Lottie watches as she starts off, only looking back once at her, before she disappears beyond the treeline.

 

Lottie stays sitting in the snow. She doesn’t really want to go back inside.

 

Eventually, though, Mari comes back out. She helps Lottie up and the two head back inside.

 

Whatever’s left of Shauna Shipman is gathered up and taken away, but that doesn’t stop her from lingering in the corner of Jackie’s eyes or breathing down her neck. It’s like being out of that shed, out of her body, has freed her to torment Jackie to the fullest extent of her abilities.

 

Is she a ghost? Is she real? Was eating her the last straw in driving Jackie off the deep end? She doesn’t actually know, but she eventually settles into a corner on the floor. Her eyes watch Shauna, real and not real and real and not real, write in her journal on the bench. Lottie and Mari come inside. Jackie blinks. She didn’t even realize they went outside.

 

Mari goes to drop Lottie on the bench but Lottie tugs her and nods towards Jackie. She doesn’t miss Mari restraining herself from rolling her eyes.

 

Lottie settles onto the floor near Jackie. Not too close, but not far enough away that if she wants, Lottie is there. She still keeps her foot outstretched, away from where it might get jostled. It still hurts, more than most anything ever has before.

 

Girls move around them, robotically going through the chores for the day.

 

Lottie swallows. “She would’ve wanted this for you,” she says quietly, “maybe not for the rest of us, but…” 

 

They fought, they yelled, they hurt. That last night before Shauna froze. But Lottie knows Jackie loves Shauna and Lottie knows Shauna loved Jackie. Even if Jackie doesn’t. They all do. They all could see it. 

 

“Maybe you should listen to her,” Shauna says from behind Jackie, her voice in the walls. “I don’t want you to suffer, Jackie.”

 

Not real. Not real. Not real. Jackie thinks that all Shauna really wanted was to see Jackie suffer. She hated her so much that she wrote about it, how silly she thought Jackie was, how naive, how ridiculous. Her teenage worries and her teenage boyfriend and her teenage plans that ended with her never amounting to anything. Mediocrity. That was what Shauna thought was awaiting Jackie back home.

 

Is death out here better or worse?

 

Jackie wants to speak. 

 

Shauna says, “Take your time. I think she’ll wait for you.”

 

The words get stuck in Jackie’s throat.

 

Lottie waits to see if Jackie will say anything, but she doesn’t expect her to, doesn’t need her to. “No matter what happens,” Lottie continues softly, “we all did it together, okay?” She wants to reach out, to reassure Jackie, but she holds herself back. She thinks it’s more important for Jackie to know she has the option. “And I’m here, still. For whatever you need.”

 

Even if that was nothing, even if that was Lottie going away. She would never really go away, not completely. She’d promised Jackie she would be there for her, that she wouldn’t leave. 

 

But if Jackie didn’t want to keep sharing their bed or sitting together at dinner or holding each other, then she would be okay with that.

 

At least, she thinks so.

 

Something in her tells her, though, that it might hurt more than Lottie expects, if she does.

 

Jackie doesn’t say anything, but she moves closer, reaching out to take Lottie’s hand in hers. Warm and solid and real. Lottie’s real.

 

Shauna squeezes herself between Jackie and the wall. “Brown hair. Brown eyes. You’ve got a type, don’t you?” 

 

Jackie closes her eyes and rasps out, “This is so fucked up.”

 

Lottie squeezes back, though she pauses when Jackie speaks. Of course, she’s right. But it’s also just survival.

 

“We…we were all starving, Jackie.” She doesn’t want to make excuses for them, but she wants to make Jackie feel better. “It’s not your fault.” 

 

“They would have done it even if you’d said nothing,” Shauna agrees. “They’re kind of past the point of listening to you. No offense.”

 

“I– I killed–” Jackie starts. She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t know who she’s talking to.

 

“ No .” Lottie speaks quickly, leans forward and takes Jackie’s face in her hands. “No, Jackie. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was.” They were all just kids. In any other circumstance, arguing with your best friend and one of them storming out would have been normal, not life threatening. 

 

But this place wasn’t normal and they didn’t know how to deal with that.

 

“I promise. It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“You two are close,” Shauna says. Physically, yes, as Lottie leans forward and takes Jackie’s face, and Jackie looks at her. That’s not what Shauna (not real, not real, not real) means. “But do you believe her?”

 

No, Jackie doesn’t think she believes Lottie. She knows the truth. She knows. She lets her eyes close, though, and she offers up a little nod.

 

Lottie doesn’t know if she’s actually getting through to Jackie, but she can’t make her see something she doesn’t want to. All she can do is reinforce what she knows, what she believes, and hope that Jackie can one day see it, too. 

 

Still, she wishes she would. She brushes her thumb over Jackie’s cheek, wipes away a tear. “You don’t have to do this alone, Jackie,” she tells her, voice a whisper, “you-- you have me. Remember? I promised.”

 

“I’ll never leave you alone, either, Jackie,” Shauna tells her, and it’s like Jackie can feel her breath ghosting on her skin. 

 

Jackie’s head hurts. She says, “I know. You promised.”

 

Lottie lets out a long breath. She knows it will take time. She knows how she sometimes still aches for Laura Lee. She also aches for a way to take away Jackie’s pain. If only she was any good at that. If only she could do something more than make promises and prayers. Maybe they wouldn’t be starving, maybe they wouldn’t have had to eat Shauna. Maybe none of them would have had to give up parts of themselves just to survive.

 

Lottie drops her hand to take Jackie’s other one. What else is there left to do now but mourn? 

It’s after two days of not doing anything but listening to Shauna and Lottie that Jackie blinks awake to the butt of the gun poking her in the side. 

 

“Get up,” Nat says. “I’m going out. You’re coming with me.”

 

“Me,” Jackie says. Her mouth feels like cotton.

 

“Everybody else is usually busy, so, yes. You. C’mon. Get up.”

 

It's two days of sitting around wishing she could do anything to help anyone, but Misty won't let Lottie walk on her still healing foot until she has decided it's healed enough-- which is apparently today. 

 

Nat is jabbing Jackie awake with the gun-- Lottie had gotten up as carefully as possible, deciding to let Jackie sleep in some more, but she's heard whispers among the other girls. They've all grown tired of letting Jackie simply do nothing. So when Nat says she wants to take Jackie with her in her hunt, Lottie agrees. She just makes Nat promise to not let Jackie use the gun, and to please, please, please take care of her. 

 

Nat, of course, says yes. 

 

Misty tightens the “cast” she's putting on Lottie's foot sharply at the words and Lottie winces. 

 

Misty gives a thin lipped smile. “Oops.” And then she's walking away. 

 

Lottie quirks her brow up at Nat, who just shrugs.

 

“Jackie, get up or I'm going to pour cold snow on you,” Nat grunts.

 

“You know she will,” Shauna tells Jackie, laying beside her on the bench. 

 

Jackie mumbles, “I don’t care,” but she also moves to get up, blearily looking at Nat. “Do I get to use the gun?”

 

“Not in this lifetime, Taylor,” Nat tells her. “Get dressed. And fucking pay attention while we’re out there. I need you to keep up with the map.”

 

Great. A responsibility. There’s a voice in Jackie’s head that isn’t Shauna reminding her not to fuck this up as she adds on a few layers, putting on Shauna’s hoodie and tugging it over her head.

 

Lottie gives Nat a quiet thank you as Jackie gets up to get dressed. She pushes herself to stand, only using the heel of her left foot as she hobbles over to the fireplace and prepares a cup of tea for the two of them. 

 

She sits by the window and waits until they both begin to head out. Nat stops without her even having to ask this time and it makes Lottie happier than it probably should. Pulling herself up to stand, she holds out the cup. 

 

“Be safe,” she tells them both. She can’t stop herself from putting a hand on Jackie’s shoulder and she gives her a reassuring smile.

 

Nat takes the cup first, swallowing a mouthful before handing it to Jackie. It tastes like pine, but it’s warm, and Jackie, lately, just hasn’t felt like complaining. It’s a first, really. 

 

She lets her mouth tick up in a small smile, and she can’t quite hold it, but she still tries, and then Nat’s leading her outside into the cold.

 

The first thing Jackie notices is just how cold it is in the wind. She’d spend hours in the meatshed, but that had nothing on the bone chilling freeze of being outside. Nat’s braced for it, and her footsteps are sure. Eventually, Jackie starts walking wherever Natalie treds, following behind her slowly.

 

There’s not much talking. Nat’s not trying to maintain conversation out there, at least not for now. She’s given Jackie her instructions: watch for game, watch for any sign of life. Tomorrow, she tells her they’ll check the fishing lines, hope it’s not too frozen.

 

Jackie realizes, then, that she’ll be doing this tomorrow. And the next day, and more.

 

Shauna doesn’t follow them out of the cabin, and Jackie can’t help but find some level of comfort in that. Maybe she’s trapped in there, but Jackie knows that’s not true. Maybe she just got tired of haunting Jackie so continuously. 

 

They don’t find anything, but maybe it’s almost nice to get outside. Jackie can tell Nat is going easy on her; she doesn’t go too fast, and they don’t go too far. Jackie’s out of shape. She’s breathing heavily by the time they start heading back.

 

She’s tired, too. Maybe she’ll actually sleep through the night.

Lottie spends the day worrying, for the most part. She tries not to pace after Misty snaps at her the first time. (Is it just Lottie or is Misty growing more irritated by the day?) Tai goes out to chop more wood while Van and Akilah gather water, dig out the firepit again. Melissa goes to the shed like always, Gen helps Crystal sweep, Robin and Britt head in to do laundry. 

 

It’s simply business as usual. 

 

Lottie helps Mari first, then moves about to check on the dishes. She talks with Travis for a little bit, smiles at Javi and hands him a pair of gloves before he heads out with his brother, and she looks in on Coach, who hasn’t moved from his bed in a few days. She worries about him, but she doesn’t have the mind to spare for it right now.

 

The day winds down and Lottie gazes out the window, waiting for Jackie and Nat to return. She sees them coming up from the trail and she opens the door for them before they even make it to the cabin. 

 

They’re empty handed and Nat trudges past her into the cabin again, hanging up the gun, her head low. Lottie feels her own face fall a little.

 

But she turns to look at Jackie. Her cheeks are a deep red, as is the tip of her nose, and Lottie can tell she’s breathing heavier than normal. It’s been awhile since Jackie has been up and as active as the rest of them, it’ll take time for her to build her muscle back up, her endurance. 

 

Lottie closes the door behind her and reaches to help her pull off the furs and coat. “How was it?” she asks her as she does so. She just wants to keep Jackie talking, to keep showing her some semblance of normal so that she won’t lose her completely to that spiral of grief Lottie knows all too well.

 

“Cold,” Jackie says, her skin feeling chapped from the wind as she lets Lottie help her out of her snow-covered clothes. She sighs. “It was fucking cold. Apparently, it’s going to be fucking cold tomorrow, too.”

 

Lottie half shrugs, hangs up the wet furs by the fire. “It is winter,” she says. She moves back over to Jackie, presses the backs of her hands to her frozen cheeks. “It’s good for you,” she tells her, “to get some fresh air.” 

 

She feels someone watching her and Lottie turns her head enough to see Misty in the kitchen. When she notices Lottie, she walks away to the other side of the room where she can’t see her anymore.

 

Lottie blinks then turns her attention back to Jackie. Something is buzzing her head but she ignores it. “Come sit by the fire,” she says, “warm up before dinner.”

 

“I feel like too much fresh air out here isn’t that good,” Jackie mutters, her eyes closing. Lottie’s hands are so warm on her skin. It does, at least, smell better outside than it did here. She definitely notices that. 

 

She moves near the fire, sitting down in a chair close enough, but not too close. It’s almost too warm. She grabs Lottie’s hand. “Busy day?”

 

Lottie hums her reply and follows Jackie over, still limping on her foot. She stays standing, though letting Jackie take her hand. “Same as always.” There’s not a lot of variation out here. Rise with the sun, finish the day’s chores, set with the sun. Hope tomorrow might bring something better.

 

It never does.

 

Lottie reaches out with her free hand and combs a tangle out of Jackie’s hair. “We should get you a headband,” she says, “might help with your hair.”

 

“My hair is a lost cause,” Jackie says, though she leans into Lottie’s touch, and she likes the way her hand feels. Jackie used to take so much pride in her appearance, though it’s not like it really matters anymore. She reaches out, brushing some of Lottie’s out of her face. “Your bangs have gotten long.”

 

The words feel a little too familiar. Lottie, your bangs are out of control. Here, I’ll help . Deft fingers braiding her hair. A song being hummed into her ear. The sunlit smile of a girl long gone.

 

Lottie feels her breath stutter. She forces a smile. “I don’t think they exist anymore.” She squeezes Jackie’s hand, then. “I’ll…I’ll be right back.”

 

She just needs a moment. She does also want to check on Natalie. 

 

Lottie makes her way towards where she is, sitting in the back, like always. Her eyes are trained on the door over there and Lottie knows she’s waiting for Travis. 

 

“Any signs?” she asks her and Natalie blinks, sighs.

 

“What do you think?”

 

Lottie thinks it’s unnatural for there to be nothing. The Wilderness had been so giving to them in the spring, in the fall. “Maybe tomorrow.” Lottie glances to Jackie before she sits down across from Nat. “Did she do okay?”

 

Natalie raises a brow at her but doesn’t say anything on it. “Yeah. She’s just out of shape. Probably from sitting in that fucking shed all day for the past few months.”

 

Lottie sighs. She knows she’s right, she knows she should’ve tried to motivate Jackie before, but she didn’t want to take her away from Shauna. Now, there’s no Shauna left to take her away from. “Thanks.”

 

Lottie is up and moving again when the back door opens and Travis comes in. He looks at the two of them, then ducks into the bedroom. Nat looks like she wants to follow, but she stays seated. Lottie meets her gaze and Nat looks like the girl that had cried to Lottie after a long night of smoking while she told her about the older man at the concert. She looks defeated. Lottie can’t help it, she supposes. She reaches over and hugs Nat briefly. She doesn’t linger and doesn’t look her in the eyes before she heads back over to Jackie, grabbing a cup along the way. 

 

She fills it with the hot water from the fireplace and holds it out to her. “Drink. You’re probably dehydrated.”

 

Jackie’s actually a little shocked when Lottie pulls away, but she stays seated, soaking up the warmth instead. Shauna, at least, seems to realize that Jackie’s too tired to be bothered. Maybe she’ll sneak into her dreams instead.

 

She’s not quite dozing when Lottie hands her the cup of water, and she takes it, wrapping her fingers around it first and just soaking in the heat for a second before taking a drink. “Thanks.” She takes another, realizing that she’s thirsty, appreciating the way it warms her insides. “And I… didn’t mean anything about your hair, you know. It looks nice, promise.”

 

Lottie smiles, not forced this time. “I know.” She knows. How would Jackie know? How would any of them? They never asked. They didn’t see the gentle way Laura Lee took care of her. Somehow, Lottie likes keeping it to herself. She likes having that of her. Only hers.

 

She supposes it might feel something like how Jackie feels about Shauna. 

 

She lowers herself to the floor next to Jackie’s chair, letting out a soft grunt as she does so. Her leg still hurts and it feels more sore the more she uses it. But she can’t sit around forever out here. That’s death. 

 

And the girls need her, now more than ever. She’ll try her best to be there for them. It’s all she can do.

 

Lottie leans her head on Jackie’s chair and looks into the fire. They’ve lost two of them, now, to this place. How many more will they lose before this is all over? She wonders if maybe they’re all just doomed to die out here. 

 

“You should have gotten in a chair,” Jackie mumbles, but she reaches down to brush her fingers against Lottie’s hair, her shoulder. She’s so tired. She could probably go to sleep right then. 

 

Akilah’s nudging her, offering Jackie a bowl of more water than meat at this point, handing Lottie one before she moves on to the others. Jackie takes a drink of the broth, savoring it. 

 

Lottie takes the bowl and if she closes her eyes, she can almost feel a different pair of hands brushing through her hair, combing out the tangles and tying it back into a braid. 

 

She hasn’t thought this much about Laura Lee in a long time. She kind of hates it.

 

“I’ve been in chairs for the past three days,” Lottie mumbles, holding her bowl of broth in her lap, “I don’t mind the floor.”

 

She leans her head into Jackie’s touch. It feels nice.

 

“Yeah, and it’s going to be a bitch to get up from there,” Jackie tells her. It’s a little awkward, eating with one hand, but there’s not really any need for silverware these days. 

 

Van offers them another story for the night, this time The Breakfast Club . Jackie closes her eyes and tries to imagine the story unfolding. Molly Ringwald is cute, sure, and Jackie definitely thinks Van is really playing it up for another redhead, but Jackie was more of a fan of Ally Sheedy.

 

If she’s being honest in the comfort of her own head.

 

The story is nice, Lottie thinks. She’s seen The Breakfast Club a million times, most of those being with Van. She really liked the movie, it reminded her of the experience they’d never get. Being on varsity meant they weren’t allowed to get in trouble like that. Not a lot, at least.

 

When they all finish dinner, Akilah gathers up the dirty bowls and takes them to the sink to be washed for tomorrow, and Lottie thinks about how Jackie was, unfortunately, right. This is gonna be a bitch, getting up from the floor.

 

She waits until she absolutely has to move, because she’s sitting where some of the beds go. She shifts herself enough to try and use the chair to pull herself up. She doesn’t really want to ask for help, but more than one person is already moving to help her. 

 

Jackie would have helped, but Misty is right there before really anyone can do anything, though Van helps shoulder some of Lottie’s height, and the two of them help Lottie over to the bench. Jackie’s reminded of the way Misty was around Coach, though she seems to have backed off, now, her focus instead on Lottie. It would be interesting if Jackie thought about it more. 

 

Instead, she just wants to sleep. 

 

She shuffles to her feet, but Nat calls out to her, motioning for her to come over to the table. “Tomorrow, we’re going to try going over here,” she says, motioning to a blank section of the map. “You’re gonna bring some paper and a pencil and try to recall some landmarks so we get a decent idea of shit. Okay?”

 

“Aye, aye, captain.”

 

Nat shakes her head. “Nope. That’s still you, technically.”

 

It is. It was. Jackie doesn’t feel like that girl anymore. She figures that’s a dismissal and heads over to the bench, ready to lay down while the others are still getting ready for bed.

 

Lottie is happy Nat is also taking an interest in keeping Jackie alive and around and preoccupied. She would do it alone, she would, but it’s nice to know someone else does care.

 

Misty has lingered around Lottie until she sees Jackie coming back over and she’s gone before Jackie makes it. Lottie watches her beeline for Natalie, who is now trying to get Misty to go away without seeming too rude.

 

Lottie reaches down to start untying her one shoe when Jackie gets there. “Big plans for tomorrow?” she asks.

 

“Map making, apparently,” Jackie says drily. She looks past Lottie and sees Shauna sitting in one of the chairs, cradling her stomach. She turns back to Jackie, but she doesn’t say a word. When Jackie blinks, she’s gone. 

 

The map making thing wasn’t an actual stretch. Jackie thought she might be okay at it. She liked to draw, before. She liked art classes. Her teachers called her a bit of a perfectionist, but she likes details, and she likes getting them right. She thinks she knows how to draw the pout of Shauna’s lips by muscle memory, remembering all the times she told her best friend to hold still as she did a sketch for class. Or, at least, as she made that excuse. 

 

“So are you Lewis or Clark?” Lottie asks, tossing her shoe away and scooting onto their shared bed. It feels weird thinking that. Ever since they found Shauna outside frozen, Jackie and Lottie have slept together every night. If she thinks too hard about it, she might find meaning in it. But Lottie tells herself it’s just a creature comfort for Jackie, who was always sleeping next to Shauna before.

 

Jackie snorts. “Whichever one doodles on the fucking map, I guess.” She lies down, situated on her side and scooting closer to Lottie and her warmth before pulling one of the blankets around them. She wonders just how comfortable this actually is for Lottie when there’s less room and she can’t properly stretch out. “I know it sucks to get up, but would you rather us sleep on the floor so that you can stretch out? Or… me sleep on the floor so that you have more room?”

 

“Both of them did, Jackie.” Lottie can’t help but laugh, too. She moves closer to Jackie as well, curling her legs up so they don’t hang off the end too much. She turns on her side to look at Jackie. “No,” she says quickly, then adds, “Misty says it’s better if I sleep elevated so that I don’t hit my foot on anything.” She thinks for another moment. “Unless you want to sleep on the floor.” She kind of hopes Jackie says no, though. She’s grown used to having a body beside her while she sleeps, like a weight reminding Lottie of what’s real and what’s not.

 

“I knew that.” Jackie might’ve known that. Maybe. Months ago. She mostly studied well enough for tests to do good and then kind of forgot things unless she really got interested in it. “No, I don’t want to sleep on the floor. I just want to make sure you’re comfortable.”

 

“Hmm,” Lottie hums, “sure.” She reaches out and wraps her arms around Jackie, pulling her close. “I am.” And she is.

 

“If you say so,” Jackie says softly, settling in closer. She doesn’t think she can fall asleep any other way, now.

 

Lottie doesn’t need to say anything to that, they both know. 

 

Lottie also can’t seem to fall asleep that night. She doesn’t toss and turn, she doesn’t want to wake Jackie up, but she can’t get her mind to shut off. She feels a terrible sense of dread building inside of her. Something is telling her that something isn’t right.

 

She wishes It would just tell her what.

The next week seems to go by the same way. Each morning, Lottie rises with Jackie and Nat and prepares their tea while they get ready for the day. 

 

Lottie worries all day until they’re back while everyone does their chosen chore.

 

Nat and Jackie always come back empty handed. Sometimes with more maps, sometimes without. Their food is dwindling more. By the time the week ends, they’re down to soaking the bones in the pot to draw out the marrow and any last bits of nutrients they can find.

 

And then when that’s gone, well. Who knows.

 

To help stem some of the worry, Lottie has started doing a prayer circle in the mornings once Nat and Jackie are off. It’s mostly just breathing and cognitive exercises that she remembers from her own therapy, but the others don’t seem to know that. And it’s helping them, too, it seems. That’s the best she can ask for right now.

 

Lottie doesn’t mean to, but she’s growing more and more quiet as the days go on. She can feel something building inside of her. Something she doesn’t like. Something she wishes she could get rid of.

 

This morning really shouldn’t have started any different. But it does because Lottie has a nightmare, the same one she’d had a few weeks ago and has had a few times since.

 

Wind and snow and howling. And Jackie, and she’s lost. And she’s face down in the snow. And Lottie calls for her but she can’t find her. She’s going to lose her.

 

Lottie wakes up in a sweat and the cabin is still dark. She’s trembling again. She doesn’t want to keep seeing this. The more she does, the more real it becomes. At least this time she didn’t wake up calling Jackie’s name, but she moves her hand over to feel for the other girl all the same.

 

The cold never gets any easier, but Jackie thinks that maybe it’s a good thing that it doesn’t. Maybe it’s a good thing that she hasn’t gotten completely numb to it. 

 

She starts covering her face when they go out, covering her hands, and it makes her drawings shaky and scribbled, simple, but the first time Jackie tries to be perfect with it, Nat barks at her to quit taking so long. Jackie learns to stop taking so long. 

 

She’s becoming a lighter sleeper, too, adjusting to wake up when Lottie does, even if she knows Lottie doesn’t actually mean to wake her. She feels her trembling, feels hands reaching out. Jackie leans in before reaching for Lottie’s hand. She’s not completely awake, so whatever it is that she tries to mumble to her is nonsense, but she lets Lottie know that she’s there all the same.

 

Lottie feels Jackie reach back out to her and she tries to convince herself that’s enough for now. She doesn’t want to wake her up too much before they have to actually get up for the day. Still, she pulls Jackie’s hand to her chest and closes her eyes and lets herself calm down while she convinces herself it’s not real. Nightmares and visions could be two different things.

 

She can’t go back to sleep, though, she knows that. Not when she still sees the wind and the snow and Jackie all alone when she closes her eyes. She doesn’t know why it sticks with her, she worries about it more. 

 

It’s earlier than normal when Nat makes her way over to them, footsteps light and careful as she steps over bodies, she reaches out and shakes Jackie’s shoulder. “Let’s get up now, I think a storm’s coming,” she whispers. “I want to be back before it breaks.”

 

Jackie doesn’t groan, even though she wants to, and she pulls away from Lottie, even though she doesn’t want to. It’s a habitual process, getting dressed, layering up, pulling on the hood and the gloves and covering up the lower half of her face. Jackie shrugs on the backpack while Nat grabs hers and the gun. It’s not quite light out when Nat starts to open the door.

 

“Wait,” Lottie is at the door with them. She wants to tell them not to go, but they’re out of food, they need to, she knows that. She looks between them and she wants to beg them to stay. 

 

Instead, she holds out the cup of tea.

 

“Please just--” she knows neither of them really believe in her visions, but she has to say something. She reaches up and takes off her necklace-- Jackie’s necklace, Lottie still thinks of it as Jackie’s necklace-- and clips it around Jackie’s neck. “Be safe.”

 

Jackie blinks and offers Lottie a small smile before taking a sip of the tea and handing it to Nat. “I mean, I’ve gotta. I’m not allowed to die out there,” she tells Lottie. 

 

Nat holds open the door, and the two of them trudge out into the cold. It’s freezing today, and Nat’s right; it looks like a storm is coming. They actually make it a pretty good distance as it grows lighter, checking some of the different traplines that Nat has been leaving. Jackie stops every now and then, trying to catalogue their surroundings, and, every time she looks up, it seems like Nat’s gotten farther and farther away.

 

Nat’s frustrated, too, frustrated and desperate, and Jackie doesn’t even think she wants to be out there, but it’s like… if they don’t try now, then they might not be able to.

 

“Jackie, please keep up!” Nat calls. 

 

“I’m coming!” Jackie yells back, slipping in the snow as she makes her way back to Natalie. The covering slips off her face, and she struggles to put it back on. 

 

Nat’s eyes are so tired. The snow’s starting to fall a little harder. “Why don’t you head back to the cabin, okay? It shouldn’t be too far.”

 

“What? No way,” Jackie says. “I’m not leaving you out here by yourself. I thought that was the fucking point of me even being out here!” 

 

“I’ll be right behind you, I swear. I just– I need a minute.” Nat looks like she’s going to cry, and maybe that’s the trouble, right? She doesn’t want to do that around people. 

 

Jackie hesitates, and she thinks that this is maybe a really shitty idea, but she nods. 

 

Nat tugs on Jackie’s hood, making sure it's in place. “I’ll be right behind you, Jackie.”

 

“Okay. See you in a few.”

 

Really, Jackie doesn’t mean to get lost. But, hey. It was bound to happen, right?

Lottie sees the clouds in the sky but tries not to panic. She’s been pacing all day, despite Misty insisting she stop.

 

She can’t help it. 

 

She goes out on the porch a few times and stares hard into the treeline, hoping to see Jackie and Natalie breaking through them.

 

She never does.

 

Chores are handed out and Lottie barely registers hearing Crystal complain about getting toilet duty again.

 

Lottie can’t bring herself to care.

 

She’s staring out the window when she sees the first few snowflakes begin to fall. She tries not to panic.

 

She watches Misty and Crystal head out to complete their chore together, while everyone else heads back in. Even Melissa has cut the dinner portions for them early tonight, and she’s in the corner with Gen trying to warm back up.

 

Lottie is out waiting on the porch when the wind starts to pick up and the snow grows heavier. She’s beginning to panic.

 

Van tries to tell her to come inside but Lottie isn’t listening. 

 

That dread that’s been building in her is choking her. She knows something’s wrong.

 

But then, she sees a shadowy figure breaking the treeline and Lottie sprints over. It’s Natalie.

 

The girl startles when she realizes Lottie is on top of her, gripping her shoulders. “Where--” Lottie is looking around frantically, expecting to see Jackie just behind Nat, stumbling through the wind and snow.

 

But she’s not there.

 

“Where’s Jackie?”

 

Nat looks confused, then, horrified. “What do you mean? She-- she’s not here?”

 

Lottie matches her look, her chest goes cold. She was right. She didn’t want to be right. 

 

“I told her to come right back, I-I swear,” Nat continues. But Lottie can’t hear her anymore. Her ears are ringing. “She’s not inside?”

 

But Lottie doesn’t hear her. Without so much as a glance, she lets go of Nat and tries to push past her. She has to go find Jackie.

 

A hand grabs her arm, yanks her back. “Hey, Lottie!” It’s Natalie and Lottie turns on her, both angered and terrified. “Where are you going?”

 

“I have to go find her!” She tries to move forward.

 

“Lottie!” Natalie yanks her back again. “You can’t go running off in this! You’ll get lost!”

 

But Lottie doesn’t care. She thinks she can find her. She thinks It would help her find her. Wouldn’t It? “I have to go find her,” Lottie repeats, pulling harder. Nat’s feet slide in the snow, a reminder how much Lottie’s height gives her an advantage, even over people stronger than her.

 

“Lottie, stop!” Nat throws her arms around Lottie’s waist, weighing her down. “You can’t!”

 

They’re both yelling over the howling wind. “I have to!” She has to. She’d known this was going to happen, and she just let it. She should’ve said something, she should have begged them to stay.

 

There’s more girls running outside now, standing on the porch. Lottie doesn’t see them even though she hears them, their voices ringing in her ears. They’re calling out for them all. For Nat, for Jackie, for Lottie, for Crystal.

 

Nat calls back to them, but Lottie still struggles against her. “Lottie, please ! We have to get inside!” She’s begging her now and wasn’t it Natalie that hated her just a few weeks ago? Wasn’t it Natalie that wanted Lottie to shut up, to leave her alone, to walk out of the cabin and never come back?

 

Lottie doesn’t know where it comes from, but she reels her elbow back straight into Nat’s face. Lottie hits the hardest on the entire team, everyone knows this. As soon as Natalie lets go, grabbing her now bleeding face, Lottie is sprinting off.

 

She doesn’t get far before her foot, searing with pain, gives out beneath her. 

 

Someone is on top of her instantly. Two people. “Let go!” She cries out. She’s never felt so desperate before. Last time, she’d just let Laura Lee fly off without her and die. She couldn’t let that happen again. Not after Shauna. Not after she’d promised Jackie.

 

But they drag her back to the cabin. She doesn’t make it easy on them. Natalie’s shirt is stained with blood by the time they get back inside, and Lottie realizes it was Tai dragging her back in. They throw her down but Lottie scrambles back to her feet. She shoves Tai hard enough to throw her back into the door, but neither of them move out of her way.

 

Natalie holds her hands up. “Lottie, please, there’s no point! We’ll go when it lets up, okay? As soon as it lets up. I promise.”

 

Lottie thinks it’ll be too late by then. They haven’t seen what she has. They don’t know what she does.

 

She moves forward to try and part them once again, but it’s Misty who finally incapacitates her-- she steps with the heel of her boot onto Lottie’s bad foot and Lottie crumples to the ground in pain, crying out.

 

The cabin is dreadfully silent.

Again, Jackie didn’t mean to get lost. She’s gotten better at knowing where she’s going out there. Unfortunately, that doesn’t account for snow whipping around in her face, making it harder to see. 

 

“I think you’re lost,” Shauna tells her, walking beside her wearing Jackie’s butterfly shirt. Jackie thinks it suits her.

 

“No shit,” she mutters, trying to pull the covering on her face up further. Her eyes sting from the wind, the snow. 

 

“Careful,” Shauna says as Jackie trips, stumbling and trying and failing to catch herself, tumbling through the snow and landing on her stomach. It takes her laying there for a solid minute before she’s rolling over. She pants, the hood having fallen off her head, and it’s fucking cold . Jackie has never been this cold.

 

For too long, she just stays there, breathing. It’s cold. It’s also not terrible. If Jackie stays like that, lets herself get buried in it, it wouldn’t be terrible.

 

Shauna leans down in front of her, blocking Jackie’s vision. “You know what happens if you do this, right?” she murmurs, smiling softly. “We’re together again.”

 

Yes. Yes, and Jackie wants that. She deserves that, too. Burdensome thing, not built for this life, these hardships. Shauna should have lived instead. She would have been better at this than Jackie.

 

Shauna brushes her fingers, ice cold and knife sharp, through Jackie’s hair, against her ear. “You don’t see Nat again, though, not for a long time. Nat, or Tai, or Van, or Travis. Javi. Lottie. You don’t see Lottie again.”

 

Jackie never made any kind of promise to Lottie to stick around, not really, not in so many words. But her life had been tied to Lottie’s for months, and Lottie, foolishly, had done the same. She tried to sleep when Jackie slept, where Jackie slept. She only ate when Jackie ate. She seemed to suffer when Jackie suffered.

 

If Jackie dies, will Lottie do the same?

 

Groaning, Jackie stands. She twisted her foot when she fell, and it hurts. Her ears ache, and she pulls her hood back up with clumsy, gloved fingers. She doesn’t think she’d been down for long, but she was covered in snow, and whatever light there had been is rapidly disappearing. Jackie has no idea where she is, but she can’t see the cabin, can’t hear any sign of life. 

 

Shauna’s disappeared, too, and Jackie is alone. 

 

She tries to stumble off in the right direction, but she’s just walking herself in circles, and it’s a horrifying feeling when Jackie realizes she won’t be making it back to the cabin before night falls. Instead, she starts looking for a place to take shelter, finding a fallen tree that, if she digs a little in the snow, she can make a little hollow for herself to fight off most of the elements.

 

It’s not great, and she’s still fucking freezing, but at least some of the wind and snow is cut back.

 

It’s too fucking dark out, and Jackie has to constantly remind herself not to go to sleep. If she does, she’s dead. It’d be easy. It’d be easier than breathing, something that’s actually a chore, at this point. She turns her head, trying to keep as much of it out of the cold as possible, curled up tight. She just needs to make it through the night. If she can do that, then she can get up in the morning, try again.

They’ve barricaded both doors and Lottie wants to scream. She thinks that maybe she can clear away the shit they’ve piled in front of it when they all go to sleep, but she’s reminded, once again, that she can’t walk when Misty comes over and tries to apologize for hurting her. Lottie doesn’t care.

 

She tries to check on it, but Lottie yanks her foot away. It’s bleeding through the bandages but she doesn’t care. 

 

Van tries to convince her to let them help but Lottie won’t talk to her, won’t talk to any of them. She listens to the wind whipping the cabin outside and she wants to scream again. 

 

Akilah sets a bowl of broth by her that night, but Lottie doesn’t move, doesn’t touch it. She’s laying on her side, staring at the front door, willing it to bang open and for Jackie to be standing there. 

 

It doesn’t happen.

 

It gets dark much too quickly. Lottie pleads with them one more time, but Natalie has laid her bed in front of the door and is sitting up, watching Lottie. She kind of hates her right now. She kind of understands how Nat was so mad at her before.

 

She doesn’t know why that is.

 

She doesn’t know how they’re all okay with just letting someone freeze to death in a snowstorm. They all just let Shauna freeze to death.

 

They hadn’t known it was going to snow, though, that night. They knew it was right now. They knew it was snowing tonight.

 

Lottie can’t sleep. There’s something inside of her burning her up from the inside out. She won’t pace but her body can’t stay still. Natalie stays up with her, watching her. She won’t meet her gaze. She wants to blame Natalie but she knows it’s not her fault.

 

It’s Lottie’s. The Wilderness had tried to tell her, warn her. It had shown her what was going to happen and she’d ignored it. She was being punished, now. She wished it would just take her instead. 

 

The sun takes too long to start peeking through the trees. It’s still snowing and windy and white out conditions, but Lottie rises with it. She hops over to the door, she doesn’t look at Nat, who is standing up, ready to grab her if she needs to.

 

But all Lottie does is put her hand on the door. The wood is so cold. 

 

“I hear the wind,” she murmurs, “I hear my breath.” 

 

She closes her eyes. “Listen,” she tells Nat, “what do you hear?”

 

Natalie furrows her brow. “What’s that supposed to do?”

 

“Listen,” Lottie says again, sharper.

 

Natalie puts her hand on the door as well. Lottie looks at her.

 

The other girls are watching them now.

 

“I hear the trees,” comes Mari’s voice.

 

“I hear my heartbeat,” Akilah adds on.

 

Natalie closes her eyes and Lottie watches her closely. “I hear her footsteps,” she says.

 

Lottie closes her eyes, too. She thinks if she tries hard enough, she can see Jackie. “I feel Jackie coming back to us.”

It’s the longest night of Jackie’s life. 

 

She’s doing her best to keep herself from fucking freezing, remembering how Lottie ended up losing her toes, but she doesn’t have a lot of body heat to work with. Mostly, she just focuses on moving her fingers, her toes, keeping the covering over her mouth, her nose. Her right ear is fucking numb, but that’s not a big worry. Jackie tugs the hood tighter around her face.

 

When it finally gets light enough for her to see, she pulls herself out of the hole she made, laying on her stomach in the cold for maybe a beat too long before she finally pushes herself up. Her legs are practically wooden, nearly unwilling, but she forces them to move. One foot in front of the other, and again, and again, and again.

 

The first time she starts to try and listen on where to go, she doesn’t hear anything, see anything. 

 

“Where are you?” Shauna whispers.

 

“I-I d-don’t know!” Jackie’s voice is ragged, like her vocal cords are frozen, too.

 

“What do you see?”

 

“Fuck, I– A lot of f-f-fucking t-t-trees,” Jackie snarls. She takes a deep breath. “I see…” Her eyes lock on it.

 

That fucking symbol.

 

Jackie starts walking.

 

Eventually, she hears them, though she doesn’t know how. She hears their voices, their breathing, their heartbeats. She hears her name. She smells the smoke of the fire. Jackie doesn’t know how long she walks, and she doesn’t know how many times she falls, but, somehow, she breaks through the trees, and she sees the cabin. 

 

She just barely makes it to the porch when her legs give out.

 

Lottie is throwing the blockade away from the door the moment she knows. The others are confused, maybe even scared, but the moment she yanks the door open and they all see Jackie on the porch, they just know.

 

She scoops the girl into her arms quickly, rushes her inside. She just barely makes it near the fireplace before her leg gives out again. Nat is catching Jackie and wrapping a blanket around her. Akilah is rushing to start warming up more hot water. Van and Tai shove the door shut with some force, and the rest of the girls start clearing away everything else so they can lay Jackie out. 

 

Everyone but Misty.

 

Lottie barely notices she’s not there until she’s looking up, searching for what to do next. As the resident medic, she would expect Misty to be right there. But Lottie can’t find her in the immediate vicinity.

 

And so it falls to Akilah. She tells someone to fill the tub with the hot water so they can get Jackie in it, just like they had for Nat and Lottie. Mari and Gen start on it quickly.

 

The world feels like it’s rushing by too fast, but Lottie is stuck in slow motion. Jackie’s heart is still beating under her fingertips but she can’t bring herself to tear her hand away from her. She takes her face in her hands and feels how cold her skin is. It feels all too familiar. They’d found Shauna almost just like this.

 

Jackie had found Lottie just like this.

 

She thinks she might hate winter after this. 

 

And despite everything going on around her, Lottie knows she’s crying and she doesn’t care. She pulls Jackie into her and feels how cold she still is, even under all her clothes. She holds her tightly and doesn’t want to let go. She thinks maybe she can warm her up with her own body heat alone. 

 

Someone comes back with a hot towel, they press it to Jackie’s ear. Lottie had barely noticed, too overwhelmed and overjoyed to know that Jackie was somehow still alive. But she wasn’t going to question a miracle. Not out here, not when it’s Jackie.

 

Someone is trying to pry Jackie from her arms.

 

“We need to get her into the tub,” Nat says calmly. Lottie doesn’t want to let go. “It’s okay,” Nat reassures her when she sees the fear in Lottie’s eyes, “she’s alive.”

 

The heat of the inside of the cabin doesn’t feel real, at first, and Jackie sinks into it and the warmth of arms around her, pressing into her, keeping her close. She made it back, somehow, and Jackie never made any promises, but she hopes this means she can help Lottie keep hers.

 

Groaning at the feeling of people tugging at her clothes, Jackie only barely understands what’s happening until she’s led somewhere, held up between at least two bodies. Her feet don’t even skim the ground. She can’t even have the illusion of supporting herself.

 

She’s stripped down and not even given enough time to feel self conscious when she’s being helped into water that feels scalding hot on her skin, and Jackie yelps, her eyes opening as she grips one of the arms holding onto her and making sure she sits down.

 

Lottie helps Nat carry Jackie to the back. It’s almost a complete reverse of before. She thinks both of them understand that.

 

This time, Natalie only stays long enough to help Lottie finish stripping Jackie down and start helping her into the tub. When Jackie’s eyes pop open, Lottie grabs her hand, squeezing. “It’s okay,” she breathes and she tries to be calming even though Lottie feels anything but calm, “you’re okay. I’ve got you.”

 

She gives Natalie a nod before the other girl shuts the door, leaving them alone.

 

Lottie is kneeling on the floor, she doesn’t notice the bloody footprints she’s left behind on the way in. She’s still squeezing Jackie’s hand in one of hers when she reaches out to brush some hair from her face. She doesn’t really know what to say. Typical of her, really. She knows she’s crying and it’s probably really pathetic, but she’s so fucking relived Jackie is okay. She’s so fucking happy Jackie is still alive. 

 

She opens her mouth to say something but chokes on whatever might come out. Bites her lip to keep from actually making any sort of noise that could be considered a sob. She doesn’t understand why everything hurts so much when Jackie is here, and Jackie is alive, but she thinks of Laura Lee and the plane and she can’t help it when more tears drip from her chin.

 

The water’s too hot, and Jackie thinks it’s burning her, even though there’s still ice in her hair, and it feels like it’s clinging to her throat, but she manages to find it in herself to squeeze Lottie’s hand. It’s probably more of a twitch than anything, her fingers frozen and uncooperative, but still. Jackie tries. Hopefully, that’s enough.

 

“G-got lost on my way back, s-sorry,” she slurs out, leaning her head on the side of the tub. She tries to reach up, wiping some of the tears from Lottie’s face. “Sorry. Shauna said ‘hi.’” 

 

There’s a sigh from behind her, and Jackie feels like there’s more ice in her hair. “I didn’t.”

 

Jackie manages a smile, she thinks. She’s not sure. She’s so tired. “Shauna says ‘hi.’”

 

Lottie isn’t sure what that means but she doesn’t care right now. She feels Jackie attempt to squeeze her hand back, but her fingers are so stiff and cold she can barely manage it. Lottie does her best to warm the one she’s holding while reaching for the other that wipes at her face. She sets it in the water. “Don’t talk,” she tells her quietly, “save your strength.” 

 

There’s still ice in Jackie’s hair and Lottie grabs a towel, wets it, starts thawing it out. She’s gentle, her hands shake. She can’t seem to stop crying. 

 

Jackie wants to sink a little more into the water, breathing out a shaky sigh. Her chest rattles. She can feel ice in her blood. Everywhere the water touches fucking hurts and burns. She thinks it’s supposed to. At least she can feel it. 

 

Squeezing Lottie’s hand again, a little stronger this time, Jackie presses her head into Lottie’s touch. As she relaxes, her eyes start fluttering closed. She wants to sleep. She wants to sleep so bad. She hasn’t slept in so long. She fought it off to make sure she made it back, to make sure she lived, to make sure Lottie got a chance to uphold her promise. 

 

Lottie can feel how slack Jackie is becoming in her hands, her body slipping further into the water, and she sets the towel aside, moving to support Jackie’s head so it doesn’t slip under the water, too. She lets one hand pet through Jackie’s now damp hair, letting herself mimic the soothing action that she remembers Laura Lee doing for her. She knows Jackie probably wants to sleep, she can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been for her out there, all alone, all night long. With the wind howling and the cold stinging her skin. 

 

She doesn’t think she can deny her that. She shifts enough to sit on the floor next to the tub and lets Jackie’s head rest on her arm. She’ll let her sleep just for a bit, just until she needs to get out of the water and dry off. Lottie will stay up with her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever want to let her leave her side again. She knows she’ll have to and it terrifies her more than she wants to admit.

 

Jackie rubs her cheek against Lottie’s arm. She was nothing but cold and heat and aching bones, aching skin, aching joints. A twisted ankle and frostbitten skin. Cold in her lungs. 

 

Shauna tells her, “You can’t go to sleep just yet. It’d be really shitty if you came all the way back just to drown.”

 

“I came back,” Jackie says. “I came back.” She sighs and tries to tighten her grip and tries to keep from slipping back into the water. 

 

Lottie knows Jackie is trying hard to stay awake. “I know,” she tells her, “I know you did.” And she’d come back on her own. After everything, she’d made it back on her own. Even Lottie hadn’t been able to do that. Lottie had let herself fall back to the ground and closed her eyes and accepted her fate. She was only still here, still alive, because of Jackie. 

 

And she thinks about that first night, when she’d found Jackie curled up in Shauna’s lap, ready to close her eyes for good and let the cold take her, too.

 

But now she was here. She’d chosen to live.

 

Lottie doesn’t know what’s changed since that night, but she’s all the more grateful for it, whatever it may be. She can’t help but pull Jackie into an awkward hug, pressing her head into her chest, hoping she can transfer some of her own heat into Jackie. “Just rest,” she whispers to her, “you’re safe.”

 

Jackie’s pretty content to let Lottie hug her close, sighing at the feeling, though she winces slightly. Her nose, her chin, her left ear, they all burn. Her right ear… She can’t feel it, actually. It doesn’t burn like her left one. That’s probably not good. Could Lottie feel her toes? Does that feeling go away? Jackie has never actually been able to make her ears move, so she doesn’t know.

 

Lottie worries she might be hurting Jackie when the girl winces in her arms and she loosens her grip just a little so that she can examine her and make sure she’s not. With Jackie’s hair damp and sticking to her face, Lottie can see how red and raw her skin is. She can see the same darkened, black skin on Jackie’s ear as she had seen on her foot. 

 

Closing her eyes, she puts a hand over Jackie’s ear, pressing the other to her chest. She tries to concentrate on the steady beat of Jackie’s pulse under her fingertips, the feel of her skin warming slowly. 

 

“You came back,” Lottie murmurs. She can’t say the same for Laura Lee and Shauna. But Jackie came back. She doesn’t think she’ll ever forget that.

 

“Yeah,” Jackie breathes. She came back. “Had t-to. You… made a promise.” And Jackie didn’t want Lottie to have to break it.

 

Lottie had made a promise, but she knew Jackie never had. And she would never ask Jackie to. Still, it made something inside of her ignite. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Something she didn’t really know how to express or how to deal with.

 

But Lottie was good at one thing, and that was ignoring her own feelings. She’d always been good at that.

 

And right now, she just wanted to make sure Jackie was going to be okay as she could be. Because none of this would ever be truly okay, but maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to get through this enough.

 

She let out a watery laugh. “I did, yeah,” she mumbles. Still, still . She quiets. “I would’ve come and found you. Brought you back.” She would have never stopped trying. 

 

“‘S too cold,” Jackie said, shaking her head. “You’re already down a few toes, Lott. I don’t want you to lose anymore. That’d make walking a bitch.”

 

She’s just glad that Lottie’s here, that she’d made it back to her. “It’s fucking snowing out there.”

 

“It’s just a few toes,” Lottie repeats, a weary smile on her lips that can’t be seen as much as it can be heard. “It is.” And she’d known it was going to snow and she hadn’t said anything. She’ll never forgive herself for that. They were lucky Natalie had made it home without getting lost, too. Luckier still that Jackie made it home at all.

 

“Why’d you leave Natalie?” she finds herself asking.

 

“I was headed back to the cabin,” Jackie murmurs. “She… needed a minute. So I was coming back. Got lost.” She laughs. “Stupid. Bet I wasn’t even that far.” But it felt so far, like she’d been wandering for hours and hours, farther and farther away. She got lucky. Really fucking lucky, and she’s not sure how she stayed awake so long. She’s not sure how she’s not dead.

 

Lottie gives another watery laugh. “Stupid…” she mumbles into Jackie’s hair, trying to keep herself from crying more. She’d tried so hard to go after Jackie, to go find her. The moment she’d seen Natalie coming back alone and she’d felt like someone was cutting open her chest and breaking her ribs and tearing her heart out again, just like they had when a certain blonde’s plane exploded, she’d been clawing and begging and fighting to go after her. Lottie had never felt so desperate. She’d never had a chance to go save Laura Lee.

 

But she’d had a chance to go save Jackie. And she would have. She would have.

 

She supposed that was why her foot was aching and bleeding and burning again. 

 

Lottie drew in a deep, shuddering breath and let it go slowly. “So much for the whole Lewis and Clark thing, huh?”

 

“That’s cold, Matthews, and I was out in the snow for twenty-four hours,” Jackie grumbles. She really is starting to fall asleep, though. She’s gone from feeling cold to feverish, and, while she’s grateful she can still move her fingers and toes, they fucking hurt. Her entire body hurts, and she just wants to take a nap. Or a really long sleep. Preferably curled up next to Lottie. She can’t pinpoint, exactly, when she thought she stopped being able to sleep without Lottie around, but she knows it’s true, now.

 

Jackie’s sure Shauna would have an explanation for this, something scientific about the nature of being physically close to people making you emotionally close to them, coupling that with the fact that Lottie never let her sleep alone after they found Shauna outside. Now, she’s a bit like a safety blanket; Jackie only really feels comfortable when Lottie’s there with her.

 

“Don't remind me,” Lottie says, squeezing Jackie a bit tighter. It was probably some of the worst twenty-four hours of her life, and that was actually a hard competition. She can feel Jackie sagging in her arms and decides it's probably time to get her out, so that she can actually rest properly. 

 

“C'mon,” she urges gently, lifting Jackie's head, “let's get you out and laying down.” 

 

Jackie manages a nod, looking at Lottie with bleary eyes before she puts her hands on the side of the tub and starts pushing herself up. It fucking hurts, and she’s shaking, and she can’t fucking stand on the foot she managed to twist when she fell the night before. And the air is cold, and she’s really fucking naked. She slumps back down, water sloshing, and Jackie tilts her head back, groaning. She needs a second before she can try that again. “Fuck. Sorry. C-can you bring the flannel I was wearing? S-shauna’s? I left s-something in the pocket.”

 

Lottie moves to help Jackie but she's a little too slow as the other girl slumps back down. She hooks her arms under Jackie's shoulders to prevent her from hitting anything too hard. “Hey, whoa,” she says, “slow down, let me help you.” She lets out a breath. The shirt? Lottie thinks that's the least important thing right now, but she gets it. “It's drying,” she tells her, shifting to a better position to help lift Jackie out. “I'll go grab it in a sec, okay?” She's much more focused on helping Jackie get out of the tub and get warm. 

 

“Okay,” Jackie murmurs, trying again and letting Lottie help her this time as she manages to stand and stumble out of the tub. She leans against Lottie and favors her injured foot, which means that, between the two of them, they’ve got two fully functioning legs. It’d be a little funny if it wasn’t so fucking sad. 

 

Jackie clings to Lottie and tries not to knock them both over or pull them down because how fucking embarrassing would that be? The others already see her as weak, and Jackie fucking knows it. She doesn’t want them to see her in any sort of worse light.

 

Lottie admittedly struggles a little on her foot, but she manages to get Jackie up and out and supports her enough to wrap a blanket around her and bring them both to the bed. Her foot is throbbing by the time they do but she ignores it, wrapping Jackie up in another blanket for good measure. Then, because she simply can't help it, she pulls the girl into her arms tightly and wraps her up more. She's grateful she's gotten so good at crying silently, a skill perfected by a young girl who was always afraid of herself and the anger that it brought from her parents. 

 

Jackie doesn’t know how long they sit there before moving, and she keeps her head down and refuses to look at anyone as they make it to the main room, keeping the blanket wrapped tightly around herself and burrowing into Lottie when the other girl holds her close. It makes her feel protected, secure, alone but not. Like no one else matters but the two of them, and Jackie can ignore the others, can ignore how vulnerable she feels, how vulnerable she is . She hates the feeling, but she can’t make it go away, especially as she shivers in Lotties arms, tucked against her. It feels like she’s trying to leech the warmth out of Lottie’s skin. She can’t stop herself, though, can’t stop herself from pressing her face against Lottie’s neck and sighing.

 

It's Natalie who brings over a change of clothes for Jackie and she lingers as Lottie takes them, gives her a smile as thanks. She thinks Natalie can see the tears in her eyes, and that Lottie must blame her. She doesn't and she knows she'll need to tell her that later, but for now, she wants to just stay here, by the fire with Jackie wrapped up in her arms. She keeps her firmly in her lap, not caring about the way the others look at them. She thinks she’d do this for any of them. She thinks she likes holding Jackie the most. 

 

Akilah sets two bowls of warm broth down by them and Lottie gives her a thanks as well, as she pets one hand gently through Jackie's hair, over her ear. Misty is still MIA, but Lottie can't worry about that right now. Right now, she’s only worried about Jackie.

 

Jackie barely notices Nat coming by with clothes, though she gets that she should probably put them on, probably add an extra layer of warmth, but she’s really so tired. Getting out of the tub was a lot, and Lottie’s so warm, and it feels so nice to be held. She registers the sound of something being set down, but, by that point, the feeling of a hand gently brushing through her hair and Lottie’s heartbeat against her skin is enough to lull Jackie into being mostly unconscious.

 

Lottie can feel the moment Jackie’s body fully relaxes in her grasp and she slips into sleep. She thinks about waking her, about having her eat just a little bit, but then she thinks better of it. When Lottie had been recovering, all she’d wanted to do was sleep, and so she’d let Jackie rest for now.

 

She manages to drink enough of her own broth while still holding Jackie with one arm as she does so, before Natalie is sitting down by them and helping Lottie shift Jackie slowly as to not wake her, and tug on some clothes. Sleeping nude in this cold wasn’t the best idea, even if someone was cocooned in as many blankets as they can spare.

 

Lottie, for the most part, just holds Jackie while Natalie redresses her and makes sure the others aren’t intruding on anything or staring. Lottie appreciates Natalie’s candor with it all, glaring at anyone who lingers too long or who she sees whispering behind hands. When they finish, Jackie is still out and Lottie appreciates that she can be such a deep sleeper. Finally, Tai helps Lottie stand with Jackie in her arms while Nat supports them both and they make their way over to the little bed the two have slept in every night since Shauna’s death.

 

Lottie lays her down gently, tucks the blankets around her, and when she moves away she realizes it’s been hours since she hasn’t had Jackie in her arms. They almost feel empty.

 

Natalie goes to move away from Lottie but she reaches out, takes her arm. “Nat…” She can see the shame, guilty look on her face. “It’s not your fault.”

 

Natalie scoffs. “I told her to go, Lottie,” she says and her voice breaks a little, “it’s nice of you to say, but it is.” 

 

She’s moving away before Lottie can say much else, too exhausted to chase her. It’s only then that Lottie catches Misty’s eyes and there’s something dark building behind them. She still doesn’t think she has the energy to deal with this, so she lets Misty settle down where her and Crystal usually do-- though she hasn’t seen Crystal, either. Still. She’ll have Misty look at Jackie tomorrow, when they’ve all had some real rest. 

 

In the quiet of the cabin, as the fire winds down and everyone is in their beds, Lottie is still sitting up, and she reaches down to undo the bloody bandages on her foot. It doesn’t look good and it certainly doesn’t feel good. But it doesn’t look infected and that’s the best she can hope for.

 

She takes one of the strips Misty has left by her bed-- her’s and Jackie’s, because it’s not just her bed, it’s theirs and Lottie has never been a them before-- and rewraps her foot before she’s moving back and laying next to Jackie. She’s exhausted but she doesn’t want to sleep. She’s worried if she closes her eyes, she’ll wake up and this will all be some cruel dream. That she’ll wake up and Jackie will be gone and that’s one of the most horrifying things Lottie thinks she could wake up to.

 

Jackie never fully wakes up, but she’s aware of little things. She’s dressed? They’re moving? She’s laying down? At one point, the warmth she’s gotten used to goes away, and Jackie finds herself reaching for it. Lottie. She reaches for Lottie, shivering, moving closer when a body lays next to her. Lottie.

 

It’s scary to know how much Jackie needs Lottie. She’s always built her life around one person, but that person is gone now, dead and frozen and burned and eaten, never really at rest from the ways she haunts Jackie’s mind. Lottie isn’t Shauna. She knows that. She feels it. But Jackie needs her all the same, and she’s terrified that this will get taken from her, too. Whether by the wilderness they’ve found themselves in or by Jackie’s neediness, foolishness, selfishness revealing itself once more, showing Lottie that she’s just not fucking worth it.

 

For right now, though, Lottie is close, and Jackie can hold her, and she needs to. She needs her.

 

As soon as Jackie is pressing into her, Lottie loops her arms around her and tucks her into her side. She presses her face into Jackie’s hair, lets the feel of it, the smell of, lend her a sense of peace for the moment. Enough to know that Jackie did come back to her and she is there and it is real. It’s not Lottie’s mind lying to her, like it has so many times before.

 

And she really doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but Lottie is exhausted, too. It’s hard to stay awake when she feels so warm, so comforted by a weight in her arms. She’s never had that before. She doesn’t want to let that go.

Notes:

you didn't think we'd forget about the cannibalism, did you?

we finally reached it! when we were discussing it, it was pretty obvious that them eating shauna would take much longer for that to happen, mostly because jackie wouldn't be as "Crazy" about shauna's corpse, and cannibalism is just inevitable for these kids, sorry. anyway, hope you enjoyed, once again please drop by and say hi to either of us on our socials, and thanks for reading!

Chapter 7: fifteen blows to your mind

Summary:

Everyone needs a sick day every once in a while, and the Yellowjackets all seem to be taking theirs collectively. Crystal decides to play hide and seek with Misty, who decides to play punch buggy with Jackie, who decides to play seven minutes in heaven with Lottie. Maybe not all in that order, but as long as everyone's having fun, what's the harm? It's all fun and games until someone breaks a bone. Or until someone breaks someone else's bones.

Notes:

Chapter 7! This one's a doozy. Can you believe how far we are already? Kinda crazy for real. Hope everyone is enjoying the ride so far! I know we are :)

tws: violent physical assault

Chapter title from "Climbing Up The Walls" by Radiohead

Every time that Jackie wakes up, it’s snowing. It doesn’t stop, not through the night, not into the next day. It’s not a gentle snow, either. She knows what it’s like to be out in that. It’s painful, harsh, and biting, and the winds make it worse. She’s cold just thinking about it, still shivering under several blankets, still freezing even with Lottie holding her. 

 

She’s changed her mind again. She thought the snow didn’t bother her anymore, but Jackie can admit that she was very wrong. It bothers her. It’s inside her bones and her joints and her flesh, and it makes her chilled even if her skin feels too warm to the touch. The discomfort wakes her, though never for long, exhaustion always pulling her back under once more. And it never once stops snowing. 

 

By the time the snow does stop, the cabin is stale. Not just the air in it, but the atmosphere, the mood. No one has been outside for days. Lottie has barely moved from her spot with Jackie. The depression that has settled over them all has set so far into their bones Lottie thinks they might be able to taste it in their mouths when they swallow. 

 

She tries to only wake Jackie when she needs her to drink water or some broth. The worry was always there but the longer Jackie sleeps, the more it grows, like a pit of tar in her chest. She knows that this is hard for them all, but Misty’s refusal to do anything makes Lottie feel betrayed. It’s Natalie who brings wet towels over for Lottie to dab at Jackie’s face with while she sleeps. It’s Akilah who checks her temperature to make sure Jackie’s not overheating or too cold. 

 

By the time the snow does stop, Lottie is sitting on the bench with Jackie’s head in her lap. She doesn’t know why, but she can just tell. She lifts her head.

 

“What is it, Lottie?” Tai asks when she notices, her voice gentle but somber.

 

“The snow…” Lottie mumbles, “it finally stopped.”

 

For the first time in days, people in the cabin stir. 

 

Sounds have been muffled and strange to Jackie for the last few days, so she doesn’t quite know what’s going on when people start shifting, coming back to life after so long-- but she blinks her eyes open, glancing around the cabin and most of them start moving. 

 

Jackie’s head lolls, and she looks up at Lottie, confused. “What’s going on?” Her voice is croaky with disuse, and she attempts to sit up, clearing it. 

 

Lottie shifts when Jackie tries to sit and she puts a hand on her as she watches people start standing. "The snow stopped," she tells her.

 

“We should try the door,” Travis says, heading towards the door. A few others follow him, and they start tugging. It’s frozen shut, so he enlists Mari, Akilah, and Tai’s help, all of them tugging at the door or each other for added leverage.

 

They tug as hard as they can. “Keep pulling!” Travis says. “I think it’s budging!”

 

With one last heave of effort, the door flies open and the four of them stumble back as snow cascades into the doorway.

 

Sighs of relief and of joy ripple through the cabin. Even Lottie can’t help but give one, petting Jackie’s arm. “This’ll be good,” she tells her, glancing down, “fresh air will be good.” For all of them, of course, but being cooped up in this cabin without fresh air probably hasn’t helped Jackie at all. 

 

That, and Misty’s refusal to help anyone the whole time. Lottie knows she should go talk to her, but her mind has been so consumed with worry for Jackie that she hasn’t been able to bring herself to tear away from the girl. “Can you sit up?” she asks Jackie, then, shifting to see if she needs help with it.

 

Cold air comes into the cabin as the door opens, but it’s almost a relief, and Jackie nods in agreement as Lottie mentions fresh air, her eyes shutting as she manages a deep breath. 

 

“I can… I can sit up,” Jackie agrees, and she wants to be able to do it on her own, but she’s so tired. She accepts Lottie’s help, looking around the room and holding onto Lottie for stability as her head spins.

 

Lottie lets Jackie take her time, supporting her all the while, and once she’s sitting up, she reaches for the cup of water nearby and holds it up to her. “Here,” she tells her softly, “drink some of this.” 

 

Everyone has started clearing out the snow now, starting with what’s in the doorway, before they all begin grabbing buckets and whatever else they can to dig out the front of the cabin, the firepit, the walkway.

 

Even from here, Lottie can see the snow is waist deep for most of them. “Do you wanna try and stand? How’s your ankle feeling?” she asks Jackie, actually finding herself enjoying the feel of the cool air coming in from the doorway.

 

Jackie manages a few sips of the water, wanting more but trying not to choke herself. Her throat is parched, though, like her skin, like every part of her. “It’s better,” she murmurs, rolling it a little and only feeling a slight twinge of pain from the effort. She’s lucky it didn’t break when when she fell, just twisted, otherwise Jackie is afraid that she’d be fucked. But she lets Lottie help her stand, and she wants to move closer to the door.

 

It’s so cold, but the air is fresh and far better than continuing to breathe in what feels like concentrated misery in the cabin. Jackie manages a few deep lungfuls before she starts coughing, pressing her face into Lottie’s side.

 

The air feels nice, but as soon as Jackie starts coughing, Lottie is moving her away from the open door so that it’s not blowing directly into her face, at least. She puts her arm around Jackie to shield her more and watches out the door as girls dig around in the snow, trying to locate each part of their camp. 

 

“How are you feeling?” Lottie asks, then, putting her hand to Jackie’s forehead. It’s damp and clammy and she feels warm under Lottie’s touch. It worries her, just like everything else does these days.

 

What worries her more is that they’ve apparently lost their on call medical provider. Lottie remembers Misty telling people that Crystal was caught in the storm, too, but she hasn’t brought it up, since. She can just barely see the curly-haired girl outside with Mari, Akilah and Gen, digging a path to the outhouse. She wonders what it will take to get her back.

 

“Better,” Jackie murmurs, leaning into Lottie’s touch. Anything feels better than having to trudge through that shit by herself, and Lottie feels so nice, and she keeps Jackie standing, even though Jackie knows that Lottie’s hurt, too. Jackie tries to straighten up, tries to be a little more stable on her own two feet, putting a small amount of pressure on her injured leg. It’s not awful. It’s not great, but it’s not awful, and she supposes that the pain is better than numbness.

 

Jackie looks outside enough to watch as the others move around and start clearing out the front of the cabin, making it slowly but surely more recognizable. “Do you need to do anything?” Jackie asks Lottie quietly. She knows she’d probably be useless, especially right now, more of a burden than a help, but she doesn’t know if Lottie is supposed to be doing something as the sort of de facto person that most of the girls look to, these days. Especially since Jackie’s been hogging all of her attention.

 

Lottie knows she should check up on everyone, she knows this, but it’s hard for her to see clearly when Jackie is obviously not doing well. Her eyes drop to her bandaged foot, red soaking through the cloth again and she sighs. “I should go help,” she says with a nod, turning to walk Jackie back over to the bed and sitting her down, “you just stay here for now. I’m going to get Misty, she needs to look at you.” And she needs to talk to her, she needs to figure out what’s been going on with her.

 

Sighing, Lottie grabs her coat and starts tugging it on, before sitting down to pull on her boots. She was tired and injured and starving, but the girls needed her and so she would press on. She had to. Even if all she wanted to do right now was wrap herself and Jackie up and forget, just for a little bit, like the world was okay.

 

“Lottie…” Jackie starts, trailing off as her eyes follow Lottie’s down to her bleeding foot. She lets Lottie lead her back over to the bed, though, wrapping a blanket around herself and crossing her legs under her as she stays sitting upright. Jackie sighs. “Be careful, please?”

 

It has been weird that Jackie hasn’t seen Misty around that much, especially knowing how much the other girl likes to be involved and needed, but she also wasn’t going to complain about that. She doesn’t really want Misty poking and prodding, telling her what’s wrong with her, hurting her. Jackie’s biggest hope is that she can take another day or so and sleep all of this off and be sort of okay again.

 

Sure, it’s a fantasy, but a girl can dream.

 

Lottie gives Jackie a wispy smile. “I will.” And she's intending to be. 

 

Walking still hurts quite a bit, but Lottie tells herself it's just another thing she'll have to get used to, she doesn't think it'll ever really go away. Not when, sometimes, she feels like her toes are still there, but when she looks at her foot, the empty space where they were stares back at her. 

 

Everyone seems to be relieved that they can finally be outside, and Lottie checks on each of them as she comes by them. 

 

She's looking around for Misty when she sees the front door swing open violently and Ben is standing there, calling out someone's name. Paul? Who was Paul? 

 

“Coach,” Tai snaps, “are you okay?”

 

The older man seems lost for a moment and Lottie thinks she's had that same look on her face before many times. But then he blinks back to life and what could pass for a grin forms on his lips. “Yeah,” he exhales, “just fine.”

 

Lottie hopes it's just the lack of food making him act this way, perhaps being cooped up for so long has finally hit its peak for him. 

 

She knows that's not quite it, though. 

 

Lottie continues her rounds, heading over to Mari and Gen. “Have you guys seen Misty anywhere?”

 

Mari shrugs. “She said something about how unfair something was and stormed off.”

 

Lottie lets out a sigh, pinches her nose. “Okay. Thanks.” 

 

Eventually, she finds herself digging out their pile of firewood and tucking a few logs under her arm before she's heading back inside. Her breath comes out in puffs in front of her face and Lottie shivers as she steps inside, moving to drop the wood by the fireplace. She stays there a moment, holds her hands out to the fire to warm them. Voices from the kitchen pull her attention away briefly and she stands back up.

 

It's Nat and Travis. They're arguing.

 

Jackie had watched the others, once again, try to get Javi to tell them where he was for all those weeks. He’d been back for awhile, now, and he barely said a word. Jackie didn’t think she heard him say anything, at least. 

 

That wasn’t what caused Nat and Travis to start talking, though.

 

They’ve tiptoed around each other for weeks, now, and Nat is making an attempt. Jackie doesn’t think it’s a good one. Nat sits at the table with Travis, not quite hopeful, mostly tired, as she says, “I was… going to go to the stream and check the gillnet. You wanna come?” 

 

Jackie thinks she’s lonely. She thinks that’s why Nat started asking her to go out with her in the first place. But Jackie’s useless, even more so than before, and it seems like Nat’s trying to rebuild a bridge before it’s burned completely.

 

But that’s hard. Jackie knows how hard that can be.

 

Travis won’t look at Nat, his hands laced in front of his face. “I’m good.” He gets up and goes over to Javi.

 

“Travis,” Nat starts. “He’ll be alright. He just needs time.”

 

Travis turns back on her, and Jackie thinks that’s the first time she’s seen him angry in a while. Angry and hurt and so goddamn devastated. “You don’t think he got enough of that out there?”

 

Nat’s face falls. “Travis–”

 

“Quit acting like such a fucking saint,” he tells her, moving closer. “You planted the bloody clothes. Just say it.”

 

“I did, but only–”

 

“You made me stop looking for him!”

 

“I didn’t think that he was alive! It doesn’t make any sense that he is!” Nat yells. The sound of them arguing fills the cabin. After days of being stuck inside, of course someone explodes. Jackie thinks these two have been waiting to explode for a while.

 

“Well maybe he wouldn’t be so fucked up if I’d found him sooner, so that’s on you,” Travis says, pointing a finger at Nat. The most devastating part is the way his voice breaks like something fragile, and he turns away from her, his steps hurried as he heads out the door. 

 

Nat is at a loss for words. Jackie wishes she knew how to help.

 

Lottie looks between Travis and Nat as she watches Travis storm outside. She gives Nat an empathetic glance before she’s following Travis as he storms off.

 

He runs his hands through his hair and Lottie can tell he’s on the verge of tears. 

 

“Travis,” Lottie says, keeping her voice soft. “Hey.”

 

He stops his pacing and turns to look back at Lottie and she can see his eyes glossing over. She keeps a small distance between them, but she’s close enough if he wants the physical comfort. “I know it hurts, but Javi is back, and he’s safe, and he’ll talk when he’s ready, I know he will,” she tries to reassure him.

 

He nods, stiffly, but she can tell the words are at least somewhat of a comfort to him. “Natalie was just worried about you.” And Lottie couldn’t blame her, not really.

 

Travis gives a sharp glare. “She lied to me, made me think he was dead .”

 

“I know, I know, but it wasn’t because-- she thought she was doing what was right. No one knew if you were ever going to find him and I think she just…wanted to give you some closure,” Lottie tries to explain.

 

“But you knew,” Travis says back to her, “you knew he was still alive. You tried to tell me. And I--”

 

Lottie steps forward, reaches out to put her hands on his shoulders. “Hope is a powerful thing,” she says quietly, “but it can also be…dangerous.” She knew that, too. But she wanted the girls-- and Travis and Javi and even Coach-- to have hope. If it ended up hurting them in the end, Lottie would take the blame for that. She thought she could do that for them.

 

She wants to say more, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Misty trudging back up to the cabin. Travis turns away.

 

“Misty,” she’s moving off towards her as Misty stomps up the stairs, slamming the door open.

 

“Everyone, I have something I need to say,” Misty is declaring as she reaches the inside of the cabin.

 

Confused, but curious, Lottie hobbles back over to Jackie and sits down next to her, watching to see what Misty wants from everyone.

 

There’s been too much going on in the last few minutes for Jackie to keep up with, but she moves closer to Lottie as Misty stands in front of the group, managing to get everyone’s attention. Jackie wraps her blanket around Lottie’s shoulders and leans her head against her arm, watching Misty with curious, if tired, eyes.

 

Lottie notices that Travis hasn’t followed her back in and Nat is sitting stiffly at the table, not looking up even as Misty clears her throat.

 

“Thank you all for gathering,” Misty says, then, her voice seeming to crack. It feels off, but Lottie listens intently anyway. “I know we’re all still very sad about things that have happened--” she’s probably referring to Jackie being lost, but she won’t look at her or say her name-- “and worried about food, but we can’t let it cloud our minds.” She’s shaking her head and Lottie thinks she can see tears in her eyes. Almost. “The snow has stopped and we need to go out there and we need to look for Crystal. Because…she could still be out there.”

 

It was possible, Lottie thought, but unlikely. She didn’t want to say that, though.

 

“Alive,” Misty adds on, determined. The cabin is suffocatingly quiet.

 

“Misty’s right,” Coach speaks up from the back, turning to face them with shaving cream still on his face. Lottie almost forgot he was there. “If Javi could survive a few months out there, and Jackie over the night, then maybe Crystal could make it through a few days.”

 

Lottie looks at Jackie leaning against her and subconsciously wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

 

“But, what if the Wilderness, like, took her?” Melissa asks.

 

Jackie still thinks that’s sort of odd, but she’s not sure how ridiculous it is anymore. She thinks she felt something out there, something leading her back to the cabin. It could have just been a desire to survive, but she’s been without one of those for a while. She’s not quite sure what it was.

 

“Then maybe it’ll give us something back,” Gen murmurs.

 

“What?” Tai asks.

 

Akilah looks out the window. “Like it made the blizzard stop.”

 

“That’s the trade?” Gen asks. “Jackie sick, Crystal dead, and we get a break in the snow?”

 

“God, that sucks,” Melissa mutters.

 

Jackie leans in, pressing against Lottie, not liking the way this conversation is going.

 

“No,” Lottie butts in as the others talk. She shakes her head, eyes unfocused. “It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t trade or-- or haggle. It…the Wilderness, it hears us. It gave us what we wanted. Jackie made it back.” Or maybe that was just what Lottie had wanted, but it had given her back all the same. Lottie’s grip tightened around Jackie.

 

Misty is looking at her squarely now, but Lottie doesn’t say anything. She hangs her head. “That was the trade,” she mumbles. 

 

And it hurts to admit, to say out loud. But she thinks it’s the truth, knows it is.

 

“I’m going to look for her,” Misty says and her voice is a sneer. “If anyone cares or wants to help, by all means.”

 

She’s storming out and away and Lottie feels eyes on her, before a few of the girls begin to follow Misty. 

 

She feels ashamed, but not because she has Jackie back. She feels ashamed because she’s not sorry the Wilderness took Crystal instead.

 

Jackie watches, tucked against Lottie’s side, as some of the others start heading out. She feels guilty. She hadn’t even noticed that Kristen was gone, too out of it to tell who was with them and who wasn’t. Is anyone else missing? She doesn’t know.

 

“I hope they find Crystal alive,” Jackie hears Gen say quietly.

 

“Yeah,” Mel agrees.

 

There’s a pause before Gen says, “But, like… If they find her and she’s not … I mean, that wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen, right?”

 

Jackie pulls away enough to look at them both, and, loudly, states, “Guys.” 

 

Both of them look startled and, perhaps, a little ashamed at being caught. “I’m not saying I want to,” Gen starts, but Jackie doesn’t let her finish.

 

“Then let’s not go there, okay?” Jackie says, and maybe it doesn’t put an end to the conversation, but it certainly makes it a little quieter. The again is unspoken. 

 

Lottie doesn’t hear what Gen and Melissa and Jackie are saying. She feels as if she’s failed them all again. Her ears are buzzing.

 

When the attic ladder creaks, Lottie looks up and sees Tai, who has put on some warm clothes to go help look for Crystal, Van trailing behind her.

 

“Tai,” Lottie says, then, standing and heading over to her. Tai looks a little surprised but pauses.

 

“What’s up, Lott?”

 

Lottie nods to Van and the red head gives them a questioning glance before heading outside. Lottie turns back to Tai. “You were the one who knew where Javi was,” she states and Tai gets this ugly, worried look on her face.

 

“I didn’t know,” she breathes and Lottie can tell Tai is afraid of whatever it is in her that allowed her to find Javi.

 

“And yet you still found him,” Lottie replies. She knows what Tai is feeling, she’s felt it, too. She still does. “Maybe you can find Crystal, too.”

 

Tai grows more passive. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Ever since I started doing your circles and whatever, I don’t sleepwalk anymore.” She swallows. “And that other me, the one who maybe knew where Javi was…I think she’s gone.”

 

Tai looks happy about that prospect, too. But Lottie knows better. “She’s not gone,” she states, as if it’s fact. To her, it is. “And that’s a good thing, Tai.” It’s the last thing she says before gesturing to the door and Tai doesn’t need any more signal to pull up her face cover and head out the door.

 

Lottie stays standing for a moment. She knows she should go help but she doesn’t want to leave Jackie. She picks at her sleeve, watches Tai’s form disappear into the treeline behind the others. 

 

She feels like she’s failing everyone around her.

 

Jackie watches as Coach Scott heads outside, too, and she’s a little worried, and she doesn’t think he’s going to be the best member of a search party, but she doesn’t do anything to stop him. It’s not like she can.

 

Being out in the cold for that long hadn’t been good on Jackie’s insides. She’s sick. She’s hoping it’s just a cold, but she knows she’s pretty sick. If Kristen’s alive, she’s probably going to be sick, too, unless she managed to find the same place Javi sheltered in. Jackie wonders where that could have been.

 

When Lottie glances back in her direction, Jackie lifts a hand and coaxes her over. “Do you want to go looking?” she asks quietly. “How’s your foot?”

 

Lottie goes to Jackie automatically, it’s not even a question. She doesn’t sit, though, as she takes her hand. “I should,” she tells her, looking back over her shoulder. Even Coach has gone out to look. She doesn’t think how her foot feels is much of a factor in the decision. When she looks back at Jackie, she tries to give her a reassuring smile. “I’ll just be gone a little while.” Still, when she pulls back, she refills the cup of water Jackie’s been using and brings it back over to her. “Just rest.”

 

Jackie takes the cup and holds it close, offering Lottie a nod. “Okay,” she tells her. She doesn’t really want Lottie to go, but Jackie knows she can’t stop her. She wants to think she’d be out there, too, if she could be. She wishes she didn’t feel like shit. She holds the cup a little tighter, contemplating if she should just get up. It probably wouldn’t be that bad. But attempting to stand makes her lightheaded, and Jackie leans back on the bench, against the wall. She reaches for Lottie’s hand first. “Be careful. Please.”

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand. “I will.”

 

She hopes she can at least do something, find something. But she already knows she won’t, that no one will. She can feel it, like she had with Javi, with Jackie. Still, Lottie limps through the snow until her foot hurts so much there’s tears in her eyes. 

 

When she gets back to the cabin, a few others have also already returned, but Misty, Mari and Akilah are still absent. She worries, as the sun is growing lower in the sky, but Lottie feels exhausted and her whole leg is hurting now, so she makes it back over to the bench, sitting down and starting to pull off her boots. Her hands shake as she pulls off the boot from her left foot, eyes burning as she tries to bite back the pain. The inside of her boot is soaked in blood. 

 

Finally, the door opens again and Mari and Akilah are stepping in, Misty close behind them. There’s no Crystal. Lottie feels her heart clenching. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie breathes as she sees the blood, grabbing one of the strips of cloth near them and leaning down, moving to get off the bench and undo the wrapping on Lottie’s foot with shaky hands. She notices the others walk in, feels horrible, but she doesn’t have the energy to feel an endless well of empathy. She figured Kristen was dead, anyway. She hoped she wasn’t, but it was hard to keep hope in a storm like that, when Jackie herself had barely made it back. “We should– We should wash this off, actually.”

 

Lottie looks around dazedly when she hears Jackie say her name, before meeting her eyes as Jackie kneels down to unwrap her foot. She doesn’t mean to, but her muscles tense when Jackie touches it and she grips the edge of the bench tightly, knuckles turning white. She wants to say that it’s fine, that she’s okay, but she already knows Jackie can see through her lies.

 

“Jesus, Lott,” comes Van’s voice as she’s heading out of the pantry, supposedly coming down for dinner, “that looks gnarly. Jackie’s probably right.”

 

Lottie just nods, but she isn’t looking at Van or Jackie, she’s trying to find Misty, but the girl has seemingly disappeared again. She wants to tell her she’s sorry, she wants to tell her she wishes things could be different. She wishes Crystal were still here and okay. But they all know that’s not how it works.

 

Jackie’s grateful when Van agrees, knowing that a second person’s opinion is usually necessary to get Lottie to do something, sometimes. She stands, moving to grab Lottie’s hands. “Can you make it to the bedroom?” There should still be water in the tub, and, while it won’t be hot, it can at least still clean the blood from Lottie’s skin. 

 

Lottie simply nods again, takes Jackie’s hands and hefts herself up. With Jackie’s help, she hobbles back to the bedroom with her and finds that no one else is there, which means Coach hasn’t come back yet. Travis and Javi were in the main room, playing with the deck of cards and it was nice to see them bonding again. 

 

Lottie is silent as she sits and watches Jackie. The other girl still looks exhausted despite having slept so much the past few days. She finds herself reaching out and brushing her fingers against Jackie’s cheek. “You look tired,” she tells her.

 

Having soaked some of the cloth in water, Jackie comes back to Lottie, leaning into her touch. “I’ll be alright in a few days. Just… trying to get the chill out of my bones,” she murmurs, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment before she opens them back to look at Lottie. Her eyes are endless.

 

“You’re staring, Jax,” Shauna whispers in her ear.

 

Jackie leans back down, taking Lottie’s foot and, as gently as she can, cleaning away the blood. “Maybe you should use Coach’s crutches for a few days.”

 

Lottie looks back down at Jackie as the other girl stares up at her. She wonders what Jackie sees in her eyes. Lottie sees autumn colors and golden sunlight in Jackie’s eyes. They’re not vast blue skies like Laura Lee’s were, but they still make Lottie’s stomach feel warm. 

 

“I wish I could help.”

 

Then she winces as she feels the gentle pressure against her foot. And it’s so soft and as tender as one can be while cleaning up blood from amputated limbs, but Lottie’s entire foot is a bruise and she can’t keep it from trembling. “He needs them more,” she says. 

 

“He doesn’t try to get around as much as you do, Lottie,” Jackie murmurs. “I’m kind of surprised he even spoke up today. And it won’t be for long. Just until you can walk without bleeding.” Jackie grabs a dry piece of cloth and starts bandaging Lottie’s foot. “Sorry,” she breathes, knowing that it hurts. “I’m sorry.” She tries to be gentle, still. She’s also not the best at this. She’s not a doctor, and she’s never taken Red Cross safety courses or whatever. Jackie’s just doing her best. It’s never enough.

 

Her hands are also shaky, and she’s running a fever, and Jackie can make a list of excuses that go on forever. At least she’s trying. At least she’s stopped giving up. 

 

“Hey,” Lottie says, reaches down and puts her hands over Jackie’s. She can see the tremble in them, see how hard Jackie is trying, all while she’s sick, too. “It’s okay.” She smiles gently at her, lingers. It’s really all Lottie wants for her, to just try. To not give up. Anything else is just a bonus.

 

Looking up at Lottie, Jackie manages to nod, swallowing tightly. She makes sure that the makeshift bandage is secure before leaning up, sitting beside Lottie on the bed. “I just… don’t want to hurt you,” she tells her. Jackie reaches out, brushing her hand through Lottie’s hair, pushing some of it out of her face. She knows she has a fever because Jackie’s cheeks seem to grow warmer the longer she looks at Lottie, unable to pull away. All Jackie wants is to make sure she’s alright. That’s what she tells herself. That’s what she believes. Because Lottie made Jackie a promise, and Jackie has to hold her to it. Which means that Lottie has to be alright, and it means that she has to be close. Her lips feel dry, and she licks them, murmuring. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”

 

Lottie gives a soft hum as a reply. She thinks it’s not really a choice out here, being hurt or not hurt. Whether or not she had frostbite, whether or not she still had all her toes, things out here were cruel and painful. They were all hurt, in their own ways. Physically, emotionally, psychologically. This place was hurting them. 

 

Lottie leans into Jackie’s touch, watches her closely. Her eyes flick to Jackie’s lips before she looks back up at her eyes. “I’ll be okay,” she tries to reassure her. She thinks she’s kind of used to being hurt. They kind of all are. They’re shins and elbows and arms are always covered in bruises from kicking and bumping and tackling. They’re all relentlessly aggressive on the field in their own ways. “It’ll heal.”

 

“It should, if you’d stay off it for longer than a day,” Jackie whispers. She feels feverish, more so than she did a few minutes ago, her throat dry, her pulse fast. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t really know what she’s doing. 

 

Jackie blames being a little out of her head and sick on the way she leans forward, brushing her lips against Lottie’s. It’s chaste; nothing like the way that Jeff would shove his tongue down her throat or the way she kissed Travis in some desperate need to feel something before the end. It’s not like kissing Shauna, either. It’s just a gentle brush of lips against lips, the slightest bit of pressure that Jackie’s only a little cognizant of before she pulls away, blinking at Lottie. “You should take better care of yourself.”

 

Lottie goes still as Jackie leans forward. She’s probably all too aware of Jackie’s lips brushing against her own. They're so soft and plush and Lottie's entire body floods with warmth. She doesn’t know what to think, except that she sort of doesn’t want it to end. But it does, and Jackie is blinking up at her and Lottie’s lips part ever so as she wracks her brain for something to say. “I’ve never been good at that,” she mumbles, dazed. 

 

“I know,” Jackie says, sighing quietly. She moves to lean against Lottie, resting her head on Lottie’s shoulder. Lottie was an amazing defender, but she definitely used her body too much, and Jackie remembers how often Lottie got hurt. Sometimes, it was like she didn’t even notice until well after the fact. It had been worrying when they just played a stupid game. Now, it’s scary to think about how easily Lottie could get hurt out here, how easily she already had.

 

Lottie stays still as Jackie lays her head on her. She’s staring down at her newly bandaged foot and thinking about how her lips are tingling and her heart is beating way too hard in her chest. After a moment, she moves her hand and slips it into Jackie’s. There’s still a small scab along her palm from when she’d cut it open. It’s probably obvious to the others, really. It’s not like Lottie hides the fact that she doesn’t really take care of herself. It’s just that no one’s really seemed to care enough to ask her about it. Or cared enough to ask her to do better at it. She thinks that maybe she can try to, for Jackie.

 

Shivering, Jackie takes Lottie’s hand and brushes her fingers along the scab there, knowing that Lottie had done that to herself, worried she’d do it again. Because Jackie can’t really make Lottie stop. She doesn’t know how. She worries that just being around isn’t enough. It never is. But it’s all that Jackie has to offer right now, and isn’t that just so ridiculous? She can’t even help look for a missing friend, one of the girls that she used to captain. She’s useless out there, even when she tries not to be. If she can do this, though, if Jackie can help Lottie, even a little, even if she stumbles her way through it, even if she never gets perfect at it like she always wants, maybe it can be enough.

 

Lottie thinks maybe she should say something, but she doesn’t want to. She’s afraid if she does it would scare Jackie away. And it didn’t have to mean anything. Right? It was just Jackie trying to comfort her. It was just Jackie doing what she thought would help. And she was feverish, Lottie could feel how warm her skin was, even though Jackie was shivering. After a moment, she shifts to wrap her arm around Jackie. “We should head back out,” she says, though her voice is quiet, soft, “dinner is probably ready.”

 

“Bone water. Yay,” Jackie mumbles, but she lifts her head enough to look at Lottie once more. So pretty. So warm, too, even though Jackie’s actually a little too warm herself, but she’s always craved heat, always wanted to be closer to it. And Lottie’s lips were so soft that Jackie’s not even thinking about it when she leans forward a second time, brushing hers against Lottie’s, just a touch of gentle pressure before pulling away and pressing her forehead against Lottie’s. “Okay, let’s… try not to make your foot bleed again,” she says, moving to help Lottie stand.

 

Lottie feels her breath hitch the second time. She wants to reach out and hold onto Jackie and keep her there, but she doesn’t move. She thinks that this is surely a dream. It couldn’t be real. But it felt so real. It tasted real. She didn’t really know what to do with any of that. So she just let Jackie help her up, making sure to only walk on her heel as they headed back out into the main room of the cabin. 

 

Akilah and Mari are handing out bowls again, and Lottie doesn’t notice one is being held out to her until she’s blinking and staring down into the cloudy broth. “Thanks,” she mumbles, taking the bowl. She feels lightheaded and she can’t tell if it’s from the lack of food, the blood loss, or because Jackie Taylor had just kissed her. Twice. Maybe it was just all three. 

 

Sitting down next to Lottie, Jackie takes the bowl of broth and drinks a few sips of it before she’s searching for her blanket again and wrapping it around herself, trying to stave off the cold without immediately sinking back into Lottie’s arms. Lottie should eat, first, after all, and maybe she didn’t immediately want to hold Jackie. She looks lost in thought, those dark eyes of hers fathomless as Jackie looks at her, wondering what she’s thinking. There’s never a moment alone out here. Jackie wonders if Lottie wants a moment to herself. She can’t bring herself to go away, though, inching closer to Lottie until their legs touch and taking another sip of her meal.

 

Lottie stares into her bowl for far too long, probably. She knows she needs to eat, she’s even hungry, but she feels like she can’t move. She’s never really felt this way before. Her mind is racing. Was it real? She wants it to be real. Does she, though? She thinks about what Van said to her. Lottie doesn’t think Jackie is trying to replace Shauna with her. She hopes she isn’t. She doesn’t think she’d mind if she did. 

 

Lottie starts a little when she feels Jackie’s leg brush against hers. It all feels real, but sometimes Lottie has a hard time telling what’s real and what’s not. “Is this real?” she finds herself asking quietly, so only Jackie can hear her.

 

Jackie looks at Lottie, confused, her eyebrows scrunching together. “Yes,” she whispers. “It’s real.” Jackie’s pretty sure, at least. Most of the time. If this is a dream, it’s gone on for a really long time. She moves to push Lottie's bowl up, compelling her to have some more of it. 

 

Lottie thinks she can trust Jackie that it’s real. Probably more than her own head, but Lottie hasn’t really been able to trust her own head in a long time. Since before the crash, really. At Jackie’s urging, she sips at the broth. It tastes like ash but she swallows. 

 

The rest of the night is quiet, like most nights out here are. When dinner finishes, they clean up, they rearrange the furniture, they lay out their beds. Lottie hasn’t moved much from her original spot, watching everyone shuffle around. Normally, Natalie lays her bed down in the middle of some of the girls, but tonight she lays it near the end of Jackie and Lottie’s quietly. 

 

Lottie gives her a ghostly smile. She thinks she feels something heavy hanging in the air of the cabin as they settle in and she lifts her head to look around, before her gaze falls back on Jackie. She looks exhausted, so Lottie scoots herself back and tugs on her to get her to lay down with her. She closes her eyes and tries not to think about how it felt to have Jackie’s lips on her own.

 

Jackie was going to say something to Nat as she moves near her and Lottie’s bed, but she doesn’t get the chance to as Lottie pulls on her arm. She lays down willingly, immediately curling into Lottie and pressing against her. She moves the blankets around them both, and Jackie feels a small sense of relief at the knowledge that, if she was cold before, she won’t be for long. With luck, if she’s actually running a fever, it should break in the night. Maybe she’ll start feeling better in the morning. Maybe she’ll be able to help. 

 

Morning breaks and Lottie realizes she hasn’t really slept at all. She’s been staring at the ceiling, holding Jackie close to her as the other girl slept. When light finally trickles in, Lottie realizes she’s done it again. This used to happen when she was younger. She’d have a hard time sleeping whenever there was something on her mind that she couldn’t understand. 

 

She blinks when she hears others begin to wake and move about, but Lottie stays still, keeps Jackie tucked against her side. She turns her head to rest against the top of Jackie’s, staring out the window. The sun beams in through it and it feels warm, despite the frost she can see hanging from the roof. She closes her eyes and presses her lips to the top of Jackie’s head. It still feels real.

 

Jackie’s sleep comes almost immediately and has for the last few days, her body constantly preferring to just give out and fall back to sleep rather than try and stay awake for too long. Even when she hears the rest of the cabin, Jackie stays laying down, curling closer to Lottie instead. She’s sweaty, but it feels like her fever broke in the night, at least for the time being. 

 

Lips brush against her head, like she has before, and Jackie remembers with startling clarity that she kissed Lottie. Twice. And neither of them said anything about it. 

 

Lottie finally decides she should probably get up, but she’s worried that moving might break the peacefulness that has settled over her and Jackie. There wasn’t really anything to feel peaceful about. Not really. They were all still starving and now one of their teammates was missing, presumed dead. 

 

She still felt that way, though. She didn’t know why. Okay, she did know why. She didn’t want to think about why, because she didn’t think she was supposed to. 

 

It’s when she sees Nat finally getting up that Lottie untangles herself as gently as possible from Jackie, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes. She looks down at Nat, who is rolling up her bed. She doesn’t look like she slept much, either. 

 

Carefully, Lottie scoots to the end of the bench before pausing, remembering how bad her foot had gotten. Melissa heads out to the shed to break off some more bones for the breakfast stew and Mari starts picking through what herbs or whatever they might have left and Lottie stands, putting tentative pressure on her foot. When she winces, Natalie glances up.

 

“Need something?” she asks and Lottie sits back down, rubbing her leg.

 

“Just…some water.” She realizes it’s the first time she’s spoken since dinner last night and her throat feels a little raw. 

 

Natalie obliges and grabs a cup for herself, too, handing one to Lottie. “Thanks.” As she sips, Lottie follows Natalie’s gaze to Jackie. 

 

“How’s the fever?” she asks Lottie quietly.

 

Lottie moves, stiffly, holding the back of her hand to Jackie’s forehead. “Better,” she tells Nat. She didn’t feel so clammy anymore, so that was probably good, right? She wasn’t a doctor. She needed to actually get Misty to look at her. 

 

Satisfied, Nat stretches out more before heading over to the front and going outside, presumably to see what to help with and Lottie watches the rest of the girls meander about, figuring out what needs to be done. It leaves her rather alone with Jackie and she suddenly isn’t sure what to do with herself.

 

After hearing mumbled voices and feeling a hand against her skin, Jackie decides to finally start stirring when she hears Nat walk away, sitting up and brushing a hand through her tangle of hair. She meets Lottie’s eyes and shifts a little closer, sitting up and managing to not pull the blankets back around her for once. She doesn’t feel great, but she feels a little better, so maybe that’s a good thing. 

 

“Hey,” she says to Lottie, offering a small, hesitant smile. She kissed Lottie the night before. Twice. Without properly even thinking about it. If she’d been thinking about it, Jackie doesn’t think she would have done it. But Lottie’s lips were soft, and she’d always wondered. And Lottie hasn’t said a word except to ask if everything was real. 

 

When Jackie sits up, Lottie turns to watch her, giving a tired smile back. She holds out the cup of water to her silently, though, trying to gauge how Jackie might be feeling, what she might be thinking. She doesn’t want to bring it up if it’s something Jackie doesn’t remember or doesn’t want to remember, or if she maybe just wants to forget it happened at all. Lottie really wasn’t any good at this sort of thing. All the times she’d kissed girls before, she’d usually been pretty drunk or high, and they had been, too.

 

Lottie felt all too sober last night, and in this moment as well. She finally finds her voice enough to say something. “How are you feeling?” 

 

“Better,” Jackie says as she takes the cup that Lottie holds out, gratefully drinking and letting it soothe her croaky throat. “Like I might be able to stay awake for more than an hour or so at a time.”  Maybe in a day or so she’d be able to go back out with Nat. Jackie isn’t sure how much good she does, but it makes her feel a little more useful, and she gets, now, that she has to try. Even when she fucking sucks at it, and she hates that she fucking sucks at it, but she has to try. 

 

And she kissed Lottie last night. Twice. And Lottie asked if everything was real. Jackie moves a little closer, still hesitant, a little unsure. “Lottie,” she starts, pausing, “last night you… you asked if this is real?”

 

“Good.” Lottie stays sitting, wanting badly to get up, her legs feeling suddenly restless, jittery. She picks at a string on her dress, pulls it and watches some of the stitching unravel. She’s happy Jackie is feeling better, she’s been so feverish ever since getting back from the snow storm. And she must’ve been feeling it more last night. Maybe bandaging Lottie’s foot had taken too much energy, because Lottie can’t figure out a sane reason why Jackie would kiss her. 

 

Jackie scoots closer and Lottie feels the hairs on her arms prickle. It all almost felt too real. She doesn’t understand the question. She’d asked because it had felt real and she had wanted it to be real. She didn’t think Jackie did, though. Her fingers pick at another string. “Hmm,” she hums, shrugging. She’s been losing her mind for a while out here, they all know it. They’ve helped her make it into something else. She still isn’t sure what’s real and what’s not. She’s afraid to say the wrong thing.

 

Frowning, Jackie doesn’t quite know what to make of the lack of answer, with the way that Lottie won’t look at her. “I just…” she starts, stops, hesitates. “It’s real. Which kind of sucks, I know, because we’re starving and cold, and I think this is what hell actually is, but it is real.” She wonders how often Lottie asks herself that question. She wonders if Lottie is okay, but she knows the answer to that. 

 

Lottie hasn’t been okay since that bogus seance, and a part of that is totally Jackie’s fault and she knows it. She’s the one who had the bright idea to go up there, she’s the one who egged everything on, and she hadn’t known how to help Lottie when she started hurting herself. She hasn’t known how to help Lottie, really, ever since. So she’s trying now. She hopes it can be enough. “You can ask me if things are real,” she whispers. “I’ll always tell you the truth.”

 

It’s the same thing Laura Lee had offered Lottie, too, but it’s so different. It’s not ‘you’ve been touched by God’ but a reassurance of her own reality all the same. It’s a ‘I won’t judge you for not knowing’ and instead of a ‘I won’t judge you for seeing’ . It’s the same but different and it hurts something inside of Lottie. Not in the painful way, in the sad way. In the way that she knows she’s never had someone offer that to her before. In the way that makes her breath hitch a little bit and her lip tremble.

 

She knows she’s not well, she knows that. But she also knows there’s something else out here, too. Something else that knows she isn’t right. Something that is taking advantage of her inability to not see the difference. 

 

Lottie blinks away some tears. She looks at Jackie and thinks maybe she can tell her, maybe she can say it out loud. “I…”

 

But the door to the pantry opens and Tai and Van finally stumble out, weary with sleep still. Lottie turns her face away from them and scrubs her sleeve across her eyes.

 

“Morning?” Van says, raising a brow. 

 

Lottie pulls on as much of a smile as she can. “Morning.”

 

“Hey,” Jackie says, slumping a bit as she takes a sip of water. 

 

“Are you feeling better, Jackie?” Tai asks, and Jackie cannot help but wonder how much of it is concern for Jackie and how much of it is concern for Shauna’s friend, but Jackie also knows she’s being too hard on Tai and thinks she has been for a while.

 

She’s a little fucked up. They all are. She gives Tai a smile. “Better. I think it’s all behind me.”

 

“Want to try cutting some firewood?” Van jokes. 

 

Jackie snorts. “Sure, let me at it. I bet I can get away with all my fingers still attached.”

 

Fingers. Jackie looks around. Where is Shauna’s flannel that she was wearing that day?

 

Lottie is relieved to see Tai and Jackie and Van getting along. She remembers how often Jackie and Tai used to butt heads, but back in high school it was just friendly competition. Out here, it was far scarier.

 

Lottie is also relieved that she doesn't have to try and summon the courage to tell Jackie about her condition. She's suddenly all too aware of how badly it could've gone. If Jackie knew she was actually crazy, that she had to take pills for it, then she wouldn't want to be around her anymore, of that Lottie was convinced. 

 

But only because it was the same rhetoric she'd been told her entire life. Lottie Matthews was a dirty secret. 

 

“I should go find Misty,” she says when there's a small break in the conversation, “she should check you over.” 

 

Great. Jackie doesn’t really want Misty checking her over, still wary about being around her, but she’s not going to say no when she figures she probably needs someone to tell her she’s fine. Just a little cold. 

 

Tai and Van head outside, and Jackie watches them go before looking back at Lottie. “Okay,” she says. “Stay safe.”  Even if Lottie’s just going to find Misty. Even if that’s it. Jackie still wants Lottie to stay safe. 

 

Lottie is a little grateful for the excuse, if she's being honest. With Tai and Van out the door, too, it means she might have to face her and Jackie's interrupted conversation and she doesn't feel like doing that right now. 

 

She stands carefully and stretches out her legs before she limps over to where her boots have been drying off. She scrapes a flake of blood off the inside and sits on the small bench by the door, gently tugging it on over her foot, managing to only wince a little before it's all the way on. 

 

She looks over to Jackie still on their bed and gives her a nod. “I always am.” And it's probably one of the biggest lies she's told, but she knows Jackie knows that. Lottie knows it, too. 

 

She opens the door and heads off, hoping she won't have to hobble too far to find Misty, who will probably yell at Lottie anyway for being on her foot again. 

 

Lottie supposes she really ought to get used to people caring about her in that way, but it's never been an easy thing for her to do. She thinks maybe she can start trying.

 

“Liar,” Jackie whispers, watching as Lottie heads outside, watching her until she can’t.

 

Shauna hums in her right ear, and Jackie can feel her cool breath brushing over her skin. “That’s familiar, isn’t it?” Shauna murmurs, her voice gentle and sweet. “What else do you think she’s lying about?”

 

Jackie shouldn’t care because Lottie doesn’t have to tell her anything. No one does, and Jackie is so okay with that. She is. She tells herself that she is, and she’s fine. 

 

Staying still no longer feels like an option, so Jackie finds herself getting to her feet and making a half-assed attempt to clean up her and Lottie’s bed before she ends up back on the bench, her legs pulled up and her chin resting on her knees as she shivers with the blanket around her shoulders. She should get up and find her flannel and the little bones inside it that she keeps so close to her heart, but her second wind is rapidly ending, leaving her to just want to sit, even if she really doesn’t want to. 

 

The air outside chills Lottie’s skin and she shivers, hugging her arms around herself. She can hear Tai chopping wood around the side of the cabin and Mari and Akilah are out front gathering water and more pine. Lottie stumbles over to them, careful to not put pressure on her left foot and only use her heel.

 

“Hey, have either of you seen Misty?” 

 

They both look up to her and Mari shrugs. “She was mumbling something about Crystal again earlier and stormed off.”

 

Akilah looks worried but Mari is overly nonplussed about it and Lottie frowns. “By herself?”

 

Mari shrugs again.

 

“Which direction?”

 

This time, Akilah cuts in. “I-- I think in the direction of the cliff.”  Lottie nods and begins to head off. “But-- maybe you shouldn’t be walking so far, Lottie? I mean, we all saw your foot yesterday…”

 

Lottie knows she’s right but she hesitates a moment. She doesn’t want to ask anything of them that they’re not willing to do themselves. Luckily, Akilah seems to understand the unasked question.

 

“I’ll go find her,” she finally says. Mari gives her an eye roll and Lottie gives Mari a little glare. 

 

“Thank you, Akilah.”

 

Lottie takes over what she was doing as the other girl trudges off and she bends down near Mari. “I know you don’t get along with Misty,” she says after a long moment, “but we’re all important, Mari. We all have our role.”

 

With that, she takes the pale of snow and heads back inside.

 

Melissa is back inside and has left a pile of bones near the cooking pot, so after Lottie sets the snow down to begin melting over the fire, she grabs some of them as well as the stones they’ve found to help grind them up. 

 

She turns to Jackie and sees her curled up in her blanket, but at least she’s sitting up now, and Lottie doesn’t miss that their area is a little cleaner. As she heads over towards her, Mari finally comes back inside and starts preparing the broth, dumping her new handful of pines into the warming water.

 

Lottie sits near Jackie and drops one of the bones down onto the stone. As she begins to try and break it up a little, the sound of a snapping bone echoes in her head. There’s a flash of something behind her eyes-- fire crackling, burning hot; the whistle of something being swung through the air; the unmistakable sound of bones breaking; a cry of pain. 

 

Lottie’s hands freeze in place as she tries to hold her breath and calm herself down. She doesn’t know what it means, but she knows it’s not good. Lately, nothing she’s seen has been.

 

Jackie feels a bit pathetic how happy she gets when she sees Lottie coming inside, when Lottie moves close, even though she’s working on something. She cannot help but find someone and cling to them, even if she knows it’ll end up being too much. She clings to Lottie now, in her sleep, while she’s awake, so much so that she kisses her without asking, without thinking, amd she knows it’s wrong but Jackie can’t stop herself. 

 

She can’t stop herself from watching Lottie, from worrying, from leaning forward and asking, “what’s wrong?” when Lottie freezes up.

 

Lottie’s hand shakes as she holds the stone. Jackie’s voice breaks through her swimming thoughts and she lets go of the breath she’d been holding. She gives a minute shake of her head. She doesn’t want to worry her. “N-nothing.” She doesn’t want to think about it, even though as she moves to finish grinding them up for Mari, she can hear the crack of bones with each twist of rock against rock.

 

“Lottie, it doesn’t… It doesn’t seem like nothing,” Jackie says, feeling helpless as she watches Lottie grinding up the bones. 

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything as she finishes, before standing up and moving over to Mari. She sets the bone meal down for her and Mari thanks her quietly. Lottie sits back by Jackie again. “It’s not…important,” she tries again.

 

Jackie doesn’t want to argue with Lottie, doesn’t even begin to know how. “Okay,” she murmurs, taking the blanket and wrapping it around herself. 

 

Once breakfast is ready, Mari calls in the other girls and Lottie watches them all trickle through, grabbing their bowls and filling it with bone broth again. It’s been too long since they’ve had solid food and everyone is feeling it. 

 

Lottie takes note that Akilah comes back without Misty, but she resolves to ask her about it after they all eat. She grabs two bowls like usual and carries one back to Jackie, holding it out to her. She worries about her, maybe too much. She doesn’t have a fever anymore, but Lottie can see the weariness still clinging to her bones in the way she shivers despite being wrapped in her blanket and in the way she can barely keep her eyes open most of the day.

 

She worries and it’s eating away at her insides.

 

She worries all day while trying not to pace, cleaning up the inside of the cabin and washing the dishes, folding the clothes. She stares out the front window and waits for Misty to return, but each time Akilah comes back alone she feels her worry grow.

 

She thinks they need something to keep their minds off their situation and suggests they have a quiet prayer circle around the fire before dinner. She looks to Jackie and wants to ask her to join, but she doesn’t want to make her if she doesn’t want to. Still, she pauses to wait for her answer.

 

Jackie still doesn’t really know if she gets all the prayer stuff. She knows that Lottie does them, has been doing them, and maybe they’re helping people. She’s just not sure. She’d bow her head at dinner, but it felt like too much to do more than that. Would whatever gods that Lottie prays to feel the insincerity if she did more? 

 

Offering Lottie a smile and squeezing her hand, Jackie curls up a little tighter on the bench with her blanket around her shoulders.

 

Lottie gets it, she does. She squeezes Jackie’s hand back and takes her spot by the others, bowing her head. She takes in a deep breath. She hears the crunching of boots in snow. The crackling of the fire. She feels a sharp pain inside of her. Bones snapping. She opens her eyes and they’re all still just sitting.

 

She looks around at them all and they’re waiting for her to say something. She’s about to speak when the door opens for the last time.

 

They all turn to see Misty standing there and she’s glaring back at all of them.

 

Lottie stands. “Misty,” she says, moving towards her, “where have you been?” 

 

Jackie, a little curious, takes off her blanket and gets off the bench, limping over to where the others are. Misty’s glare seems to turn on her with full force. Jackie raises an eyebrow, but she shrinks, slightly. Her jaw feels phantom fingers holding it shut, forcing her to eat. 

 

“I was looking for Crystal ,” Misty says, turning back to Lottie. “Like I have been. Like we should all be doing. She– She could be alone, lost, afraid out there.”

 

“Misty,” Jackie says, trying to keep her voice soft like she’s talking to a wild animal. Because Misty is. Because they all are. “We might… have to think about the fact that she… might not be out there.”

 

“Javi survived alone for months!” Misty says, not just to Jackie, but the room. “You survived out there. There’s a chance. We have to keep looking.” She steps closer to Jackie. “You haven’t been looking. You haven’t been doing anything for months , and we all just let you. You don’t help, you don’t pray, you don’t–”

 

“Jesus, Misty, I plan on helping look!” Jackie cuts her off. “As soon as I can stay awake for more than five goddamn minutes without-– Fuck! ” 

 

Jackie’s holding her nose, not expecting Misty to punch her, and certainly not expecting it to hurt as much as it did. 

 

Lottie doesn’t expect it either. Jackie is stumbling back and Lottie is reaching between them, grabbing Misty’s hand before it has a chance to lash out again. “Misty!” The others are on their feet, too, now.

 

“Misty, she’s sick,” comes Natalie’s voice from the other side of the room. She’s rushing over, grabbing Jackie and putting a cloth to her face. “Jesus, we’re all trying here.”

 

Misty rolls her eyes, grits her teeth. Lottie doesn’t think she’s ever seen the shorter girl so angry before. She pushes on Lottie and though Lottie could easily stand her ground, she lets Misty go. She searches her face. She understands in that moment.

 

“Travis,” Lottie says then, quietly, “take Javi to the bedroom.”

 

“Lottie?” comes Van’s voice, as if she already knows, too. 

 

Lottie steps in front of Misty. “Misty,” she says to her, “I know you’re angry. Hurt. But we need you.”

 

Misty is looking at her with something raw and dark now, ready to snap. Lottie thinks she understands, too. 

 

“I’ve neglected you,” Lottie goes on, “we all have. And for that, I’m sorry.” She gives Natalie a glance, and the blonde girl backs up with Jackie. “But please,” she implores Misty. She clasps her hands behind her back, she knows this is going to hurt, “let it out.”

 

Everybody seems to understand what the fuck is going on except for Jackie. Jackie, who’s letting Natalie pinch her nose and wipe blood from her face. Jackie, who’s watching Lottie step in front of her, in front of Misty, clasping her hands behind her back and telling Misty to “let it out.”

 

“Lottie, what the fuck?” Jackie asks, but she doesn’t think she’s going to get an answer. She looks at Nat with wild eyes as Nat pulls Jackie away. Jackie doesn’t think she should let Nat pull her away.

 

Lottie can’t look at Jackie. “Misty, let it out--”

 

It only takes one swing of a metal rod to make Lottie’s breath disappear. She doesn’t know when Misty made it to the fireplace, but she’s got the fire poker, now, and the blunt end of it has just jabbed itself directly into Lottie’s ribs. She hears the bone crack just as much as she feels it. She collapses to her knees instantly, gasping for air, arms clutching her stomach.

 

The next hit is even more calculated. Lottie isn’t an expert on internal anatomy but she knows Misty is, and she knows whatever she’s hit on her back is vital as it causes a splitting pain worse than anything she’s ever felt. It feels like she’s being torn open from the inside out.

 

She thinks that maybe the hit to her face is unnecessary. It lays her out on her back, though, she tastes blood in her throat. She never knew Misty had so much rage in her. So much potential for harm. She looks up at her for only a moment and sees someone else. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

 

But it was always going to happen, regardless.

 

Lottie feels two more blows as the rod comes down on her chest before she’s blacking out between swings. She feels the sharp end pierce her skin. She feels welts forming wherever metal connects with flesh. She feels Misty swing it into her again and again and again.

 

She thinks Misty might actually kill her.

 

But death never comes. Someone is shouting, finally, reaching forward, grabbing the rod with one hand, Misty’s with the other. They’ve had enough. She’s done enough.

 

“Enough!” Nat is crying out. “Misty… enough .”

 

They won’t let Misty kill her.

 

At some point, Jackie gets shoved out of Nat’s arms and into someone else’s when the realization that Misty is fucking killing Lottie sinks in. Because Misty is fucking killing Lottie , and it seems like it’s too late when Nat finally makes it, pulling the goddamn fire poker out of Misty’s hand and forcing her to stop.

 

“Lottie!” Jackie cries out, pulling forward, but Van is holding her back, and Tai is helping. Jackie struggles, arms flailing, feet kicking. At some point, an arm gets too close to her mouth.

 

“Fuck!” Van yelps. “She bit me!” Still, she doesn’t let go. 

 

Shauna laughs in Jackie’s ear. “That’s supposed to be my move.”

 

Jackie doesn’t care, and she doesn’t find this funny. “Help her, help her, someone fucking help her, please, God, help her.” 

 

Lottie can hear someone calling her name. She hears crying. Everything is dark and Lottie is still. She thinks this might be death, but then she’s sputtering and blood is pouring out her mouth and there’s pain . So much pain. Blinding, burning, molten. Lottie knows there’s not this much pain in being dead.

 

“Get some towels!” Someone is calling out. Natalie is staring down in horror at Misty, she’s shoving her out of the way so that the others can get to Lottie.

 

Lottie understands now. This had to happen. Something cold is pressed to her face. Lottie is coughing, she can’t breathe, her tongue tastes like copper. 

 

“Get her on her side, she’s choking on the blood.”

 

“We don’t know how many broken bones there are, be careful!”

 

Lottie doesn’t think she can move. She can see shadows dancing behind her eyes. She doesn’t hear the whimper she lets out when they roll her onto her side. It gurgles with the blood in her throat. She thinks maybe it would’ve been better had she just died.

 

Jackie’s eyes lock on Misty, and she doesn’t have to fight with Van anymore because Van is rushing to help Lottie, they’re all rushing to help Lottie, but there’s only one person that can help her. One person with her wide eyes behind those big glasses, her mouth parted stupidly like she doesn’t realize what she’s just done.

 

Don’t worry. Jackie’s about to help her find that realization.

 

She’s grabbing at Misty, clawing at her, hands in Misty’s shirt and pulling her up. “Fix her,” Jackie snarls.

 

Shauna puts her hands on Misty’s shoulders, and Jackie wonders if Misty can feel it. “Maybe she’s not taking you seriously enough, Jackie. Threaten to make her run laps if she doesn’t agree.”

 

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Jackie rasps out. She’s not violent. She’s not. She rarely hurts people physically. She’s mostly too chicken shit. But this, right now? Her heart is trying to pound its way out of her chest, and there’s ice and fire in her veins, and Jackie thinks she’d do anything in the world if it meant fixing Lottie, including kill Misty fucking Quigley. Especially kill Misty fucking Quigley. “If you don’t help her, I’ll fucking kill you out here, Misty, I swear to God. I don’t care if it kills me, too. We’ll both be dead when I’m done.”

 

Misty is looking between Jackie and Lottie on the floor. “I-I-I didn’t mean to,” she’s saying, “I don’t-- I can’t just--” Only Misty truly knows the damage she’s done. “I can’t just fix her .” 

 

Lottie is quickly losing consciousness again. She can’t keep her eyes open. It feels like before, it feels worse than laying down in the snow and going to sleep. It’s raw and undiluted and terrible. It’s in her bones, her veins, every fiber of her cells. 

 

To suffer is to live . 

 

Natalie is coming over to Jackie and Misty. She’s muttering to herself, to the others. She’s in shock. “What the fuck, what the fuck .” What do they do? “What do we do, Misty? What do we do ?”

 

Jackie grips Misty by the jaw and squeezes. She’s not violent. She’s not.

 

She’ll kill Misty if she’s given the chance. 

 

Looking between Misty and Nat, Jackie gets up and pulls Misty to her feet. “Tell us what to do. Now.” Sweat is beading in Jackie’s hairline. Her heart is racing in her throat. She finally looks at Lottie, at her broken body, and it’s a high, whimpering noise that gets caught in her throat. “Misty, please,” she chokes out. If threats aren’t working, then she will appeal to Misty in any way that she can. “You’re the only one who can help. You’re the only one that knows how. Please . We need you.”

 

Something seems to snap back to Misty. “W-we--” she swallows-- “we need to check for broken bones a-and internal bleeding. And-and--” There was almost too much that needed to be done. “And clean up the blood.” Lottie did this for them, for her. “Someone boil some water. Get her on the bed for now, we’ll have to isolate her later in case there’s, um, open wounds that can get infected.” She took the red cross babysitter training class. Twice. They needed her. It makes her smile.

 

The girls start moving as a unit. They haven’t done this well since States, Jackie thinks, watching them move. Akilah is checking for broken bones and internal bleeding, pointing out different locations on Lottie’s body. Gen and Britt start on cleaning up the blood while Mari rushes to boil some water. Van, Tai, Melissa, and Travis pick Lottie up while Robin goes and gets Javi out of the bedroom, keeping his face away from the mess. Jackie gets up, swaying, moving with the others as they carry Lottie away and lay her on the bed. 

 

Shauna is her shadow, now, out of Jackie’s field of vision but present nonetheless, and Jackie thinks that none of this should have happened. She thinks that this feels wrong. 

 

Lottie groans with pain. She feels them lift her and she lets out a wail because it all hurts so much. She can’t see anything except the swirling ceiling above her. She feels too hot, too cold. Too tired, too awake. She grabs at the neck of her shirt. She’s already coated in sweat. Her mouth still tastes of blood.

 

She doesn’t have much fight left in her, she doesn’t think. She lays there and wonders if she’ll see Laura Lee again soon. Her hand searches for the body that’s always beside her on the bed. She doesn’t want to leave her.

 

Mari comes with the boiling water, Gen and Britt keep cleaning Lottie up, and the bedroom is too crowded with bodies that are all trying to be helpful without knowing really what to do. Jackie hears Misty barking orders, but they mostly boil down to telling those that aren’t being useful to clear out and let the rest of them work, trying to clean Lottie up and patch her up and deal with the damage as best as they can. 

 

Jackie is trembling, arms wrapped around herself because, if they aren’t, she will fall apart at the seams. She’ll come undone, and she knows it. She is staring at a body frozen in the snow. She is staring at Lottie bloody on the floor. She’s already lost one. How can she bear to lose another? 

 

Nat is next to her, shaking. “There’s nothing we can do,” she says, her voice rough, clogged up in the back of her throat. “We should let them work.”

 

“I’m not-- I can’t-- I can’t.” Jackie shakes her head, holding herself tighter. “I can’t leave. I can’t.”

 

“Lottie, stop moving, please,” comes a voice. Lottie can’t tell who it is, her ears are ringing. Her chest feels heavy, it’s so hard to breathe. 

 

“J-Jackie…” she manages to croak.

 

Someone is shushing her, pressing a cool cloth to her face, wiping away the sweat, the blood. Their outline dances as Lottie tries to open her eyes to see them. Her jaw is searning with pain as she coughs. 

 

“Don’t talk,” the voice commands.

 

She feels someone tugging up her jacket, pressing something freezing against her ribs. Lottie shudders, whimpers. 

 

“I know it’s cold, but it’ll help with the pain a-and the bruising.”

 

Lottie wants to sleep so badly now. Her head lolls against the bed. 

 

“Lottie?” the voices are echoing again. Her eyes close.

 

“Lottie ?”

 

She thinks maybe she can find peace there, in the darkness. She lets it take her.

 

Jackie hears her name, and she cannot stop herself from walking to the bed, kneeling down. “Lottie,” she whimpers. “Lottie. Lottie.” She turns to Misty. “Please. I want— I need to help her.” She hates begging Misty for anything, hates that she has to, but she’ll do what she must. She’ll do what she has to. Anything to keep Lottie alive. Anything. 

 

Misty’s eyes are unreadable, but she gives instructions to all of them, tells them what to do, how to do it. Jackie’s hands tremble, and she’s exhausted, and breathing’s a fucking chore, but she doesn’t care. When they’re done, the others leave the room, and Jackie slumps against the side, her back against it, pulls her knees up to her chest, and sobs.

 

Natalie is the last to leave and then it’s just Misty and Jackie in the room.

 

Misty dabs again at Lottie’s forehead, damp with sweat. She’d never known she was capable of anything like this. It made her feel terrified. And powerful. 

 

Were those not the same things?

 

After a moment, Misty stands to grab another rag. She sets the bowl of water down next to Jackie, and holds it out to her. “If you want to help, make sure she doesn’t choke on her own blood,” she tells her. “I need to get more supplies.”

 

She leaves the room and goes straight to the sink. Her hands are shaking, covered in blood. She thinks of Kristen. She lets out a long, shuddering breath and one choked back sob. Then, shakily, she rinses her hands, pushes her glasses up, and sets about gathering what else she might need.

 

Jackie watches Misty leave the room and takes just one more second to break into pieces before she gets to her knees, facing Lottie. “I’m here,” she whispers. “Please don’t… Lottie, you promised. You made a promise. You have to keep it.” 

 

It’s Jackie’s turn to dab at Lottie’s forehead, cleaning off some of the sweat, some of the specks of blood still there. Her thumb brushes against Lottie’s cheek, but there are tears trailing down Jackie’s, and she has to sniffle them away. She’ll beg. She’ll beg for the rest of her life if she has to. She’ll pray. She’ll pray to gods of dirt and worms and snow and wind. Jackie Taylor will do anything, she promises. She promises.

Notes:

PHEW that was...a lot happening huh? Can you believe it only took them 80k words to kiss? and it's not even a REAL kiss??? Like damn :/ when we said slow burn we meant slow burn sorry y'all!

Again, thanks for reading! We love any and all comments y'all leave even if we take a bit to respond! Feel free to reach out to us on our socials!

Chapter 8: two drowning people can't save each other

Summary:

Lottie's starting to see the light, but it's too bad Jackie's got control of the light switch. Misty attempts to right her violent wrongs, which means telling Lottie no to her dinner plans and leaving her out of the group's card game. A king and a queen take a trip, someone takes a dip, and then it's dinner time, baby. Make sure to clean your plates!

Notes:

This chapter's just a smidge shorter than the others, but it packs no less of a punch! Well, maybe not as much as last chapter, but that's on Misty, you know, packing several punches, plus a beat down with a fire poker.

tws: drowning, cannibalism

Chapter title comes from We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen. The full quote is, "Two drowning people can't save each other. All they can do is drag each other down."

When Lottie opens her eyes the first time, she knows it’s a dream. She can see sunlight and hears the breeze. She can’t feel anything, though. The sky turns red and the sun disappears.

 

When Lottie opens her eyes the second time, she hears her name. She feels someone next to her. She knows this isn’t a dream. The pain consumes her before she can say anything.

 

When Lottie opens her eyes the third time, she can’t tell the difference. There’s someone in the room with her. They have a soft voice. Soft smile. Soft hands. She hears singing, but it doesn’t last long. It turns into tears and Lottie’s throat feels dry.

 

When Lottie opens her eyes the fourth time, she thinks she might be dead. She sees a plane, a hatch. A golden necklace. Not a cross, but a heart. It’s snowing and someone is calling out to her. There’s a hole in the ice. The Queen’s card. Someone is drowning. Someone dies.

 

When Lottie opens her eyes the fifth time, she’s upright. There’s someone on either side of her. Her stomach feels like it’s on fire. They’re coaxing her to let it out. It burns coming out. Her head falls forward and her legs shake. She moans with pain, she wants to sleep again, she wants to be where she can’t feel this way.

 

When Lottie finally wakes up, she doesn’t know how long it’s been. She’s not downstairs anymore. She doesn’t remember much of anything. Her chest is burning and her throat is dry and she feels rigid. She knows she’s not dead, because to suffer is to be alive. It told her so.

 

But she’s dying and she knows it. All of that just to die. It seems pointless. But maybe it was always meant to be this way. Everything happens for a reason.

 

She feels like she’s suffocating, tugs at her collar. Her heart beats erratically in her chest as she groans. She needs them to know before she goes. She needs them to promise her.

 

It’s been the longest few days of Jackie’s life. She thinks that Misty can agree. They’re in a tentative truce right now. As long as Lottie lives, so do both of them. Jackie wonders, though, how long it’ll take her to snap when-- if-- Lottie goes. Shauna gives her two days. Jackie thinks that’s a little generous. 

 

Every sound of pain from Lottie’s lips is another ache to Jackie. She cannot eat, cannot sleep, cannot think about rest while Lottie suffers. Nat calls her an idiot, tells her that making herself worse doesn’t do Lottie any good, but Jackie doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about anything but making sure Lottie is okay. Jackie is a house of cards built around one person. She always has been. When that one person falls, she crumbles. 

 

They managed to move Lottie to the attic, and Jackie has made a little space for herself next to Lottie where she can glare at Misty or Mari or anyone else that gets too close, but she’s not threatening with her feverish eyes and chapped lips and sweaty brow. She’s not violent. But Van’s arm had to be bandaged from where she bit it, and somebody’s skin got under her nails. She’s not violent. She can be. 

 

When Lottie starts to wake up, when she sounds like she’s choking on air, Jackie startles from some sort of half sleep and moves Lottie’s head into her lap, sitting her up. “Lottie,” she murmurs, her voice soothing. “Lottie, Lottie, Lottie.”

 

It’s Jackie. Lottie knows before she hears her voice. She can tell by just the touch of her fingers against her skin. The comfort it brings. She thinks if she dies like this, it might be an okay way to go. She manages to open her eyes. Jackie’s blurry. Sometimes she thinks she sees someone else, blonde hair, blue eyes. Lottie wheezes every time she breathes in.

 

“If I die…” she says to Jackie, “don’t waste my body.”

 

Jackie makes an awful sound, the kind animals make when they’re dying and afraid, she shakes her head. “You’re not dying,” she tells Lottie. “You’re not. Please, you can’t. You promised.”

 

“Please,” Lottie echoes back, “I want you to.”

 

Jackie shakes her head, tears dripping off her chin. She won’t. She won’t. If the others do, that’s on them, but Jackie won’t. Misty comes in and sees them, and she gets to work checking Lottie over again. If she’s awake, then there’s an attempt to get her to sip some water, some broth. Jackie gets a damp rag and brushes it over Lottie’s face, wiping away at the sweat and the blood and the tears.

 

Lottie only has enough energy to reach up and wipe away a few of Jackie’s tears before her arm falls back to the floor, limp. She looks at Misty, she remembers how dark her eyes had been, like something else had taken over her in those moments. Lottie thinks she knows. She remembers how it took over her, too, during the Doomcoming.

 

“It’s okay,” Lottie tells Misty, and maybe Jackie, too. She doesn’t think she can keep her eyes open much longer, “it’s okay.”

 

It’s not okay at all, but Jackie doesn’t know if it’s possible to convey that, anymore, as she strokes her fingers through Lottie’s hair and keeps her head elevated in her lap. Jackie’s running on fumes, too, running off of adrenaline and the little bit of willpower to keep herself awake, but she can’t last forever. 

 

Misty leaves two dying girls in the attic, but only one of them matters. Jackie closes her eyes and rests her fingers over Lottie’s pulse, feeling the way it stutters, and she wills it to keep beating.

 

Lottie believes this might be the most anyone’s ever cared for her. Not just physically. Jackie feels for her pulse and Lottie feels her tears dripping down her chin onto her face, and she feels Jackie’s fingers in her hair and she knows that death is the kindest way to lose a person. 

 

But that doesn’t make it kind in any way that matters. Not when it creates a grief like this. One Lottie has seen Jackie go through once already. 

 

She wishes she could spare this for her. She wishes Jackie still looked at her with darkened eyes and hollowed spirits. If she hated her, death wouldn’t hurt so much.

 

Lottie has no words of kindness to offer Jackie right now. Her throat feels raw and tastes of bile. Her stomach burns for something solid. Her head aches with too many different versions of the future. If God were real, he would be what Jackie’s comfort feels like. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she manages to mumble. 

 

It isn’t okay, so Jackie can't choke out the words, but she can keep brushing her hand through Lottie’s hair, offering just a bit of respite. She’s never wished for painkillers more than she does in this moment, where Lottie seems to be more wound than person. “Please, just don’t die,” she whispers, and it’s the most selfish thing she’s ever asked for. She could say it’s for the girls downstairs who need hope to cling to, and she could say it’s because Lottie is meant for great things, but Jackie is, at her core, selfish. She can’t bring herself to care about those other things, but she cares about Lottie. She cares about her so much that it aches.

 

Shauna’s arms are wrapped around Jackie’s shoulders, and she nuzzles into the side of her head. “Physical touch is good for fostering emotional connections,” she murmurs. “The two of you sleep in each other’s arms every night. You’re bound to feel like you need her.”

 

Jackie doesn’t think it’s just that, but what does she know?” “Please, don’t die,” she says again, her voice hoarse. “I need you.”

 

Lottie is growing weary again. Jackie’s touch is soothing, like a lullaby. She closes her eyes and lets it comfort her, soothe the ache in her body. She thinks she hears Shauna’s voice, whispering into the room. She thinks she can feel her presence, looming around Jackie.

 

She thinks Jackie might be the only person to ever say that to her.

 

She thinks about how warm Jackie’s lips were, how nicely she fits in her arms when they sleep. She thinks about how calm laying in her lap feels. She wishes she could be something other than this half real version of herself for her. 

 

She hears them laughing, drunk on wine, on the stairs of the country club. Sneaking into the pool late at night, staying up during team sleepovers and eating popcorn. Lottie remembers watching Jackie from afar as she grew up to become someone other people relied on. Someone other people looked to, cared for. Loved.

 

Lottie remembers loving her, too.

 

She doesn’t think she’s capable of that anymore.

 

“I’m here,” she croaks, eyes closing, “I’m yours.”

 

Jackie feels Shauna’s lips on her cheek, and she wonders if she can ever be anybody’s but a dead girl’s. Maybe, if Lottie dies, then Shauna can share the parts of her that she has such a vicious claim to. Jackie takes Lottie’s hand and squeezes it, brings it up to her lips and holds it there. She can’t say the words, but she feels Lottie in her veins. If Shauna owns her heart, then whatever Lottie’s become to her is pushed through her body like blood, just as vital, just as necessary. She’s been forced to live through losing Shauna Shipman. Jackie doesn’t think she’s strong enough to do that again.

 

So Jackie stays like that for what feels like forever, Lottie’s hand in her own, her head bowed like she’s praying. She is. Praying. She’s praying to anyone, anything that will listen. She’ll do anything. 

 

There’s hate in her eyes when Misty comes back to check on Lottie, but Misty ignores it as she cleans Lottie up and checking her wounds, ever the diligent doctor now even though she’s the reason that Lottie is hurt in the first place. Maybe she just wants to be loved. Maybe she just wants to be needed. Maybe she realizes that Jackie will make good on her threats, though Jackie realizes that it’s hard to be afraid of a sick, dying, starving girl. 

 

When Lottie dreams, it feels real. When she’s awake, it feels like a dream. In one reality, she’s holding hands with a girl that has golden sunlight for hair and in the other she’s holding onto a girl with eyes like autumn. Their smiles are almost the same. One of them tells her that it’s okay to let go, and the other one tells her that she needs her.

 

And so Lottie keeps waking up.

 

But she’s sick, and she’s starving, and she knows that she’s dying-- she knows that they all are. 

 

When Lottie feels another pair of hands on her, she knows it’s Misty. She reaches out to her, grabs her arm. If Jackie won’t promise it, maybe Misty will.

 

“Promise me,” she says to her, “don’t waste this.” If her death can keep them alive, she wants them to take it. She needs them to. She needs her life-- her death-- to have meaning.

 

Misty looks from Lottie to Jackie, then back. “Let’s not even think about that right now, okay?” her smile is sickly sweet, but genuine. “You’re gonna be fine.”

 

“Promise,” Lottie begs, “don’t…let them starve.”

 

Misty doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t promise. Jackie looks at her and feels like she’s crumbling, and she wonders when Misty will stop seeing her at her lowest points. She wonders if she will ever stop feeling so fucking pathetic. 

 

Jackie somehow falls asleep like that, sitting up and hunched forward. When she wakes, Misty is sleeping on the pallet that she’s made just a little ways away from the two of them. Jackie won’t allow her to be too close, but she knows she can’t send Misty away, not when Lottie needs her. She wonders, too, how the others would feel about Misty sleeping around them, anyway. Do any of them forgive her? Is Jackie the only one holding onto that hurt? She doesn’t know. 

 

She wakes and, with shaky hands, starts washing some of the sweat away from Lottie’s skin again, slow and measured movements.

 

Lottie finds herself in a constant state of waking and sleep, now. She can’t tell the difference either way. She sees the fire in the fireplace, and she sees everyone standing in a circle. She sees cards being passed out. She sees Jackie sitting beside her. She sees Misty sleeping a little ways away. She sees the sky from under the frozen lake. She feels her breath being stolen away. 

 

She doesn’t know how long has passed when she finally feels her body sinking back into itself. Her head feels so heavy. The cool touch of a damp rag presses to her forehead. Lottie opens her eyes and looks up at Jackie and she looks like a ghost. 

 

“Jackie…” she murmurs but doesn’t move. She knows Jackie hasn’t left her since the moment she collapsed to the cabin floor, coughing up blood. “Please…” She wants her to let her go. It aches to think about. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie chokes out. It’s just the two of them, now, Misty having gone down to the main room. Jackie thinks she knows what Lottie wants. She doesn’t know how to give it to her. She held onto Shauna for months, too, unable and unwilling to let her go. 

 

Lottie thinks maybe she can ask for something she never would if these really will be her dying moments. “Can I…hold you?”

 

Jackie feels a little bit like she’s about to shut down, but she’s going to agree. Her mouth opens, and she almost speaks, but Nat appears at the trap door, her eyes haunted and tired and dead. They all look like that.

 

“Misty– Misty told us,” she starts. “About… how Lottie’s doing.” Nat glances at Lottie’s face and closes her eyes. She looks like she’s trying not to cry as she opens them again and looks at Jackie. “We need you to come down stairs.” 

 

Jackie hesitates, sitting there with Lottie’s head in her lap, tempted to say no, fuck you, go away . Instead, she gently moves Lottie and takes her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “I’ll be back, okay? But then–- yes. Yes, I promise. But I’ll be back. I promise.”

 

Lottie wants to tell her to stay, she opens her mouth to say it but no words come out. She can't even see Natalie but she can hear her and she can tell something's wrong. She squeezes Jackie's hand-- she thinks she squeezes Jackie's hand-- but just gives one short nod before letting her go. 

 

She wonders if she'll finally die, in the few minutes she knows Jackie will be gone. Maybe she'll go peacefully. 

 

She doesn't think there's anything close to peace out here.

 

“I’ll be back, Lottie,” Jackie says with as much firmness as she can muster. “I will.” And then she’s following Nat down the steps, swaying on her feet when she makes it to the bottom. 

 

“Jesus, Jackie,” Nat mutters, holding her steady. “You look like shit. Maybe you should–”

 

Jackie pulls away. “Let’s just– Let’s just do this.” She walks into the main room to see everyone gathered in a circle, her stomach sinking with dread. “What is happening right now?”

 

“None of us can imagine being here without Lottie,” Mari says. “Lottie can’t die, but she still needs food.”

 

“We all do,” Tai says. “We’re drawing cards. We need to find a way to stay alive, and it can’t be her.”

 

Jackie’s eyes widen. “What? Drawing cards for…”

 

No one says anything. Van holds the deck in her hands.

 

The realization hits Jackie like a plane crash.

 

“We can’t do this,” Jackie says. 

 

“We have to,” Misty tells her, eyes flashing. “Unless you want it to be her .”

 

There is a hand on Jackie’s arm, and she didn’t even realize she was about to walk forward until Nat holds her back. But Misty is right. If they don’t get food, then they’ll eat Lottie.

 

Jackie cannot let them eat Lottie. She cannot bear the thought of swallowing her and Shauna both.

 

“Don’t think about it that way,” Shauna says, standing beside Jackie, and Jackie turns her head to look at her. Her lips are blue. Her pinky is missing. When she smiles at Jackie, the snow in her eyelashes drifts to the floor. “Maybe they’ll pick you.”

 

Would Lottie’s promise make her follow after Jackie anyway? There’s a tightness in her throat not caused by sickness, and she feels herself swallowing as Van shows them all the queen card before she starts shuffling the deck. 

 

Misty draws first, a sigh of relief as she shows the group her card, then she takes the deck. Akilah, first. Then Van, who draws with a lack of fear. Jackie thinks that Van cannot die, not now, not out there, not anymore. Van looks at Tai, who cannot stop her relief. Travis, next. He and Natalie exchange relieved looks. Tai. Melissa. Javi, who draws a king and breaks the circle, rushing his brother. Nat is next, on Jackie’s left. Nat, who is hesitant. Who looks afraid . Jackie wants to take her hand, wants to take her place in line. She can’t. That’s not the rules out there, and those rules are the ones that matter. Not the ones that Jackie knows, not the ones that make sense back in the real world. 

 

Nat pulls the card, and her lip trembles, and Jackie doesn’t need to see the queen to know that she’s there. Everyone gasps, as if they can’t believe that it actually happened, but Nat holds it up high with shaking fingers. 

 

“Nat…” Jackie breathes.

 

“Who… who’s going to do it?” Melissa asks, looking sick.

 

Tai doesn’t say anything, but the way that she stands is different. The look on her face is different. She takes the knife and she slowly walks forward. Nat walks to meet her. Tai turns her around.

 

The knife is to Nat’s throat before she grabs it, gasping. “Wait, wait!” She faces Tai, and there’s awful clarity in Tai’s eyes before it goes away. Nat tells her, leaning in close, “You’re gonna have to look me in the eyes.” 

 

The knife is to her throat once more, but this time it’s Jackie who’s stumbling forward. “Wait, I–” She fumbles with the clasp of her necklace. “Wait.” She puts it on Nat’s neck. She can’t stop this. She wants to stop this. For protection . She said it was for protection. Right now, Jackie needs this to protect Nat. She doesn’t care about the consequences. 

 

Jackie and Travis make eye contact for only a second before he’s lunging at Tai. Mari and Van move for him, but it’s too late. Nat is free, and Jackie rushes for the door, throwing it open. When Travis tells Nat to run, she doesn’t hesitate. 

 

“No! She’s getting away!” Misty yells, heading for the door. Jackie slams it shut, and Travis moves to help her, the two of them working their hardest to keep it shut, to give Nat the best chance she can have.

 

Misty looks at Jackie like she’s betrayed, like Jackie has doomed Lottie, but Jackie wants Misty to know that she doomed her first . 

 

Jackie and Travis aren’t strong enough on their own. Melissa hits Jackie behind the leg, causing her to cry out as they drag her away, and Gen has the knife to Travis’ neck to move him out of the way. Most of them are running out, howling as they go, calling out Natalie’s name. Travis looks at Javi, and the boy doesn’t say anything, but then he’s out there, too. 

 

Struggling to her feet, Jackie breaks for the door, but she can’t see anything from the porch, they’ve disappeared into the trees, howling into the distance, and she doesn’t think she can catch up with them even if she tried. And, when Gen grabs her by the arm to yank her back inside, holding out the same knife that she threatened Travis with, Jackie thinks that she couldn’t try even if she wanted to.

 

She has to hope they were enough to give Nat a head start.

 

Natalie runs . It’s all she can do.

 

Lottie’s breath is catching. She sees them standing in a circle. She sees them picking cards. The fire blazes.

 

It’s freezing outside, Natalie isn’t dressed for this. She hears them howling as they chase her. They call her name.

 

Lottie hears thunder in her head. She sees the trees, the cabin, the symbol.

 

Natalie ducks out of the way, presses her back up against a tree. She closes her eyes and listens to them all rushing past, howling, yelping, yelling. Hunting.

 

Lottie’s heart beats faster, faster. Faster . It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong.

 

“Natalie, stop!” It’s Javi. He leaps from the treeline, it’s the first time Natalie has heard him speak. “I know where we can go.”

 

Natalie is choked up, trying to keep from crying. She doesn’t want to die. “What’re you talking about?”

 

“There’s a place the other’s don’t know about,” Javi tells her, “I…I can take you there.” 

 

Natalie looks at him, he looks so young, so haunted. He’s eaten a person. “You can trust me,” Javi goes on.

 

Natalie can trust him. “Okay.”

 

Lottie thinks this needs to stop. She can feel it now. She can feel the ice cold water.

 

Javi leads Natalie across the frozen lake. She remembers trying to dig the moose out just a few weeks ago. They lost it and now they were starving. 

 

Natalie hears the group behind them, she stumbles. Javi doubles back to grab her. “C’mon,” he says, “we’re almost there!” He wants to save her, he’s trying so hard.

 

He’s only a few steps in front of her when he stops. Natalie hears the ice break. In the next moment, without warning, Javi is falling through it. 

 

“Javi!” She cries out for him, she rushes forward. She has to help him, she has to save him.

 

Lottie takes in a breath she thinks might be her last.

 

He’s drowning. Natalie reaches out for him. “Take my hand!” She pulls as hard as she can, he’s already so cold, the ice is so slippery.

 

“Help me!” Javi cries, desperate.

 

“Help us!” Natalie cries to them.

 

“Natalie!” Comes Misty’s voice. “Natalie, stop!” She tugs Natalie back, she clings to her desperately.

 

“Natalie, help!” Javi is gurgling on the ice water, he’s sinking lower and lower.

 

“If you save him, they’ll kill you!” Misty says and something horrible in Natalie makes her stop. Makes her freeze. She’s lying on the ice and watching Javi drown.

 

“We can still save him if we get him out of there!” Akilah is crying out, moving forward.

 

“Wait,” Tai says, that steely look in her eyes, “wait.”

 

They all listen as Javi drowns. They all watch.

 

“Grab him,” someone breathes. Natalie can’t look away, can’t hear anything. “Pull, pull!” They’re tugging his body from the water now. “C”mon!” They drag him onto the ice. His skin is pale, eyes empty. Natalie is frozen in her place. Javi is dead.

 

“The wilderness chose,” Van states. There’s no denying it now. There’s no arguing.

 

Javi is dead.

 

Something inside Lottie’s head goes quiet, for the first time in a long time. She closes her eyes. She knows it’s not death that waits for her.

 

Jackie waits out in the snow for them, having shrugged on Shauna’s flannel and an extra pair of sweatpants, Gen and the others know there’s nothing she can really do to stop the hunt once the sounds of it faded. Travis paces on the porch, and she looks back at him. 

 

“She’s fine,” she tells him. “It’s Nat. She’s fine.”

 

But Jackie doesn’t believe it until she is , until Nat is stumbling into the clearing, stopping at the firepit. Jackie wants to close the distance, but there’s something in her eyes that keeps her rooted in place.

 

“Natalie,” Travis breathes, moving towards her, reaching out for her, but Nat keeps walking.

 

And that’s when Jackie sees the hunting party.

 

That’s Javi’s body. Jackie knows, of course, that it’s Javi’s body. But it can’t be. He was just alive, he was just back from the dead. He was just there because Lottie knew he would be, and Tai knew where to find them, and he was there .

 

He’s dead. They lay him next to the firepit.

 

“Travis,” Nat starts, “it happened so fast.”

 

All Travis can say is, “No.”

 

“The Wilderness chose,” Nat says, and she’s trying not to sob.

 

Jackie wonders if the Wilderness chose at all, or if the girls in front of her did. She feels guilty that it’s Javi. She feels even guiltier that it’s not Nat. 

 

All Travis can say, again and again, is, “No. No. No, no, no!” And Jackie has been there. She knows this feeling. Hers was not as violent, as cruel, but she knows. He goes to his brother, and the others go inside, and Nat, ever shouldering the burden, stays rooted in place until she can’t anymore, until she’s grabbing Jackie by her sleeve and pulling her inside. 

 

“You’re gonna get sick,” she manages to croak out.

 

Jackie doesn’t have the heart to remind her that she already is.

 

The silence inside the cabin is thick. They all know what they’ve done. They had decided to do this. They hadn’t been ready for the consequence of it.

 

No one speaks, no one moves.

 

Natalie is standing by the door. She hears Travis crying outside still.

 

Misty moves towards the attic. Someone needs to tell Lottie.

 

Lottie, who opens her eyes once again and wishes she hasn’t. It’s terrible, it’s horrible. She knows before she asks. “Misty,” she breathes, “why is Travis screaming?”

 

Misty tries to smile. It doesn’t work. She sits next to Lottie. “Because…we’re going to eat Javi.”

 

Lottie is sitting up, then. It hurts. She wheezes, panting. “What?” she breathes, accusatory.

 

“Look,” Misty starts, “it’s okay. We didn’t even kill him…exactly.”

 

“ How? ” Lottie gasps.

 

“Look, I--” Misty starts again. Someone else is coming up the stairs and they both already know it’s Jackie. Misty looks to her, then back to Lottie. “I told them what you said to us. How you didn’t wanna go to waste. But…” her expression hardens and Lottie sees the same girl who swung a fire poker into her stomach, her back, her face. She’s afraid. “So…we drew cards. And whoever got the queen…A-Anyway, Natalie got it, but then…during the chase…” Misty almost smiles. Lottie shudders. “Ja-Javi died, so…it’s okay!”

 

“Misty,” Lottie pleads, her voice barely able to break through the horror in her throat.

 

“This is good ,” Misty growls, “we have food now.”

 

“ No , Misty!” Lottie says, and her voice is cracking, her composure is cracking. “I never meant-- I didn’t want this. How could you let them?”

 

The second Jackie notices that Misty isn’t in the main room of the cabin, she knows where she is, and Jackie refuses to leave her alone with Lottie, not after what she did, not after what she could do again. Misty might be docile now, and maybe all of that rage was just a fucking offshoot, but Jackie doesn’t trust her, can’t trust her, to be alone with Lottie.

 

Jackie’s just barely hauled herself to the top of the stairs and into the attic when she hears them talking.

 

“How could I ?” Misty is incredulous. It’s as if she’s already forgotten they’re not alone, or that she doesn’t care. Lottie feels her breath hitching. “Lottie,” Misty continues, her voice cold, “you started this. It’s done.” Lottie is trembling. She knows Misty is right. This is all her fault. She wishes it had been her. “And it’s going to save all of our lives. So you better not start making people feel bad about it now,” Misty finishes with a snarl.

 

And Lottie sucks in a breath shakily and she feels herself breaking down and she feels that clawing, aching, tearing guilt building inside of her as tears begin to fall down her face.

 

Jackie grabs Misty and yanks her back to face her.

 

“Jackie, that’s dangerous,” Shauna scolds her.

 

“You don’t get to blame her for this,” she tells Misty, her voice low. “She didn’t tell you guys to hunt our fucking friends, kill a fucking kid . So you don’t get to blame her.”

 

“Don’t act like you aren’t happy, Jackie,” Misty snaps back. “Don’t act like you aren’t glad the Wilderness chose someone else over her.”

 

It’s true, and that’s the worst part, but Jackie doesn’t let go of Misty, doesn’t stop gritting her teeth. “You don’t get to blame her for this, and I won’t fucking let you,” she repeats.

 

There’s a lot that Lottie could be blamed for. Jackie knows that. Most of it stems around their failed Doomcoming and the events of that night. Lottie seemed to have acted like a ringleader, and the rest of the girls fell into place, but that had been stopped, and Lottie was apologetic. They could not blame her for Javi’s death. Not when Lottie was begging them to eat her if she died.

 

Lottie curls herself up as much as she can. She doesn’t hear Jackie telling Misty off. She only hears her own blood rushing in her ears. Her own head almost feels too quiet. This is her fault. It’s her fault. All she’d tried to do was help them. Instead, she’d let a kid die. 

 

Lottie lets out a sob. It chokes her, she coughs. She can’t breathe. 

 

Misty is trying to shove past Jackie at the sound. “Lottie?” She reaches out to try and help her sit up but Lottie stays where she is, curled in on herself. Trembling, crying, struggling to breathe. “Lottie, breathe!” 

 

She doesn’t want to. It should’ve been her. Why is she still alive? “Don’t,” Lottie says, “don’t.” She doesn’t want comfort, she doesn’t deserve it. She closes her eyes. She wants Misty to leave. “Please.” Why couldn’t they just let her go?

 

Jackie rushes to Lottie’s other side, on her knees. “Please, please, breathe. Lottie, please breathe.” She pulls Lottie into her lap, trying to get her to sit up. “Please. You have to. You promised.” It’s cruel. It’s just as cruel as Lottie forcing her to sleep inside. It’s just as cruel as Lottie only eating when Jackie did. It’s just as cruel as gentle arms wrapping around her at night, a body pressed to hers to keep her warm and safe and alive. 

 

Jackie isn’t violent, not really, not a lot, but she is cruel.

 

Lottie tries to push Jackie away but she can’t. She’s not strong enough. Physically, mentally. She can’t breathe, she doesn’t want to breathe. People always get hurt when she tries to help. She never wanted this. She never wanted to be this. She sobs into Jackie’s arms, it makes her ribs sear with pain but she doesn’t care. Maybe she deserves it. She definitely deserves it.

 

“I can’t,” she tells Jackie, “I can’t. I didn’t-- I never wanted--” She never wanted this.

 

Misty watches them. She thinks about going downstairs, but she needs to stay here, for now, in case Lottie does stop breathing. She doesn’t think Jackie knows proper CPR.

 

“Please,” Jackie whispers, pulling Lottie more firmly into her, making sure she’s sitting up, making sure that air gets into her lungs. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She brushes her lips against Lottie’s hair and swallows tightly. “I’m sorry, but you have to. You have to. I can’t– I can’t do this without you.” Her words are quiet, just for Lottie, but she doesn’t care if Misty hears them, and she doesn’t care if Misty thinks she’s selfish. She knows the others need Lottie, too. Jackie knows. But she also doesn’t care, not at that moment, not when their need ended up with Lottie in this condition in the first place.

 

What is Lottie supposed to do? To say? To think? She needs her. They all do. She saved Jackie, she wouldn’t let her lay down and die and now Jackie won’t let Lottie die. She can’t do this without her. Lottie doesn’t know when that happened, for either of them. She clings to her. She tries to steady her breathing, she listens to Jackie’s heartbeat and bites back the tears, the sobs in her throat. She wants to let go but she can’t. She promised.

 

Eventually, she’s not gasping for breath. It’s still shaky, shuddering with each exhale, but she’s breathing, as calmly as she can. She keeps her head on Jackie’s chest, she listens to the steady beat of her heart. She feels cold and Jackie feels warm. It’s usually the opposite. Lottie is growing tired again. Her body grows limper against Jackie. “I’m sorry,” she manages to whisper. “I’m sorry.” She’s so sorry. It should’ve been her but it wasn’t and the guilt inside of her tells her that some part of her, as small as it may be, is happy she wasn’t.

 

She doesn’t want to die.

 

Jackie brings Lottie’s hand up to her pulse so that she can feel it under her fingertips. That’s always been so comforting to her, to be able to feel someone alive. Her heart’s a little fast, fluttery despite its exhaustion, but it’s still alive, and it’s still steady, and she hopes it’s enough for Lottie, if only for the night. “I’m here, okay? I’m sorry, too.” 

 

When it doesn’t seem like Jackie’s going to kill Lottie, Misty starts to head downstairs, but not before Jackie yells after her, loud enough for the entire cabin to hear, “You better not fucking lie to them, Misty! You better not fucking lie!”

 

“‘O Captain, my Captain, rise up and hear the bells,’” Shauna teases, reciting that stupid old poem they all used to chant at her when Jackie first got the position. 

 

Jackie tries to ignore her, holding onto Lottie instead as if the living ghost of a girl in her arms can chase away the one in her head.

 

All the girls look to Misty as she comes out of the pantry, as they hear their old captain’s voice screaming at her as she does so. She stops in their gazes.

 

“How is she?” Mari asks, breaking the thick silence.

 

Misty opens her mouth, she knows what she wants to say. But she stops. “Alive. For now.” She walks into the middle of the room. “We need to eat, though.” She looks around. Melissa was always the one to cut up the meat, but Misty knows she’s not strong enough to do it. “Who’s going to--”

 

“I’ll do it,” comes Natalie’s voice. It’s low, resolute. Her eyes are dark and empty. She stands. “I’ll do it.” 

 

Slowly, she makes her way over to the door, hands shaking as she pulls the knife from the holster on the wall.

 

Van stands up with her. Tai does, too.

 

They head outside to prepare the body.

 

Lottie is quiet, she listens to Jackie’s breathing, feels her heartbeat under her fingertips, strong but soft. She feels selfish, she feels guilty. She feels like the monster her parents always warned her she would become.

 

Lottie presses her face into Jackie’s shoulder. She’d done this for them, she’d let Misty take out all her rage on her. She’d done this for Jackie. She’d done this for herself. She doesn’t know why she’s still alive. 

 

“I…” she starts to speak, her voice so, so quiet, “couldn’t let her…hurt you.”

 

“Lottie,” Jackie sighs. Her fingers brush through Lottie’s hair. “Misty Quigley punches like a bitch. That asshole from Holmdel hit way harder.” And Jackie could handle a hit to the face. She might whine about it, maybe make Misty feel a little like shit if she could get away with it, but it wouldn’t have landed her in the attic dying. Jackie’s pretty sure Misty wouldn’t have picked up a fucking fire poker and beat her with it.

 

“I saw it,” Lottie says, and she knows she sounds crazy-- and maybe she is, her parents always thought she was-- but she says it anyway. “It had to happen like this.” But if that were really true, then it meant that Javi was always going to die. That it was always going to choose him. 

 

She wants to believe that’s not true. She wants to believe it was supposed to be her. It was supposed to be her and she wanted it to be.

 

“I thought It wanted…” she thought It wanted her, “it was supposed to be me.”

 

“No, it’s not. It wasn’t. It isn’t,” Jackie tells her. She holds Lottie closer. She doesn’t really care what It is. Lottie’s dirt gods can suck a dick, for all that it matters to Jackie. “It’s not supposed to be you. It can’t have you.”

 

Lottie feels heavy again. She’s sinking into Jackie’s arms. “I used to think It wanted what was best for us,” she mumbles, “but now I…I’m not so sure.”

 

Jackie isn’t sure, either. She isn’t sure about anything. She wants to think that Lottie’s gods aren’t real. She doesn’t think it makes sense. But Javi was alive, and Lottie knew. Something did that to Shauna’s body. Something out there led Jackie back to the cabin, or maybe it kept her away at first. Maybe it reminded her that she was there. 

 

There’s something out there that’s attached itself to Lottie, and it has since that night in the attic. Jackie’s fingers brush against the scar on Lottie’s forehead. “I’m sorry. This is… This is my fault. That stupid seance– I just wanted us to have fun again. To be together. I tried… Every time I tried to keep us together, every time I tried to help, I fucked it up.” 

 

Laura Lee had been the last straw. Shauna’s death had been the last nail, but Jackie had been building her coffin since Laura Lee blew up in the sky. She’d given up. She’d lost faith in all of them, knowing that Shauna didn’t really love her, knowing that they were all doomed. 

 

Lottie shakes her head. She knows she’d been losing herself long before that. “It happened before then,” she murmurs, “it only took three days.” She’d run out of her pills before they even found the lake. Lottie was lost the second they crashed, really. And maybe it pulled them there, maybe it had crashed the plane, too. Maybe it wanted them all, maybe it needed them all. Maybe it was just lonely, like them. Maybe it was just hungry, like they were.

 

“It was always going to happen.” Lottie was always going to be taken.

 

Jackie doesn’t know what Lottie means. She doesn’t know how to ask. She swallows tightly and tries to joke instead. “I don’t– I don’t know about that. You’ve never spoken French that well before then,” she manages to say. 

 

She hates to move them, but she has to move back, pressing her back against the wall and holding Lottie closer, bracketing her with her legs. Her head tips back. She’s so exhausted. Exhausted and hungry and aching. Lottie’s a comfortable weight pressed against her, grounding and real, and her breathing still doesn’t sound great, but she’s not choking on her own blood. Jackie will take the small win. She’ll take whatever she can get, so long as Lottie lives through this. 

 

She thinks about every prayer and promise she made, and, well, maybe she doesn’t believe in this bullshit, but does that matter, so long as it believes in her?

 

“It wasn’t me,” Lottie mumbles. She’s growing so tired again. She feels Jackie move and wonders if she’s going to leave her, but instead she’s simply leaning back against the wall and Lottie can settle nicely against her body. She folds her arm around Jackie’s waist, lays her head against her chest. 

 

She doesn’t say it to try and escape blame, Lottie knows it’s still her fault, all of it. She says it because it’s just the truth and she wants Jackie to understand that. Lottie doesn’t remember much from the seance, only laughing, and then fear, and then black. And then Laura Lee standing over her. Everyone staring at her.

 

“I’m not…well,” she continues quietly. She thinks Jackie should know, even if it scares her off. “They tried to fix it-- fix me …but then we got out here.” And everything Lottie had so carefully crafted, her life, the lies, the distance, it crumbled. “And now I’m…” 

 

And now she was this. 

 

It’s a horrible explanation, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? How off Lottie’s been acting since they made it out there, maybe some of her behavior from before. I’m not… well . Jackie’s first instinct, the one from back home, would be to wrinkle her nose and turn up the sympathy but distance herself before her mother caught wind of it. Bad enough she hangs around Shauna, who’s always at the house and in Jackie’s room and staring, she stares, Jacqueline. I don’t like the way she looks at you . Nevermind that Jackie’s always stared back. Bad enough that Natalie Scatorccio or that Palmer girl are both on the team, too. And now Charlotte Matthews has some sort of sickness? 

 

But Jackie’s first instinct also died, starved in a plane months after the crash, curled up around a journal that exposed all of her sins. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That you’ve been alone. That you couldn’t– I’m sorry.” She brushes her fingers over Lottie’s forehead again. “None of us are well out here. Not anymore.”

 

Lottie is confused by the apology. The sympathy. It’s a reaction she’s never gotten before. She’d been told to never tell anyone, don’t tell anyone, Lottie. They won’t understand. They’ll think you’re crazy. They’ll hate you. 

 

Why doesn’t Jackie think that, too? Lottie is so tired, but she still tries to sit herself up. Maybe she doesn’t really understand what it means, what she meant. She looks Jackie in the eyes. “I’m… sick , Jackie,” she says again, her voice wavering, faltering over her own words as her jaw quivers. There’s a red welt along her cheek bone where the outline of the metal rod is still visible, blooming into a bruise as sickly as Lottie feels. “I always have been.” And she always would be.

 

Jackie’s hand reaches out, not quite touching Lottie’s cheek. “You didn’t ask to be sick. Or choose it. Did you?” Jackie asks quietly. She didn’t think she did. She didn’t think Lottie would be that upset if she had, and Jackie’s not stupid. She does know how things work. “Do you want me to blame you for something you can’t control? Because I won’t. That’s not fair.” Lottie needed someone to help her, not blame her. Jackie didn’t know if she could help, but she certainly wasn’t going to make it any worse.

 

No. No, she hadn’t asked to be this way. Lottie had wanted so badly to not be this way. She wanted to be normal, a normal girl, a normal teenager. She wanted to play soccer and go to parties and smoke with her friends and play truth or dare or make out with someone in a closet. She wanted friends that she could laugh with and a family that was proud of her and she’d gotten none of it. She didn’t think she’d ever get any of it. 

 

Lottie feels her chest clenching again. She doesn’t understand where it comes from, this pity that’s always been inside of her. But she hates it, what she is, what she has . Who she is. She never thought anyone would really see it, see her, and still want to be close. To be something she could hold onto.

 

Her face crumples. She presses her cheek into Jackie’s hand, even if it hurts to do so. She lays her head in Jackie’s lap and grabs fistfuls of her shirt and she sobs. Quietly, because Lottie’s tears have always been quiet-- but violently, too, because Lottie’s pain has always felt violent.

 

“I’ve got you,” Jackie whispers, leaning forward over Lottie, as if she can protect her. As if she can do anything. She’s a shitty protector. She’s a shitty friend. She’s a shitty person. Honestly, Jackie thinks she’s going to fuck up at some point. But, for now, she has Lottie. She lets Lottie cry and hold her. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’ve got you.”

 

Lottie doesn’t think Jackie should stay. Not for her. She’s not worth it. She doesn’t think she’s worth it. “I’m-- I’m bad,” she says, she remembers her parents saying it. Maybe if I was one of the voices in your head, you’d actually listen to me and behave! “I hurt people,” she tells her, “I’m-- dangerous .” 

 

“No, Lottie, no,” Jackie tells her. “No, you’re not bad. You’re not.” 

 

“She is dangerous, though,” Shauna muses, offering Jackie a smile when she looks at her. “You might get hurt, Jax.”

 

Jackie frowns. “I can’t think of any time where you’ve meant to hurt people. Jesus, Lottie, you let yourself nearly get beaten to death.” Lottie was more dangerous to herself than anyone else, in Jackie’s opinion. The most she’d done to Jackie was embarrass her, hurt her feelings, and that didn’t even feel like the same Lottie. 

 

“I started this,” Lottie says, and her voice is breaking. She feels like her body is breaking. Her spirit, her mind, all following suit. She thinks of Misty, of how angry she must have been, how hurt, to do this. Lottie opens her mouth, closes it.

 

She takes a shuddering breath. “I wanted her to.” And Lottie is just so tired, but it’s not sleep she wants. “I-I wanted to.”

 

“So it’s fine if you let Misty fucking Quigley beat you with a metal rod, but when I want to take a nap in the snow, that’s not allowed?” Jackie asks, something bitter and angry lacing her words. Hurt, too. She’s hurt. How is that fair? How is it fair that Lottie can give herself that, but that she refuses to let Jackie have it?

 

Lottie is a little startled. She blinks, she tries to calm her breathing. “You--” It was different. It was. Jackie was a real person, a full person. Jackie didn’t have dangerous delusions. Jackie didn’t try and lead a bunch of feral girls to kill a boy. Jackie didn’t make them all kill a child. Jackie had friends, Jackie was loved. Lottie was none of those things.

 

“You matter,” she tells her, trying to sit up again. Her chest feels like lead. “You matter. You a-always have.” And Lottie? Lottie didn’t think she even mattered to her own mother, her own father. Why would she matter to anyone else? “People love you.” Even if they were dead, even if they were back somewhere else, even if they were downstairs, pretending to not. “I can’t…be that for anyone.”

 

“I am useless out here, Lottie,” Jackie says. “Shauna hated me, everyone turned on me. They would have let me die outside a thousand times.” She’s not even sure if she blames them. “I’ve been useless or half-dead or sick since we got out here, since I’ve even started putting in a goddamn effort, and that’s only because of you. It’s only because of you. You’ve kept me alive in spite of myself, and you didn’t think I’d return the favor? You promised you wouldn’t leave. Now I’m promising the same.”

 

Lottie grows quiet. She’s never been able to trust her mind. Even when she was medicated. Even when she was so sure it wanted what was best for them. But it’s abandoned her, now. It has left her quiet and broken and half dead. She never wanted this anyway. Why had it picked her? Why had it shown her how dangerous she was? How dangerous she could actually be? How terrible she truly was? How little she truly mattered?

 

Lottie knew she’d have stayed for the other’s, she knew that. They mattered to her no matter what. It didn’t matter if she did to them. She wasn’t going to just leave them. 

 

But Jackie gave her something greater than a reason. She gave her a purpose. “You gave me a reason,” she finally says, “to stay.” 

 

Jackie’s arms wrap around Lottie and pull her in close. “Yeah,” she says. In the corner, Shauna watches, not close but not too far. She’s not cruel. Maybe that’s the worst part about her. She can be sweet. She can even be funny. Now, she’s just quiet. She’s just watching. Her pinky is back close to Jackie’s heart, where it belongs. Jackie cuts her eyes away from Shauna, closing them, leaning in more to Lottie and holding her like she’s afraid she’ll disappear. “You gave me a reason, too.”

 

Lottie had never meant to break their promise. She really hadn’t. But she was terrified of herself, her own mind. And now a kid is dead because of her. Because of her delusions, because of her mind, because of her belief. It was still inside of her, she knew that, she felt it, but it was quiet. It had left her and she thought maybe she would like that, maybe that was what she’d wanted, but it left a hole behind. One that scared Lottie. One that let her allow a girl to nearly beat her to death. One that made her almost give up.

 

One that she thought maybe Jackie Taylor could fill.

 

Lottie wrapped her arms back around Jackie and buried her face in the crook of her neck as she cried. She wasn’t well, she’d never been well. She didn’t know if she ever would be well. 

 

But she had someone. Maybe just one someone, but she had them. “I’m sorry,” she tells her, “I want to stay. I want to stay with you.” 

 

Jackie just holds her. All she can do is hold her. There are tears on her neck, and Lottie’s skin feels so good pressed against hers, and all that Jackie wants to do is hold her. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

 

They stay like that until Misty comes up the stairs, offering up two bowls. “Please,” she says, looking at Lottie. “You need your strength.”

 

Lottie stays in Jackie’s arms, even when she hears Misty. Her head rests on Jackie’s shoulder, her body slumped in her arms. Lottie looks into the bowl and she feels her stomach churn. She knows what it is, they all do. She swallows.

 

Misty sets the bowl in Lottie’s lap. “Eat,” she says, a little harsher now.

 

Rigidly, Lottie lifts her head, takes the bowl in one hand. It shakes as she does so. With tearful eyes, she lifts some to her mouth and eats.

 

She hates that it helps. She feels a strength she hasn’t felt in weeks returning the more she eats. Javi will save us . 

 

Lottie still cries as she eats. She thinks they might all be crying.

 

It tastes so good and so awful that Jackie thinks it’s killing her with each bite, but she also can’t stop. She’s so hungry. She’s spent her entire life making herself hungry, and now she wants to eat, and the only thing that they have is the body of a little boy. 

 

Each bite is choked back with a sob. Every time she starts to feel sick, Jackie wills it away, forces it down. She cannot puke. She cannot waste this. All the same, if they ever make it out of this place, she’s never touching meat again. Cheesesteaks be damned. 

 

Jackie finishes when Lottie does, setting the bowl down on the floor beside them. She stares up at the ceiling and blinks tears out of her eyes, but they trickle down her cheeks all the same. He was a little boy. He carved figurines and did silly dances and watched them all with his puppy eyes, and now he was dead. They’d eaten him.

 

Lottie reaches up with her shaky hands, bruised and red, and uses a finger to wipe away some of Jackie’s tears. They match the ones on her own face. Misty takes their empty bowls and leaves them alone again. 

 

Lottie tugs on Jackie to get her to lay down with her finally. All Lottie had wanted to do when she was ready to let go was hold Jackie. Now that she has accepted to hang on, she still wants to hold her.

 

Her body aches and sags, deflating as she finally lays down, arms searching for the body that has slept beside her almost every night now since the first snowfall. She still cries, tears rolling down her cheek, over her nose, onto the blanket. 

 

Javi has saved them, but she doesn’t know if they deserved it.

 

Jackie thinks that she and Lottie might be broken shards of different pieces of glass that managed to fit together as she settles herself into Lottie’s arms, unable to remember a time where she’d felt so much comfort in her entire life. It exists outside of this place, outside of the cold and the snow and the cabin. It exists behind closed doors and in the middle of the night, away from prying eyes. It only exists in her memories.

 

Here, Jackie allows herself to be held openly, freely. Even if they weren’t in the privacy of the attic, she’d allow it. She has allowed it, every night since her world ended. She moves so that Lottie’s head is resting against her chest this time. They hold each other, and Jackie realizes that it’s snowing again outside. At the moment, she can’t feel the cold, only warmth.

 

Lottie thinks that maybe she should go downstairs at some point. She thinks it would be good for the others to know that she was going to be okay, that she wasn’t going to die. But right now, she just wants this. She wants to be selfish and let Jackie hold her and listen to her heartbeat with her head on Jackie’s chest and she wants to close her eyes and let it lull her to sleep. 

 

She thinks that maybe that’s okay for tonight. They will all be here tomorrow, now. Because a little boy drowned under the ice and saved them. 

 

Just like how Shauna had saved them, too.

 

Lottie worries that this may be the only way to save them, now. Consuming each other, carrying each one with them for the rest of their lives. An act of sacrifice, an act of love. Lottie loves them all. She wants to protect them all, save them all.

 

But she knows, now, it was never meant to be her.

 

She closes her eyes and listens to Jackie's heart and her breathing and she falls asleep knowing, for the first time in a while, that she’ll wake up tomorrow.

 

Jackie stays awake as long as she can, listening to the sounds of Lottie’s breathing. She lets it keep her company, lets it soothe her. Lottie is going to be okay. She’s going to make it through this. They all were, whatever that meant. They just needed to make it to spring. Now, it seems like they have a better chance. 

 

She doesn’t make it very long. Eventually, she gives out, her head pressing against Lottie’s, her eyes fluttering shut. She dreams. She’s sixteen. She’s playing soccer. She scores a winning goal. She’s happy. It’s normal. 

Notes:

:')

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Chapter 9: lend me your ear

Summary:

Friends, Romans, countrymen-- lend me your ears. Or just Jackie's. Misty is having a good time being the life of the party and Jackie and Lottie hit the snooze alarm until they can't anymore. They all enjoy brunch together and Jackie tries her best to be supportive while learning how to play doctor, too. Psyche! Maybe if they all just sleep a little bit more, things will be better in the morning.

Notes:

Woohoo! Chapter 9 is here babes! This is a bit more of a yappy chapter, but don't worry, there's something very good and fun in store for next chapter, the end of an era! After all the shit that's happened in the past few chapters, we hope you appreciate this small break. <3

Title is just a fun lil pun :)

Lottie wakes to the stillness of the attic. For once, she hasn’t dreamed of anything, hasn't seen anything she wasn't supposed to behind her eyes; doesn’t hallucinate someone else in the attic with her. 

 

Instead, she’s here, on the floor, still wrapped up in Jackie, her head on her chest. Jackie’s breathing is a steady rhythm that fills Lottie’s head, it calms her. It lets her know that this is real. This is all real. 

 

She doesn’t move at first. She wants to stay here. She knows she needs to go downstairs, though. She needs to let them all know that she's okay, that their sacrifice wasn't for nothing.

 

But she stays laying with Jackie. 

 

She shifts just enough to see Jackie’s face, the way her hair is a mess around her, bangs askew. The way her lips are barely parted as soft breath passes through them. Lottie thinks of that night that seems so long ago. She still remembers how sweet Jackie’s lips were, how gentle. She thinks it’s a bad idea to think about that, though, so she puts her head back on Jackie’s shoulder and lets out a sigh as she feels the ache returning to her body, now that her mind was fully aware.

 

It’s the light coming in through the window that wakes Jackie. It’s still that pale, cloud-covered blankness, but it’s bright enough that she groans, a small coughing fit rattling her body as she curls away from Lottie for only a moment before facing her again, pressing back into her. “Five more minutes,” she mutters, pulling the blankets back up.

 

Lottie can’t help but laugh, and then groan because she has broken ribs and it fucking hurts to breathe, let alone laugh. Still, she’s smiling and it doesn’t feel real, she doesn’t feel like she should smile, but she does and it’s nice. “You’re sick,” Lottie says back, “you can stay in bed as long as you want.” And, well, maybe it wouldn’t be too much to have the day to themselves to recover. Both of them.

 

She thinks that sounds nice, actually. 

 

Lottie’s body still aches and she still feels a pit of sorrow in her stomach for the boy who has saved them, but she can’t help but feel hopeful when there’s someone who knows her truth and is still there, wrapped up tightly in her arms. 

 

It feels like what Laura Lee wanted for her.

 

“Sounds like a dream,” Jackie sighs, sinking back into Lottie’s arms. And they’ve somehow managed to wake up before Misty Quigley, which means that they really might get five uninterrupted minutes to lay back down. Jackie is sick, and Lottie is injured, so it really is possible that they might get to stay in.

 

In truth, Jackie can’t see the rest of the girls doing much of anything today, either. The hunt, the aftermath, it had taken something out of all of them. It still sounds quiet downstairs, like no one wants to disturb whatever silence has descended on them. Jackie hopes they’re okay. She also doesn’t want to go down there and find out that they’re somehow not . 

 

“It’s real,” Lottie says and it’s maybe a little to keep convincing herself that it is. It is. It has to be. She wants it to be. She needs it to be. It’s not a dream. The silence in her head is real. Jackie laying in her arms is real. The somber silence that is choking the cabin is real. They are all real.

 

Jackie leans up, then, looking Lottie in the eyes. “It’s real,” she says, her voice soft and serious. And she knows, now, how important it is for Lottie to know that. If she can’t trust her own mind, then Jackie will try to help her, wherever she can. Even if her own imagines dead best friends lurking in corners, writing in journals, whispering in her ear. “I told you, before, that I’d tell you the truth. It’s real.”

 

Lottie nods. She believes her, she can trust Jackie. So much more than her own mind. She knows it’s not her mind tricking her. She thinks maybe this can be a good thing that she can let herself have, something she can let herself not feel guilty over. Someone she can let in close. She’s never done that before. Lottie bites her lip.

 

She can’t look Jackie in the eye as she says, “I was six. When they first…took me to a doctor.” She remembers their hushed voices while she sat on the stairs. Lottie is sick and we’re taking her to a psychiatrist . “I didn’t understand.”

 

She’d watched their faces, her parents, as they talked to the psychiatrist, as they explained what was going on with their daughter. They’d both looked so strange to Lottie. Her dad looked angry, her mom looked haunted. She’d only been six. She’d been afraid because she didn’t understand. 

 

“They told me I was sick.” Gave her pills that made her feel as if the world around her were being pushed through thick molasses. She’d kept falling asleep in class, getting sent to the principal’s office, yelled at by teachers, by her dad. 

 

“I think I’ve always been this way.”

 

Jackie feels her mouth turn downwards into a deep frown. “You were six?” she asks quietly. That’s so young. That’s just a baby. They told a six year old that she was sick? What about children just imagining things, like friends or castles or monsters under the bed? What is it about a six year old that makes you think she’s sick to the point of needing to be fixed ? “I don’t see you any different, Lott. You’re still you. This doesn’t change anything.” It might have, back there, but nothing’s the same here. The same stuff doesn’t matter. Lottie being sick doesn’t change that she’s Lottie, and she’s apparently been suffering out here alone the entire time. The last thing Lottie needs is for Jackie to pull away. Truthfully, that’s the last thing Jackie needs, too.

 

Lottie simply nods. She remembers being in the back of the car, playing with her pony. She remembers the dread that had begun to build inside of her. She remembers the scream that had torn through her, her parents yelling back at her. The final straw. Christ, Lottie, stop it!  

 

“I think I’m…a different person,” she admits softly, shamefully, “when I’m…” when she’s medicated. She can barely remember who that girl is now. Whoever she was, she died a long time ago. She disappeared with the first missed dose. “I just want you to-- you should know what-- what you’re getting into.” What dealing with Lottie really means.

 

Looking at Lottie, all Jackie does is shake her head and hold Lottie closer. “I think you’re wrong. You’re Lottie, and you’re my friend, and that hasn’t changed. That doesn’t just change. I’ve watched you body a girl on the pitch who was somehow taller than you, and I’ve seen you pray to the wind, and I’ve watched you care so goddamn much about the people around you that you break into pieces. You’re the same person you’ve always been.” She presses her lips to the side of Lottie’s head. “That’s what I’m getting into.”

 

Lottie doesn’t think that’s quite true. She feels so different. So unlike herself and yet so much like herself, her true self. The self that this place was forging her into. “I’m not easy,” she tries to say. None of this is easy, Lottie. You…your sickness . “To deal with.” It can get really fucking hard sometimes, actually. Especially out here. She’d been trying so hard to keep herself together, but she lost more of herself every day they asked for it. She gave it to them willingly.

 

“Are you trying to scare me away at the asscrack of dawn, Matthews?” Jackie asks, pressing her face into Lottie’s hair. “Try again in a few hours.” Jackie knows that Lottie’s being serious. She does. Which is why she adds, “I don’t care if you’re not easy. I’m not going anywhere. It’s too late.” It’s far too late for that. Jackie can’t function out there without Lottie, not anymore. She needs her like water or air or food. Lottie’s made herself essential for Jackie’s survival.

 

Lottie shakes her head. “No, I--” She feels warm when Jackie presses in. “I just…I wanted you to know.” She simply just wanted Jackie to know, to know all of her. Not just the parts that Lottie carefully crafted and let people see. She thinks that maybe she likes being seen by someone again. “You’re the first person I’ve told.” She thought maybe Laura Lee counted, but she’d never told her like this, about this. About the way Lottie’s mind sometimes took her hostage and turned her into someone or something else.

 

Jackie feels like something in her chest twitches and aches for Lottie Matthews. “Thank you for telling me,” she murmurs. She likes that Lottie trusted her enough to tell her, likes that Lottie actually uses her words, when she can. She answers Jackie’s questions. She’s gotten better about not just saying that she’s fine and forcing Jackie to decipher that. So, when Jackie asks, “How can I help you? How do I know when you need help?” she thinks that Lottie will actually give her a straight answer, rather than leave her floundering.

 

Lottie doesn’t think Jackie should thank her for that, it was only fair. That way, when things really did get hard, it wasn’t out of nowhere. And still, Lottie wouldn’t blame her if she did decide to walk away then, once she’s seen how bad it can really get. “Things get--” she furrows her brow, trying to think of the right word-- “cloudy. My mom said I would get this-- this look.” She thinks Jackie might know the one. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes a moment. “What do you hear?” she murmurs. “What do you feel? Smell? See? Taste?” She opens her eyes again. “My shrink said to think of these things. To try and…ground myself in reality.” It was always hard, though. How could she trust her senses when those were the things turning on her? She sets her hand on Jackie’s chest, over her heart. “And the breathing.” The breathing exercises she’d done for both Travis and Jackie. “In for three,” she draws in a breath, “out for five,” and lets it go.

 

“Grounding, okay,” Jackie says, letting her eyes close as she breathes in time with Lottie’s count. Again and again. Jackie used to do grounding so well. She used to do captain so well. She was commanding, attention grabbing. She can try to do grounding again. She’s gotten so close out here before, gotten so close back to that place where she says something and people listen and believe her. It seems so far away now. She doesn’t even know if she wants it. What’s the point of it? She can’t lead them through this, not anymore. She can’t lead them out of the fucking wilderness. “How else can I help you?”

 

Lottie didn’t really know. All the methods her shrink had taught her were to help herself. She’d never asked about how other people could help her. She shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says honestly. “I like that-- you answer me, when I ask if it’s real.” It feels nice to know, to hear. She thinks she can trust Jackie a lot more than herself, than her own mind. 

 

“I can do that,” Jackie says, offering Lottie a smile. “Easy-peasy.” It doesn’t seem like enough. Jackie wants to help Lottie. She’s not a doctor, though, and she can’t give Lottie medication, and she can’t help her trust her mind. But she wants to try. She’ll do anything to keep Lottie, now that she has her, and they both promised.

 

Lottie snorts then groans again. Her ribs hurt a lot. What she wouldn’t give for some fucking ibuprofen. “You’re so cheesy,” she mumbles, staying tucked against Jackie’s side. The other girl is so much smaller than her, but she feels like she fits. Lottie has never felt like she’s fit with anyone like that before. There were close matches, she supposes, like Natalie, with her jagged edges and carefree personality, or Van, with her charm and humor. 

 

But never quite like this.

 

“I wish I could give you more,” Lottie speaks up after a moment, “I never asked about it, though.” About how other people could help her. Not even her parents had asked. “How someone else can help.”

 

“You can say I’m funny and that you think I’m cool,” Jackie teases. “It’s fine, I promise. I won’t tell anyone.” She sobers, though. “I don’t care. I can maybe figure it out from there.” She just wants to be able to help Lottie if she needs to. She wonders if she’ll need to. “How… are you feeling physically? You sound better, when you’re not making that dying noise, but I think that’s just a laugh, right?”

 

“I think you’re much more than just cool,” Lottie admits. She thinks that maybe up here in the attic she can say things she wouldn’t normally, and that the space will keep their secrets.

 

“Tired,” she answers, “bruised.” She’s more concerned that Jackie is still sick, though. Lottie knows she will heal. She leans up as much as she can to look down at Jackie, her swollen eye making it hard for her to concentrate on much else anyway. “How are you feeling?”

 

“I’m past the point of being bought by flattery,” Jackie teases, though her cheeks feel hot, and she glances up at the ceiling, smiling, before she looks back at Lottie. “You’re more than just bruised, Lottie. She broke fucking bones.” Misty hurt Lottie, ravaged her, ripped her apart on the inside. And of course Lottie would try to turn that focus away from herself. Jackie turns her head to the right, protecting the side of her head that doesn’t feel right . “I’m getting better,” she starts. “I think I’ve just made it worse going outside a few times. The lack of food or whatever probably isn’t that great, either.”

 

“Not flattery,” Lottie says, “just the truth.” She has a few ways that she would describe Jackie, but she doesn’t say them. She’s quiet.

 

She knows how badly Misty hurt her, she does. She thinks she’d let her do it again if she had to. She doesn’t tell Jackie that. 

 

Lottie reaches up to press the neeck of her hand to Jackie’s forehead, like she always does. She’s not as hot anymore, always a good sign. And her breathing was steady. “Probably not,” she agrees. 

 

Still, it’s hard to feel happy that someone died for it, and it’s even harder to be happy, knowing they’re all alive because of it.

 

Jackie leans into the touch. “See? I’m better. I’m more worried about you.” She should get some water and a cloth and clean some of Lottie’s wounds again, check on how they looked. Her face was still swollen, though it wasn’t as bad. It didn’t look like breathing hurt quite as much. It was only small things, but the food was helping. Hopefully, it was helping all of them, even if something unforgivable had occurred inside them for eating a kid. 

 

“I--” Lottie starts, but immediately stops. It’s such second hand nature, even still with Jackie, to brush off people’s concerns for her. She even almost wanted to tell her to not worry about her. “Am healing.” It’s the only thing that’s really true right now. It all still hurts so much, even as she lays here on Jackie. “I’d kill for some Advil.”

 

“I think I’d do anything to get some for you,” Jackie murmurs, swallowing. She’d wanted painkillers for Lottie when she’d had to get some of her toes cut off. That had been painful, Jackie’s sure that was painful, but this is being beaten within an inch of her life. Jackie didn’t really know how she was awake now. 

 

“How sweet,” Lottie mumbles, and she's getting tired again already but she doesn't want to sleep. She likes being awake for this, to hold Jackie, to rest her head on her chest, feel the rise and fall of her breath. “You-- you won't tell anyone, right?” She asks after a long moment, and she can't help the fear that leaks into her voice. “About me?”

 

Jackie thinks about how she’d spilled Shauna’s secret in front of the entire group when Laura Lee decided to get in the plane. Part of it had been vindictive; outing Shauna in front of all of them felt good, and she knew it pissed Shauna off to have Misty’s undivided attention on her. But she’d also done it because Shauna needed help. Desperately. If it came down to getting Lottie help or keeping her secret, would Jackie tell anyone? She’s not sure. Still. “I won’t. I promise. That’s your secret.”

 

Lottie feels relieved, and she feels a little guilty about feeling relieved. But she doesn't want them all to know, it scares her, the thought of them turning on her. Of the anger or resent they might have, knowing that she was sick. That she was wrong.

 

“Thank you.” But it's nice to have one person who knows, one person who stays, one person who cares. Someone who knows her dirty secret but still wants to stay regardless. 

 

It was terrifying to be known. To be seen. 

 

Lottie turns her head just enough to press a gentle kiss to Jackie's shoulder. “Thank you,” she says again.

 

Jackie doesn’t think this is something Lottie should thank her for. Keeping a friend's secret honestly just feels like the bare minimum, one that even she should be able to handle, even if she sort of fucked it up last time. This time, though, Jackie offers up a trade, something that Lottie could use in defense if she needed it. “I keep Shauna’s pinky bones in my pocket,” she mumbles. “It broke off, and I didn’t know what to do with it, so it’s just kind of been there, and now she’s fucking haunting me, I think, but it’s totally not her because she’s too nice sometimes and hasn’t once mentioned me killing her, so there’s that, too, and I wasn’t kidding about none of us really being well out here, Lott, because I know I’m not fucking well.”

 

Lottie listens and wonders why Jackie tells her all of this. She's grateful, she thinks, that Jackie seems to trust her, too, but all of those things-- Lottie had already known them, hadn't she? She'd felt the lump in Jackie's pocket but hadn't looked. She'd seen the missing finger but hadn't mentioned it. She'd watch the shadow loom over Jackie, and sometimes she would see Shauna's face, too. “I think you're just trying to cope,” she says, “the best way you know how out here.” 

 

She pauses, then adds, “I think it's sweet, that you keep a part of her.” Lottie sometimes wishes she had a part of Laura Lee to hold with her, not just clothes that still smelled like her, or the Bible that Lottie still sometimes read in her voice.

 

“It’s kind of gross, actually,” Jackie sighs, but she settles against Lottie even more, something making her sag into the other girl even as Jackie is the one to hold her. She feels too peaceful, like this moment is just a dream. But she’s already told Lottie that it’s real. Jackie doesn’t think she can handle the idea of it not being real. She needs this too much. The thought of it somehow being gone is too much to bear. Her hand moves to her pocket, feeling the little bones there. “I’ve thought about putting them on a necklace or something,” she mumbles. “I… gave Nat the other one. I’m sorry. It just felt like she needed it yesterday.”

 

Lottie doesn't say anything about that, she thinks she's said enough weird shit for today. She doesn't think Jackie would want to hear about how decay and life go hand in hand. “There's some jewelry in the suitcases, I think,” she says. She lifts a hand and it trembles from the effort and the pain, but she manages to let her fingers trace the dip between Jackie's collarbones. “It's okay. It saved her.” Lottie truly believes that. And, well, It . But she doesn't think Jackie wants to hear about that, either.

 

“Did it?” Jackie murmurs, though her eyes slip shut at the feeling of Lottie’s fingers on her skin. Maybe she likes that too much. “Or did she… Did she get lucky?” Jackie looks at Lottie, her eyes soft but worried. She thinks that Javi falling through the ice was a horrible, lucky accident. Otherwise, they would have kept hunting Nat. Otherwise, they would have had to eat their friend. Eating Shauna was horrible. That’s not something that Jackie can ever do again. She can only stomach eating Javi if she tries desperately not to think about his face. But Nat… they need Nat out here. They need her. 

 

Lottie doesn't answer, she thinks they both probably know what she'll say. She meets Jackie's gaze, though. She swallows and tries not to look at Jackie's lips. She sets her hand over Jackie's heart again. She's searching for the right words to say when she hears footsteps heading up the ladder. 

 

It's Misty, with two bowls of food. Two bowls of pieces of a young boy. They're already using it sparingly. No one wants to do that again so soon. 

 

“Oh, good,” Misty says, coming over and sitting by Lottie, “you're awake already. Here--” she sets both bowls down-- “breakfast.”

 

Jackie feels words on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t even know what she’s about to say as Misty comes into the attic and Jackie turns her head to watch her. She looks at the food, hates that her mouth waters, that she wants it. She helps Lottie sit up a little more, giving her one of the bowls before she takes her own, eyeing Misty warily before she starts picking at the food.

 

“Thank you, Misty,” Lottie says for both of them, only grunting a little with pain as Jackie helps her sit up straight. 

 

“How are you feeling today? Any changes?” Misty asks, shifting into her work mode. 

 

Lottie shakes her head. 

 

“Well, at least you're improving.” 

 

Lottie nods. Misty looks between the two of them before she finally gets the hint. “I guess I'll just-- come back later, then.” She's up and moving back towards the trapdoor and Lottie deflates a little. Her ribs hurt to sit up like this but she doesn't think she wants to risk choking on the food by laying down. 

 

When Misty is gone, Lottie shifts herself closer to Jackie. She's never been a very touchy person, but ever since she'd started following Jackie everywhere, she finds that she actually really likes the feeling of someone else, even if it's just legs brushing against each other or arms draped in laps. 

 

She takes a small bite and pretends it's just more bear meat. That doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

 

“You have to let her look you over again later,” Jackie murmurs, trying to chew and swallow without tasting. The fear that Misty might lash out again if she doesn’t get her way lingers constantly in the back of her mind. It’s why Jackie can’t bear the thought of leaving Lottie alone with her. “I won’t let her hurt you again.” Because Jackie is the most threatening one of them all these days, with her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks and sweaty forehead.

 

“Jackie…” Lottie sighs, but she doesn't see a point in arguing, really. “I'm not worried.” She doesn't think Misty will hurt her again, not anytime soon at least. She reaches out and takes Jackie's free hand and simply holds it, letting their intertwined fingers rest between them as they eat. 

 

“I am,” Jackie says quietly. She is. She’s worried about Lottie, even though she’s doing well, and she’s worried about the rest of the girls and the violence that’s in all of them, and she’s worried that it’s going to come out again and that Lottie’s going to put herself in the middle of it again . Because that seems to be what she does out here. She doesn’t say anything else as they eat, though, just gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze and tries to force down piece after piece until the bowl is clean.

 

Lottie finishes just a little after Jackie and she moves to set their bowls aside. She knows it's fair for Jackie to be worried, they all probably are, but Lottie doesn't think they need to be. She would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant saving any one of them, but now she's also got a promise to keep. And she does plan on keeping it.

 

Lottie lays back down and tugs on Jackie to do the same. She wonders if she'd even be able to sleep without Jackie anymore. It's such a stark difference to how empty her bed back in Wiskayok had felt, stretching on for eons alone. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to go back to that. 

 

Jackie lets Lottie lay her back down, and she gives her a soft smile. Five more minutes really did seem to be stretching into all day, and she can’t bring herself to be too upset about that . She’s still so tired. Jackie thinks that, if she has just a little bit more time to rest, then she’ll be okay. Whatever’s still wrong and cold inside of her will heal, she’ll stop feeling sick, her fever will go away for good. She just needs a little more sleep, preferably in Lottie’s arms. Jackie’s always slept better with another body pressed against her own. Shauna’s had been her favorite, before, but she’d stopped caring who. She’d even taken Jeff a few times when he’d snuck in through her bedroom window, though she knew he wanted more than just sleep. 

 

But with Lottie, it seems like she wants this, needs it, just as much as Jackie does, and she wraps her arms around Lottie gently, grasping at the faux fur of her jacket like she needs to keep her close.

 

Lottie nuzzles into Jackie's hair and lets out a long breath. Her body still feels so heavy and aching, but she feels even more so comforted as Jackie wraps her arms around Lottie. She's never needed someone this way, never let herself get close enough for it. But now here she was, with Jackie of all people. Sure, they'd been friends back before all of this, but Jackie had always had Shauna there. Hadn't needed anyone else.

 

Lottie wonders if she'd still be in her arms right now if Shauna was still alive. She thinks she knows the answer and she can't help but feel a little sad about it.

 

Jackie likes having someone who doesn’t push her away the second they argue, someone that she doesn’t push away the second that they argue. Then again, she and Lottie haven’t argued out here. There hasn’t been much time or space for it, not when Jackie didn’t have much strength to argue with anything for so long after Shauna’s death. Not when they’ve been too concerned about surviving. Not when Lottie’s presence was the only thing that felt grounding. The thought of arguing with Lottie doesn’t even seem real in the moment, the two of them pressed together, tangled up, each keeping the other from moving too far. Jackie can’t really complain about it, though. Not when this is really all she’s ever wanted.

 

Lottie wants to talk, she thinks. She wants to hear Jackie’s voice and feel it vibrate in her chest, but Lottie has never been good at talking, not really. Not after she realized sometimes she wasn't talking to anyone or anything. She didn't want people to think she was crazy. 

 

She doesn't believe Jackie thinks she's crazy, even if, objectively, Lottie kind of is. Still. She wants to say something. “You're very comfortable,” she blurts through a mumble. Oh that was probably not the best thing to say, but it wasn't like she could take it back now. Stupid brain.

 

“Just what every gal wants to hear,” Jackie teases, laughing quietly. She didn’t know if Lottie was lying or just too out of it to properly notice the difference, but Jackie certainly didn’t think she was particularly comfortable. She tended to hog blankets and beds, and, when she was younger, she’d apparently moved a lot in her sleep during strange nights with strange dreams. They didn’t happen too much out here; she was too focused on not dying, at first, and then dying, and then not dying again. But if Lottie doesn’t mind… Jackie brushes her fingers through Lottie’s hair. “You’ve got a way with words, Lott.”

 

Lottie can feel what she assumes is a blush in her cheeks, her face growing hot. That was a little embarrassing, even if Jackie seemed to be taking it in stride. She's not usually like this around people, Lottie cultivates her words very carefully. “I try,” she murmurs back, her eyes beginning to droop when she feels fingers combing through her tangled hair. She thinks maybe she should take better care of it, better care of herself-- she hasn't really been doing that for a long time now. She thinks about how much Laura Lee had also loved combing fingers through her hair, pulling back the thick strands and braiding them, making something tame out of something wild. She misses her all the time. She thinks Laura Lee would appreciate Jackie taking care of Lottie in the same way, and Lottie tightens her grip around Jackie. She doesn't want to lose her, she doesn't think she can go through that pain again.

 

It’s not the first time Jackie’s thought that Lottie is cute, but it’s the first time that she doesn’t immediately force the thought away as soon as it happens. Because Jackie thinks all of her teammates are hot; she’s not fucking blind, right? And she’s seen them in locker rooms, and they’ve all been sharing a goddamn cabin for months. She knows they’re hot. She doesn’t allow herself to linger on that thought, though. It was wrong. It wasn’t allowed. 

 

It’s true, though. Lottie’s cute, even with a busted up face and body, even starving, even when they’re all miserable. It kind of hurts a little. Jackie lets her fingers scrape against Lottie’s scalp, hoping to soothe her. “You succeed,” she murmurs. “Rest, Lottie, okay? Just for a little bit. We’re not going anywhere.”

 

How can Lottie refuse that, really? The soft urging to rest, to sleep. The gentle feeling of nails against her skin. It didn’t matter if she wanted to stay awake, it would be impossible, she thinks, as her eyes close, and she thinks she might have said something back to Jackie, but it might have also just been a soft hum in her throat. Either way, her aching body and Jackie’s soothing touch are enough to pull her back into a mellow slumber, her hand still resting on Jackie’s chest, the steady drum of a heartbeat under her fingertips reminding her that this was real. Somehow, this was real.

 

Jackie lets them lay there, drifting in and out of sleep herself. It feels wrong to be this content out here, but she can’t help it, not when she feels so warm. Her eyes drift to the corner where Shauna writes in her journal, not paying attention to them. It’s almost a relief, and Jackie sighs, moving one hand to hold the one at her chest, letting Lottie feel her heartbeat. 

 

After a while, Misty comes back up. Jackie holds onto Lottie a little tighter, but she’s trying not to show just how uncomfortable Misty makes her. She needs Misty to keep taking care of Lottie. She needs Misty to make her well. “She’s resting, Misty,” Jackie whispers.

 

“She needs to drink,” Misty says. “You–- you both do. And maybe it’ll be good, you know, if the others see that she’s doing better.”

 

“Soon,” Jackie says, hesitating. “I–- Misty, I haven’t… I’m still kind of sick.”

 

“There’s no medicine out here, Jackie.”

 

Jackie fights off rolling her eyes. “I know. I just–- One of my ears feels weird. It has since I got back, and I’m– Can you look at it? Please? I’m a little worried.”

 

Misty looks at her for a second, and Jackie actually thinks she might say no, but she’s also a little smug, and Jackie thinks she hates turning down the opportunity to be needed. “You’ll need to get up.”

 

That… seems a bit harder. Jackie doesn’t want to let go of Lottie, nor does she really want Lottie to let go of her. Still, it’s best to just get it over with. She squeezes Lottie’s hand. “Hey,” she says softly. “I need to get up for a second.”

 

Lottie’s eyes close and then the next moment, she’s being gently awoken by Jackie. She blinks, shifts, sees Misty sitting nearby. “Is-- everything okay?” she asks blearily. She still feels like she’s half-asleep, sitting in that thick, syrup like state between waking and not. She doesn’t know how much time has passed, isn’t even sure she’s registered that it has, despite the sunlight that had previously been streaming through the window now shadowed.

 

“It’s okay. I just need to talk to Misty for a second,” Jackie says, offering Lottie a smile and moving so that Lottie can still lay down comfortably. “I won’t be long. You probably need to drink something, though.”

 

Jackie sits in front of Misty near the window, a lantern to help with the light nearby. 

 

Misty is clinical. “You still have a touch of fever,” she starts, touching Jackie’s face. Her hand touches Jackie’s chest. “Breathe. Deep breaths… I don’t think there’s any fluid in your lungs. You’re lucky you didn’t get pneumonia.” She doesn’t need to sound so disappointed. “All of your fingers and toes working?” 

 

Jackie flips her off, making Misty roll her eyes, though she also looks hurt. Jackie sighs. “Sorry. Yes, they’re all working.”

 

“Good.” Misty tilts Jackie’s head to the side and examines her left ear, then her right. She stops. “Hm.” 

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

 

Misty’s hand goes up, but Jackie doesn’t feel any pressure or touch. “Nothing. Your ear’s probably just going to fall off.”

 

Jackie reels back. “ What ?”

 

“Well, the skin’s damaged, and it’s turning black, which is gangrene. It’s basically dead, and it’ll just fall off, eventually, though it might take a bit of time.” Misty shrugs. “It probably could have been saved, but somebody likely put heat to it without properly making sure there was blood circulation. The only thing to do at this point is wait for it to fall off or cut it off.”

 

There’s no way those were real words. Jackie didn’t think that any of that was particularly real at all.

 

Lottie’s head is aching and even though she can’t hear exactly what they’re saying, she can hear the distress in Jackie’s voice that’s sudden and stark. She’s sitting up, then, despite the pain that shoots through her chest as she does so. “What’s wrong?” she asks, the worry evident in her own voice. She moves, tries to get up, but makes a strangled noise of pain instead.

 

Misty is crossing the room without another thought to Jackie and pushing on Lottie’s shoulders. “Don’t try and get up, you’ll just hurt yourself more,” she chastises, “she’ll be fine. It’s just an ear.” 

 

Lottie blinks up at Misty, then looks over to Jackie. “A-- what?” She hasn’t quite put it together yet, her mind still sluggish through the pain and exhaustion. “What do you mean?”

 

“Jackie’s ear,” Misty clarifies, “most of the skin died, so it’ll probably fall off soon. It wasn’t properly warmed and most of the nerve cells died.”

 

Lottie feels her heart stutter. She grips Misty’s arm tightly. This was her fault. She’d been the one who tried to warm Jackie up. She hadn’t known what else to do. She’d just wanted to help her and now she was going to lose a piece of her, too. 

 

She tries to move to get up again but Misty is firm and Lottie feels something inside of her throat swell. It’s a fear she’s only ever felt a few times before. The last time she remembers feeling this way, a doctor had been standing over her, telling her to not struggle too much, it’ll just make it hurt more, as they put a clamp in her mouth and stuck a tube down her throat.

 

Lottie recoils from Misty, who looks hurt somehow. She reaches for the cup she brought with her. “Drink,” she tells her, putting the cup in Lottie’s hand, “you need to keep your strength up.”

 

Jackie moves to sit next to Lottie, attempting to calm her down. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, though she hasn’t quite processed what Misty’s said. “It’s just an ear.”

 

Her mother would be so fucking upset. Where does a missing ear fit into Jackie’s perfect image? It doesn’t. Maybe that’s not horrible. Jackie hasn’t felt perfect in a long time. She hasn’t felt perfect ever.

 

“Drink, Lottie. It’ll be okay.” Jackie gives Misty a wary look. “Should I… come down stairs?” Was it going to take that long? Jackie moves to Lottie’s hand, encouraging her to bring it to her lips to drink.

 

Lottie is parched but she doesn’t want to drink right now. “I’m coming, too,” she states, as if there’s no room for argument, but of course there is, and Lottie sees it in the way Misty turns her head sharply to look at her.

 

But Jackie hadn’t let Lottie go through the process alone when Misty had removed her dead toes, she wasn’t about to let Jackie do it alone, either. She looks to Jackie, desperate. She doesn’t think any of this is fair.

 

“Drink, Lottie,” Jackie repeats, pushing the cup up closer to Lottie’s mouth. She knows that Lottie wants to be there for her, but she’s still so hurt, and Jackie doesn’t want to risk moving her or putting her under any more stress than she’s already under. And that probably included having to watch Jackie get her fucking ear cut off. “I won’t be long, okay? It’s… just an ear.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “It’s not,” she argues, and it feels familiar. It’s not just anything. It’s not just a few toes, it’s not just an ear, it’s not just a cold. It was never just anything. 

 

Misty doesn’t look like she wants to deal with this. “I guess I can bring the stuff up here,” she relents. Her need for Lottie to be better seems to outweigh her want to not cater to Jackie. “I’ll go get Akilah, too.” 

 

Lottie knows she needs to go down there at some point, Misty had said it earlier, it would be good for them to all know, to see her doing better, but she doesn’t want to face them all yet. To face the people she’s failing, has failed. The girls who killed a boy to save her.

 

Jackie sighs, watching Misty disappear down the stairs to go get whatever the fuck she needs to chop of a fucking ear. “Okay,” she says. “Now, drink, please?” She sits to Lottie’s right and brings a hand up to her ear. She can’t feel the touch at all. Her fingers recognize that she’s touching something, but she can’t compute that it’s something that’s attached to her. Not for long, apparently, but it’s still supposed to be. She can’t see it; maybe that’s a good thing.

 

Lottie sighs as Misty leaves, but she takes a sip of water, feeling it on her burning throat. It hurts to swallow still, but it hurts to just breathe too deeply, so it’s nothing really new. She watches Jackie and can’t help the guilt she feels, not just because she knows the pain Jackie is going to experience, but because this is her fault. Again. Everything lately seems to boil down to Lottie. She’s never been a good leader.

 

“I’m sorry.” She reaches out a hand and lays it on Jackie’s leg, thumb brushing in gentle circles. “We should have-- I should have made Misty look at you earlier.”

 

“I don’t think she likes me very much these days,” Jackie says drily, taking Lottie’s hand and lacing their fingers together without really thinking about it. It stings a little bit, she can’t lie. Jackie tried so hard to be nice to Misty, for the most part. All it ever really seemed was like she needed a friend, someone to comfort her and validate her. Jackie wasn’t a great friend, but she tried to offer Misty advice. She complimented her. And then Misty turned on her, and she just kept doing it. “It’s not your fault, Lottie. I’m… lucky it’s not something worse.”

 

“She’s just-- she lost her friend,” Lottie replies, but she doesn’t think that’s all there is to it. Misty has been upset with Jackie since before they even forced fed her just to get Lottie to eat. It all came back to Lottie, didn’t it? She sets the cup of water down. Lottie knows she holds onto her guilt too much, she’s held onto every ounce of it she’d ever collected over the years. Every breakdown in public that embarrassed her parents, every missed pass on the field, every girl who looked at her hopefully, waiting for her to feed them, only for her to, in the end, abandon them like this.

 

Her heart aches as much as her body. “I still should have…” Done something, said something. Done better . Lottie’s so shit at this. Maybe even worse at actually being a good friend. “It shouldn’t be anything at all.”

 

“I know,” Jackie says. “I don’t blame her or anything.” She could even relate. But Jackie doesn’t think she inspires the same fear in Misty that Misty inspires in her. Not since she shoved food down Jackie’s throat and made her eat out of her hand. Jackie scoots a little closer to Lottie, brushing some of her hair out of her face. “You can’t control the weather, Lottie. You couldn’t control me getting stuck out there for that long. Some things are out of your hands.”

 

“I saw it, Jackie,” Lottie says quickly, sitting up a little more as Jackie scoots closer, “I knew-- I know you don’t believe…in It , but I saw it. I dreamt it. I knew and I still let you go.” She tries to take in a steadying breath, but it shudders as she does, pain shooting through her abdomen. She has to close her eyes as the wave of pain passes through her, squeezing Jackie’s hand. “I don’t know how to do this anymore,” she whispers, making sure they’re still alone. Her eyes go to the hatch. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

 

Jackie sees the panic starting to build and tries to help, remembering Lottie’s words from earlier, her actions to help Travis and Jackie herself. “Hey, breathe with me, okay? Just breathe with me.” She puts her free hand on Lottie’s chest. “You don’t… have to do anything anymore. You don’t need to know what you’re doing. None of us do. It’s okay.” And it doesn’t matter if Jackie believes in this shit or not. She knows that Lottie does, and she knows it’s important to her, and, yes. Lottie does seem to know things sometimes, and that’s… more than just some kind of illness. Jackie doesn’t know what it means. She doesn’t think they need to worry about it right now. “It’s not your fault. It’s not.”

 

“I can’t--” Lottie starts. She feels Jackie’s hand over her heart. It brings a comfort she doesn’t think she should have. “I have to. I have to. They need me and I just keep--” She just keeps failing them, all of them. And people kept getting hurt. And maybe that was why, maybe that was the real reason why she’d let Misty hurt her back. She wanted to shoulder all their pain, take it away, because she was the one who put it there. 

 

A noise from the pantry makes Lottie’s head shoot up and she can hear Misty and Akilah climbing the ladder. She doesn’t want them to see her like this. She looks away, presses her face to Jackie’s shoulder. Tries to take in deep breaths, but the pain in her ribs is making that even more difficult.

 

“You’re not that guy that holds the world up, Lottie,” Jackie tells her. “You can’t do everything. I get that they need someone. We all do. That can’t just be on you, though.” She wonders if Lottie realizes that she needs people, too, and it aches for her to think about how lonely Lottie’s been for so long. Maybe her entire life. At least since she was a little kid. She hugs Lottie to her and pets through her hair.

 

Misty looks chipper, which means this is probably going to suck. “Knife’s ready, we’ve got some bandages, and Akilah found you something to bite down on. This shouldn’t take as long, though! No bones and joints this time, just some skin and cartilage. We can probably even do it with you sitting up.”

 

Akilah offers Jackie a smile and hands her a stick before bringing the lantern closer to where she and Lottie are sitting. “Hi, Lottie,” she says quietly. “It’s good to see you awake.”

 

Lottie turns to glance at Akilah, she gives her as much of a smile as she can, but she’s tired and she feels guilty and she’s worried about Jackie. She’s always so fucking worried about Jackie. It eats away at her insides and she wonders when she’s gained the capacity to care so much for someone when she’s spent her entire life trying to make sure she couldn’t-- didn’t. “Hi,” she says back to Akilah.

 

She shifts enough to give the other two room to get to Jackie, but she stays close and she grips Jackie’s hand tightly. Her eyes go to the knife, still glowing with heat from the flames it had been cauterized with. She remembers how the burning had hurt more, until she’d felt bones being separated from bone. 

 

Akilah moves to pull Jackie’s hair back away from her ear and help hold her steady while Misty kneels near her with the knife. “Ready?” she asks.

 

“No one’s eating it,” Jackie tells Misty, eyeing the blade. 

 

“Jackie, that’s disgusting. It’s dead, basically rotting flesh. Eating it would make us sick.”

 

The thought makes her gag, but Jackie shoves the stick in her mouth, bites down, and gives a sharp nod as she clenches her eyes shut. Lottie’s hand is so solid and warm in hers, and Jackie gives it a squeeze. 

 

There’s nothing that can prepare someone for that kind of pain, Jackie realizes pretty quick. The heat is bad, sure, like, she can feel that before she feels Misty slicing through skin. But, to get rid of all the dead tissue, you have to get to living tissue, and that is white hot pain. Her jaw clamps down on the stick as she lets out a muffled scream, her body attempting to pull away, to hunch forward, but Akilah does a good job of holding Jackie still. She’s not even trying to move or scream or cry. She just can’t help it. 

 

Misty finishes, pulling the knife and what looks like blackened flesh away, and Akilah takes over by putting a bandage to the side of Jackie’s head and holding it there. Jackie’s panting, her vision blurry, and she does sag forward, even as Akilah keeps a hold on her head to keep her from face planting.

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand back and tries to coax her through it as best she can while her ribs feel as if they’re trying to cut her open from the inside out as well. “Just let it out,” she says to her, keeping her voice soothing. She feels heavy and tired but she keeps herself upright, holding onto Jackie, clasping her hand in both of hers. 

 

It doesn’t last nearly as long as Lottie remembers it having taken when Misty was digging around with that same knife in her foot. But she thinks for Jackie, it probably lasts forever. That’s what Lottie had felt like. 

 

When it’s done, Lottie moves to help hold Jackie up, straining against herself to stay upright. She lets Jackie sag against her, holding her. “I’ve got you,” she murmurs into her good ear. The only one left, really. She meets Akilah’s eyes, as the girl shifts to begin wrapping the bandage around Jackie’s head so that it can keep pressure on her ear, help stem some of the bleeding.

 

Lottie wonders how many times they’re going to have to do this. First Van, then Lottie, now Jackie. How many more of them were going to lose parts of themselves before they all became husks? She holds onto Jackie and wonders how much of herself she can give to them before Lottie disappears.

 

“I don’t think it looks that bad, Jax,” Shauna murmurs in Jackie’s ear, the one that’s gone, the one Lottie can’t speak into right now because it’s covered and muffled and feels weird, hurts, even as Akilah wraps the bandages around Jackie’s head so that it stays in place. 

 

Jackie knows Lottie has her, even if it’s hurting her, too, and she struggles to sit up so that she’s not leaning too heavily on Lottie, who’s in pain, who has broken bones and bruised insides, who was just dying the day before and might still be dying today.

 

“We’ll change the bandages after a few hours,” Misty says. She gives Lottie a soft look. “We should probably check your wounds for damage before dinner, too.”

 

Lottie takes a moment to reach out, to put her hand on Misty’s, even if it pains her, even if it scares her. “Thank you, Misty,” she says again. “And Akilah.” The two finish cleaning up Jackie and the supplies, before they make their way back downstairs and Lottie lets out a long exhale. She holds onto Jackie, rubbing her back as soothingly as she can. 

 

“We kinda match now,” she mumbles after a while, when she finally feels Jackie’s heartbeat slowing from its previous erratic thumping. 

 

Jackie lets out a groan, a wheezing sound that’s almost a laugh but not really. “Because we’re… both lopsided?” she asks, her voice breathless. She opens her eyes and starts wiping away some of her tears. She lets go of Lottie’s hand, sure that it hurts. “I’m sorry. Sorry.” Her fingers go to Lotte’s ribs, not quite touching her jacket. “Sorry.”

 

Lottie gives her a gentle smile. “Hey, no,” she says, lifting her now free hand to wipe away the rest of Jackie’s tears. “Don’t apologize.” She won’t say she’s okay even if she wants to, because she doesn’t want to lie to Jackie anymore. “It’s only fair, since I probably almost broke your hand, too,” she teases softly. 

 

“I don’t have broken ribs, though, Lottie,” Jackie says, leaning into Lottie’s touch. She certainly feels lopsided, unbalanced. She can’t even hear out of her right side because of the bandages, but that should be okay when they come off, right? Like, she remembers that the hearing part of the ear is on the inside, and, while it definitely feels like Misty Quigley dug around in her head, Jackie knows that Lottie (and hopefully Akilah) wouldn’t actually allow Misty to stick the knife in her ear.

 

“Mmm,” Lottie hums, “I don’t recommend them, either.” She’s trying to stay light hearted for Jackie, she wants to keep her from thinking about the pain, because she knows what it feels like, and all Lottie has ever wanted to do is protect her friends, her teammates-- her family. It’s what they’ve all become to her out there. The only family she’s ever had. She brushes some hair from Jackie’s face, noting she’s sweaty again. “Do you want to stay sitting or lay down?” she asks.

 

“I’d be a little worried if you were giving the experience a glowing recommendation, Lott,” Jackie says, still trying to slow down her breathing more. “I… really don’t want to be sitting up for much longer,” she mumbled, liking the way that Lottie’s fingers felt brushing through her hair. “You? What do you want?”

 

Lottie doesn’t actually know what she wants. She wants to do what Jackie wants. “We can lay down,” she nods, “just drink a little first.” She reaches for the cup of water again, holding it up to her. She knows that all that crying and pain can dehydrate a person quickly. She just wants to take care of her. She wants to take care of all of them, but she wasn’t doing good at it. 

 

She wants to do better with Jackie. She’s only one girl, but maybe she can help just one other person.

 

Jackie takes the cup from Lottie, taking a sip and then a larger gulp as she realizes how dry her throat is. “Thanks,” she rasps out, moving to lay down and tugging on Lottie’s sleeve. 

 

This is, of course, where things get uncomfortable. Jackie can’t lay on her right side without it hurting. If she turns on her left side, she can’t hear, and she doesn’t like that. She doesn’t like this new form of vulnerability, one that can be actually dangerous. For as long as her ear is bandaged, she can’t hear well on that side, barely at all. Someone could sneak up on them. If she was outside, she wouldn’t be able to hear anything from that direction. Jackie lays on her back and glances over at Lottie.

 

Lottie takes the cup and sets it aside again, letting Jackie lay down first and decide how she was the most comfortable. She made sure to stay on Jackie’s left side, lowering herself slowly and inhaling sharply as little jabs of pain roll through her. When she’s finally resting, her whole body deflates again. Being upright for so long has stolen so much energy from her, she hates it a little bit. A lot, actually. 

 

She reaches over and lets her fingers ghost over the bandage on Jackie’s head, down to her jaw. “How are you feeling?”

 

Jackie can hear how much it hurts Lottie to move, and all she wants to do is help her. What good is she at that, though? Lottie just got beat within an inch of her life, and Jackie’s the one behaving like a baby. Still, she’s honest as she mumbles, “Tired. Hurts.” She looks up at Lottie. “You? How are you feeling? Did I hurt you?”

 

“I’m sorry,” Lottie mumbles, her voice soft and quiet. “I wish I could take it away.” It’s all Lottie really wants to be able to do. Her entire life, all she’s wanted was to stop the world from hurting. She thinks about all the hurt she carries, too. She thinks it doesn’t really matter. 

 

“About the same,” she answers. All she’s been the past few weeks is tired and hurt. “Don’t worry about that right now.” It’s not like worrying was going to make either of them better. Still, Lottie worried. She thought Jackie did, too. “I can’t get any worse, right?”

 

“It’s not your fault,” Jackie says, sighing softly. She reaches for Lottie and wants to be closer, but it takes her a second to get comfortable. She looks at Lottie again, her face set in a frown. “But you can get worse. You literally can.” Of course Jackie was worried about that. Of course she was. That doesn’t just stop because she’s hurt, too.

 

“I've just been laying around for--” It's here where Lottie realizes she actually has no idea how long it's been since the incident and now. She's almost afraid to ask-- “a while. I'll be okay.” And she truly wants to believe that she will be, even if just yesterday she'd been begging for them to let her go. 

 

“I laid around for months, Lottie,” Jackie murmurs. “And I didn’t really get better from it, and I wasn’t injured like you are.” She brushes a hand through Lottie’s hair, proving herself up in an elbow to look at her. Her poor face, her poor body. Misty didn’t have to do all of that. She didn’t. It hurts Jackie just to think about it. “You have to… you have to be okay.”

 

“I will be.” Lottie makes herself sound as resolute as possible, looking into Jackie's eyes. “I will be.” It might just take a little longer than she'd like. She presses into Jackie's touch, a comfort she's found herself chasing more and more these days. She tucks her head against Jackie's shoulder, her bones feeling as if they were creaking with each movement. 

 

“Just rest for now,” she urges.

 

Jackie can’t really do anything but nod, holding Lottie close as she leans against Jackie. She lets herself be comforted by the weight, and she hopes Lottie is comforted, to. She hopes so. Lottie called her comfortable, and it seems like she meant it, the thought making Jackie smile and press her lips to Lottie’s hair. Her eyes start drifting shut, though her fingers trace up and down. One hand grips onto Lottie’s jacket, holding her there. As if there’s anywhere else she could go.

 

Though she wants to stay awake, Lottie finds her eyes drifting shut all too soon. Jackie's presence is a comfort she's grown used to and one she doesn't want to be without. She knows she could do it if she had to, she's been alone all her life, but she thinks she might lose a big part of herself if she has to go back to that. To laying down alone, no one beside her. To moving about the world by herself, trying to figure her way out. 

 

When Lottie falls asleep again, there's no nightmares or visions in her head, something that would have brought her comfort before. But now, with the physical weight of someone always with her, she likes how quiet her mind has become, even if it scares her to think It's abandoned her now.

Notes:

Aaaaaaand here we are again! Wow. This fic is flying by. We passed the 100k mark! Y'all really are the best, too, thanks SO much for reading and commenting and we love you all so much <3

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Chapter 10: storytelling

Summary:

Lottie's learned that heavy is the head that wears the crown, but you know what they say: sharing is caring. Maybe it's time for the changing of the guards. Jackie and Lottie rejoin the others, and it's enough to bring a bright, warm feeling to the group. Or a hot one. Oops! It's a little too hot in here in all sorts of ways! Lottie says she'll never let go, Jack, and all we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

Notes:

Well, well, well. Welcome to Chapter 10! This one's a longer one, and it's a doozy. Think of it as a season finale of sorts!

The fresh pain in the side of her head makes it impossible for Jackie to fully drift off, but she’s okay with just laying there, Lottie in her arms, the two of them warm and clase. She needs this closeness. She’s gotten it now, and Jackie Taylor, selfish and useless and cruel, does not know how to give up things like this that she thinks she needs. She needs Lottie. She needs the way that Lottie presses against her skin, and she needs the way that Lottie holds her, and she needs the way that Lottie allows herself to be held. Jackie thinks she needs that the most.

 

Her eyes close and flutter open at random intervals, at times when she thinks she hears something but can’t locate it, at times when she feels like a knife is cutting through flesh again. The most jarring time is when Misty is there, leaning over her, causing Jackie’s heart to pound and her eyes to widen. “I’m just here to check on her. You both,” Misty whispers.

 

Something in Lottie wakes her when she feels Jackie's heartbeat quicken. It's gotten dark in the attic, now, but Lottie can tell there's someone else there with them, leaning over them, and her first instinct is to tighten her grasp around Jackie protectively. 

 

But it's just Misty, and she's reaching down to prod on Lottie's bruises, to make sure the ribs she broke are healing in place. She winces and hears a muttered “Sorry, sorry,” from Misty as she finishes up, before she turns to Jackie and reaches over to check on her bandaged ear. 

 

“I need you to sit up,” she tells Jackie, none of that quiet sympathy in her that she gives to Lottie. 

 

Blearily, Jackie manages to sit up, extracting herself as gently as she can from Lottie’s grasp as Misty moves closer and unwraps the bandages from Jackie’s ear.

 

“It looks like I got all of the dead skin,” Misty says, but it doesn’t sound right. She’s speaking, and Jackie can hear her, but it sounds like she’s in a different place. Jackie can’t process where her voice is coming from even though Misty is right beside her. She cleans it up and rewraps the bandages, and the distorted sounds change to muffled and Jackie no longer has to strain her ear to figure out what she’s hearing, where it’s coming from. 

 

Misty looks at Lottie, hopeful. “Would you… both of you, be able to come downstairs for dinner? I think everyone would be excited to see you, Lottie.”

 

Lottie stays laying down, but she keeps a hand on Jackie. She's just so tired. She sees the way Misty looks at her, what she wants from her. She wants to give it to her, to them, even if Lottie can feel the inside of herself being dug out and handed over and destroyed. She nods. “Yeah,” she murmurs, “I'll come down in a bit.” She doesn't speak for Jackie, she'll let her decide on her own. But Lottie knows she'll go down there regardless. For them. Because she has to. 

 

Because she needs to.

 

Misty perks up, pleased that Lottie will be down there soon. “I’ll let them know!” she says, heading over to the stairs. 

 

“You don’t have to,” Jackie says quietly, when it’s just the two of them. “I think they’d understand, if you’re still too hurt.”

 

Lottie knows that, she knows that. Still. “I want to.” It’s a half truth. She does want to. She’s terrified to. She wants Jackie to come with her but she won’t ask. “They need me to.”

 

“Okay,” Jackie says. She sighs, fidgeting with the bandages and brushing her fingers over where her ear used to be. “I guess it’d be nice to leave this creepy attic for a bit, at least. I hate it up here.” 

 

Lottie reaches out and takes Jackie’s hand, to keep her from fidgeting, yes, but also because she just wants the comfort. Jackie’s hand feels like it fits so nicely in hers. “You don’t have to come with.” She hopes Jackie doesn’t feel obligated to just because Lottie is.

 

Jackie lets Lottie take her hand and offers up a squeeze, shifting closer once again. “I want to. I’m serious, I get the creeps up here. I almost miss the world’s longest pallet party.” She’d hated it up here since that stupid seance, hated it since Shauna abandoned her to sleep on her own. And she understood why they moved Lottie up here, since Coach Scott had the bedroom and couldn’t climb the stairs, and Lottie didn’t need to be around too many people while she was recovering, and Jackie wasn’t going to leave Lottie alone. But still. “It’ll be nice.” Probably. Maybe. 

 

“Okay.” It’s easy for Lottie to tell Jackie doesn’t like it up here. She’d tell her that she doesn’t need to stay up here with her, she was sure she’d tried to at one point while the world had still been one long moment of pain for Lottie, but she knew Jackie would stubbornly refuse to leave. And some part of Lottie-- a big part of Lottie-- was glad she did. She was glad she stayed. She was glad to have someone again.

 

And in the same way Lottie knew she would never fill the place in Jackie’s heart that Shauna had carved out, Jackie would never fill the spot in Lottie’s where Laura Lee had been. But she’d made a new space for herself, one that Lottie knew would tear her apart if she ever had to hold Jackie for the last time, too.

 

“You’re sure you can make it down the stairs?” Jackie asks, unable to hide her worry. Because Lottie could barely sit up without being in pain, and getting her up the stairs hadn’t been the easiest chore in the world. She’s scared Lottie might do something that hurts herself even more.

 

Lottie half shrugs and it hurts, because of course it does. Breathing hurts. But she doesn’t think it really matters anymore. “I can try,” she answers. “Maybe if I fall down them Misty will stop bothering us.”

 

“Fuck off,” Jackie mutters, moving close enough to wrap an arm around Lottie. “I’m not going to let you fall down. Even if you like six feet tall and could topple me over.”

 

“You might get crushed,” Lottie teases quietly, “you’re so tiny.” 

 

Jackie pouts, but it’s kind of nice that Lottie’s teasing her. She hopes this can show Lottie that she’s not a completely different person out there, not in the ways that she thinks. Jackie can still recognize her. “I’m not that small.”

 

As if to prove a point-- and despite it causing more pain than is necessary-- Lottie wraps her arms and her leg around Jackie, enveloping her fully. “You’re barely half my size.”

 

Grunting at the unexpected movement, Jackie finds herself completely covered in Lottie Matthews, not sure how she ended up in this situation as she manages to wheeze out a laugh. “That’s such an exaggeration! Asshole!” Her voice is muffled, and, after a moment, she adjusts them slowly so that she can lay dawn, Lottie still wrapped around her. “Comfortable?” she asks.

 

“You’re like…pocket sized,” Lottie adds on, smiling a little. She lets Jackie adjust before settling in, letting out her breath with a gentle sigh. “Yes.” And she is, despite being in pain, despite sleeping in an attic, despite being starving in the middle of the mountains. She’s comfortable and it’s weird and strange and new, but she likes it. So much.

 

Maybe too much. 

 

“Oh, my god,” Jackie mumbles, but she’s smiling, and she can’t really help herself. One of her hands holds onto Lottie’s jacket, even though she knows Lottie’s not going to get up and go anywhere. She’s comfortable. Jackie’s pretty comfortable, too, surprisingly. In spite, really, of the pain and the grief and the ghost in the corner, she’s somehow found a way to be comfortable out there. She’s somehow found a reason to keep trying.

 

Lottie just hums. She feels Jackie’s hand curling into her jacket and she likes the way Jackie clings to her, she likes the way it feels as if Jackie needs her. Lottie doesn’t think she’s ever really been needed before. Not like this, not by a singular person. It was different with the group, they needed the idea of her more than they actually needed Lottie. She didn’t think it mattered which one of them it had been, they just needed someone to stand at the top of them all.

 

Lottie still wishes it wasn’t her. She was trying really hard to give them the hope that they so desperately wanted. But right now, she doesn’t think that’s what they need. 

 

Right now, they need someone who can actually lead them, help them survive.

 

Lottie doesn’t think she’s that person.

 

And maybe, selfishly, she doesn’t want to be, because being something bigger than herself makes it harder to keep her promise to Jackie. And she wants that more than anything.

 

The weight of Lottie curled around her is enough for Jackie to want to fall asleep again. The pressure is nice, grounding, distracting from the new hole in the side of her head and the muffled, odd quality to noise that she’s now dealing with.  She lets her eyes close again because, really, what’s there to do out there other than freeze and sleep and try to conserve energy, even if they’re not actively starving? And Jackie feels so warm, and she is comfortable, even if there’s a little bit of guilt in that. She can take feeling guilty. It’s not like it ever really goes away.

 

If Lottie groans audibly when she hears footsteps coming up the ladder, she really doesn’t mean to. 

 

She’d been so comfortable laying in Jackie’s arms again, breathing in the scent of her skin, her tired body ready to let her drift back to sleep. But then she hears Misty’s voice from the hatch telling them dinner is ready and Lottie buries her face into Jackie’s neck.

 

But she’s already told Misty she’ll come down to see them all, to show them that she was doing better. That she was going to be okay. So that she could give their hope back to them, so that she could reassure all of them that their sacrifice-- Javi’s sacrifice-- wasn’t for nothing.

 

So that she could take away their guilt and shoulder it herself.

 

“Okay,” she mumbles, still not quite moving, “we’ll be down in a minute.”

 

It’s going to take them a minute or longer just to get up, but Jackie doesn’t say anything, just letting her fingers release on Lottie’s jacket. “Just a minute,” she agrees quietly.

 

Misty smiles forcibly. “Okay.” And she disappears back down the ladder.

 

Lottie groans again. “Five more minutes,” she mocks quietly, still holding onto Jackie even as the other girl loosens her grip.

 

“You can stay in bed as long as you like,” Jackie whispers back softly, repeating Lottie’s own words back to her. She manages to free one of her hands to reach up and run it through Lottie’s hair. “But she’s probably going to come back in a minute anyway,” she teases.

 

Lottie huffs. She knows it’s true. And she does want to go down. She doesn’t want to be up here anymore, either. Jackie’s fingers in her hair isn’t helping, though. “You do that a lot,” she mumbles, not accusing or anything, just an observation. Laura Lee had done it a lot, too. Lottie had never really thought about how nice it felt until then.

 

Jackie’s fingers still. “Sorry. I just– Your hair is soft,” she murmurs. “I like playing with it.” It gives her something to do with her hands, and maybe she likes the way that Lottie usually leans into it, like she enjoys it. “I can braid your hair, if you want. I know– I saw Laura Lee do it sometimes, and I remember that you’d usually braid your pigtails for games.” She feels her fingers twitching. “Or I can stop, too, if you want me to stop. I didn’t ask.”

 

“I like it,” Lottie says. And she does. It makes her feel…cared for. She doesn’t remember ever sitting in her mother’s lap while she combs her hair, but she remembers thinking about wanting that. She remembers watching other girls get to do that.  

 

Still, she pauses at the offer. She liked it when Laura Lee braided her hair, kept it back and tamed and out of Lottie’s eyes. She doesn’t know if she’s ready to give up that part of herself to someone else. It’s one of the only things she has left of her.

 

“Maybe when it’s warmer,” she finally says, “it helps keep me warm right now.”

 

Brushing her fingers through Lottie’s hair again, Jackie nods. “It’s thick. I’m sure that makes it especially warm.” And she knows it’s warm, too. She likes burying her face in it when they’re holding each other, likes detangling it with her hands. Her own hair probably looks like a mess, and the bandage around her head definitely isn’t helping. Jackie used to spend a lot of time messing with her own hair, constantly fixing it or fluffing it. It started seeming like too much effort months ago, though. 

 

“Yeah.” Something like that, Lottie thinks. Her hair had always been a thick mess of tangles. She didn’t always care about taming it, just always making sure it was tied back and out of her face for soccer and presentable enough to not look wild at school. If she wanted it to look nice, like for parties, for the pep rally, for someone else, she would spend hours on it. She couldn’t help but think about how it would feel to sit by Jackie and let her brush through her hair until it was soft and untangled. It makes something in her chest squeeze, but not in the fearful or anxious way it usually does.

 

After a moment, she shifts enough to look up at Jackie. “We should probably…head down.”

 

Jackie looks at Lottie and gives her a small smile. “We probably should. You might have to let me go, though, I’m afraid.”

 

“You mean you’re not gonna carry me?” Lottie says back, smiling innocently. She pauses for a moment, trying to prepare herself for what she knows is going to hurt-- a lot . 

 

Drawing in a breath, she sits herself up all the way for the first time in days, face drawing in pain as she does so, trying and failing to hide the trembling in her arms. “Fuck…” she exhales, putting a hand to her ribs. She needed a minute, already winded from the effort. 

 

“Hey,” Jackie says, reaching for Lottie in an attempt to help steady her as she sits up as well. “Take it a little slower, okay? You haven’t had to do this by yourself in a few days.” There’d always been at least two people there to help Lottie stand, to support her. This is probably a little too much too soon.

 

Lottie wants to say that she can do this on her own, but the immediate pain is clear evidence that she can’t. Still, she doesn’t want to just rely on Jackie, who is sick and hurt, too. “Maybe…we should wait for Misty to help.” 

 

“We can wait for Misty to help,” Jackie agrees, moving to the bowl of cold water and a rag that’s not too far away and bringing it over so that she can wipe it over Lottie’s forehead, wiping away some of the sweat that’s cropped up. “Those stairs are going to be a bitch,” she murmurs.

 

Lottie tries to stabilize her breathing as Jackie presses the cold cloth to her forehead. She feels herself leaning into Jackie’s touch, magnetized by her. Always so drawn to her now. She doesn’t know when it started, she can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but she knows that one day she woke up with Jackie in her arms and realized she needed it. 

 

“There’s no way I’m making it back up here,” she says, trying to keep the mood light.

 

“Well, I’ve been missing the sound of Mari’s snoring,” Jackie muses. She goes through Lottie’s breathing exercises, in for three and out for five, without saying anything, just letting Lottie take the moment to collect herself. 

 

Lottie lets out a breathy laugh, groaning. “It’s kind of like white noise,” she says back, following Jackie’s lead as she takes in slow, metered breaths. 

 

Finally, footsteps sound from the ladder and Misty pops her head up. “Ready?” Lottie looks to Misty, then Jackie, taking one last breath. She nods.

 

Misty comes over, and, together, she and Jackie manage to lift Lottie up. They walk her to the stairs and make it down, Jackie whispering, “Don’t trip. Don’t trip. Don’t trip,” under her breath the entire time. They make it to the bottom of the stairs. 

 

Some of the other girls notice them immediately, Akilah smiling and sitting up. “Lottie.”

 

Mari gets to her feet and immediately goes in for a hug before Jackie stops her. “Hey, easy. She’s like ninety percent broken bone right now.”

 

Lottie has to put all of her concentration and effort into not simply folding up from the pain as they head down, each step more excruciating than the next until she’s finally at the bottom and leaning against the threshold of the pantry door, Jackie still holding onto her.

 

She sees Mari and Akilah both jump up immediately, excitement and relief on their faces and she thinks, in that moment, the pain was worth it. 

 

“It’s okay,” Lottie says to them and she lets Mari wrap her arms gently around her neck.

 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Mari says to her and Lottie can’t tell what this strange feeling inside of her is. The one that feels warm but wrong, like it’s in the wrong place. She doesn’t say anything else as she looks back out at everyone staring at her. She feels herself collapsing under the spotlight again, the pressure of it all welling up inside of her, thick and sludgy. 

 

She can’t do this anymore, she doesn’t think. 

 

By the time she’s sitting again, curled up in the chair, she’s sweaty and panting. Akilah has handed out the food bowls again and everyone sits in a bittersweet silence as the fire crackles.

 

“Hey, Van,” Akilah speaks up, then, “can you tell us another story?”

 

Jackie’s made a spot for herself leaning against Lottie’s chair, keeping her head turned so that she can see part of the room. She puts a hand on Lottie’s leg, the other holding the bowl that she can’t look in. 

 

Nat meets Jackie’s eye across the room, taking in the bandage on Jackie’s head. She flinches, looks away, and Jackie frowns.

 

“Maybe The Truth About Cats and Dogs ?” Akilah continues.

 

“Or While You Were Sleeping again?” Gen asks.

 

Melissa smiles. “ The Princess Bride .”

 

“What about something you haven’t heard before?” Van asks, looking around the room. Jackie takes in the curious looks, Tai’s in particular. “Once upon a time, there was a place called the Wilderness. It was beautiful and full of life, but It was also lonely and violent and misunderstood.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know if she likes this story. She thinks she’d rather hear The Princess Bride , rather watch Mel ask for Van to describe Buttercup for the hundredth time. Her hand wraps around Lottie’s leg, rubbing the cloth with her thumb. Lonely and misunderstood weren’t words that Jackie would use to describe this place, but violent? 

 

She thinks it makes them violent. All of them. Even her.

 

Lottie feels something churning inside of her. She’d felt okay just minutes ago, sitting upstairs with Jackie, but everything had changed now that she was back down here and everything felt too real again. 

 

The bowl in her hands, the girls all sitting around her as if she were on a throne. The fire a quiet background to Van’s voice. 

 

Lottie feels like she can’t do this anymore.

 

“So one day,” Van continues, and it’s in a voice that doesn’t quiet sound like the same Van Lottie had last heard, “the wilderness built a house. And it waited.” She pauses. Lottie thinks Van is a great storyteller. She doesn’t want to hear this one. “Summers came. Winters came--”

 

“I never wanted to be in charge,” Lottie interrupts suddenly. She can’t look at any of them, she knows this isn’t what they want to hear. She feels her body sinking lower. No one says anything. “It chose me, I think, because…because I was the only one who knew how to listen.” 

 

Without her medication, Lottie had become an open vessel for it. She understood that now. She was never meant to lead. She takes her time, she feels her breath stuttering. “But I can’t hear it anymore.” She hadn’t said it out loud yet, not even to Jackie. Not even to herself. “I think that’s because it doesn’t need me anymore.” Still, they’re all silent. Still, they wait for her. “You all learned how to hear it, to feel it. Maybe all It wants for us now is a leader who can help us survive for the rest of the time we’re out here.” 

 

Lottie shakes her head, gently at first, then more forcefully. “And that isn’t me.”

 

The words make Jackie feel… relieved. She doesn’t want Lottie to shoulder this burden. She doesn’t think that Lottie should have to, not when she breaks herself into pieces for it. Not when she’s letting it kill her. 

 

“Lottie, no,” Van says, leaning forward, starting to reach out.

 

“You’re wrong,” Mari says emphatically. “We need you.”

 

“The wilderness chose who fed us,” Lottie cuts them both off. They’re wrong, they don’t need her. “It’s already chosen who should lead us.” She doesn’t want them to need her anymore.

 

Lottie stands. It hurts, but she does it. She has to. She doesn’t notice Misty also standing, some sort of excited look in her eyes.

 

Lottie looks at Natalie. Only Natalie, who’s sitting on the stool across from the fire. 

 

“Natalie.”

 

Everyone’s heads swivel to face her. Natalie looks shocked, frozen. Not unhappy, not scared, just shocked.

 

Lottie takes a few stilted steps towards her. She looks down at her with reverence and Natalie looks up at her with disbelief and a spark of something profound. “We tried to kill you,” she says to her, “and It wouldn’t let us.”

 

Jackie thinks that’s wrong. Lottie didn’t try to kill Nat. The rest of them did. She wants to say something, needs to, but this isn’t the moment for it. Instead, she watches both of them, waiting.

 

Lottie reaches forward delicately. She takes Natalie’s hand, pushes her sleeve up. It’s hard to bend over, so she brings Natalie’s hand to her lips instead, presses a kiss to her knuckles. It’s a sign of respect, a sign of loyalty. It’s different from the other times Lottie has kissed Natalie. It’s not about anything except showing her admiration she deserves. 

 

Then, Lottie steps to the side and stands behind her, and waits.

 

Gen is the first to get up. She, too, takes Natalie’s hand, bows her head to her knuckles.

 

Mari is next. She looks Natalie in the eyes and bows her head, too. 

 

Natalie’s eyes are growing misted, but she smiles as Akilah gives a curtsy and Mel takes off her hat, puts it to her heart.

 

This is right, Lottie thinks. This is how it’s supposed to be.

 

Jackie watches as Lottie seals Nat’s fate, as the others follow suit. Misty falls into a sweeping bow, one that makes Nat laugh. Dramatic, courtly, like a knight. Jackie hates that she immediately worries if Misty will turn on Nat, too, even if it’s only for a moment.

 

Van takes Nat’s hand and holds it to her cheek, a softness and loyalty in her eyes as she accepts her friend as their new leader.

 

Tai takes Nat’s hand in both of hers and holds it close. Travis takes her hand and places it to his heart, and he breathes slowly. He lets her feel him breathing.

 

Jackie stands, the last of them. She walks to Natalie and reaches out, straightening the necklace until the heart shaped pendant can clearly be seen. Jackie wants to hug her, to thank her for taking this burden, to keep her safe from all of it. She can’t do any of that, though. Instead, she lets herself bow, bringing Nat’s hand to her lips. She doesn’t really get the ritual of it all, but she sees Natalie, and she knows this is the best choice.

 

Everyone takes their turn and Lottie can feel the relief flooding into her body. It doesn’t have to be her anymore. She wants to cry.

 

She waits for everyone to settle back down before she sits on the bench that her and Jackie had shared for weeks, months, until just recently. Her legs are trembling and her abdomen is pulsing with white, hot pain, but all she can do is smile. Even if it’s ghostly and barely there.

 

She’d never wanted to be in charge. Lottie wasn’t a leader.

 

She closes her eyes and lays back and lets herself cry silently with the relief. She won’t leave Natalie alone with this burden, but for now, she wants to feel the weight of it off her shoulders.

 

Jackie offers Nat’s hand a final squeeze before she moves back over to Lottie, offering to let the taller girl lean against her. They aren’t going to make it up those stairs again. Lottie looks like she’s barely able to keep sitting up. “I’ve got you,” she whispers. She moves to wipe some of Lottie’s tears away. “I’ve got you.”

 

Lottie doesn’t want them to see her crying, even if it doesn’t matter anymore. She doesn’t need them to see how much of her they’ve torn away. She gave herself over to it willingly, she’d only wanted to help. 

 

Lottie presses her face into Jackie’s neck. She feels everything at once-- relieved, guilty, sad, pathetic, ecstatic. It’s tiring. She closes her eyes and blocks out the world and the silence in her head is so profoundly loud.

 

She thought she might like not hearing It. Not being the one It wants. She never wanted to lead. 

 

They don’t need her anymore. She’s happy about it. She wraps an arm around Jackie. 

 

She doesn’t move until she hears everyone around them begin to prepare for bed once more, just like they have every night for months now. She leans back from Jackie, her eyes puffy and lidded. She’s so tired, she just wants to sleep again. “I…”

 

She can’t get any other words out. 

 

Jackie just holds Lottie close and lets her cry. She sees Van watching the two of them, and she thinks back to their conversation, the one about Jackie using Lottie to replace Shauna, but that’s just not true. She presses her nose to Lottie’s hair and closes her eyes. 

 

“Let’s lay down, okay?” Jackie murmurs to Lottie, brushing some of the tears from her face. “I’m going to go get the blankets and stuff from the attic.”

 

Lottie nods but doesn’t say anything. She wonders how many of them are watching her, she wonders what they think of her. She thinks they probably know how crazy she is. The things she says, does. They must be able to see it.

 

She stays sitting when Jackie heads to the attic. She can’t look anywhere but at her own hands in her lap.

 

Someone sidles up next to her and she lifts her head to see Natalie. 

 

Natalie kneels down next to her, then, and ever so gently puts her arms around Lottie. She doesn’t say anything but she knows what Nat means by it. She lays her head on Natalie’s shoulder.

 

Jackie tries to be quick, gathering up their blankets, pillows, the bowl and rag to make a note to herself to get something fresh before she lays down for the night. She wishes she knew more first aid, wishes she didn’t have to rely on Misty to make sure that Lottie is okay. 

 

It’s fine, it sucks but it’s fine. She comes down the stairs slowly to not fall with her arms full of stuff, and she walks over to the bench to see Nat and Lottie sitting together. Opposites but, somehow, a pair. She’s glad that Nat no longer seems to hate Lottie. She’s glad that there seems to be another person who doesn’t just want Lottie to talk to the trees for them. 

 

When Jackie comes back down, Nat finally lets go and stands back up. She gives a short nod at Lottie before heading off for her own bed, which is near the front door now.  

 

Lottie watches her settle in before she turns to Jackie, reaching out to take some of the many things in her hands. She never really realized how many muscles in her abdomen were used until she was moving around with a broken rib. Even just lifting her arms hurts, but she takes the blankets and spreads them back out on their bench.

 

The others begin settling into their beds as well, a somber atmosphere hanging around them all. But tomorrow is a new day, Lottie thinks, and they’ll have a proper leader. 

 

Tomorrow, Lottie can wake up and not worry she’s going to mess up everything.

 

Jackie takes enough time to clean out the bowl and put in a little fresh water before heading back to Lottie and wiping her face down. She’s overdone it, and Jackie knows it, and she’s pretty sure Lottie knows it, too. At least tomorrow the rest of the group won’t expect Lottie to be their sole source of comfort. Maybe now Lottie will actually be able to rest. 

 

Letting Lottie get settled first, Jackie joins her on their bench and pulls the blankets up around them before moving in closer.

 

Lottie is quick to burrow into Jackie once she’s laying down with her. She makes sure to be on Jackie’s left side, she presses her face into Jackie’s neck. She wants to hide herself from everything, just for a little bit. Just for tonight. 

 

Maybe tomorrow will be better. She hopes it will be. She whispers, “Thank you,” against Jackie’s skin. She can’t thank her enough, she doesn’t think.

 

Jackie doesn’t need Lottie to thank her. She just needs Lottie to be okay. Maybe she can be, after this. Her eyes flutter closed, her fingers thread into Lottie’s hair, and Jackie feels herself drifting off to sleep, all the sound around her muffled and distorted, except for the sound of Lottie’s breathing. 

 

The smell of smoke isn’t unfamiliar, but it’s usually not like this. It stings Jackie’s nose, causing her to sit up and rub her eyes. When she sits up, there’s a glow coming from outside the window. 

 

That’s not supposed to be there. 

 

“Guys! Guys, fire!” Jackie yells, panicked, shaking Lottie to wake her up. 

 

Lottie is startled awake suddenly. It feels jarring, disorienting. She doesn’t really understand what’s going on, her mind still hazy. Jackie is shaking her, she sees the orange glow around the window, around the base of the door. Flames lick at the wood underneath it.

 

“Oh my god,” comes Natalie’s panicked voice, “oh my god, oh my god .”

 

“Fire!” Misty screams and everyone is jerking awake now. “Fire! Get up! Get up!”

 

The smoke is making them all cough. Lottie chokes on it, trying to sit up. It burns her throat, each spasm of her lungs making pain shoot through her. 

 

“What do we do?” Akilah is shouting. “What do we do?”

 

“Holy fuck!” Mari gasps.

 

Natalie is scrambling up, rushing to the door. She grabs the handle, jerks, but it doesn’t budge. “It’s stuck!” she cries out, her voice terrified. “It’s stuck!”

 

Tai rushes from the back. “It won’t open!” 

 

Both doors are locked shut.

 

Lottie can feel herself panicking. 

 

Van rushes to the door. “Move,” she says to Natalie, then starts throwing her whole body into the door to try and break it down. 

 

Tai joins her in this, smashing at the door with the axe.

 

“Get your stuff!” Misty instructs.

 

“Get anything you can carry!” Natalie adds on.

 

Jackie tucks herself under Lottie’s arm and stands, pulling her off the bench. She grabs a blanket and tucks it around Lottie, starts looking for some of their things, their clothes, shoes. Things they might need. 

 

Things they might not. 

 

Eyes darting to the attic, Jackie looks between Lottie and the door as it gets smashed open. “Mari!” She cries. “Get Lottie outside!” 

 

Mari rushes to help, getting Lottie’s other side and dragging her towards the door while Jackie slips out from under her arm and rushes in the opposite direction, away from freedom. “I’ll be right back!” She yells, scrambling up the ladder. 

 

“Jackie,” Lottie breathes. Jackie is leaving her, she’s heading for the pantry, for the attic. “Jackie!” 

 

She tries to push away from Mari. Her body explodes in pain but she tries to push through it. “Jackie!”

 

Mari is pulling her towards the front. The door is smashed open and girls start rushing out as they grab whatever they can, whatever is closest.

 

“No, Jackie!” Lottie’s throat burns as she screams, as she inhales smoke. 

 

Natalie is rushing over, grabbing Lottie, too. “Get outside! Now!” She’s pushing them out the door. The roof is starting to cave in, pieces of it fall onto the porch.

 

All Lottie can see are the flames, her vision dotting with black as the pain overwhelms her even as she cries out. She needs to go back in, she needs to get Jackie.

 

It’s Natalie who races to the bottom of the stairs. “Jackie what the fuck! Get down here!”

 

Jackie knows immediately what she’s looking for, grabbing Shauna’s journals and tucking them under her arm. Her jacket. Another flannel. There’s a few other books up there and she doesn’t know what the fuck they are but, Jesus, she’s already up there, breathing in smoke and looking like a fucking idiot. She spots the floral print of one of Laura Lee’s other dresses, and, fuck it, she grabs that, too, shoving it all in Shauna’s backpack before she’s heading back down, and it’s significantly hotter. 

 

Nat’s grabbing her immediately like she thinks Jackie’s going to run off again, but Jackie’s not trying to die anymore, and she thinks burning to death would suck. “Out! Now!” Nat yells. 

 

By the time they both make it out, they’re coughing smoke from their lungs and watching the porch cave in, getting yanked into the throng as they watch the cabin burn.

 

Mari has her arms wrapped around Lottie and they’re both collapsed in the snow as she tries her best to keep Lottie from getting back to the cabin. 

 

Not again, Lottie thinks, it’s all she can think. Not again. She can’t watch someone else she loves go up in flames.

 

She thinks she might have to.

 

And then she sees Natalie and she’s dragging Jackie with her and Lottie lets out a hideous sob, shoving Mari away to get to her, stumbling in a haze of pain and smoke filled lungs. She’s wrapping her arms around Jackie and holding her tightly and she doesn’t even care that their home is burning down.

 

It’s kind of funny, actually.

 

She shouldn’t laugh, but she does. Watery and horrible and painfully. 

 

Everyone else stands, stares, watches in horror.

 

Their home is burning down.

 

“Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Jackie breathes as Lottie’s arms wrap around her, and Jackie hugs her back tightly, shuddering. She hadn’t meant to worry her, she just needed to make sure Lottie got out safe. And she’s safe. 

 

Or as safe as they can be as their group watches the fire destroy their shelter, their home. Their cursed home that feels like it’s trapped them for months, refusing to let them go. 

 

Jackie watches flames fill up the attic window, and she holds onto Lottie a little tighter. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. 

 

Lottie doesn’t ever let go of Jackie, not for the rest of the night, well into the morning.

 

The flames are still going strong well into the morning, too. None of them really do anything except sit around. They watch the fire burn down their cabin.

 

None of them know what to do, not even Natalie. 

 

But eventually, she tells them to start cleaning up the campsite. For now, they have the meat shed for shelter. It won’t fit them all, but they can take turns periodically if they need out of the cold. 

 

Feeding the fire also seems to be their best bet to keep warm while they figure out what to actually do next. Nat suggests they build another temporary shelter. No one has any better ideas.

 

Lottie is exhausted, panting heavily against Jackie, trembling with the cold and the pain. They’re wrapped in blankets but she doesn’t feel warm. She can see her breath in front of her face. Maybe burning to death wouldn’t have been so bad, she thinks.

 

Jackie felt guilty for leaving Lottie, and that guilt only grows as Lottie clings to her for hours, either unable or unwilling to let go, and Jackie can feel her trembling. She knows that Lottie is in a lot of pain. When Nat’s not giving out orders and telling the others what to do, Jackie calls out to her. She tries to ignore the clear panic on Nat’s face. 

 

“She needs somewhere to lay down,” Jackie tells her. 

 

Nat looks Lottie over and nods jerkily. “Meat shed. I’ll help you get her to the meat shed.” 

 

The two of them manage to lift Lottie, and Jackie murmurs quietly to Nat as they go. “Have them work in pairs. Make sure that nobody’s by themselves for too long. Misty’ll know first aid stuff. Tai and Van should know if there’s still places to find dry wood. In an hour or so, we need to think about food.”

 

Lottie panics briefly when she feels herself being lifted, but once she sees it’s just Natalie, she lets herself try and calm back down. She doesn’t know where they’re taking her but she doesn’t care, as long as Jackie is with her.

 

She can hear them talking, whispering something, but she doesn’t care about that either. Her head lolls forward as the exhaustion begins to overwhelm her and she fights to keep her eyes open.

 

She realizes they’re going to the meat shed and she thinks it’s kind of morbid, in a way. She still thinks maybe she should’ve been the one cut up in there.

 

She sinks to the ground once they’re inside, onto the few cushions they’ve left out there. Leans heavily against the wall, still clinging to Jackie. She’s worried she won’t stay with her but it hurts too much to talk so she just looks at her and hopes she understands.

 

Jackie knows pretty quick that she wouldn’t be able to leave Lottie’s side even if she wanted to, but she doesn’t want to. She just leans against the wall with her, curling into Lottie’s side and holding her close. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to scare you. I just needed to make sure you got outside.”

 

“I’ll have Misty come around to look at you both soon,” Nat breathes before she’s jogging away from them, and Jackie watches her go. 

 

Lottie can only take short, shallow breaths. It was already hard enough to breathe with the broken ribs, but now that her lungs are filled with smoke, she’s finding it harder. She wraps her arms back around Jackie and pulls her in closer. 

 

She doesn’t quite want to put voice to the thoughts she had. About how all she could see was Laura Lee burning. About how all she could see was a plane exploding, flames eating away at all the good in her life. The only good in her life.

 

“You…left,” she manages to wheeze out. “You left me.”

 

Jackie's face crumbles at Lottie’s words, and there’s not enough apologies in the world to explain how she feels. “I’m so fucking sorry. I wouldn’t. I promised. I came back.”

 

But Lottie hadn’t known what was going on. Not really. All she’d known was that she’d been awoken, and there was fire and panic, and Jackie. And then Jackie was pushing her towards Mari and walking away, into the fire. 

 

Fire has taken so much from Lottie. 

 

“Why?” is all she can ask.

 

Jackie chokes on something awful, sniffling as she tucks herself in closer. “Because I’m stupid,” she says, taking off her bag and looking at it. She reaches in and pulls out the dress she grabbed, offering it up to Lottie. “I’m sorry.”

 

Lottie looks at the dress, takes the fabric in her hands. It’s still silky and smooth and Lottie thinks it probably even still smells like Laura Lee. She presses it to her face, curls her hand into a tight fist. 

 

She’s still wearing one of her dresses, too. The same one she wore to Doomcoming. She’s always wearing it now. Taking it off feels like shedding a piece of herself, like removing skin that can never grow back. She thinks that’s how Jackie must feel. She presses her fingers into the flannel Jackie always wears now. They’re just two broken halves missing their other pieces. 

 

She wonders if two things so broken can ever fit back together. She thinks that maybe, somehow, scar tissue can grow where they’ve been torn. 

 

“I think I…” Lottie starts. Her voice is strangled but she swallows whatever is trying to take her words from her. “I think I loved her.”

 

“I know,” Jackie murmurs. “I know.” She’d watched as Lottie and Laura Lee had gotten closer, watched as they talked and relied on each other, needed each other. She’d even felt a little jealous, the more Shauna pulled away as the two of them seemed to drift closer. But she thinks she knew that Lottie loved her. She doesn’t think it’s wrong. 

 

(It’s not wrong for anyone but her because she’s not supposed to be that way. She’s not. Her mother told her that again and again without even any knowledge that Jackie was that way. Jackie used to wonder if she could just sense every time her daughter wasn’t exactly as she wanted her to be, even in the confines of Jackie’s own mind.)

 

Maybe Lottie just loved Laura Lee like a friend, but Jackie doesn’t think so. She doesn’t mind. She hopes the dress helps. She presses her head to Lottie’s shoulder and wraps a hand around her arm. She’s not going anywhere.

 

Really, what more is there to say? Lottie folds the dress and sets it in her lap. She lets herself cry, even if she’d already spent most of the night crying, far into the morning hours. She’d cried for a different girl, then. The one that was still wrapped around her. The one that fire had also tried to take from her.

 

Lottie wonders if Jackie knows, too, that the way she felt for Shauna was the same Lottie felt for Laura Lee. She thinks she might. She knows how hard it is, she used to listen to the way her parents would talk about “people like that”. They didn’t ever pay enough attention to their daughter to realize that she, too, was like that.

 

It’s different for Jackie, because even Lottie has seen the way Mrs. Taylor looks at Jackie and she sees the same scrutinizing eyes with which her own parents look at her. And they don’t know. None of them do.

 

And Lottie will never know if Laura Lee loved her back the same way Lottie loved her. She didn’t need her to, she would take whatever Laura Lee had wanted to give her, in any form. 

 

But it hurts to know that Lottie will never have an answer.

 

“Shauna loved you,” she finds herself saying, fingers still twisting gentle circles in the fabric of Laura Lee’s dress, “I know you…I know it might not seem like it now. But she did. You should know that she did.” 

 

Jackie doesn’t know why the words hurt so much. “She told me a lot more than I ever told her. I stopped around the time we got to middle school. My mom— she thought it was weird. There’s no need for two friends to say it like that.” It’s hard to believe though, after what Shauna said, what she did, what she wrote. Maybe she did love Jackie, but she hated her, too. Jackie has to find a way to live with that hate for the rest of her life.

 

“I know.” And Lottie knows. Maybe her parents didn’t say it in so many words, but they said it with their actions, with their inaction. 

 

But Lottie had never had a Shauna back home. She didn’t have someone to say it to back there. Lottie had only found something even remotely close to that out here.

 

Lottie had only found something even remotely close to herself out here. 

 

She feels the empty ache like a fresh wound. Lottie lets go of the dress and puts her hand on Jackie’s chest, her heart. It beats steady, a rhythm that drums along because she is alive.

 

Fire burns and takes, but it can’t have everything. Lottie knows this, too.

 

“She knew,” Lottie says, “that you loved her, too.”

 

Jackie cannot help but wonder if that’s worse. They loved each other. It wasn’t enough to save them. She holds Lottie’s hand to her chest and closes her eyes, unable to stop a few tears from rolling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she says again. It’s important that Lottie knows that she’s sorry. “I came back. I made sure that I came back.”

 

Lottie knows why Jackie went back. It’s selfish of Lottie to be upset about it. It was selfish of her to let herself feel destroyed over the thought.

 

Lottie has never really been a selfish person. 

 

“I know,” Lottie repeats. She knows. She knows. She has to remember that she knows. In the moment, she hadn’t known. In the moment, she’d felt like the new parts of herself that had grown to fit around Jackie were being burned away with the cabin.

 

“I’m sorry.” She doesn’t know what for, but maybe she’s just sorry for all of it. For not doing better, not being better, not realizing soon enough that Lottie should have known what was going to happen. 

 

That maybe, somewhere, Lottie had known someone would freeze that night and she’d let it happen anyway.

 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Jackie tells her, taking Lottie’s hand and bringing it up to her lips. She thinks she would have freaked out, too, if Lottie had pulled that kind of stupid shit. She’d certainly freaked out when Lottie had let Misty beat her up. She can’t imagine having to watch her run even further into a burning building.

 

Jackie also knows, though, that if she hadn’t made Mari pull Lottie out, Lottie would have just sat there and waited for Jackie to come back down. Inside the burning building.

 

And that horrifies her a little bit. 

 

Lottie had too much to be sorry for. Maybe that was why she’d grown too weary to be who everyone wanted her to be out here. They’d never looked at her with expectations before, only for her to be tall, quiet Lottie Matthews. Center defender. Immovable, distant, mysterious. 

 

Lottie had drifted through life as a made up version of herself, watching everyone from the outside.

 

It felt crushing to now be in a place where someone was trying to take her hand, lead her inside. Bring her into their world.

 

Lottie kept waiting for it to turn around on her. For the cruelty she was promised and the loneliness she was given to consume her as she tried to fit into a space not made for her.

 

But it never did. Instead, the beat of Jackie’s heart and the feeling of her chapped lips against Lottie’s dry knuckles always brought her back to a reality where she might just belong. 

 

Maybe Lottie was sorry for being something she knew she shouldn’t be. Jackie Taylor would never love someone like her. She curled her fingers around Jackie’s, though, leaned her head against the top of Jackie’s, and closed her eyes. She wonders if this was how Jackie felt watching Misty take a metal rod to Lottie’s body. She wonders if she broke with each swing in the same way Lottie’s ribs had. She wonders if it’s really possible to go on living after you’ve lost everything.

 

“Please don’t…do that again.”

 

“I promise not to rush into a burning building again,” Jackie chokes, some sort of strangled laugh pulling itself from her throat. She promised. Because a part of Jackie is afraid that, if she does something monumentally stupid, Lottie will stumble right after her without any sort of thought or care. She stopped eating because of Jackie. She apparently tried to follow Jackie out into a snowstorm. She would have waited for Jackie in the middle of a fire. 

 

It is impossible to imagine a world without Lottie Matthews. Jackie doesn’t think she can be responsible for that. She shudders at the thought, trying to pull herself closer, trying to wedge herself between Lottie and the wall they’re resting against so that she can hold her a little more firmly. She hopes Misty comes and checks on Lottie soon. Breathing in smoke is already super shitty when you don’t have broken ribs. She can’t imagine how much pain Lottie’s in.

 

Lottie knows the world can be cruel, probably more so than most people. She knows that a promise can be made and broken in the same breath. It’s the same with the Wilderness, she knows this, too. They are the laws of the world that have written themselves into Lottie’s skin, etched on her soul.

 

She knows that with each act of kindness there is an equal act of cruelty. She’s seen it, she’s lived it, watched it. Done it herself. It’s simply how things are and always have been and always will be.

 

She doesn’t believe there’s anything cruel behind Jackie’s words. 

 

Lottie rests her head on the wall as she looks at Jackie. She doesn’t have the words to fully describe what she sees. Lottie knows Jackie can be vindictive-- she can be bitter and stubborn and, yes, cruel. They all can be. It feels like something out here is trying to make them all into monsters, into wild, feral creatures that don’t know the difference between mercy and brutality. 

 

The difference is here, Lottie thinks. In moments like this. In the quiet shade of a hut built from dead trees and rotting plane parts, in people with the capacity to hurt and maim, but who choose not to.

 

She reaches up, knuckles brushing along the curve of Jackie’s jaw. She looks at her with a quiet reverence and wonders if the Wilderness sees that in her, too. 

 

“You’re so important, Jackie Taylor,” she finds herself murmuring.

 

Jackie hasn’t felt important in a really long time. Since before the girl in front of her told her that she didn’t matter. She’d believed Lottie so easily back then. It’s almost just as easy to believe Lottie now. Maybe not for everyone. Jackie still doesn’t feel important. She feels useless and lost, unable to find her way out here, stumbling through a snowstorm of her own making. She chose not to adapt. She chose to lay down and die. But, each time she’s tried to give up, Lottie’s been right there, dragging Jackie to her feet and forcing her to keep living.

 

She leans into Lottie’s touch. She’s not afraid of Lottie hurting her, not anymore. She wonders if, even when Lottie had been so startling, so imposing, if Jackie had ever properly been afraid. Her voice is rough as she says, “You’re the only reason I’m still alive.”

 

It’s a strange thing to understand, that Lottie has become an anchor in someone else’s life. She grapples with her own mind and thoughts and often finds herself untethered from everything and everyone around her. But having just one person, just this one other soul that reached through the haze for her, Lottie finds her feet more firmly planted on the ground.

 

It only took one. 

 

How can she put that feeling into words? Her brow crinkles, she thinks she might be dreaming. “Are you real?” she asks.

 

The words break Jackie’s heart. “Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, I’m real.” She can’t stop herself. Her eyes close, and Jackie brings her hand up to Lottie’s cheek before pulling her closer, brushing their lips together like she had before.

 

Dreams can be nice, sometimes. They can make Lottie feel warm and calm, like she’s bathing in sunlight. In her dreams, sometimes she’s normal and okay and she can smile at people and mean it, and she doesn’t have to carry around the weight of a pill bottle. Dreams can be freeing. They can make Lottie feel like maybe things will be okay.

 

They can’t make her feel like this, though. Like swelling, like heat, like plush lips on her own. Like fragile fingers and quiet whispers just for her.

 

She leans in because it’s not a dream. She leans in because it’s real. She kisses Jackie back and hopes it’s not something that can turn into a nightmare. Because dreams can be nightmares, too. Lottie was never good at telling the difference.

 

Lottie’s lips taste like blood. Jackie’s gentle, so gentle, not even sure what she’s doing or why. She just knows that she wants to. Her own lips are chapped. She wonders if she’s thinking too much about what she’s doing. 

 

Because this can’t really be excused away. The other two, either but they never talked about them. This isn’t practicing for boys, and it’s not boredom late at night in an attic bedroom, and it’s not a boy that she doesn’t even like, much less love. It’s a girl with soft brown eyes but not the ones she’s known her entire life. It’s a girl who’s done more than anyone else in the last few months to keep Jackie alive. It’s a girl who wants to know with such quiet fragility if this is real, and Jackie wants to say yes, yes, yes even when she’s not sure that it’s real either. 

 

When Jackie pulls away, she leans their foreheads together once again, keeping Lottie close. “It’s real.” She’s almost sorry for it. 

 

It's over too soon, Lottie thinks. But Jackie is still close to her, still holding her, her cool forehead pressed against Lottie's damp, warm skin of her own. 

 

It feels real. She wants to believe it's real. 

 

Jackie tells her it's real and Lottie can hear the sound of it breaking inside Jackie's chest, too. It's real, whether they want it to be or not. Lottie wants it to be real so badly it aches. 

 

All she can do is nod, even that small, stilted movement taking every ounce of effort she feels she has left. 

 

It's real. She believes that it's real. 

 

She believes what Jackie tells her. She has no choice but to. She would even if she did. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes. “It's real,” she repeats to herself. She thinks she might still be dreaming. 

 

It's an easy peace to shatter. It only takes the gentle crunch of boots in snow, the loud groan of metal being tugged on as the door to the meat shed opens. Lottie doesn't move but she opens her eyes, she looks over at Misty standing in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket of her own and breathing out heavy puffs of frost. She looks real, too. 

 

Misty makes her way over to them, kneeling in the dirty snow of the shed. “I need to check you over, Lottie,” she tells her, eyes flicking curiously behind glasses to Jackie and back. “Both of you.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know how to reassure Lottie, to reassure both of them, really, other than to keep holding her close, the two of them resting against each other, letting that be how Misty finds them. 

 

In another lifetime, Jackie would have jumped back as if caught, but she and Lottie touched so much these days that she didn’t think this was any different than usual. She pets through Lottie’s hair and scoots over so that Misty has more room, but she doesn’t actually let go of Lottie’s hand. Partly because she doesn’t think it’s possible; Lottie hasn’t let go of her in hours, and it didn’t seem like she planned on it any time soon. Mostly, though, Jackie doesn’t want to let go, either. “Lottie first.”

 

It’s only when Lottie tries to move that she realizes the true extent of her exhaustion. She can barely move her body, barely lift her head. Misty seems to notice this, concern writ into her brow as she feels around Lottie’s throat with both hands, the chill in them jarring against Lottie’s too warm and still damp skin. 

 

Misty puts a hand on her chest, near one of the fading, red welts she’d caused herself and Lottie feels her body tense, as if waiting for another blow. If Misty notices, she doesn’t say anything.

 

She adjusts her glasses and sits back, before looking at Jackie. Lottie doesn’t catch the worried glint in her eyes. Her head leans back against Jackie’s shoulder as Misty moves to check over Jackie’s ear again, peeling away bandages to check on the wound.

 

Lottie thinks maybe she can just close her eyes for a moment, she wants to, badly, but when she does, her heart pounds erratically in her chest. She only sees fire and light and flames consuming the things she’s tried so desperately to hold onto. Her grip tightens in Jackie’s hand. 

 

“You should both try to um, rest,” Misty finally declares, sitting back on her heels. Lottie can tell she’s exhausted, too. They all are.

 

Jackie thinks she hates when the bandage gets peeled away from her head, if only because the disorienting noise is worse than a lack of it. She waits until it’s replaced before frowning at Misty. “Hey, she’s still alright, right?” she asks. She’d seen that look on Misty’s face. “She’s still healing okay?” She gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze, tangling their fingers together. She’s not going anywhere.

 

Misty is a liar, they both know that. “Just try and keep her warm.” She reaches out to tuck the blanket Lottie has draped over her shoulders tighter around her. “I’ll be back soon with some warm water and food.” 

 

Lottie doesn’t hear much of what they’re saying. She lays her head on Jackie’s shoulder as soon as the bandages are back in place and closes her eyes as Misty stands to leave. She thinks maybe if she can just sleep a little, everything will be better on the other side. If she can just make it through this, things will get better.

 

Jackie thinks she can try to do that, reaching to take the blanket from around her own shoulders and wrapping it around Lottie as well before she moves to wrap her arms around Lottie. Jackie’s not particularly warm on her best days, not even if she’s running hot from feeling sick or overheated after practice, but she can still try, getting as close as she can. “Try to rest until she gets back with the food and water,” Jackie says quietly. Hopefully, that won’t take long.

 

Lottie still has a hard time taking in deep breaths and she thinks that might be wrong, but her tired, aching body doesn’t let her dwell on it. All her mind can think about was the taste of Jackie’s lips, still lingering on her own, the feeling of warmth that had spread through her. The hushed whisper that it’s real . 

 

Lottie closes her eyes. She wants to dream about happier times, but all she can dream about is Jackie. Maybe those are her happiest times.

 

Jackie does her best to keep both of them warm, and she worries that Lottie should probably be laying down rather than sitting up with the damage to her ribs, but she knows that when Misty comes back with the food that she’ll just have to sit up all over again.

 

A few of the girls come in and out, setting up pallets in the shed. Britt tells Jackie, “We’re probably going to take shifts to watch the fire after dinner. Nat says that at least if it’s burning there’s still some warmth.”

 

Jackie doesn’t get the logic behind it, but she can’t think of anything better. If the fucking cabin’s going to be unable to provide them with any sort of shelter, then it might as well serve some sort of purpose down to its last embers.

 

Everything's a blur in Lottie’s mind. She thinks she might be awake at some points, but she can’t tell. She watches from outside of herself as people meander in and out of the shed. She watches from too far inside herself as Jackie sits with her in her arms and doesn’t move. She can’t tell the difference between waking and sleep, even as she feels her own body moving to grasp a warm cup of broth, feels it sliding down her throat and into the pit of her stomach. She thinks maybe reality and her dreams might be colliding. She feels dizzy even as her eyes close and she knows she’s sitting up but she can’t feel the ground. She feels too hot, too cold. She thinks it might be daytime or it might be nighttime or it might be both. She thinks she might be trembling or struggling to breathe, or she might just be imagining things. 

 

Was there a difference anymore?

 

Lottie wants to sleep. Hasn’t she been sleeping? She doesn’t remember the hours passing. The door opened once to light and she blinked. The door opened to night. She thought she could see the moon. She thought she could see Natalie standing in the doorway. She thought maybe she could see her eyes staring back into Lottie’s as she bends down to look at her, at them both.

 

“You should lay her down.” She thinks she hears Misty talking again, but her voice comes from Natalie’s mouth. Lottie blinks against the harsh sunlight. Hadn’t it just been night?

 

She’s still having a hard time breathing. Her lungs hurt. Her ribs hurt. Her head hurts. She just wants to sleep. 

 

She thinks Jackie holds her through it the entire time. She can’t tell the difference anymore. She thinks she smells the cabin still burning. How long has it been? How much longer will it be?

 

Lottie lays her head in Jackie’s lap. She can breathe a little easier now. She wonders when the world will stop being sideways. She thinks she sees Shauna in the corner across from them. She thinks she feels Laura Lee petting timid fingers through her hair. She feels cold lips on her skin. She hears someone whispering to her, praying to whoever will listen that she’ll be okay. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes and goes to sleep.

 

As some point, after Lottie has fallen asleep with her head in Jackie’s lap, Nat stumbles in, looking dead on her feet. Melissa and Gen are already asleep in a corner, and Nat makes a spot next to Jackie, looking at Lottie with soft eyes.

 

She turns those soft eyes on Jackie, much to her surprise. “How are you doing?” she asks. She sounds like she’s been smoking, and, with the damage the fire’s been doing, it’s not a surprise.

 

Jackie manages a smile. “I’m doing amazing. Just, you know, super fucking great.”

 

Nat rolls her eyes. “Sarcasm’s a shitty look on you, Jackie.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Nat settles down, sighing. “How’d you do it?” she asks after a minute.

 

Jackie looks up from the hand she has tangled with Lottie’s. “Do what?”

 

“Lead them.”

 

Snorting, Jackie shakes her head. “I hardly did that. It was fucking soccer, Natalie. Not surviving the end of the world.”

 

“Doesn’t matter. Sometimes, I see it, you know. You get it back,” Nat says. “They’d still listen to you. Maybe not about everything, but to keep them from going fucking nuts.”

 

Jackie just rolls her eyes. “The smoke’s gotten to your head.”

 

“Sure, Captain.”

 

“I’m not,” Jackie tells her, her voice quiet but resolute. “You’re the leader, now.”

 

“Misty called me the queen, like a queen bee or something. I think it was a joke.” Nat adds under her breath, “I hope it was a joke.”

 

“Natalie the First. Long may she reign.”

 

It’s Nat’s turn to roll her eyes, and she leans up, serious. “Just… think about it? If I’m a queen, or the leader, or whatever, then I could use a captain, right? Besides, I–” Her fingers go to the necklace. “You helped me be here. It’d make sense.”

 

Jackie doesn’t really think so. “Go to sleep, Nat.”

 

“Think about it.”

 

Jackie doesn’t want to. Instead, she settles closer to Lottie, holding her a little tighter.

 

Lottie hears whispers, hears people talking. 

 

She hears the silence when they stop.

 

Her eyes open to the dark of nighttime. She thinks she’s breathing, she thinks the person beside her is breathing. She feels something warm clasped in her hand. 

 

Lottie thinks she stands up. She looks down at herself, sleeping on the cold ground, curled up in Jackie’s arms. She leaves the meat shed and stands in front of the burning cabin. She watches the flames, far less rabid now, as they continue to consume what they feed it. If she stares long enough, she thinks she can see faces in the flames-- the faces of the people this place has consumed. Lottie reaches for them, the people, the flames, it doesn’t matter, they’re all the same now. They’re cold as they lick at her skin, but it still melts, boils away until she’s just muscle and sinew and bone. She sees a hand reaching back out through the fire. A match, lit and dropped. The shadow of someone who watched them and decided they needed to burn.

 

Fire and cold take away everything from her.

 

Lottie’s eyes jerk open and her body feels heavy. She’s breathing heavy. It burns in her lungs. She feels too hot, she tries to move, pulling at the sleeves of her jacket. Her forehead is coated in sweat. She’s shivering uncontrollably even as she continues to try and pull her jacket off. Someone is moving beside her, awoken by her jerky movements. Or maybe they were already awake.

 

“It’s so hot,” Lottie slurs. “It’s too hot.”

 

“Hey, hey, Lottie,” Jackie says, feeling Lottie start stirring. “Lottie, no, you can’t– you shouldn’t take that off. Misty? Misty?” She feels bad calling Misty over. She’d only just gotten to lay down, and it didn’t seem like she’d get much rest now, either, but Jackie isn’t sure what to do. She doesn’t want to do something wrong. She hasn’t been awake very long herself, her eyes still bleary.

 

Misty stumbles off of her pallet, slipping on her glasses and back into her role as primary physician. “She might be overheating. Taking off her jacket might be good. She just doesn’t need to get too cold. Start wiping her down. I’m going to get her some water.”

 

Lottie, delirious, looks at Jackie. “It’s burning us,” she tells her, grabs Jackie’s arm, squeezes, “from the inside out.” She doesn’t hear herself talking. She doesn’t understand what she’s saying. Lottie has always been like this. Some hollow shell of herself. Something inescapably different from what everyone else sees. 

 

“It’s too hot.” 

 

“No, no, it’s not burning us,” Jackie soothes, reaching for a bowl of water and a rag that Misty had left with her a few hours before. “It’s not burning us.” She wipes it over Lottie’s face, her neck. “I know it’s hot.” It’s still pretty cold, even in the shed, even with people in there. 

 

Van comes over from where she’d been resting in the corner, eating a few bites of stew that Jackie thinks Mari put on an hour or so before. “Hey, Lott. It’s alright.”

 

Misty comes back with a cup of warm water. “Let’s get some fluids in her to make sure she doesn’t get dehydrated with her fever. Lottie,” she says, her voice turning sweet, “let’s drink something, okay?”

 

Lottie reaches for Van. She sees the fire still on her skin. “You felt it,” she says to her, her voice a desperate breath, “you still do.” 

 

Her fingers scrape gently along Van’s skin, white marks turning red. Van pulls back, looks at Jackie, at Misty. 

 

For Lottie, it never stopped. The fire burned, it’s been burning since they got here. She thinks she remembers the flames consuming them all inside the plane. She thinks she remembers waking up inside it, strapped to her seat.

 

“Did we survive?” she asks. Are they even alive?

 

“It’s the fever,” Jackie tells Van. “She’s too hot.” She brushes the rag over Lottie’s skin some more, trying to cool her down. “We survived. We’re here, okay? But you need to drink.”

 

Van helps Jackie sit Lottie up, and Misty holds the cup to Lottie’s lips, urging her to drink it.

 

The world is moving around Lottie. Or is Lottie moving around the world? She’s sitting upright, there’s something warm pressed to her lips. Lottie’s shaking hands take the cup. She drinks greedily. Her throat burns with it from the inside out. 

 

Everything teeters, spins. Lottie can’t hold herself up, her body tries to follow the motion of the sway, reaching for the ground again, trying to bury itself in the dirt and dissolve. Misty has to pull the cup from her hands before she falls over while Van tries to help Jackie keep her upright.

 

Lottie remembers the first night she’d gone to sleep out here without her medication. She’d felt the same way. The world had spun above her until the motion made her sick. No one noticed her slip outside and vomit into the bushes. 

 

She feels bile rushing up her throat again.

 

“Shit,” Misty curses, reaching for her to try and keep her from throwing up what she’s just drunk, “we need to get her outside.” They don’t need her being sick inside the only place that is providing them shelter. Lottie knows this. She can’t stop herself. Her body is moving on its own, heaving. 

 

Van takes one of Lottie’s arms and wraps it around her shoulders. “C’mon,” she says, “it’s gonna be okay, Lott.”

 

Lottie thinks she might be wrong. She might be right. She might be both. She might be neither. 

 

The air outside is crisp. It’s bright with the orange of dying flames. Lottie keels over, she doesn’t fight it as her body tries to expel whatever is in her stomach making her sick. It tastes like copper. 

 

It makes her groan with discomfort, pain. 

 

Misty is lifting her dress up, feeling around her ribs. Lottie winces in pain but doesn’t move. She thinks something doesn’t quite feel right. The bruise growing on her side makes Misty’s face go a little pale. 

 

“I think there’s internal bleeding,” she tells the other two.

 

Jackie knows that isn’t good. She knows. Just like she knows that it’s her fault. Lottie was struggling to try and get to Jackie. She hurt herself. She made it worse. “What do we need to do?” she asks, her heart pounding. “What do we– What can we do?”

 

Misty is almost floundering. “We, um-- we can try and relieve the pressure by draining the blood where it’s pooling.” She points to the large, thick, purple spot around Lottie’s ribs. “And just-- hope it helps.” They don’t have what they need out here. “We need to lay her down, get her feet above her head. Help, um, help keep the blood flowing to her heart.” 

 

Lottie can feel it burning up inside of her. They didn’t listen but she knew. No one ever really listened to her because she was crazy. The things she said, the things she saw and heard, they were crazy, just like her.

 

Her head sags forward, she can’t feel her feet anymore. “Il veut du sang,” she murmurs. It wants her blood.

 

“Go get the knife,” Jackie tells Van, “and Akilah.” She’s trying to be calm. She’s trying to grab onto that place, that thing Nat says that she can still see in her, but Jackie doesn’t really know where it is. She’s not that anymore. And, even if she was, it wouldn’t matter. Jackie wasn’t picked to be their captain because she was good . She was picked because she had a nice smile and could navigate society. There’s no society out here. Just the endless wilderness. 

 

Van comes back with the knife and Akilah. Jackie looks at the blade, thinking about what Lottie said. It wants blood. It always seems to want blood. Whatever it is about this place makes them want blood, too. 

 

Jackie looks at Misty. “Tell us what to do.”

 

“Put some blankets down here,” Misty instructs Van, who does as she’s told. “Akilah, get some hot water and plenty of rags ready.” She heads off to do so. She looks at Jackie. “Lay her down here.” 

 

Lottie lets herself be laid down on the blankets. The cold snow underneath them is already seeping through. It feels nice on her burning body, it soaks away the fire. 

 

Misty clears away some of the bramble, stacks a few rocks under the blanket and sets Lottie’s legs on them, elevating them above her heart. She holds her hand out for the knife but doesn’t ask for it. “We have to relieve the pressure here,” she points Jackie to the spot on Lottie’s side that is sickly black and purple. Yellowed skin, pooled blood under the surface.

 

Lottie thinks maybe they should just plunge the knife into her heart. She’d say thank you if Jackie did. She’d smile at her and paint her face with the blood and kiss her goodbye.

 

She doesn’t think they’ll let her go. She lays still, watches the bare tree branches reach down from above and cradle her comfortingly. She closes her eyes and waits for the fire inside of her to be let out with her blood. 

 

Akilah returns with the rags, the bucket, trembling hands. They’ve watched so much blood be shed the past few weeks. It never ends.

 

Lottie reaches for the girl, puts a hand on hers. “It’s waiting for you,” she tells her. Lottie’s head is silent. “It wants.”

 

Misty moves enough to give Jackie room. “Do it now or give me the knife.”

 

Jackie doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t even know when she started holding the knife. She doesn’t know when it got in her hands. She just knows that it’s there.

 

“Hold it steady,” Shauna whispers in her ears. Jackie breathes in sharply, not expecting the sound. A hand guides Jackie to the awful bruise along Lottie’s ribs. “Do what she says, relieve the pressure. It’s not that hard.”

 

It’s not that hard. Even with Jackie’s trembling hands, her unsure grip, she manages to cut, blood welling to the surface of Lottie’s skin. She has to drain the bruise. 

 

“Might be hope for you yet, Jax. Maybe you’ll turn into a badass out here, too,” Shauna breathes. Jackie can’t see her, but it’s like she’s right there.

 

Lottie thinks it might hurt, but it feels freeing. She feels her blood dripping down her side, onto the blanket, into the white snow, staining it red. She feels the fire pouring from the slit in her ribs, melting the ground beneath her. She takes in a deep breath, it doesn’t burn. It’s pain and it’s jabbing, a knife in her ribs still, slotted between the bone, prying her open-- but it doesn’t burn. The fire dims, it crackles on its last embers. The cabin is turning to ash behind them. 

 

Lottie lets out her breath. It freezes in front of her face as a cloud of water vapor. Her skin grows pale. She grows tired. She reaches over, wraps her fingers around Jackie’s wrist, the one holding the knife. “It’s real,” she tells her, smiling. She touches her blood on the knife. It steams in the cold winter air. “It’s inside all of us.” 

 

“Hey,” Jackie soothes, her fingers clenching tight around the knife as Lottie grabs her. “Just rest, okay? Just rest.” 

 

Misty and Akilah work together to make sure the wound drains before bandaging Lottie up, and Jackie stays there with a bloody knife in her hand, thinking about what she’s just done. She didn’t want to. She did it anyway. She sees the blood staining the snow, and she thinks she needs to do it again.

 

Jackie knows that she can’t leave Lottie while she’s even remotely teetering on the edges of consciousness, and she knows that she’ll still have to find a way to get Lottie to let go of her, but a plan starts working in her head. It’s a shitty one, admittedly, and stupid, too. But, when Nat finally makes it over to see what’s going on, Jackie pulls her down. “I need you to hold her hand and take my place for a few minutes when she goes to sleep, okay?” she asks quietly.

 

Nat frowns. “What are you talking about?”

 

“Can you trust me? Please?” 

 

Nat does not look like she trusts Jackie one bit. “Where are you going?”

 

“The woods. Not for long. An hour max. Probably not even that,” Jackie tells her.

 

“Take someone with you,” Nat says. “Take Travis. He knows the woods better than you, even with your little bit of experience.”

 

“Not scared I’m going to fuck him again?” Jackie snaps back. She’s tired. She doesn’t know why she says it.

 

Nat’s tired, too. “You wanna be stupid? Fine. But you’re not doing it alone. I know better, this time.” 

 

Jackie looks away from her, frowning, choosing instead to brush some of Lottie’s hair away from her forehead.

 

Lottie’s world has shrunk to two voices and the soft hand clutched in hers. It’s blood and snow and fire and dreams. It’s sinking below the surface of the lake, in the summer, looking up at an angel with a halo of fire, or in the winter, looking up through the hole that turned into a halo. It’s ice in her veins and fire spreading across her skin until it lights everything around it on fire. It’s a plane exploding in the sky and a hunched figure buried under snow. It’s everything at once, time pulling at the edges of Lottie’s mind and she’s sitting on a plane, or in the forest, or on the floor of the attic. Or on a bed she doesn’t recognize, white, sterile walls her only company. It’s the peacefulness of the outdoors, the horrors of the wilderness, the comfort of arms around her.

 

It’s real . It’s Jackie’s voice in her ear, hot breath against her skin. 

 

Lottie is laying on the ground, her side split open. Her ribs torn out and broken backwards to expose her beating heart. It’s bloody hands reaching into the cavity and holding the organ as it beats and it’s Jackie carving her name into the muscle with the same knife that was covered in her own blood. 

 

Lottie squeezes the hand in hers. She knows without opening her eyes it’s not Jackie’s. It’s dry knuckles and calloused palms, worn from carrying a gun too heavy to hold alone but forced to anyway. 

 

Lottie mutters in her sleep. Sweat beads at her brow, at the line of her neck. She whispers to the woods, to the trees, to Jackie Taylor, trudging through them with a knife covered in Lottie’s blood. 

 

She thinks being dead might be the same thing as being alive.

 

“Where are we going?” Travis asks loudly, his hands shoved into the coat pockets as he glances over at Jackie. He said something a minute ago. He must have had to repeat himself.

 

She’s got the hood of Shauna’s old sweatshirt up over her head, but at least the bandages cover one of her ears. Or, at least, where an ear should be. She won’t tell Nat, but she’s grateful Travis is there. She has him walk on her right side where she can’t hear properly, and it makes her feel safer, even if she can’t hear him as well as she’d like.

 

“Doomcoming clearing,” she mutters.

 

Travis stops walking. And Jackie remembers.

 

“ Shit. I wouldn’t have– If Nat hadn’t insisted…” She might have asked him anyway. The more they walk, the more she thinks that Travis is the best person to do this with her. She turns to face him so that she can better hear him.

 

“It’s fine,” he says. It’s not. She doesn’t think it is. But he starts walking, and it’s her turn to trudge after him. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Make it quick.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know what she’s doing at all, but she does, at least, think that it’ll be quick. The tree stump that Lottie finds so interesting is easy to spot. 

 

Travis stops at the edge, not wanting to venture any closer, and Jackie can’t blame him. She can’t, but she can’t stop, either.

 

If she stops, she’ll chicken out, and she really doesn’t want to have to get the courage to try this again. 

 

It’s not quite kneeling, but it’s something close as Jackie stops in front of the stump. Blood. It wants blood. She licks her lips. She grabs the knife. It’s still got Lottie’s blood on it. If she takes the time to clean it off, she won’t do it at all.

 

The slice is fast and deep across the palm of her hand, blood immediately welling up and spilling from the wound as she squeezes her hand shut and gasps. 

 

“Jesus, Jackie,” Travis says from somewhere behind her. He doesn’t come closer, but he can see. 

 

It wants blood. Jackie figures that, between her and Lottie, between the hunt, between the loss of their home, more than enough has been spilled. She stands and walks over to Travis, and he grabs her, using one of the ratty pieces of cloth he uses as part of his face coverings to stem the bleeding.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie says, “for bringing you out here.”

 

Travis just shakes his head.

 

“And I’m sorry,” she adds, the words strangling her, “about Javi.”

 

When he looks at her, there’s tears in his eyes. 

 

They haven’t talked much, not really, over the last few months. Mostly, that’s Jackie’s fault. She hasn’t talked to many of them, not since Shauna, and then she got sick, and now she’s down a fucking ear. But she liked talking to Travis. Not necessarily having sex with him. It was nice, she guesses, just not what she expected. Not what she really wanted. 

 

But talking to him, getting to know him? She likes that. And they share something, now, something horrible, something that the others cannot get. They lost someone. They consumed someone. Neither of them will get over that.

 

Jackie wraps her arms around Travis and holds him close. It’s too cold to do it for long, but there’s a moment of understanding. 

 

His voice is thick as he says, “We should head back.”

 

It’s not a long walk, at least.

 

Natalie is sitting next to Lottie when she sees Travis and Jackie reappearing from the treeline they’d headed off into. It hasn’t been long, less than an hour, like Jackie had said, but she’s already growing worried. The worry doesn’t relieve itself when she sees them. She wants to know what Jackie did.

 

Lottie squeezes Natalie’s hand. “They understand,” she says to her but Natalie knows Lottie is still unconscious. She thinks. “They know it too well.”

 

She wants to ask what that means, but Lottie’s eyes are closed and her breathing is calm. She waves Jackie and Travis over.

 

“She’s still asleep,” Natalie tells Jackie. She looks at the still burning cabin. It’s nothing but a pile of rubble and ash now. What little is left of the fire they keep lit is also dwindling. “We can’t stay here much longer.” 

 

Jackie looks at Lottie, her eyes soft and worried. She gives Nat a nod. “Where, though? We don’t– We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

 

Travis moves to take the knife from her, and Jackie’s a little annoyed, as if he thinks she’s going to slice open her other hand, but she lets him take it from her. She doesn’t care about it anymore. Instead, she kneels down, moving to take Lottie’s free hand.

 

Natalie lets out a long breath. “I dunno, the-- the plane for now? We can at least strip it for parts, look for anything else we can use to make shelters or something.” She takes her time, leans in a little so the others now milling about don’t overhear. “We can’t stay here, though. There’s nothing left for us here.”

 

At that, Lottie subconsciously squeezes Jackie’s hand tightly. 

 

Jackie doesn’t even think about it as she brings Lottie’s hand to her lips before holding it close to her heart as she sits down. “I grabbed a few books from upstairs. I don’t know if Tai or Van were looking at them or if they were just some of the dead guy’s random things. They might be helpful, though. Maybe a page got stuck together and we’ll find the way out of this mess.”

 

Travis cleans the knife off in the snow before pocketing it. “We might be able to salvage some of the cushions still left on the plane. At least it can hold more people than the shed.” Jackie’s noticed that he doesn’t go in there. She can’t blame him. 

 

Natalie nods. “Yeah, yeah.” She’s obviously flying by the seat of her pants. She’s doing the best she can, she thinks. “We should all get some rest tonight, first. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day. Can--” she looks to Lottie-- “should we get her back in the shed for now?” 

 

Misty has gone back to sleep and no one really wants to bother her again. They’re all running on fumes at this point. Tired and hungry and cold. They need to get somewhere better before the next storm blows in, or they’ll all freeze or starve and die. 

 

Jackie doesn’t know if they should move Lottie. She’s more than worried, feeling it eating at her bones. They have to keep her feet elevated and laying down, she thinks she remembers. They have to keep her warm but also not overheating. They have to keep her hydrated and somehow make sure she keeps the water down.

 

And Jackie needs to make sure that Lottie doesn’t hurt herself again, doesn’t cause any more bleeding or pain. 

 

“I can get her legs if you two get her arms,” Travis says quietly.

 

Natalie looks to Jackie, standing. “Come on, we can make it quick hopefully.” They couldn't just leave her out here after all. They might have to kick someone out of the shed to get her to fit laying flat, though. Lottie is taller than all of them, even Travis. 

 

She hooks Lottie's arm around her and scoops her hands under her back. “On three?” 

 

Somewhere outside of herself, outside of them all, Lottie watches. She doesn't think she's dead or dying, but something in her keeps allowing her spirit to uncouple itself from her body. She thinks she only stays nearby because Jackie's hand is holding her there. She can see the thin, silver string that is running from Lottie's heart to Jackie's palm. She sees the cloth, the cut, the blood. 

 

Her head tilts curiously. Does Jackie truly believe? 

 

She follows them into the shed. Her feet leave no prints behind. She is not real. 

 

Natalie stirs Van awake. It's hard to choose who should give up their spot, but she figures Van won't protest. And she doesn't, shifting to head outside with her blanket and sit by the fire with the others who were out there. 

 

Natalie feels guilty, but she'll go join them soon. 

 

“Is there anything else we need to do right now?” she asks Jackie, breathing heavy. 

 

“I don’t– I don’t think so,” Jackie says hesitantly, panting. Her hand brushes against Lottie’s face, and she sits down, putting her head in her lap. “Just… just make sure her feet are elevated.”

 

When Travis is done, he heads out of the shed without a word, not looking around the small space that holds too many bodies in too many different ways. 

 

Jackie reaches out for Nat. “You need to get some rest.” She thinks Nat’s going to be a good leader, but she worries that she’ll take on even more burdens than she already had before. Because of course she will. That’s what she does.

 

Natalie grabs a bag someone has stuffed in the corner and puts it under Lottie's legs. She looks at Jackie and nods stiffly. “You, too, Jackie.” She's pretty sure neither of them are going to sleep much tonight. 

 

With one last look over, Natalie finally takes her leave. She finds her palette by the fire and sits, watching it with Travis and Van. She knows surviving out here is going to be a lot harder without this cabin, but somehow, she feels relieved knowing it's gone now. Maybe with it, they burned away all the horrible things they've had to do to survive. Maybe now they could move on from the shadows that clung to them in there. 

 

Lottie watches Jackie move her head into Jackie's lap. She thinks she might want to come back to herself now, as she kneels over her own body, ghostly fingers sinking into skin. She looks to the corner and sees two other ghosts sitting among the girls. 

 

Shauna and Laura Lee watch her crawl back into her body. 

 

When Lottie stirs, she doesn't know how long it's been again. But her body aches and she feels heavy, like sand. She knows this is real. She opens her eyes and sees Jackie above her. 

 

She doesn't say anything, just turns her head enough to feel the cotton cloth of Jackie's pants against her cheek, settling in. “The wilderness recognizes your sacrifice,” she mumbles despite her eyes closing and her mind clouding over, “and so do I.”

 

Jackie’s eyes are closed, just resting, until she feels Lottie stirring. She doesn’t know what to say to those words, doesn’t know how to react. She doesn’t even think Lottie’s properly awake. “It wasn’t for the wilderness,” she whispers. “Just for you.”

 

Lottie reaches up with one hand to press her fingers into the cloth of Jackie’s pants, resting it there. She doesn’t quite hear what Jackie whispers back, but she still hears her all the same, and Jackie’s voice is just as soothing as it always has been, like an icy balm on the burns left behind on Lottie’s skin. She draws in a slow breath and holds it, lets it dance inside of her lungs and chest, before she lets it go just as slowly, feeling her entire body deflate with the movement. “Thank you,” she murmurs against Jackie’s leg, trying to keep herself conscious enough to stay in the moment, but her mind is swimming in muddy waters and she can’t keep her head above the surface very long. “I’m…sorry.”

 

“Just rest, Lottie,” Jackie tells her, brushing her hands through Lottie’s hair. She doesn’t need Lottie to be sorry. She just needs her to be okay, especially when there’s nothing for her to apologize for. She clenches her hand, feels the cloth dig into her palm, aching and twitching. Maybe she went too deep. She doesn’t care. “Just rest.”

 

Lottie wants to rest but she also wants to make sure Jackie knows. She wants to make sure she knows how grateful Lottie is for her. She couldn’t even imagine going through this alone. She didn’t want to. 

 

Her side stings where the knife had cut into her flesh, and she can feel hot blood trying to scab at the entrance of the wound. Any movement that pulls on it feels as if the knife is being slid back into her ribs, but she still reaches for Jackie’s bandaged hand. Presses her lips to her palm. 

 

Lottie tugged on her, a feeble motion. She wanted to wrap herself around Jackie as much as she could, wanted to feel the heavy weight of something in her arms, keep her grounded. “Please…” she begs, her voice barely audible. She needed something to feel real while her mind tried to find its way back to her.

 

Jackie knows that they probably won’t be staying in one place for long. When the sun gets higher, they’ll all start packing up their things, and they’ll need to find a way to carry Lottie back to the plane crash, probably the same way that they got Coach Scott to the cabin. But there’s still a little bit of time, so Jackie slowly lays down, moving to hold Lottie carefully in her arms.

 

The moment Jackie moved to hold her, Lottie burrowed her face into Jackie’s hair, the feel of it tickling her face comforting. She couldn’t move her body to rest on her side, but she could still wrap one arm around her and hold her tightly. 

 

“It’s going to be okay,” she manages to say, rather clearly and confidently. It doesn’t feel like she’s saying it at all, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the truth. It was going to be okay. It had to be.

 

“I know,” Jackie says, even if she doesn’t, even if she wishes she had Lottie’s quiet, steady confidence on the matter. Jackie doesn’t feel particularly confident at all, though she wishes she did. Instead, she just feels tired. But the weight of Lottie in her arms, the comfort of the two of them lying side by side, was enough for now. 

 

“You’ll see,” Lottie whispers into Jackie’s ear. 

 

And she doesn’t remember falling asleep. She doesn’t remember what she sees in her sleep, but she knows it was something. She knows it's important.

Notes:

Boy howdy! We've made it to the end of Season 2, and a little something extra as a treat! We hope you're enjoying the story so far, and we've got plenty more in store! Next up: we'll begin exploring the in between times as the girls work to create a new home for themselves out in the wilderness.

See you all next week, thanks so much for reading, and feel free to reach out to us on our socials!

Chapter 11: the journey of a thousand miles

Summary:

And I would walk five hunred miles, and I would walk five hundred more-- okay, so they didn't walk that far, but the Yellowjackets need a new hive and what better than the husk of something long dead? Maybe they all should've spent more time on leg day but the important thing now is that they all stick together, something Jackie and Lottie seem to have no issues doing. They already share a bed, too, so why not some guilt?

Notes:

Ahhh here we are, the start of a new chapter-- literally and figuratively! Was always a little unhappy they skipped so much time between the end of s2 and beginning of s3, so i was pretty excited to write this in between stuff. Hope y'all enjoy it, too! <3

Chapter title is from Lao Tzu's proverb "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

All Lottie remembers is feeling the weight of a body around her. And then there was noise and she was being prodded awake. Whatever had been on the fringes of her mind disappeared like fog blown away. Her eyes drifted open slowly, she blinked up at the figures standing around her. 

 

“What’s happening?” 

 

“We need to move you,” Jackie tells Lottie, having gotten up not too long before to discuss with Nat what they needed to do about moving Lottie. She might not be the one they all listened to anymore, but there was still plenty of loyalty for the tall girl within the team, so at least it wasn’t hard to find people willing to volunteer. Jackie leans down next to Lottie, taking her hand. “We’re going to the plane.” 

 

The plan is to move Lottie in shifts. Even the strongest of them is still starving, and none of them can really manage the weight of carrying another person for too long. But they’ll stop near the lake. It isn’t anywhere near a halfway mark, but it’ll allow a bit of a breather before they march on.

 

If Nat isn’t confident, then she doesn’t show it. Her face is impassive as she stares at the remains of what was their home for the last few months, and Jackie stands beside her, observing the smoldering remains as well as the girl they had all bowed to not so long before. Nat takes a deep breath, and Jackie thinks she must have imagined the shudder as Nat nods. 

 

“We’re burning daylight,” she says, and she starts walking. 

 

Jackie offers up a sharp whistle to catch everyone’s attention, and they begin the trek. Travis, Van, Melissa, and Britt are the first to carry the stretcher they’ve made for Lottie, and Jackie walks beside them, keeping an eye on her as they walk.

 

If Lottie retained what they'd been talking about, it didn't show. They'd lifted her onto a makeshift stretcher and she'd only whimpered a little at the pain it caused. She still felt so exhausted, as if she hadn't been sleeping non-stop the past few days. Or longer? Lottie still didn't know. She didn't want to ask. 

 

When they started moving, her first instinct was to reach for Jackie. Melissa and Van are at her feet and Travis and Britt are at her head. But where is Jackie? Her vision is still dotted black around the edges, that eerie state of unconsciousness always close by. Guilt stabs at her as she listens to everyone struggle, all of them pitching in to carry what they can. To carry Lottie because she couldn't walk herself. She tries to hide her face, hide the shame in her eyes. Tries to listen for any sign, but there’s just silence, the crunch of feet in snow, heavy breaths from exhausted mouths, and the groan of trees bending under the weight of winter. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes and offers a quiet prayer. It’s the only thing she can do right now, weary and sick and broken. She'd become nothing but a burden to them all in her want to simply help. Lottie felt the cold sting of uncried tears in her eyes but didn't move to wipe them away. 

 

She wonders what she's done to lose Its favor. She wonders what she's done to make herself useless to It. 

 

Lottie takes in a shuddering breath, the sharp jab of pain in her side eliciting a small cry from her throat as the four carrying her do their best not to jostle her. She is grateful for them, even if every small stutter or jerk of the stretcher shoots jolts of pain through her body. She'd done this to herself, really. She'd tried to get to Jackie in the cabin, when she'd seen her going back up. She'd thought she was going to lose someone else to the fire, the light. It scares Lottie, then, the thought that she would have let herself burn with the cabin had Jackie not come back out.

 

Maybe that was why It was angry with her. Why it had tossed her aside. 

 

But Lottie had decided months ago, whether she’d meant to or not, that Jackie was more important to her than the Wilderness. 

 

And that thought scares her the most.

 

It’s significantly worse than their first expedition together as a group for a variety of reasons. The cold is biting, and Jackie is quickly covering her face to ward it off, the others following suit if they hadn’t already. The snow doesn’t make it easier, the powderiness off it giving way to watery slush in places. It might be a sign of something good, if it didn’t make getting around that much harder. But the worst part, to Jackie, are the sounds of pain that she hears Lottie make, and there’s nothing that Jackie can really do to help. She tries to stay beside the stretcher but out of the way, making sure that there’s plenty of room to maneuver through the snow. 

 

At times, she falls back near Natalie, who's taken up a spot in the back, telling Tai where to go in the front while also shouting directions to the rest of the group. But Jackie never stays for long, her feet always pulling her back to Lottie, never really allowing her to stray. 

 

The lake isn’t too far, but everyone is exhausted by the time they make it. It’s more travel than most of the team has managed in months, and it shows. Lottie is gently placed on the ground, and Jackie moves beside her, kneeling as she takes Lottie’s hand.

 

When they finally stop moving and Lottie is placed down, she allows her taught muscles to unclench, feeling the throb of pain pulsing through her entire body. It's only a moment later before Jackie comes into her vision and takes her hand, and Lottie is squeezing it back as best she can. 

 

“Where are we?” She asks, her voice warbling and dry, the delirium in her mind still keeping her from fully understanding what's going on.

 

“Near the lake,” Jackie murmurs. They haven’t even made it that far. There’s still a ways to go. She thinks they’ll need to stop somewhere along the way to the plane, too, but she doesn’t say the words. “I think somebody’s got clean water that they’re going to bring around in a minute. How are you feeling?”

 

The lake. Why the lake? Lottie wants to ask. She forgets where they’re going. She blinks and tries to focus on Jackie’s face, but everything is still blurry. She wants to get up, she wants to walk, she wants to help. But even just the thought makes her bones ache. She tries to breathe calmly. “Tired,” she answers. She’s just always so tired. She wonders if it’ll ever go away, that feeling. She shivers. 

 

Jackie brings Lottie’s hand to her cheek and brushes against it. “I know. It’ll be over soon. Nat says it won’t take us all day to get to the plane, even with this many people.” Then they’d just have to set up a camp again, somewhere that Lottie could be warm and dry, somewhere she could rest. 

 

Misty comes over with a cup of water. “Hey, Lottie. We need to sit you up a little so that you can drink, okay?”

 

Lottie preemptively groans. She knows it’s going to hurt. It hurt just to sit up with her broken ribs and now there was a gash in her side. Still, she nods stiffly, squeezes Jackie’s hand tighter. She tries to help them lift her, planting her free hand on the ground. She doesn’t mean to let the pathetic sound of pain escape her lips, but she can’t help it. 

 

Misty holds out the cup, helps her drink. The cool water feels nice on her throat, but swallowing is harder than she’d like it to be. Everything just makes it all hurt more. She looks to Misty, back to Jackie. “Where are we…going?”

 

“Try to drink a little more,” Jackie says quietly, encouraging Lottie to get a little more water in her system, even though she can tell that sitting up sucks. Lottie’s in so much pain, and there’s nothing Jackie can do about it, and she hates it.

 

Misty hands Jackie the cup after they help Lottie lie back down, and she takes a few greedy mouthfuls before handing it back. Misty says, “We’re going to the plane crash. Natalie thinks we can shelter there and scavenge for parts before we find something else.”

 

Lottie really just wants to sleep but she doesn’t think that’s going to be possible until they make it to the plane. Her eyes close, she nods stiffly. Just sitting up once has her already breathing heavy. She kind of hates it. She really hates it. “Sorry,” she mutters to whoever will listen. She’s just sorry for making everything harder. She thinks maybe they should’ve just left her back at that cabin. She probably could’ve just stayed in the shed. 

 

Misty offers Lottie a pat as she gets up and moves to go to some of the others, and Jackie just squeezes Lottie’s hand again. “You don’t have to be sorry. It’s not your fault.” It’s mostly Misty’s, partly Jackie’s for being an idiot, and not at all Lottie’s. If they’re playing the blame game.

 

“I’m just…” Lottie lets go of her shuddering breath. “Sorry. I can’t…” Sorry she can’t be of more help, sorry she’s making more of a mess. She brings Jackie’s hand to her face, pressing knuckles to her cheek. “Maybe I should’ve just stayed back.”

 

“No.” Jackie refuses to even accept thinking about such a thing. “No one would leave you, anyway.” And if Lottie had stayed, Jackie would have, too. It’s as simple as that. 

 

Lottie doesn’t think that’s all together true, but she does think it would be true for Jackie. She knows Jackie would’ve stayed with her. It’s better that they didn’t, in the end. Still, Lottie had gone from the person they all relied on, to the person holding them back the most. She lets her eyes close. “Okay.” 

 

It’s not long before Lottie hears Natalie rallying everyone to get ready to leave again. They can’t stay too long, the daylight hours are still short and getting caught out here at night could be lethal for all of them. 

 

Lottie searches for Jackie once more as a new round of girls comes to help carry her. She can’t look any of them in the eyes. It just makes her guilt grow.

 

Jackie meets Lottie’s eyes and brushes her fingers over her sleeve before she moves to the side and lets the girls that are carrying Lottie walk. She talks with Gen for a few minutes before falling back to walk with Nat. It’s quiet, tense but not because of the two of them.

 

The group stops once more before they make it to the plane, and it’s a relief. An ugly, horrible relief. Nat tells them all to start clearing out a place to make a fire, to gather some wood, to get started on boiling water and preparing the food. She shoots Jackie a sharp look and goes into the plane. When she comes out, she tells them not to go into the cockpit. Otherwise, a few people need to start clearing out some space in the plane. 

 

Lottie is gravitation, and Jackie makes her way to her like it’s a part of her orbit. When she finally sits down next to where they’ve placed Lottie’s stretcher, she’s tired and achy and just wants to sleep.

 

Lottie thinks It made a good choice in Natalie. She knows what she’s doing and Lottie never had. Maybe she knew how to calm someone down from a panic attack, or give them hope while they all knew they were starving, but Lottie didn’t know how to do any of this. How to survive. She’d never known how to do that. 

 

When Jackie finally comes back over to her, she’s straining to reach out for her, colder and more nervous without her around. She tries to shift, tries to sit up, wishes she wasn’t so useless. But it’s hard to push through the pain that’s been stealing away her energy and coherence since the first swing of a metal rod to her ribs. “You look tired,” she says to Jackie, “you should rest.”

 

Jackie moves closer, putting Lottie’s head in her lap and murmuring softly, “I’m resting.” This is resting. And she’s doing a lot better than Lottie. It’s not saying much, but it’s still something. “This is resting.”

 

“You’re still sick,” Lottie argues, but she doesn’t resist as Jackie moves her head into her lap. She can’t help but settle in more, though, her eyes fluttering closed as she listens to the crunch of boots and the sound of metal groaning as people worked to strip what they could from the plane. Lottie doesn’t think she could help even if she tried. It hurts just to shift her body enough to lay against Jackie. 

 

Through lidded eyes, she notices the bandage wrapped around Jackie’s palm. She knows somewhere in the back of her mind that she’d seen it there yesterday, but the memories are all a blur. She can’t tell what was real and what was a dream. Carefully, she brushes her fingers over it. “You’re hurt.”

 

Jackie hums. She might still be a little sick, but she’s okay, too. She’s okay. She’s honestly worried she might catch shit for not doing anything, but no one’s paying attention to them right now. She knows Nat wouldn’t ask her to leave Lottie’s side, and she doesn’t think the others would, either. 

 

Her fingers twitch as she looks down at Lottie touching her bandaged palm. She wonders just how much of the last few hours– days, really– that Lottie remembers. “It’s just a cut.”

 

Lottie frowns. Instead of saying anything, though, she just presses her lips to Jackie’s palm before holding it against her cheek. She can’t really remember a lot that had happened, she was still having a hard time focusing as well. Still, she thinks there’s something strange about it all. Something…maybe not wrong , but not quite right. She can’t get the feeling to go away, but she can’t put her finger on what exactly it is, what exactly she feels. 

 

“Are we okay?” she asks. She doesn’t quite know what answer she’s looking for. She doesn’t quite know if she means everyone as a group, or just her and Jackie. Maybe it’s both.

 

Jackie smiles down at her, soft and tired, and brushes her thumb over Lottie’s cheek. “I mean, I’m sure there’s a group of starving, homeless teenagers out there that’s doing better, but they’re also probably not stranded in the mountains. Okay might be a stretch, but,” she tries to recapture the confidence she once had, the confidence Lottie had the night before, “it’s going to be okay.”

 

Lottie closes her eyes, leans more into Jackie’s touch. She’s having a hard time staying awake, but she doesn’t want to sleep yet. She knows she needs to. She hates feeling this way. “You make me feel okay,” she mutters to Jackie.

 

“You’re going to be,” Jackie tells her. “Promise.” Wasn’t that why Jackie cut herself? Wasn’t that why she’d spilled blood at that tree stump? She doesn’t know if she believes in any of that stuff, but, hey. She needed to cover all of her bases, alright? She couldn’t–-  wouldn’t –- lose Lottie, not at this point. Not without them digging another grave. One for Lottie, one for Jackie. They could add in Shauna’s bones. Finally, finally, Jackie could stop feeling so alone. 

 

She feels less alone these days. It’s not quite like having someone share her heartbeat, but it’s close, and it’s real. “Rest for a little bit, okay? It probably feels better to be still. I think they’re gonna clear out a space in the plane for you, and hopefully some food. You need to eat before you go to sleep.”

 

Lottie keeps a hold of Jackie’s hand. She thinks she can feel her heartbeat in the cut on her palm, thinks she can feel Jackie’s essence in her blood. She knows a lot of them don’t actually believe her. She knows they all think she’s crazy sometimes. And Lottie has never really been sure of much in her life, but she’s sure of this. She’s sure she knows what Jackie feels. Just as sure as she was of Laura Lee’s faith in her. Maybe Lottie didn’t have the confidence to make herself into someone good or worthwhile, but she believed Laura Lee did. She believed Jackie did. 

 

“You’ll stay with me?”

 

Jackie watches as Britt and Melissa haul a couple of seat cushions out of the plane’s shell. When she looks back at Lottie, she smiles, and she doesn’t lie when she says, “Of course I will. You’re stuck with me, remember?”

 

“Good,” Lottie says back, although her eyes are closing again. She hopes maybe if she can rest, things will be better tomorrow. Or the next day. Or sometime soon. She doesn’t like feeling like this. She doesn’t like making people take care of her. She’s never really had anyone do it for her. Laura Lee was the first and Lottie had always figured she’d be the last.

 

But then there was Jackie. And maybe Lottie still didn’t fully understand why, but she’d stopped questioning it. Because it felt nice. It felt good to be wanted. To be needed. 

 

“You’re stuck with me, too…” she exhales against Jackie’s palm.

 

Jackie doesn’t think she minds being stuck with Lottie. She thinks she wants it, actually, thinks that she can’t survive without it. She wants to curl around Lottie and go to sleep, the two of them keeping each other warm. She wants to press her lips to Lottie’s when neither of them are hurt or sick or out of it.

 

(She thinks that’s wrong, though, for more reasons than the obvious. More than just her mother’s voice ringing in her ears. It feels like two chocolate brown eyes full of hurt and sadness and rage looking at her with disgust and pity at the audacity she finally managed to find.

 

Jackie doesn’t know what to do about that.)

 

A fire is started, and soon there’s food being passed around. Tai and Van come to sit near the two of them, and Nat joins after everyone’s gotten fed. She’s holding a bowl tightly, not looking in it, as she says, “There should be enough room for everyone to sleep in the plane. We might want to think about moving the fire a little closer, but it’s a roof, and it’s insulated for now.”

 

Lottie does her best to stay awake, but it’s hard. She drifts between the states again, dreaming, waking, sleeping, seeing. Sometimes there’s figures standing just at the edge of the treeline and they watch everyone work. Sometimes there’s just eyes, peering out from the shadows. Sometimes Lottie thinks she hears voices calling to her. Sometimes she thinks she feels cold fingers against her skin. Sometimes they’re warm. 

 

Natalie’s voice stirs her and she opens her eyes. Her head is still in Jackie’s lap and she can see Tai and Van sitting nearby.

 

“Hey, Lott,” Van says when she notices Lottie’s eyes are open. “Sleep well?”

 

Lottie doesn’t actually know the answer to that. She thinks she might’ve been sleeping, but she also thinks she might’ve been awake the whole time. She nods once. She knows she’ll need to sit up now, in order to eat something, but she doesn’t feel particularly hungry, or in the mood to move and feel her insides shifting around again. She thinks she’s maybe had enough pain for one day. 

 

Jackie thinks she might be close to dozing off as well, even as she listens to Natalie’s voice and stares into the bowl beside her, but she blinks her eyes open properly when she feels Lottie move. “You need to eat, at least a little,” Jackie tells her. “Definitely drink something.”

 

“It might be good to give everyone a breather before we move into the plane, too,” Tai adds.

 

Lottie feels a shiver run up her spine at the mention of the plane. She knows they were heading there, she remembers Misty telling her, Jackie telling her. Still, it hadn’t really registered until now. She gazes back over at it and remembers the day they first left it behind. The vote to go to the lake or stay at the plane. She remembers how indignant Jackie had sounded, how sure she’d been that they just needed to wait a little longer. Lottie had voted with Jackie to stay. She’d had a bad feeling about leaving. She still did. She still doesn’t know why. Hadn’t finding the cabin ultimately been a good thing? 

 

Lottie also remembers spotting it on the hillside. The glint of sunlight off the attic window. The same one Lottie would smash her head against just a few weeks later. 

 

She draws in her breath and nods, shifting in Jackie’s lap to help her sit her up. She tries not to look back at the plane, but her gaze is drawn to it. It doesn’t feel right. She leans back against the rock they’d set her down by. It feels like something followed them here.

 

“Is everyone okay?” she asks, realizing she doesn’t know. The cabin had burned down and all Lottie had been able to think about was Jackie. And then she’d ended up hurting herself worse, broken ribs bending under the pressure of her struggling, tearing muscle. She puts her hand on her side where the cut is. “We all…made it out?”

 

“All uninjured and accounted for,” Van says, looking at Lottie and Jackie before she does some course correction. “Mostly.”

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “The smoke inhalation probably isn’t doing anyone any favors, nor having to sleep either in the shed or by the fire, but it could be worse.”

“We’re alive,” Nat says. Everyone that had been alive in the cabin that night was still alive right now. Even if one person is unaccounted for.

 

Then again, Jackie doesn’t remember seeing Coach ever come back. She doesn’t think she’s seen him except in passing since Misty hurt Lottie.

 

Jackie helps Lottie drink some water and eat some of the stew that none of them like to think about, making sure that she doesn’t choke. Her hand goes down to rest over Lottie’s, knowing that there’s a wound caused by Jackie just under her palm.

 

Lottie listens to them all talk and can’t help but feel guilt stinging her stomach. They’re all alive, but at what cost? Everything that’s led up to this is Lottie’s fault, she thinks. She knows. She tries her best to drink some of the broth from the stew. It hurts to swallow. 

 

She thinks she should probably apologize to Natalie, but she keeps it to herself for now. Not everyone needs to hear it. Her eyes meet Van’s and she can see the weariness in them. They’re getting so worn down and Lottie doesn’t know how to fix any of it. She doesn’t know if she even can. She couldn’t before so why would she be able to know? She rubs a hand across her eyes, nods. She’s happy, at least, that everyone is okay. That they all made it out alive. She doesn’t know Coach Scott is missing. She doesn’t have the same suspicions others might.

 

“What…do we do now?”

 

For once, it’s Lottie asking the question. It’s not everyone asking it to her, looking to her, hoping, praying she has the answers, that maybe the Wilderness had given her all the answers. Instead, she’s looking at Natalie.

 

“Rest,” Natalie says after a beat, “regain our strength and--” she shrugs-- “figure out the rest tomorrow. We take it step by step.”

 

 

Later, that night, as a group of sleeping bodies make their new temporary home in the husk of their former plane, Jackie finds herself curling around Lottie, pressing her face into Lottie’s neck. She probably won’t be able to stay with Lottie all day tomorrow; she’s trying to be useful, and, while she thinks that Nat’s faith in her is unfounded, Jackie still wants it. She kind of does. 

 

But she wants Lottie to be better, more. She spilled her own blood for it, made promises to things that she doesn’t want to believe in. Jackie thinks she’d give anything to make Lottie okay. She thinks she’s reached that point.

 

Lottie doesn’t dream that night.

 

As soon as Jackie had curled around her, she’d felt herself falling back into that empty sleep she’d been inside of the past few days. She knew she was sleeping, she knew she wasn’t dreaming, but there was still something there. A drifting darkness that held Lottie down and kept her there. The silence feels lonely, even though she knows Jackie is beside her, holding onto her. When she wakes in the morning, it’s before most of the others have. 

 

The metal of the plane groans in the cold air as Lottie’s eyes search the interior. There’s still wires hanging from the ceiling, blood on some of the seats. Some girls are curled up on the ones they left in, others are piled near each other, leaning against the inside of the plane. 

 

Lottie doesn’t think she can find comfort in the safety of the plane like they seem to have. It’s their only real option for shelter at the moment, until they can find something else. Make something else.

 

It feels like a graveyard, though, and Lottie has to fight against the visions of dead bodies and skeletons sitting in seats, her arm tightening around Jackie subconsciously. 

 

They’re alive, they’ve made it out. The plane went down but it hadn’t taken them with it. She wonders how many of them wished it did.

 

Jackie’s always been a heavy sleeper in the mornings. She doesn’t know when that changed to becoming hyper aware of when the body beside her started stirring. Probably when there started being a body beside her. Probably when that body got beaten within an inch of her life.

 

She turns enough that she’s on her side, her good ear pressed into the ground. The bandaged one (there’s barely much of an ear left, but it’s really gross to just refer to it as the hole in her head) makes the sound around her muffled thanks to being covered. She almost prefers it this way. The few times it’s been uncovered for Misty to check it over has left Jackie disoriented and off balanced. At least, this way, it’s a problem that she can worry about later. Her forehead presses against Lottie’s shoulder, and she sighs. Maybe Lottie will drift back off to sleep. Maybe Jackie can join her for a bit.

 

Lottie feels Jackie moving in her arms and worries she might’ve woken her, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything as she feels her pulling in closer. It’s strange, Lottie thinks, how well Jackie seems to fit against her side. She never used to look at Jackie and see how small the other girl was-- Jackie always had such a commanding energy on the field, and off the field she would glow. She had an essence about her that drew everyone in. It made them want to listen to her, to be around her, talk to her. Lottie always thought that’s what people meant when they talked about someone lighting up a room just by being in it. 

 

It hurts to know that some part of that Jackie is gone now. Frozen to death with the girl who had half of her inside her own ribcage, too. It didn’t seem fair. And Lottie doesn’t want to replace what Jackie lost, she knows she never could-- but even still, she likes the way it feels having someone fit against her, slotting into the broken pieces of Lottie that she had forgotten were there. 

 

She turns her head enough to press her face into the top of Jackie’s head. She knows as soon as her mind comes back to her, as soon as she actually wakes, the pain will return.

 

But for now, it almost feels peaceful, laying here with Jackie. There’s guilt in that feeling, too, just like everything else. There’s guilt in feeling good and Lottie wishes she knew how to let go of that, too.

 

Eventually, Jackie makes out the muffled sounds of movement happening around them, and she blearily raises her head to be able to hear properly. The others are starting to shuffle awake, and Jackie watches Misty uncurl from one of the seats and slot her glasses into place before she moves towards them. 

 

As Jackie moves to sit up, Misty shoots for perky, though it feels lackluster. “Let’s go ahead and look at your ear. It should be the easiest thing to handle.” 

 

It’s weird, and awful, and, when Misty says that they can probably leave it uncovered, Jackie panics a little and asks that they put the bandage back in place before Misty rolls her eyes and obliges with saccharine sweetness. Then, it’s time to move on to Lottie.

 

Lottie only watches as Misty checks on Jackie before the curly-haired girl is turning to her and ushering her to lift up her dress so she can examine the cut in her side. Lottie’s eyes clench shut as Misty prods around to make sure there’s no more blood pooling under the skin. After a moment, she decides it’s doing as okay as possible, really, which is a relief, but Lottie isn’t out of the woods yet. They need to keep the wound clean because an infection would probably mean death at this point. Misty offers to go get some hot water and another rag before setting off among the other girls, who all stretch out the stiffness of the night and start rattling around for things to do.

 

Lottie watches Natalie make her way out and start making a list of things that need to be done. She really does make a good leader, Lottie thinks. 

 

Once the plane is mostly empty, she looks back up at Jackie and reaches for her, brushing her fingers against the bandage on her face. “It’s healing okay,” she says, the question somewhere in there of why do you want to leave it on?

 

Jackie wants to sigh in relief about the fact that Lottie is doing as good as she can be out there. Like, that’s really all that Jackie can ask for at this point. She’d ask for more, like shelter or food or a goddamn rescue party, but she already knows that’s too big of an ask. She’ll settle for Lottie healing. 

 

She leans into Lottie’s touch, nodding. “It’s healing okay,” she agrees. She hesitates, then adds. “It’s… weird, when it’s uncovered. Like, I can hear, but I can’t tell where the noise is coming from. It’s less confusing when it’s covered because it’s muffled.”

 

Lottie scrunches her brow at the admission. That doesn’t sound good, really. “You should tell Misty.” She knows Jackie doesn’t like asking Misty for things, but Misty is the only one around here who knows how to help with these things. “It could just be from the injury?” She can hope, right? 

 

Lottie worries, though. She worries more than she wants to admit. She’s always worried, if not about someone else, than about others finding out about her affliction. She’s been so delirious the past few days, though, she hasn’t had enough wherewithal to hide it, any of it. Not the worry, not the delusions, not the pain. She thinks maybe Jackie can see it in her eyes, too, all of it. She worries she’ll see too much, that she’ll look into Lottie’s eyes one day and realize this is all too much.

 

Lottie drops her hand but keeps it on Jackie’s thigh. “You still look the same,” she tries to reassure her, “feel the same.”

 

“It’s probably just… a part of the healing process,” Jackie says. “I mean, besides, I can still hear on that side, so it’s fine, right?” She’d complain about this, probably, with any other person, in any other place. But Lottie is suffering so much; they all are. And it feels really fucking stupid to be upset about not hearing right or losing a fucking ear when your friend is right there and has been dying. It’s just an ear. It feels silly to be fixated on how silly it looks or the fact that it still sort of stings. She manages a small smile. “I haven’t looked in a mirror in months. I bet I look like a fucking mess.”

 

“You’re beautiful, Jackie,” Lottie says without thinking, “you always have been.” 

 

Jackie smiles, but she ducks her head. They’re words she’s heard before, again and again. They used to make her preen. Now, she doesn’t really get why she’s blushing. “Says the prettiest girl in fucking Wiskayok. Hell, all of New Jersey.” She looks around. “Might as well add wherever the fuck this place is, too.”

 

Lottie smiles, but it’s sad. “People only think that because I’m tall.” Most people think she’s a freak, though, because she’s so tall. Not that it’s something Lottie can help being, she just doesn’t think it makes her different. Not in the way her illness does, or the color of her skin, or wealth she’d been born into. “Hmm, what was it that the baseball captain called me once? Exotic?” 

 

Jackie rolls her eyes. “I mean, yeah, being tall is hot; you’re like a model. But it’s everything else about you, too. You’re a total smokeshow, Lottie Matthews.” She did cringe, though, at the reminder that guys just fucking sucked. “Yeah, well, he’s a fucking idiot. Imagine leading a team that bad. How hard is it to teach a bunch of jerkoffs to swing a bat?”

 

“Isn’t Jeff on the baseball team?” Lottie asks, raising a brow. Still, she finds herself thankful that the blush she can feel in her cheeks doesn’t show as well on her tan skin. Jackie has called them all hot at one point or another, it’s nothing new-- she liked to encourage them all, but now that it was just them, here, it felt different. But Lottie was probably just reading too much into it. 

 

She knew she was attractive, it was hard to miss, really. She’d caught more than one guy staring at her long legs, or her chest when she wore particularly low cut tops, but she’d never really cared to entertain them. Or any of that. It meant getting close to someone in a way that scared Lottie. It meant someone possibly finding out about how sick she was. How wrong she was.

 

And yet, Jackie knew now. And she still called Lottie hot. Her lips tingle.

 

“You know you could have anyone you wanted, right?” she tells her.

 

Jackie laughs quietly. “Yeah, and he sucks.” She went to his games when she could, wore his jersey, would cheer if she was ever in the stands, but it was kind of nice, baseball and soccer having conflicting seasons. Less opportunities for her to have to pretend. 

 

Shaking her head, Jackie leans forward and presses her lips to the side of Lottie’s temple. “Not a lotta guys out here, Lott. Sort of didn’t go well with the last one, and the other’s our… currently missing soccer coach.” That doesn’t seem to have sexual interests in women, Jackie thinks, even if she’s not sure. 

 

Lottie just closes her eyes and hums in reply. She remembers the way Jackie’s lips felt on her own but swallows it back. Even if Jackie could admit what they all know is obvious, it’s not like Lottie would ever be her first choice.

 

She’s saved by the bell when Misty reappears holding a bowl of hot water, setting it down by Lottie. “Just make sure it’s clean and that there’s no dirt in it,” she tells Jackie, not even pretending to offer to do it for her. It’s obvious to most of the girls how protective Jackie has grown towards Lottie since the incident. “Breakfast should be ready soon, too. Mari’s working on it now.”

 

Jackie has to wonder what she’s holding onto at this point, why it matters so much that she holds onto these things, these feelings. She almost says something. She’s not sure what, but there’s words on her tongue.

 

They get swallowed down when Misty comes in, and Jackie reaches for the bowl. “Clean, no dirt, got it.” She could do that. She could go get breakfast for them as well. And Jackie should try to see where Nat wants to direct her, if she wants to direct her anywhere. Maybe the books she found in the attic would be helpful. 

 

When Misty leaves, Jackie checks on the wound in Lottie’s side, the one she caused. Of course she should take responsibility for it, clean it, make sure that it’s okay. She’s slow and methodical as she works, and you could say a lot about Jackie Taylor, but no one can deny that she’s task oriented and goal motivated.

 

“How’s it look, doc?” Lottie asks through the crack in her voice, trying to bite back what is clearly pain. She can’t see all of it, but she can see the large bruise that has blossomed on her skin, wrapping around her ribs like a hand. She appreciates Jackie’s gentle touch and her dedication to making sure the things she does, she does well. Lottie supposes that’s a side-effect of her upbringing, much like her own. Her dad didn’t tolerate half-assed things. Maybe that was why he barely tolerated Lottie. 

 

“Like it hurts,” Jackie murmurs quietly, wringing out the rag with one hand. “And like I’d be a really shitty doctor.” She doesn’t think she was meant for this shit, the blood and gore, the feeling of it. She remembers Shauna trying to show her how to use the knife. She remembers stabbing Lottie. She hates it. 

 

“You take good care of me,” Lottie tells her. She sees the look in Jackie’s eyes and knows. She lays a hand over Jackie’s, brushes her thumb against her silk skin. “It hurts,” she says, “but that’s not your fault.” She smiles, tired but there. “Besides, you were probably softer than Misty would’ve been.”

 

“That’s not hard. Her bedside manner could use some fucking work,” Jackie mutters. Her eyes are soft, sad. “It’s kind of my fault, Lottie. You wouldn’t have hurt yourself even more if I hadn’t gone back inside the cabin. That’s kind of on me.” And Misty. Listen, Jackie’s taking the blame for this (“Mea culpa,” the voice of Shauna Shipman whispers in her ear), but credit where credit is due: Misty totally fucking started this.

 

Lottie doesn’t remember too much after Jackie had finally come out of the cabin. It had felt like the entire world had stopped in those moments, as Mari used all her weight to hold Lottie back from running inside. She remembers feeling the twisting, biting, stabbing pain of her ribs being bent out of shape after they’d been trying to heal. She’d barely felt it through the fear rushing in her veins. She reaches up again, brushes her thumb against Jackie’s chin. “I get why you did it,” she murmurs. Shauna’s stuff was upstairs. All the pieces she had left of her, the same with Laura Lee. “It just…scared me.” The confusion and fear had gripped her heart like a vice, blinded her to everything else, anything logical. “That’s not your fault.”

 

“Still.” Jackie said she’d be there. She promised. And then she’d run off without a second thought because she couldn’t bear the thought of being in a world where she couldn’t read Shauna Shipman’s words. She feels a little pathetic. A lot of what’s in those journals is cruel. Even the pieces that aren’t still are , and that hurts worse. “I was worried you’d wait in the cabin for me if I didn’t get Mari to help. I didn’t want– I just didn’t want to risk anything.”

 

The worst part, Lottie thinks, is that Jackie is right. She would have waited for her, even as the cabin burned down around them. She frowns. “I would’ve been fine,” she says. She doesn’t know that for sure, not really. But Natalie and Jackie had made it out, thank the gods, so she thinks she probably would’ve been fine. Lottie sighs. “I-- people don’t usually…keep their word to me,” she admits quietly. After a while, she’d stopped asking for anything from anyone. It hurt less that way. “I’m sorry.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Jackie tells her, swallowing tightly. “You just don’t know. You could barely walk on your own– Now you can’t walk on your own. You’re really fucking hurt, Lottie. You didn’t need to be in a burning building for that long.” She feels a little bit like she’s shattering at Lottie’s words, but she also can’t help it. She hates that Lottie hurt herself. She’d do it over again, this time telling Mari to be gentle with Lottie’s ribs.

 

“None of us did.” Lottie can see the concern on Jackie’s face and it makes her crumble a little. It’s not just concern, it’s fear. It’s the same look she’d had when she was clinging to Shauna’s frozen body. Lottie doesn’t think she needs to look at her that way. She’s not anyone to worry over. Jackie would find out what Lottie was really like soon or later out here. It’d scare her away, just like everyone else in her life, including her own parents. 

 

“I’m okay now,” she reassures her. 

 

Jackie makes a little noise, shaking her head. “Lottie, you’re really hurt. I had to drain fucking blood from around your ribs because of internal bleeding. Your ribs are broken. You’re like an eight foot tall bruise right now. A very pretty bruise, but still a bruise.” Okay is by no means in the realm of what can be used to describe Lottie’s condition, and it makes her sick. She doesn’t know how to better express that she needs Lottie. She really, really needs Lottie. She can’t do this without her. 

 

Lottie pauses. She’s not really sure what to say. That seems to happen a lot around Jackie. She looks down at her side, and though she can’t see the cut, she knows it’s there. She can feel it. And the broken ribs and the bruises. 

 

She sighs again. “I’m not going anywhere,” she amends quietly. She hopes that can be enough for now.

 

“No, you’re not,” Jackie says, the words calm, sure, and she feels feverish as she looks at Lottie. Because Jackie Taylor has decided to refuse to accept a world without Lottie Matthews in it. She’ll no longer accept that as a fucking option. 

 

Lottie is glad Jackie accepts that, at least. She tries to not think about how she’d begged them to let her die before. How sometimes she still felt like it should’ve been her. How she feels like she’s holding them all back. She rubs her thumb along the back of Jackie’s hand. “You should go eat something,” she tells her, “I think it’s gonna be a long day.”

 

Jackie gives Lottie a nod, but she doesn’t make any move to get up. “I will,” she says, “and I’ll bring you something back. In a few minutes. I don’t want to… I want to just stay here for a bit.”

 

“Okay.”

 

She can’t move her whole body, but Lottie moves her head enough to lay it on Jackie’s leg. She certainly doesn’t mind if Jackie stays for a bit. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do all day, laying around like this. Maybe she can convince one of them to bring her something to work on, like some clothes that need fixing, or blankets. 

 

That is, if she doesn’t simply fall asleep again.

 

Because Jackie is warm and her skin is so soft and her steady breathing is so soothing, Lottie thinks she could fall asleep like this again, away from prying eyes.

 

Like always, Jackie’s hand finds its way into Lottie’s hair, brushing through some of the knots with her fingers, drifting down to feel her pulse briefly before moving back up. She can’t help herself. She’s always been touchy but never allowed to fully express it. Her mother thought it was strange, the way she behaved with her friends like, that, constantly clinging to Shauna while she laughed. At first, Jackie didn’t care, but then she started worrying that it would become too much. She backed off as much as she could, but that never stopped the desire, the itch.

 

Lottie seems to like it when Jackie touches her, when she plays with her hair or holds her hand or burrows into her arms. She doesn’t seem to get tired of it. She might, eventually, and maybe she’s just too hurt to speak up, but she also seems to like it, and Jackie clings to that. She can’t help it. 

 

The fingers on her injured hand are twitchy, and she clenches it, kind of enjoying the way it feels, before she smiles down at Lottie. “I’ll be back with food and some water in a minute. After we eat I might see what the fuck the plan is for… however long we’re here.”

 

Despite being with in an inch of her life, really, Lottie thinks this might be the nicest she’s ever felt. Fingers comb so tenderly through her hair, down to where her pulse beats in her neck, before climbing back up to do it all over again. She thinks this might be a dream it feels so good. She wants to ask if this is a dream again. She stops herself and opens her eyes to gaze up at Jackie, seeing her own reflection in the hazel specks looking back at her. She nods but doesn’t say anything, laying her head back on the pillow she’d managed to save when fleeing the cabin. Or had Mari grabbed that for her? It was all such a blur still. The days and nights all bleeding into one.

 

Except for one moment. Except for Lottie’s head leaned against the wall of the shed and Jackie looking at her and her warm hand on Lottie’s face, then her lips on Lottie’s. 

 

A chill races through her but she tries her best to ignore it, giving Jackie a smile before she leaves to get them food. 

 

Jackie shoulders her bag and walks out to where the others have gathered, not too far, thankfully, as they set up a fire closer to the plane. Nat and Tai are talking, arguing, possibly, cups of hot water in their hands. Jackie can almost picture them huddled outside with their morning coffee, waiting for the bus to come pick them up so they can get ready to be taken to a summer soccer clinic. 

 

This is a bit more life and death, though. They’re arguing about where to live, not what drills to run.

 

“Do we really want to get too far from the lake?” Nat asks. “That’s leaving behind readily available water, food when the weather warms.”

 

“We barely got any fish during the fall,” Tai scoffs. “And there’s the stream going away from it. That’s still water. The lake is a trek from here. It’s not like with the cabin. And this–” she looks around them, “this isn’t sustainable. We need more space and a closer water source.”

 

Nat takes in the words, nodding. She seems hesitant though, and Jackie can’t really blame her. The cabin was awful, but it was shelter, and it was familiar. To leave this place that they’d found feels… scary. Nat says, “I’ll start scouting the area, seeing if there’s a new place we can set up.”

 

Jackie enters the conversation, sighing. “You can’t.” At Nat’s annoyed and confused look, she elaborates. “You’re the leader now, Nat. You can’t just go off and do your own thing. You’ve got to… delegate.”

 

“I know the woods the best!”

 

“Travis knows the woods,” she counters. “Tai and Van have been exploring. That’s what helped find Javi. I’ve walked around in the woods a bit with you.”

 

Nat snorts. “Offering to be a part of the search committee, Jackie?”

 

The thought of going too far from Lottie makes Jackie’s heart clench. “I’m just saying. It doesn’t have to be you. I don’t even think it should be you. You need to be here and working with people and making them feel heard.”

 

Nat crosses her arms, but Tai sighs and nods. “She’s right. Let’s figure out a small group to go. Nothing far, with plans to head back well before nightfall. We just need to start scouting for a new place as soon as we can.”

 

“Yeah,” Nat says. “Yeah, okay.”

 

Mari calls out that the food is ready, and Jackie puts her bag down and wanders over, taking a bowl that Mari feels up more than usual. “I figured you and Lottie would share.” It makes Jackie feel a little flushed, but she takes the bowl and a cup of water and heads back to the plane.

 

“You’re getting a little symbiotic,” Shauna teases, bumping her hip with Jackie’s as she walks inside. Jackie elects to ignore her because she’s not real, not real, not real.

 

All Lottie could really do was stare at the roof of the destroyed plane. She’d tried to sit up on her own, but it had been hard enough with just broken ribs, adding a knife wound to that made it even harder. 

 

But when she hears footsteps, she lifts her head to see Jackie heading back in with a bowl and a cup of water. She’s only got one of each, though. Not that that matters. They all share so much out here, what more is sharing a bowl with someone? 

 

“I was dying without you, I think,” Lottie jokes, smiling at her. “Help me sit up?”

 

“Let’s not be so overdramatic,” Jackie says, rolling her eyes as she places the food and water down and helping Lottie sit up. She takes a drink of water before offering it to Lottie.

 

It fucking hurts, a lot, but she’s sitting up and she’s leaning against one of the still in tact chairs before she takes the offered water and sips at it greedily. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. 

 

“What would I do without you?” she smiles back, and maybe it looks a little morbid on her face, with her eyes sunken in and her skin paler than usual, slick with sweat. 

 

But she smiles all the same for Jackie. Lottie wants her to know that she’ll be okay. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after, or even any time this week-- but she will be okay, she thinks. Because she has this. And that’s enough for her.

 

Jackie thinks that Lottie’s face doesn’t look quite as beaten up today, and her smile is a little ghostly, but she’s living and breathing and making an attempt at it, and that’s really all that Jackie can ask for. She hums, taking the cup and swallowing some water herself. “Probably not be in nearly as bad of a state,” she says, her tone light, but it’s the truth. 

 

She hands Lottie the bowl of food next and grabs the rag from earlier, using it to wipe off Lottie’s face. She’s warm, but it doesn’t feel dangerous, yet. She hopes it’s just from the exertion. 

 

“I doubt that,” Lottie says back quickly. She takes the bowl and it's more of a struggle than she cares to admit to lift the spoon to her mouth and eat without spilling. Her hands shake as she tries to keep still. She can feel her body working in overtime to not only heal all the broken bones and bruises, but now the cut and the torn muscle tissue. She thinks it’s a little ridiculous. She really doesn’t want to lay around for the next few weeks doing nothing. It sounds rather miserable. But she doubts that Jackie-- or anyone, really-- will let her try and do anything, especially things that would require standing and walking. 

 

After a moment, she sets the bowl back down and finds herself already breathing heavily, her heart palpitating in her chest. “Who knew…eating soup was so tiring…” she quips.

 

Jackie’s not sure if she should offer to feed Lottie or if the taller girl would find that offensive, but she lets Lottie make the attempt on her own, taking the bowl when Lottie sets it down and eating some herself. “It’s exhausting,” she agrees, making a show of yawning after she’s had a few bites and drank some of the broth. Then, more seriously. “You’re injured, and then it’s going to take awhile for you to build your stamina back up. It’s like getting hurt on the field. You might not go in during the next game.”

 

“Are you…talking soccer to me?” Lottie chides, but it's with a light tone, despite the heavy breaths between words. 

 

In all honesty, Lottie missed it, playing soccer. She'd been good at it, really good at it. It made her feel real and alive and grounded. When she was out on the field, there was only one thing that mattered, and that was the game. Out there, Lottie didn't have to worry about her mind playing tricks on her. It was a relief. 

 

Every time she looked to the seats, though, she never saw her mother's face, or her dad's. Eventually, she'd just stopped looking. They won states and the best they could do was rent a private plane. 

 

That went so well, obviously. 

 

But fuck did she miss it. After this, though, if they even made it out alive, it was highly unlikely any of them would be able to play again, not competitively. 

 

Lottie tries to shake the thought from her mind. “I can't believe of all the luggage, not a single ball made it in the crash.”

 

“I don’t… really have much experience with anything else,” Jackie says, feeling a little embarrassed. Because it’d been her life. Soccer and Shauna. That was all Jackie cared about for so long. And she wasn’t the best. She knew that. Coach told her that. But she’d loved it so much that it ached and made her anxious and was half of her favorite memories. 

 

She sighs, though. “They had to have fallen out fucking miles from here. It’s devastating.”

 

“I don't think any of us really do,” Lottie shrugs, winces. “We all live, eat, and breathe soccer. Or, well…” she feels a little pang and realizes it hurts to think about, it gives her that sinking feeling in her chest. “Even if we make it out of this, none of us are ever going to be able to play again.” And soccer was really the only thing Lottie was good at. She didn't have anything that she thought she wanted to do with her life. She'd been so focused on states and then nationals that she'd forgotten to think about an actual future. 

 

It certainly wasn't going to be business school, like her dad wanted. 

 

But really, it didn't matter if she made it back alive anymore. Lottie knew exactly where she was going once they were rescued-- if they were rescued. 

 

“Sorry, that was…morbid.” 

“No it’s… It’s true, isn’t it? We’re all like super fucked up,” Jackie says quietly. And most of them probably wouldn’t go back to school. Jackie had planned on trying out for college, but, God, what was the point? What was the point of college? What was the point of even thinking about going back? It makes her feel smaller, thinking about all the things that she’d built her life around that were gone.

 

Lottie can tell her words have dug up something painful and terrifying to think about. Even if they made it out alive, what kind of life really awaited them all back in Wiskayok? Or anywhere, for that matter. They'd eaten one of their teammates, let a kid die so the rest of them wouldn't starve, hunted each other like animals. Lottie doesn't realize she's crying until a tear drops off her chin and she quickly tries to wipe the rest away. 

 

“It was all I had back home,” she admits with a small breath. 

 

Jackie swallows, and her own lip feels wobbly as she moves to hug Lottie. “Yeah,” she says, and her voice is croaky, those raspy edges run ragged. “Yeah.” Because she had other things, things that she was supposed to want, things that she was supposed to love. But all Jackie Taylor had really cared about was her team and her best friend, her girl, her other-half-of-the- heart. She wanted to keep up soccer in college and have a dorm room with Shauna, and the two of them would graduate together and get houses side by side, and they’d spend evenings in each other’s kitchens drinking wine, and their kids would get married, and Jackie wouldn’t spend the rest of her life feeling like her chest was caving in because that would be enough.

 

Lottie presses her face into the crook of Jackie's neck. It hurts a little, the position she finds herself in, but she doesn't care. She wants to be held. She thinks Jackie does, too. Lottie had never really allowed herself to think past high school. Maybe sometimes she even figured she wouldn't make it. That she'd just break one day under the pressure and be sent off to live the rest of her days inside some hospital with too white walls and too loud silence. Her face crumples and she's glad Jackie can't see it-- Lottie is an ugly crier. She leads an ugly life. It's filled with whispers and shadows and watching everything from the outside. It's wanting and longing and yearning but never allowing herself to have. 

 

But out here, she has. Out here, Lottie isn't crazy. She's not jammed into a box that doesn't fit her, or tranquilized with medication that feels like a death sentence. Out here Lottie is just…Lottie. 

 

“Sorry,” she sniffles after a long while, still holding onto Jackie like a lifeline. “I just…sorry.”

 

“It’s okay,” Jackie says, blinking tears out of her own eyes and wiping off her face. “Sometimes you’ve– you’ve just gotta cry a little.” 

 

Lottie feels a little pathetic with it, and now she's basically cried out what little hydration she'd so eagerly accepted just a few minutes ago. 

 

“I feel like all I've been doing is crying,” she mumbles half-heartedly.

 

Jackie doesn’t think that’s true. Lottie’s also slept a little, and she’s definitely scared the hell out of Jackie more than once, though that wasn’t necessarily the case. “Shauna’s mom used to tell me that sometimes you just need a good cry,” she tells Lottie softly.

 

Lottie looks curiously over at Jackie, swallowing the thick lump in her throat. “My therapist said that a lot, too.” But Lottie had found it hard to tell her doctor why she couldn't, why, even if she did, it wouldn't matter. “Guess I'm just not used to it.” 

 

Lottie is a deeply empathetic person, she feels so much for others, but she often keeps her own emotions locked up tight. Hidden where no one would be able to see all the things wrong with them, with her.

 

Jackie wipes away some of Lottie’s tears and hugs her again, trying not to be too tight, trying to just be a comfort. When she pulls away, she holds out the cup of water before taking a sip of the stew, trying to get just a little bit more in her body and encouraging Lottie to as well. “It’s okay if you cry. I’m not gonna judge you for it. I think everyone’s cried out here.”

 

“I know,” Lottie tells her, leaning into Jackie's touch like she always does now. It's like her body can't help it, always seeking out the weight and comfort of Jackie’s body against hers, or her arms draped across Lottie's stomach. Lottie doesn't remember when she'd become this person who attaches themselves to others. She thinks it probably started with Laura Lee. Or maybe she's just always been this way, Lottie wouldn’t actually know. 

 

Still, her mind tries to tell her things she doesn't think should be true. Doesn't know if they are or if they could be. Her mind tells her that all the touching means something, that all the foolish promises mean something . All the tears and worry and panic. The warmth, the comfort, the smiles. 

 

But Lottie can't tell if they're real or if she's made them up. She's too afraid to ask. 

 

“I think I've cried more out here than I ever did back home.”

 

“I don’t think I can say that,” Jackie says, laughing a little. “I’m a bit of a fucking cry baby.”

 

“That’s not a bad thing,” Lottie replies simply. Sometimes, she wishes it were easier for her to cry.

 

Jackie just sniffles a little, brushing her face against the side of Lottie’s and closing her eyes. It felt like she just cried until she couldn’t. Especially out there. And then it cycled. “You should finish eating. I might go see if I grabbed a useful book or two or just Shauna’s journals in a minute.”

 

Lottie stays still as Jackie presses against her. Her eyes went down to the bowl of stew but Lottie really wasn’t that hungry. She should still eat it, she knew that. She just really didn’t want to get sick again. The back of her throat still tasted like copper.

 

And she’d known that was the reason Jackie ran back inside the cabin. She’d had a hunch. She understood why Jackie did it.

 

But she also felt a little…well, she wasn’t quite sure. She felt something she’d never really experienced before. Something along the lines of disappointment, perhaps, on its way to becoming what could only be described as jealousy. 

 

It was a funny feeling. 

 

“Okay,” she finally says, but she doesn’t move quite yet, just staring down at the bowl and wondering how much longer she can keep stomaching everything that’s happened.

 

Jackie doesn’t move, either. “If I think about it too much, I feel sick.” If she didn’t already have issues with food, she wonders if she might when they make it out of this. If they make it out of this.

 

Lottie feels that horrible, sticky, burning guilt inside of her chest again. She can’t help but say, “It should’ve been me.”

 

“No,” Jackie says, harsh and sharp. “No.” She holds Lottie a little tighter. “If it should have been you, then it should have been me, months ago, instead of– instead of Shauna.”

 

Oh, that stings. Lottie doesn’t like how that stings. 

 

“They did it for me , Jackie,” Lottie finds herself saying in a raspy whisper, “I was already dying. And they-- he’s dead because of me. He was just a kid.” She’d never questioned the Wilderness’ choices before, but the moment Misty had told her Javi was dead, for her, because of her , everything felt so wrong. She’d questioned It and now It had left her alone with her thoughts and a dead kid. Maybe it was punishing her. 

 

“You still had so much life. You still do.”

 

“He isn’t dead because of you, Lottie,” Jackie says. “You didn’t ask them to do that. Jesus Christ, you wanted them to eat you. You said– It’s not your fault that nobody wanted to fucking do that.” 

 

Jackie doesn’t think she has much life left at all, really. She thinks she’s dead. She goes back and forth, you know, being okay with being alive, wishing she wasn’t, thinking she’s already gone. It’s cyclical. She can’t imagine how useful she’ll be, though, with the rest of this “life.” Out here, she’s useless. If she makes it back home, she’s nothing. “You’re the only reason I’m still here,” she mumbles, a sentiment she keeps sharing, words that can only be true.

 

“I gave them the idea,” Lottie argues. And maybe Jackie is right, but Lottie was supposed to be the one guiding them, leading them, and she’d led them into a situation where they ended up hunting one of their friends, their teammate, only for someone else to die in her place. A kid. A kid . Lottie puts her head in her hands, trying to make sure her breathing stays calm because if she starts breaking down right now, it’s going to hurt so much. 

 

The only silver lining is Jackie. That Jackie is still alive. That Jackie promised to keep trying, for her. It's a terrible gift to have, someone’s life. It means Lottie has to care for her own life, and she’s never really done that. 

 

“I’m so glad you’re here, Jackie,” she adds on, “I really am.”

 

Jackie feels her lips pull back into something sharp, grin or grimace, painful. “What made you start thinking we should eat a dead body?” she asks. “When I let all of us fucking each Shauna?” If she hadn’t, they would have done it anyway. Or they would have fucking starved. 

 

Shauna feels like she’s caught in Jackie’s throat, some days, when those brown eyes glint at her from the shadows. She can be such a kind ghost, though. She never reminds Jackie that it was supposed to be her. Jackie still knows it was supposed to be her.

 

“There’s no food out here, Jackie!” Lottie snaps back and it hurts , not just in the gut stabbing way. Lottie feels the shame tint her cheeks. They’d eaten the girl Jackie loved most and the bits of her they’d consumed still sat heavy in the pit of Lottie’s soul. She can’t look at Jackie as she says, “We were starving. I don’t-- no one wanted to do that. But we were…” 

 

It’s a bad excuse, Lottie thinks. “She saved us, you .” Because the rest didn’t matter to Shauna. Only Jackie. Only ever Jackie. Lottie thought she might be beginning to understand how that feels.

 

“I know that!” Jackie says, and her breathing is harsh. “I know that. God, I know that.” They’d all been so hungry. She’d been so hungry, and Jackie has always been intimately, ardently familiar with hunger, but even she could not deny the way it ate at her insides just when she finally decided to keep living. She knew they’d been hungry. She knew they hadn’t had a choice. “That’s not the point. Would you have thought about telling everyone to eat you if it hadn’t been for– for that? Would you have even considered fucking proposing it? It’s not your fault that no one wanted to kill you, Lottie. It’s not your fault that everyone else took matters into their own hands.”

 

Lottie thinks that's not really the point, either. But she goes quiet anyway, because they both know the answer is no. She'd done it because they were starving and desperate and if she was going to die anyway, then she wanted them to use her to survive. 

 

But she hadn't died. She wished rather badly that she had. And then she found herself glad she hadn't. For Jackie's sake. 

 

Lottie feels her body deflating. She can't even stay angry without her energy rapidly declining. She can't do anything. 

 

“I just…I should've been better for them.”

 

“Lottie, you have been,” Jackie says, feeling a little desperate. “Everyone’s been fucking using you to talk to the fucking trees for months. They volunteered you to hunt when you won’t even pick up a fucking gun. They let Misty beat the shit out of you. The only thing else you could do this point is summon a fucking helicopter from the sky to take them home.”

 

Lottie stares at Jackie a little dumbfounded. She doesn't think that's right, that doesn't sound right. Her brows scrunch together. She can't really comprehend what's happening right now. “That's not…that's not how it is,” she says, but there's hesitation in her voice. 

 

She doesn't think they've been using her. She doesn't want to admit that maybe she already knew that. “They needed those things from me.” And she would have given them more, had they asked, had they wanted. Had Lottie not put Nat in charge instead. 

 

Had Lottie not shirked her burden and weight onto her friend. 

 

“No, they didn’t. They didn’t need those things from you. They didn’t need this from you,” Jackie says quietly, her fingers ghosting over the bruises on Lottie’s face. “You’re amazing, Lottie Matthews, but you’re not a god. You can’t carry the weight of this place on you.”

 

This time, Lottie doesn't lean into Jackie's touch, even though she can feel the ghostly static of her fingertips just barely above her skin. She swallows, looks away. 

 

“Misty was right, though,” she says, “I started this.” Her delusions, visions, prophecies, whatever someone wants to call them, they started this. She started this. 

 

“I had to try,” she whispers, much quieter this time.

 

Jackie lets her hand drop. “They didn’t have to go along with it,” she says quietly. She takes Lottie’s hand and offers up a squeeze. She doesn’t want to leave Lottie around, but she cannot imagine that talking circles around each other is going to work. Neither of them are going to give. As much as Jackie wants Lottie to understand that this isn’t her fault, she doesn’t think she can just talk her out of it in a day. 

 

Instead, she moves to pull one of the blankets up around Lottie and pushes the food and water closer to her. “Finish eating, please? And try to rest some. Maybe, tomorrow, you might be able to– to sew or something.”

 

Lottie had never meant for that, really. She hadn’t really known what she was doing, at first. Not until Laura Lee had baptised her in the lake, told her that her visions meant something. Even then, all Lottie wanted to do was put voice to the things she was seeing, hearing, feeling. 

 

She knows Jackie is upset with her. She hadn’t meant to upset her, so she squeezes Jackie’s hand back and closes her eyes. “Okay.” She reaches for the bowl and pretends it’s just more bear meat. “Don’t push yourself too hard,” she reminds Jackie, “you’re still recovering, too.”

 

Jackie gives Lottie a salute as she stands. She gives her one last look, soft and a little sad, before she heads outside. 

 

“Not bad with the books, Captain Michaelangelo,” Mari says as Jackie joins a group of them near the fire. “Taissa says it’s the architecture book that was used to help with the shed.”

 

“Michelangelo?” Jackie asks, confused.

 

Mari nods. “Yeah, the artist with the one ear.”

 

“Mari, that’s Van Gogh.”

 

Shauna laughs next to Jackie, brushing their shoulders. “Dumbass.”

 

“Oh,” Mari says, blinking. “That’s totally who I meant.” 

 

Jackie wishes they’d waited to go through her bag, but at least she hadn’t totally fucked up, grabbing at least one useful thing to tuck in with her Shauna Shipman paraphernalia. Most of the stuff she grabbed is left in the bag while a few of the others go through things, sorting useful from sentimental. Jackie helps, hoping this is an easy enough task that she can be seen contributing while still not “pushing herself too hard.”  She glances back at the plane far too often, knowing she won’t see Lottie walking out, healthy and whole, but thinking about it anyway.

 

Lottie forces herself to finish the soup, even if it makes her feel sick. With some effort, she lays herself back down, facing the open doorway that Jackie had left through so that she can watch out it and occasionally see one of the girls pass by. It comforts her in a strange way, to know they’re all still out there, that she can see it and hear it and not just think it. She just hopes she’s not actually seeing things anymore.

 

Her eyes drift closed and then open a few more times. She hears voices chattering and sometimes they’re familiar and sometimes they’re not, but each time the sound reaches her ears, she opens her eyes to scan around her. Sometimes, when the cold metal of the plane groans around her, it sounds like it might be talking, too. 

 

Even as Lottie lays back down, her body begging for her to stop moving so much, she can’t help but feel useless. All she can do is lay here and try her best not to hurt anything more on her body. 

 

Sometimes she wakes up to find her eyes warm and wet. She doesn’t know if it’s from the pain or something else. She doesn’t think it really matters.

 

She waits and listens and sometimes she thinks she might hear something. But then it’s quiet again and she’s left alone with her thoughts and her guilt, clawing away at her insides, trying to reach the surface. 

 

She doesn’t think there’s much room for guilt out here. It made you do things like try and sleep in the snow, or let an angry, hurt girl beat you with a fire poker. 

 

Still, she also doesn’t think any of them can really help it.

 

Footsteps just outside the plane door alert Lottie to someone coming inside and she perks up, lifting her head ever so. She squints through the half hazy sunlight still trickling in through the broken windows of the plane, waiting to see who it might be, and finding herself hoping she only wants it to be one person. 

 

Jackie feels frozen by the time she heads back into the plane, even after being by the fire for the last few hours. She makes her way over to where Lottie is laying, quickly laying down and pressing a cold nose against Lottie’s skin, not really thinking about the fact that she might make the other girl cold, too. Any earlier arguments (could it really be an argument when both of them are just sad and stubborn?) are put on the back burner for now. Jackie just wants to get warm. 

 

“Some of the snow is getting slushy and it’s making it especially gross and cold out there,” she mumbles.

 

Lottie just wraps her arms around Jackie and folds her into the blanket as well. Her cool skin feels nice against Lottie's, still too hot, too damp. She presses her face into Jackie's hair and just holds her. She doesn't really have much to say, she's just been here all day, in and out of sleeping and dreaming and praying, left alone with thoughts that left Lottie feeling dug out. 

 

“How are you feeling?” She asks after a moment.

 

“Cold,” Jackie says immediately, sighing quietly as she feels Lottie’s arms wrap around her. She’s so warm, too warm, really, and Jackie reminds herself to get Lottie some more water. Soon. She’ll get up for it soon. “Tired. You?”

 

Lottie is quiet as she holds Jackie, rubbing her hands softly up and down her back as if trying to warm her up faster. “Sore,” she answers. It's the only thing she really feels these days. That and all the things that come with it. Tired, aching, weary, you name it. Lottie was getting pretty tired of it. 

 

“How is everyone else?” 

 

Jackie pulls away just a little, trying not to lay too firmly on Lottie and hurt her. She should get up, anyway, should get some fresh water to clean Lottie’s skin and the cut and offer her something to drink. And she wants to. And she should. She’s just having a little bit of trouble trying to get up. 

 

“Also cold and tired,” Jackie says. “Everyone’s trying to figure out where to go from here. We need a closer water source. I don’t think anyone wants to stay here for long. There’s an architecture book on, like, fucking huts, the one that helped with making the shed. Mari called me Michaelangelo.”

 

Lottie doesn't move as Jackie shifts away, but she does feel a little jab of disappointment. She wants her to be closer, but she knows Jackie's just trying to be careful with her. Lottie knows how fragile she is right now and it makes her feel insane. She hates it.

 

“That was my book,” Lottie says softly. It was a book on ancient peoples and how they used to build structures and homes before modern tools were invented. Lottie had read through it twice already. 

 

She lets out a breathy laugh, though it tapers into a wheeze. “Why?” 

 

“Just a little light reading on the trip to Seattle, huh?” Jackie teases, opening her eyes to look at Lottie. “Tai’s hoping that once we find somewhere we can build some of the huts. She doesn’t think they look ‘too hard,’ which means it looks like rocket science for anyone who isn’t Taissa Turner, but…” she trails off, offering a small smile. “She meant Van Gogh but got her artists confused. And her time periods.”

 

Lottie hums. She likes history, she always has. There's something about knowing what has come before and what the world has become now that gives Lottie hope. There's something about the resilience of human kind that makes her feel less alone. 

 

“Good thing we have Tai, then.” If there was anyone who was going to survive all of this, it would be Tai. Lottie was sure that she would fight tooth and nail to at least get her and Van out alive. In the meantime, her resilience benefits them all.

 

Lottie snorts. “Of course she did.” 

 

Without thinking much, Lottie reaches over and presses the back of her hand to Jackie's cheek, feeling the cool bite of her skin against the cracked skin on her own knuckles. She's worried about it, but she's relieved Jackie's fever seems to have gone away completely. She wonders when it happened. The past few days still play as a jumbled mess in Lottie's head, only a few moments of stark clarity shining through the otherwise muddled memories of night and day, waking and sleeping. “I don't think Van Gogh has anything on you.”

 

“Probably should’ve made Tai captain, but hindsight’s 20/20 and doesn’t account for a plane crash, you know?” Jackie says, letting her eyes close as she leans in to the back of Lottie’s hand before she takes it in both of her own, an attempt to warm them both up. 

 

Jackie laughs quietly, smiling at the ground and shaking her head. “Right, right. He’s one of the world’s most well known artists and I… was the Wiskayok High School homecoming queen.”

 

“Tai is good at what she does,” Lottie says, “but coach was right to make you captain.” She says it with conviction, as if it's the most true thing in the world. In that moment, maybe it is. Lottie squeezes Jackie's hand reassuringly. 

 

“I bet he didn't even know how to play soccer,” she jokes. Then, “You're too hard on yourself.” Her voice is softer now, but firm. Confident in what she's saying. That strange part of her that takes over sometimes and knows things without question. “You're so much more than you know.” 

 

And some of that, Lottie knows, is because Jackie was never supposed to be here. But she is, and Lottie also knows that everything changed because of Jackie. It's one of the truths Lottie knows with one hundred percent confidence, something she rarely has.

 

Jackie wants to trust in Lottie. She wants to believe her. This is everything she’s always wanted: constant and confident reassurance that she’s doing something good. That she’s not fucking up. 

 

This new self doubt that plagues Jackie is built of stronger stuff, though, and it’s weighted down by a dead body, so Jackie doesn’t say anything, just rests her head down and lets the sound go fuzzy around her as she mumbles, “Thank you.”

 

Lottie finds it strange that out here, their roles seem to have reversed. She remembers how sure of herself Jackie always was back home, how she'd had to encourage Lottie to accept being her co captain, how she had to convince she was good enough. And now here they were. 

 

Lottie doesn't know where her sturdy sense of confidence comes from out here. It doesn't always feel like her own. But she knows it's something she needs to hold onto, if not for herself, then for everyone around her. And mostly, now, for Jackie. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes, listens to Jackie's breathing, and lets it remind her that this is real. All of it.

Notes:

So where do you guys think they all went after the cabin burned down? for the life of me it always feels like the plane is the only option. anyway! hope this was a good read! expect more of it to come! what do you think is gonna happen next?? it's all up in the air now that we've reached the unknown :)

And as always, feel free to reach out to either of us on our socials!

Chapter 12: what's done cannot be undone

Summary:

Jackie and Lottie take a trip down memory lane, and the team gets used to their new sleeping arrangements. But home is where the heart is, and that is not within the bowels of a hollowed out plane, unfortunately. The Yellowjackets might not have any soccer balls, but that doesn't stop them from playing games: I Spy, Follow the Leader, Hot Potato, Hide and Seek. Jackie and Lottie both even take up a little bit of finger painting, though Lottie's is a lot more detailed!

Notes:

We may be late, but we are NOT a dollar short with this here chapter! Sorry about the delay, but time really is nothing more than a weird soup (and we both absolutely forgot that yesterday was Saturday).

Chapter title comes from a quote by Lady Macbeth in Macbeth from Act 5, Scene 1.

Jackie doesn’t mean to doze off, but the next thing she knows, Misty is above them and tapping on Jackie to move so that she can check Lottie again. Jackie wonders, sometimes. As she disentangles herself from Lottie, she wonders how often Misty would hover over sick or injured people if she didn’t have other things to do.

 

Lottie is awoken again when she feels hands prodding at her. They’re cold and methodical. Not Jackie’s. Her eyes flutter open to find Misty poking around her ribs, delicate near her cut. She rubs her chin. 

 

“We might want to consider stitches.” She seems to be mumbling to herself, what with Lottie still being half asleep and her refusal to really engage with Jackie directly. Lottie is so tired. She just doesn’t care anymore. It might as well be this, she thinks. She just wants to go back to sleep.

 

“The good news is that the internal bleeding seems to have stopped,” Misty goes on. “So we’re in the clear there!”

 

Jackie blinks as Misty speaks before lifting her head so she can actually listen, nodding as she leans up and rubs her eyes. “What’s the… bad news?”

 

There’s always bad news, Lottie thinks. It can’t really get much worse. 

 

Misty considers her words carefully. “The wound will probably keep bleeding if we don’t close it,” she says, “but stitching it will make it harder to move when we eventually do.” 

Because they couldn’t stay here. They all knew that. Lottie just closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to deal with this or think about it or come to terms with the idea of having to endure even more pain. It was punishing her, she knew that now. She’d acted out against It and now she was being punished. She begged for forgiveness in her head but didn’t say anything out loud. She just reaches for Jackie again, buries her face in her shoulder.

 

“So the options are to… let it keep bleeding, or stitch it,” Jackie says. She rubs Lottie’s back. “We’re not going to move for a few days at least, right? This is kind of the only place we’ve got to go with snow still on the ground. Would Akilah be okay to do the stitches? Since she did Van’s?”

 

“Stitches take at least a few weeks to heal, Jackie,” Misty says flatly, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Lottie doesn’t think it is, but she’s never had stitches before. Lottie’s injuries were usually just cuts and bruises, a sprained ankle, jammed fingers. She wasn’t new to being hurt, to feeling pain, but this was all so much beyond what she was used to. Broken ribs, a wound so deep it didn’t stop bleeding, every breath a chore. She wants to just sleep until she can wake up and feel fine. 

 

“And if they tear, we have to start all over. Plus there’s a high chance of infection since all we have is thread and not actual sutures.” Misty sits back on her heels. “We might need to see what Natalie thinks.”

 

“I’m just trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do, Misty,” Jackie says, brushing her fingers through Lottie’s hair. “If it doesn’t stop bleeding, then that also risks infection, right? Along with just not being great in general.” She doesn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to do when Allie had gotten hurt. She’d just gave the girl’s hand a squeeze when the rest of the team was shooed off and helped make sure Coach Martinez had the right number to get in touch with her parents. Jackie can hold Lottie’s hand. She can wash away the blood. She can’t stitch up her side or heal her. 

 

“What do you think?” she asks Misty. “As the person with the most medical knowledge. I’m sure Nat will want your input to help with the decision.”

 

“No, blood loss is not good.” It’s kind of an obvious statement, but Lottie thinks at this point, they might as well just put it all out there. Lottie leans into Jackie’s touch, sighing. She hopes they don’t ask her what she wants to do, because Lottie doesn’t really care. At this point, she thinks they should just stop worrying about her and let the Wilderness decide her fate, but she also knows neither of them will like that answer. 

 

So she keeps her mouth shut and listens.

 

“If we’re going to be moving soon, then we should wait and hope it doesn’t bleed too much,” Misty finally says. “But if we’re going to be here a while, the sooner we stitch it up, the better.”

 

Jackie nods. “Okay. What should… we do until Nat decides?”

 

“Keep it as clean as we can,” Misty replies, setting the bowl of hot water down next to Jackie, “make sure it doesn’t get infected and keep her hydrated.” 

 

Lottie can already tell it’s going to be a long few days. She lets out a soft huff but doesn’t say anything. 

 

So it’s Jackie’s job to keep it clean. She can do that. She will do that. She gives Misty a nod, taking the bowl of hot water and the rag. Lottie is still leaning against her, and Jackie doesn’t want to disturb her just yet, so she holds onto her instead. 

 

Misty moves to get up, but she does look at Jackie and say, “You probably could keep your ear uncovered, at least for a bit, Jackie. The scabbing acts as a protective barrier.”

 

“Yeah, sure. It just makes things sound weird,” Jackie says.

 

“That’s because you no longer have an outer ear to regulate sound.” Misty actually looks curious. “What does it sound like?”

 

“I can hear things on that side, I just can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

 

Misty hums, nods, stands. “It should adjust over time. Probably!” She looks back at Lottie. “I’ll get you some fresh water to drink, Lottie. It’s really important that you stay hydrated.”

 

“Lopsided,” Jackie murmurs to Lottie as Misty goes off. “We’re both lopsided.”

 

Lottie makes a soft noise of acknowledgement but still doesn’t move. She doesn’t want to. She wants to stay like this, wrapped around Jackie, warm and calm. “I’ve always been lopsided,” she mumbles unprompted. At least, she’s always felt lopsided. Lottie was never a balanced person, she knew that much. Maybe her outside was just trying to reflect her inside. 

 

“You’re actually incredibly symmetrical,” Jackie says absentmindedly, pulling away with a sigh. “I’m gonna clean your side now because she’s right. The last thing you need is for it to get infected.” The water is hot, and Jackie knows that’s a good thing, but she’s sure it still stings when she gently brushes the rag over the wound, cleaning away the sluggish blood that oozes out of it, the edges, making sure that it’s clean of sweat and dirt. 

 

Lottie gives a quiet groan as Jackie pulls away. “I was comfortable,” she mutters. And while the hot water feels good on her skin, it still hurts when pressed to her cut. She clenches her jaw against it, fists curling up tightly. 

 

After a moment, she finally opens her eyes to look up at Jackie again. “I don’t think you’re lopsided.”

 

When she’s done, Jackie moves so that Lottie can lay back against her. She was comfortable, too. She’s always more comfortable with physical contact. Carefully, she unwraps the bandage from her head, blinking a little at being able to hear, just in the wrong way. “Ear. No ear,” she says, motioning to each one. “It’s a little lopsided.”

 

She’s given up really caring as much about her appearance out here, but it still stings, just a little. What is Jackie Taylor if not pretty and well put together? Mostly blemish free? The occasional scar from soccer, but nothing too noticeable. Except for the chunk taken out of the side of her head now. The messy hair, the sunken eyes, the dirt. She wonders, though, if her mother would think that this is an ideal weight. “It’s fine. I’ll… get used to it.”

 

Lottie reaches over and ghosts her fingertips over the side of Jackie’s head that was missing a piece. “You will,” she agrees softly. Just as Lottie will get used to whatever she is now, whatever pieces she might have left of herself. She’s never been that full of a person, really. And now she feels like less. 

 

“I’ll help however I can,” she offers, even if she doesn’t know how. She’ll do whatever Jackie wants her to do. Whatever she needs her to do.

 

Jackie tries not to flinch away from the touch, squeezing her eyes closed instead and staying very, very still. But Lottie’s not poking and prodding, pointing out flaws and problem areas and listing how to correct them. She’s just being gentle. Jackie wishes she was better at accepting gentle. 

 

“I know you will. Thanks, Lott,” she says, opening her eyes and offering Lottie a smile. She doesn’t lean into the touch. She wants to. She doesn’t. It feels weird, a little disorienting.

 

Lottie drops her hand when she notices Jackie’s hesitation. She understands it. Instead, she nestles her head on Jackie’s shoulder and closes her eyes. “It’ll take time,” she tells her, “but you’ll get used to it.” And if Lottie can help it, she’ll be there the whole time. She hopes. If her side doesn’t split open and spill all her blood, or her lungs don’t just collapse from difficulty breathing. So much could go wrong, really, but Lottie doesn’t worry. She understands now why it’s happening. She thinks she can get through this. 

 

When Lottie drops her hand, Jackie moves to grab it, lacing their fingers together. “I know. I know.” She likes that Lottie stays on her left side, though, where the ear is still whole and she doesn’t have to work so hard to figure out where things are coming from. Right now, outside the plane, she can make out noise, but it’s hard to make sense of it, if it’s close or far. 

 

“I don’t think I’ve even tried to walk properly yet,” Lottie notes, though. “At least I won’t have to relearn twice now.”

 

“I guess you can use me as a crutch,” Jackie says. “Or we can make you one. Maybe put something in your boots to help with the walking.”

 

Lottie curls her fingers around Jackie’s, brushes the pad of her thumb over the back of her hand. “You’re way too short to be my crutch,” she says with a grin.

 

“That’s so rude,” Jackie gasps, offering Lottie a mock offended look

 

Lottie gives an innocent shrug. “It’s not my fault you stopped growing in middle school.”

 

“I used to be tall,” Jackie mourns. “It’s kind of rude that everyone else decided to grow over the summer. You literally became all legs overnight.”

 

“Jackie, you were never tall.” Lottie remembers how much everyone used to fight over height, especially as freshmen in high school. Everyone wanted to be taller than everyone else. At the end of the day, Lottie was always the tallest. “I think it’s cute.”

 

“Shush. Let me have this,” Jackie says. “I used to be so jealous of you. You’re like a model, you’re so tall. I wish Mrs. Gibson had us draw people in art class. You would have been perfect.”

 

“Hmmm,” Lottie sighs, “my mom wanted me to do that. Be a…model.” Lottie had never been comfortable with people looking at her, though. She never liked being the center of attention. 

 

She quirks up one of her brows. “Do you think she’d make them pose nude, too?” she teases.

 

Jackie feels her face heat all the way down her neck, her chest. Jesus, she’s been in a high school locker room. She’s heard people talk about sex, bodies. She’s seen plenty of bodies, though she’s never let herself linger for longer than could be considered socially correct. She knows she gets called prudish, but she’s really not. It’s just been awhile, okay? And she wasn’t prepared for Lottie Matthews being a little shit. She’ll do better next time. “That’s– I mean, really– Come on, it was a high school art class. No way.”

 

Lottie shrugs again. “I mean, Mrs. Gibson was pretty much a hippie. She didn’t shave her armpits. I bet she’d let someone do it and then tell the school board it’s for social enrichment or something.” She can already tell Jackie is flustered just from the words, so of course she’s going to play that up. It feels nice to be…normal. To just gossip like they were still just teenagers in high school, talking about the latest rumor being passed around the locker room.

 

“Okay, yeah, but not that liberal. There’s no way. Some guy would’ve gotten a boner and made it everyone else’s problem,” Jackie sputters. Even her ear feels flushed. This is so silly. 

 

“Didn’t they do that anyway?” Lottie points out. “I mostly just slept during her class.”

 

“Well, yeah, but I think a nude model in class would make it a bit more obvious.” Jackie snorts. “I know, and she let you, which is really super sweet because if you’d fallen asleep during practice, Coach Martinez would have had all our asses.” 

 

“I think she took pity on me,” Lottie reminisces, “I was really bad at art.” She can’t see the blush in Jackie’s face but she knows it’s there. It makes Lottie feel a little happy, knowing all the same things that made Jackie flustered and blush back then still do now. 

 

At least Jackie’s not cold anymore, though the heat is almost too much. Talking about the class itself (no nude models available) was much safer. “Your stick figures were cute, and I happen to think you have an excellent smiley face.”

 

Lottie glances over at Jackie. “I think you missed out on how annoying teenaged boys are. None of them bothered you because you were with Jeff.” Or because Shauna was always just around the corner, staring them down with daggers in her eyes whenever they looked at Jackie the wrong way. 

 

She nods. “I had mastered stick figures long before that class.”

 

There’s definitely a reason that Jackie had a long term boyfriend for all four years of high school. Jeff might not have been perfect– he literally slept with her best friend– but he could be sweet, and he was a lot better than most of the guys at school. And being with him kept the rest of them away. “I guess I just didn’t pay attention to a lot of them. They were all so gross.”

 

Jackie traces her free hand over Lottie’s arm, doodling a smiley face on her jacket with a finger. “I should’ve asked you for lessons. Could’ve totally improved my game.”

 

“You have no idea,” Lottie chuffs. “Most of them think just cause they bring you a plastic cup of vodka, it means they get to put their hands down your pants.” That was how more than one guy got a black eye from Lottie Matthews. One of them also got a broken nose, but that was because he wouldn’t leave Laura Lee alone, and she was too polite to tell him to fuck off. Lottie wasn’t. 

 

Her eyes go down to watch Jackie’s fingers trace patterns into her jacket. She can feel the movement on her skin and she almost wishes the cloth wasn’t there. “With my help, you could’ve been a real Van Gogh.”

 

Jackie hums. She did have an idea about that. Not quite the same, but some of them think that because they drive you home or hold their hand that they’re entitled to a little bit of action. All above the belt, Jackie, promise. Then it’s just a hand down your pants. It’s fine. He wants to make you feel good. Then you can make him feel good, too. Jeff was better than most. He still is, probably, even if he sort of ruined her life. But that doesn’t mean it was great . Jackie sighs dramatically. “Alas, I’m just some one-eared nobody, my stick figures boring and basic.”

 

Lottie says, quietly, “Jackie Taylor, you will never be a nobody.” She doesn’t look at her, or even move, but she says it with conviction. “Even if you suck at drawing stick figures.”

 

There are pretty girls with soft brown eyes that would beg to differ, one that even looks exactly like the girl curled up in her arms. Tragic and boring and insecure . You don’t matter anymore . Jackie’s moving past the words, okay? She’s doing better. She still hears them bouncing around in her skull, though. She can’t help it. But she smiles and chuckles. “Damn. I guess I’ve just gotta get better at stick figures, then.”

 

“I’ll teach you.” And it’s almost the same as the promise to stick around. Because Lottie had made that promise to her and even if something inside of her was still clinging to the guilt she’d piled up, she wanted to keep her word more. For Jackie, for herself. It doesn’t really matter. 

 

Lottie isn’t sure there’s much of a difference anymore.

 

“Please do. I could use all the pointers I can get,” Jackie says. She does need to learn to draw faster. Nat’s biggest complaint about Jackie’s contributions to the map was that she took too long. Of course, the map was gone, now, nothing but ashes in whatever remains of the cabin. They’d have to start over from scratch, if they started over at all.

 

“Just as soon as I can sit up without seeing stars,” Lottie nods. Sometimes she would see stars if she just moved a little too much or stretched a little too hard. 

 

Lottie can hear more movement just outside the plane as people begin to gather up, which means they’re probably getting ready to start dinner. She’d hardly noticed how dark it had gotten, and there’s someone down the open end of the plane trying to start up a new fire to keep the inside warm while they all sleep. 

 

It was just a reminder that they weren’t still just high school girls, who could laugh about stick figures and falling asleep in class and how gross boys are. She lays her head back down and stares up at the roof and tries not to think about all the times she’d found her life boring and how, now, she wishes she could just go back to that.

 

Because even if they’re rescued-- big if , too-- things will never be like that again. Lottie thinks that’s what scares her the most.

 

Soon, then, Jackie hopes. Because Lottie is going to get better. She has to believe it. Her hand aches with the knowledge. Lottie would get better. Lottie promised. She has to stay. 

 

Some of the others come into the plane, settling down and waiting for dinner to get done so that they can eat and rest. Jackie fixes her hair and turns just enough so that her left ear faces the rest of the plane. She’ll get used to it. Right now, though, it's disorienting to not know where Mari’s voice is coming from. 

 

Lottie lets Jackie shift so she can hear better, subconsciously wrapping an arm protectively around her, pulling Jackie closer to her. 

 

It’s just Gen, Melissa and Akilah right now, who are all shivering and trying to warm themselves up around the small fire. They spare a small glance at the two before turning back to their own conversation, talking about how fucked this all feels. About how fucked up it was that Coach set the cabin on fire.

 

Lottie’s eyes open wide and she almost forgets she has broken ribs and an open wound in her side when she tries to sit up. She blacks out momentarily, grabbing her head. “What-- what did you say?” 

 

“Well, think about it,” Melissa states, “he’s been missing since the draw. And then suddenly the cabin is on fire?”

 

Gen kicks Melissa in the shin. “We don’t know it was him.”

 

Akilah looks sheepishly at Gen, then to Lottie and Jackie before she shrugs. “Yeah, but…who else could it be?”

 

Jackie moves to help Lottie sit up, grabbing the rag and pressing it to her side because she knows the movement must have made the wound there start bleeding some more. “But… why would Coach Scott do that? It’s— it’s Coach Scott. He’s stuck out here too. He’s starving too.”

 

Lottie feels every ounce of effort she has drain whenever she tries to sit up. Even with help. Still. She's looking at the other three with wide, questioning eyes. She wants to know why they think it's him. 

 

Melissa shrugs again. “Maybe he saw, you know…” she makes a crude cutting motion across her neck. Gen kicks her again. 

 

“We did what we had to,” Lottie asserts, “to survive.” 

 

She had hoped Coach Scott would understand, but he hadn't the first time, either. Even though they'd all been starving and in need. 

 

“But think about it, how else could the fire have started?” Akilah chimes in. “If it was from the fireplace we would've seen it inside, not out.”

 

“Plus all the doors were sealed shut,” Melissa chips in again. “Maybe he thought we were gonna kill him next.”

 

Lottie feels dizzy with it all. She doesn't want to believe their Coach would try and kill them all. Burn them alive inside their only respite. She blinks, looks down at Jackie's hand pressing the rag to her side. She can feel it bleeding again. “We don't know if it was him,” she says quietly, as if trying to convince herself more than anyone else. Her brows scrunch together. “Has-- has anyone even seen him?”

 

The other three glance at each other, before they look back to Lottie and Jackie. They simply shake their heads.

 

Jackie’s hands are shaking a little bit, but she keeps some pressure on Lottie’s wound to try and help. “Let’s try not to think about that right now. Figuring out how the fire got set can come after we’ve found some place to settle, not while we’re all cold and tired and hungry.” They could do it when they were all more rational, when they all had more time to talk it through together. 

 

“Sure, whatever,” Melissa sighs. Lottie can hear the disdain in her voice and her face sets into something hard. 

 

“Jackie's right,” Lottie says in a cold voice she hasn't used since before the snow came. “It doesn't matter right now.”

 

It might eventually, though-- Lottie knew that much. She wasn't even sure she believed it, that he would do that. Her mind was too jumbled, too feverish, too worried. 

 

“Of course you think she's right,” Gen huffs and Lottie doesn't need to see her face to know she's rolling her eyes. 

 

Lottie's face draws colder, but she doesn't say anything back. 

 

Akilah, ever the peacekeeper, speaks up. “Let's all just concentrate on not freezing to death, yeah?” 

 

Melissa and Gen throw a glance her way, then relent. As they do, Mari shouts from just outside that dinner is ready, and they all scramble up, starving and desperate to get away from whatever mess this was all turning into.

 

Jackie ducks her head, but she’s grateful when Lottie defends her, and she’s relieved when at least Akilah tries to find some middle ground. That’s all that Jackie wants; them to not focus on something that big while they’re all freezing and starving. And she’d rather them all talk it out together, as a group, not just in small gossipy circles. 

 

She watches the three of them go with sad eyes. She doesn’t want to think that it’s Coach. But Coach is the only one that makes sense. 

 

Once they're gone, Lottie feels the tension release from her body, and the pain comes flooding back in. She doesn't mean to, but she slumps against Jackie, letting out a pained breath. God this was all such a mess. All of it. 

 

Especially her. 

 

She felt like such a mess. She hadn't felt this way since the first time her parents sat her in front of a psychiatrist and demanded they “fix her”. She doesn't think they fixed her at all. Not even with all the pills, the weekly appointments, the check-ins. Lottie was destined to always be a mess. 

 

She puts her head on Jackie's shoulder and lets herself find comfort, if just for this small moment.

 

“I know it sucks,” Jackie starts, wiping away the blood and moving to clean the rag so that she can brush away some of the sweat that’s beading on Lottie’s forehead, “but you’ve got to stay still. The goal is for you not to bleed out from the place I had to stab you, okay?”

 

Lottie lets herself be taken care of and though Jackie’s been at her side since the night Misty beat her, she’s still not used to it. Not quite used to having someone there for her, helping her, watching over her. The concept is as foreign to her as French. “S’not so bad,” Lottie slurs, beginning to feel a little woozy again. Now that the adrenaline and anxiety was wearing off, she just felt tired and heavy. Like always. Like whatever was weighing her down wasn’t just in her body, but in her soul, too. “You did a good job stabbing me, I think.” 

 

“I’d like to never do it again, if it’s all the same to you,” Jackie says, “so stop moving and tearing things and internally bleeding, please .” She’s gentle as she tries to check Lottie over from this angle, careful with each touch. 

 

Lottie hums, low in her throat. She thinks that the feel of a cool, metal blade tracing along skin isn't as terrible as people make it out to be. It can be something sacred, if they let it. Reflexively, Lottie reaches out and takes Jackie's hand with the cut on it. Her thumb traces the thick line of the scab that has formed there, before she silently brings it up to her lips, pressing them against Jackie's palm. “Thank you,” she says, the true meaning of her words much more than a simple act of gratitude. She doesn't say anything more, just drops Jackie's hand back into her lap and lets go of a long, shuddering breath. 

 

Whatever moment of clarity had overcome her was fading back into her mind as the fever worked to keep its grip on her. Either way, Lottie didn't mind, if it meant she got to keep Jackie close like this. She didn't know how much longer she had, how many more of these moments she'd get with her. 

 

She'd take whatever Jackie wanted to give her, though.

 

Jackie doesn’t say anything, just puts in a little too much effort to make sure that she doesn’t shiver at Lottie’s touch, the trace of her fingers along the scab, the brush of her lips. She just moves to make Lottie comfortable. 

 

It’s Nat who brings them food, and Tai, Van, and Travis join. It’s almost like a senior class reunion. If they hadn’t crashed, all of them would be in separate places. Now, though, they’re huddling together in the innards of the plane, eating food they can barely stomach or think about for too long. 

 

“The weather’s starting to warm,” Nat says quietly. 

 

“Tell me about it. The change from ‘really fucking cold’ to ‘not quite but still really fucking cold’ has me practically sweating,” Van says as she eats. Tai pushes her. 

 

Lottie watches the others through half open eyes, drowsy with the energy she'd just spent half arguing with Melissa and Gen. She thinks it's nice, all of them here together. They might be huddled in the destroyed remnants of their plane’s fuselage, but they're together. Really, this was all Lottie had ever wanted. 

 

“It was right to pick you,” she mumbles to Natalie, but doesn't move much. Her hair falls in curtains over her shoulders, onto Jackie-- it's gotten so long out here. She doesn't care to keep it tamed. 

 

Natalie shares a glance with Travis before looking at Jackie, as if to ask for some sort of translation of whatever nonsense Lottie seems to be spouting now. 

 

“Just rest, Lottie,” Nat finally says. “We’ll figure all this out.”

 

Jackie brushes some hair out of Lottie’s face and moves to grab the cup of water Nat set beside them, pressing it to Lottie’s lips in an attempt to get her to drink. She looks to Nat and offers, quietly, “Misty thinks her side needs stitches. And that if she gets stitches they could pop if we move anywhere any time soon. And also there’s a risk of infection. But, you know, the wound in her side is still bleeding, so there’s that, too.” 

 

Tai winces, her eyes sympathetic. “Jesus, Lottie,” she murmurs. 

 

“Damned if you do it, damned if you don’t,” Van agrees. 

 

Thanks, Misty, Jackie thinks bitterly.

 

“You don't have to worry,” Lottie murmurs to them. She takes a sip of the water, lets it sit in her throat before swallowing. “The forest knows you as well as you know it, Nat.” 

 

She doesn't see the awkward glances they all share. She thinks she can feel something shifting around them, something in the air. As her mind falls back into the state of knowing and not knowing, she thinks she can see all the threads of life joining them together. 

 

“You’ll do what's right,” she says, voice drifting and lofty, “you always do.”

 

“She’s tired and pretty feverish,” Jackie says, trying to encourage Lottie to take another drink. Misty said she needed to stay hydrated. “She’s right, though. You'll do what’s right, Nat. You always do. And it’ll be good for us.”

 

Lottie drinks, the water resting in her tongue like a salve for the jumbled words she's trying to express. She's used to people brushing off what she says. It feels nicer when they don't. 

 

Natalie glances at Jackie and nods. “I think we'll send a scouting party out tomorrow, see if we can't find a place to maybe start building some shelters. And maybe send some others back to the cabin for the meat shed supplies. We can probably just rebuild it wherever we end up.”

 

“We'll need to find somewhere by water,” Tai adds on, “preferably close by. Trekking to the lake and back might get tedious without anywhere proper to store the water.”

 

“Just make sure people know to come back before dark,” Jackie says. “But near water’s gotta be the biggest thing, right?” She looks at Nat. “How long are we staying here ? So we can know about whether or not to do stitches.”

 

Nat sighs. “At least until the snow melts is my idea. Or we get shelters built somewhere else, which will probably take some time. A few weeks at least. It’s not fucking ideal, but this is the best we’ve got.”

 

Lottie hears them talking, but she doesn't register the words. Instead, she squints across the plane and thinks she sees a figure, a shadow. Tall, clad in white. Antlers stretching above their head. 

 

Lottie shivers, feels it in her bones, digging into the marrow. Her breath hitches, tight in her chest. 

 

“It's here.”

 

When Lottie speaks, everyone looks at her, concerned. And Jackie’s worried they’ll think Lottie’s crazy, that something’s wrong with her, that she’s not right. But she’s just Lottie, and Jackie works to soothe her, hushing her and brushing her hair and trying to get her to look away from the shadows when there’s nothing there. “It’s okay,” Jackie murmurs. “I think it’s okay. I think you just need some rest, Lott.”

 

Van glances in the direction Lottie is looking, as if expecting to see something there. She's always believed, she was the first. 

 

But there's nothing there. Concern fills her face as she looks to Tai, to Jackie. 

 

“It's--” Lottie starts, stops. She can't focus, the figure fading. She can't tell what's real again. Van’s face floats in front of her, she thinks she sees two of her. One is charred. Lottie blinks, trying to will the image away. “It's not real, right?” 

 

And she would feel shame about this, about losing her grip so openly, but once her mind has spiraled, it's hard to get it back, to feel anything other than desperation. She just wants to understand. She wants to know what they mean. She wants to know if she's really just crazy. 

 

“Maybe you should lay her down, Jax,” Natalie encourages softly. “We can save some dinner for her for later.” She tries her best to hide her discomfort, they all do. 

 

They all know something happened to Lottie out here, that something changed her into whatever this is now. But they can't seem to agree on what exactly that was. 

 

Lottie doesn't really know either. 

 

“I don’t see anything,” Jackie says, helping Lottie lay down. “But I’m here, and so’s Nat, Tai, Van, Travis. I think you’re just really exhausted and sick. Try to rest some more, okay?” She looks at Nat gratefully. Resting Lottie’s head in her lap, she takes a sip of water but resolves to eat when Lottie does.

 

“But can you feel it?” Lottie asks, her voice small and unsure. She rests her head on Jackie's leg, curls an arm around it, too. She feels cold, watching the shadows with glazed eyes. “Can you hear it?”

 

Van sits forward. “I don't feel anything, Lott, just us. All here. See?” She waves her arms around gently. “Just the coolest kids you've ever known.”

 

“And Jackie Taylor,” Nat adds, seeing what Van’s doing and trying to help. 

 

“I can go walk around,” Travis says, his voice soft and hesitant. “Make sure there’s nothing there.”

 

Jackie rolls her eyes at Nat, but she offers Travis a grateful smile. “You’re safe, Lottie. We’ve all got you.”

 

Lottie presses into Jackie more, craving her comfort, the weight of her hands on Lottie's shoulders, in her hair. Something real, something tangible. Her breathing calms as she watches Travis examine their surroundings. He walks through the shadows as if they don't matter, as if they're not real. 

 

Maybe they aren't. 

 

When he sits back down, Lottie closes her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she mutters, almost like a prayer, “I'm sorry I couldn't do it.”

 

“It’s okay,” Jackie murmurs, running her fingers through Lottie’s hair. “It’s okay. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

 

Lottie doesn't really believe that, no matter how much she wants to. She needs them all to know she's sorry, sorry that she failed them, hurt them, let them down. 

 

But she's too tired, and the soothing feeling of Jackie's fingers in her hair has her drifting into a light slumber before she even realizes what's happening. 

 

Once Lottie's breathing evens out, Tai lets out a breath of her own. “She must be really sick. Lottie can say some weird shit sometimes, but this all feels next level.”

 

“Yeah, well, Misty beat the shit out of her while the rest of us watched,” Jackie mutters, continuing to brush her fingers through Lottie’s hair. “So I imagine that didn’t really help with anything.” 

 

Tai winces, even Van does, too. Natalie shakes her head.

 

“I didn't think Misty would ever…go that far,” she admits. But once Natalie had realized she wasn't going to stop on her own, she'd acted as fast as she could. She'd still been too slow.

 

Van scrunches her face. “I don't think any of us did,” she admits, “but Lottie took it from her to help us. Let's not let that go to waste.”

 

It's not a full on admission, but it's close to one. They all owe Lottie their lives. Whether they believe in her wilderness or not, they owe her at least that much. 

 

Who would have thought that geeky Misty Quigley would go that far? Jackie always thought people could be really cruel to Misty, even if she was a little weird. But she never thought she deserved it. She still doesn’t, but now she’s scared of Misty. Not even for herself, even if she recalls the look in Misty’s eyes when she made Jackie eat from her hand. 

 

Lottie shouldn’t have had to do that. Jackie looks down at her softly, her fingers trembling as they move through thick hair. “Nobody lets her do anything like that again.”

 

Natalie can sense the fear in Jackie, in the way her fingers shake as she comforts the sleeping girl in her lap. She nods, sharply. “No one does anything like that ever again.” She says it with a finality, leaving no room to argue. Van, Tai and Travis all nod, too. 

 

They finish their meals in silence after that, and once the others have gone off to find their sleeping arrangements, Natalie scoots towards Jackie.

 

“If you ever, like, need a break, you know you can just ask, right?” She motions towards Lottie with her chin. “I'll look after her. Or I can get Mari to do it.” For a moment, she hesitates, debating whether or not her next words are worth the push back she knows is sure to come.

 

Ultimately, she decides to say them. “I think you should go with the scouting party tomorrow. We need to start making a new map and you know the area well enough. You and Travis.” 

 

Jackie was going to say that it’s alright, she doesn’t mind at all. She likes looking after Lottie, and she doesn’t really want to leave her, especially since leaving her made things worse. But Nat’s next words have her face falling. “You think— Nat, I really don’t know anything. Not like… I don’t think I’d be useful.”

 

It’s such a far cry from who she used to be, Jackie Taylor with the upbeat, can-do attitude. But that doesn’t matter out there. Not really. 

 

“Look, I'd do it if I could, but I need to stay here, keep things organized and going, you know? Like you said.” Nat runs a hand through her hair. It's getting long, too, her brown roots no longer just roots. “Your maps were good, Jackie. We need that right now. We need to learn the full lay of the land, all of us.” 

 

Hesitant, Nat reaches out . Puts her hand over one of Jackie's. “I promise I'll look after her, okay?” And she means it. Lottie is her friend, too. Maybe she doesn't understand whatever connection her and Jackie seem to have now, but Lottie is her friend, has been for a long time. Before a lot of the other girls even considered trying to be her friend outside of the team. “I won't let anything happen to her.”

 

“I know,” Jackie says quietly. And she does. To all of it. She knows that Nat cares about Lottie and that she’ll take care of her. That’s why Nat was so upset with Lottie for so long, she thinks. That’s probably why it hurt so much. And she knows she should go. She should show the others that she’s useful and wants to help. 

 

Finally, Jackie nods. “I’ll go. I, uh, can’t hear super great right now, though. That’s not gonna be a problem?”

 

Nat’s gaze flicks to the side of Jackie's head that she knows Misty cut. “Just let Travis know which side and he'll make sure to cover you, okay?” She trusts him to do that, to take care of her girls, her team. Because he's one of them now, too, even if him and Natalie were still distant. He would always hold a special place in her heart, no matter what. 

 

“I'll go grab some dinner for you two,” Nat says, then, giving Jackie's hand a pat before she moves to stand, stretching her aching limbs. “And thanks, Jackie. For, you know, supporting me and all that. It means a lot.” 

 

Jackie nods and looks to Travis where he rests. She trusts him. She understands him, too, which is just as important. When Nat stands, Jackie looks up at her. “You were the best choice.” The only choice, really, but the best one, too. Nat cared about them, and she knew what she was doing. She’d keep them safe. 

 

Looking down at Lottie, Jackie knows she’ll keep her safe, too. Probably a lot better than Jackie herself. She’s just being silly. She just doesn’t want to leave.  Jackie’s a little selfish, a little clingy. A lot of both. She can’t help it.

 

Nat doesn't say anything back to that, just trudges back out to the dinner fire and fixes two more plates. The camp has been mostly cleared of snow for the day, and they've now got piles separated out of all their stuff, what will be useful, what will be necessary. It's not much, but it's something and Natalie knows that, right now, they have to simply keep moving forward. 

 

She sets the two plates down by Jackie when she gets back, before moving towards the other end of the plane where everyone else is getting ready for bed, huddling near the fire to keep warm. They all give Jackie and Lottie their space, except Misty who sits curled up in one of the still intact seats, watching the two closely. She'll check up on Lottie one more time before they all sleep, but she's waiting for now, watching everyone else move about.

 

Lottie stirs briefly in Jackie's lap, body clenching momentarily as if something were plaguing her mind in the throes of a dream, before she loosens her grip and her muscles relax. She breathes steadily, even if each inhale sends pain throbbing through her chest. She wants it to go away, but she knows there's nothing she can do to make that happen. Nothing except sit around and wait, two of Lottie's least favorite things to do.

 

Jackie kind of wishes that she wasn’t so clingy as she holds onto Lottie and waits for her to wake up, but a lot of this is totally Lottie’s fault. She made Jackie care about her. She made Jackie stay alive. And Jackie is needy. She’s needy and selfish and insecure. And now her brain has decided she needs Lottie, like it decided she needed Shauna, before Shauna decided she didn’t need Jackie. 

 

When Lottie stirs, Jackie just attempts to soothe her with gentle fingers, hoping that Lottie will wake whenever she feels like it. Hopefully, she can get some more rest before Jackie absolutely has to wake her. 

 

While Lottie sleeps, something akin to dread is trying to fill her up. She doesn't want to let it in, she clings to Jackie, hoping the gentle comfort of her voice, her touch, can help keep it away. There's something that feels wrong, but Lottie can no longer tell if it's something with all of them, or just her. 

 

She can't help but feel wrong. She hears her dad's accusatory voice, telling her to stop acting so crazy. Or her mom's voice telling her to stop embarrassing her. She dreams of the cold, gloved hands prodding her as the doctors look her over, or the flat, droning voice of her psychiatrist, observing her not as a person, but a patient. A number. 

 

Lottie squirms in her sleep, whimpers quietly. She didn't want to be this way, she never wanted to be this way. Couldn't they see that? Didn't they know that?

 

At the sound of Lottie’s distress, Jackie lets her touch become a little firmer. “Lottie?” she murmurs. “Lottie. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

 

The feeling of Jackie's grip tries to break through the voices in her head. Her voice trying to drown out the others. It's okay, it's okay . Lottie doesn't think any of this is okay. It doesn't feel okay, she doesn't feel okay. 

 

Her eyes snap open. She's heaving with breath again, shivering despite how warm she feels. The blurry outline of Jackie above her slowly comes into focus and she feels the grounding relief that always comes with her presence. Lottie breathes out shakily. 

 

“I heard you,” she tells her softly. Her throat feels dry, lips chapped. “In my dream.”

 

“Yeah?” Jackie whispers. “Hope it wasn’t any bad dreams.” She moves to help Lottie sit up. “Try to drink something, and then Nat brought some food.”

 

It was, Lottie knows that much, but she doesn't say it. She just nods, letting Jackie readjust as she sits up, sagging against her. She was exhausted of feeling like this, drained and tired and heavy. In pain. She wants it to end. 

 

She knows there's still so much time before she'll even begin to truly feel better. 

 

“Not hungry,” Lottie mumbles.

 

Jackie hums, bringing the cup of water to Lottie’s lips for her to drink. “Tough,” she says. “You’re starving, literally. That means you need to eat, even if you don’t feel like it.”

 

Lottie takes the cup with trembling fingers and sips from it. It’s soothing, relieving. She looks over at Jackie and furrows her brow, shaking her head. Her stomach churns from whatever feeling her dream had left her with, creeping up her bones and inside her veins. She thinks her body might reject anything she tries to eat. Even the water, though nice on her throat, is making her chest feel tight. “I don’t…feel good.”

 

“I…” Jackie doesn’t know if she’s supposed to allow Lottie to just not eat. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do if she turns down food. But she’s drinking the water at least. “Okay. Misty might disagree when she comes to check on you. But just drink some more for right now.” She licks her lips, hesitant. She needs to let Lottie know she’ll be gone, but she wants Lottie to be just a little more cognizant. “How don’t you feel good?”

 

Lottie doesn’t quite know how to explain it. It feels like there’s something inky inside of her chest, like oil in her lungs. She hadn’t felt this way since they first found the cabin. Bad things happened here. “Like…my stomach.” She was surprised she hadn’t gotten this nauseous earlier. Maybe the internal bleeding had something to do with it. Lottie had never been all that good with biology and medical things.

 

“Okay,” Jackie mumbles, combing her fingers through Lottie’s hair absentmindedly. “Okay. That’s definitely a Misty thing. That’s— We should definitely tell her that.” And for her to take the food back to the pot so that it wouldn’t get wasted. Or Jackie could do that when Misty came back by. Or Misty would try to force it down Lottie’s throat, something that Jackie didn’t think she’d be able to stand for. 

 

As Lottie leans into Jackie, she presses her ear to her chest and listens to her heartbeat. It helps calm her, helps keep the darkness inside of her at bay. It feels like ice in her veins, under her skin, crawling. It just feels wrong . 

 

She doesn’t think they’ll listen if she tries to tell them that. She knows they don’t really believe her. Not anymore. Lottie closes her eyes again, feels herself wanting to slip back into sleep. Maybe if she can just figure out what it is inside of her, she can fix it. She can stop it before it gets worse. 

 

She wants to hear It again, she needs to hear it again. It left her, alone and cold and quiet, and now, when she needs it most, she’s only greeted with silence. It makes her feel wrong .

 

Jackie can tell that Lottie is starting to fall asleep again, so she swallows. “Lottie,” she starts, “I’m gonna be gone for a few hours tomorrow. Nat wants me to go with the scouting party.”

 

Lottie’s eyes shoot open and her first instinct is to tell her no. No, stay here, with her. Please . She worries. It scares her how much she worries. She thinks about the cabin, about Jackie running back into the fire, about finding Jackie curled up in Shauna’s lap in the shed that first night. 

 

But Lottie has never been a selfish person. Not in that way. She knows that Jackie has been helping Nat map the area. She knows it’s a good idea for Jackie to go with. She still wants to tell her not to go.

 

“Okay,” she breathes, trying to hide how her voice wavers, “be careful.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know if she was expecting Lottie to fight her on this. She doesn’t even know if she’s disappointed or not that she didn’t. “I’ll be careful,” she says. “I made a promise.”

 

In Lottie’s experience, people rarely kept their promises. 

 

Still, she wanted to believe Jackie would. In this moment, right now, Lottie believed Jackie would. 

 

“Please.” It’s really all she can say with how quickly her energy is being sapped, soaked up by the dark sponge of dread inside of her. She doesn’t want Jackie to go. She has to let Jackie go.

 

“I promised,” Jackie repeats. She offers Lottie the cup one more time. “Just a little more, and then you can rest some before Misty comes back by.”

 

Lottie lets the words settle in her stomach, lets them bring her whatever comfort she can find in them right now. She needs to or she thinks she might just fall apart. She wants to close her eyes and not open them again. She doesn’t think that’s a good idea at all.

 

Taking the cup, Lottie sips more of the water. She didn’t get sick a lot as a child, she’d always had a good immune system, her colds only lasting a few days and she’d only ever had the flu once. She remembers how feverish and disorienting it had been, how she’d stumbled around the house and almost fell down the stairs until the maid found her and took her back to her room. She remembers being so unbearably hot and then so unbearably cold. 

 

A lot like how she feels now. She shivers again, despite the sweat coating her forehead, and the burn of her skin as her body tries it's hardest to heal. 

 

Jackie takes the cup back from Lottie, and she thinks that’s how she spends most of the night. Holding Lottie, wiping the sweat from her brow, making sure her wound stays clean, offering her water. Even when Misty comes by, there’s not much that changes through the night. 

 

As the rest of the plane starts stirring, Jackie knows that she needs to get up and gather her things, but pulling away is hard, especially when Lottie is sick. She doesn’t want to leave her, even when Nat starts coming their way. 

 

“How is she?” Nat asks, pausing in front of Jackie. 

 

Lottie doesn't feel like she's slept at all, she doesn't feel awake. There's still a heavy gripping feeling inside her chest, making her feel nauseous and dizzy, her heart palpitating roughly in her chest. 

 

She thought she'd been getting better, but something was pulling her back down into the tar pit that was her mind. 

 

Her body shudders as she lets out a long breath. 

 

Natalie kneels next to them, sets a bowl of food down. She's worried for her friend, of course she is, but she has to think about what's best for everyone, not just one person. 

 

“Sick,” Jackie says quietly, looking up at Nat with big, sad eyes. She wants to ask to stay. She doesn’t want to go with the scouting party, especially when Lottie is unwell. She doesn’t want to be away and unable to explain what Lottie’s trying to say, even if she herself doesn't always know. 

 

Look, Jackie knows that Nat will be there for her, or Mari, but Jackie still doesn’t like the idea of leaving Lottie alone for so long. She knows it’s irrational because there’s not much she can actually do to help, but that’s just what her brain’s doing right now when it’s not conjuring Shauna Shipmans. 

 

“Lottie,” she murmurs, “try to drink a little more for me, okay?”

 

Natalie bites her lip. She does feel bad, that clawing guilt she's so good at taking on, but being in charge means making hard decisions. She thinks she can do that. She knows she has to.

 

“It's only gonna be for a few hours, Jackie,” Nat tries to reassure her. “Mari and Van and Misty will take good care of her.”

 

Lottie doesn't want to drink anything, she thinks it might make her melt, choke her, drown her on air. The tremors don't stop, even as she does her best to look up at Jackie. “Can't…” is all she manages to say.

 

Jackie makes a sad noise but doesn’t force the issue, just looks at Nat again. She smooths Lottie’s hair and grabs the rag to wipe the sweat away from her forehead one last time before she says, “I’ll be back soon, okay? Few hours, max.” As she gets up, Nat takes her place, and Jackie knows she won’t be able to sit and hold Lottie all day, but she’s still grateful. 

 

She eats a few bites of food without wanting to, knowing that she needs at least something on her stomach. Years of soccer practice taught her that. Passing out the first time had been embarrassing, but the second and third had been concerning enough that Coach Martínez threatened to call her mother, and that was the last thing Jackie needed. 

 

She covers her head with her hood and finds something to wrap her face. Travis is waiting with the gun, Gen and Tai standing with him as well. Jackie grabs a bag and stuffs in someone’s old calculus notebook and a pencil. Mari offers her a bottle of water with the Wiskayok Yellowjackets logo. As Jackie makes it to their little group, she looks back at the plane. 

 

“The sooner we leave, the sooner we make it back,” Tai says. 

 

They all nod, and with that, they head out. 

 

Lottie is keenly aware of Jackie's absence the moment she leaves. Despite Natalie filling the space where she was, Lottie still feels like something is missing, like something's not right. She just doesn't know what. She can't reach it anymore. No matter how hard she tries or how desperately she prays she's met only with silence or nightmares. Images flashing in her mind like a slideshow. She knows it has to mean something, it has to. 

 

She needs it to. 

 

Natalie dabs Lottie's forehead with the cool rag. “Jesus, Lottie…” she mutters under her, “you have to get better.”

 

Jackie’s equal parts grateful and anxious by the way that they take the trek slow. Travis takes his place at Jackie’s right shoulder with the gun, tapping her before he talks to make sure she doesn’t get startled. She can hear. She needs to make that abundantly clear. She can hear, it’s just weird now. She appreciates his efforts, though. 

 

Gen has a knife, and Jackie remembers her holding it to Travis’ neck during the hunt. Tai has an ax. Jackie is the only one without a weapon, armed only with a pencil that could very easily break, and she can’t help but wonder if that’s intentional or just an oversight. Whatever. It’s fine. 

 

They stop whenever Jackie sees something identifiable enough to sketch out for the new maps, or if Travis hears something. Tai thinks the area seems a little familiar and wonders if they’re heading towards the path they took on the failed expedition. If so, there should be clean water. 

 

“Stop,” Gen breathes, and the others freeze. Gen points at something in the snow, and Jackie squints, but it’s Travis who figures it out first. 

 

“Deer tracks,” he whispers. The four of them look at each other. 

 

They don’t find any game when they decide to head back, just the knowledge that it’s out there and the plan to change direction a little bit the next time that they go out

 

Jackie resigns herself to the knowledge that there will, in fact, be a next time. 

 

As they head back, she sees one of the symbols on a tree. She walks over to it, brushing it with her thumb. 

 

“Did Lottie ever tell you what it means?” Gen asks, stepping beside Jackie. 

 

Jackie holds out her hand, motioning towards the knife, and Gen looks confused at first, but Jackie doesn’t stop until it’s in her hand. “No,” she says, pricking the tip of her thumb and smearing the blood over the mark. “She didn’t.” 

 

Tai looks at Jackie with equal parts concern and annoyance. “You’re the last person I expected to do something like that .”

 

Licking the blood from the wound after she hands the knife back to Gen, Jackie just sort of shrugs. “Same here.” She still doesn’t know if she believes in it, but she believes in Lottie, and maybe that’s enough.

 

Natalie stays with Lottie the shortest amount of time, but she's constantly coming back to check in on her. 

 

Lottie, for the most part, is either unconscious or babbling incoherently the whole day. 

 

Mari comes in to take Van’s place, flopping down on the floor of the plane next to her. “Any changes?” 

 

“Yeah, she rolled over onto her side once. Real exciting stuff here.”

 

Mari gives Van an unamused look before she picks up the rag and dabs at Lottie's forehead. “I still can't believe Misty of all people did this.” It's quiet between them for a moment. “And we all just let it happen. She just got away with it.”

 

Van steels her expression. “What are we supposed to do, Mar? Exile our only doctor? Wanna hold a fucking trial about what to do with Misty Quigley?”

 

Mari frowns. “I just think it's all a little fucked up,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. 

 

Van stands, wiping off her pants. “Yeah, well, everything out here is kinda fucked up.”

 

With that, she takes her leave and Mari is left alone with a whimpering Lottie. 

 

Really, she doesn't mean to fall asleep, but it's mega boring just sitting there, occasionally wiping sweat off of Lottie's face. 

 

But when Mari opens her eyes, startled awake by a noise outside, Lottie isn't there anymore. 

 

“Oh, fuck,” Mari curses, “oh, mother of fucking fuck .” She scrambles up, rushing out of the plane. 

 

“Umm, Natalie! We have a big problem” 

 

Natalie and Van turn from the project they're working on, planning out how to build shelters. “Mari, what the fuck?” Natalie says, approaching her. “You're supposed to be watching Lottie.”

 

“That's kinda the problem,” Mari says, an urgency to her voice, “Lottie's gone.”

 

The trip back to the plane is faster. They remember the path they took, or, if they stray, Jackie points out something that she’d jotted down, and there’s a bit of course correction. They only stop twice to take a drink. Once, when Jackie puts down her hood, Tai asks how her ear’s doing. 

 

“It’s sorta gone, but I guess the hole is fine,” Jackie says, a response that has the other three rolling their eyes. 

 

It’s not quite dark when they make it back to find the camp in a panic. 

 

“What the fuck?” Jackie murmurs.

 

“What do you mean gone?” Natalie is staring at Mari bewildered, advancing on her, past her, towards the plane as if she's going to find out Mari is just playing a really cruel prank. 

 

She's not, the plane is empty. 

 

“How-- she-- she can't even walk!” Natalie hears footsteps, low chatter-- the others are back. She ducks back out of the plane, swallowing hard. Jackie’s never gonna leave again if she knows they fucking lost Lottie. 

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Van, check for footprints around the plane, she couldn't have gotten far,” Natalie snaps. “Mari, check around the outside of camp. Maybe-maybe she was just looking for something.” 

 

Mari nods, turns to head off-- and comes face to face with Jackie. “Shit! Jesus, you scared me.”

 

Natalie pales. “Jackie…”

 

Jackie’s head tilts to the side in confusion, trying to make sense of all the noise and frantic movements. “Nat?”

 

There's no easy way to say it, nothing to soften the blow. Nat swallows. “Don’t freak out, but-- Lottie's gone.”

 

“What the fuck do you mean that Lottie’s gone?” Jackie asks, feeling her heart crawl its way up her throat. “She can’t even walk. Where would she go?”

 

“That's what we're trying to figure out,” Nat explains. Her eyes flick to Mari, she still doesn't even understand how this happened. “Mari, tell us everything. Did she say anything? Talk in her sleep?”

 

Mari fidgets, throws up her hands in defeat. “I don't know! I closed my eyes for like maybe five seconds and when I opened them again she was just gone.” 

 

“Guys!” Van is running back around, panting. “I found a small trail of blood with some footprints. Leading off-- North, I think.”

 

Natalie looks to Jackie, then Van and Mari. “Grab whatever medical supplies you can in a bag, and find the stretcher. Van show me where this trail is.”

 

Jackie doesn’t pay attention to anything that Nat says after Van comes back. She’s only focused on finding Lottie. A trail of blood. Footprints. Blood . Lottie, Lottie, Lottie. She’s tripping over her own feet.

 

“Jackie!” Nat takes off after her, Van right behind them. “Jackie, wait, slow down! You don't know where you're going.”

 

Van steps in front of Jackie, holds up her hands. “Follow me, okay? We're gonna find her, I promise.” She motions over her shoulder before she takes off, searching for the trail again. 

 

She picks it back up right where she'd found first. “There!” It leads out the back of the plane, up into the trees. The footprints give away just how baffling it is that Lottie can even walk, each print in the snow crooked or dragging. They need to hurry.

 

Nat grabs her bag, stuffing it with whatever supplies she can grab, and follows Jackie and Van, and Mari grabs the stretcher, chasing after them. 

 

It's not a lot of blood, but it's blood. Dripping with each step. It's so stark and prominent against the pristine white snow. 

 

Van can feel her breath quickening. As they approach a clearing, the air seems to thicken, the trees almost feel like they're alive, watching her. It feels energetic, something else following them here. A gust of wind blows through and Van follows it with her gaze.

 

And there, at the other end of the clearing, kneeled beneath a large tree, is Lottie. 

 

Jackie doesn’t think she’s felt this kind of panic in a really long time. She’s yelling Lottie’s name, desperate, not paying attention to any of them when Van points her in the right direction. 

 

All she sees is Lottie at the tree. Jackie’s sprinting, faster than she’s run in months, sliding to her knees and trying not to barrel into Lottie as she stumbles beside her. “Lottie!”

 

It starts like this: 

 

Lottie is dreaming.

 

She can’t always tell the difference, but she knows right now. She knows because she can feel the way the world shifts around her, the way it flows through her, the way it is trying to consume her.

 

She’s barefoot in the forest. It’s springtime, there’s birds singing, and squirrels chirping. The woods are alive .

 

Lottie steps forward and the world around her ripples. She thinks she sees snow. She thinks it feels cold.

 

The trees bend over, their branches reaching down, grasping for her.

 

Lottie simply observes them. 

 

Each step flickers her between worlds-- waking and sleep. Conscious and not. Spring and winter. Snow and moss. She thinks she feels pain, it’s tearing into her side, the world seems to rip open the more she feels it. Blood drips from the trees to her left. On the right, they are bright and green and beautiful, stretching up into the sky and caressing the clouds with their leaves.

 

She makes it into a clearing. At the center, a thick, old tree. In its trunk, the symbol is carved. 

 

Her feet press down on the mulch and grass as she walks towards it-- it’s soft and comforting and she thinks maybe she could curl up and sleep forever in it-- voices whispering into her ears, echoing around her. The sun is shining but there’s a shadow that hangs over everything. 

 

Lottie reaches the tree. She falls to her knees. Fingers painted red reach for it, it’s calling to her. It tells her it can heal her, it can help her, it can keep them safe. 

 

As long as she gives it what it wants, it will keep them safe.

 

It ends like this: Lottie wakes up and she’s in the snow. 

 

She’s kneeling beneath a tree. She doesn’t think, she just acts. She knows what it wants, she always has. She’s desperate to give it. She is desperate to hear it again. She wants to know why it left her. 

 

Lottie lifts up her dress, takes two fingers, jams them slowly into the wound on her side. It hurts, but everything hurts. Pain is irrelevant right now.

 

Slick and covered with blood, Lottie reaches out with her hand. She presses it firmly to the tree, smears her blood across the symbol carved into the base of the trunk. Paints it red, traces over the symbol with her blood, lets the bark soak it up as if it were thirsty for her, too. She just wants to give it what it wants. 

 

She just wants this darkness inside of her, trying to devour her, to go away. 

 

She takes more blood, until her hands are covered. She’ll give it everything, if that’s what it wants. She reaches out--

 

She hears someone call her name. 

 

The world slams back into Lottie like a freight train. She gasps, sucking in air, dizzy and confused and hysterical. She doesn’t know how she got here. 

 

“J-Jackie…” 

 

Her hands are covered in blood. It’s smeared on the tree. It’s in the snow by her feet. 

 

“What…” 

 

Jackie can’t help it. She lets out a sob, reaching out to touch Lottie’s cheek. “Oh, my God.”

 

The others come rushing up to them, Mari putting down the stretcher and Nat and Van moving beside Lottie and Jackie. 

 

“You fucking scared us, Lott,” Van says. 

 

Nat looks around. “How did you make it all the way out here?”

 

Jackie can’t actually manage words, most of them stuck in her throat. She swallows. “We need to get you back.”

 

The touch feels electric as Jackie’s fingers graze Lottie’s cheek. She doesn’t move. The others are setting down the stretcher now, urging her to lay down. Lottie’s eyes go back to the tree, to the symbol, to the blood. 

 

She doesn’t feel the tar inside of her chest anymore. 

 

She looks back at Jackie. “I don’t know,” she says, “how I…”

 

“Okay,” Jackie breathes. “Okay, that’s…” It doesn’t matter if Lottie doesn’t know how she got there. What matters is that they found her. “Come on. Let’s get you-- let’s get you back to the plane.” She looks at Lottie’s bleeding side. “And see about some stitches.”

 

Lottie doesn’t feel like she’s in her own body. She wants to reach out to Jackie, but she’s afraid of tainting her with her blood. She doesn’t want her blood on Jackie. It belongs to the wilderness.

 

Natalie moves forward, she ushers Lottie to lay on the stretcher. Lottie moves without any resistance, stiffly, disjointed, like she’s trying to remember how to use her own limbs. She crawls into the stretcher and lays down and stares up at the sky and sees nothing, her eyes glossy. 

 

“I don’t think I’m here,” she says, breathless. “I don’t know what It wants.”

 

Van pats Lottie on the shoulder. “You’re right here, promise. We are, too.”

 

Jackie can only agree. They’re right there for her. And Jackie doesn’t know what it wants, either, except that something keeps pulling at Lottie, dragging her away, and whether that’s her illness or greater forces at play, Jackie can’t really tell, but she knows it’s something. 

 

“Alright, let’s get her back to camp. C’mon,” Nat says, and the four of them move to lift Lottie up and carry her back to the campsite. Nat calls out for Misty and Akilah when they make it. They’re going to do the stitches now. 

 

Maybe, Jackie thinks, looking at the blood covering Lottie’s hand, that this will keep her from breaking herself open.

 

It feels like she’s floating, when they lift her up. Lottie blinks, eyelids feeling heavy. She thinks maybe she sees shadows dancing in the edges of her vision. Her eyes close and she lets out a breath.

 

As the four of them haul Lottie into camp, they set her down in the plane again. Lottie looks at the wreckage and doesn’t see anything. It’s just an empty husk of a plane. It’s just their only shelter right now. 

 

Misty is scurrying over with Akilah, digging through the piles of stuff they’re still organizing and pulling out the needle and the thread they can use. It’s just thread from a blanket, but it’s better than nothing. 

 

She holds the needle out to Akilah who takes it with shaking hands while Misty grabs a rag and kneels next to Lottie, wiping away at the wound to clear it up. It’s been torn open more, like someone was trying to dig through Lottie’s insides. 

 

“Okay,” Akilah says, looking around, “you guys might wanna, uh, hold her legs and arms down.” This wasn’t going to be pleasant. 

 

Jackie moves to Lottie’s side, grabbing one of her hands and holding it in her own. She looks down at Lottie’s side and makes a soft, side noise in the back of her throat. Lottie’s blood is all over Jackie’s hand, now, and she doesn’t care. 

 

Van and Mari get Lottie’s legs while Nat takes her other hand. Nat gives Akilah a sharp nod.

 

Lottie doesn’t really register what’s happening. The world still feels raw and liminal to her, like she’s not really there. Like she’s somewhere else and here and nowhere all at once.

 

Then the needle pierces her flesh and she lets out a strangled cry, squeezing Jackie’s hand tightly, feeling the hot, slick blood on her skin staining Jackie’s, too. 

 

Akilah is apologizing profusely the entire time, every jab of the needle through skin making Lottie squirm and cry out, and Lottie thinks she might be crying but she can’t tell. Everything is blurry and the sounds around her are growing faint, echoing. 

 

By the time it’s done, she is heaving with breath, body trembling. Misty moves to wrap a piece of cloth tightly around her abdomen, covering the stitches up to try and keep them clean and dry. 

 

Lottie stares up at the ceiling of the plane, but she thinks she can see through it into the sky, and the clouds that wrap around it are dark and cold and they will dump the last snow on them for the season. She knows this. She closes her eyes, gripping tightly, trying to ground herself, to bring herself back to here, to the present, away from wherever she’d gone. She doesn’t know. She still sees the tree, her blood, the clearing. Flashes of a fire. Of a place where they might feel safe. Houses made of sticks and moss. 

 

By the time she opens her eyes again, it’s just Jackie and Misty sitting with her. Misty sits on one of the plane seats, kneels curled up, trying her best to not watch the two of them on the floor. 

 

Lottie turns her gaze up to Jackie. She looks so sad. Terrified. Lottie reaches up as if to touch her face, but when she sees the blood on her hands, she stops. She doesn’t know if it’s still there or not. She rubs her fingers together, feels the slick liquid between her fingers. 

 

“Nothing feels real,” she says.

 

Jackie is tired of seeing Lottie in pain. She’s never enjoyed suffering, never cared to see people hurt, but this is like daggers. She remembers being twelve and watching Shauna break her arm falling out of a tree. Jackie thinks they both screamed that day so loud that Shauna’s dad (around for once) heard. She ached with her friend. She felt like her arm broke, too. 

 

With Lottie, Jackie can only hold her hand and blink back tears. She feels like all she can do is hold Lottie’s hand. She stays like that when the others leave and it’s just the two of them, Misty not too far away in case they need help. Or in case they need supervision. It’s now common knowledge that Lottie might bolt. Jackie wonders if she needs to tie their wrists together. 

 

When Lottie speaks, Jackie looks down at her. “This is real,” she says, her voice thick. She gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze. “It’s real.”

 

Lottie drops her hand and watches Jackie. She sees the tears in her eyes and wants to wipe them away, but now, she’s afraid, so afraid to touch her. To ruin her, taint her. Stain her with blood that she was never supposed to see. With a life she was never supposed to live. The knowledge needles at the back of Lottie’s head and she tries to will it away, teeth clenched. She hates that she has to say it, has to ask it, but she needs to know. She needs to know.

 

“Are you real?” 

 

“I’m real,” Jackie says. She’ll say it as many times as she needs to, as much as she needs to, for Lottie to understand, even though it hurts her heart. She told Lottie she’d always let her know if something was real, and she meant it. She takes Lottie’s other hand so that she’s hold both of them, fingers laced. She brings them up to her heart and lets Lottie feel it beating. 

 

Lottie panics. She doesn’t mean to, but she doesn’t want her blood on Jackie. Her hands jerk away. She trembles and looks up at her palms. Red, so red. She places her hands over her own face, closes her eyes, curls her fingers into her own skin, nails digging into her hair. She doesn’t want to be like this.

 

“Lottie, Lottie,” Jackie says, her eyes wide as she reaches for Lottie’s hands again. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.” She puts one hand on Lottie’s chest and slows her own breathing. In. And out. In. And out. 

 

As Lottie feels Jackie’s hand press to her chest, she feels a wave of warmth wash over her. It pulses through her arteries with each beat of her heart, through her veins as blood rushes back in. Lottie lets Jackie take her hands this time. They’re not red anymore. There’s no blood, there’s no blood. She repeats it to herself in her head, she breathes in time with Jackie. In and out. In and out. By the time her body calms, her breathing relaxes, she is crying again. She doesn’t hold them back. She makes a strangled noise as she swallows a sob. “I’m sorry,” she croaks, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

 

“Why are you apologizing?” Jackie asks softly. She takes one of Lottie’s hands and places it over her heart so that she can feel it beat, so that she knows it’s real. Her other hand moves to brush away Lottie’s tears, though she’s sniffling a little herself. She hates this. She hates seeing Lottie struggling like this because Jackie doesn’t know what to do . She doesn’t know how to help. She doesn’t even know if she can. She wants to, desperately. She wants to. 

 

Lottie doesn’t know either. Her hand trembles as it rests against Jackie’s chest, her heartbeat pulsing through each of Lottie’s fingers. She can feel it like a metronome, beating in time. She can feel her own heartbeat slowing to match it. 

 

Lottie grows silent. She doesn’t know what to say anymore. Words and thoughts get lost in her head. She closes her eyes. She wants to sleep. 

 

She thinks maybe she’s really losing her mind. She doesn’t know where it went. 

 

She grows silent, she grows afraid. Of herself. Of who she’s become. She closes her eyes and doesn’t say anything.

 

Jackie waits and waits for Lottie to say something, but instead she grows quiet. There’s a tightness in her chest, and Jackie is reminded of tense silences and confusion, of not knowing what to do because Shauna didn’t know how to express herself in words. Lottie doesn’t seem upset at Jackie, though, so she doesn’t think this is her fault. It might be. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know. 

 

But rather than push, Jackie pulls away just enough to lay them both down, gentle with Lottie’s side and ribs. Jackie wraps her arms around her and holds her close, and she hopes that maybe that can be enough for both of them.

Notes:

We hope you guys are enjoying this sort of explanation of the in-between time of Season 2 and Season 3! We'll be sticking with this for quite some time as we explore the fun of healing, building, and changing that the team goes through during this SEVERAL MONTH PERIOD that the showrunners decided to skip out on. We've been having fun writing it, and we hope you all will have fun reading it!

Thanks for reading, and feel free to check us out on our socials. Kudos and comments are always greatly appreciated; even if we don't get to each comment, we're always giggling and kicking our feet over new ones.

Chapter 13: you have a grand gift for silence

Summary:

Things might finally be looking up for the Yellowjackets as spring blesses them finally. Meanwhile, Lottie is playing the longest game of charades ever and Jackie is winning. But as fun as living in the blood stained guts of the plane they crashed in was, they collectively decide maybe they should find somewhere less dead to live. Thus starts the hunt for the next summer camp location, let's just hope they don't end up at Camp Crystal Lake.

Notes:

Uh oh, chapter 13! that's the bad number or whatever, but not for this chapter! it's actually really a lighter one this time i promise! there might even be like smiling and laughing omg! anyway, please enjoy!

chapter title is from a "A Complete Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle

Morning comes and nothing changes. 

 

Lottie feels lost in her own head. She doesn’t feel like she’s inside of herself. Instead, she feels like half of her is missing. Maybe she tore it out with her blood, smeared it on that tree. Left it behind in that clearing. Maybe she did actually die there, curled up in the moss and snow and roots and now she was nothing but a shell, an empty husk.

 

She felt empty.

 

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have the words. She thinks they’ve all leaked out of her throat and into the soil. Maybe they’ll sprout something new. Maybe something good can come of this hollowness she feels.

 

Hours turn to days and still Lottie doesn’t speak. She sits up, she drinks water and broth when they give it to her. She lets them examine her side, wash the blood, keep it clean. She sleeps in Jackie’s arms every night and wakes up feeling like she’s still made of soil and dead leaves and bloody bark. She doesn’t feel like a person anymore.

 

She lays still most of the day. She stares into the shadows of the trees and wonders if she’ll see the truth in them. If she’ll find herself in the clouds or the bramble or the dirt. 

 

They make sure there’s always more than one person watching her. Natalie brings her things to do-- sewing, sorting of food, plucking pines to prepare for tea or broth. 

 

She likes it. She doesn’t say that. She doesn’t say anything.

 

She knows it weighs on Jackie. She tries to comfort her, takes her hands, presses her cheek to her palms. She wants to tell her it’s okay but the wind has taken Lottie’s voice from her and she’s not sure she wants it back.

 

She reminds herself this is real. She puts her hand on Jackie’s chest when she needs to feel something real. 

 

The snow melts eventually. The ground becomes mush and mud, though the air remains crisp, it still curls around their faces as puffs of steam when they breathe it in the morning. 

 

There will be one more storm before the winter breaks, Lottie knows this. She doesn’t tell them. Instead, she watches as the clouds come back one more time and little flakes of snow begin to fall. 

 

She’s sitting up in the plane when it starts. Misty is there with her, sorting through what medical supplies they have left, cutting up more strips of cloth for bandages, pulling threads out of blankets to use for sutures if they need more. 

 

Lottie watches her curiously. Her head turns when she hears footsteps.

 

Jackie has spent the last few days missing the sound of Lottie’s voice. At first, she grew worried, but Lottie seemed like she was… not doing better, exactly, but healing at least, and that was enough of a relief to have Jackie okay to leave her. Not alone, and she made Mari promise not to fall asleep again, but Jackie knew that there wasn’t anything that she could do to help Lottie. So she went out scouting for a new place for them to camp, and every day she came back and curled up with Lottie in her arms, talking to her softly about the day. 

 

Currently, Jackie is walking with Nat and Tai, showing Nat rough sketches of a few of the different areas that they found. “These are sort of top three. I’m kind of fond of this one. It’s got a lot more space, and it should be easier to haul stuff from here.”

 

“What about the other two?” Nat asks. 

 

“This one is at a cliff. It’s still nice, though. The other is already cleared, kind of like a meadow, but it’s smaller,” Tai says, pointing at the other two drawings. 

 

“These aren’t bad, Jackie. I’m surprised you’re this good,” Nat muses. “Figured you’d be bragging about your artistic pursuits.”

 

Jackie waves her off. “No pursuits. I only did art because I needed an elective. I didn’t have time for it otherwise. Unless it was to help make posters or signs.”

 

Both Nat and Tai make faces, and Jackie rolls her eyes. Nat finally nods and says, “Over the next few days, I want to go with you guys to see these places. I know, I know.” She starts when Jackie opens her mouth, “I get I need to stay here, but we’re pretty settled, and I’d like to get a good lay of the land, too.”

 

“Alright,” Jackie says, feeling something cold land on her nose. She frowns, and there can be groans heard through the camp as people realize there’s snow coming down again. Jackie heads to the plane, wanting to check on Lottie before she needs to do anything else. 

 

She sees Lottie sitting with Misty and offers them both a smile. “Hi.”

 

Misty only glances over her shoulder at Jackie but doesn’t offer a reply before she’s back to sorting the supplies and scribbling on a piece of paper to keep track of what they have, what they need.

 

Lottie smiles. Gentle, calm, tired. She doesn’t say anything back, but she does hold a hand out for Jackie. It’s her way of saying it back. She still hasn’t been able to find her voice. She appreciates the patience Jackie seems to have, though. Even if Lottie can tell it hurts. She wants to give Jackie the relief, she does, but she’s not ready yet. She doesn’t think she’s ready yet.

 

Jackie attempts to take the silence in stride from both of them, instead moving to take Lottie’s hand and lacing their fingers together. She sits by Lottie and stares out the plane, watching as the snow comes down and trying not to shiver just at the sight of it. 

 

The snow used to be nice, back home. Jackie thought it was cold, sure, ridiculously so, and she’d rather be inside, but now it just reminds her of everything that can go horribly wrong. 

 

Natalie and Mari have begun moving the fire pit near the back of the plane over enough to let the roof conceal some of it, hoping it will stay lit once they get it going. They’ll need some warmth now that the snow is returning again.

 

Lottie senses the stress in Jackie at the sight of the snow. But she knows this snow will be a good one. It will bring life, not death. 

 

She can’t tell them that, so she just scoots herself carefully over, closer to Jackie and rests her head on Jackie’s shoulder, content. Her free hand reaches out to trace patterns on Jackie’s knee. She draws the symbol. She thinks it will protect them.

 

Jackie leans her head against the top of Lottie’s, happy to have her close. “Are you feeling better today?” She asks. She’s been trying to shift to yes or no questions, making it easier for Lottie if she doesn’t want to speak. 

 

Lottie nods. She appreciates Jackie’s attempt to help her communicate without her words. She notices. It’s more than anything anyone’s ever done for her before. Back home, if Lottie went silent like this, no one really noticed. 

 

It’s strange, how being here, being lost in the Wilderness, the mountains, Lottie has found more of herself than she ever had back in Jersey. 

 

Lottie feels free here.

 

She doesn’t think anyone else does, though. She sees the way they grow desperate and scared when food rations run low. Or the way they grow tired when the days stretch on endlessly. She wishes they could see what she does, that they don’t have to be who they were back home out here. That they can be whoever they want to be. 

 

That here, they are free.

 

Lottie shifts her head enough to press her nose to Jackie’s neck, taking in the feel of her, the scent of her. Dew and dirt and sweat. Something uniquely Jackie that Lottie can’t place but knows is there. It soothes her in a way she can’t explain. 

 

Eyes closing in an attempt to ward off the snow, Jackie tries to instead take comfort in Lottie’s presence. She shivers a little at the feeling of Lottie’s nose pressing against her neck. “Sorry,” she mutters. “I probably stink.”

 

Lottie just shakes her head. She thinks Jackie smells like the forest around them. She can imagine the horror on their parents’ faces if they could see them. Covered in dirt and blood, hair a mess, bodies unshaven, unkempt. She thinks it feels nice. Maybe that makes her weird, but Lottie likes the feeling of dirt on her skin, leaves crunching under her feet. She likes not having to worry about putting on a facade, not having to pretend to be someone she’s not. 

 

She wishes the others could feel that, too.

 

Jackie huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. She moves to brush her fingers through Lottie’s hair, too. Honestly, she doesn’t think that Lottie stinks, either. The cabin had been awful, especially as it got colder and they all started to starve and no one could go outside, but it’s better at the plane, and Lottie just smells like Lottie. It’s a comfort, really, after the last few months. Jackie’s familiar with Lottie’s smell and her arms and the feel of soft skin pressing against her own, cheeks to hands, noses to necks. 

 

Though the press of Lottie’s nose to her neck really does make her shiver. She thinks she’s just ticklish.

 

As the snow grows heavier, the rest of the girls come crawling back into their little shelter in the plane, shivering and settling around the fire or in corners tucked away from the cold. Lottie watches them all with intent eyes, watches as Mari sets the pot on the fire to begin boiling the water and cook the food. The smell of ash and wood fills the little space and Lottie observes as some of the girls turn their head away from it. It’s been long enough that they have all resigned to what they’ve done, but the thought still lingers on all their minds, Lottie knows.

 

She closes her eyes at the feeling of Jackie’s hand brushing through her hair and makes a soft noise of content. It’s the most she can do these days. 

 

Jackie hates the cold, hates the way it starts seeping into the little space they made for themselves. She moves closer to Lottie, attempting to warm both of them as she tries to get away from the smell of food as well. It’s not a bad smell. Maybe that’s the problem. Jackie doesn’t think she’s going to be able to look at meat in the same way after this. 

 

Lottie, over the past few days, has made herself a new cloak from one of the blankets. It was partially burned, anyway, so she’d cut that part off, rearranged it and sewn on a hood, and now it hung around her like a cloak, keeping her contained and safe and warm. She shifts just enough to wrap her arm around Jackie’s shoulders, tucking her into the cloak as well. She knows how much Jackie hates the cold. It reminds her too much of death.

 

But where there’s death, there’s life, and Lottie can’t wait for them all to see that, too.

 

The cold is awful, but it’s easier to ignore with Lottie right there, and Jackie allows herself to be tucked in close, sighing quietly. She just wants to rest her eyes, just for a minute. It’s easy to stop straining her ears and unfocus as she leans against Lottie and curls up close to her. 

 

The pain is still there, especially on Lottie's side where the stitches barely hold her flesh together, but Lottie has grown used to it all. She thinks it’s just become a part of her and she’s accepted that.

 

It’s as much a part of her as Jackie is now. 

 

That’s the thing that hits her the most, these days. How her day starts and ends with Jackie. How the moments between them seem to be filled with waiting for her, thoughts of her, missing her. 

 

She knows Jackie is doing important work. She sees the maps she makes, the effort she’s putting in, not just with her, but with everyone. And, most importantly, with herself. 

 

Sometimes Lottie thinks she can see the old Jackie Taylor in her. The Jackie that knew how to smile and cheer them all up, the Jackie who knew how to hold someone’s hair back while they were hunched over a toilet, the Jackie who knew how to be gentle when she needed to be or hard when she needed to be.

 

Lottie knows that every version of Jackie is the real Jackie Taylor. She likes them all. She knows things should have been different, but, selfishly, she’s glad Jackie is still alive. She’s glad Jackie wants to live.

 

After a while, Natalie comes over balancing three bowls and Lottie reaches up to take one, setting it next to Jackie before taking her own.

 

The blonde-now-turning-brunette slides to a sit, exhaling loudly. “Think we’ve got some pretty good options for a campsite,” she says to Lottie, who tilts her head curious. “Here--” Natalie reaches into her back pocket, pulls out the drawings Jackie had been showing her earlier-- “any, uh, any opinions?”

 

Lottie likes that the girls don’t force her to talk. She takes the papers and looks down at them. 

 

She recognizes something.

 

Jackie’s actually managed to doze for a little bit before she hears Nat in the distance, blinking her eyes open to find her right there. She pulls away from Lottie and yawns moving to pick up the bowl that’s next to her. 

 

She glances at the drawings before taking a bite. “I recommend the two that aren’t right next to a cliff,” she offers.

 

Lottie looks at the first drawing and it’s like she’s back in her dream, her nightmare. Wherever she’d gone all those nights ago. They’d found her in a different spot, she’d dreamed of the one she was looking at on the paper. Lottie feels her heartbeat pick up, ever so. Is it a sign? Is It talking to her, trying to tell her something? 

 

Lottie holds out the piece of paper to Natalie. “This one,” she says, so, so quiet, if they weren’t both next to her, her voice would’ve been lost to the sound of fire crackling and gentle wind blowing against the metal of the plane.

 

Nat and Jackie exchange a look, Jackie taking such a sharp breath that she almost chokes. Nat reaches forward to pat her on the back, and Jackie offers a shaky thumbs up.

 

“Jesus, okay,” Nat says, nodding. “Okay. Then that’s— we’ll check that one out for sure.”

 

Lottie doesn’t react, just picks up her bowl and starts eating. She knows it’s the right choice. She thinks of her dream and the blood on her hands.

 

She thinks she knows the reason for it now. Lottie smiles.

 

Jackie manages to say, “I liked that one, too,” before going back to eating her food. 

 

Dinner is mostly silent after that and when they finish eating, they pile the bowls in one of the empty chairs because no one wants to go back out into the snow tonight. 

 

Lottie is still sitting up when Misty comes over to check on her before they all get ready to sleep and Lottie lifts her arm as Misty tugs her dress up. “It seems to be healing pretty well,” Misty declares, reapplying a clean strip of cloth around it before sitting back. “How’s it feeling?” she asks and Lottie just shrugs, which makes Misty sigh heavily. “Okay, well…good, then! We’ll check again in the morning.” 

 

She moves away and Lottie watches her before she shifts to look back over at Jackie. She reaches for her, fingers brushing along Jackie’s. It's Lottie’s way of asking her to lay down with her while she still can’t find her voice.

 

Jackie watches Misty while she works, taking note of her actions in case she ever needs to repeat them, only a little grossed out at the thought. Taking care of Lottie, Jackie found, was significantly easier than attempting to butcher a deer. For now, though, Jackie isn’t needed. 

 

Not until Lottie reaches out for her, and Jackie lays down, moving closer and pulling their blankets around them both. She looks up at Lottie, her eyes curious. “So, that’s the place, huh?”

 

Lottie folds Jackie into her arms like always. It doesn’t hurt in a way that makes her want to move or to stop. It’s just part of her now. It helps her focus, she finds. It helps her feel real. She hasn’t had any visions or dreams or strange feelings, hasn’t heard any whispers from the trees or the wind, since she’d woken up in that field, under the tree that was now stained with her blood. It felt like she was just as much a part of it now, as it was a part of her. And she’d go back to it someday, she knew she would. It was calling to her.

 

At Jackie’s question, Lottie turns her head to look back at her. She thinks maybe Jackie wants her to say something again, but she just nods, keeps her eyes on her, counting the stars she sees in Jackie’s irises. 

 

Jackie isn’t disappointed that Lottie still won’t talk, but she’d be lying if she said that she didn’t miss the sound of her voice. Jackie gives Lottie a small smile and a nod. “Okay. I trust you.” 

 

And she did. Jackie trusted Lottie more than anyone else out there, though maybe it was tied with Nat. But Lottie knew things, and Lottie believed in Jackie. And now they’d both spilled blood, they’d both been lost, they’d both been found. Jackie always believed in certain things. Fate. Inevitability. That’s what Shauna had always been to her, but there’s something about this that feels the same. She leans forward to press a kiss to Lottie’s cheek and gets ready to go to sleep.

Everyone settles in around them and it’s not long before the soft sighs of their sleeping breaths can be heard throughout the plane. The snow falls silently outside, almost peaceful. Lottie knows they fear it, it’s taken so much from them. She thinks about what the future will bring them. She, too, almost feels at peace.

 

Her eyes are drifting shut, sleep coming to claim her. She turns her head ever so, nuzzles into Jackie and whispers, “It’s real,” before she’s falling into a deep slumber.

 

Yes, Jackie thinks that it is real. It’s very real. It’s more real than she expected. She goes to sleep thinking about how real it actually is. 

 

However, she dreams of kissing Shauna Shipman. 

 

They’d kissed before, back when the world was high school soccer and late night parties, pretty girls in pretty dresses Jackie had picked out specifically for them. They made out late at night, lips uncertain at first, and then hungry. Shauna was always so hungry. Jackie had to claim one day to her mother that a friend’s dog bit her. Her mother didn’t believe it, but she also probably assumed it was Jeff with how fast Jackie got back together with him after a long break up. 

 

But the point is that Jackie knows what kissing Shauna is like, so it’s not much of a surprise that she dreams about it. Especially with as much as she likes it. 

 

It does become a surprise when Shauna gets replaced with Lottie, and Jackie wakes up with a gasp, her heart pounding. 

 

Lottie startles when she feels Jackie jerk awake in her arms, eyes opening to see her breathing heavily beside her. She shifts, sits up enough to look down at her, brows furrowed with worry. She reaches up, puts a hand on Jackie’s chest, she can feel her heart pounding. Lottie watches her, careful, wants to ask if she’s okay but hopes the concern in her eyes is enough.

 

Jackie looks up at Lottie, her heart in her throat, a soft noise of surprise trapped right behind it. She tugs at Lottie’s hand to pull her back down, and she wants to forget. It’s hard to forget with Lottie looking down at her with those soft eyes, softer lips. Jackie’s eyes flicker to them, then away. She tries to give Lottie a smile. 

 

“Just a bad dream,” Jackie whispers, and it’s not really a lie. She’s always considered those bad dreams, dreams she couldn’t want too much. “‘M okay.”

 

As Jackie tugs at her hand, Lottie can’t help but feel like something is off. She doesn’t know what and she isn’t going to ask, so she relents, laying back down with Jackie, though she keeps her hand firmly on her chest, waits for Jackie’s heartbeat to slow back down. She lets her fingers curl and uncurl against the cloth of Jackie’s shirt, tracing soft patterns against her sternum. She’s never been good at comforting people, but she likes to think maybe she’s getting better. She likes to think of Laura Lee, and how gentle she was with Lottie. How she would always ground Lottie with small gestures, hands and fingers soothing against her skin, always looking for permission first, always letting it happen on Lottie’s account.

 

She thinks of Laura Lee when she tries to comfort Jackie. She wonders if Jackie thinks of Shauna when she’s holding Lottie.

 

Jackie closes her eyes and tries to remember that she likes this a normal amount, just a normal amount. Because she’s gotten used to it, and it feels very nice, and it would feel even nicer if Jackie wasn’t still thinking about kissing Lottie. Which she’s already done. Technically three times. 

 

Though, Jackie supposes she doesn’t think about that as much as she could. Survival has been more important, and making sure Lottie keeps breathing even more than that. There really hasn’t been much time to think about kissing of all things. 

 

Lottie’s fingers trace patterns on her chest. There’s several layers of clothes between them. Jackie’s cheeks still feel flushed. She moves closer to Lottie like that will help and wraps her arms gently around her. She needs to go back to sleep. And not dream about that preferably.

 

Lottie settles in Jackie’s arms like she fits there, despite being several inches taller than the other girl. It still feels nice. It feels warm. She closes her eyes but doesn’t go back to sleep yet. She’s listening to Jackie’s breathing, feeling her heart under her fingertips, willing her to relax and sleep, too. 

 

She lets her fingers drift up and press against Jackie’s collarbone, the curve of her neck, where warm skin peeks out from under her flannel. It’s a comfort Lottie hasn’t found in many other people, the feeling of skin on skin, thrumming beneath the pads of her fingers. 

 

She breathes out slowly, deeply. The girls around them are all still sleeping, the quiet sounds of their breath (and the occasional snore) the only sound that fills the space. The snow has stopped, Lottie knows this, and the sun will be streaming in through the trees soon.

 

But for now, it’s just the two of them, laying like they always do, in the quiet morning. Lottie feels like something new is beginning to blossom around them all. 

 

This is all so normal, or it would be, if it wasn’t for that stupid dream making Jackie’s skin feel like it’s on fire. She usually handles this so much better. Before, when this happened, Jackie would just tell Shauna she needed to go home or get back together with Jeff or make out with him at a party, which usually had the unfortunate side effect of pissing Shauna off for about a week. 

 

Now, Jackie feels a little like she’s dying which 1) isn’t true and she knows that. Her skin just feels hot. But 2) would be really awful because she made a promise to Lottie, and, if Lottie kills her, Jackie doesn’t think that’s going to be super great.

 

Lottie thinks she can feel Jackie’s skin growing warmer under her hand. She thinks that’s a little strange, that maybe she’s just imagining it. This isn’t anything new for them, really. Still, just in case, Lottie moves her hand and instead drapes her arm across Jackie’s torso. She shifts close enough to lay her head in the crook of Jackie’s neck and shoulder. She thinks she wouldn’t mind waking up like this very morning.

 

Jackie cannot die from this. It’d be really embarrassing, and also probably super upsetting for everyone involved. She can handle this. She settles, sighing quietly as the hand moves and a head nestles close, and Jackie closes her eyes and holds Lottie a little tighter. If she can just focus on the weight of this, then it’s okay. 

 

She’s done this before. She can do it again. 

 

When Lottie feels Jackie finally settle, she lets herself relax again, too, her body still stiff and sore as it continues to heal. She knows no one wants to jinx it so no one will say it, but they all think things seem to be getting better. Lottie agrees. 

 

She falls back asleep at some point, but when she hears the shuffling of feet and exasperated sighs as everyone begins to wake, Lottie's eyes flutter back open. She still has an arm wrapped around Jackie, her face pressed in close, and she can feel strands of Jackie's hair tickling her neck. It makes her shiver, but in a way that also makes her stomach feel jittery. She knows she needs to stop herself, stop these feelings before they grow, but in the stillness of the quiet, snow dusted morning, she thinks it might be okay to let herself enjoy this moment for a little longer, exhaling softly into Jackie's neck.

 

There isn’t really any going back to sleep, but Jackie does manage to relax and control her breathing. Really, it’s just a kissing dream. It’s nothing more. It doesn’t have to be anything more. 

 

Jackie does not let herself indulge, not really, not often. Doing so felt like a pain. It was best to just avoid it. Bitch and moan and complain about other shit than the things she actually wants. Suffer through what she knows she shouldn’t have. And this in and of itself is an indulgence, just holding Lottie, being held. 

 

Lottie lets out a heavy sigh when she hears boots making their way over to her and Jackie. She already knows it's Natalie, she knows what each girl's footsteps sound like. She opens one eye and looks up as Nat appears over them, nudging Jackie with the toe of her boot.

 

“Get up,” she's saying to her, though she keeps her voice low, as if not wanting to want Lottie, “Tai wants to head out early to check out the camp Lottie picked.”

 

“You’re always so mean when you wake me,” Jackie whispers, sighing as she untangles her limbs from Lottie’s and starts getting up. 

 

“I wouldn't have to wake you if you just got up with the rest of us,” Natalie shoots back, rolling her eyes. When she notices Lottie looking up at her, she gives an apologetic look. “Sorry, Lott. Go back to sleep, I just need to borrow your girlfriend.”

 

It's meant as a joke, Lottie knows that. So why does it make her heart jump into her throat? Lottie doesn't say anything, but her eyes flick to Jackie.

 

Jackie makes a sort of choked noise as she gets up, glaring balefully, almost fearfully, at Nat as she stands. Because it’s not like Lottie sees Jackie like that. It’s not like she ever would. And maybe it’s safer out here, but you just can’t make jokes like that. “Is everyone else ready?” She mutters. 

 

“It's just me, you, and Tai this time. Travis is gonna help Van and Melissa go disassemble the meat shed,” Natalie answers. 

 

Lottie reaches out as Jackie stands, takes her hand, squeezes. Lately, it's been her way of saying ‘ be safe ’, until she can find her voice again. She gives them both a steady look before she lays her head back down. She won't go back to sleep, though. It's been much harder these days to sleep without Jackie by her.

 

Jackie offers Lottie a smile and gives her hand a squeeze before she grabs her bag and follows after Nat. Quietly, when they get far enough from the plane, closer to where Tai’s waiting, she says, “You can’t— you can’t say things like that.”

 

Natalie raises a brow, glancing at Jackie. “It was just a joke, Jackie,” she says, brushing the remark off. “Relax.”

 

Tai glances between the two of them when they walk up but doesn’t make a comment, instead choosing to start heading out. “Lottie approved clearing, huh?”

 

“Better than sleeping by a cliff. I think she likes the one I liked best,” Jackie teases. Then glances at Nat. Then glances away. 

 

Natalie catches Jackie's glance but doesn't say anything, instead shouldering the gun and her pack and following Tai. “Second opinions are highly appreciated around here,” she states. She digs around her pocket for a moment before producing a piece of jerky, wrapped in some cloth. She holds it out to Jackie. “Breakfast on the go.”

 

Back in the plane, Lottie watches curiously as the others mill about, getting ready for another day. The fresh snow on the ground outside is fluffy, soft, as if trying to remind the girls that it's not always cruel, that it doesn't always want to hurt them. 

 

Lottie stays laying down even as Misty makes her way over once again, prodding Lottie's arm up so she can check the stitches. Satisfied they're clean, she lets Lottie know she'll bring her some water and breakfast soon, then toddles off, yawning and stretching. 

 

Somehow, things don't seem so dire today. Everyone feels more relaxed, as if they were finally coming to understand what Lottie did-- that this place wasn't cruel on purpose, it didn't take without giving, that it could just as much be a home as it was a prison. 

 

Jackie takes the jerky and a quick bite, swallowing as she falls into step on Nat’s left side. She glances at the two of them, Tai with an ax, Nat with the gun, and she says, “You know, I should get a weapon, too.”

 

Tai snorts. “Not with me around. Sorry, Taylor. You’ve got great aim with your feet. I just don’t trust you with a gun. I’d rather be far away from your first attempt. Plus, every time you get a knife you end up cutting yourself.”

 

Natalie can’t help but just barely suppress a laugh, too. “If you have a weapon, Jackie, it must mean we’re in some real deep shit.”

 

It doesn’t take them long to make it to the clearing Lottie had picked out from the three, and Natalie can see why they chose it, really. It’s open, but secluded, and she can even hear the echoes of the stream nearby through the trees, the sound bouncing off the new, fluffy now that has fallen. There’s some fallen trees, brambles, bushes that would need clearing, and some of the dirt would need to be leveled out but Natalie looks over the space and thinks maybe this really could be it. 

 

She takes a few steps around, walks the perimeter, kicks some snow away to see what the dirt looks like below. “Well, what do you guys think?” she asks, looking back at Tai and Jackie. She wants their opinions. She might be their new “leader” or “queen” or whatever, but she thinks it’s important that everyone gets a say, that everyone has a voice, even if it’s one she doesn’t like.

 

Not that she doesn’t like Tai or Jackie. Things have just changed so much out here. All Natalie wants is to help them survive. “Think Lottie was right?”

 

Tai walks around. “There’s a bit more to clean up here, but it’s larger, so it can house all of us easier. We can probably even spread out a bit, not have to be on top of each other all the time.”

 

“I’m sure you and Van would love having some privacy,” Jackie says, smirking.

 

“You do not want to go there, Jackie,” Tai scoffs, rolling her eyes. She looks back at Nat. “We’re also not too far from a stream. Plenty of wood. If we have to go back to the lake, it’s not insanely far, either. It’s not a premade cabin, but it’s also not the shell of an airplane.”

 

“Think with that book you guys used, we can make some nice, like, shelters or whatever?” Natalie asks, looking back to Tai. She’s growing more confident by the second, realizing that everything just might be okay. That maybe, just maybe, they were going to be okay. 

 

Tai looks to Jackie, then back to Nat. “I think it’s possible, yeah. Helped with building the meat shed, there’s a lot of different shelter designs. It might be hard, but, yes. I think we can make something nice.”

 

“Jackie?” Nat looks over to her. “Thoughts?” 

 

Jackie raises an eyebrow. But she looks around, sighing. “I think this is probably as good as we’re going to find. Unless we want to take, y’know, a couple of extra weeks and just start hiking through the forest.” Weeks they didn’t have, travel they couldn’t do. “Plus, it’s Lottie approved, which means that it’s…” she waved her hands around, “approved, right?”

 

Natalie looks at Tai as she raises her brow. She knows the three of them are the most…skeptical of whatever the Wilderness is, but it's hard to deny it when Lottie has been right every time. “If you have any objections, uh, forest, let us know now?” Natalie holds her hands up, waiting. 

 

Nothing happens.

 

Jackie nods, attempting seriousness. “Looks like we’ve got the dirt god seal of approval.”

 

Natalie rolls her eyes, elbows Jackie. “Don't piss them off. Not sure Lottie would appreciate that.”

 

Tai huffs. “We should at least start clearing out the snow, then? Bring back some people to help us. We should make a path to the river, too.”

 

“If they didn’t like me calling them dirt gods, I’d have died months ago,” Jackie says goodnaturedly. She gives Tai a quick nod. “Snow, some of the shrubby shit. We can probably take a few days to do this, too. I don’t think, with the fresh snow, that anyone’s looking to rush getting started on building houses.”

 

Natalie laughs. She hasn't felt this…normal in a while. Maybe that stupid cabin burning down had actually been a good thing. “Great. Well…” she hesitates a moment, she worries about letting Jackie go anywhere alone after what happened last time. But there's no storm and they're not that far from the crash, so she finishes saying, “you wanna go back, Jackie? Recruit some others to come help us?” The “check in on Lottie “ part doesn't need to be said. “Me and Tai can get started here.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll go grab Gen and Britt, maybe Akilah, see if they want to help here for a bit,” Jackie says. And if she’s a little excited to get back to check on Lottie, then that’s no one’s business but her own. 

 

She misses the way that Tai rolls her eyes, a familiar enough gesture to just block it out. Instead, she offers them up a little salute and heads back to the plane. Her steps are more confident than they had been months ago, and she actually breaks into a jog as she heads back towards the crash.

 

Once Jackie is out of earshot, Tai looks at Natalie. “So…” she starts, but Natalie cuts her off 

 

“Leave it alone, Tai.”

 

Tai throws her hands up in surrender. “I'm just saying. We all know Jackie's, you know…”

 

“Tai,” Natalie huffs. 

 

Defeated, Tai drops her bag. “Let's get started then.”

 

At the plane campsite, Lottie is sitting with Mari, listening to her yap about something that was a lifetime ago, something about softball tryouts and girls being catty, which Lottie thinks is ironic, because Mari fits right in with that description. 

 

She knows that Mari feels responsible, guilty, for Lottie wandering off before, but she doesn't blame Mari. She understands now that it had to happen. It was always going to happen. 

 

She's sewing up a new cloak for Jackie when she hears the footsteps. Her head shoots up before Jackie even appears in the doorway and she's smiling as Mari follows her gaze. 

 

“Jeez, are we sure you're not, like, psychic?” Mari says.

 

Jackie leans against the doorway, grinning. “Nah, she’s totally psychic. Don’t you remember when she predicted Todd Newman was going to get that hotdog stuck up his nose at lunch?” she asks.

 

Mari laughs, loud. “God that was so funny.”

 

Lottie, for her part, just smiles, bright and welcoming. She holds her hands up to Jackie, beckoning her over. 

 

Mari gets the hint. “I'm gonna go check on the, uh, fire…stuff.” She stands, brushes her pants off, glances once between the two, then heads out.

 

Jackie snags Mari’s arm before she goes. She gives Mari a bright smile.  “Hey, see if you can find Britt and Gen and tell them Tai and Nat are starting to clear one of the campsites we found. Tell Gen it’s the bigger one. I’ll head back that way in a bit. Maybe see if Akilah isn’t busy, too?” 

 

Mari stops, looks at Jackie. She seems like she wants to say something back, but then she just nods. “Got it, boss.” And trots off.

 

Lottie tilts her head, watching the interaction. It warms her to see the girls respecting Jackie again. Jackie might not think she’s any sort of leader, but she’s wrong. She’s always been one, she always will be.

 

Heading into the plane, Jackie sits down next to Lottie, tugging down the hood she’d put up for the day and glancing over at her. “We’re clearing out the place you liked,” she tells her. “Does Misty think your side’s doing good? Ribs? All your remaining fingers and toes?” The last part is a bit of a joke, but she’s perpetually worried about Lottie’s health at this point.

 

Lottie nods, scooting closer and slipping a hand into Jackie’s. She misses her while she’s gone. She knows that Jackie being more proactive with the group is good, but she can’t deny she misses when Jackie stayed with her all day long. She lifts her hand, flexes her fingers as if to say ‘yes, they’re all good’. She doesn’t want Jackie to worry too much, even though she knows she does. 

 

She looks around for a moment, as if checking to make sure it’s really just them in the plane, before she leans her head on Jackie’s shoulder. She whispers, “I missed you.” But doesn’t say anything more.

 

Lottie’s hand slipping into her own makes Jackie feel something soft and gooey in her chest, and it only seems to get worse when Lottie speaks. She feels like she’s grinning like an idiot, but it’s really nice. She finds herself missing the sound of Lottie’s voice, some days, since she stopped talking. Jackie wouldn’t mind if Lottie never wanted to talk again, but she does miss it. “I missed you, too,” she murmurs, leaning her head against the top of Lottie’s. “Hopefully, we’re done with the scouting thing for a while. Which is great because I think I’ve tripped over every root in a ten mile radius or something.”

 

Lottie lets out a breathy laugh. She can imagine it, Jackie stumbling along after the others, who have more sure footing, who have been trekking through these woods for months. It’s maybe too cute of an image in her head and she has to will it away before she does something stupid. 

 

Instead, she shifts just enough to grab the cloak she’d been working on. It matches the one she’s currently wearing, but it’s shorter, lighter, fits Jackie’s frame better. She holds it up for her. 

 

“And you’re laughing at me. Cruel,” Jackie sighs, giving Lottie’s hand a squeeze. She pulls away, though, curious, looking at the jacket Lottie hands her. Not really a jacket, it’s too loose for that, but it’s still nice, warm, and she holds it to her chest. “For me?”

 

Lottie nods. She hopes it’s not weird, not too much. She knows how much Jackie likes wearing Shauna’s jacket, but once it gets warmer, she won’t be able to wear it. She just wants Jackie to have something that she can wear that’s just her’s. She maybe just wants Jackie to have something that’s Lottie’s, too. Maybe that makes her selfish, but she wants it. She won’t say that, though. Even if she was talking.

 

Jackie leans in, wrapping her arms around Lottie and pressing her face into the crook of her neck. “Thank you,” she murmurs, moving to slip it on over the rest of her clothes. She stands, giving a little spin like she’s trying on dresses at the mall and raising an eyebrow. “Does it look good on me?” 

 

Lottie smiles up at Jackie, nodding. It does, she likes it. She won’t say it out loud. There are moments of clarity for her, moments when she knows what she needs and wants to say. They’re not coming often, but she wants to give them to Jackie when she can. She’s trying to get back to something normal, whatever that looks like out here. 

 

She shifts in her spot, leaning back against the wall of the plane, looking up at Jackie with soft, reverent eyes. Maybe it’s obvious to others, the way Lottie looks at Jackie, but she doesn’t think it matters. 

 

Really, she’ll take whatever Jackie wants to give her. Just as she had Laura Lee. And, really, everyone else in her life. Lottie never asked for much. 

 

“Cool,” Jackie says, grinning widely as she leans back down and takes Lottie’s hand. She’s watching Lottie’s face, too, trying to learn all of her little facial expressions if the words aren’t there, choosing to memorize Lottie’s eyes, the way she scrunches them up, her smiles and frowns. Her lips, which Jackie knows are soft, which Jackie would like to experience again, which Jackie is not allowing herself to think about too much so that she doesn’t end up spiralling.

 

She’s saved by the bell when Gen calls out, “Jackie, are you coming back with us?” 

 

“Yep!” Jackie replies. “Coming!” She gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze. “Thank you for the gift,” she says, holding it a little closer. “And I’ll be back in a bit?”

 

Lottie stays still as Jackie looks at her. She can feel her eyes memorizing Lottie’s face, trying to decipher her expression while she can’t use her words. She appreciates it, she really does. It makes her feel like more of a person. It makes her feel like she can be loved and accepted, just as she is. Something she’s never felt before. The last time Lottie had found herself unable or unwilling to speak, she’d only been 12 years old. She doesn’t remember why it happened, she just knows that words felt too hard to say. Her parents grew frustrated quickly, both of them individually, tossing her between the two homes until they decided to sit her down in front of another psychiatrist and force her to talk. 

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand back, leans forward and kisses her knuckles. It’s be safe and come back soon all in one. She lets her hand go and sighs.

 

With one final touch, Jackie lets go of Lottie’s hand and jogs over to where Gen and Britt are waiting. Britt says, “Akilah’s helping Misty with something,” and there’s a wave of sympathy that shudders through all three of them before they start heading towards the clearing to help Nat and Tai.

 

Lottie watches them go until she can’t see them out the door anymore, before laying her head back and closing her eyes. It’s kind of pathetic, how she feels around Jackie. How she feels for Jackie, but she’s trying really hard to not be weird about it. She doesn’t want to freak Jackie out. 

 

Lottie runs her hands through her hair, groaning quietly before she shifts to lay down, grabbing one of Jackie’s shirts from the pile and running her fingers over the fabric. 

 

She closes her eyes and tries to convince herself that she’s okay with things like this. That she’s okay having Jackie in any way Jackie wants to give her.

 

By the time they make it to the clearing, help with a little work, and make it back, the sun is setting and Jackie just wants to sleep. She’s not even worried about food. This is the most physical effort she’s put into being alive in months, and she feels more exhausted than she has since the last major practice before States, back when Coach Martinez ran them ragged until they moved like a well oiled machine. 

 

Now, Jackie feels like a rusty screw or a loose bolt that’s making the entire thing wobbly. She’s trying, though. It’s impossibly hard. She thinks she just wants to sleep. She makes it into the plane and tiredly flops down next to Lottie, face planting into their bedding and groaning.

 

Mari already has dinner going by the time the clean up crew makes it back, and Lottie has fixed the pile of clothes Akilah brought for her. When Jackie flops down next to her, Lottie gives a gentle smile, scooting over and brushing her fingers through Jackie’s hair. She looks exhausted, which Lottie thinks might actually be a good thing. She’s more than happy that Jackie is actually up and doing things now, even if she misses her during the day. Soon, she’ll be able to do things, too. More than just sitting around with aching ribs and a sewing needle. Lottie thinks she might like to start a garden. 

 

She brushes some hair away from Jackie’s face, behind her ear, looks down at her as if to ask how it all went, eyes watching her curiously.

 

“I’m so fucking tired of snow,” Jackie mumbles as she turns to look at Lottie, cracking open an eye. “There’s part of an area cleared out right now. I don’t think we’re ready to start moving, but I think Tai wants to start gathering materials for building soon. Britt saw some more animal tracks. No actual game, but,” she shrugs, “it’s gotta mean something, right?” She’s tired of eating jerky and pretending she doesn’t know where it comes from.

 

Lottie lets out a soft chuckle again, moving to lay down next to Jackie as she continues to brush her fingers through her hair attentively. Lottie doesn’t think she really minds the snow, not as much as the others seem to, but maybe it’s because she sees what it really means out here. 

 

It’s a good sign that there’s game tracks and she nods to confirm that. Spring is just around the corner, she can feel the change in the air, like the trees can, like the animals can, even if the others don’t yet. They will soon. 

 

It’s unlikely they’ll be able to really build much until the snow melts and the ground softens, but it’s a good start, right now, and it’s something for them all to look forward to. No more crowding in a small cabin full of ghosts and death, or huddling in the blood stained innards of the plane they crashed in. Something real, something solid. Maybe not a home like the ones they think they have back in New Jersey, but maybe it can be home enough for now.

 

Until they’re rescued. If they’re rescued.

 

Jackie wants to keep talking, but she quickly finds herself being soothed to sleep with soft fingers brushing through her hair, getting out some of the tangles that have accumulated. She needs to start pulling it back to keep it out of her face, but she’s also still pretty self-conscious of the hole in the side of her head, and Jackie doesn’t want to show it off any more than she has to. She’d rather just deal with it being in her face. 

 

The sound of Mari letting them know that she’s done with dinner is pure background noise to Jackie as she sighs and feels like she’s sinking further into the ground, attempting to get in just a tiny little nap before sleeping for real.

 

Lottie is happy to see Jackie’s eyes fluttering closed, happy that her touch seems to be as soothing to her as Jackie’s is to Lottie. She wants to be something good for Jackie, something comforting. Something she wants to come back to. 

 

She wants more than that, but she won’t think about that. She can’t.

 

When Mari announces dinner, Lottie looks over as the others shuffle about, grabbing bowls and servings. Natalie grabs three servings yet again and makes her way to Jackie and Lottie, setting two bowls down in front of them. 

 

Lottie gives a nod as thanks, but doesn’t move quite yet, fingers still petting gently through loose hair and tangles.

 

Natalie thinks about waking Jackie, but decides against it. “Place looks like it’s gonna work,” she says to Lottie, who tilts her head in response, “good choice.”

 

Lottie knows it was, but she nods at Natalie anyway.

 

Jackie’s in the middle of figuring out if she can skip eating that evening in favor of going straight to sleep when she hears Natalie coming up, hears the quiet mumble of her words, knowing that Lottie gave some sort of response, even if she didn’t say a word. Even if her hands were still in Jackie’s hair, making Jackie feel like getting up is an impossibility, actually, a cruelty to herself and others. 

 

Lottie reaches over Jackie to grab a bowl, setting it near herself even as she continues to brush her hand along Jackie’s scalp. 

 

“C’mon, Jax, you can’t be that tired, can you?” Natalie teases when Jackie still doesn’t move. Lottie shoots a sharp, but non threatening, glare up at Natalie, who just exhales a laugh through her nose, rolling her eyes. “I remember when you used to be the one with all the energy. Trying to cheer us all on through suicides.” 

 

It was a fond memory, Lottie agrees, despite how afterwards all of them would always lay in the grass for at least ten minutes panting and complaining. She does miss the way things were, but the problem with that, Lottie knows, is that it’s a world they can never go back to. Even if they make it out of the wilderness.

 

“You’re mean,” Jackie mumbles in Nat’s direction, but she doesn’t bother opening her eyes or moving to sit up. 

 

She remembers that, though, and the endless optimism that she used to be able to pull from. It seems like it’s gone now, likely never to return. Burned up in a plane crash or on a full moon or scribbled out in the pages of a journal. Still, she manages a small smile. “I actually kind of liked running suicides. It’s super easy to not worry about an impending math test when you’re too tired to think.” Which is, a little, what she’s hoping will happen tonight. Maybe, Jackie thinks, she’ll be too tired to have any weird dreams.

 

Lottie looks at Nat, then shrugs and gives a little nod. Jackie’s kind of right, Lottie liked that, too. Then again, she could run twice the distance in half the steps of most of the others. She remembers a few of them complaining and saying Lottie should have to run extra because of her long legs. She probably wouldn’t have complained, but she liked yapping back at them about it. “Maybe just work a little harder, Mar. ” 

 

Lottie pushes herself up to sit, slowly, as she feels her ribs aching. She grabs her bowl and sets it in her lap before she’s back to stroking along Jackie’s head and back, letting her rest. 

 

Natalie blows out a puff of air. “Only you would like that,” she says to Jackie. “Weirdo.”

 

“I’m tired and injured and you’re being so mean to me,” Jackie whines, opening one eye to look at Nat to see what she’s doing before she’s falling under the spell of Lottie’s touch once more. Really, this wasn’t Jackie’s fault at all. It was Lottie’s magic touch on her skin.

 

“This is me being nice,” Nat says back, moving her foot just enough to nudge Jackie playfully, “I can be mean, though, if you’d prefer.” 

 

Lottie just shakes her head. Still, Nat is right. Jackie really should eat, as much as Lottie doesn’t want to stop soothing her. She gives her one last brush before she nudges her gently as well. She just wants her to eat a little, that’s all. Out here, they need to eat, no matter how tired or how much they didn’t feel like it.

 

Jackie groans, seeing that both of them are working against her. She finally sits up and rubs at her eyes before grabbing a bowl and eating a few bites. She’s still trying to eat a little. She knows she has to, now. Not just because of it being an actual necessity but because Lottie doesn’t eat unless Jackie does, and Jackie’s not willing to put either of them through that again.

 

Satisfied, Lottie sits back and begins to eat herself, brushing her leg against Jackie’s as she settles in next to her. She can see Natalie looking at them, watching them, and she turns her gaze enough to catch her eyes. There’s something in them, something Lottie thinks she’s seen in Natalie’s face before but she can’t quite place. She just gives her a smile, though, and turns back to her food.

 

“See? Not so bad,” Natalie points out to Jackie. “Then you can sleep the rest of the night.”

 

“You’re still being annoying in not letting me sleep now,” Jackie says before taking another bite. But she was hungry, at least, the jerky from breakfast barely lasting throughout the day. Jackie wonders if they’ll ever have food again. She wonders if she’ll even feel like eating it. She brushes her leg against Lottie’s as well before leaving it there, enjoying how solid Lottie always feels next to her.  

 

“Somehow, I think you’ll survive,” Nat smirks.

 

Lottie looks between the two. If someone had told her just a few months ago that the two people who would become Lottie’s rocks out here were going to be Jackie Taylor and Natalie Scatorccio, she never would have believed them.

 

Now, she can’t really imagine it any other way. She doesn’t want it any other way. Settling back, Lottie leans against Jackie, letting her free hand rest on her leg. 

 

Jackie, in what she believes to be a very respectable show of maturity, sticks her tongue out at Nat before going back to her food to try and eat as quickly as possible. “Are you done?” She asks Lottie softly, especially when Lottie leans against her, seemingly getting comfortable. 

 

“Cute,” Natalie says back to Jackie, rolling her eyes. 

 

Lottie looks over at Jackie, nods. She knows they probably want her to say something more, it’s why they try and have normal conversations around her, but she doesn’t feel ready yet. She knows she’ll feel it when she’s ready. There will be a sign. 

 

Natalie, noting the two of them being done, shifts to stand up. “Here, I’ll take ‘em back so you can rest,” she says, holding her hand out for the bowls, “cause I’m nice like that.”

 

“Maybe you’re the sweetest, actually,” Jackie coos. “Thank you, my queen,” she adds teasingly. When Nat flips her off and leaves, Jackie lays down and reaches for Lottie to join her so that she can wrap her up and actually go to sleep.

 

Lottie watches Natalie go, before she looks back over at Jackie. When the girl reaches for her, she’s pulled as if by gravity into her and she moves to lay down beside her, tucking herself against Jackie and laying her head in the crook of her neck. Lottie never used to be a clingy person, or even that touchy, for all that it matters. 

 

She can’t help being like that now, though. It feels compulsory with Jackie. She likes it just as much, how tactile Jackie seems to be with her. It makes her feel warm and solid. Real. 

 

It makes her feel wanted.

 

As Jackie settles against Lottie, she feels a pressure on her other side, cold fingers brushing through her hair. Sometimes, Shauna haunts her all day long, but there are other times where Jackie won’t see her at all. She never knows. She can’t seem to control when her brain conjures her up. 

 

But Jackie would just like to sleep, and Shauna’s presence isn’t good at that anymore. 

 

“Sweet dreams, Jax,” Shauna whispers in her ear, lips against skin, teeth joining them. Shauna and her stupid teeth and the way she used to want to bite down and leave a mark, almost vindictive with it, knowing Jackie would have to come up with an excuse every time. She’s so sweet like this, saccharine all the time. That’s one of the ways Jackie knows it isn’t real. Her Shauna could be sweet, but not always. Sometimes she’d pout. Sometimes her words hurt .

 

Jackie holds Lottie a little tighter, but some ghosts can’t be chased away, even with the most comforting presence.

 

Lottie knows that sometimes she sees things that aren’t there, hears them, feels them. But sometimes she knows things are. She feels Jackie tighten around her and she knows, so she folds her into her arms, ignores the pain. She stares into the space beyond Jackie, wondering if she’ll see the outline of Shauna Shipman haunting her still. Lottie can’t chase ghosts away, but she can make sure the ghosts don’t take Jackie away.

 

Others are still sitting up, around the fire or by their beds, chatting quietly to themselves, but Lottie keeps her focus on Jackie, blocking out the sounds. She lifts a hand to brush along Jackie’s neck, against the side of her head. Something soothing, she hopes, in the same way that Jackie’s touch always soothes Lottie. 

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch and sighs, letting her body relax once more. She cannot pinpoint the exact moment where Lottie became the most comforting person in the world for her, but she knows that she is. Jackie cannot help but relax under her touches. It’s like the dog that’s been trained by the bell, maybe. They’re constantly touching, have been for months. It makes sense, then that Jackie would find it soothing. That’s what she tells herself, at least.

 

Lottie is careful, gentle, as she brushes her fingers along Jackie’s skin, up into her hair. She thinks about all the times Laura Lee ran her hands through Lottie’s hair, sometimes to comb it, tie it back, other times to just feel it, to just feel Lottie. And Lottie let her, because she liked it. It felt so nice being cared for like that.

 

Everyone knows how touchy Jackie and Shauna were, too. Lottie thinks Jackie’s probably always been that way, and while she never thought she would be-- could be-- she’s found, now, that she wants to be. That she likes to be this way. That she likes knowing someone likes her touch. Even if it might just be to replace the touch of a lost someone. She doesn’t mind.

 

Lottie notices Misty heading towards them, but she gives her a look and shakes her head, causing the girl to pause. When she sees Jackie curled up and already practically asleep, she frowns, but doesn’t push it, turning back around. Lottie will be okay for one night. As long as Jackie is there, Lottie knows it’s true.

 

Sighing contentedly as fingers trail against her skin, into her hair, Jackie really does feel like she’s sinking into the floor of the plane, it feels so good. She loves physical contact; there wasn’t enough of it at home that brought forth any kind or gentle feelings. Her mother’s touch felt like a cage, always grasping on too tight, not to hold but to keep Jackie pinned close. Her father was awkward with it, distant, still there but always letting her mother take the reins in terms of how to care for their daughter. It was stifling. Jackie likes things to be just so, and she likes when she’s in control of that.

 

But she’s also willing to let Lottie do whatever she wants when it feels like this. Lottie’s just so warm. It makes Jackie warm. She imagines more of what Lottie’s touch would feel like on bare skin, warm trails of fingerprints all over her skin, lips following after and–

 

Nope. Jackie cuts those thoughts off right there. Not allowed, especially not right now, right there. She’s supposed to be going to sleep.

 

Lottie draws in a deep breath, lets it go, lets it warm Jackie’s skin as she moves in closer. She knows no one will bother them for the rest of the night, and even Lottie is beginning to feel tired, despite not doing much all day. Misty kept insisting that the fatigue was normal, that didn’t mean Lottie liked it. 

 

But she didn’t mind it so much when Jackie was there. 

 

She knows it’s probably not the best thing to do, but she can’t help the way she leans in just a little, pressing her lips to Jackie’s shoulder. “Sleep,” she barely says against her, her voice almost lost among the sounds of other girls talking in hushed voices around them. For now, she just wants it to be for Jackie. When she does have words, they’re only for her.

 

If Jackie can just focus on how warm Lottie makes her feel and not think about literally anything else, she thinks she’ll be okay. Because she doesn’t think she can handle this if it’s not okay. She doesn’t think she can deal with doing something stupid and fucking this up and losing it. If her stares linger too long, if she wants too much, she could scare Lottie away or make her hate Jackie or apparently lose her to sleeping out in the cold over one monumentally stupid fight, and Jackie cannot handle that. She thinks she’d scream. 

 

So she’s trying not to think about that. Instead, she’s trying to focus on how nice it is when Lottie talks to her, just her, even if her voice is light and barely there. It makes Jackie feel special, and she’s always liked that. She smiles and nods her head against Lottie’s skin, one of her own hands moving to brush through dark, thick hair. She’ll sleep. She’s exhausted. And she’ll have normal dreams and normal feelings and be completely normal in the morning, too.

 

Or she’ll fucking try to be.

 

It’s not long before Lottie can feel Jackie drifting off to sleep. She doesn’t stop her rhythmic movements, though, not until her own eyes begin to grow heavy and she has to fight to keep them open. The plane has grown quiet and still around them, the fire dwindling but still casting dancing shadows on the roof that Lottie can look up at and know are real. 

 

She takes the quiet moment to herself. Everyone else is asleep, their breathing soft and soothing, despite Mari snoring over by Akilah, or Mel grunting as Gen accidentally kicks her in her sleep. They’re normal sounds, comforting sounds. Real sounds. 

 

Lottie thinks that she’d do anything for the girls inside this plane (and Travis, but he was practically just one of the girls, now). She would die for any of them, kill for any of them. They were her family, the only real one she’s ever known.

 

As her eyes begin to drift closed, Lottie nestles back into Jackie. Presses a kiss to her temple and lets sleep draw her in.

 

She dreams of a happy time and a happy place. It’s filled with laughter and joy and trees and the wind.

Notes:

More in between times as we flesh out everything and i stand by the fact that there's absolutely no way that cabin burned for 12 days like what were the writers smoking when they wrote that ??? (the cabin, apparently) Anyway, hope you guys are enjoying this little breath of fresh air chapter! We made it through all the hard stuff, so now we can get some less dire time with the group as they work their way towards the next winter and what will become of season 3 in this fic.

Thanks again so much for all the comments and kudos! We love all of you just for reading you're amazing <3

Chapter 14: the love inside, you take it with you

Summary:

Oh, deer! The team works together to rustle up some grub, to varying degrees of success. If you teach a Yellowjacket to fish, they'll be fed for a lifetime, just maybe make sure it's not Van or Jackie. Van makes up for it by telling a Ghost story, and Jackie lives a ghost story. Soon, it'll be moving time. Hope someone brought a U-Haul.

Notes:

Hello, hello! We're back with another regularly scheduled update! A bit shorter, but this is a sweeter chapter that gets the ball rolling a little on camp construction. We're still firmly chilling in pre-s3 territory, so enjoy the lull before things get silly!

Chapter title is a line from the 1990 film Ghost, staring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore.

Jackie wakes up the next morning mostly sure that she didn’t dream of kissing Shauna or Lottie or any of the other girls on the team, so she calls that a win and convinces herself that she’s not disappointed, especially when there’s nothing to be disappointed in. Lottie’s still wrapped around her, still warm and comforting and solid, real, and that’s really all that Jackie needs. It’s all she wants. If she tells herself that’s the truth, then it starts to feel like it.

 

She never starts getting up immediately, even when she hears the others stirring. Jackie likes to take a few minutes, likes to have some time before she has to face the day. It’s not private like it used to be back home, but she’s learning to deal with it, whether she wants to or not. Honestly, having Lottie around all the time is so comforting that Jackie doesn’t even think she minds.

 

Lottie never stays sleeping long after Jackie wakes up, if Jackie wakes before her. It doesn’t happen often, Lottie doesn’t sleep as deep or as well as the others. She never has, she never will. 

 

Having the weight of Jackie in her arms helps, though. It feels nice. She doesn’t move when she does wake, choosing instead to let out a heavy sigh against Jackie’s skin. She feels so warm and content, she doesn’t want to move. She knows they’ll have to, but for now, she wants to enjoy this.

 

She can already tell, too, that the air is warmer today. She can even hear birds chirping outside, waking up with the rest of the world. Things are beginning to change, the suppressing white snow melting away to make room for the green of spring and the hum of life. She thinks it sounds more peaceful than anything back in Wiskayok ever has. 

 

She doesn’t think anyone really agrees with her.

 

Jackie thinks that she could easily stay like that for the rest of the morning, the two of them warm together, and she plans on doing just that until she hears the sound of the gun going off. 

 

Jerking into being fully awake, Jackie’s first thought is to check Lottie and make sure she’s alright, eyes wide as she pulls away just enough to look over the other girl, even if it’s irrational. But the shot didn’t come from anywhere near them, and there’s the sound of whooping cheers coming from outside as the girls stumble out of the plane. 

 

Jackie’s just started sitting up when Misty comes inside, bouncing on her feet and loud enough to wake the dead. “Nat shot a deer! Nat shot a deer!”

 

The shot should have scared Lottie, but she knew it was coming somehow. So when Jackie does jerk up and look down at her, worried, Lottie is already reaching up to squeeze her hand and let her know she's okay. 

 

It's okay. 

 

Because Natalie shot a deer and winter is over. 

 

Lottie moves to sit up beside Jackie, her movements still mechanical and stiff as she tries to avoid causing herself too much pain. But she's smiling up at Misty and the others behind her as they all start hollering and celebrating as Travis and Nat drag the fresh kill towards the camp. 

 

She squeezes Jackie's hand and nods, encouraging her to go and be with the others. She deserves to celebrate with them, too.

 

Jackie could almost cry at the thought of food , actual food, food that doesn’t come with guilt and sorrow and unease. She gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze and offers up a wide smile, and that’s how Jackie gets roped into helping clean a deer, even if she gags and complains her way through the entire ordeal.

 

Everything feels so much lighter the rest of the day. They're all smiling again, even if they sometimes complain about how soggy the ground is. They're taking off some of the layers they're always in, like shedding old, ruined skin, becoming lighter, happier. 

 

They've made it. Maybe not all of them, maybe a little worse for wear, but they've made it to spring, and they've made it to real food. 

 

Melissa shows Natalie how to properly bleed and gut the deer, with help from some of the others, while Akilah and Van and Tai take the inedible parts of the deer to use for other things. Antlers for tools, hooves for carving, intestines for water skins. Once the pelt is removed, they’ll stretch and dry it, too, and after that, it'll be given to Lottie to be made into clothes or a blanket. 

 

They're a well oiled machine by now and Lottie can't help but smile about it. 

 

Jackie has blood all over her hands and arms from helping carry meat to the impromptu meat shed that has been made out of the remains of the former one, but, by the time it’s done, Mari is already cooking the meat over the fire. 

 

It feels a bit like that first day, that first deer, except this time Jackie is actually ravenous, bringing food over to Lottie and sitting next to her before digging in. Her mother would scream, she thinks, if she saw Jackie like this, hair unkempt, blood on her skin, dirty and wild looking. Jackie doesn’t think that she actually cares.

 

There's something…primal about the way blood and dirt is staining Jackie's skin when she comes back over from helping with the deer. For a moment, Lottie simply observes her, eyes tracing the patterns of dry blood caked on her arms, dirt under her fingernails. The disheveled way she's pushed her hair back out of her eyes but hasn't bothered to actually tie it back, tame it. 

 

She looks nothing like the Jackie Taylor that stumbled off the burning plane. 

 

She looks everything like the Jackie Taylor Lottie thinks she's always been. 

 

Reaching out, Lottie takes one of Jackie's hands, feels the deer blood that's still slightly wet on her palm, and swipes her thumb across it, smearing it off Jackie's skin and onto her own. 

 

She then licks it, before casually reaching down and taking a piece of meat, and beginning to eat normally. She lets the blood linger on her lips, a reminder. 

 

Jackie’s eyes widen at the motion, and it’s a strange feeling that starts in her stomach and pools lower as she watches Lottie. It reminds her, though, just how much blood covers her, how much of it she didn’t bother cleaning away. It’s a little unsanitary. That’s the last thing Jackie is thinking about as she watches Lottie. She looks away and takes a bite of her food, feeling flushed.

 

Lottie doesn't notice the flush in Jackie's face. She can still taste the blood on her lips even as she slowly drags her tongue across her bottom lip to wipe it away as she finishes eating. She thinks she can feel its warmth spreading through her. It reminds her of the tree stained with her own blood. Of how greedily it had devoured it as Lottie's fingers painted across the bark. 

 

She thinks it feels like something sacred. Like a place worth cherishing. She closes her eyes and silently thanks the Wilderness for this gift. 

 

She doesn't get an answer.

 

Jackie eats quickly after that, not looking at Lottie. She chooses to believe that she’s just a little queasy, her stomach not used to eating so much so fast. They should probably think about conserving already, but nobody wants to bring that up. Jackie’s certainly not gonna bring it up, not after last time at the plane crash. Besides, it’s the first real food they’ve had in so long. It’s nice to enjoy it. 

 

After, Jackie steps out to wash off her hands and face in the snow, cleaning them with a rag before she goes back to Lottie, knowing that they likely needed to check over her stitches, too.

 

Lottie watches Jackie go, silently observing her and then the others when she's out of view. She's curious about what they all think, but mostly about what Jackie thinks. If she understands. 

 

If any of them do. 

 

Natalie is chatting with Tai and Gen, again, planning out for more excavations of their chosen campsite for tomorrow, and Lottie watches as their faces pull in concentration, working hard to plan out what to do. 

 

Her gaze shifts when she sees Jackie heading back over and Lottie tilts her head, eyes focused on the way she walks, already more confident than anything she's seen the past few months.

 

It makes her smile. 

 

She adjusts herself to lean back and pats the spot next to her, an invitation. She knows they need to check her over, for their own sakes, but Lottie doesn't need to see to know she's healing just fine. She can feel it. 

 

Still, she'll let Jackie fuss over her. Lottie knows it makes her feel better.

 

Jackie sits next to Lottie, leaning over her to pull up her dress and expose the wound in her side. She knows enough, now, to recognize that if it’s red and gross looking, it’s probably not a good thing, but so far the wound looks clean, like it’s healing well enough. Jackie wipes it with a clean, wet rag and looks at Lottie, offering up a bemused smile. “Did you see all of this, Matthews?”

 

Lottie holds her arm up for Jackie, lets her clean the wound. She shivers slightly at the touch, the hairs on her arms standing on end and she has to swallow hard to keep from shuddering. Not in the painful way, but in the way that makes Lottie's stomach feel warm. 

 

When Jackie looks up at her, that knowing smirk on her face, Lottie just shrugs, smiles back at her innocently. She's happy to see Jackie like this, she doesn't want to worry her anymore. 

 

There might not be gods of dirt and snow and the deaths of little boys or best friends, not to Jackie, but there is Lottie Matthews, and she trusts Lottie significantly more. There might be something out there that is speaking through Lottie, but Jackie doesn’t care for it. She doesn’t know its intention. But she knows Lottie. She trusts Lottie. She believes in Lottie. 

 

“I’m glad you’re having fun being so… cryptic,” Jackie huffs, but her eyes are teasing. “Your side looks better. How are your ribs? Maybe Doctor Quigley will give you the go ahead to start walking soon.”

 

Lottie sighs, her expression softening. She wishes she could explain why she can't speak, why she's grown silent, but it's not a feeling that has words. It's just knowing. 

 

She reaches over and uses her thumb to brush a stay smudge of dirt from Jackie's chin, fingers lingering before she pulls back. All she can do to signal her answer is put her hand over her ribs and nod. They're doing better. They still hurt when she bends over or sits up too fast or stretches too far, but she can breathe deeper now without it hurting, and she can lay on her side next to Jackie and sleep without too much pain. 

 

So, better. 

 

Her head turns when she hears Natalie's footsteps coming toward them and she meets her eyes as Natalie pauses a few steps away. “Hey, Jax, got a minute? Gen and Tai wanna see if you can draw up some, like, camp layouts or whatever. You know, like blueprints for where everything could go.”

 

“My squiggles are in high demand, I see,” Jackie says, getting up, but she feels a lightness in her chest. She doesn’t know when she became Jax to everyone. That used to be a Shauna thing, and then it just sort of snowballed, ebbed and flowed. Jackie’s mother had been snide, saying “At least it’s not Jack. Really, Jackie, it’s like those girls want you to be mannish. ” Jackie likes it, though, the nickname showing an amount of care. 

 

Jackie looks back at Lottie. “Do you have any thoughts on camp layouts, Lott?” She figures it might be worth asking, since Lottie had thoughts about where they ended up setting the camp.

 

“Don't flatter yourself,” Natalie snorts, “you’re just the only one that can make things not look like a toddler threw up on the page. Or like boobs, according to Van.”

 

Lottie chuckles. She thinks it's funny, but probably true, especially if it was Tai trying to draw it out. 

 

When Jackie asks her about the camp, Lottie thinks for a moment, before nodding, and miming writing in the air, asking for the paper and pencil. She has a thought, yes. She just hopes no one gets mad at her for it.

 

“Not my fault I’m the only artiste in camp,” Jackie says. The only one left, at least, a sobering thought. Jackie knows that Travis still has Javi’s art, his little figurines. Too many mourners, too many dead.

 

Reaching in her bag, Jackie grabs out a notebook and a pencil, handing it over to Lottie. “Go for it.”

 

Lottie was never good at art, either, but Jackie already knew that. Still, she does her best, scribbling with her left hand to draw out a circle, using triangles to denote the trees. She's never been there, but she knows exactly what the clearing looks like, as she draws a line from the top of camp, to the path that leads to the river. Near it, she writes ‘laundry’ and ‘hang between trees’. At the other end, she writes ‘Natalie’ with a little drawing of a house. Diagonal from that, she writes ‘garden’. In the center, she draws a fire. 

 

Then, she holds it back out Jackie. She hasn't drawn out the full thing, she wonders if they'll notice. It's just the start of it, but if someone looks close enough, they'd see the shape of the symbol beginning to form the cross sections of the camp drawing. 

 

She thinks it'll protect them 

 

“Look at that,” Jackie says as she takes the drawing from Lottie and glances at it. “Think Van’s gonna see boobs here?” 

 

Nat just rolls her eyes, taking a look at drawing as well. She frowns a little but doesn’t say anything. “Let’s just make something out of this, alright?”

 

Jackie joins her, Gen, and Tai, the four of them going back and forth about where to put things. Jackie leaves Lottie’s rough sketch, moving to add things like storage and a new shed. 

 

“Nat, you should have your own space,” Gen says.

 

Nat frowns. “Okay, but I’m not gonna be at the head of everything. Here: up at the top, I can be on the right, then Lottie and Jackie– I assume you two are sharing– and then Tai, you and Van?”

 

“We can probably see about making a few bigger shelters to hold more of us,” Gen adds.

 

Tai nods. “Maybe a space for people who might be injured or sick and medicinal supplies? Misty might like that, and it’s shitty to think about, but we need a place to keep people in case something does happen.”

 

Jackie adds as they talk. It’s mostly a series of shapes on a piece of paper with little notes written in tiny, neat handwriting, but she can almost see… something. Like an actual place is taking shape. Soon, they wouldn’t be sleeping in the plane. They might be on their way to being okay.

 

Lottie can't hear what they're all saying, but she doesn't think she needs to. It's nice knowing that she's not the one making all the decisions anymore. It's nice to see them all working together. 

 

Sighing, she moves to lay herself back down, staring up at the ceiling of the plane. It's nice, yes, to not be at the top, but Lottie wonders, too, if that means she'll be forgotten again. If she'll just be crazy Lottie, hearing voices and seeing things, acting weird while everyone else finds some sense of normal. 

 

She wonders if Jackie will be one of those people, too. Lottie won't blame her, if she does. It would probably be for the better, anyway. 

 

Jackie and Nat are still talking as they head into the plane, going back and forth. “Jackie, that’s fucking stupid.”

 

“It’s really not,” Jackie argues. “We just, you know, put the butcher table away from everyone. So it doesn’t stink.” 

 

“Yeah, but not in the fucking woods, idiot.”

 

Lottie doesn’t quite sit up when she hears Jackie and Nat stepping into the plane, but she shifts herself enough to watch them. They’re arguing about where to put things, almost like arguing over who gets to sleep where at a slumber party, or how to decorate a dorm room.

 

Those are things of the past though. They don’t know how long it’s been, but they crashed last summer, and it was almost spring now. It’d almost been a year of them out here. That sounded so strange to Lottie, when it seemed like this place was all she’d ever known. When Wiskayok seemed more like a dream or a nightmare than anything real.

 

“Just…go take it easy the rest of today, alright? Tomorrow’s gonna be long,” Natalie finally says, shaking her head. There’s still a few things to do around here, but for the most part, the next few weeks will be mostly spent at the new camp, at their new home. 

 

Jackie considers arguing more just for the hell of it, but being given the day off is such a rarity these days that she’d be pretty stupid to say no. A rarity, and one that wouldn’t be spent worrying about food or if Lottie was going to be okay. They have food and Lottie is healing, even if she isn’t talking. There’s really nothing super pressing going on. 

 

So Jackie heads over to Lottie and sits down next to her, brushing their knees together as she sits side by side. She rests her head against Lottie’s shoulder and sighs, and she feels content. 

 

Lottie leans her head back on Jackie’s, taking in a deep breath and letting out a slow sigh. She slips her hand into Jackie’s, curls their fingers together. For the first time in a long time, she’s not worried about anything. It doesn’t seem like anyone is, and that’s a feeling Lottie thinks they should hold onto.

 

The next week goes relatively the same. The deer is portioned more so that it lasts longer, the camp at the plane is packed up and organized, and each morning, different groups get up and head to the new site. Lottie still hasn’t been able to see it, but by the middle of the week, Misty says that she can start trying to walk around now, with help. 

 

They’ve carved her a crutch, much like the ones they made for Coach, though Lottie uses it more as a cane than anything. She can’t walk far without getting tired, but it’s better than sitting in the same spot all day.

 

She likes being outside. The snow melted quickly, though everything has kept that slightly damp feeling to it, the ground soft beneath her feet whenever she gets up to walk about. 

 

Mostly, she still helps with all the clothing, washing it, keeping it organized, sewing up any holes. But Mari lets her help with cooking, now, since she can sit while they do it, and Lottie starts taking stock of what plants they use the most. She thinks if they can till the ground enough, she can make a nice garden. Maybe they can even breed animals, something Akilah suggested once Nat taught them all how to make snares and traps for the smaller animals.

 

They’ve become their own little society out here and it makes Lottie feel hopeful. Enough to where she’s beginning to find her voice again. She doesn’t say much and she doesn’t talk often, but she has small words to say to people, like a thanks, or a soft suggestion. 

 

Mostly, she saves them for Jackie. She likes how Jackie smiles when she talks to her, even if it’s just a word or two. 

 

Today, Lottie is watching a few of them mill about camp, only a few things left around here out of necessity. They’ve got enough huts built back at the other camp that soon, they might be able to move there completely. The place isn’t done, but it’s close. Another few days of work and it might be ready. 

 

Today, Lottie has a goal in mind. She’s been measuring how far she can go and how long she can walk before her legs feel like jello and her sides ache. 

 

She thinks she can make it to her tree and back before the others return. 

 

When no one is looking, the few left behind-- Mari, Britt, Robin, Misty-- busy, Lottie stands herself up and slips out the back of the plane, away from prying eyes.

 

Her bare feet feel cold in the mulch and dirt under them, but it also feels real and right. Grounding. Like she’s part of the forest. 

 

As she walks, flashes of her dream come back to her. She’d never sleep walked before, but now, walking back down the path, it seemed so vivid, so real. Like it wasn’t just a dream.

 

By the time she makes it to the tree, she’s panting and dizzy, but it’s enough. She sinks to her knees in front of it and reaches out a hand, fingers grazing bark. There’s still blood on it-- her blood.

 

She rests her palm flat against it, closes her eyes, breathes in. “Please,” she whispers, “talk to me.”

 

“Jackie, do you need fucking glasses?” Van asks, looking both amused and annoyed as she and Jackie stand on the edge of the stream, looking down into the water with freshly carved wooden spears in their hands.

 

Well, Jackie’s is floating downstream after a failed attempt to spear a fish. She pouts at Van. “Okay, fine. You do it, then.” 

 

Van loses her spear, too.

 

“We’re doing something wrong. The fish are gone by the time we try to stab them,” Van says as they walk. 

 

Jackie nods. “So we’re either aiming too low or too high.” 

 

“Is this using math or physics?” 

 

Shrugging, Jackie says, “I dunno. It’s not the Pythagorean theorem, though.”

 

The lack of fish isn’t a major concern, though. It’s something that will hopefully improve with the weather. They’re not too worried, taking their time as they head back to the camp that’s slowly but surely being put together. Van wants to check on Tai, and Jackie offered to help Nat set up the map in the little hut that would eventually become her own earlier, so she’s going to set that up before checking on Lottie.

 

It makes Jackie happy that Lottie’s doing better, actually able to walk around some, even if it’s not much. She seems happier, too, less worried like she had been through the winter. They all are. It’s nice. It’s almost home.

 

Silence is still the only answer Lottie gets. She’s trying not to grow frustrated, but she can’t help it. She thought she was doing everything she could for It. 

 

Quietly, Lottie reaches down and pulls out one of the knives. It’s the smaller pocket knife that she thinks was Nat’s originally, that they usually leave around camp for carving, saving the big hunting knife for, well, hunting and butchering. 

 

She opens her hand, palm up, and places the edge of the knife to it. It doesn’t even hurt when she slices it across, watching her blood well up and pool in her hand, running along  the creases in her skin, like a river following the bends of the earth it flows over. 

 

Reaching out, then, she places her bloody hand flat on the tree, covers the symbol carved into its trunk, lets it soak up her blood. Lets the earth soak up the drops that fall from it onto the dirt. She thinks she can feel the energy buzzing inside of the tree, inside of herself, inside of the soil. It makes her skin tingle, hair standing on edge. She shivers but doesn’t pull away, eyes traveling up the bark until she’s looking into the sky. The sun shines down on her, on the tree, illuminating just them in the small clearing.

 

She closes her eyes again. “Keep them safe,” she asks, pleads. 

 

There’s still no answer.

 

Lottie stands, then, squeezes her hand shut to help stem the bleeding, and begins to hobble her way back towards the plane. She’ll try again tomorrow.

 

Jackie helps out at the new camp until the sun starts to set and they all start walking back. Van is picking chips of wood out of Tai’s curls, laughing and throwing them in her face. Tai acts like she’s upset by the gesture, but she’s smiling and laughing, too, and it’s sickeningly sweet and adorable. 

 

It’s not jealousy that eats at Jackie. At least, she’ll always say that it’s not. It’s good that Van and Tai can be themselves out there. It’s good they have each other. She guesses she just misses having a person like that. She doesn’t miss Jeff. She does miss Shauna. 

 

But she brightens when she gets to camp and sees Lottie, trotting over to her with a smile, leaving the lovebirds and the others to disperse. “Hi,” she says, checking Lottie over, quickly frowning when she notices Lottie’s hand. “Hey,” she whines. “What’d you do?”

 

Lottie doesn’t think she needs to hide what she does, she doesn’t want to. She holds up her hand and opens her palm for Jackie. “An offering,” she says quietly. No one else is looking at them, she knows they’d judge. She can feel them shedding their belief in the Wilderness-- in her-- the more things become easier. The more they become self-sustained. 

 

Lottie can’t help but feel left out. She won’t say that, though. She has this. She doesn’t have much else.

 

“Does it need that much?” Jackie asks softly, taking Lottie’s hand gently in her own. She presses a kiss to the side of Lottie’s hand. At least she didn’t break open her stitches and use the blood in her side. 

 

Lottie doesn’t answer. She closes her fist again and looks at Jackie. “How close?” she asks, referring to the camp she knows they’ve all been working on. She really doesn’t want to talk about what It wants, because she doesn’t know anymore. It’s eating away at her insides, but she won’t say anything about it. No one else needs to know.

 

Jackie sighs but let’s the matter drop, patting Lottie’s hand before letting go. “A few days, max. The huts are mostly done, it’s going to be figuring out where everyone wants to go. Which, I think we’ve got one already done that’s set up next to Van and Tai.” She makes a face. “Which means we’re going to probably hear them be gross all night long.” 

 

Lottie nods sweetly. She can’t help herself, reaching up with her uncut hand and brushing some of Jackie’s messy hair away from her face. She doesn’t think she’ll mind being next to Tai and Van, maybe they can just hang up some extra blankets as sound proofing. 

 

She also feels…fluttery, about sharing a hut with Jackie. Of course they would share, they’ve been sleeping in the same bed for months now, wrapped in each other. But a hut was private. Inside, it would just be them. Lottie feels something jittery in her throat but she just smiles. It’s not that she’s worried, no-- she’s excited. And she thinks she probably shouldn’t be.

 

Most of the seniors had their own space, actually. In a way. Van and Tai were sharing, and Jackie and Lottie, of course, but Nat’s not sharing her hut, and Travis wanted to make his own space (even if Nat does end up looking at him with sad eyes), and Misty plans on staying in their pseudo-infirmary. Jackie supposes there’s still some merit to seniority out there, even if it’s weird. 

 

There’s space to grow at the camp, too, plenty of room for them to add things. It’s weird to think about how they could turn this into a long term kind of place, but being out there for months with no sign of rescue has them all thinking about the long term, even if Jackie knows that they still dream of rescue.

 

Jackie still dreams of rescue. It looks different now than it did a few months ago, and there’s a lot more anxiety that goes along with it, but she still thinks about it. It’s getting easier to push to the side, though. She asks Lottie, “Think you’re going to be up for the journey?”

 

Lottie shifts from foot to foot, as if testing how she might feel. Then, she nods. “Take it slow,” she tells her. She’ll have to stop often and she likely won’t be able to help carry anything, but the least she can do is walk there herself, instead of making it harder on everyone else. 

 

She’s growing weary, now, though, and she rubs her side as it aches, glancing back at the plane. “I’m gonna sit,” she murmurs, squeezing Jackie’s hand. She wants her to come with her, but if Jackie doesn’t want to, she’s not going to force it. There’s not much left to do, though, as they all begin to get ready for dinner, Melissa delivering the rations to Mari, who sets them on the pan in the fire. The cooking deer always smells better than anything else. 

 

“Manageable,” Jackie says. “We can probably put something in your boot, too, to help walking on your foot.” Something to put where the toes should be to help with some of that empty space. She walks with Lottie to go sit down, happy to keep her company as they wait for dinner. “I think you’ll like it there. All the huts make it look neat.”

 

Lottie hobbles her way back over to the plane, but she sits down near the little eating area they’ve made near the fire, sinking slowly onto a log pushed up against the outside so that she can lean back against it. She stretches her legs out, feels them shaking from the effort she’s put them through today. 

 

As soon as Jackie sits, Lottie loops her arm into hers and leans against her. She feels sometimes like she can’t get truly comfortable or relaxed without Jackie around. Back in Wiskayok, Lottie would’ve balked at the thought of needing someone like this. But here, she doesn’t think it could be any other way. 

 

She can’t imagine having to go through all of this, any of this, alone.

 

It’s not unfamiliar to their first few nights out there, Jackie thinks. Except, now, they’re not waiting around for rescue. Jackie’s no longer waiting around for rescue, and she stopped waiting around to die, too. The effort to keep herself alive isn’t as hard anymore. It’s not as hard as it could be. That’s only because of Lottie. Jackie would have given up months ago without her. She did give up months ago. But Lottie has refused to let her go, and Jackie finds herself grateful as she leans her head against Lottie’s, her ears (though the left one does all the work) straining to listen to the sound of the fire in front of them.

 

As Lottie watches the fire, and Mari pushing the meat around as it cooks, she’s reminded of their first night out there, too. They’d all gathered around the little fire Natalie had lit, sitting on cushions and blankets, quiet, somber at first.

 

And then Laura Lee had confessed her “sin,” and everyone laughed. 

 

“I steal shitty clothes from TJ Maxx. A-and then I return them and I have thousands of dollars in Tj Buxx.”

 

Lottie can see herself, sitting across the fire, knees curled to her chest. She’s scared, nervous, embarrassed. But then everyone laughs and she laughs with them and it’s the first time she thinks she’s ever confessed something personal to the girls.

 

None of them realize it.

 

She’s always been on the outside. Even when they’d all been looking to her for the answers, to get them through the winter that had taken so much from them, she’d never really been one of them. 

 

Absently, Lottie grabs a stick and starts drawing in the dirt by their feet. A circle, a triangle, four diagonal lines. She knows she’ll never really be one of them. She knows they’ll never understand her. 

 

Jackie watches Lottie draw, humming softly. “It kind of looks like a fucked up little stick person, if you squint. Like, you could add a smiley face inside the circle, and that’d be something some kid in pre-K used to represent their mom while fingerpainting.”

 

Lottie blinks, not realizing she’d been zoning out a bit. She looks down at what she’s drawn, scrunches her brow. “I think it…” she starts, her voice soft, “protects us.”

 

“Just a little bit of blood in exchange, huh?” Jackie muses. “Just remember what you promised me. Can’t do that if you lose too much blood.”

 

Lottie looks over at Jackie, tilts her head. “I won’t.”

 

“Good.”

 

When dinner is ready, Jackie pulls away just long enough to grab their plates, walking back to Lottie and setting hers on her lap. Jackie eats until she gets to the point of almost feeling full. It’s an old habit, one that has her absentmindedly putting the last little bit of her food onto Lottie’s plate before she leans back against the log and closes her eyes, relaxing and resting.

 

Lottie eats along with Jackie, watching as she slows and then is eventually dumping what’s left onto her plate. Normally, she’d argue and make Jackie eat it all, but they have enough food to not to do that now. They have a mostly guaranteed next meal and it’s a strange and satisfying feeling.

 

Plus Jackie is small and she’s never eaten that much. Lottie finishes her own plate, sets it aside, and scoots herself over, her feet on either side of Jackie before she starts combing her hands through her hair, carefully untangling it from the day. It’s still so silky and soft, much thinner than Lottie’s heavy, thick locks that frame her face like curtains. She leans over and places a gentle kiss on the top of her head, not minding the eyes that look at her. 

 

“Aaaaand, click!” Mari says out of the blue and when Lottie looks at her, she’s holding her hands up as if framing for a picture. “I knew I should’ve brought my polaroid on this trip.”

 

The feeling of Lottie’s fingers in her hair almost always makes Jackie relax, nearly boneless as she leans back and lets Lottie work her magic. She manages to crack open an eye at Mari, sticking her tongue out. “Not enough room with all fruit snacks, huh?”

 

“Really is a bit of a shame you missed out on the opportunity to document our extended vacation in Gilligan’s mountain home, Mar,” Van jokes.

 

“Those fruit snacks lasted us a week, okay?” Mari argues. “You should all be thanking me.” 

 

Lottie lets out a soft laugh, her fingers still trailing through Jackie’s hair, combing it back as gently as possible. 

 

“Oh, yeah, your fruit-roll-ups really saved us,” Tai says with a sarcastic lilt, making Mari glare at her flatly.

 

“I’d kill for a fucking fruit-roll-up,” Melissa says, making Gen elbow her. “Ow, what?” 

 

“You’d be a pretty bad murderer, Mel,” Nat says drily. “Trust me, I know from experience.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know when they all managed to get to this point where they can genuinely joke about their circumstances, even the worst of it. They’d been in a plane crash. They’d all almost died multiple times. Some of them had died. But here they are, sitting around a campfire, managing to laugh and joke despite it all.

 

Jackie has a hole where part of her heart should be, but the ache is becoming manageable. She wonders if that’s a good thing as brown eyes stare at her from the fire before blinking themselves away. 

 

There’s a different set of brown eyes above her that Jackie looks into as she leans her head back and gazes up at Lottie softly, enjoying the sound of her laughter. 

 

Lottie meets Jackie’s eyes and for a moment, it’s just them. The laughter and teasing voices around her are just noises as she smiles down at Jackie, one hand brushing down to her neck, feather light touches from her fingers as she traces along her skin, to the dip of her throat by her collarbone. It’s right where her necklace used to sit, the one that Natalie still has, fastened safely around her neck. 

 

Lottie moves her hand away, back into Jackie’s hair and leans against the plane. She looks around at all the others, then up to the sky where the moon is beginning to show, waxing its way into a full circle. She closes her eyes. 

 

“Hey, Van,” Melissa says, sitting forward, “how about a ghost story? Haven’t had one of those in a while and, like, kinda a good mood for one, right?”

 

“Really?” Gen says, raising a brow. “A ghost story?”

 

The touches just make Jackie ticklish, that’s all. That’s the only reason she shivers. She glances over at Melissa, raising an eyebrow. “Are we talking about Patrick Swayze’s Ghost or, like, something actually scary. Because,” lazily, she motions around them with her hand, off into the endless dark that lurks just outside the firelight, “I don’t know if we need a story for that.”

 

“No, no, like, the kind you tell at summer camp,” Melissa corrects. 

 

Van, for her part, seems to agree with Jackie. “I can totally tell the story of Patrick Swayze’s Ghost ,” she says, ignoring Melissa as she rolls her eyes. 

 

Lottie looks over at Van, who meets her gaze and gives a knowing smirk before she starts diving into the story. The others lean in, captivated by her storytelling abilities, like always, and Lottie just lets her hands rest on Jackie’s shoulders, fingers playing gently with the hem of her flannel. 

 

If she doesn’t think too hard about, it does almost feel like they’re all just back at summer soccer camp, staying up late around a fire, telling scary stories or gossiping about who’s fucking who behind the mess hall. 

 

It’s less of a scary story than a sad one, and it leaves Jackie wondering if she might actually be haunted by Shauna sometimes. What would it mean to care for someone so much that you stick around for them? What would it mean to care for someone so much that you give them up? Jackie doesn’t know how to give people up. She doesn’t even know where to begin. 

 

She leans her head against Lottie’s leg, wrapping an arm around her calf loosely to hold her there. 

 

As if Lottie would go anywhere, really. Still, she likes the feeling of Jackie’s arm hooked around her leg, silently telling her to not move. And she won’t. She just closes her eyes and listens to the sound of her friend’s voice, and the sound of the wind blowing lightly in the trees, leaves whispering into the night air. 

 

By the time Van finishes her story, it’s completely dark out, save for their fire and the light from the moon that trickles through the tree branches above them. Lottie has drifted off a few times, not meaning to, always coming back to herself when she feels Jackie shift against her. 

 

When she sits back up, she rubs her eyes and looks down at Jackie, not wanting to move her yet if she doesn’t want to, as the others all stand and stretch and prepare themselves for bed, too. 

 

Jackie would be content to stay out there and sleep with her head in Lottie’s lap, but she knows that’s probably not a comfortable way for Lottie to sleep. She pulls herself up, yawning, and gets to her feet, holding out her hands to help Lottie up.

 

Lottie takes the offered help, standing slowly, stiffly, giving only a small grunt of pain as she does. She’s getting better, but it still hurts, especially at the end of the day. Misty says the pain will probably be with her for months. And out here, because they don’t have proper medical supplies, it could be with her forever, really. Just another part of Lottie’s reality, she supposes. 

 

She drapes an arm over Jackie’s shoulders and heads inside with her, eyes growing more tired once they’re sinking onto their bed. She lays herself down and lets out a heavy sigh, already reaching down to tug up her dress, knowing Jackie will want to check her stitches before they sleep. It’s become routine, now, and she doesn’t really think she minds it.

 

It’s habitual at this point for Jackie to make sure that Lottie’s stitches look clean, even in the dim light of the interior of the plane. When she’s satisfied, Jackie pulls Lottie’s dress back down, careful not to let her fingers linger anywhere for too long. She settles against Lottie’s side, pressing in close. The air is growing warmer, but there’s still a chill, and Lottie’s just so warm. Jackie’s drawn to her like a month.

 

The touch is always gentle, always soothing, but it never lasts as long as Lottie might otherwise like it to. She gets it. She pulls Jackie into her side and turns her head to bury her face in Jackie’s hair, holding her close. Without Jackie, Lottie always feels like she’s missing something when she tries to sleep. Maybe it won’t be something she’ll always have, but for now, it’s something she needs.

 

Quietly, as the others settle around them, Lottie whispers, “I’m happy.”

 

“I’m happy, too,” Jackie says back, and it’s not a lie. It’s not a lie, and a part of her feels worse off for it. It’s not a lie, and the little parts of her that grew up entangled with someone else since she was a child revolt against the notion. There was a time when Jackie Taylor’s sun rose and set on Shauna Shipman, and maybe Jackie could be a horrible friend, but that didn’t mean she didn’t constantly think about Shauna and what she thought would be best for them both.

 

Maybe that’s a problem. Jackie’s never existed outside of the context of being a part of a pair. She still doesn’t know what to do with her other half being gone. But she’s still finding ways to be happy despite that. Or maybe because of it. She can’t really tell.

 

It’s horrible and exhilarating to be happy, Jackie thinks, bunching the material of Lottie’s cloak in one hand as the other drapes over her waist.

 

Lottie has always been a particularly empathetic person. Her mother likes to think she’s actually empathic , too, which Lottie never fully agreed with or understood.

 

But she kind of thinks she might know, now. 

 

Even as content as Jackie feels against her side, Lottie can feel her guilt and her sadness, too. It stays inside of her chest and tries to pry away what little happiness Jackie tries to let herself have. Lottie thinks she feels like that, too, sometimes.

 

“It’s okay,” she murmurs against her skin, “to be happy.” 

 

Jackie wonders what she’s done to deserve this, happiness, and she comes up with a blank. It was so easy to be happy back home. Guiltless. Nothing but good feelings. Now she feels like she has to earn it back, just a sliver of it. If she keeps it for too long, she worries it’ll turn to ash in her fingertips. Fall out of the sky like a crashing plane. Sleep with her boyfriend and die in the cold before they can get anything resolved. 

 

But Lottie is there, and she makes Jackie happy, even if she probably shouldn’t. She doesn’t get tired of Jackie’s constant touching or the boring things she talks about, even if she probably should. The doesn’t get angry at Jackie about things she doesn’t understand and pout. 

 

“It’s nice that you blame all our problems on me,” Shauna teases from the corner of the plane. 

 

Jackie ignores her. “I know. I know it’s okay.”

 

Lottie is no stranger to guilt, she’s carried it around with her since before she even knew what the word meant. She carries it with her in the shallows of her soul, like it was something she was born with and not learned, not given to her by people who were supposed to protect her from it. 

 

Lottie doesn’t think there’s a version of her without guilt. Maybe it’s made her the person she is, or maybe it’s held her back from being who she really wants to be. Either way, it’s there, and she’s learned that it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Not all the time. 

 

She pets a hand through Jackie’s hair. “She would want you to be.”

 

“Are we thinking about the same Shauna Shipman?” Jackie whispers, trying to keep her voice from sounding too strangled.

 

Lottie just nods. She thinks she can see Shauna in the corner but she doesn’t say anything, just locks eyes with a ghost before there’s nothing. She holds Jackie a little tighter. “She loves you.”

 

Jackie feels tears welling up in her eyes as she manages to scoff. “She thought I was tragic. And destined for mediocrity.”

 

“We all are,” Lottie mutters. Their tragedy was a shared one, a plane crashing, their friends dying. Mediocrity was never in the books for them, though. She wraps both her arms around Jackie tightly, pulls her into her chest so she can hear her heart beating inside it. “People can only truly hurt if they love first.”

 

Then Jackie must have loved Shauna so much from how deeply it wounds her. But she knows that. She knows. Loving Shauna is one of those indulgences that Jackie allowed herself in moderation. Stop saying the words out loud, never let a glance linger too long, never touch under clothes. She tried so hard. She tried so hard to push her feelings down in an attempt at normalcy. Even out here, she still tries so hard. 

 

Holding Lottie, being held, that’s an indulgence, too. Never linger in one place too long, not her shoulders or eyes or neck. She doesn’t think it matters anymore, but she clings to it all the same.

 

Lottie presses a hand to Jackie’s head, fingers tangling into still messy hair, holding her in place against her. She doesn’t say anything, just takes deep, slow breaths, lets Jackie feel them, her head rising and falling with Lottie’s chest. Lottie knows what it feels like to have loved and lost, now, and as much as it hurts, as much as it will always hurt, she thinks she’ll take the pain over the numbness of before any day.

 

She’ll take an almost over a never . 

 

Her voice is barely there when she whispers, “I love you, too.”

 

The words make Jackie cry, tears trailing down her cheeks as she keeps her face tucked away, against Lottie’s chest, and she still can’t say them back. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. How many dead girls does it take for Jackie Taylor to admit she loves them?

 

One and counting.

 

It doesn’t have to mean anything more than Jackie wants it to. Lottie is okay with whatever, but it’s the truth-- she loves her. Like a friend, like comfort, like a something Lottie has never had in her life before. An anchor, a solid. Something real . Something that brings her back from the dark places her mind can take her. 

 

And she doesn’t need Jackie to say it back. She just pulls her in tighter and holds her and pets a hand softly through her hair, trying to comfort her. She tells her it’s okay. It’s okay. 

 

Jackie cannot say it back, but she tries to make sure Lottie knows as she lets herself be held. She burrows closer, and lets one hand slip up to press against Lottie’s pulse, feeling it underneath her fingertips. Solid, steady. She pulls away enough to glance around the plane, seeing that everyone is asleep. 

 

This time, when Jackie presses her lips to Lottie’s, neither of them have a fever or are in mind numbing pain or are worrying if everything is real. All this can be is real. 

 

At first, Lottie thinks maybe Jackie is going to get up and leave when she pulls away. She worries maybe saying that was too much. Lottie didn’t have a lot of words these days, and even when she did, they didn’t always come out. So when she felt like she could say them, she wanted to. And she felt like she needed Jackie to know. 

 

But Jackie doesn’t move away. She’s so close that Lottie can see the different shades of green and brown in her eyes, despite the darkness around them. She can feel the heat radiating from Jackie’s cheeks, and when Jackie leans down, Lottie goes still. She’s still holding onto Jackie, her hands curled into the fabric of her shirt, and she reflexively tightens her grip, but she doesn’t move otherwise. 

 

Every other time Jackie has done this-- has kissed her-- there was always something else going on. A fever, a bleeding foot, a fire, death looming too close. She wonders if this is real.

 

But this-- this was just them. She can taste Jackie’s salty tears on her lips, taste the lingering flavor of copper. She can’t help it as a soft sigh escapes her lips. She doesn’t understand entirely why Jackie is kissing her, but she’s not going to stop her. Maybe that makes her selfish, but maybe Lottie was turning into a selfish person after all.

 

Jackie doesn’t deepen the kiss much, just gently ghosts her lips against Lottie’s, pressing in softly. She wants more, she thinks, but that’s a kind of indulgence she can’t allow herself. She’s trembling. She’s sure it’s pretty obvious. 

 

The fact that Lottie doesn’t make a move one way or the other makes Jackie a little self conscious, and she pulls away and whispers, “Sorry,” as she leans her head back down. She’s sorry. Sorry for the kiss, sorry she can’t say the words, sorry that she doesn’t understand what’s going on inside her head. 

 

Lottie thinks this is the worst time for her to lose her words. Jackie doesn’t need to be sorry. Lottie can feel her shuddering in her arms, even when she lays back down against her. She doesn’t really know what to do. She curls up a little tighter, as if trying to envelope Jackie, despite the movement making her ribs throb. 

 

She can’t say anything and for the first time, it hurts to not be able to. She shakes her head and hopes Jackie can at least feel the motion, threading her fingers back into Jackie’s hair to comb through it comfortingly. She doesn’t need to be sorry for anything. Not with Lottie. 

 

Letting herself relax into the touch, Jackie still can’t stop crying quietly, a few tears at a time soaking Lottie’s clothes. It doesn’t seem like Lottie minds, at least. Jackie’s grateful to be held. She doesn’t move, just slowly starts relaxing. 

 

“One day, you’re going to say it back,” Shauna whispers in Jackie’s ear. “And you wonder what it means then, too.”

 

Jackie is still holding onto Lottie too tightly by the time she falls asleep.

Notes:

Uh oh, the L word. Or, well, one of them. And another kiss! Hope it's not the last time we see either!

 

As always, thanks so much for reading, guys! We really appreciate kudos and comments, even if we don't always reply back in a timely manner. It brings a lot of joy just to go back and read things all the time. Feel free to hit us up on our social, and see you next week!

Chapter 15: perhaps home is not a place...

Summary:

What a night! Luckily for Jackie, Lottie's not one to kiss and tell, which is good because everyone else is focused on the big move. No u-haul trucks in the wilderness, unfortunately, thought that sure would be helpful.

Notes:

Welcome back! This chapter's a bit longer, but we think it's got more solid set up in it, along with a nice little cliffhanger at the end! Enjoy!

Title comes from James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, with the full quote being, "Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition."

Lottie can’t say that she sleeps much, thoughts racing through her head. That was real. It was real, right? It had to be real. Every time she closed her eyes, she could feel a whisper of Jackie’s lips on hers. When she opened them, it was still dark and Jackie was still laying on her. 

 

Eventually her breathing evened out and she slipped into slumber. Lottie just held her. She couldn’t really think of anything else to do. She didn’t want to do anything else but this. 

 

By the time the sun starts filtering in through the broken windows of the plane, Lottie’s eyes are heavy but still open. She thinks she might’ve slept a little bit, but she can’t really remember. She doesn’t think it matters much at this point. She’ll stay like this until Jackie moves, holding her tight in her arms, even as she begins to hear others waking as well. 

 

It’s a new day and soon they’ll have a new home, but all Lottie can think about is Jackie and how soft her lips were.

 

Everyday, Jackie wakes up being held. She’s gotten used to it. She’s grown really fond of it. She’s always warm, always comfortable. Even when memories start trickling in and she wonders, Why the fuck do I keep doing that?  

 

It’s not a difficult question to answer. She knows why. She’s just… not allowed. Jackie isn’t allowed to feel that way. Fear, stubbornness, guilt. None of it will allow Jackie to feel that way. 

 

So as the plane starts getting ready around them, Jackie shoves herself back into whatever normalcy she’s claimed out there and leans up, smiling at Lottie as she starts to pull away. “I want to check your side before the day gets started,” she murmurs, sitting up.

 

Lottie isn’t sure what she’s expecting when Jackie finally stirs and sits up, but it kind of…wasn’t this. Just acting like everything is normal, like she hadn’t just kissed her last night-- and all those other times. And maybe Lottie should say something, she really thinks she should say something.

 

But her voice has disappeared today. She can’t find it in her. So she just nods up at Jackie and shifts enough to help pull her dress up. The wound looks a little more purple than usual today, having slept partially on her side most of the night, but she doesn’t think it looks worse or infected. Just…painful. As usual.

 

Lottie catches Misty eyeing them out of the corner of her gaze, but the girl turns away quickly and pretends to be busy with something else. Lottie tilts her head but otherwise makes no move to stop her.

 

Jackie frowns at the new discoloration around the wound, knowing that it’s partially, at the very least, her fault, and she resolves not to let Lottie hold her like that again until she’s healed more. She’s gentle as she cleans it, though, careful like she always tries to be. She goes to grab their food, some water, heads back and sits down next to Lottie to eat, and she tries not to think about kisses or tears or that horrible ache in her stomach that feels like lead. She knows what it means. She just does her best to ignore it. 

 

That’s all Jackie can do as she goes about the rest of her day.

 

Most of the girls are busy throughout the day hauling things to the new camp site and continuing to build huts for shelter so that everyone can move in soon. The plane is getting stuffy and with everything so close to finished, everyone feels eager and antsy to just have it be done.

 

Lottie is, of course, the one that stays back. They all elected to have Misty stay back with her, too, and Lottie can tell she’s been watching her all day, as Lottie hobbles about and does her best to help organize piles of things for people to carry. She also keeps the fire going, and has set about cleaning the plane out when she hears footsteps behind her, turning to see Misty staring at her once again.

 

Quirking a brow, Lottie frowns at her.

 

“Sorry,” Misty says, but she doesn’t move. Lottie doesn’t say anything. “I know you’re, like, not talking, but-- can I ask you something?”

 

Surprised, Lottie turns around fully to face her and shrugs, then nods.

 

“Why Jackie?”

 

Lottie is a little taken aback by the question. She sort of doesn’t understand it, her face scrunching at the words, shaking her head as if to ask what she means.

 

“You let me beat you up because you didn’t want me to hurt her, right?” Misty goes on. Slowly, Lottie nods. “And you two are always together. You sleep together, eat together, do everything together. You let her take care of you. Why her?” 

 

Lottie thinks she gets the question now, she just doesn’t have an answer. She looks balefully at Misty, sighing, shaking her head. “Sorry,” she croaks quietly. 

 

Misty doesn’t say anything yet. She just stares, looking unsatisfied. Then, she says, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone she kissed you,” before she walks off.

 

Lottie watches her go with wide eyes, glancing around to make sure there’s no one else there, wary and uncertain of why Misty would say that to her. And why she’d been watching them last night.

 

It takes most of the day and several trips for everything to get moved to the new campsite, but most of the others are starting to get settled in by the time Jackie comes back to grab her and Lottie’s bedding. “I think it’s pretty much ready to move into,” she says, standing close enough to touch as she looks up at Lottie. “We might be living in a construction zone for a few days, but everything’s livable. Think you can make the trip?”

 

Lottie tests her weight, shifting from foot to foot, then looks back at Jackie and nods. She’ll probably need to stop and rest more than once, but the crutch helped shoulder some of her weight, at least. She glances around the plane crash site, noticing how empty it is now. It finally felt like they were actually leaving it behind, moving on. Making something out of nothing. 

 

Lottie catches Misty’s eye again as she comes around the corner, hands full of blankets. She just looks at her knowingly and Lottie turns her head away quickly. “Ready,” she murmurs to Jackie.

 

Jackie is okay to move at Lottie’s pace. She offers up little tips while they walk, pointing out roots or holes, taking Lottie’s elbow and directing her where to go. Whenever they need to stop, she’s more than willing, even if she’s bouncing on her heels to make it there. She just wants to show Lottie the place that, really, she picked out. It’s supposed to be Lottie— and whatever it is out here that Lottie knows— approved, and that’s really important to Jackie. 

 

As they make it through the trees, she says, “Ta-da!” 

 

The little clearing has been transformed. Tai’s still working on things, arguing with Mel near a structure that they plan on turning into storage. Van pops out of one of the three huts in the back gazing over the rest of the camp, and she smiles and waves as she sees Lottie. “Hey, Lott!”

 

It’s better than Lottie could’ve imagined, really. She stops near the edge, where she can see the whole thing, mostly, huts lined in a circle, a communal fire pit in the middle, work areas, logs rolled up for benches, plane seats hauled over, too. Furs and blankets hung around for decoration now that the cold is receding. 

 

Lottie doesn’t realize there’s tears in her eyes until she blinks. She reaches up to scrub them away quickly, looking over at Jackie. “It’s perfect.”

 

Jackie offers her a wide grin. “I mean, it’s not the Ritz, but…”

 

Lottie shakes her head. She realizes this is the first time she’s ever seen something and thought it looked like home. “Perfect,” she repeats quietly.

 

There’s that soft and gooey feeling in her chest again, and Jackie is gentle as she starts tugging Lottie in the direction of their hut. “The one in the middle is ours. There’s a few things in there, but I didn’t know what you might want to add.”

 

Ours . That’s an even stranger feeling for Lottie. She’s never had someone to have an ours with. She grew up alone and kept her distance and made sure she was always just a one , just her’s . Now she was standing outside of a small hut built from moss and trees and mud, and it was an ours and it was home . 

 

She can’t help the way her face crumples a little, quickly hiding it behind her arm as she scrubs at her face and hobbles inside. 

 

The little window facing the camp was Lottie’s idea when they were talking with Tai about what they wanted the damn thing to look like. Jackie has dug numerous splinters out while helping to construct this thing because of course she had to help, and of course she complained the entire time, especially when she wasn’t allowed an ax or a knife to help with anything. But it was done, at least. 

 

Jackie goes in through the little side door and moves to set down and start arranging their bed, setting down the blankets and pillows and arranging them neatly. “Good?” she asks. 

 

Lottie looks down at Jackie as she spreads their bed out. “Good,” she answers, not really bothering to hide the way her voice cracks. She’s trying to say more, she wants to say more, for Jackie. She wants to talk to her, she thinks that maybe they need to talk about things.

 

But right now, she just wants to bask in the idea of a place that actually feels safe. Not just from the elements, but from herself.

 

When she stands, Jackie stares at Lottie for only a second before she moves to wrap her arms around her. She doesn’t quite know what Lottie is thinking, feeling, but she looks overwhelmed. Maybe not in a bad way, like she’s happy and not sure what to do with that. Jackie thinks she understands. 

 

Lottie doesn’t mean to breakdown, really, but as soon as Jackie’s arms wrap around her, it’s like everything she’s been holding back suddenly comes flooding out. The dam breaks and she’s sinking to her knees and crying into Jackie’s neck, and she can’t honestly explain why she’s crying, but it’s happening, and even if she doesn’t make much sound with it (she’s never made a lot of noise, she tried really hard growing up to make sure she was as quiet as possible so that when she would cry in her room, her parents wouldn’t think it was from her illness), it wracks her whole body.

 

“Hey,” Jackie coos, lowering them as slowly as she can and moving to pet her fingers through Lottie’s hair. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” And it wasn’t just about the fact that she was going to be okay. It’s okay for Lottie to cry. Jackie wants to make sure she knows that. Jackie will never judge her, never be upset with her, for crying. Honestly, it seems like Lottie needs it, so Jackie just holds her and comforts her as best as she can, and she hopes it’s enough.

 

Lottie doesn’t have enough energy or strength to hold herself as she sags against Jackie, grateful she’s there to catch her, hold her. She’s never really let herself cry like this, not even after Laura Lee died. She’d made herself numb, instead, it’s what she always did, afraid to show too much emotion, afraid it would scare people away or make them think she was spiraling again. 

 

It terrified her for the longest time.

 

And it still did, out there. Even just beyond the walls of this hut, it scared her to let people see her this way. But here? Inside this place, wrapped up in Jackie’s arms? Lottie wasn’t afraid anymore. 

 

And so she cried, until her chest throbbed with it and her tears ran dry. 

 

“It feels like home,” she finally says, her voice raspy from all the tears.

 

Jackie holds Lottie through her tears, rubbing small circles against her back. She doesn’t pull away when Lottie stops, either, just keeps holding her. 

 

This place, the hut and the camp in the middle of the forest, doesn’t quite feel like home to Jackie, but nowhere really has, if she’s being honest. Not the room in a too large house in New Jersey, not the cabin, not the plane. The closest she’s gotten is a little attic bedroom with lights around the edges, pictures of saints and sinners tucked into a mirror. 

 

But this feels close to that. Not the place, but the girl in her arms. Jackie doesn’t know what to do with that. She doesn’t know how to feel. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “You picked out a good place.”

 

After a moment, Lottie pulls back enough so that she can see Jackie’s face, but she keeps her arms around her, clinging to her in a way that’s unfamiliar to Lottie. It’s desperate and needy, things she had avoided being. Somehow, she’s ended up feeling both of those for Jackie. It’s probably not a good thing. She doesn’t know what it is, because Jackie keeps kissing her and they haven’t talked about it and she thinks maybe they should talk about it.

 

She opens her mouth to speak, but a voice from outside calls for them. “Hey, Jackie, Lott, you guys in there? Nat wants to have everyone get together now that we’rea ll here,” Van calls in, standing by the little circular window in the front of the hut.

 

She leans down to peer through it. “You guys decent?” she teases, fire-orange hair spilling over one shoulder.

 

Another time, Jackie might have jumped away at the sound of another voice, but that just doesn’t seem necessary out here, not when they’re like this. She glances away from Lottie to where Van peaks in, rolling her eyes at Van’s comment. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll be out in a minute.” She turns back to Lottie, her eyes soft. “If you want to.”

 

By the time Jackie looks back at her, she’s already second guessing herself. Maybe bringing it up was a bad idea, maybe Jackie just did it because she thought that’s what Lottie wanted, or she was just happy Lottie was talking. She worried, again, that saying something might scare Jackie off, and Lottie has just found a home , a place to feel safe , she can’t lose that now.

 

So she just presses her lips together in a thin smile and nods. It’ll probably be good, too, for them all to be together again. She assumes Natalie will have some instructions for them all, too, about what needs to happen next and a new chore rotation.

 

It’s important they go. She reaches up between them to scrub at her face again, trying to wipe away the puffiness she can feel in her eyes. “Okay.”

 

Jackie uses her sleeve to wipe off Lottie’s face, standing on her toes to get a little closer to her face. “Okay,” she agrees. As the two of them head out, Jackie stays by Lottie’s side as they gather with the rest of the group.

 

Lottie chooses to leave the crutch behind, since they were only walking a few feet, and she leans on Jackie instead. They've all gathered around the new communal fire pit, with Mari already setting up the pot and pan for dinner later. She glances around at all of them, and she can already tell they all seem so much lighter, happier. Relaxed. They aren't worried when their next meal is gonna be, they're just worried about how they want to decorate their hut. It's a nice thing to see. 

 

Natalie comes out of her own little hut and stops near Jackie and Lottie. “I'd say we did a pretty bang up job, yeah?”

 

“It’s not bad,” Jackie agrees. In truth, it’s pretty incredible, and she wonders if Nat knows just how amazing that is. Jackie knows she couldn’t have led these girls to do this. She couldn’t have made anything like this happen. She would have led them all to their doom. Nat has allowed them to start flourishing, though. They’re not out of the woods (maybe they never will be), but they’ve got something , and that’s so much more than they had.

 

Natalie gives enough of a smile at the two of them, before she steps up towards the center and clears her throat, trying to get everyone’s attention. Lottie watches them all, chattering among themselves or poking away at things around camp. A few of them turn at Natalie’s insistence, but not quite everyone, and Lottie can sense Natalie’s growing anxiety. She’s good at leading, but she’s not always the best at asserting herself in front of groups, Lottie’s seen it before.

 

“Listen,” Lottie barks loudly and suddenly everyone freezes what they’re doing, even Natalie. Lottie just smiles. “Natalie.”

 

Jackie was planning to whistle to get the team’s attention, but her eyes widen as Lottie speaks, her voice loud and clear. Her mouth is open as she looks at Lottie with more than a little bit of awe, and she takes her hand, squeezing it gently before lacing their fingers together.

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand back but doesn’t say anything more.

 

Natalie finally recovers, blinking rapidly then turning to face the others. “Yeah, yeah, so-- I guess I just wanted to say, I mean, look at what we did, right?” she gestures to the place they’ve built, together. Lottie understands how she feels. Natalie never really had a home, either.

 

All the others glance around as well, nodding and smiling to themselves. 

 

“When we work together, we can do anything,” Natalie continues, trying her best to be motivational. She’s never been good at that and she glances at Jackie, shrugging. “And with having a new place, I think we ought to consider assigning, like, jobs. Obviously chore rotation for little things can stay, but I think, if we wanna run this place more efficiently, it’s better if we have people doing certain things, right? Like, Melissa--” she turns to her, gesturing-- “you’re the butcher, right? You should really only have to focus on that.” 

 

Melissa, for her part, nods. Of course she doesn’t want to pick up extra duties.

 

“We can sort of, assign stuff based on skill, right? Tai is good at the whole building stuff and chopping the wood, so that can be her job, like that?” 

 

Tai shrugs. “Sure, sure. Make the handy lesbian do all the hard labor.”

 

Natalie rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.” She folds her arms over her chest. “So, let’s figure out what we need to have done around here and start, like figuring shit out. Anybody got any ideas? We’ll need constant water supply, but we’re close to the river for that. Clothes washing, maybe now that things are growing again berry and plant pickers, that sorta shit.”

 

Lottie tilts her head and watches, she tries to think of what she can contribute around camp. She doesn’t really know, though. She’s sort of useless.

 

Jackie has more than proven herself to be the most useless member in the wilderness, so she’s a little fucked, but at least there’s no shit bucket out here. She supposes getting resigned to water duty won’t be awful. “Mari’s been in charge of cooking for months, so I don’t see why that has to change, especially since she made a belt almost edible,” Jackie says.

 

“I don’t mind cooking,” Mari agrees. “As long as you bitches bring me food. Hopefully, since it gets warmer, we might have some variety.” Her eyes brighten. “I can try to make berry wine again.”

 

Lottie grimaces at the mention of berry wine. 

 

Natalie nods. “Yeah, definitely. Okay, see? This is how we’re gonna do things. We can figure out everything as we go along, right? As we keep figuring things out.” She’s got a bigger smile on her face now, as everything seems to fall into place. “Alright, well…that’s kinda it. Guess we can all just relax till dinner is ready? Enjoy uh, enjoy our new housing. And…we’re gonna be okay,” Natalie tacks on, making sure to look at them all, “we’re gonna get through this.”

 

Lottie glances over at Jackie, then. She wonders what the two of them will end up doing. She thinks Jackie might be good at organizing everyone, keeping the chore list rotation in check. All Lottie is really good for is, well, things they don’t need from her anymore. 

 

Really, the only person who needs Lottie anymore is Jackie. And if she loses that, Lottie doesn’t know what she’d do. She can’t lose her.

 

“I feel like I’ve got a lifetime of fetching water coming for me in the near future,” Jackie mumbles, sighing as she meets Lottie’s eyes before offering her a smile. “You wanted to do up a garden, right? I remember you adding that to the first little layout.”

 

Lottie nods. She thinks it might be nice, and she’s always liked playing in the dirt, even as a kid. Her parents hated it, especially her mom. Still, she doesn’t know if that counts as anything really productive. She tugs on Jackie’s hand, though, motions towards their hut. She’d rather go sit in there and figure things out. She’s growing tired and her ribs are sore, and she doesn’t want the others to see how weak she’s become, and she certainly doesn’t want them to see her cry if she ends up breaking down again. 

 

It feels a little pathetic, really.

 

“Okay,” Jackie says, offering Lottie a smile as they head in through the side. She moves to help Lottie sit down gently onto the pallet before looking around their new space. The window is actually kind of nice, and it makes the whole place seem a little more open. Jackie can see some of the other girls milling around, arguing about where they might break off into groups. She watches Nat go over to a few of them, arms crossed over her chest, and Jackie can’t help but giggle a little at how stern Nat is trying to seem. She thinks Nat’s got this, though. She was the best choice.

 

Once she’s sitting, Lottie deflates a little and leans back against the wall of their hut, lifting a hand to rub her ribs where they ache. She’d kill for an ice pack or something to help dull the pain. 

 

Her gaze follows Jackie’s outside after a minute, watching everyone meander around, talking to each other, gathering up supplies, fixing little parts of their huts up. Van seems to be eagerly decorating her and Tai’s place, hanging up blankets as curtains and anything they don’t need immediately as some sort of decoration on the outside of their hut. Lottie thinks maybe she’ll go out sometime and gather some nice looking flowers for her and Jackie’s hut, she thinks that might look nice. 

 

If she’s lucky, she’ll find some old shedded antlers, too. She’s always liked the look of them.

 

“They look happy,” she says to Jackie, though her voice is still quiet and raspy from lack of use.

 

“I think the weather is really improving everyone’s moods,” Jackie says softly, moving to reach out for Lottie’s hand. “And the food. And the fact that no one’s actively dying.” Her fingers trace over the mark on Lottie’s palm, her own matching. “It’s nicer here. Ours. Not some dead guy’s. Not some fucked up plane. Just… ours. I guess it’s pretty nice.”

 

Lottie’s eyes become glued to watching Jackie’s fingers trace over the cut on her palm, circling around the lines in her skin there. Lottie remembers going to a festival, once, and an older looking lady, dressed in silks and shawls and too much make up, had taken her hand and run her fingers over the lines of her palm. Dark, flickering eyes traced the patterns of her life. 

 

You’re destined for great things , she had said.

 

Lottie, just a kid, had cried and run back to her mother. 

 

“Just ours,” Lottie repeats out loud. She’s trying hard to say more, at least to Jackie. Even if it’s only a few words at a time. She closes her hand around Jackie’s. “I…” she starts, stops. She doesn’t really know how to say it. She doesn’t know if she even should anymore. 

 

Instead, she just lets out a breath and gives Jackie a weary smile. “I’m tired.”

 

“We can probably lay down for a bit before dinner if you want,” Jackie says, tugging on Lottie before deciding to just scoot closer herself. She’s tired, too. It’s been a really long day, and she could probably just go to sleep, dinner completely irrelevant. But she knows Lottie still needs to eat, which means that Jackie needs to eat, at least some.

 

Lottie nods, she’d like that. She just wants to rest for today, tomorrow will bring something new, she thinks. Tomorrow will be better. 

 

Tomorrow, they’ll wake up to a real home and a real world of their own. She lays herself down slowly, letting out a long breath again, eyes already closing. She reaches for Jackie, urging her to lay down with her, to get closer to her. She wanted to hold her, or be held, in this place that was theirs. In a place that felt safe.

 

Jackie is happy to move even closer, wrapping her arms around Lottie to hold her close. She lays down and turns just enough to look around them, at the hut, out the little window. She listens to the sounds coming from outside, some of it still distorted, confusing. She’s adjusting to only having one ear. At least, she thinks she is. It still feels strange, and it’s nothing like before, but nothing is.

 

But Lottie’s there, and Lottie matters. Lottie’s gone from being the only thing that matters to the most important thing. Jackie’s trying to care again. She’s trying to care about her girls, her team, her life. She cares about Lottie the most; she knows this. She thinks everyone does, though it makes Jackie wary. It’s hard to be too self-conscious, though, as she presses her nose against Lottie’s collarbone and sighs. “I’m happy you’re here, Lottie,” she says softly.

 

Lottie moves her arms enough to wrap around Jackie and pull her into her, finding that same, warm comfort she always does like this. It’s the first time she’s felt like this, comfortable in someone’s arms, comfortable with someone this close to her. She knows, somewhere in her mind, that this could’ve been a different girl in her arms, one with golden blonde hair and ocean blue eyes.

 

But she also knows she’s gone, and nothing will bring her back. Just like Shauna, just like Javi.

 

She thinks she can let herself have this. After all she’s lost, after all she never got to have, she likes to think she can have this. 

 

“I’ll always be here,” Lottie murmurs back, face pressed to the top of Jackie’s head.

 

“Promise?” Jackie asks.

 

Near them, she can hear the sound of a pencil scraping against paper. “Pinky promise?” Shauna asks, her voice lazy, amused.

 

“Promise,” Lottie sighs, her voice breathy, tired. But she promises. She’ll do anything Jackie asks, anything Jackie wants. It should scare her, but it doesn’t. She wants it. She wants it badly.

 

Jackie nods and closes her eyes. That’s all she wants. She believes Lottie. She thinks that she believes in Lottie more than anyone in the world. Jackie trusts her. She’s thinking about that as she drifts off to sleep.

 

Lottie is awoken having not realized she’d fallen asleep when she hears someone calling out to her from behind the curtain that acts as their door. 

 

“Hey, Lott, Jackie?” It’s Natalie’s voice. “Dinner’s ready.” 

 

Groaning a little, Lottie stirs, moving her head enough to squint through the darkness of their hut and towards the door. She can smell the scent of cooked venison floating around the camp and it makes her stomach rumble. Maybe she hadn’t done as much work as everyone else that day, but her body isn’t used to so much activity and she’s trying to take it slow, no matter how antsy she feels. 

 

She rubs her eyes, sits up enough to motion to Natalie that they’ll be out soon. Natalie just nods and heads off, the crunching of her boots retreating towards the fire. 

 

Lottie finds herself looking down at Jackie, her face just barely illuminated by what little firelight trickles through their window, and Lottie thinks she looks a little bit like an angel, her hair messy, body relaxed, curled around Lottie. 

 

She finds herself wanting to lean down and kiss her, but Lottie resists the temptation and lifts a hand to brush some stray bangs from Jackie’s face. “Dinner,” she mumbles to her.

 

Jackie feels like she barely got to sleep when she’s being woken up again, blinking up at Lottie slowly. “Huh?” she groans, processing the word, her brain still foggy with sleep. She finally gets it, unable to look away from Lottie’s face, and nods mechanically. Dinner. They need to get up and go to dinner. She needs to get up. 

 

How important is dinner right now, anyway? Jackie wonders, but she also knows that she’s hungry, and, when Lottie’s stomach is loud enough for her to hear, she knows she’s not the only one. Jackie huffs out a laugh and sits up, running a hand through her hair. “Dinner,” she agrees, moving to stand and help Lottie up.

 

Lotti thinks that maybe she’d be okay not eating and just staying here, staring down at Jackie. 

 

But then Jackie is moving and standing up and Lottie shifts, taking her hands and standing slowly, feeling her body struggle and tremble with the effort. Her legs shake even after she’s done standing and she feels a little pathetic again. 

 

She takes Jackie’s hand and heads towards the fire pit, taking her time as each step has her legs buckling. When they reach the others, who are already handing out food, Lottie sinks onto one of the chairs, relieved. 

 

“You’re doing really well,” Jackie says quietly, sitting at Lottie’s feet and looking up at her. “You’re only going to have to move one more time, and then we’ll be able to sleep.” She takes one of the plates as it’s handed out and a cup of water, drinking quickly first, letting the water soothe her throat.

 

Lottie takes the plate Mari hands her, smiling at her. Mari smiles back before moving on. Lottie sets the plate on her lap, taking the cup of water that was set down by her and sipping it. She gives Jackie another nod before she begins to pick at her food. Her gaze is drawn to the fire, though, after a moment, listening to it crackle.

 

She closes her eyes and lets the noise of it fill her ears. She strains, she wants to hear something else in it, she wants to hear It. 

 

But she can’t. 

 

She opens her eyes again and looks down at Jackie. Is this the trade, then? Her ability to communicate with the Wilderness for Jackie? Lottie pushes a piece of meat around on her plate. 

 

She thinks it’s a trade she’ll take.

 

Jackie chooses to actually eat all of her food tonight, fast enough that she doesn’t think about it too hard before she’s finishing her water and laying her head back against Lottie’s leg. She can hear the chatter of the others around them. Britt and Akilah are talking about decorations for the hut, and Gen is mentioning a deer skull she found, offering it up to Nat to put outside of her doorway. It’s a little morbid, but Jackie thinks it will look good. She used to have big opinions on how to decorate things, like dorm rooms and lockers, but that seems so far away now.

 

Right now, Jackie just wants to close her eyes, loosely wrapping a hand around Lottie’s leg and resting her head against her thigh.

 

Lottie takes her time eating, savoring each bite. Almost subconsciously, like muscle memory, one of her hands goes down to pet through Jackie’s hair as she watches the others. She likes how calm they all seem, how relaxed. How they’re talking about decorating and making new clothes, building different structures, like a shed, and a place for storage. 

 

After a moment, she says to Jackie, “We should decorate.”

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch, humming. “Yeah?” Dorm rooms. Plans that she made, plans that she made without consulting the person she was supposed to be sharing them with. “How… How would you like to decorate?”

 

Lottie looks up at the sky, then around them, then back to their hut, then to Jackie. “Plants,” she says with a quiet finality, “life.”

 

Looking up at Lottie, Jackie offers up a tired smile. “Sure, we can have some plants. Maybe get a little planter. You’re totally responsible for them, though. I think I’ve got the opposite of a green thumb. I killed my mother’s impatiens twice.” Granted, her mother didn’t plant them, and their untimely deaths were more Jeff’s fault than Jackie’s but still.

 

Lottie nods. She hasn’t finished all her food but she’s growing weary again. The others are still talking animatedly with each other, taking their time, actually enjoying the night and themselves. Lottie wants to join them, but she also feels like something is holding her back, even if that something might be herself. 

 

She pets her hand through Jackie’s hair, matching her smile, before cradling her chin. She nods again, she thinks she can do that.

 

Jackie hums and closes her eyes. Plants. Life. A home in a hut in the middle of the woods. Lottie. After the winter, it seems too good to be true, but it’s real. This is real. It’s nice, too, listening to the others, her Yellowjackets, buzz around and laugh and chat with each other around the fire. She might not be their captain anymore, but she was, once. She still sees them as the girls she’s always known, always cared about. After feeling dead inside and hurt for so long, it feels good to recognize them. Jackie traces patterns over Lottie’s leg with slow, lazy fingers.

 

As happy as Lottie is about everyone else finally being able to open up and enjoy this, nothing makes her happier than when she looks down and sees Jackie smiling about it, too. For her girls, for Lottie, for herself. She looks alive again. Really alive, for the first time since they crashed, really. It was easy to see how much Jackie had deteriorated, especially once they left the plane. 

 

That was the first time they all betrayed her.

 

Lottie had wanted to stay, but her reasons were different. She didn’t think they were going to be rescued, no, she was afraid to leave because that meant facing the fact that she was going to lose herself. If they stayed, at least she could pretend.

 

She thinks that, even if the cabin felt haunted, felt like it was devouring them alive, it was a good thing they left in the end, though. Everything happens for a reason, Lottie truly believes that out here.

 

After another few minutes, Lottie tugs lightly on Jackie’s shirt, nodding towards the hut. She doesn’t want to disturb any of the others, but she’s too tired to stay here. Jackie can stay, if she wants, but Lottie thinks she wants to be where she can hear her own thoughts more clearly.

 

Stiffly, she starts to stand, legs still shaking as she does, muscles straining from decay and lack of use. It’s embarrassing, Lottie used to be one of the fastest and strongest on the team. She had a lot to make up for in the coming months.

 

Blinking her eyes open, Jackie nods and gets to her feet, offering to support Lottie as she moves. “Night, guys,” she says, waving at the rest of the team before she and Lottie head back to their hut. 

 

When she helps Lottie lay down, Jackie moves to help pull up Lottie’s dress so that she can check her wound, nodding to herself as she checks it over. “You’re healing a lot better.”

 

Lottie would be lying if she’d said she wasn’t happy Jackie decided to come with her. She drops heavily to the ground, relieved, her aching body having grown tired long ago. Jackie moves to pull her dress up, but this time, Lottie simply reaches down and pulls the whole thing off, leaving her in just her bra. The weather has started to warm up, even at night, and inside the hut, there’s a warmth that neither the cabin nor the plane could capture-- like a warmth suspended just inside for them. Something that wasn’t going to go away with a gust of wind or an extinguished fire.

 

She reaches down and undoes her shoes, tossing them aside, before glancing down at her ribs. It does seem to be healing, it looks as if the wound might actually be scarring over finally. Which means the stitches will probably fall out soon. She smiles at Jackie then lays back onto their bedding and furs. Since Lottie took the time to sew up the deer pelt, they’re letting her use this first one. She’s excited to make more things for the others, too, as they gather more pelts and supplies. 

 

She closes her eyes momentarily while Jackie cleans her side and listens to the village murmuring around them, their quiet laughter, the burning fire, the whispering of a breeze in the leaves outside.

 

She thinks it all sounds so peaceful. 

 

When she opens her eyes, she finds Jackie looking down at her and she tilts her head curiously but doesn’t say anything, just observing her instead.

 

Fuck , Jackie thinks. That’s a lot of skin. Just a lot, an unseemly amount, there’s so much Lottie and so much skin. Close, too! Very close, right there that Jackie can just reach out and touch. She’s obligated to, really, since she and Lottie cuddle every night and have for months. 

 

Jackie tries to stay focused on the wound, but there’s only so much she can do before her eyes dart back up to meet Lottie’s. It’s so much skin. It makes her throat dry, a little. So close. Jackie’s barely ever allowed herself to look, much less touch. It’s only going to get warmer. There’s going to end up being more skin. 

 

As it is, Jackie looks away, knowing that her cheeks are hot, and she starts taking off her jacket, a flannel, though she leaves on her striped sweatshirt. She’ll say she’s still cold if asked. Truthfully, she feels a little feverish. She moves to lay down beside Lottie, resting her head on her shoulder and wrapping her arms around her waist, trying not to think about her boobs and she closes her eyes and attempts normalcy.

 

Once Jackie settles in, Lottie wraps her arms around Jackie like she always does and pulls her in close, letting her eyes drift closed. The cool air feels nice on her skin, Lottie’s always run warm, and the fabric of Jackie’s sweater feels soft against her bare skin. 

 

It all almost feels normal. 

 

And with how content and serene Lottie feels, it’s easy for her to fall into a fast and deep slumber, exhausted from the day, her healing body still working over time. She falls into a dream about a pretty girl with big, sparkling eyes, but they’re not blue anymore. They’re hazel swirls that contain every color of green and brown across the spectrum. 

 

Lottie thinks they’re beautiful.

 

Jackie has incredibly normal dreams. Mostly because she doesn’t have any dreams at all. This has something to do with the fact that she lays awake for way too long, listening to the sound of Lottie’s breathing and feeling a warm body, partially unclothed, wrapped around her own. 

 

So. Yeah. She doesn’t sleep that much. She finally drifts off only to be woken up far too soon to the sound of people waking up and walking around outside. With a quiet groan, Jackie pulls herself to sit up, blinking sleep out of her eyes, and plans to start the day. 

 

She can already tell that it’s going to be a long one.

 

Lottie stirs when she feels Jackie moving, her eyes opening slowly, still heavy with sleep. She moves one hand to rub at her eyes, smiling up at Jackie. “Morning,” she says to her, voice lofty, and it feels oddly routine, even if it’s been over a week since Lottie has really talked much. She tries more each day. Some days, she can’t find anything to say, but she still tries.

 

Lottie’s a fucking angel, and she’s so pretty as she looks up at Jackie, her hair spread out around her, a soft smile on her lips, her voice rough with sleep, that it makes Jackie’s chest hurt, her stomach warm. 

 

So much skin. Jesus. Jackie’s trying to keep her eyes on Lottie’s face as she smiles. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”

 

Lottie tilts her head slightly, looking back up at Jackie. “Better,” she tells her quietly. Words still feel strange in her throat, but she lets them pass with ease knowing it’s just her and Jackie in here. She can hear others stirring about around the camp, but in here, it’s just them. 

 

Lottie moves herself to sit, then, a slight shiver running up her spine as she does so and she reaches down to rub the wound on her side, her messy hair spilling over one shoulder as she tries to look at it. “Mostly.” 

 

Better is good. Jackie stops herself from lingering too much on Lottie’s chest as she moves closer and checks her side, her own finger ghosting over it and making sure it’s healing alright, that it’s not swollen or too red. She feels herself shiver as well, and she asks, “are you cold?” Even though Jackie herself feels anything but. There’s a tightness in her chest and stomach that makes her want to jerk forward and smack their lips together and run her hands all over Lottie’s skin, her stomach, her back, her sides, her chest. 

 

She refrains. Jackie’s never done anything like that. All the slumber party makeouts in the world wouldn’t prepare her for it. Instead, she reaches out to brush her fingers through Lottie’s hair, significantly safer to touch, she hopes. 

 

Lottie shakes her head. “No, just…” She stops, though, because she doesn’t actually have an answer. So she just makes a noise of discontent before shrugging. With her wound healing now, there’s really no need for Jackie to keep checking it, but Lottie knows she will. And she maybe kind of wants her to, because she likes the feel of Jackie’s fingers brushing against the skin of her side. She thinks she would like it if Jackie touched her skin in other places, too, but her heart pounds at the thought and Lottie swallows it back heavily. 

 

Lottie does let Jackie comb her fingers through her hair, leaning into the touch unconsciously, like second hand nature. She hums, low in her throat, and lets out a long breath from her nose. “Sleep okay?” she asks.

 

No, Jackie slept like shit. She offers a smile and continues to brush her fingers through Lottie’s hair, working through some of the tangles. “Yeah, I did. It’s nice in here. Better than the plane for sure.”

 

Lottie agrees and she nods to show it, though she’s having a hard time concentrating on anything other than the feel of Jackie’s hands in her hair. Another shiver runs through her and she becomes very keenly aware of the fact that she still doesn’t have a shirt on. Would it be weird to say something? She sort of doesn’t want to move. “It’s…quiet,” she offers. “I like that.” 

 

And it was private. She liked that, too.

 

“The lack of Mari snores is amazing,” Jackie agrees, and, honestly, if she just focuses on the task at hand of systematically getting as many tangled as possible out of Lottie’s hair, she’s totally fine. She just can’t think about anything else or move her eyes or move her hands or move any part of her own body at all. She just can’t do that. Which is fine. This is super fine.

 

Lottie gives an airy chuckle, light on her tongue. It was nice, and she felt a little bad for whoever was sharing a bunk with Mari. Probably Akilah. Poor thing. Lottie glanced back over her shoulder at Jackie, a lax smile on her face, eyes still sleepy. 

 

She thinks maybe she could stay like this all day, but the moment she hears footsteps approaching, she knows who it is.

 

“Jackie!” Natalie calls from outside their hut. “Wake up, we need help deciding where to put the meat shed and butcher table.”

 

Lottie lets out an annoyed sigh but she’s still smiling as she shakes her head. This is just business as usual, she supposes.

 

“I’m awake!” Jackie calls back, trying not to groan as she moves away from Lottie, reaching for Shauna’s jacket and the little cloak that Lottie made her and putting them both on. She looks back at Lottie, careful not to let her eyes linger anywhere for too long. It’s like sharing a locker room again, and Jackie Taylor has the self control of a fucking monk. “See you around?” she asks, and there’s something rather pleasant about the thought they, most likely, they’ll both be around camp all day.

 

Lottie watches Jackie stand and pull on her jacket and the cloak. It makes something warm swirl in her chest and she nods at Jackie. “Yeah.” She’ll get up soon, she just needs a minute more to gather her energy. 

 

Nat starts to peek in, but Jackie quickly pushes her out, making sure the little curtain stays closed to their hut as she goes out, casting one last look back to Lottie before she starts chatting with Nat. “Probably somewhere shady, for both. The shed’s gotta be cool, right? Otherwise the meat will get gross. How do we go about fucking… I don’t know, preserving shit? So that, if we do get low, we have food to fall back on. That needs to be a, uh, priority. Maybe putting them both on the river side? Closer to water to clean blood away so that we don’t attract bugs and bears and shit.”

 

Nat stumbles back as Jackie pushes her and she raises a brow, looking past her shoulder to the hut as the curtain falls closed. “Shade, yeah, that’s a good idea. Akilah wants to try and see if we can, like, get animals to keep. Smaller ones, rabbits, maybe some ducks, I think there’s, like, groundhogs or something out here? Deer obviously would be too much. So maybe we find a place that fits all of those?” She walks along, bring Jackike back over to where Tai, Melissa and Akilah are discussing things.

 

Lottie waits until Nat and Jackie’s voices recede before she starts shifting. She decides to pull off her pants, which were getting dirty and grimy from her wearing them so much while laying around. Instead, she digs through their pile of clothes and finds a pair of flowery tights, tugging them on-- with some effort-- and Laura Lee’s other dress, the one Jackie had saved for her.

 

She hesitates a moment, her fingers brushing along the fabric. “I miss you,” she whispers as she picks up the dress, pressing it to her chest. “I’ll always miss you.” But it didn’t matter how much she missed her, Laura Lee was gone, and Lottie knew she wouldn’t have wanted her to mourn her forever. Taking in a deep breath, Lottie pulls the dress over her head before she uses the side of the hut to stand, legs only shaking a little with the weight of her body.

 

She grabs her cloak and slides it on, tying it closed before grabbing the crutch and making her way outside. Mari is by the fire as usual, lazily stirring around pieces of meat to cook while water boils. 

 

Lottie decides to join her, hobbling over and sinking down onto the seat next to her while Mari turns to look at her. “Hey, Lottie,” she greets, “you wanna help me make the broth? I’m getting tired of pine needles, that shit’s gonna be in my mouth forever I think.” She points the wooden spatula they managed to save over to a pile of greens near the fire. “Those are our choices. Leaf, other leaf, weird looking leaf…it’s quite the variety.”

 

“Rabbits. Great,” Jackie mumbles, reminded of her mother and the little rabbit gifts she’d gotten over the years, being compared to bunnies all her life, something small and soft and sweet. Something made to be hunted. “Okay, I think Lottie wants to put a garden over…” she turns and motions towards an area, “there? Maybe we could put the animal pen near there, but that also feels like a recipe for fucking disaster if the little assholes get out and start munching.”

 

“Could probably put them near wherever we set up the butcher’s table and the meat shed for easy access,” Melissa muses, causing Akilah to shoot her a look. Melissa shrugs. “What? I’m just saying!”

 

Tai looks like she’s already been dealing with this for too long. “If we’re putting up pens and gardens, we might want to think about some sort of barrier around the camp? A trench, maybe a fence. Now that we’re a lot more in the elements, we can’t just close a door and deter animals from getting in.”

 

Jackie glances over at where Lottie’s joined Mari near the fire, watching her with soft eyes.

 

Lottie can feel a gaze on her as she sorts through the plants Mari has collected and she lifts her head, turning to see Jackie. She just smiles at her before she goes back to sorting, handing over the ones she thinks will go good together as Mari tosses them in.

 

Natalie nods, rubbing her chin. “I think a fence would be easier than a trench, we don’t have any good way to dig shit up, really. Not that much, at least.” 

 

“Maybe the garden should be closer to the river, since it’ll need water daily,” Akilah suggests. “I know Lottie wanted it around here, but it might be better a little ways out?”

 

Tai and Natalie nod while Melissa shifts from foot to foot. “Well, okay, then we keep the animal pen closer to the village? So we can keep an eye on them, make sure nothing else eats ‘em before we do? And the table, like, behind it?”

 

Natalie thinks for a moment, glancing over at the suggested area, then back. Frowning as she finds Jackie staring off, she snaps in front of her face. “Jackie, pay attention. What do you think?”

 

Jackie’s gotten really good at multitasking over the years. Sorry, Nat. She doesn’t roll her eyes, though, which is a really good testament to her self-control. “It’s going to depend on whether or not you want to smell animal shit all day long, if you want it close to the village. Cleaning that’s probably going to have to be one of the revolving chores. Nobody wants to get stuck with it, and I don’t think there’s much skills in shoveling shit, but if that’s something we wanna do, somebody’s gonna have to do it.” 

 

She tries to think about ways that would make this whole thing look good while still making sense. “We could put them both on the river side but with some space between them? Maybe storage or even the meat shed. Close to the village, but a garden and animals both need water, right?”

 

Natalie thinks on it a moment. “Okay, let’s have a vote. By the river, raise your hands.” 

 

Tai raises her hand and so does Natalie. Melissa crosses her arms. “That’s, like, so far away from everything,” she grumbles.

 

“What do you think they’re talking about over there?” Mari nudges Lottie, gesturing with her chin to the group gathered around the back of the camp. 

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything, just looks at Mari and shrugs, which earns her an eye roll.

 

“How long are you gonna be like this? Not talking? I mean, c’mon, none of us are gonna judge you for stuff,” Mari says nonchalantly, as if all of them hadn’t called her crazy or weird after she’d first started getting visions and dreams.

 

Lottie frowns but still doesn’t say anything.

 

“Is it, like, a thing for the Wilderness or whatever? Did it, like, tell you to stop talking?” Mari presses, chin in her palm.

 

Lottie furrows her brow and looks over at Mari, the annoyance clear on her face.

 

That doesn’t stop Mari, though. “Is it like an act of rebellion kinda thing? Since the Wilderness, like, chose Nat or whatever? I mean, Nat’s probably a good choice. We built the village and shit with her guidance. Don’t think that coulda happened otherwise, you know?” 

 

Lottie gets it. She was a bad leader. She stuffs the last of the green over at Mari before she’s standing up and hobbling away, towards the forest edge.

 

“Hey, wait, Lottie! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it like that!” Mari calls after her but stays put at her station by the fire.

 

Jackie raises her hand and tries to look on the bright side of things. “It won’t be that far. No more than a trek to the shed in the cold. Plus, the bit of distance will keep the village clean, and , I mean, you’re probably not going to have to be the one always getting the animals, right? A lot of the time, they’re going to be brought to you, Mel.” 

 

She watches Mari and Lottie, sees the way that Mari says something that’s probably so Mari and makes Lottie storm off (or, as much as she can). Jackie frowns, and digs around in her bag, pulling out the notebook and pencil she’s been using. “Here’s the layout we have so far. Think about what we’ve talked about and where to put things. I’ll be back in a sec.”

 

Jogging over to Lottie, Jackie stops next to her and glances in her direction before looking away and putting her hands in her pockets. “So, how far did Mari shove her foot in her mouth this time? Just the toes, or did she manage the whole thing?”

 

“Jackie--” Nat starts, but she’s already jogging off. So she just huffs and takes the notebook and drawing. “Alright, let’s go figure this shit out, then I guess.” She motions for Tai, Melissa and Akilah to follow her off towards the river and they all shuffle off.

 

Lottie was just heading to go forage for more plants, and maybe some berries, when she hears Jackie walk up beside her. She glances over at her but doesn’t stop walking. Sighing maybe a little over dramatically, she’s annoyed and she doesn’t like feeling that way. “The whole thing,” she mutters under her breath. 

 

She stops by a prickly looking bush and sifts carefully around the thorns, finding a few seeds still hanging on. She pops them off and pockets them before she starts moving again.

 

“She…wants to know why.” Lottie glances at Jackie, but her eyes are downcast, as if she’s ashamed. “I don’t talk.”

 

Jackie walks beside Lottie, and she knows she doesn’t have enough time to just hang out before she needs to head back to the others and stand around like a bunch of grown men at a construction site who pretend like they know what they’re doing, but she doesn’t want to leave Lottie alone when she feels like this. 

 

Shrugging, Jackie says, her tone light, “It’s none of her fucking business. If you wanna tell her, sure, but if not, don’t. If she keeps bothering you about it, just threaten to hit her. That used to make her stop when she’d bother Shauna about her stupid journals.”

 

Lottie furrows her brow at Jackie, shaking her head. She doesn’t want to threaten-- or hit-- anyone. She stops again, turning to look down at Jackie, her face more serious, but also something else, something deeper. An insecurity that runs deep inside of her.

 

“I don’t know…why,” she admits quietly. She doesn’t know how to describe simply losing her words. Why her body and mind tell her that speaking is wrong. She’s trying, but it doesn’t feel better yet. She doesn’t know how to make it feel right.

 

Jackie reaches out to take Lottie’s hand. “I don’t think you need to know why, either.” Jackie doesn’t know why she is the way that she is about a lot of things. She doesn’t get why she can’t just be normal, she doesn’t get why she seems to shut down when she can’t figure out how to do things right. She doesn’t understand why she holds onto some things and lets go of others. None of it makes a lot of sense, and she wishes that it did, but apparently being alive just fucking sucks most of the time.

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand. She knows that, logically. She knows that Jackie won’t judge her for it, for the way she is. But it still scares her, the not knowing. She feels abandoned and lost and she can’t seem to figure out how to make that feeling go away.

 

Maybe she just wants confirmation that she’s not crazy, that it was real. That it is real, even if the others don’t seem as connected anymore, like they get to forget about the Wilderness, where Lottie can’t. She just can’t. It’s inside of her, every pore, every vein, every cell of her body, down to the marrow of her bones. 

 

“It’s too quiet,” she says after a long moment, reaching up to tap the side of her head. Everything feels too quiet.

 

“Do you want it to be louder?” Jackie asks, curious but also a little confused. She’d give just about anything for it to be quiet in her head. A lot of people think that Jackie’s a little empty in the head, but she thinks so much almost all the time that sometimes she just can’t function, which makes her stop thinking completely, which makes her wish that she was dead. 

 

Lottie scrunches her face in thought. “I just feel…” There’s not really a word for it all, she thinks, but she wants to try and understand. She wants someone else to try and understand. “Wrong.” It was the best she had right now. 

 

Whatever she’d lost after Javi died, it wasn’t just the Wilderness speaking to her. She thinks that maybe her mind just can’t keep up with everything that’s happened. It all feels like too much. 

 

Lottie reaches up and rubs her eyes, her head feeling like it’s being squeezed. “Something’s missing.” 

 

“What do you need to not feel that way?” Jackie asks. She also just doesn’t know if this is something that she can help with. She doesn’t know if it’s something she should try to help with, but she wants to make sure that Lottie knows that she isn’t alone out there, even if it feels too quiet.

 

“I…” Lottie starts but pauses, closing her mouth. She both knows and doesn’t know. It’s something she moreso feels than knows, like it’s just part of her that’s missing and she needs it back. She needs It back. “Don’t know.”

 

“Okay,” Jackie says softly. “If you figure out, will you… tell me?” Her voice is a little unsure. She doesn’t know if she’s supposed to ask that. Getting Shauna to tell her things was like pulling teeth. She doesn’t know if Lottie will even want to tell her things like that.

 

Lottie finds herself mildly surprised. She doesn’t know why. Jackie’s been at her side since the first snow, since she lost Shauna. Maybe not always willingly, but she’d stayed. And Lottie had told her about her illness, and she’d still stayed then, too. 

 

It just surprises her, still, when people want to know about her, when they seem to actually care about her. “Yes,” she nods, her voice soft. Right now, it’s only for Jackie. 

 

Jackie offers her a grin and a squeeze of the hands. “Great. I’ll hold you to it,” she says. And she will. She won’t be able to help herself. She sighs. “I guess I should head back. You’re not going to… commit blood sacrifices today, are you?”

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hands back. She gives her a nod. She wants to tell her things, she likes that someone actually wants to know how she’s doing. 

 

She gives a small pout as Jackie reminds her that she needs to get back to what she was doing before. She knows it’s important, but still. 

 

Then, she frowns. Shakes her head but doesn’t say anything more.

 

Before she can think too much about it, always thinking doesn’t stop her actions and her mouth from working faster, Jackie rocks forward on the tips of her toes and wraps Lottie in a quick hug before she pulls away. “I’ll see you later,” she says, offering Lottie another smile before trotting back into the village and looking for where Nat, Tai, and Melissa have gone. She finds them, slinking back over and peering over Nat’s shoulder to see if they added anything to her layout plans.

 

Lottie just watches Jackie go, not having had enough time to actually react to Jackie hugging her, except to let the warmth of it linger on her skin. Then, she turns to head back off and continue her foraging.

 

After breakfast, Lottie spends most of the day looking for plants and seeds, knowing that it might still take a few days to get a garden actually cordoned off and ready, but she’s eager to start it. Even if she’s already feeling exhausted by the time she comes back, the sun still hanging in the sky just above the treetops. 

 

She’d also managed to find a few flowers she thought might look nice in their hut, and she meanders over towards it, ducking inside. It’s such a strange thought, to know that this space was hers. Hers and Jackie’s. 

 

The thought makes her stomach twist again but she pushes the feeling down and sits on their bed, where she starts sorting out the flowers, deciding what could go where.

 

Jackie spends the rest of the day arguing animal husbandry and getting laughed at by Van for the five separate splinters she manages to get stuck in her fingers as they move things around and try to clear out more space. Travis is helping them, even managing to crack a smile before he helps her with the fifth one. 

 

“What a gentleman,” Van teases. There’s something tense between the two of them as she and Travis look at each other, but he relaxes, and she follows suit. 

 

Travis just shrugs. “I’m tired of her bitching.”

 

“All Jackie knows how to do is bitch.”

 

“You guys suck,” Jackie whines, checking her hands over once more as they walk back to the fire before breaking off to their respective huts. 

 

Jackie sees Lottie with the flowers and grins. “You work fast with the decorations.”

 

Lottie hears Jackie’s voice, whining about being teased before she sees her coming into the hut, already anticipating her and smiling when she does. She reaches down and grabs a yellow flower, before standing and coming over to Jackie. She tucks her hair behind her good ear, then gently slides the flower into the hair next to her ear. As she steps back to admire her work, she lets her fingers ghost along the line of Jackie’s jaw, before dropping her hand.

 

Jackie smiles turns dopey and her cheeks feel flushed, but she’s also started to get a touch of sun being outside and without cloud cover so much. Maybe that’s why she’s so warm. It’s not like she hasn’t done things like this before, making Daisy chains and flower crowns. Not since she was a kid, though, not since she had a little bit more freedom to express her feelings. It’s nice, though. It’s not really possible with the other side anymore, but it makes Jackie feel nice. “Thank you,” she says softly.

 

Lottie smiles back at her, it's all she can really do. She thinks she should probably stop staring, but she can't help how cute she thinks Jackie looks, slightly tan from the sun, rosy cheeks, messy hair. 

 

But she manages to tear her gaze away, slowly crouching down-- she still can't bend over without immense pain-- and picking up the handful of flowers she'd prepared. She hands a few to Jackie, before she starts just sliding them into the walls of their hut, wherever she thinks might need a pop of color. 

 

Jackie looks at the flowers in her hands before looking back at Lottie, and then she starts walking around as well, looking for places that she thinks would benefit from a splash of something nice. She takes her time, often stepping back, pausing, considering what she thinks will work best before doing it again.

 

Once Lottie has finished putting her flowers in, she looks at Jackie with attentive eyes, watching as she sticks a flower in, steps back, considers her work, then does it again. It makes her laugh a little, how focused Jackie is on it, whereas Lottie just stuck them in wherever she felt they fit. It was funny to her how different they were, and yet, how similar. The more time she spent with Jackie, the more true it felt. 

 

She wondered if they were always this way, even back before all this. Lottie wonders if she ever would’ve found her true self had they not crashed. Even if she still doesn’t quite feel whole, she knows it’s somewhere out here. This is the only place she’s ever felt real.

 

“Are you laughing at me?” Jackie murmurs, not looking away from the wall as she taps her chin before shifting some of the flowers around. When she looks back at Lottie, she looks relaxed, happy, and Jackie finds that she’s like that out here, too. It’s strange. She doesn’t think that she should be. It just sort of creeped up on her. Or, more accurately, it brought her in from the cold, and it made her eat, and it held her in the night while she broke and cried. Lottie helped pick her up, put her back together. She’s the only reason that Jackie is still here.

 

Lottie shakes her head, still smiling. “You’re cute,” she says quietly, moving to sit down, giving a sigh of relief as she does. It’s nice being able to actually stand and walk and move around, but it still takes a lot of energy and by the end of the day, she always feels heavy like lead. 

 

She leans her head back and gazes back up at Jackie, who’s looking back at her with some sort of soft, relaxed expression. Lottie likes seeing her like this. She looks like the same Jackie that would tell them all how amazing they are after they won a game. 

 

She almost looks whole, but Lottie knows that neither of them will ever truly be whole again. 

 

Jackie huffs. “Cute. I know I’m cute,” she mutters, sticking out her tongue. It feels silly, being called cute when she’s all dirty and wild looking, covered in bruises and missing a pretty noticeable part of herself if she chooses to show it off. She doesn’t feel particularly cute, but the words are nice, all the same. 

 

Moving to sit across from Lottie, Jackie leans back on her elbows, looking out the window. “Did you get into anything interesting today?”

 

Lottie just grins, looking innocent as she reaches down and gathers up some of the other plants she’s picked, fingers delicately moving to begin weaving some of them together. When Jackie sits, she glances up at her, shaking her head. It’s still too early for any berries or other edible things to bloom, but she gathered what seeds she could to hopefully start something up in the garden when it was done being prepared. She wishes she could help with it, but Lottie can barely stand on her own, let alone carry something heavy. 

 

She looks to Jackie, then, tilting her head as if to ask how her day went, reaching out to take one of her hands, noticing the little red welts from what were likely splinters. 

 

Jackie holds out her hands, letting Lottie look them over. “I spent way too long arguing against attempting to tame rabbits and keep them in a pen, and I helped clear out some space, and I had Van laugh at me after getting five fucking splinters. It was funny the first time, sure, but the fifth? Kinda mean, if I’m being honest.”

 

Lottie runs her fingers gently over Jackie’s palms, tracing the lines that were supposed to lay out one's complete life. Lottie believed in a lot, but she never fully understood that. 

 

She let out a breathy chuckle, shaking her head, before bringing Jackie’s hands up to her lips and brushing them against her palms. 

 

Jackie ducks her head as Lottie’s lips brush against her palms, and she smiles. “There’s nothing there, now. Travis had to help me.”

 

Lottie just looks back up at Jackie before putting her cheek in Jackie’s palms, smiling softly at her. Despite the warmth of the air, Jackie’s hands are cool, they feel nice against Lottie’s skin, and she closes her eyes momentarily. 

 

When she opens them again, she drops Jackie’s hands and simply squeezes them lightly. “Do they hurt?”

 

“Nah,” Jackie says, moving closer like it’s a gravitational pull. She can’t quite figure out what it is that keeps pulling her closer other than just Lottie. She does know, though, that Lottie’s name is on her heart next to Shauna’s, deeply ingrained and a part of her, now. “They were just annoying.”

 

Lottie hums, leaning against Jackie when she shifts closer, resting her head on her shoulder. Her thumbs brush along the pads of Jackie’s hands soothingly, feeling the ridges of her palms, the lines that run along them. Sometimes, Lottie thinks she can feel Jackie’s energy flowing through her, just like she could feel the trees and the dirt and the animals. 

 

Like how she knew Javi was alive.

 

She doesn’t know how or why, but it started here. She wonders if it’ll end if they leave. If the world will take another thing away from her.

 

Soft fingers against Jackie’s palms remind her of the scar there, the one that matches Lottie’s, and Jackie finds herself leaning in more, the two of them now huddled close. Even when they have space, they’re still always so close. Jackie finds Lottie to be so warm like a little fire. Even as the weather’s been heating up, she still wants to be close, especially at night. And now. She likes being close right now.

 

Jackie’s never liked the silence. With Shauna, it made her anxious. She only wanted to know what Shauna was thinking, and Shauna was secretive. She didn’t want to share. Jackie wanted to share everything. 

 

Lottie’s so quiet, but it doesn’t make Jackie tense. It doesn’t make her worried or anxious. It could even be calming. Jackie felt calm, leaning against Lottie like this, the two of them huddled in their own world. Jackie likes it. She doesn’t want to ruin it.

 

It’s strange, how Lottie has spent most of her life in silence. How the vast expanse of her two homes, often empty, the patter of her feet echoing off stark, sterile walls. She never found comfort in it before, the silence often allowing the voices and the visions to take over her mind easily.

 

But she doesn’t mind it here. It’s a comfortable silence, warm. It feels more like a hug and less like a prison. 

 

Perhaps it’s the background noise of the world just outside this hut, the sound of boots crunching on dead leaves, and girls chatting among themselves. Birds singing in the trees, the far off trickle of water down the river bed. 

 

It’s quiet, here, but it’s alive. It’s not a ghost of a house, where anything Lottie saw could just be in her mind. 

 

Or perhaps it’s the company Lottie gets to keep. Jackie had little obligation to stay with Lottie, but she had. No matter what happened, she had stayed. 

 

Lottie didn’t think she could ever ask for more. She drew in a breath and whispered, “Thank you.”

 

Jackie reaches forward and brushes some of Lottie’s hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to thank me for anything.” She thinks she’d do just about anything for Lottie.

 

Lottie shakes her head faintly. There’s a lot she needs to thank Jackie for, even if Jackie doesn’t think so. “You stayed,” she tells her, something that not a lot of people have done for her. Lottie lifts her head and looks at Jackie, needs her to know how much it means to her that she stayed. And she’s close enough to see the swirls of color in Jackie’s eyes and the tiniest smattering of freckles across her nose and Lottie feels her breath hitching as she swallows. 

 

“You made me want to,” Jackie murmurs. Jackie had wanted to die. She’d begged for it. At first, she thought it was cruel to be forced to keep going when she’d been trying to give up since they crashed. But Lottie is still here, and so are the others, and Jackie feels like she’s undergone a thaw. She doesn’t want to leave anymore. Sometimes it feels wrong, but she doesn’t want that.

 

Her fingers brush against Lottie’s cheek. “You made me want to stay.”

 

Lottie can’t help but shake her head again, eyes flicking down. “I just…” She looks back up as fingers graze her cheek. “Didn’t want to lose another friend.” Even if, at the time, Jackie probably hated her. Even if Jackie still hated her. She’d have done everything the same. 

 

The thought of Shauna makes Jackie ache, but it’s growing duller. Even still, there’s a part of her that knows that things were supposed to be different. There’s a part of her that believes it was supposed to be her that night. In a way, it still was. Jackie doesn’t think she can ever really be herself again because so much of that self was tied up in Shauna. Now, it’s like so much of what’s left is tied up in Lottie. Her other hand grips Lottie’s. “You won’t. Lose me.”

 

Lottie feels Jackie’s other hand slip into her own, and she squeezes, fingers lacing together. Her face feels hot with how close Jackie is, lingering in Lottie’s space, her voice quiet, like it’s just for her. Like the words mean everything in the world, because they do. To Lottie, they do. 

 

The faint thought that maybe this is a bad idea barely crosses her mind as she leans forward. She thinks about the night just a week or so ago, Jackie looking down at her in the dark, something unreadable in her eyes. She thinks about how soft and gentle the brush of their lips had been. She thinks about how she’d wanted to kiss her back. She doesn’t think about anything else as she presses her lips to Jackie’s.

 

Jackie has never thought about what might happen if Lottie kissed her back, but there’s no time like the present, soft lips pressed to her own, the air feeling like it’s being pulled out of her lungs. It’s so gentle, too, nothing like her dream, nothing like what she’d experienced before. Her hand is still on Lottie’s cheek. She doesn’t tighten it, doesn’t pull her close or push away. She does let her eyes slide close as she presses forward, enjoying the pressure of Lottie’s lips against hers.

 

Never in her life would Lottie have ever thought that she’d get to kiss Jackie, or that Jackie would actually kiss her back. It makes something in her brain buzz and her skin tingle and she thinks that maybe this isn’t real, and the thought sort of scares her, because she wants so badly for it to be real. 

 

By the time Lottie needs to take a breath, her heart is pounding. She has to pull away and she’s shaking because she doesn’t know if it’s real, and if it was, she doesn’t know what to say. What to do. She doesn’t know why it feels so different. She’s kissed girls before. 

 

But this isn’t just any girl. It’s Jackie. The only person who’s ever looked at Lottie and stayed. The only person who’s ever looked at Lottie and wanted . 

 

“I--” she stutters. She doesn’t say anything else.

 

Of course Jackie likes kissing Lottie. Of course she does. She always preferred kissing Shauna to Jeff, to those brief kisses with Travis. Lottie’s lips were just as soft, softer, really, and not nearly as punishing. Sweet. Soft. Jackie now knows what the pout of Lottie’s lips feels like when she actually kisses back.

 

Jackie Taylor likes kissing girls. Fuck it. It’s true. 

 

Her eyes blink open slowly as she looks at Lottie, the two of them only barely separated, and Jackie can feel how Lottie trembles. She brushes her hands against Lottie’s cheek. 

 

Jackie’s just looking at her, her fingers still ghosting against Lottie’s cheek and she wants to ask, needs to ask, is this real ? But she can’t get the words out. She’s too afraid to ask. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she breathes quickly, leaning back. “I-- I didn’t--” She hadn’t been thinking straight. Her face feels flushed and her breathing shallow. She can’t look Jackie in the eye, her gaze falling to their hands, still clasped together. She doesn’t want to let go.

 

Jackie Taylor likes kissing girls who apparently like to either kiss her boyfriend more or apologize for kissing her like it was a bad thing. She lets her hand drop from Lottie’s cheek but takes both her hands and offers Lottie a smile to hide the fact that she feels a little silly and a lot sad. “It’s okay,” she says, giving Lottie’s hands a squeeze. “It’s okay.”

 

Lottie isn’t entirely sure it is okay, but Jackie is saying that it is and she thinks she can trust Jackie more than herself, most days. She squeezes back. Her mind is racing and Lottie is used to having too many thoughts in her head, but this feels more overwhelming than usual. She feels jittery, like she needs to move, but at the same time, she just wants to stay here. She wants to kiss Jackie again. She doesn’t think that’s a good idea. She doesn’t know what she thinks. 

 

She thinks about how she never got to kiss Laura Lee. She’d wanted to, badly. She knew Laura Lee wasn’t judgemental, she wasn’t like some others of her circle, but she’d always been too afraid to try, worried it would push her away or scare her off.

 

Now, she was worried about the same things with Jackie. Lottie was really good at running away from her problems. “I-- I should--” she swallows, her tongue feeling swollen in her mouth-- “go, um, help with dinner.”

 

“Okay,” Jackie says, moving to stand and help Lottie up. She offers Lottie a crooked smile. “I might go see if I can find Nat.”

 

“Liar,” Shauna whispers softly.

 

Jackie is lying, yes. She’s going to go and find somewhere to cry, most likely. But Lottie doesn’t need to know that. “It’s nice of you to go back and help Mari cook even if she was kind of an asshole earlier.”

 

Lottie just shakes her head again. She knows Mari doesn’t mean it, even if it hurts sometimes. She also thinks maybe she’s really screwed this up with Jackie and she needs to not be here for a little bit. She grabs her crutch and heads to the doorway, looking back at Jackie. “I’ll…see you later?” she asks tentatively.

 

“Yeah, totally,” Jackie says, trying to smile a little wider as she sticks her hands in her pockets. She offers a slight wave as they both head in opposite directions, and Jackie heads towards the stream, her steps crunching in the leaves. When she finds a quiet place that seems secluded enough, away from the village and where they’ve started collecting water, she sits down, draws her knees up to her chest, and yeah, maybe she does cry a little bit. She’s not even sure why. 

 

It’s a dumb thing to cry about, kissing a girl. Jackie thinks Shauna would be mean about it, based off of the way she thought about Jackie in her journals. She knows her mom would be mean about it. Worse than mean. The vindictive righteousness that would come from the soccer team turning her perfect little girl gay wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone. 

 

At least out here, Jackie can cry about being kissed by Lottie Matthews only for an apology to come out of it instead in private.

Notes:

My, how the turns have tabled. A little bit more smooching, but Jackie's not the perpetrator this time! And, hey, we're officially moved into the village. There's still lots to cover between now and the summer solstice. Here's hoping these crazy kids get something figured out before then!

Thanks again for reading, kudosing, commenting. We love and read each and every comment, and genuinely appreciate it all, even if we don't reply! Feel free to hit us up on our socials!

Chapter 16: you might have known such happiness was not for you

Summary:

Talking was never any of the Yellowjackets' strong suits, but Nat thinks Jackie and Lottie might be taking it to a whole new level. Either way, she doesn't think having a sleepover outside is the answer. It's a real headache of a time, especially for Lottie! Hopefully Misty's "special tea" can help with that. Jackie gets banished from the waiting room but she's a professional at pouting, thank goodness.

Notes:

Can you believe these bitches? Yeah, me neither! This is a hefty chapter beacuse a lot of it is just two idiots being stupid so we thought we'd add a little more onto the chapter to make sure it's not all just exposition and stuff. Enjoy! (Also sorry we were late again, time isn't real! <3)

Chapter title is from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

Lottie does go to the firepit first, where Mari, Akilah and Gen are all sitting around, chatting about whatever. She isn’t really paying attention. Her mind is still replaying the moment over and over again, when she’d let desire take over and kissed Jackie. It felt real, she wanted to believe it was real. It had to be real. She hadn’t been seeing things for a while now. Not since her dream, the tree, waking up with blood covering her hands.

 

Lottie sat with them for a little bit, but after she realized she wasn’t really paying attention, she’d gotten up and headed off towards the treeline, passing by Nat’s hut on the way. She pauses, though, because Nat is in inside, scribbling away at another section of map before tacking it up on her wall. 

 

Tilting her head, Lottie steps into her doorway but doesn’t say anything, watching her with curious eyes.

 

When Natalie finally steps away from the map, she catches Lottie out of the corner of her eye and jumps, putting a hand to her chest. “Jesus, Lottie,” she breathes, “at least knock.” 

 

Shrugging, Lottie lifts her hand and taps on the wooden doorway, which makes Nat roll her eyes. “Did you need something?”

 

Lottie looks between Nat and the map, then around her little hut. “Have you seen… Jackie?” 

 

If Nat’s surprised Lottie is speaking, she doesn’t say anything. “Not since we all got back,” she says. “Why?”

 

Lottie furrows her brows. “Hmmm,” she exhales and Natalie steps towards her.

 

“Everything okay?”

 

Lottie glances up, then nods, maybe a little too quickly. “Sorry…” she mutters, turning around and heading back out towards the treeline. 

 

She wonders why Jackie lied. She thinks maybe it’s not her place to ask.

 

Eventually Jackie manages to stop feeling sorry for herself and sits up, going to wash off her face until it’s scrubbed clean before picking at her nails for a few minutes and just sitting there, listening to the sounds of the stream and the birds. She’ll get up in a few minutes and head back to see about dinner and maybe if there’s anything else she can do, and then she’ll eat, and then she’ll go back to the tent she shares with Lottie and stay as close or as far away as she’s allowed.

 

Lottie doesn’t go too far into the trees, it’s already getting dim, the spring sun still setting long before the air begins to cool, but she wants to sit and listen to the world around her. She ends up on her knees at the base of tree, closing her eyes, tipping her head back, letting everything else around her disappear as she concentrates on the sounds of the forest. She can feel it thrumming beneath the dirt and soil, flowing through every nook and cranny around them, every living thing and every dead thing. The energy that’s inside of everything. 

 

After a while, she opens her eyes but doesn’t move. Distantly, she hears the sounds of girls’ laughter, turning her head to glance over her shoulder in the direction of camp. 

 

Stiffly, she goes to stand, using her crutch to hoist herself up, when she spots something on a nearby tree. 

 

It’s another symbol. 

 

Pausing, Lottie regards it with interest. She almost expects something to happen, a voice in her ear, a breeze to rush through the leaves-- but everything around her is silent, save for the white noise that all forests have. 

 

And so she exhales and starts making her way back towards camp.

 

When Jackie makes it back, she bumps into Nat. nat grabs her arm before she walks off. “Lottie was looking for you.”

 

Fuck. Jackie forgot to do something with that. “Yeah?”

 

“Where’d you go?” Nat asks. 

 

“Just around,” Jackie says, shrugging. “I didn’t go far. Besides, there isn’t a blizzard for me to get stuck in these days.”

 

When Lottie breaks the treeline, she sees Nat, standing next to Jackie. For a moment, she pauses to watch them. Maybe Jackie had just gone to do something first, before finding Natalie. Lottie didn’t have any reason to think Jackie would lie to her. 

 

She drops her gaze and heads towards them, staying quiet until she gets closer. “Hi,” she manages to mumble.

 

Nat almost startles again, turning to look at Lottie, then back to Jackie. It’s almost like she can tell something’s weird, but if she does think that, she doesn’t say anything again. “Look,” she says to Lottie, gesturing at Jackie, “found her.”

 

“Ta-da,” Jackie says, waving her hands. It was sweet that Lottie was looking for her, even if it makes Jackie feel a little guilty. She’s being weird over this and she shouldn’t be. She needs to try not to be. It doesn’t matter that Lottie kissed her if she’s sorry for it, if she didn’t actually want to do it. Jackie will be fine. 

 

She looks at Nat. “Did you need me to help any more with the map before dinner?”

 

“No, I’ve had enough staring at it for tonight,” Nat groans, rubbing her temples. “I’m just going to wash off in the river. Make sure no one gets into any trouble while I’m gone.” She gestures at Jackie before turning to head off, leaving Lottie and Jackie to stand alone by the huts.

 

Lottie looks at Nat’s retreating form, then to Jackie, but doesn’t say anything. If she wants to tell her, Lottie will listen, but she isn’t going to push it. She’s just tired.

 

Jackie almost calls out that she’s not the one that’s supposed to be in charge, but technically she still is. So she just watches her go before looking back at Lottie. “Were you going to help Mari with dinner?”

 

Lottie examines Jackie’s face for a moment, before looking over her shoulder at the bigger group of girls that have gathered around the fire as Mari cooks. Akilah is sitting behind her, braiding her hair, and Lottie feels a small pang of sadness.  “She seems to have enough,” she murmurs. She thinks she needs to say something more to Jackie, like she needs to explain herself, or tell her that she was just confused, or something.

 

Truthfully, Lottie doesn’t know what she was doing in the moment. All she’d known was that she’d wanted to kiss Jackie, so she had. She still wanted to.

 

She doesn’t know how to explain it, just like so many other things in her life, so instead she just steps forward and hugs Jackie. She, at the very least, needs Jackie to know she still wants her around, if Jackie wants that, too.

 

The hug is and isn’t surprising, but it’s certainly a relief that there seems to be an implication that Jackie will still have warm arms to hold her and a Lottie to cling to while she falls asleep. She wraps her arms around Lottie and bunches her fist in the back of Lottie’s jacket, resting her good ear against Lottie’s chest to hear her heartbeat.

 

Lottie can feel herself relaxing as Jackie folds into her arms. She’s still so astonished by how comforting having her in her arms feels. She burrows her face into Jackie’s hair, holding her tightly, as if to say she’s sorry she took off. She’s not sorry she kissed her, even if she feels like she should be. 

 

“Get a room!” Van calls from the other side of the fire, snickering to herself even as Tai elbows her sharply. “Ow.” 

 

A few of the other girls laugh, too, playfully.

 

Misty, however, is staring at them from the doorway of her own hut, the fire reflecting in her glasses and Lottie catches her eye only for a second before looking away. 

 

“Is it ready yet?” Melissa whines to Mari, breaking up the rest of the laughs. “I’m fucking starving.”

 

“Awww, tired from standing around arguing all day?” Gen teases, and Lottie can feel how light the atmosphere has become. She unwraps from around Jackie and takes her hand, leading them over to the circle as well. 

 

“Hey! We totally did more than just standing around,” Mel argues, grumbling.

 

Jackie wishes she could just stay in Lottie’s arms indefinitely, the rest of them be damned, even if she should probably be worried. She should be worried, right? It isn’t safe for people to know or think things like that. But Tai and Van are okay. They’re happy. 

 

They’re also not Jackie Taylor, and Jackie Taylor isn’t allowed. She can’t have things she wants, especially not this. 

 

She lets Lottie lead them near the fire and helps the taller girl sit in one of the airplane seats before she sits on the ground beside her. She leans her head against Lottie’s leg and closes her eyes, saying, “Mel, you were trying to argue about having bunnies in the pen for about ten minutes. I still don’t know if you’re for or against rabbits.”

 

“You were the one arguing with me!” Mel balks at Jackie.

 

The others can’t help but laugh again. 

 

Natalie, approaching from the other side, puts her hands on her hips. “What’s so funny?”

 

“Mel being Mel,” Mari says simply.

 

Lottie’s eyes flick up to Nat and she gives her a wispy smile as a hello again, which Nat returns before flopping down on a seat. “What’s for dinner tonight, Mar?”

 

“Soup de deer leg,” Mari says confidently, as if she wasn’t butchering the French language, “with some--” she pokes at a green leaf in the pot-- “whatever this is.”

 

“Watercress,” Lottie answers softly and she can feel everyone turning to look at her. She simply sits back in the chair, and lets her fingers play with Jackie’s hair.

 

Jackie keeps her eyes closed, a small smile on her face as she listens to everybody talk. Even Lottie. They all must be pretty shocked to hear Lottie, but Jackie’s proud of her. She figures that Lottie wants to talk, but it’s just hard. She doesn’t mind the quiet words. She doesn’t mind that it feels like she’s learned how to understand Lottie just as much through touch as the English language. 

 

“Sounds kind of fancy,” Van says, the first to recover. “Looks like we’re eating good tonight, ladies. And Travis.”

 

“Yeah,” Akilah tacks on, “we found it by the river. It’s supposed to be full of vitamins and stuff.”

 

“Wow,” Mari says, still staring at Lottie, “so you do remember how to talk.”

 

Lottie tilts her head at Mari. “I also know when to shut up.”

 

The laughter that erupts has Mari turning red, moving back to poke more of the food around, mumbling to herself as Akilah pats her on the shoulder pityingly. 

 

It almost feels like they’re back at someone’s house for a team sleepover, with Mari making trouble, Van trying to break all the tension with a joke. Like they’re all just girls in high school, laughing and enjoying their lives. Even Natalie is smiling, shaking her head, muttering “C’mon, Mar, you walked right into that one.”

 

Lottie can’t help but feel warm, not just from the fire or the feel of Jackie pressed against her leg. She thinks maybe they’ll all be alright, after all.

 

Jackie stays quiet for most of the meal, content with just eating and watching the group as they laugh and talk. She feels like she’s watching over them at a restaurant after a game, everyone exhausted but happy, eating and throwing things at each other. 

 

Gen shrieks as Melissa throws little bits of tree bark from a stump at her, only for Melissa to cry out when Gen takes her hat. The two give chase, the rest of the group cheering for one or the other. 

 

While Lottie doesn’t speak any more once the food is passed out, she does laugh with the others, and it feels light and airy in her chest. She doesn’t think she’s felt this relaxed in a long time. Everything that had happened over the winter had kept her in such a constant state of anxiety and stress that she’d had a hard time letting go of it all, even when it seemed like the others were happy for the moment.

 

Now, though, it seems easy. It is easy. Even if, when she looks at Jackie, she feels that clenching in her chest that makes her want to throw up a little. It’s only because she knows she liked kissing her and she knows she wants to do it again, but she’s too afraid to ruin things. She’d almost ruined them. 

 

By the time Melissa gets her hat back, the fire is dwindling and most of the others have started to wander off to their respective huts, Tai and Van cutting out early like usual. Lottie waves at Van as she disappears into their hut, an eager look in her eyes, and Lottie can guess what they’re going to do without needing to ask.

 

She reaches down again, threading some of Jackie’s hair between her fingers and playing with it idly, always making sure to keep the right side of her head covered. She knows Jackie is self-conscious about her missing ear, even if Lottie thinks she’s still beautiful regardless.

 

After a while, she begins to feel herself growing tired again, and she tugs on Jackie’s shirt to let her know, appreciative that Jackie always seems to understand what she’s asking for even without Lottie using her words. 

 

Jackie’s eyes have been drifting open and closed for awhile, so she’s more than happy to stand and help Lottie to her feet when it seems like she’s ready to go to bed. It’s habitual to help Lottie get settled before bed and move in close, her hands going to Lottie’s side to check how the wound is healing. She doesn’t think she’s going to be able to stop until it becomes a scar. 

 

As Lottie sits and pulls her shirt up for Jackie, she thinks about how strangely routine it’s become to do this. She wonders how long Jackie will keep checking her over, if even once it scars, she’ll still want to make sure. Lottie thinks she’d feel the same way if the roles were reversed, but the idea of Jackie being hurt in any capacity makes her chest feel tight, so she pushes the thought away, and when Jackie finishes, she tugs her shirt off, already feeling warm against the pile of blankets and furs they’ve gathered for their bedding.

 

As she lays down, she looks over to Jackie, her face illuminated by pale moonlight and thinks about how nice her lips had tasted earlier that day. She knows she shouldn’t think about that, but she can’t help it.

 

Pushing that thought away, too, she reaches for Jackie once she’s settled and pulls her into her to lay down, the weight of Jackie against her more comforting than any blanket or fur could ever be. 

 

Jackie looks away when Lottie takes off her shirt, moving to shed off her own jacket but still leaving on her sweater and gently taking out the flower Lottie had tucked into her hair. 

 

The lack of layers really lets Jackie feel just how warm Lottie’s skin is, even if there’s still a barrier. So warm, like a fire, almost, like she might have a fever but no, that’s just Lottie. She’s just incredibly warm. She’s just wrapping herself around Jackie so that she can feel bare skin against her cheek. She hooks her chin over Lottie’s shoulder, which seems like a much safer place to be, and lets thick hair tickle her nose. She’s just grateful Lottie still wants to hold her. Jackie doesn’t think she can go to sleep without her anymore. 

 

As Lottie tucks Jackie into her side, she can’t help but give a silent thank you to whoever or whatever allowed for this. She likes to believe everything happens for a reason. And maybe it was cruel to think that everything that had happened up until now was always going to, but maybe Lottie was also a little thankful. 

 

If it gave her this, Lottie thinks that maybe she’s okay with it all.

 

It doesn’t take long for her eyes to close, or for sleep to come for her. Not like this, not with Jackie in her arms.

 

Getting to sleep is not Jackie’s problem this time. The dreams are back. There’s no escaping Lottie’s skin, her hands, her lips. Her lips that press against Jackie’s hungrily, desperately, and Jackie feels desperate, too, wanting more, needing more. 

 

There’s a heart necklace resting in the hollow of Lottie’s throat, like a claiming, like a prize, and Jackie’s fingers brush against it as she leans her head down to kiss Lottie’s throat, to indulge, to let herself leave marks and kisses and heat like she’s always wanted to. 

 

So much skin. Jackie feels greedy, wanting and needing to see more, and she attaches her lips to Lottie’s and pulls her up so that she can reach back and unclip her bra, fingers splayed against her back to cover as much surface area as possible. 

 

When she pulls away to look at her, Jackie doesn’t see Lottie. She sees Shauna, skin pale and lips blue and snowflakes in her eyelashes. She looks up at Jackie with sightless eyes and says, “It was never supposed to be you.”

 

Jackie wakes up with a strangled cry, flushed and shivering, hot and cold, choking on air. She pulls herself up to sit, trying to control her breathing.

 

The moment Jackie wakes, Lottie's eyes snap open, too, and she's not sure what's happening, except that Jackie was crying out, and now she's sitting up, panting, and Lottie manages to pull herself up, reaching for her delicately. 

 

“Hey,” she coos, “it's okay.” She can feel sweat beading at Jackie's hairline as she tucks a stand behind her ear. “You're safe.”

 

Jackie hunches in on herself, not quite pulling away but still shuddering at the touch. She’s afraid, yes, not just from being called out by Shauna’s corpse but also by the dream’s entirety and how much she wants it. How close it is and how she cannot have it. “I–” She’s being choked by her words. 

 

She knows she’s safe. She knows that. She’s still shivering and cannot stop, her skin growing flushed even more as she’s reminded of how close Lottie is. She pulls away and moves to stand on shaky legs. “I-- I need to-- Bathroom,” she manages. Her fucking tongue feels thick. She stumbles out the opening to the hut and heads towards the treeline.

 

Lottie pulls her hand back as she feels Jackie shudder, tripping over her words. She doesn't know what she'd been dreaming, but she thinks it probably wasn't anything good, by the way she's reacting. 

 

When Jackie pulls away, Lottie feels her heart drop into her stomach. Before she can even say anything, Jackie is stumbling out the door and away from their hut, and she thinks that maybe she's done something wrong-- because Lottie always ruins everything she touches. It was just a matter of time before she ruined this, too.

 

Lottie stays sitting, though, curling her legs to her chest, waiting and watching the door, hoping she's wrong, hoping that Jackie will walk back through and tell her she's okay, it was just a bad dream.

 

She thinks that maybe it was more than just a dream and Lottie doesn't know how to help. She doesn't know if Jackie wants her to.

 

Jackie doesn’t go back into the hut. She actually gets sick, panicking through her feelings like that for the first time in a long time before she slinks back to the village and lays down next to the dwindling remains of the fire. She ends up poking it back to life, getting up a few times to add some wood and keep it going before laying back down.

 

She feels the boot bumping lightly into her back but doesn’t turn around.

 

“I thought you were done trying to sleep outside,” Nat says. 

 

Jackie watches the fire. “It’s not cold. I’m fine.”

 

“Jackie, I don’t--”

 

“I said I’m fine.” Jackie turns over then, pushing herself up to her feet. The morning is still a little cool, now that she moves away from the fire. She heads back to the hut, feeling guilty, but enters and starts putting on her jacket and cloak.

 

Lottie is still sitting up and awake when Jackie finally comes back to the hut. She heard Nat’s voice from outside and had lifted her head up from where she'd rest it on her arms, but now she's just watching Jackie throw on her jacket and it feels like she won't even look at her.

 

Lottie wants to ask if everything is okay, but it's clear it's not. She's really fucking messed up this time. 

 

She stays sitting, watching Jackie from her spot, wondering if she should just act normal for her. Everyone knows how good Jackie is at pretending things are fine when they're not, she fought with Shauna enough for that to be obvious. 

 

Lottie was never good at lying, just the pretending part.

 

She looks up at Jackie and waits.

 

When Jackie looks over and sees Lottie sitting there, curled in on herself, Jackie feels choked again, by her guilt, by foolish want that won’t go away. She swallows tightly and moves over to Lottie, crouching down. “Did you– Did you stay awake this whole time?”

 

Lottie watches her, eyes coming up to meet Jackie’s, but all she can do is nod. She feels like that deep something inside of her has taken her words again, and she feels selfish and stupid for it. 

 

She'd been worried but she doesn't want to say it. She looks away from Jackie.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie whispers. “I didn’t mean to-- to keep you up. I couldn’t go back to sleep, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

 

With shaky fingers Jackie reaches for Lottie’s arm. So warm. Jackie feels burned. “I guess I still kind of did.”

 

Lottie thinks she'd have preferred it if Jackie did come bother her, she thinks she'd rather stay up with her than let Jackie suffer alone. 

 

But that doesn't seem to be what Jackie wants, so Lottie just shakes her head and gives her a jaded, tired smile. 

 

She'd really thought it would be different this time, that someone might actually want to stay. She supposes she was foolish to think that. It was only a matter of time, really. 

 

People didn't stick around for Lottie and it wasn't fair of her to expect Jackie to. It was her own fault, anyway. She'd let her feelings get the better of her, when she knew better than to do that. She'd practically spent her whole life making sure she didn't do something like that. 

 

The cold feeling in her chest doesn't go away, even as Jackie's fingers graze her arm. “It's okay,” she says on a breath, smiling faintly, even if okay was about the last thing Lottie felt at the moment 

 

“I’m still really sorry,” Jackie says. “I didn’t mean to keep you up.” They can’t sleep without each other. Jackie knows this, and yet she’d stayed outside anyway. She wonders, now, if Lottie had even tried to come outside.

 

Lottie would have stayed inside a burning building for Jackie, and Jackie knows this. But she’s sorry for kissing Jackie. But she won’t sleep without her. It makes Jackie’s head spin. 

 

Lottie simply shakes her head. She wants to tell her it's okay again, but she can't find the energy to speak. She shifts enough to lift a hand and grab one of Jackie's, squeezing, trying to reassure her. 

 

Mostly, she just wants to know if Jackie is okay. Whatever she'd been dreaming of must've really freaked her out. Lottie just wanted to help. 

 

“Are you… okay?” Her voice feels strained, wrong in her mouth. It tastes like metal, like ash. Still, she needs to know. 

 

Jackie thinks about lying. She thinks about hiding. Instead, Jackie lets her face soften. “I will be.”

 

Jackie is going to be fine. She always is. She’s fine and normal and totally okay. Or she will be. She just has to get over this. There’s no Jeff to run to, and Jackie would never consider Travis again. She’s going to be fine, though. This is fine.

 

“Okay,” Lottie whispers back. She believes her. She hopes it's true. She trusts Jackie, she always will. She has no reason not to. 

 

She unfurls herself enough to shift from her spot, her body stiff from being in the same position so long, reaching over to grab her dress. She knew there wasn't going to be much more rest for her this morning, so getting started early was really the best option. 

 

Outside, Lottie can hear some of the others waking, too, preparing for another day. She can see Natalie adding more logs to the fire as well, looking tired but not exhausted as she pokes the wood around. 

 

Lottie thinks she might go talk to her later. She misses her friend. 

 

Jackie stands and holds out her hands to help Lottie stand. “I’m still sorry for keeping you awake. I won’t do that again.” She’d fix this, and she’d be normal, and she’d be what Lottie needs from her. What Jackie needs, too. She just wants certain things. She doesn’t need them. She can put that aside. 

 

It’s a little easier to focus on that when Lottie’s got her shirt on. 

 

“Any plans for today?” Jackie asks, trying to be normal.

 

Lottie takes Jackie's hands and pulls herself up, rubbing her side once she's standing. It's getting cumbersome with how often it hurts, no matter what she does. 

 

She shakes her head. No real plans, not really. She thought about maybe going to look for more plants and berries, but with the lack of sleep, she isn't sure she wants to wander too far 

 

Maybe she'll spend some time by the river, there's a stack of clothes that needs to be washed and Lottie can do that without much pain. 

 

She looks back at Jackie. “You?” 

 

Jackie wants to take away Lottie’s pain, so much of it caused by her, but she can’t. It’s just not possible, and it sucks. She stays close, a small frown on her face, looking Lottie over as if some new awful injury might have sprung up over night. 

 

She looks okay, at least. Jackie can be soothed by that. 

 

“No plans, I don’t think,” she murmurs. “Maybe help with the area for the garden some more. Van wants to try spear fishing again, but that would require spears, and we… somebody lost those, so.”

 

Lottie wants to lean on Jackie like usual but then she overthinks it, thinks that maybe she shouldn’t be so touchy with Jackie, even as Jackie sticks close to her. Maybe she should stop being so wanting with Jackie, it was clearly pushing her away. So she leans against the wall of the hut instead and takes a deep breath. 

 

Lottie tilts her head slightly. Spearfishing sounds interesting to watch, really. She has an idea, then, actually. They lost some of the fishing nets in the fire, and she could probably make some new ones out of the remnants they did salvage. 

 

She looks at Jackie, though, raises a brow. “Did you lose them?” she says, already knowing.

 

Jackie frowns, a little embarrassed, a little petulant. “Van helped.” 

 

See how normal she’s being? See how she doesn’t bring anything up or start bawling or beg to understand why Lottie pulled away and apologized? Jackie Taylor is totally, completely fine. At least, she will be.

 

Lottie laughs a little, soft and breathy. She shakes her head. “I’ll make new ones,” she tells her. And she really wants to reach out and take Jackie’s hand, or brush some hair out of her face, but she refrains. 

 

Instead, she nods. “C’mon,” she murmurs, deciding on skipping her cloak today. She can already feel the warmth of the air around them, and she wants to feel it on her skin. She heads towards the door, to where sounds of breakfast and waking can be heard.

 

Jackie follows Lottie out of the hut, sighing. “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to hold knives, but you get to hold knives to make spears? Make it make sense, Matthews.” 

 

Nat comes out of her hut around the time they make it around, glancing at the two of them with a frown. She looks at Jackie. “Are you good to help with the garden, still?” 

 

“Aye aye,” Jackie says, offering up a lazy salute. 

 

“Good,” Nat says. “Try not to get so many splinters in your hands this time. I don’t even fucking get how you managed that.”

 

Jackie rolls her eyes and flips Nat off before grabbing some breakfast and eating quickly. Her stomach reminds her that she wasn’t feeling well that morning, so she stops at half and offers the rest to Lottie.

 

Lottie just shrugs and follows Jackie over to grab breakfast. Maybe they shouldn’t give her a knife, but she isn’t going to point that out. 

 

Her stomach still churns that morning and she doesn’t eat much, so when Jackie also doesn’t eat much and tries to offer her the rest, Lottie frowns and shakes her head. 

 

She doesn’t like how any of this feels. She needs to get over herself, really. She wants to go back to how things were before she was stupid and let herself act on her selfish feelings. Back before she kissed Jackie and apparently ruined everything. 

 

After dumping the rest of her breakfast into Mari’s bowl, Lottie grabs her crutch and heads off for the river. Maybe dunking her face in the cold water will help her “cool off”. She grabs one of the knives from the supply shed-- the small pocket knife-- and starts her way over, not glancing back to the camp as she disappears beyond the treeline.

 

“Is nobody going to eat breakfast this morning?” Mari asks as she eats the extra food on her plate. 

 

Jackie watches Lottie go, feeling troubled, but she doesn’t follow, even if she wants to. She doesn’t know what to do with this feeling. It’s not like fighting with Shauna. Shauna was full of anger that Jackie didn’t understand but also did. Whatever’s happening with Lottie isn’t even fighting. It just feels weird and Jackie doesn’t understand it. 

 

She helps clean up space for the garden for the better part of the day, not really paying attention when she ends up with more splinters in her hands.

 

Lottie spends the better part of the day at the river, washing the clothes and watching the fish swim by her hands as she does. She puts her hands under the water and opens them, feels as the fish skim across her palms. She doesn't try to catch them. 

 

She snaps some thicker branches off and starts sharpening them with the knife she'd grabbed when Akilah comes out through the trees with the water bucket. 

 

“Oh, hey Lottie,” she greets and Lottie smiles back at her. She must look as tired as she feels because Akilah asks, “You okay? You look a little out of it.”

 

Lottie just gives a little shake of her head. “I'm fine,” she lies, and it's easy to see that Akilah doesn't believe her as she fills up the bucket, eyeing Lottie.

 

“Alright, well…we've almost got the garden fence done.” Her eyes go to the knife in Lottie's hands. “Jackie is probably full of splinters again.”

 

Lottie huffs, smiling. She stays put.

 

As Akilah hefts the bucket up, she says, “Don't stay out too long, I think Nat said she heard a bear or something around here yesterday.”

 

Lottie knows what Akilah is doing, but she nods anyway. “Okay.”

 

Akilah lingers for a moment, as if she doesn't quite trust her, before heading off. Lottie glances over her shoulder to watch, then looks back down at the spears she's carved, the knife in her hands. 

 

She shouldn't, she knows she shouldn't. She places the cool metal against her palm, closes her eyes. 

 

A branch snaps and her eyes open. There's no one around though. She closes the knife, then, and hauls herself up, begins her trek back. 

 

Maybe later.

 

“Seriously, Jackie, no one else managed this,” Tai says, exasperated and disgusted as she watches Jackie pick a splinter out of her thumb with her teeth. 

 

Once upon a time, Jackie had a set of tweezers that could do this easily, but those were gone, likely fucked up under the remaining rubble of the cabin. So she’s working with what she has. It’s gross, but there was also something satisfying about it. She glances up at Tai, frowning. “You don’t have to watch.”

 

“I’m mostly just making sure you don’t pass out,” Tai says. “You look exhausted.”

 

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

 

“Yeah?” Tai raises her eyebrows. “You guys were pretty quiet. I figured you were definitely asleep.”

 

Jackie furrows her brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“Nothing, Jackie.”

 

Frustratedly, Jackie shakes out her hand and checks her fingers once more. “Stupid fucking manual labor.”

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “Poor baby.”

 

By the time Lottie makes it back to camp, she's a little exhausted-- well, no, she's a lot exhausted. The lack of sleep certainly wasn't helping, but she was trying really hard to not make a big deal out of it.

 

She perks up a little when she sees Natalie, though, ducking into her hut. Tucking the knife into her pocket, she follows after. 

 

“Nat.”

 

Natalie nearly jumps out of her skin, having not expected someone to follow her. “Fuck, Lottie,” she wheezes, “we need to put a fucking bell on you.”

 

Lottie bites her lip. “Sorry.”

 

Nat sighs. “Did you need something?”

 

Lottie glances around her, then back towards camp, then back to Nat. 

 

“I think I…really messed up.”

 

Nat scrunches her brow, waving Lottie in further. “What do you mean?”

 

Lottie scoots in, scratching her arm. “With Jackie.”

 

Curious, now, Nat crosses her arms. “So something did happen,” she says plainly.

 

“Is it that obvious?” Lottie asks, a little forlorn. 

 

Nat just kind of shrugs. “I mean, Jackie's usually draped all over you in the mornings.”

 

Lottie feels her face grow warm. “I kissed her.”

 

Nat nearly chokes on air. “You-- oh, shit.” She sits and Lottie sits next to her.

 

“It was stupid, I know.”

 

Nat shakes her head. “No, it just-- I mean, we all kinda know--” Nat gestures awkwardly towards the camp-- “how Jackie is.”

 

Lottie frowns. 

 

“Did she…say anything?” 

 

Lottie shakes her head.

 

“That's why she was outside, wasn't it?”

 

She nods. 

 

Nat half groans. “Jesus, Lott.”

 

Lottie folds over, face in her hands. “I know,” she grumbles. 

 

Nat just reaches over, pats her on the back. “Just give her time.”

 

Lottie groans.

 

Jackie heads back towards her and Lottie’s hut, pausing when she notices Lottie with Nat but not lingering. She shouldn’t. She won’t. She wonders what they’re talking about, though, as she sees Nat patting Lottie’s shoulder. 

 

She dips inside their hut and moves to sit on the bedding, looking around their little space, she takes off her jacket and her sweater, searching for a clean shirt, one that doesn’t smell like dirt and sweat, before leaning back against the pillow and looking up at the flowers in the wall.

 

Lottie stays with Nat for a little while longer, until Nat tells her she needs to go check on some stuff. She lets Lottie know she’s welcome to stay in her hut if she wants, but Lottie doesn’t want to intrude any more than she already has. Nat has enough on her plate, she doesn’t need Lottie’s problems, too.

 

Even if she’s already sort of made it that way.

 

Running a hand through her hair, she makes her way back over to her and Jackie’s hut, unaware the other girl is inside. 

 

Just before she pulls the curtain door back, though, Van comes around from the other side. “Hey, Lott,” she says, jogging over. “You okay? You just look a little, I dunno, tired.”

 

Lottie pauses. She is tired. She nods at Van. “Yeah,” she mumbles. She notices Van eyeing her and then the hut behind her. She looks like she wants to ask something more but Lottie doesn’t press anything, just waits.

 

“Everything good with you and Jackie?” Van finally asks, her voice a little lower.

 

Lottie is kind of tired of people asking her that, too. She wants it to be, she really does. She doesn’t know if it is. She nods.

 

Van looks skeptical, but doesn’t say as much. “Alright, well…” her eyes flick back to the hut, “if you ever need to talk, you know I’m here for you, right?”

 

Lottie gives Van a reassuring smile, nodding. 

 

“Okay, yeah. Cool. Uh, see you at dinner?” Van gives her a thumbs up. “I’ve got a new story to tell, so you better stay the whole time.”

 

“Okay,” Lottie tells her and she watches Van trot off. Sighing, she finally pulls the curtain back and goes to step in, but she freezes when she sees Jackie. She hadn’t expected her to be back yet. 

 

The beauty of their little window was that Jackie could strain her ear and hear pretty well what was going on outside. Granted, sometimes it was a strain, and she’d be happy if her ears ever sorted themselves out-- it might help with her balance, too. Jacke would love not to be tripping all the time. She used to be a fucking athlete.

 

She can hear Van’s part of the conversation. There’s nothing to hear on Lottie’s end, Jackie knows that, though she can imagine the way that Lottie nods. She knows that Lottie’s about to come in, so she’s sitting up on her elbows, offering Lottie a smile, a little uncertain. “Hey.”

 

Lottie looks down at Jackie, recovering after a moment. “Hi,” she says quietly. Her weariness is evident in her voice, and in the way she strains as she moves to sit down. She wants very badly to lay her head in Jackie’s lap, like she used to, but she stays sitting, looking over at her. “Did you get more splinters?”

 

Looking at her hands, Jackie huffs. “Yeah, but I think I got them out, probably.” She holds them out for Lottie to look at if she wants to.

 

Lottie laughs a little, but she takes Jackie’s hands, holding one with her own while using her other to trace over the pads of her palms. She kind of loses herself in it, she doesn’t mean to, but her fingertips feel electric as she traces along Jackie’s skin, noting the small red dots that indicate where splinters have cut into her. It’s almost second hand nature that has her leaning over to press her lips against Jackie’s palm. 

 

She can’t help it. “You should wear gloves.”

 

Jackie wrinkles up her nose. “The last thing I want to do is go back to putting Nat or Travis or somebody’s gross old socks on my hands, especially now that it’s getting warmer. I think I’ll risk the splinters.” She hates that she shivers at the touch, hates that she can’t stop herself from acting weird.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie says softly, “about keeping you awake last night. Would you… Do you wanna lay down for a little bit?”

 

Lottie shakes her head even though she’s smiling. “It would help,” she tells her, but she doesn’t push it. She leans back, still holding Jackie’s hand, her thumb tracing circles in the middle of her palm.

 

Lottie sighs. “It’s okay,” she tries to tell her again, though she doesn’t think Jackie believes her. She is tired, though. She does want to lay down. She nods. “You don’t…have to stay.” 

 

“I want to,” Jackie breathes, scooting a little to Lottie, worried, though, that she shouldn’t get closer. She pushes thoughts of Lottie’s skin and her lips and taking off her bra out of her mind. It’s inappropriate. Lottie doesn’t want to kiss her. She was sorry about kissing her. She just wants to sleep. “I wouldn’t mind taking a nap.”

 

Lottie can already feel her eyes beginning to droop, nodding again as she moves to lay herself down. Jackie scoots closer to her and she waits to see what she’ll do, but Lottie also can’t help reaching out for her. She looks tired as well. “Lay down,” she whispers to her, holding her hand out for her.

 

It’s a relief to move closer to Lottie and to hold her. Jackie relaxes immediately into Lottie’s touch, her eyes so much heavier than they were even a minute before. “I don’t think I can sleep well without you anymore,” she murmurs.

 

As Lottie wraps her arms around Jackie, she can’t help but feel the same. It’s kind of cruel, she thinks, to let herself have this. It’s selfish. But she wants and Lottie rarely lets herself have what she wants. 

 

She presses her face into the side of Jackie’s head. “Me, too.”

 

Jackie just wants to not have those dreams. She just wants to be normal. She curls in closer, her nose against Lottie’s neck, and it’s unreal how fast she slips back asleep.

 

Lottie doesn’t immediately fall asleep. She thinks she might, but every time her eyes begin to droop closed, her mind wakes her, worried Jackie is going to shoot up and run away from her again. 

 

She doesn’t know when it does finally happen, but her eyes close and she drifts into a deep sleep, listening to the sound of Jackie’s quiet breathing. And if she dreams about how soft Jackie’s lips are, or how nice they tasted, then she hopes she can keep it just to herself.

 

Sleep is peaceful enough that Jackie doesn’t want to get up when she wakes, unsure about the time. There’s still sunlight streaming in through their window. Jackie snuggles closer, hand tangling in Lottie’s dress to keep her close. She just wants to keep her close. Why’s it always so wrong when she wants to keep people close?

 

When Lottie finally wakes up, she feels a little dazed, forgetting, momentarily, where she is. For a moment, her mind thinks she’s back in New Jersey, in her bedroom, decorated with all the normal things a teenage girl might have. The silent expanse of the room only amplifying the loneliness Lottie finds herself entrenched in.

 

But the posters on the walls slowly melt into wilting flowers stuck between branches, and the drapes over her bed turn into blankets tacked up like curtains over a built-in doorway. And the weight next to her reminds her that she’s not alone, that she hasn’t been for a while now. 

 

And she’s reminded that she can’t mess this up, because she needs it. She needs Jackie in any way that Jackie is willing to give her. She can’t do this without her anymore. 

 

Sighing, Lottie shifts onto her side just enough to pull Jackie into her more, burying her face against the top of her head. She doesn’t say anything, just holds her tightly as she listens to the bustle of the others just outside their little enclosed space. She thinks she’d give up anything if it meant she got to keep Jackie. Even just like this.

 

Maybe they could just stay like this, Jackie thinks, feeling content as Lottie pulls her closer. She wants to be content with this. 

 

Jackie also wants more. But she always wants more. She’s lived her entire life wanting more. More time with her best friend, more dessert, more glimpses of beautiful girls. She’s always wanted more, and she’s always denied herself more. She can keep doing that. She’s okay with doing that, if only she can keep just this. 

 

Because this isn’t a want; it’s a need. 

 

By the time someone comes around calling out that dinner is ready, Lottie thinks she might just be able to fall asleep again. But she’d told Van she would be there for her supposedly “new” story-- it was definitely just going to be a retelling of a movie that she thinks none of the others have seen-- and she figures skipping dinner after not having a big breakfast probably isn’t a good look.

 

Still, she doesn’t move quite yet. “Five more minutes,” she mumbles against Jackie.

 

Jackie laughs. “That’s my line.” But she’s not interested in moving, content to keep this moment of just the two of them. She agrees, “Five more minutes.”

 

Lottie thinks it’s definitely less than five minutes when she hears Van calling into their hut from by the fire. “Hey, lazy bones! Get up!” 

 

Groaning, she unwraps herself from around Jackie, still holding onto her as she looks down at her. She’s still heavy with sleep, and maybe it’s because of that that she feels her heart skip a beat when she glances at Jackie and sees her messy hair and her half-lidded eyes and she wants very badly to kiss her again.

 

She swallows and glances away, sitting herself up with more effort than she cares to admit. God, she’s so tired of feeling tired and in pain all the time. Every time she wakes up, she hopes it’s gone, but it never is.

 

She holds her hands out for Jackie. They might as well go enjoy the night.

 

Jackie rubs sleep from her eyes before she takes Lottie’s hands and stands first before helping pull Lottie up as well. “Ready?”

 

Lottie nods and follows Jackie out, sinking into the chair she always does while Jackie grabs their food and brings it back.

 

As they all sit around the fire, Van clears her throat and begins her story. And Lottie was right, it’s just an old movie that Van thinks no one has seen, but she’s telling it enthusiastically until Melissa says-- “Is this just Gremlins?” And Van makes an unhappy face before the rest of them burst into laughter.

 

Lottie finishes everything on her plate this time, setting it aside and closing her eyes as she listens to everyone else talk. Without really meaning to, she begins to drift off.

 

Jackie can’t help but smile as she sits around the fire with her team, listening to them laugh and tell stories. She’d given Melissa what was left of her dinner, not a lot, just a few bites that she couldn’t stomach, and she’s been happily leaning against Lottie’s leg ever since, her spot on the ground next to Lottie’s seat the most comfortable place, in her opinion. She keeps glancing up at Lottie, her eyes soft as she watches the taller girl drift off to sleep. There’s still a lot of guilt there for being the reason that Lottie couldn’t sleep. She’s going to have to find a fix for that, if this kind of thing keeps happening.

 

As things begin to wind down, Natalie makes her way over to where Jackie and Lottie are, sitting down on the ground next to Jackie. Her eyes linger on Lottie, as if to make sure she’s actually asleep, before turning to Jackie. “You’re gonna stay inside tonight, right?” she asks her, raising a brow. “Or do I gotta bring you a blanket out here.”

 

“I’m staying inside,” Jackie says softly. “I just had a… bad dream. It freaked me out and I didn’t wanna, like, worry her.” Which backfired majorly. She looks at Nat. “Did she… say anything? I know she saw you earlier.”

 

Nat considers the words. “She was just worried,” she answers finally. She doesn’t think it’s really her business to ask about the kiss. “What kinda bad dream?”

 

Jackie looks away. “It was…” she pauses, not sure if she wants to keep going before she settles on a half truth. “It was Shauna.” At the end, at least. Before that it was just Lottie, Lottie, Lottie, taking up so much of Jackie’s mind that it’s inappropriate. She shakes it off. “Nightmares. Fucking… nonsensical.”

 

“Aren’t all nightmares nonsensical?” Nat points out. She glances back up at Lottie, then to Jackie, before reaching around her neck and undoing the necklace. She’d been wearing it for a long time now. “Here,” she says to Jackie, “I think you might need this back now.” 

 

Jackie looks at the necklace before shaking her head. “It’s yours now,” she murmurs before adding, “my Queen.” It’s a tease, but there’s something serious in it. Nat’s the leader out here now. She’s good at it, and she’ll only get better. “It’s for protection. Besides, if it’s not yours, then it’s hers. It’s not mine anymore.”

 

Nat takes one of Jackie’s hands, then, and puts the necklace in it. “Then give it to her,” she tells her, “I think…” her eyes once again flick to Lottie and back, “I think she might need it. From you.” Then she adds on, “And don’t ever call me queen again, jackass.” Before she’s standing back up and brushing her pants off. 

 

She looks down at Jackie. “Just…be careful with her, okay?” she says, softer, concern in her voice. “Lottie is-- she’s quiet, when she suffers.”

 

Jackie takes the necklace before holding it to her chest. “Okay,” she murmurs, “asshole. This power thing’s really going to your head, Seven.” There’s a frown steadily growing on her face, and she can’t help the spike of fear in her chest, directly to the heart. She doesn’t want to make Lottie suffer. She doesn’t want to do that, to give her things she doesn’t want, like kisses that require apologies and being woken up in the middle of the night. She nods, but Jackie doesn’t know what she needs to do. She wishes someone would just tell her.

 

Lottie begins to stir and Natalie just nudges Jackie with her foot before leaving, heading back into her own hut for the night.

 

Lottie had thought she’d heard talking, but when she opens her eyes, it’s just Jackie sitting by her still. She doesn’t know how long she’s been out, but her body feels heavy and she wants to go back to sleep already. She reaches out to brush her fingers along Jackie’s shoulder, who’s staring off at something Lottie can’t see. 

 

“Hey,” Jackie murmurs, turning her head to face Lottie and offering up a smile. She stands on wobbly legs and offers Lottie her hands, not even needing to ask if she’s ready to get in bed. Jackie wouldn’t have let them stay out there for long; the angle would have been awkward on Lottie’s neck. 

 

After that, it’s routine: help Lottie lay down, check over her wound. It doesn’t need to be cleaned these days, and it probably doesn’t even need to be checked, but Jackie can’t help herself. 

 

Lottie is nearly asleep again by the time she’s laying down and watching Jackie check her wound. It’s mostly healed, Lottie thinks. The stitches will likely fall out any day. Which means she can stop worrying about tearing them, about stretching too far. Now she just has to wait the remaining weeks for her ribs to set and heal. 

 

She’s too tired, tonight, to remove her shirt, already reaching to pull Jackie down once she’s discarded her jacket. 

 

She’s barely awake by the time she feels Jackie’s weight against her side, arm draped over her stomach. She thinks she hears someone whispering something to her, but by the time it happens, she’s already asleep.

 

Jackie feels relief when she doesn’t have to worry about as much of Lottie’s skin to avoid. Instead, she can just focus on holding Lottie close before she drifts off, clinging to Lottie and offering a soft good night before she buries her nose in Lottie’s hair. 

 

Her sleep is dreamless, blessedly. Jackie doesn’t know what she’d do if she woke up screaming like that two nights in a row. 

 

Lottie does dream, but they’re not like any dreams she’s had before.

 

She’s sitting somewhere outside. There’s a building behind her that she thinks she recognizes, but she can’t place it.

 

She’s wearing soft, white pajamas and it smells like lilacs around her. Her eyes travel the grounds in front of her, manicured lawns and planted trees stretching on endlessly. She thinks she sees other people walking through the grass or along the sidewalk, but they look like ghosts, their outlines fuzzy and blurred as they move.

 

“Charlotte,” says someone behind her and Lottie turns to see a faceless man. “It’s time.”

 

Slowly, Lottie rises. She follows him into the building, down the hallway that’s too dark and too white at the same time, into a room with one light, one bed, static from a machine filling the space. She lays down on the bed and the man hovers over her, blocking the light from her vision. 

 

He holds two pads to her head. “Try not to move,” he tells her.

 

The static increases. Someone unseen turns a nob, presses a button. Electricity pulses into Lottie’s head.

 

Lottie’s eyes snap open and she’s back in the hut, still. Light is streaming in through the window and it makes her head pound. She reaches a hand up to press the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to make it stop. It feels like something is trying to push its way out through her skull. 

 

She remembers her dream vividly. Like it wasn’t a dream. 

 

When she drops her hands, she sees Jackie. She doesn’t feel like a dream either. But she knew they both couldn’t be real, so she reaches out and presses her fingers to Jackie’s chest and feels her heart beating and knows that this, right here, is real.

 

She lets out a long breath.

 

Jackie wakes up to Lottie leaning over her, fingers pressed to her heart, the beat of it picking up pace as she looks into Lottie’s eyes. 

 

Holding Lottie’s hand to her chest, Jackie presses it in firmer, making sure she can feel it, can tell. “Real,” she murmurs, her voice still heavy with sleep. “‘S real.” Lottie has that look in her eyes like she needs that. 

 

Jackie doesn’t mind offering it up. “Okay?”

 

Listening to Jackie’s voice tell her it’s real cements it in Lottie’s mind. She breathes out again, leaning down and pressing her forehead to Jackie’s, her eyes closing. She just needs a minute. 

 

When she opens her eyes again, her hair, messy from sleep, is spilling around her shoulders and falling over them, curtaining Jackie’s face so that it’s all she can see. 

 

For a moment, all she can do is stare and want and wish. And then she blinks, and leans back. “Okay.”

 

Jackie wonders what Lottie thinks about the way her heartbeat picks up as she stares up at her, lips parted. She’s so beautiful it aches, and she’s all Jackie can see, feel, hear, smell. 

 

It’s so selfish how Jackie wants to beg and plead and ask why Lottie apologized, what Jackie did wrong. It’s selfish how she wants to smack their lips together again and pull Lottie onto her lap. Her heart is beating too fast. She needs to calm down. “Did you… did you have a nightmare, too?”

 

Lottie draws her brows together in thought. “No,” she says, and it is the truth. It wasn’t a nightmare. It was just something that felt too real, too raw. More like a memory than anything. “It was just…it felt real.” 

 

She didn’t want it to be real. 

 

“It’s not real,” Jackie murmurs as she looks up at Lottie. “It’s not.”

 

Lottie thinks that Jackie is probably right, but then why did her head hurt so much? She blinks against the harsh light and lays back down, burying her face in the blankets. She repeats it to herself, that it isn’t real, and she lets the feel of the soft deer fur against her face remind that this is real. She lets out a slow, shuddering breath. Her chest aches. 

 

“It wasn’t real,” she repeats, turning her head to look at Jackie through drooping eyelids.

 

“What was it about?” Jackie asks, turning on her side to look at Lottie.

 

Lottie is quiet for a long moment. Then, timidly, she says, “There was a hospital.” Her words feel thick on her tongue. “A doctor.” Her face scrunches. “He told me…I was sick.” She remembers the last part the most, how cold the pads had felt on her skin, how hot the electricity had felt surging into her body. How terrible and raw it made her insides feel. “They shocked me.”

 

Jackie frowns at first, but she quickly lets out a little distressed noise, especially when Lottie mentions that they shocked her. She moves closer and wraps her arms around Lottie, holding her tight. “It’s not real. It’s not. That’s not— I won’t let anyone do that, okay? Have they done that to you before, Lottie? Has that… have they hurt you like that before?”

 

Truthfully, Lottie isn’t really sure. But the dream-- it’s not just a dream. She thinks it might be a memory. When she closes her eyes, she thinks she can almost make out the doctor’s face. Her skin prickles and her eyes feel warm. 

 

As Jackie’s arms wrap around her, Lottie uncoils the tension in her muscles. She hadn’t realized she’d been clenching so tightly. “I don’t remember.”

 

Jackie clings to Lottie, shivering. “I won’t let anyone do that to you,” she whispers. “I won’t.”

 

Lottie doesn’t really know what to say to that. She’s never heard those words about herself before. Like they want to protect her from whatever horrible things might be waiting for her back in civilization. And Jackie is clinging to Lottie and she can feel her body trembling and Lottie thinks she might be shaking, too. 

 

After a moment, Lottie unravels, wrapping her arms around Jackie as well, fists digging into the back of her shirt, burying her face in Jackie’s neck. 

 

She doesn’t want to go back to that. She knows if she goes back, they’ll put her back in there, no matter what Jackie says, or how hard she tries.

 

Still, it’s a nice thought, and Lottie lets it comfort both of them.

 

Jackie just holds Lottie close and pets her hand through dark, thick hair, hoping that she can be soothing enough to calm Lottie down. There’s likely no point in going back to sleep, the sounds of the village starting to wake up around them filtering in through the window. But they can still stay like this until they absolutely have to wake up. Jackie certainly doesn’t mind.

 

Despite the sounds of the camp waking up outside, Lottie stays tucked into Jackie. She thinks she might’ve been crying at one point, but she can’t be sure, her eyes are screwed shut so tightly. It really just makes her head hurt even more, but the solace she feels wrapped up in Jackie’s arms at least helps chase away the dreams or memories or whatever they might be. Maybe both, maybe neither.

 

She hears the fire being lit, Mari hefting the pot back over the pit to start preparing breakfast. Hears Van and Tai coming out of their own hut, Van already giving Mari a snarky comment about how Mari really isn’t a morning person, is she? And she hears others laughing, and the village sounds alive, and it’s a sound Lottie is becoming familiar with, even if she doesn’t feel it with them. 

 

After more time passes, the breakfast bell is rang, which is just Mari shouting at the top of her lungs that it’s ready.

 

Lottie stays tucked against Jackie. She doesn’t think she wants to go out there today. Not yet.

 

Jackie doesn’t mind staying still, doesn’t mind that Lottie seems to just want to stay tucked against her and away from the rest of the team. She’d be okay with staying right there forever, a thought that feels lame and kind of foolish and definitely selfish. Wrong, like she’s using this not to comfort Lottie but to comfort herself, which Jackie knows isn’t true, but it still feels that way.

 

Eventually, there’s a tapping at the window, and Jackie can hear Nat. “Up and at ‘em, campers,” she drawls out. “Time to get started for the day.”

 

Lottie finally releases her death grip on Jackie’s shirt, but she doesn’t quite move away. “I’m gonna…stay here,” she murmurs to Jackie. “My head hurts.” It didn’t just hurt, it was a searing pain, one she thinks is familiar but she can’t quite place. 

 

“Do you want me to stay?” Jackie asks, looking down at Lottie with concern. She brushes a hand through her hair again, swallowing tightly.

 

Yes, she does. “I’ll be okay.” Lottie isn’t good at being selfish. She doesn’t want to take away Jackie’s time with the others, she thinks it’s important. She looks up at Jackie and gives her a fatigued smile. “Just a headache.”

 

That’s not what Jackie asked, but she’s scared to bring that up, especially now. She brushes some of Lottie’s hair away from her forehead, looking at her scar. “Are you sure?”

 

Lottie nods. “I might just sleep more.” If she can even sleep without Jackie here. It’s a strange thought, one that makes her feel odd in a way she’s not used to. Lottie had never needed something or someone like that before. Now, it felt as much a part of her life as needing to eat, or breathe. 

 

Still, she nods at Jackie again. “I’m okay.”

 

“Okay,” Jackie murmurs, but she doesn’t make a move to get up anymore, just looking down at Lottie with a small frown, worry etched between her eyes. 

 

There’s another knock near their window. “Hey, lazy bones!” Van calls in. “Get up or you’re gonna miss breakfast!” 

 

Lottie glances to the window but stays laying down. Gently, she urges Jackie. “You should go,” she mumbles, her eyes still lidded. “They need you.” And maybe Lottie needed her, too, but she was trying to get better about that. 

 

Jackie just laughs, shaking her head. They don’t. Not out here. But she doesn’t say that. “Do you want me to bring you some food?” she asks instead, moving to sit up and unable to stop herself from reaching out to brush Lottie’s hair back once more.

 

Lottie impulsively leans into Jackie’s touch, she can’t help it. She nods. Maybe eating will help her head, but she knows that the harsh sunlight will make it hurt even more. She remembers having migraines as a child while she was adjusting to her new dosage. She’d never had it as a symptom while off her meds, though.

 

She still thinks it might be something to do with her not-dream.

 

With that, Jackie does manage to pull herself to her feet, throwing on a flannel and stretching before she looks back at Lottie. “I’ll bring you back something to eat, some water.” She fusses with the blankets for a second before giving a quick nod and heading out. 

 

Nat raises an eyebrow when it’s just Jackie that steps out, so Jackie explains, “Headache. I’m gonna bring her something to eat and some water, and hopefully she can just sleep it off.”

 

Nat eyes Jackie skeptically, but doesn’t push it. “Alright. Look, we got enough hands for building the garden fence, if you wanna stay with her.” 

 

Lottie curls up in herself inside the hut, wanting badly to close her eyes, but finding herself unable to without seeing the mysterious, faceless doctor. Like something is trying to dredge itself up from a dark place inside of her where Lottie has stored all the painful truths about herself. 

 

It scares her.

 

She doesn’t understand why it’s happening now, why it feels like she’s being torn open from the inside out, her guts spilling onto the deer skin. Not physically, metaphorically. Lottie doesn’t know what to do with that.

 

“Are you sure?” Jackie asks, but she can’t help the feeling of relief that overcomes her at the thought that she can stay with Lottie and make sure she feels better throughout the day. 

 

“Yeah, I’ll let you know if you’re needed for anything,” Nat tells her. 

 

Jackie eats a few bites of something pretty quickly before getting Lottie’s plate and some water and heading back to her and Lottie’s hut, irrational anxiety bubbling through her. 

 

It’s not like she’s never spent time apart from Lottie. They do it all the time. But Lottie wants to sleep, and they’d sort of established that both of them seem to have trouble when the other isn’t there, and Jackie still feels guilty about keeping Lottie awake. Maybe she’s trying to make up for it. 

 

Lottie isn’t really asleep when Jackie gets back, but she still has to stir herself enough to open her eyes and turn to face her. She thinks she smiles, she’s not sure, but she tries, moving to try and sit herself up. She scrubs a hand across her face, feeling the heavy pressure behind her eyes. 

 

When she notices only one plate, she asks, “Did you eat?”

 

“I was quick about it, yeah,” Jackie says as she helps Lottie sit up. She takes a sip of water and passes it over to her. “Maybe this will help. Is it any better?”

 

Lottie took the cup and sipped at the water, before taking a bigger drink. The coolness felt nice against her throat, but it did little to help her head. Maybe she just needed to let it settle. But she shook her head, despite not wanting to worry Jackie more. It was just a headache, really. It would pass.

 

“Try to eat some, too.” Maybe that would help. Jackie is trying not to catastrophize because it’s probably just a headache, but she knows the lack of sleep definitely didn’t help, and these days her heart clenches just at the thought of Lottie being unwell. She wishes she could turn it off. It’s probably annoying. She’s not trying to baby Lottie or anything like that. She just can’t help it.

 

Lottie nods and takes the plate of food, picking at it meagerly. She’s not exactly hungry, but she’s also not not hungry, so she hopes eating might help. 

 

She’s only gotten a few bites in when there’s a knock near the door. She glances up as the curtain parts and Misty appears. She holds a cup of what looks like hot water.

 

“I don’t mean to intrude,” Misty says, her voice a little higher pitch than normal, “but Nat said you weren’t feeling well. So, I made you some dandelion tea.” She holds the mug out. “It-it’s supposed to help with headaches.” She smiles, all toothy and sweet. 

 

Lottie smiles back limply. “Thank you,” she says, taking the cup. 

 

Misty looks between the two, still trying to hold her smile, before gesturing behind her. “I’ll just-- be around. If you need anything, come get me.” And then she’s ducking back out.

 

“Thank you, Misty,” Jackie says with a relieved smile, grateful for just about anything that might make Lottie feel better.

 

Lottie looks down into the cup of tea. She can see the leaves floating around in it, steeping into the hot water. As she brings it to her lips, she thinks she can smell something familiar. 

 

It’s not the best tasting, but it’s not bad, either. She takes a few sips and, surprisingly, it does relieve her headache a little. The hot water feels nice sitting in her stomach. She thinks she likes the tea more than the food at the moment, as she leans back against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment.

 

She turns her head, still resting against the wall, and looks over to Jackie. “You don’t… have to stay.”

 

“I was given the day off,” Jackie says, sitting down and crossing her legs under her. She rests her hands on her knees, hesitant, looking at Lottie with her head tilted. “I can… leave if you want me to.”

 

Lottie shakes her head, perhaps too immediately. It doesn’t help the pain any, but she wants Jackie to stay. She does, but only if Jackie wants to stay. It seems like she does. Lottie hopes she does.

 

“Stay,” she asks. “Please.”

 

Jackie relaxes, giving Lottie a smile. “If you put your head in my lap, I’ll brush your hair. Can you come to me, or do you want me to come to you?”

 

Lottie freezes for a moment. She knows Jackie likes running her hands through her hair, she always seems to want to be touching it. Laura Lee always liked doing that, too. And combing it, braiding it. Keeping it kempt and out of Lottie’s face. 

 

She hadn’t let anyone else do that since Laura Lee died. Not even herself. 

 

She didn’t know if she was ready to give that up. She…kind of wanted to. She took one more sip of the tea before setting it aside and crawling forward, laying herself down gently into Jackie’s lap. She presses her head to Jackie’s leg and lets her body deflate and her eyes close. 

 

She gives a silent thank you to Laura Lee in her head. Followed by an I miss you. And she’d always miss her.

 

Jackie actually forgot that she doesn’t have a brush in their hut with her, but she thinks that’s okay. She’s been brushing her fingers through Lottie’s hair for months now. It’s habitual to reach out and want to touch it. 

 

Now, working through the tangles, Jackie takes her time and stays careful, not tugging or pulling if she can help it. She hums softly, more nonsense than any actual song, leaning over Lottie and looking down at her as she hopes the motion is soothing enough to help her sleep some more.

 

Lottie’s eyes grew heavy quickly. She wanted to sleep, she really did. But whenever her eyes closed, she saw flashes of faces she knew were familiar but couldn’t recognize. She heard her father’s voice, her mother’s voice, yelling, shouting at each other. The slamming of doors. 

 

The world was spinning, even in her dream. She felt tremors running through her body, sweat beading on her head, her back. She felt like she couldn’t move, she was stuck somewhere, strapped down. 

 

Everytime she blinked the world got fuzzier. She felt those cold pads against her temples again.

 

She cried out for them to stop but no sound came from her mouth. 

 

Lottie woke up jarringly, being torn from the dream. She felt queasy and the world was tilting on its axis as she blinked to try and steady it. She could feel warmth beneath her head, someone’s lap, her fingers reaching out to grasp something. “I-- I don’t-- feel so--”

 

She knew what was going to happen before the bile even started crawling up her throat, burning as it did. It made her chest feel inflated, making it harder to breathe. Lottie sat up suddenly, stumbling away from Jackie, out the door, just in time to wretch outside, shaking and coughing as she fell to her knees. Her stomach was in knots, body coated in sweat.

 

Someone was kneeling next to her now, saying something to her but she couldn’t hear them, the voice just echoing endlessly in her ears. “I think I…” she started, but another wave hit her and she had to lean away again, heaving whatever was left in her stomach onto the ground. 

 

There is a slight crick in her neck as Jackie had somehow managed to fall asleep while sitting up, slouched forward, her back still straight. She shot up as soon as Lottie started moving, following after her in a panic and moving to hold her hair back as she puked.

 

Jackie’s done this before. Listen, she was the captain to a high school girls’ soccer team. A winning high school girls’ soccer team. They’d been good. Really good. And they’d been invited to parties and hosted their own. Of course they drank. Of course they got drunk. Jackie never let herself get too sloppy too often, but she knew how to take care of her girls.

 

This is different because Lottie hasn’t had too much vodka, and she isn’t camped out over the toilet of Abby Benson’s house. This is out in the middle of nowhere, and the thought of Lottie being sick is enough to send Jackie spiraling, but she’s trying to hold it together.

 

“It’s okay,” Jackie soothes. “It’s okay. Get it out. Just get it out.”

 

Lottie feels like her stomach is trying to turn itself inside out. It doesn’t feel right. She can’t think straight. Her hands dig in to the dirt below her fingers, feeling the cool soil sift between her fingers, trying to grasp something that could help her feel more solid and like she’s not spinning. 

 

Someone is patting her back, holding her hair back, trying to sooth her. Somewhere, her mind knows it’s Jackie. 

 

As she dry heaves again, her stomach already empty of what little she’d consumed, she clutches at her ribs. Throwing up was already painful, add a still broken rib to that and the pain is blinding. 

 

Lottie’s arm braced against the ground is shaking fiercely. She doesn’t feel right. She feels so hot, too hot. She needs water. She thinks maybe she can just go to the river, just lay in the water, let it take her. She’s stumbling up to her feet again and the world is teetering around her, spinning and making her feel more nauseous. 

 

She flounders for a moment, looking for something to hold onto. “I think something’s…” she starts to grumble, but she doesn’t have much time to consider what else to say when the ground comes up to meet her as her legs give out.

 

Jackie’s growing way too used to the feeling of panicking. It’s almost the new default. Still, her heart clenches when Lottie’s legs give out and she jerks forward to grab her before she faceplants. “Help!” she cries out, hoping that someone, anyone, is around the village and close. “Something’s wrong with Lottie! Someone help!”

 

It’s Misty and Nat who come running over first, followed by a small crowd of others a little ways back behind them. 

 

“Oh my god!” Misty gasps when she sees Lottie limp in Jackie’s arms, what’s clearly vomit all over the ground outside their hut. “What happened?”

 

Natalie is breathing hard when she gets there, too. “What the fuck? Was it the food? Wouldn’t-wouldn’t other people be sick, too?” There’s worry in her eyes, now, almost panic, as she thinks about how shitty it would be if they all started getting sick now.

 

“Let’s get her over to the medical hut,” Misty says without answering any of Natalie’s questions. 

 

Natalie moves to help Misty and Jackie lift up Lottie’s torso. “God, I always forget how fucking big she is until we have to do this,” Nat grunts under the weight. “Lottie, if you’re conscious we could really use some extra help here with the legs.”

 

Lottie, who is conscious but feels as if she’s floating out of her body, groans but tries her best to shift some of her weight onto her feet, stumbling across the yard and over towards the medical hut-- which also happened to be Misty’s hut.

 

“Set her down, set her down,” Misty instructs, leading them over to the single elevated bed Misty had made as her ‘patient’ bed. “Easy. Don’t drop her.”

 

Lottie is laying down for only a moment before she has to turn her head and heave again, this time only spit and bile coming out. 

 

“Someone go get some cold water and a rag, and then some room temperature water for her to drink. With this much vomiting, she’s likely to become dehydrated,” Misty instructs, not looking at anyone else as she kneels near Lottie and says, “Hey, Lottie. It’s okay, alright? I’m gonna take care of you.”

 

“What about her side?” Jackie asks, eyes wild as she hovers close by while Nat jogs out to go get the water. “Did she pull out her stitches? I didn’t check those this morning. What about her ribs? Is she okay? She had a headache. Is that why she’s sick?”

 

Misty shoots Jackie a look. “One thing a time.” But she does reach out and pull Lottie’s shirt up to check her side. “It looks fine.” Then she leans over. “Lottie, this is gonna hurt a little, but I need to feel around your ribs and make sure you haven’t punctured a lung or something, okay?” And she sounds way too chipper to be saying something like that.

 

Lottie doesn’t have much time to react before cold, calculating hands are on her stomach, feeling around her ribs and Lottie lets out a whine at the pain. 

 

“Yeah, the vomiting probably doesn’t help with that, does it?” Misty says as she works. “Hmm, they all feel fine.” 

 

Finally, she turns back to Jackie, her gaze sharp. “You don’t need to hover, you know. I’m the most equipped to handle something like this.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie says, but she doesn’t make a move to leave. She doesn’t think she was this bad a few months ago. She’d get worried if Shauna missed school, calling her house to make sure she was okay if Shauna was late for picking her up, and she’d been worried when Shauna told her she was pregnant, especially out here with their only source of medical treatment being Misty Quigley, but she’d never quickly freaked out like this. It was usually more of a slow simmer. 

 

But people die, and Lottie could die, and Lottie’s gotten way too close to dying out here for this to not stress Jackie out. 

 

Her nails are digging into the meat of her palm by the time Nat makes it back, handing the cup of water to Misty while she moves to wipe the cool rag over Lottie’s face. “Hey, Lottie, you’re gonna be just fine, okay?”

 

“Do you think you can sit up?” Misty asks. “You should drink just a little. Just enough to wet the tongue.”

 

Lottie still feels like the world is going to collapse in on her and there’s after images of everyone crowding around her, tilting from left to right and back again. She thinks sitting up might actually kill her. 

 

But Misty is already moving to make her sit up, and Lottie feels another rush of bile up her throat, coughing and spitting it out as she does. 

 

Misty frowns as a little gets on her jacket. “I may have overestimated your ability to sit.” She lays Lottie back down. 

 

“Hand me the rag,” she tells Jackie, “I’m just going to ring out some water into her mouth to keep her throat from getting dry. Last thing we need is for her to get a torn esophagus from this, too.”

 

Jackie almost snarls at Misty to be nicer because Lottie’s sick and she can’t help it, but she refrains, not wanting to upset Misty anymore than she apparently just already does and get kicked out. She dips the rag in the lukewarm water and offers it up so that Misty can give it to Lottie.

 

Misty snatches the rag and moves up so she’s near Lottie’s head. She puts her hand on Lottie’s forehead. “Hot, but not a fever, I don’t think.” She holds the rag out over Lottie’s mouth. “Open wide.” With her free hand, she takes Lottie’s jaw and pries it open gently, much gentler than she was the last time she was sticking her fingers in someone’s mouth. “Just a little bit.”

 

Lottie is trying really hard to not throw up again, she doesn’t think there’s anything left in her stomach to do so, not even spit, not even bile. Her throat was burning, like she’d swallowed pennies, and then there were fingers prodding her mouth open and all Lottie could think about was being strapped down while doctors shoved a tube down her throat.

 

Her reaction is involuntary, just her body acting to protect itself, as she lashes out at whoever is there. “Stop!” she cries out. “Stop, I-- I’ll eat, I promise, please, I promise. I’m sorry, dad, please.”

 

Jackie jerks forward, not caring about lashing fists as she drops to her knees next to Lottie and reaches out for her. “Lottie, Lottie, it’s okay! It’s okay, it’s just water. Misty just– she just wants you to drink some water.”

 

Lottie can feel her heart pounding so hard in her chest it’s making it hurt. She feels wild, scared, trapped. She doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore. Is that really Jackie? Is she really still out in the wilderness, or is she back in that hospital? Are they going to hurt her again? She doesn’t want anymore pain. 

 

Misty gets smacked by one of Lottie’s flailing hands, her glasses being thrown from her face. But she just picks them back up and slides them on, and while Jackie is helping to restrain Lottie, she squeezes some water into her mouth. “There! All done, see? Quick and simple.” Though she is curious about what Lottie had said. “Where do you think you are, Lottie?” she asks, then, her voice clinical.

 

Where do you think you are?

 

Lottie feels cool hands grasping her own. They feel familiar. She feels her body instantly relaxing in their touch. The water dribbles into her mouth and she coughs but it’s not enough to choke her or anything. It wets her tongue and she feels heavy again, her body sagging. “I-- I--” she didn’t know. “It’s not real?”

 

“It’s not real,” Jackie breathes, her own body relaxing when she feels Lottie’s do the same. “We’re with Misty. You just got sick, that’s all, okay? No one’s gonna make you eat anything. Just wanted to make sure you got some water in you.”

 

Jackie leans forward, wiping off Lottie’s mouth with her sleeve and brushing her thumb over Lottie’s cheek, attempting to soothe her. This is real, she tries to say. I’m real and you’re real and this is real.

 

Misty presses the rag to Lottie’s forehead. “Just a little vomit, it’s okay,” she reassures, but Lottie doesn’t find that reassuring at all. 

 

“I’m…tired…” she manages to huff out, panting with breath. She wants to go back to sleep, wants to escape this world that keeps spinning and jerking around her violently. 

 

“You should rest here,” Misty says, then, “so I can keep an eye on you.”

 

Taking one of Lottie’s hands, Jackie brushes her thumb over the back of it in soothing circles. “You can sleep, Lott,” she murmurs. “It should help you feel better.”

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand back weakly. She’s so tired. Everything’s made her so tired. Her eyes droop. “Promise…” she manages to exhale. Her eyes close as she lets the exhaustion take her over.

 

Misty eyes Jackie. “She’s asleep now, you can go.” She continues to dab at Lottie’s forehead with the wet rag. “I’ll monitor her breathing, make sure her lungs don’t collapse.” It wasn’t likely they would, but Misty didn’t think Jackie needed to know that. 

 

Jackie feels herself freeze at Misty’s words. Her immediate reaction is to fight against it, to say that she’s staying. She doesn’t trust Misty, especially not with Lottie, not after she hurt her. She doesn’t think that Misty should be left alone with Lottie. But this is also Misty’s space, and Jackie’s not welcome.

 

It’s an insane amount of effort for Jackie to stand up and pull away from Lottie. She doesn’t want to. She looks at Misty sadly, as if she might change her mind, but Misty doesn’t.

 

When Jackie leaves, she feels her lip wobbling, and she doesn’t really get that she’s crying until she’s sniffling alone in her and Lottie’s hut.

Notes:

And yet they still haven't talked about the kiss! Even if Jackie really wants to. Damn, girl :/ Try again next time? Hope y'all are enjoying this more, like, character driven part of the story! Since we know spring goes relatively well there's not much drama happening aside from intrapersonal so it's all very High School Girl, you know?

Again, we love all the kudos and comments, you guys are wonderful! Thanks so much for reading!

Chapter 17: slender aphrodite has overcome me

Summary:

Lottie wakes up and goes for a little walk, against the doctor's orders. Misty and Jackie have a chat, and Misty learns what they say about assuming. Even though Lottie's feeling better, she still needs a little mouth to mouth; luckily, Jackie's there to provide a little TLC.

Notes:

A day late and a dollar short, we hope to make it up to you guys by making this chapter a little longer! Coming in at 16.6k, give or take, she's a beaut.

As it states in the tags, as of this chapter, the uses of sorrow now contains smut! Be forewarned!

Lottie knows she’s dreaming, she just can’t figure out what. She tussles in her sleep while Misty watches her, dabbing her sweaty forehead every now and then and using a different rag to ring water into her mouth. She thinks she wakes up a few times, but it doesn’t seem real, or for long. Every time she does, she only sees Misty.

 

When Lottie finally feels her eyes open fully, it’s getting dark out. She’s laying on her side and it hurts, but she can actually breathe without feeling like her stomach is going to come up through her mouth. Her head is still pounding and her throat feels raw, but other than that, she thinks she’s okay.

 

“Lottie!” Misty says when she notices, standing up and coming over to her. “Hey, good to see you awake. You got really sick this morning, do you remember that?” 

 

Lottie looks at Misty. “Wh-where’s Jackie?”

 

Lottie doesn’t see the way Misty’s face falls. “I don’t know. She left a while ago. I’ve been here with you all day, making sure you’re okay.” 

 

Lottie doesn’t think that sounds right. Jackie wouldn’t leave her, would she? She tries to sit up, but Misty puts a hand on her to stop her. “You should stay laying down for now. Get your bearings. I’ll go let the others know you’re awake.” 

 

With that, she stands and scurries off, leaving Lottie alone. Once she’s out of eyeshot, Lottie pushes herself to a sitting position. Her stomach is empty and raw but at least the world isn’t spinning beneath her feet anymore. She observes her surroundings and finds that she’s in Misty’s hut, not her own. That was probably why Jackie wasn’t there.

 

She slides off the bed and stumbles over to the doorway, leaning against it as she squints into the dim sunset light. There’s a few people gathered around the fire, but her vision is still a little blurry so she can’t make out who, exactly. She pushes off the wall and takes a few more steps forward before she has to stop, grabbing onto the nearest steady object for balance. She just wants to go back to her hut with Jackie.

 

It’s the only place she feels safe.

 

Jackie spends part of the day with her knees to her chest in their hut, staring at the wall until Nat comes in, having seen Jackie in there through the window. “Jackie? What are you doing in here?”

 

“Misty told me I could go,” she says, her voice thick. 

 

Nat frowns, moving to help Jackie stand and ignoring the pathetic, confused little look. “Alright, come on and get up. I need some help with the map.”

 

So Jackie follows after her, and she’s pretty sure she’s just being given something to keep busy. 

 

It’s Travis that finds Lottie, firewood in hands. He looks worried when he sees her, setting the logs down and looking around. “Lottie? What are you doing out here?”

 

Lottie looks at Travis as she sways on her feet, disoriented and turned around. “I…” what had she been doing? She grabs her head and groans. She doesn’t feel like she’s going to throw up again, but this headache wouldn’t leave her alone. “Just…home,” is the most answer she can give right now.

 

Travis frowns, looking around once more as if an answer will just appear. “Okay… Let’s get you back, then. Maybe see about Jackie. I think she’s helping Nat with something.” He takes her arm and starts guiding her back towards the three huts at the top of the camp.

 

When Travis takes her arm, Lottie feels something prickle across her skin and she can’t help but stare at his hand as he walks her back towards the hurts. “Why’d she leave?” Lottie asks, tripping a little over her own feet as they walk. She might not have been dizzy or nauseous, but she was still lightheaded and she hadn’t walked on her bad foot properly in a long time.

 

“I don’t know…” Travis trailed off, glancing over at her carefully. “She’s been pretty mopey for most of the day, though, so I can’t imagine she’s been super happy about it.” When they make it to Nat’s hut, he knocks on the side of the doorway before peeking in. 

 

Jackie’s gesticulating with her hands towards the map, frowning. “It’s this tree with a pretty recognizable knot on it. The knot has a knot. You really didn’t notice?”

 

“I’m not looking at tree nipples, Jax. Of course I didn’t fucking notice it,” Nat says.

 

Travis clears his throat. “Uh, hey. I found Lottie.”

 

Jackie immediately turns away from Nat, eyes wide. “Lottie!” She’s at her side in a moment, checking her over. “What are you doing? Are you okay? Are you still sick? Did Misty let you leave?”

 

Lottie scrunches her brow. Truthfully, she doesn’t really remember what Misty left to do. It was to get something, she thinks. She looks at Jackie but doesn’t have many answers, so she just nods her head. “I want to…lay down.”

 

Across the village, there’s a shrill curse, followed by hurried footsteps and Misty’s frazzled voice. “Nat,” she’s calling out, heading towards Nat’s hut, “Lottie is--” But she stops mid sentence because her eyes find Lottie’s, who’s swaying in her spot as Jackie holds onto her. 

 

“Sorry,” she mumbles to Misty, reaching out to grab Jackie. 

 

Jackie feels caught and confused, not sure what Lottie’s doing out of Misty’s hut if Misty wasn’t even aware that she left, but she steps closer as Lottie sways, moving to help steady her. “We can go lay down,” she murmurs, reaching up on her toes to brush some of Lottie’s hair out of her face. She looks back at Misty, her eyes still soft. “Is she okay to go lay down?”

 

“It would be better if she came back to the medical hut…” Misty trails off, but Lottie shakes her head. She doesn’t want to go back there. She wants to curl up in Jackie’s arms and sleep until her head stops pounding. 

 

Misty looks around at all the others a moment before putting on a saccharine smile. “We still don’t even know what made you sick, it could be a symptom of something else.” She’s gesturing back towards her hut. “You should at least stay with me overnight, we’ll know by the morning if it was just a stomach bug or something.” 

 

Lottie looks at Jackie, then to Misty. “Only if Jackie comes, too.”

 

Misty presses her lips together. Her eyes flick around the small group. “Fine! Sure. She can come hang out. I’ll probably need help with getting you food later, anyway, if you can stomach anything by dinner.”

 

Jackie feels relief in her veins like ice, and she relaxes as she holds on to Lottie. 

 

“Cool,” Nat says, her voice loud in the little space. “I’m not gonna go look for your tree nipple, Jackie--"

 

“I don’t know how you missed it,” Jackie interrupts, unable to stop herself.

 

Travis frowns. “Oh, the boob tree? I know where that is.”

 

Jackie cringes. “Let’s please not call it that.”

 

Nat looks like she’d shoot both of them if she could. “Jesus. Go… back to Misty’s for the rest of the day. I’ll let you know if I need you. D’you guys need help getting Lottie back?”

 

Lottie looks between them all, confused, but doesn’t say anything. It's probably not her business, really. She isn’t in charge of stuff like this anymore, and it’s a pretty nice relief. Misty starts trudging back to her hut, and Lottie tugs on Jackie to follow, her feet still unsure as they drag underneath her. 

 

Just for a second, Lottie glances back over her shoulder at Travis, and she swears she sees something. A shadow, him but not. Lottie tilts her head, but doesn’t say anything.

 

Misty is motioning for her to sit again, and so Lottie does, her body sagging once again. She’s already reaching back out for Jackie in her haze, blinking heavily. “You left,” she says to her.

 

“Misty told me to go,” Jackie says softly, scooting in close to wrap her arms around Lottie while they sit there.

 

Lottie frowns. “Why?”

 

Misty fidgets with a cup of water. “She didn’t need to be here,” she says, her tone sour. She holds out the cup to Lottie. “Drink some of this, see how your stomach feels.”

 

Lottie looks down into the cup.

 

“It’s just water,” Misty says quickly.

 

Lottie takes a tiny sip, letting it sit on her tongue before she swallows. Her stomach is so empty she swears she can feel it settling in the bottom. It feels nice on her burning throat, too. 

 

“How are you feeling?” Misty asks, scooting closer.

 

Lottie leans against Jackie as she drinks, eventually laying her head on Jackie’s shoulder. “Tired,” she murmurs.

 

Misty just nods. “That-- that’s pretty normal. Hopefully it was just the stomach bug, right?”

 

“Hopefully,” Jackie murmurs, content enough to just brush her fingers through Lottie’s hair while they sit there. She’s just happy that Lottie wants her around and that fact seems to be what’s going to keep her around, moving to tuck her feet under her and let Lottie get more comfortable as she leans against her.

 

Lottie takes one more sip of the water before handing it back to Misty, who looks less than pleased. But she won’t say anything about it.

 

Lottie instead moves to lay her head back down in Jackie’s lap, like she had been this morning, closing her eyes. Jackie is so warm and comfortable, unlike anything else in here. She wants to stay just like this. 

 

It doesn’t take her long to drift off again, breathing just a little easier knowing Jackie is there with her.

 

Misty waits until she can tell Lottie is asleep before she asks, “So, are you two, like-- a thing?” as nonchalantly as possible.

 

Jackie watches Lottie sleep, something warm in her chest at the thought that she makes someone so comfortable. She has a person again, and it’s not the same. She can’t compare Shauna with Lottie because they’re both so totally different. But Jackie’s always been needy. She’s always needed a person. Somehow, Lottie became that person. 

 

Whatever warmth has settled in Jackie’s chest turns to sludge at Misty’s words, and her head jerks up. “What?”

 

Misty turns around to look at Jackie. “I mean…you’re always with her, you live in a hut together,” she starts out, “and you kissed her. Isn’t that something couples usually do?” 

 

“Mari and Akilah share a hut,” Jackie starts, her voice strangled. But she understands. And she feels her chest tighten at the words you kissed her . 

 

You kissed her . 

 

“I don’t… understand,” Jackie breathed, twelve years old and clutching her cheek as she stared at her mother in confusion. 

 

“I saw you, Jackie,” her mother hissed. She wasn’t a big woman. She was still taller than Jackie, bigger, stronger. Even if she wasn’t, her eyes were wild. “That girl is not allowed at my house again. I saw. I knew she was no good. I told you, and now she’s got my baby behaving like a fucking dyke.”

 

Jackie shook her head. “No, Mom, no, no, it’s not-- It’s not. I’m not. She’s not. You didn’t-- It’s not like that.”

 

“I’m not like that,” Jackie tells Misty. She can’t really hear her own voice. It’s distant and warbled, like both her ears are all fucked up and wrong. Like she’s wrong.

 

Misty blinks, unphased. “So then why did you kiss her?”

 

“I’m not-- I…” 

 

“You’re not like that. I know, baby. I know.” Jackie’s mother had hands that were just as soothing as they could be awful, reaching out to cradle the cheek she’d struck.

 

“I’m not like that.” It’s all Jackie can really say. She knows the words aren’t true. She knows. They’re all that will come out.

 

“I’m not judging, if you are,” Misty goes on, turning back around to fiddle with something, her back to Jackie. “I just, you know, didn’t know Lottie was that way.” 

 

Is Lottie that way? Jackie supposes she doesn’t know that, not really. But it’s confusing. She’s confused, and she hates that she’s confused. Lottie kissed her , too. And then she’d apologized, so is Jackie just not her type? 

 

Does she care? No (yes). Does it matter? No (yes). It doesn’t matter. Jackie’s happy enough to take whatever Lottie wants to give her, even if that’s just holding her at night. 

 

Her tongue feels thick as she manages. “I’m not… supposed to be.”

 

“That’s kind of a weird thing to say,” Misty retorts, actually turning to look at Jackie. “ Supposed to be , what’s that even mean, anyway?” She half rolls her eyes, looking at Lottie in Jackie’s lap. “I mean, you don’t actually believe that, do you? Cause all of this jerking around, it’s probably not helping her out. Especially since she’s not all there.” 

 

Misty pushes her glasses up, focusing back on Jackie. “She told me about it, you know. When you kissed her. She was acting weird so I asked and all she said was that you kissed her. She almost seemed upset. She told me not to tell you, but…” She shrugs.

 

“What do you mean, ‘not all there?’” Jackie asks, her voice cold. She doesn't care what Misty thinks about her, even if it aches thinking that she’s hurting Lottie in some way.

 

Still, Jackie swallows tightly. “She… told you? She-- she was upset? Did she say why? Did she tell you about the other—“ Jackie cuts herself off. 

 

Misty’s interest piques. “I mean, we’ve all seen it,” she continues, “how Lottie can get… weird sometimes.” She had some ideas about what it could be, her parents were doctors after all. She knew more than people thought she did. 

 

“Other?” Misty’s eyebrows shoot up. She leans forward, whispering in a conspiratorial voice, “you mean you guys have kissed more than once?”

 

“Just because she’s weird doesn’t mean she’s not all there , Misty. She’s still an entire person,” Jackie chides. Would she be saying this if she didn’t care about Lottie so much? She doesn’t know. She hopes so. She also knows she’s fucking stupid and says stupid things. 

 

Like now. “Why was she upset, Misty?” Jackie asks, her voice strangled.

 

“Well, no one else is wandering around sleepwalking and stabbing themselves,” Misty points out. “I’m just saying.”

 

Then, as if pleased with herself, Misty sits back, shrugging. “I don’t know, she didn’t say. It was back when she wasn’t talking at all. Except, like, a few words.”

 

Jackie feels small, like she’s royally messed up, she just doesn’t know how. Still, she frowns, scrunching the little spot between her eyebrows. “So she… told you about the kiss but then stopped talking?”

 

“Well, I asked her what was wrong, and she said ‘Jackie kissed me’ and then I said, ‘What? When?’ and then she just got all quiet again.” Misty is floundering a little bit, but she just pushes her glasses back up and watches Jackie.

 

“Oh.” It’s wrong for Jackie to be this way. And that’s further confirmation that it’s wrong. Of course it’s wrong. She’s not allowed. Maybe that’s why Lottie kissed her and apologized. She wanted confirmation that it was wrong. 

 

Misty, satisfied, turns back around. She doesn’t say anything more, she doesn’t need to. 

 

It’s not the worst thing in the world, Jackie thinks, if Lottie doesn’t want to kiss her. She has wanted and denied herself her wants her entire life. It doesn’t matter. She’ll still be there for Lottie. She was still there for Shauna, even if she never allowed herself to think anything farther than being best friends. She kept that love she had in the only place it was allowed to be, and she never complained as it ate her alive. She won’t complain now, either. 

 

Jackie stays hunched over Lottie, brushing her fingers through her hair with slow, gentle movements.

 

It’s a bit later when Natalie comes over to the hut, clearing her throat. “Uh, dinner’s almost ready.” She glances from Misty to Jackie and Lottie. “How is she?”

 

“She’s just sleeping,” Jackie says, feeling stiff. She wants to get up. She doesn’t want to leave Lottie. She knows that Lottie still wants her there— or maybe they’ve just been around each other for too long and her body has confused it for a need-- so she knows she shouldn’t just walk out. Her skin itches. “Hopefully it’s just a stomach bug that she can sleep off.”

 

Natalie lets out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good. She’s not worse. Should I uh, bring two plates or just one?” she asks Jackie.

 

Misty turns to look at Nat, then to Jackie again, frowning. She stands and walks out of the hut without saying a word, stomping her feet just a little too hard.

 

“Uh, two. If she doesn’t eat as much, I’ll bring it back.” Watching Misty go, Jackie doesn’t really know what to feel. She doesn’t understand why Misty acts like this. “Did I do something to make her hate me?” she asks genuinely. She’s always tried to be nice to Misty, even if some of the others didn’t, even if she’d laugh sometimes. Not to Misty’s face. She’d thought Misty Quigley to be pretty defenseless before they crashed. 

 

She knows now that she was wrong.

 

Natalie looks over at Misty’s retreating form, then back to Jackie. “I don’t know, she’s just--” she gestures limply-- “Misty. Does anyone really know what she’s thinking?” Still, Nat can see the look of worry, of confusion, on Jackie’s face. “Look, we all know she…apparently had some shit to work through. But I can uh, I can talk to her, if you want?”

 

Jackie shakes her head. “I’m not tattling to teacher, Nat. I was just wondering if she said anything.” Besides she doesn’t want to give Misty yet another reason to hate her. The other girl’s given her a lot to think about, anyway. 

 

She hasn’t seen Shauna in a bit, and she almost misses her. She never talks back, but sometimes Shauna’s words help her. Or they make her feel worse, but at least they’re there. Now, Jackie just has the thoughts of her and the echoing of Misty’s words and the ghost of her mother’s hand across her cheek. Not often. Enough to remember the feeling of it. 

 

“Right,” Nat nods. She stalls in the doorway. “She hasn’t said anything to me. Just…don’t mind her, alright?” She scuffs her boot on the ground. “I’ll, uh-- I’ll go grab some food now. Hang tight.” After a moment, she turns and heads off.

 

“Okay,” Jackie says quietly, looking back down at Lottie. Her fingers drift over her forehead, to the scar there. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, even though she knows Lottie can’t hear her. The seance had been such a stupid idea. She never should have done that.

 

Natalie grabs two plates, filling one a little less than the other, and turns to head back, eyeing Misty as the other girl sits in silence, away from the group, but close enough to hear, observe. Ruffling her brow, she turns and makes her way over to Jackie and Lottie again. 

 

“Here,” she says, holding out the plates to Jackie. “Probably wanna wake her now.” She pauses, glances around uncomfortably. “I can uh, I can stay and help, if you want.”

 

Jackie brushes a hand through Lottie’s hair. “Hey, Lott? Do you want to try and eat something?”

 

Lottie hears Jackie’s voice echoing in her head. Slowly, her eyes open and she shifts, lifting a hand to rub her eyes. “Jackie?”

 

Natalie moves over and sits on the stool in the corner. 

 

“Hi,” Jackie says, offering a smile. She repeats, “do you want to try and eat something? How are you feeling?”

 

Lottie smiles bleary eyed. “Hi,” she mumbles back. Her throat feels dry. “Better. Thirsty.”

 

Jackie breathes a sigh of relief. “Great. Great. Okay, let’s sit up, then water, then food, in that order,” Jackie says, helping Lottie start to sit up and reaching for the cup of water. 

 

Lottie groans a little as she sits. She’s still stiff, her muscles aching, but she doesn’t feel like she’s going to sink into the ground and melt away anymore.

 

“Okay,” she nods. She feels a little loopy, reaching out to brush her fingers against Jackie’s jaw. She doesn’t see Natalie in the corner, who is trying her best to not stare.

 

Are you two, like, a thing?

 

Jackie feels her eyes close, feels herself lean into the touch. She lets it linger for just a moment before pulling away and offering Lottie the cup of water, glancing at Nat and offering her a tired smile. “Thanks for dinner, Nat.”

 

Lottie takes the cup, then, drinking the water. She wants to gulp it all down in one go, but she knows not to do that. It soothes her throat and the ache in her stomach. 

Blinking, she looks over at Nat. “Nat,” she says. 

 

Natalie gives an awkward smile. “Hey. No problem.” She stands, then, giving a nod. “I’ll uh, I’ll leave you two alone, now that the crisis is over.” It’s meant to be a tease, but she just nods again and heads out.

 

Lottie glances back over at Jackie. “Did you stay the whole time?”

 

Jackie offers Nat a wave and moves to grab Lottie one of the plates, putting it in her lap. “You wanted me to, right?”

 

Lottie looks down at the plate. She’s not exactly hungry, but she knows she needs to eat. She picks at the pieces. “Yeah,” she says to Jackie, glancing over at her, “of course.” She tilts her head. Something seems different. She doesn’t know how to ask about it.

 

Relieved, Jackie nods, taking her own plate and picking at the food. “I stayed.”

 

Maybe it’s because Lottie is still loopy, or maybe it’s because she’s selfish, but either way, Lottie leans over and presses a soft kiss to Jackie’s cheek. “Thank you.” Then she goes back to eating, taking small bites and making sure her body doesn’t reject the food.

 

Maybe Jackie’s just supposed to be confused for the rest of her life. Maybe she’ll die out there, not of the cold or an infection or a fucking bug bite but from confusion. “You’re welcome,” she breathes, trying to stomach the meal.

 

Lottie can’t finish all her food, but she eats most of it before setting it aside. She knows she just woke back up, but she kind of just wants to curl up in Jackie’s arms and go back to sleep. Start over tomorrow. 

 

She looks over at Jackie, watches her through soft eyes. “Are you okay?”

 

Jackie can’t eat more than half her food, staring at it with thinly veiled disgust that’s a little at herself, too, worried that if she stops eating again, Lottie will pick up on it. She’s not trying to starve herself. She’s just having trouble convincing herself to eat. 

 

Her heart is in her throat when Lottie speaks again, but Jackie’s never been good at sitting in the unknowing. She feels like it’ll eat her alive. At least when Lottie says the words out loud, if she says that kissing Jackie was wrong and she hated it and she’d rather they never do it again, then Jackie can start preparing herself to handle the situation properly. 

 

“Why did you apologize?” she rushes out. “Was it because-- Misty told me that you mentioned when I kissed you, and that you were upset and something was wrong, so was it just to make sure? Are you sorry that it happened? Was it-- Did you feel pressured to do it because I kissed you? I never meant to pressure you, I swear to God, I’m not a predator or a pervert or--" Jackie forces herself to breathe, her eyes wide and her lips pulled downward. “I just… want to know why you’re sorry.”

 

Lottie is completely taken off guard by the sudden outburst. She can feel the anxiety roiling through Jackie and into the air around them. She can barely register Jackie’s words, but she hears enough to reach out and put a hand over Jackie’s. “Hey,” she says softly, “hey, breathe. It’s okay.” She wants her to calm down first. She doesn’t really know where to start, except that, “I-- I never told Misty you kissed me. She told me she saw.” Her brow knits together. “I…” 

 

The truth is that Lottie doesn’t know why she apologized. She’d felt bad in the moment, not about kissing Jackie, but because they hadn’t talked about the other times. Because she didn’t know why Jackie had kissed her. Because Lottie didn’t think anyone would ever want to kiss her without it being about something or someone else. “I don’t know,” she finally admits.

 

Jackie makes a distressed little noise that fades into a groan, shaking her head. “Why did she lie ?” she mutters. She looks at Lottie like she doesn’t understand what’s happening because she doesn’t understand what’s happening . “Lottie, I really don’t… understand.”

 

Lottie doesn’t know why Misty lied, either. She does know that she’s going to talk to her about it later. But right now, she’s focused on Jackie. “What…what don’t you understand?” She feels like this is her fault and she doesn’t know how to fix it. “I-- I didn’t mean to confuse you. I just…” she’d wanted to kiss her so badly she’d let her body take over, working faster than her mind. “I don’t want to make you…i-if you’re not-- if you don’t want…” Lottie can’t find her words again and she’s growing frustrated that this keeps happening. 

 

She shakes her head, takes a breath. Tries to ground herself. “Why did you kiss me? All those times…”

 

“The apology,” Jackie mumbles. Should she have apologized? Was this on her for kissing Lottie first and never saying anything? She thought they’d talk about it eventually. Or maybe not. How many times did she and Shauna not talk about things?

 

Lottie isn’t Shauna. Jackie knows this. She’s still having to adjust to how she does things, though. Deep breath. “The first time I wasn’t… thinking. I just wanted to, so bad, and I couldn’t stop myself. And then you asked if I was real in the shed, and I just… I wanted you to know. In the plane…” Jackie feels her face crumble. “I’ve just always wanted. I’m not good with-- with any of it. But I wanted, and I took just-- I should be apologizing, too. I’m sorry.”

 

Lottie listens to Jackie stumble and stutter over her words, like her mouth is working faster than her brain and she can’t get a full thought out before the next one is already coming out, too. Lottie reaches forward when she sees Jackie begin to falter, her face drawing into something that makes Lottie’s heart ache. She grasps Jackie’s face between her palms, gentle as she moves her head to look at her. “I wanted you to,” she tells her, looking into her eyes. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time now.”

 

“You never kissed me back,” Jackie says weakly, but her heart is pounding in her chest, and she can’t look away from Lottie’s eyes. Deep and dark and endless. She could get lost in them. She is lost in them. “And when you did, you apologized.”

 

Lottie feels her chest clenching. “I-- I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if you…wanted me to.” She didn’t know if, maybe, Jackie wanted to kiss somebody else and Lottie was just there. She didn’t think she’d mind that, really. Lottie thinks she’d do anything to feel like this, even if it’s not about her. She’s used to that. “I didn’t know if you wanted me for…me.”

 

Jackie’s eyebrows furrow together. “Wanted you for… oh. Oh.” Jackie moves closer and leans her head into one of Lottie’s palms. “I wanted you . I promise. I was thinking about you.” Her dreams might get a little jumbled, but every time that Jackie kissed Lottie had been about Lottie. She’d been worried that was the problem. Wanting someone who doesn’t even want to pretend with her. Now that doesn’t seem to be the case. “I wanted to kiss you, Lottie Matthews.”

 

It’s the strangest feeling, bubbling in Lottie’s chest, in her throat. Like fire, but it doesn’t burn. The edges of her body prickle with the heat and her heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of her chest. She’d hoped, hadn’t she? She’d let herself hope and then she’d convinced herself otherwise, but now Jackie was looking at her and telling her that she wanted to kiss her. Lottie. Not as someone else, but as Lottie.

 

It’s a strange and wonderful feeling. And Lottie doesn’t realize she’s leaning forward until she’s a breath away from Jackie’s lips again, hesitating for only a beat-- to let Jackie pull back if she wants, but Lottie doesn’t think she wants to-- before she’s pressing her own against Jackie’s again. 

 

And this time, she’s not sorry.

 

This time, Jackie lets herself sink forward into the kiss, her own hands going up to cradle Lottie’s face. It’s not desperate, she’s trying so hard, but she does press forward firmly because she wants Lottie to know that she wants this, wants Lottie. God, she wants Lottie. And she’s letting herself want. She’s not supposed to be like this, but, if she is, then at least she should get to enjoy it.

 

Lottie can’t help the wave of warmth that rolls through her as she feels Jackie press in, kiss her back. She can’t help herself, scooting closer, hands dropping to circle around Jackie’s waist and pull her in closer, too. She just wants her closer. 

 

When she pulls away to take a breath, she stays close, her face flushed. She can see her own reflection in Jackie’s eyes. “Was-- was that okay?” she breathes, voice low, just for them to hear.

 

“Yes,” Jackie says, her heart pounding, her eyes wide. “Yes, it was-– It’s-–” She tangles her hands in Lottie’s hair and moves in again, lips brushing against Lottie’s.

 

Lottie hums against Jackie’s lips as she presses in again, feeling hands tangle into her hair. God, she’d dreamed about this feeling before, but it could never hold a candle to the real thing. She kind of wants to just wrap Jackie up in her arms and kiss her until she can’t breathe.

 

But, as she leans back once more, still so close to Jackie she can feel her breath on her skin, she realizes they’re not in their own hut. She takes a quick glance around, then lets her gaze fall back to Jackie. “We should probably…go back to our, um, our hut.”

 

“Yes,” Jackie manages, not wanting to move away. Lottie’s eyes are mesmerizing; she thinks she could just fall into them, all the way to the bottom, deeper and deeper until she’s lost. She wouldn’t mind getting lost. She presses forward once more, unable to stop herself. She wants. She’s so tired of trying to stop that.

 

Lottie doesn’t really have control of herself anymore, as she kisses Jackie back. She doesn’t think this is real, except that it feels so real . God, she hopes it’s real.

 

She manages to tear herself away long enough to move her hands and tug on Jackie’s arms to get them to stand. She stumbles a little, still woozy and tired from the day, and unused to how off balanced she feels without some of her toes. 

 

But she stabilizes herself and takes Jackie’s hand and starts towards their hut, not bothering to look at anyone around the fire. They don’t really matter to Lottie right now.

 

Jackie follows after Lottie like she’s got her own gravitational pull, trying not to trip over her own feet and bring both of them tumbling down. She can’t pay attention to any of the others; she thinks that, if she did, her skin would spontaneously combust. She’s already flushed with a pounding heart. The words “KISS ME NOW” are probably written in bold across her forehead, “I LIKE GIRLS” on her cheeks. Somewhere, in a bathroom stall in New Jersey, some asshole with a dick for a brain is writing, “Jackie Taylor’s a fucking dyke” on the walls, and, at the moment at least, she could not give a fuck.

 

Lottie feels like she might just vibrate out of her skin. She’s always known she was this way, always shy and blushing under another girl’s gaze, while she stared bored when a guy’s eyes fell on her. She indulged because she thought she had to. She thought it was the only thing she could do.

 

Until she’d kissed Natalie in a shower stall in the locker room while they were both high off their asses.

 

It was like the world had split open and everything Lottie had thought she knew was burned up in the core of the earth. 

 

And now she was dragging Jackie Taylor back to a hut in the woods that they shared, and once they stepped inside, she was leaning over and kissing her again, maybe a little more fervently this time, hands clinging to the back of Jackie’s shirt. Because she just wants to kiss her and nothing else matters at the moment.

 

Jackie’s always been the shortest with every person she’s ever kissed, so it’s almost second nature to raise herself up on her toes and wrap her arms around Lottie’s neck, molding herself closer. Kissing Lottie is nothing like kissing anyone else. It doesn’t compare. Maybe because she wants it so much more, because she’s allowing herself to want it. She’s allowing herself to want this and to ignore the phantom sting of a palm against her cheek, and the words ringing in her ear, and the fathomless, dark eyes of a girl far angrier than the one in front of her. She presses in closer. Jackie wants more.

 

Lottie feels hungry. Not for food, but for the girl in her arms, hooking her own around Lottie’s neck and pulling herself up onto her tiptoes just to reach her. Lottie’s arms can circle all the way around Jackie as she presses their bodies together, kissing her greedily. Like whatever is on Jackie’s lips, in her mouth, can cure the mess inside her head. She’s never really felt this way before, it makes her legs burn and her stomach twist, a fiery heat in the pit of it. 

 

She takes a step back, pulling Jackie with her, her legs shake, she’s not used to standing up like this for so long without support. But she doesn’t really care at the moment. It’s only when she tries to bend over to get close that the jolt of pain shocks her out of her head for a moment. 

 

She has to pull away, reaching to clutch her ribs with one hand while muttering, “ Fuck .” She looks back at Jackie, panting, flushed, eyes wide. “S-sorry.”

 

“Oh, Jesus Christ, your fucking ribs,” Jackie manages, trying to control her breathing as she reaches out for Lottie. “Fuck. Fuck . We can’t-– We probably shouldn’t do that.”

 

Lottie shakes her head, laughing a little breathlessly. She’d forgotten about them, too. “It’s okay,” she sighs, feeling kind of ridiculously warm. “We can just…sit.” She can’t help but grin and add, “might be easier for you to reach.”

 

“We can sit,” Jackie agrees, brushing her hands over Lottie’s arms. She rolls her eyes. “It’s not my fault you’re so tall.” She tugs on Lottie, though, moving to help her sit before sitting beside her. One hand brushes through Lottie’s hair. Soft. So soft. 

 

Lottie sits with only a little grunt of effort, breathing out in relief. Her eyes flutter closed as she feels Jackie’s hand brushing through her hair. After a moment, she opens her eyes and looks over at Jackie, reaching a hand out to hang along Jackie’s arm. “Are…you okay?” she asks her tentatively. Lottie still felt jittery, she still wanted to kiss Jackie.

 

“Yes,” Jackie says, moving closer. Magnetic. Lottie is fucking magnetic. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m okay. Are you? You… Your ribs? And your side?”

 

Lottie is relieved. She really hopes that it doesn’t wear off, that she’s still okay later and tomorrow. She really hopes Jackie isn’t going to wake up and regret kissing Lottie. She wants to kiss her again. She nods, still a little out of breath. “I’m okay,” she says, “I promise.” 

 

Now that she knows she can, all she wants to do is kiss Jackie. She reaches up with her hand, brushes her thumb along Jackie’s cheek. Down to her lips, the pad of her finger swiping across them gently. 

 

Jackie’s cheeks are on fire, her pupils blown wide, and she watches Lottie closely, feels her finger brush across her lips. She can barely think. She’s feverish. When’s the last time she’s felt like this? Ever? She can’t remember.

 

Lottie feels like her breath is catching in her throat again, in the best way possible. Her nerves are electric. She’s never felt like this before. Never. It’s addicting. She wants more. She moves forward, brings Jackie’s face to her with a hand cupped along her jaw. She kisses her slow, but longing. Testing the waters, seeing how far Jackie wants to go, what she wants.

 

Lottie’s hands are so warm, and Jackie’s already on fire. She might just burn up, she thinks. She’d probably be okay with that, too. Jackie’s lost in the feel of Lottie’s lips on hers, how good she is at it, how nice it feels. “Lottie,” she sighs against soft lips. 

 

The sound of her name like that coming from Jackie’s lips make Lottie shiver, all her nerves on edge. She sighs against Jackie’s lips, too, uses her other hand to pull Jackie in closer, practically into her lap as she kisses her. She wants Jackie to say her name like that again, so she parts her lips and lets her tongue drag along Jackie’s bottom lip.

 

Jackie is trying so hard to be aware of what she’s doing with her body so that she doesn’t end up hurting Lottie’s ribs, but it gets progressively harder as she’s nearly pulled into Lottie’s lap, as she feels the kiss deepen, Lottie’s tongue against her lip. She gasps, her lips parting, one hand tangling into Lottie’s hair.

 

Lottie thinks she might have actually died and gone to heaven. Her head is spinning, but not in the dizzying, nauseous way-- in the lightheaded, heart pounding, blood rushing way. When Jackie’s lips part, Lottie doesn’t waste any time in licking into her mouth, slow, relishing the taste of it. Something she never thought she’d ever get to have. From anyone, really. At least not anyone who also made her feel like her heart was exploding and her skin was on fire. 

 

The closest Jackie’s been to feeling like this was with a girl that’s dead now. It isn’t the same. The differences aren’t bad, though. The main one is that she’s allowing herself to have this. Jackie’s allowing herself to want, to have . It’s almost a slumber party make out. It feels like something more, though. Something different. She pulls Lottie in closer, breathy sighs escaping her mouth at the feel of a warm tongue. 

 

Lottie isn’t a selfish person, she doesn’t like taking more than she’s allowed. She doesn’t ever want to impose, to put someone out. She thinks it’s because she always felt like she took up too much space as a child, always intruding on her parents’ lives just by being herself. She was always too much. 

 

But she takes, now, greedy with her want. She kisses Jackie and she takes every ounce of her that Jackie’s willing to give, arms circling her waist, pulling her in flush against her own body, which feels so warm, like she’s vibrating. She tastes Jackie like it’s the last time she’ll ever get to. Fuck, she really hopes it isn’t. She thinks she might actually die if it is.

 

Jackie hums against Lottie’s lips. She’s not usually noisy. She doesn’t think. Not with Jeff, at least, most of that being faked for his benefit, and for her so that he’d stop touching her when she just wanted to be done with it. Then again, she remembers laughter and giggling and shushing in an attic bedroom, and she remembers moments of it feeling good physically with Travis, the way that she didn’t have control over herself. 

 

It almost feels worse now. Jackie feels ridiculous, like she’s never kissed anyone, like she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and she’s a good kisser, okay? Goddammit. She just wants this so bad that it’s making her insane.

 

It’s a pleasant noise that makes Lottie’s breath hiccup. She doesn’t exactly know what she’s doing, she’s just letting her intuition guide her because her mind can’t keep up with how badly she burns for this. She has experience, she’s not a prude, but fuck if this isn’t different from everything else she’s ever experienced. 

 

She wonders if kissing Laura Lee would’ve felt like this.

 

Lottie has to pull away just enough to breathe, feeling ragged but so energized, like she’d been shot full of adrenaline. She presses a delicate kiss to the corner of Jackie’s mouth before she presses her forehead to hers, trying to catch her breath. For once, she doesn’t have words, and she’s okay with that.

 

Jackie rests her forehead against Lottie’s, panting, struck with the realization that Lottie Matthew’s just had her tongue in her mouth, and it was amazing, and she wants more. She still wants more. She can barely breath and she wants more. “Holy fuck,” she mumbles, laughing quietly and shaking her head. “Of course you’re a good kisser.”

 

Lottie feels her face grow warmer, if that’s even possible. She’s sure she looks a mess right now, all rosy cheeks and dilated eyes, panting as she looks at Jackie like she’s the only person in the world that matters. Right now, she is. “Am I?” she asks. She’s not sure anyone’s ever told her that before. Probably because most of the time Lottie was kissing other people, either one or both of them were drunk or high. She didn’t do this a lot sober. It felt too raw, too real.

 

And it was, but in all the best ways possible. Lottie brushes her lips against Jackie’s jaw, feeling how warm she was, as well. “You are, too.” 

 

“Yes, you’re really good at this,” Jackie says, inhaling sharply at the feeling of lips against her skin, her head tilting to the side. She’s glad Lottie thinks she’s good at this, too, though Jackie ought to be, with as much practice as she’s put into it, treating it like it’s something to be studied and perfected. She’s always wanted so hard to be perfect. Now, knowing that her hair is messy and her skin is probably red and her lips are parted like an idiot, she doesn’t really care about being perfect. She just cares about Lottie kissing her.

 

As Jackie moves her head, Lottie takes the invitation and presses more kisses to her skin, along her jaw, down to where it meets her neck. Lottie has always been an intuitive person, she thinks. It’s easy for her to tell what people are feeling, what they like, what they don’t. It’s easy enough to tell that, right now, Jackie was liking this, by the way her blood pulsed under Lottie’s lips as she kissed her neck. As she lets her tongue slide against the skin there, tasting Jackie’s salty skin. Her fingers dig into Jackie’s shirt and she exhales against her, lips ghosting along the line of her jaw. All she cares about now is making Jackie feel good. She wants her to know that this isn’t wrong. It can’t be, when it feels this good.

 

It’s a lot harder for Jackie to be quiet when her mouth isn’t occupied. And she knew that from previous experiences, but she isn’t expecting it, so, when she feels a tongue brushing against her skin, she moans before slapping a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she shivers and moves in closer, like she can somehow meld the two of them together.

 

Lottie shudders at the noise. Fuck, that was amazing. So she does it again, this time at the crook of Jackie’s neck. And, yeah, maybe someone might hear, but Lottie really doesn’t care. She’s usually such a private person, she doesn’t care for others knowing her business, but she just can’t care when the sound makes her feel like she’s combusting. 

 

She draws her hands down to Jackie’s hips, fingers finding exposed skin and tracing along her sides. She feels like she’s mapping out something undiscovered with her palms, every ridge along Jackie’s spine a mountain, as her hands slip under Jackie’s shirt, skin against skin. Flushed and warm and so silky soft, just like the rest of her.

 

“Cruel,” Jackie manages to gasp out, knowing that Lottie’s doing that on purpose but unable to control herself. She’s completely out of control, actually, completely unable to get it back. She almost doesn’t want it, content to feel like she’s being devoured. 

 

The only thing that makes her stop is the feeling of hands slipping under her shirt, and it’s so good , but Jackie is so afraid , with alarm bells instinctually going off inside her skull that she pulls back, breathing heavy, tugging Lottie to look at her as she tries to form a coherent thought. “Not-– I-– Lottie-–” Tries is the optimal word here. “I, uh, I don’t-– I haven’t-–” 

 

Lottie stops immediately, pulling her hands back and looking at Jackie. “It’s okay,” Lottie tells her, trying to give her a reassuring smile, even though her own heart is pounding and she’s worried she’s done something wrong. “I’m sorry, I--” she’d just kind of lost herself in the moment. “I didn’t mean to--” She’s almost tripping over her own words, too. She swallows, takes a deep breath. “You’re just…your skin feels nice.” 

 

“It’s nothing to apologize for,” Jackie says quickly, and if her clothes were off, Lottie would be able to see how Jackie’s turning red all the way to her chest. She leans forward and presses a kiss to Lottie’s lips, lingering. “Yours does, too.” She pulls away, groaning. “I-- the other night, when you had your shirt off… I, uh, I had this dream?” She puts her face in her hands. “I was embarrassed. And trying really hard not to-- You’re really hot, you know that?”

 

Lottie relaxes a little and melts into the gentle kiss. She tilts her head, though, as Jackie puts her head in her hands, stuttering through more words. It clicks, then. “Is-- is that why you slept outside?” she asks, raising a brow. “Because you had a dream about…me?” She’s kind of flattered, actually. She’s definitely sure no one’s had a sex dream about her before. She laughs a little, feeling lightheaded. “I’ve been told on more than one occasion, yeah,” Lottie mumbles. 

 

“It’s nice to know you agree.”

 

“I didn’t sleep outside,” Jackie mumbles. “I was just… I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” She groans again, burying her face in her hands. It did become a nightmare, which certainly didn’t improve the experience, but it’s nice for Jackie to know that her subconscious was right about how good Lottie kisses. “You’re gorgeous. It’s distracting.”

 

Lottie reaches up and takes Jackie’s hands, prying them away from her face. “I thought I’d…upset you,” she explains softly. “Since it was, you know…right after I kissed you.” And then, stupidly, apologized. God, had they really been chasing each other around like that? She felt a little foolish, now. 

 

Bringing one of Jackie’s hands to her lips, Lottie presses a soft kiss to her palm. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” she tells her softly, “I’m perfectly okay just kissing you.” She puts her cheek in Jackie’s palm, pressing against it. “You’re so beautiful.” 

 

Jackie looks at Lottie, smiling even if she feels chagrined. “Probably should have talked things through. I messed up, not saying anything the first time. I thought… I thought that I might forget. I wasn’t feeling great. So I wasn’t sure if I’d remember things or not.”

 

Her thumb brushes against Lottie’s cheek, and she can’t help but lean in again, lips soft against Lottie’s. They feel a little swollen. Kiss bruised. “I’m not… really good with the other stuff,” she mumbled. She never really enjoyed when Jeff touched her, she never let herself enjoy being with Shauna too much. She certainly never exposed herself. She’d kept her dress on with Travis. Jackie worries that the second some clothes come off, she’s going to lose all sense of control, and what if it’s bad or just as underwhelming as it had been before? Jackie would rather not be worried about that.

 

“For what’s it worth,” Lottie mumbles, “I’m glad you didn’t forget.” She didn’t know what she’d do if she had. It already hadn’t felt real to Lottie. None of this really did, but she wasn’t going to stop and question things right now. 

 

Lottie sighs against Jackie’s lips. “Not good as in…inexperienced or you don’t want to?” she asks slowly. She wants to make Jackie feel good, however Jackie is comfortable, really. She’d never push her to do something she didn’t want to. Lottie might not be the most experienced, but she likes to think she’s good with her hands. 

 

Jackie’s glad that she didn’t forget, too. Even with a fever and chapped lips and a starving body, Jackie didn’t regret that first soft, slow kiss. “Not good as in I… haven’t really enjoyed it before,” Jackie admits, resting her forehead against Lottie’s, unwilling to pull away much farther than that.

 

Lottie blinks. “Oh.” She supposes that makes sense, though, doesn’t it? “You’ve…never slept with a girl, have you?” She asks softly, and it’s not meant to shame or embarrass, it’s just a genuine question. Lottie thinks she knows the answer. But no matter what, she won’t push her. She would never. She reaches up, cupping Jackie’s cheek. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to,” she reassures her, softly, just between the two of them. She needs Jackie to know that. She needs her to know that she doesn’t need her to do anything for her. She’s not Jeff.

 

“I’ve only slept with Travis,” Jackie mumbles. “I’ve fooled around a little bit.” But it just wasn’t any kind of pleasant experience. She can’t help but relax, leaning into Lottie’s touch and sighing quietly. She leans in to kiss Lottie again, feeling addicted to the feel and taste of her soft lips. “You mean you’re not going to make a pretty shitty attempt to rub one out then make me give you a blowjob?” she asks, her voice teasing, but she knows Lottie won’t. She knows. And it feels really nice to know.

 

Lottie is quiet and contemplative as she listens to Jackie. She’s not exactly on top of her teammates’ sexual escapades, except maybe Nat a little, but it’s not exactly surprising to hear. Jackie’s parents are pretty conservative, even Lottie had learned that pretty quickly. It doesn’t really matter to her, she doesn’t care. She leans into Jackie’s touch, into her kiss, exhaling contentedly. She can’t help but laugh a little-- not at Jackie, but at the idea of Jeff trying to get her off. “It was mostly rhetorical,” she tells her, smiling. On the other hand, she doesn’t exactly want to think about Jackie sleeping with Travis, mostly because that night was awful, but also because it makes something in her chest coil. She recognizes it, but she thinks it’s stupid of her to feel jealous . 

 

Then again, that wasn’t the first girl Travis has slept with that Lottie had some sort of crush on. She shakes her head. “Besides, it might be hard for you to give me a blowjob, considering I don’t, you know,” she tilts her head, “have a dick.”

 

“Yeah, but, I mean, I could always…” But Jackie trails off, going red. She’s not going to think about that. The one time it’d been brought up, Jeff had made a face and talked about how gross it seemed, and she really didn’t want to press any further on the matter. She looks over at Lottie, curious. “Have you? Ever slept with a girl?”

 

Lottie tilts her head. It’s actually cute how shy Jackie seems about it all. She reaches up to brush her fingers against her cheek. “I guess it depends on your definition,” she admits. “I’ve done… stuff . With girls. Never, like, fully naked in a bed, but, like, at parties.” Lottie’s never actually fully slept with someone. Her fear of getting too close to people has always made her stay away from it. Away from people.

 

But Jackie knew, and she’d stayed, and she was here, and she still wanted to kiss Lottie. She looked into Jackie’s eyes and even if it was still unbelievable, she knew this was real. She pressed her forehead to Jackie’s.

 

“I guess my definition’s sort of shifting,” Jackie murmurs. Something to figure out, she supposes. Something she didn’t know how to think about. Jackie doesn’t really know how to feel other than like she’s on cloud nine at the moment, but she figures that she’s going to have to reckon with whatever’s going on in her head at some point. She wants. She’s letting herself want. Worse than that, she’s acknowledging that part of herself that she usually tries to ignore. She likes girls. A lot. She laughs as they press their foreheads together, shaking her head. “Is fully naked the only way it counts? Because, Jesus Christ, maybe I am still a virgin.”

 

Lottie feels that warmth bubbling in her stomach when Jackie laughs. She really likes it when Jackie laughs. God, she just really likes Jackie. She doesn’t know exactly when it happened, but it feels like the only true thing in her life right now. She can’t help but move forward and kiss her again. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter to me,” she murmurs against her lips. “I just…would like to make you feel good.” She thinks she’d really like hearing Jackie moan her name. 

 

Jackie sighs against Lottie’s lips, grinning against the feel of them, against the words. It’s not super conductive for kissing, but it feels good. “You do,” she tells Lottie. “You really, really do.” A lot. Too much, really, just for kissing. Jackie thought she knew kissing. Bad kissing, good kissing. She feels like she’s melting a little bit. It’s hardly fair. She teases, “You were sleepy not that long ago.” She is still worried, though. Lottie’s been sick all day. She can’t let this distract her from that.

 

The words kind of remind Lottie that her body is aching, but she sort of doesn’t care. She should probably care, especially out here where something like that could literally mean life or death. She sighs, though, and lays back dramatically, Jackie still sitting half in her lap. “I’ve been sleeping all day,” she points out, smiling up at her, “maybe I’m just always tired.” Maybe she wants to pretend she’s not because all she wants to do right now is kiss Jackie. It’s all she’s wanted to do for a long time now. It had crept up on her, something that had slowly filled her up until it was all she could feel, all she could think about. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie . She reaches up for her, tugs on her arm. “I’m busy now.”

 

“You do kind of look sleepy all the time,” Jackie murmurs, leaning over Lottie and smiling gently. “It’s cute.” Everything about her was cute, her sleepy eyes and her pouty lips and the way that she reaches out and pulls Jackie closer, like she can’t get enough, like she doesn’t want to. And Jackie’s still worried because she’s perpetually worried and she can’t fucking help it, but she still gives in and slots her lips against Lottie’s, brushing her tongue against Lottie’s lips as she holds herself up, pulling away just enough to look into those endless eyes.

 

Lottie attempts to frown, but it’s hard when Jackie is leaning over her and smiling down at her like she’s something special. Especially when she’s pressing her lips to Lottie’s, a warm tongue running against them. Lottie hums, her eyes fluttering closed temporarily before she’s looking up at Jackie, watching her with lidded eyes. She reaches up and digs her hands into Jackie’s hair, nails scratching gently along her scalp. She wonders if this is a dream. Sometimes it worries her how hard it is for her to tell what’s real and what’s not. Sometimes dreams seem too real and the real world seems like a dream. 

 

“Is this real?” she asks quietly, holding Jackie’s gaze.

 

The sound that Jackie makes when Lottie digs her hand into Jackie’s hair is both breathy and really just too loud, and she looks down at her with widened eyes as she licks her lips. “It’s real,” she confirms. She thinks she’d die if it wasn’t. She thinks she’d walk into the water and let it carry her away if this was just another stupid, tempting dream. But Jackie knows that it isn’t. She knows this is real because she can touch it, hold it, feel it settle against her. Heavy, but not in a crushing way, just in that solid way that she needs. “It’s real.”

 

That’s really all the confirmation Lottie needs. She trusts Jackie innately. She knows she would never lie to her about this. And even if she did, Lottie would believe her. That’s really how far gone she is. It’s probably a little pathetic, but she doesn’t care. She pulls Jackie down to her and kisses her again, slow but needy, hands in her hair, needy and possessive. Lottie rarely let herself have things, but right now, she didn’t care about anything except this. Except Jackie.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie sighs again, leaning into the kiss, feeling like she’s melting into it. She only wants to get closer, propped up on her hands. It starts out slow, but Jackie can’t help it; she’s eager, and she presses forward, humming against Lottie’s lips at the feeling of hands in her hair. She just wants . She thinks she needs . It’s so much more than desire. Jackie’s felt desire, and she’s shoved it away like it’s nothing. She’s told it to fuck off so that she can try to be normal and okay and not wrong. She can’t just make this go away. It’s too much. She needs it too much.

 

Lottie shivers again at the sound of her name on Jackie’s lips like that. She thinks it might be her favorite sound right now. She pulls her closer, if that’s possible, she wants to feel Jackie’s body pressed against her own, the same way they always are when they sleep, wrapped up in each other. She parts her lips, tongue slipping against Jackie’s, asking her without words to give in, wanting to taste her more. She felt heady with how much she wanted this, wanted Jackie. She didn’t think she’d ever wanted something so badly. She never thought about letting herself want something this much. 

 

The only way for Jackie to get closer is if she straddles Lottie and just fully commits to it, so that ends up being exactly what she does, trying her best to avoid broken ribs by sitting on Lottie’s hips, letting her lips part and leaning into the kiss. Her hands snake into Lottie’s hair, too. It’s so ridiculous and wonderful. She never expected to have something like this. She didn’t think she deserved it. She didn’t think it was right for her. It didn’t seem right for her. Or maybe she wasn’t right for it, for being happy and free. Somehow, some way, out in the middle of nowhere after surviving a plane crash and starvation and the person who used to be the most important in her life, Jackie’s found a way to feel happy and free.

 

Lottie can already feel her breath quickening, her heart picking up pace. She can’t get enough, she feels like she can’t get enough. Her hands itch to wander but she keeps them steady, one in Jackie’s hair, the other going to her side. She can’t help it, the want to feel Jackie’s warm skin. She kisses her, more desperate now, licking into Jackie’s mouth, wanting to taste her, tongue lapping at Jackie’s. Holding onto her tightly. 

 

It’s quickly devolving into something sloppy, and Jackie’s getting lost in the feeling of it, the way that their tongues brush against each other. When Jackie finally pulls away, she’s breathing heavy, her pupils so blown you can hardly see the color. “Lottie,” she pants, looking down at her. Her arms are trembling. “You’re so beautiful.”

 

Lottie looks up at Jackie, breathless, panting just as hard as her. She doesn’t really know what to say, people don’t look at Lottie think that. Hot, sexy, weird, disturbing-- she’s heard everything under the rainbow, really. Her mind was fucked up and most of the time, Lottie felt that way, too. Beautiful wasn’t a word she heard a lot. She knows it’s mostly her fault, though. She keeps people at arm’s length, which is pretty far considering how long her arms are. 

 

She doesn’t want to keep Jackie away. She brings her hand down to cup Jackie’s jaw, she can see her arms shaking. “Lay down,” she tells her quietly, moving slowly to shift onto her side with Jackie. She closes her eyes for a moment. “No one…no one’s ever called me that.”

 

“You are, though,” Jackie says, her voice even raspier than normal. She tucks herself against Lottie, moving to lay beside her and then against her. “I’ve always thought so, ever since we first met.” Ever since they were kids. And, yes, Jackie Taylor’s heart has always belonged to Shauna Shipman, but she’s not blind , and she’s allowed herself the opportunity to glance, even if she never fully looked. She thinks everyone on the team is pretty, but Lottie’s always been something else. She feels like a moth, drawn to her, pressing her lips to Lottie’s neck, her jaw.

 

Lottie doesn’t say much back, she’s never been particularly talkative. She does preen under the affection, though, tucking her face into Jackie’s neck, sighing as she feels lips on her skin. It makes another shiver run down her spine, her nerves all alight. She circles her arms around Jackie and pulls her in closer, pressing her body to her own. It’s a familiar comfort, and coupled with the new, electric sensation of Jackie’s lips on her skin, it makes her shudder with her want. She lets one of her hands find the small of Jackie’s back, fingers tracing along the exposed skin there. She just wants to feel the warmth of skin against skin, the feeling reminding her that this is real. 

 

Jackie was real and so was Lottie and so was the heat between them. 

 

The feel of fingers along her skin is just too much, and Jackie feels another of her self-imposed rules and barriers fading away quickly. She’s just cold. That’s right. She’s cold. Obviously, it makes sense to take her shirt off. Obviously. She’s not even arguing with herself about it, just shedding layers until she’s in her bra and pressing back against Lottie, wanting to feel warm, so warm, nearly hot, hands on her skin as she kisses Lottie’s jaw again, enjoying the way that Lottie shivers underneath her.

 

Lottie watches as Jackie pulls off her flannel-- Shauna’s flannel-- her shirt, until Lottie is looking up at her and she’s only in her bra and she feels her breath hitching. She hadn’t known how badly she wanted to touch Jackie until her hands were flat on Jackie’s back, smoothing down her spine to her hips, back up between her shoulder blades. She can’t stop the sigh that leaves her throat as Jackie’s lips are back on her skin, and she can feel her body flushing with heat. She presses up into Jackie, pushing her softly, before she reaches down and begins to tug her own shirt off, watching Jackie closely as she does. 

 

When it’s off, she looks at Jackie, and she waits to see what she’ll do, waits to let her set the pace, even if Lottie itching so badly to press her body to Jackie’s and feel the warmth of skin against skin.

 

There’s only a moment where Jackie stares down at Lottie, feeling her cheeks grow warmer, feeling it spread all the way down her chest, and she can’t even hide it anymore because she went and took her shirt off, but she’s back to kissing Lottie as quickly as possible, moulding herself against her and attaching their lips together once more, her fingers brushing against everywhere that she can find skin.

 

Lottie feels those little bumps rising along her skin wherever Jackie touches her, and her body is moving into it, whether she wants it to or not. She doesn’t really care to stop it, her own hands pressing along Jackie’s back, mapping the curve of her spine, the way her shoulder blades cut into her back, the muscles that were still there despite their months of starving and wilting. 

 

She kissed Jackie back almost desperately. It’d been a long time since she’d been like this for someone and she almost felt like an addict getting a hit after too much time without her drug of choice. If Jackie was a drug, then Lottie was an addict, and she didn’t care. She scraped her teeth gently along Jackie’s bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth before soothing it. Fingers digging ever so into her back. She just wanted whatever she could take. Something Lottie had felt she was never allowed to do.

 

Jackie is very familiar with faking it. She used to do it a lot with Jeff, just to get him to leave her alone, just to get him to stop. It was nice that he seemed to want to make her feel good, but he was also just bad at it, or she’d often wondered if something was broken in her. 

 

Nothing feels broken in her right now. Or, if it is, it’s in the opposite way because there’s no faking this , no faking the way that she moans Lottie’s name at the bite of gentle teeth against her lip. It’s more gentle than anything she’d ever felt, and yet she still presses even closer, wanting more. She likes the feel of it. She likes the pressure. She likes all of it.

 

Lottie thinks she might have actually died from the sound Jackie makes, her heart hammering in her chest. She feels like she needs to hear it again. Her lips move down Jackie’s jaw, nipping at skin before she soothes it with a kiss. And Jackie tastes salty and sweet at the same time, and it’s the only thing Lottie wants to taste ever again. 

 

She presses her lips into the crook of Jackie’s neck, where it meets her shoulder. She lingers a moment, her tongue pressing against the skin there, before she wraps her mouth around it and sucks, wanting to hear Jackie moan her name like that again. She needs it, actually.

 

“God, Lottie ,” Jackie moans again as she feels Lottie’s lips and teeth all over her skin. Her hips move, and she feels pressurized. Or like a bomb. It’s really hot. It’s almost too hot. When did it get so hot? She can’t stop any of the little noises from leaving her mouth, even when she puts one hand over her lips and lets her eyes roll back. “Jesus Christ,” she mumbles, moving her head so that Lottie has more room against her neck.

 

Lottie hums, pleased. Yeah, she likes that. She really fucking likes that. It makes her chest bubble and heat spread through her body, down to the pit of her stomach. Lower, even, hot and fucking shuddering with her want. As Jackie moves her head, Lottie takes more of her skin into her mouth, biting and sucking, arms hooking around Jackie’s back and pulling her flush to her own body. She’s aware, somewhere in the back of her mind, that as private as their hut might seem, sound carries. 

 

She doesn’t care, she wants to hear Jackie again. Lottie feels intoxicated with her and she just wants more, slotting one leg between Jackie’s as she feels her hips moving against her. She could die happy right now, really. Maybe she has.

 

Jackie actually cries out at the feeling of teeth against her skin, and it’s so good. She thinks that Lottie’s got teeth that were made for biting, but it doesn’t hurt. She doesn’t think she’d care at all if it did. It feels so good. Lottie’s leg between hers feels so good. The brush of skin against her own feels so good. 

 

No one ever told her it could feel like this . Or maybe they did and past experience made her not believe them. This is so much, and it’s so good, and she doesn’t feel like she’s supposed to have it. She doesn’t feel like she’s supposed to be indulging in this. She hasn’t earned it. She’s not allowed it. God. God , she doesn’t care.

 

Lottie’s hands move down to grip Jackie’s hips, guiding them to move against her leg, nails scraping lightly against the jut of her bone through skin. Jackie’s being loud and Lottie doesn’t care, she loves it. Maybe she’s even a little smug at the idea of someone knowing she can make Jackie cry out like that. She’d love to throw it in Jeff’s face. 

 

She moves her lips back to Jackie’s, mouth already open as she slides her tongue against Jackie’s, capturing the sounds in her throat. Swallowing them like she’s starving. They’re not starving anymore, but Lottie is starving for this, for Jackie. 

 

Lottie has made Jackie feel soft and gooey on the inside for months now, with her soft eyes and kind words and just the way that she cares , but now she’s turning Jackie’s insides into actual mush as she lets Lottie guide her hips and press their lips together. It’s a good thing; Jackie can’t stop herself from moaning and whining and sighing, but the way that Lottie seems to be swallowing every sound that she makes helps a lot. 

 

Lottie feels like she’s quickly slipping into an inferno of want and arousal and desire. She’s never fallen this far before. Quickies in bathrooms, or behind a tree in someone’s backyard during a party could never compare to how this feels. She shudders, feels a moan escape her own throat, sighing against Jackie’s mouth, leaving open, wet kisses against her. 

 

Her hands snake their way up Jackie’s back, fingers scraping along the ridges of her spine. She pulls away just for a moment, looks up at Jackie, whose face is flushed, pupils dilated, hair messy. She traces the curve of Jackie’s shoulder with one finger, around to her collarbone, following the shape of it to her sternum. Another pause before she lets her fingers dip down to the space between her breasts, before she hooks a finger into the hem of it. “Can I?” she asks on a whisper. 

 

That sound was really hot, and Jackie breathes sharply, trying to figure out how she can replicate it, but her brain stops working as a finger hooks into the strap of her bra, and suddenly she’s breathing heavy at the thought of crossing another line. It’s terrifying, the thought of being laid bare in front of another person. But that person is Lottie, who’s sweet and considerate and looking at Jackie like she wants to eat her alive. Jackie looks back like she’d let her. She feels like she’s shaking, though, even as she gives a small noise of affirmation, her voice higher than normal. “Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”

 

Lottie leans up, pressing a soft kiss to Jackie’s collar bone, before she looks back up at her, and she’s the only thing that matters to Lottie right now. “Tell me if anything is too much,” she murmurs to her, fingers delicate as they trace around to the clasp of her bra. “I won’t do anything you don’t want to.” It’s important for Jackie to know that. Lottie needs her to know that. They both know what it feels like to let someone take without wanting them to.

 

Gingerly, her fingers undo the clasp with a practiced ease. Lottie’s always been good with her hands. She ghosts her fingers along Jackie’s shoulders, up to the straps that now sit loosely on them, before she’s easing them down, slowly, making sure that Jackie is okay the whole time. She hooks her fingers around the straps, then, and draws it down her arms, discarding it next to them, and her breath hitches, heart pounding in her ears, as she looks up at Jackie, and she’s something holy. 

 

Lottie’s never been good with words. She feels them slipping away from her as her eyes wander bare flesh, lips parted. She thinks Jackie might actually be an angel, pale skin illuminated from what little light reaches them inside the hut. Her hands shake a little as she smooths them up Jackie’s arms. “You’re amazing…”

 

“You…” Jackie starts, feeling so warm just from the way that Lottie’s looking at her. Has anyone ever looked at her that way? She doesn’t think so. Gooseflesh prickles on her arms where Lottie touches, and Jackie feels exposed. She feels seen. It’s different than not having a shirt on in the locker room. Jackie had always been so careful back then, to not look, to not be looked at. But there’s no escaping Lottie’s eyes, her hands. Jackie doesn’t want to, either. Even if she’s flushed and self-conscious. “You are fucking incredible.”

 

Lottie can feel her heart fluttering at the words. It’s pathetic to think that she never thought she’d ever hear someone say them to her. But here Jackie is, looking down at her, bare and open, telling her she’s incredible. Lottie feels her eyes grow misty. She blinks it away, hooks one hand around Jackie’s neck and brings her down for another kiss, slow, intentional, open-mouthed and raw. She lets her hands drift down Jackie’s chest, taking her time, letting herself enjoy every movement and noise and flush from Jackie. 

 

She pulls back just enough to stare into Jackie’s eyes as her palms reach the swell of Jackie’s breasts. Her skin is warm against Lottie’s hands and she cups them gently, watching her face closely. She lets her thumbs brush against the sensitive flesh there, steady and careful. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie breathes, her eyes fluttering shut. She presses her chest forward into Lottie’s touch, rolls her hips. She leans back in for another kiss, pushing herself closer, as close as she can get. She wants this. She wants it. It aches with how bad she wants it. She says Lottie’s name again, and again, and again, unable to help herself. She likes the way it feels on her tongue. She moves to brush her mouth down Lottie’s jaw to her neck. She likes the way that feels on her tongue as well.

 

As Jackie’s body moves into her touch, Lottie takes it all. She presses her fingers more firmly against Jackie’s breasts, thumbs rubbing in circles, feeling her shuddering under her touch, Lottie’s head swimming with the way Jackie is moaning her name like a prayer or a mantra. Her head rolls to the side as lips make it to her neck and she feels a warm tongue against her skin, making her sigh. “ Jackie .” Lottie isn’t usually noisy when she’s like this, she’s learned how to keep herself quiet. Soft sighs and heavy breathing, choked back moans. 

 

But now, she wants Jackie to hear her, sighing into her ear as she presses her face into the side of Jackie’s head. Fuck, she wants this so bad it almost hurts. She wants to flip Jackie onto her back and bury her face in her skin, devour her, consume what she can of the strangled noises coming from her throat. 

 

The only thing stopping her is the pain in her ribs, exacerbated by her heavy breathing. But she wants, she wants and Lottie has wanted so much for so long, she wants to take it all now. 

 

The sound of Lottie sighing out her name makes Jackie breathe in sharply and bite down. She’s never been particularly interested in leaving marks, but now she wants to, wants to see proof that she was there, wants to leave something behind. She wants to have something that’s hers, too, something to show off. 

 

Her hands skim up and down Lottie’s body, her arms, her stomach, her sides. She feels the wound in Lottie’s side, the one she made, the one she’s been checking on for weeks, and she stills, pulling away from Lottie’s skin and trying to snap out of the spell she’s under. It’s hard. Lottie feels so good. Jackie’s hips keep wanting to move against her. “Your… ribs are still broken,” she manages to pant, looking down at Lottie with hazy, worried eyes.

 

When teeth sink into her skin, Lottie lets out an audible gasp, a trembling shudder running through her body. It’s not hard and it’s not painful, it’s quite the opposite. Lottie thinks she’d like it even if it did hurt. She might even like it more. 

 

Her hands grasp at Jackie, sliding down as she feels Jackie pulling back. Lottie’s entire body is buzzing, ears ringing. She feels high and drunk and insane all at once. She’s panting when she looks back up at Jackie, eyes blown wide. She’s not thinking about her ribs at all, really. “I don’t care,” she breathes, “I just-- I want you.” The words spill from her mouth freely. She can’t stop them, doesn’t want to. “I need you.”

 

“You… want me.” Jackie repeats the words slowly, her lips parted. “You… need me.” And she can tell, can’t she? With the way that Lottie looks at her, those eyes even darker, deeper than normal. She doesn’t know where the thought comes from, but Jackie’s brain wanders to the bear, the way it had bowed and let Lottie plunge the knife into its head. Is this how the bear felt? Entranced and pulled in? “I want you, too. Need you. You have me. Promise. It’s real.” She says all the words she thinks Lottie wants and needs. Her hand goes back to Lottie’s side. “Just don’t want to– don’t want to hurt you.”

 

Lottie nods, still breathing heavily. “Yes.” It feels like something even deeper than that, too. Something so intrinsic to Lottie’s soul, something fathomless and infinite. Something not unlike what she’s felt when the Wilderness was with her, like her soul was tangling with something else, something beyond the realm of this, of them. She’s never felt this full, this real, nothing even close to it. The words make her heart stammer. She shivers as a hand presses to her side, where there’s still stitches, still a wound. Lottie thinks about how she’s used to pain, how it doesn’t bother her and hasn’t for a long time. 

 

She doesn’t think that’s something she should tell Jackie. She shakes her head. “I’m okay,” she tells her, reaching up to hold Jackie’s face between her palms. “I’m okay.” She breathes in deeply, lets it go slowly. She can’t tear her eyes away from Jackie’s.

 

Jackie feels like she should be responsible and put a stop to things, but all she can do is lean into Lottie’s touch and close her eyes. She wants. She usually has better control. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. Her brain is not working properly. “Can you… take off your bra?” she murmurs. “I–- When I was dreaming-- I didn’t get to get that far before it went… bad. I want to–-” She wants to see and touch. She wants a chance for that, too. 

 

Lottie can’t help the smile that stretches across her face. She thinks it’s incredibly cute that Jackie is shy, that she dreamed about her like this. “Let’s fix that,” she says back, leaning up just enough to reach behind herself and undo her bra. She slides it off slowly, savoring the way Jackie is looking at her, like maybe Lottie might be something worth having, worth keeping. Like maybe she isn’t broken. 

 

She lets the article drop to the ground next to them, laying herself back down as she holds Jackie’s gaze, hands resting on Jackie’s hips. Whatever Jackie wants, Lottie will give her, let her take. She’d worship the ground at her feet if Jackie asked. She feels like she already does.

 

Greedy is the only way to describe the way that Jackie’s eyes gaze over Lottie, taking her in and breathing heavy. Her focus narrows down to nothing but the girl under her; there could be another fire burning down their home, and Jackie wouldn’t notice. It wouldn’t mean anything. She’s hesitant as she reaches out, cupping Lottie’s breast with tentative fingers. She’s never allowed herself this before. She never thought she could. 

 

“You’re so beautiful,” she sighs out again, soft and reverent, like she’s talking in a church. She could’ve maybe used the excuse that she doesn’t want them to be overheard a few minutes and several moans earlier, but it’s pretty obvious now that Jackie’s really just feeling a little devoted. Lottie Matthews has her name carved on what’s left of Jackie’s heart. She feels like she’s housed somewhere inside Jackie’s veins. She’s beautiful. Jackie just wants to make sure that she knows that.

 

Lottie can’t help the way her breath stutters as Jackie’s hands touch her chest. She can see the hesitance in the way Jackie’s fingers shake and Lottie places her own hands over Jackie’s, arching her back into her touch. Her skin prickles with little shocks that make her sigh, keeping her gaze on Jackie, on the way she’s looking back at Lottie. On the way she seems almost in awe of her, the same way Lottie feels in awe of Jackie. “I’m yours,” she tells her and it’s the truest thing Lottie thinks she’s ever said to someone.

 

The words make something inside Jackie clench and ache. She says, “You have me.” Whatever’s left of Jackie Taylor, whatever was not consumed along with a dead girl, whatever’s still present on this mortal coil, it’s Lottie’s to have. She starts massaging Lottie’s breasts and leans back in, pressing their lips together once more. So much skin brushing against so much skin. It feels incredible. Jackie feels like she’s on fire. Her hips roll again. “You’re okay?” she asks one more time, just to make sure.

 

Lottie lets out a breathy moan at the words, at the feeling of Jackie’s hands on her chest, making her body ignite, moving into the touch. Jackie’s skin is so warm pressed against hers, her lips soft and plush. She nods against Jackie’s lips. “ Yes ,” she exhales. She’s more than okay, she thinks. She feels like her insides are squirming in the best way possible. Like life is finally being breathed into her lungs for the first time in her life. Like she’s a person, like she’s human, like she’s Lottie and not the delusions that live inside her head.

 

She kisses Jackie back, needy, arms moving to circle around her shoulders, digging into her hair again. Whatever doubt that had lived inside of her before, about this, about Jackie, it disappears on sigh as hips roll down into hers. 

 

So Jackie shoves her worries aside for later and presses in closer. Her eyes roll back at the feeling of hands tangling in her hair. She moves her hands against Lottie’s chest, her hips against the leg between her own, her lips against Lottie’s until she’s licking into her mouth. She ends up moving around just enough so that she can place her own leg in between Lottie’s, so that she has something there, too, and she lets herself get lost in this. She’s lost in the feeling that’s starting to ignite between her legs, and she’s lost in the way that Lottie tastes, begging for more. 

 

Lottie isn’t loud, she’s never been loud. But she’s panting and sighing into Jackie’s mouth as hands work against her chest and feels a little insane with it all. Legally, Lottie is clinically insane, but this is something so much deeper inside of her. A primal want, a need , that’s driving her insane. She’s dragging her nails down Jackie’s back, gentle to not hurt, but hard enough to leave streaks behind. She’s pressing her lips against Jackie’s mouth, then her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. Wrapping her lips around the bone there, sucking. Her hands grip Jackie’s waist, grinding her hips against her leg. 

 

She shifts herself as her mouth kisses lower and she’s giving Jackie a glance filled with want and desire, eyes heavy, before she’s taking Jackie’s breast into her mouth, running her tongue against the sensitive nub of skin there. 

 

And she feels crazy and she loves it.

 

“Fuck, Lottie,” Jackie moans. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Nothing’s ever felt this good. She’s never let anything feel this good. Never, ever. But, here she is, and she feels like she’s about to explode, and she hasn’t even been touched below the belt. Is she a fucking guy? Worse? Jesus Christ, this feels insane. Lottie Matthews has her mouth wrapped around one of her boobs. That’s a thing that’s happening right now. She’d think it was a fucking dream if it didn’t feel so real. 

 

Jackie is moaning her name and Lottie feels her body clenching at the sound. It’s better than music, than angels singing, than anything ever heard before. She holds Jackie tighter, lavishes her with her tongue, sucking and licking, breathing heavily into her skin. Lips trail across Jackie’s chest to the other side, adoring her other breast in equal, lapping at her as if Lottie were parched and Jackie was the only thing that could cure her. It felt as much like a truth as her lungs needing air. 

 

There’s a whine that gets caught in Jackie’s throat when Lottie switches sides, choking her, and it’s so much. It’s too fucking much. Her hips jerk and still, her body trembling as she feels an orgasm shudder through her just from kissing and groping. And it’s so much more than she was expecting, and it barely took anything. She’s panting as she looks down at Lottie, her eyes wide. “Motherfuck,” she breathes before leaning in and moving to tuck her face into Lottie’s neck.

 

Lottie feels it shudder through Jackie, feels her body jerking, and she holds her tightly through it, lips against her skin until she’s leaning back and looking down at her, flushed and sweaty and heaving with breath. She lets Jackie burrow into her neck, moving to wrap her arms around her and hold her, loose but comforting as she rubs circles into her back. She’s maybe a little pleased with herself for getting Jackie off with just her mouth on her chest, hiding her smile against the side of Jackie’s head. 

 

After a quiet moment, Lottie asks, “Are you okay?” 

 

Jackie just groans before laughing quietly against Lottie’s skin, and she rubs their chest together before closing her eyes and relaxing. “You know how to do all that just from fooling around at parties?” she asks.

 

Lottie smiles. “I fooled around a lot,” she mumbles, still holding Jackie in her arms, just like they did every night now. And it still felt the same, but it also felt so different, because Lottie could press her lips to the side of Jackie’s head and not have to worry if she was ruining everything. If she was too much. And in the morning, she could kiss her again. “I guess that’s what happens when there’s no one around looking for you.”

 

“Should I be jealous?” Jackie teases, but her arms do hold Lottie a little tighter. Should she be? Was she supposed to be? Or would she come off as needy and selfish and possessive? Tragic and useless and boring? 

 

Lottie shakes her head. “None of them could ever compare,” she murmurs. None of them meant anything. They were just flings, just spur of the moment. Drunk and frustrated, or high and bored. Because they were there, because Lottie was there. Because none of it mattered at the end of the day, because Lottie would always go home alone, to an empty house. She thinks the closest she’s ever gotten to this feeling was with another girl in this village of theirs, in hiding in a locker room shower, giggling long after everyone else had left. 

 

Jackie relaxes at the words, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s jaw. She doesn’t have to be. She doesn’t. This is real. She doesn’t quite know what this is , but it’s real. She can still feel it, warm and loose. She presses her knee back between Lottie’s legs, leaning up just enough to look down at her. “You didn’t… Do you want to? What do you need?”

 

That’s…kind of new. Lottie inhales a little sharply when Jackie’s knee moves against her. Lottie’s never really minded not getting off, it’s always been so much more about the other person. Sometimes, that meant her pleasing them, and sometimes that meant letting them touch her. And she’s not worried about it, not really. She looks back up at Jackie, lips parted slightly. “You don’t have to,” she tells her.

 

“I want to,” Jackie says, offering up a quick kiss before pulling away. “What do you need? Just… tell me what to do so I can figure it out.”

 

Lottie feels herself smiling again. The thought of Jackie wanting to touch her is enough to make her stomach burn again, and even more so that she’s asking what to do, what she likes. No one’s really bothered to ask her that before. Lottie spent a lot of time figuring out what she likes, thanks to being left mostly to her own devices. She’d even checked out a book from the public library once, not that she’d ever tell anyone that. 

 

“I can show you,” she says. Lottie’s always been better with actions than words. She reaches up and takes Jackie’s hands, placing them on her stomach. Beneath Jackie’s palms are scars peeking up from under the hem of her pants, rigid and self inflicted. She doesn’t say anything as she begins to move Jackie’s hands up her abdomen, towards her chest. “Like before,” she murmurs, already feeling her skin tingling under the touch. 

 

“Okay,” Jackie breathes. She lets Lottie move her hands. She feels the ridges of scars, uniform and intentional, before Lottie’s moving her hands back up. She nods. Like before. She can do like before, palming Lottie’s breasts and messaging them. A hum escapes her mouth as she watches Lottie, and then she leans in again to brush her lips over Lottie’s jaw and then latch onto her neck. 

 

Lottie’s eyes flutter closed at the feeling of warm hands on her chest again. Her back arches into the touch, only slightly, as the muscles in her side protest. A soft curse catches in her throat as Jackie’s mouth goes to her neck. She can’t help it, she doesn’t want to. While she can still think straight, she presses her hands over Jackie’s, encourages her to pinch sensitive flesh between her fingers as her head rolls to the side to expose more of her neck to Jackie. Her body is already on fire, and she rolls her hips into Jackie’s knee, sucking in a breath at the feeling.

 

Humming against Lottie’s throat, Jackie sucks at her pulse and moves her hands to where Lottie wants them, pinching and rolling between her fingers, catching hardened nubs with her thumb as she circles again and again. She presses her knee against Lottie a little firmer. Her lips release with a pop, and she’s panting as she moves up to Lottie’s ear. “You’re so beautiful,” she repeats the words. She wants to make sure that Lottie knows.

 

The feeling all at once is a little overwhelming, even for Lottie. She sucks in a breath, a sigh stuttering from her throat as she lets it go. Her hips jerk against the knee between her legs, the friction of it making her legs shake. Jackie’s breath is hot on her ear, voice low, and Lottie makes a strangled noise deep in her throat. 

 

And Lottie’s done stuff like this before, it’s not like she doesn’t know how it feels-- but with Jackie, it’s making her head spin, and her chest flutter, and she’s already so worked up from watching Jackie crumble under her own hands, that she can feel the heat gathering between her legs. 

 

Her hands let go and finally grasp at Jackie’s back again, curling around shoulder blades. Lottie knows that after this, she’ll never want to be touched by anyone but Jackie. 

 

Watching Lottie is so much nicer than watching Jeff or Travis, and Jackie feels her mouth part and her own hips roll again. It’s just so nice. She can’t help herself. She moves back to Lottie’s neck and bites down again before soothing it with her tongue. 

 

Really, that’s all it takes to send Lottie tumbling. The feel of Jackie’s teeth against her skin, hands on her chest, hips against her own. It’d be embarrassing if it wasn’t so hot. And, really, Lottie’s not going to complain, especially as she buries her face into the side of Jackie’s head and lets out a strangled cry with her release, clinging to Jackie like she’s the last thing on earth holding her together. 

 

When she finally loosens her grip, letting herself fall back to the floor, she feels flushed and dizzy and her ribs are fucking on fire but she really, really doesn’t care about that right now.  She just looks up at Jackie with something she’s never looked at anyone else with before-- love.

 

Jackie smiles down at Lottie, her eyes bright and heavy, before she moves off of Lottie’s lap and curls up beside her, pressing her nose to her neck. She’s so warm, sweaty. With anyone else, she thinks it’d be gross, but Jackie finds herself licking Lottie’s neck before snuggling in close. “Was that good?” she asks, happy and content but a little nervous. She thought it was real. Jackie didn’t think that even she could fake something like that.

 

Lottie shivers as she feels Jackie’s tongue on her neck. It seems a little unfair with how good it feels. Lottie doesn’t remember being like this before, when she’d been with other people. Sighing contentedly, she turns her head enough to look over at Jackie, eyes soft and hazy. “Very good,” she tells her. And she’s not lying, not even a little bit. Lottie doesn’t think she could actually lie to Jackie at this point, anyway. Not that she wanted to. 

 

She reaches over and tucks a strand of Jackie’s hair behind her ear, feeling the damp skin of her temple as she does. She lets her fingers linger there a moment, before tracing down the line of her jaw, mapping out the curve of it, memorizing the way it feels under her fingers in this moment. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t think she needs to, her dark eyes searching Jackie’s and letting her know with just a look that this is everything Lottie’s ever dreamed of.

 

Jackie’s smile widens, and she leans into Lottie’s touch happily, her eyes closing as she kisses Lottie’s palm before laying back down beside her. She feels exhausted. She feels like a live wire. It’s never felt so good to make someone else feel good. She had kind of started to think she couldn’t feel this way. It just didn’t seem possible. The closest she thought she was ever going to get was just feeling nice, anticlimactic, panting in an attic with a boy high off of shrooms, apparently. 

 

But this. Jackie could get used to this. She wants more of this. She wants more of Lottie. She wants… to curl up against her, bare skin against bare skin, and she reaches down to pull a blanket over them before setting once again into Lottie’s side, breathing out a happy little sigh.

 

Lottie sort of wants to pinch herself, just to make sure she isn’t dreaming, but she doesn’t think she’s dreaming-- Lottie’s dreams are rarely nice to her, and this felt much too nice to be something her head could conjure up. 

 

As Jackie settles into her, Lottie can feel how tired her body actually is, now that her heart isn’t trying to leap out of her chest and her mind isn’t racing with the revelation that was Jackie Taylor’s nude torso. Fuck, Lottie was in so deep. And she didn’t care. She wanted it. An ache so bad it hurt like a stab to the ribs. It was much more pleasant than the last time Jackie stabbed her, though. 

 

Her eyes drift up to the flowers they stuck around their hut together just a few days ago and she thinks about how strange and yet familiar this all felt. This place wasn’t haunted with the ghosts of people they’d let down, or left behind. It was built on the backs of hard work and cooperation, by the hands of girls who were once teenagers, once savage, now something new altogether. 

 

Lottie lets her eyes drift closed and lets the feeling of Jackie next to her, warm skin pressed against her own, ground her in this new reality. “You feel like home,” she whispers.

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s shoulder. “Thank you for saving me,” she says back, her voice quiet and soft. Her eyes feel heavy, weighed down with everything that’s happened during the day. And it’s been a long day. But she got this in the end, so did it really matter? She wraps an arm around Lottie’s waist and sighs happily once more, feeling herself drift off to sleep.

 

Lottie finds herself staying awake even after she feels Jackie’s breath even out as she falls asleep. She’s tired and she’ll sleep eventually, but at the moment, she wants to bask in the reality that she has this-- a home, a person, a place to belong. Back in Wiskayok, Lottie acted nonchalant, blasé, like she didn’t really care if people liked her or not. She kept her distance, kept to herself, kept quiet. She was hesitant to insert herself anywhere, she hung back in crowds, drifted aimlessly through the days. Soccer kept her focused, gave her something to use as a routine, a baseline. Something to keep her going.

 

Back in Wiskayok, Lottie had felt like a no one, like she was a shadow, nothingness creeping through the hallways of hormonal teenagers. She looked like them, acted like them, sounded like them, but she would never be one of them. 

 

Out here, Lottie was just Lottie. And she got to feel and want and have. 

 

Quietly, Lottie turned her head enough to press her lips to Jackie’s forehead. “You never have to thank me for that,” she whispers to her, before her own eyes finally flutter closed and she lets sleep claim her, too.

Notes:

THEY'VE DONE IT. It's only taken a whooooole lotta words, but they've finally done it. Kissed. Admitted their feelings. It. It's been a long time coming, and I'm suuuuuure it's only smooth sailing from here, right? Right.

Rating might potentially go up in later chapters.

Thank you all so much for reading!! We love kudos and comments, and feel free to reach out to us on Tumblr if you're down! We both love talking about Jackielot and Yellowjackets in general!

Chapter 18: to be nail and dirt

Summary:

Rain, rain, go away, the girls are building a trench today! With the village under construction still, Nat decides that digging a small trench around the camp should help keep it from flooding. Nobody is excited to help with that, though having a wet bed sounds worse. They might all be stuck in the middle of nowhere but there's always time for a good mud fight. And while Jackie is a dirty girl, Lottie doesn't mind at all. It'd be gross if it wasn't so cute.

Notes:

Sorry for another late chapter, life has been a lot lately! But it's another chunky boy, filled with whimsy and fun and probably a cuteness overload. So enjoy it while it lasts! These crazy kids sure are trying to.

Title is from the Spanish phrase "ser uña y mugre", meaning "To be nail and dirt. Utterly inseparable through thick and thin." (Not mentioned, but last week's chapter title was from a Sappho quote, "Sweet mother, I cannot weave -- / slender Aphrodite has overcome me / with longing for a girl.")

Jackie thinks her dreams are mostly pleasant. Soft and warm, surrounded by light. The only change happens right as she starts to wake up, the trailing of cold fingers through her hair. It’s just like Shauna to leave her alone only to come back when Jackie starts paying attention to someone else. Or maybe that’s just what Jackie’s always wanted from her.

 

She doesn’t want to be haunted right now. Or driven crazy. Or whatever was happening. Jackie doesn’t want to be bothered. She wants to lay in Lottie’s arms until she absolutely has to get up. 

 

“Come on, Jackie,” Shauna whispers, gentle and soothing and slow, familiar, like she’s got to coax Jackie into wakefulness. She does. That’s usually the best way to do it. Better than a violent shake or a boot to the back. “Wake up. It’s time to wake up.”

 

But here’s the thing: Jackie doesn’t wanna. She just wants to lay in Lottie’s arms until she just can’t.

 

Lottie isn’t sure what exactly wakes her, but something in her does, and she’s blinking against harsh light streaming into the hut. She doesn’t move quite yet, the weight pressed against her side a familiar and comforting one, as she listens to Jackie’s breathing to determine whether she’s awake yet or not. 

 

It’s easy for Lottie to tell that she is. She knew people found it off-putting or strange that she could tell things like that, or that she somehow knew when people were going to appear or say something. It was just…intuition, to Lottie. Something she inherently knew, like how most people know the sound of their friend’s voice, or the feeling of a hot pan on bare skin. 

 

She breathes in deeply and feels the sharp jab of pain that always greets her in the mornings now as her ribs protest against the action. She still doesn’t say anything, opting to instead shift just enough to circle both her arms around Jackie and burrow into her. There’s noises outside around the village, but Lottie doesn’t want to acknowledge any of that yet. She wants just a little more time with this, in case it all slips away as soon as the day starts.

 

There’s a lot of skin touching skin, and Jackie would normally be grossed out by it, especially in the places where they’ve both gotten hot and sweaty and a little sticky, but she really enjoys the way that Lottie feels against her, so warm and solid and real. It makes Jackie move just enough to press a kiss to the side of her head before laying back against her.

 

The moment cannot hold, though, and there’s the sound of knocking next to their doorway, loud and clear. Nat doesn’t come inside, instead calling into the hut, “Uh, breakfast, guys. Lottie, Misty wants to check on you, make sure your head’s alright and whatever stomach thing is just a stomach thing. She wanted to last night , but I said you just needed… rest.”

 

Lottie groans at the sound of Nat’s voice, but mostly at the request to see Misty. She drapes her arm over her face. “Okay,” she calls back and her voice is a little raw from last night and all of yesterday, but she doesn’t really care. “I’ll…be right out.” She really doesn’t want to move, though. She waits until she hears Nat’s footsteps moving away before she turns and tucks herself into Jackie. “Did you sleep okay?” she asks, and it’s kind of strange and intriguing how, suddenly, Lottie feels like herself again. 

 

Ever since her waking dream, she’d felt like she was only half in her body, words disappearing in her head before she could even speak them out loud. She’d spent weeks staying silent, then days saying only a few things, and mostly only to Jackie.

 

But now, she had them again. She’d found them on Jackie’s tongue last night, drank them from her skin, swallowed her moans and made them into something holy. She nuzzles against Jackie, prodding her. “We have to get up.”

 

“I slept great,” Jackie says, laughing quietly as she covers her face with her hands. “I tend to sleep really good with you around.” Most of the time. Maybe a few bad dreams worked their way in, a few sleepless nights that she just couldn’t ward off, but there was something so content and warm to be found in Lottie’s arms. Jackie didn’t want to leave it.

 

Jackie just smiles as Lottie nuzzles against her. “You seem really invested in that. You know if you want me to get up, you’re going to have to let go, right?”

 

Lottie hums. “I guess I’ll have to stick around, then.” She feels a little like a petulant child, though, clinging to Jackie. She doesn’t want to get up, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that if she doesn’t, Misty will come in uninvited anyway and despite Lottie not carrying a lot of shame or embarrassment around her sexuality, she doesn’t think that will go over well for anyone involved.

 

Still, she groans as she shifts, not just to show her discontent, but because her ribs are angry at her for not being mindful last night. “Do I have to?” she mumbles against Jackie’s shoulder.

 

Jackie wraps her arms back around Lottie and sighs. “Probably,” she mumbles. She probably has things she needs to help with, too. “I can go with you for a little bit, though, while she’s playing doctor or whatever.”

 

“You’d brave Misty Quigley for me?” Lottie says, a cheeky lilt to her voice. She pulls away just enough to look at Jackie, to see the sleep and satisfaction in her eyes still. To know that the disheveled mess of her hair and body are because of her. She reaches up and traces the outline of a red bruise on Jackie’s neck. “You don’t have to,” she adds after a moment, always wanting to make sure Jackie knows she never has to do anything with Lottie that she doesn’t want to.

 

“I think you’re worth it,” Jackie says, grinning. “Besides, she’s way more focused on you than me, so I should be alright.” She shivers as Lottie touches her skin, feeling the pleasant ache on her neck, and she notices a bruise on Lottie’s neck. She takes a sharp breath before releasing it, groaning. She’s not upset, though. Just blushing. “How bad does it look? Since you totally mauled me last night, Matthews.”

 

Lottie feels her heart fluttering again and a blush creep into her face. She watches intently as Jackie examines her handy work, before giving her a smile of her own. “I thought I was pretty gentle, actually,” she murmurs, a half tease. Still, she leans forward and presses a soft kiss to one of Jackie’s bruises, before placing a needy one to Jackie’s lips. “I think you look beautiful.” 

 

“You were really gentle,” Jackie breathes, sighing happily into the kiss. “You do, too,” she mumbles. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful.” She’s mesmerized. Girls have always been so pretty, but Jackie’s never allowed herself too much. Last night was so much , and it was so good. Jackie stares at Lottie’s neck before her eyes widen. “Oh! I have something– One sec.” She reaches around for her jacket, searching through the pockets before she pulls out her necklace. “Nat gave this back, and I’ve been meaning to… offer it back to you. It was a gift. I want you to have it, if you still– If you still want it.”

 

Lottie allows Jackie to adore her, but she doesn’t say anything back. It’s strange being complimented like this. She doesn’t think anyone has really paid her compliments in this way. A lot of the girls had fallen at her feet in the winter, raised her up like some sort of prophet, but they’d never looked at her and seen Lottie. Not the way Jackie has.

 

Her gaze goes to the necklace as Jackie offers it back to her. She holds her hand out, letting the cool metal rest in her palm, like it’s something precious, like she’s Jackie holding Shauna’s journals to her chest. She closes her fist around it. “I do,” she says, accepting the offering. 

 

She leans forward again, lips brushing against Jackie’s. She thinks about how she gets to taste this again and again. The thought gives her pause, though, and she glances at the doorway, covered by a blanket, where Nat had just been outside. “Do you…” she doesn’t really know how to ask it, because she’s never had to ask anyone, “want to keep this…private?”

 

“I wasn’t really…thinking about private last night,” Jackie says, feeling hot, too hot, flushed once more. She swallows, looking away from Lottie. “I’m not… supposed to be this way,” she whispers. “But I am.” 

 

What did it matter out there, anyway? They were at the end of the world. They were separated by everyone else that would judge or hate or scream or slap by thousands of miles, and every day it seemed further and further away. She sighs. “Does it even matter? They already… they already think it, don’t they? Nat called me your girlfriend. Misty asked me if we were a thing. They all… They know what I am,” Jackie adds quietly, and she can’t help the spike of shame. She wishes it would go away, but it’s ingrained, and it feels like her mother’s love. “They do, don’t they?”

 

Lottie reaches out, tender in the way she cups Jackie’s face, caressing her gingerly. She doesn’t force her to look at her, but she does let the action speak for itself, that it’s okay to feel what she does. She understands the shame. She’s felt it, too. 

 

“You know, I…struggled for a long time about it,” she starts off slow. She’s never told anyone her story before. No one’s ever asked. She’s never had to come out , as they say. “My parents weren’t really like your mom, they didn’t-- hover .” It’s the nicest word she can think of for it. Lottie bites the inside of her cheek. “But they still had things to say. About people like that-- like us.” She adds that part on quietly, speaking it into truth but not forcing it into the open. She strokes Jackie’s cheek. 

 

“I asked Laura Lee about it once, what she thought. She told me that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. We were made in God’s eyes and we’re good ,” she says, feeling her own voice waver at the memory. She swallows the lump in her throat, scoots closer to Jackie. “Even if everyone thinks they know, you don’t have to tell them anything. We don’t have to. It can stay between us, if that’s what you want.”

 

Lottie leans forward, presses her forehead to Jackie’s. “What you are, Jackie Taylor, is a kind, compassionate, beautiful person. You’re just you, whether you like girls or boys. And it-- it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

 

Jackie lets her eyes drift closed. The words are so sweet . They’re kind. They make something break inside her chest, cracking open and spilling out, and she wraps her arms around Lottie and hugs her desperately. This is everything she’s ever wanted to hear. 

 

“Tragic and boring and insecure.”

 

It’s not the ghost of Shauna but the memory of her, and that’s all that Jackie really needs. That’s what makes it real. Because it’s already happened. Because it’s already true. Lottie’s words are sweet. Jackie even thinks that Lottie believes them. But that doesn’t make them true. She leans back, and she smiles, and she presses a soft kiss to Lottie’s lips. “I don’t care if they know, or if they don’t. We’ve been close to each other for months. And if I can kiss you in front of them then maybe I… maybe I want to.” She swallows. “It’s not like out there. Van and Tai get to be happy. Maybe I want to be happy, too. If you do.”

 

It’s not like out there. 

 

It makes Lottie wonder. If they were out there, what would life even be like for her? Not this, she knows that much. The idea is cementing itself in her mind again. This is where Lottie belongs. Maybe not the rest of them, but this is where she belongs. 

 

She smiles, serene and soft. “I do,” she answers, brushing her lips back against Jackie’s, “want that.” She wants it so bad. To be happy, to be free.

 

And only here, Lottie thinks, she only gets that here.

 

“Then we can just… be,” Jackie says. Her arms wrapping around Lottie loosen, lacing together around her back. If anyone noticed anything, said anything, then fine. Whatever. Jackie tells herself that she doesn’t care, that she’s not wrong for wanting this, not at the end of the world. 

 

She pulls away, sighing. “We need to get dressed, probably.” She glances at the necklace still in Lottie’s hand, and then at her neck. “Do you want me to put that on?”

 

Lottie knows, okay? She knows that one conversation, one night, it isn’t going to change someone right away. She knows . It takes time to try and shed the preconceived notions you have of yourself. Lottie was still trying to do that, too. It was different than what Jackie was going through, but it wasn’t so different that she couldn’t understand.

 

She was trying to accept that maybe she wasn’t crazy. That maybe her illness didn’t have to define her, have to keep her away from everyone and everything. 

 

Lottie looks down to the necklace in her hand as well. “Yes,” she says, holding it back out to her.

 

Jackie takes the necklace and leans forward, carefully putting it around Lottie’s neck. Her hands pet through soft, thick hair, and one trails down to the necklace, straightening it up before ghosting down between Lottie’s breast, to her stomach. She leans forward, murmuring, “We should get dressed. Breakfast.”

 

Lottie is still as Jackie fastens the necklace back around her neck, and it no longer feels heavy, borrowed, like it had the day she’d given it to her. Back then, Lottie hadn’t thought it was something she could have, Jackie’s heart. She shivers as a hand trails down her stomach. She grabs Jackie’s hand before it can get too far down, before it can feel the ridges of scars she knows Jackie felt last night. She leans forward, doesn’t have to move far, pressing her lips to Jackie’s, before pulling away enough to nod. “Yeah…” she doesn’t quite move yet.

 

Grinning, Jackie presses another kiss to Lottie’s lips. She laces their fingers together; she won’t let her hands wander anywhere Lottie doesn’t want them. “This isn’t getting dressed, Lott,” she murmurs, her words barely above a whisper against Lottie’s lips.

 

Lottie hums. “It’s not?” she mumbles back, pressing in again, kissing her soft and slow, letting her tongue dip out and brush along Jackie’s lip. “I hadn’t noticed.” But before she can get too lost in it, she pulls back, squeezing Jackie’s hands in her own. 

 

Do they need food? Jackie is honestly questioning if they need food, but they’re all still starving, and she was too worried to eat much yesterday, so she knows she has to try. They need to go out and get food. So she brings one of Lottie’s hands to her lips and gives her palm a soft kiss before pulling away, sighing. “Breakfast,” she mumbles, looking for her bra.

 

Lottie smiles sweetly. She reaches over and finds Jackie’s bra, holding it out to her, before grabbing her own. She doesn’t put it on, though, instead just grabbing a shirt and tugging it on, then grabbing the purple dress that was Laura Lee’s and tugging that on over top that. She had to take a breather, though, rubbing her side. She was pretty sore, but, really, it was totally worth it. 

 

Jackie puts on her bra and a striped shirt and her flannel before looking back at Lottie, at her side, frowning softly. “Maybe we shouldn’t do… anything else until your ribs and side are healed. I don’t want to pull anything or puncture anything.”

 

Lottie groans. “Misty said it could take weeks,” she grumbles. “Besides, I'm kind of used to it.” Maybe that wasn't a good thing, but it was the truth. She doesn't think she has to worry too much about exacerbating the injury, unless something big or dramatic happens. As long as she doesn't sleepwalk somewhere and try to split her side open again. She winces at the memory, still fuzzy in her mind. “I'll be okay.”

 

“We went this long without doing anything,” Jackie teases, holding out her hands to help Lottie up. “I feel like you can hold off a little longer. I don’t want one of your ribs to puncture a lung or something just from me kissing you.” Though, wow, it felt really nice to think about the fact that Lottie actually wants to kiss her that much. And other things.

 

Lottie lets Jackie help her up, keeping her hands in hers even once she's standing. She gives a pout, though, something she used to be good at faking. “It was kind of torture, though,” she points out, “if kissing you is what kills me, I think I might be okay with that “

 

“I would not,” Jackie says, frowning. “I would absolutely not be okay with that.” Yes, it’s a joke, but it’s not one she appreciates at all . She gives Lottie’s hands a squeeze and brushes her thumbs over them. “I wouldn’t be okay with that at all, actually. So.”

 

Lottie grimaces. Maybe she shouldn’t joke about dying when she’s been so close to it. When she literally begged them for it, begged Jackie for it. “Sorry,” she mutters, squeezing her hand back. “I’m going to kiss you, though. I’m not waiting.” She gives a more reassuring smile. “ But …we can probably hold off on, um, more of that for a bit. I suppose.”

 

“Tell her she’s being magnanimous,” Shauna drones from the corner, her journal in hand as she makes herself at home in Jackie’s space, even if it’s not just hers. It’s a role reversal; Jackie’s always felt more at home in Shauna’s little attic than her own pristine bedroom. Now, Shauna’s more comfortable in Jackie’s head than resting.

 

“How magnanimous,” Jackie murmurs. She gets up on her toes and presses a kiss to Lottie’s lips. So sweet. She wants to focus on them. “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.” Any more than you already do goes unspoken.

 

Lottie tilts her head at the response. It’s very…un-Jackie like. But she doesn’t mention that, sighing happily at the kiss. She kind of wants to just pull Jackie’s shirt back off and push her against the wall and kiss her until her knees buckle, but she refrains. She combs her fingers through Jackie’s hair. “I won’t,” she tells her. At least, not by kissing her. 

 

She squeezes Jackie’s hand again. They’ve probably delayed enough. “Ready?”

 

“Whenever you are,” Jackie says, because, honestly, she just wants to lay back down and hold Lottie close and kiss her, a lot, so much, and she’s afraid she’s going to get distracted by all that kissing, and wanting to kiss, and wanting to feel warm, soft skin under her own. It’s going to be a really long day. Jackie’s always been really bad about building her life around one person, and now she gets to kiss her ? It’s a little too good to be true. “Or now. We should probably head out now.”

 

Lottie thinks she could get lost in Jackie’s eyes, just watching her, and it takes a moment for her to snap out of it, nodding. “Yeah,” she breathes, “yeah, we should. Um, go.” Now, before she let her wants take over her logic. “Okay.” She clears her throat, squeezes Jackie’s hand then turns to head towards the door, moving stiffly. Today was going to be a long day. 

 

She pulls the curtain aside and leads Jackie out. The sunlight feels a little harsh on her eyes, and it’s then that she remembers she hasn’t been outside in the sun for almost two days now. She rubs them, then looks towards the fire pit. “I’m so hungry,” she notes, holding her stomach. “Hopefully my stomach can handle it.”

 

Jackie figures that, if she just focuses on Lottie, she won’t be inclined to crawl out of her skin, which would be deeply uncomfortable for herself and everyone that witnesses it. She looks at Lottie with a frown, head tilted. “Hopefully. How’s it feeling? That stomach bug just came out of nowhere yesterday.”

 

“Yeah,” Lotte says, nodding, “it did. It was…weird.” She’d woken up with a headache, but she hadn’t felt sick. Not until later, after she’d passed out in Jackie’s lap for a little bit. “I feel…fine now.” She wonders if maybe she was being punished again for something. She wished she could just hear it again, she wished it would just tell her what it wanted. 

 

She doesn’t have time to really focus on that, though, as the others realize the two of them are heading towards the fire. Lottie sees Gen elbow Mari, who’s staring, and then also kick Melissa, who is also staring. Lottie, for her part, just smiles, tucks Jackie in closer to her. 

 

“Had to have just been, like, a really weird bug,” Jackie says, but she’s glad at least that Lottie’s not sick anymore. That had been scary, and it had come out of nowhere. “Do you often get sick when you have a headache like that?” she asks as they walk closer to the fire, and she notices the stares, of course she does, and she feels her face heat up, but she ignores it. “Uh, good morning.”

 

Lottie just nods at Jackie. “Must’ve been.” She shrugs. “Not usually.” Sometimes, though. Her migraines could make her woozy or take away her appetite, but never that bad. 

 

Some of the other girls around the fire smile, but it’s Van who greets them first. “Well, look who’s come back from the dead,” she says to Lottie, “that’s, like, twice now, right? Does that make you Jesus?” 

 

Lottie rolls her eyes but ignores her. 

 

Tai smacks her, like usual, and Van just laughs, shaking her head. 

 

“Get some good sleep last night?” Melissa asks, then, earning her another kick from Gen.

 

“The hair and the cloak is kind of biblical,” Jackie teases, looking up at Lottie with a smile. She ducks her head at Melissa’s remark and moves to grab two plates when Mari fixes them, offering one to Lottie when they make it to the plane seats. Jackie sits on the ground and crosses her leg under her, picking at her food. “Yes,” she says simply.

 

Lottie frowns a little, glancing down at her cloak. She likes it, it makes her feel safe. Wrapped up and covered. She sits in her plane seat and waits for Jackie to get their plates, like usual, taking hers and setting it in her lap as she glances around at everyone. It’s a little awkward, even for her. There’s so many eyes on them, even if at least some of them have the audacity to pretend they’re not. 

 

Mari, of course, can’t help but say something. “What about you--” she starts off, and Lottie knows something bad is coming when she catches the smirk on her face-- “ Lottie?” And she gives her best imitation of what Mari probably thinks is Jackie. 

 

There’s a beat, as Mari smiles triumphantly to herself, and then next she knows there’s a shoe smacking into the side of her head. 

 

Lottie, now down a shoe, just picks her plate back up and keeps eating.

 

Jackie knows that something is coming as soon as Mari starts talking, but that doesn’t stop her from putting her head in her hands to cover the way she’s blushing when Mari– Does she sound like that? Really? There’s no way she sounds like that. Hopefully.

 

She does, at least, look up in time to watch one of Lottie’s boots smack Mari in the head, and she can’t help but gasp, then laugh, her head tilting back against Lottie’s leg.

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything else, just keeps eating. She does let one of her hands drift down into Jackie’s hair, petting it softly, curling some of it around her finger. 

 

Van looks amused. “So, like,” she looks at Lottie, then to Jackie, “do Tai and I have competition or what?”

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “Van,” she says, trying to be stern, but it doesn’t come off that way.

 

“Hey, I take my role as the token butch very seriously.” 

 

Lottie tilts her head. “I think Melissa is more butch than you sometimes.”

 

Van sputters a little and Melissa turns bright red. 

 

“Is it the hat?” Van asks, offended. “It’s the hat, isn’t it?”

 

“It’s definitely the hat,” Jackie says, eating some of her food, trying not to lean too much into Lottie’s touch. “I don’t… think either of us qualify as butch?” She’s not too sure on the terms. Jackie’s new to this, new to these concepts and this way of thinking and feeling anything other than disgust and like there’s something perverted in her when she looks at her friends and wants more. “But there’s also no competition. Everyone heard you two in the attic all winter.” Even Jackie, who was barely a person at that point, remembers that . 

 

Van doesn’t seem particularly embarrassed by the fact, just smiling to herself, whereas Tai at least shows a bit of shame, shaking her head.

 

“Lottie’s way too much of a fairy princess to be butch,” Natalie says from the other side of the campfire, “look at her.” 

 

Lottie looks at herself. “I’m not…” 

 

“I think Jackie could pull off the butch look,” Gen says, leaning forward as if she were examining Jackie closer. “Well, she’d probably look more like a little boy so, maybe not.”

 

Mari, rubbing her head, throws Lottie’s shoe back at them, where it lands beside her. “It’s definitely a competition. We could have, like, the gay olympics for you guys.”

 

All Lottie has to do is reach towards her shoe to have Mari flinching. She grins at her and Mari rolls her eyes.

 

“Well, I’m happy for you guys,” Akilah pipes up. “I think it’s cute.”

 

“A little boy?” Jackie asks, indignant. She does not look like a little boy.  She huffs. “And what would even be included in the gay olympics, Mar? That just sounds ridiculous.” 

 

She still offers Akilah a soft smile, grateful that someone is being normal. Still, all of this makes her chest feel light, like she wants to cry and laugh at the same time. She’d seen how happy everyone was for Tai and Van, but she didn’t think she was allowed. She hadn’t expected to be allowed. 

 

“If you tried to be butch,” Gen emphasizes, “like imagine wearing Van’s polos and some jeans. You’d look like a little sailor boy.”

 

“I think that’d be cute, too,” Nat chimes in. 

 

Lottie kind of shrugs. “It would be,” she tells her, nudging Jackie a little bit. She doesn’t really care what Jackie looks like, though, she thinks she’s beautiful no matter what.

 

Mari seems like she’s actually contemplating an answer to Jackie’s retort. “I dunno, like, olympic boob touching?”

 

Jackie feels her cheeks heat a little bit more, but she looks up at Lottie. Should she dress like a guy? Was that something Lottie might enjoy? She’d brought clothes she felt more comfortable in to Seattle, excited to take a breather from being perfectly coiffed all the time. She liked clothes, though. Fashion. Matching and looking good, even if she’d sort of fallen off the wagon.

 

She makes a face, looking at Mari. “That’s a horrible idea.”

 

Van snickers. “Olympic boob touching, really? Are you looking to join the gay olympics, Mari?”

 

“I’d totally make a hot lesbian,” Mari says proudly, not even a little ashamed of her stupid suggestion.

 

Lottie is happy, really, to just listen to everyone talk. She’s glad they’re being nice, mostly for Jackie’s sake. She was worried it might scare Jackie off, even if she felt bad for thinking that. She wouldn’t have judged Jackie at all, really. It would’ve made her sad, sure (like really fucking sad), but she wasn’t going to force anything. Ever. Lottie was used to suffering in silence.

 

But she didn’t have to. She had Jackie now. 

 

“Alright, alright, everyone just finish eating,” Nat cuts in, “we got some stuff to do today before this rain rolls in.”

 

Jackie just rolls her eyes at Mari, resting her head against Lottie’s leg and wrapping an arm around it as she finishes her food. Nat’s words have her looking up at the sky, startled to see clouds starting to roll in. She wasn’t expecting that. It’s not snow, at least, but she worries about the rain being just as bad. Are their huts going to be able to handle the weather?

 

“What’s on the agenda for the day, cap?” Jackie asks Nat, an eyebrow raised.

 

“I think we should preemptively dig some runoff canals,” Nat explains, “and find a way to keep the clothes and stuff dry.” 

 

Misty, who’s been so quiet the entire breakfast, Lottie hadn’t even noticed her sitting off to Nat’s left, speaks up. “We can put a tarp over the storage shed,” she suggests and when Lottie looks up, Misty is looking directly at her. Lottie scrunches her brow. “And I still need to check up on Lottie.”

 

Lottie frowns. “I know,” she tells her, her hand subconsciously tightening around Jackie’s shoulder.

 

“Digging,” Gen sighs. “Great.”

 

Jackie wants to agree. Digging canals for runoff sounds like a miserably long day, one that she just knows is going to lead to more splinters or cuts or calluses forming on her hands. It sounds like a long, shitty day. But, it could be worse. “Beats having all our stuff get wet,” she says.

 

She glances over at Misty when she speaks, when Lottie’s hand tightens. Her hand brushes up and down Lottie’s leg, trying to be soothing.

 

Once people start actually finishing up breakfast, they drop the utensils in the bucket they’ve deemed the dishes bucket, and heading off towards where Nat wants to start digging first. Lottie takes her time, though, not eager to have Misty’s cold hands prodding around her already sore ribs, and likely her tactless questions about her and Jackie.

 

But she finishes eventually, and she can see Misty already at her hut waiting for her. “Shall we get this over with?” she murmurs to Jackie.

 

Jackie actually manages to eat her breakfast and almost enjoy it, just happy for once to be able to have a good morning. She feels a lot lighter, like she’s going to laugh or cry or both, and it’s so nice. It’s just really fucking nice. 

 

Sighing, Jackie nods. “Sure. Lets me put off ditch duty for a little bit longer, too.” She grabs their empty plates and deposits everything in the bucket before helping Lottie stand and start walking towards Misty’s hut. A little sunlight peaks out of the clouds that are starting to gather, catching the way the necklace rests on Lottie’s neck, showing off the few marks that Jackie had left there, too. It makes her feel happy. It makes her feel flushed. Especially since the last time they were in Misty’s hut last night also started, well. A lot.

 

Lottie feels rather content, as she watches Jackie, then walks in stride with her towards Misty’s hut. It’s the happiest she’s felt in a while. Kind of ever, really. Though she was really happy last night, too. She kept hold of Jackie’s hand the whole time, ducking into the hut, seeing as Misty’s was shorter than most others and Lottie’s head touched the top of the doorway if she didn’t. 

 

“There you are,” Misty says, turning around but stopping short when she sees Jackie. Lottie can see her frown trying to form, but she holds it. “You were supposed to stay here last night, just in case.”

 

Lottie shrugs. “I was fine.”

 

Misty gives a shrill chuckle. “So I heard.” She gestures to the bench again and Lottie walks over, sitting. Misty doesn’t hesitate when she comes over, pressing a hand to Lottie’s forehead. “No fever, that’s good.” She feels around her throat, then, pausing when she notices the bruises. “You’re supposed to be resting, Lottie.”

 

Jackie watches Misty, curious about something that she can’t quite put into words. Jackie Taylor is good with people. She might not always be the best at showing it, but she’s forced herself to be good at reading people. She has to. People are so rarely the way that she wants them desperately to be: open and honest and easy to understand. So she’s had to learn. 

 

The way that Misty laughs hurts Jackie’s ears. Her head tilts to the side, and she brushes her thumb over Lottie’s palm as Misty examines her. She doesn’t tell Lottie told you so , even though she also said that Lottie should be resting, even if it felt amazing last night. Instead, she offers Misty a soft look, still trying to be kind. “What do you think caused her to get so sick yesterday?”

 

“I’m resting,” Lottie protests, wrongly. She knows she’s wrong, but she’s also so tired of sitting around and doing nothing. 

 

Misty just frowns again, pulling her hands away. “How are you feeling?”

 

Lottie shrugs. “Fine. I don’t feel sick anymore at all.”

 

“Oh? Well, that’s good,” Misty says, “very good.” She looks over at Jackie, then, pushing her glasses up. “Well, it was probably something she ate, if the sickness is gone. Maybe she just got a bad piece of meat from dinner or something.” 

 

Lottie sighs. “Yeah, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened out here before now.”

 

Jackie hums, nodding. It’s just weird that no one else got sick, if that’s the cause, but she’s not going to bring that up, especially right now. She just watches both of them quietly, her face calm, open. “At least you’re doing better. I’m sure most of that’s thanks to Misty.”

 

“Well,” Misty says, “since you’re not sick anymore, that means you’re all good to go.”

 

Lottie glances over at Jackie, then back to Misty. “Hey, Misty,” she says, then, as the other girl stands up, “why did you lie to Jackie?”

 

Misty freezes mid turn and Lottie feels like she can see the wheels turning in her eyes. With a sharp, pressed smile, she turns on her heels to face them again. “I-I didn’t lie ,” she says, “I just-- stretched the truth. I thought that, you know, Jackie should know.”

 

“Should know…” Jackie trails off, intrigued to see where Misty is going to go with that.

 

“That-- How you felt, Lottie,” Misty stutters.

 

Lottie furrows her brow. “But you didn’t know how I felt,” she says plainly, “I didn’t even say anything.”

 

“I could just tell, you know. You looked upset.”

 

Lottie sighs. Even she hadn’t known how she felt in that moment. She was more stunned that Misty had come out and just said that to her. “Thanks, Misty, I’ll let you know if I start feeling bad again.” She doesn’t really have much more to say, so she just tugs on Jackie’s hand and stands, heading towards their hut again.

 

Jackie’s still thinking about food and stomach bugs and the fact that everyone’s been eating the same thing for months when Lottie takes her hand and heads towards their hut. Theirs, a shared space. Jackie’s always liked being a part of a they , one part of a set. She lets their fingers tangle together, stuffs her free hand in her jacket pocket as she looks up at Lottie. “Well, now that’s over, big plans for the day?” she asks, unable to stop smiling.

 

Lottie is still a little miffed at what Misty did. In the end, it did get them both to admit their feelings, but she doesn’t like the idea of Misty using her words against her. Again. Lottie rubs her hand across her face, looking over at Jackie when she speaks, lost in her own thoughts. “Oh, uh,” she looks up at the sky, then around the camp, “I’ll probably go, um, grab the clothes that are drying, get things in the storage shed.” It was pretty much all she could do, still. Lest both Jackie and Misty yell at her for doing too much.

 

That doesn’t sound too bad. Jackie nods, wondering if there’s anything else that she can think of that might be good for Lottie to do, if she wants to, but all she can think about is the fact that she’s about to spend the next few hours helping to dig trenches. “Sounds like more fun than what I’m about to get up to.”

 

“Not eager to dig a bunch?” Lottie asks, smiling down at Jackie. When they get back to the hut, Lottie steps inside, looking around, before she pulls her cloak off, which is easier since she’s put a tie on the front, and hangs it up. She pushes some of her jackets around before picking one up and sliding it on. It’ll be easier to carry things with her arms more free like this. “Maybe I’ll come watch you dig. See how strong you’ve gotten.”

 

“Not enough to dig trenches,” Jackie replies, leaning against the doorway as she watches Lottie. She hasn’t been allowed to play in the dirt in years. It was unseemly for a young lady, Jaqueline. Why would you even want to? She’s already dirty enough. She moves closer, giggling as she puts her hands on Lottie’s arms and stands on her toes. “How strong I’ve gotten? I’m pretty sure that I’m still just scrawny.” She hasn’t gotten back any of the muscle mass she’d lost since they got there, not in her legs or her abs. It’s kind of sad. 

 

“Well, you’ve been carrying logs and stuff for days now,” Lottie says, smiling down at Jackie. It was always kind of funny to her how much shorter Jackie is compared to Lottie. When they’re both just standing normally, she can look straight over Jackie’s head. 

 

“Are you saying you’ve gotten all this splinters and nothing to show for it?” She takes one of Jackie’s hands and brings it up to her lips, kissing her knuckles. 

 

Jackie wants to huff and frown and pout, but it’s hard to want to do any of that when Lottie is so close, and she’s kissing Jackie’s knuckles. “I have fun little red spots on my hands from picking them out and the first big bites of the season somewhere, I’m sure,” she mumbles, rising up a little more to kiss Lottie’s cheek. Her fingers move up to play with the necklace.

 

Lottie snakes her other hand down and around Jackie’s waist, pulling her against her body. She could fully lean over Jackie if she wanted to, but she refrained, knowing that doing so would probably be bad on her ribs. “I can find them for you later,” she murmurs against her lips, “if you want.”

 

“Wowza,” Jackie breathes, her breath catching as she wraps her arms around Lottie’s neck and sighs into the kiss. “That was good. You’re maybe too good at this, Lottie Matthews.” Good enough to drive Jackie crazy, to make it nearly impossible to stop wanting things , things she’d never cared about, things that had seemed gross or wrong. She has to pull away, shifting on her feet. “Okay, we gotta… do things. Or we won’t leave, and Nat will get pissed— at me, not you— and that just won’t be fun.”

 

She takes half a step away, sliding her hands down Lottie’s chest, pausing. She looks at Lottie, not realizing she didn’t put her bra back on that morning. “Fuck. We’ve gotta do things,” she mutters.

 

Lottie grins, satisfied. “I’ve picked up a few things.” And maybe it just feels nice having someone in her arms. She never had someone to hold like this before. She was just letting her wants guide her actions, and right now all she wanted was to touch and to feel and to have. She shivers as Jackie’s hands run down her chest and she watches her closely. 

 

“Hmmm, yeah, Nat can get pretty grumpy,” she says, tucking a strand of hair out of Jackie’s eyes. “C’mon.” They’ll have time later together, even if Lottie doesn’t want to leave her right now.

 

Jackie doesn’t move for a moment too long, her thoughts getting lost in her head, rolling around like stones before she finally pulls it together. She moves away, frowning from the lack of contact before taking Lottie’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Okay, okay. Clothes. Storage shed. Playing in the dirt. We should get to it.”

 

Lottie feels a little ridiculous with how hard it is to part from Jackie, but eventually they go separate ways as Jackie heads off to find Nat and the others and Lottie makes her way towards the river. The clouds have begun to gather above them already, and though it hasn’t started raining yet, there’s a noticeable chill to the air. She starts taking down the clothes they’ve hung up on the lines as quickly as possible, but even with as tall as she is, reaching up to grab the ones at the top still hurts the stitches in her side.

 

Eventually, she’s gathered them all, and she makes her way back over to the village, heading to the shed. On her way there, she passes by Travis’ tree house, and it’s a soft, choked noise that makes her pause. She glances inside and sees him curled up in his hammock, holding one of Javi’s jackets. Her heart aches. She’s always hurt when others did, even when she pretended not to, when she pretended she didn’t have any cares in the world. 

 

She doesn’t want to intrude right now, though. She might mention it to Nat later, but for now, she finishes heading back over to shed and starts folding up the clothes and setting them under some of the shelves they’ve made, to hopefully give them another layer of protection from the rain. 

 

She glances out over at the little crew who are digging around the outside of the camp, and she notices Jackie, a subconscious smile pulling onto her face when she sees her.

 

Jackie’s biggest solace in having to dig a fucking hole around camp is that Nat is right in there with them. She’s a good leader. Jackie knows she’s a good leader. She works with them. 

 

“I’ve been thinking about teaching Gen how to use the gun,” Nat says, using one of the spears that had been carved to dig into the ground.

 

Snorting, Jackie says, “So Gen gets to use the gun, but I can’t use the gun.”

 

“You’re smarter than you look, captain,” Nat tells her. 

 

Jackie just grunts, too focused on the task at hand to pop off a comeback. “What about you? Travis?”

 

“I guess I should probably be… available around here, right? It seems only fair. And Travis…” Nat trails off, and Jackie looks over to see that pinched, sad expression on her face. “I don’t want to burden him.”

 

And that’s fair. Jackie had taken time to mourn. She’d been far more useless than Travis, too. He seems to have good days and bad days. Noticing that he’s not around, Jackie wonders if this might be a bad day. 

 

She wipes at her face, forgetting about the dirt until she feels it on her cheek. When Nat laughs at her, Jackie retaliates by throwing some back. 

 

Tai, from where she’s working with Mel and Robin, rolls her eyes. “Children.”

 

Lottie observes them all from a distance, slumping down into her plane seat after she finishes folding the laundry. Her ribs are aching more than normal, and it's definitely a little because of the rain, and a lot because of last night. 

 

She can't find it in herself to regret any of it, though. She'd do it all the same if she had to do it again 

 

Still, as they all work together, she feels a distance beginning to grow between her and the rest of the team. She's been feeling it for a long time, actually. They laugh and tease and play with each other, throwing mud or sticks or splashing each other with water. 

 

They talk about the Wilderness as if it's a simple idea, an untouchable, unmeasurable thing that simply is. It's not like they've all just forgotten about it, but it seems less like something that's important to them and more like something that hangs around in the background, like an old house at the end of the block that no one ever goes in. 

 

Lottie, then, is the one living in that house. And she can see out of it, through windows of clarity, but she knows she's trapped inside. And she knows she always will be. She's not really one of them, she never was. 

 

She's happy, at least, that Jackie has been able to reintegrate into the group. She needs that, Lottie thinks. Jackie was also a social person, it was one of the reasons she made a good captain. 

 

Lottie notices Akilah coming towards her, and she perks up a little. 

 

“Hey, Lottie,” the younger girl greets, “I was gonna go berry foraging. Do you wanna come with?” 

 

Giving her a wispy smile, Lottie nods. “Yeah.” She pushes her back up off the seat and follows Akilah over to grab the baskets she's woven, and head out into the tree line, stealing one last glance at Jackie before she can't see her anymore.

 

Jackie glances up just in time to see Lottie leaving with Akilah, that soft and gooey feeling back in her chest. 

 

“So, are you going to snap at me again if I call her your girlfriend?” Nat asks, raising an eyebrow. 

 

Jackie inhales sharply, but she releases it. “No,” she says quietly. “Though we haven’t… I mean, we haven’t called it anything.”

 

“Just…” Nat looks at her, and then she shakes her head. “Be careful. With her. With yourself. With… I don’t fucking know. Just be careful.”

 

“Sure.”  

 

They finish just as the rain starts, taking most of the day, but they have a perimeter, though it’s shallow. The plan is for this to just be a start, and it should keep the village from flooding. That’s the hope at least. 

 

Jackie tips her head back as cold water splashes on her face, sighing softly. She’s not expecting it when she gets tackled into the mud they’ve made. 

 

“Better pay attention, Taylor!” Nat says, laughing. Pretty soon, everyone that was out there working joins in. It’s been awhile since they’ve played.  It feels good.

 

Lottie and Akilah make it back just before it starts raining, putting their baskets of berries into the shed as well. Lottie quickly ducks into her hut to grab her cloak, pulling the hood up as she steps back outside and glances around. She can hear laughter and she heads towards it, taking her time. She’s been on her feet most of the day and her side is thudding in pain, but she can push through it, like she always does.

 

When she finds them all, they’re rolling around and shoving each other into the mud, flinging handfuls of it, or just smearing it on faces. Lottie strains to sit under a tree nearby, watching them with a bittersweet smile.

 

Even Akilah joins in, when Mari leaps up behind her and smears mud all over her face. She retaliates by tripping Mari into the mud, watching her fall on her ass, the two of them laughing.

 

Lottie reaches into her pocket, then. She feels the cool metal of the pocket knife and pulls it out, turning it over in her hands. 

 

They’re all so happy, and she wants them to stay that way. But she doesn’t know how to make that happen. She doesn’t know if It’s satisfied with them. She doesn’t know what It wants anymore.

 

And that scares her. 

 

She puts the knife back in her pocket and lifts her gaze back to Jackie, feeling warmth spread through her chest. It was nice to see they could still just be kids, sometimes. 

 

Jackie ends up smearing mud all over Nat, watching as her hair turns completely brown and laughing, tilting her head up to the sky and feeling the water drain in rivets down her face. Tai has handprints on her ass, and she’s grumbling as Van teases her. Mel’s hat is no longer pink, tragically. 

 

She makes eye contact with Lottie, seeing her by herself, and she scrambles over to her. Lottie can’t play , not with her ribs, but Jackie places her hands on either side of the tree all the same, leaning in with a grin. She stops when she’s so close, barely a breath away. 

 

Instead of a kiss, Jackie reaches out and smears the mud from her hand onto Lottie’s face.

 

Lottie is laughing a little to herself as she watches when Jackie comes over, and she’s covered in mud as well, and Lottie doesn’t think she’s ever seen Jackie like this. She doesn’t think Jackie’s ever let herself be like this, carefree and smiling and covered in mud. 

 

She keeps her eyes on her as Jackie leans in close and she’s waiting for the feel of soft lips-- but then cold, wet mud is smeared on her face and she yelps. “Jackie!” But she’s laughing, and it kind of hurts, but she can’t stop it. She doesn’t want to. She pushes Jackie lightly, shaking her head. “I can’t fight back, that’s not fair.”

 

“This shirt is brown now. That’s not fair!” Jackie teases, laughing when Lottie pushes her away before she leans back in again. She’s always hated feeling dirty. It stressed her out, for one, thinking about what her mother might say to grass stains or mud or skinned knees. She was always one of the first ones in the shower, staring straight ahead and she scrubbed herself as clean as possible. 

 

It’s hard to stay clean out here. Feeling like this, light and bubbly, Jackie almost doesn’t care. She leans in close. “I can kiss it better,” she murmurs, before she brushes their lips together.

 

“Blame Nat for that,” Lottie huffs, but she’s smiling and her cheeks, though covered in mud, are definitely redder than normal. When Jackie leans in close again, Lottie looks into her eyes and she sees the same colors in them of the mud that smeared on her cheek and it’s beautiful. 

 

She kisses her back. But then she digs her hands into the mud to coat her fingers, before she grabs Jackie’s face and leaves a handprint of mud on her cheek. “Payback,” she grins.

 

Jackie can’t stop giggling, pressing in for another kiss even with a handprint on her cheek before she rubs it against Lottie’s. 

 

She looks over at the others playing together and then back at Lottie, her eyes soft. “Soon you’ll feel well enough to take this to the field,” she teases.

 

Lottie’s heart flutters at the sound of Jackie’s laughter, bubbling from her lips uncontrollably. It’s the sound sunlight makes, Lottie thinks. She laughs, too, not loud, not boisterous, but soft and warm and it’s a noise that only affection can make.

 

She nods. “Soon,” she agrees, before pressing her forehead to Jackie’s. “Now go smear mud on Nat’s face for me.”

 

“As you wish,” Jackie murmurs, pressing another kiss to Lottie’s lips before she bounds away, not slipping for once as she runs. She’s never been the fastest, but there was a time when Jackie was light and quick on her feet. She misses that. 

 

She tackles Nat, who curses as they fall into the mud. “Goddamn it, Jackie, not again!” She groans, but she looks carefree and younger, like the teenager she is. 

 

Jackie draws a smiley face on her cheek. “Ms. Matthews sends her regards.”

 

Lottie watches Jackie bound over, light on her feet, until she tackles Nat to the ground. When Natalie curses and looks her way, Lottie simply gives her best, innocent smile and waves back. It’s even sweeter to see Nat like this. She hasn’t looked so soft and young since they crashed. So free. 

 

Lottie thinks that maybe this feels more like a home to her, too. 

 

Eventually, the rain starts coming down really hard, and Lottie already has a hard enough time walking on solid ground, so she tugs her hood back up and starts making her way back, trying not to slip in the mud that’s forming under her feet. 

 

She’s also worried about the huts, hoping they’ll hold and keep out at least most of the moisture. She goes to check the shed, first, glad that they had the foresight to cover it with the one tarp they had. It’s still dry inside, thankfully.

 

There’s a little rush of wind around the camp and Lottie looks over her shoulder, eyes examining the trees behind the village, as if waiting for another sign, a hint, anything. 

 

Nothing.

 

She steps out of the shed and closes her eyes, pulling her hood down. Leans her head back, closing her eyes, and lets the feeling of the rain on her face draw her into the world around her, leaves rustling, the low rumble of thunder in the distance. She feels like something is almost there, almost connecting, almost filling her up.

 

But a particularly loud clap of thunder makes her jump and her eyes open, turning to look around her to see if anything had happened. But the world felt still, even if nothing about it really was.

 

A couple of the girls scream at the sound of thunder, and Jackie and Nat both look up before Nat is shoving her face back down into the mud. 

 

“My ear!” Jackie yelps, causing Nat to feel back and Jackie to take advantage, covering her face in a handful of mud. “Sucker.” 

 

“You suck. Let me up,” Nat groans. 

 

The two of them help each other stand as everyone starts heading out of the rain. Nat actually looks at the sky with some concern. “Hopefully it lets up soon so that Mari can get started on dinner.”

 

Jackie hums. “Maybe we should figure out a kitchen or something.” When Nat takes a deep breath before nodding, Jackie tilts her head. “What?”

 

“This is just starting to feel real permanent,” Nat murmurs, shaking her head before she ducks into her hut, and Jackie heads into her and Lottie’s.

 

Lottie is already inside stuffing some of their blankets up against the walls to keep the area as dry as possible when Jackie comes in. “Wow,” she says, turning to her, grinning, “I always knew you were a dirty girl, Jackie Taylor.”

 

“Don’t be rude, Charlotte,” Jackie says primly as she takes off her flannel and uses it to dry her hair, scrubbing off her face before trying to find somewhere to let it dry. The huts are, at least, structurally sound. What they’re all going to need to do next, though, is figure out how to keep them rain-tight. She wonders if the mud might actually help with that. She doesn’t know anything about this, though.

 

Lottie can’t help but stare as Jackie pulls her flannel off, tousling her hair to dry it. She’s seen stuff like this before, in the locker room, but there’s something so much more intimate about watching her in their private hut, and Lottie has always been a sucker for a girl with wet, messy hair. She licks her lips. 

 

“My apologies, Jaqueline,” she says, reaching for her and sliding her arms around her waist. “But you’re pretty messy right now.”

 

“I know, it’s so gross,” Jackie groans, but she leans into Lottie’s touch, tilting her head up to her and grinning. And it’s really not even that bad. She doesn’t mind it, especially when it seems like Lottie doesn’t mind, when she moves in closer and wraps her arms around Jackie and looks down at her like that. It’s not so bad, being dirty, even if it feels like her mind is trying to rebel against it.

 

Lottie just shakes her head. “It’s cute,” she tells her, lifting a hand to smear a lump of mud that’s on Jackie’s chin. “And kinda hot.” She knows she has strange…interests, but Lottie doesn’t feel like hiding them anymore, not out here. She just wants to be herself out here. She leans in close to Jackie, holding her gaze, lips only a breath away from hers. 

 

“Didn’t it feel nice?” she asks quietly. “To just be happy.”

 

Jackie stands on her toes, close, so close, wanting to be closer. “Yes,” she whispers. “It felt nice to just be happy .” And Jackie was. She is . She knows, deep down, that she shouldn’t be. She shouldn’t be happy, she shouldn’t be alive, but she is, and she wants to be. With Lottie. Her eyes close, and she leans into Lottie’s touch. “With you.”

 

The words make a wave of warmth roll through Lottie, all the way down to the pit of her stomach. She only has to move a small distance to press her lips against Jackie’s, slow and methodical, before she pulls back to look down at her again. “I’m happy, too,” she murmurs. 

 

“Good,” Jackie breathes. “I want you to be happy.” Lottie had been so lonely for so long. A few months ago, that’s what Jackie would have called her: tall and beautiful and lonely. Even with the team, even when Jackie would try to get close, there was still distance. Some of it was on Jackie; she didn’t often leave the orbit of Shauna Shipman, no matter what those journals might say. But some of it was Lottie not wanting to be known. Years of country clubs and dinners and soccer practice, and Jackie knows more of Lottie now than she ever did before.

 

Well. Jackie presses her body against Lottie’s. She definitely knows more of Lottie now.

 

Lottie hums faintly, before pressing in for another kiss. And she is, happy. It’s a strange thought. Lottie has had moments of happiness, moments of content. Moments where she could smile and laugh and forget all her troubles. 

 

They never last though. It was never a feeling that she got to keep. 

 

But here, holding Jackie, kissing her, knowing that she’ll be there again tomorrow, have this still in the morning, it’s a different kind of happiness that fills her veins. One that she knows pumps through them the same as her blood. One that she knows-- hopes -- will last. 

 

She moves her hands to Jackie’s hips and walks her back until Jackie is up against the wall of their hut. She hovers close to her lips but doesn’t press in yet. There’s a lasting smile on her face that she thinks might be permanent. “I am,” she murmurs, breath hot on Jackie’s face.

 

Jackie breathes sharply as she’s pressed against the wall, her arms wrapping around Lottie’s neck. She’s the one that leans up, closing the distance to press their lips together. They're both happy. This is happy. In the middle of nowhere, in the rain, in a little hut made by a soccer team, this is happy. 

 

Jackie’s little gasp makes Lottie’s fingers tingle, and she brushes them against Jackie’s shirt on her sides, finding just the barest strip of skin beneath the hem. She kisses her back, slow and smooth at first, before she’s breathing a little harder and kissing a little more needily. Could you blame her? Jackie looked like a wet, hot mess and she’d been watching her all day. Lottie was usually good at self-restraint, self-control, but as of late, she seems to have let it go in favor of letting herself have things she wanted. Like Jackie.

 

It’s not lost on Jackie that two people who seem to value control more than anything quickly devolve into needy touches now that they’ve finally given in. Jackie’s trying really hard for them to not do something that’s going to leave Lottie even more injured than she already is, but it’s hard. It’s actually ridiculously hard, especially with warm, searching fingers against her skin. Especially with the way that Lottie’s lips feel so insistent against her own. 

 

Lottie kisses Jackie more insistently, then, pressing her body against Jackie’s. She really doesn’t think she can help it, she’s drawn to her magnetically, like gravity, like something stronger. It’s electric. She needs her more than air, more than water, more than anything-- she thinks she might need her more than the Wilderness. 

 

The thought momentarily scares her. She’s panting against Jackie’s lips, savoring the taste of her and it tastes like ecstasy. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie sighs, her hands tangling in Lottie’s hair as they kiss, pushing and pulling against each other. When she can’t take it anymore, Jackie pulls away and presses her forehead against Lottie’s, breathing heavy. “We-– We should lay down, I think. So your… your ribs.”

 

Lottie gives a soft hum, licking her lips. She’s not really thinking about her ribs, just like she hadn’t been last night, but as soon as Jackie mentions them, she can feel the burning in her side. She nods, doesn’t quite move. She kind of likes having Jackie like this, her back pressed into the wall, Lottie pressed against her . Holding her there. 

 

After a moment, she steps back, pulling Jackie with her, as she sinks to the ground. It’s a little damp, but she doesn’t mind it. For the most part, their hut is holding up and staying leak free. She can smell the wet earth outside, hear the rain pouring down, feel the cool dirt beneath them. She feels connected in a way that’s been elusive lately. 

 

She leans back in once Jackie is sitting, kissing her cheek, tangling a hand into her hair. She just wants this so much, it’s hard to make herself be good about it.

 

It’s easy to sink beside Lottie on the ground, to lean into the hand in her hair, the lips on her cheek. She pushes on Lottie until she’s laying down and curls up beside her, smiling as she presses her face into Lottie’s neck. Kisses her softly there. Lets her hands move across Lottie’s chest, reminding herself that there’s no bra under her clothes. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” she whispers, brushing her tongue against skin. “It’s been a problem all day.”

 

Lottie feels a little giddy when she hears the words. There’s someone out there, out here, right next to her, telling her she can’t stop thinking about her. Fuck, it makes her feel so stupidly warm and melty. Her eyes flutter closed at the feeling of hands on her body, hot breath and a tongue on her skin. She shivers despite the warmth. “That doesn’t sound like a problem to me,” she murmurs back.

 

“It’s been really distracting,” Jackie says. She likes the way that Lottie shivers against her. She likes the taste of her skin. She’s never thought things like that, not before. She’s never been able to just lose herself in someone like this, never let herself fully give in to wanting every part of them. Touch and smell and taste. 

 

“Hmmm,” Lottie sighs, not really thinking much at the moment. It’s hard to think with Jackie’s hands on her. She moves to shift onto her side enough to look at Jackie. “You should do something about that.” She’s smiling, a hand tracing up Jackie’s arm to her jaw, tucking hair behind her ear before letting her fingers dig back into the damp, messy strands. 

 

“What should I do about it?” Jackie asks, leaning up enough to look into Lottie’s eyes before her own widen at the way fingers dig into her hair. She leans in again, pressing their lips together, slow and needy and open mouthed, slipping her tongue into Lottie’s mouth as soon as she’s allowed. She wants to know what she should do, what Lottie wants. 

 

Lottie only thinks about answering for a second but as soon as Jackie’s tongue is in her mouth, she can’t think about much at all, actually. All she can think about is curling her hand in Jackie’s hair, licking back against Jackie’s tongue, moaning softly at the taste, the feel. It somehow doesn’t seem real but like the realist thing she’s ever felt at the same time. When she has to pull away to breathe, it’s heavy and needy, and her voice is the same, “Whatever…whatever you want, really.”

 

Jackie shudders at the feeling, pulling herself closer as the kiss deepens, staying close when they need to breathe. She laughs breathlessly. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she admits. It’s not like Lottie doesn’t already know. Plus, of the two of them, she seems to be the one most concerned with not pulling Lottie’s stitches, which shouldn’t be hard except they apparently both want to touch, and touch, and touch some more. Even now, Jackie’s hands move without her really telling them to, skimming over Lottie’s body, her dress, her arms.

 

As Jackie pulls herself closer, Lottie wraps an arm around her, holding her steady against her. She smiles against her lips. “You don’t have to know,” she murmurs, “it’s about feeling.” She brings her hand back around to Jackie’s face, cupping her jaw. “Listening.” She wants to help Jackie learn how to feel and understand and let her want become her action. “Think about what you like,” she continues, “about what you want.”

 

Jackie doesn’t really know what she likes. She doesn’t really know what she wants. But she closes her eyes and leans into Lottie’s touch before she moves back to kiss her. She waste no time licking into Lottie’s mouth but takes all the time in the world exploring it with her tongue, mapping it out like she’s trekking through the snow again. And this is kind of the same, isn’t it? Important, uncharted territory that she wants to know completely? Every time she pulls away, it’s just enough to let them breathe before she dives back in, planning on memorizing as much of Lottie as possible. 

 

Lottie is surprised but pleased with how eager Jackie is. She shouldn’t really be, considering last night, but she’s not going to complain. She can taste Jackie’s want, how it feels like she’s trying to trace out every inch of her body, starting with her mouth. She wraps both her arms around Jackie, then, pulling her into her side, her own body moving against her. God she wants her so bad, all the time. 

 

She’s wanted her for so long, she feels like she’s trying to get it all out of her system before it explodes out of her. As if she might lose this if she doesn’t hold on enough.

 

When Jackie finally pulls away long enough to look down at Lottie, she feels like she’s kissed every part of Lottie’s mouth. She’s sucked on her lips and her tongue. All she can taste is Lottie. All she wants to taste is Lottie. “Good?” she asks, panting heavily, bringing one hand to brush through Lottie’s hair.

 

Lottie almost whines when Jackie pulls away, but she’s breathing heavy, lips parted and eyes heady. “Very.” Better than good, really. She takes Jackie’s face between her hands again, holding her gaze, looking into her eyes. She wonders what Jackie sees in her eyes. Her mother used to say her eyes looked dark, her father said they looked empty. Mindless. Most people just told her they were creepy, the way she looked at people was creepy. 

 

She leans up enough to press a ginger kiss to Jackie’s lips. “I can show you,” she murmurs.

 

The record should state that Jackie isn’t stupid. She’s not. She’s no Shauna Shipman, early entry into Brown, but she’s still smart, and she does well in her classes, and she knows how to lead a soccer team to victory. She’s not brainless like some people claim. 

 

Jackie feels brainless as she gets lost in Lottie’s eyes, deep and dark and endless and beautiful, so beautiful, just like the rest of her. They steal Jackie’s thoughts and her breath, and she can’t look away, even as she’s slowly blinking at Lottie after a sweet kiss. She nods. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, please.”

 

Lottie smiles, soft and longing, drapes her hand against Jackie’s head before she lets her fingers trace over the curve of her ear, down her jaw, to her neck. She pauses to feel her pulse, thrumming under her skin, before trailing them down to her collar bone. She has to prod the collar of her shirt aside to reach them, tucking her fingers below the neckline, before moving them further down Jackie’s body, to her chest, ghosting over the top of her clothes before applying just enough pressure for her to feel through the cloth. 

 

Her hands reach down, to the hem of Jackie’s shirt, slipping underneath cooly and feeling damp skin against her palms. It’s easy enough to inch her shirt up as her hands skate up the muscles of her lower back. She takes her time with every touch, every glance, every movement. Lottie has always been a careful person. With others, with what she does. Never with herself.

 

She kisses Jackie just as carefully, running tongue along Jackie’s bottom lip. She lets one hand trail from Jackie’s back to her now exposed stomach, fingers curling and uncurling against the muscles of her abdomen, feeling them twitch under the pads of her fingertips. Traces a nail along the line where her pants rest against her hips. Keeps her eyes trained on Jackie, wondering what she’ll see in her face.

 

Each touch is so soft but leaves Jackie feeling unbelievably warm, flushing all the way to her chest as hands brush over her back to her stomach, unable to help the way her muscles jump under every touch, the way she moves forward subconsciously. She sighs as a tongue runs over her bottom lips, her mouth parting and staying open. She watches Lottie, unable to look away in the moments that her eyes aren’t too heavy. She hums and sighs happily, and she pets one hand through Lottie’s hair, the other going to rest on her hip.

 

It’s easy to lean into Jackie’s touch, and Lottie turns her head enough to press a kiss to her wrist. She moves the hand on Jackie’s back up into her hair again, scratching against the back of her scalp, while the hand hovering near the hem of Jackie’s pants moves to press down the top of her thigh, reaching as far as her arms will let her without having to move, before she brings it back up. She lays her palm flat against the top of her thigh, going slow as it slides up. Fingers scrape lightly into the fabric, over to the button of her jeans. She stops there, leaving her hand pressed against the fabric. She can already feel warmth through the cloth. Lottie leans up enough to hover her mouth just near Jackie’s open lips, tongue coming out to meet them, too.

 

The hand in her hair is distracting enough for Jackie to not pay too much attention to the one near her pants until it’s on her thigh, sliding up, making her even warmer as she squirms. She moans quietly as Lottie’s tongue brushes over her lips. She takes her hand and puts it over the one playing with the button of her jeans, and she moves it aside just enough to flick them open. Jackie’s never enjoyed this. It’s always felt deeply uncomfortable. But she’s also never felt so warm before being touched, heat all the way up to the tip of her ear. She gives a hesitant nod. At least, if she doesn’t like it, she’s got plenty of experience pretending.

 

Lottie feels her heart thumping, keeping her movements eased and slow, gentle and caring. Jackie undoes the button of her pants, nods. She moves with a practiced purpose, fingers unzipping her pants the rest of the way. Lottie holds Jackie’s gaze as she slides her hand into her pants, between her legs, careful, metered, ready to pull back if Jackie says stop. She doesn’t look like she wants to stop. She can feel the warmth of Jackie’s want through her underwear already. Lottie’s fingers press slowly against her, gingerly, before she starts rubbing them against Jackie, tender and gentle, testing how Jackie reacts, waiting to feel out what to do next.

 

It’s actually the gentleness that makes Jackie gasp. Her eyes fluttering shut. Lottie’s so careful , like this is something she wants to do and not just a thing to get through so that Jackie can return the favor. And it’s one thing to know that Lottie’s like that and a complete other to experience it. Jackie trusts Lottie. More than anyone else in the world. It still makes her eyes feel teary at someone actually caring enough to be interested in how she feels. Her hips roll into Lottie’s touch, wanting more. “Please,” she mumbles. “It feels good. It’s never really felt good before.”

 

Lottie feels goosebumps rise all over her body at the sound of Jackie’s soft pleading. She’s telling her it’s never felt good before and it makes Lottie want even more to make sure that it does, that she likes it. That’s the most important thing to her right now. 

 

So she obliges. She slides her hand into Jackie’s underwear and she feels her, hot and slick on her fingers. She knows what makes her feel good, what she’s seen makes other girls feel good, something she doubts most boys could ever know. She presses on the sensitive nub between Jackie’s legs, moves her fingers against her in attentive circles, light but purposeful in her touches, watching Jackie’s face, wanting to see the look in her eyes.

 

“Yes,” Jackie hisses, her hips moving into the touch. It just feels so easy, like Lottie doesn’t even have to try to make her feel good, like she knows exactly what she’s doing and it’s made all the easier from how wet Jackie is. She actually wants it. She never expected to actually want it. Her eyes close, her head tilts back, and she can’t help but moan, actually moan. There’s nothing fake about it. Nothing fake about the gasps and sighs and the ways she breathes out Lottie’s name. 

 

Lottie can feel Jackie moving into her touch and she moves her fingers a little faster, her free hand still tangled in her hair. Her moan actually sends a bone deep shudder through Lottie’s body. It sounds so fucking nice. She needs her to do it again. Her thumb presses down on the sensitive bundle of nerves between Jackie’s legs again as Lottie watches the look of euphoria on her face, lips parted and panting and Lottie feels a little bit insane with how hot it looks.

 

Jackie tries to spread her legs more, but it’s hard with the way she’s still in her jeans, still trying to get closer without that barrier being removed, so she just moves with Lottie’s touch and moans and whines out her name. If they were in Wiskayok, her reputation would quickly be devolving from prudish to easy in less than twenty-four hours. She wouldn’t really care, she doesn’t really care, but it is just a little embarrassing how close she feels in such a short period of time, just from a few touches by her girlfriend. Is Lottie her girlfriend? Jackie can’t exactly ask at the moment; words are hard. 

 

Lottie likes to think she’s good at understanding people, just by their body language. It’s pretty easy to tell Jackie is enjoying this, not just by the way she’s moaning Lottie’s name, but also by the way her hips move into Lottie’s hand, by how wet she is, by how her breathing is heavy and laboured. She wants to kiss Jackie, but she also wants to keep hearing those wonderful noises she’s making, and she wants to watch her face as she crumbles in Lottie’s hand. 

 

Jackie’s jeans are hard to maneuver in, but Lottie manages to get her hand at a decent enough angle to slowly, gently, slide a finder inside of while her thumbs works against her still. Her breath picks up as she looks up at Jackie and her rosy cheeks, still smeared with a little mud, and her messy hair, damp and hanging around her face like a curtain. She thinks it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

 

“Lottie!” Jackie cries out, pushing herself closer, wanting nothing more to be closer. Moans and sighs and the repetitive mantra of Lottie’s name tumble out of her mouth like stones, loud and messy. She brings a hand up to cover her mouth just because her brain is working just enough for her to be aware that, God, she’s so fucking loud, and there are people around, and why wasn’t she aware of this problem beforehand where she could practice and control it? There’s no control right now as Jackie looks at Lottie, at those endlessly dark eyes, and wants nothing more than to get lost in them.

 

Lottie smiles at Jackie. She was being loud again and it made Lottie feel good . She liked that she could make someone feel this way, liked that someone who was normally so controlled and calm could come apart like this because of Lottie touching them. It felt like it was someone saying ‘Yes, yes I do like Lottie’, like they were telling other people. Like Lottie wasn’t just a thing, but a person, and someone that people could like and maybe even love. 

 

She didn’t ask for much, she didn’t think she could. But she didn’t have to ask for this. She just got to have it. Have Jackie. 

 

She moves her hand a little faster, pressing in a little harder. She wants to coax Jackie over the edge again, no matter how loud she ends up being. She wants them to hear. 

 

At this point, it really doesn’t take much. Jackie feels her eyes roll back, her chest tighten, heat rolling through her and cooling up tight until it snaps. She shudders, and the sound of her calling out Lottie’s name is muffled around her hand, but it’s still there. She feels boneless when it’s over, groaning as she moves her hand to cover her eyes. She’s panting more than actually breathing, trying but failing to get it under control, and she can’t really bring herself to mind. “Lottie,” she murmurs, opening hazy eyes to look at her and offering a lazy smile.

 

And it’s just as wonderful as Lottie thought it would be, watching Jackie crumble and fall apart in her hand, feeling her come undone. She holds her through it, only removing her hand when she feels Jackie melting around her, watching as she presses her hand to her eyes. She smiles back at Jackie, before bringing her fingers, still slick with her want, up to her mouth and sucking them clean. The satisfaction she feels can be seen pretty clearly on her face, as she leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to Jackie’s forehead.

 

“Fuck,” Jackie breathes as she watches Lottie clean her fingers, her eyes wide and her lips parted. She wanted to do that? That was something Lottie actually wanted to do? She didn’t find it gross or weird or wrong? Tentatively, Jackie leans up, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s lips, relaxing against them before she eventually pulls away. “It’s kind of ridiculous how good you are,” she manages to rasp out when she can finally remember how to speak.

 

Lottie glances at Jackie lazily, a grin on her face even as Jackie kisses her. She presses back, just as soft, eyes scanning Jackie’s face when she leans away. Lottie just shrugs. “I’ve always been good with my hands,” she explains. And her heightened intuition sort of helped, too. She’d spent a long time learning how to observe people and it felt like it was finally paying off.

 

She reaches over again and pushes some of Jackie’s hair out of her face. “It probably also helps that you actually find me attractive, too,” she mumbles, and it’s still kind of something Lottie sometimes thinks can’t be real, but it is, and she can taste the proof of it in her mouth, on her fingers.

 

“So good, Jesus Christ,” Jackie breathes, leaning into Lottie’s touch. “And you’re so attractive. I’ve always thought so, even when we were kids, even when you basically got like a foot taller over night and kept bumping into things because your legs were too long.” She smiles brighter and moves to wrap around Lottie, careful with her ribs, her side, realizing that probably wasn’t super great for her. “Give me five minutes to catch my breath. I want… I want to return the favor.” She wants to prove that she can, needs to prove that she isn’t just selfish, that she doesn’t just care about herself. Shauna isn’t even there, and yet she still echoes through Jackie’s brain like she just can’t get rid of her.

 

(Does she even want to? It’s hard to say. For all her internal struggle over it, it feels like there’s a part of Jackie that enjoys being haunted, no matter what that actually means. Maybe she’s just selfish after all.)

 

Lottie blinks. “Really?” She remembers that summer, with her awkward lanky limbs that didn’t move quite right and how she kept hitting her shins on things and tripping during soccer practice. Her knees and elbows and clothes had been permanently grass-stained, her hair a frazzled mess until she gave up and just pulled it back every day, arms whacking against desks that felt too small for and clothes in her size becoming harder to find. 

 

She’d felt so stupid and awkward, moving around like a baby deer on ice, until the rest of her finally caught up with her newfound height and she could at least run down the field without tripping over her own feet.

 

Lottie pets through Jackie’s hair with attentive fingers. “You know you don’t have to, right?” she says to her. “I’ll never expect that from you.”

 

“You were so cute,” Jackie sighs. She’d pouted a lot over how tall everyone was getting when it felt like she was barely growing at all, but the way that Lottie had stumbled around had been so endearing that Jackie just wanted to run drills with her and talk. Which made Shauna pout, which made Jackie sad, and maybe she’d overcompensated because she thinks that might be when her mother thought there was something going on between the two of them with how clingy Jackie behaved. 

 

It’s not like it matters anymore. Jackie lets out a content noise at the way Lottie’s fingers brush through her hair. She just nods. “I know.” But it was fair, right? If she gave Jeff a blowjob for sticking his hand down her pants and having her fake it just to get him to stop, then Lottie should get something nice for actually making her feel good. Besides. “I want to make you feel good, too.”

 

“Tell that to my bruised shins,” Lottie mumbles. They’d been practically permanently that way and she even remembered just wearing her shinguards around all the time at one point, just to keep herself from bruising on top of the bruises. She’d been lonely and weird back then, too, always waiting to be the last picked to practice with, not caring who she was assigned with for group projects, and speaking very little outside of with their summer league team. Except for when Jackie tried to partner with her, but it never lasted long. She always went back to Shauna in the end.

 

It feels a little unfair, now, to be jealous of someone who was dead. It makes Lottie’s stomach clench.

 

“I just want you to know that you don’t…like, owe me that just because I did it for you,” she tells her. “Just making you feel good is enough for me.”

 

Jackie brings one of her legs up, brushing her foot over one of Lottie’s shins. “You were so cute,” she repeats, her tone teasing. “Sorry, bruised shins.” She hums. “I know, but… reciprocity is important.” She spent a really long time taking without giving back. Jackie doesn’t want to do that anymore. She wants to be better.

 

Lottie shivers a little. “They forgive you.” She nuzzles into Jackie, feeling a little ridiculous and high on the idea that she'd found Lottie attractive even back then. Lottie hadn't been stable enough to even consider thinking about people like that until over a year into high school. There's wasn't much room for crushes and dating when her head was funny concentrated on not fucking up in public and hiding her illness. 

 

She brushes her thumb against Jackie's cheek. “As long as you know you don't have to,” she repeats. “And also that you need to wash your hands first.” Lottie had washed hers after the mud fiasco but Jackie was still mostly covered in it. Not that lottie minded, but if someone was going to have their hand down her pants, she at least wanted those to be clean.

 

Jackie’s grin brightens, and she sighs happily as Lottie nuzzles in close. She frowns, though, looking at her hands and arms, her clothes, and groans. “Fuck, that’s right. I’m, like, actually dirty right now.” 

 

“It's kinda hot,” Lottie says, taking one of Jackie's hands and lacing their fingers together. “Just not…sanitary.” The last thing Lottie needed was to get any kind of infection. 

 

“Is this what does it for you, Lott?” Jackie muses, looking at their laced fingers. “Me being all dirty?” It definitely wasn’t sanitary, and she isn’t super crazy about the places she can feel the mud drying and hardening and cracking on her skin. The effort to get up is just a bit much right now.

 

“Maybe,” Lottie grins, a devious glint in her eyes. She pulls Jackie's arm across her stomach, though, until she's close enough for Lottie to kiss, savoring each and every one still, something she thinks she might savor forever. She gets to kiss Jackie Taylor. A lot. Whenever she wants, really. 

 

It seems like a dream. 

 

“Good thing it's raining, the water bucket is probably full so at least you won't have to trek all the way to the river?” Lottie offers.

 

“I guess that makes the rain worth it,” Jackie mumbles against Lottie’s lips. “Though it’s gonna be really fucking stupid if I get sick.” But also worth it if she got to touch Lottie first. Because she actually wants to. She doesn’t find it gross; intimidating, maybe, because she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing, but not gross at all. Exciting. As soon as she can get up.

 

“Hmmm, well, I'll just have to make sure you stay warm,” Lottie hums back. With all the rain, someone was likely to catch a cold, but hopefully if they stayed warm, it wouldn't be too bad. As long as it's not Jackie, Lottie thinks it'll be fine. 

 

Jackie presses into Lottie, ghosting her fingers over Lottie’s arms. “You’re pretty good at that,” she says. “You’re so warm, like a furnace.” It made sleeping next to her, wrapped up in her arms, one of the best things in the world. Jackie doesn't have to worry about feeling cold when Lottie’s around. It’s like she chases it away. Even after Jackie had been caught out in the snow, just being back around Lottie had made her feel better, even with the fever, even with her ear.

 

“I've been told I run hot,” Lottie murmurs, ironically shivering as fingers graze skin. She's always been that way, though. She often found herself waking up in the middle of the night to all the blankets thrown off and the sheets askew. The nightmares didn't help, either. 

 

“I like it,” Jackie tells her. “I’m usually so cold.” And now she has someone that she can cuddle with without fear of it being something wrong. She can tuck herself against Lottie and feel warm and safe and protected, and no one’s going to yank her away, call her disgusting, tell Lottie to sleep in the guest room or to leave and not come back. She gets to have this. She gets to keep it.

 

Lottie had noticed, even before Jackie had been stuck out in the snow storm. Her skin always felt like it had a slight chill to it. It actually felt nice to Lottie, who was always warm. She thinks they sort of compliment each other well. 

 

She wraps Jackie up in her arms, pressing her nose into her hair. “I'll keep you warm,” she whispers to her. As long as she got to keep Jackie, she would always make sure she stayed warm.

 

Jackie snuggles closer and sighs happily. “My hero.” She’s supposed to be getting up, washing off, making the girl wrapped around her feel so fucking good, but she’s having trouble wanting to move. Could be the body holding her close, could be the fact that she still feels like a cooked noodle, could be a little bit of both. She’s trying to stay away, but between Lottie and the sound of rain, Jackie can’t help but close her eyes and feel herself drift off.

 

Lottie can feel Jackie's body begin to deflate as sleep takes over her, and she's unreasonably happy that Jackie feels so safe with her. She wants so badly to keep her safe-- keep all of them safe-- even if she doesn't quite know how. It's just nice to know someone actually trusts her to, despite her mind, her illness. 

 

Eventually, though Lottie never fully falls asleep, she does close her eyes and listen to the pitter patter of rain on their roof, on the ground outside, on the trees. It almost feels like a different world, one coated in a peacefulness that can't be found in most other places. 

 

Her eyes open when she feels the rain stop. She doesn't know how long it's been, totally, but the sun is down and someone's already got a fire going outside. Lottie can smell it, the petrichor of the rain mixing with the scent burning wood. It's a pleasant one, one that makes Lottie feel relaxed, especially with the weight of the girl in her arms reminding her of all the good things she has right now. 

 

And she wants to stay thinking about that, and not about the fear of losing it all. They were such fragile things after all.

Notes:

Woowee! Gotta say I never expected to be posting such a long fic so consistently but everyone's support is just so great and inspiring! And I mean we gotta see how these silly lesbians end up, right? Wonder what's gonna happen next :)

Thanks again for reading and commenting and all the kudos! Y'all really do the most with that all <3

Chapter 19: in sickness and in health

Summary:

Ah, sprintime. Love is in the air for more than a few of the Yellowjackets and it seems like nothing can go wrong. Murphy's law doesn't apply when you're happy, after all, right? Well, Jackie is eager to test that theory, and the leftover tea Misty had for Lottie. It's just a shame Jackie was never that good at the scientific method-- she never even wrote down her findings. It's only science if you record your data!

Notes:

Another one bites the dust! Don't panic, no one dies-- yet? Anyway, these silly kids, falling in love and all that. Hope nothing bad happens! I swear one day we'll get back on the right schedule but for now thanks for your patience <3

Title is from, well, wedding vows or whatever ;)

Jackie wakes up feeling mildly disgruntled that she’s waking up. Taking a nap immediately after feels like such a guy thing. She thinks about Jeff snoring in her bed while she’d get up to go brush her teeth or search for a cigarette from the pack she’d snatch off someone at a party. And now she wasn’t any better, she thinks blearily as her eyes blink open into the growing darkness of their hut. She wonders if they could get one of the lanterns to hang up or find some other way to produce light. The window helps, but it’s kind of useless when they cover it up.

 

Shifting in Lottie’s arms, Jackie groans and stretches just a little, sighing as her fingers go down to button her jeans back up. “I had plans,” she mumbles, frowning as she rubs her eyes. “And I’m still muddy.” Except now it’s just dirt, and it actually bothers her.

 

“Plans change,” Lottie says simply. She sits up on her elbows as Jackie zips her pants back up and she can't help the lopsided bring that pulls into her face, all giddy and gooey for the girl next to her. “You should go clean off,” she tells her, “I think Mari is making some dinner.” She hasn't looked outside yet, but she feels like she just knows. 

 

“I think I’d commit a serious crime for a hot shower,” Jackie groans, sitting up and running a hand through her hair. It feels like such a fantasy, though, that she can’t even linger on it for long. She gets to her feet slowly, looking around for her flannel so that she can get some of the mud off of it as well, putting it back on and getting reminded of the little bones in her pocket. She sighs. “Okay, water bucket and then dinner. Do you want to go to the fire?” she asks, offering up her hand. “Or are you going to stay in here a little longer?”

 

Lottie takes Jackie's hand, pulling herself up to stand. She wonders when she'll be able to do this without it hurting. “I think I'll go sit by the fire,” she says. It sounds relaxing, and like a good place to clear her mind, even if the others always stare at Lottie while she tries to meditate. “Hopefully it's ready soon, I'm actually hungry again."

 

“That’s great, actually,” Jackie says, and the fact that she’s more happy about Lottie getting her appetite back than there actually being enough food for all of them to eat might be a little telling, but she’s not really thinking about that. “Didn’t you and Akilah go get some berries earlier?” she asks, absently revealing just how much she pays attention to Lottie during the day. “Maybe we’ll have some of those, too. It’d be nice to have something sweet for once.”

 

Lottie nods. “We did, yeah.” And it's overwhelmingly nice to think that Jackie was actually watching her during the day, taking a mental note of what she was doing and with who. “Hopefully we get to them before Mari tries to make more wine.” She reaches out and hooks her fingers into Jackie's belt loops, tugging her back to her for a quick, needy kiss. “We can always pick up where we left off later, too,” she whispers into her ear before letting go and grabbing her cloak again. “Shall we?” She asks as she gestures to the door.

 

“Was the wine any good?” Jackie asks, a little curious. “I didn’t actually drink any of it.” Or eat any of the soup. Maybe she should have. Maybe she should have let herself feel whatever it was that the rest of them felt. Maybe it would have been enough. The thought doesn’t have time to stick, though, as Lottie pulls her close and gives her a kiss, and Jackie’s lost for a moment, barely comprehending the words. She licks her lips and looks at Lottie and nods. “Yeah. Let’s… Yeah.” 

 

She heads to the water bucket and grabs a bowl and a rag to start cleaning herself off, methodically getting the left over dirt off her face, her neck, her arms. Jackie likes feeling clean. She likes watching the dirt get washed away until mostly unblemished skin is left behind. She takes her time with it, and, if she works a little extra hard to make sure her hands are clean, that’s no one’s business but her own.

 

“It tasted kind of like a wine smoothie, but if you used rubbing alcohol as the base,” Lottie recounts. She'd only drank it because she wanted to try and drown out her aching, her sorrow and anger over what had happened to Laura Lee, and over how quickly everyone else seemed to move past it, as if Laura Lee hadn't mattered, as if she hadn't died trying to get them all help. As if she was just another thing they would inevitably lose.

 

Lottie follows Jackie out of their hut, but makes her way over to the fire where Mari is, in fact, frying some meat chunks. She looks a little miserable, her hair wet and sticking to her face, as she huddles in her hoodie and pants, which have damp stains on them. 

 

“Roof not hold up well?” Lottie asks, kneeling near her. 

 

Mari looks at her with unamused eyes. “What gave it away?” 

 

Lottie laughs a little, but she moves to unite her cloak, reaching over to set it around Mari’s shoulders, tugging it up to her neck to try and help keep her warm. 

 

The other girl stares a little dumbfounded at her, but Lottie just gives her a kind smile and stands back up, heading towards the storage shed to see if their tarp plan worked. And she thinks maybe she'll grab some berries for them all for dessert.

 

Jackie’s humming on her way back to the fire, though she chooses to sit in the plane seat beside Lottie’s rather than on the ground where she usually sits as the others start making their way outside. Melissa’s hat is on lopsided as she blinks sleep out of her eyes, and Tai and Van look like they’re coming from somewhere in the woods rather than their hut, causing Jackie to tilt her head as she watches them and Van to wiggle her eyebrows when they make eye contact.

 

The village seems to have held up mostly okay through its first rain, but Jackie knows they’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure it stays livable. And, looking at Mari– in Lottie’s cloak, Jackie immediately clocks– dry in quite a few of the buildings.

 

Lottie grabs one of the baskets her and Akilah had gathered and heads over to the other bucket of water they keep for washing the food. It's by the butcher table, and Lottie ducks behind the huts to get to it.

 

She pauses, though, when she sees Nat at the table. She's not doing anything, she's more just staring off into the tree line, so Lottie clears her throat as she steps up and Nat turns to look at her. 

 

“Dessert,” she motions to the basket before kneeling in front of the tub and dipping the basket in.

 

Nat gives a weary nod and Lottie can feel her eyes on her. When she looks up, their gazes meet.

 

“Everything okay?” Lottie asks, already knowing the answer. 

 

Nat shifts on her feet. “You and Jackie, huh?” She's still looking in Lottie's direction but she suddenly won't meet her eyes. “I knew you guys were getting close, but I never thought Jackie would, you know..” she waves one hand around, “come out .”

 

Lottie shrugs. “It surprised me, too,” she admits. 

 

Nat scrunches her brows together. “Yeah, yeah, just…be good to her. I think she really needs that, needs someone .”

 

Lottie stands, leaving her basket of berries in the water and makes her over to Nat. She leans against the table with her and looks out into the trees. “I know you miss him,” she says and she can feel Nat stiffen beside her, “but he just needs time. Support.” She turns to look at her. “Sometimes…we have to let go of the things we move.” 

 

Nat sniffles but Lottie doesn't say anything about it. 

 

Instead, she says, “If you need someone, you know you can still come to me, Nat.” Puts a hand on her shoulder. “I'm still your friend, if-- if you want me to be.”

 

Nat finally moved to look at Lottie and Lottie can see how tired she looks, bags under her eyes, white turned red, wrinkles along the ridges of her mouth. 

 

“Yeah,” she breathes, “okay.”

 

Sighing, Lottie moves back over to grab the berries. “Dinner is ready,” she tells Nat, “c'mon “

 

Silently, Nat pushes off the table and follows Lottie back. 

 

Somehow, Jackie’s gotten comfortable again being around her team. They don’t see her as useless. They don’t see her as a burden. They don’t see her as the girl they used to listen to but now can’t find a reason to respect. She’s not their captain anymore, but maybe that’s a good thing. She doesn’t know how to lead them out here. But she is their teammate, and she can be their friend. 

 

She’s offering to help Mari hand out plates and utensils when Lottie comes back with Nat, and she offers both of them a smile. 

 

Lottie smiles back at Jackie, setting the berries down in the middle of the circle by the fire, watching Nat sink back into the chair she always sits at. Lottie does the same, sitting in the plane seat she has been since they got here, letting out a heavy breath once she does. 

 

She never really realizes how tired her body is until she sits or lays down and she’s getting a little tired of the pain that always accompanies it. But there’s nothing she can do about it, so she just waits for Jackie to come back over, taking her plate when it’s handed to her.

 

“You look like a whole new person,” she teases, leaning over to kiss her cheek. 

 

“Is that a good thing?” Jackie asks, smirking as she sits in the seat beside Lottie’s rather than the ground, this time. “I thought you liked when I was dirty.”

 

Melissa, sitting beside Gen and Britt on a log not too far away, leans in, though she isn’t particularly quiet when she whispers, “Do you think they’re going to be like this from now on?”

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything to Melissa, but she does give her a glance that apparently makes Melissa a little nervous as she leans back and starts picking at the food on her plate. 

 

“I like you all the time,” she says when she turns to Jackie, “dirty or clean.”

 

Jackie just hums, content and pleased as she starts eating slowly. She likes the compliments, she’s in a good space to accept the compliments, and she kind of wants to hear them. She likes knowing that Lottie likes her back, wants to be around her, doesn’t care if she’s perfectly clean with her hair in curls and her nails painted or if she’s covered in dirt and mud. A hand reaches out and brushes over Lottie’s arm. “You gave Mari your cloak,” she murmurs.

 

Lottie turns her head to look at Jackie. “She was wet and cold,” she says simply. There really wasn’t too much more about it. She would get it back later, anyway, once they were all heading off to bed. She glances across the fire to see Mari still wearing it, and she has it pulled all the way around herself like a blanket.

 

“Maybe Akilah got payback,” Jackie says, laughing a little under her breath. She checks Lottie over. “Are you cold?” she asks, already considering taking off her flannel and handing it over. It was a little big on her (it wasn’t hers, not really), so it should only be a little small on Lottie. It’d serve its purpose.

 

“Good for her,” Lottie chuckles. Leaning back in the chair, she shakes her head. “I’m fine.” That was the nice part about always running warm, even if it was cool or chilly outside, she didn’t get cold easily. 

 

“Are you cold?” Lottie asks Jackie, then, thinking that maybe she should’ve given her cloak to Jackie instead. 

 

“Nope, nuh uh, not at all. I just wanted to check and make sure that you weren’t,” Jackie says quickly. “That’s all.”

 

Lottie, not quite convinced, raises a brow. “Are you sure?” She reaches over and puts the back of her hand to Jackie’s cheek. “Aren’t you always cold?”

 

“Well, I mean, yeah, I am,” Jackie says, “but, I’m used to it, most of the time.” It reminds her of being covered in snow, of waking up to find Shauna. Sometimes it bothers her. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s better with Lottie around. Lottie, who’s wearing her necklace. She doesn’t need the flannel. 

 

“Are you cold, baby?” Van teases from across the fire, batting her eyelashes at Tai.

 

Tai rolls her eyes, but plays along. “No, baby, I’m not cold. Are you cold?”

 

“Nooo, baby, I’m not cold,” Van says, laughing louder when Jackie tosses a piece of deer meat at her. 

 

Most of the other girls giggle, and Jackie huffs. “You all fucking suck.”

 

Lottie looks around at everyone, she feels like she’s missing something but she doesn’t know what. She furrows her brow, glancing at Van and Tai across from them, still laughing among themselves. 

 

She doesn’t say anything, but she does sink in her spot a little, poking at her food. She’s not sure how all this relationship stuff works. Is this a relationship? Does Jackie even want to label it? They should probably talk about that. 

 

Usually, Jackie spends most of dinner curled around Lottie’s leg or resting her head on her thigh, but that’s harder to do sitting side by side, and she really just didn’t want to sit on the wet ground. Instead, she bumps their knees together, pressing against Lottie as she eats more of her own food, watching Lottie’s plate in case she needs more. 

 

There’s idle chatter around the fire, some of the girls discussing the integrity of their huts, a few others talking about plans for the next day. Routines are being formed. Most of them are getting comfortable. Jackie’s getting comfortable. She finds that she doesn’t hate it out there as much as she used to. The reason why’s pretty clear: dark hair, dark eyes, impossibly tall, impossibly sweet. She feels all gooey when she looks at Lottie. She just can’t help it.

 

Lottie finishes eating and sets her plate aside, and lets herself relax as she watches all the others, chatting and planning and picking away at the basket of berries. It feels like something out of a movie or a book, it doesn’t always feel real and Lottie has to remind herself that it is.

 

It’s all real.

 

Eventually, she loops her arms with Jackie’s and rests her head on the back of the seat. It’s nice just sitting here, letting themselves enjoy the moment, instead of worrying over what might come next or what tomorrow might bring. 

 

It’s Nat who gets up to leave first, slinking over to her hut quietly, probably hoping to go unnoticed. But Lottie watches her with a knowing look, unable to keep herself from feeling the loneliness and sadness as deep as Nat does. 

 

They’d both been so lonely in their lives growing up. They didn’t have a lot of friends, or a family that supported them, or people to really rely on. It was why they got along so well, before all of this happened. Before Lottie changed.

 

Mari stands up a little later and waddles her way over to Lottie and Jackie, pulling the cloak off and handing it back to her. “Here, uh-- thanks.”

 

Lottie just smiles, takes the cloak back and sets it on her lap. “No problem.” When Mari heads off with Akilah and Robin, Lottie turns back to Jackie. “You wanna head in for the night?”

 

Jackie eats all of her food and even a few berries, and she’s doing good, right? So good, it’s very impressive, even if she doesn’t seek out the validation for it that she might have a few months ago. Some of it is fear; she now acknowledges the fact that when someone with big brown eyes says, “Please, eat. For me.” that they will not eat until she does, which is horrifying on multiple levels. So she’s doing very well. There’s also the fact that ghosts do what they want, whether that’s praise her or just stare, and she no longer attempts to make sense of the specter her mind conjures up every now and then.

 

Shauna’s not at the campfire tonight. Hopefully, she won’t be in their hut, either.

 

Jackie smiles at Lottie and stands, holding out her hands to help Lottie up. “I am if you are.” It should be strange, shouldn’t it, to be the one falling in line while someone else makes the decisions? Jackie’s finding that she likes that, though. She really doesn’t mind.

 

Lottie takes Jackie’s hands and pulls herself up again, dropping her plate in the dish bucket, which is now full of rain water. At least whoever washes them (either her or Akilah, usually) won’t have to walk to the river first. 

 

Once inside, Lottie hands up her cloak again, before reaching down to try and pull her dress off, but she can’t lift her arms farther than shoulder height before the pull of her muscles on her still healing ribs makes her freeze up and curse quietly. 

 

“Here,” Jackie murmurs, stepping closer. “Let me help.” She reaches for Lottie’s dress and gets on her toes to help ease it over her head, licking her lips before she helps with the shirt as well. And there’s nothing under that because Lottie hasn’t worn a bra all day, which Jackie’s been thinking about all day, unable to help herself. Because Lottie’s really fucking beautiful, all the time, and Jackie just can’t stop staring at her.

 

Lottie tries not to seem reluctant about letting Jackie help, but it’s still a little embarrassing to her that sometimes she can’t take her own fucking shirt off. Not that she doesn’t want Jackie to take her shirt off, but she wants that in a different way, not in a ‘I’m-too-injured-to-do-it-myself’ way. 

 

“Thanks,” she murmurs, giving her a ghostly smile, but she notices as Jackie’s eyes stick on her and she tilts her head, smile turning into a smirk. “Like what you see?”

 

Jackie gets that it can be a little embarrassing to need people’s help, but she likes to think that she’d want to take Lottie’s clothes off even if she could do it on her own. “Yes,” she murmurs, leaning up to press a kiss to Lottie’s silly, smirking mouth. “I do.” She presses another to her jaw, another to her neck, another to one of her collarbones. She likes what she sees a lot. Her hands go to Lottie’s hips. She wants to make sure she knows that.

 

Lottie gives a happy sigh at the feeling of lips on her skin. It’s extremely flattering to know that Jackie seems to like her this much. Her own hands go up to Jackie’s face, pressing it between her palms, thumbs brushing over soft, slightly red cheeks. She likes what she sees a lot, too. It’s so easy to just lean down and press her lips to Jackie’s, like she just can’t stand not kissing her. 

 

This feels like the natural progression of everything that’s happened between the two of them. Jackie isn’t supposed to be this way, but she is, and at least she’s acknowledging it before it gets too late again. Because she wants , and there’s no one out there to punish her for those wants. She can feel them without it hurting too much. It even feels good, the way that Lottie kisses her like she never wants to stop. 

 

“Lay down,” Jackie pants as they pull apart to breathe, and she’s shooting for commanding, like she used to be, but it feels like it falls flat. She doesn’t care. Her hands trace patterns up and down Lottie’s chest, finally getting to touch.

 

The words might notsound commanding, but Lottie obliges anyway, stepping them back until they’re next to their bed, before sinking down and pulling Jackie with her. It’s always much easier to sit than get up, and she lays back on the soft furs they’ve collected. She tugs Jackie over, wanting to keep her close, alright shivering at her light touch. 

 

She looks up at her in the dark of their little hut and wonders how she got so lucky. Something like this had never felt possible for Lottie. 

 

“So pretty,” Jackie murmurs, connecting their lips once more and moving to lean over Lottie as she lays against furs and blankets and other soft things. If she doesn’t think about this, it gets easier, but Jackie honestly thinks too much or sometimes not at all. There’s no happy middle ground. She thinks about doing this right and doing this wrong, and she thinks about what all of this means. This is the natural progression, but is it happening too fast? Too slow? Have they been dating for months now without the words? Are they rushing into something when Jackie already knows that she’d do anything for Lottie? Has it been twenty-four hours since they kissed in Misty’s hut? Does that even matter?

 

She trails her lips back down to Lottie’s jaw, her neck, tracing back to the marks she’s already left. “I want to make you feel good.” Jackie repeats the statement from earlier. Then, a little less sure. “Just… show me how?”

 

“You do,” Lottie breathes. And more than that, Jackie made her feel like a person, and that was the most she’d felt from anyone in ages. She wasn’t just her disease, or the crazy one, or the Wilderness’ mouthpiece. She was just a girl, lost and scared and happy and sad like the rest of them.

 

She smiles as Jackie’s lips ghost over yesterday’s bruises. She runs her hands through Jackie’s hair, letting out a soft sigh. “I can show you,” she agrees, her voice low. Lifting Jackie’s face to hers again, she kisses her deep and needy, before letting one of her hands find Jackie’s, placing it on her chest. 

 

Jackie hums happily as Lottie presses their lips together again, unable to stop the way she smiles against sweet lips before the kiss deepens into something much more. She lets her hand be guided, feels Lottie’s skin under her fingers and repeats the ministrations she’d started the night before, remembering which ones seemed to work the best. It’s all about learning, and Jackie’s a quick study when she sets her mind to something. Plus, what she doesn’t get immediately, she works hard on improving, and she’s always been willing to put in the extra work for the things she’s passionate about.

 

Lottie sighs again into Jackie's lips, her own parting as the kiss grows in intensity. Jackie's fingers on her chest make her inhale sharply, moving into her touch. She brushes her tongue against Jackie's, pulls back enough to murmur, “Move your hand lower,” encouraging Jackie to explore the rest of her exposed torso. 

 

Just kissing feels nice enough to drive Jackie insane, and she happily leans into it, pleased by the way that Lottie gasps. She nods at Lottie’s words before leaning back in. Her hand drifts lower, but she takes her time. She’s not in any rush, after all, slowly tracing lines and pictures over Lottie’s skin. Her fingers brush against Lottie’s stitches, her touch reverent. She caused that. It was to help, but she still caused that. The other side, then, ghosting over ribs, barely touching the places that she knows are still healing. Lower still, near her bellybutton, down to the waistband of her pants.

 

Lottie sucks in a breath as she feels Jackie's fingers trailing over her skin, lingering, adoring in her touches. Her stomach muscles twitch under the touch, not as used to being felt there. But it feels good, and a little pleased hum comes from her throat. Her hands dip back into Jackie's hair, tangling up in it, nails massaging the back of her head. 

 

When Jackie's fingers make it to her waistband, her breath stutters in her chest with anticipation. She looks up at Jackie, nods. “You can go slow,” she tells her. “I'll let you know what feels good.”

 

Lottie, unlike Jackie, isn’t loud, so Jackie feels a pleased tickle in her chest every time that Lottie makes a little noise, when she likes what Jackie’s doing. The hand in her hair has her gasping and sighing. She thinks it’s one of the best feelings in the world.

 

Jackie leans in for another kiss, slow and sweet as she let her hand slip inside Lottie’s pants. She’s unpracticed with all of this. She doesn’t even know what she likes, much less other people. But her eyes widen as she can already feel heat even through Lottie’s underwear, and she lets her hand move lower, following a similar path to the way that Lottie had moved against her earlier, slow and searching.

 

Lottie inhales with another shudder as Jackie’s hand slips under her pants, her hips already rising into Jackie’s touch. It’s been a while since someone has touched Lottie like this, and while she was never bothered by it, she sometimes forgot how nice it could actually feel. 

 

She’s already breathing heavy against Jackie’s lips as she feels fingers brushing down between her legs. She sucks in Jackie’s bottom lip, rolling it between her teeth before she lets go, face flushing. “Touch me,” she exhales to her, “please.”

 

Jackie feels her pupils dilate as Lottie sucks on her lip, lets go, looks up. She’s so warm and bright, and Jackie’s just a moth. She just wants to be close. Their lips brush back together, again and again, as Jackie moves her hand into Lottie’s underwear. 

 

It’s so much heat and wetness and soft skin that Jackie actually doesn’t know what to do at first, her eyes wide and her lips parted as she moves to look down at Lottie. But she can learn. She wants to, she knows, as she slowly starts moving, searching, watching Lottie’s face for every reaction.

 

Lottie actually gasps at the feeling, as Jackie's fingers find that spot between her legs that drives most girls crazy. Her hips rise into the touch, and Lottie's head rolls back a little, her breath picking up even more. 

 

Jackie's movements are slow, testing, and Lottie feels like she needs more. Her hands come around to curl into the front of her shirt, panting. “Yes,” she breathes, “like-- like that.” It's getting harder to think straight, but she swallows a quiet moan and bites down on her own lip as she looks back up at Jackie. 

 

If Jackie had any sort of foresight, she would have taken her shirt off. As it is, though, she’s pretty busy, especially when Lottie is looking at her like that , talking like that . She repeats the motions that left Lottie gasping, again and again, because she sounds so wonderful that Jackie thinks she could die happy if that was the last sound she ever heard.

 

Lottie has to hold on to Jackie tighter as she moves against her, feeling that heat building between her legs, in her stomach. Her heart is loud in her ears as her breath catches on a moan. She’d forgotten how much she could turn to mush in someone’s hands, and it was all the more intense with Jackie, knowing that she wasn’t doing this out of just some obligation, or because she was drunk and just wanted to get off.

 

“Y-you can-- more,” she pants, trying to find the words as her mind is overwhelmed by the feeling of Jackie’s hand between her legs. “I want to feel more-- of you.” 

 

It’s hot enough just watching Lottie like this, Jackie thinks, her skin flushed and her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath. She nods quickly, repeating some of Lottie’s own movements from earlier as she shifts her hand and slips a finger inside, sighing shakily at the feeling. Her thumb moves in circles over the place that causes Lottie to choke on moans again and again. 

 

She wants to feel more of Lottie, too. There’s too much thinking or not enough, and Jackie isn’t think at all as she situates herself and bends down, licking beads of sweat off of Lottie’s chest before her mouth latches into one of her breasts.

 

Lottie throws her head back and actually lets out a moan as she feels Jackie press a finger inside of her, her hips bucking into her hand. “Jackie!” She gasps, shuddering. It feels so good, she doesn’t think it’s ever felt this good. And god, it certainly doesn’t help when she feels Jackie’s tongue lapping up the sweat off her chest. It all feels like so much and her head is spinning and she loves it. 

 

Those are just pretty sounds that Jackie thinks they’re driving her feral, and she’d do anything to be able to hear them again and again and again. She sets a pace, moving just a little harder, a little faster, a little deeper each time. She licks and sucks and kisses at one breast until she feels suitably satisfied and moves on to the other, trailing her lips across Lottie’s chest. How has she gone so long without this? How has she pretended for so long that she didn’t want this? It feels ridiculous now. Jackie doesn’t think that she could go back to denying what she is if she tried. 

 

For someone who’s never fucked a girl before, Lottie thinks Jackie is doing a pretty good job at it. A really good job at it. One of her hands claws at Jackie’s back, and she’s losing herself pretty quickly, losing control. She thinks she might actually be dying because how can it feel this good? Lottie’s done this before, and it’s never felt like this.

 

She feels her breath catch in her throat as her climax begins to creep up on her. It’s making her legs shake and her chest heave, and she’s got stars in her eyes. “Jackie, I’m --” She doesn’t get to finish the words before she unravels, biting down on her own hand to keep from being too loud because she’s suddenly lost control of her lungs and her voice box. 

 

Jackie’s mouth releases from Lottie’s chest with a pop so that she can lean up and watch her, lips parted and eyes blown wide. Oh, my God , she thinks, fire rolling through her stomach just from looking at Lottie. I did that. She doesn’t stop, either, not until she feels Lottie’s pleasure work through her. She thinks she already wants to do it again. 

 

Instead, she leans in and presses a kiss to the hand that’s covering Lottie’s mouth, her nose, her sweaty forehead. When she pulls away enough to look at Lottie, she can’t help the pleased little smirk on her face. “Good?” she asks.

 

Lottie has to take a second to both catch her breath and get her mind back. When her vision comes back into focus, she can see Jackie smirking down at her, and she lets out a breathless laugh. “Good.” She drags her hands back down through Jackie’s hair, to her face, and holding her gently. “Very good.” Her body even still feels warm, like a wave rolling through her, and she leans up to brush her lips against Jackie’s.

 

Humming into the touch, the kiss, Jackie feels more than a little satisfied with herself, pleased and happy at what she did, wondering almost immediately if she can do it again. Because wow , that was one of the best things she’s ever seen. Lottie is so fucking pretty. She’s even prettier when she’s coming undone. It’s driving Jackie up the wall. Instead, though, she pulls away from the kiss and pulls her fingers out of Lottie’s pants, staring at them and how wet they are with her head tilted to the side, considering it before she brings them to her mouth and licks them clean.

 

Lottie stares at Jackie, watching her clean her fingers off the same way Lottie had cleaned hers earlier. It’s irrationally attractive, and Lottie swallows hard, before pressing another kiss to Jackie’s mouth once she’s done licking her fingers. She wants to taste herself on Jackie’s lips. 

 

Jackie kisses Lottie back, deepening it, pulling herself closer. She thinks she likes this the most, maybe. Everything else is amazing, but just getting to kiss Lottie is something she’s wanted and wanted and wanted, only having the briefest touches but now she can do it whenever she wants. She pulls away just enough to take off her flannel, her shirt, her bra, before she presses back in and sighs happy, brushing her hand over Lottie’s cheek as she kisses her soundly.

 

Lottie eagerly awaits Jackie’s return, wrapping her up in her arms when she does, her bare chest pressed against Lottie’s. Kisses her back, needy but slow, savouring it. It didn’t matter if she could do this whenever she wanted, she wanted to enjoy each and every time she did. It made her heart flutter and her stomach do flips and it was kind of really ridiculous that she could feel this way about someone. She’d never thought she’d get to have this with anyone. 

 

Smiling against soft lips, Jackie feels herself happily sinking into the kiss, pleased. She’s just happy. She can’t help but be happy. It feels so nice, and being around Lottie is so comforting. She’s so warm . Everywhere that their skin touches feels hot, and Jackie just wants to sink into her and burrow close and never leave Lottie’s arms. That would be okay, right? She feels Lottie’s heartbeat echoing against her own, and they don’t exactly match, but Jackie thinks that’s okay. She thinks that they don’t need to. 

 

Lottie sighs happily, feeling how her body is turning to liquid under Jackie’s touches. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt this safe and comfortable with someone, because Lottie’s never had someone like this. Not even anything close. She’d barely had close friends back in Wiskayok. Everything was surface level and it made Lottie seem like that, too. She’d told herself she didn’t care, but she knows, now, that if she lost this, she’d never be able to go back to being like that.

 

If she lost Jackie, she thinks she might just lose herself, too. 

 

Lottie cups Jackie’s cheek, looking into her beautiful eyes, glistening with satisfaction and joy. “I’ve never felt this way before,” she murmurs, trying to voice the thoughts that are swirling in her head.

 

“Really?” Jackie whispers, leaning into Lottie’s touch. She’s never felt this way, either. She’s never allowed herself to feel this way. Because she’d spent so long thinking that it was wrong. Not for others, just for her. Wrong for her and anyone that touches her, like they’d catch it from her. But this doesn’t feel wrong. God, it feels so good, and her hands move to Lottie’s waist, holding her close and brushing her thumb against Lottie’s hip.

 

“Yeah,” Lottie answers, and her voice is quiet in the way that makes her seem small. “I was always so afraid of people…finding out about my…” she trails off. “I still am.” Even now, even with Jackie wrapped up in her arms, skin on skin, Lottie is so afraid that she's going to ruin everything because of how she is. Because of what her illness has made her into. It's a fear so deep Lottie thinks it's inside her marrow.

 

She shifts her head to look over at Jackie. “You feel…safe.”

 

“I want to be safe for you,” Jackie murmurs, looking into Lottie’s eyes. Deep and dark and beautiful. And sad. So very sad. Lottie has always looked so sad. “It still doesn’t change anything to me. You’re still Lottie. Knowing or not knowing doesn’t change you being Lottie.” It makes Jackie ache for her, and it makes her feel guilty because she knows she wouldn’t react this way, not at first, not if they were back home and she still had her mother breathing down her neck, still had Shauna to devote so much of her time and energy and love to. 

 

Lottie can feel how easy it is to trust Jackie, her mind not even trying to conjure up ideas that maybe she's lying, maybe she's just using Lottie. She just simply believes her when she says it doesn't change anything. 

 

She doesn't think any of this would've been possible back in New Jersey. Lottie would still be distant and wary, Jackie would still be peppy and faking it, and Shauna would still be alive. So would Laura Lee. 

 

“It can get really bad,” she says, quieter now, as her eyes drift down to look at the fringes of scars peeking up from just below her waist band. “It's…scary.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know how to explain that the scariest thing she’d ever been able to conjure up has already happened, and she survived it only because of Lottie. The only thing that really scares her now is losing Lottie forever. That’s something she knows she can’t make it through. 

 

She looks down and, hesitantly, moves her fingers to touch the edges of scars. She doesn’t ask what happened. She doesn’t know if Lottie wants to tell her. Instead, she says, “I’ll be here when it gets scary.”

 

Though self inflicted, the scars aren't a cry for attention, the opposite in fact. Lottie hides them because they feel shameful. They're the proof that she's real and that the only way she knows how to pull herself out of a delusion is with pain. 

 

If she can even realize she's in one. 

 

She's hesitant. Her stomach muscles twitch when Jackie traces the edges of her scars. She wants to believe her. “You promise?” She asks, sounding like the little girl she was when the doctors strapped her down to a table and told her that they were going to fix her, she just had to trust them. 

 

“I promise,” Jackie tells her. “You… wouldn’t let me give up, and I told you that you’re stuck with me. I won’t go anywhere. Not unless you tell me to.” And maybe not then. Jackie Taylor has always had a habit of hanging on longer than people wanted her to.

 

Lottie feels exposed, raw and open and bleeding, but it doesn’t feel terrifying like it usually does. It feels like it might be mending itself, her open wounds that had torn themselves into her soul the more she was told she’s bad, and wrong, and dangerous.

 

She wraps her arms around Jackie and burrows into her neck. She doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t know what to say. Thank you isn’t enough. It would never be enough but she’d spend the rest of her life trying to figure out what is, if that’s what it takes.

 

All Jackie can do is hold Lottie close, feeling all the places their skin touches. If it gets hot enough, they might melt into each other. Jackie thinks she’d be okay with melting into Lottie. 

 

After a moment, Lottie pulls back enough to look up at Jackie. “I…might say things, when I’m… like that , that I don’t mean. You can’t-- trust me when it happens.” She can’t trust herself, either. She never really trusts herself.

 

You don’t matter anymore . Jackie still thinks about that, more than she wants to, along with every other awful thing that the people she loves have ever said that’s hurt her. She wants to matter. She wants to matter so much. She thinks, maybe, that she matters to Lottie now, and she wants that to be enough. “I’ll still be here.” She’d grow thicker skin. She’d be better.

 

It’s really everything Lottie has ever wanted to hear. That someone would still be there, even after it got bad, even after she became someone she wasn’t, someone terrifying to her and to others. She doesn’t cry, but she buries herself in Jackie again, burrowing into her like she was going to crawl into her skin and stay there.

 

Jackie brushes her hands up and down Lottie’s back, slow and soothing, just reminding her that she’s still there and that she’s real. Because that’s something that Lottie needs, and Jackie doesn’t think she minds. Maybe she needs to be reminded about what’s real sometimes, too. It can be okay. She’s reminded of Lottie that night, with her dark eyes and her sharp teeth, now so close to her neck. Lottie could rip out Jackie’s throat, and she’d be okay with it. It might even be kind of romantic. It’d mean that she matters, now.

 

Lottie doesn’t move for a while, she likes the feel of her bare skin against Jackie’s, it’s keeping her grounded and raw and comfortable. A little conflicting things, but Lottie was just a jumble of conflicts, of opposites all happening at the same time. 

 

Eventually, she unravels slowly from Jackie, still keeping her arms around her. She’s quiet and tired, but she looks up at Jackie with all the care and want in the world. “Thank you,” she finally murmurs, swallowing a set of other words she wants to say. She doesn’t know how to say them, she’s never felt this way before. She thinks they’re true but she isn’t sure she can say them yet. She brushes a hand through Jackie’s hair. “You’re…everything to me.”

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch. “I would be dead without you.” They both know it. Maybe that’s even what should have happened. “Just bones.” Probably picked clean by ravenous teenagers. Would that have been for the best? Would that have given them more food? Would they have had to kill Javi? But Jackie doesn’t want to die anymore. She doesn’t want to leave this girl alone. Because Lottie is so lonely that it breaks Jackie’s heart, just as much as it warms her that Lottie needs her, wants her, sees her as something, everything, to keep. Is that selfish? To want to be that? Jackie thinks so. It’s hard to mind. 

 

Lottie knows it’s true and it scares her. She shouldn’t be someone that people rely on, especially not someone who can save anyone. She can’t do that. She’d just done what her heart told her to. “I couldn’t let you die, too,” she murmurs, “I…I just couldn’t.” And maybe it was for herself, or it was out of guilt, or some disgusting sense of righteousness, she didn’t know. She just knew that she couldn’t let Jackie die. The thought, even back then, made Lottie’s heart fill with ice, made her throat close up. 

 

She lifts her hand to cup Jackie’s cheek. “You saved me, too,” she tells her. She’d given up, really, long before she’d passed out in the snow and closed her eyes and let herself almost drift off into the nothingness. 

 

“I was being selfish,” Jackie admits. “It wasn’t fair for me to be stuck here without you.” Lottie had forced Jackie to stay, and maybe there was something cruel in returning the favor, but Jackie’s always been cruel. Cruel and selfish and insecure. She didn’t want to be alone. She’s never been able to be alone. She’s a selfish little girl who’s always slept better next to another body, who’s always needed another person to be whole. “I’m glad,” she says, and she means it in this moment, “that you didn’t let me die.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “That’s not selfish.” She soothes her thumb over Jackie’s cheek, down to her lips, traces the outline of her bottom one. “I’m glad you saved me, too.” Maybe at the time, Lottie had wanted it. She’d wanted to drift off to where she might be able to see Laura Lee again-- and sometimes she still thought about it, sometimes she wondered if there was still a way to see her, to bring herself close enough to be able to touch her and hold her and say sorry and say goodbye-- but now she wanted to stay here, with Jackie. With all of them.

 

Even if she could feel the others drifting away from her, she still wanted to stay for them. “I won’t leave you here alone.”

 

Sometimes, Jackie still sees Lottie in the snow, like she sees Shauna in the snow, like she feels it falling on her own skin, burying her. She presses a kiss to Lottie’s thumb before she reaches up and takes her hand. There’s matching gashes on their palms, places where they decided to bleed. For each other, for the team, for this place that seems to want to eat them alive. “Promise?” she whispers.

 

“Promise,” Lottie says right away, no hesitation. She wants to stay, for Jackie, for the others. Maybe a little for herself. She’s working on that part. Lottie had wondered for a long time why she was still alive, going through the motions of being a person mechanically, like a step-by-step guide, until she’d gotten out here and she’d realized she didn’t have to be a person the way society-- and her parents-- have told her she needs to be.

 

Lottie leans back up, presses a deep, intense kiss, hoping to convey everything she feels but can’t say with the action. Lottie is a girl of actions, too afraid that her words will betray her. She thinks Jackie can understand her well enough.

 

Jackie thinks she melts even more with the kiss, pressing into Lottie, feeling Lottie’s heart beating in her own chest. Their beats are still just a little off, but she doesn’t mind. It’s enough to be able to feel it, to know that it’s hers in the moment. She’d build her life around this girl if Lottie would let her. Maybe even if she doesn’t. Maybe Jackie already has.

 

Lottie is breathless again by the time she pulls back, eyes soft and adoring as she looks up at Jackie. “Lay with me,” she murmurs, “we should get some sleep.” Even if Lottie kind of just wants to keep kissing Jackie until the sun comes up, but she knows Jackie had done a lot of hard work today, and she deserved a nice rest, and Lottie would hold her through the whole thing.

 

Groaning, Jackie closes her eyes. “I dug a ditch today,” she remembers. Her body’s going to be aching in the morning. She’s been too distracted by pretty girls with endless eyes who drive her just a little crazy, but she can feel the tiredness catching up to her as Lottie mentions sleeping, even with taking a nap earlier. Maybe she’s just too comfortable, she thinks, slipping in closer to Lottie and pressing a kiss to her jaw. “Okay,” she mumbles. “Sleep.”

 

Lottie pulls Jackie into her side comfortably, curling back around her as well, wrapping her up in her arms. She liked how easily Jackie fit in her embrace, small against Lottie’s large frame. “You did dig a ditch today,” she murmurs, teasingly, “it’s a very nice ditch, too.” But she sighs, content, and lets her fingers drift lazily through Jackie’s hair as she tries to coax her into sleep. It likely won’t take much, if the past is anything to go by. 

 

How can a ditch be nice ? Jackie wants to ask, but she can’t really find the words, grumbling a little instead as she feels like she’s sinking into their bedding with every gentle brush of fingers through her hair. She’s asleep before she knows it, her body content with being held.

 

It takes longer for Lottie to fall asleep, but when she finally does, it’s blissful and mellow.

 

She wakes up to the sound of footsteps outside their hut. There’s a light knock on the wood next to the doorway and Lottie blinks, rubbing her hand across her eyes to try and wake up. Had they slept in too long? She can’t tell what time it might be, since the blanket she’d put up over their window to keep the rain out also blocked the sunlight.

 

“Lottie?” comes Misty’s voice and Lottie has to suppress a little groan.

 

“Just a minute, Misty,” she grumbles.

 

“Oh, I-- I just came by to see if you, um, finished your tea from the other day. It’s probably better if you do, just to make sure, you know, you don’t get sick again.”

 

Lottie scrunches her brow, glancing around. It would be cold by now. “Um,” she doesn’t remember how much she drank, and she really doesn’t want to sit up yet. “Just, come back in like five minutes?”

 

There’s a beat of silence. And then, “Okay,” and footsteps heading off.

 

Lottie rolls over and buries her face in Jackie’s neck again. “Misty fucking Quigley…” she mumbles.

 

Jackie’s stirred awake by the sound of voices in her good ear, but she doesn’t make any sort of move until she hears Misty leave, letting out a breathy laugh. “She’s… probably just concerned,” Jackie says. 

 

It’s weird, how much Misty makes her fluctuate between anger and fear and pity. She’s still so fucking mad at what the girl did to Lottie, and she’s still just a little afraid of her. She knows that Misty doesn’t like her, even if she doesn’t get why , and she still sees Misty forcing her to eat, making her eat out of her hand like an animal. She thinks Misty liked that a little too much. But she still feels bad for her; she can’t help it. 

 

Her eyebrows scrunch up. “Wasn’t… the tea for a headache?” she asks, moving to sit up just a little so that she can start looking for a shirt to put on. “Why would you need to finish it?”

 

Lottie puts her hand over her face. “I know.” Misty had never really registered on Lottie’s radar before the crash-- she was just the equipment manager, a little quirky, a little eager, but Lottie stayed away from most of her teammates, so she stayed even further away from Misty. 

 

But then, out here, it was like Misty had latched onto her because of her…what? Power? Ability to hear the wilderness? Her strange affinity for the weird shit that happens? 

 

When Jackie sits up, Lottie drops her hand and peers up at her. “I don’t know,” she shrugs, “maybe it’s just…overall medicinal? I only know which plants are good for eating.” Thanks to Akilah’s knowledge early on.

 

Lottie reaches out and trails her fingers up Jackie’s spine on her bare back, grinning to herself as she remembers last night. God, how had she gotten this lucky? She still had such a hard time believing Jackie actually liked her back, that she actually wanted her. She spies a bruise on her neck and drifts her fingers over it. “You bruise so easy,” she says.

 

Jackie just hums, considering. It’s just weird. The tea. The fact that Misty is so insistent about it. Jackie wants to give her the benefit of the doubt, but there’s this odd feeling in her gut, based on Misty’s behavior and, well. Past experiences. 

 

Her head tilts back, and she sighs, enjoying Lottie’s touch. “I’m delicate,” she grumbles. She did bruise pretty easy, and get all sorts of little nicks and scratches, bug bites and fucking poison ivy. It was like she had clear skin most of the time, but at the cost of it almost constantly being bruised or marked up in every other way. Lottie might always have bruised shins from bumping into things, but Jackie’s first few years of soccer were accompanied by perpetually scraped knees. 

 

She leans more into the touch, even as her fingers start searching for her bra.

 

Lottie just smiles, lopsided and fond, as Jackie leans into her touch. She scratches lightly along the back of her neck, then down between her shoulder blades, all the way to her lower back, fingers trailing over the ridges of her spine, like little mountain valleys across the landscape that was her back.

 

“I’ll be more gentle,” she says, before sitting up, too-- with a little groan-- before she leans against Jackie’s back and presses a soft kiss to her shoulder. 

 

“You don’t have to,” Jackie says, almost too quickly. “I just mean… I don’t mind. I like it, really.” Lottie could probably take a bite out of her, and Jackie would say thank you. She tilts her head towards Lottie’s and leans in, offering her a kiss. “We… should definitely get up. I’m worried she might actually barge in after five minutes.”

 

Lottie hums, nodding. “Okay.” She thinks she’ll still try and be a little more careful with it, though. She hopes Jackie will tell her, too, if anything is too much. 

 

Sighing heavily, she moves away enough to start searching for her own clothes. “I wouldn’t put it past her.” Which was extremely unfortunate, really.

 

Lottie finds her bra, sliding it on before grabbing her dress and tugging that on, too. She stands up slowly, rubbing her side like always, before she looks around their hut. “I’ll…go see what else Misty wants.” 

 

After Jackie puts her shirt and sweater on, she glances over at Lottie, smoothing down her clothes before grimacing. “I’ll go with you. I have a bit of a headache, too. Nothing serious, but maybe she can help before it gets to that point.” 

 

It’s just a thought, but Jackie can’t get the worry out of her head, and she doesn’t quite know what to do about it. She walks over and brushes her hands down Lottie’s arms before standing up and touching the necklace, pulling it forward so that it rests on the collar of her dress. 

 

Lottie’s skin feels warm wherever Jackie touches her, and it all culminates into the spot on her chest where the necklace rests. She takes Jackie’s hands, squeezes, leaning forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “Drink some more water, too,” she says, “you might be a little dehydrated.” They were, after all, pretty sweaty last night.

 

Keeping Jackie’s hand in hers, she steps out of the hut with her and blinks against the sunlight, glancing around at the normal activity of camp, everyone doing the same things they usually do-- Mari cooking, Akilah helping her, Melissa cleaning up after butchering the food for the meal, Gen taking stock of what they have left. 

 

Lottie doesn’t see Nat anywhere, but she does spot Misty across the way, moving about in her hut. 

 

She heads over with Jackie in tow, pausing just outside. “Check up time?” she says as they approach.

 

Jackie’s so perfectly content to let Lottie pull her around and hold her hand. She used to be the one that did that, but, really, she’s more than happy to let someone else take charge. It makes her feel warm on the inside, that someone considers her and includes her and wants her around. She smiles at Lottie. “After you,” she says. When they enter, her smile turns more polite. “Good morning, Misty.”

 

Misty turns when she hears Jackie’s voice, and furrows her brow. “Morning.” She comes over to them, but looks to Lottie. “How are you feeling today? Still doing okay?”

 

Lottie nods. “Fine, really,” she tells her. 

 

“Stomach okay after eating last night?”

 

Lottie nods again.

 

“Well,” Misty clears her throat, “uh, good, then. Here,” she turns to grab a cup, then holds it up to Lottie, “you should finish this.”

 

“You said it’s for headaches, right?” Jackie asks, her tone conversational. 

 

Misty eyes Jackie. “And…other things, yes.”

 

Lottie, curious, tits her head. “I’m feeling fine, really,” she tells Misty, “I’ll be okay.” 

 

This is probably a really stupid idea. Jackie reaches out and takes the cup, too fast to really think it through. “I’ve got a bit of a headache, actually. Probably from the rain yesterday, but, I mean, if it helps.” She doesn’t bother waiting for a response, chugging what’s left of the cup like she’s at a kegger and is allowing herself to get drunk enough to feel sloppy with it because her parents are out of town for the weekend. 

 

It does not taste good. It’s not terrible, but it’s definitely not good, and Jackie pulls a face. “Sorry. You can make more, right? Since it seems pretty useful? I just really want to catch this before it gets worse.”

 

Misty is staring at Jackie in disbelief, and Lottie sort of is, too. Neither of them say anything as Jackie chugs the rest of the tea, but Lottie recovers first.

 

“It’s okay if you can’t,” she says, “I don’t need it.” 

 

Misty scrunches her face, shakes her head. “Yeah, uh, yeah, I can. If we, um, need it.” 

 

Lottie pats Jackie on the shoulder. “Okay, um, well, thanks, then. We’ll see you at breakfast?”

 

Misty just nods and Lottie thinks she looks a little nervous, suddenly. But she doesn’t question it much, before nudging for Jackie to follow her over to the fire pit. 

 

“Okay so that didn’t taste good at all. I can see why you didn’t finish it,” Jackie muses as they head over to the fire. She glances back, seeing the nervous look on Misty’s face. Maybe it was a stupid idea, but there’s something about that expression. Jackie looks away and licks her lips, still trying to get the taste off her tongue. 

 

“Yeah, most things that are medicinal don’t taste good,” Lottie answers, heading over to their normal seats, waving good morning to Tai and Van as they duck out of their hut to join everyone as well.

 

“You guys do know other people live here, right?” Van says as she sits down on her regular log. Tai rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing, too.

 

Lottie rolls her eyes as well. “You have no room to talk, Van,” she says back. 

 

“Excuse you,” Van huffs. “Tai and I are perfect ladies. We fool around away from the village.”

 

Jackie snorts, grabbing two cups of water and handing one to Lottie. “I distinctly remember waking up to hearing you two going at it in the attic multiple times.” 

 

Lottie grabs the cup, smiling at Jackie. “Everyone heard those,” she adds on, smirking over the cup as she takes a sip.

 

Van turns red and though she can’t see it, Lottie knows Tai is blushing, too.

 

“So, it is a competition?” Mari says, standing up from the fire and looking at the four of them. She’s grinning from ear to ear. “I was right.”

 

“Oh, Mar,” Van says, shaking her head, “I don’t think you’ve ever been right about a single thing in your life.”

 

“But if it is a competition,” Jackie starts, “Van wins as the loudest.” She laughs as Van flips her off. 

 

Breakfast goes normally after that, light teasing and poking fun as they eat. Jackie ends up picking at her food after a few minutes, not particularly hungry but knowing that she needs to eat something before the long day. 

 

Of course, she doesn’t expect to start feeling nauseous. At first, it doesn’t really seem like anything major. Jackie’s pretty used to feeling sick from nerves. This isn’t that different. She feels flushed, too, warm as she tugs at her collar and tries to pay attention to something Melissa is saying. 

 

Lottie has finished most of her breakfast when she notices Jackie’s barely touched her. “Jackie?” she turns, concerned. Jackie looks flushed, and there’s a line of damp sweat beading on her forehead. “Hey, are you okay?” Her concern grows as she puts her hand to Jackie’s face and she can feel how warm and clammy her skin is. 

 

Jackie blinks, looking at Lottie for just a beat, her eyes unfocused. Is she going to puke? She feels like she might, but, really, she might not. She can usually fight it off. It’s just a touch of nausea. She hums, nodding. She’s okay, but, wow. She feels weird. Maybe she would sit down. No, she’s already sitting down. Jackie stands. 

 

That feels like a mistake. Her feet are unsteady, and the entire world seems to be swaying like a boat. Jackie doesn’t get seasick. She suddenly feels seasick. She starts walking toward the tree line, already feeling that tightness in her throat, her chest. Unfortunately, she doesn’t make it that far. Fortunately, she’s at least away from the fire pit when she feels what little she ate for breakfast start to come back up.

 

Lottie’s stomach drops when she sees Jackie sway on her feet. She’s up in a moment, grabbing her before she suddenly doubles over and gets very suddenly sick. “Jackie!” Lottie feels a little more panicked than she probably should, but she tries her best to hold Jackie up. “Hey, hey,” she’s rubbing her back, helping her sit down, “someone get me some water.” She calls over her shoulder at the others as Nat comes over to them, stopping as she hovers over Jackie.

 

“Jesus, what the fuck,” she hisses, “are we sure the food isn’t bad?”

 

“Hey, I cut up a whole new rabbit this morning!” Melissa argues as Mari comes back over to Lottie and Jackie, handing Lottie the cup of water.

 

“So, what, we have two bad rabbits?” Mari asks.

 

“We had the rest of the deer when Lottie got sick,” Nat answers before Melissa can. 

 

Lottie isn’t really listening to them. Jackie’s burning up and covered in sweat and she wants to get her back to their hut. “Nat, help me,” she snaps and Nat startles for a second, before she’s moving.

 

“Please, don’t…” Jackie groans, her body hunching over again. Fuck, this might take awhile. When Jackie gets sick after a night out. She gets sick . Whatever’s going on right now doesn’t feel much different in that regard, at least. 

 

It’s not the rabbit. Jackie’s pretty sure of that. And, if it was, she thinks the rest of them might be sick, too. No, there’s only one thing that she and Lottie both had in the last few days that the others haven’t. 

 

Unfortunately, Jackie’s not in the right headspace to talk about that. She struggles to get them to stop moving again, coughing and gagging until her stomach forces something up. “‘S moving too much,” she slurs, having trouble holding herself up. 

 

“We’re just gonna get somewhere less--” Lottie looks back-- “near the food.” She remembers how horrible she’d felt, too, when she’d gotten sick, just a day ago. Nat helps Lottie lift Jackie enough for them to hurriedly get her over by the edge of the huts, before kneeling beside them with the cup of water and a rag.

 

Lottie takes it hurriedly and wipes Jackie’s brow while rubbing her back and Nat moves to hold Jackie’s hair out of her face. The others are all talking amongst themselves, asking if anyone else feels sick, but the consensus is no. And Lottie’s brain is too focused and worried on Jackie to think about why that may be.

 

She keeps up what she hopes are soothing actions. “It’s okay, just let it out,” she tells her, tucking some hair behind her ear. 

 

Jackie likes being comforted when she doesn't feel well, but she also really likes just curling up like a dying animal and being allowed to do that. It makes it so much easier. Her body’s still trying to do that as bile forces its way out of her body, burning and singeing her stomach. It’s hard to catch her breath, nearly impossible.

 

“Let it out,” Shauna whispers, and it’s like she’s holding her hair back again. Jackie’s not in the middle of the woods anymore, she’s at the corner of her house next to her mother’s rose bushes, Shauna threading her fingers through her hair and laughing. “Good thing you didn’t do this inside. Your mom would be pissed.”

 

“Shaun–” Jackie slurs, confused because Shauna isn’t there, and she’s not home, and there are so many other things her mother would be pissed about. She blinks and is brought back to the present with a groan. She doesn’t understand how there’s still anything in her stomach. It won’t stop, and it hurts every time her stomach muscles clench. She’s bleary eyed and unfocused. She’d really like five fucking minutes to feel like her stomach isn’t trying to crawl up her throat. 

 

“Lottie,” she begs, tears stinging her eyes. She doesn’t know why she’s crying. Stupid crybaby, pathetic and ridiculous and not worth anyone’s time. “Lottie.”

 

“Jesus, that’s a lot,” Nat mumbles, turning her face away even as she still holds Jackie’s hair back.

 

Lottie chooses to ignore that, just like she’s choosing to ignore that the first person Jackie asks for is Shauna. She’s ignoring that it makes her chest feel like someone just dropped a brick on it, and just keeps soothing Jackie, scooting closer to put her arms around her, but making sure she doesn’t bump her to make it worse. 

 

“It’s okay, I’m here,” she tells Jackie, brushing her fingers through her hair, looking up to Nat to let her know she’s got it for now. 

 

Nat stands back and nods. “Just…call me if you need anything.”

 

Lottie pets through Jackie’s hair gently, pressing the cool cloth to her forehead. “I’m here,” she reminds her.

 

“Never let me drink again,” Jackie slurs, mixing up bitter tea and sour beer in her mind as her body folds in on itself again. She can’t stop. There’s nothing to come out at this point, either, just a nasty, wretched feeling in the pit of her stomach that she can’t seem to get out. She wants to lean into the touch, but her body’s done cooperating. 

 

She must be the worst fucking patient. Her parents usually left her to her own devices when she was sick, her dad not knowing how to comfort, her mother too put off by catching any sort of potential sickness. Most of her comfort had come from Shauna. And now Lottie. Jackie laughs. “Don’t tell my mom about the roses.”

 

“I won't,” Lottie says, trying to sound normal and not like she's freaking out internally, “it'll be our little secret.” She knows what it's like, to think one thing while reality is actually anything but that. She coaxes Jackie to try and sit more comfortably, keeping her steady. She looks like she's about to faceplant and Lottie knows laying down while also trying not to vomit doesn't go well together. 

 

Every time Jackie dry heaves, Lottie winces a little. It sounds awful and painful and her own throat burns at the memory. She brushes sweaty, damp hair stuck to Jackie's forehead out of her eyes. “I've got you.”

 

“Lottie,” Jackie sighs out, because she might be confused, but it’s comforting to know that Lottie’s there. She knows that Lottie’s there. She manages to lift her head enough to see Shauna, snowflakes in her eyes as she stares at her, angrier than she’s looked in months, since that night.

 

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” Shauna says.

 

Seriously, never let Jackie drink again. She groans. “What was in that fucking tea?” The words are a whine, spurring her to cough and gag again. There’s nothing left in her body, but whatever was there has already done enough damage. She almost wishes she could eat something so that the dry heaving would stop. That hurts worse when something actually manages to come up.

 

The revelation hits Lottie like a freight train. The tea. She's looking over her shoulder, eyes wild, but Misty is nowhere in sight. Her hands subconsciously tighter around Jackie, fingers pulling into fists. 

 

Lottie doesn't get angry a lot, if ever. But she knows that, the few times she has, it doesn't go well for whoever is on the receiving end. 

 

She tries to calm herself down. Right now, she needs to make sure Jackie is okay. Right now, her focus needs to be here. 

 

“It's okay,” she coos to Jackie, brushing fingers back through her hair, holding her steady. “Do you need to move? I can carry you wherever.”

 

Jackie would ask for something to eat if she hadn’t already wasted enough of their food supply. Seriously, just something, anything to go in just so it could come back up. She’d appreciate it. Anything to stop from gagging on air. She wants to curl into a ball and die. Not for forever, just a few hours. “Don’t wanna move,” she grunts out. Or puke on her. It was embarrassing every time that it happened before. Jackie thinks she might actually curl into a ball if she does it now.

 

“Okay,” Lottie says, “no moving.” She doesn't know how else to help. She feels a little useless, sitting there just stroking Jackie's back, hoping it would all just stop soon so that she wouldn't be suffering anymore. “Do you want to sip some water? It might feel good in your throat.” Or it might just make her throw up more. Lottie really wasn't a good doctor, but their only real doctor was the reason Jackie was like this. Her hands tighten again, and she has to take a few deep breaths to will away the anger.

 

“God, please,” Jackie rasps out. She would love some water, she would love something cool on her tongue, or something in her body to come out instead of the endless nothingness. “This and a fucking headache, I can’t imagine,” she says weakly.

 

Lottie grabs the cup quickly and holds it up to Jackie, helping her bring it to her lips. She's not even thinking about how she'd felt the other day, when she'd gotten sick. She shakes her head. “Don’t think about that, just focus on what you need,” she tells her, coaxing her to take small sips. She's still holding onto her tight with her other hand, fingers curled into the fabric of Jackie's flannel. 

 

She looks back over her shoulder again and sees most everyone going about the day, cleaning and checking supplies or heading off to do other chores. 

 

Misty still seems to be MIA and Lottie can feel her anger growing. She knew and she still let Jackie drink it. 

 

“You,” Jackie manages, managing to drink a little bit of water. It feels so good on her throat, in her stomach. She thinks it might come back up, but, at the moment, it’s amazing. “Sorry, Lottie,” she manages. It’s been awhile since they’ve had to do something like this. When Jackie gets sick, it’s always a lot. She wishes it wasn’t. 

 

“Hey, hey, no,” Lottie coos, pressing a soft kiss to Jackie’s temple, “never apologize for this. I’m here.” There was absolutely nothing for Jackie to apologize about. This wasn’t her fault, and even if it was, Lottie would still be here for her, and she wouldn’t blame her. Never. 

 

“Here, drink a little more,” she urges, holding the cup back to her lips. 

 

“You’re here,” Jackie repeats with a sloppy smile. Fevers can be really hit or miss. Sometimes she can just power through it, but other times she’s in an entirely different realm. She thinks she’s somewhere in between in the moment. 

 

Shauna puts a cold hand on Jackie’s face as she tries to take another sip of water. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she says softly. Jackie looks at her, and she looks different. Worn. Heavily pregnant, more than she got to be out here. Jackie reaches out, and her own hand looks pale, frost bitten, frozen. 

 

She groans, gags. The water comes back up, more bile accompanying it.

 

Lottie watches as Jackie’s hand reaches out, but she doesn’t take it. She knows it’s not for her. She winces as Jackie throws up the water she just drank, and she grabs the rag, wiping her face gently again once she’s done, rubbing her back. “It’s okay,” she says, “just let it happen.” She wishes there was more she could do, some better way for her to help. 

 

She just stays close to Jackie, because that’s all she can do.

 

Jackie’s head tilts back, and she looks at Lottie. “It wasn’t— It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she croaks out. “Was it?” She’s panting as she tries to control her breathing, but it feels cold, like it’s snowing. Like it’s supposed to snow, and she’s alone by a fire.

 

But that’s not right. It’s spring, and Lottie’s there. Lottie’s with her, she’s holding her, she won’t let Jackie go out in the cold. She’s waiting for Jackie and calling her back because she made a promise, and Jackie has to make sure she keeps it. 

 

But it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

 

Lottie feels her blood go cold. She hasn’t thought about that in a long time, but as soon as Jackie says it, she can hear it echoing in her head. It rings in her ears and presses against the back of her eyelids. 

 

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, pulling Jackie into her. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t, it is . It is this way, and Lottie can’t be mad about that. She’s glad it’s this way. She’s glad she has Jackie. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, petting Jackie’s hair, “you’re okay.”

 

So it’s true. Jackie feels herself sag against Lottie, groaning again, but there’s really nothing left in her, just an emptiness than makes her twitch, a coldness that makes her shiver. 

 

“Jackie?” She hears Shauna’s voice, but it’s muddled and distant, not there. “I really need you right now.” But Shauna is gone at the moment, and Jackie doesn’t really feel like she’s anywhere near her. 

 

She leans further into Lottie, and she’s so warm, and Jackie’s cold. 

 

Lottie wraps Jackie up in her arms when she leans into her. She feels like she’s unraveling a little bit and it scares her. She can’t lose herself right now, not when Jackie needs her. But the words are echoing in her head and when she closes her eyes, she sees Jackie, frozen in the snow, Shauna screaming her name, crying. It’s the opposite.

 

Lottie blinks it away. She has Jackie and that’s what matters. It did happen this way. She doesn’t know why but it did and she’s not going to question that now. “I’ve got you,” she whispers to her, “you’re real.”

 

There is a world where Shauna needs Jackie, and Jackie cannot be there. There is a world where Jackie needs Shauna, but Shauna cannot be there. But Lottie is there, and Jackie has never needed anyone in this way. She’s never had anyone that needed her like this. “I’m real,” she mumbles for both of them. 

 

She’s still nauseous, but it’s not quite so horrible, not actively forcing anything up. Still, Jackie feels sweaty and hot and cold and not quite there. She groans quietly again. “Motherfucker.”

 

She’s real, she’s real, she’s real . Jackie is real and so is Lottie and this is real, as shitty as it is. But Jackie doesn’t seem as bad as she was before, and Lottie presses a kiss to the side of her head again. “I’ve got you.” She just keeps repeating the words. She’s there, she’s got her.

 

Gently, she scoops Jackie into her arms and shifts enough to try and stand with her, despite how much it suddenly hurts. But she manages to lift the extremely light girl, and get them into their hut, laying her down on the blankets and grabbing an old rag to lay next to her in case she got sick again. 

 

She goes back out to grab the water cup and when she picks it up, her hand is shaking. She grabs it with her other and takes a deep breath. “It’s real,” she murmurs to herself, “it’s real, it’s real.” It’s real. 

 

She ducks back into the hut and sets the cup down near Jackie before she sits next to her, reaching back out to feel her face, her skin still feeling warm and damp. “Try and lay down,” she whispers to her.

 

Jackie’s confused as to why she’s being picked up, but she’s not confused when Lottie leaves. She’s sitting up and breathing heavily when Lottie makes it back, putting a hand on her face. Jackie reaches out and clutches Lottie’s dress, swallowing painfully. “Don’t go. Don’t go.” She’d lay down. She’d do whatever. She just doesn’t want Lottie to go again, her eyes fever bright and pale, the color a yellowish green, sickly just like the rest of her. 

 

“Hey, hey,” Lottie purrs, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” She pulls Jackie back into her lap, pressing her head to her chest so she can hear her heartbeat, petting through her hair soothingly. It’s as much for her as it is Jackie. She’s not going anywhere, neither of them are. “C’mon,” she murmurs again, “lay down.”

 

Jackie shudders as she presses closer to Lottie, and she feels gross, so fucking gross, but she can’t bring herself to pull away. She can feel Lottie’s heartbeat in her head, and she takes one of Lottie’s hands and places it on her pulse, as fluttery as it is. “Lottie,” she sighs. Lottie’s the only person she wants there. It feels sacreligious, and it feels wrong, but it’s true. She leans heavily against her, though she struggles for a second. “Your ribs.”

 

“Shhh,” Lottie hushes, “just rest.” She doesn’t care, it doesn’t hurt right now. It can’t hurt, because nothing ever does when she’s like this. She’s trying to keep her breathing steady so that her heartbeat doesn’t pound out of her chest. She needs to stay calm for Jackie. She’s trying very hard to stay calm for Jackie. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

 

Jackie feels too heavy, made of lead instead of bone and skin, but she finds herself curling up on top of Lottie, pressing her face into her neck. “Lottie,” she whispers, again and again, still clinging to Lottie’s dress, her heartbeat, trying to force Lottie to feel hers as well. If she moves too much, she’ll puke again, and that’s the last thing she wants to do in their home, but she finally feels like she’s gained enough control of her body (it’s that familiar emptiness) to not do that. 

 

Lottie holds Jackie against her, tighter, letting her feel her heart and its steady beat. She murmurs back to Jackie as the feverish girl mutters her name, and she keeps her close but makes sure she can pull away if she needs to, or if she wants to. And Lottie can see things that shouldn’t be there, hiding in the shadows. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Brown hair, frozen on the ground. A boy, too young, soaked and frozen, too. 

 

She screws her eyes shut and presses her face to Jackie’s hair. “I’m here,” she repeats, “I’m here.”

 

“I’m glad you’re here, Lottie,” Jackie whispers, her body finally moving out of a state of panic and into one of shutting off for a little bit to conserve whatever energy she has left. Still, she manages to mumble as sleep starts to take her, “I’m glad I’m with you.”

Notes:

SIGH we all knew it couldn't last forever, right? But i'm sure there's more happy times on the horizon! Probably. Maybe. Guess you'll have to keep reading to find out :P

Thanks again for all your support!

Chapter 20: sweet dreams are made of this

Summary:

Who am I to disagree? Well, Lottie and Jackie might. Jackie thinks Lottie looks good horn-y, and Lottie tests out her knife skills. The two talk, and the big question gets brought up. Say, what was in that tea, anyway?

Notes:

Back with another chapter! After the excitement of last chapter, this one's just winding down from the aftermath, taking a bit of a lull as these two kids learn how to take care of each other.

Title comes from "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics.

In her dreams, Jackie’s dead.

 

She watches her body burn on a pyre, watches Shauna cry and scream and lose her mind over Jackie’s frozen corpse. She watches Shauna have an even worse time without her around, and it doesn’t seem real. It’s just a dream. God, it seems like there’s no world where they can both exist without hurting and losing each other. 

 

Her body burns on a pyre. Jackie thinks Shauna is much more comfortable wielding the knife and digging into Jackie’s flesh. She’d probably have let her do that if she was alive.

 

When Shauna becomes Lottie with the knife, with antlers growing from her head, Jackie thinks she’s lost the plot a little bit, like one of those rambling short stories Shauna’s classmates would write that she’d always complain about while Jackie laid upside down on her bed. But Jackie thinks she’d let Lottie stab her, too, and she reaches out for her antlers, for where they break through her skull. They seem out of place, almost, not just because they’re antlers. She can’t place why.

 

Antlers and sharp teeth and endless eyes that Jackie gets lost in when Lottie smiles at her, and Jackie walks forward. The scars on both of their hands open up as she presses their palms together.

 

Jackie’s okay with that, too.

 

Once Jackie is asleep, Lottie shifts her enough to place her head in her lap, letting her hands drift through her hair in soothing strokes. She tries to ignore the voices that are whispering to her from the shadows, and she tries to block out the eyes she can feel staring at her. She’s repeating the words like a mantra-- It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real -- as she stays with Jackie, holding her, feeling her, reminding herself that this is real.

 

Nat comes by at some point, sees how it’s going and Lottie just shakes her head. Nat returns later with another cup of water for them and Lottie sets it beside her, but keeps her hands on Jackie, not wanting to let go. Not able to.

 

Her eyes droop at some point. She feels her head loll forward but she snaps back up, eyes looking around wildly. There’s no one there. It’s just her and Jackie. 

 

It’s just her and Jackie. It’s just them.

 

The voices aren’t real. She tries to tell herself that. Her hands are shaking. Slowly, Lottie reaches into the pocket of her pants on the floor beside her. She pulls out the pocket knife she’s had in them since the day at the river. It’s the only way she’s ever been able to pull herself out of it alone. 

 

She flicks the blade out, keeps her other hand dug into Jackie’s shirt. It’s easy to turn the blade around, press it to her abdomen. She digs it in, just enough to feel the tip of the blade. It makes her shudder. It feels real. The voices grow quieter, the shadows flicker. She presses it harder. It digs into her skin. She winces, grits her teeth. It’s real, it’s real, it’s real . 

 

“It’s real,” she says out loud, her hand on Jackie squeezing tightly.

 

It’s hard to tell how long she sleeps. Jackie feels a hand holding her close and tight, and she moves in closer to it. “Lottie,” she mumbles. She blinks her eyes awake and looks up at Lottie from her lap, her eyes blurry and confused. 

 

The sunlight has shifted outside and even if Lottie can’t see it, she knows. She’s breathing hard by the time she hears Jackie’s voice, feels her stir. The knife is sitting next to her, closed, still covered in her blood. She reaches out, pets through her hair. “I’m here,” she tells her again, moving to shift Jackie further into her lap. She brushes damp strands of hair from Jackie’s face, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “How are you feeling?”

 

“I–” Jackie looks at her, wondering briefly where her antlers went as she looks around. “I feel… thirsty,” she mumbles as she sees the knife. She feels like she’s waking up too fast, sitting up and reaching for it as she sees the blood. “What– Lottie, what–” Her eyes are wild, and her breathing’s picked up, her heart beating too fast.

 

Lottie tenses, but grabs Jackie’s hand, pulling it away. “It’s okay,” she tells her, “don’t sit up too fast.” She’s just worried about Jackie. She reaches for the cup of water, bringing it to her. “Just drink some water. It’ll help.” 

 

“The knife, Lottie, what– what happened ?” Jackie asks, looking at where Lottie’s grabbing her hand. She ignores the water, even if her throat is burning and dry. “Tell me what happened.”

 

“Nothing,” Lottie says, “please, just--” she doesn’t want to talk about it. She really doesn’t. She’s just worried. She’s just scared. “Drink some water.”

 

“That’s not nothing,” Jackie argues, but she’s not angry. She’s worried and afraid, and she doesn’t know what happened. She just wants to know what happened. She takes the water, though, takes a shaky sip, unable to look away from Lottie as she does.

 

Lottie is relieved when Jackie finally takes the cup and drinks. She puts her hand back to her forehead and is more relieved that her fever seems to be mostly gone. As Jackie drinks, Lottie picks up the knife and puts it back in her pocket. Her hand is still shaking but she buries it back in Jackie’s shirt, holding her tight. “Your fever has gone down,” she mutters.

 

Jackie drinks, trying to clear the taste out of her mouth after she realizes how thirsty she is. She stops before it’s too much and leans into Lottie’s touch. “I’m not so cold,” she says, reaching for the knife again and frowning when it’s not there. Her eyes are bloodshot but sharp, narrowed. “What happened?” she repeats.

 

Lottie’s eyes dart to the corner of their hut, as if she expects to see something there. It’s empty. It’s always been empty. She looks back at Jackie. She wants to trust her-- she does trust her, but she can’t bring herself to say the words. “Nothing,” she repeats quietly. “I was just…you got really sick.” 

 

And Lottie couldn’t think about the words, now, without hearing an ear-splitting, bone chilling, Shauna Shipman crying out over Jackie’s dead body. 

 

“I was just worried.”

 

“I drank… the same thing you did,” Jackie murmurs. That was the common denominator, right? The tea. It’s the only thing in the last few days that the two of them have had that’s been different from everyone else. Quietly, she adds, “I’m sorry I worried you. I didn’t mean to.” She’d just been a little fucked up. She still felt a little fucked up, really. 

 

Jackie finishes the water and swallows, the feeling of it harsh on her throat. Holding out her hand, she says, “Give me the knife.”

 

“I know,” Lottie says and she can’t keep the anger out of her voice when she says it, or help her hand from curling into a fist again as she clutches Jackie’s shirt. She has to take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She shakes her head. “It’s not your fault.” 

 

It was Misty’s.

 

Lottie looks at Jackie’s open hand. “Jackie…” She doesn’t want to. It’s a safety net, she knows that. It always has been. Sometimes it was the burning end of a cigarette, or an old pair of scissors she found in her desk. What else did she have?

 

“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” Jackie says quietly. “But you do have to give me the knife.” She isn’t backing down from this. She saw the knife and the blood and she got scared. She sees Lottie in the snow with her hand bleeding, staring at the sky like she’s given up. She sees her digging her fingers into an open wound that Jackie caused. “Please.”

 

It’s not like Lottie’s going to do anything bad with the knife. She’s not going to hurt anyone or try and kill herself with it. It’s just protection. It’s just safety because people always leave and she can’t always rely on someone and it’s not fair to. 

 

She reaches back into her pocket, pulls it out. She hesitates, she hates that she hesitates, then puts it in Jackie’s hand. There’s blood on the tips of her fingers. “It’s not-- what you think.”

 

Jackie just nods, her face crumbling a little as she wraps her hand around the knife. She doesn’t exactly know what she thinks it is. She knows Lottie hurts herself. She’s watched her give blood to the fucking forest. But the timing of whatever happened fucking sucks , and it’s worse because Lottie won’t explain. 

 

Lottie feels her gut wrench. It’s hard. God, it’s so fucking hard. She opens her mouth, closes it. It’s shame that colors her features. She doesn’t want Jackie to blame herself and she knows she will. “It’s happening again,” she says quietly, “I’m…seeing things.”

 

Taking a deep breath, Jackie pockets the knife and lets it go, moving closer. “Okay,” she starts, swallowing. “Did… this just happen?” she whispers. “Did something cause it? Does the knife… does it help?” She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do in this situation. Talking down a person who’s seeing things isn’t a part of the etiquette classes she used to attend. They don’t go over that in biology.

 

This was why Lottie hadn’t wanted to say anything. Jackie is sick, she was throwing up just hours ago. She’s still warm and sweaty and she looks exhausted, and now Lottie is just making it worse, because her brain can’t distinguish what’s real and what’s not. “Pain is…it helps. Figure out what’s real.”

 

“Is pain the only thing that helps?” Jackie asks, feeling lightheaded as she starts checking Lottie over, one hand going to Lottie’s cheek while the other goes to one of her arms, brushing her fingers down it as she sits in Lottie’s lap. 

 

Lottie doesn’t want to do this right now. It makes her skin crawl. She’s never talked to anyone about this before, only her psychiatrists, who looked at her in such a clinical way and told her that “the pills would help” without any further explanations. She looks away from Jackie. Shrugs. Nothing else she’s tried has worked. Nothing else seems as real. “You should lay down,” she says to Jackie, not moving.

 

“No,” Jackie says, moving forward to wrap her arms around Lottie’s neck and hold her tight. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, then fine. They don’t have to, even if it stresses Jackie out. But she doesn’t want to lay down when she doesn’t think that Lottie will do it with her, and she doesn’t want to leave Lottie alone when she’s hurting herself. So she buries her face in Lottie’s neck. Her mouth tastes sour, but she brushes her lips against soft skin and relaxes. Her arms still tight around Lottie’s neck as she refuses to let go.

 

Lottie goes still when Jackie hugs her. She doesn’t understand what’s happening for a moment. Not that Jackie is hugging her, she gets that, she just doesn’t understand why. She’d always been told-- been shown-- that her “incidents” didn’t earn her sympathy. “You’re not…mad?”

 

Jackie pulls back just enough to look at Lottie, frowning. “No, no, Lottie, I’m not mad. I’m… worried, and– and scared. But I’m not mad.” She isn’t mad at Lottie. She doesn’t understand why she would be. She’s a little devastated that it seems like Lottie thinks that pain is the only way to cope with feeling like this.

 

(It’s the pot calling the kettle black, and maybe she’d realize that if she wasn’t really close to passing out again, but Jackie might also just ignore it, too.)

 

“I’m not mad at you,” she says, putting a hand on Lottie’s cheek. “I’m not.”

 

Lottie blinks down at Jackie. “Oh.” She doesn’t really know what to do with that information. “I’m sorry,” she says, then, “I-- didn’t mean to scare you.” That makes more sense, right? That she’s scared. She’s seen people get scared of her when she’s like this, so if they’re not mad, then they’re afraid. That makes more sense. “It-- it’ll go away. Eventually.”

 

“It’s not anything to apologize for.” Jackie looks up at Lottie with sad, soft eyes. “It’s not your fault.” It’s not like Lottie asks to start seeing things. It’s not like she wants it. “I’ll tell you what’s real and what’s not if you need me to,” she tells her. “Or if you need me to do something else. Hold your hand, anything like that.” Maybe touch could help. Maybe that could be better than pain.

 

That almost confuses Lottie more. Dammit, Lottie, the voices aren’t real. Stop lying. “Sorry,” she says again quietly. Jackie is looking at her with those big, sad eyes of hers and Lottie blinks. She doesn’t want her to be sad. She wants to come back to her mind. It’s so hard when she’s like this. She takes in a breath. She leans forward and just wraps her arms around Jackie, then, holding her tightly. She hopes it can ground her, too, like the pain. She wants it to. 

 

Jackie doesn’t think she can make Lottie stop apologizing, even though she wants her to. She doesn’t need her to. But she’s not going to stop. Instead, she holds Lottie back just as tight, relaxing into the hold, the pressure. She buries her face back against Lottie’s neck and breathes. It’s a little shallow but steady. She still feels sick, but she doesn’t think it’s anything to worry about anymore. “I should’ve just spilled that fucking tea.”

 

Lottie agrees. And the anger rushes back in when she remembers. Her hands clench into fists. There’s someone sitting in the corner of their hut but Lottie knows she’s not real. She closes her eyes and presses back into Jackie. She’s just glad Jackie is better. She knows her mind will eventually stop tricking her, she just didn’t know how long it would take. She wished she wasn’t like this but she doesn’t know how not to be.

 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Was it?

 

Lottie lets out a shuddering breath. “It is,” she says to the voice in her head, to the girl in the corner of the room who looks just like her, blood on her face. “It is.” 

 

Jackie brushes a hand through Lottie’s hair, her fingers sinking into the thick locks and scratching against her scalp. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she breathes. She just tries to keep her touch grounding, real. “What do you mean?”

 

It isn’t right. Jackie is the one who’s sick. Lottie is supposed to be helping her. But Lottie can’t help anyone, not really. She’s never been able to. “It’s supposed to be this way,” she answers, breathing into Jackie’s neck, letting the weight of her in her arms, in her lap, settle around her like a blanket. Wrap her up and convince her of all the things she’d never been able to convince herself of. 

 

She opens her eyes again and they’re alone in the hut, like they always have been. “It is.”

 

Jackie remembers saying the words, and she can’t help but feel guilty because even she isn’t sure that’s true. She doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be this way but, for the first time, she wouldn’t trade this. She wouldn’t do anything to not have this . To not have Lottie. She needs Lottie. She needs Lottie like she’s never needed another person, not even Shauna. So she nods, and she presses against Lottie a little more, and she agrees. “It is.” Maybe it’s not true, but that doesn’t matter. This is the way it is. 

 

Lottie holds onto Jackie until her head is quiet. There’s no buzzing or quiet whispers or noises from the edges of her consciousness. It’s just her breathing and Jackie’s, and the idle noises of the world outside this small space that’s theirs. Eventually she pulls away, she knows Jackie needs more rest, more water, more anything that isn’t this, trying to console a crazy girl who saw things and couldn’t distinguish reality from the hallucinations her mind conjured up. 

 

There’s still something like shame in her eyes when she looks down at Jackie, but she tries to mask it, pressing her palm to Jackie’s jaw. “Do you need more water?”

 

“Yes,” Jackie says. She does need more water. Her throat burns. She needs something to put in her stomach, but she’s scared. She really doesn’t want a repeat of earlier. She’s done that enough for the day. “But stay. Please.” More than water, Jackie wants Lottie to stay right there, holding her. She feels clingier than normal. She’s sweaty and gross and a little too warm, and she’s sure she’s uncomfortable to hold onto, but Jackie wants to stay in Lottie’s arms.

 

Lottie is crazy and dangerous and insane, she talks to people who aren’t there, sees things that aren’t real-- and yet, Jackie wants her to stay. What else can she say but, “Okay.” She wraps Jackie back up in her arms, pulls her more into her lap and leans back against the wall of their hut. She thinks Natalie will come by eventually, she can ask for more water, then. She sort of really doesn’t want to leave, either. She wants to stay. 

 

Her eyes go back to the shadows and she can see herself smiling back at them. She’s holding a version of Jackie, too, but this one is cold, her hair is icicles, her skin is white. Lottie holds onto her Jackie tighter. It isn’t real, she reminds herself, that’s not real. This is, the Jackie in her arms. 

 

Sometimes, though, sometimes Lottie thinks she can feel how cold Jackie is, frozen and dead in her grasp, as she hefts her body out of a shed and over to a pyre.

 

“Thank you,” Jackie breathes, pressing her face back into Lottie’s neck as she holds her close. Her skin feels flushed but still cold, and she wants to burrow inside Lottie just to feel warm, until their blood is the same. This will simply have to do, though, as she feels the chain of the necklace against her lips. 

 

It’s not very long before Lottie hears footsteps outside and Natalie is pulling back the curtain just enough to peak in and see them. Jackie is still curled up in Lottie’s arms and she lifts her head to peer at Natalie.

 

“Is she…?”

 

Lottie nods softly. “Better.” She clears her throat a little. “Can you get her more water?”

 

Nat just nods and grabs the cup, before ducking back out. It doesn’t take much time at all before she’s pulling the curtain back again and setting the cup down. “Do you know what happened?” Nat asks, curiosity in her eyes.

 

Yes, Lottie thinks, she does. “Something she drank.” 

 

Nat looks like she wants to press more, but her eyes go to Jackie before they flick back to Lottie. “Okay, well…just come get me if you need anything else. I’ll check back in soon.”

 

Lottie nods at her. “Thank you.”

 

The flap of their door swings shut as Nat leaves and Lottie presses a kiss to the top of Jackie’s head. She’ll have a word with Misty later, when she can be sure to get her alone. 

 

Jackie doesn’t move when she here’s Nat moving around, just presses her face firmly against Lottie’s neck and breathes her in, her arms staying wrapped tight around her. She doesn’t pull away when she hears Nat leave, just makes grabby hands for the cup of water even though she’s not quite sure where it is.

 

Lottie reaches for the cup of water and brings it up to Jackie, guiding it into her hands but still holding onto it just in case. The last thing they need is for her to spill water all over them. “Here,” she murmurs, helping her sit up enough to be able to drink it. She isn’t willing to move away too much, nor does she think Jackie is, so she keeps her other arm around Jackie.

 

“Thank you,” Jackie manages to croak out, taking a few small sips, trying to clear the taste out of her mouth. The cool water helps to soothe her throat, her stomach, and she finishes half the cup before pushing it back towards Lottie. “Drink.” She doubts Lottie has had anything all day. It’s nice, though, that Lottie’s has stayed, that she refuses to stop touching her. A likely side effect of not being chased away by Misty Quigley. Maybe it’s a good thing Misty hates her. Jackie doesn’t know how she’d feel if she woke up alone with her.

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I’ll drink some in a bit,” she says to her, pushing the drink back towards Jackie. She pets her hand through Jackie’s hair, just glad that she’s feeling better. She looks better, she sounds better. And maybe Lottie isn’t the reason why, but she hadn’t wanted to leave her at all, and maybe that was a little for her, too. She lets out a breath. “How are you feeling?”

 

Jackie frowns, pushing the cup back. “ Drink, ” she repeats. Even if her eyes close and she leans into the soft touch of a hand through her hair, she’s still worried about Lottie. She can’t help but be. “I feel gross and sweaty and like I’m grateful I didn’t get puke in my hair, so thank you for that,” she murmurs, sighing softly. “I feel better. Thank you. For staying with me. I would’ve freaked if I’d woken up and you were gone.” Even if she’d freaked a little bit anyway because of the blood.

 

Lottie takes the cup if only to not stress Jackie out more. She has a small sip before setting it down next to them. She shakes her head. “Of course I stayed,” she says back, slipping some of Jackie’s hair back over her shoulder after it falls into her face. There was no way she was leaving her, not after everything. She presses another kiss to Jackie’s head. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

 

Relaxing, Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch once again. “Thank you,” she whispers. “I want you here. I need you here. You’re so important.” She’s most important. Jackie doesn’t think that she wants anyone to be here with her, not even a ghost. 

 

The words kind of make Lottie’s heart feel like it’s pumping lava through her veins and not just blood. She can’t recall a time anyone has ever said anything even remotely close to that to her before. Nobody has ever really wanted her in this way, needed her in this way-- she’s never been important . Not like this. 

 

She wasn’t just a prophet or an heir or something someone else had made her into. She was just Lottie to Jackie. She pulls her back against her, holding her tightly. “I need you, too,” she whispers back.

 

Maybe it’s wrong, but Jackie cannot help but smile against Lottie’s skin as she hears the words. Lottie needs her, too. All Jackie’s ever wanted was to be needed. She hopes Lottie would still mean the words even if they weren’t touching and kissing. Jackie would. She’s needed Lottie since that morning in the cold. She hasn’t stopped needing her. 

 

It feels cruel to rely on Lottie like she does, but she can’t help it. It’s at least nice to know that Lottie needs her, too. Her face stays pressed against Lottie’s neck, kissing her there gently. She doesn’t move her head, but her arms release Lottie just long enough to try and tug off her flannel. She’s too warm. She doesn’t want to move away from Lottie.

 

Lottie loosens her grip enough to let Jackie tug her flannel off, skin bristling where plush lips graze against it near the crook of her neck. She helps Jackie pull her arms out of the sleeves of her flannel, setting it aside before she's wrapping the girl up in her embrace again, needy and clingy. They're both kind of like this now, aren't they? Jackie has always been like this, Lottie has watched it happen, the way she clung to Shauna like a life jacket. 

 

Lottie had never been this way, but now she needed Jackie more than she needed to breathe, she thinks. She can't live without her. She doesn't feel like a person without her. 

 

“I dreamed you had antlers,” Jackie whispers, sinking into Lottie as they hold each other. “I wanted to ask you if they hurt, but I didn’t know if you’d tell the truth.” And then she’d pressed their matching, bloody palms together. She wonders if their bodies are trying to mirror each other, what it will take for the marks on one of them to transfer to the other. She wonders if that’s romantic or tragic. 

 

She doesn’t need to hear Shauna to know she’s there, but Shauna whispers all the same, “Is there a difference?”

 

Lottie doesn’t really know what to say to that. She remembers parts of the night she’d grown them, set them atop her head like a crown. “It hurt,” she says quietly. It hurt a lot, both in the moment and every moment after. She’d done this to all of them, by letting herself go that night. By letting her grief and her anger consume her.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie sighs, one hand moving up to Lottie’s hair. “They looked heavy.” It was just a dream. It wasn’t a dream. Jackie never knows what to do with her dreams other than they’ve been strange out here, sometimes. Shauna, before the snow. Lottie, with her antlers. It’s like this place has crawled its way inside all of them. 

 

Lottie rolls her head into Jackie’s touch, closing her eyes. They hadn’t felt heavy, just painful. They hadn’t been heavy until she’d realized someone else was putting them on her. She hadn’t felt heavy until she’d realized they were all looking at her like she had all the answers. 

 

“It’s hard to tell the difference,” Lottie mumbles, “isn’t it?” Between reality and dreams. Sometimes, they feel like the same thing. Sometimes, they’re too different.

 

“It is,” Jackie says, opening her eyes and pulling back enough to look at Lottie. She still feels heavy herself, not from the weight of horns but from her own body, but she wants to look at Lottie’s face as she says, “This is real.” It’s real. She needs it to be real so much that it aches. Even now, still feeling pretty fucking miserable, she needs this to be real.

 

Lottie nods, solemn. Her eyes, dark and always hard to read, look down at Jackie. She’s never been able to hide the sadness in them, the loneliness that stalks her in the shadows just as much as any voice or figure. She nods again. “It’s real.” She needs this to be real as well. So fucking desperately it makes her heart ache. 

 

She can’t stop her eyes from flicking around the hut. They still haunt her. They always will.

 

Jackie watches Lottie look around before she puts her hand on her cheek and nudges her back to look at Jackie. Dark and fathomless eyes, endless, easy to get lost in. Jackie doesn’t think she’d mind getting lost in Lottie’s eyes. She’s never minded, not even when Lottie loomed over her and told her she didn’t matter. It feels like, ever since, Lottie’s been trying to take that back. Jackie can tell that she matters to her now. It makes her chest feel warm.

 

When urged, Lottie glances back at Jackie, staring down into her hazel eyes, warm like the sun. She closes her own for a moment, lets herself sink into this feeling. The sound of the world just outside their hut, the smell of fire being burned, or sweat hanging in the air, the taste of metallic water on her tongue. The feeling of Jackie’s hands on her face. She lets it all culminate inside of her until she’s sure that this is what’s real.

 

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she says when her eyes open again. She puts her hand over Jackie’s. “I was so worried.”

 

“I don’t feel like my stomach’s trying to crawl up my throat, which is really a plus,” Jackie murmurs, managing a small smile. “I’m sorry I worried you.” Though, Jackie had been in a similar position just a couple of days before, and she’d felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin. She hates that she put Lottie through that, enough to make her hurt herself. “I’m okay now. Kind of gross, but I’m okay.”

 

Lottie has never been able to help the intensity with which she feels things, the difference now is that she no longer feels capable of hiding them. “Don’t be,” she tells her, voice gentle. Being worried reminds Lottie that she’s still a person, that she still feels things too much and too hard. It reminds her to keep breathing. 

 

“Just sweaty,” Lottie says, tucking a strand of damp hair back out of Jackie’s face. “We can go wash you off at the river, if you want.”

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch. “You’re… just trying to get my clothes off, aren’t you?” she teases, her eyes closing. It might be good, though, the cool water on her skin. She just doesn’t want to get up. Getting up sounds like the worst thing in the world, actually.

 

Lottie laughs through her nose, shaking her head. “Maybe,” she says in banter, reaching up to drag her knuckles along Jackie’s chin. “We don’t have to right now.” She can sense the exhaustion in Jackie, just by the way she sags into Lottie’s touch. Lottie certainly doesn’t mind.

 

“Knew it,” Jackie says, grinning, but she feels liquid, like she’s melting into Lottie’s hand and against her body. “Everything’s just a little… wobbly. More than normal.” It was getting better, but Jackie’s equilibrium was just fucked. Lopsided and heavy. And Lottie’s so comfortable, and she says that Jackie isn’t gross right now, even though Jackie knows that’s a lie. She’s sweaty and clammy, and she spent the better part of the day sick. That’s pretty gross.

 

“You caught me,” Lottie mumbles, smoothing her hand up Jackie’s jaw and into her hair. “We can stay here.” She sort of doesn’t want to move, either. Really, she just wants to do whatever Jackie does. She just wants her to feel better. This is Lottie’s fault again, really. She shouldn’t have let her drink Misty’s poisoned tea. 

 

Jackie laughs. “You only want me for my smokin’ hot bod.” Her feverish, recently starving bod, sweaty and sick and wild looking from months of being stranded in the wilderness. Missing a goddamn ear. This is the worst Jackie Taylor has ever looked. If they were back home, she wouldn’t be able to show her face like this. She thinks her mother would have her stay home forever. 

 

Instead, tomorrow, if she’s feeling better, she’ll go back to life like normal. Maybe go fishing or help with another part of camp. She’ll keep living. She’s not the best at this living off the land bullshit, but she’s trying. She’s actually trying out here. It’s a weird feeling.

 

“All the girls are jealous,” Lottie chuckles, leaning into the joke. The truth is that Lottie would want Jackie no matter what she looked like. She thinks she might love her. It fills her up with an unfamiliar feeling, almost drowning her. She thinks she would let Jackie drown her, she wants to drown in her. “And boys, probably.”

 

Jackie hums, scrunching up her nose. “Well, I don’t like boys, so.” It’s weird to say out loud, to actually acknowledge it. She doesn’t. At all. She thought maybe she could. She’d tried so hard. She’d wanted to. Even the parts of being with Travis that felt good hadn’t changed that, though. It feels obvious, now, like she should have figured it out, like she’s the last one to get a clue.

 

Lottie’s face smears into a proud grin. It’s really nice to hear Jackie say those words. She thinks she’d be happy to hear them in any circumstance from her, but it hits a little extra hard knowing it’s partly because of Lottie. Because she likes Lottie. Because she likes kissing Lottie and touching her and fucking her and being fucked by her.

 

God, it’s a dream come true, really. Cliche as it sounds. “Yeah,” Lottie sighs, “me neither.” She presses a kiss to Jackie’s damp forehead, smiling.

 

Jackie actually laughs. This is one of those times that it feels good to be stranded out there. Could they have this out in the real world? Talk about it so freely? Kiss and touch and say the words out loud? “God, what’s the fucking percentage of this team that likes women? I feel like it’s higher than average. My mom was right, though. Soccer totally turned me gay.”

 

Lottie laughs with her, low and breathy. “I’m pretty sure you’ve always been gay, Jackie,” she teases. “Well, let’s see…” her eyes settle in the corner at a noise she knows only she can hear, but she blocks it out. She tries to. “There’s Tai and Van, me and you--” Shauna had, but Lottie thinks it might not count anymore, seeing as-- “Melissa, Nat…I’m not sure on Mari. Sometimes I think she’s checking me out, though. But, that’s at least half, right?”

 

“No, it was definitely soccer,” Jackie says lightly. Her eyes widen a little. “Wait, Nat ? Really? But Nat–” slept with guys. A lot. More than the rest of the team, Jackie knows. Not because she’s a creep who keeps track of who her teammates sleep with, but it would be super annoying when Nat wouldn’t show up to practice because she’d be banging creepy Bobby Farleigh in his van of all places rather than show up when they had an undefeated season to maintain.

 

“Well, you said likes women, right?” Lottie asks. “There are people who like both.” Nat was definitely squarely in the bisexual category, of that Lottie was sure. “I think soccer kind of…attracts all the, um, gay girls.” People like them, really. It was an easy excuse to get dirty and dress more freely, shorts and loose fitting tops. Scrapes on their elbows, knees. 

 

“Right, right, that’s right. I forget some people have… options.” God, it’d be so much easier if Jackie could make herself like both. Or it would have been, but now she doesn’t think she could do this with another person that isn’t Lottie. Jackie thinks she can only devote herself to one person at a time, two if one of them is a ghost. But Lottie is so very real, right in front of her, holding her close and pressing kisses to her skin. How could she want that with a boy? “Soccer or softball? Because I’ve heard the rumors.”

 

“I’d call it more…preference.” Lottie had tried, really, to like boys. It sure would’ve been easier, probably, not that her affinity for kissing girls had gotten her into much trouble. Still. She knows how her parents would react if they ever found out. 

 

Lottie tilts her head. “If it’s softball, too, then Mari is definitely gay as well.”

 

“Maybe it’s like different channels,” Jackie says. And she’d lost the remote and couldn’t switch. She hummed, considering. “You really think Mari, too?” she asks, thinking back on her interactions with Mari over the years. Maybe it’d make a little bit of sense. Maybe that made Jackie just a little guilty. She’d absolutely used what she thought was Mari just wanting to be friends to make Shauna jealous on more than one occasion.

 

Lottie shrugs. “You’d have to ask Nat.” She certainly can’t explain what it might feel like to be attracted to men and women at the same time. She ponders. “I’m pretty sure she had a crush on you when she first moved up from JV.” It was pretty obvious, actually. Unless you were Jackie Taylor and still pretending you were into Jeff Sadecki.

 

“I’m good with the amount of information I already have about Natalie Scatorccio’s sexuality,” Jackie says, and it’s almost true. Okay. Maybe she’s a little curious. Maybe. Just a little bit. She blinks at Lottie and then cringes. “She did? Oh, no, that really sucks. I think I might have… led her on a little bit.” Unintentionally, and she really did enjoy hanging out with Mari when she could pull herself away from Shauna, but it probably really sucked for Mari if she’d had a crush on Jackie.

 

“Nat’s just adventurous,” Lottie chuckles. She was also Lottie’s first kiss with a girl. After that, Lottie had felt like she couldn’t get enough of kissing girls or kissing Nat. Now, she didn’t know what to think of her. She hoped they were still friends, still could be. “I think she had a crush on all of us at some point,” Lottie tacks on, “except maybe Shauna.” The two had never really gotten along well.

 

That’s a little hard to believe. Jackie can’t imagine anyone not having a crush on Shauna. When she read the journals and Shauna confessed to sleeping with Jeff, it wasn’t the fact that Jeff wanted to sleep with her that got to Jackie; clearly, the boy has good taste. But it was Shauna sleeping with Jeff that hurt so much. Maybe, selfishly, Jackie had always hoped that no one else would get how great Shauna was, just so that she could keep her to herself. It doesn’t matter anymore. It can’t. But it’s just surprising that Mari had disliked her that much. “Well, she mostly has good taste. We’re all very hot. And Mari’s also pretty. I hope she gets… a girlfriend or a boyfriend that doesn’t cheat on her with his cousin. Whatever she wants, really.”

 

Lottie supposes this might be a good enough time for a segway. “Um, do you want--” she starts hesitantly, fingers idly playing with a string on Jackie’s flannel-- “are we, like, girlfriends? Is-- do you want that?” 

 

Jackie blinks in surprise. She’d been wondering the same thing, though, hadn’t she? What to call what they were. “I guess it’s pretty safe to say that I’m not exactly dating Jeff anymore, isn’t it?” He probably thinks she’s dead, and she knows he fucked her best friend, so it all seems like reasonable grounds for a breakup. She leans in closer. “Do you want to be girlfriends?” she asks quietly.

 

Lottie wants to point out that she asked first, but instead she nods. “I do.” She really does. “But I-- I’ve never um…been in a relationship,” she admits, chewing her bottom lip. 

 

“Okay,” Jackie says, feeling a little giddy. “Then we-- we can be girlfriends. I don’t… think it has to be much different than what we’re already doing.” Before, she would have needed it to be perfect. They would have needed to be perfect. But Jackie thinks this is perfect enough. If they ever make it out of here, she’d want to take Lottie on a date, though the thought of being in public and seen still makes her throat tight. But here… everyone that matters already knows and cares about them still. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It already is.

 

The smile on Jackie’s face makes Lottie’s chest bubble with warmth and she grins back. “Okay.” She didn’t think it would be any different, but Lottie kind of likes the thought that Jackie is her girlfriend. She gets to say the word and have it be hers. Her lips press against Jackie’s forehead again, breath cool against her flushed skin. She thinks maybe she wants to do something nice for Jackie once they’re both better. Even if they’re in the middle of the mountains, Lottie wants to treat Jackie right.

 

And, with just a few simple words, they’re girlfriends. Jackie Taylor has a girlfriend. She’s Like That. She’s a lesbian. It makes her stomach twist a little, but it’s not from the tea. It’s a good thing. It’s a scary thing. It’s not nearly as scary as she thought it’d be, though. Not anymore. Not with Lottie. “You must think I’m so easy,” she teases. “I let you get in my pants before I agreed to be your girlfriend.”

 

“Well, you did make me wait months,” Lottie jokes back, “I think the tension was palpable by the time it happened.” Honestly, Lottie had felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin at some points, whenever Jackie touched her and she thought she wasn’t allowed to touch back. She can touch back now, though, and she does, wrapping her palms around Jackie’s face and holding the world between them, swirling behind hazel eyes and pouting lips. She places a kiss at the corner of her mouth, feeling how warm her skin still is. “You should drink some more water,” she murmurs.

 

“Yeah,” Jackie says quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you wait so long.” She didn’t even know she was. And Jackie had been… mourning. She’d been trying to die, at first, and then she’d been trying to claw her way out of the hole she’d dug for herself, constantly tripping and falling and stumbling back. Even now, she thinks Lottie probably deserves better than the half person that Jackie’s sort of become, the shattered remains of the person she was before, parts missing that she’s either having to choose to leave out or replace with something new. But she almost feels like she can be better when Lottie looks at her like that. She nods, not really thinking, just lost in Lottie’s eyes. She’ll do whatever she says.

 

A breathless sigh comes from Lottie as she shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry,” she tells her in a soothing tone, “it was worth the wait.” Gods, was it ever. “ You were worth the wait.” Carefully, she reaches around Jackie and picks up the cup of water again, holding it out to her. “Maybe we can get Mari to make you some broth tonight, too, for dinner.”

 

Was she? Jackie isn’t sure. She takes the water and takes another sip, letting it soothe her throat. The thought of food makes her wrinkle her nose, disgusted. She shakes her head. “No, I don’t– I’ll just try to eat whatever she makes. I don’t need anything special.” It might have made her feel nice months ago, back home, but now she’s filled with dread. She doesn’t need anything special, she doesn’t need any new reason for them to start resenting her again. She’s just started being useful. Most of the girls have just stopped looking at her like they hate her. She still thinks they might, but at least they’re quieter about it.

 

Lottie knows Mari will make it if she asks her to, but if Jackie doesn’t want it, then she won’t ask for it. “Okay,” she agrees softly, petting her fingers through Jackie’s hair as she drinks. “Just don’t do too much. I don’t want you getting sick again.” 

 

“God, neither do I,” Jackie groans, setting the cup down. She doesn’t want to do all of that again, preferably ever. Which really makes the thought of food even more unappealing. She wants to just lay back down and go to sleep until the nausea goes away completely, fading just into nothing more than whatever hollowness remains. 

 

“Do you want to lay down?” Lottie asks, remembering how tired she’d been as well. It really exhausted a person, vomiting until your stomach was empty, and even after. “I’ll stay with you, if you want.”

 

“Yes, please,” Jackie says, leaning against Lottie more, heavier. Yes, she wants to lay down. Yes, she wants Lottie to stay with her. She wants to curl up against her and try to sleep again. She wants to sleep until she feels like a person. She wants Lottie to stay with her through it.

 

Sighing, Lottie ushers Jackie to lay down with her, letting out a long breath as she does so as well. She hadn’t realized how much her body ached until she was horizontal on the ground, letting her muscles deflate against Jackie as she curls her up in her arms. “Better?” she asks.

 

Jackie just smiles, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly as she presses her face against Lottie’s neck. “Yeah,” she whispers. This is better. God, she’s so far gone. She can’t even relax properly if Lottie’s not there. Her body wants full contact just to sleep. There are words in her chest that have always been hard to say, but she feels them in this moment so deeply that her heart stutters. She can’t say them; they might choke her. But her brain approaches them and caresses them softly. She feels them like an ache.

 

The light has dimmed by the time Lottie hears Nat approaching their hut again. She doesn’t think she’s been sleeping, really, more like something in between the two, trying not to let the sounds of whispers and the visions of eyes peering out of shadows rattle her back into that place where she didn’t know how to be a person. She wanted to stay here and be a person with Jackie, for Jackie.

 

The other girl is still in her arms when Nat pulls back the curtain of their doorway. “Hey, uh, just wanted to let you guys know dinner is almost ready,” she says in a hushed tone. “Do you want me to bring you a plate?” 

 

Lottie tilts her head up to see Nat. “If you could,” she says, keeping her voice low, too. “I would really appreciate that.”

 

Nat gies a half grin, a short nod. “Yeah, yeah, I can do that. Some more water, too?”

 

Lottie nods back and Nat takes the cup once again before heading back out. Once she’s gone, Lottie rubs her hand up and down Jackie’s back. “Hey,” she whispers, “dinner’s ready.”

 

Jackie dreams again, though it’s not as vivid as it was before. There’s a baby crying, and Shauna is there, looking so angry she burns with it. There’s always been something so violent about Shauna’s anger. The journals were supposed to help with that, an outlet for all that rage, but Jackie thinks the main thing that had helped was soccer. Ironic, then, that Shauna apparently didn’t even like the sport. 

 

Shauna cries in Jackie’s dream, too, but it fades into distortion by the time Jackie feels fingers against her back, the sound odd as she hears Lottie call out to her. Jackie doesn’t think she really wants dinner, but she groans to wakefulness, letting Lottie know that, at the bare minimum, she hears her and she’s trying to wake up.

 

Lottie leans down to press her lips against Jackie’s temple, whispering into her ear, “I know, but I need you to try and eat just a little. Please?” She combs her hand up into Jackie’s hair. “We can go back to sleep once you’re done.” 

 

Nat comes back in with only one plate, just a little more full and sets it on the little stand Lottie has made from some logs. “Here.” 

 

“Thanks,” Lottie sighs. 

 

Nat gives one more worried glance at Jackie before ducking back out and Lottie shifts, trying to stir Jackie more awake. “C’mon,” she urges.

 

Please, Jax. For me? Jackie’s always done better when people ask her or tell her to do something. The few times it hasn’t worked tended to stem from Jackie not seeing much of a point in anything , not eating or drinking or doing what she’s told.

 

Now, though, Lottie’s voice is soft in her ear, making her shiver, and Jackie groans but does as she’s told, sitting up and rubbing at her face. She blinks slowly as she looks at Lottie. Honestly, she thinks if she goes to sleep right now, she can sleep off whatever’s left of the tea. She can. She will. Instead, she scoots closer to Lottie. “I’m up,” she says, her voice raspier than normal.

 

Lottie sits up with Jackie, handing her the water cup. “Drink,” she tells her, before pulling the plate into her lap. “How is your stomach? Do you think you can try to eat a little?” She’s not going to force it, eating with an upset stomach can feel pretty awful. 

 

Once again, she puts the back of her hand to Jackie’s forehead. “You’re not as warm anymore.” Which is definitely a good thing.

 

Jackie drinks, taking a sip before a few more greedier gulps, not realizing how thirsty she is. “It’s better,” she says, her throat soothed a little more. “I can eat a little.” Not much, just enough to take away the ache that’s forming in her stomach, her head. Jackie knows this game. She remembers how to play it.

 

“Thought you were about to tell me that I’m not as hot,” Jackie jokes, smiling a little sloppy. 

 

“I would never,” Lottie smiles back, picking up a piece of meat and popping it in her mouth. She was pretty hungry, despite not doing much all day. It must be from all the knots her stomach had been tying itself into with worry over Jackie. She holds the plate up to Jackie for her to grab a piece as well, liking how normal this feels already. 

 

Jackie picks up a piece and picks at it, breaking it up into smaller bites before eating. It actually feels nice. She doesn’t feel quite like her insides have been scooped out anymore. It’s rough on her throat, but she has a feeling that’s just how things are going to be for a while. She finishes the piece after a few minutes, trying to debate whether or not she can eat a little more.

 

While they eat, Lottie tries to not let her mind slip too far away from her, but her thoughts keep bringing her back to Misty. About how she’s itching to confront her, to say something to her. To ask why she was doing these things. She wants to know why.

 

She remembers how Misty had messed with Coach at first, too, when she’d had a crush on him still. Was that it? DId she have a crush on one of them? Or was it something else? Lottie rarely understood the inner workings of Misty Quigley’s mind, and she sort of doesn’t want to know, it seems like a scary place. 

 

Mostly, though, she still sees a metal rod whistling through the air and feels it cracking open her ribs when she thinks too hard about it.

 

So she doesn’t think about it a lot.

 

Once she’s had her fill, she sets the plate on Jackie’s lap. “Holding up alright?” 

 

Jackie manages a few more bites, though her eyebrows scrunch together. “I’m better,” she says. She moves food around on the plate. As if she’s actually going to eat more. She’s not as feverish anymore, though, like Lottie pointed. She tries to pick at another piece of meat, but she can’t finish it. She starts to set the plate aside, but stops. “Do I need to eat more?”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “No, it’s best not to overdo it, probably,” she answers, taking the plate back, then. She sets it over near the water cup. “Nat can have the rest when she comes to get it.” She could probably use the extra nutrients, Lottie thinks. She seems to be running herself ragged and it pains Lottie a little, to know that she put her in that position. 

 

Lottie turns her gaze back to Jackie, though, reaching out for her and tucking herself around the smaller girl, nuzzling into the side of her head. “I’m glad you’re better,” she says, lips against Jackie’s temple.

 

Jackie sighs happily as Lottie holds her again, burying herself in Lottie’s arms. She nods. “Thank you for taking care of me,” she says, pulling away just enough to look at Lottie, to brush her fingers against Lottie’s cheek before leaning back against her with another happy sigh. She’s tired and weary, but this still feels so good. Her body just seeks Lottie out. If she wasn’t so heavy, she’d take off her shirt and add it to where she’d thrown her flannel, let herself get as close as possible to Lottie. As it is now, Jackie could still feel her warmth. That was all that mattered. 

 

“Always,” Lottie speaks back, and she makes sure Jackie can hear the conviction and truth in the word. Lottie will always take care of her. It’s all she wants to do, to have someone, hold someone, help someone. To be something for someone. She’s no longer surprised by how comfortable Jackie feels pressed against her, but it’s just as warm and it’s just as reassuring as it always has been. 

 

Her lips graze the side of Jackie’s head again. “Thank you for letting me.” For giving her a purpose, a reason to still be here. To keep fighting.

 

“Couldn’t refuse you even if I tried,” Jackie tells her. She’d let Lottie do whatever she wants. Anything and everything with a smile. She really does like when Lottie takes care of her. It feels nice that someone wants to, and Jackie only wants to return the favor. She does move from where she’s settled against Lottie, but she asks, “How are your ribs?”

 

It’s nice to hear, even if the words scare her. Lottie knows those are dangerous words to give to someone like her, who can lose control so quickly, let it slip through the gaps between her fingers like grains of sand, unable to hold on. She tips her chin in acknowledgement before saying, “I haven’t really thought about them.” She’s been much more focused on Jackie and keeping the voices in her head quiet. 

 

Reaching down, she prods at her side, her ribs, inhaling sharply when she forgets about the new cut she’d given herself. “Sore,” she answers after a moment.

 

Jackie pulls away, giving herself enough room to look down at where Lottie pokes herself. “Let me see,” she murmurs, even if her eyes are a little heavy.

 

Lottie moves her head slowly as she shakes it. “It’s okay,” she replies, “I’ll be fine.” She presses her palm to Jackie’s cheek. “We can just lay down again, if you want.”

 

“It wasn’t a question,” Jackie says. She wonders how long it’s going to take Lottie to find her annoying. “After. Now let me see.”

 

“It’s not as if looking at them will make them heal faster,” Lottie mumbles, but she’s leaning back enough to let Jackie prod around if she wants to.

 

“I know.” Jackie’s not a doctor of any kind, either, so it’s not like she can do much more than just look at them, but she feels a compulsion as she pulls Lottie’s shirt up and looks at her side.

 

She notices the new cut in Lottie’s skin and makes a sad little noise, looking up at Lottie and brushing her hand against her cheek. She leans down then and barely presses her lips to the wound. It’s stupid. She can’t kiss it better. But she knows it’s there, and she wants Lottie to know that she cares about her still. 

 

Lottie doesn’t watch as Jackie looks. It’s just another cut that will likely turn into another scar, like the others that decorate the valleys of her hips. A shiver runs through her as soft lips graze the skin of the cut, scabbed over but still red and jagged against her tan skin. 

 

“Sorry,” she breathes, still avoiding Jackie’s gaze. She doesn’t mean to worry her, to make her sad or upset. Lottie is just a creature of habit, and this one had formed long before Jackie Taylor was pulling her shirt up to kiss her wounds closed.

 

Jackie doesn’t tell her it’s okay because it’s not, but she presses another kiss there before she moves back up Lottie’s body and wraps her arms around her once more. “I’m not going anywhere,” she murmurs. “No matter what you do, I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”

 

Lottie’s arms slowly circle back around Jackie, pulling her against her chest as she burrows into her hair. She wants to tell Jackie that she’s sorry she can’t change for her, that she can’t seem to stop being the same way she’s always been. She doesn’t think it’s very fair to her, to have to deal with Lottie’s bad habits. 

 

She doesn’t say that, though. “Okay.” She exhales against Jackie, basking in the feeling of her and the way her words make Lottie feel seen, truly seen. It’s like she’s pulling the sheets from her dusty, old mirrors for the first time and looking back at a reflection of a person, instead of the lonely shadow that has followed her for her entire life. 

 

Jackie’s got to be the most useless person in the world to be stuck with, so Lottie really drew a short straw, but she doesn’t seem too upset. Maybe she will, once it finally sinks in that Jackie doesn’t have much to offer, that she’s too clingy and demanding, that she’s horribly insecure and only really wants attention. 

 

But Lottie doesn’t seem to mind right now, and Jackie lets that warm her heart as she brushes her hand through soft, thick hair. “We can lay down, now,” she murmurs, though she’s also comfortable enough to fall asleep like this. She wants Lottie to be comfortable, too. 

 

Lottie nods against the crook of Jackie's neck, still cradling her to her chest. She unfurls from her just enough to shift them both onto the bed, laying against the soft furs that have become more familiar to her than the satin sheets and transparent canopy back in Wiskayok ever were. 

 

Her arms never fully let Jackie go, searching for her once they're both laying flat, tucking herself against the smaller girl and brushing her lips against Jackie's warm cheek. “I want to be better,” she exhales between them, “I don't want to…hurt myself anymore.” If only for Jackie, if only to make sure she doesn't have to hear that small whimper come from her throat again, the noise wanting to choke Lottie, too, for making the person she cares about most feel so distraught.

 

But wanting is all she has right now, because Lottie knows it will never truly stop-- not as long as they're out here, and It demands from her what it always has.

 

“We can find another way to make you feel,” Jackie murmurs. Something that isn’t Lottie hurting herself, something that doesn’t leave scars. Jackie doesn’t know what, but she knows she has to try. It’s a relief that Lottie is more open to talking about things, even if she seems to still find it hard. It doesn’t seem like she wants to keep things from Jackie, like she wants to hoard everything about herself so that Jackie can’t touch it and pervert it. 

 

No, Lottie just seems like she doesn’t know how to talk about things, and Jackie will take that. She’ll take it any day of the week. Just as long as Lottie wants her. Just as long as Lottie stays. 

 

Lottie doesn't know of any other way, but she's willing to try, and she has to hope that's enough for now. “Get some rest,” she whispers to Jackie, fingers seeking out warm skin under her shirt, tracing along the landmarks of her body as the weight of it keeps Lottie from drifting too far away. She really is trying, to be more open with Jackie, to actually talk about things instead of hiding them in her head and squirreling them away like they might expose how ugly her insides really are. It's the person Lottie grew into being, not by purposeful words, but lack thereof. Raised by a silence so loud it echoed in the hallways of her two separate homes and dug itself deep enough into her atoms that Lottie thinks it might be more of her DNA than any human parts of her. 

 

She's trying and she hopes that's enough for now, because Lottie knows she can't do this without Jackie, not anymore. 

 

“You too,” Jackie manages, shivering under the touch and moving closer, her body drawn to Lottie’s like a moth. They both need rest, she thinks. She hopes Lottie can get some, too. It’s the only thing on her mind as sleep overtakes her again, this time blissfully dark and quiet. 

 

Lottie is tired, but it takes her some time to fall asleep. Her eyes wander the shadows, searching out the different figures and forms that grow and shrink and disappear in them, reminding herself each time that they’re not real, that only the girl in her arms is real right now. 

 

She feels her eyes drooping closed eventually. The hut is dark and silent around them, save for Jackie’s steady, even breaths, a metronome that’s helping lull Lottie to sleep. 

 

She hears footsteps but doesn’t move. Are they real? Her head turns to look towards the door, but there’s no there. 

 

A figure hunches near her, curtains of dark hair falling from her shoulders like blankets of rain. They tickle Lottie’s face and she glances up, into pooled eyes, like that of a shark’s, an abyss of darkness and mystery. Her breath catches, there’s blood on her face, she feels it dripping from above.

 

She smiles down at herself, leans closer, whispers, “I’m coming for you.”

Notes:

Look at them. Everything's gonna go just fine, right? I think so, at least.

Thanks again for reading! We really appreciate it, and we love kudos and comments, even if it takes us awhile to get to them! Feel free to reach out to us on our socials! We love chatting about the fic and Yellowjackets in general!

Chapter 21: down by the river

Summary:

It's a new day, and Jackie is finally done being sick. Lottie isn't, though, but she's always been a little sick in the head, right? At least they can keep each other preoccupied. It's hard to have bad thoughts when there's a really hot chick kissing you. Especially one that's your girlfriend. Maybe if they're lucky, this time the happiness will last.

Notes:

Awww, look! Our fic is old enough to drink now. They grow up so fast ;( Another decent sized chapter, but not super thicc like some are. Mostly just some nice, relaxing times. Nothing too stressful! Things are getting better, not worse, right? :)

Title is from the song "Down By The River" by Borislav Slavov for BG3

Lottie’s eyes snap open in a flurry. Light is flooding the hut and she gazes around wildly, eyes searching every corner to make sure they’re alone. She touches her own face, feels something wet and slick.

 

Her fingers come away clean, coated in clear, shiny sweat. Not blood.

 

Her heart hammers away at her ribs, it wants to climb out of her chest and burrow into the earth where she knows it will be safe. 

 

Lottie draws in a stuttering breath. Curls herself back around Jackie. 

 

There’s no one else in the hut with them, but behind Lottie’s eyes she can still see her, face smeared with blood, an empty, hollow look on her face. A twisted smile curling up her lips. A nightmare, just a nightmare. She’s not real. 

 

Lottie squeezes her own arm hard, nails digging in. Not real, not real . She chants it under her breath. Not real. Not real . She hopes it’s true. 

 

The movement wakes Jackie up, but she doesn’t sit up. She feels Lottie shaking and curling around her. That’s when she moves. Jackie wraps her arm around Lottie and holds her tight. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

 

Lottie opens her eyes again as she feels an arm wrapping around her. It’s light but the weight of it brings her back from wherever she was going. She burrows into Jackie, holding her tight. “Sorry,” she mumbles into her neck. She hadn’t meant to wake her. She should’ve expected this. She always has nightmares when she’s like this. 

 

“‘S okay,” Jackie whispers, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s hair. She runs her fingers up and down Lottie’s back, attempting to soothe her. Her eyes open, and she turns her head slightly to see a bit of light peaking in through the blanket blocking their window. It’s still pretty early. They don’t have to get up right away. “Do you want to try to sleep a little more?”

 

Shaking her head, Lottie keeps her face pressed into Jackie’s neck. She’s afraid there will be blood on her face if she looks at her, she’s afraid Jackie will see the her that’s begun haunting her dreams, her waking life. She doesn’t want Jackie to see the darkest parts of her when she can’t even look at them herself.

 

“Just…stay here.” She just wants to stay here for a bit longer, holding her. 

 

“Whatever you want.” Jackie is okay doing whatever Lottie wants, until someone comes and disturbs them. Then, she’d maybe like to go and scrub her skin until she stops feeling disgusting. At least her stomach isn’t as bad. She just feels hollow, like a doll. It’s easy to forget about with Lottie holding her, though.

 

What Lottie wants is to be normal, feel normal. She doesn’t think that’s something she’ll ever get. But for now, this is close enough. She breathes Jackie in, lets the warmth of her skin sooth Lottie’s chill, the kind that digs itself deep into your bones and doesn’t let go. Her lips graze salty skin and the taste lingers on her tongue. She lifts her head enough to look down at Jackie, worried but not enough to keep her from wanting to see Jackie’s face. 

 

She’s beautiful, like always, even like this, sweaty, hair askew, eyes sunken and tired. Lottie knows she was sick all day yesterday, but she’s somehow glowing in the pale sunlight of their hut like an angel sent to save Lottie from herself. 

 

If only she were so lucky. Leaning forward, Lottie places a tender kiss to her forehead. Her lips tingle as she pulls away and she knows this is real.

 

Jackie looks up at Lottie and reaches out for her, brushing her thumb over Lottie’s cheek. She’s so pretty. Jackie smiles. And she’s her girlfriend . They’re girlfriends. Jackie gets to be Lottie’s girlfriend. Her smile falters a little as she sees how tired Lottie is, how whatever she saw still lingers in her eyes, disturbed, haunted. She leans up and presses a kiss to the scar on Lottie’s forehead. 

 

Lottie stiffens for a moment, watches Jackie’s hand as it brushes over her face. It comes away clean and her muscles relax. Her eyes close as lips press to the raised slash on her head. When she opens them again, she’s looking down into Jackie’s eyes and it suddenly doesn’t matter what’s haunting her in her dreams, because in the waking world, she has this.

 

She leans down again, careful as she brushes lips against lips. Then with a little more pressure to the corner of her mouth, to her jaw, her neck, the solid feel of salty flesh against her chapped lips chasing away whatever shadows were left in her head from the night.

 

Closing her eyes, Jackie hums as she feels lips against her skin, soft and sweet. Always so soft, always so sweet. It seems like it’s impossible for Lottie to be anything else. Jackie knows that’s not completely true; she’s seen the steel underneath Lottie’s exterior, but, really, she was mostly a teddy bear. She’s only been kind to Jackie for months, and, when she touches her, she makes Jackie feel like she’s the only person in the world.

 

Her hand reaches out and finds Lottie’s. “This is real,” she says. It’s a nice confirmation for both of them. This is real. Whatever is going on between the two of them, it’s so, so real.

 

Lottie nods. It’s real. Sometimes it’s so real it frightens her. She knows she’s going to mess this up, it’s what she does. But she has it right now and she doesn’t want to let it go. So she won’t, she won’t.

 

Her lips kiss their way down to Jackie’s collarbone, tucked just barely underneath the collar of her shirt and Lottie uses her chin to expose it. She squeezes Jackie’s hand back as she grazes her lips along the protruding bone before kissing it proper. She wants to taste her skin, her tongue slipping out to slide along the dip of Jackie’s clavicle. The saltiness of her skin makes Lottie’s mouth water and she pulls back just enough to stare back down at Jackie, head tilting ever so as she holds her gaze, hazel eyes littered with flecks of dying leaves and fresh cut grass. Lottie could feel her own eyes, dark and bottomless, devouring Jackie’s and she leans down again to smother Jackie’s mouth with her own.

 

Jackie feels like Lottie wants to devour her, and she thinks she’d let her, just from how good it feels to have lips and tongue brushing against her skin before Lottie’s mouth is on her own. It makes her sigh. She snakes a hand into Lottie’s hair, nails scraping against her scalp before she tugs her closer. It’s a nice way to wake up.

 

Lottie kisses Jackie a little harder as she feels herself being pulled closer. She moves Jackie's hand clasped in hers to above Jackie's head, holding it there. Her body moves enough to lay half on top of Jackie and she noses her way back down to Jackie's neck, kissing and sucking and tasting with her tongue, a drug she can't get enough of. Teeth scrape taunting against skin, over Jackie's pulse. Lottie feels the thrum of her heartbeat in her mouth, wanting to swallow it until it beats next to her own. To where she can't ever deny it's truth, that it's real. That she's real.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie murmurs, sighing happily. She breathes sharply as Lottie pins her hand above her head, as she lays on top of her, and Jackie feels that warm, delicious pressure of being covered by someone else. It’s made even better as Lottie kisses her neck, and Jackie tilts her head a little more so that Lottie has access. It just feels so good. It feels so good. She’s never liked anything this much, and it sends shivers down her spine. She doesn’t think she’s allowed to like anything this much. But she’s also not allowed to have a girlfriend or play in the dirt or eat like a fucking animal, and none of that has killed her, yet. In fact, it all makes her feel just a little bit more alive. 

 

Lottie can't stop herself from biting down on Jackie's pulse. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to apply pressure, to feel her blood pulsing on her tongue. She laps it up, sucks on it, curls her fingers around Jackie's hand and presses down against her. It makes her ache in more ways than one. She wants her, needs her, feels it boiling in her stomach, rushing through her veins. Her free hand drifts to the hem of Jackie's shirt, sneaking underneath, clammy palm laying flat against Jackie's warm stomach, pressing down to imprint the outline of her fingers into skin. As if she needs to leave her mark to remind herself and everyone else that Lottie is real and Lottie is alive and she's not some shadow lurking in the fringes of the world.

 

Jackie thinks that she would let Lottie tear out her throat if that’s what she wanted, a breathy, jagged moan leaving her lips. She laces their fingers together with one hand and threads the other into Lottie’s hair, holding tighter. Her responses feel half a second behind what they should be as she tries to regain her bearings. Lottie’s a lot better at recovery, but Jackie wants this so bad that it aches. She likes that she can feel Lottie. She likes that it's as if Lottie’s trying to get inside her. Jackie would let her. She’ll let Lottie do anything she wants.

 

Jackie's hand in her hair makes Lottie moan quietly against her jugular, letting her skin go between a scrape of teeth. The tip of her nose is burned red with a blush, eyes heady. Her head rolls into Jackie's touch, nails on her scalp, lids fluttering against the feel. She slips a knee between Jackie's legs, falls back down to consume her lips, tongue licking against them. Her hips roll down into Jackie's. She wants and she aches and she needs . Her hand nudges Jackie's shirt up, exposing her stomach, muscles twitching under her touch. Lottie smothers Jackie's body with her own, swallowing the smaller girl's. Her abdomen screams as her muscles pull on her ribs, but the pain yanks her mind from the drowning waters of her nightmares. It makes her feel alive and she craves it. She thinks it's better than stabbing herself again.

 

Panting, Jackie tilts her head back against the ground, her hips rolling up to meet the knee between her legs. She can’t actually go far, though. She doesn’t want to. Lottie is covering her so completely that she doesn’t want to move at all, content to just be devoured. She can already feel marks forming on her skin, blooming like flowers. She thinks they make her feel pretty. Their lips slide together, and Jackie lets hers part for Lottie’s tongue. 

 

It takes little time for Lottie's tongue to lick into Jackie's mouth, finding her tongue, too. Tasting her, kissing her, consuming every part of her she can find. She feels Jackie's body moving into hers and she grinds her hips slowly down against Jackie, capturing the moan that's sure to follow in her throat. It tastes like sunlight, like autumn leaves on the ground, damp from dew that never melts, like clouds that hang low in the sky and kiss the ground at night. Lottie takes only what she's given, but Jackie gives her all of her, and so Lottie takes it all. 

 

She's hungry, she's been starving for this. Starving for someone to splay out beneath her like her last meal, ready to be devoured. She wanted this once before and had it turn from her before she could even begin to dream about the taste. 

 

Now, she won't waste a second of it. She slides herself between Jackie's legs, tugs the hand in her hair out, pressing it into the blankets above Jackie's head with the other. Pupils blown wide turn her brown irises into black holes. She wants to swallow Jackie's heart and tear out her own, replace it in her bleeding chest. She loves too hard, she thinks. She wants too much. She stares down into Jackie's gaze and asks without words if she thinks the same things. 

 

There’s been people that have wanted Jackie like this before, she knows. People that have wanted to devour her, swallow her whole. She’s something to be consumed. She’s something to be eaten whole. Lots of people have looked at her like that. She’s even enjoyed one or two of them. But Lottie’s the only one that Jackie is letting look at her like that.

 

Her arms are pinned above her, and Jackie’s heart feels like it’s fluttering in her chest wildly, unable to calm down. She makes eye contact with Lottie and she gets lost in endlessly dark eyes. “Lottie,” she breathes.

 

Lottie's breath has picked up and she doesn't know when it started. It spills from her lips and splashes onto Jackie’s skin. Her name sounds like the secrets of the universe whispered from between Jackie's lips. Her hands flex around Jackie's, fingers brushing knuckles. “I want all of you,” she nearly growls, her voice low, possessive. Like this, she can't hear any other voices, even if she knows they're trying. They buzz in her ears. She rolls her hips tantalizingly slow into Jackie's. Her abdomen twitches with the pain and the fuzzy voices floating around her turn to static. 

 

She takes both of Jackie's wrists into one hand, her slender fingers long enough to curl all the way around them, locking them in place. With her newly freed hand, she tugs up Jackie's shirt, exposing her chest. She's still wearing her bra but it's not an obstacle for Lottie, as she bends over, inhaling sharply into sweaty skin. Drags her tongue up the length of her sternum as her hand slides under Jackie's back to unclip the snap of her bra. Fingers trace up the same path her tongue traveled, pushing the fabric up with it. Her eyes never leave Jackie's. “I need every part of you.” 

 

Jackie can actually feel her pupils dilating, can feel heat pooling low in her stomach. Her hips jerk up. She can’t look away. “I need you, too. Fuck,” she says. Because she does, she does, she needs Lottie. Her lips and her hands and her tongue and all of her, the way that she looks at Jackie, the way she speaks. She needs it. 

 

“You can have everything that’s left,” Jackie breathes. She doesn’t know how much there really is. She doesn’t know how much of her is really still there, how much of her is dead and burned and buried, but everything that’s left is Lottie’s, now. It’s happened so fast. It’s taken so long. Her hips roll again into Lottie’s. 

 

There’s a dark jealousy burning in the pit of Lottie’s stomach that has her nails digging into Jackie’s side. Not enough to pierce skin, never enough to hurt her, just enough to leave the half-moon imprints of her fingernails along Jackie’s hip bone. There will always be parts of Jackie that Lottie can’t have, will never get to have. Maybe this is the most she’ll ever get, but it’s all she needs. She’d take whatever scraps Jackie wanted to give her. She’d devour them whole.

 

Still, the thought has her shoving her hand down Jackie’s pants, already feeling her, wet and hot and wanting. For her . No one else. Lottie moves her fingers, circles the sensitive nub between Jackie’s legs, dips a finger just barely into her. She watches her with wide, heady eyes. Wants to see the way her touch makes her eyes roll up into the back of her head. 

 

Lottie doesn’t want to share pieces of Jackie with a dead girl, but it’s only fair, when pieces of a different dead girl owns pieces of her. Instead, she’ll take fistfuls of whatever is left of Jackie and stuff them into the slots of her own soul that were dug out and burned up back before death became just another person out here.

 

Jackie can’t move her hands to cover her mouth, can’t stop the guttural moan that leaves her throat. She can’t keep her head up, can’t look at Lottie while her eyes roll back and her head thumps against the bedding underneath them. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, like that. God, Lottie.” 

 

She’s really not sure how they got to this point, but she can’t complain, not when Lottie feels so good, when she makes Jackie’s toes curl. Her hips move into the touch. She feels like she’s on fire. She opens her eyes to see Lottie on top of her, panting and dark eyed and lovely, and Jackie forgets why they haven’t done this before. Then she remembers, shuddering out a breath that fades into a low moan. “Your– your ribs. Lottie.”

 

Lottie just shakes her head, eyes glued to Jackie’s face. Her grip tightens on Jackie’s wrists as she leans down, hair curtaining around them. The pain keeps her present, it chases away the shadows and voices in her mind. She told Jackie she wanted to stop being this way, to stop hurting herself, but if the pain was already there, she was going to use it. She just wants this.

 

She pushes a finger inside of Jackie smoothly, feeling her muscles clench around her. She’s so warm inside and Lottie wishes she could tear her open and crawl between her ribs. It’s a dark thought, she knows this, but she’s never been able to hold back those impulses when she’s like this, when she’s lost to the recesses of her mind. “It’s helping,” she murmurs against Jackie’s lips. “It’s good.” 

 

Jackie wants to argue, but it’s a losing game at this point when Lottie’s explaining that no, it’s good, it’s helping. It’s a pretty flimsy argument, really, but one that seems a lot firmer when Lottie’s inside her. Jackie makes a low, keening sound, struggling against the hand holding down her arms because she wants to touch, too, but she can’t move, and she gives up pretty quick. Everything feels pretty quick, really. 

 

“Like that,” she repeats, panting. “More.” She wants. She wants, and Lottie, hovering above her like an angel, wants, too. She really wants. She wants Jackie, every piece of her, even the ones that shouldn’t be shared. Lottie wants all of them. Like this, Jackie wants to give them to her. She thinks she’d do anything for Lottie. 

 

Jackie’s pleading makes Lottie melt and she obliges, sliding in a second finger, slow and firm, letting her feel every small movement of it until she feels herself knuckle deep inside of Jackie. She sees Jackie squirming and it lights up her insides, the band that’s always coiled up in Lottie’s stomach stretching and pulling at her. She’s never seen something so beautiful and so hot and so messy at the same time. She smothers Jackie’s mouth with her own again, open mouthed and heavy, licking into hers with a moan. 

 

With that, she finally lets Jackie’s wrists go, as her hand now goes down and tugs on the waistband of Jackie’s pants, pulling them just low enough to give Lottie room, now, to move her hand against Jackie. In and out, slow at first, reaching for the back of her inside before pulling back out. She watches her closely, eyes stuck in a trance as she laps up every ounce of Jackie’s pleasure from her mouth.

 

Jackie wishes this had been her first time. It feels a little like she always expected it to: important. Like it matters. And it had been alright, but this is so good that Lottie’s mouth covers her from crying and moaning out enough to wake the dead. She can’t help it. It’s like Lottie is pulling something out of her that she has no control over, and Jackie’s just sort of along for the ride. Her hands immediately snap to Lottie’s body, though she can’t think long enough to decide where to put them, moving them to Lottie’s hair, her back, her ass, pulling her closer as she slurs out Lottie’s name against insistent lips. 

 

When Jackie feels that pressure inside her tighten and snap, she slips her tongue inside Lottie’s mouth to meet her just to stop as much of whatever noise is about to come out. God, she doesn’t want to wake the entire village. She’s worried she might wake the entire village, as if they don’t know enough already about her sex life. It seems like it lasts forever, her rolling hips frozen. It’s life changing, mind numbing, rewriting her from the inside and making her hopeful about the future. This is hers. She gets to keep it. She brings her hands up to Lottie’s face and holds her cheeks between her hands as they kiss. This is hers .

 

Hands grab at Lottie and she’s panting into Jackie’s mouth, swallowing her moans, holding onto her as her pleasure rips through her body. It makes Lottie’s legs shake, too. It makes the heat between them burn and erupt into her stomach. The sounds Jackie makes are so beautiful. The taste of them on her tongue, in the back of her throat. She holds Jackie until she starts to come down, kissing her back just as hungrily.

 

She moves her hand from between Jackie’s legs after a beat, tugging her pants back up before she finally collapses next to her, arms shaking. She’s sweaty and heaving with breath and her entire body is buzzing, but it’s the best she’s felt in a long time. 

 

And there’s no more voices whispering in her ears. No eyes watching her from the shadows.

 

Jackie feels boneless and twitchy as Lottie lays beside her, both of them panting. Jackie feels feverish again but in the best way. This is better than anything else she’s ever experienced. She doesn’t know what to really make of it. Her head turns towards Lottie, and Jackie smiles before wrapping an arm around her. Her shirt and bra are still askew, but she doesn’t bother fixing either at the moment. She doesn’t think she has the energy.

 

Lottie tries not to wheeze with breath as Jackie’s arm slings across her body. She lifts her hand and places it on Jackie’s forearm, fingers tracing patterns into her skin. She moves her head to look back at Jackie, finding her face flushed and bright, her eyes lidded with her satisfaction, hair clinging to her damp face in places that she doesn’t bother to fix. It makes her heart hiccup and her throat swell. She did that. 

 

Her eyes close for a moment as she listens to their heavy breathing, her chest feeling a little like it might collapse in on itself if she can’t get enough oxygen. Deep breaths are still hard to take, though. She evens it out slowly, breathing in through her nose. She feels dizzy with it all, in the best way possible.

 

As she comes down, Jackie moves closer to Lottie, resting her head on her shoulder. “Good morning,” she mumbles, her voice a little croaky, her eyes fluttering closed before she opens them back up to look at Lottie, at the way she seems so careful with her breathing. Jackie frowns and sits up, looking down at her closely. “Your ribs, ” she mutters, some of the euphoria draining from her body as she worries. They shouldn’t have done that. They were supposed to wait for anything that was too much until Lottie was healed, and that was too much. The way that Lottie looked over her, the way she pressed in and touched and took. It was too much. 

 

Lottie liked it better when Jackie’s head was on her shoulder. She opens one eye to peek up at her, sighing. “‘M okay,” she mumbles, still a little more breathless than she’d like to be. She can’t really be too upset with it all, considering the wonderful noises Jackie had made coming apart in her hand, and how all of it had seemed to chase off the hallucinations for now. 

 

Besides, what was Misty going to do now, anyway? She knows they both know what she did. Something Lottie still needs to talk to her about. Really, Lottie’s more worried about how Jackie is feeling, her face still tinged with red. “It…stopped,” she adds quietly. Maybe knowing what had happened would help Jackie feel less upset about it. “The…” She gestures to her head.

 

Jackie reaches forward, brushing some of Lottie’s hair out of her face. She doesn’t look too hurt, at least, Jackie thinks as her eyes scan over Lottie, looking for any hint of distress. But she looks alright. Jackie’s thumb brushes over her cheek. She raises an eyebrow, laughing a little breathlessly. “Are you saying you screwed me so hard it made everything else stop?” she asked, her face flushing an even deeper shade of red. “Is that… normal?” 

 

Lottie’s face scrunches. “It really wasn’t that hard.” She was still trying to remind herself to be gentle with Jackie, who was still learning how to navigate the ins and outs of lesbian sex. Lottie shrugs half-heartedly. “I’m not seeing anything or hearing anything,” she observes, taking another glance around for good measure. Nothing. Just normal shadows, the blanket hanging over their window swaying in a light breeze, and the sounds of the world just beginning to wake outside. 

 

“I don’t know,” she says truthfully, her gaze landing back on Jackie’s. “I’m usually too um…wasted to notice, when I do things like this.”

 

“What the fuck do you mean that wasn’t hard?” Jackie mutters, running a hand through her hair. She doesn’t want to focus on that right now, but, holy shit. It feels like a “but wait! There’s more” kind of moment, like, wow, it’s really good. Congratulations, it only gets better! So much for thinking that she just wasn’t interested in sex. She’s just been mostly fooling around with the wrong people for years. 

 

She gives Lottie a soft look, leaning in close again. “Well that’s… that’s good.” And it’s better than Lottie stabbing herself, right? And they both seemed to really enjoy it. She leans in to press a kiss to Lottie’s lips. “That’s good, right? And you’re okay? Physically?”

 

“ That we’ll have to wait on,” Lottie says, a little winded. Just sitting up was hard enough, holding herself and Jackie still with her head between Jackie’s legs would take stomach muscles that Lottie just couldn’t use right now. Soon, though, she hoped. She thinks Jackie will really like that, if she was into this, though. 

 

Lottie turns her attention back to Jackie, giving a weary smile. “It’s good.” She lifts a hand to press to her ribs gently. “And I will be.” She definitely thinks this was way better than all the other ways she’s tried to break herself out of her episodes. 

 

It’s good, and she will be. That’s really all that Jackie can ask right now. Her hand lays on top of Lottie’s where it presses into her ribs, and she nods. “Okay,” she says quietly. She leans in, curling herself around Lottie, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “You know,” she muses, “I kind of figured we’d just go back to sleep.” 

 

Lottie’s lips turn up into a cheeky smile, shifting her head enough to look over at Jackie. “I wasn’t tired.” Really, she just hadn’t wanted to go back to sleep. She didn’t want to see the world her mind had conjured up for her in her dreams, one that felt so real and so close, that if she wasn’t careful, it just might leak into her own reality and steal away all the good she’d found here. She can still remember what her own face looked like, smeared with blood in the shape of her own handprint. “Why? Did you want to sleep? Should I not wake you up like that again?” She teases.

 

“No, no, you should absolutely wake me up like that again,” Jackie says, moving to brush a hand up and down Lottie’s arm.  She simultaneously feels more and less awake, not sleepy, just pleasantly tired. She could probably take a name. She’s working on refraining from that. “It’s mostly just, you know, nice. To wake up with you here.” She’s gotten used to it. It’s still nice. To have Lottie be there and alive, tucked in her arms or holding Jackie tight in her own. 

 

Lottie grins to herself at Jackie’s eagerness. She’s glad she likes it, really glad. Even more so that it’s something Lottie can make her feel. Her eyes flutter at the feeling of a warm hand grazing her arm. Her breath is finally catching back up to her body enough that she doesn’t feel like she’s not getting enough air anymore. “I like it, too,” she murmurs, “waking up next to you.” 

 

She actually likes it a lot more than she might have otherwise thought. She’d always convinced herself she was okay with waking up alone for the rest of her life, it had seemed like an inevitability. She’d told herself she was okay with that. Now, she didn’t think she could live without Jackie. Not for long, anyway.

 

“I like all of this a lot more than I expected,” Jackie admits. Everything about this, but particularly the ways that Lottie makes her feel. Jackie thought she was just broken in that way. She figured that some things were just supposed to feel nice, even if you weren’t attracted to someone. Like, something is supposed to start feeling nice. And some of it did. But nothing like this. And the rest of it… Jackie looks at Lottie softly. She didn’t think she was capable of the rest of it, either. Not with anyone that wasn’t Shauna Shipman. But now everything’s different. 

 

“It feels good, doesn't it?” Lottie's glad Jackie likes it, but even if she hadn't, Lottie would still be here for her, with her. It's not something she necessarily needs. She cups Jackie's cheek, thumb running over rosy skin. “I like making you feel good.” 

 

“You do. God, you really do,” Jackie says. She leans into Lottie’s touch. It’s so nice. “I want to make you feel good, too, you know.” She knows she’s pretty selfish. She’s sure she’s come off that way plenty of times, out here and back home, but she wants . She actually wants this, every aspect of it. 

 

It warms Lottie in a way that she's rarely felt. It feels like laying on the warm sand of a beach while saltwater waves lick at her feet. “I know,” she replies, “and you do. I just…really like making others feel good, mostly. It makes me…feel that way.” Lottie always felt more satisfied watching someone’s pure ecstasy under her fingertips more so than being the one under them. Not that she didn't like that, she certainly did. There was just something so mesmerizing about knowing she could make someone come so undone with her hands and mouth. 

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s palm. “I just don’t want to…” Neglect Lottie, or make her think that she doesn’t care. Reciprocity with things like this had felt like a chore with Jeff, but they were expected and easy enough. It’s the other shit she’s always had trouble with, always taking too much without any sort of return, if the bitter words in sloppy handwriting meant anything. But Lottie doesn’t need that, apparently. The sexual stuff. Or she just wants to make Jackie feel good, no return investment needed. “I just don’t want to not return the favor.”

 

Lottie’s face draws into concern and at that, she forces herself to sit up a little. “It’s not--” she doesn’t really know how to explain it, biting her lip-- “Sex isn’t, like, a-a favor. It’s nothing you have to return the favor for. It’s, like-- it’s supposed to be for both people involved.” She reaches out to cup Jackie’s face, to make sure she understands this. “It’s not something I need from you, okay?” 

 

“No, no, I know,” Jackie says quickly. “I get that. I just.. You know, I want to.” She wants to make sure that Lottie gets that. Like, she actually wants to. It’s more than she feels like she has to. She liked making Lottie feel good. She really liked the noises she made. Maybe she just wants to do that again.

 

“Oh.” Lottie tries to think of someone who actually wanted that for her. She’s drawing a blank. “Well, I mean, I won’t say no to that.” 

 

Jackie leans up enough to look at Lottie and offers a sharp nod. “Good,” she says. “Great.” She wonders if she should write down everything that she remembers on what to do, how to do it, likes and dislikes. Jackie hates journaling; she’d tried to get into it when Shauna started, but it was boring. She does , however, like making lists and organizing things. Likes and dislikes, ranking systems, playbooks. By the time she became captain, Jackie had written down and studied and committed each play by heart. She helped design new ones. She wonders if she could apply that same logic here. “I’m going to make you feel so fucking good, Matthews. Watch me.”

 

Lottie lets out a shy laugh, shaking her head. “You already do,” she tells her, leaning forward and planting a soft kiss on Jackie’s lips. It was enough to just know that Jackie really wanted to make her feel good, that it wasn’t just about a quick fuck. Lottie really did just like making others feel good, it really helped her, and if pleasing her was what made someone else happy, then who was she to say no? She wouldn’t. “You really do.”

 

Smiling against Lottie’s lips, Jackie leans for just a moment before pulling away. This is real. It’s hers. She gets to keep this, and it’s not wrong, and it’s not going to hurt her in the end because it’s good. It’s good . Maybe there’s a lot of things about Jackie Taylor that’s not super great, especially not out here, but this is not one of those things. “I… also really probably need to bathe off. I’m still pretty gross from yesterday.”

 

“Do you want me to come with?” Lottie asks, moving herself to sit up fully finally, now that her breath wasn’t trapped in her lungs and her ribs were only a dull ache. She can hear others beginning to move about outside, but it seems like it’s still early on in the morning, which would give them time to clean off before breakfast if they wanted. “The water might feel nice on my ribs, actually.” And the new cut in her abdomen.

 

“Do you want to?” Jackie asks. She’s trying not to make decisions for other people when she can remember it. “You can. If you feel up to it. I don’t want you to strain your ribs or anything, but if it might feel nice,” she murmurs. 

 

At that, Lottie smiles again, gentle and sweet. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t.” She presses another soft kiss to Jackie’s cheek. “C’mon, maybe we can sneak off before too many people are up.” 

 

Jackie thinks that she could melt from Lottie’s smile. “Okay, good. Good. Maybe… most people are still asleep.” And she wasn’t that loud. Jackie sits up, clipping her bra back into place and adjusting her shirt before zipping her pants up. Her hair feels like a mess, but she still runs her fingers through it, pushing it back before fixing it around her ear. When she stands, she holds out her hands.

 

Patient, Lottie watches and waits, keeping her focus on Jackie, hoping she doesn't slip back into her head. So far, so good. She takes Jackie's offered help and stands, curled in on herself a little, nursing her ribs. She squeezes Jackie's hand. “Hopefully,” she says back, nodding towards the door, stretching out her legs before she starts heading out.

 

Worried about Lottie’s ribs but trying hard not to hover, Jackie still stays close, standing on her toes to press a quick kiss to Lottie’s jaw before heading outside. It seems, at least, like most people are still in their huts. Mari isn’t cooking breakfast, and Jackie doesn’t see any sign of Nat as she start heading towards the river, walking in time with Lottie. 

 

There’s only a few of the girls milling about, including Melissa over at the butcher table, yawning as she separates some of the cuts of meat presumably to begin cutting it up and portioning it out. Lottie gives a small wave and Melissa lazily waves back.

 

The walk is actually kind of nice, peaceful. Lottie lets the gentle breeze brush against her face, taking in the feeling of it as it caresses her skin and prickles at her nerves. The sound of the babbling river can be heard through the trees, and Lottie pauses a moment to take it all in. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asks absentmindedly.

 

“It’s nice,” Jackie murmurs as she looks around. Spring is well and truly on its way. Everything’s warmer, greener. It’s so much nicer than months of snow. “It’s pretty.” Jackie thinks she likes the outdoors a normal amount. She likes when it’s warm. She likes working on her tan. She likes playing soccer, the sun bright on her as they take to the field. She can appreciate the beauty of the place around her. She also knows that it can be fucking inhospitable. She remembers the cold. She doesn’t think her bones will ever forget it.

 

Lottie opens her eyes and peers over at Jackie. “Yeah.” And it’s probably so fucking cliche, but she can’t help it. She places a kiss on her cheek before she tugs on Jackie’s hand to lead them down the little path and away from the main part of the river where they do the laundry and gather the drinking water. She figures Jackie might like a spot that’s a little more private than that. 

 

She settles near a larger tree that can help give them some cover and pulls Jackie to her. “How’s this?”

 

The way that Lottie looks at her makes Jackie feel warm, and she’s content to let Lottie pull her along until they make it to a different part of the river. “Perfect,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around Lottie’s waist. It’s away from where most people tend to come. It’s private, quiet. Jackie’s never liked being looked at while she showers. Locker rooms were always a quick get in, get out ordeal. And looking? No, she didn’t let herself look. Even now, it feels more comfortable, an old habit. But being with Lottie feels comfortable, too.

 

Lottie hooks her arms around Jackie’s shoulder and pushes her back with a gentle, guiding hand until her back hits the tree and she leans down to kiss her. It’s lazy and languid, and she takes her time with it, drawing out the taste of Jackie’s lips. Her hands go to Jackie’s waist as well, fingers tucking themselves under the bottom of her shirt to find warm skin before she pulls away, staying close. “Can I undress you?” she asks quietly.

 

Eyes closed, Jackie nods her head against the tree, still close, so close, to Lottie. “Only if I can undress you,” she murmurs, her breath ghosting across Lottie’s lips. 

 

“Of course,” Lottie breathes back, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.” She presses back in for a kiss as her hands begin to tug Jackie’s shirt up, breaking off for only a second to pull it over her head, placing it on a branch so that it doesn’t get more dirty on the ground. She wants to take her time with it, fingers drawing gently down Jackie’s sides to her hips, before they circle around to her back, feeling the ridges of her spine as her hands smooth up between her shoulder blades. 

 

Her fingers deftly unhook Jackie’s bra once again, pulling it down off her shoulders as she leans back in to kiss her. 

 

It’s really fucking amazing how natural all of this feels. Jackie lets Lottie undress her, and it’s so smooth, the ways they disconnect, reconnect back together, lips to lips, hands to hips. Jackie tugs on Lottie’s dress, pulling it up, parting just to breathe and take it off. She toes off her shoes and unbuttons her pants but doesn’t pull them off, yet. Instead, her fingers go to Lottie’s bra. She’s not quite as familiar with the angle, but she doesn’t fumble it like a boy, at least. 

 

Jackie pulls away enough to look at Lottie again, feeling treebark dig into her back.

 

The fresh air on her skin makes Lottie shiver a little, goosebumps rising on her arms and the back of her neck, across her chest. She kisses Jackie when she looks up at her, tender, before she kisses down to her jaw, her neck, lowering herself slowly to her knees. She looks back up at Jackie, fingers hooking into the waistband of her pants. She presses her lips to Jackie’s hipbone as she tugs them down, helping Jackie step out of them when she reaches her ankles. Her hands curl around Jackie’s thighs as she comes back up, this time pulling on her underwear. Slow, purposeful. This will be the first time they’ll see each other completely nude, and she wants to savor it, staring up at Jackie with a reverence that had previously only been saved for her devotion to the Wilderness.

 

Jackie’s eyes close as she feels layers being peeled away until she’s exposed, completely exposed, happily exposed. She thinks this is terrifying; she should feel terrified, but she doesn’t feel it. Not when she opens her eyes to meet Lottie’s, and she sees how they look at her like that. God, they look at her like that.

 

Once again, Jackie returns the favor. She strips Lottie bare. She looks up at her eyes, unable to look away. She’s lost again in Lottie’s eyes, at the way they look at Jackie, and they see, and they see . And Lottie seems to like what she sees. Jackie likes what she sees, too.

 

She pushes away from the tree and takes Lottie’s hand, tugging her towards the water. “Come on,” she murmurs.

 

Lottie can feel the care with which Jackie removes the rest of her clothing, until they’re both bare for each other. Her eyes roam Jackie’s form, drink her in like she wants to get drunk off just the sight. And she does, she feels like it. 

 

Lottie has never been like this with anyone, she’d never been completely naked and intimate with another person. And it wasn’t even about sex, it was just about them. 

 

Her hand absently covers the scars on her stomach as she takes Jackie’s other. There’s more thin-lined healed over cuts on the inside of her thighs but she can’t cover those like this. She wants to be okay with them, enough to not feel the shame she usually does when she thinks about them. At least not with Jackie.

 

The water is cold, still bringing down the snow runoff from the top of the mountain and Lottie shivers again as her feet dip in. It feels refreshing, though, in a way that lets her muscles relax from their clenched position. 

 

Jackie glances to see the way that Lottie covers the scars on her stomach, and she wants to kiss each and every one, wants to let Lottie know that she’s so beautiful and cared for and seen. Another time, though. As it is, she takes that hand as well and brings it to her lips, kissing the pads of her fingers.

 

“Motherfucker,” Jackie mutters as cold water hits her feet, laps at her skin, and she tenses up just like she does every single time. She’d commit real crimes for a hot shower. She’d even accept another hot bath. She hadn’t exactly been super aware to appreciate the last one. Still, she wants to be clean far more than she cares about the cold, and she wades in until the water is up to her chest, shuddering out a breath before she sucks a deep one in and gets the worst part over with by submerging her head underwater.

 

Lottie chuckles at Jackie’s hushed curses against the cold water. She wades in after her, up to where the water reaches her ribs and she shudders. It feels like an instant relief, the cold assuaging the ache in her body. In Wiskayok, Lottie had been pampered with a fancy shower and a large bathtub that even had jets. The locker room showers even had enough hot water to spare for all of them. 

 

She didn’t think she missed it all that much, though. The cold water made something click in her head, like it was waking up something that always felt asleep until she’d gotten out here. 

 

As she watches Jackie dip under the water, she sinks into it up to her shoulders, reaching out for her when she resurfaces. “Feel better?”

 

Jackie scrubs her fingers through her hair, over her skin, and it’s not shampoo and conditioner and a rinse and repeat, but, damn, it feels better. It feels good. She smiles at Lottie when she comes over, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “Much,” she says. “Is it helping your ribs?”

 

Lottie nods, pulling Jackie into her body and wrapping her arms snuggly around her waist. “Yes,” she answers. “It’s like an ice pack on them.” She nuzzles against Jackie’s temple, brushing her lips against now chilled skin. “Sorry there’s no shampoo,” she teases. “Sure would be nice, though.” At that, she tips her head back and lets all her own hair soak into the water, before bringing her head back up, wet strands sticking to her face. 

 

There’s so much of them that’s touching, and that’s all Jackie can think about for longer than she cares to admit. She’s not just thinking about sex, honestly. It’s just so much skin, and somehow Lottie’s still warm. Compared to the water, at least, and it feels really fucking good. “I guess I can deal,” she mumbles, leaning forward to brush her hand through Lottie’s hair, wet and even heavier than normal. 

 

Lottie’s head moves into Jackie’s touch like always, a sigh escaping her lips. “I can still scrub your head if you want,” she offers with a genuine, but sly grin. She brings one of her hands up, purposefully brushing her palm against the hardened skin of her breast, taught and rigid thanks to the cool water, before she digs her fingers into Jackie’s hair, nails scraping gently against the back of her scalp.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmurs as she leans forward, forehead pressing to Jackie’s. “All of you.”

 

Jackie breathes in sharply, huffing out a laugh because she knows Lottie did that on purpose, can see it in the smug set of her eyes. But she relaxes quick and without really thinking about it, leaning her head into Lottie’s touch. She sighs as nails scrape against her scalp. It feels like heaven. Humming, she preens at the compliment. She’s always loved those words. They make her smile, even if sometimes she looks in the mirror and only sees where she could be more or less . One hand moves to brush against Lottie’s cheek. “You have to say that. Because you’re my girlfriend. ”

 

Lottie laughs again, turning her head to kiss Jackie’s fingers, before playfully taking one into her mouth. “I don’t have to say anything,” she muses, continuing to scratch along Jackie’s head, liking the way she moves into every touch of hers. “Even though I am…” she leans in closer, lips against Jackie’s ear, “your girlfriend.”

 

Jackie grins widely. “You are. You’re my girlfriend.” She has a girlfriend. A friend that’s a girl that she kisses and touches, very much not excusable as just something between friends late at night. Fuck, they’re holding each other naked in a river. “My girlfriend is the prettiest person ever,” Jackie says. “She’s beautiful and amazing and my girlfriend .” Jackie Taylor is gay, and she has a girlfriend, and it hasn’t even been that long since they took this step but she already feels so much lighter and better. People know, and it’s okay . 

 

Shaking her head, Lottie can’t help but laugh more. “You’re ridiculous,” she mutters, but she’s smiling very wide, she simply can’t help it. “I can’t be the prettiest person ever, though,” she states, tilting her head, “you exist.” And god, it feels so cheesy and stupid, but she believes it, she truly believes it. Every word of it, no matter how cheesy romcom it sounds.

 

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who chose to be my girlfriend,” Jackie says. She grins as she pulls herself into Lottie, flush against her, skin to skin. “I guess you like girls who are a little ridiculous.” Lottie’s words are so sweet that they warm her up better than anything else in the cold water. She knows they shouldn’t stay for long, but it’s hard to want to leave when she has this. “We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree, I guess.”

 

Lottie thinks back on the girls she’s had crushes on. She shrugs. “I guess so.” She doesn’t mind, though. She can’t mind at all, when it got her this. Just like she can’t help but to kiss Jackie again, letting it simmer as she tastes her lips. “Yeah, we will.” Lottie doesn’t think she really holds a candle to how pretty Jackie is, but she’s not going to argue with her, either, if she wants to think Lottie is pretty. 

 

A voice sounds to her right, off in the distance, and Lottie turns her head. But there’s no one there and she blinks, looking back at Jackie. “Uh, are you-- feeling clean?”

 

“Yeah,” Jackie says, grinning up at Lottie. “I’m feeling clean.” She runs a hand up and down Lottie’s back, letting it trail up and brush through her hair again. She feels even clingier than usual. Maybe it’s just the cold; she just wants Lottie to keep her warm, and she’s always done a good job of it. “Are you? Do you want to get out?”

 

Lottie rolls her head into Jackie’s touch, pushes any other thoughts away. She wants to concentrate on Jackie, just Jackie. “I am,” she tells her, hands grabbing onto her hips, lifting her under the water and wrapping Jackie’s legs around her waist as she holds onto her. “Not really,” she says quietly, leaning their foreheads together. 

 

“Hey, ribs,” Jackie whines as Lottie pulls her close and wraps Jackie’s legs around her waist, but it’s so hard for her not to cling a little closer, her arms wrapping around Lottie’s neck. She doesn’t want to hurt her. She also doesn’t want to move away. “We can stay a little longer. It’s not… it’s not too cold yet.” 

 

“You weigh like, negative pounds underwater,” Lottie teases. The truth is that they all weigh a lot less out here, but Jackie had always bordered on the thin line of being too skinny, a product of their upbringing. Lottie understood the pressure, she just never cared what her parents thought, they didn’t really love her anyway. “You’re not just saying that, are you?” she asks.

 

“You’re over exaggerating,” Jackie says, grinning a little. But maybe it was alright. Water does make people lighter. She remembers… most parts of yesterday are hazy, but she remembers being picked up and taken to their hut. Had that been Lottie? Yes, had to have been. She looks at Lottie’s arms. It’s a little unfair that she looks that good even after being starved and injured for so long. “You’re still really warm.” Jackie presses her face against Lottie’s neck as if to prove that point. “So I’m not too cold.”

 

“Mmm, I don’t think I am,” Lottie counters, and to prove her point, she twirls them around. “See?” She glances down at her arms, where Jackie’s eyes seem to be gazing. “I’m stronger than I look.” She hopes Jackie’s not worried too much about it, about her. She knows she’ll heal eventually, she’s just growing impatient with it all. She wraps her arms around Jackie’s back when she leans into her, lips grazing over the side of her head. “I’ve always run warm.”

 

Jackie clings to Lottie a little tighter, laughing breathlessly. “I mean, you look pretty strong,” she murmurs. She won’t push it, she decides, unless she sees Lottie flinch in pain. Maybe that makes her a bad girlfriend, that she’s not prioritizing Lottie’s wellbeing like she should. It’s just really hard to say no to her and big brown eyes. She sighs contentedly, happy to just stay right there with Lottie. “It’s really nice.”

 

“Do I?” Lottie isn’t really sure that’s entirely true. She’s always been long and gangly, and for the past few months she’s only been able to sit around, though she’s tried to keep her muscles from at least atrophying by using them as often as she could. As a defender, she didn’t need to have strong arms as much as legs, but Lottie had always liked balance. “I’m glad you like it.” Sometimes it was insufferable for Lottie, especially during hot summers at night when she couldn’t sleep because she was tossing and turning and sweating no matter how much she turned up the A.C. 

 

There’s another sound nearby and Lottie feels like she has to check, just in case. She doesn’t know why anyone else would be this far up the river, but she still looks and there’s still nothing. She returns her attention to Jackie. “Is that why you clung to me all winter?”

 

Jackie brushes her hands along Lottie’s arms, humming. They feel pretty strong to her. Maybe it’s just because Lottie really is holding her up like she weighs nothing. She wraps back around Lottie and presses her face into Lottie’s neck, sighing. “One of the reasons, yeah,” she murmurs. “I’ll probably keep doing it, too, just warning you, even when it gets hotter. I stay really cold at night.”

 

“What were the other reasons?” Lottie prods further. She is genuinely curious, though. That first night it was obviously because Jackie was grieving, but after that, well, Lottie hadn’t really been sure why, but she hadn’t dared ask that out loud, in case she made Jackie nervous or self conscious about it. Because, really, Lottie had liked it, too. More than she cared to admit. 

 

“From what I remember, the nights are still pretty cold up here, even in the summer.” Or maybe it’s just an excuse for her to let Jackie keep cuddling her, even when it gets warm. She doesn’t think she’ll mind burning up at night if it means she gets to hold Jackie while doing it.

 

“You make me feel safe,” Jackie says softly. “And you kept me from… leaving.” Because she would have tried more than just the one time without Lottie there. Jackie would have walked out into the cold if she hadn’t thought that Lottie would simply follow her back out and bring her back inside again and again until it sunk in. “Lucky me, then, that I get to keep holding you.”

 

Lottie isn't sure that she is safe, or someone to feel safe around. She's glad Jackie thinks she is, she can't deny that. She hopes it can be true. “You were my friend,” she explains quietly, “I didn't want you to…leave.” She gives a warm smile, eyes softening. “I really thought you hated me, for a long time after I… changed .” It had felt like quite a few of them were beginning to hate her back then. She couldn't really blame them, she'd hated her, too. “So very lucky.”

 

“I’ve never hated you,” Jackie tells her. “You… confused me, and worried me, and I didn’t really know what to do, especially after the seance.” She still feels a little guilty about that, especially since it had been her idea, but she hadn’t known what to do with that guilt, so she’d just distanced herself. Which had only gotten easier after reading Shauna’s journals, and then again after Laura Lee’s death. It was just so easy to give up on all of them. And then Doomcoming. Jackie had been afraid, then. She’s not afraid now. Somewhere in between losing Shauna and finding herself again, nothing that Lottie had done that night to her felt particularly scary anymore.

 

“I was pretty confused, too,” Lottie admits. “I didn't really understand what was happening to me. And Laura Lee…” she never told anyone about the baptism. “She was just trying to help me.” When no one else would. When everyone else was just calling her crazy. When Lottie actually felt crazy. And then she'd been born anew in that lake. Died again on its shore as the plane exploded. She hadn't been back since. “I shouldn't have let her go.” 

 

“I don’t think you could have stopped her,” Jackie whispers. And she hadn’t helped with that, not at all, not when she outed that Shauna was pregnant, pushing Laura Lee just a little bit more. God, she was such a fucking child. What made her think that a teenager with no flying experience in a janky old plane could make it out of this place? What made her think that she should encourage that? Letting the team know about Shauna had been selfish and vindictive. She shouldn’t have dragged the rest of them into her shit. She always did. “I’m really sorry, Lottie.”

 

Lottie blinks away the blurriness that's trying to gather in her eyes. She's had plenty of time to cry over Laura Lee dying, over her leaving Lottie behind and not letting her die with her. It still aches deep in her bones. “I think I saw it,” she confesses, her voice low, “before it happened.” She thinks about it every day, really. What it all means, what it all meant. If it was even true. If she really was touched by God, or if it was the wilderness that had invaded her mind that day. “I should've said something.” She'd tried, but she'd gotten it wrong. Lottie doesn't think God, kind of not, would want to touch her. “She told me I'd been blessed by God, that my visions were… prophecies.” 

 

Jackie can’t imagine how horrifying that must have been. Even if Lottie hadn’t seen it happen, just the thought that maybe she might have, that she could have stopped it, is haunting enough. Jackie often isn’t sure what to make of Lottie’s visions. She knows that Lottie sees something, is connected to something out there. Maybe she doesn’t worship it like the rest of them, like Lottie, but she can’t deny that it’s probably real. “I don’t think you could have stopped her,” she repeats. She doesn’t think that Lottie could have stopped this. She doesn’t think any of them could have. “You do… see things that happen. You always have. I remember– I remember from school. You just kind of knew things, sometimes.”

 

Lottie isn't sure if the words help or hurt. She's always been this way, hasn't she? Like the in the car, or at school, or out here. Lottie's always been like this. She burrows her face into Jackie's neck. “I don't want to be this way,” she whispers into her, “I just want to be…me.” Whoever that might be. She doesn't really know. Lottie has never really known herself, for as much as she's hidden herself from others, she's hidden from herself, too. 

 

“You’re always gonna be you, Lott,” Jackie says softly, holding onto Lottie just a little bit tighter. She thinks that she used to be better at this, at comforting people. But she’s so fucking afraid of saying the wrong thing, of being taken the wrong way. It gags her, chokes her up like reading words on a page. Jackie doesn’t want Lottie to resent her. “Whether you see visions or know things or don’t, you’re still just you.”

 

It should be comforting, the words. But, again, Lottie doesn’t even know who she is. Is this the real her? The one out here? Or is the one back home the real her? Does the medication make her real? Does it make her fake? Lottie shakes her head. “I don’t know who I am,” she admits, “I’ve never really known.” 

 

Jackie laughs quietly. It’s a sad sort of sound. She didn’t mean to make either of them sad. “I don’t know who I am, either.” Not when part of her was dead and the half that remained was mostly a lie. She’s worked for so long to match up to other people’s expectations of her that she’s not sure who she is outside of that. And she’s certainly not sure who she is outside of Shauna. Even now, she can’t separate the parts of her that are built around another person. She keeps bones in her pocket and journals in their hut and a sloppily written signature on her heart. She doesn’t know if she wants to be this way. She doesn’t know how not to be. Jackie sniffles, tries to be positive. “Who the fuck knows who they are at eighteen. Nineteen? I don’t know what the date is. We both must have had birthdays out here.”

 

Lottie has to laugh a little, too. She sniffles as well. Shakes her head. “I was on medication for so long, I barely remembered what it was like until we got out here,” she says, pulling back enough to see Jackie’s face. She reaches up and swipes a thumb across her cheek, just under her eye. “Which one is the real me, do you think?” she asks, she wonders. She has no idea. “Happy birthday, then.”

 

“It’s probably closer to yours, at this point.” A second one. Jackie doesn’t know what to do about the thought. She doesn’t know what to do about how long they’ve been out here. “Or… it’s spring, so maybe a little bit between both.” Are they going to die out here? Does it matter? “Happy birthday,” she whispers. “I think the real you is… I don’t know.” She doesn’t know. “You’ve always felt real to me.” But she’s always had trouble telling the difference between ghosts and memories, real people and the versions she expected them to be.

 

Lottie doesn't think age or birthdays really matter out here. Nothing that mattered back there really matters out here. “I've never felt real before,” she says back. But she does now. Maybe not all the time, but more than before. Especially now with Jackie. “You…make me feel real.” 

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw, shivering. From the water, from how close they are, from how uncertain all of this is. “You’re real,” she tells her, looking into her eyes. “You’re Lottie, and you’re real.” If there’s nothing else, then there’s that. There’s this. 

 

Feeling Jackie shiver, Lottie pulls her closer, sighs against her. She’s real, she has to believe that. She has to believe that everything that’s happened out here is real, the good, the bad, the horrible. The painful. The wonderful. All of it. “I…” There’s words she wants to say, but she swallows them thick on her tongue. “I’m real.” 

 

She keeps herself pressed against Jackie for a moment longer before she finally pulls back. “We should probably get out, before you catch a cold.”

 

Real. Real. Real. Jackie keeps herself close, her arms wrapped around Lottie for as long as she can get it before nodding. “That would be the last thing I need,” she grumbles as she pulls away, sighing as she drops her legs from around Lottie’s waist, feet touching the silty bottom of the riverbed. 

 

Following Jackie, the more of Lottie’s body that lifts out of the water the heavier she feels. The cold water certainly felt nice on her ribs, but they ache once the chill is gone and she reaches down to press her fingers to the fresh cut, finding it leaking a bit of blood. She’d dug deeper than she’d thought. 

 

Sighing, she grabs the blanket she’d brought with them and puts it around Jackie’s shoulders to dry her off first. “Little different than the locker rooms, huh,” she murmurs with a little grin, trying to lighten the mood after she’d accidentally brought it down. She hadn’t meant to. Her mind so often made things around her so much worse. She didn’t know how to make that stop.

 

Jackie wraps the blanket around herself and looks up at Lottie with a small smile before she starts drying off. “ So much different in the locker rooms.” She never would have let herself look this long, for one, or get so close. She gets to be so close. She’s quick about getting dry enough before standing on her toes and wrapping the blanket around Lottie, letting her grin widen. “There’s a lot less ass smacking, for one.” 

 

She reaches down for one of Lottie’s hands, noticing the fresh blood on her fingers. Jackie takes it in her own, squeezing it. “We should put something over that, too. Since it’s still bleeding.”

 

“I can smack your ass, if you want,” Lottie teases, helping Jackie dry off enough before the blanket is handed over to her.

 

She looks down at their hands. Gently, she removes the one with blood on it-- she doesn’t want to get blood on Jackie, not again-- and takes the other before moving to the tree they’re clothes are hanging on. With a shaking hand, she wipes the blood on the tree, she thinks about the one from her waking dream. When she pulls away, there’s just a bit left on her fingers and she wipes it off by sticking it in her mouth. 

 

She reaches up, then, grabs Jackie’s clothes and hands them to her. “I’ll cover it when we get back.”

 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jackie asks absentmindedly as she watches Lottie let go of her hands and wipe some of her blood on the tree before sticking her fingers in her mouth. Her head tilts. She takes her clothes and puts them on, thinking about finding something to change into when they get back, something that doesn’t still smell like her sweat. “Good,” she tells her, taking Lottie’s hand and making eye contact when she kisses her fingers. “I’d really rather you didn’t bleed out on me. You’ve tried it once before, you know. Not fun.”

 

Lottie frowns. “I didn’t mean to.” She really hadn’t meant to. Once the cold had gotten to her, she’d simply forgotten about her hand bleeding. By the time she’d passed out, she hadn’t cared. She cared now, though. She cared a lot. 

 

Pressing her fingers to Jackie’s face, she caresses her skin. “It’s just a little blood.” She moves, then, puts her clothes back on enough to trek back to camp with Jackie, ringing her long, thick hair out before they start on the way. It’ll likely be wet for the rest of the day now, but she doesn’t think she minds all too much.

Notes:

Well here we are again! And mostly on time this week! Another easier chapter for you all, I'm sure it's not a "calm before the storm" situation at all! :) Anyway, thanks again for reading! We love all ur fun comments and always are grateful for kudos <3

Chapter 22: we lose ourselves in the things we love

Summary:

Lottie's got some big feelings that she just can't keep inside. Sorry, Misty. When push comes to shove, Lottie... runs away, gosh. But Jackie's learned better that to leave sad, brown eyed girls on their own, so she follows after, and these two talk and find better ways to relieve those big feelings. Those L word feelings.

Notes:

Well, it was bound to happen at some point. We missed a week, and we feel bad. But! We're back on schedule with and hope you all enjoy these two crazy kids being, well, crazy!

Chapter title comes from a quote by Kristin Martz. "We lose ourselves in the things we love. We find ourselves there, too."

By the time they make it back, Mari is finishing up cooking breakfast and the rest of camp is up and about, yawning, stretching through the morning stiffness and milling around. 

 

It’s Van, of course, that spots them first, giving a knowing smirk. She doesn’t say anything, though, as Tai puts a hand on her shoulder and she becomes distracted with her own girlfriend. 

 

Lottie glances around the village, then, pausing for just a moment. When her eyes land on a crop of curly hair and glasses, though, she freezes. She forgets everything she was doing and she feels someone’s breath on her ear. 

 

“Aren’t you angry?” Her own voice asks and Lottie bristles. Her eyes flick to the side but there’s no one there. 

 

Lottie feels her breath beginning to quicken. She remembers yesterday, the day before. She remembers the pain in her stomach, her head. Remembers watching Jackie keel over, sick. Remembers It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, was it? 

 

She’s tearing her hand from Jackie’s grasp, then, without even thinking. Her mind is focused in on one thing only. Her bare feet leave wet footprints in the dirt as she storms across the camp. Before anyone can even register what’s happening, Lottie is shoving Misty so hard she falls over onto the ground, face planting.

 

“Why?” Lottie is shouting, growling. Misty is scrambling to turn around, to shove her glasses back on her face. “Why did you do it?”

 

“Lottie!” Jackie yelps, not expecting Lottie to move away from her, certainly not expecting her to confront Misty. She always forgets how Lottie isn’t just strong, she can be fucking intimidating. On the field, in the fire light of a cabin surrounded by hungry teenage girls. She’s tall and forceful and easily capable of shoving people off of their feet. Jackie just wasn’t expecting that. She runs over to the two of them, reaching for Lottie. 

 

The others that are outside have grown quiet, still, their eyes watching the scene in front of them.

 

“It’s okay,” Jackie tries to soothe. Or, it isn’t, but they can probably deal with that not out in front of the entire camp.

 

When Lottie is like this, the rest of the world doesn’t matter. Dark eyes darker as she glares down at Misty. She holds a hand up to whoever is approaching her, it’s telling them to stop.

 

“Answer me, Misty,” she demands, seething.

 

Misty pulls herself up. “I-- I-- I just wanted to help. Take care of you. It was supposed to be my job.”

 

She’s shrinking back, her eyes darting around, looking for help. Lottie steps up in front of her so that she’s all she can see. “Don’t look at them, look at me.” There’s sounds all around Lottie, voices whispering in her head, yelling at her, telling her what to do, what to say. They want her to be angry, they want her to hurt the person who hurt her. 

 

She strains to hold back. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She tries to remember that.

 

“You let Jackie drink the tea,” Lottie continues, voice dropping lower, “knowing she’d get sick. Why?”

 

Misty looks truly scared for the first time in a while. “Because-- because she-- it’s not fair!” she suddenly bursts. “She doesn’t do anything to help for months and yet, everyone just lets her off the hook! She never did anything to help and people still liked her! And then me, I did everything to help! I did everything to help you, Lottie, and you still-- you picked her! Everyone picked her!” 

 

“Wait a fucking minute, you poisoned Lottie’s tea because you wanted to fucking take care of her?” Now it’s Jackie’s turn to be mad because, Jesus Christ, what is wrong with this girl? What is so wrong inside Misty’s head that she thinks the best way to take care of someone is to cause the damage herself, first. Hadn’t she done this with Coach? And then she nearly killed Lottie from beating her up. 

 

Jackie doesn’t actually care if Misty’s upset with her. It stings a little, but she’s not wrong. Jackie didn’t do anything for months. She’s been useless from the moment they crashed, and then she spent so long trying to die that she nearly dragged Lottie down with her. She’d be angry with herself, too. She is angry with herself, and more than a little afraid that all of them feel like this. But she’s focused on the fact that Misty poisoned Lottie on purpose right now. 

 

Thankfully, she’s not the only one. “Poisoned?” Nat asks, having joined them just in time to hear Jackie’s remark. “What the fuck is going on right now?”

 

“It was my job!” Misty yells back at Jackie. “And-- and you were taking it! You just get everything! It’s not fair!” 

 

“Nothing out here is fair!” Lottie snaps back and she’s never been this angry before, she doesn’t think. She tries not to let herself get angry, because this is what she becomes. She feels like she can’t breathe in deep enough, and her heart is pounding and her blood is rushing in her ears. 

 

Nat is moving towards them because she can see what’s happening. “Okay, okay, look, let’s all just take a step--”

 

“Stay out of it, Nat.” Lottie whirls on her, dangerously close, haunches raised. 

 

“You’ve only had to take care of her because you almost killed her! Jesus, Misty, she was pissing fucking blood because you’re what? Jealous I held her fucking hand?” Jackie can’t help but feel angry, too. She’d normally try to smooth the situation over. She’d be desperate to because, despite the way Misty sets her teeth on edge and forces out some animal type of fear that is always prickling at the back of her neck, they still need her. Why can’t she see that, just because Jackie comforts Lottie when her head hurts, doesn’t mean that the rest of the group doesn’t fucking need her? 

 

Jackie tries to calm down, just a little. “No,” she says, grabbing Lottie’s arm. “No, Nat’s right.” Fuck. This is a fucking nightmare. She’s never seen Lottie this mad, she doesn’t think. She didn’t think she could get this mad. And Jackie’s mad, too. They’re both upset for the different fucking reasons. 

 

“We should’ve seen this coming. Coach, then all of us, now Lottie and Jackie? This is why no one lets you near the food, Misty,” Mari says, glaring balefully from the firepit, leaning over the stew pot as if to protect it.

 

Nat takes a deep breath. She looks pissed, too, though. “Again, let’s take a step back. Deal with this like fucking adults.”

 

There’s a hand on her arm and Lottie feels her hackles raise. The only other times she’s been angry, bad things have happened. People would grab at her, hold her down, jab her with needles. Calm down, Charlotte! Please. 

 

All the alarm bells in her head are going off. When her eyes turn to the hand on her arm, she doesn’t see Jackie. She sees a woman in scrubs, she’s holding a needle in her hand. Charlotte, don’t make me do this.

 

She’s wrenching her arm away, she’s lashing out, shoving at the woman. At Jackie. She stumbles backwards, chest heaving. 

 

“Lottie!” 

 

Nat’s voice echoes from her left. Lottie’s eyes snap to her, to Misty, to Jackie. “I--” she hadn’t meant to. Everyone is looking at her. She can feel their eyes on her. It makes her skin itch and she shudders. 

 

She doesn’t say anything else, just turns and stumbles off, away from the village, from the others, from the prying eyes. The voices follow her, the shadows. 

 

You’re scaring people, Lottie. This is why I can’t take you anywhere. 

 

She grabs her head. “Shut up,” she mutters, “stop it.” She needs to stop it. She can’t make it stop. She pushes through the trees and brush and tries to disappear.

 

Being a little unbalanced isn’t really doing Jackie a lot of favors in situations like this, but she thinks she handles it like a fucking champ, immediately scrambling back to her feet, barely taking the time to process that she’d been pushed over. 

 

“No, Lottie, stop!” Nat calls. 

 

“I’ve got her,” Jackie says. Nat still has a Misty Quigley situation to deal with, and Jackie has no problem laying out the whole thing. “The tea Misty gave Lottie for her headache made her sick. I know because I finished the rest of it yesterday, and I was sick. It’s not our food, at least. Maybe we shouldn’t trust her around, like, edible or drinkable shit.”

 

She doesn’t care about the rest of it. Jackie’s already breaking away from the rest of the group, chasing after Lottie. 

 

Christ, Lottie, stop it! Lottie is shaking, her feet are stumbling through the woods, still bare. She steps on branches and leaves and mud, she isn’t worried about not leaving a trail. Her heart is pounding, the shadows reach towards her. 

 

“Shut up, shut up,” she whispers to them, “please just leave me alone.” She doesn’t want this to happen. This always happens. She’s going to mess everything up, like she always does. 

 

Dammit, Lottie, why can’t you just be normal?

 

She doesn’t know why. She wished she knew why.

 

Finally, Lottie stops. She presses her back to a tree, trying to catch her breath. Her body trembles and she tries not to think about what Jackie looked like on the ground. She puts her hands over her ears and tries to calm her breathing. Tries to shut out the voices still whispering through her palms.

 

It doesn’t take Jackie too long to catch up to Lottie, breathing heavy as she watches Lottie press her back to the tree and try to calm down. It’s more from panic than physical exertion. Jackie doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to help Lottie without possibly setting her off again. She’s not a doctor, and the closest thing they’ve got to one of those likes to poison people, particularly Lottie, so she’s not exactly the best to help out in this scenario. 

 

So Jackie just approaches carefully. “Lottie,” she says. “Lottie. It’s okay. It’s okay.” It’s not, but she still tries to keep her voice gentle, soothing. She wants so desperately to be soothing. 

 

She doesn’t know how much Lottie hears or even cares to hear, so Jackie just moves to sit down in the leaves in front of Lottie’s tree. She doesn’t reach out for her again. That was a mistake. She’d remember. She’d do better. “It’s okay, Lottie.”

 

“I told you she was dangerous.” Shauna doesn’t bother sitting beside Jackie, choosing to stay standing. Jackie can’t even feel the shadow she casts, but it’s almost like she’s there. “I told you, and you chase after her anyway. I never pegged you for stupid on top of everything else, Jackie.” Maybe this is the real Shauna. She’s so mean. 

 

Jackie keeps sitting, keeps talking to Lottie, keeps hoping that she might hear.

 

It takes Lottie a long time to register that one of the voices among them all is actually real, actually there. She knows because it’s kind, because it’s dulled against the barrier of her hands. Her eyes open and she looks around and she sees Jackie and she feels her face crumbling. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she croaks, legs curling up to her chest. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” She hadn’t meant to.

 

But this was who Lottie was. She inevitably destroyed everything good in her life. Things like this weren’t hers to keep.

 

If anyone finds out, they’ll hate you. She doesn’t remember who said it to her-- her dad, her mom, herself-- but it doesn’t matter. She thinks it’s true. Voices whisper back to her and tell her it is. She shakes her head.

 

“Stop it,” she mumbles, “stop it. Stop it.” 

 

“I know you didn’t mean to,” Jackie says, moving closer. “I know. It’s okay.” 

 

Lottie shakes her head furiously. “It’s not, it’s not.” How could it be? She was dangerous and scary and she should’ve just done what she always did and stayed away from everyone. She should’ve kept her distance, even though her heart yearned to be held, to be known, to be understood.

 

“I…hurt you.”

 

“You pushed me,” Jackie says. “It didn’t even hurt. I’ve dealt with worse.” Everyone who’s ever claimed to care for her or love her has hurt her. Every single one. Every one of them countless times. At least with Lottie, it hadn’t been intentional. 

 

Shauna hums in her ear. “I think you like it.” 

 

Jackie moves closer. “You didn’t mean to, Lottie.”

 

Lottie shrinks away as Jackie moves closer. “Does it matter?” she asks, her voice breaking. 

 

“Yes, it does.” Jackie stops, trying not to look too heartbroken, trying to keep from squirming out of her skin to get closer. “You didn’t hurt me. And I know you’d never do it on purpose.”

 

“But I still hurt people,” Lottie whimpers. “And I can’t help it. I can’t make it stop.” She’s never been able to make it stop. That’s why they had to put her in the hospital, that’s why the doctors had to strap her down, that’s why they had to use sedatives just to get her to calm down. 

 

“This is who I am, isn’t it?” She wraps her arms tight around her knees. “I said I didn’t know, but I do. I’m this.” It was why she stayed away from people, why she never let anyone get close. Everyone had been right about her. She was weird, crazy Lottie. She was dangerous and she hurt people. She should just be locked up.

 

She didn’t want to get locked up. “I don’t want to be like this.”

 

“Everybody hurts people, Lottie. That’s something you do, not who you are.” Jackie starts inching forward again, slowly, taking her time to arrive next to Lottie. “This is not who you are. It’s something you did. But, well, you’re so many other things, too. You’re stubborn, and you’re so sweet, and you’re a little silly at times. You’re quiet but you’ve got a sharp sense of humor. You’re really smart, even if you suck at French.”

 

Jackie gives plenty of time for Lottie to pull away if she wants to as she reaches out, moving to wrap her arms around her shoulders. “I know it’s not okay right now, but it can be. It will be.”

 

Lottie doesn't notice Jackie moving closer until she's already wrapping her arms around her and she stiffens but she doesn't pull away. She doesn't want to pull away. “I didn't wanna hurt anyone,” she whispers. She's not crying, but her eyes are wide. She's scared. “Is…is Misty okay?”

 

With a sigh of relief that Lottie lets her stay, Jackie holds her a little tighter, pulling Lottie into her. “I know you didn’t.” Sometimes, people just hurt other people. This isn’t one of Lottie’s defining personality traits. This isn’t something that she seems to particularly enjoy. In fact, it looks like it’s eating her alive. Jackie shrugs. “I’m sure she is. I didn’t stick around to ask. She poisoned you. On purpose. I don’t really care about her right now.”

 

You have to actually care about people, Lottie. She did, she did. She really, really did. Maybe that was why it all hurt so much more. It’d be so much easier if she didn’t. Are you listening to me, Lottie? 

 

Lottie lets out a slow, shuddering breath. She leans into Jackie. She doesn’t think she deserves to, but she does it anyway. “I care.” She reminds herself.

 

“I know you do,” Jackie says, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s hair. “You care a lot. You care so much.” More than Jackie can bring herself to care about Misty Quigley of all people.

 

“She always rubbed me the wrong way,” Shauna murmurs. “Too close to everything, always in people’s business. You were always too nice, and now it’s bit you in the ass. You never liked her, either. This is what you get for being fake, Jax.”

 

“You care so much,” Jackie repeats. “You care more than most people would.” God, she’s sitting here asking about the girl, completely ignoring the fact that Misty fucking poisoned her. She’s hurting herself over how much she cares. It looks like it’s ripping her apart. 

 

“I didn’t mean to,” Lottie repeats. She feels a little lost. She knows she’s spiraling, it always happens like this. She’s falling into a repetition, a vicious circle. 

 

Lottie, jesus, go to your room. I’ll fix this.

 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” She tries to take in a deep breath. It hurts. The pain makes her head feel fuzzy. She buries her face in Jackie’s neck. “It hurts.” 

 

“I know you didn’t. You don’t have to apologize to me for anything.” Maybe to Nat, for snapping. Not to Misty because Jackie doesn’t think she deserves it, even if she’s sure that Lottie probably will. Maybe to the others for scaring them, but Jackie doesn’t even know what to say. She doesn’t want them to be weird with Lottie after this.

 

She wishes there was more she could do to help. Jackie hates not knowing what to do. It’s why she’s sucked for so long out here. All she knows that she can do is hold Lottie close and make her feel like she matters. Jackie hopes she makes her feel like she matters. “You didn’t mean to. This isn’t who you are. It’s just a thing that you did.”

 

Lottie nods. She didn’t mean to. She was trying to remember that. It’s hard when she feels like she’s swimming through her own head, a black tar pit in her own mind. She breathes in deep. She tries to let herself feel Jackie’s arms around her, leans into the weight of it. She’s a terrifying person. She hurts people. 

 

You’re scaring people, Lottie. 

 

She shakes her head. “I didn’t mean to.” She doesn’t want to scare anyone. Hurt anyone. Be this way. “I can’t make it stop.”

 

Jackie thinks that Lottie might be spiraling. She knows she is. “Tell me,” she starts, trying to remember where to go with this. “Tell me some things that you can see, some things that you can hear, some things that you can smell, some things that you can touch.”

 

Lottie draws in a breath. What can she see? “I see…” her voice warbles. “A broken branch. Grass.” What does she hear? “I h-hear…your heartbeat. Birds.” She listens to them sing, to the sound of the breeze through the leaves. Her body relaxes a little. What can she smell? “I-- I smell…your skin. The soil.” Another deep breath in. Her heart feels like it’s pounding. She unravels her arms from around her legs. Her fingertips dig into the cool mud beneath her. And then she brings them up to Jackie’s arm, to her neck. “I feel you.”

 

“Good,” Jackie murmurs. “That’s– That’s good.” She takes Lottie’s fingers and presses them against her pulse. “I’m here, promise. Not going anywhere.” 

 

She feels Jackie’s pulse. It thumps under her fingertips. One-two, one-two. She closes her hand around Jackie’s throat but doesn’t squeeze. She just wants to feel it. She drops her hand. “I’m scared,” Lottie whispers.

 

Jackie lets her eyes slip closed. “I am, too,” she admits. “But not of you.”

 

Lottie wraps her arms around Jackie. Slowly, carefully. She’s worried she'll hurt her again. She’s so afraid she’s going to hurt her again. “You should be.”

 

“Never.” In her dreams, Shauna cuts off pieces of Jackie’s flesh and eats it, and Jackie lets her. In her dreams, Jackie watches as Lottie holds the knife. She’d let her take her heart out and look at the place with her name on it. She’s not afraid of dangerous girls. Not specific ones, at least. Not in any way that matters. She might be afraid for Lottie; what she’s going through seems impossible, and Jackie doesn’t want to lose her. But that’s it. There’s nothing to fear from someone you’d gladly let hold your heart. 

 

“You were, though,” Lottie reminds her, voice trembling along with her limbs, “back then. When I…” had gone fucking off crazy, high on mushrooms and compelled by the anger and hurt that had filled her. Like right now. The same anger and hurt that made her see red, made her push Misty, made her push Jackie, too. “I don't know why it happens. I can't control it.” It bursts from her seams like she's something fragile, like the world hasn't already beat her down and made her into something small. She tries not to take up too much room, but she always feels too big in the spaces she exists. 

 

“I'm afraid I'm going to…lose myself.” Has she not already? “For good.” At least when she'd been hearing the wilderness, she had something that gave her a focus, something that gave her purpose. Now, she had neither, and she could already feel herself falling apart. 

 

Jackie sighs softly, brushing her fingers through Lottie’s hair. “I was scared of a lot of things. I’d just had sex for the first time with a guy that didn’t believe we were all here, and then everyone was going fucking nuts off of literal magic mushrooms, and no one listened to me anymore. And I was starving myself, so. Which is always super fun but doesn’t really help with already shitty head spaces or whatever. It wasn’t just you,” she says quietly. “And that was… that was before you brought me in from the cold. It’s different now.”

 

Lottie remembers the night in bits and pieces. She remembers the look on Jackie's face, the sound of her voice begging Lottie to stop. The feeling of how easily she'd tossed Jackie aside, locked her in the pantry. 

 

She remembers looking at Travis like he was nothing more than meat. She remembers egging Shauna on. Remembers how she kept thinking it all felt so unfair. She remembers missing Laura Lee but not knowing how to tell anyone. 

 

“Would you be? Afraid of me, if I didn't?” 

 

“No.” It’s a simple answer, one that is based around a simple, immovable truth that Jackie knows in her bones: if Lottie hadn’t saved her, Jackie would be dead. So, no. She would not be afraid. There would be nothing to fear, anymore. 

 

Her lips press into Lottie’s hair again. “You’re not going to lose yourself. I’m not going to let you.”

 

Lottie thinks that maybe the others are afraid of her now, if they weren’t before. She knows they are. Natalie is. She doesn’t want to hurt any of them. She would never want to do that. Not on purpose. She wants them to understand that, but she’s so afraid to tell them what’s wrong with her. She’s so fucking afraid.

 

“How?” she asks. Because she doesn’t know how to stop it, she’s never known how.

 

“How?” Shauna repeats, whispering the word in Jackie’s ear. “You couldn’t even save me. How are you going to keep crazy Lottie Matthews from going crazier?”

 

Jackie murmurs. “I’ll let you know when I figure that out.” She’s always been good at making people smile, but that’s not enough anymore. She doesn’t know what will be enough.

 

“Give in, Jackie.” Shauna’s voice is so sweet, and she puts herself in front of Jackie’s face, forcing her to look. “This place wants you. It loves her. It could love you, too. Just give in. Just a little bit. It might help her. It might bring her back to herself.”

 

But Jackie doesn’t trust this place, not like she trusts Lottie, even now, even when she knows Lottie doesn’t trust herself. She’s never shed blood with this place in mind, only Lottie, only helping Lottie. Did it work before when Lottie was sick? Would it work again now?

 

If anyone could figure it out at this point, Lottie thinks it would be Jackie. She trusts her implicitly. Her and Nat are the only two. But Nat doesn’t know what’s actually wrong with Lottie, she’s never told her. She’s always let her fear win. 

 

Lottie lays her head on Jackie’s shoulder. “I don’t want to leave you.” 

 

Shauna leans forward, and Jackie feels cool lips on her cheek before she’s gone. “Give It what It wants.”

 

Jackie holds Lottie a little bit tighter. “I won’t let you. You’re stuck with me, remember?”

 

Lottie curls her arms around herself. “If it gets too bad…” like it has before, like it can now, “please leave.”

 

“No.” It’s immediate, and it leaves no room for argument. 

 

Lottie sits up, it hurts. Her eyes are pleading. “Jackie…” She doesn’t know how to explain it. “I-- I won’t be me.”

 

Gritting her teeth, Jackie shakes her head. “You’re wrong. And you can’t make me.”

 

“You don’t-- you don’t understand,” Lottie pleads, “how bad it can get.” Bad enough for doctors to strap her to a bed. Bad enough for them to pump her full of sedatives. Bad enough for them to tell her parents she’s Going to need a lot of work. 

 

Work they didn’t want to put in. Instead, they just shoved more pills down her throat. And she took them, because she was afraid. So fucking afraid. 

 

“I’d never-- I’d never forgive myself if I hurt you…while I was…” Gone.

 

“What am I supposed to do?” Jackie asks, her voice tight. “Let you handle it alone? Let you fucking-- sleep outside before it snows? No. Fuck that. You can’t make me. You won’t hurt me.” And she wouldn’t care if Lottie did, regardless.

 

“No, I--” Lottie doesn’t actually know. She’s never had to deal with something like this before. She has no fucking idea and that scares her, too. She can feel her heart rate picking up again, arms shaking. “I can’t just-- Jackie I--” She doesn’t know what to say. 

 

She doesn’t want to be just another person who hurts her, purposefully or not. She wants to protect Jackie. She wants to show her she can be cared for. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I ever-- if I-- fuck!” Lottie grabs her head. She doesn’t know what to say, she can’t find her words again. They’re disappearing in her head as the voices grow louder and the shadows grow longer and she can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. 

 

“I’m so afraid of myself, Jackie,” she sobs, though her eyes stay dry. Her voice is thick in her throat. “I’m so afraid I’m going to turn into that version of me again.” The one who was going to kill a boy, the one who didn’t care how anyone else felt, the one who was consumed with rage and hurt. 

 

“I’m not going to leave you alone with this.” Jackie moves until she’s leaning over Lottie, forcing her to look. How can someone that’s so afraid of themselves really be dangerous? Jackie can’t help but wonder. Maybe she’s just an idiot. Maybe she’s been out here too long. She thinks a part of her would still find Lottie scary if she didn’t need her so much. She thinks she’d still find her scary if she was a little bit smarter. 

 

Jackie reaches out for Lottie’s arm again, slow and careful. “I feel like you’re never going to get back to that version of you. Unless someone dies and you’re starving and the only thing you’ve consumed is fucking rancid berry wine and fucking magic mushrooms. And that’s a really hard combo to get back to.”

 

“I’ve been alone all my life.” Lottie isn’t sure she actually says the words out loud, but she does. She has been. And maybe she hasn't been fine, but she’s survived this long, right? She’s gotten this far by herself. 

 

Lottie doesn’t want to be alone anymore, but the thought scares her just as much. She’s never gotten close to anyone, not like this. “I-- I’ve never had-- anything like this.” She feels the hand on her arm, she lets it stay, puts her own over it. “I don’t know what’ll happen if…” Her hand tightens over Jackie’s. “I don’t let people know me because of what I am. It scares me. To be known.”

 

It’s scary to be known by someone. It’s scary to be seen. Jackie’s known that her entire life. She’s only let one person know her, and, even then, she still kept pieces of herself hidden away, hoping that the bright, shiny ones that she put on display could be worth enough to counteract everything that she was told was broken and wrong. And it’s been nothing like this.

 

Lottie’s been so alone. That’s not her fault. It’s not her fault that she’s so afraid. Jackie wishes she knew how to help her. “Being… sick isn’t everything about you, Lott. It’s not even a fraction of it. “It’s not what or even who you are.” She takes Lottie’s hand and brings it to her lips.

 

“I wish I could help you more,” she admits. “And I know it scares you, but I like knowing you. I like being known by you.” She puts Lottie’s hand over her heart. “Tell me again. Something you can see, hear, smell, touch.”

 

Lottie splays her fingers out on Jackie’s chest, feels her heart beating strong under her palm. She closes her eyes, takes in a deep breath. She’s trying really hard to come back to herself. “I feel your shirt,” she says, “the cold grass on my feet.” A shuddering breath in. “I hear the wind in the trees.” The voices in her head. She fights them back, lets the wind chase them away. “I smell the dew, from the rain yesterday.” She opens her eyes, slow, cautious. “I…I see you, Jackie Taylor.” Her fingers curl against Jackie’s chest. “I see you.”

 

It’s terrifying, to be seen. And Lottie has always been a coward. But she wants to be brave. She has someone to try for, now. “I…I think I love you, Jackie.”

 

Lottie’s said the words before, telling her that Shauna loved her and she did, too, but Jackie thinks there’s a new, special kind of hurt to them now. It’s all she wants, right? God, she’s so desperate to be loved that she’s pathetic with it. It’s a dream to hear those words. And she wants to return them, wants them to feel like more than something choking her throat. 

 

Instead, she cries, quiet, tears slipping down her cheeks slowly. She presses Lottie’s hand into her chest. “I–” God, they choke her. She can’t understand why they choke her. Can she only admit it to dead girls? Why is a four letter word scarier than anything that’s happened out here? 

 

“Girls don’t tell each other ‘I love you’ like that, Jackie. Really, it’s embarrassing. And what if someone overheard? They’d think you’re some kind of queer. Stop it.” Jackie wishes she could just forget about her mom. It’d be a kindness for both of them. 

 

“Thank you for seeing me, Lottie Matthews,” Jackie whispers. “I see you, too, and I need you, and I want you, and I–I–-” Deep breath, hold, release. She grips Lottie’s hand a little bit tighter. “I love you, too.” 

 

Lottie reaches up a trembling hand to wipe away one of Jackie’s tears. It’s painful to watch the war going on behind Jackie’s eyes, and Lottie knows exactly how it feels to argue with something or someone inside your own head. She knows and she’ll never forget.

 

Her hand clenches and unclenches on Jackie’s chest, under her palm. “You don’t have to say them back,” she tries to tell her. She just wants Jackie to know. In case she doesn’t get another chance. 

 

She feels Jackie’s own hand tighten around hers. Lottie finally feels the hot sting of tears in her eyes. She doesn’t blink them away.

 

“It’s-- It’s not going to be easy. Me, I’m-- it’s not easy.” 

 

It’s not easy, Lottie. I’m trying here. But I don’t understand.

 

Lottie swallows something thick in her throat. “This was-- it can get worse. And I just need you-- I needed you to know that. In case I…don’t come back.”

 

“I wanted to say them back,” Jackie says, even if they’d felt like glass. She’d meant them so much they hurt. “And I’ll keep telling you, however many times that you need to hear, that I don’t care.” Jackie always hated when things got hard. She doesn’t think she cares anymore when it comes to this. “This was a bad day. Part of it, at least. Some of it was really nice. But– But you’re allowed to have bad days. You can come back from a bad day.” She wishes that she could get it through Lottie’s thick head that she wasn’t just the bad days but the good ones, too, and all the little days that fell in between.

 

“Okay.” Lottie gives a stilted nod. “Okay.” She wanted to say them. Lottie had wanted to say them, too. So badly. They grated in her chest and barely made it out. She doesn’t know, really, what it’s supposed to feel like. Love. Is it ordering her favorite chinese food after her dad yelled at her, then apologized? Is it in the words ‘I’m trying here’ when she knows they’re lies? Is it a mother petting her face and telling her she’s special and then leaving her alone all day, all night? Is it making out behind some senior kid’s house while drunk and high? 

 

She didn’t know. She thinks it might be this feeling, the one that makes her feel warm and soft, like she’s wrapped up in freshly dried sheets, or laying in the sun. It feels like arms wrapped around her, and the smell of dirt and grass, and sweat and sex. It’s the plush feel of lips on her own, hands on her skin. She thinks that ache in her heart might be love.

 

She thinks maybe it can be enough to save her. “I want you to stay with me,” she admits, “even on-- on the bad days. Even if I’m-- hurting.” She moves her body forward, lays against Jackie’s chest. “I’m scared but I-- I want you to stay.”

 

“I want to stay for the good days and the bad days and every other day in the year,” Jackie says. She moves them, moving so that she can sit with her back against the tree and Lottie in her arms, bracketed by her knees. 

 

“Can I come over?”

 

“Jackie, I’m sick.”

 

“Maybe I want to take care of you, Shipman. Even if you’re all gross and sniffly.”

 

“Fine, but if you get sick, your mom’s going to get mad.”

 

“Then I guess you’ll just have to not get me sick.” She still got sick. Jackie didn’t care.

 

Quietly, Jackie asks, “Are you going to stop trying to make me go away, now?”

 

Leaning into Jackie’s embrace, Lottie presses her ear to her chest. Listens to her heartbeat. Feels the way her chest vibrates when she talks. She closes her eyes. Nods. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’ll stop.”

 

“Don’t apologize,” Jackie mumbles, holding Lottie close and feeling like she’s gone through the entire range of human emotions before breakfast. “Just don’t do it anymore.”

 

All she can do is nod again. “I--” she swallows, “I promise I’ll try to be better.” She wants to say she won’t do it at all, but sometimes Lottie can’t control herself. That’s when it gets the most terrifying. But she can promise to try. She wants to try, she wants to be better for Jackie. “I want to be good for you.”

 

“You don’t have to try,” Jackie says quietly. 

 

Lottie is silent. She thinks she does have to try. She wants to try. She wants to be better. She wants to be a real person. 

 

“You changed everything for me,” she whispers.

 

Jackie doesn’t think that she needs to return the sentiment. She doesn’t think that she needs to choke out the truth of it again and again: she wouldn’t be there without Lottie. She wouldn’t. She can’t think of another reality. To lose Shauna and not have Lottie there would have been the end. Her arms wrap around Lottie’s waist loosely, and she tilts her head back against the tree.

 

They lay there for a long while, Lottie curled in Jackie’s arms with her ear to her chest, before she finally feels calm enough to stop seeing shapes in the shadows and hearing voices in each heartbeat. 

 

“I’m sorry I’m like this,” she manages to mumble, shifting just enough to look up at Jackie. She looks tired and deflated and it’s Lottie’s fault. Sometimes she wishes she could just be who Jackie needs, instead of this version of herself that can’t even be someone real.

 

“Don’t apologize,” Jackie tells her quietly. She looks at Lottie and offers a tired smile. “I want all the parts of you.”

 

Lottie doesn’t. In fact, she’d do anything in the world to get rid of this part of her. But she can’t do that and she is this way, and Jackie still wants her. After everything. After all the shit Lottie has put her through. 

 

She leans forward slowly, presses a tender kiss to Jackie’s lips. “I want all of you, too.”

 

Jackie thinks she’s a pretty open book. You just have to ask, and she’ll give you the chapters. Of course, there’s a few things she doesn’t talk about, that she doesn’t know how to talk about, that she doesn’t think are really issues but other people might so she doesn’t bring them up. 

 

And some things about her aren’t even hers, she doesn’t think. She hasn’t been her own person since she was six and met Shauna Shipman on the playground. 

 

“All of me that’s left is yours,” Jackie says, her smile wistful against Lottie’s lips. “I’m down an ear, and I don’t know what they did with it, unfortunately. Hopefully it got thrown out.”

 

Lottie reaches up and draws her fingers up Jackie’s cheek, to the side of her head. She places her palm against where her ear had been. “I’ll take whatever you want to give me.” As much as Lottie wants all of Jackie, she knows she has to share. She will always have to. 

 

Right now, it doesn’t hurt so much to think about. Right now, she’s just grateful that Jackie still wants her, too. Even after seeing her close to her worst. 

 

Anyone else, and Jackie would flinch away, but instead she leans into the touch. She means it. She wants Lottie to have what’s left of her. All she’s ever wanted is to give herself to someone. “Everything that’s left.”

 

Lottie would take it. She’d take anything. She just wanted to be loved and love in return. She just wanted to know that she was capable of it, of being a real person. Of being a person worthy of love. 

 

“I’ve never… let anyone close,” she says quietly, as if the admission might break something open in her forever. She didn’t talk about herself or her family life, not in deeper ways that could connect her to someone. Lottie existed on the surface only, but she’d craved attention all her life. Being deprived of it had left her wanting and aching so badly. “I was convinced if anyone knew about me, it would scare them off.”

 

“I’ve only ever liked you, the more I get to know about you,” Jackie says. Maybe it would have been different out there, but maybe not. Jackie’s always thought of Lottie as her friend. She’s always cared about her. She’s always thought it would be nice to know her more, but Lottie just seemed distant. Shy. Still sweet and funny, and she had a biting wit, but she was still so distant.

 

Now that Jackie has her, she only wants to know more. Even the bad things. Even the scary things. She wants to see them and care anyway, and know that, if there were scary things about her, then Lottie would feel the same.

 

And Lottie had always wanted to get closer to people, especially once she’d joined the team and watched all the others growing closer as high school went on. They became friends, became more than friends, they knew the ins and outs of each other. And Lottie had always stayed on the outside. Always given just enough to satisfy anyone’s curiosity but not reveal anything too deep.

 

“I spent a lot of time in hospitals,” she says, her gaze falling. “Do you remember…sophomore year, when I was gone for a few months?” She picked at a string on Jackie’s shirt. “My mom told everyone I went to live with my dad for a while, but that was a lie. I’d had a, uh-- they call them psychotic breaks. Like, crazy shit. They sent me to the psych ward. When I got out, my mom told me to never tell anyone where I was. She told me it was what was best for me, but now I think maybe…maybe it was just for her. For my dad.” She lowers herself back down, curling up against Jackie. “They hated my illness. It-- it made me hate it, too.”

 

Jackie can’t really stop the overwhelming sadness that she fears, and she brushes her fingers through Lottie’s hair with as much tenderness and care as she’s able. She wonders if it was for the best that Lottie didn’t tell anyone. She can only imagine what someone like her mom or any of those other awful women at the country club would say. It would have been cruel. It seems like Lottie got enough cruelty. “I’m so sorry you went through that alone,” she whispers. “You didn’t deserve that. And I… know that it probably sucks, your illness. But it’s also not something you chose to have. You didn’t wake up one day and ask to hear shit, did you? So it’s not really your fault. It’s a part of you, but it’s not you. It’s not everything that is Lottie Matthews.”

 

Lottie listens to the sound of Jackie’s voice as it echoes in her chest. Their words that she’s always wanted to hear, that she isn’t just her illness, that she didn't’ deserve the things that had happened to her. That it wasn’t her fault. 

 

“They always blamed me,” she tells her, “and I believed them.” She curls her fingers into Jackie’s shirt. “I think it broke something in me.”

 

“Your parents really suck, Lottie,” Jackie says, holding Lottie closer.

 

“I just…I don’t think they knew how to love someone like me.” For the longest time, Lottie didn’t know either. “They just wanted a normal daughter.” She can’t really blame them for that. And as angry as she felt, as hurt as she was, she still loved them. It was hard not to.

 

Maybe Jackie understands that a little too well. “Your mom gets wine drunk on weekdays and your dad has enough money to charter private planes for high school soccer teams. What do they know about normal, anyway?”

 

Lottie can only shrug. “What does anybody know about it?” She draws circles on Jackie’s shirt with her finger. “I still love them.” Neither of her parents were present in her life before and she wondered what they were doing now, with Lottie gone. Had they mourned her or had they celebrated? Breathed sighs of relief that they were free of her? She wouldn’t blame them, if they did. “Is that bad?”

 

“No, I don’t think so,” Jackie says. She still loves her parents, even if they make her feel so small. They’ve never sent her away, but she always wondered what might have happened if she had been a little more open about liking girls, if she hadn’t fallen into line, if she hadn’t tried so hard to be perfect. “They’re still your parents.”

 

“I think I hate them, too.” These words are quieter, whispered on a breath. All she’d ever wanted was for them to love her, but now they haunted her here, in the moments when she couldn’t stop her mind from spiraling, and in the moments where she tried to remember that she was a person.

 

Sometimes, there really isn’t much of a difference. “I think that’s okay, too,” Jackie tells her. “I love my parents, and I hate them, and I miss them, and I’m glad they’re not here. I know it’s not… quite the same, but I get it.”

 

“I'm sorry,” Lottie murmurs. They really do understand things about each other that Lottie doesn't think anyone else really get. She sits up enough again to look into Jackie's eyes. 

 

“Thank you,” she says, “for showing me I don't have to be alone, even when I'm…not me.”

 

“You didn’t make my mom like that, Lott,” Jackie says, offering Lottie a smile. She puts her hand on Lottie’s cheek and leans in, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. One day, she hoped, Lottie wouldn’t separate herself into “me” and “not me.” Selfishly, though, maybe Jackie still hoped she needed her in some way.

 

Lottie kisses her back, sinking against Jackie, hands resting on her chest. She feels a little foolish, embarrassed that she'd let herself become such a mess in front of her, but at the same time, she's glad Jackie saw and still wanted. She's happy Jackie still wants to be by her side. 

 

“I'm glad I have you,” she whispers against her lips. 

 

Jackie brushes a hand through Lottie’s hair. “You’re stuck with me.”

 

“So you keep reminding me.” And one day, Lottie hopes she'll truly believe her. She does believe her, but that little voice of doubt is still with her. She's working on it. 

 

Leaning in for another kiss, Lottie lingers. “You're stuck with me, too, if you want that.” 

 

“Please,” Jackie whispers. That’s all she wants. Someone to be with her always. Someone who wants to be. “Please.”

 

Lottie nods. “Then I’m yours,” she tells her, “forever.” Or whatever something like that might look out here. Truthfully, even if Jackie didn’t want her, she would still be hers. She had been for a while now and would be for the rest of her days. 

 

It really sounds too good to be true, but Jackie just smiles. “How romantic. My girlfriend is so romantic.”

 

The word girlfriend still makes Lottie feel giddy, even if she was still in the middle of a breakdown. “I try.” She grins back at her, leaning in for another dulcet kiss. “We can go back now,” she mumbles into her lips, “if you want.”

 

“We probably should,” Jackie says, trying not to sigh. They definitely should, actually, but Jackie doesn’t want to go back and deal with all that. She hopes that Nat has handled Misty. She doesn’t even know what that would look like, though. How many slaps on the wrists can you give a person by saying, hey, maybe don’t poison people, before it either sinks in or you find something new?

 

Lottie lets out a long sigh. She’s suddenly nervous. She knows she’s scared some of the others back at camp and she doesn’t want to face them. She’s afraid of their reactions. She lays her head back on Jackie for a moment. “Is-- are they upset? With me?”

 

“I don’t… think they’re upset,” Jackie starts slowly. “Maybe just… worried. You don’t get angry a lot. It’s usually for a good reason.”

 

Lottie presses her face into Jackie. “I don’t like being angry.” Mostly because things like that happened. 

 

“You’re really terrible at it, too,” Jackie muses. “I don’t think you can hang onto it too long. You don’t have very convincing angry eyebrows.”

 

“I don’t like how it feels,” Lottie mumbles. She wraps her arms around Jackie’s waist and holds on tightly. “What’s wrong with my eyebrows?”

 

Jackie doesn’t, either. It makes her feel sick. It makes it hard (harder) for her to eat. “Nothing’s wrong with your eyebrows, they’re just not angry. Pouty, maybe. They match your pouty lips.”

 

“I--” Lottie sits up, frowning-- “my lips are not pouty.” 

 

“You’re pouting right now,” Jackie teases. She presses forward, giving Lottie’s frown a quick kiss. “It makes them very kissable. You’re very kissable. It’s cute.”

 

Lottie instantly softens, melting under Jackie’s touch and her words. “I guess that’s fine, then. As long as you think it’s cute.” She chases Jackie’s lips, moving close enough to kiss her again. “I’m glad you find them kissable.”

 

“So very kissable,” Jackie mumbles against Lottie’s lips, proving her point. They really need to get up and head back, but it’s pretty easy to get lost in such a sweet kiss. She doesn’t want to pull away. 

 

Lottie hums, not minding at all that Jackie isn’t pulling away despite saying they should probably get back. Maybe she just wanted to stay here for a little bit longer. She didn’t mind, and it wasn’t only because she was nervous to face everyone. This was nice. It felt nice, too. It made her feel less anxious and it helped with the spiraling thoughts in her head. Because when Jackie kissed her, her mind just stopped working, really. 

 

It was nice. She presses in a little more, arms still tight around Jackie’s middle, holding her there.

 

There’s something about kissing Lottie that Jackie just finds addicting. Maybe it’s because she’s only ever really enjoyed kissing one other person, and she’d had to be so controlled. Now, she can just kiss, and Lottie’s lips can wander if they want to, and Jackie’s can wander as well. And they can kiss for as long as they want, wherever they want. Maybe Jackie’s not going to shove her tongue down Lottie’s throat in front of the rest of the team, but she can kiss her without any consequences, and that’s really fucking nice.

 

Lottie finally pulls away when she needs to breathe, even if she doesn't want to. She stays close enough to feel Jackie's breath on her skin, warm and soothing. “We should…” they should but it doesn't seem like either of them want to. Lottie certainly doesn't. She kind of likes it right here, curled up in Jackie's arms, laying against her chest, Lottie's own body seeming to smother Jackie's smaller frame. She doesn't think Jackie minds. 

 

She hears a whisper in her head and instead of listening, she just kisses Jackie again, deep and needy, two things Lottie has rarely been.

 

Jackie sighs into Lottie’s mouth, relaxing against the tree as she feels bark digging into her back, and she doesn’t even care. She’s trying not to get too lost in the feeling of it. The only thing she can feel, though, is Lottie. “We should,” she agrees, not pulling her lips away. They should, if only so that someone doesn’t come looking for them. They should, if only so that they can see if there’s any leftover food since they both haven’t eaten in several hours. They should, if only so that Jackie’s newly discovered libido doesn’t have getting caught completely stripped down in the leaves.

 

Pulling away just so that their mouths aren’t quite touching, Jackie mumbles, “We really should.”

 

They really should, but instead Lottie is shifting enough to straddle Jackie, arms going around her neck pulling her in closer. They should but Lottie doesn't want to. She's afraid of what they'll think of her now, afraid of how they'll look at her. She remembers the way they'd all stared at her after the bear and it still makes her skin crawl. 

 

They should go back, but Lottie doesn't want to. She wants to kiss Jackie until the only sound in her head is their heavy panting and breathless moans. 

 

This isn’t what they should be doing at all, but Jackie can’t find it in herself to complain, especially as Lottie straddles her waist. Fuck. They really shouldn’t. “Lottie,” Jackie breathes, putting her hands on Lottie’s cheeks and tugging her closer. 

 

She finally gets why people in high school were so invested in fucking like rabbits all the time. Like, right now, they really shouldn’t. But the rest of the village wasn’t going anywhere, and Lottie pushing Misty and then storming off wasn’t nearly as odd as what had happened during the seance. She thinks people are going to be more worried about the actual fucking poisoner in their camp. She hopes. 

 

Jackie’s fingers reach under Lottie’s dress and go to the waistband of Lottie’s pants, playing with it. 

 

Lottie sighs against Jackie's mouth, capturing the sound of her own name on them. She kisses her harder, with more fervor and want, mouth opening, tongue begging for entrance. Hands on her face, then under her dress make her shiver and move into Jackie's touch. She doesn't care about going back anymore, she thinks this is much nicer. There's no one here to judge her, or call her crazy, or look at her in fear. With Jackie, she's just Lottie. 

 

Lips parting, Jackie lets Lottie in. She’s never wanted anything like this before. She’s never allowed herself. But it’s so easy, here, surrounded by wilderness, to just give in. To want and need and have. She moves her hand, slipping inside and moving through soft, wet heat, slow and tentative, still a little unsure. She doesn’t want to do too much too fast. She just wants to make Lottie feel good. 

 

It’s so easy to just fall into Jackie’s touch. Lottie lets her tongue slide inside Jackie’s mouth, hips rolling into her touch. She’d stay here forever if she could, just like this. She lets out a sigh against Jackie’s mouth, teeth scraping against her bottom lip. “Jackie,” she breathes. God, she’s never felt this good with someone else before. She wants to simply melt in Jackie’s hands. She slides her hands into her hair, fingers curling. 

 

Jackie hums against Lottie’s mouth, shivering as hands slide into her hair. She’s so intoxicated by the way her name sounds when Lottie says it like that, and she wants to hear it again. They really shouldn’t be doing this, but, hey. They’ve already started, and Jackie’s hand is already in Lottie’s pants, working to repeat the movements from two nights ago that she’d seemed to enjoy so much. 

 

Lottie isn’t normally loud. In fact, she rarely makes much noise at all, even when it does feel good. She was conditioned into being quiet about it, about everything, really. 

 

But here, now, in the middle of the wilderness, with Jackie’s hand down her pants, she doesn’t think she needs to be quiet. She doesn’t want to be. She moans into Jackie’s mouth, panting. Rolls her hips into her touch. “Jackie,” she sighs again, kissing down her jaw, to her neck, the crook of where it meets her shoulder. Licks her tongue along the skin there. “I want you.”

 

“I’m yours,” Jackie sighs, tilting her head to allow Lottie more room as she slips a finger inside soft, wet heat, in awe that she caused that, in awe that she gets to have it. That she wants it, too, a lot, actually. It’s not gross when it’s something like this. It’s lovely, like the noises that spill against her lips, or the way Lottie’s hips move against her.

 

Lottie wraps her lips around the skin of Jackie’s shoulder, sucking. Her hips buck into her touch and she lets go of her skin as another moan escapes her throat. Her arms wrap tighter around Jackie’s neck, pulling herself closer against her, moving into her touch needily. She feels greedy with her want, drunk with it, but she wants and she wants and she needs. Jackie’s name falls from her lips with heavy breaths, slurred and loopy. 

 

Jackie looks up at Lottie, her pupils dilating, her lips parted. She picks up a rhythm, moving with Lottie’s hips as they roll. She loves the way Lottie says her name. Is this what Lottie was talking about? How making other people feel good makes her feel good? Because this is pretty great. This is pretty amazing. It’s her turn to lean in and press kisses to Lottie’s neck, scraping it with her teeth, tasting it with her tongue. She gets to have this. She gets to keep it. It makes her feel giddy.

 

Lottie lets out another moan. Teeth on her skin make her shudder. It’s kind of incredible how quickly she can lose herself when Jackie is touching her, kissing her, holding her. It’s making her stomach burn and her head spin and she just wants more of her. “Jackie.” She presses her face into her neck. “More,” she sighs, “please.” 

 

Really, how’s Jackie supposed to say no to that? Especially when Lottie asks so sweetly. Jackie slips another finger in, giving Lottie a second to adjust before she starts moving again, meeting each roll of hips, savoring each moan. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispers. “So beautiful.”

 

Lottie shudders. The words make her heart thump louder, like it’s trying to jump out of her ribs and crawl into Jackie’s chest. And she’d let it. God, she would let it. And she lets herself get lost in this feeling, and she’s panting and moaning and she’s loud. She lets herself get loud because she doesn’t care to be quiet. “Jackie!” she gasps, rolling her hips into her again and again.

 

“Yes, fuck,” Jackie says as she watches Lottie and hears her and feels her, as she holds her and loves her. Because she does love her, so much, more than she thought she could love someone who hadn’t been interwoven into the fabric of her being since she was a child. But she loves Lottie so much. It happened so fast, without her even realizing it, and she’s so grateful for it. She’s fucking grateful for this. Her mouth latches onto Lottie’s throat again, kissing and sucking and biting down, wanting to hear her.

 

Lottie actually cries out as Jackie’s teeth sink into her skin. It’s strangled and mixed with a moan and her entire body shudders under the touch. She wants, and It wants, but she just wants Jackie, and she wants to feel good, and she’s the only thing Lottie can think about right now. No voices, no shadows, no spiraling thoughts. No memories prying at the fringes of her mind, no shapes of people who hurt her etched into the back of her eyelids. 

 

The heat in her body builds and builds, concentrating down in the pit of her stomach, between her legs. They shake as she feels it getting ready to snap. And when it does, it tears through her like lightning and she throws her head back and cries out again, body trembling, fingers digging into Jackie’s skin.

 

Jackie holds Lottie as her body trembles, face still buried in her neck. The fingers pressed into her skin feel so good, like magic, like heaven. Nothing about this can be bad, Jackie thinks. It’s perfect. It’s everything she’s ever wanted. She releases Lottie’s neck and presses a kiss there before trailing them up her jaw, her free hand moving to Lottie’s cheek and holding her head in place so she can kiss her.

 

Lottie kisses Jackie back, sloppy and liquid in her hands, breathing heavy against her lips, into her mouth. She’s dizzy and light with her release, bones feeling rubbery as she sinks into her grip. She feels a little like she’s coming down from a high, loppy with her ecstasy as she sighs into Jackie’s mouth. “I love you,” she babbles, exhaling. 

 

Grinning against Lottie’s lips, Jackie brushes her thumb against Lottie’s cheek in a simple, soothing motion. The words are still hard. They still conjure up ghosts and guilt. But Jackie hopes that Lottie still knows that she means them. She does. More than anything in the world, especially out here in this place. She loves Lottie so much. It’s just hard to say it.

 

And Lottie does know. She doesn’t need Jackie to say it. She knows because she can feel it and taste it and smell it. She can see it in her eyes, the way Jackie looks at her. She doesn’t need her to say it. 

 

She knows Jackie will never love her as much as she loves Shauna, but Lottie is okay with that.

 

“You’re kind of amazing, did you know that?” she murmurs, pressing her cheek to Jackie’s palm. 

 

Jackie leans forward and kisses Lottie again softly before leaning her head back against the tree. She gives a grin and a little shrug. “I’ve been told something along those lines a time or two,” she teases. “Wanna tell me why, though?”

 

“Well,” Lottie starts, kissing her back, “you came after your crazy girlfriend in the woods, talked her down from an insane spiral, and then fucked her against a tree.” She grins back, brushing her hands back through Jackie’s hair. “And you’re also… the only person capable of doing that for me. Pulling me out.” Reminding her that she’s not just her illness.

 

“Hey,” Jackie starts lightly, nipping at Lottie’s bottom lip. “Don’t talk about my girlfriend like that. I don’t think she’s crazy.” Which might make Jackie the crazy one, in truth. But how could she have possibly just left Lottie to suffer alone? She wasn’t going to do that. She couldn’t imagine doing that. She can’t live in a world anymore where someone important to her leaves and she waits too long to follow after them. She hums. “Has anyone else really tried? Maybe I’m just the first, not the only.” It’s bittersweet to think about. A selfish part of Jackie wants to be the only person, but some logical part (stupid, stupid logic), is aware that maybe Lottie should have other people to rely. Not many. One or two. But still.

 

Lottie sighs. “By definition, I am,” she murmurs back to her. Her parents liked to remind her of that a lot. So did the doctors. So did the rest of society. She lays her forehead against Jackie’s, closing her eyes. She gives a nonchalant shrug. “Once or twice, maybe,” she answers. It was mostly her parents trying to scare her out of it, or them trying to make her feel bad about it, as if it were something Lottie could help. Her father would yell, her mother would cry and beg her to stop. She never could. “You’re the only person that’s ever…wanted to.”

 

“I don’t think you are,” Jackie argues quietly, though it probably doesn’t matter that much, really. Maybe Lottie is crazy. Maybe Jackie just doesn’t care. She wishes that she wasn’t the first person to treat Lottie like a person, despite her illness. She wishes that, she does, but there’s also a part of her that’s glad to have that honor. She’s glad to be that person. “Of course I want to. I don’t want you to suffer. You don’t deserve that.” She presses a kiss to the side of Lottie’s head and leans back. She pulls her fingers out from between Lottie’s legs and in her pants, staring at her fingers again before putting them in her mouth and licking them clean. “I want to help you. I like helping you.”

 

Lottie hums. It's nice to hear that, but it doesn't make it true. Lottie is crazy, she knows that. She's not denying it, she really can't. But it's still nice to hear. 

 

Her eyes linger on Jackie as she licks her fingers, before Lottie takes them gently in her own hand, putting her fingers in her mouth in turn. She removes them with a drawn out, languid motion. “Thank you,” she murmurs, keeping Jackie's fingers close to her lips, kissing the tips of them. 

 

“You’re welcome,” Jackie breathes, watching Lottie closely, brushing her fingers over Lottie’s lips. She sighs. “We should probably go back now, shouldn’t we?”

 

Lottie folds back into Jackie. She doesn't want to admit that she's scared to, but it's probably obvious. “Yeah.” They should've gone back before, but Lottie is pretty happy they hadn't. She sort of wants to just stay here, really. “I guess.”

 

“It’ll be okay, promise,” Jackie tells her, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s hair.

 

Lottie wants to argue, but she doesn't. “I know.” She hopes it's true. She remembers how people looked at her after Doomcoming. She just has to trust Jackie. 

 

Slowly, she untangles herself from Jackie, using the tree to help herself stand. Her legs shake a little. 

 

After Lottie stands, Jackie joins her, frowning. “Are you okay? Do you need your crutch?”

 

Lottie shakes her head, reaching for Jackie. “I’m okay.” She’d probably exerted herself a little too much today already, which meant she was probably going to spend the rest of it sitting around, watching Mari and Akilah do things around the camp.

 

“Probably… shouldn’t have fucked you against a tree, huh?” Jackie asks, letting Lottie lean on her and hold her hand as they start walking.

 

“Probably not,” Lottie agrees, “but I’m not going to complain.” She grins over at Jackie, pressing a quick kiss to the side of her head as they start back towards the village. The closer they get, the tighter Lottie’s grip on Jackie’s hand becomes. It’s hard to not be afraid. No one is more afraid of Lottie than herself, but they don’t know that. They can’t understand that, because they don’t know about her. Not really. 

 

She knows they whisper, gossip. They have theories. But they don’t ask. Not even Shauna, who had seen her take her last pill, all those months ago, cared to ask. 

 

When they do get back, the village is no different than any other day, with everyone set about on their chores. Mari spots them from nearby the laundry bucket and points to the pan by the fire. “Nat made us save some food for you guys,” she says, “if you’re hungry.” 

 

“Thanks, Mar,” Jackie says, offering a smile as she gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze and heads over towards the fire. “Is Nat in her hut? I’m gonna see where she wants me for the day after we eat.”

 

Lottie doesn’t look at Mari, staying close to Jackie.

 

“Think so,” Mari answers, before Akilah grabs her attention again and the two start hefting baskets of clothes off towards the river. 

 

Lottie lets out a sigh and goes to sit in the plane seat she always does, running a hand through her hair. She’s aware of Misty’s notable absence, not even in her hut on the other side of the village. Shame tints her cheeks red and she looks away.

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s hand before going to grab their food and a cup of water, coming back and sitting beside her. She offers the plate to Lottie before she takes a sip, letting it soothe her stomach, her throat that’s still feeling the effects of being sick for so much of the day yesterday. 

 

“Hey,” Jackie murmurs. “It’s okay. No one can blame you for shoving Misty, especially not after everything she’s done. It doesn’t have to be anything more than you being upset, okay?”

 

Taking the plate, Lottie eats a few bites before turning to look over at Jackie. “I still shouldn’t have done it,” she says back, keeping her voice quiet, “upset or not.” And she was upset then, she still is now. But she should’ve known better, she’d worked almost her entire life to control herself, and it was all gone in an instant. 

 

She hands the plate over to Jackie. “I think she’s just… lonely.” With Crystal gone, Misty once again had no one on her side, really. Maybe it was all just a cry for attention. And Lottie wouldn’t have gotten so mad, really, if she’d left Jackie out of it.

 

“Maybe you shouldn’t have,” Jackie admits, reaching to take a few bites of food as well. “But I don’t think loneliness drives people to…poisoning their soccer coach, and their entire team, and beating someone almost to death, and, oh, yeah, poisoning that same person. She did all of that.” 

 

Lottie thinks that Jackie is probably right about it all, but that doesn’t change the fact that Lottie feels like she understands where Misty is coming from. She wishes she didn’t, she wishes neither of them had to be lonely enough to the point of knowing how painful it is. Her shoulders slump.

 

“Maybe you’ve just never been lonely enough.”

 

Jackie scoffs. “You can’t be telling me that you’ve been lonely enough to almost beat someone to death and then drug them in some sort of attempt to take care of them.” Lottie might think she’s crazy, but that was fucking mental.

 

“I think that without the team, I could’ve been,” Lottie admits, “yeah.”

 

“You’re wrong,” Jackie says, giving Lottie a look before taking another bite of food and offering Lottie the cup of water. That’s the end of it to her. Lottie might have low opinions of herself, but Jackie knows better. 

 

Lottie wants to argue, but she also doesn’t have enough energy to. Nor does she actually want to start an argument. She takes the water and has a small drink, sighing. “Okay.” 

 

The truth is that, at some point, that had almost been Lottie. She remembers how desperate she’d been for friends as a child, before she’d moved to Wiskayok. She remembers thinking she’d do anything. She remembers accidentally hurting someone because she’d wanted so badly to be seen as normal.

 

Jackie sighs, too, and leans forward to press a kiss to Lottie’s shoulder. Leave it to Misty fucking Quigley to bring down the mood. A part of Jackie still feels bad for Misty. She just can’t help it. But, at the same time, she’s so angry and so afraid. She hates feeling like that.

 

Lottie glances to Jackie, lifting a hand to brush her knuckles along her jaw. She doesn’t have a lot of words to say to reassure her, but Jackie seems to be getting well versed in her silence and what it means. She hopes she knows Lottie is grateful for her.

 

She takes another bite of food from the plate, shifting to lean against Jackie.

 

Silences don’t feel so loud with Lottie. She can almost enjoy them properly, Lottie leaning against her side while the two of them eat. Eventually, they finish, and Jackie sighs. “Do you want to go with me to check with Nat, or do you have plans already?”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “No plans.” Even before her breakdown, she hadn't really thought about what she was going to do today. Mostly, she just asked around for who might need help that day. She could probably just go help Mari and Akilah with laundry if anything. Or clean the dishes. Something easy, considering she was already feeling the effects of the day in her ribs. 

 

Jackie gets up and puts their dishes in the proper bucket before going back and holding her hands out to Lottie. “Then I guess we’re seeing a queen about her royal decrees,” she says, giving Lottie a smile. She holds onto Lottie’s arm as they walk over to Nat’s hut, knocking on the side of the door when they make it. “Hey, Nat. Are you home?”

 

Lottie stays near Nat as they head over, though her eyes do roam the camp, looking for that familiar crop of curly, blonde hair-- but it’s nowhere to be seen. She turns back forward when they make it to Nat’s hut, tilting her head to glance inside.

 

Nat is scratching away at the map on her wall with a pencil when she hears the knock. “One sec.” She finishes scribbling something down, before stepping back and checking her work over, before finally glancing to Jackie and Lottie. “Hey,” she says, “you guys okay? I, uh-- I talked to Misty. About the-- yeah. For now, I’m having her escorted everywhere and I’m gonna double check all the medicinal stuff she hands out first.” She pauses, looking between the two. “And I told her she owes you both an apology.”

 

“We’re,” Jackie glances at Lottie, “good.” Not really, but she hopes that, maybe, if Lottie wants to talk about not being good, then maybe she will. This is the best place for it. “That’s… also good. I mean, not that– This is a fucking mess.” Jackie sighs. “Thanks. I also wanted to check and see where you wanted me today? I’m not trying to get rid of demons anymore, so I should be cleared for work, boss.”

 

“Fucking tell me about it,” Nat sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. She shakes her head. “She seems, you know, regretful. So hopefully nothing happens again.” At least not for a while. That’s what Lottie hopes. She doesn’t say anything, though. She’s afraid she’ll say something she regrets.

 

“You sure you’re feeling up for it? You can take another day off, if you need,” Nat says to Jackie, “there’s not a lot that needs to be done today. I was gonna maybe go mark out some more trails for the map. Travis and Gen are out hunting and setting up traps, so they won’t need help. Tai, Van and Britt are cutting down some more trees for firewood and I think I saw Mari and Akilah doing laundry? Not sure what Mel’s up to. Or Robin.” She looks to Lottie. “You…sure you’re okay?”

 

Lottie just shrugs, nods. She can’t look Nat in the eye. She kind of just wants to go back to their hut and curl up. 

 

Jackie fucking hopes she feels regretful. This is twice that she could have killed Lottie. Jackie hopes Misty feels regretful for the rest of her fucking life. “I can go with you, if you want company. My squiggles are better than your squiggles, after all.” She doesn’t want to be seen not doing anything for too long. She doesn’t need to give anyone a reason to resent her again, she doesn’t need to give any of them a reason to turn on her again, to see her as outside, other. 

 

Her fingers rub soothing circles against Lottie’s hand. “If your ribs are hurting, maybe you can just hang around for today?” Jackie doesn’t want Lottie to overdo anything.

 

Nat gives a glance between the two of them, then focuses back on Jackie. “Uh, sure, if you want.” 

 

Lottie looks back towards Jackie when she speaks to her. “Yeah,” she says, giving a short nod. She’ll probably see if there’s anything around camp she can do, she doesn’t much feel like walking all the way back to the river right now. Maybe later.

 

“Cool. Uh--” Nat gestures at Jackie-- “maybe get changed into something you didn’t vomit in? Then meet me back here when you’re ready.”

 

Right, right, Jackie had planned to do that earlier before so many things happened. “Yeah, totally. I’m probably still gross.” 

 

It feels enough like a dismissal that Jackie heads next door to their hut, hand still in Lottie’s as she ducks into their space. She only lets go to start taking off her shirt and looking for a different one. It’s warm enough to not need so many layers, and she changes into a pair of shorts as well, but she still grabs the cloak that Lottie made for her and tugs her arms through the little holes on the side. She turns to Lottie, stepping closer. “You’re sure your ribs are okay?”

 

Lottie shrugs her dress off when they get back into the hut, pulling on one of her short sleeved shirts and a lighter pair of pants. She doesn't know what she'll do today, but she decides she can figure that out later, peering over to Jackie when she moves near. “Just sore,” she tells her, giving a gentle smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. She reaches out and tugs the collar of Jackie's cloak so it sits straight on her chest, smoothing her hand over the fabric. “It looks good on you.”

 

“Yeah? My girlfriend made it for me. She’s pretty great,” Jackie says, smiling and preening at the attention. She stands on her toes, wrapping her arms around Lottie’s neck and leaning in. “It’s going to be okay, promise. You didn’t— you didn’t even really do anything wrong.”

 

Lottie thinks she did a lot of things wrong, least of which was push Misty. She wishes they could just go back to this morning, to before all that happened. But she knows that's not possible and the only thing she can do now is yet and move on, to show them that she's not someone they need to be afraid of. 

 

She wraps her own arms around Jackie's waist and pulls their bodies flush together. “I know,” she mutters, “I trust you.” Because maybe Lottie doesn't really trust herself, but she trusts Jackie and that's more than enough for her.

 

“Good,” Jackie says, giving Lottie a hug before reluctantly pulling away. Which is so silly. She shouldn’t be reluctant, it was her idea to go with Nat in the first place. She could take the day off. But she wants to be good. She wants to make sure she’s contributing. She wants to make sure there’s no reason for them to hate her because she cares about that again. She cares about a lot of things again. 

 

Jackie grabs her backpack, making sure she has paper and pencils before gravitating back to Lottie. She presses a quick kiss to her jaw. “Okay, I suppose it’s time to contribute to society.” 

 

Watching Jackie, Lottie shuffles from foot to foot. It's nice to see her so invested in everything and everyone. In helping. She still remembers how apathetic Jackie had been after they'd brought her in that first night. How all she'd wanted to do was go sit with Shauna. Lottie still remembers finding her curled up in Shauna's lap, begging to die. 

 

“Good luck,” she says, a half tease. She combs her fingers gently through Jackie's hair, pushing it behind her ear. “Don't be too long, I miss you already.”

 

“Thank you, but I totally don’t need it,” Jackie says with a grin. “I know these woods so well, now. I’m like the Lewis to Nat’s Clark, right? See, I remembered.” She pauses, leaning into Lottie’s touch before taking her other hand and bringing it to her lips. “Wait, which one was cooler?”

 

Lottie chuckles. “Whichever one you want to be.” She leans forward to kiss her forehead, before nudging her towards the door. “Go on, don’t keep Nat waiting. I’ll be here when you get back.” 

 

“That’s a terrible answer,” Jackie groans, but she lets Lottie nudge her towards the door. “Take it easy today. You’ve done a lot.” Like fuck Jackie and walk to the river and take off running through the woods and get fucked by Jackie, all before breakfast. Which was a lot for an entire day, not just the first few hours of it. 

 

With a final bye, Jackie meets Nat at her hut, and the two of them head off to map more of their surrounding area. The map in Nat’s hut is almost the same as the one they’d had in the cabin; a few more details here and there, a new section added to accommodate where they are now. They keep track of how long it takes to get from place to place, and the compass lets them know which direction they’re going. 

 

Today, it feels like they’re headed back to the plane. 

 

“Are you sure you’re feeling up for this?” Nat asks. “I think Lottie would kill me if you get sick out here.” It’s a tease, but there’s genuine truth, genuine worry. 

 

Jackie waves her off. “I’m fine. I wasn’t even really sick. It was just food poisoning. Or, I mean, actual poisoning? Tea poisoning?”

 

“Jackie, be serious for once,” Nat says, sounding frustrated. She stops walking, and Jackie does, too, frowning as she looks at her.

 

“What do you want me to say? That Misty scares me? She does. She has since she shoved food down my throat and made me eat from her hand. She has since she almost killed Lottie. Lottie, who’s fucking ribs are still busted because, I don’t know if you forgot, Nat, but Misty took a goddamn fire poker to them while we all just stood around and watched,” Jackie snarls.

 

Nat grimaces, glares. Her voice is harsh. “I didn’t fucking forget that! I can’t fucking forget that. Fuck you. But it’s different out here.”

 

“Why is it different?” Jackie asks. “Why does she get to get away with this shit?”

 

“She’s sorry!”

 

“Fuck you, she’s sorry! I don’t care! She’s tried to kill Lottie twice!”

 

“We can’t afford to lose more people! Out of everyone, you should get that!” Nat says desperately. “Jackie, we need her. We need everyone. We can’t– We can’t just kick people out. We can’t just punish people. We can’t do that anymore. It has real consequences.” 

 

Jackie clenches her teeth. “Out of everyone, I do get that. Like you get that and Travis gets that. It’s fucking life or death out here.”

 

“Maybe she still doesn’t get that,” Shauna whispers. “Even after they hunted her down.”

 

“It’s fucking life or death,” Nat agrees. “We can’t just turn our backs on people, not even Misty.”

 

Shauna brushes a hand through Jackie’s hair. It makes her shiver, folding in on herself. Jackie closes her eyes. “If she touches Lottie again, I’ll kill her.” She means it. She’s already threatened it once. She doesn’t know how, but she’ll do it, even if it takes them both out.

 

Nat runs a hand through her hair. “Jesus, Jackie.”

 

Jackie looks away and starts walking.

 

Once Jackie is seen off, Lottie grabs her cloak and slides it on, before heading out of the hut into the mostly silent village. There’s not much left to do around the camp, but she tidies up what she can, moving the dirty dishes bucket over to the shed for someone else to carry over to the lake, her ribs already aching just from lifting the basket. 

 

She hates that this is her reality now, and she worries it will always be like this, even when they’re healed. They don’t have proper care out here and apparently the local doctor likes to poison people. If Lottie had known how Misty felt, she probably would have just let her take care of her, even if she wanted Jackie to do it instead.

 

She’s inside the shed organizing some things when she hears voices and footsteps. It’s Mari and Akilah, back from washing the laundry.

 

“I mean, did you see her eyes though?” Mari says in a hushed whisper.

 

“If I’d been given poison tea, I’d be pretty upset, too,” Akilah argues.

 

“Yeah, but upset enough to fucking body slam someone like that?”

 

There’s a beat of silence.

 

“I’m just saying,” Mari continues, “it was kinda freaky. We all know something’s up with Lottie and now I’m like, should we be worried? Like, is she dangerous?”

 

Akilah’s continued silence is all Lottie needs to hear. She drops whatever it was she’d been holding-- some of the extra blankets that had been stored, now that the weather had improved-- and slips out of the shed before they can see her.

 

She isn’t sure if the world around her is blurry because of how quickly she’s moving or because of the tears clearly building in her eyes. She thinks she should probably just go back to her hut, but she doesn’t really want to be anywhere she can accidentally overhear more of her teammates calling her dangerous. As if they’re not all the same people who tried to hunt down one of their own just a few months ago. As if they hadn’t all watched a poor child drown in a freezing lake. 

 

As if Lottie was the only one who had heard and felt and seen the Wilderness. 

 

She somehow ends up on the path back towards the plane. It feels like her feet are moving on their own, led by some misguided sense of knowing. It can’t be the wilderness, after all-- Lottie hasn’t heard It speak to her since Javi died. 

 

The plane crash site is as they left it all those weeks ago. The husk of it is hollowed out, now, save for the few seats they hadn’t removed and the dead, hanging wires and sheets of metal they didn’t need. 

 

Most of the luggage that had been strewn about is gone, they’d collected all of it and brought it back to the village to tear apart and use for other things. 

 

The message they’ve left on the side of the plane now reads “SOS GONE DEEPER” with “TO LAKE” crossed out. Lottie reaches up and puts her hand against the rusted metal, feeling the hum of the earth through it. She closes her eyes, listens, tries to pull something, anything from it-- but she gets nothing.

 

It’s abandoned her out here. Left her in the cold, metaphorically and literally, before. She shouldn’t feel as lonely as she does, she has Jackie, but the feeling inside of her that tells her she’s nothing is hard to ignore. 

 

Sighing, Lottie heads back inside the plane, sinking down into the same spot she’d spent weeks in, laying and crying and sleeping. She thinks it still feels like Jackie, like that first night they spent here, like that first night she kissed her.

 

Her head leans back against the wall of the plane, eyes closing, and she listens to the sounds of the world around her and wonders when she’ll ever stop feeling so fucking pathetic.

Notes:

They're crazy, but they're so very cute. 😌 We're probably going to bump the rating up; these two just can't stay away from each other!

But we hope you guys enjoy the chapter! Kudos and comments are always appreciated, and we always get excited over each one. Feel free to reach out to us on our socials as well. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 23: heaven is a place on earth

Summary:

Oooh, baby, do you know what that's worth? Actions have consequences, and some of the Yellowjackets are about to learn that. Meanwhile, Nat learns about why Lottie acts so crazy sometimes, and it might just have to do with the fact that Lottie is, in fact, clinically insane! Jackie just has to pee. Badly.

Notes:

We're certainly trucking along here, huh? Chapter 23 already, it seems like just yesterday we were posting chapter 1. This is another big yappy chapter, but it sets up some fun future events that we'll be exploring in the upcoming chapters! Thanks for sticking around!

“So why are we going this way again?” Jackie asks after she and Nat have been walking in silence for a bit. 

 

Nat looks around, pointing at something before motioning to it. Two trees, splitting, easy enough to identify and mark. Jackie starts drawing it, and Nat says, “Just wanting to map different paths to the plane, some of the other clearings, that place that Travis and Gen found some rabbits before we made the move. Thought it might be useful.”

 

Jackie hums, trying to capture the image without being too detailed before shoving the paper back in her back. 

 

“I figured we could also get some wires, maybe think about starting to actually lay out traps this time. We didn’t bother with it last summer. I think that fucked us,” Nat says.

 

“A lot of things fucked us,” Jackie says with a snort. “The biggest of which was a plane crash.”

 

Nat just rolls her eyes. “Fucking tell me about it. Just… we’ve got to do things differently this time. We’ve got to prepare. Learn how to fucking… store food or something. Raise animals like Akilah wants. Grow Lottie’s garden. Get out of here.” Nat runs a hand through her hair, and Jackie sees how the weight of leading sits heavy on her shoulders. “We can’t go through a winter like that again.”

 

Trudging through the forest, Jackie can’t help but agree. They can’t go through a winter like that again. Nat was right, earlier: they can’t afford to lose more people. It seems nice, now, with the weather warming and more food, but if they’re still here when it gets cold again, it’s just going to be another awful repeat.

 

Jackie can’t go through that again.

 

“There’s no way out of this place, though,” she murmurs. “What happened with Van…” They can’t afford to try again. 

 

Nat sighs. “I know. That’s why–- That’s why we’ve got to make this place livable.” 

 

Jackie nods, pulls out her paper, jots another part of the trail down. This is just a part of making it livable.

 

Lottie isn’t sure how long she’s sitting in the plane before she decides she needs to get up and go do something. Her body is buzzing with the need to do something, she just doesn’t know what. 

 

The tree is near by here, the one from her dreams, the one she’d slept walked too and woken up at, bleeding and raw and confused. 

 

But she doesn’t have the knife anymore, Jackie took it. Her fingers prod absently at the cut on her stomach. It wouldn’t be enough, so she stands and starts moving about the plane, kicking broken pieces of plastic and metal aside, looking for something sharp enough that won’t also give her tetanus.

 

She’s squatting down near a pile of glass when she hears footsteps, voices. Who else would be here? And why? Cautiously, she pulls herself back up and glances around the broken nose of the plane, squinting through the treeline to see who’s approaching.

 

Her stomach kind of drops when she sees a familiar crop of bleach blonde hair, overwhelmed, now, by its brunette roots. Because if Nat is here, that means Jackie is, too. And she knows neither of them will be happy to see her here. 

 

She thinks that maybe she can slip out the back unnoticed, but that plan quickly fails when she steps on a piece of glass and it crunches loudly under her boots. 

 

Fuck.

 

Their walk is filled with silence and intermediate conversation about landmarks, with Jackie sometimes handing the paper back to Nat to see if she can make sense of everything before she nods. 

 

“We should talk about what happened with Lottie this morning,” Nat says.

 

Jackie glances at her before looking away. “About how she, rather justifiably, lashed out at Misty because she, you know, has been poisoning people?”

 

“Jackie,” Nat starts lowly, “you know it wasn’t just that.”

 

“What do you want me to say?” Jackie asks.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“She was upset, Nat,” Jackie says. “She’s allowed to be upset. If you want to know so bad, why are you asking me?”

 

Nat struggles. “Because she’s not good at talking about… just talking in general, really, and you’re her…”

 

“Girlfriend?” Jackie supplies.

 

“Yeah, exactly–- oh, wait, shit? Really?”

 

“I mean, yeah. It just-– I mean, yeah.” 

 

Nat gives her a smile. “Congrats. But-– Okay, I still want to talk about–-”

 

The crunch of glass as they approach the plane startles them both. They look at each other, and Nat goes to reach for a gun that’s not there, so Jackie pulls out the pocket knife. 

 

“Where did you get a knife?” Nat hisses.

 

Jackie whispers back, “I took it from Lottie.”

 

“Where did Lottie get a knife?” Nat looks horrified. “Jesus Christ, I can’t think of two people who need knives less than you two.”

 

Because she’s not good at talking about, just talking in general. Lottie feels her heart barrel out into her stomach. She’s never been good at talking, and her and Nat certainly didn’t talk when they were alone together. Not really.

 

It’s her fault, but it still hurts. 

 

Where did Lottie get a knife? 

 

She really doesn’t like this feeling, like she’s something fragile, like she’s something bad, like she’s dangerous. 

 

Maybe she is.

 

Clearing her throat, Lottie turns back around and steps out of the plane. “Don’t shoot,” she mumbles, not looking at either of them. “Or stab, I guess.”

 

“Lottie?” Jackie asks, blinking in confusion. “How’d you make it here so fast?”

 

Lottie gestures to the path that leads directly back to camp. “I followed the yellow brick road.” She doesn’t really say much else, glancing once at Nat, who’s standing there a little confused, before she starts walking off, towards where she’d gestured. 

 

She doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t think she needs to.

 

Jackie and Nat stare at each other before Jackie turns and starts jogging after Lottie.

 

“Jackie, close the knife, for the love of god!” Nat groans, rubbing her face. “Jesus Christ. Van and Tai aren’t this bad.”

 

“Van and Tai aren’t, how would you put it--” Lottie starts, before turning to look at Nat-- “fucked up in the head?” She watches Nat recoil. 

 

“Lottie, that-- that was a long time ago.”

 

“For you, maybe.” 

 

And maybe it was cruel to hold something like that against Nat, but there were a lot of old, upsetting feelings coming up for some reason. And she didn’t want to be around for them. “Sorry I intruded on your walk. Just go-- finish your map or whatever.”

 

Jackie closes the knife and tucks it in her pocket before giving Nat a sad look, one that says fix it. 

 

Nat sighs. “Lottie, come on. Let’s just talk for a second, okay? What are you even doing out here? I thought you were taking it easy today.”

 

“I don’t want to talk,” Lottie snaps back, still trudging through the woods, knowing that she can easily walk faster than either Nat or Jackie can even jog. She was also faster at running than both of them, but she didn’t really want to run right now.

 

“Well, too fucking bad,” Nat says as she moves to catch up. “We’re gonna talk. What are you doing out here?”

 

Jackie’s jogging after the two of them, her steps more sure than were months before, even if she still ended up tripping over a root, stumbling before straightening back up.

 

“Why the fuck do you care!” Lottie throws her hands up, frustrated as she whips around, finally stopping. She doesn’t want to get frustrated again, but she can feel it slipping, her control. She really doesn’t want to talk right now. “You never cared before! In fact, you were very eager to just fucking ignore it all for a quick fuck or a hit. Right?”

 

Jackie stops walking, too, a confused look on her face. “Nat was one of the girls you were hooking up with at parties?” she asks.

 

Lottie’s eyes go to Jackie. “I--” She looks back to Nat. Does that matter? Does it change things? “yeah.” 

 

“Oh.” It’s all Jackie can really think to say. It’s not like Lottie’s obligated to tell her stuff. Really, they haven’t been doing this for long at all just a handful of days, so it’s not like there’s been time, either. It’s just been easier to think about the girls Lottie’s been with as faceless people and not, you know, one of their friends. Probably Jackie’s best friend, at this point.

 

Nat, for her part, looks like she doesn’t want to be dealing with lesbian drama. “I care now. Okay? Is that just the theme for today? The endless acknowledgement that shit’s different out here than it was back there?”

 

“And why is that you now care, Natalie?” Lottie asks, voice low. “Because it sure as shit isn’t about my well being.”

 

“And why the fuck wouldn’t it be, huh?” Nat asks, moving in closer.

 

Jackie feels like she’s intruding on a moment with her girlfriend and their friend, who just so happened to have also hooked up with said girlfriend multiple times. She feels like she’s not supposed to be here for this, like maybe she should just head out and let the two of them talk this out and try not to think about other things they could be doing alone together.

 

“Because it’s been months, Natalie!” Lottie says, exasperated. “You and everyone else watched for months as I lost my fucking mind and no one did a thing!” It hurts to remember, it hurts a lot. Even Jackie had just watched. Had judged. Lottie’s eyes burn. “And the only person that ever cared without me asking died in a fucking plane explosion, right in front of all of us.” 

 

And what had any of them done, except walk away eventually and leave Lottie to scream and cry and fall apart, all by herself, in the shallows of the very same lake that had swallowed her sanity. 

 

“Just admit that you only care now because it scares you,” Lottie says, her voice quieter, “I scare you.”

 

Jackie steps back like she’s been struck, even if she’s not the main target of Lottie’s words. It’s all true, though, isn’t it? They’d all been selfish, and they’d all left Lottie to her suffering. 

 

“I’m scared about a lot of things,” Nat says, sounding tired again. “I’m scared of how to keep everyone alive, I’m scared of the ways we’re all still fucking hurting each other. I’m scared that something’s gonna fucking blow up again. I’m fucking scared for you, Lottie, because something’s clearly wrong, and I don’t know how to help.”

 

Lottie looks at Nat and sadness isn’t a strong enough word. She just shrugs, shaking her head. “You can’t.”

 

Her eyes flick momentarily to Jackie behind Nat, still standing a ways back, before she turns around and starts walking towards camp again.

 

“Why the fuck not?” Nat asks, angry and begging. She looks at Jackie. “What are you doing right now?”

 

Jackie blinks before turning on her heels and walking away. “I have to pee.” 

 

“Fuck! Fine! Just hurry back!” Nat stomps after Lottie.

 

Lottie is done talking. She knows if she keeps talking, nothing good will come of it, because she’s in the middle of a fucking psychotic break while lost in the Wilderness and she still has broken ribs and she’s now overheard two different conversations about her and what’s wrong with her. 

 

There’s a lot wrong with Lottie. That doesn’t mean she wants to talk about any of it.

 

She knows Natalie is following her but she doesn’t slow down. 

 

“Lottie, please stop,” Nat says, catching up to Lottie and putting a hand on her arm. “Please. I just want you to be okay.”

 

Lottie does stop when she feels Nat’s hand on her arm. At first, she doesn’t turn to look at her. She lets out a shaky breath. “Nat…” Finally, she moves to stare back at Nat. “None of us are okay.”

 

“I know that,” Nat says. “I fucking know that. But I’m worried about you. I’ve been-- For fucking months, and I didn’t know how to say anything because…” Because she’s been frustrated. Because she was trying to find them food while Lottie was praying to the trees. Because what do you say when it looks like someone lost their whole world? “Please tell me how I can help you.”

 

Lottie can feel her resolve crumbling, she’s never been able to stay mad at Nat. Not back home and not out here. “I was being serious when I said you can’t,” she answers, her voice quiet and a little pitiful. It’s all she’d ever wanted to hear from Nat, she’s worried about her and she wants to help her. But it’s too late now.

 

She shakes her head. “Not in the way I know you want to. There’s no quick solution to this, Natalie. No words or actions that can make it all better.” Her gaze falls, she doesn’t want to see Nat’s face when she tells her. “Not unless you secretly have anti-psychotic medication somewhere.” 

 

“Anti-psychotic medication?” Nat breathes, her grip tightening like she’s scared Lottie will pull away. “Lottie, you’re not a crazy person.”

 

Lottie gives a bittersweet smile. “Yes, I am.” 

 

“So you’ve just been?” Nat doesn’t really get what to say. She wants to be understanding. Really, this makes a lot of fucking sense. “The whole time?”

 

“The whole time,” Lottie confirms. 

 

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Nat demands. Maybe they could have done something. Maybe things could have been better. “Did you tell anyone?”

 

“Why?” Lottie balks, suddenly incredulous. “You’re really asking me why I didn’t tell anyone that without two little pills a day, I go fucking crazy? Really, Nat? Take a guess.”

 

“Oh, okay, so you just decided to ask the fucking forest for help instead of your friends, then?”

 

“I didn’t ask for any of this!” Lottie snaps back, wrenching her arm from Nat’s grip. “And I certainly didn’t ask to hear the Wilderness.”

 

Nat steps closer. “Well how the fuck would I know when you don’t say anything?”

 

“I thought you wanted me to say less, Nat,” Lottie says coldly, “a lot fucking less.” She’s not usually vindictive, she doesn’t ever throw peoples’ words back at them, but she just wants Nat to leave her alone, she doesn’t want to be talking about this at all. 

 

“I was upset!” Nat says, desperate. She quickly doesn’t know how to handle this. She’s not used to Lottie being cold. “Where the fuck is Jackie?” How long does it take to go piss?

 

Lottie steps away from Nat, looks to where Jackie had disappeared off towards. “I’m going back to the village,” she states, turning once again to head home. Underneath her cloak, her hands shake and she’s fighting very hard to keep her face steeled and not let her uncried tears fall from her eyes.

 

“Lottie, please,” Nat says quietly.

 

Lottie slows, stops but doesn’t look back. “Please what, Nat?” she croaks.

 

“This doesn’t… You’re still Lottie. You know that, right? You’re still my friend.”

 

Lottie is quiet. “Jackie said the same thing.” She’s still trying to believe that, but it’s hard when Lottie herself feels so inherently changed. So different. 

 

“She can be right sometimes when she uses her brain,” Nat says, unable to keep the fondness out of her tone. “It’s true. You being… You’re still Lottie.” Now it just explains a little bit more. Now it adds Nat’s need to make sure Lottie doesn’t actually go off the fucking deep end.

 

Sighing, Lottie turns around. “We should go find Jackie.” She doesn’t comment on the rest of it. 

 

Instead, she heads back towards the plane, lifting her gaze to look around for the shorter girl. She’s not anywhere in the immediate vicinity, so Lottie wanders a bit further. “Jackie?” she calls out.

 

Nat sighs and follows after Lottie, her mind still reeling. 

 

After a few minutes, Jackie comes out of the woods, blinking. “Uh, hey?” 

 

“What the fuck were you doing?” Nat asks. 

 

Avoiding that conversation. “I told you, I had to pee. Jesus.”

 

“You spent that entire time taking a piss?”

 

Shauna wraps an arm around Jackie’s shoulder. She’s been content to hang around most of the day, a needy figment of Jackie’s imagination to day. “Tell her she’s being an authoritarian dictator. That might piss her off.”

 

“What are you, some kind of… authoritarian dictator?” Jackie asks, tired. “Maybe it took me a long time to pee, fuck. Do you want to come hold my hand next time?”

 

Lottie lifts her brow at Jackie’s quip. She seems a lot snippier than she had this morning. “Please don’t,” Lottie butts in. Her eyes wander for a moment, over past the plane and out towards the clearing where her tree was. 

 

Right, she’d been trying to do something before all this happened. Her boots crunch on fallen leaves as she moves away from the two again, not altogether aware that she’s doing it. There’s no voice calling her towards the tree, no waking dreams or visions in her mind, but she’s drawn to it all the same, like an itch under her skin or a need deeper than air for her lungs. 

 

She thinks that maybe, if she can just reach the tree, It will talk to her again. She just wants to know why It left her, what she did wrong. Why is she this way if not to be Its messenger?

 

“Lottie, the village is the other direction,” Nat says, exasperated.

 

Lottie just hums in reply, stepping through the open path created by the cockpit of the plane having been split from the fuselage. She was out here for a reason, after all. 

 

Nat tilts her head up to the sky like she’s praying before stomping after Lottie and getting in front of her like she’s herding her. “The village is that way.”

 

Lottie’s gaze snaps down to Natalie and she frowns. “I know.” She goes to step around her, but Natalie steps with her, blocking her again. Lottie furrows her brows. “Don’t you have a map to finish?”

 

“It’s never fucking finished.” Nat starts pushing Lottie back towards the village. “Come on, Jax.” 

 

Jackie just blinks at the two of them before moving to follow. 

 

“Don’t you want to know where she was going?” Shauna asks. 

 

Jackie thinks she can guess.

 

“Hey,” Lottie grumbles, but she doesn’t fight back. She’s too tired for that and her ribs are reminding her about why she was supposed to stay back in the first place. 

 

When they reach Jackie, Lottie thinks she’s been unusually quiet this whole time. She reaches for her. “Everything okay?”

 

Nat walks behind them as an effort to make sure neither of them wanders off, and Jackie rolls her eyes. She glances at Lottie and offers a smile. “Yeah, totally. I just thought I’d let you two… talk.” Or whatever two people that previously, apparently, used to hook up more than once at parties did whenever they were alone together.

 

Lottie doesn’t think she really believes that, but she doesn’t have a lot of room to talk right now. She throws Nat a glance over her shoulder. She wants to take Jackie’s hand, but something holds her back from doing so. 

 

“I overheard Mari and Akilah talking,” she blurts after a moment, “about me. They’re-- scared.” Rightfully so, she thinks. Somehow, she doesn’t think Jackie and Nat agree, even though they’ve both seen her at her worst. 

 

“What the fuck?” Jackie asks, frowning deeply. “Why the fuck would they be scared of you?”

 

Lottie looks over at Jackie, confused. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

 

“Because you’re not that scary?” Jackie asks. Not to Jackie, not anymore. It feels like some distant, nebulous past, the thought of being scared of Lottie Matthews. It’s hard for Jackie to remember it. It’s so much easier to be scared for her.

 

“To you,” Lottie points out, “but I was defender for a reason.” She was rarely, if ever, a moveable object. The opposite of how she felt most of the time. “I don’t think they’re wrong, to be afraid.” She once again looks back at Nat. “You both know how bad I can get.” 

 

Like locked in a pantry bad, or knife to her throat bad. “I think we should think about some form of…confinement area. For when things get-- when people get out of hand.”

 

Nat raises an eyebrow. “What? Like a fucking… jail cell?”

 

Lottie shrugs. “Yeah, something like that.” 

 

“Maybe for Misty fucking Quigley,” Jackie mutters. Nat shoots her a withering look. “What? She’s the only one here that’s committed a fucking crime! Multiple fucking crimes, actually, if we’re being technical, like poisoning, assault, and mass poisoning.”

 

“Technically, Mari helped with that last one,” Nat muses.

 

Jackie looks at Lottie. “You don’t need a fucking jail. If stuff keeps happening, I just… figured we could stay in the hut.”

 

“And if I turn violent again?” Lottie asks, her voice growing somber and serious. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

 

“You pushed Misty. That’s hardly violent,” Jackie says, but Nat looks like she’s thinking things over. She looks like she’s remembering a different interaction, one with antlers and a hunt for a boy that was also a stag. 

 

Nat says, “It might not be a terrible idea.” 

 

“Fuck you,” Jackie tells her, eyes narrowed. She looks back at Lottie. “And fuck you, too. You’re not going to hurt anyone.”

 

“Jackie, it’s just-- it’s just practical,” Lottie explains. “It wouldn’t just be for me, either. And if…if you really want to help, when I’m like that, then this is how you can help. By making sure I don’t hurt anyone else.” 

 

Jackie grits her teeth before crossing her arms and huffing. “Fuck it. Fine. Build the stupid jail cell or whatever, but I’m not helping, and, if you put yourself in there, then I’m going in it, too.”

 

Lottie looks back at Nat, shrugging apologetically. “I’ll help how I can,” she mumbles to her, before she’s focusing back on Jackie. “It’s just a failsafe,” Lottie tries to explain, “no one’s saying we’ll even use it.” 

 

Maybe, if Lottie hadn’t come up with this idea with the thought of locking herself up in mind, then Jackie wouldn’t be so annoyed by it. Annoyed is the wrong word. Upset. She’s upset that Lottie wants to lock herself up. She’s upset that Lottie thinks she needs to. “I think it’s ridiculous.”

 

Sighing, Lottie rubs her forehead. “I know,” she relents, “but it’s better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it.” 

 

Because Lottie knew it took so much less than just some poisonous mushrooms to get her to a place where she would hurt people. Much, much less.

 

“What’s next?” Jackie asks sarcastically. “We have a fucking court case to put Misty on trial? Put Taissa in as prosecutor and Nat as the judge.”

 

“We’re not putting Misty on trial,” Nat says. Mostly because she’s still trying to decide what to do with the girl.

 

“Misty admitted what she did, anyway,” Lottie adds on. And everyone had been there while Misty beat her with a metal rod. She shudders at the memory, a hand going subconsciously to her still broken ribs. “But…some sort of structure might be nice.” Since it seemed like they were going to be out here a while longer.

 

Nat sighs. “I’m… trying. There’s just a lot to do.”

 

Lottie redoubles. “I-- I don’t mean that you’re not. I just think…maybe some rules would be a good idea, too? And, you know, you don’t have to do this alone.” She pauses and reaches out for Nat, putting a hand on her arm. “I think that was my biggest mistake.” Trying to shoulder the burden all alone had been what led to Lottie ending up on the pointy end of Misty Quigley, after all.

 

“So, what? First rule: don’t fucking hurt each other,” Nat says, breathing out a dry laugh.

 

Shauna says, “Please. This is a society of hormonal teenage girls and one guy. All we do is hurt each other.”

 

Jackie murmurs, “All we do is hurt each other. That’s what teenagers do.”

 

“Come on,” Nat says. “That’s just high school shit.”

 

“High school shit is what got me killed. Right, Jax?” Shauna hums.

 

“Do we have to do this out here?” Jackie asks. “Or can we at least find somewhere to sit down for Lottie’s ribs?”

 

Lottie shakes her head disparagingly. This was all so complicated. “Let’s just get back to the village,” she suggests, “we can talk more there.” She was getting pretty winded already, mostly from all the yelling and the ups and downs of her own emotions, like she was on a fucking rollercoaster. She hated when she got like this, bouncing between happy and sad, manic and depressed, angry and anguished. She scrubs her palm against her eyes, moving away from Natalie again and heading back down the path. 

 

They walk the rest of the way in silence and Lottie can feel the emotions dripping off Jackie. She’d always been bad at hiding them, unlike Lottie, who could probably steel herself even in the hardest of times. She’d had a lot of practice. She just didn’t want to be that way.

 

When they make it back, most of the other girls are back as well, including Misty, who’s being shadowed everywhere by Robin and Lottie almost scoffs-- as if Robin would be able to stop Misty from doing anything she doesn’t want her to. 

 

Mari looks over at Lottie before leaning to whisper something in Akilah’s ear and Akilah just sighs. Lottie chooses to ignore it, sinking into her same old seat, laying her head back. She thinks she’d like to just disappear into the dirty leather right now, actually. She doesn't even know how to begin to approach a conversation with Jackie, but she knows they should probably definitely talk about everything that just happened.

 

Jackie stays quiet, sitting next to Lottie’s seat and resting her head on Lottie’s thigh, frowning slightly. Her frown only grows when she sees Misty with Robin trailing behind her, when she watches Mari and Akilah whisper. Finally, she can’t take it anymore, snapping. “What, Mar? What is it?”

 

Mari is startled when Jackie snaps at her, looking around wildly for a moment before stuttering out, “N-Nothing. Just thought you and Nat were gonna be out longer or whatever.” 

 

Lottie is at least glad that Jackie isn’t ignoring her or giving her the cold shoulder, she doesn’t think she’d be able to handle that. Her fingers play with light strands of hair and she tries really hard to not look at Mari. “Ignore her,” she mumbles to Jackie.

 

Jackie rolls her eyes. “Scared we’ll make you run laps like you’re mouthing off at practice?” She’s not in the mood to ignore this. She’s getting a headache, actually. It’s been a long day, and some of it’s been good. Some of it’s been great. Some of it’s stressed her the fuck out, and Lottie mentioning Mari being a bitch about her isn’t exactly doing good shit to Jackie’s head. She’s still recovering from yesterday, and she mostly just wants to relax, not deal with this. She doesn’t understand how Mari went from worshiping the fucking ground that Lottie walked on to talking shit about her just because she pushed Misty.

 

“As if,” Mari shoots back, “not like anyone even listens to you anymore.”

 

Lottie desperately wants to know why no one here seems to be able to leave well enough alone instead of always having a go at each other. This wasn’t locker room banter anymore, not out here. Not like this. 

 

Akilah, for her part, smacks Mari’s arm, glaring at her. 

 

Lottie puts her head in her hand, slouching in her chair. She thinks she’s really beginning to hate her inability to run, because she really feels like getting up and just bolting away from all of this. 

 

“Can we not, please?” Lottie whines.

 

“You’re the one that started it.” And Mari’s propensity for starting shit seems to never fail, really, and Lottie doesn’t look at her, doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction of it, but the words do hit something hard inside of her. 

 

Jackie shoots Nat a look that says, Make her run laps. Now. 

 

Nat just sighs. “Mari, let’s fucking not go there.”

 

Except Mari is just always delighted to fucking go there, and Jackie grits her teeth. “What’d she start, huh? Make sense for once, Mari, instead of just spouting bullshit you don’t even really believe.”

 

Mari stands up, then, and Akilah tugs on her arm, but it's no use. “At least I was doing something, instead of talking to a dead ass corpse all day.” 

 

Lottie shoots Mari a dark glare, but she's not even paying attention to her anymore, whatever pent up resent and anger she's been feeling now aimed at Jackie. 

 

“Mari,” Lottie says, keeping her tone level, “back off.”

 

That gets enough of her attention. “Or what? You gonna body slam me, too?” 

 

Jackie puts her hand on Lottie’s thigh but stands. 

 

“If you hit her, that’ll give her something else to talk about,” Shauna murmurs, and, god, Jackie wishes she would just shut up. She’s been so loud for the last few hours. It’s getting to be too much.

 

“At least I wasn’t volunteering Lottie for hunting trips when she’s never been hunting in her fucking life,” Jackie snarls. “So, yeah, Mar, you were really doing something, like almost getting our fucking friend killed.”

 

“Well excuse me for believing it would work!” Mari says back. “Lottie could've said no at any point, don't blame me for her lack of a backbone.”

 

“I'm right here you guys,” Lottie groans. She's reaching out to grab Jackie's hand, worried she might lunge over to Mari, and the last thing they need right now is another fucking fight. “Please just…can we all just stop?”

 

“Seriously, both of you,” Nat barks, “if you don't sit down and shut up, I'll put you both on house arrest. How's that sound?”

 

“You’ve been thinking about it for months. Just hit her and be done with it,” Shauna murmurs, her cool hand on the back of Jackie’s neck a stark contrast to Lottie’s warm one tugging on her own. 

 

Jackie takes a deep breath and releases it slowly before she sits back down, leaning against Lottie’s leg.

 

“Whatever,” Mari says, throwing her arms up before she's turning to trudge off. 

 

Nat lets out a heavy, exhausted sigh and Lottie gives her another apologetic look. She wishes there was something more she could do, but apparently Lottie's fall from grace has left her no more than a shadow to most of the others. 

 

She thought she'd be okay with that, returning to the way things were, but it feels emptier now. 

 

Lottie's hand drifts back into Jackie's hair, combing through silky strands. An eerie silence seems to fall over the camp, one that is soon broken by the laughter of Van Palmer off in the distance. Her, Tai and Britt are finally back from chopping wood, joking about something as they approach, unaware of what had gone on just moments before. 

 

“Sheesh, who died?” Van quips, then quickly back peddles. “Wait, no one died, right?” 

 

At least it seems like someone’s been enjoying the last few hours. “No one died,” Jackie mumbles. 

 

She wants to go back to it just being her and Lottie holding each other, talking to each other, not worrying about what the rest of them. Which is selfish, but Jackie is selfish. Maybe she should have just stuck around Lottie at the village today. Maybe that would have made things worse.

 

“Oooookay,” Van says, putting her hands up in surrender. “Anyway, you’ll all be very glad to know that Tai totally didn’t trip over a root and almost axe herself in the head.”

 

“I did not do that, I wasn’t even holding the axe at the time,” Tai groans, smacking Van on the arm. Britt giggles behind her hand again.

 

“Hey, babe, it’s okay, you don’t have to make light of your totally near death experience,” Van grins, grabbing Tai’s hand and squeezing. “You poor thing.”

 

Lottie is glad some of them seem able to joke about things like this, but it’s really not helping the mood around camp at the moment. She shifts, presses her hand to Jackie’s shoulder. “I’m going to go lay down,” she mumbles to her, not bothering to keep her voice quiet.

 

Van raises a brow at her as she stands but Lottie ignores it, before heading over to their hut, tossing the curtain aside and sinking to the floor, glad that they had left the window one up as well. Her shoulders slump and she puts her face in her hands. 

 

Today really fucking sucked.

 

“Alright, Jackie, what’d you do?” Van asks, her tone only a little teasing. 

 

Jackie balks, standing and frowning. “I didn’t do anything,” she says, watching Lottie go and wondering if she should join her now or wait. 

 

Nat lets out a huff. “Don’t ask,” she tells Van, giving her and Tai a sharp glance. She was tired of dealing with drama, but they were 12 teenage girls and one teenage boy, of course there was going to be drama.

 

Van and Tai choose to head into their hut, then, not saying much else in an attempt to keep whatever little peace was left of the situation, and Britt joins Robin over by Misty’s hut. 

 

Inside, Lottie can hear muffled voices, but she doesn’t bother trying to listen to what they’re saying, laying back on the ground. While she likely wouldn’t sleep, it did feel nice being vertical after the day. Her head looks to the space beside her where Jackie usually is and it makes her sigh, upset with herself for messing up so much today. Turning onto her side, she buries her face in the blankets and lets the smell of them calm her enough to not start crying again, something she was tired of doing.

 

Jackie thinks that if she stays out there any longer she’s just going to get upset again, so she heads over to her and Lottie’s hut, only hesitating for a moment before dropping her bag in a corner and laying beside her. Shauna doesn’t join, at least, so she doesn’t have to worry about that, just the sound of a pencil scraping against paper on the other side of the little room. 

 

Settling on her side, Jackie faces Lottie but doesn’t say anything, just reaches out to take one of her hands.

 

When Lottie hears footsteps, she already knows who it is. Pulling her head up from the blankets, watching Jackie lay down beside her. She takes her hand, squeezing gently. “I’m sorry,” she mutters.

 

“Why?” Jackie asks quietly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

“I keep messing up today more and more,” Lottie answers. She feels like she’s done a lot wrong. She’s still having a hard time keeping her emotions in check, trying, and failing, to pull herself out of her spiral. It feels like every little thing keeps setting her off and she’s really starting to despise it.

 

“Can you immediately snap yourself out of it when this happens?” Jackie asks, reaching out to brush a hand through Lottie’s hair.

 

“No,” Lottie says, knowing that Jackie already knows the answer to the question. She closes her eyes against the feel of tender fingers in her hair.

 

Jackie moves closer. “So why would this time be any different?”

 

Lottie sighs. She gets it, she does. It doesn’t change the fact that she still feels sorry about it. “I don’t know,” she murmurs.

 

“Wrong answer,” Jackie says. She trails her hand down from Lottie’s hair to her shoulder to her waist, letting herself relax into their bedding.

 

It’s easy to just relax into Jackie’s touch, and Lottie moves herself forward, pressing her face into Jackie’s neck. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

 

“You…” Jackie starts, pausing for a second. “You didn’t upset me, Lottie.” 

 

“But you are upset,” Lottie points out. It's easy for her to tell, even if Jackie wasn't an open book emotionally, it would be easy for her to tell.

 

“I’m kind of pissed off at Mari for being a bitch, yeah,” Jackie mutters. “And I’m not exactly happy about Misty poisoning you, either, but I’m not upset at you.”

 

“Mari’s always a bitch,” Lottie mumbles, “it's part of her charm.” It was just who she was, really. Lottie couldn't entirely blame her. She was just reacting the only way she knew how to I'm stressful situations. “And Misty poisoned you, too.” 

 

Jackie sighs. “Not to you. Not for the last few months, at least.” Not since Lottie killed a bear and so many started worshiping the ground she walked on. There had to be a balance between worship and cruelty. Lottie was just a girl. “Yeah, well, I’m not really surprised at Misty poisoning me. Plus, it was still meant for you.”

 

“She…had faith in something, unfounded or not.” Lottie doesn't think she deserved anyone's faith, really. “I let her down. I don't really…blame her for being upset.” As much as it hurt, she couldn't blame any of them. Lottie lets out another breath. “I know.” But she'd still let Jackie drink it, knowing what would happen. And now, because of that, Lottie was stuck in her vicious cycle of manic behavior, unable to pull herself out long enough to gather her thoughts. “You really shouldn't have drank it.”

 

“You haven’t let anybody down, Lott, you’ve been injured,” Jackie tells her, playing with the hem of Lottie’s shirt. She swallows back her guilt, tilting her head to look up at the roof of their hut. She shouldn’t have drank it. She knows that. Of course she knows that. But she’d needed to be sure. She hadn’t even been thinking it through that hard. She just needed to be sure, and she didn’t think Misty would just dress up to trying to poison someone again. “I’m sorry.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “Don't be,” she murmurs, “it just…scared me.” Lottie had never prepared herself for a reality where she was close enough with someone to worry so much. “I let them all down.”

 

“I’m still sorry I scared you.” Jackie really is trying to be better about taking care of herself. She really is. She’s just never been good at thinking things through, sometimes, especially when it comes to her person, her people. Fighting with Nat to get Shauna food, pushing Van out of the way of a plane even when she knew Van hated her, drinking poison for Lottie. She’s not good at doing things halfway when she cares about them. That didn’t mean that she didn’t give up way too easily, though. “Yeah, well, I let them all down way before you did,” she says.

 

“It’s okay,” Lottie replies, “I…think it’s good, that I was. I’ve never been close enough to someone to worry like that.” Except Laura Lee, but by the time Lottie was truly worrying, she was already in the air, inside a plane that would inevitably explode. 

 

Lottie shakes her head. “We all kind of turned on you,” she murmurs, remembering that third day, as Lottie had swallowed down her last pill, and Tai had pitted everyone’s vote against Jackie to go to the lake. She remembers the look of shock on Jackie’s face when Shauna voted against her. Maybe it had been for the better, that they found the lake, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

 

“We all starved under my watch,” she adds on quietly, “we hunted down and ate a kid because of me.”

 

Jackie still doesn’t want to worry her, not to the point that it stresses Lottie out enough to trigger her brain into going off the deep end. Because Jackie knows that’s what happened. She knows she’s responsible for that. “Maybe I kind of deserved it. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing out here. I still don’t.”

 

Shaking her head, Jackie grips Lottie’s shirt a little tighter. “We were starving before you. And you didn’t hunt down a kid. You were trying to convince us to eat you. None of that is your fault.”

 

“No one did,” Lottie says back, “we had no idea what we were doing. I think people just needed someone to blame.” Lottie hadn’t really been in her own mind enough to even consider blaming someone for anything. She’d just been worried about whether or not what she was seeing was real. 

 

“It never should have happened,” Lottie murmurs, “I just…I should’ve done more.”

 

“What else could you have done, Lott?” Jackie asks sadly. “Die?”

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything. She thinks maybe everyone would be better off if she had died. But she also knows Jackie doesn’t want to hear that. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you.” 

 

“You promised you wouldn’t leave me,” Jackie repeats. “You promised.”

 

Lottie presses against Jackie, brushing her lips to her neck. “I’m not going to.” And she didn’t want to, either. She wanted to stay with her. 

 

“Good,” Jackie breathes. She squeezes Lottie, glad that she’s close. She doesn’t want Lottie to leave her. She doesn’t think she’d survive that a second time. 

 

They lay there, and Jackie lets the quiet wrap around them for a few minutes before she says, “So… You and Nat?”

 

Lottie isn’t really expecting the question. She blinks, pulls back a little. “I…um, yes,” she mumbles. 

 

“Oh,” Jackie says. “Okay. You, uh, didn’t say anything. Before.”

 

Lottie’s brows knit together, confused. “I didn’t think…I had to.” It wasn’t like her and Nat were ever anything, even if, maybe, at one point, Lottie would have liked more. Back then, she hadn’t thought she’d ever get to have anything more, so she’d settled for whatever she could get. “Sorry. It-- we’re not-- there’s nothing going on, if you’re worried.”

 

“No, no, I don’t think that anything’s going on,” Jackie says quickly. She doesn’t. She’s very confident that there isn’t anything going on, romantically, between Lottie Matthews and Natalie Scatorccio. Not right now, at least.

 

But something could happen. It could. Because Jackie could mess this up. She’d messed up over a decade of friendship, afterall, completely and utterly, and, yeah, some of that was Shauna’s fault, too. She literally slept with Jackie’s boyfriend. But Jackie was a horrible friend and a horrible girlfriend, and Shauna’s dead, so blaming her for everything isn’t exactly lucrative. No, Jackie’s the bad friend, and the bad girlfriend, and now she’s a girlfriend again. Lottie’s not going to leave her. She promised. But she might now want to be with her, for all of it. 

 

“Okay.” Lottie does believe Jackie, but she knows that’s not the whole thing. She doesn’t want to push it right now, though. “You’re the only girl for me,” she tells her with a small grin, leaning close. “I promise.”

 

Jackie smiles back, reaching to brush her fingers against Lottie’s cheek. “Are you sure?” Jackie asks, her tone teasing to hide the insecurities. “Because, I mean, Nat’s super hot. I wouldn’t blame you if you still had a crush.”

 

“Even if I did, she’s got Travis now,” Lottie says. “But I don’t. I just missed my friend.” She’d watched their friendship slip from her fingers without being able to do anything to stop it. And then Nat had been jumping down her throat every other day and Lottie was sure they’d never be friends again.

 

Now, well, now she hoped they were okay. At least a little bit. “I want you, Jackie Taylor,” she leans in closer, brushes her lips against Jackie’s, “just you.”

 

“I want you, too,” Jackie murmurs. “Just you.” So much that it aches. So much that it makes her a little crazy. 

 

“Then that’s all that matters.” Lottie presses a gentle kiss to Jackie’s lips. She wants this to be the only thing that matters. She doesn’t want Jackie to think Lottie is going to hurt her like Shauna had, Lottie doesn’t think she has it in her to cheat on anyone, let alone someone she cares about so much. 

 

“Okay,” Jackie murmurs, leaning in a little closer. That's all that matters. That’s all that matters right now. Lottie wants her right now, and Jackie wants her so much that it’s all she can think about. It’s all she wants to think about. Is that normal? To pick a person and want them and want them and want them so bad that it drives you crazy? It feels normal to her. It feels like something she’s done her entire life. She doesn’t know how to stop.

 

Lottie pulls herself into Jackie, pressing her face into her neck again. “I promise.” She promises, she does. She wants it to matter, too. To be the only thing that truly matters. It feels so foreign to her, wanting this and nothing else. Wanting and having, even if she isn’t supposed to, doesn’t think she deserves it. She wraps her arms around Jackie. “I promise.”

 

“I promise, too,” Jackie tells her, smiling as Lottie pulls herself close, wraps her arms around her, buries her face in Jackie’s neck. “Be careful with your ribs,” she teases, but she’s a little worried, especially with how much that’s happened in such a short time. She’s sure the strain isn’t good on them at all.

 

Lottie feels warm relief at the words. Maybe in another life, they both belong to different girls, but in this one, they have each other, and it's all Lottie wants. She shifts enough to relieve some of the pressure from her side. “I’m being careful.” But she does shift a little more, turning onto her back, even as she nestles her head on Jackie's shoulder. “I just want to be close.”

 

Jackie curls on her side, pressing herself against Lottie’s side and turning to face her. “Then stay close,” she mumbles. “Just, you know. Without hurting yourself.” She gently puts her arms around Lottie’s waist. “I like having you close.” Lottie knows that, though. She knows how Jackie can’t sleep without her, just like Jackie knows that Lottie can’t sleep without her. “I kind of like it a little too much. I think we did too much today. With the, uh, sex. Like, it might have hurt you more.”

 

“I don't think that's possible.” Lottie hums, feeling her own stomach with her fingers for a moment. It feels bruised, like it always is. “I think it'll be okay. I'll rest for real tomorrow, okay?” God, what she wouldn't give for something to just cure her stupid ribs. She feels so far away from healing this off. 

 

For a moment, she grows quiet, then, tentatively she asks, “If I asked you to stay with me tomorrow, would you?”

 

“Yes,” Jackie says immediately. “I’ll stay with you.” She thinks she’d do just about anything Lottie asked her to with only mild complaining. Especially something as easy as that, no complaining necessary. An entire day of spending time with Lottie? A dream. 

 

Lottie reaches down to drift her fingers along Jackie’s arm. “Okay.” She’s happy she doesn’t have to beg, she would have begged, though. She kind of just wants to hide from the world tomorrow, she wants to try and actually pull her head out of this puddle of tar it seems to be stuck in. 

 

Jackie offers Lottie a small smile and lets her eyes drift close as she tangles their legs together. This isn’t a big ask at all, especially since Jackie rarely wants to leave Lottie’s side. Like, she’s fine when she does, and maybe it’s a good thing to do it, but, as long as she’s around her, Jackie rarely wants to go anywhere that Lottie can’t follow. 

 

It's in the quiet moments like this that Lottie wonders how she managed to find something so good. She's never really thought much about what she wanted, outside of acceptance, outside of safety. She's always just wanted to be believed, and now she has all three of those things with Jackie-- and more. 

 

It all feels too good to be true, but the reminder that this is real always hits when she feels the warmth of Jackie's skin, or the weight of her body. The way the taste of her lingers on Lottie's lips after a kiss, or the way the smell of her seems to have seeped into Lottie's bones. She thinks that, if this is a dream, she wants to stay in it forever. She'd die happy here.

 

The only problem is her own mind. The desperation to understand what she's seeing and why she's seeing things has always yanked Lottie back into the dark places she swore she didn't want. But they existed, and out here, they were a far more common occurrence than they ever were back in Wiskayok. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes and focuses on the sound of Jackie's breathing, the way her heartbeat seems to match the inhale and exhale of air from lungs. It calms her in a way little else ever has before, except for the steady tapping of fingers on her leg while another combs through her hair, parting it into separate stands to braid. 

 

“Do you think they're okay?” She asks into the quiet. “Laura Lee and Shauna…do you think there's something else, on the other side?”

 

The question causes Jackie to freeze, and she notices that she doesn’t hear the scraping of a pencil over paper anymore in the background. There’s just the two of them in the quiet. “I hope so,” she says quietly. “I hope they found… peace. I hope they’re… together. Or alone but not alone.” 

 

Shauna always wanted to be left alone but not lonely. She was so lonely. Jackie thinks that’s what drew her to Shauna in the first place. The lonely little girl by herself on the swings. Jackie just wanted to make her smile. She wanted to make her smile for the rest of her life. She rubs Lottie’s shirt between her fingers. “Maybe it’s better. That’s what heaven’s supposed to be. Better.”

 

“Do you believe in heaven?” Lottie asks, genuinely curious. She still doesn't know if she does. “My parents never…were the religious type. We didn't talk about that kind of stuff. It never mattered, not even to my mom.” She stares up at the plant hanging from their roof, blinking. She forgot to water it today. 

 

“Laura Lee told me that the Bible says only good people go to heaven.” Surely, if there was one, that's where Laura Lee is. “I don't think that's where I'll go, when I die. I don't know where else there is, but I don't think that place is for me.”

 

“My parents would take me to church for the major holidays, if they were around,” Jackie says. “I guess I always thought heaven sounded nice, but… I don’t know.” She always figured that, when she died, it would be at the same time as Shauna. Or, it would be before, and she’d just follow Shauna around until she joined her. That seemed ideal. “I always thought there was a lot more waiting around here than maybe being in heaven.”

 

Jackie scoffs. “Fuck off. You’re one of the best people I know. If anyone’s getting into a heaven for good people, it would be you.”

 

“The only holiday my parents were ever around for together was Christmas. Or my birthday, when I was younger. I didn't know what Easter was until I was eight.” Lottie contemplates the idea of it all, living, dying, staying around to haunt someone. Who would she even stay for, besides Jackie? She had no one else. “I think it sounds nice, the idea of heaven.”

 

She turns her head to look at Jackie. “I just mean…I don't think I want to. I think only Christians who believe go to heaven or whatever. That's what Laura Lee said.” She looks back up at the dying plant. “I think I'd like to just be nowhere. Nothing.” She thinks that, after she dies, she'd like to just rest for once, truly rest. 

 

Or maybe she'd want to come back here, to the wilderness, to the only place that's ever felt like a home.

 

“I think I… just don’t want to be alone for forever,” Jackie admits. She doesn’t really care what comes after. Heaven, haunting, endless nothing. She doesn’t care. She just doesn’t want to be alone. She can barely handle being alone now. Being by herself almost always drags her into that place she can’t get out of, the one that tells her she sucks and that everything’s pointless, and the only good thing she can do is just to drift off and never wake up. Jackie hates that place. She doesn’t like going to that place. It’s easier to stay out of it when someone else is around. 

 

“I don't think you will be,” Lottie tells her, “alone. I think you'll see her again, on the other side.” And she'd like to say she would be there for Jackie, too, but thinks if Jackie has Shauna, in any form, then she won't want Lottie around. She wouldn't blame her, she sort of expects it. She knows that what they have right now is only possible because Shauna Shipman is dead. 

 

It makes her both incredibly happy and incredibly sad.

 

Jackie sees Shauna already, just about every day. She sees her and hears her and sometimes feels her, so cold that it makes Jackie shiver. She doesn’t feel Shauna now, though. Maybe that’s a good thing. 

 

Scooting in as close as she can, Jackie whispers to the space in between them, “And you, right? Would you… want to be nowhere and nothing with me, too?” She’s sure Lottie would want to be with Laura Lee again; they hadn’t really had much time together at all. But Jackie can’t help but want. 

 

Lottie feels a hand wrap around her heart, delicate slender fingers clenching around the ventricles. It makes her eyes water. “You…want me to be there? With you?” 

 

“Yes,” Jackie whispers. “Always. I want you in my blood.” The words are strange, weird. She’d never say them out loud in any other place. But they’re true, as strange as they are, and Jackie’s felt them for so long. Lottie is in her blood. She’s a need, like water or air. Jackie never wants to be rid of her.

 

“Then I will be,” Lottie states, “and I am.” She lifts her hand and takes Jackie's, spreading their fingers out and pressing their palms together. She likes she'd like being in Jackie's blood, as long as Jackie was in hers, too. 

 

Jackie laces their fingers together and brings Lottie’s hand to her lips, kissing it softly. “Good,” she murmurs. That’s good. That’s what she wants. 

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand. She knows she’d never be able to compete with Shauna Shipman, but in this life, she doesn’t have to. In this afterlife, she won’t have to. Really, she just wants Jackie. “I’m yours forever.”

 

“Mine,” Jackie whispers, letting her eyes slip closed. Is it possible to fall this fast for someone? Is she right for feeling this way? She feels like she can’t help it, like something inevitable has taken over and turned her into this, and she can’t even be upset about it. She brings their linked hands to her heart and places Lottie’s hand over it, “I’m yours, too. Promise.” Everything that was left, everything that wasn’t frozen in the snow or burned on a pyre, it was Lottie’s. Jackie doesn’t even have a choice in the matter anymore. She doesn’t want a choice. 

 

Lottie spreads her fingers out across Jackie’s chest, feels the pulse of her heartbeat along the lines of her palm, the pads of her fingers. She closes her eyes. She wishes Jackie could see that she was a whole person without Shauna, but it’s hard to move past something like that, she gets it. She gets it enough. Lottie never felt whole in the first place, like she was always missing pieces, pieces of herself, or of others, she wasn’t sure. 

 

It felt nice, though, to have someone who wanted to fill in the broken parts of her. “I’ll take care of it, best I can.”

 

“I know you will,” Jackie tells her. “I trust you.”

 

Lottie thinks maybe she shouldn't trust her, but she also knows she'll never convince Jackie iyf that. So she just leans over and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome,” Jackie tells her, smiling at the feeling of lips on her cheek. “Relax for a little while. We’ll get dinner later and turn in early, and then tomorrow just stay around here. It’ll be nice.”

 

“You'll stay with me?” Lottie asks softly. “Now?” 

 

Jackie makes a show of settling into their bedding and closer to Lottie. “I don’t have any plans to go anywhere, babe.”

 

Lottie feels like she's smiling ear to ear, puffing out an airy laugh. “Babe, huh?” 

 

Jackie blinks, not even realizing she’d said it. “I mean, yeah.” She grins. “You’re a total babe.”

 

Chucking, Lottie rolls her eyes a little. “So you keep saying.” 

 

“Uh, duh. Because I’m right.”

 

“Oh, hush. You're the one who everyone drooled over. Boys and girls alike.” Not her, though it wasn't as if Lottie wasn't aware of her attractiveness. She'd just never been the center of attention like Jackie. She never wanted to be.

 

“Yeah, well, I’m a babe, too,” Jackie says, trying to let some of that old confidence soak back into her voice, remembering the way she’d been able to tease and joke with Travis back so long ago, even in the midst of feeling like the world was ending. She doesn’t feel like the world is ending anymore. Sometimes, she thinks that it’s already ended, and maybe that’s okay. It’s still possible to have something good after everything’s gone to hell.

 

“You really are,” Lottie confirms, brushing her hand up Jackie’s chest to her neck, fingers dragging along skin. “Babe.” She says the word like it’s a gift, like it’s something that belongs to Jackie. Belongs to her. 

 

“It sounds a lot nicer when you say it,” Jackie admits, sinking a little more into the feeling. But it’s much better when Lottie says it. It sounds sweet, not like she’s a possession, an accessory. She likes it.

 

“Do you like it? I know-- I know Jeff said it to you sometimes.” Lottie remembers very well, actually. She remembers how possessive it sounded, how…selfish. 

 

“I like it, yeah.” Jackie leans forward, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s nose, the two of them trading soft kisses and gentle touches back and forth. “I think I’d like just about anything you called me.” Their perfect little princess echoes in her head, sharp and bitter. Something that seems like a compliment that’s just more of an insult than if Jackie had just been called a bitch. “Most things.”

 

“I only want to call you nice things,” Lottie says, smiling back at Jackie. “I’m not really…I’ve never really done the pet names thing before.” She scratches her fingers against Jackie’s neck with practiced restraint, gentle and soothing. “All this is very new to me.”

 

“Sometimes they can be pretty… silly,” Jackie murmurs. She’s having a hard time thinking as gentle fingers scratch against her skin. “But it’s okay, you know. This being new to you. You’re doing a great job at it.” It’s not like Jackie was apparently super great at it, either, if her boyfriend had been cheating on her with her best friend. That doesn’t exactly make her think she’s winning girlfriend of the year anytime soon.

 

“Like what?” Lottie asks, genuinely curious. She turns her head to look over at Jackie, letting her fingers still drift along her exposed skin. “I mean, I know people say things like babe, darling, honey-- what else is there?”

 

“Boo,” Jackie says, shivering a little as Lottie touches her. Her nose wrinkles. “Bunny. I hate that one. No one really uses it but Jeff saw all those stupid figures my mom keeps around and tried it and, yeah, no. Sweetie is too… sweet. Pumpkin makes me feel like a food. Do you remember the, uh, some of the French ones… those could get… a little silly.”

 

“Boo? Really?” Lottie scrunches her face. “That’s weird.” She’s not stupid, she knows things about the world, she had to, in order to mask and blend in. “Don’t you hate rabbits?” She raised her brow, but it was kind of just like Jeff to do something like that. He was pretty oblivious. “You know that I suck at French, of course I don’t remember any of those.”

 

Jackie laughs softly. “I fucking hate rabbits.” She keeps her eyes closed, her body relaxed as Lottie’s fingers brush against her skin. “How were either of us passing that class?”

 

“So I shouldn’t call you Jackie-rabbit?” Lottie teases. She smooths her palm against Jackie's cheek. “God, I have no idea. I was cheating off of Kimberly most of the time.”

 

Groaning, Jackie shakes her head, even if she’s smiling. “You’re actually the worst,” she says, cracking an eye open to look at Lottie. “See, and here I was cheating off of you, so maybe Kimberly should have studied more.”

 

“Why would you cheat off of me?” Lottie balks, shaking her head. “Really, she should have. Maybe we all would’ve gotten better grades.” Not that her parents ever cared. As, Bs, Cs, as long as she wasn’t failing, they just didn’t care. Even when she was, they barely cared. 

 

“Because you sat in front of me, and you’re so tall that it was really hard to tell when I was peaking between your arm to look at your paper. Duh,” Jackie says, grinning. French was her worst class. Listen, Jackie’s not Shauna Shipman; she doesn’t take all AP classes, and she wasn’t exactly getting into Brown, but was still good in her classes. She had to be, her parents expected perfection, and anything less meant that privileges got taken away. One time, her mom even threatened to make her quit soccer if her geometry grade didn’t improve. That was, of course, before she became captain and they had something else to brag about, but still. 

 

“Wow,” Lottie rolls her eyes, “using my height to your advantage, I see how it is.” Lottie hadn’t really cared that much about good grades. There were a few subjects that she really enjoyed, but most of school was a slog to her. She was smart, at least smart enough to pass most of her classes without having to try too hard, but she was also apathetic to it all. She’d always been more focused on making sure she could pass as just a normal girl, with normal grades, normal friends, and a normal life. 

 

That sure turned out well for her, hadn’t it?

 

“I mean,” Jackie grins at her, “yeah, I totally was. I’ll probably do it again, the next time there’s something I can’t reach. Or, you know. A French test I need to cheat off of.”

 

Lottie doesn’t think they’ll ever be back in a situation where Jackie might need to cheat off of her test again. She doesn’t say that, though. “I’ll reach anything you need on the top shelf,” she says instead, letting her fingers drift along Jackie’s collarbones. 

 

“My hero,” Jackie murmurs, her eyes closing once more. Soft fingers remind her of softer lips, of a warm tongue and teeth wrapping around her collarbone, biting down. It feels nice. Warm. Kind of distracting. She’s never been distracted by a person like this before. She’s never let herself be.

 

“I'd like to be,” Lottie says, only half conscious of the words. She wants to be a hero, really, she does. Because she just wants to help people. It's not about being strong or wanting to be admired, she just wants to actually be able to help people, to do something more than just hope and pray. 

 

Jackie moves a little bit closer, seeking out Lottie’s warmth again. “You are,” she tells her. “You are.”

 

Lottie shifts onto her side enough to scoop Jackie fully into her arms, pressing their bodies together. “I don't feel like one. All I do is worry you.” 

 

“That’s not true,” Jackie says, curling up happily into Lottie’s arms. “You saved me. You saved me even when I didn’t want to be saved.”

 

Lottie envelopes Jackie in her grasp. “I didn't…I wasn't trying to save you. I just didn't want you to die. I didn't want to lose another friend.” 

 

“But you did. Even if you weren’t trying to, that’s what happened,” Jackie whispers. She had just wanted to sleep. She’d begged for it. She remembers begging for it. But Lottie wouldn’t let her. Jackie never thought she’d be grateful for that. She’s so, so grateful for it now.

 

Lottie holds Jackie tight. She's happy she'd brought her inside, too. It feels selfish, but she's so happy about it. She has something, someone that's hers. How could she not be happy? It still made her feel guilty. Lottie hadn't realized how little she cared for herself and for dying until Jackie had made her promise to stay with her. Now, she had a healthy fear of death and that itself was strange to think about. “I'm just happy you let me stay by you, even after.”

 

It’s not like Lottie would have gone far, even if Jackie had pushed her away. She’d tried a little. She’d snapped and ignored and stopped eating, and she’d watched as Lottie had chosen to waste away with her, and she’d told herself that she didn’t care. But Lottie was always right there, and Jackie didn’t want to keep pulling away. She didn’t. She couldn’t. “I’m happy, too.”

 

“It was kind of selfish of me, but I liked being around you back then, because you didn’t want anything from me,” Lottie admits quietly. “I didn’t have to be the one in charge. I could just be…me.” And then, somewhere along the lines, Lottie had tripped head long into feelings for her; and now, Lottie was head over heels in love with her. It still surprised her, not about herself, she thinks that she’s always been so desperate for someone to see her, that she clings to whoever does-- but about Jackie. Never in a million years did she think Jackie would ever like her back like this. It made her all the more thankful for it.

 

Sighing, Lottie closes her eyes. “You make me feel safe.”

 

Jackie didn’t want anything at that time. She doesn’t think she needs to say the words. “Being around you reminded me that I’m alive,” Jackie tells her. She liked being reminded of the girl she saw as her friend. Her partner in French, her teammate, her co-captain. Not just the one the others would look to like she hung the moon. Though, Jackie can’t help but wonder if she looks at Lottie that way now, too. “You make me feel alive.”

 

“You are alive,” Lottie echoes, “you’re alive and you’re real and you’re here. Even as hard as it all seems.” And it was hard. This place wasn’t easy, but for all the grief it had given them, it had also given them something good-- it had given them a life free of the pressures from back home. A life where they didn’t have to rely on medication, or be the perfect daughter, or only kiss boys. 

 

And Lottie didn’t want to leave this life. She’d grown too in love with it. With Jackie. “And I’m here and real and alive. With you.”

 

Jackie leans forward and brushes a kiss across Lottie’s lips, slow and gentle, soft and sweet. “That makes it all worth it.”

 

Lottie hums contentedly against Jackie’s lips. “I’m glad you think so.” It was strange, unusual, to have someone to live for. It wasn’t just a monotonous task anymore. She didn’t have to pretend all the time, to be a person. She had someone who understood, who fought to be with her, even when she was difficult, or crazy, or afraid. 

 

“You’re worth it, too.”

 

Smiling against Lottie’s lips, Jackie’s content to just remain like that forever. She wants to. She wants to stay in the arms of a girl who loves her, who thinks she’s worth it, who holds her close and says she needs her. Jackie loves her and needs her, too. This isn’t one-sided. She’s not worried about Lottie hating her or hiding secrets from her like fucking her boyfriend. It doesn’t ache. Jackie had forgotten that love doesn’t have to ache. “I… I love you,” she murmurs, feeling the words out again on her tongue.

 

The words make Lottie’s heart skip and beat and squeeze. “I love you, too,” she says back, the words quiet between them, only for Jackie, only for Lottie. She’ll keep them safe in her heart and in the back of her throat and make sure to say them back whenever Jackie needs her to. She’ll choke on them and drown in them as long as Jackie knows that she’s loved. Even if Lottie is never enough or sometimes too much, Jackie is loved.

 

Jackie’s smile brightens, and she tucks herself further into Lottie’s side. She knows the words are true. She’s just always liked hearing them. Even when she couldn’t return them, they made her feel so warm. Pressing her nose against Lottie’s neck and breathing her in, Jackie’s content to stay right there, safe and loved and warm.

 

Lottie breathes in deep, letting it go slowly. It makes her whole body relax, only the dull ache in her ribs disturbing the moment, though not much. It was nice to just be, after everything that happened today. 

 

She doesn’t know when her eyes closed, but the next thing she does know, is her eyes are opening as Natalie is calling out to her and Jackie through their doorway. 

 

“Dinner’s ready,” she says, standing just outside. “You feeling up for it?”

 

It has been nice to rest her eyes for a little bit, though Jackie hasn’t properly slept, just kept her eyes closed and her body warm wrapped in Lottie’s arms. She barely stirs when she hears Nat’s voice, her own quiet as she asks Lottie, “Do you want to? Or do you want me to just grab us something and eat in here?”

 

Lottie wants to stay in here, because she wants to hide from the world, but she also wants to go eat with everyone else, because they’re her family. “Is Mari going to behave herself?” she asks, to both Jackie and Nat.

 

At the same time, Nat and Jackie both say, “Yes.” 

 

Jackie thinks it’s ridiculous, a little silly, and she huffs, smiling a little. “Besides, if she doesn’t, Nat will just make her run laps.” Since Mari pointed out that no one listens to Jackie anymore, anyway.

 

Lottie chuckles, too. “Alright,” she says back, “then we’ll be out in a minute.” 

 

She can practically hear Nat rolling her eyes before she walks off, presumably to go tell Mari to behave. 

 

Sighing, Lottie glances over at Jackie. “Is that okay?” she asks. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to eat out there.”

 

Jackie leans forward, pressing a kiss to the corner of Lottie’s mouth. “It’s okay. I just want you to be comfortable.” She moves to stand, stretching before she offers Lottie a hand.

 

Taking Jackie’s offer, Lottie stands, stiff as her ribs ache. “I’ll be okay,” she tells her. She does want to show them that she’s not dangerous, even if she thinks she might be, sometimes. She wants them to know that she’s still just Lottie, even if she doesn’t feel like it, oftentimes. She squeezes Jackie’s hand. “It’s probably good for us to be with all of them.”

 

Sighing, Jackie nods. “Probably,” she murmurs. It’s what she’s usually thought over the last few months that she’s been trying again out there. She thinks that she needs to be around them, needs to help out, needs to prove that she’s still somehow one of them so that they don’t turn on her again. She tugs on Lottie’s hand and heads outside, ready to face dinner and whatever might come with it.

 

Lottie follows after Jackie, almost immediately feeling her nerves spike as they turn the corner and come face to face with the rest of the others. After her episode earlier with Misty, and then the fight with Mari, Lottie can feel embarrassment building inside of her. A few of the girls glance their way, and Van even gives a little wave, which Lottie returns. 

 

It’s normal, for the most part. There’s a tension that Lottie can feel, hanging between everyone, and Mari isn’t by the fire like she usually is. Instead, she’s tucked over by Akilah and Gen, her back to the others, as she eats her meal. 

 

Lottie sinks into her normal chair and looks across the fire towards Natalie, who is nudging Travis with her foot and holding a plate out to him. She wishes she could help them talk things through, but neither of them actually seem interested in that. She just wants Natalie to know people care about her, too, even if Lottie was kind of cruel to her earlier. 

 

Jackie is, for the most part, content to lean against Lottie’s leg and eat quietly. Once, she might have wanted the center of attention. She might have commanded it, smiling and laughing and telling some sort of brilliant story, not to the same level as Van, but enough to get laughs and smiles. She would have reveled in it, happily delighted in it. 

 

Now, she doesn’t want it. She closes her eyes and listens to the chatter, quieter than usual but still present. She opens them and looks down at her food, taking another bite before watching Nat and Travis. Jackie thinks she understands him, that bone deep understanding of losing someone who’s been with you most of your life, a constant, an ache. She knows he needs time, even if time sometimes seems like a luxury here. 

 

Pressing her head against Lottie’s thigh, she offers her the rest of her food, no longer hungry enough to want to keep eating. The late breakfast, she might say, or maybe that her stomach is still recovering from the day before. Something like that. Nothing to worry about. Not an old habit. 

 

Lottie looks down at the offered plate, frowning. While they weren't starving on a daily basis anymore, it wasn't like they got much food to eat otherwise. It was important to eat consistently, since they were also lacking a lot of the nutrients they were supposed to be eating. 

 

She hopes that it's maybe just because Jackie is still feeling bad from her stomach. Lottie doesn't eat it, though, passing it along to Tai and Van, who look more than happy to finish it off, despite the look of slight concern Van gives Lottie before turning back to her girlfriend. 

 

As usual, Lottie lets her fingers play idly in Jackie's hair, thin stands of it sliding through her fingers like silk or water. No one is overly chatty today, and Lottie also takes note that Misty isn't out eating with them all and she wonders if it's by her choice or by Nat’s. She wonders if it even matters. 

 

“Do you guys think we should, like, I dunno, do something to celebrate? The, uh, the spring coming? And summer?” Van pipes up from her seat next to Tai, looking around at all of them. “I mean, we survived all that shit.”

 

 Not all of us, Jackie thinks, and her eyes slip to Travis once more, even as her arm wraps loosely around Lottie’s leg. Still, she wants to make Van feel heard. It’s not a bad idea. “We don’t have the best track record of parties out here,” she muses. “But third times the charm? If we avoid the shrooms and the berry wine, maybe we’ll get some more birds.”

 

Van crinkles her nose at Jackie. “Okay, maybe not a party. But, like, didn’t some group of people celebrate, like, the coming of summer?”

 

“Pagans,” Lottie answers. “They celebrated the summer solstice, the shortest night of the year.”

 

Snapping, Van sits up a little. “Yeah, yeah! See? Something like that. We could make a special feast and play games?”

 

“What games? We have nothing to do out here,” Tai points out.

 

“We could make shit up,” Van counters, “like the ancient people. They didn’t have things to use.”

 

“How close are we to the solstice, do you think?” Jackie asks. The air was growing warmer, but, now that it’s night, she’s grateful for the cloak Lottie made for her. The air is warming, and the ground is warming, too. Hesitantly, quietly, she adds, “We could… We could say goodbye.”

 

A few of the girls look over at Jackie, and Lottie rubs her hand gently along her shoulder in reassurance. She knows what it means. To say goodbye. “We should celebrate their life, too.” And what they’d sacrificed for the others. 

 

Travis is quiet.

 

Natalie sits up. “I’ve been keeping track of days as much as I can, uh,” she squints, scratches her neck, “I think we’re about a month or two out at this point, from June.” 

 

Which means at this point, they’ve almost been out here a year. Lottie looks at the others, and she can tell what they’re all thinking, because she’s thinking it, too. 

 

They’re likely never getting rescued. At this point, the world has probably decided they’re all dead and gone. Maybe that was for the better.

 

Jackie just blinks at that. They’d been out there for so long. She could so clearly see her life for what it had been, and, at the same time, she feels like this place is all she knows. It’s messing with her head. “I guess this just means we have plenty of time to prepare before it gets to June,” she muses. A year. She was supposed to be at college, Rutgers, sharing a room with–

 

No, Shauna wouldn’t have been there, either. She wanted to leave Jackie behind. Jackie guesses she got what she wanted, just not in the way she wanted.

 

Clearing her throat, Jackie adds, “We could also do something for… birthdays. We haven’t, really, thought about those, and we can’t exactly get the dates right. A lot have passed, but it can be, like, a pre-solistice thingy.”

 

“Yeah,” Nat speaks up again, “I think that’s a good idea. Most of us are eighteen now, huh? Well--” she gestures to the old JV kids, who were still juniors when they left-- “some of us.”

 

Lottie hums. She hadn’t really thought about her birthday, even before they left, despite it being right around the corner. It wasn’t like she ever had a big party or anything. She preferred just going out with friends. Well, “friends”. Was she even friends with anyone back there? It seems hard to decide. No one really knew her back in Wiskayok. No one ever knew anything about her.

 

“So it’s settled,” Van says, triumphant, “summer solstice celebration. With games, good food, and great stories.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know about good food. Then again, maybe they’d have some variety by that point. But games and stories and trying to bring some lightness to this place sounded like a really good idea. She leans her head against Lottie once more, pressing a kiss to her knee.

 

The rest of dinner was spent in a blissful murmur, as the girls all chatted with each other about different ideas for the upcoming celebration. Someone pitched the idea of a competition-- losers have to wait on the winners for the day-- and Lottie can see some of their old competitive drives sparking. They were state champion soccer players, after all. Every single one of them had a drive inside of them to be the best, do the best. They were ruthless with it, sometimes. 

 

Mari offered to make more berry wine, to which most girls gave a chorus of “uuuugh”s, but Lottie knows she’ll make it anyway. Maybe this time it won’t be so foul. 

 

Eventually, they all begin to retire to their huts, as the sun kissed sky turns orange, then purple, then black. Lottie pets her fingers back through Jackie’s hair before leaning forward to ask, “You want to turn in?”

 

Jackie has, admittedly, been dozing, occasionally offering a suggestion or wrinkling her nose up at someone else’s, laughing at a comment or making a joke of her own, but, as the sky started growing darker, she was once again content to just… be. When Lottie asks if she wants to turn in, Jackie nods against her leg and slowly stands, sighing. “Let’s go,” she says, smiling as she holds her hand out.

 

It already feels routine, comfortable, to take Jackie’s hands and stand, holding on to one still as they make their way into their hut. It feels normal to shrug off her cloak and to reach down to pull her dress off, pausing once to breathe through the pain before shucking it off and setting it by their pile of clothes. She kicks off her boots and then sinks down into their bedding, careful to not strain her ribs too much.

 

When she lays back, she lets out a big breath, deflating into the blankets, looking over at Jackie. She watches her with a gentle fondness, a gaze that she doesn’t give to many. 

 

Jackie watches Lottie get ready for bed with a small smile, letting her settle down and get comfortable before she starts joining her, taking off her shoes, her cloak, hesitating before removing her shirt as well and folding it. When she finally moves over to their bedding, she sinks into it with a sigh and immediately moves in close, her body gravitating to Lottie’s like she just can’t help it.

 

Lottie pulls Jackie into her, feeling her fit against her side, slotting into the frayed and bent edges of herself. Maybe they weren’t soulmates or it wasn’t love at first sight, but Lottie feels like she’d grown into it, like she’d fought for it, and eventually, she’d shaped herself to fit around Jackie because she wanted to and she wanted her.

 

She thinks maybe that’s the same thing as true love. She hopes it can be enough.

Pressing her nose against Lottie’s neck, Jackie breathes her in. She might have felt self-conscious about this back home, memorizing the way that a person smells, knowing that they might do the same to her, especially worrying that she stinks and just feels gross, but it’s a comfort, here. Lottie smells warm. She smells safe. There’s an animal part of Jackie’s brain that recognizes that and clings to it, just like her arms wrap around and cling to Lottie.

Notes:

Gosh, these two can talk a lot can't they? I mostly blame Jackie, what do you guys think? 🤔Thanks again for reading! All your comments and kudos make us so happy <3 see you next week!

Chapter 24: i bet we look great from above, lit by stars, in love

Summary:

Now that Lottie's healed, it's date night! Lottie attempts to wine and dine Jackie underneath the light of a full moon, and the two eat a five star dinner (as long as you don't ask Emeril Lagasse to try it out). Lottie's an astronomy (not astrology) nerd, and Jackie's smitten. They reminisce about the past, think about the future, and decide to make like Marvin Gaye and "get it on."

Notes:

Clocking in at a little over 25k, this chunky chapter's part 1 of a two part date night where these two crazy kids really get to enjoy each other's company, and we hope you enjoy the chapter!

Title comes from You by Caroline Kepnes

After that, really, it all goes by pretty quickly. Life has seemed to settle into something normal out here, however strange it might sound. They build up more of the village, including an animal pen, and Lottie’s idea for a sort of holding cell, a little perimeter fence to help keep wild animals out, and they even finish the moat Nat had them digging to keep the place from flooding during heavy rains. 

 

It all feels like it’s going really well.

 

Except, as the days pass, Lottie can feel herself growing more and more distant. Not just from the girls, but from the Wilderness. She worries. She visits her tree, but nothing ever happens. She doesn’t hear it. She’s even stopped hearing things, seeing things. All of it. She knows she should be happy about it, god knows Jackie is-- but Lottie, for some reason, can’t be. 

 

It scares her. Before, when she heard it, she felt it, she knew what it wanted from them. She knew how to keep it happy and keep her family safe. Now? She has no idea. She feels like she’s getting desperate. She tries every day to set aside time to try and meditate, to find a place where she feels the most connected to It, but It never answers. It hasn’t since that day in the cabin. 

 

She’s trying her best to remain optimistic. After her ribs finally mostly healed-- enough to where she could bend over and pick things up without it hurting too much-- she tends to the garden on a daily basis. Akilah helps her, and they often venture out to find more seeds or plants that they can add to it. Lottie tills the soil methodically, hauls pails of water back and forth twice a day to water them, and cares for each plant like it’s her duty. It helps keep her mind off what she’s missing. That, and the feel of the cool soil between her fingers makes her feel connected, at least, to the earth itself. Providing food and bounty for the girls, so that it’s not just rabbit or deer or pheasant meat they’re eating, but vegetables and fruits. 

 

They all seem to be doing a lot better. They all smile more, laugh more, they’ve invented silly games, even Travis seems a little happier, joining in on the fun every now and then, like playing telephone with Melissa and Britt and Robin (despite him getting it wrong every time, they keep inviting him back). It’s nice to see. It’s nice to know that the life they have out here isn’t as tragic and doomed as they all thought it was just a few months ago.

 

Lottie doesn’t keep track of time in hours or even days anymore. She keeps track of time by the moon. Tonight is the next full moon, and even if it hasn’t been that long, she wants to do something special for Jackie. Especially because her ribs are now healed enough that a supervised Misty Quigley has pretty much given her the all clear. 

 

She’s fixed up a spot in the woods with a picnic for later that night, down near the river where it tapers off into a little pond area before spilling back out in a gentle waterfall and off towards the lake. There’s blankets, pillows, candles she found in the shed, flowers-- the whole nine yards. Lottie’s never actually taken someone out on a date before, but she thinks this might be close enough to one out here, at least.

 

It’s late in the afternoon when she makes it back to the village and sees Nat inside her hut, scribbling down more on her map. They’ve got a pretty large portion of their surroundings plotted out now, all the way from beyond the plane, to the lake, the remnants of the cabin, and almost as far out as Tai’s crew had made it all those months ago before the wolves had gotten to Van.

 

They try not to venture that far anymore. Nat has drawn a hard line on the map and in those spots, to make sure no one does. Lottie thinks it’s a good idea.

 

“Hey,” she says as she approaches Nat, “Jackie around?”

 

Nat hums, looking over at her. “Uh, think she was over by the animal pens?”

 

Lottie smiles at her. “Thanks. Your map is looking really good, by the way.”

 

Nodding, Nat turns back towards it. “Yeah. Thanks to your girlfriend.”

 

The words still make Lottie smile, and she shakes her head before moving away from Natalie and towards the other side of camp. 

 

Somehow, it’s gotten easier for Jackie to settle into this place as time moves on. Certain things become routine. As the weather warms, she goes out more and more, helping map the area. Sometimes, she’s with Nat, and they discuss game, tracking, strategies for what to do when the weather cools again because it will cool again. Sometimes, she’s with Van or Travis, and they’ll go check the nets at the lake or cast spears in the river. The first time Jackie speared a fish, she got so excited that she fell in the water, only for Van to laugh loud enough to knock herself in and join her.

 

Somehow, they manage to find things to enjoy out there.

 

Jackie helps around the village as well, even in the places where she doesn’t know how to do shit. She’s never had a pet in the house, so, of course, when Akilah starts catching rabbits, she shoves one into Jackie’s arms, only for it to bite her. When she tries to chop firewood, of course Tai takes it from her before she even has the chance to swing, muttering about Jackie not being allowed near bladed objects. She’s terrible at handwashing clothes but good at folding them, maybe a little too particular and meticulous. She’s allowed to help watch the food, but only if Lottie’s not around because otherwise she gets distracted.

 

Because if Lottie’s around, Jackie’s thoroughly distracted. She can’t help it. She’s a little smitten. Being able to be with someone, openly, that she actually wants to be with has ruined her a little bit. She finds that she doesn’t mind.

 

“Jackie, can you help me with Mortimer?” Akilah asks as Jackie carries some firewood from storage to the firepit. 

 

She sets the wood down and jogs over, quickly opening and closing the gate. “Sure, as long as you don’t make me hold one of your evil bunnies again.” She pulls her hair back to get it off of her neck, and recent development that makes her feel a little self conscious about her ear but that no one’s actively commented on yet, so she’s trying to be fine with it.

 

“They’re not evil,” Akilah says, picking up the duck and placing him in Jackie’s arms. “I think they didn’t like your shirt.”

 

“What’s wrong with my shirt?” Jackie mutters. She’d been wearing one of Shauna’s–- hers, at this point–- flannels that day, three little bones carefully tucked into the pocket. She doesn’t get what the problem was. “Why, exactly, am I holding a duck?”

 

“He’s been limping, and I want to see if there’s something in his foot.”

 

Jackie holds the duck, the two of them making eye contact as he quacks and cranes his neck. “Please don’t bite me,” she whispers. 

 

Mortimer refrains.

 

Akilah looks over Jackie’s shoulder and offers up a small smile. “Hi, Lottie.”

 

When Lottie finds Jackie, she’s in the pen with Akilah, holding Mortimer out like he’s a human child who’s just wet himself. She laughs to herself, though, leaning against the fence and watching in fascination. 

 

“No, please,” she says with a wave, “continue. Don’t mind me.” She knows Jackie has always been weird around the animals, she hadn’t stopped talking about how one of Akilah’s rabbits bit her the first time she’d held it for at least a week, and she usually tries to avoid being around them alone. 

 

“Look at that,” Lottie grins, “I think he likes you, Jax.”

 

Jackie perks up immediately when she hears Lottie’s voice, squeezing the duck accidentally and causing him to squawk indignantly. “Shit, sorry.” She frowns at Lottie dramatically, but she keeps holding the duck as Akilah works. 

 

“I think he’s alright. You can set him down, now,” Akilah says, giving Mortimer a gentle pet before stepping away.

 

After Jackie sets him down, the duck ruffles his feathers and waddles off, going to do whatever temperamental ducks with clipped wings do during the day. Jackie walks over to the fence where Lottie leans against it and grins. “Hi.”

 

Lottie matches Jackie’s grin, leaning forward to press a kiss to her lips from the other side of the fence. “Look at you, turning into a real, life vet.” 

 

Akilah snorts behind them and Lottie raises a brow at her, to which she just shrugs back at. 

 

Lottie then holds out her hand to Jackie, heading towards the gate to open it. “C’mon,” she tells her, “there’s something I want to show you.”

 

“Yeah, I’m kind of, like, super gifted with animals,” Jackie agrees, causing Akilah to actually giggle behind them. Jackie isn’t given any time to comment further, though, as Lottie opens the gate and Jackie walks through, offering up a little wave before taking Lottie’s hand. “Don’t tell me: you found the last Snickers bar that someone had squirreled away, maybe an actual squirrel.”

 

“So it seems,” Lottie says, “maybe we should put you in charge of the animals instead of Akilah, huh?” She squeezes Jackie’s hand and tugs her in closer to her side. It’s still so strangely wonderful to have someone like this in her life, especially out here. “Man, I wish. Though it would probably be all gross by now.” She shakes her head. “No, not a Snickers, but I’m still hoping you’ll like it anyway. But--” she looks at Jackie up and down-- “you gotta change first. And maybe wash off a little.”

 

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Ms. Matthews. Akilah has years more schooling than me. I’m just not ready for that level of responsibility with animal husbandry,” Jackie says, grinning as Lottie holds her close. She wrinkles up her nose, knowing that Lottie was right but, hey, a girl can dream. “Honestly, I’ve kind of forgotten what chocolate tastes like,” she admits. It wasn’t like she let herself indulge on it too much back home, and there hasn’t been any here since those few days and snack cakes after the crash.

 

Jackie frowns. “Change? Into… what?”

 

“Wow, you know what animal husbandry is?” Lottie teases, grinning down at Jackie. She likes being able to be like this, more open and free and able to sort of manhandle her girlfriend, as she tugs Jackie against her and wraps her arms around her tight. “Yeah, me too. But we’ve got some nice berries growing in the garden now. So not chocolate, but definitely sweet enough for dessert.” 

 

Lottie pulls back, brushing her hands over the front of Jackie’s flannel, watching some dirt fall off of it. “Preferably something less…muddy.”

 

“Uh, yeah. I mean, who doesn’t?” Jackie didn’t, until like a year ago. But it was one of those SAT words (or so Shauna said. Jackie’s still not convinced she wasn’t just making her read a dictionary to be cruel) she’d been taught and just hadn’t forgotten. Using it in front of Melissa had been the most amusing. “Berries are sweet,” Jackie agrees. “You’re sweeter, though.”

 

Jackie stands on her toes, grinning as Lottie brushes her hands down her shirt. “But I thought you liked it when I was… dirty.”

 

Tai walks by, sighing. “You two literally have your own hut, Jesus Christ.”

 

Even if she doesn’t pull away, Jackie still has the decency to blush, feeling it creep up to her ear.

 

“Melissa didn’t,” Lottie chuckles, remembering how confused the younger girl had been, even after they’d explained its meaning. Why the fuck do they call it husbandry? That’s misogynistic. 

 

Lottie half rolls her eyes at the pun, but smiles back regardless, glancing over Jackie’s shoulder at Tai as the other girl huffs at them. “So do you and Van and yet I still caught you guys half naked by the garden yesterday.”

 

It’s Tai’s turn to blush, grumbling about going to get more firewood before she disappears behind one of the other huts and Lottie tugs Jackie by her belt loops towards their own. “I do,” she says after a moment, “but I think you’ll want to not be in something you’ve already been sweating in all day. Trust me.” 

 

Jackie raises an eyebrow but nods slowly. “Okay, that makes sense. Should I go to the river and wash off or just change?”

 

“You can probably just rinse off in the hand wash bucket.” They’re probably going to get sweaty again, after all, if Lottie’s plans go the way she hopes they do. She pushes Jackie towards the hut. “Now quit asking so many questions and go get changed.” 

 

“Gosh, so pushy,” Jackie teases, but she listens, dropping by the hand wash bucket and grabbing a rag to wet before heading back to their hut and taking off her top, doing her best to clean off most of the sweat from the day. She changes into one of her sweater vests and fixes her hair in the little mirror they added to their hut, checking it over once, twice.

 

When Jackie finishes changing and comes back out, Lottie is right there waiting for her. She can’t keep her eyes from trailing over her newly donned vest, the way it hangs loose around her frame, arm holes sagging just enough for the sides of her bra to just barely peek out from underneath it. It’s very not Jackie back in society, but so very Jackie out here in the wilderness. 

 

“Hot,” is all Lottie says. Underneath her own cloak, which Lottie wears everywhere, despite the temperature, she’s wearing one of her own old shirts, the white one with shorter sleeves and little rainbow stripes on the front, and her little pink shorts that match it. She holds out her arm. “Ready?”

 

Jackie grins happily, taking Lottie’s arm. “Ready,” she agrees, lacing their fingers together and brushing her thumb over Lottie’s hand.

 

It’s a comforting gesture, one that Lottie has grown to cherish. Tugging on Jackie’s hand, she begins to lead them off through the trees. Today is a nice day, too. It’s warm, with a slight breeze, the leaves singing with it as it rustles them. Birds sing, and in the distance, the water from the river can be heard babbling over rocks. Lottie thinks it’s kind of perfect, actually. 

 

“Did you do anything else today, aside from play doctor with Mortimer?” Lottie asks as they walk.

 

“I went with Travis this morning to the lake to check the nets,” Jackie says. “There were a few. Nat and I were talking about figuring out how to smoke shit. We need to be better about, you know, preserving food. But, uh, that took a good bit of the morning. I’ve hauled some firewood. Was an amazing veterinarian’s assistant, but you saw that. What all did you do?”

 

“Hauling firewood, huh? Trying to take Tai’s place now, too?” Lottie teases, shaking her head. “Well…we could build some in ground ovens, like some of the natives did. We’d need clay to build them, and salt to help with preserving…but if there’s iron in the ground up here like Misty says there is, that shouldn’t be a problem.” 

 

Shrugging, Lottie muses on her day. “Mostly garden work again. I made a drying rack for some of the herbs, too, so we can start actually adding spices to our dishes. No garlic, unfortunately, but there’s some wild thyme and rosemary.” 

 

“No, no, not chopping, just transportation,” Jackie clarifies. “I’m not allowed near the axe.” She considers Lottie’s words before nodding. All of that would be… good. A lot of work, but good. They could do it. They had time. “Wow, spices? And berries for dessert, I feel like we’re going to get a little spoiled out here.”

 

“Aaah.” Lottie nods. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’d be afraid of you swinging an axe, too.” She feels like a lot of this life they’ve built out here is so much like the one back home. Instead of school and homework, they have chores around the village. Instead of after school soccer practice, they have games they’ve started playing together. Instead of parties with beer and weed, they get drunk on each other and sometimes berry wine. 

 

“If only there was wheat, then we could actually make, like, pastries and stuff,” Lottie jokes. “Imagine having a scone out here.” 

 

“I know, I’m so scary,” Jackie says. She hums, leaning into Lottie as they walk. “Scones. God, those would be good.” Just one, with just a little cream, a berry compote. It’d be kind of great. They’re making do, though. It’s not as bad as it was. “So, where, exactly, are you taking me?”

 

“So very scary, in your sweater vest and short khakis.” Lottie tugs on the sleeve of Jackie’s vest, grinning. “At least we get eggs sometimes, now, thanks to Mortimer.” Her smile grows at Jackie’s question. The sun is beginning to set, the high landscape of the mountains always making it darker earlier than back in flat New Jersey, which means Lottie’s plans are going right on schedule. “It’s a surprise.”

 

It doesn’t take them long to get there, though, and Lottie stops just before a little wall of bushes, turning to face Jackie. “I um,” she feels a little flustered all of a sudden, worried Jackie might not like it, or that she’d think it was weird. Lottie clears her throat. “I know it hasn’t been that long since we…became a couple, but I just wanted to do something for you. For us.” Swallowing, she then pulls the brush aside and ushers Jackie through, her face feeling warm.

 

The little alcove is tucked away in a clearing of trees, the sky above visible through the tops of them in a perfect little circle. The blanket in the middle is spread out for them to sit on, with two bowls, two cups, a basket with some food in it (Mari had actually helped her make some pheasant legs into what could probably pass as chicken legs, fresh vegetables, and a berry compote she’d simmered for a while for dessert), pillows to lean on, and, of course, a little bit of berry wine. 

 

“Surprise?” she says tentatively, but warm.

 

For a moment, all Jackie can do is stare. The little picnic is set up with so much love and care, fresh food and the blankets and the pillows, the way they’ll have a view of the clear sky as the world starts painting it with a sunset. 

 

Jackie can’t stop from throwing herself at Lottie, pulling her in for a smoldering kiss. She’s panting when she pulls away, immediately going to wrap Lottie up in a tight hug. “No one’s ever…” She has to swallow, her voice tight and rough. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before.”

 

Lottie is taken by surprise as Jackie tugs her down into a heated kiss, one she’s all too excited to return, face flushing and lungs burning by the time they pull apart. She curls her arms around Jackie, heart pounding in her chest. “I’ve never…done anything like it for someone. I hope it’s okay?”

 

“It’s perfect,” Jackie says immediately. “You’re perfect.” She’s perfect. The fact that she wanted to do this in the first place was perfect. Jackie thinks she would have been happy enough just going somewhere and holding Lottie’s hand. But Lottie put so much work into this. How can Jackie be anything but completely and overwhelmingly in love with her?

 

“Well, I-- I’m not--” Lottie half stutters, then shakes her head. “C’mon.” She takes Jackie’s hand again and leads her over to the blanket, pulling her down to sit with her. “Surprisingly, Mari actually um, helped me make the food.” She opened the little basket and pointed inside. “Don’t tell her if it’s any good though, we don’t need it going to her head.”

 

“You are,” Jackie says as Lottie leads her away. She’s grinning and she just can’t stop, that warm and gooey feeling in her chest spreading. “Aw, so she can be sweet when she wants to be,” Jackie teases, sitting beside Lottie and looking at the little space. “Blankets, pillows, food, candles. Are you wining and dining me, Lottie Matthews?”

 

“Nat kind of made her do it,” Lottie admits, giving a sheeping smile. “But it was nice of her to do it anyway.” She scoots a little closer to Jackie, not really wanting to be too far away from her now that she had her all to herself. She wraps her arms around her, pulling her into her side. “Is it working?”

 

Jackie laughs because of course Mari had to be coerced into an act of kindness. She can’t keep the smile off her face as Lottie moves closer, both of them unable to be away from the other for too long. “It’s totally working,” she murmurs, leaning in to press a kiss to Lottie’s jaw, her cheek. “Play your cards right, and you might even get lucky.”

 

Lottie feels rather adored under Jackie’s kisses, nuzzling into her, fingers threading into the fabric of her vest. She hums, only half registering what she’s saying before she blinks, looking down at her, into her bright, hazel eyes, the ones that remind Lottie of the changing colors of the leaves in autumn, or the streaks of color in carved wood. “I already am lucky,” she mutters back, moving in to kiss Jackie fully again, slow and fervent, letting the taste of her linger on her lips.

 

“You’re so cheesy,” Jackie teases, but she kind of adores it. She loves the way that Lottie looks at her, the way she kisses her, and Jackie puts her hands on Lottie’s cheeks and sinks happily into the kiss, letting her lips part slightly to deepen it. It’s still slow; they can take their time out here. That’s one of the things that Jackie has grown most fond of. They can take their time.

 

“Just being--” Lottie breathes between kisses-- “honest.” And yeah, maybe it was cheesy, but she didn’t care. She wanted Jackie to know how lucky she felt. How lucky she was. Not only to be alive, but to have her, be with her. She gets to keep her, for as long as Jackie wants her to. 

 

Her tongue is eager to slide inside Jackie’s mouth, licking against teeth and her tongue as well. It’s still honeyed, patient, taking their time as they taste each other and breathe each other in. Still, she can’t help the way her fingers slip just under the fabric of Jackie’s shirt, finding warm skin along her hip bones and lower back. She thinks she’d stay in this moment forever, if she could. 

 

By the time Jackie pulls away, they’re both panting, even though their movements have been unhurried. Jackie still feels heat, her heart pounding, her body still shivering at the feeling of hot fingers trailing against skin. “You went through… a lot of effort just for us to spend the entire time making out,” Jackie teases. 

 

“Well,” Lottie smirks back, “we have to build up an appetite, don’t we?” As if they aren’t almost always hungry out here, even when they do have enough food. She lifts one hand to brush some of Jackie’s bangs away from her face, letting her hand stay pressed against her cheek. “Besides, we have all night. Just you and me.” She leans back in for another chaste kiss, lingering again close to Jackie’s lips. 

 

Jackie laughs. “Did working in the garden all day not work up an appetite?” she asks. One hand goes to Lottie’s bicep and squeezes, and, god, it’s just so solid. Her eyes are already closing as she leans into Lottie’s touch. “Just us,” she murmurs. A dream. One that was so often true. They have their own hut, their own bed, and they get this, too, a private night away from camp, just for them. 

 

Lottie just hums. “Maybe.” She hadn’t done too much manual labor around the garden that day, the soil hadn’t needed tilling, she’d just had to water them, pack in some more soil. And then she’d scrubbed her nails clean of the dirt and washed her hair as well as she could, before making all the food, and coming to set up this. She’d been far too excited to exhaust herself or work up any sort of appetite that didn’t involve at least a little kissing. Or more. 

 

She lets her hands circle around to the small of Jackie’s back, scooping her forward and into Lottie’s lap. She loves that she can do this now without Jackie chastising her about her ribs. Warm hands press flat palms against Jackie’s skin, feeling how smooth and silky it still felt, even after all their time out here. She kisses her collarbone, her neck, breathes in her scent. Earthy and salty and something uniquely Jackie, almost sweet, like strawberries. 

 

Jackie’s breath stutters as Lottie pulls her close, into her lap, and she wraps her arms around Lottie’s neck, loose and draping. She plays with soft, thick hair, wrapping it around her fingers and feeling those soft strands between them. Soft kisses on her skin and a nose pressed into her neck make Jackie shiver and pull herself closer. Warm hands leave goosebumps in their wake. She thinks this might be the closest to heaven on earth a person can get. 

 

That’s the thing about this place that has taken so much from them: it can be so fucking beautiful in return. It ripped them open and exposed their insides, but it also stitched them back up and showed them how to take care of themselves. They’re stronger now than they had been before. They’re more a team than they had been before. There’s abundance right now, which is pretty fucking insane. And there’s a beautiful girl trailing kisses over Jackie’s skin, and that’s pretty fucking insane, too.

 

The hands that slide into Lottie’s hair make her shiver with delight. It makes goosebumps prickle on her arms and up her spine. The breeze that plays with the leaves and flows through their enclosure makes Lottie’s skin feel electric. Her hands move up Jackie’s back, lifting her vest as they do. Touching Jackie feels like muscle memory now, like Lottie’s hands know the map of her body, every curve, every valley, every bump and scratch. And she loves it all. How could she not?

 

Lottie doesn’t have anything left to go back to. It’s just this place and this person that are keeping her tethered anywhere. And she’s okay with that, and she’s okay if, one day, they want to leave her. She has it now. She has it now and she wants it more than anything. And it’s easy enough to prove, as her teeth graze against Jackie’s neck, before lips close around the skin and she sucks at the saltiness of it.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie sighs, her head tilting to the side as lips close around skin and suck and make her eyes roll back inside her head, her hands tightening in thick hair and tugging her close. She almost feels silly that she’d bothered putting clothes on when she mostly just wants to feel skin against skin, the two of them moving against each other like they’ve got it down to a science. 

 

Jackie’s fingers have traced out as much of Lottie’s skin as she can. Her eyes have memorized the map of her. She doesn’t think he’s teenage foolishness that has her believing that this is something she wants and needs for the rest of her life, that this is something she can’t let go of. She won’t. She can’t. 

 

Lottie’s hands go to Jackie’s hips and pull her in closer, wrapping her arms around her back to press their bodies flush together as she leaves a nice, red mark on Jackie’s neck. She kisses it when she’s done, licking her lips to wet them and taste the salt from Jackie’s skin on them. The sunlight makes Jackie’s hair look like honey and bark, dazzling in its color. Lottie presses a kiss to her lips, a little more firm this time, more needy, teeth prodding gently at her bottom lip. She can almost taste something metallic on her tongue and she just wants more. 

 

“Tell me what you want,” she exhales into Jackie’s mouth. She wants to give her whatever she wants, she wants to give her everything, the whole world, really. She’d pluck the stars from the sky for her if she could, Lottie knows this in her soul. 

 

“I want..” Jackie stutters, sighs. She wants to live in this moment forever. She wants to feel like this for forever. “I just want you,” she mumbles against Lottie’s lips before pressing in closer, hungry with how much she wants this. They have this moment to themselves. They have all the time in the world. Jackie just wants to enjoy it.

 

“You have me,” Lottie says, “I’m yours.” She thinks that she’s only ever going to be Jackie’s. Even in the afterlife. Even in whatever comes next. Even if Jackie’s not always going to be hers. She thinks whatever parts of Lottie Matthews still exist belong to Jackie Taylor and she doesn’t want it any other way. She only knows how to love in full, how to show her devotion in full. 

 

Lottie kisses Jackie again, open-mouthed and wanting, leaning them back until Jackie is laid out beneath her and she smooth a hand against the flat of Jackie’s stomach and kiss her as hard as she wants.

 

The fact that Lottie is Jackie’s is so strange and wonderful that sometimes she can barely believe it. She doesn’t understand how it happened. Or, she does, kind of, but that doesn’t make it any less incredible. Jackie’s not supposed to feel like this. She’s not. Not with anyone. But Lottie being there for her when Jackie needed her had changed everything. 

 

Jackie gets to be happy. She gets to have this. She gets to feel the soft blanket underneath her, Lottie on top of her, lips hungry against her own. This is theirs, only theirs, and her tongue brushes against Lottie’s to confirm it. 

 

Jackie’s tongue tastes like heaven, Lottie thinks. It’s the only thing she ever wants to taste, actually. Food means nothing when compared to Jackie. And she wants to taste her more, but she wants to take her time. It needs to be right. Still, her fingers drag along Jackie’s stomach, up her sides. They scrape along the bottom strap of her bra, before coming back down the same way they came, nails light against skin. She kisses down the other side of Jackie’s mouth, to her neck, leaving hot breath wherever she goes. Reaching the crook, she bites down again, a little harder, lapping her skin.

 

Heat shoots through Jackie, a moan dragging itself out of her mouth as Lottie bites down. She tugs at Lottie’s hair before moving her hands down, trailing her fingers over Lottie’s back before slipping them under her shirt. Hot skin meets her fingers, and Jackie takes her time reminding herself of every inch. It’s stupid how turned on she is. It’s barely real. No. It’s the most real thing. Sometimes, Jackie has to remind herself that things are real, too. This is one of the best ways to do it.

 

Lottie shivers again under Jackie’s touch, the feel exciting her, the sound of her moans making her stomach burn with want. Out here, away from everyone, they can be loud, and she reminds Jackie of that by dragging her mouth lower and biting down on her collarbone, leaving little indents of her sharp canines in the skin before kissing it better. 

 

Leaning back to admire her work and the way Jackie is looking at her, Lottie realizes she’s still wearing her cloak. She reaches up with one hand to untie it before shirking it off, making it easier for Jackie to touch her wherever she wants. Lidded eyes gaze back down at Jackie and she’s the only thing in the world that matters to Lottie. “I love you, Jackie,” she breathes.

 

Jackie thinks that Lottie is a little obsessed with making her moan and whine and cry out. The worst part is how easy it is. Years of faking it (tastefully, might she add; she knew what she was doing), and now that she’s with someone that actually makes her feel good, she just can’t stop herself from being loud. It’d be more embarrassing if Lottie clearly didn’t find it so hot. 

 

“I love you, too, Lottie Matthews.” The words have gotten a little easier to say. They fall a little faster from her lips. It helps that they make her feel so fucking warm, saying them and hearing them. They make her cheeks flush, looking up at Lottie and moving her fingers to unclip her bra under her shirt as she leans over her.

 

The words never cease to make Lottie feel warm. More than warm, really, like everything on the inside of her is being wrapped in a hug. It’s an indescribable feeling, actually. The closest she thinks she’s ever gotten is sitting on the porch of an old, now burned down cabin, with a blonde girl behind her, braiding her hair. 

 

Lottie feels Jackie’s fingers deftly undo her bra and she smirks down at her, crooked and full. “Now who’s eager?” She is, too, though, and she ducks her head back down to kiss Jackie, raw and full of all the things she doesn’t say out loud, and all the things she does, too. Like I love you and I need you and I want you.

 

There’s no way for Jackie to respond as lips crush against her own and she’s pulled into an all consuming vortex of want and need. When they pull away to breath, Jackie’s panting, but she raises and eyebrow and manages, “Who said I wasn’t?”

 

Her hands slip around to Lottie’s stomach, brushing up and down, up and down, before moving up and slipping under her bra. Jackie palms at her breasts, sighing happily before she lurches up again and reattaches their lips together. 

 

All Lottie can do is grin, eyes fluttering as Jackie’s hands slide up under her shirt, against her stomach, before eventually she feels her warm palms against her chest and Lottie’s breath stutters in her throat. She can’t resist pressing into Jackie’s touch, meeting her kiss with just as much enthusiasm, tongue already licking into Jackie’s mouth. Her arms brace on either side of Jackie’s head as she leans further into the touch, sliding between Jackie’s legs and rolling her hips against her. She never thought she could want someone so bad, but sometimes it feels like an ache when she’s not touching Jackie and the only cure is this.

 

“God, yes,” Jackie mumbles against Lottie’s lips, groaning as hips roll against her, her own moving as well. Absolutely, ridiculously horny thoughts that she hadn’t allowed to exist for too long before this place, this girl, flood her, making it impossible to think about anything else. Which, well. Why would she want to think about anything else? Why would she want to be worried about anything that isn’t Lottie, Lottie, Lottie? Lips and tongue and teeth against her own, hands bracketing her head, the weight of her so solid and real that there’s no way that Jackie can be dreaming. Why would she want to think about anything that doesn’t have everything to do with this? Her thumbs brush against sensitive skin, feeling it pebble in her grasp. So beautiful. Jackie thinks that Lottie is so fucking beautiful.

 

Lottie's breath hitches at the sound of Jackie's voice, how breathy and high and wanting it is, keening from her throat. And Lottie wants to make her feel like this all the time, wants her to make those happy little noises that fill Lottie up with so much fire and joy. She rolls her hips again as she feels the pads of Jackie's thumbs graze against her breasts, skin stiffening under her touch. She moans breathily into Jackie's mouth, one hand digging into her hair, tugging slightly, pulling her head to the side so that Lottie can wrap her lips around her neck again, biting and sucking. She thinks this is the most amazing thing in the world, having this girl, touching this girl, tasting this girl. 

 

“Jackie,” she sighs out into her neck. Hot breath tickling skin. She drags her tongue along the curve of it, up to her chin. Nibbles on her jaw, before she leans back just enough to slide her hands up Jackie's sides, dragging her vest with her fingers until her stomach is exposed and she can flatten her pains against the skin there, lean into Jackie's hands on her chest, and roll her hips again, watching Jackie's face with the utmost interest.

 

There’s no doubt that, by the time they head back to the village, they’re both going to be absolutely covered in marks. Both of them with their silly sharp teeth and their desire to leave silly red marks on skin. Jackie would think it’s funny, does think it’s funny. Unfortunately, so does the rest of the team, with as much as they get ribbed about it. It’s hard to be too upset when it feels so good, especially when it’s teeth and hands and rolling hips to accompany them. 

 

Jackie trembles as hands brush up her side, over her stomach. She groans as hips roll into hers again and again. When she looks up and sees Lottie’s eyes, so deep and dark and endless, she feels lost in them again. Eyes that are soft. Eyes that are hungry. Jackie can’t look away. Honestly? She wouldn’t want to if she could. The moment feels perfect. It’s perfect. She’s so lucky. She thinks she says the words out loud, control over her tongue gone. She doesn’t care. It’s true. 

 

“You’re perfect,” Lottie purrs back, leaning down to press a kiss to Jackie’s stomach, just above her navel. Her skin always so cool, chilled against her warm tongue as Lottie drags it up her abdomen, to the edge of her bra. She places a kiss in the middle of her chest on her sternum, lets her nails trace gentle red lines into her sides, as if marking Jackie as hers. Because she is, she’s hers, and in this moment, right here, no one else can have her. Not the Wilderness, not a dead girl, and not a society that left them all behind.

 

But, after a long moment, Lottie moves her hands to tug Jackie’s vest back down, gives her a gentle kiss on the side of her mouth. She cups her face and smiles down at her and says, “Hungry?”

 

It should be gross, the way that Lottie licks her, tastes he, but it’s so fucking hot that Jackie’s back arches off the ground. She feels like she’s about to overheat, like she’s burning from the inside. Her body shudders as nails leave marks over her skin. She wants more. She needs more. And it’s so close to more that she can practically taste it. 

 

And then Lottie pulls away, tugs her vest down. “Wha?” Jackie makes a rough, stupid sound that gets trapped in her throat. She blinks up at Lottie, frowning. “What the fuck?” she whines.

 

Lottie can’t help but chuckle. She pets along Jackie’s face, smiling down at her. “Don’t worry,” she tells her, “we’ll finish in a bit.” But Lottie has plans and she wants this to be more than perfect. She leans over, presses a gentle kiss to Jackie’s lips, as her hands take Jackie’s and squeeze them. “Trust me.” 

 

Jackie groans, closing her eyes and leaning back. She squeezes Lottie’s hands back. “You did that on purpose,” she mutters, cracking one eye open to look at Lottie’s silly, smiling face. “Fine,” she says, sighing and leaning up on her elbows. “Alright, fine. I’m trusting you.”

 

Lottie nuzzles the side of Jackie’s face, giving her another gentle kiss before tugging her up with her. “We don’t want the food to get cold,” she tells her, “I worked so hard on it.” Mostly, she just watched Mari cook it while giving little tips and watching annoyance flash over her face before she would smile and then do what she suggested. 

 

Shifting, she grabs the plates and food, dolling it out and setting a plate in front of Jackie before she stands. She pulls out one of the matches she brought with her and begins to light each candle in turn, until they’re all flickering with small flames. She sits back down, smiling again. “I’m no expert in romance, but I do know candles are like, part of it all.”

 

“Oh, candles are super romantic,” Jackie coos, watching as Lottie lights the candles before sitting back down again. A candlelit dinner, a lovely date, a quiet night. It’s really all that Jackie could have ever asked for, and she finds herself… smitten as she looks at Lottie. “You’re definitely the most romantic person I’ve ever been on a date with. And I know you’re not just trying to get into my pants, too.”

 

“Haven’t you only ever dated one other person?” Lottie asks. But if Jeff was really her only competition for best date award, then Lottie couldn’t possibly fail. She smiles, sweet and soft. “I am trying to get into your pants, that’s just not all I’m trying to do.” It’s a tease, because Lottie would be perfectly okay with it just being this, but she can’t deny how much she likes touching Jackie and kissing her and making her moan. She’s happy Jackie likes it, too. 

 

Picking up their cups of berry wine, she holds one out to Jackie. “I just want you to know that…you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. And the best girlfriend. You make me feel…actually loved.” She feels her face growing hot again, looks away. “You make me feel safe.”

 

“Yeah, but you blow him out of the water,” Jackie teases. “This is a real homerun. Which he couldn’t manage.” She laughs a little. She doesn’t think she’d mind, if all Lottie wanted was to get in her pants. She’s pretty grateful, though, that Lottie wants more. This started out as more. It started out as comfort. It ended up progressing from touching sweetly to kissing, to more. So much more. Jackie never thought she’d like this so much. She didn’t think she could. Selfishly, she’s glad to be proven wrong.

 

Jackie takes the cup, returning Lottie’s soft, gentle smile. She’s so soft. How could anyone be afraid of her? Jackie can barely remember the girl from the last time they’d drank berry wine, the girl with black eyes and stained lips, the girl who shoved her away and told her she didn’t matter. That girl isn’t real, not really. She’s certainly not here, telling Jackie that she feels loved and safe. Her heart clenches, love and joy and sadness and grief all tangled up in her chest. “All I want is to make you feel loved, safe. That’s, like, the most important thing to me.”

 

“You do,” Lottie says, her voice calm but quick. She wants Jackie to know that. She hopes she can make her feel that way, too, even if Lottie thinks she’s bad at that. Making people feel safe, feel loved. She tries but she’s never had good examples. She just does what her heart tells her to do. She’s learning that sometimes she’s wrong about that stuff, though, and so now she’s trying harder. Better. She wants to be better and that’s large in part due to Jackie.

 

Because she loves Jackie and she wants to make Jackie happy. More than happy. “I’m head over heels for you, Jackie Taylor,” she murmurs, reaching out to brush her knuckles along Jackie’s cheek.

 

Jackie’s fucked up every important relationship in her life up until this point. The last thing she wants to do is fuck up this one. “Lottie Matthews,” she says, her voice taking on that lofty quality she’d sometimes use when talking to the team, “I have never felt for anyone the way I feel for you.” She’d never let herself. She never thought she could. Now, she’s practically tripping over her feelings for Lottie. She couldn’t escape them if she tried. She never wants to try.

 

Lottie flushes. She leans forward and presses another heavy kiss to Jackie’s lips, holding her face between her hands. When she pulls away, she stays close, the smile on her lips feeling permanent and plaster. “Thank you.” What else is there to say other than thank you? Thank you for loving her, thank you for giving her the chance, thank you for giving her all the things she never knew she needed. All the things she’d longed for but forgotten about. “Here’s to us,” she murmurs, tapping her cup to Jackie’s. 

 

There’s nothing for Lottie to thank Jackie for, but she doesn’t get a chance to say that as lips smother her own, and she sighs against the feel of them. She presses another kiss, quick but sweet, as their cups tap together. “To us,” she says, taking a sip. It’s tart, but it isn’t awful. Better than the last batch. “And you made all of the food, right?” Jackie asks, a teasing look in her eye. “I had no idea you were such a chef. I always thought you had someone do that for you.”

 

“I oversaw the making of most of the food, yes,” Lottie corrects, smiling. At that, she shrugs. “My dad did, yeah. But my mom didn’t care enough to keep the cook on staff once I got into high school. We just had a maid. Ninety percent of my meals were cereal or waffles or delivery. I eventually learned enough to make sure I didn’t die from lack of nutrition.” Her mother was in a sorry state by the time their plane crashed and Lottie disappeared from her life. She sort of assumes her life is probably going a lot better now, without Lottie in it. 

 

“Well, that sounds very official,” Jackie teases. “That’s, like, head chef, right? The one that oversees it all?” She hums. That sounds like more than she knows how to make. “My mom preferred baking. When she cooked it was… not good.” It’s not like she let Jackie eat much of it, anyway. “She thought I should learn, you know, good wife shit, but I almost set the kitchen on fire, totally on accident, by the way, like three times before she gave up. Again, it’s not like she was teaching me gourmet shit, anyway.” If Jackie wanted food that actually tastes good, she went to Shauna’s on one of the few nights her mom wasn’t working. Not like that’s an option out here, though. Not like it would be ever again.

 

“I think that’s called being a manager, actually,” Lottie says, chuckling. “I’m not that good at cooking, but I know enough. And like, what goes with what. Guess I prefer more the growing of the food.” She’d kind of always liked gardening, even if there was no room at her dad’s for one, her mom at least let her dig around in the backyard and make a small flower bed. By the time Lottie got older, though, her mother told her to stop and just let the actual gardener take care of it. “I remember your mom only ever brought quiches to the fancy cookouts. She really liked making those, didn’t she?” 

 

She smiles again, scooting a bit closer to Jackie as she picks up some of her food and takes a bite. “Don’t worry, I’ll do all the cooking for us.”

 

Jackie considers Lottie’s words. “But head chef sounds cooler. And it’d be funny to tease Mari with.” She’s mostly forgiven Mari for upsetting Lottie, telling herself that’s just the way that Mari is Still, it’s fun to tease her. She makes it easy. “You do like playing in the dirt, I’ve noticed.” She notices the way Lottie’s arms look when she’s digging around. Her face scrunches in disgust. “Ugh, please don’t remind me. They were all as good as they looked, I promise you. There’s a reason we had so many leftovers to bring back home.” Those cookouts were always stupid. She didn’t miss any of that. 

 

It’s probably important, in this instance, to eat everything that’s on her plate, so, when Lottie starts eating, Jackie joins her, taking a few bites before grinning. She holds her hand over her mouth while she swallows. “My hero. We can live off of cereal and waffles and fresh berries.”

 

“It would be funny,” Lottie agrees, taking another bite of her own food. “What’s so wrong with that? Can’t a girl play in the dirt while wearing a sundress?” Neither of her parents had ever cared enough to tell her if it was wrong or not, and so Lottie had done it. Kneeling in the dirt in her expensive, pink dresses and getting mud and grass stains on the knees of all her corduroys. 

 

“You mean tuna quiche isn’t, like, a delicacy?” Lottie scrunches her nose at the reminder of how that one had smelled. She’d never eaten any of them, mostly because her mom would shake her head at Lottie in disgust when she looked at them and at the time, all Lottie had wanted was to make her mom proud, and so she’d passed on it. Now she knew she’d been lucky to not have.

 

“Hey, I said I can cook more than that now,” she huffs, but it doesn’t last long, a smile trickling onto her lips. “But I’d probably just hire us a cook. You deserve only the best.”

 

“I mean, according to my mother, no, girls should not be playing in the dirt while wearing a sundress.” Jackie wrinkles up her nose. She hadn’t been allowed to play in the dirt that much. To the point that, even now, she sometimes chafes at feeling too dirty out here. She can’t help it. She’s well aware that there’s no way to reach the same level of clean. It doesn’t matter. Her brain’s just funny. Just like how she can’t escape her mom, even in the middle of the wilderness. She laughs. “Oh, it’s a fucking delicacy alright. Meant to be enjoyed sparingly. Or, if you’re really lucky, never.” She thinks Mari’s a better cook than her mother, let it be known. That’s not exactly a compliment to Mari.

 

“Well, you didn’t elaborate,” Jackie tells her. “How am I supposed to know what else you can cook if you don’t tell me? I was just going off of the information I was given, you know.” Another bite. It’s actually not terrible. Food hasn’t been terrible in months. The wine is even nice. The berries are sweet. It’s good. It’s actually pretty good. “Aw. My girlfriend, Ms. Money Bags. Wants to get me a private chef and everything.”

 

“Well your mom is wrong about a lot of things, so.” Lottie just shrugs. She’s always disliked Jackie’s mother, she was shrewd and talked to Jackie like she owned her instead of like Jackie was her child. Not that Lottie had a good example of what parenting should look like, she just knew that wasn’t it. “I’m one of the lucky ones, then. I never had to taste any of her cooking.” She’d avidly avoided it, too, after that one time Van got food poisoning from something Jackie brought to a team party that her mother cooked, and she was the only one brave enough to try it. Lottie very specifically remembers helping Tai hold Van’s hair back as she clutched the toilet bowl and begged for death. It was kind of funny in retrospect.

 

“I can make mac and cheese. And a mean spaghetti. I even cooked a whole chicken by myself once. Granted it was pre-cooked from the store and all I had to do was microwave it, but, it still counts, I think.” She takes another bite. “And I can make pheasant wings, too, apparently.” She grins, wide. Lottie was never a chatty person, but with Jackie, all she wants to do is talk. She wants to tell her everything about herself, about her childhood, about what she’s thinking. Lottie’s always been afraid of her own mind, but with Jackie, she thinks it all feels just a little bit easier to be nice to herself. “Anything for you.”

 

Jackie doesn’t need to be told that twice. Or maybe she does. Maybe she needs to be reminded, every single day, that her mom was wrong about a lot of things. Jackie doesn’t need a guy. It’s okay to like girls. She can be happy like this. She can be loved like this. Love doesn’t have to hurt. “Very lucky,” she murmurs, reaching out to tuck some hair behind Lottie’s ear before pulling away and resuming her food.

 

“God, I miss mac and cheese,” Jackie groans. She misses pasta, period, but that’s not really a new thing. She feels like she’s said something similar around Homecoming when she had to make sure she kept her weight down for her dress, and then she’d just kept going like that for the rest of the school year. She can’t remember the last time she had mac and cheese. She takes another bite, nodding. “Your pheasant wings aren’t bad, not bad at all. Maybe you should try out for head chef. Take Mari’s job, have her working all the menial labor tasks like the rest of us.”

 

“I’d do just about anything for one bite of cheese, really,” Lottie nods, chewing thoughtfully. The truth is that she misses a lot of things, but there’s not a single part of her that wants to go back. Nothing back there is worth it to her. Nothing. 

 

Because she knows already that if she does go back, she’ll lose everything. It doesn’t matter if they all killed a young boy and ate him or that they all let Shauna freeze to death-- Lottie is the one with schizophrenia and so Lottie will be the one that all the blame falls on, and Lottie will be the one who gets locked up forever, doomed to a room with white walls and a bed with straps for her hands and feet. 

 

She pushes the thought from her mind, because right now, she does have everything, and she wants nothing more than to enjoy it. “Oh, Mari would hate. It would be pretty funny, though.” 

 

“I don’t want it to be good cheese, either. Mac and cheese from a box. A fucking Dorito. Cheese in a can,” Jackie says dreamily. She literally cannot imagine what that last one tastes like. Probably equal parts delicious and disgusting. 

 

It’s easier to talk about food when they’re actually eating something. The hunger pains are less. Jackie eats, and she watches Lottie, and she gets ready to pull her out when that look comes over her face, but Lottie doesn’t actually need her too. She’s gotten pretty good at pulling herself out. “How long do you think you could last manning the pot before her passive aggressiveness got to be too much?”

 

“Oh, yes, that gross cheese whiz stuff that’s more grease than cheese.” Lottie remembers getting wasted with Nat and stealing cheez whiz cans from the gas station store, laughing their asses off as they tripped over their own feet and poured mounds of fake cheese into their mouths. She doesn’t mention that to Jackie. 

 

“I’m pretty good at ignoring people, actually, so probably a while,” Lottie decides, finishing off the rest of her food and taking a sip of the berry wine. It’s so much better than she remembers, which means Mari has learned since last time. Probably a good thing. “I think I’d let her take it back, though. I much prefer not having to be the center of attention like that.”

 

“Cheese should not be that texture,” Jackie says fondly. She laughs a little, thinking about Mari growing more and more annoyed as Lottie just doesn’t pay her any mind. “You’re so kind. And I think you should have all the attention, be adored, but if you don’t want that, then I guess that’s okay.” Jackie recalls someone saying that Lottie wasn’t a god. Maybe Jackie thinks she should still be worshiped, though. She eats her food. She takes a drink. She thinks about other places she’d like to put her mouth.

 

“God, it really shouldn’t.” Shaking her head, Lottie gazes sweetly over at Jackie, still enthralled with her and the idea that she’s hers. “I really don’t like all that attention. Just yours.” She only needed Jackie’s, anyway. She was the one that made Lottie happy. She reaches into the basket to pull out the bottle of water she brought with them, too, rinsing down the berry wine and cooked bird. Jackie is looking at her with something akin to hunger, but Lottie knows it’s hunger for something that isn’t food. Smiling, she holds out the bottle to her. “So…you liked it all?”

 

Selfishly, Jackie wants to be the only one that gives Lottie attention, too. She thinks Lottie deserves all of it, all the good thoughts and attention and being worshiped, not just because she hears forest gods but because she’s Lottie and she’s amazing. But she wants to be the only one that gives Lottie that attention. She takes the water bottle and drinks quickly before handing it back. “I did. Of course I did. My compliments to the chefs.”

 

It makes Lottie preen, something she doesn’t do often. Sure, she was good at a lot of things, and great at a few of them, but people didn’t really pay her genuine compliments the way they did other people. Her parents never looked at her grades and said “good job” or her soccer skills and said “I’m so proud”. So she took what she could get, and Jackie’s compliments always made her feel the best.

 

Taking the water bottle back, Lottie sets it aside before she cleans their plates up and also sets the basket aside, off the blanket and out of their way. She presses a soft kiss to Jackie’s lips, and as she tugs on her to lay back with her, she can see the inky sheen the sky has taken on above them, telling of the coming night. The moon is already full and bright above their heads, and she pulls Jackie into her, gazing up at it with a nostalgic fondness. 

 

“I’ve always liked looking at the stars,” she muses, wondering if it made her sound even more weird than usual. “It’s nice to know there’s something out there that’s so much bigger than all of this. That…the universe just keeps moving no matter what happens down here.”

 

It’s easy to let Lottie lay her down, and Jackie curls into her arms, content as she looks up. “They’ve always been pretty.” She knows what a few of them are, even. Some sort of Shauna osmosis, a transfer of knowledge just from being around her for so long. She forgets the names a lot. “It makes us seem… pretty insignificant, she murmurs. “Do you know the different constellations?”

 

“Some of them,” Lottie tells her. “Different cultures have different ones, though. Most of the ancient people of the world used them to tell stories.” She points up at the sky. “Like Orion and his dogs, hunting through the stars to find their prey. Or Casseiopia, the most beautiful queen who was damned to push the sun across the sky because of a jealous mother.” Sometimes, as a kid, the only friends Lottie had were the stars and the stories they told. She sighs. “My favorite was always Ophicuis. The serpent-bearer, he was an old healer who was said to have learned how to bring people back to life, after he watched a snake bring special herbs to another to revive it.”

 

Jackie listens to Lottie’s voice, letting it wash over her soothingly. “I remember Orion,” she murmurs. “Big Dipper and Little Dipper.” What would she do if she could bring people back to life? The answer is immediate. Shauna. She’d bring Shauna back. But this… Jackie snuggles a little closer to Lottie. Would she still have this with Shauna here? At the moment, she wants to say yes. She loves Shauna, but she loves Lottie, too. She wants this, too. She needs it. “Did he get in trouble?” she asks. “Bringing people back to life doesn’t seem like something people would be too happy about.”

 

“He was banished,” Lottie answers, “for being different. For going against the natural order of things.” She looks up at the stars with a bittersweet nostalgia. “They sent him to live among the stars forever. A sick joke on his gift.” It was probably why she liked it so much, she knew how Ophicuis felt. She, too, had been banished, once upon a time, to live among a place that made sick light of her differences. Her gift. She turns on her side, wraps her arm around Jackie’s waist. She presses a kiss to her cheek and pushes any thought of getting lost among the stars away, because she wants to stay here now, with Jackie, forever.

 

“Must be kind of lonely, only having the stars,” Jackie says softly. She turns on her side as well, facing Lottie. The stars are pretty, but she has more, now. And she wants it. She thinks she’d want this in any life, if she knew she could have it, if she knew how good it felt to not hurt all the time. She moves closer, pressing her nose against Lottie’s collarbone as she pulls their bodies flush. She wants this. Every part of this. The closeness might be her favorite, though, something she thinks about as she brushes a hand up and through Lottie’s hair.

 

“It is.” Lottie nuzzles into the side of Jackie’s head, sighing as hands play in her hair. She wraps her up tighter, intertwining their legs. It was lonely growing up, it was lonely in high school-- but she’s not lonely anymore. She has Jackie and that’s all Lottie needs. 

 

She unravels enough to look into Jackie’s eyes, sparkling under the full moon and its light, before she moves in to press their lips together, savoring the moment and the flavor of Jackie’s skin. She tastes of berry wine and Lottie thinks she can get more drunk on Jackie than any sort of fermented fruits. 

 

If Lottie tries to pull away from her again, Jackie thinks she’ll actually cry. They don’t have to do anything more than kiss (she’d really like to do more than kiss), but she needs them touching as much as possible, as close as they can be, lips sliding against each other as they breathe the same air. She laps at the way the wine lingers on Lottie’s lips, and she pulls herself closer, bracketing Lottie’s head with her arms as she leans in a little more, not quite in Lottie’s lap.

 

There won’t be any pulling away from Jackie this time. Lottie thinks she couldn’t even if she wanted to, at this point. Not that she would ever want to. She’s already lost in the taste of her, the feel of her, and her hands resume their position from earlier, sliding against the silky skin of Jackie’s hips before moving up her sides, fingers trailing intentional lines to her back. She kisses her, deep and longing, tongue licking against Jackie’s lip, into her mouth, asking for more, always wanting more. She sighs happily against her, fingers playing with the underside of her bra.

 

Jackie wastes no time letting Lottie in, shivering under the feeling of fingers on her skin. Soft, hot fingers, leaving trails of heat everywhere they go. She decides to go ahead and straddle Lottie, pulling herself into Lottie’s lap, settling against her hips. It’s easy to slip her hands back under Lottie’s shirt, under her still loose bra. She hums happily as she touches skin, Lottie’s tongue in her mouth and her warm body underneath her. It makes Jackie burn. She wants more. 

 

Lottie inhales sharply as Jackie moves on top of her, hands sliding under her own shirt. It seems she’s more eager than Lottie thought, to pick right back up where they were. She’s more than happy to oblige, quickly unhooking the clasp of Jackie’s bra with one hand while the other tugs at the bottom of Jackie’s vest. She pulls away just enough to grab the bottom hem of it and pull it up over Jackie’s head, tossing it aside as she moves to strip her bra off quickly, too, hands wasting no time in going to her chest, fingers brushing over already taught and sensitive skin. 

 

“Yours, now,” Jackie breathes, leaning into Lottie’s touch even as she tugs at the bottom of Lottie’s shirt, trying to pull it off even from her position. She helps Lottie sit up enough to get it off and makes sure it doesn’t land on one of the candles before pushing Lottie’s bra out of the way, too. She just wants to touch. She can’t get enough, actually. She looks down at Lottie with dilated pupils, unfiltered desire. How could she not want more and more and more of this? The words come easier, now, tumbling from her lips without her even thinking about them. “I love you.”

 

They make Lottie shiver. “I love you, too.” And it’s so easy to say back. Her hands circle Jackie’s waist, caressing the small of her back, as she pulls her back down to her, smashing their lips together, teeth and tongues. She kisses her with a wanting greed, like she can never get enough. 

 

It takes so little effort for her to flip them, tumbling Jackie onto her back and staying between her legs as she looks down at her with hunger, eyes wide and heady. She licks her lips before she’s moving her head down to kiss Jackie’s mouth, her cheek, her chin. To her jaw and her neck and down further, leaving hot trails of open mouthed kisses and indents of teeth.

 

Jackie moans as Lottie flips them, liquid heat pooling low in her stomach, between her legs. It makes her heart start pounding, especially as a hot mouth starts trailing over her body. Her hands are still gripping Lottie’s chest, massaging soft skin. Her eyes roll back at the feeling of teeth biting into her, leaving another mark as Lottie moves down her body. She rolls her hips. Between the slight floaty feeling from the wine and just how turned on she’d been earlier, Jackie already feels like she’s on fire in the best way.

 

Humming, Lottie kisses down Jackie’s chest, between her breasts, sighing happily against her skin as she feels Jackie’s hands on her own. It’s the most wonderful feeling, the most wonderful taste, and she’s already drunk on it, rolling her hips down into Jackie’s. She knows how wound up Jackie is already but Lottie is here to take her time, to make sure Jackie knows she doesn’t just love her, she worships her. She wants her to know this has a meaning beyond just flesh and blood. She wants the idea of their love to become ritual, because it already is for Lottie, and she  plans to prove her faith with her head between Jackie’s legs as she cries out into the night.

 

But first, she kisses across to one of Jackie’s breasts, wraps her lips around it, sucking. Her tongue brushes against stiff skin, puckered from her touch while her hands hold Jackie’s hips in place and grind against hers in turn. 

 

Jackie’s hands flex, and she moves them up, one going into Lottie’s hair, the other wrapping around her back, nails scraping along skin. She’s moaning quietly, her breathing heavy. Her heartbeat thuds. She looks at Lottie, head buried in her chest, and she looks at the moon, glowing bright, and she thinks this is perfect. It’s perfect. She tries to move her hips, but Lottie’s got her pinned, and it doesn’t matter because Lottie’s grinding against her anyway. Okay, maybe it matters. She just wants to feel Lottie, too. 

 

Lottie agrees that this is just perfect. Jackie doesn’t need to say it because Lottie can feel it in the way she struggles to move, can hear it in the way she moans. It fills her ears like music and makes her muscles tense and tighten and snap with want. She kisses back across Jackie’s chest, to her other breast, lavishing it just as much as the other, this time letting her teeth bite down gently on the hardened nub of sensitive skin, before soothing it with her tongue. She moans against Jackie’s skin as she feels nails raking down her back and the muscles between her shoulder blades twitch with it. She gives in to Jackie’s want and rolls her hips again, feeling the heat between her legs. Her heart races, she wants to taste her; she almost feels as if she’s salivating for it. 

 

When she pulls away to breathe, panting heavy, she gazes down at Jackie in reverence, cheeks flushed and pupils wide with want. The way the moonlight makes her skin glow makes Jackie look like something holy and its swallowing Lottie and all her inhibitions whole. 

 

Jackie’s panting just as hard as Lottie is by the time Lottie pulls away and looks down at her, and Jackie thinks her skin has turned into a live wire. She’s buzzing. She feels electric. The way that Lottie looks at her would make her blush if she wasn’t already, from her ear to her chest, sweat beading at her hairline. Still, she’s gentle as she moves her hand from Lottie’s hair to her cheek, brushing against it as she stares into fathomless eyes, dark and sweet. 

 

Leaning down, Lottie places a soft, lingering kiss to Jackie’s lips, before she begins to lower herself down her body again, this time leaving the gentlest of kisses and touches as she goes. Her fingers trail down skin until they reach fabric, lips pressing a line down the center of her chest, to her stomach, to her navel. Below it. As Lottie moves, she tugs Jackie’s pants down, lowering herself with them. Lips trail along her exposed thighs, leaving hot breath wherever she goes, until she’s pulling them from Jackie’s ankles and setting them aside. 

 

Hands smooth up the sides of Jackie’s legs, then, taking their time, slow and measured, making sure Jackie can feel every movement of her fingertips as they graze against cool skin. She feels Jackie’s skin form goosebumps under her touch, kisses the tops of her thighs, lingering a warm tongue against them. Her eyes glance once back up to Jackie’s before she’s hooking her fingers into her underwear and tugging those down, too.

 

It gets harder to hold onto Lottie as she moves, so Jackie’s hands grip the blanket underneath her, fingers flexing and tightening as she shudders. She leans up on her elbows, watching Lottie as she moves, as the trail of goosebumps prickle to the surface everywhere that Lottie touches her. Her lips are parted, her eyes are taking everything in. She lifts her hips just enough for Lottie to strip her bare.

 

Jackie sits up and leans forward, not stopping Lottie but resting her hands on her hips. One moves to the button of Lottie’s shorts, playing with it. “Yours, too,” she murmurs, pulling Lottie up just enough to look at her. “Please.”

 

Once Jackie is fully undressed, Lottie moves back up at her beckon, her fluttering just at the sight of her naked form beneath her. She nods, then, shifts enough to help Jackie remove her own shorts, her underwear, placing them next to Jackie's on the blanket. She wastes little time in reconnecting their lips, feels the heat between Jackie's legs against her own, groaning into her mouth hungrily. She moves her hips, a gentle roll at first, teasing slowly as her hands move to massage at Jackie's chest, languid and purposeful in her movements, like a holy rite being performed. 

 

Jackie almost expects heated, greedy touches and getting tangled together as soon as they’re both undressed, but instead it’s slower than that. Still greedy. Their mouths are hungry, and Lottie’s groan rolls through Jackie’s body like fire. But each touch is slow, thought out, and Jackie leans into every single one. Her hips roll up to meet Lottie’s, her chest arches into her touch. She brushes her hands over every exposed bit of skin she can find, so all of it, palms seeking out Lottie’s warmth like she just can’t get enough.

 

Jackie's hands move almost frantically over Lottie's body, and it makes a shudder room through her, moving her hips into her a little harder. She lets each roll of them grind slowly together, wet heat between them both making her legs feel taught. Fingers pinch delicately at the skin of Jackie's breast, rolling it between forefinger and thumb as she leans down once more, capturing her mouth in a searing kiss. It doesn't linger as long as the others before Lottie pulls back. She sinks lower, lips pressed to her collarbone, then lower, to just between her breasts, then lower, to her stomach. Lower, against her hip bone, teeth grazing the landmarks there. Lower, to the inside of Jackie's thigh, and Lottie kneels between her knees like she might an altar, hands coming down to hold onto her hips. 

 

She lingers, mouth hovering over Jackie's pelvis, and she can smell her wet heat and she wants to taste her so bad. But she waits for Jackie to make eye contact with her, smiling from between her legs. She reaches one hand up, takes Jackie's in it, squeezes. “Grab the blanket,” she tells her.

 

“You don’t…” Jackie breathes, looking down at Lottie as she stares up at her from between her legs. She’s twitchy, reeling from the kiss, those fingers, soft lips trailing all over her skin. She wants to tell Lottie that she doesn’t have to do that, but…

 

It looks like Lottie really wants to do that.

 

So Jackie does as she says, squeezing Lottie’s hand back before she grabs the blanket, still leaning up on her elbows as she watches Lottie, her eyes curious, heady. And Lottie looks hungry, like Jackie’s a meal, and Jackie wants to be devoured, maybe as much as Lottie wants to devour her. Another thing that Jackie wants that she never thought she would.

 

Lottie just smiles back. She presses one last kiss to Jackie's stomach before she sinks back down and finally lets herself indulge. 

 

And she tastes divine, holy, like what Lottie thinks how pure ecstasy must taste. It sends shivers down her spine, into her stomach, her toes, her fingers. She flattens her tongue against Jackie, licks in long, purposefully stripes. She's wet and slick and hot and Lottie can't get enough of it, fingers curling into Jackie's sides, holding her hips down so she can't move too far away. She eats her like she's starved, lips and tongue working together to pull out every last bit of her she can, moving between the folds of her center and up to the sensitive bundle of nerves that makes Jackie moan in the most wonderful way, music and angels singing to Lottie's ears. 

 

Of course it feels that good. That’s the first thought Jackie has as Lottie’s mouth moves between her legs. Then, it’s the only thought she has that’s even remotely coherent as she gets lost in the way that Lottie feels. She can’t help how loud she gets. Her fingers dig into the blanket, her back arches off the ground. Jackie was going to try and watch, taken at first by how pretty Lottie looked between her legs, but she can’t hold herself up. She can’t keep her eyes open. 

 

“Lottie!” Jackie cries out, her hips moving but not enough. She’s held in place. There’s nowhere else she’d want to go. 

 

Lottie moans at the sound of Jackie's cries. She thinks she might have died and gone to heaven with her. Her tongue slides against Jackie as her hips try to move into her mouth and Lottie sees stars. Not just the one in the sky. She wraps her lips around Jackie's clit and sucks. Her nails dig into her hips before her arms move, wanting a better angle. They hook under Jackie's knees and lift her hips up ever so, and Lottie slides her tongue inside of Jackie, desperate to taste every inch of her.

 

Jackie feels Lottie’s own moans vibrating through her, and it only makes her louder. She can’t fucking help it. Between fooling around before dinner and now this, she’s so close that it’s like she’s dying from it. She actually does think she dies from it a little bit as Lottie sucks before digging her tongue into her. Her eyes roll back as heat coils tight and releases. Jackie moans through her pleasure, feeling like she’s sinking into the blanket underneath her. “Fuck,” she manages, panting as she feels Lottie still between her legs. 

 

As Jackie comes into her mouth, Lottie moans, too, savoring every moment of it, of the divine taste of her. She pulls away to take in a breath, wipes the back of her hand across her mouth as she licks her lips. “You're so beautiful,” she murmurs, one arm staying hooked under Jackie's leg as the other drops, scratching down the underside of her thigh. It hovers near Jackie's still soaked entrance and Lottie grins, leaning over enough to press a heated kiss to Jackie's lips, open and teething, inviting her to taste herself on Lottie's tongue. 

 

It's all too easy to slip two fingers inside of her as Lottie has her leg held down, pressed all the way up to her chest. “So flexible,” she mumbles against her lips. 

 

“Oh, my god. Holy fuck,” Jackie whimpers against Lottie’s lips, her arms moving to wrap around her neck. She can taste herself as Lottie kisses her, and she thinks it should be a turn off, she believes it should be a turn off, but it’s not, it’s amazing, and Lottie’s inside her again, and Jackie gasps. Her hips jerk. “I– ah,” she tries, but sentences are hard, her eyes rolling back again. She nips at Lottie’s lips and pants into her mouth. “I do a lot of, fuck, stretches.”

 

Lottie's throat vibrates with a happy noise as she starts to move her hand, slow at first, letting Jackie come down just enough from her last high so she can build it back up again. She wants to hear Jackie shouting her name to the stars and she wants to see how many times she can make her come undone in her hands, her mouth. She can feel her muscles already clenching around Lottie's fingers as she curls them ever so, knuckle deep and reaching that sweet spot she already knows drives Jackie crazy. 

 

“I can tell,” Lottie exhales, moaning against lips that seek her own like a moth to a flame. She wants everyone and everything to know that Jackie is hers, and that she is something holy and perfect and divine. Lottie moves her fingers in and out of her in an agonizing, rhythmic pace, watching her face with reverence and wonder and counting each star she can see reflected in her pupils.

 

Jackie wonders, for a brief second, if maybe Lottie is trying to kill her. This would be a pretty great way to go, even if it’s a little silly that the girl who worked so hard to keep her alive for months is now the one to do her in. It’s worth it, though. It feels worth it. The way that Lottie moans against her lips pulls a similar sound out of Jackie, and she tangles her hands in Lottie’s hair. 

 

“Please,” she says. She doesn’t even know what she’s begging for, but she’s begging. She thinks she’ll beg Lottie for the rest of her life. Her eyes are fluttering, unable to stay open for too long, but she meets Lottie’s gaze as she watches her, and that’s a look that Jackie thinks she can get lost in. She clenches around Lottie’s fingers, but her hips move up in time to greet each thrust. Her breath shudders, and her heart pounds. Lottie is something holy as she touches her. Jackie feels worshiped and worshipful. Maybe religion isn’t a church or an alter or even a forest but a girl with eyes so dark they put the night sky to shame.

 

It's a beautiful thing to watch, a girl getting lost in the feeling of Lottie inside of her. It's what people look for their entire lives, that deeper meaning, that need to know what it's all for. It's all for this, this girl, this place, this person. It's all Lottie needs, all she wants, all she can think about. She moves her hand a little faster, thrusting into Jackie a little harder, watching her body move with each one, hips rolling up to meet her hand. “Hold onto it,” she whispers against her skin, “hold on for as long as you can.” She wants to show Jackie what heaven feels like, with her mouth, her fingers. They curl inside her once more and she pauses, lingers, looks down at Jackie the way a prophet looks at their goddess. 

 

She can't stop herself from kissing Jackie again, harder, rougher, feeling slightly animal, something wild and feral for the girl below her. Her mouth moves down and teeth dig into skin wherever they can, until she's wrapping her lips around Jackie's breast again, and biting down on the sensitive skin there. 

 

Jackie manages to nod at Lottie’s words, a request, a command, an ordinance from god. She could hold on, though now it definitely feels like Lottie’s trying to kill her. She closes her eyes, digs her hands into soft hair, tugging as they kiss and Lottie’s lips and teeth mark up her body. She cries out again as Lottie bites down, feeling that familiar burn and coil in her stomach, and she’s panting, trying to hold on as long as possible, clenching again around Lottie’s fingers. 

 

“You’re good,” she says, her voice higher than normal, a whine pulling itself from her lips. “You’re so good. You’re so fucking good, Lottie.” She’s eating up Jackie’s brain, consuming it, consuming every part of her. The leg that isn’t pinned wraps around Lottie’s waist and tugs her even closer as her hips move in time with the way that Lottie touches her. 

 

“Perfect,” Lottie mumbles, a little incoherent as she gets lost in the sound of Jackie’s moans, her babbling, her cries. “So perfect.” She moves her hand a little faster, then, keeping up with Jackie’s hips, pressing in a little more. Jackie’s leg traps her against her but Lottie isn’t going anywhere. This is the only place she wants to be. God, she loves this. This girl, this moment, this feeling. She’s panting, moaning, doing whatever she can to feel as much of Jackie as possible. She feels her muscles clenching around her fingers and she curls them again. 

 

 This is perfect. For as long as Jackie can remember, she’s tried so hard to be perfect. She’s felt like she had to be, like it was the only option for her. She had to do everything just so. Perfection looked like good grades and gentle smiles, perfectly curled hair and clean dresses. This is messy. Both of them are sweaty. They’re loud. They’re moving together and a little out of synch, trying to keep up with each other. This is perfect. The way that Lottie touches her makes her shudder. She tugs at Lottie’s hair, trying to bring her back up, back close to press their lips together once again.

 

At her prodding, Lottie brings her face back up, kissing Jackie hungrily. She moves her hips with the thrust of her hand, tongue lapping at Jackie’s mouth. This feels like something holy. Divine. Like Lottie is leaving her body and becoming something more than herself, connected to Jackie in a way that she’d never thought possible. “Jackie,” she sighs, panting, moaning. “You can let go.” She wants to hear her call out her name, wants the trees and the wind and the moon to know that Jackie is her’s. No one and nothing else can have her. Not a dead girl and not the Wilderness. 

 

Like this, Jackie thinks she’d do whatever Lottie asked her to. Whatever she’s capable of, at least. Her throat is choked up with moans, and she doesn’t think she’s going to be doing a lot of moving after this, so maybe she can’t talk or run a mile if Lottie asks her to immediately, but she’s been given a much easier task. She cries out Lottie’s name, loud and uncontrolled, again and again, and that coil inside of her tightens until it snaps, clenched around Lottie’s fingers as that liquid heat rolls through her. 

 

It's so beautiful, the sound of Jackie's release. It echoes through the trees around them and bounces off the jealous bark. Lottie can hear Jackie etching her name into the stars themselves and she wants to be up there with them, with her, holding onto her as tight as she can for as long as she can. And Lottie can feel Jackie's muscles tensing around her and shuddering through it all, as she grasps at Lottie's body like a buoy in a storm. 

 

She holds her through it, coaxes her down, lets the pounding sound of their hearts rattle through her chest and in this moment Lottie feels something she hasn't felt in so long-- she feels It, and not from the trees or the ground or the whistle of the wind, but from Jackie, inside Jackie, as she comes undone again in her hand. 

 

Lottie's arm shakes when it's done, still planted next to Jackie's head, elbow locked to keep herself from collapsing. She pulls her fingers out from between Jackie's legs, slow and languid, before she brings them up and prods at Jackie's lips with them, urging her to put them in her mouth, to taste her own ecstasy and arousal slick on Lottie's fingers.

 

Jackie doesn’t know if feeling this way is the answer to all the problems in the universe, but maybe it’s pretty damn close. She feels like she’s floating and sinking at the same time. She feels hot and cold, solid and liquid, completely and utterly malleable, like clay. Lottie can do whatever she wants. Jackie’s eager for it all. 

 

When Lottie’s fingers prod at her mouth, Jackie takes them, letting her eyes slip closed as she hums. She cleans them thoroughly, taking her time, meeting Lottie’s gaze before biting down. By the time she pulls away, Jackie feels like she’s licking herself off of her own lips. It’s strange, but not horrible. It’s made better by the taste of Lottie’s skin. “You…” she manages, but she can’t get out anything else, sighing as she tilts her head back. Lottie is so wonderful. Jackie squeezes Lottie’s hand once more.

 

Lottie shudders at the feeling of Jackie’s lips and tongue wrapped around her fingers. Breath hitching as fingers scrape against her skin. A smile spreads onto her face as Jackie tries to speak, but she seems like all of her words have disappeared. It’s what Lottie had been hoping for. She grins down at her, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to her lips, running her tongue along them to taste Jackie on her own lips. It’s so fucking delightful. It makes Lottie shiver. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmurs, lips still against Jackie’s.

 

“You… you’re even more,” Jackie mumbles, feeling drunk on more than just the wine. She moves her hands all over Lottie’s body, heavy pets and gentle brushes of fingers against soft skin. She squeezes Lottie’s hips, her ass, scrapes her nails up her back just to feel her shiver. Lottie’s a goddess, Jackie thinks. She understands why the others thought so, even if she thinks they were going about it wrong. They worshiped the wrong way. Jackie’s determined to do it the right way until she gets it perfect. Or, she will. As soon as she can feel her body. She laughs, breathless. “Twice?”

 

Shivering again under Jackie’s frantic touches, Lottie leans into it, into her, pressing her head into the side of Jackie’s, sighing. She feels so fucking happy, her entire body warm despite being completely bare, wind licking her skin. After a moment, she laughs, too, soft and sweet into Jackie’s neck. “Only twice,” Lottie murmurs back, “maybe next time we can do more.” 

 

“Fuck,” Jackie breathes. More. She doesn’t know if she can do more. But she’d do whatever Lottie wants. Just whatever in the world she wants. “I want to know what you taste like,” she whispers in Lottie’s ear, turning her head slightly. And she does. God, she does. It sounds like heaven, nothing like feeling obligated to give Jeff a blowjob after his half-assed attempts to get her off. “I want to make you feel that good.”

 

Just the words alone send a shudder through Lottie and she feels her arms prickling with the sensation. She lifts her head enough to press a kiss to Jackie’s nose, her lips. “Only if you’re sure.” She knows that some people think it’s gross, to eat a girl out. She’s encountered her fair share of gay girls who thought that, though it was mostly boys. The double expectation was truly astounding. Still, she didn’t want Jackie to do anything she didn’t want to. It always came back to that. She’d learned to stop fighting it. She’d ask once, to give her an out, and then she’d stop. 

 

“I want to,” Jackie says, bringing one heavy hand up to Lottie’s cheek and brushing her fingers over it. She likes the way Lottie tastes off of her fingers; she can’t imagine it’s that different straight from the source. She wants to know what it’s like. Maybe she won’t like it, but if it makes Lottie feel even half as good as Jackie does, then she kind of wants to try. And maybe it sounds kind of fun. The fingers from her other hand tap gently over Lottie’s ribs. “I can’t move, though. Like, I don’t think my legs work. So you’re going to have to… come here.”

 

Lottie chuckles. “That good, huh?” It had sort of been her goal, she’s not afraid to admit that. And she’s glad Jackie feels so good she can barely walk. She hums, sitting up and looking down at Jackie with lidded eyes. She truly doesn’t think there’s anything as beautiful as this, pale skin shimmering in the moonlight, eyes reflecting the stars billions of lightyears away. It left Lottie a little breathless. 

 

A cheeky look flashes through her eyes as she moves to straddle Jackie. “Here?” she says with an innocent grin, sitting on her hips. 

 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re good at all of that. Don’t be smug,” Jackie grumbles, looking up at Lottie and rolling her eyes. She can’t stop smiling, though. As Lottie moves, she lets her legs rest, still twitching a little. She’s still hot, sticky between her legs. Lottie’s being coy, and Jackie wants to kiss that look off her face. She would, too, but moving is still just really hard, okay? She tugs on Lottie’s hips. “Higher.”

 

Lottie does as Jackie says and moves a little higher, hovering above her chest now. “Here?” she asks, tilting her head as she looks down at her. She can’t help but be smug, really. She’s made Jackie come so hard her legs don’t work and she thinks that’s a perfectly acceptable thing to be smug about.

 

Jackie huffs, but she ends up laughing, too, looking up at Lottie before her head flops back down on the bedding, a fresh blush staining her cheeks. “Will you hurry up and just… sit on my face already?” she asks, looking up at Lottie and raising her eyebrows.

 

Well, when Jackie puts it that way, how can Lottie refuse? Before she moves, though, she leans down and presses a hot kiss to Jackie’s lips. “As you wish.” She moves herself all the way up, then, hips above Jackie’s head, letting her initiate when she’s ready, though one of Lottie’s hands is already tangling into Jackie’s hair, fingers curling in anticipation.

 

Once Lottie’s actually on top of her, Jackie feels her brain short circuiting a little because, actually, she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing, and there’s so much Lottie that it’s overwhelming. But it’s in a good way. Her mouth waters. Lottie is wet. Jackie can see the way her arousal glistens on her thighs. She leans forward and licks at them, first, like she’s cleaning her up, like it’s going to matter shortly. It’s good. It’s best not to plan this out, she realizes, and to just fucking go for it. Jackie starts with a long, slow lick to Lottie’s center, and then again, and again. It’s just a new way of mapping her out, she thinks. Just a new way of learning every piece of her.

 

The sound that Lottie immediately makes is between a whine and a moan as she feels Jackie’s tongue against her. Her stomach muscles clench with the pleasure of it, legs shaking as she tries to keep herself propped up enough to not suffocate Jackie at the very least. But god it feels good. This has always been her favorite part. It’s always felt more intimate to Lottie, being like this with someone, letting them taste her and tasting them back in turn. She lets out another high pitched moan. “Yes,” she sighs, “like that.”

 

The words mean the action is worth repeating, and Jackie’s always known that practice makes perfect. She’s just never really wanted to practice at all that much if she wasn’t already good at it. But Jackie wants to be good at this. God, it’s so much better than she expected. Lottie’s hot, and she’s soft, and the taste of her is addicting. Jackie’s tongue flicks before she sucks Lottie’s clit into her mouth, her hands gripping her ass. She takes a breath, panting, before tugging Lottie closer. She wants to be smothered. She wants to make Lottie feel good as she digs her tongue into her, enjoying the taste.

 

“Jackie!” Lottie gasps, legs trembling as she feels her lips wrap around the most sensitive part of her. It’s hard to stay up right and she collapses over, using her free hand to keep herself aloft. She’s panting, eyes rolling into the back of her head, hips grinding down onto Jackie’s face involuntarily, but it seems she wants her closer anyway. Lottie can do that. She can get closer. “You feel so good,” she moans, hand gripping tighter in her hair.

 

It’s kind of nice that Lottie’s the one talking more. Granted, Jackie can’t really talk like this, though she hums and moans as hands grip her hair. But it’s nice to see Lottie like this, to hear her like this. She’s so beautiful that it’s not even fair, and she’s all Jackie’s. This is all Jackie’s. Hips roll, and Jackie can’t quite breathe, but that’s okay because she totally doesn’t need to like this. She’s actually perfectly, happily content to not breathe at all when she’s between Lottie’s legs like this, licking and sucking at her like she’ll die without it.

 

Lottie’s head is swirling, heat pooling between her legs, and she knows she’s being loud, she sort of can’t help it-- but she doesn’t care. She kind of likes being loud for Jackie. It seems to make Jackie happy, too. Another loud cry tears through her, thighs squeezing before unclenching. “Jackie,” she whines, her voice high and keening. She thinks she might be seeing stars again, or maybe the face of god. Her eyes roll up into the back of her head as she moans, feeling as if her body were being raked through coals, burning in the best way possible.

 

That is the prettiest way that Jackie’s ever heard anyone say her name, and she just wants Lottie to keep doing it. She moans as thighs squeeze her, and she turns her head just enough to breath for a few seconds (it’s really hard to keep going if she can’t breathe, shockingly) before she’s diving back in. It’s kind of addicting. Her nails scrape over Lottie’s skin, one hand going up and scratching at her lower back while the other trails over her thigh, feeling muscles move beneath her fingertips as hips grind against her face. 

 

With the feeling of Jackie’s mouth between her legs, the only thing Lottie can think or do or say is her name, over and over again like a mantra, like a prayer. Likes she’s begging god to have mercy on her because this is probably what dying in bliss feels like. She can feel herself building and building, heat wrapping itself up inside of her, diving to the pit of her stomach, stretching across the expanse of her body. She’d already been so worked up from before, from tasting Jackie’s pleasure, it comes faster than Lottie expects, her own orgasm ripping through her like a heat wave. She’s crying out, hips bucking into Jackie’s mouth, both hands braced on the ground now as she fights not to just collapse while her legs are still shaking and she’s still sitting on Jackie’s face.

 

Jackie thinks maybe she’s died and gone to heaven as Lottie comes in her mouth, and she pulls Lottie closer, as close as she can, holding her through it as her hips jerk and stutter, her own stomach clenching tightly. She keeps moving her tongue into her as she comes down before she starts moving to clean Lottie up because she’s actually really fucking content to be between Lottie’s legs like this. 

 

Lottie is breathing hard by the time she comes down enough to open her eyes without feeling too dizzy. Sweat is beading on her forehead and her chest and she shivers at the feeling of Jackie’s tongue lapping her clean.

 

Once she’s done, Lottie has just enough energy left to move down from Jackie’s face, flopping onto her back next to her. “Wow…” she murmurs, turning her head to look at her, “for your first time eating a girl out that was…amazing.”

 

Panting as she catches her breath, too, Jackie preens at the compliment, turning her head to offer Lottie a sloppy smile before she wipes her face off. “I mean, you were pretty loud,” Jackie teases. “So it was easy to figure out what you wanted.”

 

“Mmmm, yeah,” Lottie sighs contentedly, “I was, wasn’t I?” And normally Lottie would feel a tad embarrassed about that, but with Jackie, she’s not. With Jackie, she wants her to know she drives her crazy, crazy enough to scream her name in the middle of the woods while coming in her mouth. 

 

Rolling onto her side, Lottie drapes an arm across Jackie’s midsection. “So…our first date was good, then?”

 

Lottie is so, so fucking hot, in every single way, and Jackie savors the feeling of an arm draped over her, even if it’s not particularly cold outside. The air still has a slight chill, especially as the night goes on, and she’s happy to have Lottie right there beside her, sweaty and naked as they both are. She faces Lottie, grinning brightly. “Knocked it right out of the park, babe,” she says, eyes twinkling. “Best first date ever.”

 

“Glad I could beat out the competition,” Lottie grins back, “cause that was a really low bar to hit.” The most Lottie knows about Jackie and Jeff’s dating life is what Jackie would gripe about in the locker room with Shauna and Lottie, being a professional eavesdropper, would always listen in casually. She never understood why Jackie had always gone back to him, but she thinks she knows why now. He was safe, back there. 

 

She doesn’t need him out here though, because she has Lottie, and Lottie isn’t going anywhere anytime soon if she can help it. Which, she’ll try her damndest, but sometimes there’s things that are out of her hands. More and more lately, the longer she goes without hearing the Wilderness, without knowing what it wants from them.

 

Lottie reaches up and pets down Jackie’s cheek with her knuckles. “I never thought I’d get to have something like this,” she mumbles, “which sounds really pathetic, I know, but I just…never saw it happening.”

 

“I kind of figured I was going to spend the rest of my life stuck with your very stiff competition,” Jackie admits. “Or, well. Not him. Someone a lot like him, though. Maybe a little smarter, a little more ambitious. My parents liked Jeff just fine for a high school boyfriend, but my dad liked to talk about long term potential and hoped I’d get with a doctor or lawyer or someone in the private sector. I don’t know. But this… I never thought I’d have this.” She leans into Lottie’s touch, and her voice gets quiet. “I never thought I’d really get to be happy.” 

 

Jackie thought, maybe, the closest she’d get is happy enough. Four years of bliss and torture with Shauna in college, the two of them roommates, so close but so fucking far. Maybe a few more makeout sessions over the years before she had to get serious. Engaged by the last year of college, married that summer. A house, a picket fence, hopefully a Shauna Shipman next door once she got back from being worldly and cool and decided to settle down to teach literature or write her novels or poetry. She’d be there, right there, close enough for Jackie to be okay. And she could be happy enough. Not happy, but close enough to pretend, and Jackie has always been so good at pretending.

 

“Spending a lifetime as Jeff Sadecki’s wife sounds like torture,” Lottie jabs, scrunching her nose. He was an alright guy, but there wasn't much to him. He was what he was and that was mediocre. Just okay. Lottie definitely didn't think he deserved someone like Jackie. She softens at Jackie's words. “Yeah, me neither.” 

 

Her face draws into a contemplative furrow, though, as Lottie recalls why, exactly, she never thought she'd get to be happy. She spent so much of her formative years keeping people at arm’s length that she'd never considered being with someone in this way. And she'd spent so much time worrying someone might find out about her illness that Lottie never really thought about the future. It didn't make sense to. Sometimes, she has the thought that she likely wouldn't have a future, either locked away or dead by her own hand. 

 

“But this is real,” Lottie says, her voice quieter now. She brings one of Jackie's hands up to her lips and kisses it. “This is real.”

 

Jackie laughs quietly. “It’d probably suck,” she agrees. God. He slept with her best friend. Jackie was planning on sleeping with him, and he slept with her best friend. More than once. He said he loved her. He could be alright, but, god. What a fucking asshole. But she doesn’t have to worry about him. Honestly, she’ll likely never have to worry about him again. The chances of her seeing him seemed to dwindle by the day. Instead, she has this, and Jackie moves herself even closer, sighing contentedly. “This is real.”

 

Lottie wraps her arms around Jackie, pulling her flush against her, their bare chests pressed together. Her legs extend down fast beyond Jackie's, but she still manages to tangle them up together as she lets out a long breath of relief. “I love you,” she says again, and she'll keep saying it, again and again and again, for as long as Jackie will let her. “So much.”

 

“I love you, too.” Jackie whispers, and she lets herself feel the words in their entirety. She loves Lottie. She means it. It doesn’t hurt. There’s guilt there, over all the times she’s wanted to say it to others but couldn’t manage it. She lets herself feel that too for just a moment before she pushes it away. She doesn’t want to think about that right now. She doesn’t want to think about it too much around Lottie. Lottie deserves as much of Jackie as she can give. She deserves the good parts, the happy parts, the hopelessly in love parts. Jackie smiles at her and sinks into her arms, enjoying the way they feel pressed tight against each other. 

 

Lottie thinks she'll never get tired of hearing those words. She's okay if Jackie doesn't say them, but she does, admittedly, really like it when she can. Because they're so true, it feels like the truest thing Lottie has ever been told. It's unbelievable and infallible all at the same time. Someone loves her, actually loves her. And not just the good parts, not just the pretty parts or the pretend parts-- she loves all of Lottie, flaws be damned. 

 

And Lottie loves all of Jackie. It's as true as the moon is full. She presses a kiss to Jackie's forehead before nuzzling in, fingers drifting along Jackie’s arm in a shooting motion.

 

“So, maybe you did wine and dine me to get in my pants,” Jackie teases after a moment, enjoying the content feeling being with Lottie offers her. “Consider it a success. Feel free to wine and dine me anytime. Or just get in my pants free of charge. I’m kind of game for whatever.”

 

Lottie chuckles. “Damn, am I that transparent?” Really, all Lottie had wanted was to spend some real alone time with Jackie, though the sex part was pretty great. She just thought Jackie deserved a real date, something nice, even if out here their options were limited. Lottie would still take this over anything else, because back there, none of this would be possible. “I'll keep that in mind next time.”

 

“I’m afraid so,” Jackie says with mock seriousness, pressing her face into Lottie’s neck. Her lips brush against it, tasting salty flesh, and Jackie thinks this is heaven. Just being in Lottie’s arms is heaven. “Really, though… Thank you for this. It’s perfect. This is the best date.” She’s starting to believe that being with Lottie anywhere would be the best date, but this is perfect, and it’s theirs. In the quiet, she can hear the wind rustling through the trees, feel its gentle touch against her heated skin. It’s everything.

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I’m glad you like it, I just thought…I just wanted to do something for you.” Something nice, something to show her how much Lottie appreciates her, because words are often so hard for Lottie. She always second guesses herself, even more so for things she’s never done, like date and be in a relationship. “You deserve nice things.”

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw. “You did, it’s wonderful,” she murmurs. Her fingers reach up to play with Lottie’s hair, wrapping the strands around her fingers and combing through the tangles as she goes. “You deserve nice things, too. I want to give you nice things.” From the way that they tangled with each other, Jackie can feel the metal of the necklace around Lottie’s neck against her skin. She wants to give Lottie more than that. She wants to give her everything. Everything she has. Everything she can.

 

Moving into Jackie’s touch, Lottie just sighs. She’s still trying really hard to believe that, to believe that she does deserve nice things. It’s just hard. It’s really fucking hard when she doesn’t even like herself. Fuck, she’s trying though. For Jackie. Lottie burrows her face into Jackie, holding her tightly. “Just having you is enough,” she mumbles.

 

Jackie just hums. She doesn’t think so. She’s not enough, or she’s too much, and they’re in that really great stage right now where everything’s new and amazing, and Jackie seems perfect. She remembers that. But eventually she’ll need to be supplemented with other things. Or Lottie will grow to resent her. She’ll start to hate her. Maybe she won’t cheat on her or write in her journal about it, but she’s going to start seeing Jackie, really seeing her, and she’s going to be able to find something she doesn’t like. Jackie doesn’t want to give Lottie things, pieces of herself, that she won’t like. Just the good things. “You just wanna outdo me,” she jokes instead. “I get it. It’s fine. You can try, but I’m gonna knock your socks off, Matthews. Just wait.”

 

Lottie laughs a little. “You always were competitive,” she murmurs, “I look forward to it.” And she knows they’re definitely in that place where everything is wonderful, but Jackie has seen the darker sides of Lottie and she’s stuck by her and so Lottie has already decided she’s going to stick by Jackie no matter what. She would have even if Jackie hadn’t done that for her. Lottie doesn’t think she knows how to devote herself in halves or pieces. It’s all or nothing. She’d never know how to be anything but this. 

 

“You know you don’t have to, right?” Words Lottie says often to Jackie. She just wants to make sure, she doesn’t want to force Jackie to do anything she doesn’t want to. It terrifies her. There’s so many things in Lottie’s life that she’s been forced to do because she has to. 

 

“I want to,” Jackie says immediately. She wants to give Lottie nice things. She’s told her that before, and she’ll keep telling her as long as it's necessary. Despite being rich, Jackie doesn’t think Lottie’s gotten a lot of nice things in her life. Certainly not much affection, definitely not from her parents, but Jackie thinks she can understand that, even if her parents hovered and put on a front. She just wants Lottie to know how much she cares about her, and the best way that Jackie can think to show that is through things. She’d be able to plan it better if they weren’t in this place, but she’d figure something out. 

 

“Okay.” Lottie is okay with that, she just wants Jackie to know she doesn’t have to do anything more than this. Just hold her, be there for her. Help Lottie distinguish between real and delusional. She brushes her lips against Jackie’s neck, pulling her in closer. “Thank you.” She can’t stop thanking Jackie, just for being there, for choosing her, for loving her, somehow. Through all of this, she loves Lottie. She’ll never be able to thank her enough for that, for seeing who Lottie really was or wanted to be.

 

“You don’t have to thank me,” Jackie tells Lottie softly, petting gentle fingers through dark, thick hair. She’s with Lottie because she wants to be, because it feels like the most natural thing in the world. A natural progression of where they started to where they are now. How could Jackie not fall for Lottie? They became attached to each other after that first snow, whether Jackie wanted it or not. She hadn’t wanted much of anything at that point, except to fall asleep in the quiet and the cold, and Lottie wouldn’t let her. She made Jackie start caring about things again. She made her want to start caring. Of course Lottie would be what Jackie cares about most in this world.

 

“I know I don’t.” But Lottie wants to. She needs to. There weren’t many people in her life who wanted to take the time to be nice to Lottie, to understand Lottie, to care about Lottie. She wanted the people who did to know she was grateful for them. Everything out here had changed so much for Lottie and she couldn’t help but be thankful for it, despite the horrible things they’d been forced to do. Right now, it seems so far away. All the bad things. Except for Lottie, the bad things are always there, in her head. 

 

Her eyes close against fingers running through her hair. It’s easy to let the feeling chase away her dark thoughts. 

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw and snuggles a little closer. She tugs on Lottie, resituating them to pull Lottie on top of her halfway, sighing contentedly at the pressure. They can move in a minute, or if Lottie gets too warm, but the heat and weight of her body on top of Jackie always makes her feel solid, real. She keeps a hand in soft hair, twirling a strand of it around her fingers before letting it go and doing it again. 

 

Lottie is more than happy to move closer to Jackie, shifting to lay partially on top of her, knowing how much Jackie likes feeling her warmth, her weight. Lottie will eagerly give it to her. She’d give Jackie whatever she wants. Lottie burrows her face into Jackie’s neck again and stays there, content, breathing gently against her skin. There’s something so soft and calm about lying here with Jackie, naked under the stars, listening to her breathing, her heartbeat, feeling the way her fingers curl up in Lottie’s hair. It doesn’t feel like it’s something that should be possible here, but it is, and it only makes Lottie want it more.

 

It feels a little strange to be so exposed, but Jackie can’t find it in herself to be upset about it. It’s nice, really, being under the stars with Lottie in this way, the breeze against bare skin, the two of them pressed flush against each other. The light of the moon keeps them from being fully shrouded in darkness. She can see the outlines of the trees, the stars in the sky, the different constellations. It’s beautiful. She doesn’t think she ever wants this moment to end.

 

If she’s not careful, Lottie thinks she might be able to fall asleep like this. She doesn’t want to fall asleep yet, though, she wants to enjoy the rest of the night with Jackie, and she’s perfectly content to just stay right here. She knows eventually it will have to end, whether that’s tonight or in the morning. She doesn’t want it to end.

 

Sometimes there’s thoughts in her head that she wishes she could unthink. Sometimes she wishes she could stop her mouth before it moves. “What do you think things would be like, if we’d never crashed?”

 

Jackie pauses, her fingers still in Lottie’s hair before she goes back to soothing, repetitive motions. “I think they’d be so very different, and yet not that different at all,” Jackie says quietly. “I’d be at Rutgers. Or, fuck. I’d have just finished a year at Rutgers. Maybe I would have… accepted some shit about myself. I don’t know. I wouldn’t be with Jeff. Shauna…” would still be alive– “would be at Brown. She got accepted to fucking Brown and never said a word.” She tries not to come off too bitter. It doesn’t really matter anymore. “Where would you be?”

 

Lottie hadn’t known that part, that Shauna had gotten into Brown, that she hadn’t told Jackie about it. All she knew were the angry parts they spewed at each other before Shauna went outside. Either way, it seems like Jackie at least had a general plan of what her life would be like, what it was supposed to be like before all of this. Lottie didn’t. She reaches out to trace shapes with her fingers on Jackie’s stomach. “I don’t know,” she finally answers, “I never thought about it.”

 

Eyes closing as Lottie’s fingers make patterns on her skin, Jackie can’t help but ask, “What would you like to be doing? If we’d never crashed?”

 

It’s kind of pathetic, really, but the only answer Lottie has is, “I don’t know.” She lived day to day, too worried about staying normal and being normal and seeming normal. “My dad wanted me to get a business degree. Maye I’d do that.”

 

“Where did you apply to college?” Jackie asks. She wonders if this helps Lottie to think about what they would or wouldn’t be doing back home. Jackie can’t stop thinking about the past regardless. Sometimes, it’s interesting to think about what could have been. 

 

“NYU,” Lottie answers. Both her parents had encouraged her to go there. She figures it was so that she'd be out of her mother's hair but close enough for her father to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn't do anything crazy. She'd never even considered what degree she'd go for, she'd been hoping to just skate by for as long as possible until she absolutely had to pick. Maybe by then she'd have something figured out.

 

“New Brunswick isn’t that far from the city,” Jackie muses. Would they have kept in contact? Jackie hopes so. She hopes so. They can think about would have beens, could have beens, but Jackie doesn’t want to think about a life without this. Or something similar to this. Maybe she doesn’t get Lottie in every life like this, but she thinks she wants her around in some way. She’s always thought of Lottie as her friend. Maybe not particularly close, but neither of them seemed to get close to anyone, did they? Just a small, exclusive few.

 

“From Wiskayok?” Lottie asks. She hadn't considered who she'd stay in touch with, if anyone. She didn't think too many of them would want her to. But she'd known Jackie longer than most of the others. And whether Jackie did it out of pity or because she was their captain, she'd always tried to stay friends with Lottie. At least as much as Lottie would let her. “I guess, yeah.”

 

“From New York,” Jackie says. “I just mean– I mean, if that’s where you’d gone, you know. It wouldn’t have been far, like an hour. We could’ve… visited, or something.” Not that Jackie thinks she’d be great company. She wouldn’t have Shauna for completely different reasons that what happened out here. Shauna would be in Brown. She wouldn’t miss Jackie at all. She wanted to be done with Jackie. Plus, she would’ve still slept with Jeff. Maybe Jackie wouldn’t know about that, but it’d still be there, between them. No wonder Shauna was pulling away.

 

“Would you have wanted to?” Lottie wonders about it all the time. If anyone would have even wanted to visit her. It wasn’t like any of them knew much about her, or her relationship with her parents. They teased her about her family’s money, about her dad’s propensity for buying her expensive things (“Thank you, Mister Matthews!”) and she just let them. It felt better to just let them. At least that felt normal. 

 

“I’d like to think so,” Jackie whispers, “but I don’t really know. I don’t… really know what kind of person I’d be if we’d never crashed.” Someone unlikeable and lonely, she thinks, but in different ways than she feels unlikeable now. She’s not lonely now, either. She has a person. She has someone who wants to be her person, and she has someone that she wants to be honest with. 

 

“I don't think I would have tried,” Lottie admits, “I kind of figured no one would want to hear from me, really.” She doesn't know who she would be, either, if they hadn't crashed. But she doesn't know who she is now anyway, even after the crash. “I think a lot of things would be the same, though.” She thinks a lot of the things that have happened out here would've happened back there, too. 

 

But not this. Not them. It's why, on some level, she's happy they crashed. A thought that often makes her feel all the more guilty.

 

“I would have,” Jackie says. “I would have wanted to hear from you.” She liked Lottie, even back then, even when Lottie didn’t take a lot of time to get to know other people. At first the standoffish thing seemed like a rich girl trait, like maybe she was just too good to really want to be close to the rest of them, even Jackie, one of the few people on the team close to her tax bracket. But Jackie knows better now. She knows how afraid Lottie’s been her entire life, how afraid her parents made her. “What all do you think would be the same?

 

Lottie doesn’t think Jackie would lie to her but she’s not sure she quite believes it. She wishes she could. Maybe one day she will. She doesn’t say that, though. “Mari would still be a bitch,” she says, instead, giving a little grin into Jackie’s neck. “And…I think Tai and Van would still be hiding. At least until Tai left home. I think…you’d still be friends with Shauna, even if she went to Brown.” Because Lottie knows that Jackie would forgive Shauna for anything, really. Just like she might for Lottie, even if Lottie doesn’t think she should.

 

The Mari comment makes Jackie smile, even if the rest of it is sad. Tai and Van were able to be so happy out there. They were able to be together freely without any sort of worry about what the rest of the world would think about them. Her hands tighten around Lottie because, in a lot of ways, that’s what they have, too. Jackie’s not sure how long it would have taken her to accept this part of herself out there. She doesn’t know how long she would have let fear rule her life. And as for Shauna… Is Jackie that weak willed? Is she that spineless that everyone knows she’d just roll over for Shauna Shipman except for Shauna Shipman? She sighs. “Things would have changed, though. With… the distance.” She’s only joking a little as she adds, “I think people would also be less inclined to take her side if I’d outed that she slept with my boyfriend back when I was still relevant as opposed to when I’d been useless for months on end.”

 

“Yeah,” Lottie says, “they always do.” Change was inevitable, really. It didn’t matter how much someone feared it, it would come. Things always changed. Even in Lottie’s life, nothing stayed the same, it didn’t matter how hard she tried. “I think we all had other things on our mind.” Lottie didn’t really know if she was on anyone’s side about it. It was pretty fucked up what Shauna had done and Lottie couldn’t even imagine how much it hurt Jackie. But Jackie hadn’t even had time to contemplate that hurt, because it was so quickly replaced with grief. They were all just kids. 

 

“I think Shauna should have told you sooner. I think that’s the only way things could’ve gone better,” Lottie admits after a moment. “Or just…not slept with Jeff.” 

 

Jackie laughs softly. There’s not much humor in it. “Not sleeping with Jeff would have been great, honestly. I think it would have done wonders for our friendship.” She doesn’t talk about Shauna much. She doesn’t know how. A part of her is worried that this is going to conjure her up, have her intrude on something that Jackie wants to just be for her and Lottie, but so far she’s not there, not watching them and writing in her journal and staring at Jackie with those wide, dark eyes everytime Jackie tells Lottie words that choked her up only months before. 

 

“Reading her journal, I– I know there was shit I did wrong. Like, I get that. I wasn’t a good friend to her,” Jackie admits. She wasn’t a good friend to anyone once they got out there. Abandoning Van to die, popping off at Nat, letting Laura Lee get in that plane. She hadn’t been worthy of leading any of them since they got out there. She didn’t think she ever would be again. “I wish she would have just told me all of that. Maybe it wouldn’t have helped. Maybe I would have, like, gotten pissy at her. But I don’t know. I thought I knew her. I thought she knew me, too.” She guesses they were both just liars in the end.

 

“Jackie,” Lottie says, unfurling from her enough to sit up and look down at her, “none of us were good friends. We were in high school. We were teenagers. Maybe…obviously, whatever shit Shauna had going on was worse than other stupid, petty squabbles we all had but…Tai was lying to all of us about herself, Mari started shit whenever she could and talked behind peoples’ backs. None of us cared enough to learn anything about the juniors, like Melissa and Akilah until we were out here.” She shrugs. “I never told anyone about my illness, Nat never talked about her dad, she ditched us all the time. My point is…yeah, maybe you were a bad friend, but we’re supposed to be, right? So that we can learn? Get better at it?”

 

“I was supposed to be,” Jackie says, sitting up as well. “I was supposed to be–” perfect, “-- good. I was supposed to be good. And Shauna… I’ve known Shauna my entire life. I know when she goes to sleep. I know when she wakes up. I know where she wants to go eat after practice, how she takes her coffee, the only brand of cigarettes she’ll even consider smoking, but only after at least three of those nasty Malibu and milks and maybe a beer. I know she has a scar on the knuckles of her right hand from punching a tree when we were eight. I know she hates when I pick out her clothes but likes when I do her makeup, but she lets me do both because I complain otherwise. I–” she feels tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. “I was supposed to be a good friend. If to no one else, then to her.” 

 

Lottie can’t relate and it feels a little sad to admit that. But this isn’t about her right now. Lottie reaches up with one hand and puts a hand on Jackie’s face. “Jackie, you were a good friend. Maybe there were things you should have done differently, or maybe there were things that got out of hand, but Shauna’s inability to communicate that wasn’t your fault.” Lottie knows that much, from watching everyone else. She knows how to be a good friend, she knows when people are hiding secrets from each other, she knows when someone’s upset-- she’s just never let herself get close enough to let it be real. 

 

Clenching her eyes shut, Jackie still finds herself leaning into Lottie’s touch, even as she swallows back the tightness in her throat. She wants to believe what Lottie’s saying, but she can’t quite overcome the hurdle that is Shauna Shipman. Her words, her actions, her death. Jackie doesn’t get closure. She’s not allowed. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s meant to remain in limbo forever over it. She leans in, pressing her lips to Lottie’s. 

 

Lottie really hadn’t meant to make this sad. She’s sort of always messing things up that way, opening her stupid mouth and saying all the stupid thoughts that run through her mind. She wishes she could just learn to shut up. On her medication, it was so easy. She always felt so out of it, never fully inside her own head. Out here, it’s impossible to escape. 

 

She draws Jackie into her, wrapping her up in her arms. She kisses her back, as if to prove with the action that Jackie is a good friend. That she’s a good girlfriend, too. That’s she’s a good person, because Lottie knows without having to hear it that Jackie also thinks she’s a bad person. Which just isn’t true. Lottie will work the rest of her life to prove that.

 

When they finally pull away, Jackie is quiet. She murmurs, “I don’t… want to repeat the same mistakes. I’m trying really hard not to.” Could Lottie tell? Could they all tell? Could anyone out there tell how fucking hard Jackie’s been trying? Because she’s been trying so hard. She’s cut herself into pieces and tried to reform herself in a way that can fit out here because it’s that or death, and she’s trying really hard these days not to die, too. Be better, don’t die. That’s the mantra she’s working with.

 

“I know,” Lottie tells her, keeping her close. She tucks Jackie into her chest and holds her tight in her embrace. “And you're doing so well.” She wants to encourage Jackie, she wants her to know Lottie notices. She wants her to know that Natalie notices, and Van and Tai and even Mari. They all notice. If it's because of Lottie, then that's okay too, for now. She just wants Jackie to stay because Lottie thinks she might actually lose her mind if she loses Jackie, too. “And I'm here for you, even when you aren't, even when it's hard.”

 

It’s really stupid how much the praise means to Jackie, to be told that she’s doing well. Even if Lottie’s the only one that notices, she thinks that would be okay, but it seems like the others notice as well. She doesn’t get those sharp looks anymore, the eyerolls, the scoffs when she fucks up. At least she’s trying. That’s enough for most of her more glaring screw ups to be excused, if only because they’re all screwing up out there. “Thank you,” Jackie murmurs, sinking into Lottie’s arms. “I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t do this without you.” Not anymore. 

 

The sentiment is pretty handily returned, but Lottie knows Jackie is aware of that. They've both sort of fallen into this situation where one can't get by without the other. Maybe somewhere back in their little town in New Jersey that would be bad, but Lottie thinks it's one of the only things keeping her alive out here, so it can't be all that horrible. “You don't ever have to thank me for that,” she whispers to Jackie, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, remembering the first time she held Jackie like this, the first time she'd kissed her head like this, had also been after something involving Shauna Shipman. 

 

It's taken Lottie a bit to accept it, but she knows now that being in love with Jackie Taylor also means being just a little bit in love with Shauna Shipman. She thinks she's okay with that.

 

“I know,” Jackie says, but she thinks she does. She thinks she needs to. She thinks she needs to let Lottie know how grateful she is to still be there with her. Perhaps she wasn’t always, but she is now. She needs this as much as she needs air or water. She needs Lottie, just like she needed Shauna. Maybe more because, if something happens to Lottie, there’s not going to be another person to come along and take her place. Jackie’s not going to be able to recover from losing them both. She wouldn’t even try.

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie tight, not missing the echo of her own earlier response. “I love you, Jackie,” she murmurs, “all of you. The good parts, the bad parts, the parts you hate…and the parts of you that are Shauna. I love all of it.” And she knows she always will. Even if one day Jackie looks at her and decides she's too much, Lottie will always love her, just like she knows she'll always love Laura Lee, and she'll always wonder what that would've looked like.

 

Jackie does actually tear up at that. How much of her is Shauna? How much of her is dead, nothing more than bones that have been picked clean by hungry, starving teenagers? How much of her will she never get back? She doesn’t even really know the person that’s left. She’s never tried to know her. We’ll get through this together. But there is no together anymore. There’s only Jackie, and Jackie doesn’t know how to exist outside of a together. 

 

“I love you, too.” Jackie can say it back. She tries so hard to always say it back. Shauna’s ghost haunts her without even needing to be there. Meaning the words doesn’t always mean that she understands the depths of them, but she’s not going to relive the tragedy of waiting too late. “All of you. Every part.” 

 

Lottie brushes a hand soothingly through Jackie's hair. She knows she does, and it's still amazing to Lottie. She'd been convinced her whole life that no one could ever love her if she was sick, if they knew about her illness, about how her mind was never really her own. It still feels like a dream sometimes, realizing that it wasn't true, that she is something lovable and worth loving, despite her illness. And that, somehow, she'd found that out here of all places, with a girl who she'd never thought would ever look at her as anything more than a distant friend. It makes her tear up a little bit, too, as she holds onto Jackie and breathes her in. 

 

“We’re a bit of a mess, Lott,” Jackie mumbles, sinking into warm arms, a warm body, a cool night. 

 

Lottie hums, low on her throat. “I like being a mess with you,” she murmurs back, chin tucked against the top of Jackie's head, caressing her much like the ocean does the earth. “It beats being a mess alone.”

 

Jackie smiles, pressing her face into Lottie’s neck. “I agree.” She’d rather be a mess with Lottie than be a mess with anyone else. It feels safer with Lottie, like she’s understood. Because Lottie does understand her. Not in a way that Jackie would have expected, but then again, she’s never really tried to understand anyone other than Shauna. From the moment they met, there was just something about Shauna that fascinated Jackie in ways that she couldn’t let go of. She wanted to follow Shauna around like a puppy, but somehow she ended up tricking them both into thinking it was the other way around. 

 

But Lottie understands her. More than that, she understands Jackie and loves her anyway. All the parts she’s gotten to see, she’s loved. It makes Jackie ache in the best way, like she’s slowly able to relax after years of being tense.

 

It's because of Jackie that Lottie can say she now understands the difference between knowing and feeling. As an outside observer for most of her life, Lottie thought she understood what it meant to be friends with someone. She thought she knew what it meant to feel and love and laugh, but it was all fake. She'd just been playing pretend, so well that she'd even ended up fooling herself. 

 

With Jackie, though, none of it is pretend. It's so fucking real it makes Lottie burn sometimes. And she loves it. 

 

Eventually, she shifts enough to reach down and grab the second blanket she'd grabbed, pulling it over them and tucking Jackie back into her arms. “We can stay here tonight,” she tells her quietly, “or we can go back. Whatever you want.”

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s collarbone. “We can stay here,” Jackie murmurs. “It’s nice being out here with you. It feels… I don’t know. Right.” She’d never do something like this back home, but there’s something about this moment that makes her feel so connected that she doesn’t want to give it up. Connected with Lottie, connected with the world around them. It’s beautiful, and she doesn’t think that she ever wants it to end.

 

Lottie is happier than she probably should be that Jackie wants to stay here. She’s right, it feels…right. It feels nice. Lottie nods. “Okay.” She holds her a little tighter, tangles their legs together. “I picked a spot near the river, too, so we can wash off in the morning without having to worry about, you know, anyone around.” She’d done it with the express hope of getting to stay here. She liked how quiet it was, how it was just them. 

 

Jackie hums, smiling against Lottie’s skin. “I see how it is. You were planning for this. Wanted to have your wicked way with me and then keep me out here under the stars?” It’s nice, though, being out here with Lottie, the two of them tangled together. She likes the way their skin feels pressed together. They might wake up sticky, actually stuck together, but Jackie doesn’t care. 

 

“Maybe,” Lottie gins, “you don’t seem to mind too much.” Really, she’d just wanted Jackie all to herself for one night. She wanted a place where they could just be together, without having to worry about someone overhearing. While it was cute, sometimes, to hear the teasing of their friends, Lottie wanted some time alone where they could just be them. Where she could be Lottie and Jackie could be Jackie, instead of whatever they’ve made themselves into to fit in with the others.

 

Grinning, Jackie shakes her head. “Nope, not a bit.” She’s pretty content to let Lottie have her wicked way any time she likes. It’s kind of nice to not have to worry about Mari or Van or anyone else teasing her about being too loud. It’s nice that the only other things that can judge her out here are the animals. Not Lottie. Lottie likes her. All the parts of her. Even the loud ones. “How long have you been planning this, anyway?”

 

Lottie gives a little noise of contemplating. “Umm, about a week or so? Maybe more?” She’d been tracking the moon phases for longer, the idea to treat Jackie to something special longer, but she hadn’t known the right time until she’d just felt it. “I was kind of surprised Mari could keep it a secret that long.” 

 

“Wow, she kept a secret a whole week?” Jackie gives a low whistle. “Pretty impressive, I’m surprised you risked telling her at all.” She’s impressed Lottie managed to plan all of this in an entire week. It’s just a picnic, but she still had to find the spot, get the food, make sure they could get away with it without someone hunting them down. “What made tonight so special?”

 

“Well, I kinda had to,” Lottie says, “it’s not like Natalie can cook.” Though Natalie had insisted on helping Lottie find a spot, as if she were worried Lottie would get lost and never come back and then Jackie would probably kill her. That’s fair of her, really. Lottie thinks the opposite would be true, if Jackie ever got lost. She pauses. “I…it’s the full moon,” she answers, “it feels…magic, I guess.”

 

Jackie snorts. “I guess that’s fair. Though I’d probably trust her cooking more than some people’s.” She didn’t even mean Misty– she was thinking about Mel’s cooking, actually– but the thought of bad food and trust immediately brings the blonde up, making Jackie frown slightly. But she pushes away all thoughts of Misty Quigley. She wants to be happy tonight. “Well, this has definitely been my favorite full moon ever. Is that a thing? Are we gonna make a thing out of this?”

 

Lottie chuckles. It was true, somehow, there were quite a few of the girls who couldn’t cook to save their lives. They were lucky they had someone like Mari, who did know how to make the food more edible. “We can,” Lottie says, brushing her fingers through Jackie’s hair, “if you want? The full moon is supposed to be…spiritual and stuff.” 

 

“I don’t care. It can be the full moon. It can be whenever,” Jackie says, leaning into Lottie’s touch. “Just, you know. A night for just us sounds pretty nice. Especially while it’s so warm. “Do you want to?” She thinks Lottie might, if she planned it special for this. It’s something that could be just theirs. A much nicer full moon than the last major one they all tried to celebrate, if the Doomcoming could be called a celebration. More like a swan song before their inevitable starvation. This is different, though. This is better.

 

“I would, yeah,” Lottie answers immediately. She thinks there’s something naturally wondrous about the full moon. Its light helps connect her to the land, she thinks. It makes the world seem liminal, like everything is closer to the Wilderness. “I’d like that a lot.” 

 

Jackie nuzzles in closer. “Then it’s a date.”

 

“Perfect,” Lottie murmurs, closing her eyes as she breathes Jackie in, holding her happily in her arms. “Any day is perfect with you.”

 

“Yeah, well, any day with you is pretty great, too,” Jackie says into Lottie’s skin. Quietly, she asks, “Are you sleepy?”

 

“Only pretty great? Do I need to try harder?” Lottie teases, smiling. “A little. Are you?”

 

“Hmmmm.” Jackie lifts up her head. “Really great?” She presses a kiss to Lottie’s lips. “I’m definitely tired. It was a busy day before you decided to, you know, twice.”

 

“I'll take it.” Lottie sighs happily into Jackie's lips. “I know, only twice. I'm pretty disappointed I couldn't keep going.” She gives a cheeky grin, before kissing Jackie again. 

 

“I don’t think I can do more than twice,” Jackie says, laughing against Lottie’s lips. But that’s a lie. She’ll do whatever Lottie wants her to. Even now, both of them tired and sleepy, Jackie still kisses Lottie as needily as that first night, always unable to get enough.

 

“Don't knock it till you try it,” Lottie mumbles back, words muffled against Jackie's mouth. She moves in a little closer, bare skin against Jackie's feeling warm and sated, and yet always wanting more. 

 

“You can try it whenever you like,” Jackie sighs, one hand brushing against Lottie’s cheek. “But if I can’t use my legs afterwards, that’s on you, and I totally expect you to come up with an excuse for me.” She presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw before attaching her lips to a spot high on Lottie’s neck, kissing and licking at the skin before she starts sucking a mark there. It’s kind of lazy, but she still hums happily as she works.

 

“I'll think of something,” Lottie mumbles, eyes closing at the feel of lips on her neck. She shivers as she feels Jackie suck at her skin, giving a soft sigh, rolling her head to the side to give her more room to work with. “I'm good at…thinking on my feet.”

 

Jackie hums against Lottie’s skin, pulling away with a pop and looking at Lottie’s neck. Even in the darkness, she can see a noticeable redness starting to crop up. Pleased, she says, “You’re very good at that.” She moves further down to Lottie’s pulse and starts repeating the motions. Soft kisses, a gentle tongue, and then attaching herself and sucking, feeling a heartbeat between her teeth.

 

Lottie can only hum, her mind already falling back into the feeling of Jackie’s lips on her skin, making her forget what they’d been talking about at all, really. She doesn’t mind. Her breath stutters when she feels teeth against her skin, on her neck. Digs her hands into Jackie’s hair. There’s really nothing that feels better than this, holding Jackie, feeling her lips and tongue and teeth on her skin. Lottie thinks if she died like this, it’d be the happiest moment of her life.

 

When Jackie pulls away again, she smiles wide down at Lottie. “That’s going to leave a mark. Or two.”

 

Lottie’s eyes meet Jackie’s, her head haloed in moonlight, and it’s hard to think of her as anything other than divine. “I hope so,” Lottie grins back, smoothing her palm against Jackie’s cheek. “You can put as many on me as you want.” She was her’s, after all, and Lottie wanted the world to know.

 

The words make Jackie feel warm. She wants to paint Lottie. She wants to paint on Lottie. She wants to cover her until everyone knows who she belongs to. Suddenly, Jackie doesn’t feel quite as tired. She moves a little bit closer, her legs only a little shaky as she straddles Lottie’s waist. Her hands gently adjust Lottie’s neck so that she can lean in and start marking up the other side.

 

Sighing, Lottie’s hands go up to Jackie’s hips and hold onto her as she straddles Lottie. Lets her move her head wherever she wants it, eyes fluttering closed as lips went back to her skin, lavishing the other side to match. It’s strange to think about how much Lottie likes being marked by Jackie, how much she likes being known as someone else’s. She thought maybe it would make her feel owned or wrong, but it doesn’t. It just makes her feel wanted and loved.

 

When she feels satisfied, Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw and lays back on top of her, their skin flushed together. She pulls up the blanket that had slipped down back around them before relaxing. “Is this okay?” she asks, and she tucks her head under Lottie’s chin. There’s this need to be close that itches under her skin. She needs everyone to know they belong to each other, and she needs to constantly feel Lottie in her blood. Jackie supposes this will just have to do.

 

Lottie nods, wraps her arms around Jackie’s shoulders and holds her close. “Yes.” It’s more than okay, really. It’s perfect. Just like her, just like this night. Well, mostly. Maybe not the part where Lottie accidentally made Jackie cry about Shauna. 

 

But this moment is perfect, and so was the rest of it. She gives a heavy sigh of relief, letting her body deflate and relax, the weight of Jackie on top of her a comfort she never thought she’d crave. Now that she has it, she needs it.

 

Old habits die hard, and Jackie can’t stop herself from asking, “And your ribs are still all good?” Her own body starts to relax against Lottie’s, feeling a little like she’s sinking into her everywhere they touch. 

 

Lottie huffs, half rolling her eyes. “Yes, they’re all healed, I promise.” Even if sometimes they ache a little, like when it’s going to rain, or if she pushes herself too hard during the day, lifts something too heavy. She doesn’t think it’s really anything to worry about, and she’s certainly not going to tell Misty about it. “No permanent damage,” she murmurs, except for the scar on her ribs where the sharp end of the poker had cut through her skin and between her bones. She can still remember exactly how painful it was.

 

No permanent damage but the scars. The firepoker, the wound from the knife where Jackie had to relieve the pooling blood under Lottie’s skin. The scar on her palm is fading, but the wound must have been deeper than Jackie thought from the way it lingers around. She moves her hand to Lottie’s side to feel the raised skin she’d caused. She’s becoming familiar with Lottie’s scars. Jackie takes care to be gentle with each one. “I just want to make sure,” she whispers, nuzzling closer.

 

Lottie shivers when she feels Jackie hand brush over the healed scar on her side. She doesn’t remember much about that night after the cabin burned, she’d been so out of it and feverish. She knows at some point Jackie kissed her, and she knows at another point Jackie cut her open, because she had to. She’d saved her by doing it and Lottie would never blame Jackie for the mark it left behind.

 

She lifts one hand and lets her fingers drift up and down Jackie’s back, over the ridges of her spine and to her neck. “I know,” Lottie whispers, “thank you.” It’s sweet that she’s still worried about it, really. It makes Lottie truly believe she cares, even though she did anyway.

 

“You don’t have to thank me for that.” But it’s nice to hear all the same. Jackie sighs at the feeling of Lottie’s fingers against her skin, along her back. She knows Lottie’s better. Of course she does. It’s clear to see. But sometimes she closes her eyes and sees Lottie on the floor of the cabin bleeding, or she sees her in that attic suffering, or she sees her stumbling through the snow, blood leaking out of her side, coating her hand. She doesn’t think she’ll ever forget any of it, not really.

 

As Lottie continues to run her fingers along Jackie’s back, she looks up at the sky full of stars again, and at the moon, full and bare and staring back down at them. Sometimes, she thinks she can feel its raw energy baring down on them, filling them up, connecting them to not only the world, but each other. Sometimes, she closes her eyes and hopes she’ll hear something, but every time she does, there’s only silence and her own thoughts. 

 

Eventually, her eyes begin to droop. She places her hand on Jackie’s back and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Get some sleep,” she murmurs. Tomorrow is another day and who knows, maybe something good will happen, too.

 

“You, too,” Jackie mumbles, already half asleep in Lottie’s arms. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt so comfortable. A part of her thinks she should feel guilty about that. A larger part tells her that she’s warm, and she’s happy, and she should fall asleep.

 

Lottie smiles, nuzzling against Jackie’s head as she nods. She thinks she could fall asleep like this instantly. It almost feels like she does, her eyes and body ready to slip into a comfortable, warm sleep, the kind that wraps around your mind and lets you sink away from the world and all your troubles. She doesn’t even dream, and Lottie almost always dreams.

 

But being here with Jackie is better than any dream, so she doesn’t, and she feels peaceful and soft.

Notes:

They're very silly and sappy and in love. We're getting closer and closer to our version of season three, which we can't wait to share with you guys. Thanks so much for reading! We love comments and kudos, and feel free to reach out to us on our socials (lottiezilla and jackietaylorsversion on tumblr)!

Chapter 25: i want to fill my mouth with your name

Summary:

Jackie's SAT word of the week this week is: Odaxelagnia (from Greek: ὀδάξ, odáx, "with the teeth" and Greek: λαγνεία, lagneía, "lust") is a paraphilia involving sexual arousal through biting, or being bitten. Odaxelagnia is considered a mild form of sadomasochism.

Notes:

More fluff this week! Another bigger chapter, lots of talking, lots of, well-- you know ;) They're just finishing up their date, living their cute lil lives. They probably deserve some good downtime! I'm sure nothing will go wrong anytime soon. Also apologies for the late chapter again, one of us was sick and the other was out of town, but we're still truckin!

Title is from "Ode To An Apple" by Pablo Neruda

Jackie’s dreams are muddled memories. Nothing bad, but confusing, mixing past and present. She wakes up, though, and she’s not confused. She knows she’s in the wilderness wrapped in Lottie Matthews’ arms. There’s not anywhere else that she’d rather be. The sun’s just starting to come up. Jackie presses in closer, her nose to Lottie’s neck, still sleepy and soft.

 

When a nose is brushed against her skin, Lottie feels herself stirring from her sleep, shifting to wrap her arms fully around Jackie. She doesn’t open her eyes just yet, but she takes in a deep breath and lets it go slowly. The sun feels warm on her skin and Jackie feels warmer, still laying mostly on top of Lottie, curled up in her arms. 

 

“Morning,” she mumbles, still half asleep but smiling brightly.

 

“Morning,” Jackie says, her voice even raspier with thick sleep. She enjoys the feeling of the sun and Lottie and the blanket underneath them, the one around them tangled around their legs. They feel entwined. It’s pretty romantic, Jackie thinks, after a very romantic night before. She smiles, pressing her face heaven further against Lottie’s skin.

 

Humming, Lottie lets herself bask in the sun. It warms her skin and makes her feel so real and gentle, two of the things she wants to be the most. “Did you sleep well?” she asks, brushing her lips against the top of Jackie’s head, taking in the feel and scent of her. 

 

“So well.” Jackie leans up and looks down at Lottie, her eyes bright and happy. “I had this really comfortable pillow. Honestly, it might have been the best sleep I’ve gotten in awhile.”

 

Smiling, Lottie reaches up and combs some hair behind Jackie’s ear, out of her face. Her fingers linger along her jaw line. “Really? I wonder what happened to make it that way.”

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch. “No idea, but it was pretty great. Definitely thanks to the pillow. Warm. Soft.” She reaches out to brush her fingers over one of Lottie’s cheeks. “Really, really cute.”

 

Lottie presses her face into Jackie’s touch. “Sounds nice,” she murmurs, looking back up at her with still lidded eyes. She thinks waking up like this might be her favorite way to. No, it definitely is. “I’m almost jealous.”

 

“You should be. I don’t think you can find a pillow as comfortable as mine.”

 

“It’s true,” Lottie sighs, dramatically, “though I think the blanket I found is the best one ever.”

 

Jackie toys with the blanket that’s slipped down her back as she sits up, pulling it back over them. Teasingly, she says, “You’re right. This is a pretty nice blanket.”

 

Lottie laughs, shaking her head. “You’re so ornery.” She wraps her arms tightly around Jackie and hugs her to her. “Don’t get up yet.”

 

“Ornery?” Jackie gasps, huffing as Lottie pulls her in for a hug, even if she immediately wraps her arms around her and burrows her face into Lottie’s neck. “No one’s ever called me ornery in my life,” she mumbles.

 

“Well, you’re being a little bit like it right now,” Lottie tells her, chuckling. She presses a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m sorry, can I make it up to you?”she says in a teasing tone.

 

“Yes,” Jackie says, her voice muffled by Lottie’s skin.

 

“Please, tell me how,” Lottie coos, lips grazing Jackie’s ear.

 

Jackie shivers. “You’re a smart girl, Ms. Matthews. I think you can figure something out.”

 

“Hmmmm,” Lottie ponders, drawing out the sound. “Well, I brought some berries for us for breakfast. I could feed you those. Or dunk you in the river.” She lets her warm breath tickle Jackie’s skin, keeping her lips close to her ear. Hands scrape up Jackie’s back and tangle into her hair.

 

“You should definitely feed me berries for breakfast,” Jackie says, shivering again, unable to stop herself from squirming. “A dunk in the river doesn’t sound nearly as fun when you put it like that. But that’s it? Berries and an attempted drowning?”

 

“I'd love to, but I'm currently being weighed down by my blanket,” Lottie chimes, though instead of moving to push Jackie off, she wraps an arm around her waist to keep her from getting up at all. “It's a tragedy. I guess I'll just have to stay here and think of something else.”

 

“Damn, that really sucks,” Jackie says with a smile. “I don’t think my pillow is going to let me up, either. So you’re definitely going to have to figure something else out.”

 

Giving another thoughtful hum, Lottie brushes her lips against Jackie's temple. Her fingers continue to drift along the vast expanse of skin on her back, all the way up to her neck and all the way down to just above her ass. She's perfectly content to stay like this, really, but the idea of peppering lazy kisses along Jackie's skin is more enticing. 

 

Legs still intertwined with Jackie's, she nudges her face into her neck, pressing a kiss to the side of her jaw, then her pulse. She lets her tongue drift along the skin there, tasting the salt on her skin from the sweat they'd gathered during last night's activities.

 

Letting out a shaky sigh, Jackie tilts her head to the side, allowing Lottie more room. This is such a nice way to wake up, the sunlight still weak and soft in the early morning light but enough to warm their skin, Lottie’s fingers soothing over her back, her lips and tongue against her neck. There’s no worry about them getting caught or someone knocking on their hut. They get to just be.

 

It takes little encouragement for Lottie to kiss further down Jackie's neck, biting down gently when she reaches the slope where it turns into her shoulder. She sucks at the skin there, fingers drifting along Jackie's back, to her sides, back up again. She tastes as good as always, fresh and salty and sweet. 

 

When Lottie pulls away from that spot, she takes a moment to examine her handiwork and lick her lips. “Better?”

 

Jackie lets herself get lost in the feeling, a sharp intake of breath at the feeling of teeth followed by heavy sighs. She’s going to have a mark, several, but that’s okay because they’ll match the ones she left on Lottie. Maybe she should make more, her mouth watering at the thought as she brushes their chests together, small up and down motions as Lottie’s fingers brush along her back. 

 

“Better?” Jackie asks, forgetting for a moment that they’d been talking about something before she hums and nods. “Yes, better. Mhmm.”

 

Grinning, Lottie grips Jackie's hips with both hands, then, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. Carefully, but with a fluid motion, she rolls them so that Jackie is now pinned under her again, before she's nudging her nose against the other side of Jackie's neck and latching onto the skin there as well, sucking and licking as she arches her chest into Jackie's.

 

It’s so fluid but so unexpected that Jackie lets out a surprised little noise as Lottie pins her, though it quickly turns into a low moan at the feeling of lips reattaching themselves to the other side of her neck. It shouldn’t have been unexpected. Jackie thinks they both like this a lot, Lottie on top and pressing down against Jackie. She wraps her arms around Lottie’s neck and grips her hair. Her back arches up to press them firmly together. 

 

This is definitely Lottie's favorite place to be, on top of Jackie with her lips exploring exposed skin. She's lazy with it, too, body still waking up as she laps at Jackie's skin, presses sloppy kisses to her jaw, her lips, her neck. She takes her time, she enjoys the taste and the feel and the sounds of Jackie's high sighing. She thinks she'd like to wake up like this every day. 

 

When she pulls back just enough to gaze down at Jackie, she can feel her cheeks already flushing and her chest already tightening. Her messy hair spills over her shoulders, grazing Jackie's chest. “I'm really glad you liked all this,” she tells her, voice quiet, “I was worried it might be…too much.”

 

Jackie looks up at Lottie with heavily lidded eyes, taking in her flushed cheeks and knowing her own must match and then some. The tan she’s gotten— uneven from work and creating more and more freckles— does nothing to hide any of Jackie’s blushes. “I like everything with you,” Jackie admits. One of her hands moves from around Lottie’s neck to cup her cheek and brush her fingers over it. 

 

There's not much else for Lottie to say to that, so she just kisses Jackie instead, deep and longing and with every ounce of love she has in her body. She pours it into Jackie's mouth through her own and lets it flow between them freely, her movements still sluggish, lazy, as she rolls her hips down against Jackie's. 

 

Lottie's simply never been good with words, but with Jackie, she knows she doesn't need to be.

 

There’s really not a reason to talk, the two of them tangled up like this, holding each other like this, kissing like this. Jackie finds herself lost in sweet kisses and rolling hips. None of it is hurried. They’re not in a rush. It’s lazy, perfect for just waking up, and it’s warm. Jackie can feel the heat between Lottie’s legs, the heat between her own. Her hips move up to meet Lottie’s. Her tongue brushes over Lottie’s lips. It’s a really good way to wake up.

 

Lottie only hunkers down more, lost in the feeling, the heat of the sun on her back, tan skin glistening with sweat already. She doesn't really care. She throws the blanket off, though, not wanting to get tangled in it as she kisses down Jackie's neck to her collarbones. She wraps her lips around one and sucks, sharp canines digging ever so into the skin there. She's still leisurely with her touches, her tongue, fingers playing at Jackie's sides, tracing circles into her hips. She rolls her own again, drawn out and lax, before she's shifting to slot one leg between Jackie's, pressing her though against the warmth there. Wet and slick against her thigh.

 

Jackie moans loudly as those sharp teeth bite into her skin, a fresh wave of heat pooling between her legs. Her hips roll up against Lottie’s leg, the movement uncontrolled. She moves her own, knee pressed to Lottie’s heat. It’s sloppy and it’s good, and they’re taking their time. It’s kind of beautiful. “Bite down again,” Jackie manages. “Please.”

 

Lottie can do that. She finds a spot of unkissed skin along Jackie's chest and wraps her lips around it before sinking her teeth in. She's always had sharp little fangs, she remembers some of the other kids back in elementary school asking her if she was a vampire. She never knew what to say, but maybe they were right. 

 

She moans against Jackie's skin, the leg between her own rubbing in just the right way. She rocks her hips against it, shuddering, her movements lingering as she wraps her lips back around Jackie's neck and bites down on her pulse, sharp teeth scraping against thin skin.

 

Crying out, Jackie tangles her hands in Lottie’s hair and holds her close as she feels teeth dig into her flesh. Maybe she likes it a little. Maybe she likes it a lot. They both have pretty sharp teeth, really. Jackie just likes the way that Lottie’s feel. She thinks she’s always liked it a little, a lot. Her hips jerk up in time with Lottie’s. 

 

Lottie groans into Jackie’s skin, shuddering against her. She can’t help but move down lower, her mouth finding a spot on Jackie’s ribs that she can bite down on, teeth scraping skin again, digging in. She loves the taste of her skin, maybe a little too much. She sucks on the spot, hands gripping Jackie’s hips to hold her still.

 

“God, Lottie,” Jackie moans, trying to move her hips. When she can’t, she ends up just wrapping a leg around her, her heel digging into Lottie’s back. It’s like she can’t get them close enough. Her head tips back against the blanket. 

 

Lottie’s movements become just a little more hurried, though still purposeful and smooth. She feels like her body is craving something more but she doesn’t know what. Her arm goes up to wrap her hand against the leg that’s curled around her waist. She moves her mouth up from Jackie’s ribs to her breast, biting into the side of it, before she’s wrapping her lips around the sensitive skin in the center, licking and sucking. Testing it, then, after a moment, Lottie bites down gently on Jackie’s nipple, waiting to hear more before she tries again.

 

Another white hot wave of arousal rolls through Jackie as she moans and babbles incoherently, dripping between her legs. Her voice is high and loud and keening. She holds Lottie’s head to her chest with one hand, the other searching for one of Lottie’s. When she finds it, she grabs her by the wrist and pulls it up to her mouth, bending the fingers and sucking on two of them. It’s twofold: one, it helps her shut up, just a little, even if she can’t stop some of those noises from slipping out of her throat, and two, she really just wants to taste Lottie’s skin again, and this is the only thing she can really get in her mouth.

 

It’s strange to Lottie, how much she enjoys sex with Jackie. She’s always liked it, in whatever form it came in (save for the few times some of the boys had tried to get into her pants), but with Jackie, it’s like all her senses are heightened and therefore, so is the sex. 

 

Lottie moans against Jackie’s chest. She bites down again, a little harder this time. She moves her thigh against Jackie’s center, feeling how wet and wanting she is. Lottie feels the same, legs shaking as she rocks her hips in a steady rhythm. She presses her fingers against Jackie’s tongue, brushes her thumb against her lips. It’s driving her mad, she thinks. And it’s the only time she’s ever wanted something to.

 

Jackie swirls her tongue around Lottie’s fingers before biting down, moaning again and again. The roll of her hips is out of sync with Lottie’s, her movements jerky and hurried, and, god. It feels so good. It’s a little unreal, it just feels so good. 

 

Sex was never supposed to be like this. Jackie had figured that Jeff was just kind of bad at touching her, and that was fine. Despite what everyone else was saying, she really didn’t expect it to be fantastic or anything. At the end of the day, she mostly thought it was just something that was like a chore. She’d get it over with before college and then do it with one or two other guys to find the one to keep around long term. She knew it was supposed to hurt. It hurt a little with Travis. It was better than she expected, once they got started, but it didn’t blow her mind or anything. She wasn’t itching for a repeat; she just guessed it was fine to die, now that she’d experienced it once. 

 

Being with Lottie is like finding religion or something equally as mind opening. It makes Jackie feel so good, all the time. It’s soft and hard and fast and slow, and it makes Jackie feel better than she ever thought was possible. She actually wants more. She actually lets herself want more. And she’s in love. That’s kind of incredible in and of itself.

 

Lottie lets out a small gasp as she feels Jackie’s teeth sink into her fingers. It feels so good. Should it feel that good? She doesn’t care. She wants to kiss her again, and she pulls her mouth away from Jackie’s breast, her fingers from Jackie’s mouth, and kisses her, hard. Teeth and tongue already begging for entrance, scraping along her lips. Her hand picks up where her mouth left off, pinching and rolling sensitive skin between fingers. She can feel the fire in the pit between her legs burning and jolting and making her gasp and stutter with breath. It makes her feel unreal, which is usually the opposite of how she wants to feel, but here, right now, with Jackie, it’s all she feels. And it feels like fucking heaven.

 

Lips chasing after Lottie’s fingers until they’re replaced with soft lips, Jackie moans into the kiss. She easily sucks Lottie’s tongue into her mouth before opening up to her. It’s so fucking good. Her chest arches into Lottie’s touch. She pulls at Lottie’s hair. The motion of her hips gets jerkier, and she can’t control herself. Jackie doesn’t think she wants to control herself, not with this, not anymore. “Lottie,” she manages to get out against Lottie’s lips. She’s blushing to her roots, down her chest. “I’m— I’m gonna—”

 

Lottie licks eagerly into Jackie’s mouth when she’s let in, sucks on her lower lip, bites down on it when Jackie tries to talk. Maybe Lottie has learned to be loud with Jackie, but she doesn’t say much still. She’s always been a person of actions. She rolls her hips into Jackie’s a little harder, buries her face into her neck, then, and bites down again, willing her to come, to let go. Lottie doesn’t think she can hold on much longer, either. 

 

Jackie manages to move a hand between them and grab at one of Lottie’s breasts. She feels her pleasure tighten until it snaps, blinding heat rushing through her as her hips still and she cries out loud enough to wake the wildlife. It rolls through her in waves. Jackie’s hips twitch and stutter as she pulls Lottie closer to her. The hand in Lottie’s hair tugs, pulling Lottie’s mouth away from her neck just long enough to smash their lips together before she can return the favor, lips trailing down to soft flesh before teeth sink in.

 

The sound of Jackie crying out is almost enough to make Lottie come undone herself. But the hand in her hair makes her gasp, before lips are crashing against hers, and she barely has time to register the feeling when they're ripped away. Only to feel teeth sink into her skin and it doesn't really take much after that for Lottie to explode, crying out, leg muscles trembling and shaking as she comes on Jackie's thigh. Her hands are curled up so tight in the blanket her knuckles turn white, and she doesn't let go until she's collapsing on top of Jackie, panting and shuddering. “Holy…shit…” she mumbles.

 

“Yeah,” Jackie breathes against Lottie’s neck. She hums happily under the feeling of Lottie’s weight, sinking further into the bedding. Pressing a kiss to the mark she left behind, Jackie feels like she’s been running suicides. It’s actually a pretty good feeling. “Holy shit.”

 

Lottie stays pressed to Jackie while she catches her breath, face buried in her neck. “I don't think I've ever had morning sex before you,” she exhales, “and if I have, it was definitely never this good.”

 

The words make Jackie smile brightly, flushing with pride. She can’t help it. She likes being good at things. More than that, she likes having some of Lottie’s first. Lottie has almost all of hers. It feels really nice to get some of Lottie’s. “What? Are you telling me you didn’t invite all the girls to stay the night and make them breakfast in the morning, Casanova?”

 

Only Natalie, Lottie thinks, and just barely stops herself from saying it. They'd never actually had full on sex like this, anyway. So it wasn't like it mattered. But still. Sometimes it felt nice to know there was actually another living soul in her big, empty house. 

 

“Only the hot ones,” she jokes instead, smiling into Jackie's neck. 

 

“You were inviting hot girls over and didn’t go to pound town in the morning? Kinda embarrassing, Matthews,” Jackie teases, wrapping her arms around Lottie’s waist. 

 

“Absolutely no one calls it that, Jax,” Lottie grumbles, turning her head enough to press her lips to the underside of Jackie's jaw. “Who knows, maybe I was just waiting for the right girl “

 

“Tons of people call it that!” Jackie argues, even as she softens under Lottie’s lips. She grows quiet, content, happy. Lottie has a way of making her so happy. “Yeah?”

 

“You're the only person I've ever heard say it,” Lottie counters, but her voice is soft and maybe she feels a little like she's melting into Jackie, something she'd be totally okay with. “Yeah.” She sighs, closes her eyes again, and settles on top of Jackie. “Besides, you're like only one of two people from the team who've actually been to my mom's house.”

 

“Well, now I feel kind of special,” Jackie says quietly. She doesn’t ask who the other person is. She thinks she knows. It’s not that she’s jealous. Or maybe she is, a little, but it’s a weird kind of jealousy. It lacks teeth and claws. It’s not like being jealous when Shauna would talk to Tai. Mainly because Jackie and Nat are close, now, and because Jackie doesn’t feel like she’s going to be replaced. She doesn’t think so, at least. She hopes not. Lottie’s better at telling her things. Jackie trusts her.

 

“You are,” Lottie says, simple as that. Even if they weren't like this, Lottie would still think that. Jackie is special, she always has been. Her aura has always been a gravitational pull, for everyone around her. People were drawn to her, her kind smile, her unwavering confidence, her open kindness. Her take no shit attitude. Except for with Shauna. Sometimes, Lottie thought Jackie seemed like a different person around Shauna. She knows it's not really true, but sometimes, when no one else was looking, and Jackie thought it was just her and Shauna, Lottie would watch them and they'd both become someone else.

 

It’s no secret that Jackie likes to be complimented, and she feels Lottie’s words, so simple but so meaningful, sink into her, making her warm and pleasant. Tragic and boring and insecure. Maybe. She feels a little less tragic now, though. Less boring, too, but maybe that’s just because constant life or death scenarios are anything but. And insecure… Jackie’s always been insecure. She can’t help it. But she’s trying. There’s a pretty girl lying against her who loves her, who tells her she loves her, who looks at her like she hung the moon. If that’s not an ego boost, then Jackie doesn’t really know what is. The morning sun is warm. She feels a little like liquid. It’s kind of perfect. 

 

Lottie is perfectly content to just lay here with Jackie, shifting some of her weight off her in an attempt to not suffocate the smaller girl. But she stays draped across her frame, face tucked into her neck, sun beating down on the bare skin of her back-- and she thinks that there's really nothing more perfect than this. It sounds impossible. It's just them, and the birds singing, and the warm sunlight. 

 

She knows they can't stay there all day, sure, but the morning is theirs, and even the afternoon. Nat said as long as they're back by dinner, she won't come looking for them, which Lottie thinks is fair. It's plenty of time to laze about, eat some berries, bathe in the river, and maybe fuck another time or two. It's plenty of time to be alone with the girl she loves.

 

Jackie thinks she could fall back asleep, and while she doesn’t, she definitely dozes some, relaxed and content to lay under Lottie and just be. She’s not fidgeting or worrying with anything. She feels rooted, actually, like she’s one with the ground. Lottie doesn’t seem too worried about getting back or anyone coming to look for them, so Jackie mumbles, “I take it you snagged us the day off?”

 

Lottie nods and gives a soft hum. “As long as we're back by dinner, we won't be hunted down by an angry blonde.” She pauses. “Well, I guess she's mostly brunette now.” Really, Nat’s hair is one of the best ways they have of telling time out here. Lottie thinks it's kind of funny, and even the other day, Van tried to measure the blonde to brown ratio before Nat told her off. 

 

“We can do whatever we want,” she continues, nuzzling against Jackie. “Whatever…”

 

“You know, she’s kind of rocking it as a look,” Jackie muses. “Her roots looked really awkward over the winter, but the growth and how much sun we’re all getting these days kind I’ve makes it work really well.” Jackie’s hair was longer than it used to be, her bangs basically nonexistent. Even Lottie’s were long, framing her face and curling a little. Jackie hand went to them, twirling hair around her finger. 

 

Jackie laughs softly. “I could tell,” she says. Hence the morning sex. They’d fooled around plenty in the morning before getting up and starting the day, but that was always quick touches, hands in pants, moving against each other before getting dressed. This had been lazy, messy, drawn out. Bite marks and hickeys and warm stickiness between both their legs, on their thighs. Jackie pets through Lottie’s hair. “What do you want to do with whatever, then?”

 

“Mmmm, true,” Lottie sighs, “I think Nat looks good no matter what her hair color is, really.” She knows Nat dyed her hair blonde after her dad died, but then she’d kept doing it and Lottie had grown fond of the blonde. This new brunette with blonde tips, though, looked nice as well. She hoped Nat liked it, too. She often seemed to cover up her hair, or pull it back. 

 

Lottie’s eyes close again as she feels Jackie’s fingers playing with her hair, something that’s always seemed to comfort her, even before Laura Lee. It feels nicest when Jackie does it now. “This is nice,” she mumbles, already being lulled into a soft daze. “Or we can go for a swim.”

 

“She’s kind of ridiculously pretty,” Jackie agrees. She thinks Nat looks softer out here, too, without her makeup acting as an armor. Then again, she’s sure it’s the same for her. They all look younger and older at the same time. Something from the hunger eating at them, hollowing them out even now that they had food. 

 

Jackie grins at the distracted tone of Lottie’s voice, pleased that she’s the cause of it. “We can stay right here,” she says softly. “Or we can get in the water. We’re both kind of sticky.”

 

“Should I be jealous?” Lottie asks in a noncommittal tone, giving a heavy sigh as she lets out a long breath. There’s no bite behind the tone, no actual insinuation, just a lazy, teasing tone, because Lottie isn’t sure she’s really capable of being jealous like that. She doesn’t really care if Jackie thinks another girl is attractive.

 

The only time Lottie remembers feeling jealous was in the middle of her breakdown, thinking about how Shauna Shipman had taken half of Jackie with her when she died. She wants all of Jackie, but she knows that’s not possible, and so she accepts that she has everything left of her. 

 

“We can stay here,” Lottie repeats, not moving. “I wanna stay here right now.”

 

“Hmm, probably not,” Jackie says, her tone airy. “I think Nat’s sort of married to her job.” Besides, she’s not the one that’s fool around with Natalie before. Not that it really mattered anymore. Jackie’s confident that Lottie loves her, wants to be with her. It’d be weird if she didn’t, in the position they're currently in. Jackie’s hand stays twirling in Lottie’s hair, the other moving to brush up and down, up and down over her back. “I’m good to just stay right here, too.”

 

“Just for a bit,” Lottie mumbles again, nodding. “Just stay here for a bit.” She’s comfortable and warm and she feels soft and like she wants to melt into Jackie. She’d really be okay with that. She sighs again, content, and shifts her head enough to lay on Jackie’s chest and listen to her heartbeat. The sound is more soothing than anything Lottie’s ever heard before, she thinks. 

 

“Sounds perfect,” Jackie says. She likes the way that Lottie’s head rests against her, the weight of her body, the warmth of her skin. She’d be content to stay right there forever. They can’t; she knows they can’t. But it would be nice to just hold onto this moment for forever.

 

Lottie lets out a happy noise, wrapping her arm around Jackie’s midsection as she listens to her heartbeat and the sound of her breathing. “You’re perfect.” The words sort of just slip out of her mouth, but she means them, truly. She really, truly means them. She means everything she tells Jackie.

 

She’s not, Jackie knows she’s not, but it’s nice all the same to hear, and the way that Lottie says them is sweet. “You’re perfect,” she replies. Jackie thinks she might have worshiped Lottie the night before. She felt like Lottie was worshiping her, too.

 

At that, Lottie shakes her head. Still, it’s nice that Jackie thinks she is. She figures they both disagree on the other being perfect, but Lottie thinks Jackie is a lot more so than herself. At least Jackie doesn’t hear voices or see things that aren’t real. “Agree to disagree,” she murmurs.

 

“I guess we’re just going to have to,” Jackie says, her smile a little crooked. She leans in enough to press a kiss to Lottie’s head before laying back against the bedding. It’s hard to want to move when they’re like this. It’s hard to think about wanting anything more. Jackie has Lottie. She has a person. How could she want anything more? 

 

It's nice to have somebody who doesn't want to argue with her every second of every day, Lottie thinks. Both her parents always wanted to argue with her or yell at her or tell her everything was her fault, and she had little reason to disagree with them. And even after she'd befriended Natalie, the girl was always so oppositional, which made sense, seeing as she was one of the more aggressively competitive members of the team. 

 

But sometimes Lottie wanted to just be and not argue or get mad or think about how shitty everything was. She got to have that with Jackie. It was so nice. 

 

She's not entirely sure how long they stay laying there, the sun beating down on Lottie's back, Jackie playing with her hair, but she eventually realizes she's getting hot and groggy and she stirs, lifting her head. “I’m hot,” she frowns, eyes drooping . 

 

The sun had moved into Jackie’s face for long enough that she’d tucked it against Lottie’s neck, and she groans, offering up a nod. It’s hot. “I think we’re stuck together a little,” she mumbles, frowning. “River?”

 

“River,” Lottie repeats, peeling herself slowly away from Jackie. They’re both hot and sticky and sweaty and really nothing sounds better than jumping into a cold body of water. She rolls onto her back for a moment, before rubbing her eyes and sitting up, holding a hand out to Jackie. “My lady,” she grins. 

 

“Dork,” Jackie says affectionately, taking Lottie’s hand with a smile as she sits up as well. “But a gentlewoman.” Her legs feel weak as they stand, and she laughs a little, leaning against Lottie before they walk to the river. It’s cold, and Jackie tenses like she usually does before she sighs and relaxes, sinking under and soaking her hair.

 

Lottie is all too eager to get into the water, sinking down up to her chest and letting out a long sigh of relief. It feels so nice. She tilts her head back, letting her hair drape into the water and soak through. It’ll take all day to dry now but she thinks it’ll feel nice to stay cool and damp. 

 

She reaches for Jackie, then, pulling her to her, arms going around her waist. She doesn’t say anything, just lays her head on Jackie’s shoulder, closing her eyes as she smiles. This is all she needs in life, she thinks. Someone to hold, to love, to have.

 

Jackie holds Lottie close, content to have her in her arms. One hand goes to Lottie’s hair, brushing through it. It’s so thick, heavy. The water’s cool, but Jackie can still feel the heat of Lottie’s skin. It’s nice. A nice balance.

 

Lottie can’t help but let out another sigh, sinking further into the water and holding onto Jackie loosely. “It’s not so bad when it’s hot out,” she muses, hands playing idly with Jackie’s skin under the ripples. 

 

“Definitely better now than it was like a month ago,” Jackie agrees. It’s still cold, but Jackie’s just always cold. She always has been, and she thought she was getting used to it, during the winter, back when she just wanted to go to sleep in it, but not wanting to die anymore kind of reminds her that being cold sort of sucks sometimes. It's better now, though, with the weather, the company. She could almost get used to it.

 

Nodding, Lottie agrees. It is much nicer, she thinks, though she hadn’t minded it back then, either. She’s glad it’s better for Jackie now, though. Maybe that means they can do this more often. She’d heard some of the other girls talking about going back to the lake soon, though Lottie wasn’t exactly eager on that idea-- she hadn’t been back there since Laura Lee died. She much preferred the river.

 

“It feels nice, don’t you think?” she asks, pressing her nose against Jackie’s neck. Her hands move under the water to hook around her thighs and pull her legs up to straddle Lottie, before she holds her steady. “Like jumping in the pool during summer.”

 

Jackie wraps her legs around Lottie’s waist and her arms around her neck, humming contently at the ways they press against each other in the water. “Kind of,” she agrees. “Though pools lack currents and aren’t sometimes trying to push you downstream.” She isn’t the strongest swimmer, and she’s okay with that. Or she was back home where it didn’t fucking matter. Now it could get her killed. Nothing major or anything. At least her feet touch the riverbed, for the most part, where they are. Or she has Lottie to cling to, a much better option.

 

“I won't let you drift away,” Lottie says, brushing her lips against Jackie's neck. She lets her hands find their way up to Jackie's back, holding onto her, pressing her into Lottie's own embrace. She had a steady and firm hold on her, she wasn't going to let anything pull Jackie away from her. Not a river current, not a dead girl, and not the Wilderness. 

 

“My hero,” Jackie teases, but it’s less of a tease because she means it. Lottie is her hero; she saved her, and maybe Jackie wasn’t grateful at first, but she is now. She snuggles closer into Lottie’s grasp, hooking her chin over Lottie’s shoulder. On the shore, she sees Shauna. 

 

She hasn’t bothered them all night. Maybe it would be too much to ask that she left them alone every time they were together. Jackie doesn’t mind seeing her when she’s alone. Is it too much for a girl to be choosy of when and where she gets haunted by the ghost of her dead friend, and can it now be when she’s spending quality time with her girlfriend? She’s not sure. Jackie lets her eyes close, playing with Lottie’s hair.

 

Jackie always feels so small when Lottie holds her, and it's more evident in the water where her weight doesn't register in Lottie's grip. Instead, she feels more like another limb, clinging to her like this, head resting on her shoulder, legs around her waist. Lottie runs her hands up and down Jackie's back soothingly, as she feels fingers brushing through ribbons of her thick, wet hair. 

 

It always reminds her of someone else. And she's trying very hard to move on, because it's a little hypocritical of her to hold onto Laura Lee while being jealous of Shauna, but it's hard. It's just hard because she never actually got to have Laura Lee the way Jackie had Shauna or the way Lottie has Jackie now. She never even got to know. 

 

Sighing, Lottie turns her head to place a kiss on Jackie's cheek. She doesn't feel much like a hero. “My hair is never going to dry,” she mumbles after a long, comfortable silence.

 

“Never,” Jackie agrees, letting her fingers sink into it. “It’s so thick and pretty. It’s getting really long, too.” Lottie’s hair is just stupid pretty and soft and thick, like it’s still being properly taken care of, even out there. Of course Lottie doesn’t need proper hair care to look good. Of course not. Lottie’s so beautiful that sometimes it makes Jackie’s brain short circuit. 

 

“Do you think I should cut it?” Lottie asks. And it's strange to think about, the fact that she hasn't cut it since before winter. She'd stopped caring about stuff like that after she lost the only person she thought cared. 

 

But she had Jackie now, and sometimes she thought about asking her to braid her hair. 

 

“I mean, I like how long it is,”Jackie starts, playing with it by wrapping a strand slowly around her finger. “But it’s your hair. You should do whatever you want with it.” She doesn’t want Lottie to think she’s making decisions for her. Lottie doesn’t resent her now, but it would be so easy. 

 

“I'll keep it long,” Lottie decides, because, really, she wants to do whatever makes Jackie happy. She'd shave her whole head of that's what Jackie wanted, though with how often the other girl plays with it, she doubts she'd want her to cut all her hair off. 

 

“Do you want to keep it long?” Jackie asks. “I know it’s heavy.”

 

“I've never had it short before,” Lottie answers. “I like when you play with it.” 

 

“It’s really nice to play with,” Jackie admits, content enough to twirl it around and around her fingers. 

 

Lottie smiles, the soft affection she holds for Janie twinkling in her eyes. Her hair has always been something Lottie cared about and liked about herself. It was nice to know Jackie liked it, too. 

 

She moves forward, then, and kisses Jackie, patient and gentle, like they'd started out that morning. “You can play with it whenever you want,” she murmurs against her lips.

 

Jackie’s hand tangles with the hair at the nape of Lottie’s neck, not tugging but just brushing through and digging her fingers in as they kiss. It’s hers, just as much as the girl holding her is hers, just as much as this moment as a whole is theirs. It’s soft and sweet, and Jackie’s never felt so content. Smiling against Lottie’s lips, she sighs. “Good.”

 

For a moment, Lottie feels a little overwhelmed with how happy she feels. She doesn’t think she’s ever been this happy before. Happiness came in waves for Lottie, like the kind that lap at the beach under the pier back in Jersey. High tide, low tide. She felt like the ocean sometimes. Deep and dark and swallowing everything whole. Being known but never truly understood. Coming and going. 

 

Now, she felt steady, like the river they were bathing in. A constant flow, drifting along, undisturbed even by bodies inside of it. Lottie gives a content sigh, fingers tracing patterns along Jackie’s back. They subconsciously outline the symbol, once, twice, three times. She thinks it protects them. 

 

“I…” Lottie starts slowly, words jumbled in her head, but begging to come out, “have never felt this happy before. This-- good.” She doesn’t know where she’s going with it, but she just wants Jackie to know. “Everything feels so…nice with you.”

 

“I haven’t felt happy in a really long time,” Jackie admits softly. She looks at Lottie, her eyes lidded from the soothing feeling of fingers trailing against her skin. Jackie doesn’t think she’s been properly happy in years, not like this. She’s been peppy, and optimistic, and cheerful. But happy was something that came around on the field or in quiet, dark moments where she could just be herself with one person, the only person who mattered, who Jackie can feel staring holes into her back, even if she’s not really there. 

 

“I didn’t think I would get to be this happy out loud.” Jackie presses their lips together again. “I’m glad I can. I’m glad it’s with you. And I’m glad I make you happy and that things feel nice because you fucking deserve it, Lottie. You really do.”

 

Lottie kisses Jackie back eagerly. She splays her hands out flat against her back and pushes them closer together, their chest pressing into each other. She tries to not let the pang of shame cross her face but she doesn’t think she’s very successful. The thing about Lottie was that she felt so much all the time and usually she was so good at hiding it, at pretending like she was okay, like nothing was wrong.

 

It was so much harder to do that out here. “I don’t know if I…really do. But I-- I want to. Believe that.” 

 

“I’ll keep telling you until you do,” Jackie says. She could be an asshole and inattentive, but, when she set her mind to it and tried, she liked to think she was really good at being encouraging, in getting people to see the best in themselves. 

 

“Okay.” It was really all Lottie could offer her. She hoped it was enough. Lottie burrowed her face back into Jackie’s neck, breathing her in, letting the feeling of the cool water flowing all around them ground her in this moment, this spot. The feel of Jackie’s skin against her own. The way they’d built their lives around each other. 

 

Lottie let her lips graze over a red welt on Jackie’s shoulder, before pressing them to it. She kissed up her neck, to her jaw, before nipping at the skin there. If Jackie thought Lottie deserved to be happy, to have nice things, then maybe it was true after all. Lottie didn’t think Jackie would lie to her about that.

 

It’s important to Jackie that Lottie knows how much she deserves to be happy and loved. It’s so fucking important. She knows that Lottie didn’t get that back home. Her parents were inattentive at best, and they made her afraid of herself. The only thing about Lottie that really scares Jackie these days is that she might hurt herself. She just wants Lottie to be okay. 

 

Lottie seems pretty okay as her lips trail all over Jackie’s skin, and Jackie sighs happily. Her legs tighten around Lottie’s waist, her hands tightening in her hair. It’s so good. She thinks Lottie might be trying to drive her crazy. 

 

All her life, Lottie has made sure she has as much self control as possible. It was a lot easier while on medication, she’d sort of fallen apart out here-- but she thought she’d been doing good about it lately. But with Jackie, it all fell away, in the best way possible. She just wanted to kiss her and touch her and taste her. All the damn time. It was driving her mad.

 

She brings their lips together again, tongue pressing against Jackie’s bottom one. Her hands trail down to grip Jackie’s ass, pulling her hips into Lottie’s. God, she just wants her all the fucking time. It doesn’t feel real and yet it feels like the most real thing Lottie has ever experienced. 

 

And so she chases it, eagerly and excited, and she just hopes she doesn’t scare Jackie away with how intensely she feels.

 

Jackie moans, her lips eagerly parting for Lottie’s tongue, delighting in the taste of her. It’s overwhelming. Being with someone like this is overwhelming. Congrats to all the people in high school who already got it: sex is fun! Just kissing and touching and holding someone is fun! It’s incredible, really, and it feels unreal how much she wants Lottie all the time. It can be embarrassing, distracting, overwhelming in the village when just one look makes Jackie feel all hot and bothered, but here, just the two of them, it’s the entire world. 

 

The entire world is Lottie’s hands on Jackie’s ass, her tongue in her mouth, their hips pressed together as Jackie rolls her own against Lottie’s. The cool water does nothing to stop the warmth spreading through her.

 

A shudder runs through Lottie and she feels her skin prickle. Jackie meets her movements with her own and Lottie lets out a soft moan as well, breathing into Jackie’s mouth, tasting her tongue, her lips. Everything. Her hands squeeze and massage Jackie’s backside and Lottie feels so suddenly hot despite how cold the water around them is. 

 

Fuck, she’s so in love. In all the years before this, Lottie had always imagined this was just fantasy. People in the real world didn’t fall in love like this, didn’t burn with passion and want and arousal like this. But here she was, being all of those things at once.

 

She kisses Jackie harder, hungry, needy. With Jackie’s legs tight around her waist, one hand slips between them and Jackie is so warm, even under the water. Lottie’s fingers brush against her center, between her legs, and she can feel her own knuckles rubbing against herself. “I love you,” she exhales when she has to pull away for a breath, “so fucking much.”

 

It’s like wanting to devour someone, Jackie thinks. A horrifying thought to have when they’ve actually eaten people, but it wasn’t like that. That’s just the closest feeling that Jackie can think of as she kisses Lottie back with just as much need and want. She shudders as she feels Lottie’s hand between her legs, moving closer. Moaning, she nods, brushing her cheek against Lottie’s. Her eyes open, and she sees Shauna staring from the bank, her eyes dark, stormy. Not real. Not real. Not real.

 

“I love you,” Jackie says, her mouth next to Lottie’s ear. “I love you, Lottie.”

 

Another shudder cascades up Lottie’s spine and that’s really all it takes to have her pressing her fingers into Jackie, feeling how warm she is, the two different temperatures making Lottie feel electric. She moves her other hand and presses against Jackie’s lower back to steady her as she begins her motions, staying close, lips finding bare skin wherever they go and tasting it. The idea that Jackie loves her is still an incredible thought to Lottie. She doesn’t feel like she deserves to be loved, she hasn’t done anything to earn that, she doesn’t think. 

 

But she has it regardless, and she thinks she’d do anything to keep it, to not squander this chance at something happy, something real. Something that can just be hers. 

 

“Fuck,” Jackie breathes, groaning at the feel of Lottie’s fingers. Her legs tighten around Lottie’s waist, and she moves with Lottie’s hand. Her head tilts away from Lottie’s ear, giving her more room as she savors the feeling of lips all over her. This is real, even if it drives her a little crazy. She thinks Lottie’s doing it on purpose. She knows she is. She doesn’t feel like she’s being watched, and it makes her relax even more, moaning as Lottie touches her. 

 

She wants this so bad that she can’t stand it. Jackie’s hands tug at Lottie’s hair, and she moves into her again and again.

 

Lottie groans softly as hands pull at her hair. She likes the feeling of it. She likes it whenever Jackie touches her, however she touches her. It feels so fucking good. Especially like this, with Jackie wrapped around her, moaning into her as Lottie fucks her. She thinks about how pruned their skin is gonna be and she just doesn’t care. It actually makes her smile. She moves her hand faster, curls her fingers inside of Jackie. She’s panting against Jackie’s neck, tongue lapping at droplets of water that gather there, dripping from her hair. 

 

She loves her and she thinks the feeling might be consuming her and she’s okay with that. She wants it.

 

“Lottie, Lottie, Lottie,” Jackie moans, one of her hands going down from Lottie’s hair to rake down her back. She’s lost in it, lost in Lottie, in the feel of her and the sound of her. It feels so fucking good. She knows she’s being loud, but she can hear lottie, too, how much she likes this. She can feel Lottie’s smile against her skin. It’s addicting. Lottie is addicting. Jackie wonders if one day she’ll stop being shocked by how good this feels, by how much she craves it.

 

Lottie’s back muscle tense under Jackie’s fingers, an excited shiver rushing through her again. It just makes her move her hand faster, bring her mouth back to Jackie’s, swallow her moans as she cries out Lottie’s name. She thinks that’s the best part, actually. Hearing Jackie call out her name like this. What could be better than this? 

 

Jackie is eager to sink into the kiss, moaning and licking into Lottie’s mouth. Her hips rock into Lottie’s hand. The others might worship the wind, the trees. They might have looked at Lottie like a prophet. Jackie thinks they’re wrong. She thinks this is what worship feels like, looks like. Even in the daylight she feels it. She thought at first that maybe it was just the wine and the moon getting to her. But this is what worship feels like. It’s more real than anything in a church. God would understand. 

 

“Jackie,” Lottie breathes, her voice high and keening. She lets her tongue dart into her mouth, lets it brush against her own. The taste of her is like a drug to Lottie. She thinks she might go mad without it. She thrusts her hand in a little deeper, curling her fingers a little more, feels Jackie’s muscles tense and tighten around them. She’s knuckle deep inside of her and she still somehow wishes she could be closer. She wants to split open her ribs and crawl inside, curl up around her heart and lungs and dissolve into her blood. 

 

Lottie bites down on Jackie’s lower lip, sucks it into her mouth. She wonders what Jackie’s blood tastes like. She wonders what her own does.

 

It’s hard for Jackie to keep up with how good it feels. Lottie knows just how to touch her, just how to find those places inside her she didn’t even know fucking existed and draw out feelings she didn’t know were real. She’s right there on the edge, close enough to taste it, moaning as teeth sink into her lip and suck on it. Her eyes roll back. Still, Jackie begs, “More. Please.”

 

What else can Lottie do but oblige? She sinks another finger into Jackie, presses in more. She bites down on her lip again, aiming to draw out another one of those moans. The way she begs makes Lottie’s breath hiccup. No one’s ever begged for her like this. She’s never let them. Now, it’s all she wants. 

 

Something metallic and wet hits her tongue. She laps it up, the taste of Jackie’s blood, just a small bead of it on her lip. It must be what ambrosia tastes like, surely this is what all the gods threw such a fuss about. She might get it now. 

 

The sharp bite to her lip, the stretch between her legs, that’s all it takes for that white hot coil in Jackie to snap as she shudders and cries out, coming in Lottie’s hand. Her legs stay wrapped around Lottie’s waist, and she’s still clenched around her fingers even as she sags against her. Their noses brush against each other as Jackie’s head tilts forward, her lip still in Lottie’s mouth. It feels so fucking good. Just when she thinks it can’t get better, she’s always a little surprised. 

 

Lottie holds onto Jackie the whole way through. She feels her muscles spasm and clench around her fingers as Jackie finally comes undone and just like every other time so far, it’s the most wonderful thing in the world to witness. The way she cries out, calls Lottie’s name; the way her entire body tenses around her; the way she sags against Lottie when it’s done. 

 

Only once she feels Jackie’s body stop twitching does she remove her fingers slowly. Being underwater means by the time she lifts them up, they’re mostly clean. Instead, she brushes her thumb over Jackie’s bloody lip and winces a little. “Sorry,” she mutters, a little embarrassed, “I didn't mean to…”

 

Jackie lets out a soft noise at the loss of Lottie’s fingers. Her eyes close at the feeling of a thumb brushing  over her lip, and, when she opens them, she stares, a little surprised to see the blood. She hadn’t even realized. “It felt good,” she admits breathlessly. It’s a good thing she’s already completely flushed, she thinks, feeling heat gather at her cheeks. 

 

“Oh.” Lottie looks at the blood on her thumb, then to Jackie’s lip, before she leans forward to lick it off. She presses a soft kiss to her lip after and mumbles, “all better.” She might have kind of liked it, too. She wonders if Jackie wants to taste her blood as well. 

 

That shouldn’t be as attractive as it is, and maybe it’s just from being blissed out and freshly fucked but somehow still turned on, but Jackie’s pupils dilate and her tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip as well. “All better,” she repeats.

 

Lottie can’t help but wrap her arms back around Jackie, tucking her face into her neck again, holding her tight. “You’d tell me if you didn’t like it, right?” she asks, because she has to make sure. Because Lottie’s always second guessing herself and because she doesn’t ever want to make Jackie do something she doesn’t like or want. She knew all too well how that felt.

 

“I liked it enough that it kind of made me… you know, so,” Jackie trails off and laughs breathlessly as Lottie buries her face in her neck. Jackie holds her, hugs her, her voice soothing as she reassures, “I’d tell you if I didn’t like anything.” Though she’s just not sure that’s possible.

 

“Okay,” Lottie says, “okay.” She believes her, she does. She just doesn’t trust herself. It’s hard to. It’s hard to trust her own mind with anything when, at any moment, it could be lying to her. And she couldn’t tell the difference anymore. She unfurls enough to lean her forehead against Jackie’s, looking into her eyes. “You can say come, by the way,” she teases quietly.

 

“I know I can,” Jackie mumbles, hugging Lottie just a little tighter. She’s still learning to get better with the… it’s not even dirty talk, it’s just saying sexual shit. She was so afraid of it for so long, so turned off and scared of it. Sometimes it comes (there’s a fucking joke there) pretty easy. Sometimes it’s like she’s Laura Lee trying not to cuss in her mind. “Come. God. You put three fingers in me and bit my lip and made me come.”

 

Lottie chuckles, light in her chest. “I did, yeah,” she agrees, unable and unwilling to look away from Jackie. It's like she's in a trance and she had no want to break free of it. She feels like all her worries and fears melt away when she's with Jackie. “I'd probably do anything for you.”

 

“Maybe don’t kill someone for me,” Jackie says lightly. “I’m a little low on funds and don’t know if I could bail you out of jail.”

 

Lottie doesn't say what immediately comes to her mind, which is that she would. No questions asked. She would. And Lottie isn't usually a violent person, that's a new side of herself she's discovered out here and it's so new she still wonders if it's really her or if it's this place. 

 

Either way, Lottie would kill someone for Jackie. That's a fact she knows. “I'm sure my dad would bail me out,” she says, “if only to keep me from embarrassing him more.”

 

“Well, in that case, then I guess it’s a little romantic,” Jackie teases. She doesn’t think that Lottie would kill for her. Lottie’s not violent, not in the way that she or any of the others seem to think. The only person Jackie thinks she’s really, truly hurt is herself.

 

“Only a little?” Lottie asks with an exaggerated pout. “I'll risk going to jail for you and it's only a little romantic?” 

 

She’s so cute that Jackie can’t help but lean in and kiss her. Lottie’s talking about killing someone, and she just looks cute. “Fine. A lot. It’s a lot romantic.”

 

Lottie beams. She likes it when Jackie compliments her. She doesn’t smile a lot, she knows that, but around Jackie, it feels impossible not to. She nuzzles back into her, holding her tightly. “Just for you.”

 

“You’re really cute, you know that?” Jackie asks, brushing her fingers through Lottie’s hair. “It’s criminal. Maybe you do belong in jail.”

 

Lottie is often glad her skin is tan, it makes it harder for someone to see her blush. “Hmmm,” she muses, “but then I couldn’t be here with you.”

 

“Well, when you put it like that, it’s even more criminal. I guess you’re stuck with me,” Jackie says.

 

“Good,” Lottie mumbles into Jackie’s skin. It’s all she wants. All she cares about. 

 

Well, almost all she cares about. 

 

But if the Wilderness didn’t want to talk to her, then how was she supposed to care about it? She wished she could just let it go, but she can’t. She just can’t.

 

Just like how she can’t and wont let Jackie go. “We should probably get out before we turn into prunes.”

 

Jackie nods, twirling some of Lottie’s hair through her fingers. “Mm. Mhm. We should.” She doesn’t want to move just yet, though. She likes being wrapped around Lottie. But, after a few minutes, she unwraps her legs from Lottie’s waist and lets her feet touch the river bed. 

 

Honestly, Lottie would’ve stayed there all day if Jackie wanted, but eventually they unraveled enough from each other to make their way out of the water. The warm air actually felt nice against her skin, which was dripping wet, and she tugged Jackie with her over to the blanket, grabbing the extra one she’d brought and wrapping it around Jackie’s shoulders to let her dry off first.

 

Jackie’s legs wobble outside of the water when gravity comes back, but she manages to stay on her feet alright as Lottie tugs her back to their little spot. And it’s theirs. It feels like theirs. She dries herself off quickly, enjoying the way the water and the sunlight feels before she wraps it around Lottie and sits back on the blanket, propped on her elbows as she looks up at her. 

 

Lottie takes the blanket and does her best to dry out as much of her sopping wet hair as she can. She leans it over one shoulder above the grass, ringing it out. It’s already becoming uncontrollably wavy, like it always does. There’s no straighteners out here, after all. 

 

When she glances back, she notices Jackie staring up at her and she smiles back. “Enjoying the show?” she asks, shaking her head and letting her hair settle back on her shoulders. 

 

She finishes wiping down her body and hangs the blanket on the nearby tree before coming back over and flopping down, draping herself over Jackie. 

 

“Always,” Jackie says, sighing happily as Lottie lays on top of her, her arms wrapped around her lower back and pulling Lottie even closer. It’s hard to get enough of her. Impossible, really. Jackie doesn’t think that she can. 

 

Her hands move slowly up Lottie’s body to her face, cupping her jaw as her thumbs stroke her cheeks. “I always enjoy the show when it’s you.” Jackie says. It’s kind of embarrassing how distracting Lottie is to her. Sometimes, Jackie will catch her walking through the village and completely forget what she was doing. She tripped over a log one time, much to Van and Gen’s amusement. Again, embarrassing.

 

Lottie simply melts in Jackie’s touch, leaning her cheek into her grasp. She’s never felt so adored and wanted and cared for. She never thought she would ever get to feel this way. Sometimes it seems overwhelming, knowing that Jackie loves her like this. It feels like Lottie doesn’t have enough room inside of her to hold all of it, but she wants to so badly. She wants to know how to hold it and how to love her back. 

 

And maybe she’s a little oblivious of how often Jackie stares at her, but she’s not oblivious of how much Jackie loves her. All Lottie wants is to be able to love her back the same. “I love you,” she sighs. 

 

Jackie presses a kiss to the tip of Lottie’s nose, her chin, her lips. She loves her a lot. So much. More than she thought possible. It etched itself into her heart and her head, all over her skin. It’s consuming. She likes one of Lottie’s cheeks when she pulls away, grinning at how soft they are. “You’re so cute,” she coos.

 

Lottie hums, content under Jackie’s adoring touch. Her face feels flush but she loves it. The affection, the attention. She never thought she would, all her life she’d tried her best to just blend in and be normal. Now, all she wants is Jackie to not stop touching her. She rolls her head into Jackie’s touch and chases her lips when they move away. “You’re biased,” she mumbles.

 

“No way. Anyone would agree with me. Those cheeks, those pouty lips, your soft eyes. Anyone would agree that you’re just the cutest,” she says, grinning as Lottie’s lips find her own. 

 

“You’d be surprised,” Lottie murmurs, pressing her lips against Jackie’s, lazy and soft. 

 

“Well, they’d be wrong,” Jackie says against Lottie’s lips. She moves her hands to Lottie’s back, brushing up and down. 

 

Lottie simply chuckles. She’s not going to argue with Jackie. She can be right. Instead, she just kisses her back, shivering under her touch. “Whatever you say.”

 

“I knew you’d see things my way,” Jackie tells her, even if it’s only because of soft kisses and gentle touches.

 

“How could I not?” Lottie sighs, moving up a little more, so she can press her lips fully against Jackie’s, tangle their legs. 

 

“Good question,” Jackie mumbles, slipping one hand around from Lottie’s back to her hip, her thigh. “I’m very convincing.”

 

“You are,” Lottie agrees. She thinks she’d agree with anything Jackie says when her lips taste like this and her hands feel like that. When she’s the person who Lottie can trust more than anyone or anything. 

 

Jackie grins against Lottie’s lips. “I am.” She lets her tongue brush against Lottie’s bottom lip slowly, tasting her, wanting more. Her hand dips between strong legs, feeling wet heat. Hot, familiar. She pulls away, her other hand still trailing over Lottie’s back. Her nails gently scratch at the skin. 

 

Lottie lets out another sigh, her lips parting for Jackie. Really, Lottie thinks she’d do whatever Jackie asked of her at this point. She probably would have before, but she definitely would now. She just wants people to know she cares about them. It’s been hard to show up until now.

 

Her body moves into Jackie’s touch, chasing it when she pulls back. The shiver up her spine makes her exhale heavily. She just wants and wants and it’s strange to let herself have, but she wants it so bad it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know how.

 

It’s addicting, knowing how much Lottie wants her. Jackie thinks she could live happily off this feeling for the rest of her life. She dips her tongue into Lottie’s mouth at the same time that her fingers move back between her legs, pushing one inside while her thumb the sensitive nub between her legs, rubbing circles. 

 

“You said something about breakfast,” Jackie whispers when she pulls away to breathe, her fingers slowly moving between Lottie’s legs. “Berries? Something about feeding them to me.”

 

A light moan escapes Lottie’s throat when she feels Jackie’s hand between her legs, touching her in languid, taunting motions. Her hips move into the touch, her tongue brushing against Jackie’s. 

 

For a moment, she doesn’t register that Jackie has said anything. Dazedly, she blinks and opens her eyes enough to look at Jackie, gazing into her swirling, hazel ones. “Did I?”

 

“Mhm,” Jackie hums, grinning, pressing into Lottie a little more, adding a finger between her legs as she sets a rhythm. She moves to meet Lottie’s hips. Her other hand starts moving, trailing to Lottie’s waist, her stomach, her chest. “You did.”

 

“I--” Lottie starts out, but her breath catches on a high-pitched moan. She leans into Jackie, running her tongue along Jackie’s bottom lip, tasting the leftover blood that had coagulated. “I’m busy.” She was very busy, actually. She lifted one hand and dug it into Jackie’s hair, pulling her face to her own, crushing their lips together.

 

Jackie laughs against Lottie’s lips, but it’s quickly swallowed, and she doesn’t mind. She’s happy, more than happy, with one hand between Lottie’s legs and the other reaching for one of her breasts, massaging it. Lottie’s busy. She’s busy with Jackie’s hands touching her, her mouth kissing her. She’s busy because Jackie’s fucking her. And Jackie wants to. She likes girls. She likes one girl in particular, one very pretty, very close girl. The thought makes her hot, and she moans against Lottie’s mouth, and she moves her fingers faster, curling them. Her lips move away from Lottie’s, trailing downward over her neck.

 

Lottie lets out another moan as she feels Jackie’s fingers inside of her, curling just right, hitting that perfect spot. She’s sighing into Jackie’s mouth until it moves away from her lips, to her neck and she rolls her head to the side. It’s a little unreal how good Jackie makes her feel. How hot it makes her, how much she shudders and whines and moans under her touch. She’s never been loud, but she can’t help it when Jackie fucks her. She doesn’t want to. Her hand tightens in Jackie’s hair and she inhales sharply. “Jackie,” she’s breathing heavily, panting, voice needy and full of want.

 

That’s the most perfect way that anyone has ever said her name, and Jackie can’t help that it drives her a little crazy. She nips at Lottie’s neck, her pulse, moving in closer and lower towards her collarbone as hands tighten in her hair. It’s really fucking incredible, how loud Lottie’s gotten, how much she can tell, now, that Lottie likes when she touches her. Jackie just wants her to keep making those sounds. They’re alone out there, after all. Lottie can be as loud as she likes. Jackie moves her fingers faster and nibbles on Lottie’s collarbone before continuing her path down to her chest. She squeezes one breast with her hand before mouthing at the other, sucking on sensitive flesh. She remembers how good it felt when Lottie did it to her, so she bites down on Lottie’s nipple before curling her fingers again, wanting to hear her cry out even louder.

 

It’s likely that Jackie is trying to kill her, really, Lottie thinks. With how good it all feels, she thinks she might just die. Especially when teeth graze her collarbone, or when lips wrap around her breast, or when fingers curl inside of her. She thinks this is the closest she’ll ever get to meeting a god, if there is one. In these moments, under this girl’s touches. She can’t keep herself from crying out when Jackie bites down, her chest arching into Jackie’s mouth. “Fuck,” she hisses. Fuck, it’s so good. This is definitely what heaven feels like. This is something beyond that, beyond the divine and holy, whatever that might be. 

 

She feels something welling up inside of her, and it’s the heat and the want, but it’s something else, too. It pricks at the back of her head, tingles low in her chest. It makes her tighten her hand in Jackie’s hair and scrape nails along her side, looking for purchase on anything she can. She thinks she’s seeing stars as her eyes roll into the back of her head. “More,” she begs, voice airy, “please.”

 

Jackie bites down again before soothing with her tongue, and she adds another finger between Lottie’s legs, burying them inside her as she moves. She wants to give Lottie what she wants. She wants to make Lottie feel good and wanted and loved. Because she is wanted, and Jackie does love her. She loves her so much. She rolls her hips up, curls her fingers again before moving in deeper. She just wants to make Lottie feel good.

 

Lottie cries out again, clinging to Jackie desperately. Her body shudders as she feels herself stretching and tensing around Jackie’s fingers. Her head swims with the waves of pleasure rolling through her, each one spreading in time with the thrust of Jackie’s hands, hips. Her legs tremble as she moves her own hips into her. She’s lightheaded with it, with how much she wants Jackie, loves Jackie, needs Jackie. It makes her heart pound and swell, just like the feeling between her legs. 

 

“Jackie,” she moans again, loud. “I-I’m so close. Don’t stop.”

 

Well, when Lottie says it like that, there’s no way Jackie’s going to stop, even if she thought her wrist was going to fall off or her heart was going to explode. Neither is going to happen. She feels fine. She feels great. Amazing, with every moan and cry and word that comes out of Lottie’s mouth sending a fresh burst of heat through her body, molten hot and electric. She loves the way Lottie’s hips move, how she can feel her clenching around her fingers, so wet and warm. Jackie’s mouth releases Lottie’s breast with a pop before moving to the other side. Balance is important after all.

 

Lottie’s never been struck by lightning, but the feeling that bursts through her when her body finally lets go is probably the closest feeling to it. It jolts and burns and prickles inside of her and she’s crying out, burying her face in the side of Jackie’s head, hips jerking into her touch as her body floods with the burning pleasure of her release. 

 

And her body shudders and twitches the whole way through, hands clenched into the blanket in an attempt to not accidentally rip some of Jackie’s hair out. She’s panting, heaving, by the time the world stops spinning around her and she opens her eyes to look at Jackie, face glinting red even against her tan skin.

 

Jackie doesn’t stop moving until Lottie does, lapping at her chest and moving her fingers with the jerking moments of her hips. Lottie’s just so beautiful that it drives her insane. She thinks it drives her insane. 

 

Glancing up at Lottie when she finally opens her eyes, Jackie grins and places a final kiss to Lottie’s breast before pulling away. Her fingers slowly pull out of Lottie, and she brings them to her mouth, happily licking them clean as she holds eye contact and humming contentedly. 

 

One last shudder rolls through Lottie as she feels Jackie remove her hand from between Lottie’s legs, and she’s licking her fingers and Lottie runs her tongue along her own bottom lip, watching intently. When Jackie’s done, she leans down to place a soft kiss on her lips, hovering just above her when she pulls back. “I just got clean,” she murmurs, but she’s smiling, because of course she’s smiling. How could she not?

 

“Do you want me to clean you up?” Jackie asks, raising an eyebrow.

 

Somehow, Lottie’s face grew warmer. She burrows her face into Jackie’s neck. “I think that might actually kill me.”

 

It’s kind of nice, being the one to make Lottie blush. Jackie laughs brightly. “Well, I guess I don’t want to do that.”

 

Lottie thinks Jackie is probably the only one who can make her flounder like this. “It could, you know, be worth a shot though.”

 

“Yeah?” Jackie asks, her voice teasing. She nudges at Lottie. “I guess if you lay down, I could give it a shot. And hopefully not kill you.”

 

Smiling, Lottie presses her lips to Jackie’s cheek before she’s rolling off of her and flopping onto the blanket, sighing. “I think I’d be okay if I died from this,” she teases.

 

Jackie hums, following after Lottie and laying on top of her. “Well, I wouldn’t,” she says, huffing. “So, that means you can’t. Sorry. That’s just how it is.” She presses her lips against Lottie’s before she starts trailing them down. She doesn’t linger as she keeps up a slow, steady pace down Lottie’s body, over her neck, between her breasts, towards her stomach, to her hips. Her hands grip them, and this is a different angle than she’d worked with last night. Her eyes are wide as she looks back up at Lottie from between her legs. She’s supposed to get Lottie clean, though, so that’s what she sets about, first, moving to clean her thighs with her tongue before she works her way in.

 

“Okay,” Lottie sighs, “whatever you want.” She melts into the kiss easily, once again falling into a trance once Jackie’s lips start moving lower on her body. She can’t help it, Jackie makes her a little crazy, in the good way. The best way. Her hands dig back into Jackie’s hair, massaging her scalp. Her hips moved into Jackie’s touch, legs parting to give her more room, access. She meets Jackie’s gaze just before she dips between them and Lottie’s head falls back to the blanket again, sighing. 

 

The best part of cleaning between Lottie’s legs, to Jackie, is knowing that she’s the one that made the mess. She’s the one that made Lottie sticky and wet, and that’s something that’s just hers, now. She flattens her tongue between Lottie’s thighs and licks her clean with long, slow strokes. She did this, and she gets to do it again, and again, and again. It’s heavenly. It’s divine. She moves towards the heat, and she feels like she’s starving. Jackie’s always been starving, she thinks. For once, she lets herself indulge.

 

There’s no point in trying to keep quiet, Lottie thinks, as a moan falls from her lips almost immediately. Jackie’s tongue between her legs makes her sigh and groan and cry out with pleasure, because what else could it be but that? It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world, she thinks. It has to be. What else could make her feel so fucking good? What else could make her so hot and wet after she’d already come once? Only this, only Jackie.

 

It’s a fucking shame that Jackie’s deprived herself of this for so long. And why? Because it’s not right? No, that can’t be it. This is the only thing that really feels right anymore. She doesn’t get how anyone could find this to be wrong. And it’s more than just lust or sex, though Jackie’s losing herself between Lottie’s legs, pushing her tongue inside of her and tasting her warmth. It’s more than that. It’s everything. 

 

It’s Lottie pulling her in out of the cold, and it’s Lottie’s arms wrapped around her in the middle of the night and it’s Lottie standing next to her as she feels her world ending. It’s soft smiles and endlessly black eyes, hands that always keep her warm. Jackie’s in love, and she’s been in love before, she knows she has, she can acknowledge that she has, but it never felt like this because she didn’t let it. Instead, she has Lottie, and she doesn’t want anyone or anything else.

 

Jackie’s hands wrap around Lottie’s hips and pull her closer. She doesn’t want anything else. 

 

Sometimes, Lottie thinks she can just feel Jackie’s intentions through her touches. She can feel the way her affection fills Lottie up like she’s a dry lake bed, thirsty for the flood waters. It breaks through her like a dam in a flood, destroys every part of her that tells her she can’t be and she isn’t loved. At least, in the moment. Sometimes she can hold onto it for longer, sometimes it lasts days.

 

Sometimes she feels something else trying to push its way into her. Sometimes she thinks it’s the Wilderness, sometimes she thinks it’s just her own head. 

 

Her body reacts to every touch from Jackie, jerks away from her own thoughts. Her mouth is parted, panting, moaning, crying out her name. What else can she do? Legs wrap around Jackie, holding her close. She’s blinded by her love and she doesn’t care. Lottie’s never felt so loved before, she’d do anything to keep it that way.

 

Jackie adjusts Lottie’s legs on her shoulders, brushing her hands up and down them. So long. Her legs are so fucking long, and they drive Jackie crazy. Everything about Lottie drives Jackie crazy. It’s becoming a thing. She moves her mouth closer, wraps her lips around Lottie’s clit and sucks, wanting to hear her, feel her, taste her. 

 

A gasp tears through Lottie’s chest, heels digging into Jackie’s back. She pushes her head closer to her center, her own head rolling back. The sky is bright blue above her but she thinks she sees spots of every color floating around her. Maybe even some new colors no one has ever seen before. She’s blinking, eyes rolling up, heat blossoming across her chest and into the pit of her stomach. 

 

And it’s in this moment that Lottie suddenly understands that no one has ever loved her the way Jackie does and that no one ever will. Jackie is all she wants, all she needs. All she cares about.

 

And it’s in this moment, too, that Lottie feels something pressing harder against the back of her mind, something old, something familiar, but she pushes back this time. This time, she only wants to feel Jackie.

 

Much like last night, Jackie doesn’t think she needs to breathe. She’s cool with not breathing, as long as she gets to have this. She likes the way that Lottie pushes her closer, the way that her heels dig into her back. She snakes her hands up, one on her thigh, the other against her stomach, feeling the ways that Lottie’s muscles clench. Jackie licks back into her, tasting her. 

 

She wonders if being together like this would feel quite so feral and frantic if they were back home, or if it’s this place making them like this. Or if this is just what it feels like to be genuinely, wholeheartedly attracted to the person you’re with. Does it make everyone crazy? Does it make everyone ridiculously turned on all the time? Or is it the dirt gods? 

 

It doesn’t really matter. Jackie doesn’t really care, and she certainly isn’t wasting much time thinking about it from her place between the long legs of a pretty girl. Honestly, that’s way more important.

 

Jackie had told Lottie that she isn’t allowed to die, but really, Lottie feels like her soul is being lifted from her body. She was already tender, sensitive from having just been fucked a few minutes before, and now every flick of Jackie’s tongue was sending shockwaves through her entire body, from head to toe and back again. 

 

“Jackie!” She’s crying out, moaning, practically screaming her name. She doesn’t care who or what hears. She wants them all to hear, to know how good Jackie makes her feel. To know how loved Jackie makes her feel. She’s never been loved before. She’s never felt loved before.

 

Her insides are wound up and snapping, like a taught snare, another orgasm ripping through her before she’s ready for it. It blinds her, voice caught in her throat, breath stuttering. Her muscles all tense, lock up, as she feels herself let go of everything, pouring her very essence into Jackie’s mouth. 

 

It’s never felt this good giving head to Jeff, so, yeah. Jackie thinks it’s probably safe to say that she’s pretty gay. Every time she starts to wonder, it’s pretty easily proven that, no, she’s a fucking lesbian. 

 

Jackie moans Lottie’s name against her as she holds Lottie close, unable and unwilling to move as Lottie comes. It’s so pretty. Lottie’s so pretty, and Jackie stays between her legs as she comes down, actually cleaning her up this time. She loves the taste of Lottie on her lips as she licks her clean. Her breath comes out in pants when she finally pulls away, looking down at Lottie and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “Okay,” she breathes, “I think… you’re clean.”

 

Lottie is panting as well, looking up at Jackie with lidded, hazy eyes. “Yeah,” she agrees, letting her hands drift to Jackie’s cheeks, holding them firmly between her palms. She waits for Jackie to wipe her mouth before she leans up and kisses her, tastes herself on Jackie’s lips, her tongue, and it makes Lottie shiver. “You’re amazing,” she mumbles, only pulling away just enough to look into her eyes. 

 

Preening under the attention, Jackie smiles, her eyes lidded as she looks down at Lottie, enjoying the look in her eyes. “I just really like the way you taste.”

 

Lottie smiles, bright and sloppy. “I’m glad you do.” She’s glad Jackie has learned to like this side of herself. And maybe she’s just a little biased that it was with her. 

 

Jackie’s eyes are soft as she looks down at Lottie, and she moves until she’s curled against her side while both of them are still hot and panting. Nuzzling against Lottie’s neck, she murmurs, “You’re so beautiful.”

 

Lottie closes her eyes, holds Jackie close to her. “I’m glad you think so.” She’s just…really glad for Jackie. For everything about her. She knows she’d be happy just to have Jackie around and alive, but she’s all the more so that she gets to have Jackie like this. Like hers. She gets to love her and she doesn’t have to do it from afar or some inside her own head. She gets to love her out loud. 

 

“I know so,” Jackie says. It’s so nice to just… say the words. Lottie’s beautiful, and Jackie loves her, and there’s no one here that’s going to tell her that’s wrong. She can just be happy. She can just say the words. Her lips press against Lottie’s neck, and she sighs happily.

 

“I love you.” The words just tumble from Lottie’s mouth as she curls her arms around Jackie. The afternoon sun is beginning to cross the sky towards the mountain peaks, leaving its light to scatter through the leaves around them and Lottie is pretty sure this is heaven. A light breeze flows through the clearing they’re camped out in and Lottie’s eyes close, enjoying the sensation of Jackie’s warm body against her, the breeze tickling them both. She’s never been so happy.

 

Smiling against Lottie’s skin, Jackie says, “I love you, too.” She can hear the words. She can return them. It’s kind of incredible, and it’s hers. She gets to have this. 

 

Cold fingers play with her hair, causing Jackie to burrow closer into Lottie’s touch, shivering. Shauna murmurs, “I loved you, too. It never made a difference before.”

 

It’s different now, though. Jackie knows that it’s different now. She’ll make sure it is.

 

The words make Lottie’s heart swell and flutter. She holds Jackie tighter, like she’s the most precious thing in the world. And to Lottie, she is. She always will be, now. She’s found someone to hold onto and to love and who wants to stick around, who she won’t lose, and she’s going to do everything she can to keep her. She’s not sure she can exist without her anymore.

 

Lottie buries her nose into the top of Jackie’s head, her velvet hair tickling the skin on her cheeks. It’s a miracle Jackie loves Lottie back, but Lottie’s done questioning why. She’ll take it.

 

They lay there a little longer, basking in each other’s warmth, in the gentle breeze, in the afternoon sun. Finally, though, Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw. “We should get up. Eat something. Maybe start heading back.”

 

Groaning, Lottie lets her arms tighten around Jackie. “Do we have to?” she grumbles into her hair. She doesn’t want to let go. She kind of doesn’t want to go back. She wants to stay here, where nothing can touch them. 

 

Things have been good, they are good, but Lottie knows they never last. She wishes they would last.

 

Jackie giggles, brushing her nose against Lottie’s neck. “Probably. I don’t know how long you told Nat we’d be gone, and I don’t think it’d be super great to have a search party find us like this,” she teased.

 

“Till sundown,” Lottie answers, sighing. She wriggles a little, pressing her face into Jackie’s head. “If we must.” Her fingers trace circles on Jackie’s bareback. “Since you don’t want Nat seeing your naked butt.”

 

Burying her face in Lottie’s neck, Jackie feels silly as her cheeks heat up. “No, I really don’t. I mean, I know, I know: showers. We’ve all seen each other a little naked before. But not, you know. Post sex.”

 

“Jackie Taylor, are you saying you peeped at us in the locker room?” Lottie says with a faux scandalized gasp. “I can’t believe you.”

 

“I didn’t, I swear! I wouldn’t.” Jackie sits up, her eyes wide as she looks at Lottie before she realizes that she’s joking, and Jackie huffs, pushing her shoulder. She mutters, “Mean.”

 

Lottie chuckles, smiling. “C’mon, we all did. Except maybe Allie.” She sits up with Jackie, draping herself over her. “I mostly saw things on accident since I could see over the shower curtains, though.”

 

“I made a very conscious effort not to look at anyone,” Jackie says, though she sinks into Lottie as she moves closer. She had this horrible fear that if she stared too long at her, in her mind, straight friends that she’d be some kind of perverted freak, and that wasn’t a super fun thought to constantly have running through her head. Every lingering glance made her guilty. Sometimes, that didn’t stop her. “Always with the height advantage, huh?”

 

“Hmmm,” Lottie sighed, “I tried not to. But no one ever really noticed me, anyway, so.” She shrugs, before leaning over and reaching for the berries she’d brought with them, still keeping one arm slung around Jackie. She opens the cloth she’d put them in and holds them up to Jackie. “It’s not my fault the school locker rooms weren’t made for tall girls. My life was so hard.”

 

Jackie takes one of the berries and pops it in her mouth. “So hard,” she agrees. She melts into Lottie’s side. Picking up another, she says, “I noticed you. Or I tried to. I tried to notice everyone.” She tried to learn everything that she could about the entire team. Birthdays, favorite treats, who they worked best with, who they picked fights with. She tried to be a good captain, and she realized that it was less about being the best player and more about knowing all her players. Being aggressive on the field is good, but it means nothing if they weren’t working together. That is the game. 

 

Sometimes, she forgot that, getting lost in herself and in Shauna and in trying not to be as much of a mess on the outside as she was– is on the inside. But she tried. She’s still trying.

 

Lottie takes a handful of berries and chews on them thoughtfully. “It’s okay,” she says, “you were really busy once we got into high school. I wasn’t upset or anything.” She’d been sad at first, when Jackie stopped coming to the country club with her mom, because she was with Shauna, or Jeff, or doing homework. Lottie was used to being lonely by the point, used to being second pick. Or third, or fourth. Or not at all.

 

Eventually, Lottie stopped going, too. Instead, she hung around after practice to help clean the field up, or at the theater smoking with Nat. Sometimes she’d go to the mall and raid the TJ Maxx. Sometimes she just went home and pretended it wasn’t cold and empty by blaring music or the t.v. or drinking whatever fancy wine her mom had opened but not finished the night before. 

 

“I think you did a good job,” she adds on after a moment, “noticing everyone.” But noticing everyone meant that Jackie didn’t really notice anyone. Except Shauna.

 

Jackie was busy when they got to high school. She made sure she was busy. She had to be busy so that she didn’t stop and think about how much she hated her life. How… tragic and boring it was. How she clung to things that wouldn’t even matter, didn’t even matter. She tried so hard to be perfect and normal, and what did that get her? Nothing out there. Nothing out here, either.

 

But she has Lottie, and that can be enough. Jackie takes another berry, rolling it between her fingers and eats it. “Thanks,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s cheek.

 

Lottie wasn’t sure if everyone had noticed, but it had always been clear to her that Jackie was never happy, not really. Behind all her bright smiles and quirky words, there was a sad, scared girl. Much like Lottie herself. Lottie noticed because she couldn’t help it. She noticed because that was all Lottie did, was watch people. Observe them, see the things others didn’t. 

 

She never said anything about it, though. She didn’t watch people to be petty or to have control, she watched them to learn, to understand. To know how to fit in and be normal. She didn’t want to stand out, she just wanted to be normal. 

 

“Things are a lot different now, aren’t they?” she asks quietly. 

 

“They are,” Jackie says. They’re so different. In some ways, they’re worse. Obviously. They’re out in the middle of nowhere, and hunger is the main issue, even if they have food now. But it’s not the only issue. Everything’s so life and death. However, so many things are better, and Jackie can’t quite believe she’s admitting that to herself. But having Lottie is better than anything she could have asked for. Having Lottie is real. She eats another berry. She’s not really sure if she’s hungry anymore. 

 

Lottie is quiet for a moment. She doesn't really want to eat the berries anymore. She's having a good day, a good time, she's not hungry for berries. “Are you happy?”

 

“With you?” Jackie looks at Lottie before offering her a smile. “Yes.”

 

Lottie softens. But she feels sad, too. “But not…out here?”

 

For a second, Jackie wonders if she’s given the wrong answer. She squirms, thinking. “I’m… as happy as I can be out here? I’m not… great at the whole survival thing. Still. So I’m glad I have the team. And you. That makes me happy.”

 

“I think you're doing good,” Lottie says. She takes one of Jackie's hands and squeezes. “You made a whole map with Nat. And…and you helped me realize I don't have to be alone.” Lottie doesn't want to go back, she thinks. It's not as if they're getting rescued, but she doesn't know if it'll ever happen. If it does, she doesn't want to leave. She wants to stay here. She's happy here.

 

Jackie laughs. “You can’t eat a map.” She brings Lottie’s hand to her lips. “You don’t. And you’re not alone. You never have to be alone again.” Not if she doesn't want to be.

 

“Food isn’t the only thing we need out here,” Lottie points out. Her eyes grow tender, soft. She lets her fingers brush along Jackie’s lips. “I know.” It’s still something Lottie tries to remind herself of. She’s not alone anymore. She doesn't have to be. “You make me happy, too.”

 

“It’s pretty important, though.” Winter reminded them of that. Even Jackie knows that. She kisses the pads of Lottie’s fingers when they brush against her lip. “Good. I want to make you happy.” That’s just about all she really wants anymore.

 

“Yes,” Lottie agrees, “but so is hope.” Sometimes, it’s more important. To hope for something better, to hope for something more. She smiles, because she always does when she’s with Jackie, when she’s being adored by Jackie, even just her fingertips. “You do.” It’s something Lottie never expected, to have someone who not only does make her happy but wants to make her happy. It’s new and it’s wonderful. 

 

Jackie scoffs, but she feels soft, a little melty, as she looks at Lottie. Hope. She doesn’t really think she inspires much hope, not in the team, not these days, but it’s sweet to think about. Even if it’s not true. At least she makes Lottie happy. That’s enough to make her smile brighten into something more genuine. 

 

Lottie frowns a little. “You gave me hope,” she murmurs. Without Jackie, Lottie is sure she'd be dead ten times over. She'd have given up a long time ago. She had given up, thinking that without Laura Lee she was nothing, had nothing. Lottie, after all, only existed through the people she let in. 

 

But Lottie’s just one person. Still, Jackie softens. Maybe just one person is enough. She takes Lottie’s hand and moves it to her chest, over her heart. “I’m glad,” she says. 

 

Lottie’s fingers curl against Jackie’s chest, feeling her heartbeat under them. She knows that as long as Jackie’s heart is beating, then everything is going to be okay. She truly believes that. “We’ve still got a little time,” she says, “before we have to head back.”

 

“Yeah?” Jackie asks. It’s easy, so easy, to get lost in this moment with Lottie, the sun and the breeze and the two of them so very, very close. And she’s so happy. She’s not used to being this happy.

 

“Mmmhmm,” Lottie hums, keeping her hand on Jackie’s chest as she leans forward. “So, if there’s anything else you wanna do without anyone hearing, you might wanna do it now.” Not that they’d never get another moment alone, Lottie really hoped this could be a recurring thing, but she was going to get what she could right now.

 

Jackie moves, her lips not quite touching Lottie’s. “You are…” she searches for the right word, hears it whispered on the wind, in the back of her mind from an old memory, and she smiles slightly, “incorrigible.” 

 

“That's a nice SAT word,” Lottie grins, not moving yet either. “I never said what you had to do, just giving suggestions.” 

 

“I did a lot of studying for the SAT,” Jackie admits. With Shauna. Or she tried. They’d actually managed to get decent work done, even if Shauna was a hardass and Jackie kept getting distracted and trying to distract Shauna back. She ended up with a decent score. Nothing Shauna Shipman-esque, but still nice enough. It doesn’t matter now. It certainly doesn’t matter with Lottie this close. “You haven’t given me any suggestions at all, actually. If you’re offering, though, I’d love to hear them.”

 

“Seems like it paid off,” Lottie notes, letting her fingers scrape along Jackie's skin, still pressed to her chest, just little ghosts of touches. Lottie thinks that maybe she's should've studied harder for the SAT but she hadn't really cared, her dad was just going to pay her way in anyway. “There's a couple things I can think of. Really, whatever you want to do. I'll do whatever you want.” 

 

“Oh, yeah, sometimes I remember big words in the midst of the, like, sludge in my brain,” Jackie says. Or the embarrassing movie lines that she drags into arguments because she can’t think of anything original. “Just a couple?” Jackie asks, shivering under Lottie’s touch. She licks her lips. “I want… to hear your ideas. I… like the sound of your voice.”

 

“Your brain doesn't feel sludgy to me,” Lottie replies, lifting her free hand up to tousle Jackie's hair. Her eyes flick down to watch Jackie's tongue wet her lips and it's a little mesmerizing. God, Lottie's never felt this insatiable before, but it never seems to stop, her need to kiss Jackie. “Most of them just…start and end with me on top of you.”

 

Jackie hums, leaning into Lottie’s touch. It feels pretty sludgy right now as she tries to figure out coherent thoughts. Her eyes blink slowly. “I like when you’re on top of me.”

 

“What else do you like?” Lottie asks, slowly moving forward, pressing Jackie back as she does, until she’s crawling on top of her, hovering just above her lips. 

 

“I like when you kiss me,” Jackie breathes, her hands moving to Lottie’s hips. “When you touch me. Anything, everything.”

 

“Anything?” Lottie asks, smiling as she leans closer, lips brushing against Jackie’s. “Everything?”

 

Jackie can still feel the sting of teeth in her lips, and she loves it. “Anything,” she repeats. “Everything.”

 

That’s all it takes to have Lottie’s lips crashing back onto Jackie’s, hands searching, touching, feeling. She felt like she wanted to devour Jackie and let Jackie devour her in turn. Lottie would be okay with that. 

 

The sun is already dipping behind the trees by the time Lottie urges both her and Jackie enough to get dressed and start heading back. She has the basket in one hand, blanket around her shoulders, and is holding Jackie’s with her other. 

 

“So…on a scale of 10, how was that date?” she asks, glancing over at Jackie.

 

“One hundred,” Jackie says easily, clinging to Lottie’s hand and moving closer, grinning up at Lottie as they walk back.

 

Lottie snorts. “You’re cheesy.” And she loves it. Fuck, she loves it. She loves her so much. She’d fallen so hard and it happened all without her realizing it. “How am I supposed to top that?”

 

“Oh, that’s easy. You’re not. Sorry.”

 

Lottie gives an exaggerated sigh. “I knew I should've started off with dinner and a movie.” 

 

Jackie laughs. “Yeah? What movie would you have taken me to see?”

 

Lottie scrunches her face, thinking on it. “There was that, um, theatrical version of Romeo and Juliet. The one with Claire Danes and um, that one guy from the, uh…from Growing Pains. He was only in the last few seasons? I don’t remember. Or Independence Day. You like aliens, right?”

 

Jackie raised an eyebrow. “Leonardo DiCaprio?” she asks. “That would be cute, though. Romeo and Juliet. Probably not Independence Day. I don’t know if I like aliens… I like… Sigourney Weaver… The rest of the movie was kind of gross.” She grins, swinging their arms as they walk. “Would you buy me popcorn, or is this just dinner and a movie?”

 

“Right, him. Yeah.” Lottie just nods. She laughs. “Of course you like Sigourney Weaver. Though, like, who wouldn’t? She’s hot.” Lottie remembers renting Alien and rewatching the ending a few times, not just because Ridley is in her underwear the whole time, but mostly because of that. “I’d buy you whatever snacks you want. I mean, I’d probably buy out the whole theater just to impress you on the first date.”

 

“Wowza, the whole theater?” Jackie doesn’t forget that Lottie’s rich; it’s kind of impossible to. But sometimes she forgets what being rich means. “You really know how to treat a girl, you know that, Lott? Damn. The whole theater. I’d definitely be impressed. You’re really invested in getting in my pants on the first date.”

 

Lottie shrugs. “My dad’s one and only way of being a parent was just letting me buy whatever I wanted. He barely even checked the accounts.” Now, she wonders if he even misses her charges not being there. “Only if you’d want to. I’m also a gentlewoman, thank you very much.”

 

“And if whatever you want includes renting out an entire movie theater, that’s, just, totally normal,” Jackie teases. “You know, I’m usually not a putting out on the first date kind of gal, but I really think you could convince me. You’ve made me a changed woman, Lottie Matthews.”

 

“On the spectrum of costs, it probably wouldn’t even register.” And not just because her family’s fortune was in the nine figure range. “To be fair, you put out before the first date, so…” she teases, leaning over to press a kiss to the side of Jackie’s head. “Do you think you would have even gone on a date with me? If I’d asked?” 

 

Jackie’s parents are well off, but it’s hard to imagine that kind of wealth. She huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. “Okay, well, we were, you know, cuddling and staring and being pretty mushy for months before that, so. I still kind of took my time.” She leans into Lottie’s kiss, moving closer as they walk side by side. “I’m… not sure. I think calling it a date would have… been a lot. Especially if I still lived at home. My mom slapped me just for hugging Shauna a little too long, one time,” she muses. She glances at Lottie and shrugs. “I mean, I'm exaggerating a little. She didn’t slap me.” She just popped Jackie in the mouth with her palm. It was more shocking than painful. That time didn’t even leave a mark. 

 

Lottie balks a little. “Your mom hit you?” Lottie’s mother never actually hit her. Sometimes she grabbed her arm too tightly or accidentally scratched her with her fake nails as she tripped down the hallway, but she never hit her. She’d have to actually pay attention to Lottie for that to happen. “I’m sorry.” She pulls Jackie in closer to her, as if she can somehow retroactively protect her. “God, we really were. Did Van really see it before we did? That’s so embarrassing.”

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch, but she shakes her head. “She didn’t hit me.” She was just trying to get Jackie’s attention. She’d done that since Jackie was little. Her attention wandered so often. She was so easily distracted. Sometimes, just calling her name didn’t work. Jackie was used to her mom’s touch always being a little too much, one way or the other. She doesn’t think it matters. She snorts. “I mean, it makes sense. Van’s a practiced lesbian. She can probably smell this kind of thing from a mile away.”

 

“Still…” Lottie mutters, keeping Jackie close. She wishes she could take away all the shame that her mom had put into her. For both of them, really. Maybe about different parts of themselves, but it was shame all the same. “I guess all the snooping makes sense, now,” Lottie chuckles. “She called it way before I even knew what I was feeling for you.”

 

It’s sweet that Lottie wants to protect Jackie from something, someone, who she can’t ever really be protected from. Jackie thinks she loves her a little more for it. “I feel like Van was the first in a long line of people threatening not to break your heart,” Jackie muses. Van, Nat, even Misty. She’s pretty sure Mari glared at her a time or two, though that might have just been Mari.

 

“Wait, what?” Lottie stops a moment, blinking. “She did what?” 

 

“I mean, I didn’t realize anyone was talking about, you know, dating,” Jackie says. “But my reputation precedes me, I guess.” Her reputation of being a shitty friend. Of clinging too tight. Of leaving the person she loves out in the cold. “People were pretty protective.”

 

“How many people um--” Lottie holds up her hand to give a singular air quote-- “”talked” to you about this, exactly?” She couldn’t decide if she was flattered or annoyed. She didn’t need people to protect her from getting her heart broken, but at the same time, it was nice to think that someone cared enough to say something about it. But that was back when they all thought the sun shone out of Lottie’s ass. 

 

Jackie wonders if she’s said too much. “Just a few…”

 

“Who?”

 

“Van, for sure,” Jackie says quickly. “Nat was a little worried, too. Uh, Misty, but in like a weird way. When she made you sick. Mari glared a bit, but that’s probably just Mari. 

 

Lottie’s shoulders droop as she lets out a long sigh. “Van kept trying to tell me you were replacing Shauna with me.” She shakes her head. “Not that I ever believed her.”

 

Jackie stands in front of Lottie and takes both of her hands. “Good. Because that’s never what this was, okay? I’ve never tried to use you to replace her.” One because it just isn’t possible. Jackie’s brain might have confused her a couple of times, but she’s always understood that Lottie can’t take Shauna’s place. At first, it’s because she thought what she felt for Shauna was singular. Now, she wonders if it’s the other way around. 

 

Lottie finds Jackie's eyes and they're so sweet and sincere it makes her melt inside. Because maybe she had believed it, just a little bit, and she'd told herself she was okay with that, but the truth was that Lottie had wanted this, she wanted someone to want her for her, even if she hadn't known it at the time. 

 

“Okay,” she says, squeezing Jackie's hands and leaning down to brush their lips together. She truly believes Jackie. Honestly, Lottie would believe Jackie if she told her the sky was actually purple and the ocean was green.

 

There’s no way for Jackie to compare Lottie with Shauna. If anything, she’s just comparing versions of herself, trying to make sure that she doesn’t repeat past mistakes. She doesn’t want Lottie to start resenting her like Shauna did. She doesn’t want Lottie to close herself off and feel like the only place she can express her feelings is in the confines of a battered journal. She stands on her toes to lean into the kiss and pulls away slowly, sighing softly. “Just so you’re sure.”

 

“I am,” Lottie states and it's the truth. She is sure. She knows Jackie wants her for her, even if that concept is still foreign to Lottie-- even if Lottie is still trying to figure out who she really is. She wraps her arms around Jackie's waist and pulls her in against her, kissing her a little more fully before letting her go. 

 

“I guess we should've expected big brother Van, huh?” 

 

Jackie laughs. “I guess so. Surprised I haven’t been cornered again about my intentions this last month.”

 

“Everyone's probably too busy enjoying the warmth,” Lottie says, but she really thinks it's just because they don't look at her like a prophet anymore. Lottie has become background noise to most of them, which she's okay with. Really, she's okay with it. This is how it was before, after all. People didn't notice her, she didn't want them to. 

 

She thinks the only person she wants to notice her is Jackie, that she's okay with being unimportant to the others again. She's okay with that.

 

“I’ve also made my intentions very clear,” Jackie says as they start walking again.

 

“That you want to ravage me?” Lottie jokes, squeezing Jackie’s hand.

 

Jackie licks her lips, the place Lottie bit earlier still tender. “That I want to be ravaged.”

 

Lottie chuckles. “Yeah, you have made that very clear.”

 

“Good,” Jackie says. “I’d just really hate it if people got confused.”

 

Lottie smiles, unable to help herself. She’s smiling the entire way back to the village, really. Sometimes it feels so unreal that this is her life. That in the middle of the wilderness, in the middle of cascading, imposing, daunting mountains, she’s the happiest she’s ever been. 

 

But she is. And it’s all thanks to Jackie.

Notes:

We're working our way pretty slowly through the actual in between s2 and s3 stuff, so hope y'all don't mind! I think there was just so much missed potential with skipping over it all, so buckle in for the ride. Again, thanks everyone for reading! Feel free to reach out to either of us!

Chapter 26: o captain! my captain!

Summary:

Lottie and Jackie head back to camp after their date night, and it's all coming up roses. Lottie's not super excited to celebrate her birthday, but, come on: it's a beach party! Nat and Jackie have a heart to heart while fishing. All aboard the SS Wilderness because this ship is sailing! But who's that at the wheel?

Notes:

Belated! It's getting into a busy time of the year, but we're back at it again!

Title comes from "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman.

When they do make it back, some of the girls are sitting around the fire in the middle of the camp as dinner cooks. 

 

A smirk paints itself quickly onto Van’s face, who cups her hands around her mouth and gives a whoop at them. It’s followed by a chorus of ‘ooohs’ from the rest of them and Lottie can feel even her own cheeks growing warm. 

 

“Welcome back, love birds,” Van taunts with a grin. “I’m surprised you can both walk so soon.”

 

Maybe she should have expected the catcalls and the teasing, but Jackie still blushes, her cheeks red and hot. “What, exactly, are you implying, Palmer?” she asks, sniffing. “My girlfriend just wanted to treat me to dinner. We had a very nice, very relaxing evening under the stars. It was super romantic.”

 

“Everyone knows you guys have been fucking like rabbits,” Mari pipes up from over by the cooking pot, perched between Akilah’s legs as the other girl braids her hair. 

 

Even Tai joins in the snickering laughter that follows. 

 

“Are you jealous, Mar?” Lottie says, then, taking her seat at her usual place. 

 

Mari crinkles her nose. “If only Travis weren’t the last dude out here,” she says, pretending to gag. Nat shoots her a glare, though, and Mari shrugs. “Just saying.”

 

Cheeks still red, Jackie says, “Oh, please. You’d be lucky to get with Travis. He’s a gentleman.” Even if she kind of made the same face that first visit to the lake all those months ago. The withering look Nat shoots her says that she isn’t helping, and Jackie mutters, “What? It’s true.” Better Travis than Jeff Sadecki, at least. 

 

Jackie takes the basket out of Lottie’s arm and grabs the blanket from her shoulders, giving Lottie a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll go put this up and be right back,” she tells her before trotting off to the storage shed.

 

Even Lottie gives a little furrow of her brow at that. Maybe she just doesn’t like being reminded that Jackie and Travis slept together, especially now. It doesn’t seem like Nat appreciates the thought, either. Lottie gives her a glance but just shrugs, before smiling up at Jackie.

 

“Well, I think you two are very cute,” Akilah cuts in after a moment. 

 

“You would,” Melissa says and Akilah huffs. “You think everything is cute.”

 

It doesn’t take long to tuck the basket away in storage and take the blanket back to their hut. With the sun setting, it’s getting cooler, but it’s still warm, especially after the walk back to camp. Jackie finds something to tie her hair up with, always a little hesitant as she glances in their little mirror and sees the hole where her ear is supposed to be, but out here comfort triumphs appearances, sometimes. And Jackie kind of likes being comfortable, particularly with her hair pulled out of her face. 

 

She heads back to the firepit and sits on the ground next to Lottie’s seat, leaning against her thigh and wrapping her hand absentmindedly around Lottie’s ankle.

 

Lottie notes Jackie’s hair is tied back, but doesn’t say anything about it. She knows she can get self conscious over her missing ear, but Lottie thinks she’s beautiful regardless. Instead, she lets her fingers pet through some of Jackie’s hair and lets herself revel in the realization that this is her new normal now. It has been for a while. Sitting in this spot, with Jackie either next to her or on the ground, arm wrapped around Lottie’s leg and leaning against her. It’s the best thing in the world, really.

 

Lottie leans her head back and watches as the color fades from the sky, turning from orange and purple, to dark blue, speckled with dots of distant stars. She thinks about last night, how she’d watched them and they’d watched her and Jackie as they made love. Because that’s what it was-- it wasn’t just sex. It was love and every other emotion that fell under the umbrella. It was lust and passion and heat and desire and need. It was all the things Lottie had been missing from her life up until now.

 

When Mari declares dinner is ready, Lottie pats Jackie on the head to let her know she’ll get their plates, bringing back one for each of them. She’s quiet as she does so, content to just enjoy the night and its company, all the girls around the fire breaking off into their usual groups. She thinks she likes it more out here than she ever did back home.

 

It’s just so easy to be relaxed and feel content like this. Jackie can’t help it. There’s something so peaceful about this place now, like they’ve all settled into it. Like they’re all happier, freer out there. It’s sobering to think about, but it’s also true. Jackie’s happier out here than she ever was at home. Even as homecoming queen, as a state championship winning soccer captain, with Shauna Shipman next to her. She’s happier here. It’s a relief and a betrayal. It’s a truth and a sin. 

 

Jackie smiles at Lottie as she takes her plate. She’s okay with being damned. Especially because, really, she’d rather worship at Lottie’s feet. 

 

Lottie has picked through most of her food when Natalie comes over to the two of them, flopping into the seat by Lottie. 

 

“So,” she starts, “we all talked about it last night and we’re thinking of all going down to the lake in a few days. As a sort of…group birthday thingy.” She nudges Jackie with her foot. “Like you said, we all kinda missed ours.”

 

Most of the food on Jackie’s plate has been eaten when Nat comes over and starts poking with her foot, and Jackie rolls her eyes before grabbing Nat’s ankle to get her to stop. “We’ve missed… everybody’s, at this point.” Granted, they had other things to worry about, and days all kind of blur, but still. It had to have been a year since they crashed.

 

It felt like a lifetime. None of them were the same.

 

“That sounds like it might be nice,” Jackie says, looking up at Lottie. “What do you think?”

 

“Yeah, that’s the point.” Nat rolls her eyes, yanking her foot out of Jackie’s grip. She looks expectantly over at Lottie, too, and Lottie feels her fingers tremble ever so.

 

“The-- the lake?” she repeats, as if she heard wrong. 

 

Nat shrugs. “I mean, yeah. It’s warm enough now that the water won’t be freezing and we can all hang out there.”

 

Lottie gives a stilted nod. “Sure, yeah. That’s-- could be fun. Yeah.” She thinks, though, that maybe she’ll just stay here if they do go to the lake. She hasn’t been back since, well…since Laura Lee.

 

Jackie looks at Lottie, a little worried by her reaction, but she doesn’t say anything, not while they’re still around the group. She just rubs her hand comfortingly up and down Lottie’s leg. She looks back up at Nat. “It sounds like fun. Any big ideas for when?”

 

Nat, if she notice Lottie’s demeanour, doesn’t mention it. “Probably in a few days? We’re pretty caught up on hunting and storing shit. I think Mari and Melissa wanna make some of those, uh, ground oven things to help cure some meat for jerky tomorrow, so I figure we do that, go from there?”

 

Lottie picks at the food on her plate but doesn’t eat anything more. “I need to check the garden for harvest,” she says, “in the next few days.” Maybe she can use that as an excuse. She’s having a hard time thinking of other reasons not to go. She doesn’t want to say the real reason.

 

“That’s actually pretty handy, the oven thingy,” Jackie agrees, perking up. Hopefully, the ovens will work and they can start building up a stockpile of food for when it gets colder. With luck, they won’t run into more situations like last winter. She doesn’t think any of them can handle the thought of eating each other again. At least Jackie knows that she can’t. “That’s right,” she adds, looking at Lottie. “You’ve got herbs coming in. Do you need any help with that?”

 

“Yeah, it was in one of those old ancient people books,” Nat says. 

 

Lottie looks up from her plate and down at Jackie. “Oh, um, no, it’s fine. It shouldn’t be too hard.” She clears her throat, setting her plate aside. “I’m gonna go get some water,” she says, standing up and stepping around Jackie, heading off towards the other side of the village, where the cups and drinking water are.

 

Nat looks at Jackie. “Was it something I said?”

 

“I want to say yes,” Jackie says to Nat, glancing at her before watching Lottie go, “but I don’t know what.”

 

Nat frowns. “Should I…go talk to her?”

 

Jackie frowns back at her. “Not if you’re gonna say something else.”

 

“Say something else like what?” Nat throws her arms up. “Whatever. Just-- I don’t know, think about other shit we can do for the birthday gig, okay? I’m going to bed.” She stands up and stomps back over to her own hut, ducking inside.

 

Melissa, who had walked by while adding logs to the fire, glances over at Jackie. “I think it was something you said,” she tells her, before continuing with her task.

 

Jackie sighs. “Fuck me.”

 

By the time Lottie comes back over, cup in hand, Nat is gone. She sinks back into her chair but doesn’t touch her food. “Where’d Nat go?” she asks, eyeing Melissa by the fire, who is trying her hardest to not look like she’s trying to eavesdrop. It’s not really working.

 

“Bed, I think. She’s, uh, I think she’s pretty tired,” Jackie murmurs, scratching at the back of her neck.

 

“Oh.” Lottie doesn’t say much else. She feels kind of bad, it’s probably her fault. She thinks maybe she should tell Nat it’s fine, she’s fine, but she doesn’t really think that’s the truth. 

 

She hadn’t thought the idea of going to the lake would make her feel this way. She’d thought maybe she had moved past that, that she had accepted Laura Lee was gone. But the idea of going back there made her heart feel like stone. 

 

She runs her finger along the rim of the cup. “Are you done eating?” she asks Jackie when she notices her plate is nearly empty.

 

There’s nothing more left than a few bites that Jackie can’t even bring herself to pretend like she wants to eat as she looks up at Lottie and nods. “I think so, yeah.” She glances at Nat’s hut, feeling guilty over the fact that she’d probably ruined her night over something stupid. Or maybe it wouldn’t bother Natalie at all. Maybe she was totally fine, just tired. Tired from working hard, tired of Jackie’s bullshit. Tired. 

 

Jackie moves to stand. “Are you ready to turn in for the night?” She holds out her hand for Lottie to take.

 

Lottie takes Jackie’s hand and hoists herself up, taking their plates and setting them in the dish bucket before making her way to their hut with Jackie. She only lets go of her hand once inside and she moves to pull her cloak off, hanging it up in the same place she always does. She’s trying not to let thoughts of Laura Lee and the lake and the explosion take over her mind, when all she wants is to finish enjoying the rest of the night with Jackie. They were home, sure, but technically the day was still part of their date. 

 

She sits on their bedding before feeling her body deflate. “Next time, we’re bringing the furs. I forgot how comfortable they are.”

 

Taking off her shoes and placing them by the entrance, Jackie agrees as she joins Lottie on their bedding. The hut is comfortable, and she appreciates their window in the front even more for the airflow. She feels sore in all the right ways, finally, properly relaxing back in the village in the privacy of their own space. She’s glad to be back with their friends, but maybe a small part of her misses the increase in privacy. The furs are nice, though. “It’s a lot more comfortable than just a blanket on the ground, it’s true.”

 

Lottie lays back on the furs, spreading her arms out. “So there is something I can improve on for next time,” she says, smiling up at Jackie, “more blankets.”

 

“I mean, I had a great time regardless of the blanket situation,” Jackie teases. She lays down and props herself up on her elbows, looking down at Lottie hesitantly. “You… are okay with the lake thing, right? Like, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

 

Unfortunately, Lottie doesn’t like lying to Jackie. In fact, she finds it kind of impossible anymore. “It’s…I mean, it’ll be good. Right? I think it’s a good idea. For everyone.” It’s not that she’s not okay with it, she just doesn’t know what’s going to happen when she sees it again. She just doesn’t know if it’s just going to make her hurt. “You should go.”  

 

Sometimes, Jackie thinks that Lottie forgets to include herself in everyone, consciously or subconsciously. “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to,” she says softly. “It’s no pressure. I won’t have nearly as much fun without you there. You’re a part of everyone too, you know.”

 

Lottie is quiet for longer than she should be, probably. Her voice is small when she says, “I haven’t been back since she died.”

 

Jackie pulls herself up until she’s sitting, looking down at Lottie. Her hand goes to Lottie’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” she says, looking for the right words. “I know it’s… I know it’s hard. You don’t have to go.” Jackie can’t bring herself to look at Shauna’s journals again. She can’t bring herself to read every word. She can’t bear to let them go, either. 

 

“I think…” Lottie starts, “I think maybe I should.” She chews on her lip, she can’t look at Jackie. “But I don’t want to.”

 

“You have some time to decide,” Jackie murmurs. Her thumb brushes against Lottie’s cheek. “Can I… hold you?”

 

Lottie simply nods. She’s afraid if she talks the waver in her voice will give away the tears that want to leak from inside of her.

 

Jackie lays down and situated herself behind Lottie. She wraps her arms around her and presses her nose into Lottie’s hair. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

 

As Jackie’s arms circle around her, Lottie curls up, covering Jackie’s hands with her own. She pulls one up to her chest and squeezes. Shakes her head. There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s no one’s fault but her own. She should’ve fought harder against letting Laura Lee go. She should’ve fought harder to actually understand her vision. She should’ve told her before she left, how much Lottie loved her. 

 

Now, she’d never get to.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie repeats. Because she is. She’s sorry that Lottie’s hurting, and there’s really nothing Jackie can do to take it away. She can hold her, and she can keep her company, but she can’t take the hurt. “I think she knew,” Jackie says quietly after a few minutes of quiet. “That you loved her. I think she knew. I think she loved you too.” 

 

Lottie can’t help it, after that. She doesn’t make much noise, she barely even moves, but her breath shudders and her shoulders shake and her eyes close as white hot tears fill her vision, streaking sideways down her face, onto the blanket beneath them. She hasn’t cried about Laura Lee in a long time. She doesn’t think it’s fair, that she never got to say good-bye. It’s stupid to think, but she’s jealous Jackie at least got to say good-bye to Shauna. At least she got to see her one last time before the flames took her. 

 

And Lottie doesn’t know if that’s true, if she did know-- if she did love her back. And she would never know. 

 

“I’m sorry, Lottie,” Jackie whispers, holding her tight as she feels her shoulders shake and shudders roll through her body. “I saw how she looked at you. I think she loved you, too.” She used to be jealous of how quickly and sweetly the two had gotten close. It aches that they had each other when it felt like Shauna kept pulling away. She couldn’t help but feel jealous that other people were finding each other when the one person that was supposed to love her actually seemed to hate her guts. Nothing mattered, not really. 

 

She hates herself a little for encouraging Laura Lee to go. If she hadn’t mentioned Shauna’s pregnancy, maybe Laura Lee could have been convinced to stay behind. Maybe Lottie would still have her. It means that Jackie probably wouldn’t have this, though, and that hurts. But it would be worth it to heal some of Lottie’s pain.

 

Lottie can't really say much back, she knows if she opens her mouth only a wretched sobbing sound will come out. She doesn't need Jackie to hear that. She knows she should be happy that she has Jackie now, and she wouldn't change it for anything-- but the ache inside of her hasn't gone away and doesn't know how to make it stop. 

 

She feels ridiculous for crying over a girl she'd just barely started to know. They'd been friends back in Wiskayok as much as Lottie was friends with anyone on the team, but the fact that Laura Lee was the first one to believe in Lottie-- to see Lottie, to know Lottie-- she's not sure how to let that go. 

 

After a moment, Lottie turns around in Jackie's arms and buries her face in her chest. She wants her to know that she still loves her, even if she's crying over another girl. It's only because she has Jackie's love that she thinks she can cry over Laura Lee's. Real or not, Lottie doesn't think she would even understand what she'd felt for her if not for Jackie.

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s head as she turns in her arms. “It’s okay,” she soothes. “You can cry. It’s okay.” Jackie’s not going anywhere. She just holds onto Lottie a little tighter and makes sure she knows that Jackie’s there, right there, for as long as she needs her. 

 

Lottie knows grief isn't a competition, she remembers her therapist telling her that when Lottie kept insisting other people had it worse. At least she had parents, at least she had money, at least she had this and this and that. Eventually, her doctor had stopped Lottie and simply asked her “Does someone else suffering make yours go away?” And Lottie had say there silently, staring hard into the carpet until she'd finally admitted that, no, it didn't help at all. And that no, her grief wasn't taking up someone else's space. 

 

Still, it was hard. Knowing how much Jackie loved Shauna, it felt wrong crying in her arms about someone Lottie didn't even have half as long as Jackie had Shauna. She can't help it though. It comes in waves, the sadness. One minute Lottie thinks it's gone and the next she's drowning in it. Her therapist never taught her how to actually deal with it. They'd still been working on that when the plane had crashed. 

 

Lottie presses a hand to Jackie's chest, feels the steady rhythm of her heart, and tries to get herself to breathe in time with it. She closes her eyes and settles in close and hopes she never has to feel this grief for Jackie 

 

It aches to see Lottie hurt this much and know there isn’t really anything Jackie can do but just be there. She’s unused to grief. She’s unused to her own, and she’s unused to other people’s. Most days, Jackie barely knows how to deal with Shauna being gone. She can’t. She can’t let herself shut down anymore, not when that’s all she did for months. She can’t let herself be overwhelmed by her own hurt. 

 

Especially not now when Lottie needs her. She presses Lottie’s hand firmly into her chest, letting her feel each of Jackie’s heartbeats, letting her feel grounded in the knowledge that Jackie is there, right there, and she’s not going anywhere. She’s not. 

 

Eventually, Lottie thinks she runs out of tears. She's still shuddering through her breaths, but her eyes are dry and they sting and her cheeks feel hot and cracked. 

 

She feels a little broken, but maybe a little bit fixed, too. She curls her fingers into Jackie's and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “Thank you,” she croaks, her voice barely a whisper. And really, Lottie didn't like crying, but she thinks that, just maybe, she'd needed this more than she thought 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie whispers, giving her a soft, sad smile. “You don’t have to thank me for anything.” She brings their joined hands to her own lips and kisses Lottie’s, a return of Lottie’s own gesture, before she holds her just a little tighter. She’s not going anywhere. She doesn’t want to. Not as long as Lottie wants and needs her, too.

 

Lottie thinks that she does. No one's ever just…held her like this while she cried. She's never had someone to cry over like this. She's never had anything like this. “You're not…upset with me, right?” She asks, her voice as small as she feels.

 

Jackie frowns, confused. “Why would I be upset with you?” she asks. Then she adds, because she thinks Lottie needs to hear it and be sure, “I’m not upset with you at all. Okay? I promise.”

 

“Because I…” Lottie starts, stops. “I don't know.” She knows her memory is faulty at best, but she tries to remember a time when her crying and fits hadn't ended in yelling and angry sighs. She can't. 

 

She still feels like a child sometimes, like she's still the little girl that everyone looks at and thinks is out of control. Like she's something bad. 

 

“I wasn't trying to replace her with you, either, I promise,” she tells Jackie, and maybe herself, too, “I would never.”

 

“I know, baby,” Jackie says, brushing her hand over Lottie’s cheek. “I know. Besides, I’m probably not as comforting as Laura Lee,” she jokes. She doesn’t have the same sturdy foundation. 

 

Lottie cranes her head enough to look up at Jackie. “You are,” she states, voice still low but no longer wavering, “to me.” Lottie doesn't think Jackie knows, that no one's ever done this for her, been there for her like this before. Not even Laura Lee. 

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s forehead. “I love you.”

 

Sighing, Lottie closes her eyes again, wraps her arms around Jackie. “I love you, too.”

 

It’s silly to wonder if Lottie would prefer to have Laura Lee over Jackie, and Jackie knows that. Just like she knows it’s impossible to know if she would prefer Shauna over Lottie. At this point, it’s just different. She needs Lottie differently. And that’s okay. Jackie thinks it’s okay. She holds Lottie a little tighter, a little closer, manages to tangle their legs together until it feels like they’re stuck. One can’t go anywhere without alerting the other. It’s nice that way.

 

Exhausted from the crying-- and from the day before-- it doesn't take long for Lottie to fall asleep, wrapped up in Jackie, listening to her heart like a metronome. It feels like the safest place Lottie could be. The warmest, the sweetest, the kindest. 

 

She dreams of golden sunlight and a calm lake, gentle waves lapping at bare feet. She dreams of laying in Jackie's arms and smiling and laughing, of kissing her, of touching her, of hearing her sigh Lottie's name as they lay together on the shore. 

 

She dreams of a life that she has and one that she knows she never will get. It's all the same in her head. It's all the same out in the Wilderness.

 

Jackie stays awake long after Lottie goes to sleep, even if she’s tired, pleasantly achy and warm from their night and day together. When she finally falls asleep, she doesn’t know why she dreams of home, of New Jersey. 

 

Of course it’s nothing good. Of course it's some strange blend of memory and imagination, the sting of a slap over her mouth, her mother finding her and Lottie tangled in her bedsheets, Shauna saying she loves her as they hug goodbye. When Jackie pulls away, Shauna grips her wrists. There’s snowflakes clumping in her eyelashes. Her hand grips too tightly. 

 

“Does it make you feel better to say it back, now?” Shauna asks, nails like ice as they dig into skin. 

 

“I did— I do love you,” Jackie says. “I do. You didn’t— you hated me.”

 

“I hate you,” Shauna agrees. 

 

She died hating Jackie. 

 

It wakes Jackie up, the world still dark around them, and has her laying there in the quiet of the village. She looks at Lottie and hopes she’s sleeping better. She deserves it. Jackie’s earned a bad night or two, as well as she’s been resting lately. She just snuggles a little closer, not trying to go back to sleep but happy enough to just be with Lottie.

 

Lottie isn’t a deep sleeper. Something stirs her from her dream and when she opens her eyes, just barely, it’s dark around her, and she’s still nestled in Jackie’s arms. She doesn’t move, she feels Jackie pressing closer to her, and she reaches around to pull her in, almost subconsciously. Her lips graze the skin of Jackie’s collarbone. She doesn’t say anything, just keeps close to her, wrapped up in her. 

 

“I love you,” Jackie whispers because she can, because she has to, because she never wants to wait too late ever again. She sinks a little further into Lottie’s arms and closes her eyes. Hopefully, they can both drift back to sleep.

 

“I love you, too,” Lottie murmurs back immediately. She knows, god she knows, how much Jackie loves her. She hopes Jackie knows how much Lottie loves her, too. They both need each other to know, they both never got the chance to say it before it was too late.

 

“Go back to sleep,” Jackie says, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s hair. 

 

“Will you?” Lottie asks. She wants to stay with Jackie, if she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to leave her alone.

 

“I will,” Jackie says. She’ll try. She reminds herself it was just a nightmare, even if some of it was true. Even if some of it was real. 

 

Lottie shifts enough to scoot so that her head is laying next to Jackie’s now. She looks into her eyes, her own still hazy and filled with sleep, and leans her forehead against Jackie’s. “I’m here,” she whispers.

 

Jackie can’t stop herself from smiling at Lottie. “I know. Thank you.” It’s sweet. It makes her happy. She brushes her hand through Lottie’s hair. “Sleep.”

 

It’s hard to keep her eyes open when Jackie’s hands feel so good. Lottie makes a soft noise, nuzzles back into Jackie. “I love you…” she mumbles, mostly asleep again. She wants to hold on but she can’t. She falls asleep in Jackie’s arms as easily as she always does, safe and warm like this.

 

“I love you, too,” Jackie says as she holds Lottie closer, a little tighter, just happy to have her. She’s just happy to be loved and to be able to love back. It hurts. It feels good. Eventually, Jackie falls asleep as well, sinking into the comfort that Lottie’s arms provide. 

 

The next morning, when Lottie wakes, there’s sunlight pouring into their hut from the window. It warms her body, which is still wrapped up in Jackie’s embrace. It’s been a long time since Lottie felt truly rested, but with how exhausted her mind had become after last night, the sleep she’d fallen into was deep and full. 

 

She remembers waking up briefly, remembers Jackie looking at her, hazel eyes glowing in the moonlight. Lottie doesn’t move yet, just lets herself sink into this moment, head pressed to Jackie’s chest. She’s happy, in this moment, this feeling, and she’s calm. She wants to hold onto it. 

 

Jackie doesn’t wake again until she hears the sounds of people stirring outside the cabin. Groaning, she tightens her hood around the source of warm in her arms, knowing it’s Lottie in her arms and not quite wanting to let go. 

 

“Up and at ‘em, lovebirds!” Van calls as she walks by, laughing as she taps on their window. 

 

Jackie hears Mari giggling outside not too far away, making goofy noises that she can only assume are kissing sounds, causing Jackie to groan again. “I hate it here,” she says, no bite to it.

 

Lottie can’t help but laugh, staying tucked into Jackie. “I know,” she murmurs. She presses her nose to Jackie’s cheek, kisses it, soft and warm. “You’re very cute.”

 

“I’m being tormented by lesbians,” Jackie says loudly.

 

Mari stops, scoffing. “You wish I was a lesbian!”

 

Jackie tilts her head, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s lips. “I feel like the drama Mari would cause as a lesbian would be catastrophic,” she says.

 

Lottie sighs happily into the kiss, before pulling back to yell back at Mari, “I saw you staring at Jackie’s ass a multitude of times, Mari.”

 

To which Mari shouts back, “I did not! You can’t prove that!” Before Lottie hears her huffing and stomping away at Akilah’s prodding.

 

Lottie laughs softly. “The world isn’t prepared for a lesbian Mari Ibarra.”

 

Feeling a blush creep up on her cheeks, Jackie giggles, ducking her head against Lottie’s neck. “No, it’s not. So maybe we shouldn’t be encouraging her to discover things about herself,” Jackie teases. 

 

She brushes her nose against Lottie’s neck, pressing a kiss to one of the marks she left there the day before. “Good morning,” she murmurs.

 

“I think she might already suspect,” Lottie chides back, humming, pleased with the feeling of Jackie in her arms, lips on her skin. “Good morning.” 

 

She feels better from last night, but the sadness she felt is still there, swirling in her chest. She doesn’t think it’s going to go away any time soon, but she thinks maybe it’ll be easier to hold, knowing Jackie will be there for her if she falls apart over it again. Just like how Lottie wants to always be there for Jackie when she does, too.

 

Still. “I’m…sorry I kinda fell apart last night,” she mutters.

 

Jackie leans up and looks down at Lottie, brushing her fingers over Lottie’s cheek. “It’s okay to fall apart sometimes,” she says. Smiling softly, she adds, “I’ll totally catch you with my big, strong arms.”

 

“I just…didn’t want to ruin our day,” Lottie murmurs, turning her head to kiss the tips of Jackie’s fingers. She chuckles, reaches up with one hand to squeeze Jackie’s bicep. “So strong.”

 

“You didn’t ruin our day,” Jackie tells her. It seemed like something Lottie needed. That could never be something that ruined the day. She gives Lottie a lopsided smile. “I know. It’s from carrying all that firewood that I’m not allowed to chop.”

 

“You promise?” Lottie asks, because she needs to be sure, because she’s rarely sure of herself. But she wants to believe Jackie and she just needs to make sure.

 

“Hmmm,” Lottie says, petting along her arm, “I can tell.”

 

Jackie leans in and presses her lips to Lottie’s. “I promise.” She shivers under Lottie’s touch, too, even if it’s all just teasing. Jackie’s lost a lot of muscle mass since they crashed, though it wasn’t really like she had much to begin with. She didn’t like the talks she’d get at home, if she gained too much weight, even if it was muscle. Lottie’s arms, however, made her lick her lips. “You know, working in the garden’s been really good for you.”

 

Lottie believes her. She nods. A smile creeps up her face as she notes the way Jackie is looking at her arms. Lottie was never had the strongest arms, but she did make sure to keep them somewhat toned-- all the better to shove people with. She was a defender, after all. She liked shoving people. 

 

Out here, though, she hadn’t realized how much muscle she’d made. Despite how skinny she is now, her arms haven’t followed suit. “You think so?”

 

Jackie hums, nodding her head. “I think so,” she says, taking Lottie’s hands and pinning them over her head, admiring the stretch of her arms. It’s purely symbolic; they both know she’s not strong enough to pin Lottie down. She enjoys the view, though.

 

Lottie simply lets Jackie do what she wants, not even trying to fight back as she looks up at her. “I don’t anyone’s ever admired me for my arms,” she teases, watching Jackie’s face and the way she’s staring at Lottie like she’s a painting. It makes her smile.

 

“I really admire your arm,” Jackie says. “And your legs. Your thighs. Your face.” She grins. “Your ass. Your boobs. Everything, really. You’re kind of perfect.” She presses in for one more kiss before letting go and leaning up. “We have to get up,” she murmurs. “Or someone’s going to complain to Nat.” And she already felt bad about pissing Nat off the night before. She doesn’t want to give her an even worse time.

 

“So you just love me for my body, then?” Lottie jokes, sitting up when Jackie lets her go, only a little annoyed they can't simply fall back into each other this morning, like they had yesterday. It was a nice day off, but there were things to do now. 

 

She stretches, pulling herself up to her gett and holds her hands out for Jackie. “I somehow think Nat has better things to worry about.”

 

Jackie grins. “It’s a great body, but no. You wooed me with your charms and dazzling personality, too.” She lets Lottie help her stand, her back popping as she stretches. “And your mastery of French. It’s just so sexy when you pronounce all the letters despite being told we’re totally not supposed to do that.” 

 

Even if Nat’s got better things to worry about, Jackie doesn’t want to add to the stress. She feels like she does that enough already. So, as much as she’d like to spend another day in Lottie’s arms, she starts getting ready, changing her clothes and fixing her hair.

 

“I'm irresistible, I know,” Lottie grins, shuffling through their clothes to figure out what to wear that day. “Je m'appelle Charlotte,” she says, purposefully mispronouncing the words as she wraps her arms around Jackie from behind, looking at both their reflections in the little mirror. “Et tu?”

 

Even a mess, Jackie feels a little vain at how good she thinks the two of them look together. She leans back against Lottie, letting her eyes drift closed. She grins. “Je m’appelle Jacqueline.” She took special care to pronounce it like Jacque. “Horrible. Neither of us should have been passing.”

 

“Je t’aime, Jacqueline,” Lottie coos, nuzzling into Jackie's neck. She grazes her lips over the skin there, smiling. “We didn't, Kimberly passed, barely. We just cheated.” More surprising was that they were never caught. Then again, they were the golden girls of the school. Most of the teachers looked the other way when one of them did something against the rules. Even more so when it was Charlotte Matthews, with her rich and powerful dad, who had donated on many occasions to the little school. 

 

Jackie doesn’t have to be good at French to know what that means. She grins, leaning her head to the side to give Lottie more room. “Je t’aime, Charlotte.” She chuckles. “At least Kimberly helped us get the basics down. What’s more important than telling a pretty girl your name and then that you love her immediately after introducing yourself?”

 

“Maybe where the bathroom is?” Lottie asks, before pressing a kiss to Jackie’s cheek and finally pulling away as she hears more footsteps outside their hut. She takes Jackie’s hands and turns her around to face her, leaning in for a quick kiss, though she lingers as she pulls back. “French is the language of romance, isn’t it?”

 

“There are signs,” Jackie mumbles. In French, but, hey, maybe they had pictures, too. She can’t help but wrap her arms around Lottie’s neck, standing on her toes to keep them close. “It is. It’s super romantic. That’s kind of the reason I took it.” And Shauna had mentioned wanting to go to Paris one day, and Jackie thought that, maybe, she could teach Shauna something useful for once. And then French ended up being hard. And Lottie was there, and that was distracting.

 

“How cute,” Lottie says, arms circling Jackie’s waist. “Were you planning on seducing a hot French lady with it?” Really, Lottie had just taken French because she needed a foreign language credit and it seemed like the easiest. It was not. “Should I be jealous?” 

 

Yeah, like France would have been far enough away for Jackie to get to be herself. She had to be in the middle of nowhere before she even considered seducing a woman. She snorts. “That’s me, super seductive. But why would I need a hot French lady when I have the prettiest girl in the world?”

 

“You totally seduced me,” Lottie teases, “I was such an innocent flower before you made me fall in love with you.” It was funny, in hindsight, her obliviousness to Jackie’s feelings. All the signs had been there, but Lottie had been fully convinced that someone like Jackie would never like someone like her. Yet, here they were. “Really? Who is she? I’ll beat her up.”

 

“I’ve corrupted you, it’s true,” Jackie says solemnly. With all of her experience, she certainly corrupted Lottie Matthews. Jackie hums. “I don’t know… she’s pretty tall, kind of a giant. You might not be able to take her.”

 

Lottie nods. “You deflowered me,” she jokes, grinning. “I think I’m okay with it, though.” More than okay with the way things had turned out. She presses another kiss to Jackie’s lips. They’re getting distracted again, but it’s hard for Lottie to care. They need to get back to normal things today after their day off, but she still wishes they could just fall back to bed and stay tangled up. “I think I could. I’m the tallest on my team. And I have really bony elbows.”

 

Jackie asks, “So, does that make me the knight or, like, the wicked villain?” She didn’t really, though, right? Lottie had been with girls before. Just not… naked, from what Jackie understood. But she’d been with other girls at parties. She’s better at all of this than Jackie is. Jackie’s just happy to be there. “You are tall, maybe about the same height. I don’t know, though. She was, like, the best defender ever. And ridiculously strong.”

 

“Oh, definitely the evil villain,” Lottie says, “the hot, evil queen.” Being captain was kind of like being queen. Though, now, Nat was the queen out here. Lottie was just happy it wasn’t her anymore. She was never any good at it. She wasn’t someone people could rely on. “Just wait until the handsome knight finds out I’m totally in love with the evil queen and not him.” Then again, it was Jackie who had a boyfriend waiting for her back home. They hadn’t exactly discussed that aspect. Maybe because neither of them really believed they were ever getting out of here.

 

“Wait, I’m the best defender ever,” Lottie balks, shaking her head, “are you cheating on me with my doppelganger?”

 

Pouting, Jackie says, “Wait, so I am evil?” She doesn’t want to be, actually, even if she was the one that sort of put it out there. She likes the hot part. And, okay, she likes, maybe, the queen part, too. It seems nice, even if there’s this sting in the back of her mind at the insults Shauna had hurled at her. “Boo hoo to the knight. He can totally get over it. And that’s not a real word, Lott. Like, that sounds like dinglehopper from The Little Mermaid.”

 

“Well, not to me,” Lottie replies, putting a finger on Jackie’s pouting lips. “You’re very cute when you pout.” She can’t help how much she likes Jackie, or how she thinks she’s cute all the time. She likes her hair and her eyes and her smile and the sound of her laugh and the way her steady heartbeat soothes Lottie’s nerves. She chuckles. “It’s German, it means, like, clone.”

 

Jackie huffs, but she softens significantly. “Well. I guess that’s okay.” She raises an eyebrow. “We’ve already established that I don’t speak French. Now you wanna bring German into this, too? But, no, I’m not cheating on you with your clone.” The thought of two Lottie’s is kind of distracting, though, the more that Jackie considers it. Two Lotties…

 

Lottie just smiles and presses another kiss to Jackie’s pouting lips. “The word is German, but it’s been made into a pop culture cryptid type thing. Van would know more about that aspect.” She remembers listening to her ramble about it to Lottie for about an hour once back in Wiskayok after Lottie had asked a single question while they were watching a movie. “In history, they were known as, like, magic beings who slowly took over the person’s life, who they copied.” 

 

“Wait, so they’re real? What the fuck, I’ve literally never heard of this shit before now,” Jackie says, baffled. But apparently they were historical identity thieves. “So… it wouldn’t be a good clone? But would there still be two of you?”

 

“Well not real real. At least not that anyone can prove,” Lottie points out, then pauses. “Or prove they don’t exist, too, I guess.” After all, wasn’t that how Lottie felt about the Wilderness? She looks back down at Jackie, quirking a brow. “Yes?” she answers, a little suspect. “Technically.”

 

Jackie just kind of hums. “Two of you.”

 

Lottie thinks she gets it now. She snorts, ruffling up Jackie’s hair knowing that she just finished fixing it. “You’re insatiable,” she murmurs, before stepping away to finish getting dressed.

 

“No, that would be you. And your doppelganger,” Jackie says, batting at Lottie’s hand as she fixes her hair again. She watches Lottie for a minute before looking away, smiling softly. “That I am not cheating on you with.”

 

“You’re the one daydreaming about me and my doppelganger,” Lottie counters, pausing for a moment, before grabbing a shirt. She leaves Laura Lee’s dress hanging next to her cloak and pulls on her pants. “Would that technically be cheating?” she asks, raising a brow.

 

Gasping, Jackie gives Lottie a look of mock offense. “I wasn’t daydreaming! Just thinking.” Her butterfly shirt has seen better days, but it’s clean, and that’s really the best she can ask for these days as she runs a hand down it. “I… don’t know. I mean, if you’re both there would it be?”

 

“Hmmm,” Lottie hums, tilting her head. She watches Jackie smooth down her shirt, noting how dirty it’s gotten, despite how many times they wash their clothes. She’s seen Jackie wear that shirt a lot, especially out here, especially under Shauna’s flannels. She reaches out and adjusts the collar, before smoothing her own hands over Jackie’s shoulders. “You know, I don’t think I want to have sex with myself. I’ll stick with just you.”

 

“That’s kind of a crazy form of masturbation,” Jackie says, though she makes a face. “Listen, okay, it was my not-daydream, right? I wasn’t thinking about you having sex with yourself.” She stands on her toes, offering Lottie just one more kiss and grinning against her lips. 

 

“So I was right, you are insatiable,” Lottie grins, leaning into the kiss. “Sorry I don’t have four hands. I’ll try and make up for it somehow.” She doesn’t think it really matters to Jackie, but Lottie likes making sure she can be as pleasing as possible for her. She likes making Jackie feel good. “Okay, no more talking about my doppelganger and how much you want to sleep with her, we should probably go get some breakfast before they eat it all.”

 

Jackie doesn’t want to let go, but she knows if they don’t stop, they’re going to miss breakfast entirely. “Fine, okay, but… Just so you know, you’re doing amazing.” She offers Lottie a sweet smile before she steps away and heads to their hut’s entrance. “There’s nothing to make up for.”

 

“Okay,” Lottie brins back, taking Jackie’s hand as they head out of their hut.

 

“How long does it take to get ready, damn?” Van says from over by the breakfast pot. Most everyone already has their bowls of food, and Mari snickers into hers. 

 

“Too busy sucking face, probably,” she taunts.

 

Lottie rolls her eyes. “This again? Don’t you guys get tired of talking about our sex life?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Melissa says.

 

“That should be concerning, Mel,” Jackie says, frowning as they get their food. Jackie sits next to Lottie picking at her food. “All of you. Get your own lives, maybe?”

 

Melissa shrugs. “Not all of us can find true love out here,” she counters. “Like, what am I supposed to do? Serenade the fish?” 

 

“We gotta gossip about someone,” Van adds on, “and, really, I’m just glad it’s not me and Tai anymore. Sorry, Lott.”

 

Lottie just huffs, but grabs a bowl for her and Jackie, handing it over. “Maybe we should’ve kept it a secret,” she says. 

 

“You could’ve tried, but I think we all would’ve known. Not just because of the suspicious noises from your hut,” Tai says flatly, “but mostly because of that.”

 

“Those were, like, the only tell!” Jackie says as she takes the bowl and takes a bite, handing it back.

 

Mari snorts. “They were a very loud tell.”

 

“Yeah, and you guys sleeping in each other’s arms every night totally didn’t give it away,” Gen says with her usual deadpan tone.

 

Lottie sits down and takes the bowl, grabbing a piece to eat. “To be fair, Jackie’s like a teddy bear for me,” she teases, “cause she’s so small.”

 

“And it was cuddling for warmth!” Jackie says indignantly. It was not just cuddling for warmth. She looks at Lottie, a little wounded. “I’m not that small.”

 

Mel pinches two fingers together. “Itty bitty.” 

 

Lottie can’t help but wrap her arms around Jackie in a dramatic display. “But I like how small you are,” she murmurs against Jackie’s head. “And it definitely wasn’t just about cuddling for warmth, even I know that.” 

 

It was never about that for Lottie, but she liked providing warmth for Jackie. 

 

“Awwww,” Van sighs, “you guys are so cute it’s gross.”

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch, unable to help herself, even if she is a little huffy. “Okay,” she mumbles, wrapping her arms around Lottie. 

 

“Gross, get a room,” Mari says. “You guys have a whole hut to yourselves. You don’t need to start groping each other out here.”

 

“Groping???” Jackie balks.

 

“Listen, Mar, we all know you’re jealous, you don’t have to keep reminding us,” Lottie says back to her and Mari nearly chokes on her food.

 

“I’m not jealous!”

 

Lottie just shrugs. “Sure, whatever you say.” 

 

“I’m not!” Mari looks around at the others, huffing. “I’m not.”

 

“Poor Mari,” Van says, her frown over exaggerated. “Do you want a little smooch? Are you lonely?”

 

Tai elbows her, and Van gives a loud groan. 

 

Mari sniffs. “You guys fucking suck.”

 

Jackie agrees, but not when it’s Mari. Mari deserves to get teased. She’s definitely earned it.

 

Lottie smiles, keeping her arms around Jackie even as she takes another bite of the food, sighing contentedly. “Reap what you sow, Mari.”

 

Mari looks at her, confused. “I don’t sew?”

 

“No, sow, as in, like-- nevermind,” Lottie says, rolling her eyes.

 

It’s easy for Jackie to keep up with eating breakfast as well, taking a bite as Lottie does, trying not to just crawl into and curl up in her lap. “She means don’t dish it out if you can’t take it, Mar,” Jackie tells her. 

 

Mari scoffs. “Oh, whatever.” 

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “Eloquent.”

 

They're really all just teenage girls, Lottie thinks as she eats. They gossip and tease and bitch, no matter where they are. High school or a party or stranded in the middle of the mountains. It's kind of comforting to know, they're the same no matter what. 

 

Lottie finds peace in the sentiment, really. She wonders if the others do as well. 

 

They're all just finishing up when Nat emerges from Misty's hut, carrying two bowls. Since the tea poisoning incident, Misty has been staying in her hut during meals and mostly keeping to herself, so Nat seems to be making an effort to at least go sit with her once a day. Lottie still feels a little bad about everything, but she doesn't think she wants to apologize to her yet. She still feels too angry about what happened to Jackie. 

 

When Nat comes back over to the fire pit, she examines the scene before her. “You guys weren't talking shit without me, were you?” 

 

“Just about Jackie and Lottie and how gross they are,” Mari says quickly.

 

Jackie rolls her eyes. “And how jealous Mari is.”

 

“C'mon, Mar,” Nat says, shaking her head, “let em be happy or whatever. We're not all miserable like you.”

 

“How is this conversation turning on me? Let's go back to shaming people for their public groping.” 

 

Lottie is content to just observe for now, not wanting to bother Nat in front of the others. She shoots her a small smile, but Nat just looks away. 

 

“How about we don't, and instead you all get off your lazy assess and start your chores? We're burning daylight and if we wanna have the lake party, we need to at least get a little ahead of schedule,” Nat declares.

 

There’s a chorus of groans, but most of the others start getting up and cleaning their plates before they start the day. 

 

Nat dumps her and Misty’s plates and heads off. Jackie eats a few more bites and disentangles herself from Lottie, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s head before trotting after Nat. “Hey. Are we… okay? After yesterday. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to make you walk off.”

 

Lottie watches Jackie go, before taking their bowl and finishing off the last few bites, dropping it off with the other dishes. It looks like it's Britt’s turn on dishes duty, as she waits diligently by the bucket for everyone to finish.  Lottie gives her a smile, then decides to head off to the garden and check on her plants, giving Jackie and Nat one more glance. 

 

“Why wouldn't we be?” Nat says, stepping into her hut to collect some more supplies. “I didn't walk off, I was just tired of whatever.”

 

“No, I know,” Jackie says quickly, but she doesn’t, actually. She doesn’t actually know at all. And she doesn’t know why they wouldn’t be okay, but she’s never been good at figuring out this panic that builds in her chest every time she’s unsure of where she stands with someone she cares about. 

 

“Insecure,” Shauna murmurs in her ear. “You’re just tragically insecure, Jax. You can’t help it.”

 

Jackie just thinks she needs verbal confirmation that she and Nat are okay. Then she’ll be fine. “Do you— do you need any help?”

 

“I'm going to set more fishing lines,” Nat tells Jackie, not looking up from her work. “So, like, sure, if you want to. Just kinda figured you'd wanna stay here and help Lottie.”

 

“I’m, you know, not super great in the garden,” Jackie says, scratching at her arms. Is that a bug bite? It itches. “I can help with the fishing lines.”

 

“That’s a thing? Being bad at gardening?” Nat asks, raising a brow as she stands up, shouldering her pack. She tosses the tied up fishing net at Jackie. “But sure. Let’s go, then.”

 

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Jackie says, taking the netting and holding it to her chest as she starts to move after Nat. “I’ve got the opposite of a green thumb. I’ll kill all the good plants and get a rash from all the bad ones.”

 

Nat snorts out a laugh. “How are you even alive anymore?” She heads out the back of her hut and turns towards the river. They set up the nets a little further down from where they clean all their clothes and dishes, as well as setting up a line at the lake, but Natalie always starts at the river. She’s routine. 

 

On the way by, she grabs the butcher knife, wiping it on her pant leg before sticking it into her belt loop. She’ll return it later before Melissa needs it, hopefully.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie says easily. Because it’s true. Lottie’s the only reason that Jackie’s alive anymore, and most of them probably know it. It’s not a big secret that Jackie tried to sleep outside, especially not to Nat who had to help bring her in. “And you, a lot.” She eyes the knife but doesn’t say anything because Jackie’s not allowed to have knives, even though she’s only cut her hand open once. 

 

With one final wave and a smile to Lottie as they pass the garden, Jackie falls into step just behind Nat. She’s familiar enough with Nat’s routine for the fishing lines, and there’s something comforting about the routine. 

 

Nat grunts a reply but doesn’t say much on it, eyeing Lottie as they pass, looking back over her shoulder to Jackie. It’s nice to see her happy like that. Lottie, too. She tries not to think about Travis as they pass his hut and she squeezes the strap of her bag. 

 

They reach the river shortly and Nat sets her bag down, pulling out the stakes. “Unravel the net,” she instructs. 

 

Lottie watches Jackie and Nat disappear beyond the tree line before she turns back to her work, checking over the plants. There’s a few that are ready to be harvested, and she grabs the basket she’s brought with, plucking leaves and stems and setting them inside.

 

She can’t help but watch the others, though, her hand pausing as she sees Akilah and Mari heading into the storage shed with a handful of clean clothes and blankets. Melissa, Gen and Robin are cleaning up some of the weeds around the camp together, Britt and Misty are washing the used dishes from yesterday, and Jackie and Nat are off setting up fishing line.

 

The only two alone are Lottie and Travis, who Lottie hasn’t seen in a while. He’s not in his shack, either. She wonders if she should go find him, but she stays sitting, because there’s a feeling inside of her that’s a little familiar. A loneliness she hasn’t felt in a while. It’s been creeping back in over the past few weeks, but it feels more present now. She thinks it’s stupid, too-- she has Jackie now. She doesn’t need to feel lonely. 

 

And yet, as she looks at all the others, she can’t help it. 

 

Jackie sets to work, unraveling the nets with a practiced focus. When she’s done, she takes off her shoes and prepares to get in the water to stake up the net. She’s not even going to complain about the cold of the water, just tensing a little getting to work in helping Nat set up the net.

 

Nat hands Jackie one of the stakes. “Just stick it in there, I’ll walk it across,” she states, taking the other end of the net and beginning to wade out along the river, sticking in the rods as she moves, to keep it held down along the flow of the river. It doesn’t take long, it never does, and she wades back across to Jackie. 

 

“So,” Nat says when she reaches her, “things uh, going well with you and Lottie?”

 

Standing back up after making sure that her stake’s secure, Jackie moves back to the rest of the netting and picks it up as they start to the next location. “Yeah, yeah, they’re going– it’s going great. She’s great. I… you know, love her.” She feels a little soft and gooey inside just thinking about Lottie. She didn’t this she was ever going to be allowed to have something like this.

 

Jackie’s still stuck on the way Nat walked off the night before, and she’s always had issues picking at things until they bleed. “You didn’t upset her, last night. I was– I shouldn’t have said that you did. It wasn’t about, like, you.”

 

Natalie nods. “Honestly, I'm happy for you, Jax. Really. I kinda thought you'd never actually, uh, you know,” she gestures at Jackie awkwardly, “come out.” Most of the senior girls had all thought that, though. Even Lottie. Natalie remembers laughing with her about it while they were high at a party, watching Jackie dance away from Jeff and over to Shauna. 

 

“Okay, so, then…what was it about?” Nat asks, grabbing her pack and heading down the river. “Cause she was upset, right?”

 

“I, well.” Jackie shrugs. “I kind of thought I wouldn’t either. But…” But the girl she’d loved since she was a child died, and she’d somehow managed to fall for someone else, another girl she’d known and cared about for years, even if she wasn’t great at showing it before, and the thought of losing Lottie, too, of being too late… that was enough. 

 

Running a hand through her hair, Jackie shakes her head. “I… don’t think– I mean–” How much can she say? “Maybe you should talk to her? And have her tell you? I don’t want to… you know. I think you should ask her.”

 

“I mean, congrats, really,” Natalie says, shrugging, “just means I owe a lot of people some money when we get back.” 

 

She pauses, glancing over at Jackie. She scoffs quietly. “Lottie doesn’t exactly tell me things,” she grumbles, “never has.” 

 

“Wait, what? Who?” Jackie asks, balking. Were there other people besides the Wiskayok girls’ varsity soccer team that just knew she was a closeted lesbian? Adults? Parents? Was that why her mom hovered so much after games?

 

Jackie’s solemn as she tells Nat, “I don’t think that’s it. I just think… sometimes, she doesn’t know how to explain things. Or sometimes she just can’t. It’s not that she doesn’t want to. She just doesn’t know how.”

 

“Hey, I’m not a narc,” Nat says back, shaking her head. She stops walking, then, sighing as she turns to Jackie. “She tells you shit, doesn’t she?” She tries not to sound bitter, but hadn’t Natalie been the one who sat with Lottie when no one else would? Hadn’t Natalie been the one to reach out to her while the rest of the team turned a blind eye to them both? Just the two weird girls, one who smokes and drinks and people call “drop out”; the other the quiet, mysterious rich girl who always seems like she’s on a different planet. 

 

Whatever. Natalie doesn’t actually care. She’s not Lottie’s keeper. She starts walking again. “As long as things are cool, it’s whatever anyway.”

 

“But that’s not fair that everyone’s making bets about me,” Jackie whines. “So you just… bet that I’d never come out at all?” Honestly, she thinks that would have been the smartest bet if they’d never crashed. Jackie looks at Nat, her eyes wide and sad. “Yeah but… I ask her questions.” She looks down and shrugs. “I wasn’t good at that before. With anyone, but especially with… Shauna. Because I thought I always knew what she was thinking or feeling and wanting, and I was wrong. So I’m trying to be better.” 

 

But Nat’s so frustrating, and Jackie huffs when she starts walking. “You’re bad at it, too, you know. Talking and shit.”

 

Natalie shrugs. “I mean, yeah,” she looks over at her, “most of us were pretty sure you’d never come out. At least not in high school. But don’t be too upset-- we all bet Tai wasn’t gonna come out either, even though we all knew her and Van were fucking.” That was just the way things were back in Wiskayok. It wasn’t a place that allowed teenaged girls to be or love who they want.

 

“Do you think Shauna would’ve even answered your questions?” Natalie rolls her eyes, stopping at the next location. She holds her hand out for the next net. “Thanks. I really needed someone to tell me that,” she says with a dull, sarcastic tone. “Sorry I thought maybe after spending four years being the only person to talk to her outside of team events would get me more than an ‘I’m fine’. Guess I was wrong.”

 

Maybe that makes Jackie feel a little bit better. Maybe that makes her feel a little bit worse. She’s not sure what either her or Tai were doing that made them so obvious. At least Tai was actually with Van. Jackie apparently really did have “dyke” written on her forehead if you looked hard enough. 

 

“I… I don’t know,” Jackie mumbles, feeling smaller. Probably not. She thinks she can see Shauna glaring at her out of the corner of her eyes, like she’s pissed off that she’s being talked about. Moving through the motions, Jackie hands Nat the net and holds her hand out for a stake. “It’s not that simple, and I think you know that. Because– because maybe, yeah, that’s true, but this winter wasn’t– I think she thought you really meant what you said. About… wanting her to talk less.” She looks at Nat until the other girl meets her eyes. “We’re not home anymore. Things don’t work the same.” They both fucking knew that. They had to.

 

At that, Nat feels a flash of shame across her face. She hands Jackie a stake and gets to work. She knows she was shitty to Lottie over the winter, but she thought they’d made up over it. She thought they were okay. Guess not.

 

“Fine,” she says as she wades into the middle of the river, “I’ll talk to her.” She’s not going to admit that maybe she was wrong, they both know that. She just wants to make sure no one is going to fucking kill themselves out here, that’s all. She was trying her best to make sure they had everything they needed.

 

When she finishes putting in the last stake and makes it back to Jackie, she’s feeling less prickly. “I’m uh-- I’m glad she has you to talk to,” she tells her, picking up her bag again, “at least she’s talking to someone.”

 

Jackie doesn’t mean to make Nat feel bad. She just wants her to know what she thinks is true. Maybe Jackie’s wrong. She’s wrong a lot. But Nat says that she’ll actually talk to Lottie, so Jackie gives a short nod and starts staking her side of the net down. 

 

As they start to walk, Jackie smiles softly. “I’m glad I have her, too.”

 

There’s only one more spot along the river before they reach the lake and Nat decides to take their time, not exactly eager to get back to camp, but also because it’s a nice day out and she wants to enjoy it while she can. It’s the start of summer and she’s already feeling herself worry about what they’re going to do if they have to spend another winter out here.

 

The net they spread out at the lake is larger than the ones at the river, and Nat struggles to untangle some of it along the way, before giving up for a moment. “How does this shit always get tangled, no matter how carefully I fold it up?” she grumbles, kicking at the water. At least it’s not freezing anymore, and she can’t help but look out across the waves, wondering if the moose they’d lost is still somehow at the bottom of the lake, dead and bloated on the bed.

 

Jackie wades out into the water with Nat, moving to help her with the netting. “I don’t know, but it’s kind of impressive. There hasn’t been a single net that hasn’t had to be untangled in some way,” she jokes. She looks over the lake, into the treeline, up at the sky. There’s the spot where Laura Lee’s plane exploded, taking her, and most of their hope, with it. Jackie doesn’t think she ever really came back from that. That was the last time she felt like, maybe, they’d get to leave this place.

 

Now, Jackie doesn’t think there’s any way out. They’re trapped out there. It can be a good thing, though, she thinks. She hopes. It’s not as horrible these days. Nat’s leadership has been good for them, whether Nat wants to take credit for it or not.

 

Nat follows Jackie’s gaze but she can’t figure out what she’s looking at, exactly. She picks the net back up and starts trying to untangle it again. “You really think this birthday stuff is a good idea?” she asks after a moment of silence between them. Nat’s tried her best to keep track of the days, but the most she knows is that they’re either in June or close to it. They have to be, if the solstice is coming up soon, according to Van. What she wouldn’t give for a real fucking calendar-- maybe she’ll make one on the back of their map, at least the closest she can to one with what they know.

 

Jackie shrugs. “I think it’s good for us to have things to do that’s not just… working and sleeping. And gossiping about my sex life,” she adds, rolling her eyes. But they were all still teenagers, as weird as it was to believe, and, even if they liked to act above it, they all still needed to have fun, to play. That’s why they were athletes, in a lot of ways. They needed fun. She’d tried with the seance, and that had been a bust. The Christmas gift exchange had gotten a little closer, but that had also gotten twisted and fucked up along the way. But they were away from that creepy cabin, now, and as much as they might miss the shelter, it seems like they were building something better for themselves.

 

“The solstice-y thing will be good. That’ll be fun, too. But birthdays… I don’t know. Maybe that’ll help people feel more normal,” Jackie says.

 

“What else are we supposed to gossip about?” Nat laughs, a husky sound, finally getting enough of the net undone that she can toss it out and let Jackie stake it down before moving along. “I’m sure things’ll cool down soon enough. Most of us are just, ya know, happy for you or whatever. And making fun of you is how we show it.”

 

Nat thinks on it. “Can’t believe we’re all spending our eighteenth birthdays out here.” 

 

“The love triangle between Mortimer and the two lady ducks that fight over him,” Jackie says immediately. “Akilah treats it like a soap opera, I swear. It’s… surprisingly interesting.” Apparently, Mortimer the duck is quite the ladies’ man. In addition to being moderately well behaved, if a little judgy. Still, Jackie does soften. It’s nice to know that the team are all still her friends. There was a time when she didn’t think that was true.

 

“Nineteenth,” Jackie says quietly. “It was my nineteenth. If we’re still here in October, I’ll turn twenty.”

 

Nat snorts again. “You’ll have to catch me up on that one, don’t think I’ve watched it.” She places another stake, unravels a little more of the net. “Shit, I forgot.” Having a summer birthday meant Nat was always a little behind the others. “That means Lottie’s was her nineteenth, too, right? And Tai?” Fuck, they’d been out here for a long time. She kicks some more water.

 

“Apparently, the one with more brown feathers can be a real bitch,” Jackie jokes. She moves with Nat before switching to her other side to unravel more of the net while Nat puts down the stakes. “Yeah,” she says softly. Lottie is going to turn twenty soon, too. It’s so weird to think about. Tai’s was during the winter. And Shauna… Shauna didn’t make it. Shauna didn’t get to see nineteen. Shauna will never be more than eighteen ever again. 

 

“About time you caught up,” Jackie says, laughing that morning when Shauna came to pick her up from school, handing her a cupcake she’d forced Jeff to take her to get in the city. 

 

Shauna had huffed, but she looked pleased, blowing out the single candle. “Does this mean you’re finally gonna catch up to me and get your license?”

 

“Shut up, asshole.”

 

“At least there’s no way they can keep us from getting our diplomas at this point,” Jackie says quietly. “If we— If we ever make it back.”

 

“When we make it back,” Nat emphasizes but doesn’t say much more on it. “Fuck, we better make it back by my nineteenth. I could really use a fucking cigarette or twenty.” And maybe Natalie doesn’t actually believe they’re going to get rescued, but she has to pretend, she has to at least hope, otherwise she thinks she might just fall apart for good, and she can’t do that when she’s supposed to be the one keeping it all together.

 

Quietly, to herself, Nat thinks that it’s a wonder Lottie made it as long as she did while in charge. Especially knowing she’d never even wanted it. Just another thing for Nat to feel bad about. “So what should we do besides hang out at the lake? Maybe make something special to eat?”

 

“God, I miss cigarettes,” Jackie moans. She doesn’t say how she doesn’t think it’s likely that they’ll get rescued by the end of summer. She doesn’t say that she’s lost hope that they’ll ever be rescued again. “I miss cigarettes and decent booze and caffeine. I really miss coffee.” 

 

Jackie focuses on a particularly difficult knot, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth. “Hm. Something special to eat would be good. There’s more plants coming in. If the in ground oven thing works out, maybe we could try to build something like that on the beach? Make a… barbecue? That’s… summery party things. I don’t know if we have to exchange gifts or anything like that. Maybe just if people want to.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Nat grumbles as well, setting up more of the net. She watches Jackie concentrate maybe a little too hard on untangling the rest of the net, chuckling a little. 

 

“Can’t we just, like, bring the pan down with us for a grill? I’m not sure how that all works, that’s something we’d have to ask Mari about,” she thinks. Her brow furrows, though, thinking back to the gift exchange and how she’d ended up ruining things because of her stupid beef with Lottie. Her one-sided beef. “I think we can skip gifts this time.”

 

“I mean, we could bring the pan down with us, but that’s a pan, not a barbecue, Nat. Duh,” Jackie says, rolling her eyes. “You know, we’re all really lucky that Mari can cook, but how much do you think she actually knows? Do you think she’s just making stuff up sometimes? Because I think she’s just making stuff up sometimes.”

 

Nodding, it’s easy to agree with Nat about skipping the gifts. “Hanging out at the lake should be fun. Making good memories there. Food, the water. I’m sure people will want to play games. I think I’m just going to tan.” And see what Lottie does. If Lottie sticks behind, then Jackie probably will, too.

 

“Whatever,” Nat groans. “Oh, she’s definitely making shit up. But, like, her mom was always a good cook, right? Bet she learned it from her.” Natalie’s mother was the opposite, she couldn’t even heat up chicken nuggets without almost blowing up the microwave.

 

“Of course you are,” Nat huffs, “c’mon, at least get in the water for a little bit. I bet Lottie will get in.” 

 

Mrs. Ibarra was a great cook, and a lot nicer than Mari. At least, she was in English. Jackie pauses. “She is really hot in the water,” she says. “But that’s playing a dangerous game, you know? It might be better to just watch from a distance.”

 

“Jesus, you’re really far gone, aren’t you?” Nat shakes her head, shoving Jackie playfully as she comes back over to her. “You really can’t keep your hands to yourself for like a few hours?”

 

Jackie wobbles for a second, almost falling into the water. “Hey! My balance is still bad!” she whines, weakly shoving Nat back. “She’s just… really pretty. And sweet. And nobody told me all of that was so fun.”

 

“Oh, is it? My bad,” Nat grins sarcastically, bumping against Jackie again. “Okay, contrary to what everyone else seems to think, I do not want to hear about your sex life. Especially with Lottie.” 

 

It is, actually, but Jackie uses that to her advantage, grabbing onto Nat as she shoves her again and pulling them both down into the water. It’s cold, but not as bad as she was expecting. Jackie gasps as she stands up, laughing. “I wasn’t offering to tell you about it. A lady never kisses and tells,” she says, sticking out her tongue. It’s not like she wants to compare notes.

 

“Jackie!” Nat yelps as she’s pulled down, splashing into the water. She shakes her head off, wringing her hair out as she stands. “That was uncalled for.” Still, it’s nice, to just be stupid and silly. Natalie was pretty sure Jackie hated her for a while. Or maybe she was jealous. Or something else. Nat didn’t know. She scoffs. “Whatever you think, Jax. ‘All of that’ is always better with someone you actually fucking like.”

 

“Maybe you shouldn’t be shoving the poor girl with one ear,” Jackie says, grinning as she wrings some of the water out of her hair as well. When they leave the water, she takes off her shirt and starts wringing it out, too. She smiles, “Yeah, it really, really is.” It’s so much better with someone you like. Someone with dark, thick hair and pretty brown eyes and legs that go on for miles, a sharp, sweet smile. “She’s really great.”

 

Rolling her eyes, Natalie follows Jackie out, wringing out her shirt as well, before groaning and shucking it off. It was warm out and the air was dry enough that they’d probably be dry, too, soon. “Oh c’mon, you’ve had one ear for like a few months now,” she says.

 

The look Jackie gets when she talks about Lottie makes Natalie feel soft, too. She kind of hates it. It makes her jealous and she hates it. She thinks about Travis and she hates it, because he doesn’t look at her or talk to her anymore. She thinks about how Lottie used to look at her like that, before the crash. 

Nat clears her throat. “Yeah,” she nods, picking up her sopping wet shirt, “I’m sure.”

 

“Yeah, and, like, there’s still balance issues,” Jackie says. It’s actually a lot better than it was when Misty first cut it off. Her hearing’s more regulated, now, her body having adapted, but it’s still just strange. Maybe one day she’ll be used to it, and she’ll be okay with it. She’s gotten better. She’s trying to be less self-conscious. “Alright, cap. What next?”

 

Nat frowns and shakes her head. “I told you, that’s still you,” she says, poking Jackie in the shoulder. “Have you, uh, thought any more about that? I could really use some consistent help, you know.” And most days, it was Jackie volunteering to come with her. 

 

She wipes her hands on her pants and glances around. “This was all I really had planned for today, I expected it to take longer since I was gonna do it myself, but…we can go check the traps?”

 

Jackie glances over at Nat, crossing her arms. “You’re, uh, still on that?” she asks quietly. She shrugs. “I don’t think anyone really wants me to be that anymore, Nat. I don’t think anybody wants me to be their captain.” And she’s sort of settled with that. She gets it.

 

Nodding, Jackie starts walking, already pretty sure she knows where the closest of the traps is. “Sounds good to me, yeah.”

 

“Yeah, I am,” Nat grumbles, using her shirt to finish drying out her hair as they start heading off. “C’mon, be honest-- it comes naturally to you. And maybe I don’t wanna do this shit alone. I mean, look what it did to Lottie.” 

 

Jackie shrugs her shirt back on, kind of liking the way the cool dampness feels on her skin. She looks unsure as she glances over at Nat. She hates it. She never used to be so obvious about it. “I don’t know. You could ask Tai. Mari. Gen’s already helping a lot with the hunting; I think she’d do a good job.”

 

“I do talk to Tai and Gen about stuff going on around camp, yeah, but they’re not, like, the people I wanna rely on,” Natalie says, “not that they’re not reliable. Just--” she shrugs-- “I think you’d be better at it. I know you think they all still hate you or whatever, but they don’t, I promise.” Natalie stops a moment, turns to look Jackie in the eyes. “I think they just want their captain back. Something…normal.”

 

The smart decision would be to choose Tai or Gen or Van. They are reliable. They didn’t spend all winter depressed. They were actually useful in those first few months after the crash. Jackie knows that. She thinks that Nat knows that, too. She doesn’t get why Nat’s so confident in her. Jackie used to be confident in herself. Or she used to act like it. It’s hard to feel that way anymore, though. 

 

Still. She stops, crossing her arms as she looks at Nat. “Alright. How would we do this, then? What would you want me to do as your ‘captain?’”

 

Nat half shrugs. “Help me…keep the peace? Figure out what needs to be done? I mean, you know most of them better than I do. Like who works well with who. You can relate to them.” Natalie had never been good at that, even if she wanted to be. “I know how to fish and hunt and build shit, sure, but-- how was I supposed to know Tai thinks Melissa is annoying? Or that Robin is afraid of Gen?” 

 

Jackie scoffs. “Yeah, right. Like they’d listen to me.” She softens, though, and offers Nat a shrug. “I can… I can help you learn all of that. It’s just like… building the map, or creating a playbook. I can tell you how to figure all of that stuff out yourself. So you won’t… you totally won’t even need me to help for long.”

 

Nat can’t help but groan, throwing her hands up. “Jackie, please just get the hint,” she sighs, “I want your help. Okay? I said it. I don’t want to do this shit alone.” 

 

Blinking, Jackie looks at Nat, her eyes wide. “Oh. Okay.”

 

“Jesus,” Nat grumbles, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We good now?”

 

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, we’re good. I’ll… I’ll be your captain,” Jackie says.

 

“Thank you,” Nat replies, starting to walk again. After a moment, she pauses once again. “But, like-- really. Thank you.” 

 

Jackie offers Nat a small smile. “I mean, you’re welcome. I’m totally taking time out of my busy schedule to help, so just know that I’m just a great friend, okay? The best, really.”

 

“You’re joking but it’s kind of true,” Nat points out as she picks up her pace once again. “You know, I used to think you hated me.”

 

“What kind of busy schedule do I have out here, Nat?” Jackie says with a laugh. Her eyes widen, and she quickly shakes her head. “What? No. No, I don’t– I don’t hate anybody.” Not even Misty, even if she wants to. “I definitely didn’t hate you. If this is about the– I was worried about Shauna because she’d almost fainted that day, and then it wasn’t that long after that she told me she was pregnant, and I was– I was worried. But I’ve never hated you.” She picks at her fingernails. “I was… jealous. You’ve always just been yourself. I envied that a lot. And you’re– you’re so good. You know that? Especially when you apply yourself. You’re amazing. God, it’s ridiculous.”

 

“I meant about being a good friend,” Nat clarifies. As they walk, she tries not to seem too relieved over the explanation. “Not even Misty? I mean, she did poison you and your girlfriend.” It was still weird calling Lottie Jackie’s girlfriend. It feels like Jackie was the last person Nat would have ever thought Lottie would end up with.

 

“I was a little rude, too, I guess,” she mumbles, “sorry about that.” She kind of shrugs. “You know, it’s not easy, to be yourself. It’s not like I just…woke up like this one day.” And, really, the person they all saw back in high school didn’t even feel like the real her, either. It was the Natalie that was dealing (very poorly) with the passing of her father and the indifference of her mother. “I’m not good. I’m just doing what has to be done.”

 

Jackie makes a face, like her face is scrunching up before relaxing. “I’m… I mean, with Misty, I– I get it. Why she did it. Like, it’s fucking shitty, but she just wants to be needed, and she just wants to feel like she matters, and I can understand that. Do I wish she didn’t hate me? Sure. And do I wish she hadn’t fucking poisoned Lottie and nearly beat her to death before that? Fucking absolutely. I understand her, but I can’t forgive her for hurting Lottie, but that doesn’t mean I hate her.” It’s just… complicated.

 

It wasn’t like Nat was rude in any way that Jackie didn’t deserve. She probably should have beat the shit out of Jackie. It might have knocked some sense into her. “No, it’s not,” Jackie quietly agrees. She still doesn’t feel like herself. Mostly because she doesn’t know who herself is. “What? The complete understanding of the inner workings of your mind can’t be found through bleaching your hair? Damn, there goes that idea.” Jackie snorts. “Fuck off. You’re good. A good soccer player, a good hunter, a good leader. A good person.”

 

Nat’s face draws somber for a moment. “I should’ve stopped her,” she mutters, “it never should’ve gone that far.” Sometimes Natalie can still hear the breaking of Lottie’s bones or the horrible, whimpering sounds the girl had made during and after. She thinks Jackie probably still hears it, too. “I’m trying to do better with her. Misty. It’s-- I’m trying.” It was all any of them could do.

 

“You’d look terrible as a blonde,” Nat jokes. “I let a kid die, Jackie. That’s not very good of me.”

 

They all should have. None of them should have let Misty do to Lottie what she did. It haunts Jackie sometimes, just as much as a ghost. “Yeah. It’s… nice. That you’re spending time with her.” It’s more than Jackie thinks she could do, that’s for sure.

 

“Wowza, okay, you don’t have to be rude,” Jackie scoffs, but she sobers pretty quick. She reaches out, taking Nat’s arm. “They would have killed you,” she says. “They would have fucking killed you. I’m not sorry you’re alive. And you didn’t kill him. You didn’t. I heard– I heard you even tried to save him. So it’s not on you.” It’s not on Lottie, either, as much as the other girl seems convinced that it is. It sucks, and it was awful, but it happened. It doesn’t make Nat a bad person.

 

Nat looks at Jackie, at her hand on her arm. “I let him drown,” she says, her face steeled, trying to hide the pain and guilt she carries, “I let him take my place.” It doesn’t matter if she didn’t kill him, he wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for her. If she’d just let them kill her, it’s what they’d all agreed to. All of them, even Javi. 

 

“Misty pulled me away from him,” she admits quietly, “she told me if I saved him, they would kill me. So I-- I stopped.” 

 

“I don’t think it’s wrong that you wanted to live,” Jackie says. “They would have killed you. We never– we shouldn’t have done that. The cards. But we didn’t– It didn’t seem like we had a choice.” The only other choice was a dying girl in the attic, and Jackie had refused to let it be her. They all had.

 

Nat doesn’t really have an answer for what they should’ve done. If they hadn’t, Lottie would’ve died. Maybe that would’ve been better, maybe that was the right answer. But she wasn’t going to say that to Jackie, even if she thinks Lottie probably agrees. “Yeah, well, we did,” she finally says, “so now I guess we all gotta live with that.” And Natalie was determined to make sure  it never happened again.

 

“C’mon, let’s check the traps and get back. I don’t wanna leave Misty alone with Britt for too long.”

 

Swallowing, Jackie nods and drops her arm, and she starts walking again. She glances at Nat and raises an eyebrow. “What? You don’t think Britt could take her?” Then, Jackie thinks about it. “Yeah, okay, maybe we should hurry up.” It’s not that she doesn’t think Britt’s capable. Misty’s just sort of conniving, and she doesn’t fight dirty.

 

Nat shakes her head again. What has she gotten herself into? 

Notes:

As Envy pointed out, a very jackienat heavy chapter, but we hope you guys enjoyed it still! We're slowly but surely making our way through the months that the show didn't get covered, and we're both really excited to share our interpretation of season three! Bittersweet, in the wake of the show ending at only four seasons, but we're not going anywhere anytime soon. Feel free to reach out to us on our socials, leave us kudos and comments! It always makes our week to read all of your remarks! Thanks so much for reading!

Chapter 27: is there a ghost in my house

Summary:

Ah, springtime, and love is in the air. And what is love without a little locker room banter? These state champions all just love a little locker room talk, too. Jackie and Lottie just want to enjoy their time with each other, but sometimes ghosts don't want to be ignored. Someone call Bruce Willis, maybe he can help here.

Notes:

One day late again, never a dollar short! Excuses, excuses, but anyway, here we are! More cute stuff! Well... mostly cute stuff! We're chugging along, we're so close to 30, can you believe it??? This is still insane to me. Hope y'all are still enjoying these two silly lesbians <3

Title is from "Is there a Ghost?" by Band of Horses

The day passes slowly, Lottie thinks. She finishes harvesting what’s ready of the garden before watering the rest of them and tilling more of the soil. By the time she finishes, it’s only mid afternoon, and some of the others are milling about the camp, chatting amongst themselves. When she approaches, though, they stop talking and just give her a look, some smiling, some waving.

 

Lottie doesn’t bother. She heads back to the river with the empty bucket, setting it back by the clothes line they’ve made before she sighs, sitting on a rock and sticking her feet in the water. She can hear Tai and Van talking and laughing as they head back from chopping more wood, and Van calls out to her, waving, before the two head off back towards camp as well. 

 

It’s a familiar sight and a familiar feeling that creeps up Lottie’s spine and down into her stomach. It’s like being back at school, watching all her “friends” hang out and talk and just have fun, while she sits in the corner and watches them all, wishing she could be part of it. She’s never been part of them, not really. She’s purposefully kept herself on the outside fringes and now it’s happening again, only this time, she’s trying not to. But it’s still happening all the same. 

 

After a bit, Lottie stands, drying her feet off and heading back to camp with some other dry blankets folded under her arm. No one greets her when she arrives and she ducks into the storage shed, setting the blankets down. 

 

A glint catches her eye and she notices the pocket knife they’d confiscated from her (and then from Jackie) sitting next to a pile of unpeeled apples. She thinks about it for a moment. She thinks about how no one else seems concerned that they haven’t heard or felt anything from the Wilderness in a while, but she doesn’t pick it up. Instead, she slips it inside of one of the blankets and heads back out. 

 

The traps had yielded two rabbits, ones that don’t try and bite Jackie like Akilah’s evil ones because these are, well, dead. She carries both of them since Nat is shouldering the pack and resetting the traps, but she’s more than happy to leave them on the butcher’s table when they make it back to camp. 

 

Of course, the first thing she does is look for Lottie. She can’t help herself, really, seeking her out like a moth to a flame. 

 

Lottie is sat away from the others when she hears Jackie and Nat return. She looks up from her current project, patching up yet another hole in one of Gen’s socks, smiling warmly. “Why is your hair damp?” she asks.

 

“Nat pushed me when we were putting up nets. I could have drowned,” Jackie says dramatically, shooting Nat a wounded look.

 

Nat snorts, shaking her head but doesn’t respond and Lottie chuckles. “You poor thing,” she frowns dramatically, standing up and wrapping her arms around Jackie. “You’re safe now, I won't let the evil blonde try and drown you.”

 

“You guys are gross!” Nat shouts from around the corner.

 

“She’s so mean to me,” Jackie mumbles, sinking into Lottie’s arms. “And she told me I wouldn’t look good as a blonde.”

 

It’s nice to have Jackie back in her arms, Lottie thinks. It’s stupid that they’ve only been apart half a day and she’s missed her. “Don’t listen to her, she’s just jealous cause you’d look super hot,” Lottie teases and Nat’s eyeroll can be heard. 

 

“Oh my god, get a room,” Melissa calls from the other side of camp. “It’s literally right there.”

 

Jackie scoffs. “No one says anything when Van and Tai literally made a front porch to their hut just so they could sit out there and make out, but the moment I come back from almost dying and want to hug Lottie, suddenly all I fucking hear is complaining.”

 

“We literally make fun of them for it all the time,” Gen says drily as she and Van come back from hauling firewood.

 

Van makes a face but nods in agreement. She adds, “And you definitely say something. Every time. And remind us constantly that you could hear us in the attic all winter.”

 

“You guys were loud,” Jackie says, hugging Lottie and swaying a little. “Even I was aware of it, and I wasn’t aware of much for months.”

 

Lottie is content to just hold Jackie as they all bicker like this is normal. And it is, really. They’ve all grown accustomed to this. “You guys were pretty loud,” Lottie says to Van.

 

“At least we didn’t make everyone watch us cuddle,” Tai says, finally stepping in to defend her girlfriend and their relationship. Van nods eagerly. 

 

“Oh, please,” Mari pipes up, “the second you two came out as a couple, you were just as gross at first. Like, the rope thing? Gross.”

 

“And kinky. Nobody needs to see all that,” Jackie agrees, grinning. 

 

It’s quickly wiped off her face and replaced with a blush when Tai points out, “Jackie, you and Lottie are both covered in hickeys. You know that, right? It’d be really concerning if you didn’t know that.”

 

Lottie tries to suppress her laugh but it doesn’t work. “I think they look good on her,” she says, leaning back as if examining Jackie, and all the marks she’s left behind on her, “don’t you think?”

 

“No, I don’t,” Melissa says as she makes a disgusted face, “I don’t think.”

 

“Yeah, we know you don’t, Mel,” Van snorts, and the others laugh while the joke goes over poor Melissa’s head.

 

“What? What?” she asks, looking around. When Gen leans over and whispers into her ear what she means, Melissa frowns. “Hey! I think! I think a lot!”

 

“Sure you do bud,” Tai grins. “We believe you.” 

 

“You do a great job thinking, Mel,” Jackie says, grinning up at Lottie. She stands on her toes and murmurs. “For the record, I think they look good on me, too. I like that they match the ones on you.”

 

“God, okay, you two are definitely trying to win in the grossest, mushiest category of the lesbian olympics,” Mari says, rolling her eyes. 

 

Van sighs wistfully. “I miss prude Jackie. She’d never treat me like this.”

 

Lottie grins, unable to help herself. “We’re never bringing straight or prude Jackie back,” she says to Van, “I happen to like this Jackie.”

 

Gen snorts. “Of course you do, she leaves bite marks on you like you’re a chew toy.” 

 

“I’m sure Mel would do that for you if you asked nicely, Gen,” Lottie offers and watches as both Gen and Melissa turn bright red.

 

“Eww! No!” Gen stands up and moves away from Melissa, but there’s no real disgust behind her words, everyone can tell.

 

Jackie wonders when Melissa is going to use that brain of hers to figure out that the crush she has on Gen is completely mutual. With Melissa’s track record, though, it might take awhile. It’s not her fault; Mel has a habit of getting hit in the head with soccer balls. 

 

“Look, I’m all for lesbian Jackie. So, so proud of lesbian Jackie,” Van says. “But she was a lot more fun when she wasn’t groping you in public.”

 

“There’s no groping!” Jackie says, feeling her blush darken and spread.

 

Van grins. “Aw. There she is.”

 

“I bet if you asked, Tai would grope you in public, Van,” Lottie offers, and Tai shoots her a glare.

 

“Leave me out of this,” Tai says, pointing to the two of them. “I will not be groping anyone in public.”

 

Lottie just shrugs. “You always were pretty grabby on the field, though, Tai.”

 

“That was different and you know it!” Tai snaps. Lottie laughs.

 

“Sure it was.”

 

“Screw you guys,” Tai says, then, standing up and heading into her hut.

 

“So she can dish it but not take it, huh?” Mari snorts and Akilah smacks her lightly. 

 

“You guys are all so mean,” Akilah says, standing, “I’m going to sit with Mortimer. He’s much nicer and is better at conversation.” 

 

Jackie buries her face in Lottie’s neck, giggling. She pulls away enough to ask, “I bet he is, even if he does have lady troubles.” 

 

Lottie smiles, brushing her lips against Jackie’s cheek. “Oh definitely,” she says, and before any more of them can groan and complain about their PDA, she takes Jackie’s hand and leads her back towards their hut. “We’re going! We’re going.” 

 

Jackie doesn’t even care about the giggles that follow after them as they make it to their hut, only worried about wrapping her arms around Lottie’s neck and pulling herself in close, pressing their lips together. “I missed you,” she mumbles. 

 

“It was only like half a day,” Lottie murmurs against Jackie’s lips, “but I missed you, too.” Her arms tighten around Jackie’s back and she pulls her flush to her own body. “Did you have a good day?”

 

“I know,” Jackie bemoans. “Too long.” She sighs, pulling away enough to speak. “It was fine. We laid nets and checked traps. Nat asked me to be her… second in command, I guess? She wants me to help her out and be a team captain again. How was your day?”

 

“Did you say you would?” Lottie asks, eager. She thinks it’ll be good for Jackie, she wants her to feel like she matters to someone other than Lottie. Because she does. She matters so much to all of them. 

 

“Boring,” Lottie answers, then. “There were only a few herbs ready to be picked so I did that and hung them up to dry and watered the rest. Everyone was…busy after so I just kinda hung out at the river.” 

 

“Yeah, I… I said I would,” Jackie says, offering Lottie a small smile at her eagerness for Jackie to accept. Maybe it’ll be a good thing. Maybe it won’t really be much of a change at all. She leans up on her toes again, moving to press their lips back together. Frowning softly at the thought of Lottie being alone for most of the day, she murmurs, “I don’t think anyone would mind if you’d joined them, even if they were busy.”

 

“Good! I-- good. I think it’ll be good, for both of you,” Lottie replies, kissing Jackie back. She moves them over to their bedding so they can sit, still holding onto her as she sinks down. She shrugs, glances away. “It was fine. I don’t mind being alone.” Truthfully, she didn’t know if she did. She’d just been alone most of her life so it felt normal. She was used to it. 

 

Jackie settles in Lottie’s lap, brushing her hand through dark, thick hair, still frowning slightly. She doesn’t think that Lottie means to be dishonest, but she has tells, when she’s not sure about something, or when she’s not saying the whole of something. “But you don’t, you know, have to be. In fact, it’s probably better not to be alone out here, for anybody. Not for long.”

 

Lottie’s head moves into Jackie’s touch like it’s magnetized to it. She loves the feeling of it, thin, gentle fingers brushing through her hair like it’s delicate or something precious. Like she’s something precious. “I know I don’t,” she says right away, and she does know that, but it doesn’t change the fact that the others still look at her differently. She doesn’t blame them, though. How could she? “It’s fine, really,” she says again, giving a crooked smile, “I’m used to it.”

 

“But do you… like it?” Jackie asks. “Being alone?”

 

“I-- I don’t mind it,” Lottie answers. She doesn’t, really. She doesn’t. 

 

Jackie brushes her fingers through Lottie’s hair again. “That wasn’t the question,” she murmurs.

 

Lottie closes her eyes against the feel of Jackie’s hands in her hair. She doesn’t want to answer. She thinks her answer is fine. “I have you,” she says instead.

 

“And I’d love to be with you all the time, everyday,” Jackie tells her. It’s ridiculous how much those words make her feel warm. She just wants to be someone’s person, completely. She’s Lottie’s person, completely. Still. She thinks she’s supposed to add, “But you can’t just have me. Right?”

 

“That would be the dream,” Lottie sighs, leaning into Jackie. She puts her face into her neck, keeping her eyes closed. She doesn’t look up as she mumbles, “it’s not like I can make someone care. I…don’t want to.”

 

“They do, though. Care about you,” Jackie says quietly. “We all fucking care about each other. Even Misty fucking Quigley. We can’t… we can’t help it, anymore.” After everything they’d been through, Jackie doesn’t think that they have much of a choice to care about each other. And Lottie… maybe no one really knows what to do with her, now, after the winter and the wilderness and the worship, but that isn’t her fault. And with the way that Lottie had always been… Jackie wraps her arms around Lottie. “You’ve… always stuck to the outside of things, never really let yourself be a part of it all. God, I remember trying to get you to be my co-captain was like pulling teeth.”

 

“I just mean…” Lottie starts, stops. “I don’t think they really want to be close to me. And-- and that’s okay.” She wasn’t going to force herself into someone else’s life, not when she’d spent her entire life trying to stay out of them. It was better this way. She didn’t think any of them really wanted to hear what she had to say about the Wilderness and she also didn’t really want to hear them tell her it’s not real or it’s not like that. She doesn’t need more people telling her she’s crazy, especially after they all used to look at her like she was something untouchable and holy, and now they looked at like she was something untouchable and broken. 

 

And maybe she was broken, but she didn’t know how to fix that. She didn’t know if she could. 

 

She rests her head on Jackie’s shoulder. “I still think Tai would’ve made a better co-captain.”

 

“Then they’re idiots,” Jackie says, frowning. “They just don’t… know you.” Because Lottie is so wonderful to know. Jackie thinks she’s incredible. She’s smart and silly and a little weird, but it’s endearing, and she’s perfect. If someone told her that Lottie hung the moon, Jackie would believe them. “If they knew you, everyone would be fighting me for your attention. I’d never get to see you.”

 

Her lips press against Lottie’s hair. “Well, you’re wrong. You were perfect. We were fucking undefeated.”

 

“They’re not,” Lottie counters, “it’s my fault, really.” Because like Jackie had said, Lottie never involved herself in things. She purposefully stayed away from everyone, purposefully held herself back and out of their lives. It wasn’t anything they did. She laughs, low and quiet. “It seems like now that they do know me, no one wants to be around me.” She scared them, she was off-putting and weird. She knew that. 

 

“I don’t think we were undefeated because I was co-captain,” she mutters, but it’s nice to know Jackie had that confidence in her. 

 

“I think they are, and you can’t change my mind, Lott,” Jackie says. Gently, she takes Lottie’s jaw in her hands, smushing her cheeks as she makes her look at her. Jackie smiles at her. “They don’t know you because it’s kind of impossible to be scared of you. You’re too sweet.” Her hand trails down to Lottie’s shoulder, pushing until she lays back on their bedding. “I mean, obviously it was a combined effort. Me being captain, you being co-captain, the entire team being an ass kicking machine.”

 

“I don’t think anyone would like knowing you think they’re idiots,” Lottie teases, furrowing her brow as Jackie presses her cheeks between her palms. “I can be mean, you know,” she protests, but she doesn’t like being mean, even to Mari, and they both know that. There’s no resistance as Jackie leans her back until she’s laying down. Lottie looks up at her with a warm glow. “We were a pretty kick ass team.”

 

Jackie hums. “I’m sure they’ve thought worse about me.” She grins down at Lottie. “You can be, but you rarely are. You’re kind of catty sometimes, though. Used to be a little gossipy. It’s cute,” she teases. She leans in, pressing their lips together softly. “We were the best in New Jersey. I bet we would have been the best in the country.”

 

“I did hear some of the JVs calling you bratty once,” Lottie jokes, returning Jackie’s smile. “Gossiping was fun.” What kind of teenage girl didn’t like gossiping? It was one of the easiest ways for Lottie to integrate herself, too. As long as they were talking about someone else, she didn’t have to worry about someone asking about her. “I think we had a pretty good shot,” she agrees. They were a relentless group of girls, after all-- it was part of why they were all still alive now, she thinks. They refused to go down without a fight.

 

“Did you defend my honor?” Jackie asks, raising an eyebrow. “Gossiping is, apparently, still fun, since I think we’re the subject of it for the entire village.” She leans in again, kissing Lottie’s lips, soft and sweet. Jackie knows how great Lottie is. She’s amazing. She just wishes that the others saw that. Maybe not to the same level; Lottie’s still hers. But she doesn’t like the thought of Lottie being lonely. “We would’ve won. It would’ve been great.”

 

“If by defend your honor you mean laugh a little bit and tell them they had no idea who they were dealing with, then yes, I totally defended your honor,” Lottie chuckles, giving an innocent grin. “Well, we’re the new, hot thing, of course they’re going to gossip about us. I don’t mind.” Especially when it meant she got things like this, like Jackie’s lips pressed against her, straddling her lap, inside their own, private hut. 

 

Lottie hums against Jackie’s lips. “I think we could have.” She really did think so and she thinks a lot of the reason they all work so well together is because of Jackie. She wraps her arms around her shoulders and pulls her down into her. “With you as our captain, I think we could have.”

 

Huffing, Jackie shakes her head. “I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing to say to them,” she mutters. She softens. “I don’t think I mind, either.” It’s not like people didn’t used to talk about her and Jeff, their sex life, the lack thereof. It’s a little weird that it’s with Lottie, now. Lottie, who was her friend, who’s now her girlfriend, who knows her better, in every way, than anyone else, now. It’s strange. It’s a good kind of strange.

 

“I just… directed things. I didn’t even really do that,” Jackie says. She leans in, her hands on either side of Lottie’s head, her fingers playing with Lottie’s hair again. “A couple of pep talks, a few words of encouragement during a close game, knowing the plays. It could’ve been anyone.”

 

“It made them respect you, didn't it?” Lottie points out. She can't keep the smile off her face. “I kinda like it. It's nice to have someone that people can tease me about.” It was just nice to have someone, really. It was truly amazing. 

 

Lottie shakes her head, reaching up to brush her knuckles along Jackie's cheek. “None of us knows the team the way you do. The way you know who works well with who, the way you know who's best at what. You care about each and every one of us, you remember silly details like our favorite sodas or chips. You know all our birthdays. No one else can do that.”

 

Lottie’s smile just makes Jackie want to kiss her, so that’s exactly what she does. It is nice to have someone that people can tease her about. It makes her feel warm because it’s all fun, and she actually loves Lottie. It doesn’t make her uncomfortable. It just makes her blush. She softens at Lotte’s touch and leans in to press her face against Lottie’s neck, resting on top of her. “Anybody could do all of that,” she mumbles. “I just took notes until I remembered it all.”

 

“True, anyone could if they wanted to,” Lottie starts off, letting her fingers drift up and down Jackie's back, “but not a lot if people would. You cared enough to. It's why we all liked you. You cared.” And even if it was fake -- which Lottie didn't think it was-- that was more than most people were willing to do. 

 

She turns her head enough to press her lips to the side of Jackie's head. “It's certainly why I liked you so much.”

 

“I just– I just did what I thought was right,” Jackie says quietly. She just wanted everything to be right. So she learned as many of the little details about them as she could. Maybe not enough of the big details, the more important ones. She learned the surface level shit, and that’s what she gave all them. She let them know her order at McDonald’s and didn’t let them understand just how carefully she thought about each bite. She let them know her favorite shade of pink, not telling anyone how carefully she labored colors to find the shade that she thought fit who she should be as a person. She let everyone see just enough, and, now that she’s been stripped bare out here, she still doesn’t know what to do with this person that she is, that she’s still becoming. She leans up to look at Lottie, smiling softly. “Yeah?”

 

“Don't downplay it,” Lottie says, “you cared. That means a lot.” It was much more than Lottie could say for most other people in her life. Maybe to Jackie it was just surface level things, but no one had ever asked Lottie what her favorite flavor of birthday cake was, or her favorite movie, or what she liked to do on the weekends. They didn't ask because she didn't want them to. She made sure of that. Most people looked at her and just assumed she was a pretentious, rich girl who thought she was better than them, and she was okay with them thinking that. 

 

But there were a few people who saw through her facade, at least enough to reach out to her through it. Jackie was one of them. “Yeah,” she breathes, smiling at her, eyes full of hazy love, “you made me feel…seen.”

 

Jackie swallows a tight lump of feeling in her throat. It meant a lot. It didn’t matter. They all still turned on her, and now they didn’t see her the same. Jackie isn’t Jackie Taylor, not really, not anymore. She’s not some fearless leader. When the going got tough, she couldn’t fucking handle it. They all watched her fall from grace. Hell, they helped it happen. And now Nat wants to be back in that position. Jackie wonders how long she’ll last before they pick apart new flaws. 

 

Still, she cannot help the soft, love struck look she gives Lottie in return. “How could I not see you?” she breathes. Even if she hadn’t seen Lottie enough. Even if she should have seen her more. “You’re so, so tall.”

 

Lottie can see the look of worry in Jackie's eyes, but she doesn't say anything about it. If Jackie wants to talk to her about it, she will. Lottie won't force her to say anything. She brushes her fingers through Jackie's hair, then back down her spine. “I know, I really stand out in a crowd, it's the worst,” she smirks back.

 

“It’s kind of hot, really,” Jackie says, smiling down at Lottie. “And, I mean, it’s kind of great that I’ll never lose you in a crowded place.”

 

“So if I wasn't tall, I wouldn't be hot?” Lottie teases, twirling a strand of Jackie's hair around her index finger. “What crowded place are you expecting to go to? There's a few of us out here but I wouldn't call it a crowd. And I'm certainly not taller than the trees.”

 

“No, you’d still be hot. I might not have to stretch so much to kiss you when we’re standing, though.” Jackie punctuates the statement with a kiss before leaning into Lottie’s touch, liking the way Lottie plays with her hair. “Hm. I don’t know. I mean, when we’re all gathered together, there’s no losing you, even if you’re in the back. And you’re taller than some trees!”

 

“So is me being tall a good thing or a bad thing?” Lottie asks. “I'm getting conflicting reports here.” The kiss is sweet and soft and Lottie licks her lips when Jackie pulls away, staring up at her brightly. “Well yeah, I'm somehow the tallest person here. I think it makes Travis self conscious that I'm taller than him.” She puts a hand above her head, as if measuring her height. “Yeah, like, baby trees maybe.”

 

“I’m…” Jackie tries to think of the word, “ambivalent.” She licks her lips. “Though, it really is hot. You’d still be hot, but I kind of like how tall you are.” It makes her feel safe and a little smothered in Lottie’s arms, and she likes feeling covered by her so completely. “Oh, come on, he can’t be that self-conscious. You’re not that much taller than him. Though you are taller than baby trees.”

 

“Big word,” Lottie says back. She unfurls the stand of hair from around her finger, but with how light Jackie's hair is, the curl doesn't hold, unlike how Lottie's own would. “That's good because I don't think I can shrink myself, we don't have the technology yet.” It was nice to just fall back into this routine with Jackie. Lottie didn't mind being alone all day as long as she got this at the end of it all. “He never stands next to me, even though we're both always in the back of group meetings.” 

 

Or maybe it was because he blamed Lottie for Javi’s death-- after all, they'd only agreed to the card draw to try and save her. She wouldn't blame him if he did hate her.

 

“I know a couple of big words. I’ll have you know that I almost graduated high school,” Jackie says primly. “Circumstances have delayed my graduation, though, completely out of my control.” She presses her ear into Lottie’s touch. “I think you’re supposed to shrink as you get older, so maybe you’ll be as short as me by the time your hair turns gray,” she jokes, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s nose. “He never really stands next to anyone. He’s been… pretty distant since we built the village.”

 

“Wow, that's crazy, I was also just so close to graduating when something happened,” Lottie chuckles, “totally out of my control, too. What a coincidence.” Lottie flattens her hand against the side of Jackie's head, cradling it. It was just a joke and she knew it, but the idea of actually growing old with Jackie makes Lottie's heart stutter. “But won't you shrink, too?” 

 

Lottie crinkles her brow, though, a worried look pulling onto her face. “I think I should try and talk to him,” she says, “he hasn't talked at all about what happened.”

 

Jackie laughs. “What a crazy coincidence, truly. I wonder if my circumstance and your circumstance match up.” She makes a face and shakes her head, though she doesn’t leave Lottie’s grasp. “Mm, nuh uh. Nope, see, my mom’s made me use cleansers and moisturizers and anti-wrinkle creams since I was, like, thirteen. I’m immune to whatever shrinkage comes with aging. Plus, it’d just be totally cruel to make me shrink.” Her mother used to moan about getting older, about her wrinkles or finding a gray hair or just the fact that she was becoming middle aged, but Jackie thinks that getting older can’t be that bad when you’re doing it with someone you’re crazy about. It would be nice, to get older with Lottie.

 

“Do you think you can help him?” Jackie asks.

 

“It could be,” Lottie says, moving her hand when Jackie makes a face. “We’ll have to try and figure that out sometime.” She tilts her head, raises a brow. “Is that so? Damn, maybe I should have listened to my mom when she said my skin would get ugly if I didn’t take care of it.” Then again, her mother also said those things while on her way to a tanning salon and Lottie was pretty sure those things were worse for you than not moisturizing. 

 

At that, Lottie shrugs. “Maybe? I mean…I’d like to try. I’m not an expert, but my shrink talked a lot to me about grief and stuff.”

 

“Your skin could never get ugly,” Jackie says immediately. It just isn’t possible. Nothing about Lottie is ugly to her. Her skin is so soft and smooth, too, always warm to the touch, perfect to touch and kiss and taste. She feels hazy just thinking about it, almost overwhelmed at the thought that she can kiss Lottie whenever she wants, that Lottie’s under her and hers. She manages to clear up a little and bring herself back to their conversation. “That might be nice, talking to him. I’ve… thought about it. Because– because.” Because they’d both loved and lost and consumed someone, their most important someone, especially in this place. “I just didn’t know how.”

 

“You saw me in middle school, I was covered in pimples,” Lottie groans, “I was certainly ugly back then.” Ugly and lanky and awkward, all the things that would have made people bully her, had she not also been rich and cold and angry looking. Lottie had been so angry in middle school, even if she’d never acted on it. But after years of enduring treatment she didn’t comprehend, she’d finally been old enough to understand what was really happening to her. Eventually, it all just turned to resignation, and here she was now, crazy and off her meds, in the middle of the mountains.

 

“Yeah, it-- it’s hard,” Lottie admits. She curls her finger around the side of Jackie’s head, digging it back into her hair, pulling out a strand. “I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it, or for him to talk to but, I feel like I need to try, because…” Because it was her fault, no matter what anyone else said.

 

Jackie just shakes her head. “No, you were still cute, even if you were all pimply and covered in scrapes and bruises from your legs growing too quickly.” She’d never thought Lottie was ugly. Just sad, but she carried that sadness with her all of her life, and now Jackie knows why. All the money in the world couldn’t save Lottie from being sad. She looks happy now, at least, some of the time with Jackie. That almost makes it enough.

 

Brushing her hand over Lottie’s cheek, Jackie nods. “I think it’ll be good. You just want to help him, that’s all. But I… You didn’t kill Javi. You know that, right? You don’t– You were the only one who wasn’t a part of all of that.”

 

“You know, I had a crush on you in middle school,” Lottie says, smiling up at her. “You were so pretty already. I think I was kinda jealous, too.” And she’d certainly grown more jealous when they’d gotten into high school and suddenly the only people Jackie had time for, really, were Shauna and Jeff. She supposes that was when she’d started getting close to Natalie, and Van a little bit, too. Still, even with them, she was always the odd one out. They both had shitty, abusive parents with a home life to match, and they could bemoan their financial problems together, too. Lottie never spoke during those conversations because she didn’t have a right, too. Who cared if her parents were shitty, when she had a mansion she lived in and a penthouse in New York? What right did she have to complain?

 

Lottie reaches up and takes Jackie’s hand, squeezing. “The only reason you all did that was because of me.”

 

Jackie sits up, her eyes wide. “What? No way.” There’s no way that Lottie had a crush on her in middle school. That’s silly. She doesn’t know if she believes it. It’s such jarring information, coupled with the rest of their conversation, that it makes her head spin a little bit.

 

But the other part of their conversation is way more important, and Jackie squeezes Lottie’s hand back, bringing it to her lips. “But you didn’t ask anyone to. You– You wanted us to eat you, Lottie. You never would have agreed to the… the hunt if you knew about it. You’re not responsible. You’re not.”

 

“I mean, I didn’t know what it was at the time. I just thought I, like, really wanted to be your friend,” Lottie shrugs, “but when I look back on it, it’s kind of obvious.” Though she wonders if Jackie realizes Shauna also had a crush on her that far back, too. The moment Lottie had, she’d known she never stood a chance.

 

Lottie lets out a breath. “I just wanted…if I died, I didn’t want you all to have to die, too. To starve when there was…” Food. In the form of another one of their friends, but it would have been food all the same. She blinks heavily, eyes burning. “I made them all believe. I made them all…think they had to do that, to save me.” She’d never wanted to be saved. She still thinks they should’ve let her die, even if, now, she doesn’t want to die.

 

It’s bittersweet, knowing that Lottie had liked Jackie even that far back. Jackie doesn’t know if it would have made much difference. There’s no way she would have acted on it for a variety of reasons. The sting of a slap across her mouth, the knowledge of what society thought about people who had feelings like that, the look in another pair of soft brown eyes. She has Lottie now, though. “Aw, you wanted to be my friend. Like we’re friends right now, huh?” Still. Things could have been different. Maybe not, but they could have. 

 

“You didn’t make anyone do anything, Lottie. Fuck. You didn’t make them do or think or feel anything they didn’t want to do.” Jackie doesn’t know how to convince Lottie of that. She knows, though, that, if Lottie had died, she would have, too. She would have given up. There wouldn’t have been any more of a point in suffering through all this.

 

Lottie can feel her cheeks growing warm and she glances away in embarrassment. “I’m never telling you anything ever again,” she mumbles, but it’s a lie and they both know it. Lottie wants to tell Jackie everything, all the time, even the things that scare her, or the things she thinks might scare Jackie. And time after time, Jackie proved it didn’t matter to her and she stuck around. That was more than anyone else had ever done for Lottie.

 

She can’t look Jackie in the eyes for a different reason now. “No one would have had to make that decision if I’d just--” if she’d just been better, if she’d just actually been able to lead them and take care of them. “If I was just--” They’re such familiar words, Lottie thinks. Maybe, if she’d just been a better daughter, her parents would have loved her. Maybe, if she’d just been a better leader, the girls wouldn’t have all been starving to death. “No, I didn’t make anyone do anything. I just gave them no choice.”

 

Jackie peppers Lottie’s cheeks with kisses, knowing the lie for what it is when she hears it. Lottie likes telling her things; Jackie can see it on her face. And Jackie likes it when she learns something new, something wonderful, about Lottie. It makes her happy. It makes her feel loved. To have someone that wants to share things with her, that’s pretty wonderful. 

 

“What do you mean by that?” Jackie asks softly. “What do you mean that you didn’t give them any choice?” She wants Lottie to explain it to her. She wants to understand what she means because, from where Jackie sits, looking down at this beautiful, soft girl who won’t meet her eyes, she can’t possibly understand how Lottie is responsible for Javi’s death.

 

Despite everything else, Lottie smiles, hands circling Jackie’s waist, relaxing. It’s nice to know Jackie understands when she’s joking, that she doesn’t have to worry when she does tell her things. She likes telling her things. She likes when Jackie tells her things, too.

 

“I made them believe that I could, I don’t know, save us all,” Lottie says, shrugging, “that I could convince the Wilderness to help us. I-- I made you all believe that you needed me more than anyone else. If it was just about-- about starving, then I would’ve been included in the draw.”

 

“I do need you more than I need anyone else,” Jackie says. “But that doesn’t have to do with the Wilderness. And you never– Did you say you could save all of us? Did you say that you were the most important person out here?”

 

“It doesn’t matter if I did or didn’t, enough of them believed that I was, and I-- I let them all down,” Lottie argues weakly. And she’d felt so bad about letting them all down that she’d let Misty nearly beat her to death, and then after that, when they all kept trying to keep her life, she’d begged for death.

 

But, just like she’d done for Jackie all those months ago, Jackie wouldn’t let Lottie die. And now she was here today and she was happy about that, she was, but she was also filled with a grief and a guilt that she didn’t know how to process. And maybe helping Travis could help her, too. Maybe she just needed him to actually blame her.

 

“You can’t choose what people do or don’t believe in,” Jackie says. Lottie couldn’t make Nat drink the tea. Even now, Jackie’s not sure how much faith she puts in these gods of the wind and the dirt. Jackie just thinks Lottie wants to be responsible. She thinks Lottie wants to be blamed. “You can’t shoulder the weight of all of this, you know. Didn’t your shrink ever tell you anything like that?”

 

“I started this,” Lottie murmurs, not even sure where she remembers hearing the words, but she knows someone told them to her, somewhere in her scrambled mind, her scrambled days after the beating. Whatever it had turned into, whatever it had become, whatever it was now, Lottie had started it. She shakes her head. “He mostly talked to me about how I needed to take responsibility for my actions,” she shrugs. “And how to tell the difference between a hallucination and a real thing.”

 

“I don’t believe that,” Jackie tells her. She sighs and lays down, moving to press the right side of her head to Lottie’s chest, feeling her heartbeat. “Jesus, you and Nat are both such martyrs, trying to shoulder all the blame for something that’s just not your fault.”

 

Lottie doesn’t really know what to say to all that. Maybe that’s why her and Nat always got along so well, and why, when they didn’t, it was rough. She just wraps her arms tighter around Jackie and closes her eyes. Lottie thinks that it’s definitely not Natalie’s fault-- she wouldn’t have been running for her life if they’d never held the hunt. And they never would’ve held the hunt had they not been trying to save Lottie. 

 

“Someone has to,” she mumbles eventually. And she’d do it, because Natalie certainly didn’t need to, and because no one else was going to, either.

 

“It doesn’t have to be alone,” Jackie whispers. “You don’t have to do things alone anymore.”

 

No, there was no way Lottie was ever going to let Jackie try and shoulder any of this blame. She already thinks Shauna’s death is her fault, Lottie won’t do that to her. She just shakes her head. “I know,” she whispers back, “I have you now.”

 

“You have me now,” Jackie agrees. “I love you.”

 

“Then that’s all that matters,” Lottie says quietly, turning her head to press another kiss to her temple. “I love you, too.” She loves her so much, Lottie had never known she could love someone this much. She wants so badly to protect Jackie, to do right by her, but she has no idea how to do any of that. Still, she’s trying. 

 

It’s hard to go back when the conversation got so heavy, and, for once, Jackie doesn’t try to make jokes to lighten it. She’s okay with sitting in this. She’s okay with holding Lottie closer, with burrowing herself into her. For just a moment, it’s enough to just have each other. 

 

They stay like that for some time before Lottie hears some of the others begin to start getting ready for dinner, including Melissa whining loudly about how no one else has to worry about getting blood all over their hands and Van telling Melissa she’s totally cool with trading if she wants to chop wood all day, to which Melissa decides her job is actually pretty okay.

 

Lottie doesn’t move quite yet, still wrapped up in Jackie, but she does sigh into her hair and kiss the side of her head. “Do you want to go help or just stay in here?” she asks her.

 

“We should probably go help, right?” Jackie mumbles, but she doesn’t try to move, either, instead pressing her face further into the side of Lottie’s neck.

 

“Probably,” Lottie mutters back, but her arms tighten around Jackie and she presses her nose into her hair, enjoying the way it tickles her face. “Or we can just stay here a little longer.” She kind of just wants to stay here for a little longer.

 

“I’ve been walking around so much all day. We should definitely just stay here a little longer,” Jackie says, feeling like she’s boneless as she lays on top of Lottie.

 

Lottie chuckles, burrowing into her girlfriend more. Because Jackie is her girlfriend and she gets to keep her and that’s still such an amazing and shocking thing to remember. “You poor thing, you must be so exhausted,” she says, petting a hand through Jackie’s hair.

 

Jackie nods, and it’s so easy to pout and sigh. “So exhausted. I had to put up nets and check traps and carry two dead rabbits back. So much work. Too much, really. My skin is so sensitive. It’s the lack of moisturizer out here.” 

 

“Oh my god, two dead rabbits?” Lottie gasps, squeezing her tightly and rocking back and forth. “My poor baby.” She presses kisses to her head, moving enough to pepper a few along her forehead. “How can I help?”

 

Wiggling in Lottie’s arms, Jackie propers herself up, smiling down at her. “You could… check me over? I could have stepped in some poison ivy or gotten bit by bugs. I might need you to make sure.”

 

“Oh yeah? That would be so terrible,” Lottie grins, hands trailing over Jackie’s back to her sides, fingers sliding just under the hem of her shirt. It’s easy to simply grab Jackie’s hips and flip them over, she’s so light in Lottie’s arms. “Where should I start?”

 

“My lips?” Jackie asks innocently, looking up at Lottie with wide eyes.

 

“Good idea,” Lottie murmurs as she leans down, pressing a sweet, gentle kiss to her lips. “Hmmm,” she hums, “I think I need to check again.” She kisses Jackie again, deeper this time, taking the time to taste her lips, so sweet and still slightly metallic.

 

“You should…” Jackie trails off as their lips press together, sighing into the kiss. Her arms wrap around Lottie’s neck, dragging her close. “You should definitely keep checking.”

 

“Your wish is my command,” Lottie breathes, kissing Jackie again, and again. Really, she doesn’t want to ever stop kissing her. Pulling herself away once they get started is always so hard. She knows this but she doesn’t care, letting her tongue prod at Jackie’s lips. 

 

It’s all too easy for Jackie to just let Lottie in, to let her deepen the kiss. Her lips part, and she eagerly meets Lottie’s tongue with her own. Jackie’s always been good at kissing; it’s been a thing that let her have distance, something that she could practice with and perfect. She liked practicing, too, liked the excuse to kiss Shauna. But kissing Lottie is on a whole new level. It’s addictive.

 

Lottie doesn’t waste any time tasting Jackie, licking into her mouth, tongue pressing against tongue. It’s the best taste in the entire world, one of her favorite flavors. She hasn’t kissed as many people as others might assume, or maybe she’s kissed more than they think, but nothing and no one is like kissing Jackie. It’s better than any drug she’s ever had. 

 

Jackie moans into the kiss, tangling her fingers into Lottie’s hair and tugging. She nips at Lottie’s lips, tastes her tongue, only pulls away when both of them are panting and need desperately to breathe. She looks up at Lottie with dilated pupils and kiss-swollen lips.

 

God, Jackie is so beautiful. Lottie thinks there’s no one more beautiful than Jackie in the entire world, there can’t be, not when she’s looking up at Lottie like that, with heady eyes and plush lips. She’s leaning down again before she’s even caught her breath, but kissing Jackie feels more important than air. 

 

Of course, then, they’re interrupted by Mari’s voice calling over to them. “Lottie quit macking on your girlfriend and come show me which of these leaves I can use!”

 

Groaning, Jackie flops back on the bedding, closing her eyes. “No fucking way,” she mutters. “There’s no fucking way she’s asking about leaves.”

 

Lottie can’t help but laugh, resting her forehead against Jackie’s chest. “She’s definitely doing it on purpose,” she chuckles. “C’mon,” she says, then, leaning back and holding her hands out to Jackie, “we can continue this later.”

 

Jackie lets Lottie help her up, sighing loudly. “Fine. Fine. I guess, but you didn’t get that far. I think you’ve got a few more places to check.”

 

The smile on Lottie’s face just grows and she leans in to press one last kiss to Jackie’s cheek. “I promise I’ll finish checking overy you later, and I’ll make sure to be very thorough,” she whispers into her ear before pulling away and leading them out to the firepit. 

 

“You better,” Jackie says, grinning as she lets Lottie pull her to the group. “So,” she starts raising an eyebrow at Mari. “Leaves?”

 

Mari has a spread of herbs out in front of her and she gestures to them. “Leaves.” 

 

Lottie rolls her eyes and comes over, bending down. “They’re not leaves, Mari, they’re herbs.”

 

Mari simply nods. “Yeah, like I said, leaves.”

 

Ignoring her and pointing, Lottie says, “those are for medicinal purposes, so I probably wouldn’t want to put those in the food. Those might be good, though. It’s yarrow, so there’s at least some good nutrition in it.” 

 

“We’re letting you cook and you don’t even know which herbs you’re using,” Jackie says, whistling lowly. “Maybe we need to invest in a new cook, Mari.”

 

“As long as it’s not you, Taylor. Your mom’s cooking scared the shit out of me,” Mari replies.

 

Van, who’s adding little braids to Melissa’s hair, shivers. “You don’t know. You don’t know, Mar.”

 

Lottie snorts. “Her quiches broke the Geneva convention.”

 

Even Tai laughs at that. “Don’t tell her that to her face, Lott, she’ll never approve of you then.”

 

“But she’s so rich. I’m sure that’d win some points,” Jackie says, rolling her eyes. There’s much bigger problems with dating Lottie than her not liking her mom’s cooking. “Besides, she’s not wrong. Mari’s cooking really is gourmet in comparison, if I’m being honest.”

 

Tai puts her hands up. “You said it, not me.” 

 

Lottie is pleased, grinning. “Awww, your mom would like that I’m super rich? How sweet.”

 

“Oh, yeah, she’s so great like that,” Jackie says, scoffing. She’s sure her mom would love her being friends with Lottie, as long as she doesn’t find out about Lottie’s illness, but dating her? Even the Matthews’ money couldn’t make that okay, Jackie doesn’t think. It’s nice to dream, though. 

 

“I think the really important thing here is that Jackie said that my food is gourmet,” Mari says, “so nobody can give me shit about not knowing leaves.”

 

Jackie shoots Mari a pitying look. “I said in comparison. It’s still not saying much, Mari, sorry.”

 

Really, Lottie’s never considered what either of her parents would think about someone she brought home. She figured it would just never matter because she never would. Now, well…she still probably wouldn’t. It wasn’t like they were getting out of here anytime soon. 

 

“It’s all relative,” Gen butts in and Mari just huffs again, rolling her eyes.

 

“Hey, you know, if any of you losers wanna see if you can do it better, be my guest!” She motions dramatically to the pot. “Except Misty.”

 

Lottie doesn’t say anything, just gathers up the herbs that need to be put back by the garden and sprinkles the rest into the pot. “You’re doing great, Mar,” she tells her with a sympathetic tone, one that could border on teasing, “I’m sure everyone agrees.”

 

Jackie nods and gives Mari a thumbs up. “You’re doing so great.”

 

“I mean, I could really go for a cheeseburger, but I guess it’s fine,” Van jokes.

 

Mari rolls her eyes again, but goes about her cooking, ignoring them all. She’d always been good at that, Lottie thinks. 

 

“We’ve got goats now,” Melissa says, “don’t they make milk? Is goat cheese a thing?”

 

“We’re not milking Beatrice,” Akilah snaps, frowning. 

 

“Then what do we have goats for?” 

 

“Not milking, apparently,” Van states, which causes the others to snicker. Akilah rolls her eyes. 

 

“She’s a baby, we can’t milk her until she’s older.”

 

“So…we are going to milk her?”

 

“Oh my god,” Gen groans, shaking her head and smacking Melissa’s hat off her head. “You’re so stupid.”

 

Mel fumbles for her hat, grabbing it and shoving it back on her head quickly. “I was just asking!”

 

Lottie smiles, taking her seat and watching them all tease each other. They really feel like a family to her, more so than any “family” she’d had back in Wiskayok. She thinks she’d do anything to protect them all, even if they didn’t really like her that much anymore. It didn’t matter to Lottie, she loved them all and she always would.

 

Jackie spends far too long being hung up on Melissa wondering if goat cheese is a thing, but she doesn’t say anything. Mostly because she just can’t process someone knowing that goat cheese isn’t a thing. Does Melissa think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows? She almost asks, but she sees Lottie, and she sees how content she looks watching them all. It makes Jackie soften, unable to keep the soft smile off her face. 

 

Choosing to sit beside Lottie instead of at her feet, she wraps her hands around Lottie’s arm and lays her head on her shoulder, watching the rest of them bicker as Mari cooks.

 

Lottie is all too happy to lean into Jackie and lay her own head against Jackie’s as they watch the others. It’s kind of unreal, how nice she feels like this, watching her friends laugh and bicker and goof around, while being held by the girl she loves. A girl she never thought would ever love her let alone would ever want her. She’d stopped questioning it, though, because she didn’t want it to go away. Even if it was a dream, it was hers.

 

After a while, Nat comes and joins the rest of them while they wait for the food to finish, but Misty is still nowhere to be seen and Lottie can’t help the sad feeling she gets, knowing how lonely the other girl must be. But there’s still that sense of anger inside of her, the one that feels like lava in her veins and makes her see red. 

 

So she doesn’t go looking for her and holds Jackie instead, watching the shadows grow longer as the sun dips lower. 

 

“Do you think that one of the ducks would make good chicken nuggets?” Melissa asks.

 

Jackie snorts, wondering if Mel’s still stuck on goat cheese.

 

“That wouldn’t be chicken nuggets, dumbass,” Gen says, sighing and looking like she wants to knock Mel’s hat off again. 

 

Melissa, for her part, holds her hat on her head as she says, “Duck nuggets?”

 

Van laughs. “Duck nugs.”

 

Akilah looks appalled. “We are not making duck nuggets. Not out of Mortimer!” 

 

“Maybe whichever lady doesn’t win his heart, though,” Jackie teases.

 

Akilah shoots Jackie a teary-eyed look. “No! We’re not making duck nuggets out of any of them! They’re egg ducks only!”

 

Lottie nudges Jackie. “Hear that? They’re eggs only.”

 

Melissa groans. “Man, I would kill for a chicken nugget, though. Just one. Just one little chicken nugget.”

 

“But only if it’s shaped like a dinosaur, right?” Gen says flatly.

 

“Hey! I told you that in confidence!” Melissa pouts.

 

“What’s the point of eating chicken nuggets without ketchup, anyway?” Nat cuts in.

 

“Good point,” Van says, nodding. “Or barbeque sauce.” 

 

“I can try and make rabbit nuggets, I guess,” Mari finally speaks back up, pushing the meat in the pan around, “but we don’t have any breading. We’d need flour for that, I think.”

 

“Corn starch, actually,” Lottie says and a few of them turn to look at her.

 

“You know how to cook?” Melissa asks and Lottie makes a face.

 

“Yes, I do.”

 

“Don’t you have, like, a butler that does that for you?” Van questions and Lottie sighs.

 

“I don’t have a butler. We had a maid, there’s a big difference.”

 

“Oh, yeah, sure, totally. Of course we all know the difference between our butler and our maid, cause we all totally have those,” Mari says sarcastically and Lottie just frowns.

 

Jackie wraps her arms around Lottie and rocks her. “Apparently, Lottie’s a great cook. She told me all about it. A real chef when it comes to making cereal. And mac and cheese.”

 

Tai sighs softly. “I’d really love some mac and cheese.” There’s a few groans of agreement.

 

“I mean, for the nuggets, do you even need flour or cornstarch or, I don’t know, bread crumbs? I mean, if you just cut the rabbit into little chunks, it’s automatically a nugget,” Jackie says.

 

“Are you the expert on nuggets now, Jax?” Natalie says with a wry grin.

 

Van snorts. “She’s an expert on something now, that’s for sure.”

 

“You hear that, Mel? Just cut the rabbit up into little chunks next time and we can have a nugget party,” Mari calls over to Melissa, who gives a salute.

 

“You guys are all idiots,” Tai grunts, rolling her eyes. 

 

Lottie settles more against Jackie, moving her arm to rest around her shoulders. She thinks she likes it better when they’re all talking about silly things like this, and when Lottie doesn’t try and participate. Somehow, it always comes back to either how rich her family is or how her and Jackie are fucking. Not that she minds, but sometimes, she just wants to have a normal conversation like this.

 

“I’m just saying!” Jackie says, throwing a hand up and huffing before she settles back into Lottie, pouting.

 

Nat snickers, “And we really appreciate your nugget knowledge.” 

 

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Mari says, “now that we’ve sorted out the leaves.”

 

“You’re like, the size of a nugget,” Lottie says to Jackie, pulling her into her side and smiling at her. “My cute, little Jackie nugget.”

 

“Uugh, don’t make us vomit before dinner, you two,” Gen groans, sticking her tongue out like she was about to be sick.

 

“Ain’t nothing gonna keep me from eating,” Van replies, “not even lesbians being gross. Actually, especially not lesbians being cute and gross.”

 

“Oh, ha ha, very funny,” Lottie snaps back, “next you’re gonna start supporting Mari’s lesbian olympics. Which wouldn’t be fair to Jackie, since she’s new to this and all.”

 

Jackie’s mouth gapes, indignant. “I’m not the size of a nugget,” she says, though any sort of bite to her words is quickly made irrelevant from the way she easily meshes into Lottie’s side. “I’m not the size of a nugget!”

 

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Nat teases. “Plus, you’re not fighting this super hard, Jackie.”

 

Van nods. “Maybe I should support the lesbian olympics. I mean, I’d get the gold, for sure, and Tai could get the silver, and, Lottie, you could get bronze, and Jackie can learn a few things, since she’s new to this and all,” she teases.

 

“Can people who aren’t full lesbians compete?” Lottie asks, raising a brow.

 

“You mean like bi chicks?” Nat asks.

 

“Or…other?” 

 

Van thinks on it a moment. “I would say yes, but then we’d all have to compete with Nat and I don’t think anyone wants that.”

 

“Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Nat balks.

 

“It means you’re probably really good at fucking girls,” Tai says flatly.

 

Mari is looking around, confused. “Nat likes girls?”

 

“How out of the loop are you, Mari?” Jackie asks, as if she didn’t also just find out about this not too long ago. “I thought you were super in the know.”

 

“Oh shut up, Jackie,” Mari says back, “you didn’t even know Shauna was gay.”

 

Jackie feels herself stiffen, all of the muscles in her body going rigid before she forces them to relax. “She liked guys well enough,” she mutters. Then, a little louder. “You shouldn’t– You shouldn’t talk about her when she can’t defend herself.”

 

Lottie can feel Jackie grow taught in her grip and she holds onto her jus a little tighter, glowering at Mari. “You’re one to talk, Mari, you didn’t even know Van was gay.”

 

Mari scrunches her brow. “Bi, gay, whatever. Same thing.”

 

“It’s very much not the same thing, Mar,” Nat says, shaking her head. “Ignore her, she has no idea what she’s talking about.”

 

Lottie watches both Van and Tai exchange a glance, as if wondering if they should speak up or say something.

 

“Maybe let’s not talk about that, Mari,” Tai finally says and Lottie is thankful for her. 

 

“Fine, whatever,” Mari relents, throwing her hands up, “dinner’s ready anyway.”

 

Jackie stands up to get their food, pressing a kiss to the side of Lottie’s head and grabbing two plates to wait to fill them.

 

“Would it have mattered?” Shauna asks, standing beside Jackie as she waits for her turn. “If you’d known that I liked girls?”

 

Jackie doesn’t really know whether or not Shauna likes girls. She’d never said. She watches Melissa fill her plate and immediately take a bite before spitting it out and complaining that it’s hot.

 

“Would you have broken up with Jeff to be with me? Would you have stopped beating yourself up about me, and your dreams, and the fact that you wanted me so bad that it made being with him unbearable?” Shauna whispers in her ear.

 

It’s gotten a lot easier to balance two plates at once, Jackie thinks, as she moves to fill both of them, adding a little more to Lottie’s plate than her own.

 

Shauna is standing in front of her when Jackie turns around, begging to be seen. “Would you have been able to love me, out loud, if you’d known? Or is this the only place you let yourself quit being such a coward, Jax?”

 

Jackie steps around her, bumping into Van. “Easy there, Jackie.”

 

“Sorry,” she says, “my, uh, equilibrium’s been off today.” Before she moves to sit back beside Lottie, handing her the plate Jackie’d gotten for her.

 

Lottie watches Jackie carefully, tilting her head as the girl runs into Van, muttering something before she makes it back to Lottie, who takes her plate gratefully. Once Jackie sits, Lottie leans over and whispers, “Everything okay?” so that only she can hear, not wanting to draw attention to her if she doesn’t want it.

 

Jackie presses a quick kiss to Lottie’s lips, savoring and feeling guilty for the easy affection. She gives Lottie a smile. “It’s fine. Maybe I am a little tired from all the walking today,” she admits.

 

Someone saying her name has summoned Shauna from wherever she goes when she’s not eating away at Jackie’s mind, and she’s not about to leave now, not when she only occupies half of Jackie’s thoughts. “If you’d loved me, I never would have slept with Jeff. I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. I’d still be here.”

 

Is that true? Jackie takes a bite of rabbit. It’s almost like chicken. Maybe rabbit nuggets could work out.

 

“Instead, you didn’t want me. But you want this. You want someone else. You moved on like I don’t even matter,” Shauna snarls. Her touch is cold when she puts her hand on Jackie’s knee, but it’s not solid, not real. She’s not real. “It took you months. I bet you wanted me gone. Get rid of the stupid sidekick. Poor Jackie, lost her friend, tried to kill herself, got a girlfriend. Maybe now you can be someone interesting.”

 

Lottie isn’t sure she quite believes Jackie, but she won’t press it out here. “Okay,” she says, smiling at her and hooking her arm back around Jackie’s shoulders before getting to work on her plate of food. She’s content to sit there with Jackie in silence, even as the others all continue to chatter, talking about food they missed, and then moving on to TV shows and movies, a conversation mostly led by Van.

 

She ends up telling the tale of another movie around the campfire as the sun finally disappears beyond the treeline and Lottie has only finished about half her plate by the time Van finishes her story. 

 

“What would we do without you, Van?” Gen says, leaned against the log they’d rolled over to act as a bench. Melissa sits beside her, picking at the leftover pieces of food on Gen’s plate.

 

“Um, die of boredom?” Van grins.

 

“Why are you ignoring me? What? Got enough of me when I was alive? You wanted to control everything about me: my hair, my clothes, my makeup, the boys I fucked, but now that you’ve got my undivided attention, you don’t want it, Jackie?” It feels like Shauna’s fingers are digging into Jackie’s chest, but it’s not real. It’s not real, and Jackie takes another bite of food. She’s barely eaten. 

 

Shauna continues, her voice laced with venom, “Now that you can’t kiss me and tell me it’s just for practice? Now that you can’t go running back to Jeff to feel safe? Are you gonna bury your head in Lottie’s arms so you don’t have to look at me?”

 

“I’m taking requests for tomorrow night,” Van says, “but only if those requests are for X Files episodes.” 

 

Mari groans. “Boo!”

 

“I think you should retell the Princess Bride!” Melissa says.

 

“That’s worse! Boo!” Mari throws a piece of rabbit at Melissa.

 

Jackie doesn’t bury her head in Lottie’s arms, but she wants to. She feels like she needs to. She feels ridiculous, just one mention of Shauna making her voice so loud that Jackie can barely think on her own.

 

Lottie feels her concern growing a little with how quiet Jackie is being and by how little she’s eaten. She doesn’t say anything yet, though, just brushing her hand gently through her hair while they listen to everyone argue. 

 

“How many times do we have to listen to Princess Bride anyway, Mel? We get it you have a crush on Princess Buttercup,” Gen groans.

 

“What, are you jealous?” Van smirks over at her. Tai elbows Van. “What? It’s a fair question.”

 

“No, I’m not jealous. Dumbass,” Gen says, flicking a piece of food at Van.

 

“Woah, hey, okay, guys let’s not waste too much food,” Nat interrupts. “I know we’ve got some stocked up but c’mon.”

 

Jackie finally manages to look up, seeing Shauna. Frozen, her eyelashes coated in snow. She puts a cold hand on Jackie’s cheek, a contrast to Lottie’s warm fingers in her hair. “You can love her. You can love all of them. But you’ll never be able to escape the fact that you loved me and you couldn’t say the fucking words.” 

 

Jackie closes her eyes and leans against Lottie. She can practically hear Shauna smiling. Not Shauna. Not real. “They’ll never forget, either, that you wanted me so bad you tried to die for it.”

 

“At least clean up your shit off the ground,” Jackie hears Nat say with exasperation. 

 

When Jackie opens her eyes again, Shauna’s looking at Lottie. “She’ll never forget that you’ll always love me more. Why are you holding onto her so tightly, Jax? She used to love this place, not you. Have you ever thought that maybe It wants her back?”

 

Jackie shivers. “I think… I think I want to go lie down,” she manages, her words soft and only for Lottie.

 

As soon as Jackie speaks, Lottie nods. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” she says, moving her arm gently and taking Jackie’s plate. She dumps the leftovers of both their plates back into the pot before setting them aside and coming back over to Jackie and helping her up.

 

“What, can’t wait to get away from us?” Mari says when she notices them leaving.

 

Lottie glances back at her. “I’m not feeling good,” she lies, not really wanting to put this on Jackie when she was trying so hard to stay in everyone’s good graces. Lottie didn’t mind them all scoffing at her.

 

“Sure, sure. Sleep well, then. Try not to make too much noise!” Mari calls after them as Lottie leads Jackie back into their hut.

 

Once inside, Lottie grabs one of their blankets and hangs it over the window so they have some more privacy before turning back to Jackie and putting a hand on her head. “Are you feeling bad?” she asks, unsure what’s wrong.

 

Shauna follows them all the way into the hut, but she’s not real, so Jackie doesn’t stop herself from moving closer to Lottie and sinking her hands into dark, thick hair as she kisses her deeply, needily. She wants Lottie close. She wants to see if Lottie can chase away the noise in her head, just like she’d done for Lottie. Maybe they’re both crazy. Wouldn’t that be a fucking mess?

 

It’s not exactly what Lottie is expecting, but she’s also not going to complain. Her arms wrap around Jackie’s waist and pull her into her body, pressing them together as she kisses her back just as needy. If this is what Jackie wants, if this is what she needs, then who is Lottie to deny her that? 

 

It’s like they’ve traded back and forth, who’s going to get haunted by a dead girl that night. The night before it was Lottie, and the night before that it was Jackie, so now it’s worked its way back to her. It’s so stupid that just one mention of Shauna makes her like this, makes Shauna so loud, and Jackie shivers in Lottie’s arms. Her eyes flicker over to where Shauna glares. She can’t help it. 

 

Lottie has been trying her best to learn what Jackie needs and wants without having to use too many words. She thinks she’s been doing okay with it, but there’s something strange and desperate about the way Jackie is kissing her, the way she shivers in her arms. She wants to keep kissing her, but Lottie is always second guessing herself and she watches Jackie’s eyes flick to the corner-- all Lottie sees is shadows. She pulls away, breathing heavy, looking down at her. “I…” she doesn’t know what to say, really. She thinks she needs to say something. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

No, no, Jackie isn’t sure. She’s not sure at all. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around Lottie and sinking into her. “I told you, once, that she– she haunts me, sometimes, but it’s not real. I know it’s not– But she’s– I’m sorry,” she says again. She should be able to talk about this with Lottie. If anyone understands, it would be Lottie. Jackie just doesn’t know what to do with this.

 

“I’m the least of your problems, Jackie,” Shauna says.

 

“Hey,” Lottie murmurs, tucking Jackie into her, “it’s okay. I know, it’s okay.” Lottie knows exactly how it feels, to see something no one else can, to hear stuff no one else does. Of course she knows, it’s been her entire life. She holds Jackie tightly. “It’s not real,” she tells her, “but it’s okay, you know? It’s okay. It doesn’t make you any different or-or bad. I promise.” She presses a kiss to the side of her head. “You don’t need to be sorry.” 

 

Slowly, Lottie moves them over to their bed, lets them sink down to the ground, still clinging to her. “I’ve got you,” she whispers to her, “I’m here.”

 

Jackie just doesn’t have a reason for being this way. She’s not sick in the way that Lottie is. She’s never seen things or heard things that seemed so real. Just Shauna. Just dead, dead Shauna, who wants all of her attention now that she lives in Jackie’s head. 

 

Shauna, who sneers and laughs, and she’s so mean, tonight. She’s not always this mean. “You’re only able to be with her like this because of me. Because I’m dead. If I was still alive, you wouldn’t be this brave.” 

 

It’s like hearing every insecurity she’s ever had being voiced by someone who used to be the most important person in her life, who would probably still be the most important person in her life if she hadn’t died. Jackie presses her face into Lottie’s neck and breathes her in. Solid, warm, real. Lottie is real and Shauna isn’t. That has to be what matters right now.

 

Lottie just holds Jackie, what else can she do? She can’t chase away the demons in her mind, and she can’t make the ghost of a dead girl go away either. She doesn’t think Jackie would want her to do that. She doesn’t think Jackie wants to stop seeing Shauna, anyway. She loves Shauna and she always will and Lottie wouldn’t want to change that or get in the way of that. Lottie just needs Jackie now, though. She needs her and she loves her and she’d do anything for her. 

 

She murmurs soft, sweet words to Jackie as she holds her. She tells her it’s okay and that it’s nothing to be sorry about or ashamed about. She tells her she loves her no matter what. She tells her she’ll always love her.

Notes:

PHEW that chapter had it all! Cute banter, gross PDA, Jackie being embarrassed by everything, and Shauna "leave room for jesus" Shipman! Thanks again for all the support, we actually don't eat real food we sustain ourselves off of kudos and comments (i'm kidding we love u guys regardless <3)

Chapter 28: it's safe inside your mouth

Summary:

After a comforting moment shared between two haunted girls, the mood doesn't stay low for long as Lottie makes sure Jackie's free of poison ivy and the like. It's okay, Jackie returns the favor. Pillowtalk is sweet and reminiscent as they think about the past and make promises to keep. Right?

Notes:

Mondays, Sundays, same days, right? I don't know if this is belated or on time, but we've got a hot new chapter for you guys, right off the presses!

Title comes from Jodi Picoult's Handle with Care. The full quote is, "When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth."

It’s enough, eventually. Shauna never really stays loud for long, or maybe Jackie’s fucked up brain can’t keep up the illusion for forever. It feels like forever, as finally the only words that Jackie hears are Lottie’s, soft and soothing and real. “I love you, too,” she murmurs. “I do. So much.”

 

“I know,” Lottie whispers to her, kissing the top of her head, running her fingers through her hair soothingly. “I know. I promise.” She knows, she knows because Jackie wouldn’t let her die, either. Because Jackie held onto Lottie as tightly as she had held onto Shauna. Even if she never loves her as much as she loved Shauna, Lottie is okay with that. She’ll love Jackie with everything she has and more. 

 

“It’s usually not so… loud,” Jackie admits, sinking into Lottie’s touch, the way that fingers play so sweetly with her hair. She doesn’t want to feel like this every time Shauna’s name gets brought up. She doesn’t want to be… hurt like this, haunted like this. It doesn’t feel fair. Jackie’s got enough problems without worrying about her mind playing tricks on her. Her head tilts up, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s jaw and tightening her hold on her. 

 

“Sometimes it just gets loud,” Lottie murmurs, “it’s nothing you did or didn’t do.” Lottie knows that all too well. Sometimes it just gets so loud she can’t ignore it. She can’t just put her hands over her ears and pretend it’s not real, that she can’t hear it. “It’ll pass,” she tells her, “I promise.”

 

Jackie laughs. “She’s so mean.” As mean as she was that last night. Worse, really, because she digs and she digs and she digs at every place that hurts. Shauna’s already quieter, though. Maybe Jackie’s just exhausted. 

 

Lottie holds onto Jackie tighter. She smooths her hands up and down her back. She gets that, too. How mean they can be. “It’s not real,” she reminds her softly, keeping her voice gentle. “This is real.” She tries to think about what Jackie says to her when she’s having trouble discerning the real from the not. “I’m real.” She pulls back and cups Jackie’s face between her palms. “You’re real.” The Shauna Jackie sees isn’t real.

 

“You’re real,” Jackie repeats, staring into Lottie’s eyes and seeing the universe. Lottie’s touch is warm, grounding, steady. She’s more real than anything else in Jackie’s life, and she’s all that Jackie wants. Her eyes glance in the corner, but there’s no one else in the room with them anymore. It’s just them, and this is real. 

 

Lottie follows Jackie’s gaze once again, but the hut is empty of ghosts. It’s just two girls who have a hard time forgetting the dead aren’t real. She leans in and presses another kiss to Jackie’s forehead before asking, “Do you want to lay down?”

 

Nodding, Jackie leans into Lottie, pressing her face against Lottie’s neck. She smells like the fire, like the garden, the smell of herbs and earth clinging still to her skin. She smells sweet, floral, and like something that is so inherently Lottie that it immediately draws Jackie just a little closer, her arms wrapped tight around Lottie’s middle.

 

With that, Lottie shifts them slowly, lowering them to lay against the soft bedding, pulling Jackie into her fully, keeping her locked in her embrace, arms circling around her back and shoulders. She envelopes her fully and holds her like she’s the most precious thing in the world-- because she is, to Lottie. She’s the most beautiful and wonderful and delicate thing Lottie has ever held and though she often fears she’ll break her, she holds her tight, now, ensuring that Jackie can feel safe like this, with her. 

 

Jackie likes laying in Lottie’s arms, being held by her, being close to her. All she’s ever wanted was to be close to someone. She’s glad it’s Lottie. No one hugs like Lottie. Jackie feels like she could just be completely covered in Lottie, and it’s exactly what she wants. It’s exactly what she needs. “Thank you,” she says, holding Lottie close. 

 

Lottie simply presses a kiss to Jackie’s head. “You don’t need to thank me,” she says back, hands still soothing her back, “I’ll always want to do this for you. Be here for you.” It makes her feel nice and wanted. It makes her feel good, like she’s actually helping someone. 

 

“I know,” Jackie whispers, and she knows. She knows that Lottie wants to be there for her. She doesn’t have to, though. She doesn’t have to be there. She didn’t have to bring Jackie back inside. She did, though. She did it, and Jackie’s going to be grateful for the rest of her life. As long as she got to keep Lottie. 

 

Nuzzling against Jackie, Lottie lets out a sigh. “As long as you know.” She’s so grateful to have Jackie in her life like this. It still feels like a dream, like one day Lottie is going to wake up and she’s going to be alone still, and someone’s going to look at her and tell her ‘You really thought she could love someone like you?' She was waiting for it with bated breath. Until then, she would love Jackie as much as she would let her, and probably more.

 

Jackie thinks that Lottie deserves someone that’s more than her, that’s more than all of her issues, that’s more than half a person. Someone that’s more than just whatever Shauna left behind when she walked out that door, when she slept with Jeff, when she broke Jackie’s heart. Because that’s what it is, right? Heartbreak. Shauna broke her heart, and she’d died before she ever got the chance to fix it. Jackie doesn’t get closure, as bad as she might want it. Because she wants to be what Lottie needs. Even out here. Especially out here. She feels like she’s doomed for failure. But if she gets this now, if she can just try not to mess it up, then it’ll be okay. “You’re good at this, you know,” she says softly, sinking into Lottie’s arms. “Being… comforting.”

 

Lottie is quiet while she holds Jackie, simply keeping up her soothing motions, hoping it's giving her at least some comfort. By the way Jackie seems to be deflating in her arms, she thinks it might be, at least a little. 

 

When she speaks, Lottie pauses only momentarily. “I sort of…” she starts her motions back up, “just channel Laura Lee when I try. She was always really good at making me feel heard and seen. Safe.” Even when Lottie saw things that she shouldn't, or said things that made no sense.

 

Breathing out a quiet laugh, Jackie says, “I can see it. Laura Lee was always comforting. Steady.” Jackie might not have had the same convictions, but there was something so calming about Laura Lee’s steady faith, especially out here. Her unwavering belief that she was going to get out, to get them help, all the way to the end. She would have been good for Lottie. Jackie thinks she’d probably do a lot better than she can. Laura Lee is more of someone that Lottie deserves. 

 

“She was,” Lottie agrees, “but you are, too. For me, at least.” There's no other place Lottie truly feels comfortable anymore, except in Jackie's arms, or having Jackie in her arms. It feels like a safe haven, like nothing can hurt her when she's like this. She knows it's not true, but it feels that way all the same. 

 

Lottie lifts one hand to brush her thumb along Jackie's cheek, moving back enough to look at her. “I just hope I can be that for you, too.” She wants to be someone Jackie can lean on, can count on. She wants to be Jackie's safe place, too.

 

Jackie looks up at Lottie, and her eyes feel watery. She sniffles, nods. “You are,” she tells her, leaning into Lottie’s touch. And Jackie can be honest with Lottie, now, and she is, for the most part. She’s not scared of all the parts of herself, just some of them, and being with Lottie means that she’s no longer so horribly, terribly lonely. 

 

So Jackie’s honest when she looks into Lottie’s eyes and says, “You’re the most comforting. I need you.” She needs her. Jackie can’t sleep without her. She’s rarely not thinking about her. She’s reshaped the focus of her life–- which, out here, is already pretty narrow–- to Lottie, always Lottie. She can’t help herself. That’s what Jackie does.

 

“I need you, too,” Lottie whispers back, pressing their foreheads together, “you're the only person that can bring me back from that dark place.” Jackie is the only person who's ever wanted to try, ever wanted to know how. Except Nat, now. But Lottie doesn't know how to talk to Nat about this, because it's not the same and yet it is. It's so different and yet not at all. 

 

But even so, Jackie was the first. And even Lottie feels herself slipping, she knows it'll be Jackie who she goes to first.

 

“I always will,” Jackie tells her. As long as she’s around, she’s always going to be there for Lottie. She’s always going to want to be there for Lottie. She brings one hand up, brushing it through Lottie’s hair before letting it get tangled in those dark tresses, enjoying the way they feel. “I’ll always try.”

 

“That's all I need,” Lottie says, leaning in to brush their lips together. Just having someone try was more than Lottie's ever had or ever expected from anyone. It makes her feel truly loved, warm and pliant. “I'll always try my best to come back to you. I promise.” She wants to come back to Jackie whenever she feels like she's disappearing. And she wants to do the same for Jackie when a dead girl is too loud in her head.

 

Lottie’s lips are soft, warm, and growing more familiar by the day. Jackie knows that doesn’t matter. She’s always going to want them more. “I’ll wait. However long it takes you to come back.” She’ll wait forever, if that’s what she has to do. But she’ll always be there for Lottie, and she’ll always try to bring her back, and she’ll always be waiting when she can’t come back from it immediately. Because she knows Lottie would do the same for her. 

 

“I know you will,” Lottie nods, and she really does know now. Jackie will always wait for her and of course she'll always wait for Jackie. Lottie smiles, soft and sweet, at her. “Do you need anything?” She asks her, fingers drifting along Jackie's arm up to her shoulder, back down again. 

 

Jackie smiles back. It’s so easy to smile at Lottie. “Just you,” she tells her, shivering as fingers drift along her skin. Unlike earlier, though, it isn’t from an unnatural cold. She’s actually warm, but she wants to be even closer to Lottie.

 

Lottie is happy to see Jackie smiling again, to see that fear and darkness gone from her eyes. She moves in closer, pressing their lips together again. “You know,” she says against them, “I never did get to finish looking over you earlier.”

 

Twirling some of Lottie’s hair around her finger, Jackie hums. “That’s right, you didn’t. That’s probably super important. I don’t want to risk catching something, you know.”

 

It doesn’t take much encouragement for Lottie to move them so that Jackie is on her back and Lottie is straddling her. “Now, where did I leave off?” she says, leaning down close to Jackie’s lips, but not kissing her again yet.

 

“You should maybe start here,” Jackie whispers, letting her lips brush against Lottie’s. The way that Lottie moves her is so completely effortless that it has Jackie staring up at her with wide eyes, her legs wrapping around Lottie, her breath quick in her chest. One hand move to Lottie’s hips, pulling her closer. 

 

“Here?” Lottie mutters, pressing down and capturing Jackie’s lips with her own. It’s gentle and slow at first, but it’s hard for Lottie to hold back when she has Jackie like this, and so she kisses her just a little harder, lips already parting, tongue brushing along Jackie’s lips. With her hands planted on either side of Jackie’s head, it’s easy to move in closer, hips trapped by Jackie’s legs. 

 

Jackie just hums, unable to speak as she parts her lips for Lottie’s tongue. Not that she really wants to speak. There’s a lot better things that they can do right now than talking. This helps her feel real, grounded. Even dreams don’t feel like this, don’t feel like Lottie’s weight on top of her, her tongue in Jackie’s mouth. This reminds her that she’s awake.

 

Lottie sighs into Jackie’s mouth, tasting her, sweet and tangy. She rolls her hips into Jackie’s, wanting to hear those wonderful noises Jackie always makes when she touches her. Lets her tongue taste the inside of her mouth, her lips, teeth scraping along her bottom lip. She thinks this is the best feeling in the world.

 

It’s really easy for Jackie to get lost in this feeling, in this girl. Nothing’s ever felt anything like this, and nothing ever will. There’s no comparison. It’s singular. Jackie’s always been the kind of person to devote herself to just one other person. She tries to be good, she tries to care about the rest of them, but there’s always somebody she’s going to put above the rest. It feels like worship. It is worship, especially as she moans and sighs quietly, her eyes fluttering shut, one hand digging into Lottie’s hair.

 

The sound makes Lottie shiver and she moves again, rolling her hips. She’s never loved like this before and she doesn’t think she’ll ever love like this again. She’s okay with that. As long as she has Jackie, she doesn’t need anything else. This is all she needs, really. This feeling, this taste, this girl. 

 

She has to pull away just enough to take in a deep breath, staring down at Jackie with pupils blown wide. And she needs to check over every part of Jackie, right? So when her lips return to Jackie’s body, she’s kissing down her jaw and to her neck, tongue dragging along her skin. 

 

“I’m probably still… sweaty and gross,” Jackie breathes, still panting from the feel of Lottie’s lips against her own. Sweaty and gross, even after her impromptu dip in the lake earlier. But she’s not complaining, not at all, because the feeling of Lottie’s lips and tongue against her skin is so nice that she can’t think straight.

 

Jackie’s skin does taste salty, but Lottie really doesn’t mind or care. She hums into Jackie’s skin before pulling away again, looking down at her as she licks her lips. “I need to check all of you, right?” she grins, hands lifting and dragging to Jackie’s sides, to the hem of her shirt, lifting it up slowly. 

 

“Yeah, uh huh, you do,” Jackie says, nodding as she looks into Lottie’s eyes. “That’s– that’s really important, actually.”

 

Lottie smiles, then, moves herself lower as her hands push Jackie’s shirt up to her shoulders, but doesn’t try to take it off yet, leaving it there as her head ducks down. Hands roam the now exposed skin of Jackie’s stomach, up to her chest, over the cloth of her bra. She presses a kiss to her sternum, before dragging her tongue up the skin there. Jackie’s skin tastes so salty and sweet and Lottie loves it, humming again. 

 

Jackie tilts her head back against the bedding, closing her eyes and sinking into the way Lottie feels as she touches her. It’s just light, easy touches, nothing that’s really too much, but it feels good, and Jackie thinks she’s melting, especially at the feeling of Lottie’s tongue. Her fingers scratch against Lottie’s scalp, and her other hand trails up, over her back. 

 

Lottie’s lips move down Jackie’s body, kissing along her ribs, to her stomach, to the dip of her hip bone, hands trailing along her sides as she does. Her tongue drags along the skin of Jackie’s abdomen, just as sweet and salty as her neck. Teeth scrape gently against her ribs. “All clear,” she murmurs against her skin, lifting her head just enough to look up at Jackie, smiling. 

 

Smiling back, Jackie brushes her thumb over Lottie’s cheek. “I feel so much better already. I was kind of worried, you know.”

 

As fingers play with the bare skin of Jackie’s sides, Lottie gives her a warm gaze. “Anywhere else I need to check? I want to be thorough, you know.”

 

“Being thorough is so, so important,” Jackie breathes, shivering as goosebumps trail after Lottie’s fingers, a blush spreading down her chest. She blushes so easily, though her skin’s gotten red and sunburned, freckling and tanning as the weeks go on, but it’s still clear as day when she blushes.”I mean, that’s not– that’s not still everywhere.”

 

Lottie's grin turns to a smirk. “So important,” she repeats into her skin, leaving another kiss there. She can see the blush spreading across Jackie's body, starting with her cheeks, moving down to her chest. It makes Lottie feel warm, too. “I'll keep checking then.” She lowers herself more, fingers playing with the button of Jackie's shorts. 

 

Jackie just sighs happily, leaning back into their bedding as Lottie moves down her body. She wants Lottie to just keep touching her, keep making her feel good, keep showing her affection. And Jackie has no problem returning the favor. 

 

Lottie’s fingers easily undo the button and move to the zipper, not really feeling like taking her time at the moment. She was a little more eager, now that she’d had to wait all through dinner. But making sure Jackie was okay had been more important, and it seemed like things were better for now, so she deftly pulled Jackie’s shorts down to her ankles and off her legs, tossing them aside. Her hands brushed up Jackie’s legs, pausing on her thighs at the line where her tan cut off thanks to the shorts. She smiles. “No bruises or poison ivy,” she says, leaning over to kiss the top of her thigh.

 

“Oh, good. That’s– that’s good,” Jackie says. And it’s actually good; she’s finally getting to a point where she doesn’t feel like she’s tripping all the time, and ever since she sat in poison ivy the second or third day after they crashed, she’s gotten a lot better at watching out for it. She’s barely thinking about either as Lottie rests between her legs, her hands warm, her lips soft as she kisses Jackie’s thighs.

 

“Very,” Lottie agrees with a chuckle. She smooths her hands back up Jackie’s stomach, to her chest, hooking her fingers under her scrunched up shirt and urging her to sit up, pulling it all the way off. “Last place I need to check is your back,” she says, twirling her finger into the strap of her bra. “Turn around.”

 

Swallowing, Jackie nods, staring at Lottie for a moment before leaning forward and pressing their lips together. She doesn’t want to say anything and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how much her brain isn’t working at the moment. She lets the kiss linger before pulling away and laying on her stomach, resting her head on her arms and glancing back at Lottie.

 

Lottie sits back and watches Jackie turn around, hands immediately going to the muscles of her back, fingers plucking the clasp of her bra open. She pushes the straps down over her shoulders before she starts letting her fingers trace slowly down her back, circling every landmark of her back, each ridge of bone jutting through skin, or curve of muscle, like she’s mapping out the stars on her skin. 

 

She places a kiss onto her back, between her shoulder blades, fingernails tracing around the bumps on her spine. “You must be so sore from all the work you did today,” she murmurs, letting her hands drift up, thumbs pressing into her shoulder muscles, massaging them. 

 

“I–” Jackie manages a breathy laugh, shivering under Lottie’s touch before she manages to nod. “Yeah. Yes.” She hasn’t really done that much, mostly just traipsing through the woods, to the river, to the lake. Or maybe it is a lot and she’s just starting to get used to it. The massage, though, helps more than she expects, Lottie’s finders pressing into knots that she wasn’t even aware existed.

 

“You poor thing,” Lottie says, tilting her head so that her hair falls over one shoulder and spills onto Jackie’s back. Her hands continue to work the muscles, kneading out the knots that seem to have grown in her shoulders. Lottie brushes her lips against the back of Jackie’s neck, tongue licking along the skin and tasting more salt and earth and dew. “Is that helping?”

 

“God, Lottie,” Jackie moans softly, giving a shuddering sigh as she feels her body relax. Lottie’s hair tickles against her back, and her hands work magic, and her tongue makes Jackie’s breath stutter, unable to properly say anything worth anything. She nods her head and presses her face into her arms. It’s helping. It’s good. It’s maybe a little too good, but is she really surprised? Lottie has long, dexterous fingers. Of course she knows how to use them in a variety of ways.

 

“Yeah?” Lottie coos, kissing her shoulder. “That good?” She smiles against her skin, happy that she can make Jackie feel this way just by massaging her back. She moves her hands a little lower, pressing her thumbs into the muscles of her lower back and pushing up to her shoulders. Jackie’s skin is always so soft and silky under her fingers, it’s a strange thought, but she loves the feel of it. 

 

Jackie groans as Lottie works through a knot in her lower back as she moves her way up and down, and she can’t help but nod. “Yes,” she mumbles into her arms. “Yes.” It’s that good, and Lottie sounds entirely too smug. Or just smug enough. She has all the reasons in the world to be smug. 

 

It's a little impressive, Lottie thinks, how quickly she can reduce Jackie to mono syllable words. “Good,” she murmurs, brushing her lips down to Jackie's scapula, then between her shoulder blades. “You're like putty in my hands.” She likes it-- she really likes it. 

 

Her hands drift to Jackie's sides, lips going back to her neck. Lottie places a kiss at the curve that meets her shoulder, before wrapping her lips around some of the skin and sucking.

 

Now Jackie thinks that Lottie’s being too smug. She’s right, of course; Jackie’s very much putty in her hands, malleable, content to do whatever Lottie wants and let her take the lead, even eager for it. But Lottie doesn’t need to brag about it. “Mean,” Jackie says, pouting. She moans as Lottie sucks on her neck, feeling as if the air’s grown hotter. 

 

“I think I'm being really nice, actually,” Lottie says back, grinning as she kisses the side of her head. “Checking you over, rubbing your sore muscles.” She lets one of her hands drift around and under Jackie, pressing against her stomach, before moving lower. Lips press back on Jackie's neck. 

 

“You’re so… cocky,” Jackie manages to get out, managing to turn her head again to look at Lottie, even if her eyes are heavily lidded. Her body moves, giving Lottie more room to move under her, her hips jerking and her legs spreading subconsciously. She really is putty in Lottie’s hands, easy. She just wants to be touched by her, constantly, always.

 

“What are you gonna do about it?” Lottie whispers, low and raspy into her ear, lips pressed against it. Her hand moves lower, slips into Jackie's underwear, feels how warm and wet she already is. It makes Lottie's head spin a little, how she can make Jackie's body react like this with just a few touches. Fingers slide between Jackie's legs, rubbing in slow circles as Lottie keeps her face burrowed against the side of Jackie's head.

 

Jackie tries to think up something witty to say, but the only thing that comes out of her mouth is another moan as Lottie’s hand moves between her legs. She’s so ridiculously turned on. It’s a massage. Or it was a massage. She’s never gotten particularly hot and bothered from a massage before, but she’s also never gotten one from Lottie, from her girlfriend. It’s really not fair. Jackie doesn’t think that she ever stood a chance.

 

“That’s what I thought.” And yeah, Lottie’s being cocky, but Lottie thinks she’s earned it. Besides, maybe she just really likes touching Jackie. She definitely likes it. She loves it and she loves, even more, the noises Jackie makes when she does. Lottie trails her lips from the side of Jackie’s head back to her neck, down between her shoulders, fingers moving in a steady pace between Jackie’s legs, trying to draw out more of those sounds Lottie loves so much.

 

That’s not fair, Jackie thinks, especially when it’s even hotter that Lottie talks like that. It’s not fair that Lottie knows her so well. It’s not fair that she can take all of Jackie’s control and just throw it out the window. Jackie likes feeling in control of her life. Most of the time, she desperately needs it, or she feels like she’s going insane. But she gives up control so easily to Lottie. In fact, she wants Lottie to take control. She turns her face back into her arms and shudders, breathing heavily as her hips move with Lottie’s fingers.

 

Lottie feels a shiver run up her spine as she feels Jackie’s body moving into her touch. She likes that Jackie feels safe enough with her to let go of any semblance of control-- they’re all kind of aware of how controlling Jackie can be. But with Lottie, she doesn’t seem to try to hold onto it that hard, and Lottie likes that. 

 

She scrapes her teeth against Jackie’s skin, then uses her tongue to soothe the spot. Rolls her hips down into Jackie’s, wanting to draw out a moan. 

 

Jackie can’t stop the moans that leave her lips at the feeling of Lottie’s teeth, her tongue, the roll of her hips. The sound is muffled by her arms, but there’s really no stopping it, just like there’s no stopping the way that Jackie moves into Lottie’s touch. She’s soaked, and Lottie touches her in ways that drive her crazy. It’s too much and not enough and just right. “Lottie,” she rasps out. It’s a nice name, her favorite, which is a good thing because it’s all Jackie can manage to get out before she moans again.

 

Lottie’s breath stutters at the sound of Jackie’s moans, of the way Jackie says her name. Fuck, it sounds so good. She needs to hear it again. Lottie rolls her hips once more, moves her hand a little faster, teeth and tongue tasting Jackie’s skin. She’s so hot, Lottie thinks. She’s so attractive it makes Lottie’s mouth water sometimes, especially when she’s like this underneath her. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie whimpers, and it’s a little louder, more drawn out, her back arching. She’s holding on, even as she feels heat shuddering through her, even as she clenches around Lottie’s fingers. Everything with Lottie just feels so good, and sometimes she wants to hold onto it. She’s gotten better about holding onto it. 

 

Lottie can’t help but let out a little moan herself at the sound of her name coming from Jackie’s lips. She presses her hips down into Jackie, curls her fingers. “Say my name again,” Lottie sighs into her skin. She wants to hear it. She wants to hear Jackie call her name.

 

The babbled noise that Jackie manages to get out isn’t Lottie’s name as she feels fingers curl and move just right. Her hips jerk. She feels so wonderfully pinned. “Lottie, I’m–” a moan cuts her off, “Lottie. Lottie, Lottie, Lottie.” She wants to hear her name, and Jackie has no problem giving her everything she wants when her body allows it. 

 

Another shuddering moan works its way up Lottie’s throat at the sound of her name on Jackie’s tongue, falling from her lips. She works her fingers a little faster, lips and teeth and tongue tasting the skin on Jackie’s back, leaving marks wherever they go, hips pinning Jackie’s down. She can barely stand how hot this all makes her, too. She can feel the warmth gathering in her stomach, between her legs, and she’s slick and wet with it, too. “Jackie,” she sighs into her skin.

 

“God, Lottie.” Jackie’s so close, and the sound of Lottie breathing out her name is enough. She sounds just as turned on as Jackie is, and she’s peppering her skin with kisses and bites and the lapping of her tongue. It makes Jackie hot, like she’s burning, like it’s liquid fire shuddering through her. It’s so good and so much, and she bites down on her arm to control it just a little as she comes. 

 

Lottie feels as Jackie’s body tenses and then shudders with her release and she presses her front to Jackie’s back, holding onto her tightly. Lips against her neck, coaxing her through it. The sound makes Lottie’s ears ring loudly and her heart thumps against Jackie’s back as her breath heaves. The noise is nothing new but it still makes Lottie shiver pleasantly and smile and pant, removing her hand from between Jackie’s legs once she feels her relaxing, rolling off her and laying on her side as she looks at her. “I really like it when you say my name,” she mumbles, breathless.

 

Jackie breathes out a laugh around her arm, turning her head as she comes down, blinking stars out of her eyes as she looks at Lottie. “I can… tell,” she says, giving Lottie a sloppy smile. She can tell, she can see the look in Lottie’s eyes. It’s so hot. She turns on her side, facing Lottie and reaching to brush a hand through her hair. “I can tell that you like it a lot.” Her hand moves down to Lottie’s shirt, playing with her sleeve. “You took off all my clothes–- most, I guess, of my clothes–- but you didn’t take off yours. That’s not fair.”

 

Humming, Lottie closes her eyes and leans into Jackie’s touch. “It sounds nice.” She loves the sound of it, really. It’s better than music or angels singing, Lottie thinks. She’s never heard her name said with such succhor. It makes her feel a little dizzy.

 

Her eyes blink open and she looks down at herself. “Hmm, guess I didn’t,” she sighs, “maybe you should remedy that for me. I’m so tired now after giving you such a nice massage.”

 

Jackie hums. “A massage? Is that what we’re calling it?” she teases, leaning up, her hand brushing down Lottie’s are down her side. Her fingers slip under, pushing it up. “I guess, since it was such a nice massage, that I can help you get out of your clothes.”

 

“I guess you could not take my clothes off, too,” Lottie says with a dramatic sigh, laying flat on her back, “but you’re the one who was complaining about how unfair it is.” She gives her a grin, looking over at her through lidded eyes, filled with a gaze full of adoration and love. How else is she supposed to look at Jackie, anyway? It’s all she can feel when she’s around her.

 

“No, I definitely want to take your clothes off,” Jackie tells her, pushing Lottie’s shirt up even more. She follows after Lottie, leaning over her, following after her. “I like taking your clothes off. I like…” Jackie nudges Lottie to sit up again so that she can pull off her shirt, her hand going to cup Lottie’s breasts before slipping down to her waist, “touching you.”

 

Lottie lifts her arms for Jackie, sitting up as she pulls her shirt off. She sighs happily at the feeling of Jackie’s hands on her, feeling her-- touching her. Something she likes. Lottie likes it, too. A Lot. She reaches up and threads her hands into Jackie’s hair. “I like that, too,” she murmurs, leaning up to press their lips together. “When you take my clothes off. When you touch me.” 

 

Jackie hums into the kiss and leans into the touch, her hands going to the button of Lottie’s pants, plucking them open. She tucks her fingers into the waistband of Lottie’s underwear and tugs on them, too, pulling both at once while she urges Lottie to lift her hips. “That’s really good,” Jackie says softly. “What else do you like for me to do?”

 

A shiver runs through Lottie’s entire body as Jackie’s fingers deftly undo the button on her pants. Hooking into the hem, tugging both down. Lottie obliges, lifts her hips for her. She tilts her head, staring up at Jackie. “I like when you kiss me,” she answers, hands finding their way back to Jackie’s head, “I like tasting you on my lips.” 

 

Jackie likes kissing Lottie, too, so it’s easy to lean back in, brushing their lips together. She struggles out of her underwear as she deepens the kiss. It’s a little sloppy, but she doesn’t care, and she’s focused. Her fingers slip under Lottie to unhook her bra, taking longer. It’s from being so invested in the kiss, from the shiver that rolls down her spine when her knee moves between Lottie’s legs and she feels her. 

 

Lottie lets herself get lost in the kiss immediately. She parts her lips for Jackie, brushes their tongues together, licks along her teeth, lets the taste of her linger in Lottie's mouth. Her back arches as fingers circle around to unclasp her bra and another shiver runs through her, skin prickling up with little bumps. Her hips grind against Jackie's knee when she feels it press between her legs. God, it's still surprising to Lottie how quickly she loses her composure when Jackie is touching her like this. It's so easy to get lost in her. 

 

Pulling off Lottie’s bra, Jackie moves on top of her, presses their bodies together, keeps their lips attached. There’s a part of her that wants to attempt to take control of the situation, but she doesn’t feel controlled like this, and she doesn’t want to. She just wants. She’s just… hungry. Jackie nips at Lottie’s bottom lip and moves her knee more firmly as Lottie jerks her hips. Trailing her hands up and down, Jackie can’t quite decide where to put them. She just wants to touch Lottie everywhere.

 

It’s so easy to just fall into Jackie’s touch, sighing against her lips. She exhales as teeth scrape against her bottom lip, hands brushing along her body, as if trying to figure out where to rest, where to stop, where to be. Lottie’s body moves into the touch-- she doesn’t care, she just wants. She wants so badly. 

 

“I’m yours,” she mumbles against Jackie’s lips, encouraging her to take what she wants, do what she wants. Lottie is hers and only hers. 

 

“You’re mine,” Jackie agrees, enraptured. Lottie’s hers. She’s all Jackie’s, and she makes her so happy that she could burst. They’re in the middle of nowhere, and they were so cold and hungry for months, and, even now, there’s the idea that they all could so easily be back in that miserable place. But Jackie has Lottie, and she thinks this might be the freest that she’s ever felt, the most like herself. It’s the closest she’s ever gotten to knowing herself. Her hands move up to Lottie’s face, brushing her thumbs over soft cheeks. “And I’m yours.”

 

Lottie’s hands drift around to Jackie’s back, palms flat against the ridges of her spine. “Mine,” she murmurs back, eyes closing as she leans her cheek into Jackie’s touch. She lets out a soft hum, content and warm and full of a love she was so sure she’d never get to have. She leans up and presses their lips together, gentle and adoring, tongue slipping along Jackie’s. “I love you,” she sighs again. She fucking loves her so much, Lottie thinks losing Jackie would be worse than death. She knows it would be.

 

They’re such sweet words. Jackie moves her hands down again, trailing them over Lottie’s neck, down to her chest. “I love you, too,” she breathes against Lottie’s lips. She means it every time she says it. She says it whenever she can, and she feels good about saying it. Her lips trail away from Lottie’s, down her to her chest, taking one of Lottie’s breasts into her mouth while a hand takes the other. 

 

Lottie's head falls back against the bedding, back arching into Jackie's mouth. Fingers dig into skin. “Jackie,” she moans, her voice high and breathy. She loves her, too, and it's incredible. She loves Lottie, even if Lottie is weird and crazy and confusing. Even if Lottie is sick. The thought alone makes Lottie shudder, pull Jackie closer. She doesn't think she can ever get close enough.

 

Jackie loves the way that Lottie sounds, the way she leans in and shudders and pulls Jackie close, like she wants her just as close as Jackie wants to be. Like they want to be entwined in each other forever. She leans up to look at Lottie, her pupils dilated wide. 

 

When Jackie leans away, Lottie opens her eyes to catch her gaze, her own eyes lidded and heady. She wonders what Jackie sees when she looks at her like that, if she sees all the love Lottie is bursting at the seams with. She hopes she can feel it just by the way Lottie looks at her. She wants Jackie to know she's her entire world and more.

 

Lottie’s eyes are something that Jackie could get lost in. And she understands the cliche, she does, it makes her feel like she’s quoting movies again, but she just can’t help it. Their eyes meet, and Jackie just can’t look away, even if she wanted to. She doesn’t want to. But she does to get back to business, looking down at Lottie's body first before she starts moving, inch by inch until she’s at Lottie’s stomach. 

 

Jackie likes oral with Lottie, something she’d never cared for with Jeff. Maybe because he made it seem like it was something she owed him, since she wouldn’t actually have sex with him. Maybe it was because he was just too rough. Everything with Lottie is perfect, this is perfect. Jackie’s practically drooling as she looks at Lottie, licking her own lips before she moves between Lottie’s legs.

 

And Lottie can see her own affection reflected in Jackie’s eyes in the moments before she’s leaning back in and kissing her, moving down her body. Little by little, until she’s between her legs, and Lottie can already feel herself growing hot with just the thought of having Jackie’s tongue on her. Hands dig into hair and she watches her, eager, as Jacke wets her lips, then her head is dipping between Lottie’s legs and Lottie lets out a moan, her head falling back again. Her fingers curl in Jackie’s hair, hips rolling into her mouth. It’s not just lava in her veins, but electricity flowing through her nerves, igniting every part of her. It’s a feeling only someone she loves could ever make her feel.

 

Lottie is so wet, and Jackie knows that it’s just from touching her, and it makes her so fucking happy that she can barely stand it. She doesn’t waste any time, moving forward and licking into Lottie’s center, humming happily at the taste of Lottie on her tongue. Her hands grip Lottie’s hips before relaxing, tracing patterns over her skin. It’s like she’s dying of thirst and Lottie is the only thing she wants to drink. Jackie never actually expected desire to feel like this. She didn’t realize that it would be completely and utterly all consuming once she finally gave into it. It should be scary. It kind of it. But she also wants it so desperately that she can’t help but give in. 

 

If Lottie felt like fire before, it only multiplies. Jackie’s tongue on her makes her shudder and her leg muscles tighten, wrapping around Jackie as her body rolls into her touch, trying to get closer, to feel more somehow. A breathy moan works its way out of her throat and she bites the inside of her cheek to keep it from turning into a cry. It still seems ridiculous how good it feels when Jackie touches her, it’s not like Lottie’s never done stuff before, but every time Jackie touches her like this, she feels like she’s losing all control of her mind and body. And usually that would terrify Lottie, but not with Jackie. Never with Jackie. 

 

Hands tighten in hair. Jackie’s name falls from Lottie’s lips like she’s reciting a prayer. Maybe she is. Jackie saved her, after all, and she continues to save her every day.

 

Jackie delights in the fact that Lottie pulls her in closer, and she grins against her. It’s really nice, to know how much she’s wanted, to feel it in every touch, hear it in every moan and sigh and whisper of her name. Lottie makes Jackie feel so good about herself. Really, she just wants to return the favor. One of her hands leaves Lottie’s hips, trailing down to join her mouth between strong legs, her fingers slipping inside. She just wants to make Lottie feel as good as Lottie makes her feel. That’s all Jackie wants.

 

“Oh, fuck,” Lottie gasps, putting a hand over her own mouth, heaving, “Jackie.” It just feels so good. Her head feels like it’s filling up with helium, making her dizzy and lightheaded and wonderful. Jackie just makes her feel so wonderful. Fingers inside of her, tongue tasting her. 

 

Of all the people in Lottie’s life, she’d never expected it to be Jackie who could make her gasp and moan like this. To lose control like this. But she’s so fucking happy it is. Maybe they only get to have each other in this one life, but Lottie thinks that’s more than enough for her. 

 

Pulling away just enough to breathe, Jackie pants and lets her fingers do most of the work, curling in the way that she knows Lottie enjoys as she looks up at her. Jackie leans her head against one of Lottie’s legs, still wrapped tight around her and holding her close. Jackie doesn’t mind. She likes being close. She mumbles, “I love you,” breathlessly before moving back down, wrapping her lips around the sensitive nub between Lottie’s legs and sucking.

 

The high pitched noise Lottie makes is probably a sound she’s never made before, and it sticks in her throat as it slips into a moan. She feels a little bit like her soul is going to slip from her body and honestly, she’d let it. As long as she got to feel like this, as long as she got to keep Jackie, then she didn’t mind. She’d do anything to keep Jackie. And she’d do anything to keep Jackie between her legs like this.

 

“Fuck, Jackie,” she’s sighing, one hand digging into the fur bedding so she doesn’t accidentally rip some of Jackie’s hair out as her knuckles go white. “I love you so-- so much.”

 

All of the noises that come out of Lottie are so pretty that it makes Jackie smile, her skin flushing even more. Because Jackie makes her sound like that, and Jackie makes her talk like that, and it’s Jackie that she loves. Jackie’s movements become a little less controlled, more frantic, wanting to push Lottie over the edge and make her feel good. She just wants to make Lottie feel good. Thankfully, it seems like she does a decent job at that.

 

They’re words that Lottie hadn’t thought she’d ever say to someone, but they’re so true they taste like honey on her tongue. She loves Jackie and Jackie loves her back and if that isn’t the most incredible thing in the world, then Lottie isn’t crazy.

 

As Jackie’s motions become more erratic, more wanting, Lottie feels the pressure in the pit of her stomach building. A string of soft curses, followed by Jackie’s name, falls from her lips. It doesn’t take much for her to tumble over the edge, biting down on her knuckle to keep from crying out too loudly, back arching, leg muscles clamping around Jackie’s head. She thinks she can see never before seen colors as her orgasm races through her, and even as she comes down, the world is still bursting with color and sound and the smell of sweat and dirt and grass. Lottie swallows, trying to catch her breath, hand loosening in Jackie’s hair. “Fuck…”

 

Jackie takes her time cleaning Lottie, and then her fingers, and then her own mouth as she wipes it clean before gently moving Lottie’s legs and crawling back up her body. She grins brightly, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s lips before settling against her. “Good?” she asks. She knows it was good. She just wants to hear the words. 

 

Lottie is still panting by the time Jackie moves back to her body, and she smiles up at her, dazed and content. “So good,” she murmurs, reaching up to brush some of Jackie's hair away from her damp forehead. “Great, even.”

 

The only thing better is the way Jackie looks at her, happy and proud of herself. Lottie is glad she can be so confident. She's glad Jackie is able to be her true self.

 

Leaning into the touch, Jackie sighs happily and moves to lie down beside Lottie, tucking herself into Lottie’s side. She feels content, pleased with herself, satisfied with the pleasant ache between her own legs. “I want to be good for you. Since you’re so good for me.”

 

They’re strange words, Lottie thinks. She gets the gist of them, but the way Jackie says them give her pause. She wraps her arms around Jackie, pulls her in close and buries her face in Jackie’s hair. “You don’t have to be, you know,” she murmurs, “I just need you to be you. That’s plenty good for me.”

 

“I know,” Jackie says, “but I still want to be.” She wants to be good. She wants to make sure that Lottie has good things. She reaches down just enough to grab one of their blankets and pull it over them.

 

“You are,” Lottie assures her, then, tangling their legs together as Jackie tucks a blanket over them. She thinks that Jackie is probably the only person that’s ever really been good for her or even to her. At least in a way that actually mattered to Lottie. In a way that helped Lottie. 

 

“You are,” she repeats softly, her arms tightening around the other girl.

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw. “You’re good, too.”

 

Those words sound even stranger to Lottie. She doesn’t think they’re true, but when Jackie says them, how can they not be? Jackie would never lie to her. She squeezes Jackie tighter. She doesn’t say she knows, but she does believe her. If just a little.

 

Snuggling into Lottie’s arms, Jackie brushes her hands over Lottie’s skin, her stomach, her hips, her back. She laughs quietly. “We’re gonna have to wash the bedding tomorrow.”

 

Lottie shivers at the touch, but not because it makes her cold. She presses her nose to Jackie’s head. “I can wash it,” she says quietly. It’ll give her something to do, at least.

 

“You’re gonna have all the fun washing our smelly furs without me?” Jackie asks, repeating the motion as she feels Lottie shiver.

 

Lottie gives a breathy chuckle. “I figured you’d be busy off being the Louis to Nat’s Clark.”

 

“I mean, I figure I can totally do whatever I want these days, as long as I’m useful,” Jackie says, grinning. Her fingertips trace patterns on Lottie’s hip. “I don’t know if you know this, but I’m kind of a big deal, now.”

 

“I’m guessing laying around with me all day isn’t useful?” Lottie teases, letting out a long exhale at the feeling of Jackie’s fingers carving patterns into her skin. “You’ve always been a big deal to me. Not my fault everyone is just now catching on.”

 

Jackie hums, considering. “Maybe I could find a way to turn it into something useful. Like, it’s very useful for me to lay around all day with my girlfriend because we’re… going to take the night shift and make sure camp stays safe in the dark, right?”

 

“That’s…a good idea, if we actually had people doing that,” Lottie says back, smiling, “but we don’t.” Then again, it might be a good idea. Though they had the animals for that as well. Maybe they should build some alarms, Lottie had ideas for a few. She’d have to talk to Natalie about it tomorrow, something she already needed to do to clear up…whatever yesterday was.

 

Jackie groans quietly. “We could… pretend that we have people doing that. Or, actually, that we’re testing it out.” But she knows that they can’t. The world doesn’t stop just because it feels, sometimes, like it’s ended out there. Jackie pulls herself closer. She’s grateful that Lottie’s there, that she wants to be there. Jackie knows she couldn’t have made it through the winter without her, but now she knows she couldn’t make it through the rest of this, either. Not without being overwhelmed by ghosts.

 

Lottie laughs softly again. “It’s sweet you wanna make up stories just to stay with me,” she teases. “But like you said, you’re very important now. Other people need you.” Not just Lottie, even though Lottie felt like she needed Jackie more than food or water or air. She needed Jackie to live because without her Lottie had nothing, was nothing. She’d gone from being their everything to absolutely nothing. Sometimes, it hurt to think about. Other times, she was glad to be free of the responsibility. 

 

She presses a kiss to Jackie’s head. “We’ll make it somehow, I think,” she murmurs.

 

“I’m not that important,” Jackie says softly. She certainly doesn’t think that the other’s need her. But Lottie says she does, and Jackie knows that she needs Lottie. She just wants to be with her all the time; she can’t help it. She wants to be with Lottie, and she wants to stay with her, and she wonders how soon they can sneak away from camp again to have a night to themselves. “I know we will, but I still just… want to be with you all the time.”

 

“You’re very important,” Lottie protests, voice quiet. “You’re so, so important.” And maybe it is just to Lottie, she doesn’t know, but that much is the truth. She’s Lottie’s whole world now. She’s shaped her entire life around Jackie, and Lottie is a simple house of cards that will tumble if Jackie is taken from her. She’s the beating heart of Lottie’s life. 

 

Lottie, who’s never dared to build herself around someone, who now can’t imagine living without one person. “I want that, too.”

 

“You’re just saying that because you love me,” Jackie says, her voice a singsong, even as she feels her cheeks heat at the sincerity in Lottie’s voice. They were both so, so connected, now. She thinks that, if someone took them apart, they’d find pieces of one inside the other. Jackie thinks she has Lottie’s heart, now, just like Lottie has her own. Her stupid, fragile heart, the one that used to beat for another girl, that still dreams about her, that has Shauna’s name etched into it in ways that she can’t get rid of, even if she doesn’t want to have it there anymore. But Lottie loves her anyway, she wants Jackie anyway, and that’s the best thing that someone can give her. “Maybe in a few weeks they’ll let us fuck off again all night and all day.”

 

“I do,” Lottie sighs, “but I’m still right.” There’s just something about Jackie that Lottie thinks is bigger than any of them really understand, even Lottie. If only she could hear it again, feel it, maybe she could figure out what it was. But Lottie’s mind stays silent, except for the voices of the past, or the ones that have always been in her mind, needling away at her thoughts and reminding her that, no matter what, she’ll always be the crazy girl. Being loved didn’t change that.

 

“Hmmm, I’m sure we can convince Nat to let us go away again,” she says, “it’s more just about…her worrying about us being alone for too long, you know? There’s a lot of dangerous things out here.”

 

Jackie doesn’t want to argue with Lottie about her worth, something that she used to be so confident in but now felt like she’s just sort of there. Lottie wants her around, so Jackie stays around, and Nat seems to think she needs Jackie’s help, which is ridiculous and she’ll figure that out soon. She scoffs. “I mean, between the two of us, you’ve killed a bear, and I’ve survived a night in the cold, so I feel like we could probably be left alone for a few days.” Though, it was also important to keep in mind that neither of them knew how to hunt, and both of them weren’t allowed near weapons.

 

Lottie is quiet for a moment. “I don’t even remember doing that,” she admits after a while. “I mean I do. Sort of. But it was like…I wasn’t there?” She doesn’t know how to describe it, that day and the entire night before. She’d felt like she wasn’t in her body, like she was just watching herself doing those things, unable to stop the horror that was going on. Some part of her hadn’t wanted to, either. That was the part of her that she was the most afraid of, too. 

 

“I just think it’s safer if we only disappear for a day at a time.” Just in case.

 

“You were pretty out of it,” Jackie whispers. It had been scary, truthfully. A lot about that day and the night before had been scary. The bear, the girls chasing Travis, they way they’d reacted finding the two of them together. Shauna had scared her. Lottie… Jackie tells herself she wasn’t afraid of Lottie then because it was Lottie, and she’s never found anything scary about Lottie. Not her sad brown eyes or her soft cheeks or the way she acted on the field. But being loomed over, being told she didn’t matter… Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s collarbone before tucking her face there. “No more than a day at a time. I think that’s fair. I guess.”

 

No one will actually say it, but Lottie knows they were all afraid of her because of what she’d done. Even Nat. Even Jackie. She knows because she herself was afraid of what she’d done. She’d just been so angry and sad and those weren’t really feelings Lottie was used to dealing with. She’d lost Laura Lee, violently and instantaneously. She was there, and then she wasn’t, and the only thing Lottie had felt was angry.

 

She didn’t feel angry anymore, though. Now, she just felt sad about it all. “I think it’s a pretty good compromise,” she agrees, letting her fingers drift up and down Jackie’s bare back. “We got a lot done in that one night and day, you know?”

 

Jackie shivers from Lottie’s touch, sighing softly, happily. They’re so far removed from what happened during Doomcoming and the bear and the first snow that they don’t even feel like those people anymore. Jackie is just Jackie, and Lottie is just Lottie. Sweet, shy Lottie, who loves her and touches her with a lot more confidence than Jackie would have ever expected. “We did. It was pretty fun. I couldn’t believe that it was that fun,” Jackie admits.

 

“It’s always a lot more fun with someone you actually, you know, like,” Lottie teases gently, continuing her motions with her fingers, tracing along Jackie’s spine. “I’m happy I could show you that.”

 

“So I’m figuring out,” Jackie says, grinning as she presses closer, unable to pull away. She just wants to touch Lottie, however she can, and she wants Lottie to touch her. “Thank you,” she murmurs, “for showing me that, and that it’s okay to– to be myself.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” she murmurs, “I’m sure even without me you would’ve eventually figured it out.”

 

Jackie laughs. “Maybe, but I’m glad that it was with you.”

 

Lottie’s face grows warm. “I…I’m glad it was me, too.” And she really was. Maybe in another life it was with a different girl with sad, brown eyes and long, brown hair, but in this one it was Lottie and it might’ve been selfish of her to think, to say, but she was glad it was her.

 

“I love you,” Jackie says, pressing in to offer Lottie a sweet kiss. Shauna’s gone, disappeared back to be just a part of her mind than a piece outside of it. Between that and Lottie’s massage, she feels tired, but she doesn’t want to sleep, not yet. She’s missed her girlfriend. She wants to spend time with her girlfriend. It feels warm in her chest; she has a girlfriend.

 

A smile curves Lottie’s lips as she accepts Jackie’s kiss happily, their warm, still slightly sweaty bodies pressed together. “I love you, too,” she whispers between them. 

 

It’s so sweet, these words that they have just for each other. Jackie likes the way they feel on her tongue, and she likes the way they sound when they fall out of Lottie’s mouth, all warm and soft. Jackie wonders if Lottie would want this in every life. She wonders if it’s enough to just have it in this one.

 

Lottie’s fingers drift up enough to brush through Jackie’s hair as they lay in a peaceful silence. Usually, Lottie doesn’t like the silence, it’s prime for her mind to take advantage of, to make her hear things, see things, feel things that aren’t there, that aren’t real. But with Jackie, the silence isn’t so loud. It’s quiet and serene. 

 

“Are you tired?” she asks after a while, still holding the smaller girl tight against her body. Lottie isn’t tired, maybe she should be, but sometimes sleep is hard to come by. On those nights, she likes to stare up at the moon and the stars and wonder if they watch her as often as she watches them.

 

“I’m tired,” Jackie admits. It’s been a long day. She felt it in her bones, the ache of it already starting to sink in. “But I’m not sleepy.” She’s perfectly content to just stay right there with Lottie, enjoying the peace or talking with each other, whatever she wants. She likes getting to know more about what goes on in Lottie’s head. She likes getting to sit and just be with her, even if it means that an early morning comes too quickly.

 

“You did have a long day,” Lottie says, petting gently through Jackie’s hair, the strands still feeling like silk between her fingers even thought it’s a little messy and tangled. “Do you know what you’re doing tomorrow?” She wonders if Nat discusses this stuff with Jackie. Maybe Lottie should’ve actually talked to the others about what to do, what was going on. She’d never been fit to lead. She still didn’t understand why It chose her.

 

“I genuinely have no idea what I’ll be doing tomorrow. The last time someone gave me the captain title, I just got gatorade dumped on me and then had to run laps with everyone else the next day. I think Mari would be kind of pissed if we wasted the good berry wine, so… I guess it’s just straight to laps with the rest of the team,” Jackie jokes. 

 

“I can dunk you in the river if that helps?” Lottie teases back, moving just enough so she can look into Jackie’s eyes, head resting just beside hers. “Not as sticky as gatorade, though.”

 

Jackie scoffs. “I appreciate it, but I think one attempted drowning today is enough,” she says, looking into Lottie’s eyes. “Besides I’m… kind of sticky right now, so I think that’s good enough.” Her hand reaches up, brushing through Lottie’s hair, wrapping some of it around her fingers.

 

“I said dunk, not drown,” Lottie chuckles. “I’d offer to just wash you off but I think we both know how that will end.” Considering they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, it was probably best for now that they didn’t get naked in the river together unless they were alone. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes a moment, relishing in the feeling of Jackie’s fingers playing in her hair. For a second, it feels like a different pair of hands and Lottie opens her eyes to remind herself that this is real. They really are just two girls haunted by the ghosts of their own mistakes.

 

“I’d like to point out that we have managed to make it through exactly one time of washing each other off without anything all… sexy happening,” Jackie says, but she can’t help but giggle as well. She lets her fingers scratch at Lottie’s scalp. “You’ve just gotta keep your wicked fingers to yourself.”

 

A soft hum vibrates in Lottie’s throat, the feeling making her muscles relax further, as if she were going to melt into the fuzzy bedding they were laying on. “One whole time isn’t a very good track record,” she points out, but she’s smiling. 

 

At that, though, Lottie lifts her hand and trails her fingers along Jackie’s collarbones. “My wicked fingers have a mind of their own.”

 

“Maybe we should keep trying. I feel like we’ll get it eventually,” Jackie murmurs, leaning in closer. She likes to see how much Lottie enjoys her touch. She likes the feeling of Lottie touching her. Really, it’s a vicious cycle.

 

“Practice makes perfect, right?” Lottie says back, moving in closer, too. She feels like she can’t stay away from Jackie for long otherwise she’ll combust. Not that she even wants to. 

 

Jackie nods, unable to look away. “Yep. And some things are worth practicing.”

 

“I think we need practice with both, really,” Lottie mumbles, eyes flicking to Jackie’s lips and back up to her eyes. 

 

“Practice with both?” Jackie asks softly.

 

“You know, practice restraint but also practice…not having restraint,” Lottie grins, close enough now to brush her lips against Jackie’s. 

 

Leaning into the kiss, Jackie can’t help but agree. “You’re right,” she mumbles against Lottie’s lips. “We should–- we should definitely practice with both.”

 

“Yeah,” Lottie sighs, “we should.” She circles her arms back around Jackie’s shoulders, pulling them flush together. She kisses Jackie softly at first, her lips still tasting dewy and sweet. 

 

Even if Jackie was tired before, she certainly isn’t now, happily kissing Lottie back with one hand tangled in her hair and the other moving down to trace patterns onto her hip. It feels so good, like they know each other so well but also like it’s the first every single time.

 

A shiver works its way through Lottie’s body, palms laying flat on Jackie’s back as she kisses her. She tastes like heaven. Every time Lottie kisses her, she feels like it’s that first night, with rushed hands and desperate lips. Skin against skin. 

 

When she pulls back enough to breathe, Lottie looks into Jackie’s eyes as she whispers, “I really like kissing you.”

 

Jackie’s hand moves out of Lottie’s hair and to her cheek, her thumb brushing against it. “I really like kissing you, too,” she breathes. “It’s one of my favorite things to do.”

 

Lottie nuzzles her cheek into Jackie’s touch. “Did you ever imagine this would be your life?”

 

“Which part?” Jackie asks. “The kissing you, or admitting I like girls, or the being stranded in the wilderness?”

 

“Well, mostly the first two,” Lottie answers. “I don’t think any of us really…imagined this would happen. Or even could. I know I didn’t.” But now, Lottie felt as if it were inevitable, like she was always going to end up here somehow.

 

Leaning in, Jackie offers Lottie another short, sweet kiss. “I thought about kissing you,” she admits. “I wanted to, more than once. I don’t think I ever thought that I would. I don’t think I ever thought I’d… admit it. I figured I was destined for the husband, white picket fence, and two and a half kids scenario.”

 

Lottie tilts her head, curious. “Really?” She’s a little surprised by the fact. “I kind of always figured if you thought about kissing someone it would be, you know…Shauna.” Not Lottie. No one really thought about Lottie before, not even Nat, who had kissed her. Several times.

 

A little embarrassed, Jackie feels her cheeks heat up and moves to hide her face in Lottie’s neck. “I think I’ve thought about kissing everyone on the team at some point,” she mumbles. “So, I mean, yeah, Shauna, but you–- I never paid attention in French, okay?”

 

“Are you saying I’m not special, then?” Lottie teases, tucking Jackie into her. She presses a kiss to her head. “I didn’t either, but I think that was for a different reason than you.” Although, Lottie had thought about kissing Jackie before all of this, back when they were still just a couple of teenagers in high school. 

 

“That’s not at all what I said,” Jackie says indignantly. “Okay, but why weren’t you paying attention in French? My reason was very understandable. There was a really pretty girl with long legs and gorgeous brown eyes in front of me, and I just wanted to play with her hair.”

 

“Hmm, I don’t know. I’m feeling very unspecial right now,” Lottie sighs dramatically, shaking her head. “Because I was bored.” She shrugs. “That does sound very distracting. Kind of rude of that girl to have such long legs.”

 

Jackie frowns and pulls away, her eyes pleading. “Let me make it up to you? Tell me how to make it up to you.” Her hand brushes against Lottie’s cheek again. “It was very, very rude, but I did appreciate the view.”

 

“You could…show me how special you think I am,” Lottie suggests with a cheeky grin. It was fun to joke, even if Lottie didn’t think she was all that special. “At least it was a nice view. I had to look at Derek Greene’s back and I don’t think that guy knew that you had to wash your hair at least once a week.”

 

Wrapping her arms around Lottie, Jackie gives Lottie a tight hug before she starts peppering kisses all over Lottie’s skin, starting with her face. “You’re the most special. Even if I thought about another girl, you’re the only one I’ll be like this with. You’re the only one I want to have me. Body, soul, I’d give you my heart if I could take it out of my chest and sew it into yours,” she mumbles between kisses, not stopping anytime soon. It's true, though, isn't it? She doesn't want to be with anyone else like this but Lottie now. “That’s also really gross. Derek really should have done something about that.”

 

Lottie can't hold back the fit of giggles that bubbles in her chest as Jackie showers her with kisses and compliments. It feels all too serious to be promised someone's soul and heart, but the weight of it only makes Lottie more giddy. “Please keep your heart in your chest,” she smiles, placing her hand on Jackie's chest, over her heart, “I like it right where it is.”

 

She laughs, shaking her head. “I thought about bringing him some shampoo as a ‘get the hint please’ thing, but then I worried he'd get the wrong idea and think it was a gift or something weird.”

 

Jackie takes Lottie’s hand and keeps it pressed over her heart as she keeps kissing her, determined now to kiss as much of her bare skin as she can. “Okay. But, you know. It’s yours.”

 

Making a face, she adds, “No, you were definitely right. Who knows what he would have done if you’d started giving him gifts. He might have thought that you liked him.”

 

The thought scares Lottie as much as she finds it thrilling. “I know,” she says, quieter now. “And you know you have mine, too.” Lottie thinks her heart has belonged to Jackie for a long time already. Certainly since before they'd become this. 

 

Lottie sticks her tongue out. “Gross. Imagine how much more insufferable he would've been.”

 

Jackie nods, her lips brushing against Lottie’s pulse. It beats, and she can feel it against her skin, her mouth, making her sigh happily. She has Lottie’s heart, too. It’s all she thinks she wants in the world. Laughing against Lottie’s skin, she mumbles, “Maybe you could have changed him, made him see the error of his ways.”

 

Lottie shivers at the touch, breath stuttering a moment. She thinks about how she'd probably thank Jackie if the other girl bit into her neck and tore out her artery with her teeth. She'd die happy, tasting her own blood on Jackie's lips. 

 

She shakes her head again. “He was as set in his ways as all that grease was in his hair.”

 

“Maybe he could have used it to style it better,” Jackie murmurs, her tongue licking gently against Lottie’s neck. “Like… John Travolta in Grease.”

 

Lottie's breath catches a little and she swallows, moving her head just enough to give Jackie more access to skin.

 

“Pretty sure that was…actual hair gel,” Lottie mumbles, already forgetting what they were talking about.

 

“Probably so. I always preferred Rizzo.” Jackie moves to where she’s half on top of Lottie, nuzzling against her neck. Her skin tastes sweet and salty, addicting. Jackie can’t seem to pull away.

 

Humming, Lottie murmurs, “I wonder why,” as if they both don't know. Lottie always preferred her, too.

 

She tangles their legs together and burrows into Jackie. She thinks she wouldn't mind melting into her completely, sighing as she feels Jackie's tongue on her skin. 

 

“Do I taste good?” Lottie babbles, holding onto Jackie tightly.

 

“Yeah,” Jackie says dreamily, leaning up to press a kiss to Lottie’s lips.

 

Lottie returns the kiss hungrily, as if they hadn't just been kissing and touching and fucking. She kind of never wants to stop, which is a strange feeling for her still. She's always enjoyed stuff like this, but she's never felt so compelled and wanting before. Not like this. Jackie just drives her crazy, she thinks-- crazier, really. She's okay with that.

 

With a quiet moan, Jackie moves closer, as close as she can. It’s all Lottie’s fault; her lips are just so soft and sweet, and Jackie doesn’t know how to keep herself away. She doesn’t know how to stop. It’s so easy to want out here. It’s so easy to let herself want, and to just give in to it. She only pulls away from enough to breath, panting as she looks at Lottie with heavily lidded eyes.

 

All Lottie can do is stare back into Jackie’s eyes, watching her cheeks grow redder, her eyes grow heady. She’s sure it matches her own. She lifts her hand to trace along the curve of Jackie’s jaw, to her chin, fingertips brushing against her kiss swollen lips. “How did I get so lucky…” she murmurs, unable to look away.

 

You saved my life, Jackie thinks, and she knows she’s belonged to Lottie ever since. She wants to believe that Lottie knows that, too. She knows she has Jackie’s heart. She knows. Jackie’s eyes close, leaning into Lottie’s touch. When she opens them again, Lottie’s still looking at her, so tender and loving, and it makes her feel so warm it’s all the way into her fingertips. No one’s ever loved her like this. No one’s ever wanted to, and, even if they had, she doesn’t think she’d let them.

 

Lottie moves forward enough to press their foreheads together, moving to place her hand over Jackie’s heart once again. “I promise I’ll always love you,” she murmurs, “no matter what.”

 

It feels like something so big and dangerous to promise when sometimes Jackie gets reminded that, really, they’re just in high school. But they also haven’t been in high school in months, and they haven’t been in that world in months. This place, these people, Lottie, that is Jackie’s entire world, now. Sometimes, she thinks that she doesn’t want anything more. She thinks that she doesn’t want to go back. “I’ll always love you, too. Always. I promise.” Jackie holds Lottie’s hand to her heart, letting her feel every beat. “I promise.”

 

It’s such a big thing to promise, but for Lottie, it’s the only possibility. She’ll love Jackie forever, this she knows, and Lottie doesn’t definitively know a lot of things about her life. It’s always been in flux, what’s real, what’s not, what she’s decided to be, what she’s decided to hide. 

 

But she knows, now, that this will always be a constant, no matter how far gone her mind becomes-- Lottie Matthews will always love Jackie Taylor. 

 

Her fingertips pulse with the beat of Jackie’s heart. She thinks they’re one and the same now. She wonders if this is how Jackie felt about Shauna before. She shifts enough to press their lips together once again, as if sealing their promise.

 

Jackie lets the kiss linger, soft and sweet and more meaningful, really, than it has been before. Maybe there’s leftover energy in the moon; maybe that’s real and still affecting them, making them and this moment feel like so much. But it’s just a normal night. In the morning, they’ll wake up, and they’ll move about the village in the rhythm they’ve been developing for the last month. And they’ll have each other. They’ll have each other.

 

Lottie only pulls back when she has to take in a deep breath, Jackie’s own breath still warm on her lips. She feels soft and pliant, burying her face back in Jackie’s neck, her hair. She thinks they should sleep, but she’s not that tired. Tomorrow will come whether they do or not. 

 

Lips graze already bruised skin on Jackie’s neck. She doesn’t have to say the words to know that Jackie is hers. She can feel it in the air and taste it on her skin. She lets her teeth graze Jackie’s pulse. She remembers the taste of Jackie’s blood. 

 

“You should sleep,” she murmurs to her after a long silence.

 

Eyelids fluttering, Jackie tilts her head to the side so that Lottie can press into her neck, shivering when she feels teeth against her pulse. “I… Yeah,” she agrees, reaching up to run her fingers through Lottie’s hair.

 

Lottie leans into the touch as well, soothing the spot on Jackie’s neck where her pulse is beating with her tongue. She thinks Jackie should try and get some sleep, but she also wants to taste her skin in her mouth, she wants to gently bite down on the artery in Jackie’s neck where blood rushes like fire through her body. Her pointed canines scrape gently across the skin there. She doesn’t move.

 

Moaning quietly, Jackie shudders at the feeling of Lottie’s teeth. They should try to sleep, they really should, but it’s hard to want to like this. She likes the way that Lottie’s mouth feels on her skin. She thinks she’d like it just as much if Lottie bit down and bled her out. She thinks maybe she needs to go to sleep.

 

It’s undeniable how much Lottie likes the sound of Jackie’s moans. It feels almost involuntary how she bites down again, just a little harder. How she sucks on the skin, tasting the salt and sweat that sticks to it. How her arms curl around Jackie’s back and draw her in closer. Lottie just can’t help it, she thinks. She doesn’t want to.

 

“God,” Jackie breathes. She moves to hold onto Lottie, her arms wrapping around her and holding her tight.

 

The sound just makes Lottie want to taste her more, moving down her neck and scraping her teeth along the curve where it meets her shoulder. She bites down again, leaves small indents that she lathers with her tongue. Everything about Jackie seems to drive Lottie crazy, and she craves it like a drug.

 

Jackie moans again, her heart thudding rapidly in her chest as Lottie’s mouth moves. She feels the necklace, her necklace, brush against her skin, still nestled perfectly around Lottie’s neck. Because it was a gift, and it’s supposed to mean protection, but really it just makes Jackie light up when she knows that Lottie’s wearing it because it lets her know that Lottie’s hers. 

 

Lottie barely feels the cool metal against her own skin anymore, it’s such a natural part of her now. She wears it all the time, she rarely takes it off. She doesn’t want to. She likes knowing it was a gift, likes knowing that Jackie wanted her to have it. It meant more than Lottie could say, she only wished she’d had something meaningful to give back to Jackie. She hopes this is enough, though, as she kisses her bruised skin, littered with hickeys and teeth indents, even as she leaves more behind, too.

 

Hickeys used to be embarrassing, the thought of Jeff leaving a mark on her or the few times she and Shauna would practice late at night where Shauna would be almost vicious with it. Jackie used to special care to hide them, not wanting her mother to see and make a comment or anyone at school to see and tease her relentlessly. But she likes these marks, likes the way they feel so sensitive when she presses down on them, likes that she can see them all over her skin when she wakes up and gets ready using the little mirror in their hut. It makes Jackie feel loved, and she shudders with it, unable to fight off the feeling.

 

Maybe it’s selfish or possessive, but Lottie loves being able to mark up Jackie like this, to prove to the world and to herself that Jackie is hers and only she gets to leave these bruises on her. Succulent skin pocked with her teeth marks and reddened with the way she sucks on it. It’s easy to get lost in the feeling, in the motion, her mouth moving lower, latching onto a collarbone, biting and sucking, savoring the sounds Jackie makes and the taste of her skin, silky and sweet and just a little metallic.

 

Jackie felt like she could almost fall asleep to Lottie’s ministrations against her skin, except when Lottie would bite down or suck just a little harder, causing her breath to stick sharp in her chest before shuddering out as a sigh. She brushed one hand through Lottie’s hair and let the other drift up and down the expanse of her back. Her legs wrapped around Lottie’s waist, holding on tight.

 

Sometimes this all feels too much like a dream and Lottie has to remind herself it’s all real, but whenever Jackie is making that wonderful, gasping sound, Lottie knows it’s real without ever having to second guess it. It sends a shiver through her own body, desperate to hear more, knowing she should probably stop, but not wanting to.

 

She manages to pull herself back before she gets too carried away, skin still tingling. Lifting her head, she presses a kiss back to Jackie’s lips. “Just in case anyone wasn’t sure,” she murmurs, finger tracing the new bruise growing on Jackie’s neck, “you’re mine.”

 

“I…” Jackie trails off, her words lost against the press of Lottie’s lips to her own, nails scratching at the back of Lottie’s head. “I’m yours.” It’s so easy to agree, to know that it’s true, when Lottie kisses and touches and looks at her like that.

 

Lottie hums, satisfied, lips still tasting Jackie’s. The words said back to her make her shiver again. Hers. All hers. No one else can have her, not even the Wilderness. 

 

At the thought, a different sort of chill races up Lottie’s spine. She tries to ignore it, but she can feel them being watched. She presses another kiss to Jackie’s lips, hungrier this time. 

 

This is theirs, It can’t have this.

 

This might be one of those nights where they just don’t sleep, and Jackie might regret it in the morning, but, at the moment, she has no problem giving into Lottie’s hungry kisses, growing more frantic herself as she brushes her tongue over Lottie’s lips, her hips jerking involuntarily as they lie there, wrapped up in each other.

 

The soft whimper of a moan escapes Lottie’s throat as hips grind against her. She doesn’t think they’re going to sleep at all, especially as she pushes back on Jackie’s shoulders and rolls them over so that Lottie is on top of her, between her legs, hips rocking into Jackie’s. 

 

The way their hips move into each other makes Jackie shudder out a whimper of her own. She bites down on Lottie’s bottom lip before sucking on it harshly. Jackie wants. She wants and she wants and she wants. She can’t stop wanting. 

 

Lottie inhales sharply at teeth digging into her lip. She presses harder into the kiss, hips grinding against Jackie's, the heat between both their legs slick and rubbing against each other making Lottie shudder. She can feel something trying to pry at her, like a jealous child, wanting all the attention, but Lottie only wants Jackie. Only this, only her. 

 

Jackie feels so warm, a little like she’s burning, really, as they kiss and move and touch, Lottie’s body solid and real on top of her, pressing into her. She bites down on Lottie’s lip again, soft and plush and so easy to sink her teeth into. Her hands grip Lottie’s ass, pulling her even closer as they strain against each other.

 

Another gasp falls from Lottie’s lips, a moan in her throat. She wants more of it. More of Jackie, more of this feeling, more of this taste. Lottie’s hips roll against Jackie’s again, the feeling like fire inside of her when they touch. She wants to drown in this feeling, this girl. It can’t have Jackie and Lottie thinks that maybe It can’t have her, either. Not when all she wants is this and all Jackie wants is Lottie.

 

Lottie is so incredible, and Jackie thinks she’s addicted. She’s allowed herself to want something, someone, openly and completely, and now she doesn’t think she can stop. She wouldn’t even begin to know how. When she pulls away to breathe, her head thumps against the bedding underneath her. “You’re so… amazing,” she murmurs.

 

Pupils blown wide, Lottie stares back down at Jackie with reverence. “You’re my everything,” she breathes back, unable to look away. She doesn’t want to. She watches Jackie’s face as she rolls her hips again, slowly and steady, the heat between her legs rubbing against the heat between Jackie’s. She shudders, arms shaking. 

 

Jackie is all Lottie wants, all Lottie needs. She thinks she’s never needed or wanted anything the way she does Jackie. She feels a cold chill run up her spine. She ignores it.

 

Jackie moans, her hips moving up to meet Lotties again and again, heat pooling low in her stomach. Lottie thinks that she’s everything. She wants Jackie, and she thinks Jackie’s everything, and Jackie thinks that’s so fucking incredible. Her entire life’s recentered around Lottie. She’s always done this. For so long, it was just one person, even when she was serving the interest of others. Be the perfect daughter, perfect girlfriend, tear herself apart to better fit. But there’s just Lottie out here. She loves the other girls, she knows she does, but she needs Lottie. And she’s happy Lottie needs her, too.

 

Lottie’s breath is catching in her throat as she feels her insides stretching, ready to snap. That heat pooling between her legs, bursting through her veins, ready to erupt. She rolls her hips again and again, pressing down into Jackie, crushing their lips together, teeth scraping. She wants her, needs her, fights against the feeling of ice trickling through her, tendrils of dark trying to wrap around her mind. She’s gotten good at ignoring things like that, though. She’s had her entire life to practice.

 

Everything has narrowed down to lips and tongues and teeth as their kisses become sloppier and more desperate, their hips jerking together out of sync, and Jackie thinks that this is probably the closest she’s ever felt to being perfect. Probably because it’s so imperfect. It’s messy and wet and hot. Jackie wraps her legs around Lottie, trying to pull her impossibly closer. 

 

As legs tighten around Lottie's waist, she can feel her stomach igniting. She panting against Jackie's lips, into her mouth, each breath an airy moan. She thinks she's going to come undone and she doesn't mind. She almost wants it. 

 

Her legs stiffen, hips jerking, she cries out into Jackie's lips, hands clenching the bedding below so tight her knuckles turn white. It makes her vision go blurry, speckled with dots. She hears a voice whisper in her ear, telling her this isn't real-- but for once, Lottie knows it is, because nothing else has ever made her feel this nice.

 

“You’re so…” Jackie whispers against Lottie’s lips, “... so beautiful. So perfect. I love you.”

 

Lottie has never particularly felt perfect, or even acting remotely close, but the way Jackie says it, she almost believes it. “I love you, too,” Lottie murmurs back, “more than anything.” More than everything. 

 

Jackie’s hips roll slowly, lazily, and she shudders as the words tip her over the edge. Pulling Lottie even closer, she slips her tongue into Lottie’s mouth and sighs.

 

Lottie swallows Jackie's moans as she feels her tumble over the edge. Hot and pulsing against Lottie. She savors the taste. Licks against Jackie's tongue, lingering. “You're my whole world,” she whispers to her.

 

Smiling, Jackie laughs against Lottie’s lips, light and happy. When she finally pulls away, she presses a kiss to Lottie’s cheek. “You’re everything.”

 

Lottie returns the smile, eyes lidded and soft as she looks down at Jackie. There’s no sweeter words to ever be said to her, she thinks. She presses their foreheads together, eyes closing. She loves her so much it feels overwhelming sometimes, like she’s done something wrong or she’s just foolish, but how could she not love Jackie? After everything they’d been through together, everything they’d done for each other? It was impossible. It seemed impossible.

 

Jackie pulls Lottie further on top of her and settles into their bedding, her own eyes closing. She feels the tiredness creeping back in, weighing her down even more. She wants to stay awake, she thinks. She wants to be with Lottie until she can’t, but it doesn’t feel like Jackie’s really making that decision anymore. Huffing, Jackie buries her face in Lottie’s neck and wraps her arms around her back, feeling a bit like a koala bear.

 

Moving when Jackie tugs on her, Lottie lets her wrap herself around her, before she circles her own arms around Jackie, holding her tight. “You should get some sleep,” she murmurs, feeling Jackie’s body relaxing, her heartbeat slowing. She feels warm, content…happy. So stupidly happy.

 

“I’m not sleepy,” Jackie mumbles, feeling petulant. “I could totally go again. I’ve got stamina, you know?” But Lottie’s body is so warm, and the pressure of being held is so nice, her eyes feel heavier the longer they lie there.

 

It’s Lottie’s turn to laugh. “I’m sure you could,” she says, kissing her forehead, “but there’s no need to rush, we’ve got all the time in the world.” 

 

Jackie licks Lottie’s neck and groans. “I know, but I just… want you all the time. Is that normal?” She doesn’t know how to keep her hands off of Lottie at this point. She’s never had this problem before.

 

Lottie hums. “I think so,” she murmurs back. “I mean…from what I hear, when you’re with someone you really like, it’s supposed to be.” 

 

“Just…” obsessed. Jackie feels obsessed with Lottie, especially when they’re like this, like the thought of being away from her is too much to handle when they could be touching and kissing and loving each other. “I just really like you.”

 

Lottie’s cheeks warm at the words. She draws in a breath, the scent of Jackie and dirt and the heat they’d shared filling her up. “I really like you, too.”

 

Even as she tries to fight it off, Jackie can feel the need to sleep blurring the edge of her vision. Her limbs start to loosen, still around Lottie but no longer as tight as she relaxes underneath her, brushing her fingers against Lottie’s warm cheek and smiling as her eyes start to flutter closed.

 

Lottie can feel Jackie turning to liquid in her arms as sleep finally claws at her and pulls her under. She lets out a soft breath, moving enough to lay beside Jackie but still keep her enveloped fully in her arms. She presses her nose to her hair and closes her own eyes, wondering how long it’ll take to claim her for sleep, too.

Notes:

Aw, lookit, they're being cute and gay (grooooosss). Things can only keep going well for our heroines, right? Totally. Toooootally.

As always, thanks so much for reading. We love comments, we love kudos, we love all sorts of interactions. Feel free to hit us up on our socials, and we'll see you all next week!

Chapter 29: grief is the price we pay for love

Summary:

Which is better-- fish fry Fridays or fishstick Fridays? For the Yellowjackets, both are good. Any day they get to eat is a good one, after all, and Lottie and Jackie even get to indulge in each other a little extra. Just ignore the ghost(s) in the room. And hopefully the don't spoil themselves for the pool party! Lake party? Either way, they're all going to have a great time. Probably. Hopefully.

Notes:

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...it's all the same day, right? My bad, it's been a week, but here we are! Always gonna try our best to get you guys a chapter out a week, even if it's a few days late. At least this one is a chonker to help make up for it? Thanks for being patient with us!

 

Chapter title is from "Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life" by Dr. Colin Murray Parkes

Lottie doesn’t remember falling asleep, not exactly, but she knows she does. She thinks she does.

 

When her eyes open, she’s sitting in the center of the village but it’s empty. Not in a distressing way, but in the way that Lottie often feels-- lonely but not alone. As she looks around, she thinks she sees a familiar crop of brown hair. She knows it’s Jackie before she even hears her.

 

What she does hear is a voice next to her, the shift of someone’s weight as they sit. It’s a voice she hasn’t heard in months-- no one has, because she’s dead.

 

“She’ll never love you the way she loves me,” Shauna murmurs in Lottie’s ear.

 

Lottie doesn’t look at her, she keeps her eyes on Jackie, who’s at the other end of the village, helping Natalie build something. It sort of looks like a cage.

 

“I know,” Lottie says back.

 

“She’ll never be yours,” Shauna states, her voice low, “because she’s mine.”

 

Lottie can feel her heart growing sad-- but still, she smiles. “I know.”

 

The world begins to turn dark. Shauna leans in, then, puts a hand on Lottie’s shoulder. “No one will ever love you as much as I do,” whispers a distorted voice.

 

Lottie turns to look but in the instant she does-- she wakes up.

 

Sunlight trickles into their hut from behind the blanket she’s thrown over the window. She’s sweaty and naked and has seemingly kicked the blanket Jackie had pulled over them off in the middle of the night.

 

Her arms are still wrapped tight around the other girl, though, and Lottie relaxes, already knowing Jackie woke up the moment she did.

 

Jackie doesn’t dream, her mind and body too exhausted to even bother with it. It’s a warm, peaceful sleep, tucked into Lottie’s arms. She wakes up groggy, blinking against the sunlight as she feels Lottie moving beside her, their bodies flush together. Her cheeks feel even warmer than the rest of her as she looks at Lottie, gently brushing a hand through her hair.

 

For the most part, Lottie feels unphased by her dream.

 

Except for that last few moments, because that hadn’t been Shauna, saying those words. No one will ever love you the way I do. 

 

Rubbing her eyes, Lottie shifts when she feels Jackie moving around in her arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Morning,” she mumbles.

 

“Morning,” Jackie says, her voice raspier with sleep. She offers Lottie a smile, leaning up to press a kiss to her nose. “How did you sleep?”

 

Maybe it’s just because Lottie is in love, but the sound of Jackie’s voice in the morning, usually raspy in the first place, always makes her warm. “Fine,” she says, smiling, “did you sleep well? You seemed to pass out pretty quick, despite protests otherwise.”

 

Jackie groans, rubbing at her eyes. “I could have stayed awake longer. But I was tired. And I slept good. Probably something to do with my company.”

 

“Oh, yes, of course,” Lottie nods. She brushes hair from Jackie’s groggy eyes. “Totally.” She grins again, unable to help herself. “You say that every time I ask how you slept.”

 

“I always sleep better with you around,” Jackie murmurs, grinning back at Lottie softly. She can’t sleep at all without Lottie, she’s sure. Lottie’s completely ruined her sleep habits. 

 

Lottie nuzzles against Jackie’s cheek, leaves a kiss there. “I’m glad.” She thinks she also sleeps better with Jackie around. She thinks she can’t sleep at all without Jackie. 

 

Sitting up and rolling around, Lottie hovers over Jackie, smiling down at her. “You’re like my little teddy bear,” she teases.

 

Making an indignant little noise, Jackie frowns, leaning up on her elbows. “Me the teddy bear? Nope, no way, you’re like my teddy bear. Like those big ones from games at the boardwalk, the cuddly ones with the soft cheeks and the big, brown eyes.”

 

“But you’re just so little,” Lottie says, pouting, “like a stuffed animal.” Almost like Leonard, she thinks, but shakes the thought away. “Are you calling me a prize?”

 

“I am not that little,” Jackie huffs. “You’re just really tall.” And, yeah, okay. Fine. Jackie’s short. She smirks up at Lottie. “I am calling you a prize, yeah. What are you gonna do about it?”

 

“You’re the shortest on the team,” Lottie points out, booping Jackie on the nose. She flops down on top of her dramatically. “Am I your prize?”

 

Jackie gives an exaggerated grunt as Lottie lands on top of her. “That can’t be true. But you are my prize, totally.”

 

“It’s totally true,” Lottie says, grinning, “unless you count Misty, but, like…” Misty wasn’t actually part of the team, not really. Not in the way that the others all thought mattered. “Well, as long as I’m just your prize.” She hugs Jackie tightly. “I don’t want to be anyone else’s.”

 

“God, and Misty’s hair gives her, like, two extra inches on me,” Jackie groans. Her arms wrap around Lottie’s back, her fingers splaying to touch as much as possible. “All mine. I’m really bad at sharing, too, sorry.”

 

Lottie chuckles. “If you had a perm, maybe you’d be taller, too.” She shivers under Jackie’s hands pressed to her back. “I’m perfectly fine with that, really.”

 

Jackie wrinkles up her nose. “No way,” she says. She meets Lottie’s eyes and, while Lottie is shivering and distracted, Jackie manages to flip them, straddling Lottie’s hips. “Good. Because you’re mine.”

 

Lottie lets out a soft oomf of air as Jackie flips them, looking up at her dazed for a moment before the smile returns to her face. “Yours,” she repeats, hands resting on Jackie’s thighs.

 

Taking one of Lottie’s hands, Jackie places it over her heart. “And I’m yours.”

 

Lottie lays her hand flat on Jackie’s chest. She’s quiet, but she doesn’t think she needs to say anything. She leans up to press a kiss to Jackie’s lips. She doesn’t know how they got here, but she doesn’t think she’d trade it for anything in the world.

 

It’s soft and sweet, and Jackie thinks she just wants to spend all day kissing and touching Lottie, but she can hear the others start moving outside. Van starts whistling as she leaves her and Tai’s hut, and Jackie hears Britt and Misty talking about something on the other side of the village. 

 

Sighing, Lottie pulls away. “We should probably get up, too,” she murmurs, brushing some hair from Jackie’s face. She can’t help but stare at her longingly. She wants to just stay with her here all day.

 

“Probably,” Jackie says, but she still takes a minute to move, getting off of Lottie and huffing out a sigh. 

 

As Lottie leans up, she chases Jackie for a moment, pulling her back in for a quick, but no less passionate, kiss. She licks her lips after she pulls away and smiles. “Don’t look so upset, I’m sure we’ll be alone again tonight before you know it.”

 

Jackie frowns. “But that’s so far away,” she whines.

 

God, Jackie is cute when she pouts. Lottie thinks it’s not fair, but then again, Jackie is cute no matter what she’s doing. She presses a kiss to her nose. “Absence makes the heart fonder, or whatever,” she teases, standing and tugging her up with her. “C’mon, the sooner we start the day, the sooner we get to finish.”

 

That was definitely one way to look at it, and Jackie remembers saying similar things when they were all just a soccer team from New Jersey, just trying to make it through another grueling practice. “Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound that bad,” she murmurs, stepping closer to wrap her arms around Lottie’s neck and stand on her toes to kiss her jaw before she becomes too self conscious about their nakedness and the fact that anyone could just come by at any moment to wake them up. “Where did my bra go?” she grumbles.

 

“See?” Lottie digs around for their discarded clothes, picking up Jackie’s bra from the pile and holding it out to her. “One of these days you’re going to lose it for good, and then what’ll you do?” she asks, picking up her own clothes and deciding what was wearable and what needs to be washed. 

 

“Probably have to just go without it. Which is only really annoying if we all go swimming or it’s cold,” Jackie says as she puts it on and gets her underwear, her shorts. “It’s not my fault I don’t know where it is, you know. I’m rarely the one taking it off these days.”

 

Lottie gives a thoughtful hum. “I guess I’ll just have to stop taking it off, then. I’d hate for you to lose it.” This was, of course, a complete lie. Lottie actually really liked taking Jackie’s bra off, she liked pulling it away to reveal bare skin. It made her mouth water to think about. 

 

Lottie fishes out one of her dresses that isn’t dirty and tugs it on over her head before finding a cleaner pair of underwear and some of her baggy pants she likes to wear in the garden to keep the dirt and bugs off her legs. 

 

She starts slipping on her underwear, then looks at Jackie and thinks better of it. Instead, she pulls her pants on and then tugs Jackie over, sticking her underwear in one of Jackie’s pockets, patting it down. “As a reminder for what’s waiting for you,” she teases, before turning to head for the door. She can already smell breakfast being prepared.

 

Jackie’s only barely got her shirt on, looking for the cloak Lottie made for her when Lottie shoves her underwear in one of Jackie’s pockets. Her eyes widen, and she reaches out, grabbing onto Lottie’s hand and tugging her back close. “Cruel,” she mutters, pulling Lottie in for a kiss at the door. 

 

Lottie smiles into the kiss. “Consider it motivation.” And maybe she just kind of wants to make Jackie squirm a little all day. Lottie thinks she’ll probably be spending most of her day digging around in the garden, she needs some way to pass the time quickly.

 

She pulls them both out the door and they’re greeted with a low whistle from Van.

 

“Wow, look at that! No one had to come motivate you two to get up,” she smirks.

 

Shrugging, Jackie just says, “You know what they say about early birds and worms. We’re just seizing the day, you know?”

 

“I bet that's not the only thing you wanna seize,” Melissa chimes, followed by a loud grunt of pain, presumably from Gen hitting her 

 

“Breakfast just smelled so enticing,” Lottie lies, heading over to their normal spot. 

 

She stops mid stride, though, surprised as she sees Misty sitting across the fire next to Nat and Britt. For a moment, the two lock eyes, and it's Lottie who looks away. She's always had a hard time keeping eye contact. 

 

She sits in her chair, leans back and thinks about how her dream had started almost just like this.

 

Jackie follows Lottie to their spot, wary as she sees Misty sitting by the fire when she’s spent about a month now taking her meals in her hut. She offers Nat a look, raising an eyebrow as she sits on the ground next to Lottie but doesn’t say anything.

 

Lottie’s hand almost subconsciously goes to Jackie’s hair, fingers playing with the strands as she watches everyone. No one seems to be saying anything about the fact that Misty has suddenly joined them-- not even Misty. 

 

Nat gives a shrug, as if to say, I’ll tell you later. Lottie has to trust her. And she does. She does.

 

“Okay,” Mari declares, “breakfast ready. Get it while it’s hot, losers.”

 

Maybe Nat could have offered just a bit of warning, Jackie thinks, feeling a little perturbed at her friend. But it’s too early in the morning to dwell, and Jackie’s actually hungry from not really eating the night before, which means that she knows she needs to do a better job of eating today. She pats Lottie’s knee and stands, offering to go get both their plates as she waits in line for breakfast. 

 

Two cups of water and two plates later, and Jackie thinks she’s gotten a lot better at balancing their dishes as she walks back over to Lottie. Her mother always thought it was a menial job for lower class people, but maybe Jackie would have made a good waitress after all. Not that it matters. “My lady,” she says with a smile, offering Lottie her food.

 

Smiling, pulling herself away from thoughts of her dreams last night, Lottie takes the offered breakfast. “What a gentleman,” she teases, setting the plate on her lap as she takes a long sip of water. It soothes her in a way she hadn’t known she needed before she starts picking at the food on her plate. 

 

Her eyes flick between the empty spot beside her that still feels occupied and to Misty and Nat across from her and Jackie. She’s not sure which she’s more disconcerted about, but she doesn’t comment on either as they eat their breakfast alongside the others, idle chatter filling the space and time. They all seem more lax these days, now that their lives have become routine. No one’s hurrying to get things done in time or worrying there’s too much to do in one day. 

 

It feels a little like life back in Wiskayok. Just normal girls going about their lives, no rush or hurry. It was just that now they were in the middle of the mountains and not in a Jersey suburb high school. Lottie finds there’s not much difference, for her.

 

It’s such a weird compliment that Jackie doesn’t quite know what to do with it, except that it makes her feel warm and sweet. She sits cross legged, eating her food quickly even as everyone else relaxes in an effort to make sure she eats as much as possible before taking a drink. 

 

“I know it was walking around not too long ago, but it’s not gonna run away, Jackie,” Tai chides, though her tone is teasing.

 

Jackie offers a thumbs up, covering her mouth with her other hand as she chews, swallows, says, “Hungry. I didn’t eat much last night.”

 

“I mean, you ate someth-- Ow!” Van rubs her arm after Tai elbows her, frowning. 

 

Lottie doesn’t eat as much as she probably should before setting her plate aside. She thinks about offering it to Jackie, but she knows the other girl will just get concerned and make her eat it. Instead, she leans back and puts her chin on her knuckles as she watches the others. She’s always been like this, more observant than participating. No one seems to really notice.

 

“Like you have any room to talk,” Mari says to Van. “We’re across the yard and we heard you and Tai getting frisky.” She gestures to Akilah, who looks more tired than normal, but is still smiling. 

 

“Ignore her,” Akilah says, “she’s just grumpy because she didn’t get her beauty sleep. Melissa was snoring all night.”

 

“I was not!” Melissa protests but even Gen is giving her a disapproving look. “Okay, fine, but I have allergies! Leave me alone.”

 

Feeling her face flush, Jackie chooses to ignore Van, deciding that it’s not worth it. “What was your excuse, Mari? You snored all winter. I could still hear you even when half my head was bandaged up. I swear, the sounds of you snoring are what led me back to the cabin.”

 

“Bite me, Taylor,” Mari says, flipping Jackie off.

 

“Ouch,” Jackie says, placing a hand over her heart. “That one cut deep.”

 

Lottie holds back a laugh, even if it makes the beginnings of a smile quirk up the corners of her mouth. Still, she nudges Jackie with her foot, as if to silently say ‘be nice’. Oh, god, was she the girlfriend who kept her girlfriend in check? Maybe her, Tai and Gen could start a club. The ‘My Girlfriend Likes To Say Stupid Shit’ club. She shakes her head.

 

“Honestly, I’d take Mari or Melissa’s snoring over the creaking of that shitty cabin any day,” Gen says, shrugging. 

 

Nat crinkles her nose. “Shitty cabin or not, at least it kept us warm all winter.” 

 

“Warm is a relative word,” Gen shoots back and Nat frowns, clearly not appreciative of the joke.

 

It was warmer than outside, Jackie thinks, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t miss the cabin. She doesn’t miss the smell, or the sounds, or the fact that there’d been a dead body in there. She doesn’t miss what that place made them all into. Maybe, they’ve gotten away from some of it out here. “Whose snoring is worse?” she asks instead. “Mar or Mel’s?”

 

Gen looks at Mari’s death glare and Melissa’s sad blue eyes and cringes. “I plead the fifth.” 

 

“Definitely Mari’s,” Akilah teases, unexpectedly and Mari gasps, wounded. 

 

“What? No way! Mel sounds like a fucking freight train is crashing into us!”

 

The others giggle and laugh, then, as Melissa and Mari begin to try and one up each other about the sound of their snoring and Lottie lets her fingers drift absently back to Jackie’s head, brushing through her slightly tangled hair gently. 

 

Finally, Nat breaks it all up. “Alright, alright,” she says, standing and wiping her hands on her jeans, “let’s get the day started, yeah? Make sure we finish in time for the pool-lake birthday party shit tomorrow.”

 

There’s a chorus of groaning amongst the girls before quite, excited chatter envelopes them again as they all head off. 

 

Lottie takes particular note, though, that as Akilah passes by Travis’ tent, she stops in to usher him with her as they head to the animal pens. It’s nice to see someone else trying to include him.

 

Jackie’s almost dozed back off just from the feeling of Lottie’s hand in her hair, and she stands slowly, reluctant to move away. She offers her hands to Lottie and helps her up before heading over to Nat. “Where do you want me today?”

 

“We put in all that work to set up the nets yesterday, which means we’re checking today. Van’s coming with in case we caught more than a handful,” Nat says. 

 

Van offers up a lazy salute. 

 

Lottie presses a quick kiss to Jackie’s cheek before sending her off, taking their plates to the dish bin. It’s getting full, so she decides she’ll do those before heading off to her garden. She needs to bring back a bucket of water for the plants, anyway, so she heft up the dishes and heads off, glancing once over her shoulder at Jackie, Nat and Van before disappearing beyond the treeline towards the river.

 

She passes the animal pen on the way, where Akilah is showing Travis which food goes where and to which animal, which he diligently seems to be taking note of. Melissa is at the butcher table, drying more of the skins and furs from the animals they’ve caught so they can start making more blankets and clothes. Robin is nearby helping her, pulling down the old skins that have been dried and combing out the furs. They’re all a near seamless unit. A team once again, no longer little girls lost in the Wilderness, at Its mercy.

 

Then again, how would they know? The Wilderness hasn’t talked to Lottie in months and she’s pretty sure no one else has heard It, either. It’s still an unsettling thought for her, but she’s trying to be as happy and calm as the others. She’s really trying.

 

“Let’s head to the lake and start down there before making our way back up,” Nat says. 

 

It’s still a long walk to the lake, though they’ve figured out trails and quicker routes since the move. The three of them are actually get along easier these days; whatever resentment Van held towards Jackie about the plane is mostly diminished, and Van and Nat have always gotten along pretty well. Jackie’s admittedly the odd one out, not sharing the friendship they’d already had developed before the crash, but it doesn’t feel like it. 

 

“When did you two go to sleep last night?” Van asks, her tone teasing. “There were still some suspicious noises coming from your hut when Tai and I started drifting off.”

 

Jackie hides her face. “Why were you listening, Vanessa? That’s not very neighborly of you.”

 

“Low blow, Jack.”  Van grimaces before it turns into a smirk. “Maybe I’m just so interested because, as an elder lesbian, it’s important for me to look out for the babies. I’m just being responsible.”

 

“I’m older than you.”

 

“But so much tinier.”

 

“That’s not true!”

 

“Both of you, shut the fuck up!” Nat groans. “Jesus, you’re all fucking children, I swear to God.” 

 

Jackie sticks her tongue out first, and Van is quick to follow after, and the ribbing continues all the way to the lake.

 

Washing the dishes doesn’t take too long, and Lottie is up and leaving as she notices Britt and Misty making their way over with the dirty laundry pile. 

 

For a moment, their eyes meet. Lottie doesn’t know what to say. Should she apologize? Is she still angry? She can’t tell, so she ducks her head and picks up her pace.

 

“Hi Lottie,” Britt calls as they pass by and Lottie waves at her but doesn’t look back.

 

The camp is still bustling when she gets back and Lottie beelines for the garden, she wants to be alone where she can gather her thoughts without making a scene. It feels like one of her safe places out here, surrounded by plants and dirt, the earth. She sets about watering them first, making sure to spread the bucket she’s brought evenly. 

 

It’s nice, she thinks. She’d never been into things like this back in Wiskayok, but out here, it feels calming and natural, to care for something. She gets to watch it grow and bloom and give life. She thinks she’s much better at this than leading a bunch of girls.

 

She’s only halfway through watering when she hears footsteps and looks up to see Mari standing by the fence, watching her. 

 

“Um, hi?” Lottie says, tentative.

 

“Akilah says I should help you so I can, and I quote ‘learn all the different leaves’,” Mari answers, snorting. “I know leaves, by the way.”

 

Lottie’s immediate reaction is to want to tell her no, she wants to do this alone, this is her place. But she knows, she knows she needs to try. She can’t be who she was back in Wiskayok.

 

“Sure,” she finally replies, finishing up watering and setting the bucket aside. “I can show you what’s what.”

 

For the second day in a row, Jackie’s clothes and hair were wet by the time the three of them trudged back to camp. This time, it was absolutely Van’s fault; apparently, Van and Nat are prone to rough housing when together, and Jackie was tragically in the middle of that.

 

At least, that’s the story she’s sticking with.

 

But they caught a mess of fish, both from the nets in the lake and the nets in the river, and they finished setting everything back up before hauling the fish back to the village.

 

“I’m tired of being wet,” Jackie mutters, feeling her shoes squelch with each step.

 

Van snorts. “That’s not what she said.”

 

“Bad,” Nat groans. “That one was really, really bad.” 

 

“Forgive me for trying to keep up the good mood. It’s been such a good day. We took a little trip, a little dip, and brought back dinner. You’re Catholic, right, Nat? It’s like Fish Fridays,” Van says, grinning widely.

 

“Except that it’s not Friday,” Jackie says as they head to the butcher’s table. “Is it?”

 

Nat frowns. “I… don’t think so? I’ve tried to keep up as best as I can, but there’s been a couple of times where the days just blur, so I’m a little off.”

 

Lottie was trying hard to not feel awkward about having Mari in the garden with her. She was trying to teach her which plants were what and why she’d planted them in certain spots, but it was clear Mari wasn’t actually interested and was only there because someone was likely forcing her to be.

 

Still, Lottie kept a relaxed demeanor, trying to not let it bother her. By the time the sun started setting again, Lottie was covered in soil and sweat, and she wanted to wash up before dinner, which it seemed like Mari wanted to as well.

 

They went to the river together and Lottie tugged off her dress, rolled her pant legs up and stepped into the water, leaning down to start scrubbing the dirt from under her nails.

 

“Uugh, this is gross,” Mari grumbles, “how do you not, like, go crazy with all the dirt that gets under your nails?”

 

Lottie glances over at her, then down at her nails. “I keep them short. Van has a pair of clippers.” 

 

She half expected some sort of sex joke from Mari, but the other girl just looked at her own nails. “Guess having long nails out here doesn’t really matter.” 

 

It was…strange. Mari was being nice. Lottie was suspicious and that made her feel guilty-- she had no reason to think Mari being nice was nefarious. And yet, she still did.

 

“I think I’d rather clean the animal pen then have to stick my hands in the mud again,” Mari tacks on. 

 

“Really?”

 

The other girl shrugs. “I’ve always liked animals, anyway.”

 

Lottie is quiet for a little bit before she stands back up and faces Mari. “Can I…ask you something?”

 

Mari, now sitting on the bank of the river with her feet in the water, turned to look up at her. “Fire away.”

 

Scratching her arm shyly, Lottie suddenly doesn’t know how to frame what she wants to ask. “I just was wondering, like-- did I do something?” she asks, then, glancing at Mari before she has to look away. “I mean, over winter it felt you were so-- supportive. And now you’re just-- back to how things were before.” 

 

Everyone on the team knew Mari was the bitch among them all. She didn’t hold back in her insults and she didn’t really seem to care about being nice to just save someone’s feelings. She was brutally honest. She’d never exactly bullied Lottie, but she’d never been nice, either.

 

So when she’d done a sudden one-eighty during winter, it had surprised Lottie more than most other things. And then spring came and, along with most of the others, Mari just…moved on from Lottie. 

 

“What do you want me to say? We were all going fucking crazy over winter,” Mari replies flatly, as if the answer should’ve been obvious, “I was just trying to, like, I don’t know-- find something to believe in. Like everyone else. It’s not my fault the rest of us got over it and you didn’t.”

 

Ow. Lottie felt that one deep in the pit of her stomach. “So did you ever actually believe in It? The Wilderness?”

 

Mari stands, wiping off her hands and feet with one of the blankets. “Did any of us besides you?” She tosses the towel to Lottie but doesn’t say anything else, just grabs her shoes and shirt and starts back towards camp.

 

Lottie looks at the towel in her hands. “Right.” Of course no one else really believed, it’d been stupid of her to think they did. 

 

Still, she’d hoped.

 

When Mari made it back to camp, Nat, Van and Jackie were just arriving, all three of them still soaked and dripping water. “Jeez, were you guys trying to catch the fish with your bare hands?” she snickers.

 

“No,” Van and Jackie say, at the same time Nat looks annoyed and tired and says, “Yes.”

 

“Once,” Jackie corrects. “As a joke.”

 

Van snorts. “And then we all fell in the lake. Real funny joke, Jackie.”

 

In an attempt to be subtle, Jackie looks around for Lottie, glancing at the garden and not seeing her around before wondering if she’s in their hut, resigning herself to make sure all of the fish ended up where they needed to be before checking. 

 

“You look like a lovesick puppy,” Van teases, but she’s also intrigued, like she can and can’t believe that the person she’s looking at is Jackie Taylor. 

 

Jackie has a hard time believing it some days, too. “I do not.”

 

“Do, too. It’s sweet. I didn’t think you were capable of caring like that, or of being yourself.” Van shrugs. “You actually seem honest for a change.”

 

Blinking, Jackie watches Van as she wipes her hands on her pants and heads off, stopping by the animal pen to chat with Akilah. 

 

“God, you two are like siblings,” Mari snorts as she watches Van head off. She folds her arms over her chest as she looks at Jackie. “Your girlfriend is by the river moping, if that’s who you’re looking for.” As if they both don’t know that’s true. 

 

Mari then turns and heads off to go talk with Van and Akilah, unconcerned with much else.

 

Nat nudges Jackie. “C’mon, help me with these, the table’s in that direction anyway.”

 

“Why is she moping?” Jackie mutters, grunting as she helps Nat haul up the fish. The thought of Lottie moping by herself makes Jackie worried, and she knows there’s nothing she can do to make Lottie feel more included, bar following her around all day long so that she’s not lonely. She just hates the idea of Lottie being by herself for too long. She’s always been by herself. 

 

As they set the fish on the table, Melissa looks at it, wrinkling up her nose. “That’s a lot of fish.”

 

“Figure we can smoke some of it?” Nat says. 

 

“I don’t really like fish,” Mel adds.

 

Nat sighs. “Well… tough, I guess, dude.” 

 

“Have fun,” Jackie says, offering a small smile before she starts trotting off towards the river.

 

Nat pats Melissa on the shoulder. “You know how to debone fish, right?” she asks, watching Jackie walk away. She hoped Lottie being upset wasn’t still about the other night.

 

Lottie is still sitting next to the river when she hears footsteps. She’d thought about going back earlier, but the water was nice and having her thoughts to herself after spending the afternoon trying to teach Mari about the different kinds of local flora. Mari wasn’t stupid, Lottie knew that, but trying to teach someone who doesn’t care about plants how to tell the difference between indian paintbrush and yucca was like teaching a toddler algebra. 

 

She turns to look at who might be coming and is surprised to see Jackie. She figured the three would be gone most of the day. Had she been here that long?

 

“Hi,” she says, smiling warmly.

 

“Hi,” Jackie says, smiling back as she moves to sit behind Lottie, resting her chin on her shoulder. Lottie doesn’t look upset. Just quiet. “Mari said you were… moping.”

 

Lottie reaches back to take Jackie's arms and wrap them around her stomach, holding onto her hands. “Moping?” Lottie didn't think she'd been moping.

 

She shakes her head. “She was helping me in the garden earlier, but I don't think she liked it.”

 

Jackie offers Lottie a squeeze and presses her nose to Lottie’s shoulder. “I didn’t think you looked like you were moping just now, but I wanted to make sure.” She makes a face, “Oh, come on. I don’t think Mari likes much of anything,” she jokes.

 

“She literally said she'd rather muck out the animal pen,” Lottie says, giving Jackie a stare. She can't hold it, though, leaning her own head back on Jackie's shoulder. “Which is fine with me. That girl really never shuts up, does she?”

 

Maybe that was another reason why Lottie had never stepped in when Mari was so valiantly defending her honor over the winter. It was hard to get in a weird edgewise with her. 

 

“Okay, but did she say she likes cleaning out the animal pen?” Jackie asks. “Because, if she did, something might be a little wrong, That’d be totally weird.”

 

“Maybe not, but my point still stands,” Lottie says. She turns her head enough to press a kiss to Jackie's cheek. “Was your day any better? You smell like fish. And you're soaking wet. Did you fall in the lake again?”

 

Groaning, Jackie leans closer. “I spent all day hauling around smelly fish. And getting pushed in the lake because Nat and Van are assholes.”

 

Lottie laughs a little, pressing more kisses to Jackie’s face. “You poor thing,” she teases, “being bullied all day by the big, mean lesbian. How can I make it better?”

 

“And Natalie. It’s very important that we don’t leave her out of the bullying because she’s the worst,” Jackie says, wrapping her legs around Lottie’s waist and lying back, pulling Lottie with her. “You should let me hold you. Maybe take a nap. You can be my blanket this time.”

 

Lottie leans back with Jackie, smiling. “And Natalie. The queen bully.” The angle is a little awkward, but Lottie manages to shuffle herself around in Jackie’s arms so that she can hold onto her a little easier. “Are you tired?” she asks, fingers tracing patterns on Jackie’s hip.

 

“No,” Jackie mumbles, but she’s already closing her eyes and sighing contentedly as she holds onto Lottie. 

 

“Liar,” Lottie teases, letting her hands drift up Jackie’s shirt a little, nuzzling into her. 

 

“I’ve had a long day,” Jackie defends herself. “I’ve been traipsing through the mountains, hauling around fish, and we’re probably going to have to get stuff ready for tomorrow. Maybe I just want a few minutes to snooze while holding my girlfriend.”

 

“Hey, I never said you couldn’t nap,” Lottie grins, “but I asked if you were tired and you said no. So.” She shrugs. “We can nap if you want.”

 

Jackie makes a grumbling noise. “I’m not tired,” she says petulantly. Her hands drift to Lottie’s hips, reaching around and lacing her fingers together.

 

Lottie chuckles, a little delighted. She loves when Jackie pretends to be grumpy. She noses into the crook of her neck, exhaling against her skin. “You’re so cute,” she murmurs. She pulls back just enough to press her lips next to Jackie’s ear. “I’m still not wearing any underwear, you know.”

 

“See, I’m definitely not tired,” Jackie says, tugging Lottie closer. She slips her hands under Lottie’s dress, playing with the waistband of her pants. “I’ve been thinking about that all day. You’re really distracting.”

 

“Hmmm, am I?” Lottie hums. “Is that why you really fell in the lake? Were you thinking about me?” And though the words are teasing, the idea still sends excited shivers down Lottie's spine, just the idea of someone unable to do anything but think about her all day making her feel light headed. 

 

She lifts her head to look down at Jackie, eyes so soft and sweet. Jackie makes her feel so warm inside, so gentle, so loved. It still feels like a dream, but if it is, Lottie certainly doesn't want to wake up.

 

“And if I was?” Jackie asks. “Do you want me falling in lakes because I’m thinking about you?” 

 

“You can swim,” Lottie answers, grinning. “If it means you’re thinking about me, then yes, I do.”

 

“Okay, yeah, but not well.” Jackie sticks out her tongue as she looks up at Lottie. “I’m kind of always thinking about you, really.”

 

The words just make Lottie melt. She leans down and kisses Jackie fully, staying close when she breaks off. “You’re amazing.”

 

Somewhere, Jackie manages to dig around to find some of the pieces of her old self, shrugging them on as she wiggles her shoulders underneath Lottie, looking up at her with a soft smirk. “I mean, duh. But so are you.”

 

Lottie hums again, low in her throat. “Agree to disagree,” she says, staring into Jackie’s eyes and seeing the same girl who had once gotten in an opposing striker’s face because she’d purposefully kicked the back of Lottie’s knee to get her out of the way. Confident and a little cocky and always, always there to defend her team, her friends-- her family. 

 

It didn’t matter what version of Jackie Lottie saw, she loved them all, but it made her feel just a little more happy to know the girl Lottie had always known was still in there somewhere. It made her think that, maybe, the girl Lottie used to be was still inside herself, too. Just maybe.

 

“One day, Lottie Matthews, I’m gonna make you see how fucking incredible you are,” Jackie murmurs, moving one hand to Lottie’s cheek and brushing against it softly. She hopes that, one day, Lottie will see what she sees. Jackie thinks that Lottie’s magnetic, and she wasn’t the only one. Maybe the rest of the girls had forgotten it, now that the weather was good and there was plenty of food, but they’d thought Lottie hung the moon. Jackie’s just the only one that still knows that to be true.

 

Lottie nuzzles her cheek into Jackie’s touch, eyes fluttering closed. “If it keeps you around, then I’ll wait forever,” she mumbles back. She’d do anything to keep Jackie around, really. She’d cut her own heart out.

 

“I’ll stick around even once you figure it out,” Jackie says. “Maybe I wanna watch you take over the world.” Her voice is soft, teasing. The hand still at Lottie’s waistband toys with it some more, tugging Lottie’s hips closer.

 

“Promise?” Lottie exhales, moving her hips in Jackie’s grip. 

 

Pulling Lottie’s face closer, Jackie nods into a kiss, their lips brushing together so softly. “I promise. This is real.” Her other hand trails down to Lottie’s thighs, feeling the material under her fingertips, knowing how lean and muscular they are, even when covered. 

 

Lottie presses into the kiss, feeling like putty in Jackie’s hands. “This is real,” she repeats. It has to be. She needs it to be. It feels so real and so unreal at the same time. 

 

She shudders under Jackie’s touch. “You’re real.”

 

Jackie slips her hand into Lottie’s pants, shivering as she’s immediately met with heat and wetness, softness. “I’m real, and so are you.”

 

Lottie shudders, breathing out against Jackie's lips. “I'm real,” she repeats that, too. She thinks it's crazy how real Jackie makes her feel. 

 

It's all real, especially the hand between her legs. Her hips roll into Jackie's touch. Especially the feeling swelling in her chest. It's hard to think about anything Mari said to her when she's like this with Jackie. Maybe that's all she wants right now.

 

“Were you thinking about me, too?” Jackie teases as Lottie rolls her hips, but just the thought of that is enough to have her blushing, eager, happy that Lottie wants this, wants her. It’s always so incredible. It always makes her warm.

 

“The whole day,” Lottie breathes, lips close to Jackie's. They brush briefly as she speaks. “Every second.” Thoughts of Jackie always consume Lottie's mind, she uses them to chase away the unwanted ones. She uses Jackie's touch to chase away unwanted feelings. 

 

“That’s such a long time,” Jackie whispers, slowly moving her hand between Lottie’s legs. “How did you get anything done?”

 

“I'm good at--” Lottie sucks in a breath, bites her bottom lip-- “multi tasking.”

 

“Yeah?”Jackie asks, looking up at Lottie with heady eyes.

 

Lottie nods, staring back down at Jackie, into her eyes, mesmerized. “Yeah…”

 

Jackie slips two fingers inside soft, wet heat, sighing and smiling up at Lottie. “How so?”

 

A moan works its way up Lottie’s throat. “I can think about you while doing anything,” she sighs, hips rolling into Jackie's hand.

 

That makes Jackie feel good. It makes her feel great. It’s so nice to know that someone thinks about her just as much as she thinks about them. She starts moving her hand to meet each roll of Lottie’s hips. “You’re so pretty,” she says, her voice dreamy.

 

Lottie lets out another soft moan, body shuddering as Jackie starts to move her hand, fingers dipping in and out of her. “You make me feel that way,” she murmurs, voice higher than normal.

 

“You’re the prettiest person in the whole world,” Jackie tells her. She wants Lottie to know. She wants Lottie to see herself the way that Jackie sees her. Though, it might make her even more smug, but that would be okay. Lottie deserves it.

 

At that, Lottie shakes her head a little, hair ruffling around her shoulders. “That just can’t possibly be true,” she mumbles, lips brushing Jackie’s. 

 

Jackie sighs against Lottie’s lips. “No, it is. No one’s prettier.”

 

Lottie presses in more, kissing Jackie just a little deeper, needier. “I don’t think you can…prove that,” she pants against her mouth.

 

“I can,” Jackie says, licking into Lottie’s mouth. Her fingers curl and her thumb brushes again and again right where she knows Lottie wants it. When she speaks again, the words are whispered against Lottie’s mouth, “it’s because I said so.”

 

Lottie is putty in Jackie’s hands, of course. Her hips move into Jackie’s touch needily, wanting. She can’t help but let out a small laugh between breathy moans. “You’re biased,” she exhales.

 

“I don’t think that makes me any less right,” Jackie teases, her eyes lighting up the more Lottie responds to her touch. She loves the noises that Lottie makes. She loves that Lottie’s gotten noisier, loves the fact that Jackie’s the one to pull those sweet sounds out of her.

 

“I think that’s exactly what it does,” Lottie breathes, rolling her hips down into Jackie’s hand, feeling her fingers deep inside of her, curling, making her shudder. She thinks she used to be so much more composed during sex than this, and it’s all Jackie’s fault, really. Not that Lottie is complaining. 

 

She kisses Jackie again, sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. She loves the taste of her tongue.

 

“You can be biased about stuff but still be right. I don’t think a bias has to always be bad, you know?” Jackie didn’t actually think she’d be good at this, so it’s just as much of a turn on to see how much Lottie likes this as it is to actually being touched. With guys, she didn’t have to really do that much, and it wasn’t like she’d cared, and there’d only ever been two. And she’d never in her wildest dreams actually thought she’d ever make it this far with another girl. But she really, really cares about Lottie. All she really wants is to give her something she enjoys, to show her she’s loved.

 

Jackie hums into the kiss, closing her eyes and pulling Lottie in closer.

 

“Yeah,” Lottie sighs, “maybe.” She thinks if it means Jackie gets to be right, then that’s fine by her. She’ll do whatever Jackie wants right now, say whatever she wants. It’s so easy to fill her head with thoughts of Jackie when she’s kissing her like this and holding her like this and fucking her like this. 

 

And they’re getting better at this, her hips moving more in sync with Jackie’s hand thrusting against her, but she still feels sloppy with her affection and her arousal as she moans into Jackie’s mouth. Sex had never been that important to Lottie-- sure, it felt nice (sometimes), but it was never a priority of hers. 

 

Now, she feels like she craves Jackie’s touch. She wants to be touching her and be touched by her all the time. It’s never ending. Like the love she feels or the darkness inside of her. 

 

It never ends.

 

Instead of saying anything else, Jackie just licks into Lottie’s mouth, savoring the way she tastes, the ways she feels. She’s wanted to be in Lottie’s arms or have Lottie in hers all day. It really was distracting, and she didn’t fall in the lake because of it, but it had certainly helped with how easily she’d been pushed. 

 

Her fingers pump in Lottie harder, deeper, her hand adjusting as she finds a better angle to try and relieve some of the pressure on her wrist. Honestly, though, that hardly matters when she just wants to touch Lottie however she can. 

 

Lottie is breathing heavily into the kiss, into Jackie’s mouth as she tastes her tongue, pressing her own against Jackie’s. She thinks Jackie is just so fucking hot like this, confident and in charge, fucking Lottie like she knows exactly what she’s doing. 

 

Lottie’s stomach clenches with fire and her arms shake as she struggles to keep herself upright as jolts of pleasure pulse through her with each thrust of Jackie’s fingers. She sighs, moans, cries out Jackie’s name-- she makes noise because she’s not afraid to anymore. She makes noise because she knows Jackie likes it. She’s loud, now, because she wants to be.

 

“So…” Jackie mumbles, panting against Lottie’s mouth as she moves, as she touches. “So pretty. I love you.” She bites down on Lottie’s lip.

 

A whine slips from Lottie's throat. She hadn't thought it was possible to become more attracted to Jackie, but looking down at her now as she tells Lottie she loves her, and she has that sheen in her eyes, that smile on her lips, Lottie can feel her affection soaring. Whatever she'd done to deserve something like this, someone like this, she was glad for it, even if she didn't quite believe it. This was too good for someone like her, but she wasn't going to let go of it now that she had it. This was hers-- Jackie is hers. 

 

Hips roll again into Jackie's motions. “I fucking love you, Jackie Taylor,” Lottie gasps, pressing her lips against Jackie's, sloppy and rough, “so fucking much.”

 

Those are Jackie’s favorite words. They make her feel real, solid. Someone loves her. Lottie loves her, loves her, loves her. Her lips are sweet, even if it isn’t gentle. Jackie doesn’t want gentle, she wants to feel this, and she wants to see that Lottie feels it, too.

 

Lottie’s always been intuitive about other people, she thinks she was probably born that way. She can feel in the way Jackie kisses her what she wants. So she kisses her back harder, teeth scraping, hips grinding down into Jackie’s. She wants to feel her, all of her. She thinks Jackie wants to feel all of her, too. 

 

Jackie’s hips jerk into Lottie’s, and she moves her hand, curls her fingers. They’re hungry for each other, a different kind of hunger to the one they’d all felt all winter. This one is fire, and it burns Jackie from the inside out, making her want. She just wants. She wants Lottie so much that it aches.

 

Lottie cries out again, buries her face in Jackie’s neck. She bites down, not hard, but not lightly either. She tastes salty skin and wants more. There’s heat and pleasure and fire inside of her, all mixing together and making her shudder, twitch, moan into Jackie’s skin. How could she ever love anything so much? She loves her so much. It feels overwhelming, just like the climax that’s beginning to rip through her, making her moan and stutter and gasp.

 

Gasping as Lottie’s teeth bite down, Jackie shudders. She sits up, holding Lottie close in her lap as she feels her come. Her fingers keep moving as Lottie comes down, and she savors the way Lottie sounds, the way she feels. Moments like this are perfect. This is perfect. It’s everything she’s ever craved without really knowing it.

 

Lottie’s arms wrap tightly around Jackie as she heaves breath into her neck, panting. Her body is still shuddering with every touch, heart beating erratically in her chest. Her face feels warm and she stays tucked into Jackie until she catches her breath, before pulling back enough to look into her eyes. “I think I really like this new you,” she murmurs, a lazy smile on her lips.

 

Jackie leans up enough to press a kiss to Lottie’s lips. “Yeah?” she asks softly, smiling hesitantly. She does sometimes wonder how much she’s changed. Is she even recognizable? Is she still herself?

 

Is she the kind of person that Shauna would love, or would she just find new ways to resent Jackie? It doesn’t really matter, not anymore, not out here. Not with everything that’s happened. She’s not the same person. Jackie knows she’s not. She couldn’t be even if she wanted to be. There’s no more going back. Pressing her forehead to Lottie’s shoulder, Jackie doesn’t think she wants to.

 

“Yeah,” Lottie murmurs back, bringing her hands up to cup Jackie’s face, brush through her hair. “You’re so much more…real.” And that’s something Lottie needs, she knows that now. She needs something real. “You’re so you.” 

 

She nuzzles into Jackie’s hair, draws in a deep breath and lets it go slowly. “I love you no matter what,” she says, just in case.

 

Lying back down, Jackie pulls Lottie with her, sighing softly. She wants to be real. She doesn’t think she ever did before this place. How could she be real when she never let anyone know her? “I love you, too,” she whispers, and she removes her fingers from inside Lottie’s pants, bringing them to her mouth and licking them clean.

 

Moving with Jackie, Lottie settles in next to her. The grass beneath them is soft and the sound of the river’s flowing water makes her feel at peace. She lays her head on Jackie’s chest and listens to her heartbeat, the metronome of her life. As long as it beats, Lottie thinks everything will be okay. 

 

“I’m glad I have you,” she whispers, arm draped across Jackie’s stomach.

 

“I couldn’t do this without you,” Jackie admits, knowing that Lottie already knows that. She has to know that. Jackie’s so glad to have her she aches with it. She needs Lottie. Lottie’s the only reason she’s alive. And maybe it’s cruel to put all of that on one other person, but she can’t help it. It’s all that she knows how to do. 

 

“I think you could,” Lottie mumbles quietly. She thinks Jackie is a lot stronger than she gives herself credit for. Plus, Natalie wasn’t going to just let Jackie give up again, not after how hard her and Lottie had fought to keep her alive when no one else cared to. 

Still, she hopes neither of them never have to find out if it’s true or not. Lottie doesn’t know what she’d do without Jackie. She thinks it might break her irreparably. 

 

“No.” It’s all Jackie says, holding onto Lottie a little tighter. “No, I couldn’t.” She wouldn’t go through that again. She can’t. Jackie isn’t strong. She knows that. She accepts it. She’s not like the rest of them. Without something, someone to keep her grounded, she’ll just float away. She won’t be there anymore. 

 

“Natalie would be there for you,” Lottie tells her. Maybe it’s a hypothetical right now, but it might not be come winter. It might not be if the Wilderness asked for too much from Lottie. If no one else believed, then it would have to be her. She didn’t think she’d mind, as long as it meant she got to keep Jackie.

 

“I don’t care,” Jackie says. She doesn’t like that this conversation is happening, doesn’t like that Lottie’s even going there. She grunts, rolling them over until she’s on top of Lottie, looking down and cupping her face. “I don’t love Nat, not like I do you, and I don’t need her. She didn’t make me a promise. You did.”

 

Lottie doesn’t resist as Jackie flips them over, looking up at her with a soft affection. “I’m not going to leave you,” she tells her, pressing her cheek into Jackie’s grip. “But you’re stronger than you think.”

 

Jackie knows she’s not. She knows she’s not made to be alone, to be without someone. And Lottie’s her someone. She doesn’t want to even think about her being gone. “You can’t. You promised.”

 

“I promised,” Lottie repeats, quietly. She’d promised. And she had no plans to leave Jackie. But it would be nice to know that Jackie wasn’t going to simply give up if something happened to her. With the Wilderness the way it was, it wasn’t exactly an unlikely scenario. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Jackie leans down, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s lips before resting against her, ear to Lottie’s chest. “You’re mine.”

 

Lottie lets out a breath, lifting her hand to brush through Jackie’s hair. She stares up into the leaves of the trees above them. “I’m yours,” she whispers.

 

“And I’m yours,” Jackie says. She’s Lottie’s, all of her that’s left, all of her that wasn’t eaten alive. All of that, too. Jackie thinks she’d let Lottie have as much of Jackie as she wants.

 

“You’re mine,” Lottie repeats, closing her eyes. The weight of Jackie’s head on her chest makes her feel grounded. She doesn’t need to think about all this unwanted stuff right now. She thinks she should just enjoy what time she has with Jackie. 

 

She wraps her arms around Jackie and holds her tightly. She won’t ever let go.

 

As Jackie had so clearly pointed out earlier, she’s not tired, but the idea of a nap sounds so nice. She’s happy to rest against Lottie, feeling her arms wrap tighter around her, and she sinks into Lottie’s touch. It’s so nice. She doesn’t want anything else in this world. 

 

Lottie is more than content to just hold Jackie like this. She loves the feeling of Jackie pressed into her. There’s nothing better, she thinks. “I love you,” she murmurs.

 

Pressing her lips to Lottie’s chin and then her pulse, Jackie stays there, her face tucked against Lottie’s neck as she breathes her in, relaxing against her. 

 

It's an unfortunately short amount of time before someone comes to find the two of them, and of course it's Nat. She stands back at the trailhead, hands on her hips. “I really hope everyone's hands are where I can see them,” she announces herself, giving them what she deems as a fair amount of warning 

 

Lottie shifts her head enough to crane it around and look over at Nat. She holds her hands up, as if in arrest. “I promise we're decent, officer.”

 

Jackie groans, pressing her face to Lottie’s neck. “No one’s here. Go away.”

 

“That's funny, cause I hear a little whine coming from that direction,” Natalie huffs. “C’mon, we're roasting fish tonight since we caught so many. Everyone's doing it themselves over the fire, like s'mores but…fishy.”

 

Lottie was never the biggest fan of fish, but she's learned that out here, you don't get to be picky. “Is this because Melissa doesn't know how to debone them?”

 

Natalie frowns, which means Lottie is right, and she gives Nat an upside down smirk. “Stay here if you want, but don't complain about being hungry later when you come slinking back, then.”

 

Lifting her head, Jackie sighs. “I guess we should get up. Since I worked so hard to catch all that fish. With my own hands.”

 

Lottie brings her gaze back to Jackie, smiling. “Wow, with your bare hands? That's impressive.”

 

Nat rolls her eyes. 

 

“Oh, yeah, bare hands. I’m totally impressive,” Jackie says, grinning brightly. 

 

“Jesus Christ,” Nat says. “Come on if you’re going to. Or don’t. I don’t care.” But she lingers, hands on her hips before crossing them over her chest.

 

When Jackie doesn't move, Lottie sits up, easily scooping her into her arms. “Me thinks the lady doth protest too much,” she says, turning her head to look at Nat over her shoulder. 

 

Jackie is light enough that Lottie can hoist herself up with the other girl still in her arms, which bend and grow taught as she does, muscles clenching. 

 

“You two are fucking embarrassing,” Nat grumbles. 

 

Eyes widening, Jackie wasn’t expecting Lottie to pick her up, and she clings to Lottie’s shoulders. Swallowing, she motions for Lottie to put her down, laughing breathlessly. “So, fish s’mores?”

 

Lottie sets Jackie down smoothly before looking to Nat. She glances back at Jackie. “Actually can I, um, talk to Nat alone for a second?” She asks a little nervously. 

 

Jackie offers Lottie a smile and brushes off some dirt. “Sure. I’ll head on,” she says, giving them both a wave as she heads back to camp. 

 

“You, uh, wanted to talk?” Nat asks Lottie, shifting on her feet.

 

Waving Jackie off, Lottie turns back to Nat, trying not to worry her hands too much, nails picking at cuticles an old habit. “I just wanted to, um-- tell you I’m sorry if I made you think I was upset with you the other night. I-- it wasn’t about you or what you said.” 

 

“So,” Nat starts slowly, careful with her words. “What was it about, then?”

 

Lottie wrings her fingers together. “I haven’t-- been back to the lake since…” She doesn’t really want to say it out loud again, it was hard enough in the privacy of her hut with Jackie, and she didn’t think Nat would appreciate Lottie breaking down in front of her. “Um, you know, since the-- her accident.”

 

It’s in that stilted, Lottie way, like before, the way she says things like speaking can be so hard. Nat doesn’t think it’s always been like this with them. They both got along so well when they were high. Then again, there wasn’t much real talking. A little stupid gossip, a lot of giggling, even more of them just… not saying a single word. Now, they have this. 

 

Natalie doesn’t remember much of the explosion except that they’d all been trapped in their own grief. But she’s been back to that lake. It was there that she lost the moose. It was there that her friends tried to kill her. It was there that she lost Javi. And she goes back several times a week, and she lives all of that. She has to. For all of them. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know it’s… Maybe we can make better memories there. More than just all of the bad shit. Make some good. That’s why I suggested it. But you don’t have to come tomorrow, if you don’t want to.”

 

“It’s-- you don’t have to be. Sorry.” Lottie knows what happened to Laura Lee wasn’t really anyone’s fault, but she still feels guilt for it. She’d seen it happen and still let her go. Lottie rubs her arm.

 

“I want to come,” she tells her, trying to sound confident in her decision. Lottie had some confidence back in Wiskayok, she’d never really been like this, worrying if what she was doing and saying was the right thing, or if she was going to hurt someone. Things had changed so much out here. “I think that’ll be nice, making new memories.” Of that, she’s sure of.

 

Nat knows she doesn’t have to be sorry. She just fucking is. “Good,” she says, offering a smile. “We’ll do that. Make new memories. Better ones. Something to tell the fucking kids or some shit when we all get out of here.”

 

Lottie stares at Nat but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t think they’re ever getting out of here-- and even if they do, this place would follow them forever. It was in them all. 

 

“Yeah,” she finally responds, giving back a weary smile, “maybe.” 

 

Trying to keep up something of a positive outlook, Nat starts walking back towards camp and says, “Awesome. So, fish, yeah? Exciting stuff, right?”

 

Lottie trails after Nat, quiet, thoughtful. “Hmmm? Oh, yeah. Fish. Real exciting.” She was trying to be normal, but she didn’t really know what that looked like between her and Nat anymore. 

 

“We’re-- we’re friends, right?” she eventually asks. She kind of wants to know if they ever really were.

 

Nat looks at Lottie, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah?” She thinks they are, anyway. She gets that they’ve had their disagreements, especially over the winter and with the way Lottie changed out here, but she’s still Lottie. Nat still sees the girl she used to laugh with, the one she became familiar with from long practices during summer conditioning, the one who tended to hang in the corners nursing a beer at parties until Nat would ask if she wanted to split a joint, the one who never had anything bad to say unless it was deserved.

 

Lottie’s still Natalie’s friend. Maybe she looks different out here, in more ways than one. Whatever’s going on with her head’s clearly got her off center, and, somehow, she’s got a former soccer captain constantly hanging off her shoulders, but she’s still Lottie. “We’re still friends. Unless you’ve got something you wanna tell me.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. Nat’s always been so straight to the point. She never held back, especially when it was just the two of them laughing in a corner, or if someone was giving her shit. Most people looked at Natalie and saw a burnout, but Lottie had always seen the compassionate, caring girl underneath her hard exterior. She wondered what Nat saw when she looked at Lottie.

 

“I just wasn’t sure,” she admits, “after everything that’s happened. I’d get it, if you didn’t want to be.” Lottie was difficult to be around like this, she knew that. Everyone’s actions over winter had only proved that to her more. Everyone’s actions now just added to it. 

 

“Everybody was finding ways to cope in the winter,” Nat says. And, while she might have not particularly liked Lottie’s specific brand of coping, there’s definitely… something to it. Nat just doesn’t want to get into exactly what that something is. 

 

Lottie bites her lip. “I know you don’t believe in…It, Nat, but I don’t need you to.” She reaches out for her hesitantly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I just need you to believe me.”

 

Nat doesn’t know what she believes out here. And she wants to trust Lottie, wants to trust that all the heartache that all of them have gone through means something. “I trust you.”

 

Somehow, Lottie believes her. She’s always been kind of gullible like that, though she wants to think of it more as being trusting. She’s always had a hard time seeing the evil in the world, only in herself. “Okay.”

 

She moves her hand, then adds, quietly, “I never meant for…any of that to happen. I’m sorry.”

 

Nat gives a stilted kind of nod, but she’s sincere when she says, “I know you didn’t.” She knows. She knows now. At the time, it had just seemed like Lottie was causing problem after problem, leading them all like happy little campers into fucking depravity. But she can see that’s not what it was. She sees it in the softness, the guilt, the way Lottie has been so careful these last few weeks, sad and by herself. “You know you can join the others when they’re doing stuff, right? If anyone’s giving you any shit, I’ll make them stop.”

 

Lottie thinks she needs to say something more, but she doesn’t want to ruin whatever quiet peace they’ve come to right now. She wants to tell Nat she’s sorry about Javi, and that she’s sorry they tried to kill her, and that she’s sorry it wasn’t her. She doesn’t say any of those things. 

 

Instead, she looks just beyond Nat’s shoulder towards the village. “No one’s giving me shit,” she says, “except Mari, but she does that to everyone.” But it’s just like back home, she thinks, how Natalie wants to bully people into letting Lottie hang out with them. 

 

She kicks the dirt with her boot before she starts walking again. “C’mon, let’s not miss the fish fry.”

 

Nat sighs. “Starting to really miss cafeteria fish sticks,” she said, shaking her head. “Alright. Here’s hoping your girlfriend didn’t poke herself in the eye with a stick. Can’t imagine how much grief she’d give everyone.”

 

Lottie feels a smile curl back onto her lips at the words. It sounds so nice to hear Jackie called her girlfriend. “She’s more likely to poke someone else’s eye out, actually,” she chuckles.

 

“You’re giving her too much credit,” Nat jokes. “I remember all the splinters, don’t you? And the tripping, Jesus. It’s like the fucking ground around here has something against her.”

 

There’s a fleeting thought in the back of Lottie’s mind that maybe it does-- but she pushes it away with a shake of her head. “You weren’t the one that had to pick all the splinters out of her skin,” she reminds her. But, really, Lottie hadn’t minded doing it. It meant she got to hold Jackie’s hand, after all. 

 

Nat snorts, pushing a tree branch out of the way as they walk. “I don’t envy you any of that. I guess she’s gotten better about it, though. Now that we’re not constantly building shit.”

 

“I didn’t mind,” Lottie murmurs, that stupid grin still on her lips. She ducks under the low hanging branch. “I’m just glad she lets me take care of her.” They’re close enough now that Lottie can hear all their voices as the others talk. 

 

Honestly, Nat’s pretty sure Jackie likes being taken care of. Sure, there’s the moments where she needs to feel like she’s doing something important; they all remember how she’d get after Coach told her she was doing good, leading good, or when Shauna would make Jackie feel maybe more needed than she really was, the quiet whispers those early days out there where Shauna would pull Jackie aside and the shorter girl would leave the conversation with her head just a little high. But, really, sometimes Nat thinks Jackie actually looks content to let Lottie take the reins. Maybe that’s what Lottie needs, too.

 

“Oh, goddamn it, Melissa. It can’t be that hard to debone a fucking fish.”

 

“I’d like to see you try it with that big ass knife!”

 

“Isn’t there a pocket knife somewhere?”

 

Lottie freezes a moment. She knows exactly where that small knife is. She’s surprised no one else has found it.

 

“Yeah, but someone seems to have lost it.”

 

“Shut up, Van! I didn’t lose it I just don’t remember where I put it,” Mari’s distinctive voice splits through the trees and Lottie looks over at Nat, giving a look of ‘here we go again, huh?’ before the two of them step through the tree line and the village comes into view.

 

“That’s literally the same thing, Mar,” Tai groans.

 

Nat huffs, squaring her shoulders as they walk into camp. “Alright, guys, Settle down.”

 

Jackie, one of the few to have actually speared her fish properly on a stick and started cooking it over the fire, perks up as Lottie and Nat walk into the camp, offering a wave. She’d mostly been listening to the conversation, offering a laugh or a small comment but being content to just listen to the chatter.

 

“This is supposed to be, you know,” Nat moves her hands around, “fun. Campfire shit.”

 

“Wish we had actual s’mores,” Melissa grumbles.

 

Gen elbows her, but it’s seemingly just out of habit as she muses, “I miss chocolate.”

 

“Tai and Akilah are right there,” Melissa teases, earning her another elbow from Gen.

 

“Hey,” Van snaps, frowning as she loops her arm with Tai’s, “this one’s mine. Hands off.”

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “You guys are ridiculous.”

 

Lottie makes her way around and sits next to Jackie. “Starting without me?” she smiles, leaning against her.

 

Jackie happily leans back against Lottie, brushing their legs together as she subconsciously seeks her out. “You can have this one, and I can get started on another. I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

 

Shaking her head, Lottie says, “Wow, after only one fish? You must be a genius or something.” She steals a quick kiss to Jackie’s cheek before leaning away. “And here Nat thought you were going to poke your eye out.”

 

Looking at Nat, aghast, Jackie grumbles under her breath but leans into Lottie’s kiss against her cheek, wanting to follow after her. She holds out the stick. “Here, take it. It’s almost done, anyway. I’m gonna prove that I’m not going to poke my eye out with the stick.”

 

Lottie wants to protest, but Jackie seems like she needs to prove a point, so she takes the offered fish without a fuss and smiles at her. “Show her you’re a master fish fryer,” she teases, glancing at Nat across from them as well. 

 

And maybe things aren’t the same as they used to be, but Lottie thinks that they’re good now. She smiles softly at Nat, a silent thank you for believing in her, in them.

 

Nat gives Lottie a nod before moving to get a fish of her own, focusing on getting it on the stick before getting it on the fire.

 

Jackie stands and joins her, bumping Nat with her shoulder as she works to get her own fish speared and then moves back to sit next to Lottie.

 

When Jackie sits, Lottie loops their arms together, still holding her stick over the fire, and as she looks around, it’s almost like they’re all in someone’s backyard, sitting around the firepit and roasting marshmallows for s’mores. 

 

It almost makes her feel at home.

 

But they’re not just in someone’s backyard, and they’re not roasting marshmallows, and Lottie can’t help but be reminded of that whenever she hears the silence in her head that she’s so unused to, even as she listens to the chatter and laughter of her teammates around her. 

 

Still, she smiles and laughs, too. She is happy. This is home for her. 

 

But it’s not for them, and it never will be. Lottie knows this, just as much as she knows that one day, they’ll all leave her behind.

 

In the midst of all the chatter, Jackie smiles up at Lottie, lacing their fingers together and pressing a kiss to the back of Lottie’s hand. She thinks that this is all she’s ever wanted. Before, it was wrapped in a Shauna Shipman shaped package, and she didn’t have words for it, and it was never anything more than a dream. 

 

But Lottie is real, and she’s right in front of Jackie, and she loves her, really loves her, and Jackie lets herself love Lottie back. It’s all she’s ever wanted. Now that she has it, she’ll never lose it again. 

 

Lottie’s everything. Jackie doesn’t plan on ever letting her go.

 

The evening passed quickly and contentedly, and Lottie held Jackie’s hand the entire time, happy to let everyone talk amongst themselves as they ate their roasted fish. It was kinda nice, actually. Something new that wasn’t deer or rabbit. 

 

But as the sun went down and night began to speckle the sky, the fact that tomorrow Lottie was going to find herself at the lake, facing a ghost she hadn’t wanted to think about, made her heart sink a little. She wanted to go with them all, she really did, but every time she thought about that place, all she could remember was the sound of the plane exploding, the ringing silence of the aftermath as parts rained down into the water. 

 

How painfully alone she’d felt in that moment. How no one had come to get her from the lake. She’d only left because the night had made the water grow frigid and she’d begun shivering uncontrollably. 

 

But she had Jackie now and she knew she’d never leave her behind again like that, even if it still hurt a little to think that she had back then.

 

Jackie had picked through the bones of her fish, enjoying it more than she’d expected. It’s honestly just nice to taste something a little different. 

 

She watches Lottie as she grows quieter with the sinking sun, and Jackie brushes her thumb over the back of Lottie’s hand in soothing motions.

 

It’s Nat who stands, stretching and clapping her hands. “Alright. Let’s try and get some rest tonight! We’re gonna want to get an early start to the lake, okay?” 

 

Lottie watches Tai snuff out what’s left of the fire with a handful of dirt to make sure it doesn’t smolder back up, something they’ve all learned from being out here. She thinks they’ll all be professional survivalists if they ever make it back. 

 

Her attention is drawn away from the fire and over to Jackie at the gentle touch, giving a tired smile. She doesn’t really say much as they all stand and stretch and head back to their huts, excited whispers about tomorrow rumbling through the camp. She follows Jackie back to their own, stepping inside and immediately feeling the warmth that it brings her inside and out. She takes her shoes off and lowers herself onto their bedding.

 

When Jackie sits next to her, Lottie lays her head on Jackie’s shoulder and burrows her face against her. She doesn’t really want to talk, she just wants to be held and she hopes that’s okay for now.

 

Jackie wraps her arms around Lottie and holds onto her, petting through her hair. She hums softly, just barely under her breath. She gets that Lottie doesn’t want to talk. She thinks that’s okay, especially with what’s coming. It’s hard. But Jackie’s not shying away from the hard things anymore, not when it comes to Lottie. She wants to make sure Lottie knows that. 

 

In another life, Lottie thinks that she’d never have let herself have something like this, or let herself be vulnerable like this. Like tearing open her insides and bleeding herself raw. 

 

But in this life she has Jackie, for now, and she’s all the more grateful for the way she holds her, quietly, and doesn’t ask Lottie to use words she doesn’t have, or ask her to feel things she can’t. 

 

She just holds her and Lottie listens to the vibration in her chest as she hums, pressing her face against Jackie’s warm skin. She wants to say she’ll be okay, but Lottie doesn’t know what tomorrow is going to look like, or what her mind will try and conjure when they go to the lake. 

 

It’s after a while that she finally speaks. “I told Nat. About the lake.” 

 

“Yeah?” Jackie asks, combing through Lottie’s hair. “What’d she say?”

 

“She thinks we can make better memories there,” Lottie answers, moving herself enough to wrap her arms around Jackie. “I don’t want to forget her, though.”

 

“I don’t think you’re ever going to forget her, Lottie. She’s a part of you now,” Jackie tells her. She doesn’t think that any of them can forget Laura Lee, the sacrifice that she made for all of them. Even if some of them might want to.

 

Lottie leans back enough to look at Jackie and she knows the fear in her eyes is probably easy to see. “What if I do, though? If I-- If my mind…” She’s afraid that her mind will try and take away the memories, even if Lottie wants to hold onto them. She’s afraid of her own mind, she always has been. She doesn’t know how not to be.

 

Jackie brings her hand to Lottie’s cheek, cupping it gently. “Then I’ll help you. We’ll remember her together. But you’re not going to need me to.”

 

Pressing her face into Jackie’s touch, Lottie closes her eyes as they begin to water. “Okay,” she agrees quietly. She knows she can trust Jackie, and if Lottie forgets, she’ll remember for them both.

 

“But you’re not going to need me to,” Jackie repeats. Lottie wasn’t going to forget Laura Lee. It would be like Jackie forgetting Shauna. Laura Lee was too etched into her bones, now. She was too much a part of her, even if they’d only gotten close in such a short amount of time.

 

“I don’t want to forget you, either,” Lottie says, realizing it’s a fear she’s now developing. She leans back into Jackie, holding onto her tight like she might forget right now if she lets go.

 

Jackie rubs soothing circles on Lottie’s back, shaking her head. “You’re not going to forget me, either, baby,” she murmurs. She’s not leaving any room for argument. There’s a reason Lottie has these fears, Jackie knows that, but she’s not going to lean into them. And she’s not going to let Lottie lose herself in them. “Mostly because I’m not going to let you. You’re stuck with me. How can you possibly forget me when I’m always gonna be right here?”

 

Lottie doesn’t want to ask about what happens if she isn’t, what happens if she gets taken away. She’s afraid of the answer. She’s afraid of the question. She trusts Jackie enough to believe her when she says she won’t, but it’s hard to let go of the fear that’s always been there, even if Lottie hadn’t known.

 

“You promise?” she asks. It’s the only thing she can do, right now.

 

“You’re not getting away from me that easy, Matthews,” Jackie teases. She grows more serious, moving to rest her forehead against Lottie’s. “I promise,” she whispers. “And even if… if something ever happens, but it won’t, but if it does, then I’ll always find my way back to you. Just like in the snow.”

 

It’s kind of ridiculous how reassuring Jackie’s words are to Lottie. She doesn’t think she’s ever trusted someone the way she does Jackie, now. But how could she not? She’s seen all of Lottie’s worst parts and she still says beautiful things about her and tells her she’ll always find her way back. 

 

Lottie lifts her head once more, leaning in to brush her lips softly against Jackie’s. “I love you,” she tells her, and it means so much more than just that, but it’s all the words Lottie has left in her right now.

 

Kissing Lottie back just as softly, Jackie leans into the tenderness that they never really lose in their touches, no matter how frantic they get. This is just gentle. It’s kind. It’s what Lottie needs in the moment, and Jackie has no problem giving it to her. “I love you, too.”

 

Tugging on Jackie, Lottie says them down on their fur bedding, resting her head on Jackie's chest where she can listen to her heartbeat and feel it thumping in her head. She wraps an arm loosely around Jackie's waist and closes her eyes-- she's not tired, not yet, she just wants to let the sensation of being curled around Jackie comfort her until sleeping doesn't seem so terrifying.

 

Jackie lets a hand drift back up into Lottie’s hair, petting through it with slow, soothing fingers as she feels Lottie relax against her. In a lot of ways, it’s just as soothing for her to comfort Lottie like this, to have Lottie’s head on her chest and her body curled around her. It makes Jackie feel protected, cared for, loved. And it’s nice to have someone be just as clingy back to her. Sometimes, she felt like Shauna just put up with her touches. Lottie returns them almost as desperately.

 

It doesn't take long for Jackie's touch to soothe Lottie, the beat of her heart like a calming metronome in her head. The sadness that often fills Lottie's chest is still there-- it's always there-- but like this, it feels less overwhelming. She doesn't feel so alone, carrying her solitude like both armor and chains. Not when she's like this, not when she's with Jackie. 

 

Eventually, she lifts her head and looks down into Jackie's eyes, so gentle and inviting, like a warm Autumn morning, and she lingers on her gaze for a moment before leaning in to kiss her once more. She thinks sometimes she can taste heaven on Jackie's lips, and maybe that's the closest she'll ever get to the real thing, but it's more than enough for her.

 

Sighing into the kiss, Jackie cradles Lottie’s face in both hands and pulls her closer, not deeping it but just wanting to keep them connected. She just wants to remind Lottie that she’s there, she’s real. They both are. 

 

Though Jackie doesn't deepen the kiss, Lottie does, as she's pulled closer, pressing into Jackie, her face nestled between her palms. She thinks that sometimes she can taste the right words on Jackie's tongue, as if Lottie is simply giving them to her through her breath instead of speaking. She's always chosen her words so carefully, but around Jackie, she doesn't feel like she has to be so guarded. She doesn't feel the need to say the right thing or speak the right words. This can just be enough.

 

Jackie’s perfectly happy to let Lottie deepen the kiss. Maybe she’s even a little eager for it, a breathy noise catching in her throat. She thinks she could probably do this for the rest of her life. She’d do whatever Lottie wants, though, really. Anything, everything. It’s nice to give all of her carefully cultivated control over to someone else, someone that she trusted explicitly. She knows Lottie would never hurt her. She knows she can trust Lottie with every single part of herself, even if she’s still, sometimes, scared to.

 

There's a shared trust between them that Lottie can feel in their touches and taste in Jackie's mouth. There's also fear and shame and warmth and love and everything in between, but what matters to Lottie most is that they feel it all together. It's the mere idea of wanting to share all her pain and sadness and joy and happiness with Jackie that makes Lottie truly feel loved, because Jackie doesn't just want her to, she shares her own back. She trusts Lottie not only with her heart, but with whatever part of Shauna Shipman that still lives on inside of her. It's a gift, Lottie knows this. 

 

She brings one hand to rest on Jackie's hip, fingers tucking under fabric to find warm skin. She kisses her more, harder, needier-- Lottie loves her. For the first time in her life, Lottie truly loves someone and knows they love her back. It's that feeling that keeps her coming back to herself and always wanting more of this.

 

Jackie moans softly into the kisses, pleased that Lottie seems to consume all of the noises that pull themselves from her throat. She wants this. They both want this, want each other. Jackie’s content, though, to keep it at this, even as fingers brush against her skin. “We don’t have to,” she murmurs, her voice breathless as she pants against Lottie’s lips. “We don’t– we don’t have to do anything, if you just want to rest.”

 

Lottie stays close, even when she pulls back enough to breathe. She already feels warm, pupils blown. “I just want you,” she murmurs, pressing her forehead to Jackie’s. Fingers skate along skin, feeling the silk of it under her touch. She just wants Jackie. Always. It fills her like air in her lungs or water in her mouth. She kisses her again softly, lingering. She wants this, she always does. And she wants Jackie to know how much she wants it, wants her.

 

Shivering, Jackie nods at the words. She looks at Lottie like she hung the moon. For all Jackie knows, maybe Lottie did. “I think I always want you,” she breathes. Now that she understands want, and what it means to give into it. Jackie wants Lottie, and she wants her, and she wants her every day a little bit more. She pulls Lottie’s underwear out of her pocket and tosses it somewhere else in the hut. “I can’t stop– thinking about you.” It’s her turn to turn to needy kisses, warm touches.

 

Lottie watches Jackie with lidded eyes, licking her lips. “I’m okay with that,” she says, shifting enough to put a leg between Jackie’s, laying on top of her. “You’re always on my mind.” She tries her hardest to stay focused, but any time Lottie’s mind wanders, it always strays to Jackie. Her hair, her lips, her eyes. The sound of her voice. The feeling of her skin against Lottie’s. It’s all she thinks about. 

 

She presses their lips together again, needier, hungrier, tongue already begging to taste Jackie’s. Her hand slips further up Jackie’s side, tugging her shirt up with it, tracing along warm skin. A shiver runs up Lottie’s own spine. God, she loves this girl so much. It makes her heart pound and her blood rush. She rolls her hips.

 

Jackie thinks that Lottie’s a goddess. She grins up at her, dopey and adoring, only to feel it smothered by Lottie’s lips, her tongue. She’s being lit on fire by Lottie’s hands on her skin. The pressure of Lottie on top of her makes her sink happily into the bedding, and she hums lowly as a knee presses between her legs, hips rolling against her own. 

 

“Always?” Jackie breathes. She knows. She just wants to hear it, again and again. It’s just nice to know that someone’s always thinking about her, always wanting her. 

 

“Always,” Lottie repeats, her voice just a whisper of breath. She kisses her again and again. She thinks she’ll be thinking of Jackie up to her very last moment. Even if she forgets her, even if her mind takes her from her, Lottie thinks she’ll still dream of soft, hazel eyes, the voice of an angel, lips like honey. 

 

She brushes her hand over the cloth of Jackie’s bra, before slipping fingers under it and feeling sensitive skin grow hard under her touch. The way Jackie’s body reacts to her drives Lottie wild and she kisses her more.

 

“I need you,” Jackie says, her back arching into Lottie’s touch. She shudders. “I need you. All the fucking time. Just… I just need you.” Please don’t leave me. Please don’t ever leave me. Jackie thinks she’ll die without Lottie. She thinks she’ll just stop existing. She won’t come back from it. There will be no one left to stop her from just wasting into nothing, no one that’ll care enough to tie their life to hers. Not like Lottie. She leans up and fumbles with the clasps of her bra, wanting it off, wanting her shirt off, wanting them to be closer. 

 

Lottie feels another shiver race up her spine. The words make her breath stutter and her heart pound. She needs her. Not just sometimes, all the time. There was never a moment in Lottie’s life where she actually thought someone would say those words to her and mean them. It just makes her want Jackie more, love her more. 

 

As Jackie moves, Lottie’s fingers move around to help her undo her bra, yank her shirt off, tossing them away to where her underwear was discarded. She pulls her own shirt off as well, before diving back in, pressing their chests together as she kisses Jackie, hands spreading along bare skin. She lowers herself, trailing kisses down her neck to her collar, to her breast, before taking one in her mouth and sucking.

 

Jackie moans lowly, flopping back onto the bedding, pulling Lottie with her, closer, her hands threading into that thick, beautiful hair and keeping Lottie close. She’s never felt like this before, heat that just licks at her insides like the mouth on her chest. “Lottie,” Jackie whispers. “Lottie.”

 

Those are the sounds that make Lottie shudder and gasp. Her name sounds holy when Jackie says it, even if Lottie feels more like something dark and horrible. She laps at Jackie’s chest, her hand lavishing the side not occupied by her mouth, squeezing and pinching and wanting badly to hear Jackie cry out her name like she had that night in the woods, when she’d first tasted her heat. She wants to taste her again, she always wants to, it’s like an addiction. It’s not like Lottie to be like this, usually, but she can’t help it with Jackie, and she doesn’t want to. She likes craving her. She likes being craved.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie whimpers. She tries to get closer, tries to keep Lottie close, even if she knows that Lottie isn’t going anywhere. Her chest tightens in Lottie’s mouth, in her hand, heat shooting down her spine and between her legs, pooling there. Her hips buck without her being aware of it. She gets lost in feeling like this. She stumbles through it and into it willingly, happily, wholly. All that she really knows, when they’re like this, is just, “Lottie.”

 

Lottie exhales heavily against Jackie’s warm skin. It’s so hot when Jackie says her name like that, when she’s writhing and panting and moaning underneath her. She wants to hear more of it. Needs it. She moves further down Jackie’s body, teeth and tongue leaving hot, wet marks along the way, as fingers hook into her pants and underwear, tugging them down as she goes. She pulls them off Jackie quickly before settling back on top of her, hands smoothing up her thighs, squeezing gently. She licks her lips, presses them to the inside of Jackie’s thigh, lets her teeth lightly scrape along the skin there before she sucks on a spot, leaving a mark behind. Her tongue soothes it over.

 

Lottie is the only person that’s ever had Jackie like this: completely bare, exposed, like she’s been cracked open and all her insides are spilling out. It’s the most vulnerable she thinks she’s ever felt, and it’s also the best. She trusts Lottie with every vulnerability that she has. Moaning softly as teeth scrape and lips suck on her skin, Jackie doesn’t really understand how it’s possible to be this turned on already. Maybe Lottie’s just magic. That’s possible. It’d make about as much sense as anything else happening out there. Except this is real, shooting through her body, making her feel warm, so warm, almost too warm. Jackie leans up on her elbows to watch Lottie, her eyes wide and her lips parted.

 

A breathy, high-pitched noise escapes Lottie’s throat as she exhales. When she pulls back to suck in a lungful of air, she gazes back up at Jackie with just as much want and fervor as the first night they’d fallen into this bedding together. Maybe even more. She lifts herself enough to dig a hand into Jackie’s hair, pulling their faces together for a fleeting, fierce kiss before she moves back down. Her eyes stay locked on Jackie’s until finally dips her head between her legs and feels how hot and wet Jackie is already on her tongue. 

 

Jackie’s left reeling from the kiss, her eyes glassy and unfocused as she meets Lottie’s gaze before Lottie is moving lower again. Her head falls back as Lottie’s mouth finally touches her, and she can’t move her hand up fast enough to completely smother the moan in her mouth. There’s another flood of heat pooling between her legs, and Jackie vaguely wonders if it’s from her brain melting. She’s heard that guys only think with their dicks, but this is really ridiculous. All the same, it’s like her world has completely narrowed to Lottie. She’s completely okay with that.

 

The sound Jackie makes has Lottie smiling against her as she licks long strokes along her center. She kisses and licks and sucks, wrapping her lips around the sensitive nub between Jackie’s legs, eager to hear her cry out more. Hands hold her hips in place and Lottie smothers herself with Jackie, wanting more of her somehow. She pushes her tongue inside of her, laps up the wetness that’s dripping there. Nails dig into Jackie’s skin and Lottie feels like she wants to drown in her.

 

There’s no reason, really, that Jackie can think of for Lottie holding her hips in place. She squirms, not because she’s trying to get away but because she just wants to be close, so very close, moaning against her hand as her back arches up. It all feels so good. Lottie already knows what makes Jackie feel like she’s going to explode. Jackie wants to hold onto this feeling, this pleasure, as long as she possibly can, even as nails dig into her skin and Jackie feels her breath stutter. 

 

Wanting-- no, needing-- to be closer, Lottie moves her hands down to hook under Jackie’s knees, lifting them onto her shoulders as she presses in. She watches Jackie writhe and squirm under her touch as she pulls away to take a breath, lips brushing against her thigh as she leans forward, pushing her legs towards her chest, opening her up more. She licks her lips, tastes Jackie on them, as she drags a hand around and teases two fingers at her entrance. Her eyes watch Jackie’s face eagerly as she slides them in slowly, heart hammering in her chest as she does until she’s knuckle deep, curling her fingers.

 

Jackie feels a little like a doll, easy to move however she needs to be for Lottie to touch her just right, and her eyes roll back. “Lottie,” she moans. “Lottie.” It’s like she can feel Lottie everywhere. She’s all Jackie feels, hears, smells. When her eyes flutter open, she’s all Jackie can see, looking down at her with those fathomless eyes that Jackie can’t stop gazing into, dark and hypnotic. Her hand feels heavy and clumsy as she reaches out for Lottie, just wanting to touch her skin and feel her. 

 

Lottie can’t help herself, moving forward to crash her lips against Jackie’s again as hands fumble for her. She licks against her lips, parting them, tongue searching for Jackie’s. She leaves her heaving with breath, one arm still wrapped around the leg she had pressed to Jackie’s chest as she begins to pump her fingers into her, mouth back on her chest. All she wants is to make Jackie call out her name, wants to feel it race up her spine, wants to forget, for just a moment, that she aches in a way she doesn’t know how to stop. She wants to be full with Jackie’s love and affection.

 

It’s a relief when their lips crash together, and Jackie has no problem letting her lips part. She doesn’t immediately process Lottie pulling away, only aware that lips aren’t on hers when they wrap around her breast instead, making her cry out Lottie’s name. Her hands dig into Lottie’s hair as she whines. 

 

It’s truly the sweetest sound on earth, when Jackie cries out Lottie’s name like that. It makes her moan against her skin and shudder, moving her hand faster. She sucks on hardened skin, then bites down. Not too hard, but hard enough that she can taste the skin between her teeth. Immediately after, she soothes it with her tongue, works her back to the other side and repeats her process.

 

Jackie’s so close. She thinks she could come right then, wrecked by the way Lottie’s mouth feels on her chest, but she holds on just a little longer. Her hips move with each thrust, and she grips Lottie’s hair tightly. “More,” she manages, panting, her eyes bright. “Please.”

 

Lottie can do more. She can do anything Jackie wants her to, she wants to do anything Jackie wants of her. She thrusts her hand a little faster, a little harder, and lowers her mouth back down between Jackie’s legs. She doesn’t hesitate at all before wrapping her lips around Jackie’s clit and sucking at the same time she curls her fingers, ready to hear and taste Jackie coming undone.

 

“God, Lottie,” Jackie moans. She doesn’t think she’d mind if it was the only thing left that she could say, just Lottie’s name over and over again. It’s the only word still on her lips. She can’t even curse, can’t even beg. But Lottie’s name is so pretty that Jackie doesn’t particularly mind. It slides off her tongue and catches in her throat as she feels her release crash over her, tensing as lips wrap around her and fingers curl.

 

It’s bliss for Lottie when she hears Jackie cry out her name and she holds on through it, not stopping her movements until she can feel Jackie’s body stop tensing. She rubs soothing circles against her thigh as she watches her come down, before pulling her fingers out slowly and crawling back up Jackie’s body, leaving warm kisses along the way. She kisses her lips once before cleaning off her fingers and nuzzling against the side of her head. “You’re so pretty when you cry my name,” she murmurs.

 

Jackie’s still panting when Lottie wraps around her, rubbing against her head, but she smiles, her eyes closed. “I–” Her voice cracks, and she clears her throat. “I like saying it. It’s so pretty, just like you.” Because Lottie is gorgeous. The prettiest person in the world. Jackie doesn’t know how she got so lucky. “I feel like you gutted me,” she mumbles, laughing quietly.

 

“In a good way?” Lottie asks, leaning her head up enough to look down at Jackie. 

 

Nodding, Jackie smiles up at Lottie, her eyes blinking to see her. She reaches out, fingers brushing through her hair. “In the best way.”

 

Lottie closes her eyes and presses her forehead to Jackie's. “You know that I still love you the most, right? Even if I…cry about her?”

 

She never really felt like she'd gotten to mourn Laura Lee properly. She'd never gotten to cry over her the way Jackie had for Shauna. No one had offered to hold Lottie while she felt like her world was crumbling. Maybe she just kind of wants that now, even if it feels too late.

 

Jackie’s head is still a little foggy, still reeling from the way that Lottie had touched her, but she nods and pulls Lottie closer. She wraps her arms around her in a hug. It doesn’t seem like Lottie’s ever been hugged enough. “I know. It’s okay for you to cry about her. You loved her. You miss her. That’s okay.” Jackie thinks if she has to share her person with anyone, then Laura Lee’s not the worst one to have to share Lottie with.

 

It feels selfish to want, but Lottie wants it anyway. She knows whatever her and Laura Lee had was nothing like Jackie and Shauna, but she misses her all the same. It hurts all the same, because, until Jackie, Laura Lee was really the only person Lottie had ever had. She thinks losing Jackie would simply destroy her completely.

 

She burrows her face into Jackie’s neck. “I’m yours, I promise.” She promises. She doesn’t want it any other way. 

 

If Lottie would bite off a piece of Jackie in the moment, Jackie doesn’t think she’d mind. Her fingers thread through Lottie’s hair, and her eyes drift closed again. “And I’m yours.”

 

There’s really no sense in living in the ‘ifs’ of the world, Lottie figured that out a long time ago. Still, she thinks about them a lot. Like if she’d been born without her illness, or if she’d been born to different parents, or if she’d just been normal.

 

If Laura Lee and Shauna were still alive, would Jackie and Lottie have even entered each other’s orbit? She’s not sure she wants to know the answer, because Lottie loves Jackie in this universe and she doesn’t want it any other way. “Thank you,” she whispers, “for loving me.”

 

“You don’t have to thank me for that. It’s kind of, like, my favorite thing in the world,” Jackie says, brushing her cheek against Lottie’s hair. She knows it exists, but she doesn’t want to imagine a world where she doesn’t feel like this. Jackie’s recentered her entire self around Lottie. It’s hard to imagine a world where she doesn’t have this. 

 

Lottie thinks she does-- she feels like she does have to. She doesn’t think anyone’s ever loved her before. She’s certainly never felt loved before. And it’s hard to blame anyone when she’s the one who’s been keeping everyone at arm’s length or more. All she’s ever wanted was to be loved, but all she’s ever been was afraid, of herself, of others, of other people knowing her.

 

“Still,” she says, her voice quiet, almost lost in her throat, “I want to.”

 

Jackie hums, holding Lottie closer, wrapping her legs around Lottie’s waist. “Well, I want to love you, so there.”

 

Lottie smiles, sweet and sad. She presses her face against Jackie’s neck. “I love you, too,” she says. She’s loved, she’s loved and wanted and needed. It doesn’t feel real. She knows it is. 

 

Pressing a kiss to Lottie’s hair, Jackie whispers, “I’ve got you. Always.” 

 

And Lottie doesn’t know what she’s done to deserve something like this, something so good, but she’s stopped questioning it. Because she wanted it so, so bad. So bad sometimes it made her ache inside. And for so long, she’d simply pushed it away, shoved the feelings down into tiny little boxes that would never see the light of day.

 

But then Jackie had crawled her way into Lottie’s chest and found them and opened them and now Lottie couldn’t live without her. 

 

She shifts enough to curl against Jackie’s side, keeping an arm wrapped around her, a leg tangled between Jackie’s. Like this, she almost feels normal, as if she weren’t haunted and hallowed. 

 

Like this, she feels real.

 

With a content sigh, Jackie lets Lottie get comfortable, knowing that she’ll go to sleep with Lottie around her, wake up with Lottie around her. It’s the most comforting thought in the world, the knowledge that Lottie is hers. “Are you sleepy?”

 

“A little,” Lottie answers. She’s worn out from the day and from crying and from the sex, but sleepy isn’t quite the right word, she thinks. Her body just feels heavy. Warm and comforted, but still heavy. “I just want to lay here with you.”

 

“We can just lay here,” Jackie murmurs. She’s happy to do whatever Lottie wants. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Shifting enough to lay her head on Jackie's chest, Lottie presses her ear to her sternum and listens to the rhythmic breathing of her heart, still pumping a little harder than normal. She closes her eyes and lets its steady beat reassure her that she has this, if nothing else. She has Jackie. 

 

Absently, her fingers draw little circles on Jackie's skin, over her hip and her stomach. She thinks about how she really, truly believes Jackie when she tells her she's not going anywhere, and it's such a heavy relief that's being lifted from her that her body feels ten times lighter. She feels like she might float away, but she's sure if she started to, Jackie would catch her.

 

Jackie wraps her arms around Lottie’s waist and laces her fingers together, offering Lottie a squeeze before she relaxes. It’s easy to let Lottie hold her, to let her take comfort in the reactions of Jackie’s body. Her heart’s still beating fast, still coming down from Lottie’s hands, her mouth. Her skin prickles with goosebumps as Lottie draws patterns on her skin, and Jackie gives a pleased little noise. She doesn’t want it to stop. She never wants this to stop.

 

As Lottie lays there, listening to Jackie's soft noises and steady breathing, she thinks about all the times she'd laid down alone in her bed back on Wiskayok. It was queen sized, with sheer pink curtains around it, and a lilac comforter, with blankets and sheets to match. It was comfortable, the kind of soft you sank into when you crawled onto it. 

 

And yet, it had provided Lottie little comfort. It was terribly lonely there. Sometimes she cried about it, sometimes she got angry and ripped holes in the sheets, but mostly she just laid in her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince herself that she was better off that way, that being alone was the only way she was going to get through life. The fear always won out over the ache of her loneliness. It was alright, she told herself. She had friends and that was more than she'd ever asked for. 

 

But now, she has Jackie, and as Lottie lay there against her, head on her chest, she thinks about how she wouldn't trade this for anything. She wants this, to stay here with Jackie, on their bed of furs and old blankets, inside a hut made of sticks and moss, in the middle of the mountains. This is the most comfort she's ever had and she'd rather stay here forever than go back to her big, enough bed in her big, empty house, in a town that would hate her if they knew the real her.

 

Lottie draws in a deep breath slowly, before letting it go. “You're the best thing that's ever happened to me,” she whispers to Jackie.

 

Jackie thinks that’s all she’s ever wanted, to be someone’s best thing. She holds onto Lottie a little tighter. Most of the time, she doesn’t know how to reconcile a lifetime with Shauna to the last few months with Lottie, but she knows that being with Lottie is the most free that Jackie’s ever felt. She never felt like that with Shauna. She doesn’t know if she ever could. There’s so much love there, but also so much baggage, and so much that she would have had to overcome. 

 

But being with Lottie is just that: it’s Lottie, and Jackie’s known Lottie for almost as long, even if they hadn’t been close. That was probably Jackie’s fault. She’s never known how to split her attention in ways that make sense, and she’d never been able to handle Shauna pouting for too long when she showed attention to someone else. She even liked that jealousy, liked seeing how affected Shauna could get. She doesn’t need that with Lottie, though. There’s just the two of them, and they’re open about it, and they work. They actually seem to fit. 

 

“You make everything worth it,” Jackie says, her voice just as soft.

 

Lottie doesn’t mean to, but she makes a small, almost choked noise, at the admission. She’d been alone so long she’d forgotten what it meant to mean something to someone, if she’d ever known in the first place. She had friends, she had a family, she smiled at the right times and laughed at the right jokes, talked to the right people. But she’d never been one of them, she’d never been worth anything to anyone. Not in the ways she’d craved, in the ways she begged to be seen, late at night when she was alone in her bed.

 

She lifts her head and meets Jackie’s gaze, her own blurring slightly as they begin to water. She doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t think there’s enough words in the world to express her gratitude-- instead, she just presses her lips to Jackie’s, gentle and warm, and pours all of herself into it. Every ounce of love or sorrow or joy she’s ever felt. It’s Jackie’s forever.

 

It breaks Jackie’s heart a little to see Lottie like this, but it also makes her feel and know that she’s so deeply loved. Lottie trusts her with this intense vulnerability and love. Jackie only wants to be worth it. She hopes that she’s worth it as she returns the kiss, their lips pressed together with so much tenderness and care.

 

When Lottie pulls back, she leans her forehead against Jackie’s, swallowing tightly. She doesn’t mean to cry so much, but it’s all a little overwhelming for her. She’s never felt this way before. She’s both so happy and so fucking sad. It’s confusing but also elating. Jackie just makes her feel important. She makes her feel like she can take up space, that’s it’s okay to exist, just as she is. She doesn’t have to hide herself away all the time, even if it still scares her to know people see the way she is, to know they judge her for it. 

 

She lays her head in the crook of Jackie’s neck and closes her eyes, still wrapped tightly around her. She loves her so much it hurts. She knows if Jackie dies, then all of Lottie will die, too. 

Notes:

PHEW that one really was a thicc boi. And y'all got TWO whole smut scenes, wow! Uhh, but also, if it's all a little much, please feel free to let us know lmao i never really know how to balance out that stuff and these two apparently can't keep their hands off each other so! Here we are.

Again, thanks SO much for reading and comments and kudos, we love u all <3 see ya next week!

Chapter 30: so lovely was the loneliness of a wild lake

Summary:

It's lake day, and a birthday celebration at that! The Yellowjackets take a much needed rest, if you can call a trek through the forest a rest. But, hey, they've got everything you could want for a nice day at the lake: sunning, playing, and a barbecue to really tie it all together. Even if Jackie and Lottie sit out on the chicken fights, they still have a little fun in the sun.

Notes:

Chapter 30 let's gooooooo. We're getting closer and closer to the start of our version of season 3, and, boy, it's gonna be one hell of a ride, but for now you all can enjoy a nice lake vacation.

The title comes from "The Lake" by Edgar Allan Poe.

The next morning, Jackie wakes up groggy but rested. She tightens her arms around Lottie and just listens to the sound of the world starting to stir around them.

 

If Lottie dreams, she doesn’t remember when she wakes up. She thinks she has, she thinks she heard soft singing in her sleep, warm hands in her hair, braiding it back out of her face. The sun shining on her skin.

 

She wakes to warmth still. A different warmth, but one she’s grown used to. One she needs. Jackie’s arms tighten around her and Lottie burrows her face into her neck, letting out a soft breath. She can hear lazy footsteps outside as others begin to wake as well, moving about the camp. For now, Lottie just wants to stay here.

 

Jackie smiles, feeling the change in Lottie’s breathing as she stirs awake. She lets them just lie there, though, not wanting to disturb the peace for a few minutes before she quietly mumbles, “Good morning.”

 

“Hi,” Lottie mumbles back, lifting her head just enough to brush her lips against Jackie’s cheek. “Did you sleep okay?” 

 

Laughing, Jackie nods her head. She smiles as lips press against her cheek. “Yeah, I did. I have this really nice blanket. I told you about my blanket the other day, right? So comfortable.”

 

Lottie chuckles as well. “You did,” she says, “I’m a little jealous, actually.” She looks at Jackie with soft eyes, though. She loves waking up like this, nestled in Jackie’s arms, or Jackie in her hers. Maybe she doesn’t deserve such a good thing in her life, but she’s all the more glad for it. 

 

“Yeah?” Jackie murmurs. Her hand comes up to cradle Lottie’s face, as they look at each other. How can eyes be so endless? Lottie’s are especially pretty at this time in the morning, after she’s just woken up, still a little sleepy in their sweetness. 

 

Lottie has noticed more than once that Jackie likes to stare into her eyes. She certainly doesn’t mind. She’s always had a hard time looking people in the eyes, she thinks it has something to do with how often she’d seen fear or anger or disappointment in other people. But she’s only ever seen love in Jackie’s, now, when she looks back. 

 

“Yeah,” she says back, leaning down to kiss her. “I want to be your only blanket.”

 

Humming against Lottie’s lips, Jackie mumbles, “I get really cold, so sometimes I need more than just one.” Her grin only grows, though, as she pulls away and adds, “But you’re my favorite blanket. Does that help?”

 

Lottie contemplates for a moment. “Yeah, it does.” She smiles down at her, sleep still heavy in her eyes. She burrows back into her neck for a moment, laying more on top of her and sighing. “Do I make a good blanket?”

 

“Duh, you’re the best. That’s why you’re my favorite,” Jackie tells her. Her eyes drift shut again at the pressure. She could probably go back to sleep if she isn’t careful, so Jackie keeps talking. “I mean, really just the best. I even like sleeping without clothes on with you, which isn’t–- I don’t do that. Didn’t do that.”

 

Tilting her head, Lottie looks back up at Jackie. “Really? Even when you slept alone?” 

 

Jackie looks up at the roof of their hut, her cheeks tinged pink. “I mean, what if someone had walked in on me?” she mumbles. It was why she’d never done a lot of things. Her mom had constantly fluctuated between overbearing and completely unavailable, and there was really no telling when she’d be which. She would have called Jackie disgusting or a deviant. And then there was always the annoying possibility that Jeff would stop by. And then, almost all of the rest of the time, Jackie was with Shauna. She didn’t exactly have a lot of time to just relax without her clothes on. 

 

“They would’ve seen you naked, I guess,” Lottie answers. She never even had the passing thought of what would’ve happened had someone walked in on her, because that just simply wasn’t a possibility. Neither of her parents came around enough to do such a thing, and the maids and housekeepers always knocked before entering a room. “I almost always slept naked. Or just in my underwear.”

 

A huff escapes Jackie’s lips. “Of course you did. God.” Her cheeks feel even warmer, which is ridiculous since Lottie’s half-naked on top of Jackie right now, and Jackie’s completely naked. Nakedness shouldn’t even really be a thing, not when they all spent years showering and changing around each other, not when they all spent months basically living right on top of each other. Privacy just isn’t a thing anymore, and there’s no reason Jackie should be self-conscious, especially not right now. She just can’t help it. “I didn’t want people to… see me like that. It felt wrong.”

 

“It wasn’t like anyone was ever going to see me,” Lottie says nonchalantly, putting her chin in one hand while she traces the other along Jackie’s exposed collarbones. “Does it still feel wrong?” she asks quietly, looking at her with curious eyes. There’s no judgement in them, Lottie wouldn’t judge Jackie for anything, least of for the things she felt thanks to years of psychological abuse.

 

The touch makes Jackie shiver and sigh softly. “Not with you,” she murmurs. “Nothing feels wrong with you.” Nothing between the two of them felt like it was wrong. It only felt good, it only felt right. Jackie doesn’t feel like a deviant, or like she’s some sort of disgrace. She doesn’t feel like all of her friends are going to abandon her or hate her. She feels happy, content. It’s nice.

 

They’re nice words to hear and they make Lottie smile, even if she sort of doesn’t entirely believe them. Lottie thinks there’s a lot that should feel wrong with her, because there’s so much wrong about her. But she can’t help but agree-- nothing feels wrong with Jackie. She presses another kiss to her lips, gentle and serene. “I’m happy I make you feel that way,” she murmurs. “You aren’t wrong. There’s nothing wrong about you.”

 

It’s easier to see that now than Jackie had before. It’s easier for her to lean into Lottie’s lips, to accept that this is more than just practice for some boy. It’s love, as honest and real as she’s ever allowed herself to feel it, and it wraps so tenderly but completely around her heart. She finds it scary. She finds it amazing. “Thank you,” she whispers.

 

Lottie smiles, kind and soft, as she presses their foreheads together. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” she reminds her quietly. Then, adds on, “but you’re welcome all the same.” 

 

Of course, the moment doesn’t get long to linger before there’s voices outside interrupting their isolation. Lottie glances back over her shoulder at the covered window, before she looks back at Jackie and she can feel the moment slipping, despite her wanting it to stay. She’s still anxious about today, about seeing the lake again, despite the peace she’d felt in her sleep nestled in Jackie’s arms.

 

Hand going up to brush against Lottie’s cheek, Jackie smiles back at Lottie, attempting to soothe some of her anxieties away. She knows this is going to be hard. She wants Lottie to know that she’ll be with her every step of the way. “We should probably get dressed.” Her lips peck against Lottie’s, short but sweet. “You have to wear underwear today. Even if yesterday was really hot.” Softer, Jackie adds. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

 

Lottie cracks a small grin. She tries to tell herself that Jackie is right, it’s going to be okay. She hopes. She really hopes. 

 

She nods, drawing in a breath. “Okay,” she murmurs, prying herself away from Jackie and sitting up, holding her hands out for Jackie. She wants today to be good, because they all deserve it. She doesn’t want to ruin that for anyone, including Jackie. Squeezing her hands, she leans back on her feet, looking around. “I guess I can put some underwear on today,” she teases back, trying to keep the mood light. “You’ll just have to take them off later.”

 

“I’ll, uh.” Jackie feels her mouth water as she looks at Lottie, and she looks away, swallowing. “I’ll take them off with my teeth or something,” she mumbles. She gives Lottie’s hands one last squeeze before she pads around the hut, looking for something to wear down to the lakeshore. 

 

That certainly makes Lottie smile more. She stands as well, digging through her pile of mostly clean clothes. She stops when she sees Laura Lee’s dress, the white one with little flower patterns all over it. She’d worn it so much, it was faded into a dirty grey and was torn in several places. Dirt stains lined the bottom and the back where she sat. Closing her eyes, she presses the dress to her chest before she pulls it on after putting on a bra and underwear at Jackie’s request. When she turns back around, she tries not to look too sad, but she’s sure Jackie can see it in her eyes, even as she smiles at her and holds out her hand. 

 

Jackie throws on her clothes, choosing her sweater and a pair of shorts, before she looks back at Lottie and sees that sad look in her eyes. She opts to forgo taking Lottie’s hand to wrap her arms around her instead, leaning in to hold tight. “We don’t have to go,” Jackie murmurs. “We can just… we can just stay right here for the day. I can tell Nat I don’t feel good and that you’re just staying to keep me company, and we can lay here and nap all day if you want to.”

 

Lottie doesn't quite hug her back, but she lifts her arms enough to wrap around her. Shakes her head. “We should go,” she says quietly, “I…want to go.” And it's not a lie, she does want to go. She just doesn't want to feel this ache in her heart when she does. She wonders if it will ever go away-- she wonders if she truly wants it to. “I wanna do what Nat said, I wanna make better memories…of that place. Of-of her.”

 

Pulling back, Jackie takes Lottie’s hands and squeezes them. “Then we’ll go. And we’ll have a good time, you know? I think everybody’s kind of looking forward to this day off. It’ll be really good for all of us,” she murmurs. Then, she adds. “You don’t… have to forget the bad memories. They’re always going to be there, too. But I think the good memories can help them not feel like so… much.”

 

Lottie nods, squeezes Jackie's hands back. She musters a tiny smile. She'll never forget that moment, she thinks. It was so sudden, so jarring. The sound of it echoed in Lottie's mind. She blinks heavily, shaking her head. 

 

“Does it help you?” She asks after a moment. “With Shauna?”

 

Jackie thinks about journals she refuses to reread and clothes she can’t stop wearing, and she nods. “It helps,” she murmurs. Or maybe she just wants it to so that she doesn’t feel bad that she can’t stop clinging to Shauna even though she’s dead. Jackie doesn’t know how. She still doesn’t know how to give up a person who was her whole world for most of her life. Doing so feels a bit like giving up part of herself.

 

Okay, Lottie thinks that’s fair. She thinks she can deal with it eventually getting better, even if right now it fucking sucks and it feels like someone is punching her in the gut repeatedly. If it can help Jackie, then it can help Lottie. She nods, leans back into Jackie. “Okay,” she murmurs. 

 

With that, Jackie wraps her arms back around Lottie, hoping to comfort her however she can.

 

“My eyes are closed,” Nat says, and Jackie turns around to see her at their doorway. “I just wanted to tell you guys to start getting ready. You’ve been suspiciously quiet all morning, so no, you know, funny business down at the lake today." 

 

Lottie frowns. “We’re dressed,” she says back to Nat, but doesn’t move quite yet. There’s a reason she’s been quiet. She doesn’t say much else, she feels quiet again, almost lost without words. She doesn’t like that feeling. She’s trying not to be like that again, mostly for Jackie’s sake. 

 

“Uh, great!” Nat replies, blinking as she looks at the two of them, peeking in and glancing around before she starts to head back out. “Great. See you guys in a few?”

 

Jackie waves at Nat but keeps her attention on Lottie, lacing their hands together. “We can leave whenever you want to. And we can take our time getting there,” she murmurs. “We don’t have to be there with everyone else.”

 

Shaking her head, Lottie looks back at Jackie. She wants to be normal, she wants to go with everyone, she wants to stop feeling so outcast. She tries to smile. “We should go with them,” she says, “I want to.” She tugs on Jackie’s hand to head towards the door. 

 

She’s going to be okay, she thinks she’s going to be okay, as long as she has Jackie with her.

 

“Okay,” Jackie says, squeezing Lottie’s hand. “When we get there, if I actually swim, you can’t laugh at me, okay? It’s not my fault my mom wouldn’t let me take lessons at the public pool or that I was sick the one time that someone actually came and taught at the country club.” And then Jackie had just gotten too old and embarrassed at the thought that she needed lessons, so she’d learned how to half ass a doggy paddle and could keep herself afloat enough to not drown.

 

“You can hold onto me,” Lottie tells her, squeezing back, as they head out of their hut and join the others who are all gathering around the fire to quickly eat breakfast and head down to the lake. They’ve got blankets for towels and most of them are already in their “swimwear” (which is just their nicest looking underwear and bra), ready for the exciting day off. Ready to pretend, if just for the day, that things are normal.

 

Jackie stops by the storage shed to grab her and Lottie blankets to use as everyone else gets ready to head out, excitedly chatting with each other as they eat quickly from whatever’s in the pot. Misty’s hovering next to Nat, chattering nonstop about something. Nat’s being polite, offering half hearted nods and smiles. Jackie first thinks that they should just leave Misty at the village, but she quickly realizes that’s mean, changes it. She doesn’t like Misty, not after what she did to Lottie, but maybe she’s been in solitary for long enough. 

 

“Alrighty, campers!” Van drawls out as everyone finishes up. “Who’s ready for a beach day?”

 

Lottie pokes at a few pieces of food but finds it hard to eat. Her stomach is in knots. She wonders if anyone else is even thinking about Laura Lee, if anyone else ever thinks about what happened last time they were all together at the lake. Considering how happy they all seem, she doesn’t think so.

 

Lottie wants to be happy, too. When Van announces they’re all going to head out, Lottie stays sitting for a beat. She thinks about just telling Jackie to go down alone, but she knows she won’t do that, even if Lottie asks her to. She’d stay here with Lottie and miss all the fun. Jackie deserved to have a nice day, and so Lottie draws in a breath and stands, dumping the rest of her food back into the pot. She hangs back by the end of the group, hands playing anxious together before she reaches for Jackie. 

 

Food isn’t really the main thing on Jackie’s mind, even as she quickly chokes down a few bites, without much thought or chewing involved to it like she’s done since she was little and knew she needed to eat something or she’d pass out. She takes Lottie’s hand in hers as they all start the trek, focused again on Lottie, even as she looks at the others.

 

Nat looks contemplative. Jackie wonders if she’s remembering the last time such a large group of them went to the lake, when they’d hunted her down in the name of food. Robin and Akilah are chatting with Travis, but he looks like he’s lost in thought, too. This is where he lost his brother.

 

Maybe more than just Lottie need today to make better memories.

 

The trek is much shorter than Lottie is expecting, but they’d picked a place closer to it than the plane on purpose. She feels each step growing stiffer as they draw near and then she’s rounding the corner through the treeline and there it is, the surface glinting in the sunlight.

 

Most everyone else goes rushing forward, yelling and whooping in excitement. Bags and blankets are abandoned, along with shoes and whatever clothes they might be wearing.

 

Lottie, Jackie, Natalie and Travis are the ones who stay back. Lottie glances at the other three, then down to the lake. It’s like none of them really want to go down there for their own reasons, but they all want to be as happy as the others, smiling and laughing and splashing in the water.

 

Lottie takes in a deep breath. “To new memories?” she offers up quietly.

 

Travis takes a deep breath and lets it shudder out before he nods. Nat reaches out to him, offering his shoulder a squeeze, and the small smile on his lips doesn’t quite meet his eyes, but it’s real, and it’s for her, and then he’s walking to join the others.

 

“To new memories,” Jackie whispers, lacing her arm through Lottie’s.

 

It’s nice to Travis allowing himself comfort, especially from Natalie, and Lottie nods, following after him with Jackie next to her. Nat follows behind the two of them, and by the time they all make it down to the shore, everyone else is already swimming or tanning.

 

“Come on, slowpokes!” Van shouts from the lake, laughing as Melissa falls off Gen’s shoulders and splashes into the water.

 

Travis is pulling his shirt and shoes off, and Nat goes to start undressing as well, but Lottie stops a little short of it all, gaze stuck on a spot in the sky. She watches the space between the two mountains where the plane had once been and thinks, for a moment, that maybe it was all a nightmare and she’ll see it coming back around.

 

She won’t, though.

 

She looks over at Jackie. “I’m just gonna…sit for a bit.” She doesn’t want to get in yet, she’s not ready. “You can go with everyone. I’ll be okay.”

 

“I’ll sit with you,” Jackie says quickly. She doesn’t exactly want to get in the water yet, either. And she definitely doesn’t want to leave Lottie alone. Sitting with her sounds a lot more Jackie’s speed, anyway. 

 

Lottie isn't sure if Jackie actually wants to sit with her or if she just doesn't want to leave her alone, but either way, Lottie would be lying if she said she wasn't glad for the company. 

 

Spreading their blanket out, she leans down and sits, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, chin resting atop them. She watches the others splash around and tackle each other and she finds herself searching for a crop of blonde hair she knows she won't find. Still, she looks for her, as if this were all those months ago, and they'd just crashed, and no one had died from an explosion or the cold yet.

 

Jackie tugs off her sweater and lays down on their blanket, letting the morning sun soak into her skin as she stretches out. She’s content to stay there with Lottie, not really paying attention to the rest of the group. If she can make it through this beach trip the same as the first, with only getting mildly wet from a short soak and then spend the rest of her time lounging on the shore, then that’ll end up being just fine with her. If it means that she can pay attention to Lottie and make sure that she’s alright, then Jackie’s more than fine.

 

Lottie watches the others for a while. She remembers that first day they found the lake, how happy, how relieved everyone had been. Even Jackie, who hadn’t wanted to leave the plane at all. Lottie had dove right into the water, swimming out and away from the others. She’d taken her last pill that morning, too. It was her last day of true clarity.

 

“Did I ever tell you she baptised me?” She turns her head to look over at Jackie, still curled up in herself. “In the lake.” She gazes back out at the lake wistfully. “She told me my visions were from God.”

 

“Oh, Lottie,” Jackie murmurs, sitting up on her elbows. She can’t actually imagine what that might have done to Lottie, to go from being told she was crazy to having someone tell her that she’s blessed. It’s not such a leap, then, that she’d start believing in gods of the dirt and the trees and the sky.

 

Jackie’s still not sure if she believes in all of this. Most of the others still do, though not with the same fervor that they’d taken to during the winter. It’s a more passive thing, kind of like how she thinks her parents believe in God. Like, oh, there’s something much bigger that’s there, but it’s not so deeply involved in everything. Jackie knows there’s something bigger. She knows it’s hungry, it just seems to be sleeping through the warmth.

 

She knows that it hurts Lottie, though she doesn’t want to say the words aloud. It makes Lottie hurt herself. It makes her feel lost. But she also remembers offering anything to anyone who would listen and keep Lottie alive, and she knows she’d do it again. Jackie looks over the lake as well. She wishes she could ask Laura Lee what she’d been thinking.

 

“It was just after the seance,” Lottie continues. She feels strange, almost like she’s disconnected from herself and from the memory. She knows that’s probably not a good thing, but she doesn’t know how to bring herself back. She thinks she wants to get the words out before they’re all gone again. “I was…seeing things. Hearing things. I guess I was just confused.” She’d been desperate. She hadn’t known what to do. “I asked her about God and how prophets have visions, too.” She’d just wanted whatever was happening to her to make sense, to have meaning. She didn’t want to just be ‘Crazy Lottie.' She still felt like that most of the time.

 

Lottie reaches up and scrubs the back of her hand across her face, wiping away some of the silent tears that have fallen down her cheeks. “She was the first one who believed in me.” Even if she’d been wrong, even if it had gotten her killed. It’d been nice, Lottie thought, to have someone tell her she was special, that she was good and not just sick.

 

There’s this spike of guilt that hits Jackie in the chest and clogs her throat. “I’m sorry,” she starts, “about the seance. And after.” She’d just been pulling away from everyone at that point because she’d tried to do something, to bring some sort of fun and normalcy back to think, and she’d fucked it all up. And she’d been afraid. Not of Lottie, not then, but of what was happening out there. 

 

Fingers brushing against Lottie’s cheek, Jackie catches the tears she’d missed. “She isn’t the last.” She’ll always believe in Lottie, she thinks. Always.

 

Taking in a shuddering breath, Lottie leans into Jackie’s touch. She closes her eyes and takes in the feeling of Jackie’s fingers and the sound of her words. She believes them because she believes in Jackie. She loves her. That’s all there is to it.

 

Lottie opens her eyes once more and looks at Jackie, bittersweet and longingly. “I never got to say goodbye to her.” Laura Lee didn’t get a funeral, she was simply here one second and gone the next, as if she’d never been there in the first place. 

 

“We should do something for her, when we do something for the others.” For Javi and Shauna. Jackie doesn’t think they need to do anything for the baby. It wasn’t even really a baby. It was just a thing that reminded her again and again how little she knew of her best friend. “Saying goodbye, more than just a moment at the Doomcoming.”

 

Lottie takes in another deep breath. She thinks she'd like that. “I'd like that,” she murmurs. She scoots herself closer to Jackie, then, laying down and resting her head against her chest. 

 

In another life, Jackie would be worried about awkward tan lines from the way that Lottie lays on her, but, right now, she really couldn’t care less. She’s content to let her hand drift into Lottie’s hair, brushing through it and working out the tangles.

 

Closing her eyes, Lottie listens to the sounds of her teammates playing and splashing and enjoying themselves. They all deserve it, this happiness. Maybe it’s temporary, but it’s good. Lottie thinks it’s good and it feels like the happiest she’s ever been, despite the ache in her heart. 

 

After a second, she sits up and looks down at Jackie. “Will you braid my hair?” she asks quietly.

 

Jackie sits up with Lottie, smiling softly. “Do you want one braid or pigtails?” she asks. “Like the ones you used to wear for games?”

 

Lottie runs a hand through her hair. It’s thick and a little tangled from everything they did last night. “I don’t know if it’ll all fit in just one.” 

 

“Have some confidence in my abilities, Matthews. I’ve got wicked fingers,” Jackie teases. “But I can do it in two.” She moves to sit behind Lottie, running her fingers through her hair again and wishing she had a brush, but it was alright. 

 

Watching Jackie for a moment, Lottie unfurls her knees from her chest and sits cross-legged. She thinks about the last time Laura Lee had done this for her, how she’d always told Lottie her hair was so soft and silky. It wasn’t a coincidence that after Laura Lee had died Lottie had stopped taking care of her hair. It’d grown long, the waves and curls exaggerated without any way to brush or straighten it. She looks back out over the lake and thinks that maybe it’s time to start taking care of it again. At the very least, she thinks she can let Jackie do it for her, if she wants. 

 

Taking her time with each tangle, Jackie sighs softly, content, murmuring, “It’s just so soft and thick.” She’s always liked playing with hair, something that she thinks Shauna either picked up on or liked, too, even if she wasn’t as good at braiding as Jackie was. Jackie would tell her it was fine; what she didn’t tell Shauna was the hours she practiced on her own hair, needing to get it right, get it perfect, so that she could offer to braid Shauna’s whenever. And now she could do Lottie’s. She sections Lottie’s hair into two, and then she gets started on one, humming quietly.

 

“I get it from my mom,” Lottie mumbles as she stays still for Jackie. She remembers being young, before she'd become a burden, and asking her mom to braid her hair. She liked how gentle she'd always been when she combed through it, or how she called Lottie brave when she wouldn't cry as her mother tried to untangle her hair. 

 

She supposes somewhere along the way, taking care of it had become something sacred to Lottie, and it took a lot of her trust to let someone else touch it, let alone fix it up. It feels nice, though, letting Jackie take care of her this way, even if it makes her a little sad, too. 

 

As Jackie starts braiding, she shakes her head, even though she knows that Lottie can’t see her. “I mean, maybe a little bit, but yours is prettier,” Jackie says. “It’s darker. I don’t think I remember your hair ever getting this long.”

 

Lottie looks down at herself as if she might see her own hair, but Jackie has already combed it back behind her shoulders with her fingers. “I haven’t cut it since we got here,” she shrugs. “It didn’t seem important.”

 

“I don’t think too many people have really worried with cutting their hair out here. Tai, with that big chop, and I think Nat and Misty have both been cutting their bangs,” Jackie says. Lottie was right, though; hair doesn’t seem that important out here. It had. God, Jackie had taken up so much time getting ready and attempting to fix her hair into something manageable for that first little bit that they were stranded. Then she’d read Shauna’s journal and felt like she died. Nothing mattered. Now, it doesn’t matter, but for different reasons. It’s not practical to spend so much time on it. She has better things she’d like to do with her morning.

 

It’s true, not a lot of them have cared to maintain any sort of appearances around their hair. Still, Lottie has seen Tai brushing Van’s hair, or Melissa and Gen passing around the brush they’d made from some tree branches. Lottie still hadn’t cared. She just pulled her hair over her shoulders and didn’t care to do much more. She liked when Jackie combed her fingers through it when they were sitting together or laying together. But she’d still kept the rest of it to herself and to Laura Lee.

 

Now, she wanted Jackie to have this part of herself.

 

When Jackie finishes one side, she gently sets the braid down, wishing she’d thought to bring something to tie the hair so that it wouldn’t fall out so easily. She hadn’t planned to do this, though. It’s been a nice surprise. Hopefully, it’s nice for Lottie, too, as Jackie takes a second to wrap her arms around Lottie’s waist and give her a quick hug before she starts on the other section of hair.

 

Lottie isn’t expecting the hug, but she’s all the more grateful for it, even if it makes her breath hiccup for a moment. She swallows down the sad noise stuck in her throat, because she doesn’t want to be sad anymore. Instead, she reaches down and tugs the string from her the collar of her dress, holding it out to Jackie. “Here,” she offers. She thinks Laura Lee would find it funny, using the tie from her dress to hold Lottie’s braids together. It makes her smile a little.

 

Jackie takes the string, twirling it between her fingers. She decides to do the other side completely before she considers cutting the string in two, but Jackie understands the importance of this, of the way that Lottie is letting go of pieces of Laura Lee, one by one. Not getting rid of her, but not holding on so tightly. She feels something stuck in her throat at the thought that Lottie trusts her with this. Jackie wants to be worthy of that trust.

 

As Jackie works her hair into the braids, Lottie thinks about the last time Laura Lee had done this for her. It was the day before she’d tried to fly the plane, and Lottie was pacing around outside. She’d felt like her skin was buzzing and at the time, she hadn’t known why. Her skin felt warm all day. She knew why now. Laura Lee had stopped her and taken her to sit down around the back, combing her hair back with the brush Lottie had stashed in her make up box. She hadn’t mentioned anything about wanting to fly at all, but then again, they hadn’t received the bad news about Van yet. Lottie thinks that must’ve been the last straw for Laura Lee. She’d never liked watching her friends in pain. Lottie was the same. 

 

Lottie closes her eyes again and draws in a deep breath. She can’t help but feel happy, though, enjoying the feeling of Jackie’s fingers combing through her hair. “You’re good at this,” she murmurs.

 

“I used to practice until I got it perfect,” Jackie says softly. “On my own hair, mostly, and then Shauna’s. I’ve always… liked playing with hair. And then it just became useful, like if anyone on the team wanted me to do theirs before practice or a game.” Jackie had, admittedly, never braided her own hair for a game. She kept that simple, almost ritualistic when she would pull it into a ponytail. It stayed down during pep rallies or any sort of pregame event. Practice was haphazard, usually thrown up without looking in the mirror so that she didn’t catch a glimpse of something she shouldn’t see. “I do a pretty decent French braid, ironically,” she teases.

 

“You can practice with mine, now,” Lottie replies, wrapping her arms around her knees, “if you want.” Up until Laura Lee, Lottie had never let anyone touch her hair. She took very good care of it and she often spent hours making sure it looked good. She wanted control over some part of her life, no matter how small.

 

Jackie wraps a strand of Lottie’s hair around her finger. “I’d like that a lot.” She wouldn’t say no to something like this. She already likes touching Lottie’s hair. Knowing that Lottie actually wants her to makes Jackie feel good. When she finishes, she waits a moment before tying off each braid, putting little bows in the ends and then pressing a kiss to the back of Lottie’s neck.

 

“Oh, are you braiding hair?” Mel asks, shaking water out of her hat as she walks up to them. 

 

Offering up a soft smile, Jackie shakes her head and stands, patting Lottie on the shoulder. “I actually think I’m going to get in and wash off,” she says. She doesn’t ask if Lottie wants to join her. She thinks she’ll let Lottie decide that in her own time. But Jackie’s not going to braid anyone else’s hair. She thinks that’s going to just be for Lottie.

 

When Jackie finishes, Lottie reaches back and pulls each braid over her shoulders, running her hands over them. She glances up at Melissa as she speaks, then to Jackie. She doesn’t say anything about it, but she’s a little happy Jackie seems to only want to braid her hair and no one else’s. Maybe she likes that it’s just for her, and maybe that makes her selfish, but Lottie thinks maybe it’s okay to be a little selfish with this. 

 

She gives Jackie a soft smile and watches her head off towards the water. She’ll join her soon, she thinks. She just needs a little longer.

 

Melissa tosses her hat onto the blanket she’d brought for her and presumably Gen before wringing her hair out and sitting down. “Not gonna join us?” she asks Lottie.

 

Lottie glances over at Melissa. “I will,” she says. She doesn’t think she’s lying when she says it. She wants to get in. She still remembers what it felt like being dipped beneath the surface, staring up through the rippling water at Laura Lee’s face. She closes her eyes against it. “Soon.”

 

Jackie takes off her shorts before getting in the water, flinching at the cold before relaxing. She sees some of the others playing, Travis floating quietly and staring up at the sky. 

 

A splash of water hits her face, and Jackie looks over to see Nat. “It’s about time you joined.”

 

“I was busy,” Jackie says, glancing back at Lottie before sinking up to her neck in the water.

 

Lottie notices Jackie glancing at her and she smiles, giving a small wave. 

 

“Just go get in with her, sheesh,” Melissa says, digging a finger in her ear to try and get the water that’s stuck in it out.

 

Lottie sighs, rolling her eyes. Maybe she will, if only to get away from this conversation. Standing up, she tugs her dress off and sets it down on the blanket before moving towards the lake’s edge. She stops just short of the water, feeling the rocky sand beneath her bare feet. 

 

Aren’t you cold, Lottie? 

 

Yeah. I thought it’d be warmer.

 

She feels her chest growing tight. The water laps up the shore towards her feet and she steps back.

 

I saw fire…and light.

 

That’s the Holy Spirit. You’ve been touched.

 

She can’t do it. Lottie steps a little further back. She looks out at Jackie and the others. She wants to but she doesn’t think she can. It feels wrong. It feels bad. She wraps her arms around herself and backs up more.

 

“Hey, Jackie! Come join us for a chicken fight!” Van calls, attempting to wave her and Nat over. 

 

Jackie offers a smile but shakes her head. “No, thanks!” That actually sounds like the last thing she wants to do. Rough housing with them all is alright until she feels like someone is trying to drown her, and Van and some of the others are a lot deeper in the water than Jackie actually cares to venture.

 

Rolling her eyes, Nat says, “Still a killjoy, huh?”

 

“No, I just don’t feel like getting waterboarded. Again. For the third day in a row.” Jackie lowers her voice, adding, “Besides, I’ve been meaning to ask what made you confident enough to let Misty out of her enclosure these last few days.”

 

Nat furrows her brow. “She’s not an animal, Jackie. Besides, she said she wasn’t gonna do anything like that anymore. What else am I supposed to do?”

 

Crossing her hands over her chest, Jackie frowns. “I don’t know. A little warning might have been nice.”

 

“You wanted me to warn you that Misty is gonna sit with us for dinner? Really?” Nat raises a brow, copying Jackie’s stance and crossing her arms as well. She glances briefly over to the shore, where Misty is sitting by herself. She looks happy enough, she thinks, watching the others like she always does. 

 

Jackie tries to keep up her expression, but she ends up crumbling a little into herself, looking unsure. “I don’t know,” she said. She followed Nat’s gaze. Like this, Misty didn’t look scary. Jackie doesn’t hate her. She doesn’t. But Misty’s made her so mad, and so deeply afraid. But Jackie gets it. She gets wanting to be loved. She just doesn’t know why Misty has to go about it like that. “She just… really upset Lottie, Nat. And she poisoned her, and she almost killed her. So, yeah. Maybe a heads up would have been cool.”

 

“Is this about Lottie or you?” Nat asks, feeling like she might already know the answer. “Look, I can’t just be…camp counselor out here. People need to work out their own shit.” She sighs, shakes her head. “Fine, though. Whatever. Next time someone poisons Lottie, I’ll warn you.”

 

Sighing, Jackie shakes her head. “I hate to break it to you, Nat, but sometimes you’re going to have to,” she makes a face, “be ‘camp counselor.’ Sometimes that’s what people need. Otherwise…” Otherwise, people will walk out into the cold and die. “You’ve got to be a mediator sometimes.”

 

Nat rubs her temple, annoyed. “We have more important shit to worry about out here than petty squabbles between high school girls. It’s life and death shit.” 

 

Then again, Misty had almost killed Lottie. Would she have, had Nat not stopped her? “Fuck,” she grumbles. “I’m not good at that mediating shit. That was always your thing.”

 

“And they don’t respect me like that anymore,” Jackie says, snorting. “I get that it sucks, and it seems stupid, but we are high school girls. The survival’s a big part of it, I think, but so’s, you know, all the relationship stuff. Better shape up, or they might start killing each other.” It’s a tease, but Jackie does worry about that, especially after the card drawing. She flinches, hearing Mari yell something as Van laughs, the sound of splashing water filling the air. She glances back over at Lottie, hoping that she’s alright.

 

“Maybe I’ll just make Tai do it,” Natalie sighs, “she likes yelling at people and bossing them around.” Besides, she doesn’t think Misty is going to hurt anyone again. At least, she hopes so.

 

Her attention turns back to the shouting and laughing, and she decides to not worry about any of that right now. This was supposed to be fun, after all. A new start or whatever. She splashes Jackie again. “Just relax, alright? Enjoy the day off with your girlfriend.”

 

Lottie looks down at the water as it rolls up and down the shore of the lake bed. Every time she’s been here, something bad or wrong has happened. The first time was the cabin, then Jackie had found her here, and then there was her baptism, Laura Lee’s plane exploding. Her vision of Javi drowning, Nat being chased across the icy surface. She closes her eyes and tries to will away the memories. She wants to make better ones, like Natalie said.

 

“C’mon, you’re not afraid of a little water, are you?” Melissa’s voice cuts through Lottie’s thoughts and she jumps as the other girl comes up behind her, shoving her towards the water. 

 

Though she’s significantly smaller than Lottie, Lottie’s not expecting it and she stumbles forward, feet splashing into the water. It makes her shudder and jump back, glaring at Melissa.

 

“Geez, relax, sorry,” Melissa says, then, putting her hands up. “Didn’t mean to spook you.”

 

Jackie does want to spend time with her girlfriend, and, when she sees Melissa and Lottie near the shore, she thinks that maybe she’s had enough time in the water anyway. She moves just enough to get her hair wet and returns Nat’s splash once more before wading back towards Lottie, tugging on her hand and offering Melissa a smile. “Hey, Mel, I think Van was looking for someone else to join in their chicken fight, and I heard Gen talking some serious smack about you being too chicken to play chicken. But that’s not true, right?”

 

Melissa frowns, turning back towards the water and already moving to stomp that way, putting her hat on. “No way! Hey! Guys! I wanna play!”

 

Lottie is grateful for Jackie intervening and she watches Melissa stomp off into the water, splashing it up everywhere and causing Nat to snap at her, before she, too, is following them towards the chicken fighting.

 

Still, Lottie feels bad for pulling Jackie away from the others. “You can go back,” she says, “I’m okay.” At least, she will be, she thinks.

 

Snorting, Jackie shakes her head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I told Nat a few minutes ago: I’m not super interested in getting waterboarded today. Or deal with an attempted drowning.” She’d never liked chicken fights, especially when everyone started outgrowing her, and it became apparently so much easier to pick on her. “Unless you don’t want me to stick around?”

 

“I do,” Lottie says quickly, “I just don’t want to be the reason you’re not, you know, having fun.” Despite her own misgivings, she does want this to be a good day for everyone else, especially Jackie. Lottie looks back down at their feet, at the water lapping up towards them, and she takes another step back.

 

“I’m just…not ready.” 

 

“That’s okay,” Jackie says, giving Lottie’s hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to be ready. We can go to the river later tonight or something, if you want.” She didn’t mind. “Besides, there’s nowhere else I really want to be than with you.”

 

Lottie squeezes Jackie’s hand back, unable to keep the shame from coloring her face. It was stupid, to feel upset about a body of water over something that had happened months ago. But it just didn’t feel right. And the only other thing Lottie had learned out here for sure was to always trust her gut.

 

“Okay,” she replies, turning to head back towards their towel. She reaches out to brush some of Jackie’s wet hair from her face. “Just…if you do want to go back, you can. Whenever.”

 

With a hum, Jackie tugs on Lottie until they’re both sitting down before she lies on her stomach, letting her eyes close as she feels warm sunlight on her skin. “I know,” she says. One eye cracks open. “You’re not forcing me to be out of the water, I promise. I don’t even like swimming.”

 

Lottie sits when she’s urged, watching Jackie. She remembers how Jackie never really got in the pool at the country club, even when Lottie would dive in and not leave for hours. “I used to love the water,” she replies, laying down next to Jackie, on her back and looking up at the clouds in the sky. “I mean, I still do, it’s just…” This lake, this place. She turns her head to look at Jackie. “It feels silly.”

 

“It’s not silly if it bothers you,” Jackie says. Honestly, she’s just glad that Lottie is talking to her about it, and that she doesn’t force Jackie to beg or guess what’s wrong with her. 

 

“Every time I’ve been here, it feels like something bad has happened after,” Lottie admits quietly, turning on her side to face Jackie. She reaches out and lets her fingers ghost along Jackie’s spine.

 

“Finding the cabin wasn’t–- wasn’t that bad,” Jackie says softly.

 

“There was a skeleton in the attic,” Lottie points out.

 

Jackie flinches. “Yeah, yeah. There was a skeleton in the attic.”

 

“I think that place might’ve been haunted,” Lottie mumbles, “I never liked it.”

 

“It probably was,” Jackie says. And she’d tried to do a stupid seance. “I didn’t really like it, either. But it kept us sort of warm and alive. It was probably a good thing that you saw it.”

 

“Yeah,” Lottie agrees. Even if she’d hated that place, even if it had taken more than it had given, it was probably a good thing she’d found it. Still, she thinks she likes their village much better. “It wasn’t very private, either, though.”

 

Scrunching up her nose, Jackie groans. “God, it wasn’t. I never wanna do another sleepover again.” It was honestly pretty crazy that they didn’t have even more fights out there. She guessed it took someone dying, took her losing a major part of herself, for everyone to realize that each other’s lives weren’t worth whatever petty arguments they were having while they were cold and hungry.

 

“Just think,” Lottie says, “if we were still in the cabin, we’d only be able to touch each other if we snuck out somewhere.”

 

Jackie huffs out a laugh before groaning. “I think that’d be the only option. No way we’d be able to kick Tai and Van out of the attic.” Jackie doesn’t even think she’d want to. It was freaky up there. And it was doubtful they’d get to have the bedroom, even if Coach was still gone.

 

“I don’t think I ever wanted to go back up there,” Lottie says, “I never wanted to be up there in the first place.” They’d carried her up there, apparently, while she’d been broken and bloody. She scoots a little closer to Jackie, pressing her lips to Jackie’s shoulder. “I like our hut.”

 

“I like our hut, too. It’s comfortable.” It was as much them as a place like this could be. Jackie likes their window, even if their friends are nosy, and she likes the flowers, and she likes the little mirror they have. She likes their bed of furs and blankets. It feels a little like home, but Jackie just thinks that’s because Lottie’s there.

 

Tai and Akilah come out of the water, Tai offering to help with Akilah’s hair before she looks over at Jackie and Lottie. “If you two start going at it on the beach, you’re not allowed to talk about me and Van ever again.”

 

Lottie turns her head to look over at Tai and Akilah, huffing. “I’m just cuddling my girlfriend,” she says. 

 

Akilah gives a little laugh. “How cute.”

 

Giving a snort, Tai shakes her head. “Uh huh. That’s what that was. Cuddling. You two cuddle real loud some nights.”

 

“Taissa Turner,” Jackie gasps, scandalized. Her cheeks are red. 

 

Lottie raises a brow. “We must’ve learned it from you and Van.” 

 

Tai gives Lottie a sharp glance before she decides to simply go about fixing up Akilah’s hair.

 

“I think all of you are too loud,” Akilah cuts in. “We’re on the other side of camp and can hear you most nights. Sound really carries, you know.”

 

Even Lottie feels her cheeks grow warm, tucking her head back into Jackie. “Maybe we should all invest in some sound proofing.”

 

Playing with one of Lottie’s pigtails, Jackie nods, agreeing. 

 

“And some better waterproofing,” Tai adds, steering the conversation back to something more practical. 

 

Jackie thinks they should also make sure their huts can withstand snow, even though she doesn’t want to say the words out loud, not while it’s so warm and they still have hope.

 

“Some mud and moss should work for that,” Lottie says, smiling at Jackie as she watches her play with one of the braids she’d made. This, at least, makes her happy. She’s comfortable like this, even if she can’t join the others in the water.

 

“Gonna get your hands dirty for some home improvement, Taylor?” Tai asks, raising an eyebrow. 

 

“Or you could help me with the bunnies tomorrow,” Akilah teases.

 

Jackie makes a face. “I’ll help with the moss and the mud.”

 

“I can help you with the bunnies,” Lottie offers, grinning. She rolls back over onto her back and sighs contentedly. “I get my hands muddy every day in the garden.”

 

“Thanks, Lottie. At least someone else likes my rabbits,” Akilah says happily. 

 

Jackie scoots closer, playing with Lottie’s hair still as she curls onto her side and lets their legs touch. “Rabbits are so mean. For no reason. Like, sorry you have silly ears and silly teeth and a silly pompom on your ass.”

 

The other three all laugh. “Really, Jackie? You’d think rabbits killed your family or something.” Tai rolls her eyes, pinning more of Akilah’s hair back.

 

“Maybe they can just sense you don’t like them. You should try being nicer,” Akilah suggests.

 

Lottie moves her arm and wraps it around Jackie as she snuggles against her side. “Must be all those porcelain bunnies your mom kept. I bet the rabbits can just sense it.”

 

“Shut up,” Jackie groans. “They’re stupid teeth hurt, okay?”

 

“You poor thing,” Lottie pouts, pulling Jackie’s hand up to kiss her knuckles. “Next time one bites you I’ll kiss it better, okay?”

 

Lottie’s pouty lips are so cute. They make her cheeks look so full and squishable, which is exactly what Jackie does when she leans in closer. “My hero,” she teases.

 

Shaking her head, Lottie leans away. “Hey,” she grunts, but she’s smiling.

 

Tai makes a fake gagging noise. “God, you can say Van and I are bad all you want, but we were never this bad.”

 

“That’s so not true,” Lottie says back.

 

Over in the lake, the shouting has quieted and the sloshing of water can be heard as people begin to make their way out. Nat reaches the others first, wringing her hair out. “People are getting hungry, so we’re gonna start making food now.”

 

Maybe Jackie’s grin is a bit more of a smirk as it widens, looking at Lottie and not even caring about Tai’s gagging when Lottie smiles at her like that. 

 

“What’d you pack for our picnic, Mari?” Van asks, moving to plop down next to Tai and give her a wet hug.

 

“I just got dry, Van,” Tai bemoans, but she’s smiling, too, and Lottie thinks they’re just as cute and gross as her and Jackie. It makes her happy.

 

Mari grabs her towel and starts drying off her hair. “You’ll never guess-- deer. And some berries from the garden.” 

 

Travis is the last up onto the beach and he grabs the little shovel they’ve brought to begin digging out a fire pit.

 

Lottie stays pretty much where she is, watching all the others, but holding onto Jackie. “Any leaves to go with the berries?” she asks Mari.

 

Mari rolls her eyes. “Not with the berries,” she says, sticking out her tongue. “The deer has some leaves, though. 

 

Misty, who had kept herself separate from them, tentatively moves closer. “Which leaves?”

 

“I… can’t remember,” Mari admits, frowning. “But at least they’re not mushrooms. And I bet they won’t make anybody puke.”

 

Jackie flinches, staying close to Lottie, while Nat frowns, not stepping in yet even if she looks like she wants to.

 

Lottie sits up onto her elbows when she hears Misty speak up. She’d almost forgotten she was there. Lottie looks over at her with a passive stare and Misty holds her gaze. Eventually, it’s Lottie who looks away.

 

“What did they look like?” Lottie asks Mari instead.

 

“Uhhh, leaves?” Mari answers, shrugging. Lottie rolls her eyes and lays back down.

 

“If we all get food poisoning, then you lose your job for good, Mar,” Nat says, finally stepping in.

 

“Can I be the cook if Mari loses her job?” Melissa asks, looking hopeful.

 

Gen speaks up immediately. “Absolutely not. The last time you cooked anything, you burned my pop tart.”

 

“I don’t know why you wanted it toasted,” Mel grumbles. “They’re better cold. Everyone knows that.”

 

“How do you burn a poptart?” Lottie asks, bewildered. Every time Mel opens her mouth, Lottie finds out something new about her. 

 

“She tried to microwave it,” Gen answers before Melissa can even get a word in.

 

“I’m sorry, you what?” Van snorts. “Mel, c’mon!”

 

“The toaster wasn’t plugged in! I didn’t wanna go through all that work when they were just fine cold!”

 

“Cold pop tarts are awful,” Tai says as if there’s no room for argument. With her, there’s usually not.

 

Lottie sits herself all the way up. “It takes like, five seconds to plug a toaster in.”

 

Instead of sitting up, Jackie curls herself into Lottie’s lap, sighing softly. She’s okay with just listening to them talk about pop tarts, at this point. 

 

“But what if I’d plugged it in and it short circuited and caused a fire?” Mel asks. 

 

Van snorts. “You caused a fire anyway, you dumbass.”

 

“So Mel is definitely not the back up cook,” Gen says, plopping down onto the blanket she’s sharing with said girl.

 

“We don’t need a backup cook, anyway,” Mari pipes up, grabbing the basket of food they’d brought down with them and heading over to the pit Travis is making. “Cause I’m not gonna poison us all or whatever. That’s Misty’s thing.”

 

“I said I was sorry!” Misty calls out meekly from her spot, having crawled a little closer to Nat. Nat looks at her. 

 

“No one’s poisoning anyone, alright? This is supposed to be a fun day so stop fighting, idiots.”

 

Lottie mutters under her breath, “again.”

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s knee. 

 

Mari has Travis help her start cooking since she’s already there, and the rest of the group settles back into conversation as they all listen to the food cook. 

 

Lottie turns away from Misty, which means she also turns away from most of the others. She’s content to just pet her fingers through Jackie’s damp hair while the others all chatter and talk, waiting for the food to cook.

 

It does smell good, admittedly. Something a little different than what they’re used to, a makeshift grill placed over the firepit. It was made out of some metal they’d found in the plane and fashioned into a grill plate. 

 

It reminds Lottie of all the bonfire parties they went to. The girls’ soccer team was popular, and so they were invited to a lot of events. She closes her eyes and for a moment, it’s like they’re back in Jersey, all sitting around a bonfire, drinking cheap beer and smoking cheap cigarettes. 

 

The smell actually makes Jackie’s stomach growl, and she sits up, a little embarrassed before she sighs and wraps her arms around Lottie, laying her head on Lottie’s shoulder and hoping that she’ll start playing with her hair again. 

 

It’s normal and fine to be hungry. Jackie knows that. She’s just always hated it. It’s like a betrayal, the lack of control over her own body. 

 

“Feeling a little peckish, Jack?” Van teases. 

 

Jackie rolls her eyes. “I mean, duh.”

 

“I could eat a whole deer by myself,” Gen says. “And I think I’ve earned it, since I’m the one that shot this one.”

 

“Sharing is caring,” Melissa teases at Gen. “Besides, I cut it up, so without me, you’d just have a whole ass deer. Skin and all.”

 

Lottie gags a little. That doesn’t sound appetizing at all. She knows they’re starving and don’t have a choice, but Lottie had never been the biggest meat eater back home. 

 

She lifts her hand back up to Jackie’s head and trails her fingers back through her hair, choosing to ignore the thoughts.

 

“It can’t be that hard, skinning a deer or whatever,” Mari says, poking a chunk of meat around.

 

“Oh yeah? You wanna give it a shot then next time?” Melissa challenges.

 

“Maybe I will,” Mari pops back. “I’ll clean the animals and do the cooking. It’s okay, though, Mel. You can always muck out the animal pens all day.”

 

Melissa groans. “You suck.”

 

Jackie’s stopped listening to them by this point, moving into Lottie’s touch instead, her eyes closed at the soft feeling.

 

It feels so normal to be sitting and listening to the others ribbing each other, even if it is about skinning a deer. The only odd part out for Lottie is the girl curled up on her. Normally, at team gatherings or parties or anything else, Lottie would be alone, watching everyone. 

 

Now, this feels like the most normal part, holding Jackie, petting her fingers gently through her hair. Lottie wouldn't trade this for anything.

 

It doesn't take too much longer before Nat is grabbing their makeshift skewers and starting to hand out food. Lottie doesn't crowd around for first dibs like most of the others, waiting until Nat holds two out for her and Jackie, giving her a grateful smile. 

 

“Well, uh,” Nat starts, holding up her own skewer, “here's to us and all our missed birthdays. Happy birthdays I guess?”

 

“Wow, inspirational,” Van chides, before laughing. Others join in. 

 

Lottie glances at Nat. “To us,” she repeats.

 

Leaning away from Lottie’s shoulder but still remaining close, Jackie takes the other skewer and smiles, looking at Lottie with soft eyes before turning to the rest of the group. “To us,” she says. Because, somehow, they were surviving. They were surviving well. They had shelter, food, and little moments of joy they hadn’t managed to find the last time it was warm. They all seemed to care about each other, even if there were hiccups. 

 

Jackie loves all of them, even the ones that have hurt her. This group of people are all that matters in the world. And Lottie’s at the center of it. Lottie matters the most. Everything else is secondary.

 

The rest of them repeat the words as well, and it’s followed by a calm silence, then, as they all munch away at their bar-be-qued venison skewers, sans the bar-be-que sauce. Lottie still thinks it’s nice and it does somehow taste better than normal, but maybe that’s just because of the company and the occasion. 

 

The sun is still high in the sky, though it’s begun making its way down the other side of the horizon by the time they all finish their food and Nat warns them to wait at least a few minutes before getting back in the water because she’s not playing lifeguard and saving anyone if they start to drown.

 

Lottie is content to just lay back next to Jackie, closing her eyes and letting the rays of the sun warm her skin. It’s easier to be happy like this, not thinking of the water and the lake that took so much from her, from all of them. 

 

Jackie lays on her back, sighing happily knowing that Lottie’s next to her. Eventually, the sound of splashing and laughter fills the air around them. Jackie doesn’t strain her ear, already knowing where it’s coming from. It’s nice. She thinks, like this, they’ve all managed to find something nice out there. It doesn’t feel temporary. It feels real.

 

Without even needing to look, Lottie can feel Jackie beside her, and she moves her hand until she finds Jackie’s and laces their fingers together. Like this, she can almost pretend like everything is okay and that the world outside this place doesn’t exist. 

 

Still, the heavy silence in her head always reminds her that something isn’t quite right. She’s been choosing to ignore it and she wants to ignore it even more today. 

 

The crunching of sand and rocks alerts her to someone heading towards them and Lottie peeks one eye open to see Nat heading over. Only her feet are wet and she plops down next to Jackie. “I think Van and Melissa are going to kill each other over chicken,” she snorts, “we could really use a solid wall on our team, Lott.”

 

“Who do you think would win?” Jackie murmurs, not bothering to open her eyes. “Logic says Van, I know, but Mel’s pretty scrappy, and she can take a hit, you know? But Van’s immortal. It’s like an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.”

 

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Nat chuckles.

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I’m not getting in the middle of that. The butches can fight it out.”

 

“That’s right, you were always more of a pillow princess, weren’t you?” 

 

This time, Lottie grumbles at Nat and frowns.

 

“I’m kidding!” Nat shrugs. “Mostly.”

 

Jackie doesn’t think she wants to be a part of this conversation, but she can’t help but ask, “So are, like, all the stereotypes… true?”

 

Both Lottie and Nat look over at Jackie. “I mean, you tell me-- when I say butch, what do you think of?” Nat asks.

 

“Uh,” Jackie glances out towards the water, then she props herself up on her elbows. “Someone who dresses like a guy.”

 

“Close enough,” Nat shrugs again. “Femme lesbians are, well--” she gestures at Lottie, who crinkles her nose.

 

“I’m not femme, I just like wearing skirts and dresses,” Lottie protests.

 

“Isn’t that, like, the definition of feminine?” Natalie asks, raising a brow.

 

“So is the butch always, like,” Jackie starts to say the guy, but she doesn’t think that’s the right thing to say, “you know, right?” She wrinkles up her nose. “Is everyone just either/or?”

 

“Jesus, you really are new to this shit, huh?” Nat shakes her head. 

 

“No,” Lottie replies to Jackie, emphasizing the word as she throws a glance Nat’s way, “I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t think it…works that way. Like a straight relationship.” 

 

“Maybe you two should just take lessons from Tai and Van,” Natalie suggests and Lottie tosses one of her shoes at Nat, who bats it away. “Hey, c’mon! I’m trying to be helpful here.”

 

Jackie huffs, rolling her eyes at Nat. If they were back home, she’d just read a book or something, though she didn’t exactly Seventeen or Sassy would have anything super helpful for the ins and outs of being a lesbian. And she could ask Van or Tai, but that also felt awkward. So unfortunately she’s stuck in this situation, and Nat seems useless. 

 

“Truthfully, I don’t think it matters,” Nat finally says, laying back as well, arms under her head as she looks up at the sky. “As long as you’re both happy, right?”

 

Lottie has to agree. She’s never liked labels, anyway. “I’m happy,” she mumbles, looking over at Jackie.

 

Glancing at Lottie with a smile, Jackie can’t help but agree. “So happy.” She takes Lottie’s hand and brings it to her lips, pressing a soft kiss against it.

 

“Uugh, maybe Mari was right, you two are so gross,” Nat teases.

 

Lottie just smiles. “I’ll take it.”

 

Jackie will claim that it’s the sun making her even more flushed as she leans in to press another kiss to Lottie’s lips before pulling away. “I don’t think we’re gross.” And she doesn’t. She’d been told all her life that this was wrong, but it’s not. It’s the only thing that really makes sense.

 

Nat rolls her eyes. “I’m gonna cut you some slack, but just for today. Think of it as a late and-or early birthday present.”

 

Lottie hums, satisfied, scooting herself over enough and laying her head on Jackie’s shoulder. “You’re so sweet,” she says back to Nat.

 

“So sweet,” Jackie agrees, smirking. “Does this mean you’re going to go back to being a hardass tomorrow?”

 

“Absolutely,” Nat nods.

 

Lottie chuckles. “Sounds about right.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nat grumbles but there’s little anger behind her words.

 

“Oh, nothing. Fucking loser.” 

 

“Whatever, bitch.”

 

And maybe Lottie kind of likes this, this old, familiar banter between her and Natalie. She’d missed it. She’d missed her friend.

 

Jackie turns her face into Lottie’s hair, brining a hand up to play with the ends of one of her braids. “I don't think you’re a bitch,” she mumbles. 

 

“It’s okay,” Lottie says back to Jackie, nuzzling into her, “she’s just jealous.”

 

Nat snorts again. “Of you? Yeah right. I already have to deal with Jackie on a daily basis, you can have her the rest of the time.”

 

With an indignant noise, Jackie pouts at Nat only for her to laugh, so Jackie chooses to lay back down on her stomach, huffing. “You’re the one that asked me to help with shit,” she said, her voice muffled.

 

Lottie tries to hide the soft chuckle in her voice as she wraps her arms around Jackie. “Don’t pout,” she says to her, pressing her lips against Jackie’s shoulder, “she’s totally jealous of you.”

 

Nat just huffs back. “Can’t take a joke, Cap?”

 

Maybe Nat is jealous of Jackie, jealous that she has Lottie, and Jackie doesn’t actually know what to do with that information, even as she tries to shove her own insecurities down and turn her head to look at Nat and give her a lopsided smirk. “Forgive me, my queen. I’m not a jester.”

 

“Weren’t jesters the ones that made the jokes?” Nat asks.

 

“Well, technically, they made fools of themselves to make whoever hired them laugh,” Lottie corrects. “Much more Monty Python than Seinfeld.”

 

“Nerd,” Jackie says, looking at Lottie like she hung the moon.

 

“I’m not a nerd!” Lottie pouts.

 

“You’re totally a nerd,” Nat agrees, smirking at them. “You used to never shut up about shit like that. I thought Van and her constant movie references were bad.”

 

Jackie brushes her fingers over Lottie’s cheek. “It’s adorable. I’ve never dated a nerd before.”

 

“You've literally only ever dated one person,” Lottie grumbles, but it's hard to keep a straight face around Jackie and she immediately leans into her touch. “I'm not a nerd, I just like weird facts.”

 

Rolling her eyes, Jackie says, “My point still stands.” She loves how Lottie immediately leans into her touch, how she seems to crave it just as much as Jackie craves hers. “You’re adorable.”

 

“A giant, adorable teddy bear,” Nat agrees, “unless you're on the other team.”

 

Lottie lets out a huff through her nose. “I don't like that this conversation turned on me. We should go back to raging on Nat.”

 

“Woah, hey, why am I catching strays? Jackie's the one who called you a nerd.”

 

Jackie brushes her finger up and down Lottie’s nose, grinning. “See? You’re the teddy bear. Even Nat agrees.”

 

Lottie scrunches her nose up but doesn't move. “Am not.”

 

“You kinda are, Lott. Even Laura Lee called you cuddly once, remember?” 

 

Lottie does remember and she's kind of surprised Nat does at all. She's even more surprised at the casual mention of the other blonde. She doesn't say anything back about it 

 

“She was a smart girl,” Jackie murmurs. She moves her head to Lottie’s chest and wraps her arms around her middle, as if trying to prove the point. Lottie’s just adorable. As well as endlessly attractive, but this isn’t really the place to be thinking about that. 

 

“Maybe too smart for her own good,” Nat mumbles. 

 

Lottie is still quiet, but she thinks she knows what Nat is thinking because she's thinking it, too. She really thought she could fly that old plane out of here and they all just let her. 

 

Lottie wraps her arms around Jackie and presses her face to the top of her head, feeling damp hair against her warm skin. 

 

Nat glances over at them. “I'm gonna take one last dunk before we have to head back,” she states, standing up and stretching, “behave yourselves while I'm gone, got it? Hands to yourselves.”

 

Offering Natalie a lazy salute, Jackie holds onto Lottie a little tighter. She wishes she could do a better job of chasing all of Lottie’s sad thoughts away. She wishes she was a better help. She’d do anything to make Lottie not feel like this. If she could bring Laura Lee back to life, she would in a heartbeat. It would mean she wouldn’t have Lottie like this anymore. Jackie knows that. But chasing away some of her sadness would be worth it. 

 

There’s no way to bring Laura Lee back, though. Jackie brushes her lips over Lottie’s collar bone, more teasing than anything. “What was that last thing she said? Beehive?”

 

Lottie watches Nat go join the others before she's shuddering at the feeling of lips on her skin. Smiling, she glances down at Jackie. “I think she said ‘help yourselves’, as in ‘help yourselves to each other’,” she teases, pulling Jackie in closer. 

 

She knows they're in full view of everyone but she's sort of hoping they're too preoccupied to look their way.

 

“Well it’d be really rude to ignore a direct order from our leader, right?” Jackie asks, sliding her hands up to wrap around Lottie’s neck as she leans back to face her properly. She licks her lips. “Since we’re… helping ourselves.”

 

Lottie can only nod, her eyes stuck on Jackie's above her. “Yeah, it'd be really rude to do that.”

 

They’re in public, so the kiss Jackie shoots for is relatively chaste, just a gentle brush of lips against lips. But that’s just one, and one isn’t enough, right? She presses in for another, and then another. Really, it’s Lottie’s fault for having such soft, kissable lips. They’d been pouting only a few minutes before, after all. That made them even more enticing.

 

And really, what was a few kisses? It wasn't anything no one had ever seen before. Lottie thinks it's totally fine, really. It's not like they're undressing each other, even if her hands itch the claw all over Jackie's body and her legs itch to slot between Jackie's. 

 

But Lottie has at least some self control, even without her medication. Even though her fingers trace the ridges of Jackie's spine. It's really a shame they're not alone right now.

 

“Later, we can go to the river and wash off,” Jackie mumbles against Lottie’s lips, playing with one of her braids again. Just kissing is sort of the name of the game. Anything more, and Jackie doesn’t think she’ll be able to stop herself, embarrassment be damned. Because it would be embarrassing. They get teased enough as it is. But after being at the lake all day, no one else should be heading to the river. Which meant that maybe they could be alone for just a little bit again. 

 

Licking her lips and tasting Jackie, Lottie nods. That sounds like a great idea to her. Some time alone with Jackie sounds nice, especially far away from prying ears. 

 

For now, she squeezes Jackie a little tighter and lays her head back, watching her play with one of Lottie's braids she'd done. “I like them,” she tells her quietly, “they look good.”

 

Laughing, Jackie says, “you haven’t even really seen them, Lottie. For all you know, they’re lopsided at the top.” She tugs on it lightly before leaning in for another soft kiss. 

 

“I can see enough,” Lottie mumbles against Jackie's lips. Really, she doesn't even need to see them, she thinks, to know she likes them. She likes them simply because Jackie is the one who did them.

 

“Would you braid my hair, too?” Jackie’s words are soft, careful. “If I asked?”

 

“I would,” Lottie answers, just as soft. But she's quick and she doesn't have to think about it, she just knows-- she'd do anything Jackie asked.

 

The words make Jackie smile, and she rests her head where Lottie’s neck and shoulder meet, letting out a long, slow breath against her skin. Jackie’s happy. She’s just… happy. She doesn’t even know how to explain it, but she is.

 

Lottie nuzzles against Jackie's head and breathes out a sigh of her own, closing her eyes. If it weren't for the steady beat of Jackie's heart and the lingering taste of her in her lips, Lottie would assume this was all just some extended dream. 

 

But she knows it's all real. It feels too good. 

 

Eventually, she can hear the sloshing of water as people begin to make their way back out of the lake and towards shore. The sun has dipped significantly lower along the horizon and the trees are now casting long shadows that crawl up the beach towards them, reminding them all that, despite how well things are going, they're still at the mercy of the forest and the sunlight. 

 

Lottie decides she'll stay still until Jackie moves, even as she opens her eyes and watches the figures of her friends and teammates come into view. 

 

“This better be PG over here,” Van calls out, shaking out her drenched hair hard enough that Lottie can feel the droplets sprinkling on her. 

 

She puts her hands up. “See? All clean,” Lottie remarks.

 

Groaning at what feels like drops of rain, Jackie pulls her head away from Lottie and sees that their raincloud is actually just a redhead with a shit eating grin who plops down on one of the blankets and smirks over at them. “As long as you guys keep your hands where everyone can see them. No funny business, you know?”

 

“But everybody’s got such great jokes today,” Jackie says, rolling her eyes.

 

Lottie scrunches her face at Van as Tai comes up behind her girlfriend and drapes her arms over her shoulders. “Are we bothering the beach bums?” She asks. 

 

“We might be, yeah,” Van nods. 

 

“Everyone's got something to say today, huh?” Lottie notes. 

 

“I can't help but notice that you two are very much dry,” Tai notes. “Maybe people would have less to say if you actually joined in.”

 

“I always lay out whenever we go to the beach or the pool,” Jackie says. She moves to settle next to Lottie on their blanket, leaning back and raising an eyebrow. “Some of us have to work for a gorgeous complexion, Taissa.”

 

Lottie frowns at the loss of Jackie pressed on top of her but lays her head back down. “You could always be pasty like Van,” she offers to Jackie and Tai snickers.

 

“I happen to work very hard for this ghostly Victorian child complexion, thank you very much,” Van grins.

 

“I mean, you’re right,” Jackie says. “I’m sure it takes a lot of skill to be that pale in this heat, sun.”

 

Van shakes her head again, slinging water onto Jackie. Sputtering, Jackie mumbles, “Real mature.”

 

“I never claimed to be,” Van says with a smug grin. 

 

Lottie wipes water from her face, caught in the crossfire. “You're the worst sometimes, Palmer.”

 

“Don't make me beat you up to defend my girl's honor, Lott,” Tai counters and Lottie actually laughs at that.

 

“You might be faster than me, Tai, but we both know I can knock your ass out flat,” Lottie snorts.

 

“Hey, have you seen Tai’s arms from all her building? My girl’s tough, Matthews,” Van says proudly.

 

Jackie reaches and squeezes Lottie’s bicep. “Okay, but look at Lottie’s. I mean, wowza.” Actually. Wow. There wasn’t really any give, there. 

 

Lottie looks down at her own arms. She hadn't exactly noticed her muscles growing much but apparently Jackie had. 

 

“There’s clearly only one way to settle this,” Van states, a gleam in her eye as she looks between Tai and Lottie. “Arm wrestle!”

 

“No,” Lottie and Tai say in unison.

 

“Oh,” Jackie says, looking mildly disappointed.

 

Van doesn’t look much better.

 

Both Lottie and Tai share a glance. 

 

“Well what would the winner get?” Lottie asks, then, looking between the two disappointed faces. 

 

“Oh my god, you caved so fast,” Tai groans, shaking her head. 

 

“look at their faces!” Lottie argues meekly, reaching out to pinch Jackie's cheek. “How can you say no to this?”

 

Jackie smiles, all dopey and lovestruck, and Van makes a gagging noise. “Unbelievable,” she says. Then, she adds. “Winner gets bragging rights. And first pick of storytime tonight.”

 

Sighing, Lottie sits up and holds out her hand towards Tai. “Bet?”

 

Tai, ever the pragmatist, groans before taking Lottie's hand and shaking it. “Fine. But we're only doing it once, none of that best of three shit.”

 

“Okay, but you need, y’know, a solid surface to make sure everything’s even,” Jackie says, a little too excited about this. “We might need to wait until we get back to the village?”

 

“Trying to prolong the inevitable, Jackie?” Van asks. “No offense, Lott, but you’re going down.”

 

“Oh God, please don't make this a spectacle,” Lottie whines, already regretting agreeing to this. 

 

“Oh but I must!” Van says, clapping her hands together. She then cups them around her mouth. “Ladies and gentle-- man! Gather around! We've got an amazing announcement!”

 

Van is met with mostly groans and giggles as the others gather their things and come close. 

 

Jackie smirks at Lottie, laughing at her exasperated face. “Come on. You’ve got this, don’t you?”

 

Lottie puts her head in her hands as everyone begins to gather around them. 

 

“This better be good, I interrupted my sun tan for this,” Mari barks, arms folded. 

 

“Oh trust me,” Van smirks, “it is.”

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “Van and Jackie swindled me and Lottie into an arm wrestling contest.”

 

“Taaaai!” Van groans, the wind almost blown from her sails. “I wanted to, ya know, give it a little fanfare.”

 

“Arm wrestling, huh? Do we get to make bets?” Melissa asks maybe a little too eagerly.

 

“The fuck would we even bet with?” Gen scoffs.

 

“Pretty rocks?” Akilah suggests, picking something mundane and with zero consequences. “Maybe feathers? Things to decorate with.”

 

“Chores?” Jackie says, raising an eyebrow. “That’d probably be better for team activities. Loser does all of the winner’s stuff for a day.”

 

“Loser’s the winner’s servant for a day,” Mari says gleefully. 

 

Tai frowns. “Not for an arm wrestling contest.”

 

“Yeah let's save that for a bigger deal,” Lottie agrees. 

 

Van takes this opportunity to egg her on. “You scared you gonna lose?”

 

Lottie frowns. “That's not gonna work.”

 

“I'll bet my chores on Tai,” Gen announces. 

 

Mari rolls her eyes. “I’ll bet mine on Lottie. I’ve seen her play defense.”

 

“That’s been over a year!” Melissa argues.

 

“Yeah, and since then she absolutely bodied Quigley. She hasn’t lost her touch, Mel,” Mari says.

 

“She’s not bodying anyone, Mar,” Jackie says, frowning. “It’s arm wrestling. She’s gonna win because she’s totally the best.”

 

“What if no one bet at all? I like that idea,” Lottie interjects. 

 

“No, we're all totally betting. I'm on Tai, too,” Melissa nods. 

 

“Sorry Lottie, but I gotta go with Tai, too,” Akilah chimes in. 

 

“Ye of little faith,” Mari says. “Who're you being on, Nat? Lottie, right?”

 

“Oh no, no you're not roping me into this shit,” Nat snaps, “I am not taking sides on this.”

 

“That's lame,” Mari replies, “we all know you'd bet on Lottie anyway, since you two would always disappear at parties together. What the fuck were you even doing, anyway?”

 

“Playing a game called ‘mind your own business’,” Nat says. 

 

Lottie just buries herself deeper into her own hands, wishing she could simply disappear into the sand. “Remind me to never listen to you ever again,” she grumbles to Jackie.

 

“I didn’t expect people to start making bets just because I was admiring your arms,” Jackie laughs. She presses a kiss to Lottie’s shoulder. “But you’re going to win, so it doesn’t matter.”

 

“I'll bet on Lottie,” comes Misty's voice, cutting through the banter like nails on a chalkboard. 

 

At that, Lottie's head whips up. Everyone else is looking at Misty, too, starting wide eyed.

 

“Uh,” Van starts, but it's Lottie who cuts her off.

 

“No,” she says, her voice low, “you don't get to be in on this.”

 

“Lottie--” Nat tries to step in, but Lottie turns a sharp glare on her and Nat puts her hands up in surrender. “We need a judge, Misty. You can do that. Right? She can be the judge?”

 

The look Jackie offers Nat is telling, one that says “I told you that you should’ve given more warning about her being a part of things.” But Nat wants Jackie’s advice without actually wanting Jackie’s advice, she thinks. 

 

Still. Jackie tries to play peacemaker. “It’s… an arm wrestling match, guys. I don’t think it really needs a judge,” she says, keeping her voice soothing, offering a smile. “But maybe we can… start playing more games. We’ll need a judge then, right?”

 

Misty doesn't say anything, just keeps her gaze on Lottie, like she's expecting her to speak up again or change her mind. Lottie doesn't 

 

“Yeah, yeah we can-- we can come up with more shit to do. Bet stuff on those. Let's just let this be a stupid arm wrestling contest between the lesbians, yeah?” Nat tries to throw in a joke but she's not sure if it lands 

 

“If that's the only qualifier, then shouldn't Mel be in on this as well?” Tai points out. 

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“Don't drag me into this!” Melissa steps back, shaking her head.

 

Lottie finally breaks Misty's gaze. “Can I bet on myself?”

 

“Getting awfully cocky there, Matthews,” Tai says, raising an eyebrow. 

 

Jackie says, “Well, I believe in her.”

 

“You’ve got to say that. It doesn’t count.” Gen’s voice is a deadpan, and Jackie rolls her eyes. 

 

“It does, too! And I don’t have to say anything,” Jackie says. “I know the, you know, statistics. The math and shit. Betting on Lottie makes sense.”

 

“Didn't you need a tutor for statistics class?” Van asks, raising a brow. 

 

“Okay, you know what? No. No betting on the lesbian arm wrestling,” Nat cuts in, “I'm calling it there. We can do team bets later on like, I don't know, shit we do for the solstice thing.”

 

“Ugh, you're no fun,” Mari whines. 

 

“Party pooper,” Van agrees, sticking her tongue out.

 

Lottie is fine with that, she thinks. Really she just wants to win to impress Jackie, that's all the bragging rights she needs. 

 

“Fine, fine, but my prize still stands,” Van relents, patting Tai on the shoulder, “so when Tai wins later, she gets to choose the story.”

 

There's a beat. And then-- “And if by some miracle you do win, Lott, I guess you also get to pick the story.”

 

“How sweet,” Lottie mumbles. 

 

Jackie did not need a tutor for statistics; she needed one for trig, and her mother had nearly had a heart attack over it, even when Jackie said that most of the team needed help. She rubs Lottie’s shoulders and leans in. “You can have something else if you win,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s temple.

 

Lottie leans into Jackie as the others begin to disperse, realizing Nat isn't going to change her mind. 

 

“I don't need anything if I win,” Lottie tells her, “you're enough.”

 

“Ugh, gag me,” Melissa says, making a fake sick face.

 

“If only we could,” Gen drones, which causes Melissa to pout at her.

 

“And I don’t actually need you to win,” Jackie says, smiling against Lottie’s skin. 

 

“But I want to win for you,” Lottie murmurs, making Melissa give another gagging noise.

 

“Alright, alright, let's pack it up and start heading back,” Nat announces when she sees how long the shadows have gotten. The trek isn’t exactly a super short one and it would be best for them to get back before it became too dark.”

 

Jackie gets to her feet, offering Lottie a hand to pull her up. She doesn’t really think about it much, but maybe she’s gotten stronger out there, too. Not like the others, who always seem to be doing more real work than her. But she can help Lottie to her feet without stumbling. She grabs her shorts and puts them on before stuffing her feet into her shoes and searching for her sweater. “I can get the blanket,” she tells Lottie as they gather their things.

 

Lottie accepts Jackie’s hand, standing easily and brushing her shorts off before moving to gather up the rest of their stuff with her. She watches the other begin to pack up as well and Travis goes over and kicks some sand into the firepit they’d made as it smolders.

 

For a moment, Lottie catches Misty’s eye again-- she’s standing off to the side, clutching her own blanket despite not ever getting into the lake, either. She holds Lottie’s gaze, once again not moving until Lottie looks away. 

 

Lottie takes Jackie’s hand and turns away from Misty. “Did you have a good day?” she asks her instead.

 

“It was nice.” Jackie squeezes Lottie’s hand, looking away from Misty to stare into Lottie’s eyes, checking her over. “Did you?” That’s what Jackie’s more concerned about. “I know this was a lot. I think you did really well just coming here.”

 

It means a lot to hear, even if it also feels a little pathetic. “I did,” she says, squeezing her hand back. “Thanks to you.” Subconsciously, she reaches up with her free hand and pets one of the braids Jackie had done for her. Without Jackie, Lottie knows she never would have even tasted happiness.

 

Tucking their blanket under her arm, Jackie gives Lottie a wider smile and stands on her toes to kiss her cheek. “Good. I wanted you to enjoy today. And later you get to beat Taissa at arm wrestling, and I get to brag about how hot and strong my girlfriend is.”

 

Lottie can’t help the blush that creeps into her face, even if it’s not visible on her tanned skin-- she knows it’s there and she’s sure Jackie knows, too. “Getting you bragging rights over Van is really the best prize.”

 

“I do love having bragging rights over Van,” Jackie says, smiling at Lottie. She likes to think she’s gotten to where she can tell when Lottie’s actually blushing. There’s just this certain look in her eyes that Jackie’s grown to recognize and find endlessly adorable.

 

Lottie presses her face into Jackie’s neck. “Anything for you,” she mumbles, smiling against her skin. 

 

“Don’t count your chickens yet,” Van says to Jackie as her and Tai walk by. She sticks her tongue out at them. “When Tai wins, I hope you know I’ll never shut up about it.”

 

Sticking her tongue right back out at Van, Jackie lets them pass as she wraps her arms around Lottie one last time before pulling away. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. Later, I can wash your hair out and redo the braids if you want me to.”

 

Nodding, Lottie takes Jackie's hand as they start walking, following the others on the trek back to camp. “I'd like that.” Really, there's nothing she'd like more.

Notes:

We only give you guys good things, even if they don't always arrive on schedule. But we hope you're all enjoying the fic, and we're getting closer and closer to the summer solstice and all the fun that comes along with it. We love kudos, comments, and if folks want to reach out to us on our socials, please feel free! We love to chat about these silly little soccer cannibals. See you all next week!

Chapter 31: everytime we kiss, i swear i can fly

Summary:

With the beach party over, it's time to head home. But Lottie and Jackie aren't done with the waterworks, in more ways than one. (Crying! We mean crying, keep your mind out of the gutter). Besides, they've got some time to kill before dinner time and, really, what's another dip in the river later? Can't be too clean, right? Maybe one day they'll get tired of each other, but today certainly isn't that day. Happy belated/early birthday to all the Yellowjackets! We're excited to see who will make it to the next year.

Notes:

This is late and kinda short and that's 100% my fault but you'll never know which one of us said that so peace and love <3 anyway, apologies for that, but it's a very sweet and soft chapter, so I hope that makes up for it! Please enjoy! (it was envy that said that -vi)

Title is from "Every Time We Touch" by Cascada

Jackie spends most of the walk back in an easy silence with Lottie. She kind of likes it, the way she doesn’t feel a need to fill it. She could. If Lottie wanted her to, she would. But at the moment, it’s just soft, soothing, the sound of the woods around them and the group in front of them. The sunlight has left her skin feeling warm, and even without doing much, she feels a wave of sleepiness. She’s looking forward to the river, to getting back to camp, but, really, she’s also looking forward to their bed. 

 

When they get back, most of the girls shuffle off to their respective huts, while Natalie tells them to relax the rest of the day. Dinner will be offered later if anyone is hungry (they all indulged quite a bit earlier at lunch) but for now, they all get to take the evening off. 

 

Lottie follows Jackie back to their own hut and moves to dig through her bag before pulling out a carefully folded up piece of cloth. She turns and holds it out to Jackie. “Happy late birthday,” she says quietly. Inside the cloth is simply a weaved together necklace with a loop to hang something on, and a matching headband. “You said a while ago you wanted something to, um, put her bones on.”

 

“Lottie,” Jackie murmurs, taking the necklace and headband and holding them close to her chest as she takes them out of the cloth. It means a lot. Not just what the necklace is for, but because Lottie made it. “I–- Wait a second.” She presses a kiss to Lottie’s jaw before moving over to her bag. 

 

Paper is in short supply, constantly, and most of it goes to the map, to things that need to be permanent, but most of the team considers Shauna’s journals to be sacred to Jackie. They don’t ask her to share any of the blank pages that remain in the one she’d started not long before winter. Jackie doesn’t read them; she still can’t. But she could, sometimes, carefully tear out a page just for herself. 

 

Jackie walks back to Lottie carrying a carefully folded piece of paper. “Happy late birthday,” she says, her voice soft. It’s a sketch, slowly drawn to capture all the details. “I know it wasn’t… great, but it wasn’t always bad, either.” The cabin takes up the main focus, particularly the porch. Nat and Travis are headed out into the woods. Tai and Van are talking by the fire. Some of the others are chatting in the corner. There’s even Shauna, separate, writing, Javi leaning over her with a smile. And then there’s Lottie and Laura Lee on the steps, Laura Lee braiding Lottie’s hair. That always stood out to Jackie. She thinks it’s one of the first times that they were out there that she saw Lottie really at peace.

 

Taking the paper and unfolding it ever so gently, Lottie can feel her hands shaking before she even opens it all the way. She blinks and reaches up quickly to try and wipe away the tears before they fall on the paper. It’s so delicate, so important. She doesn’t really know what to say, so instead she just wraps her arms around Jackie and holds her tight. “It’s amazing,” she murmurs.

 

“I really love you,” Jackie says as Lottie holds her, burrowing in close. She wants to give Lottie nice things. She wants to make her feel good. She wants Lottie to know, always, just how much Jackie loves her. “Thank you, for the gifts. And for being here.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “You don’t have to thank me for any of that,” she mumbles into Jackie’s skin. Being here for Jackie, with Jackie, is something Lottie wants to do. Needs to do, actually. She thinks she would be nothing without Jackie, really.

 

Jackie pulls back, looking at Lottie. “I want to. And I will. You can’t stop me.”

 

Letting out a soft breath, Lottie can’t help but chuckle a little. “Okay,” she says, leaning down, then, to press a gentle kiss to Jackie’s lips, “but you still don’t have to.”

 

Leaning into the kiss, Jackie smiles into it. “I know I don’t have to. I want to, though.” She knew she needed to thank people more. She knew she needed to be more grateful. With Lottie, it was so easy.

 

Maybe Lottie didn’t need to be thanked for things like this, but it did still feel nice to hear. To know that someone was actually grateful for her and the things she did. She wouldn’t say that, though, because it would just encourage Jackie to thank her for unnecessary things, like loving her and being with her. Lottie didn’t need to be thanked for something like that, not when she was the lucky one in that deal.

 

Looking back at the drawing in her hand, Lottie shifts enough to reach up and place it next to their little mirror, sticking the corner of it under the metal to keep it there. “Perfect,” she says, pulling Jackie back into her.

 

“I’m glad you like it,” Jackie says, leaning into Lottie’s side and wrapping her arms around her waist. After a squeeze, she leans back and looks at Lottie, holding out the necklace. “Help me put it on?” she asks. She’d gather the bones later and put them in a small pouch to go through the loop Lottie made. But, for now, she could wear it. 

 

It wasn’t like the necklace she’d made was fancy or anything, but she’d cut the cloth into small strips herself and braided them together tightly enough to make it look like a chain instead of old, dirty cloth. She undoes the clasp she’d taken from an old, broken piece of jewelry that had been abandoned in the “miscellaneous” bucket in the storage shed and holds it up, motioning for Jackie to turn around. When she does, Lottie wraps it around her neck and closes the clasp, laying it flat before combing her hair down over it. 

 

“You like it?” she asks, looking past Jackie’s shoulder and into the little mirror, meeting her eyes there.

 

As she meets Lottie’s gaze in the mirror, Jackie nods, bringing her hand up to grasp the necklace gently before she turns back to Lottie. “I love it.”

 

Lottie reaches up to her own neck, feeling the thin, gold chain of Jackie’s necklace still hanging there before she moves to wrap her arms around Jackie again, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “I know it’s nothing fancy, but I just wanted you to have something.” 

 

“I don’t need fancy,” Jackie says. She liked fancy; of course she did. She’s the product of her raising. But she doesn’t need it. She’s learning to appreciate things now in ways she never would have before. She might still be bad at sharing things, but she’s learning to enjoy the simple stuff, too. Besides, this necklace means more. She likes it more. 

 

Lottie thinks that she’d like to give Jackie fancy things, nice things, instead of old jackets or a cloak made from torn up blankets. Still, she’s happy Jackie likes her necklace. She kisses her again. “You deserve only the best,” she says.

 

“Obviously,” Jackie mumbles, standing on her toes and wrapping her arms around Lottie’s neck. “That’s why I have you.”

 

Lottie knows it’s probably a joke, but she doesn’t exactly think that’s true. She’s nothing nice, not really. Still, she burrows into Jackie’s neck and holds her tightly. “I love you.”

 

“I love you, too. So much.” Jackie loves Lottie so much more than feels real. She just knows that as long as she has Lottie, everything will be okay. Her fingers play with one of Lottie’s braids again, unable to keep her hands away. If she wasn’t careful, Jackie was going to end up messing it up.

 

“Do you want to lay down for a bit?” Lottie asks as she watches Jackie toy with her braid. They have some time before dinner will be called, and more time then before everyone will begin to settle down and they can sneak off to the river. 

 

Really, Lottie just wants to hold Jackie and feel the weight of her in her arms. How solid and real she is. How soft and sweet. How wonderful.

 

Jackie’s more than happy to start moving them towards their bedding, refusing to move from Lottie’s arms or to let go of the taller girl herself. She does want to lay down, somewhere that the others aren’t giggling and cooing and teasing them for just cuddling. 

 

As they lie down, Jackie tucks herself against Lottie’s side and lays her head over her heart. Her left ear remains uncovered so that she can listen to Lottie speak or breath without any sort of discomfort, even if her hearing’s mostly adjusted these days. She’s gotten used to it. It’s almost like it’s normal. 

 

Lottie curls her arms around Jackie and holds her against her, the weight of her making Lottie’s body relax almost involuntarily. The comfort of Jackie’s body pressed to hers is the best feeling in the world, Lottie is sure of it. She nuzzles against the top of Jackie’s head and kisses her, closing her eyes. 

 

It’s nowhere near either of their birthdays, but really, this was the best birthday Lottie had ever had, probably-- Jackie the best gift. She doesn’t know what she’d do without her at this point. She doesn’t want to think about that at all.

 

It never fails to stop being ironic to Jackie that this place, the middle of nowhere in a forest full of dangers, was where she felt the safest. It was only because of Lottie. Jackie’s always reminded when she’s walking with Nat or Van or especially by herself just how scary this place can be. She’s never been comfortable with being alone. She’s never felt safe. But being with Lottie is really the only place that makes sense anymore.

 

Lifting a hand, Lottie combs her fingers gently through Jackie’s still drying hair. It’s getting there, with how thin it is compared to Lottie’s, but the dampness reminds her of the day and how happy everyone had been. Even out here, they can make a happiness that seems to transcend anything they had back home. There’s no need to perform out here, they get to just be who they want to be. It’s all Lottie’s ever wanted out of life, really.

 

She shifts enough to look back up at the drawing Jackie had given her, stuck up next to their mirror. As much as she loathed the cabin, the picture made them all seem…peaceful. Especially Laura Lee. She’d never complained about being stuck out here. Her concern had only ever been for the others, never herself. 

 

Sighing, Lottie closes her eyes and lets the feeling of Jackie’s head pressed to her chest comfort her again. Make her feel real and in the moment, instead of in some distant memory. 

 

“Thank you for today,” she murmurs eventually, “for being patient with me.”

 

“You don’t have to thank me for that,” Jackie tells her. “But you’re welcome.” She’s always been good at being patient, at waiting. She thinks she spent her entire life being patient as practice made perfect, as she slowly but surely got better at the things that she loved. She feels like she’s spent most of her life waiting on Shauna to talk to her. And now she never will again, not really, not in any way that matters. 

 

Jackie leans into Lottie’s touch, makes herself more comfortable. She wants to keep this. She’s going to keep this.

 

“I do,” Lottie mumbles back. “Not a lot of people have done that for me.” And she wants to make sure Jackie knows she’s grateful for her, for the way she treats her. How she never makes Lottie feel like she’s too much or some sort of burden.

 

“Well, they’re all stupid. I’m the only smart person you know,” Jackie says. 

 

Lottie chuckles. “That’s very confident of you to say,” she teases.

 

Jackie grins against Lottie’s skin. “It’s gotta be the only explanation if I’m the only one that’s ever looked at you and thought, ‘Geez, I think I’d do anything for Lottie Matthews.’ I think I’m just ahead of the curve. Once everyone else figures out how great you are, I’m going to have to fight people off.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. She knows Jackie is trying to keep things light and happy, but Lottie just needs her to know. “People have been telling me all my life to just get over things,” she says quietly, “you’re the first person to…show me that I don’t have to do that.”

 

“You don’t have to do that,” Jackie confirms. “You should… be able to feel things. It’s good when you do.” And it was better when she was able to communicate what she was feeling to Jackie so that she could understand. Or, at least try to. As long as Lottie tries, Jackie doesn’t think she cares. All she wants is to know her. She doesn’t think that’s too much to ask for. She hopes it isn’t.

 

“It’s kind of terrifying, actually,” Lottie admits, “feeling things. I never really know what to do with myself. Or if-- if they’re real feelings.”

 

“Do you think that some of your feelings aren’t real?” Jackie asks.

 

“I don’t know,” Lottie says, “sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

 

Moving to look at Lottie and brush a hand over one of her braids, Jackie asks, “Which ones?”

 

Glancing up at Jackie, Lottie blinks. She doesn’t really know how to explain it but she wants to try. Her face contorts as she thinks. “Like…feeling upset or angry. I don’t know if those are actually my feelings or if they’re-- something else. I never really got angry before, but was that really who I was or was it just the, you know, medication? I don’t know.”

 

There’s not really any words that Jackie can say to express how grateful she is that Lottie tries to explain what she’s feeling, even if it’s hard. 

 

(Another part of her is grateful that the feelings Lottie’s unsure of have nothing to do with Jackie. She also feels guilty about how grateful she feels.)

 

She leans back in, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s jaw before laying back against her chest. “Everyone gets upset or angry. Those are… real feelings, even if they suck. Maybe the medication was about to dull that, make it easier to deal with.”

 

Lottie wraps her arm back around Jackie, staring up at the roof of their hut. “I know, but it just…it doesn’t feel real sometimes. Or if I’m even allowed to feel that way.” And what good did crying over a dead girl do, anyway? “Sorry, I…I’m bad at explaining it. I don’t know, it’s just different. I feel so different sometimes.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie says quietly. “You’re not bad at explaining it. I know it’s different. To me, though, you’re still Lottie. A little changed from back home, but all of us are. But you’re still Lottie. I’ve known you since we were kids, and you’re still my friend. Now, you’re just my girlfriend, too.”

 

“But--” Lottie starts, looks down at Jackie-- “who am I?” She doesn't really know, she's not sure she ever has. She doesn't really know how she'd figure that out.

 

“Caring,” Jackie starts. “You care so much for so many people. I think that’s only grown out here. You would have died for all of us. You’re not allowed to try and do that again, now.” Her tone is soft. “You’re funny. You can give back just as good as you get. You’re steady, immovable on the field. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else as my center.”

 

She closes her eyes, holding Lottie tighter. “You’re beautiful. Inside, outside, doesn’t matter. You are. I get that you don’t get that. It’s okay. I’ll just keep telling you. But you get to figure out who you are. You’ve got time. No one really knows who they are at our age.” Except Jackie was supposed to. Except she knows she doesn’t. She just knows that, in this life, whoever she is only wants to be wherever Lottie is.

 

It's nice to hear what kind of person Jackie sees when she looks at Lottie. It makes her chest swell and her face feel warm. She thinks she believes some of it, she'd like to believe all of it. Maybe one day she can, but it's just hard right now. 

 

“What if I don't know how to do that?” Lottie asks, quiet. “Figure out who I am.” Is she the same person when she's on her medication? Or is this the real her? Which version of Lottie is the true version?

 

“I don’t think anyone does,” Jackie whispers. “If they do, they’re liars. Or Taissa Turner.” It’s nice to be able to hold Lottie and be held this way. She murmurs, “I’ll be here whether you figure it out or not.”

 

Maybe that’s true, but Lottie doesn’t think anyone else really questions whether or not their emotions are real. Or whether they’re real. Lottie just squeezes Jackie back. “That’s all I want,” she whispers to her. 

 

Maybe Lottie will never actually know who she is, but as long as she has Jackie, she knows she’ll be okay.

 

Jackie nods against Lottie’s neck. “You’re not getting rid of me.”

 

“I would never try to,” Lottie mumbles, nose pressed to the top of Jackie's head. “I need you.”

 

Those were some of Jackie’s favorite words. She can’t get over them. Lottie needs her. She doesn’t just want her, love her, though both of those are fantastic. She needs Jackie, just as much as Jackie needs her. Needs her to sleep, needs her to remember that she’s supposed to eat, needs her to feel like she’s alive. She needs Lottie completely. She thinks Lottie can tell just from the way Jackie holds her. 

 

As if to emphasize her point, Lottie curls tighter around Jackie. She needs her so badly. She thinks Jackie needs her just as much, and maybe it's selfish, but Lottie likes that a lot. She's never been needed before. She doesn't know how she'll get by if Jackie ever stops.

 

Jackie presses her lips to Lottie’s collar bone. “I need you, too.” She’s never needed anyone like this. Not even Shauna. She never let herself need Shauna like this. It was likely that Shauna wouldn’t have wanted it. She was so strange, acting like she didn’t want Jackie to cling to her sometimes but growing frustrated and bitter when Jackie turned her attention to someone else. But it’s not like that with Lottie. Jackie thinks she just really, really appreciates that it’s not like that with Lottie.

 

A shiver runs through Lottie at the words, at the feeling of lips on her skin. She can't help it. Jackie makes her feel so alive and real. She's never felt this way. She never thought she'd get to feel this way. 

 

“You'll never leave me, right?” She asks quietly. “Even if I…change?”

 

“I told you that you’re not getting rid of me,” Jackie says. She leans up, over, pressing one hand into shoulder, holding her down. “That means never. You’re never going to change to where I don’t recognize you or want you or  need you.”

 

It's a worry Lottie has found herself with lately, that she'll become someone she doesn't recognize or someone that Jackie won't like, won't love. It terrifies her more than dying. 

 

But when she looks up into Jackie's eyes, she can see without a doubt that her words are true. Still. “Promise?”

 

Jackie smiles. “Promise.” She thinks that the worst really is behind them, and she thinks that Lottie will never change into someone she doesn’t recognize. They have something that’s nice here. Sometimes, it’s even better than back home.

 

Lottie believes Jackie. Of course she does. How can she not? She leans up and kisses her, needy and soft, but deep and longing. What else could she say? Nothing that she couldn't convey better with her tongue inside Jackie's mouth, tasting her.

 

Relaxing against Lottie, Jackie puts her hands around Lottie’s face as they kiss, and it’s so soft and sweet, even with how needy it feels as they press against each other. She sighs, her lips parting as Lottie’s tongue brushes against her lips. 

 

Lottie's arms wrap around Jackie's waist, pulling her body flush against Lottie's. Jackie's breath is warm against her lips and Lottie wastes no time in tasting her, tongue searching out Jackie's. She thinks she can taste her words in her mouth.

 

The way Lottie tugs her closer makes Jackie take a sharp breath, smiling against Lottie’s lips, leaning in on her elbows as they kiss. It’s still so weird to enjoy this as much as she does. Jackie thinks there’s something addictive about Lottie’s lips, her skin, her tongue. It just makes her want. 

 

It almost feels unfair with how much Lottie likes kissing Jackie. She's never wanted to kiss anyone as much as she does Jackie. It makes her feel like she's drowning in the best way possible. She'd be more than happy to drown in Jackie's kisses. 

 

Her hands dig into the fabric of Jackie's shirt, fingers curling as the cloth bunches up between them. She wants to hold onto her for as long as possible, and Jackie promised Lottie she'd love her no matter what. She had to believe that. She did. 

 

When she pulls away enough to breathe, cheeks already red, breath puffing, she looks up into Jackie's eyes and she really, truly believes her. She doesn't think Jackie will leave her for anything, and that's as terrifying as it is exhilarating.

 

Jackie giggles against Lottie’s lips, almost chasing after her when she pulls away, even when Jackie knows they both need to breathe. She looks between them at where Lottie’s still grabbing onto her shirt. “You’re going to stretch it out,” she teases, her voice raspy and breathless. 

 

“You should take it off then,” Lottie says, just as breathless, “so I don't stretch it out.”

 

Gasping, Jackie leans up and puts her hand to her chest. “Charlotte Matthews! Are you trying to do something,” she leans in, “untoward?”

 

Lottie licks her lips. “Very much so.” She tugs at the bottom of Jackie's shirt, looking up at her with hungry eyes.

 

“Will you ask nicely?” Jackie asks. Her pupils are dilating. She doesn’t know how much teasing she has in her when Lottie looks at her like that. 

 

Leaning up, Lottie presses her lips next to Jackie's ear and whispers, “Will you please take your shirt off?”

 

Yeah, that’s nice enough. Jackie tugs at the bottom of her shirt and pulls it off, tossing it aside and staring back at Lottie, her eyelids heavy and her cheeks warm.

 

It's nice to know Jackie will do whatever Lottie asks of her. Lottie doesn't waste any time putting her hands on her bare skin, like she wanted to down at the beach. She thinks they were both very good about not getting too handsy, but now it just made Lottie want to touch her all the more. 

 

Palms flat, she presses her hands into Jackie's back, feeling warm skin against her own. Lottie presses a kiss to her now exposed collar bone before looking back up at her, eyes gleaming. 

 

“You're really hot, you know that?” She says, voice low.

 

“So people keep saying,” Jackie breathes. She shivers under Lottie’s touch, leaning in closer, brushing their foreheads together. 

 

“Well they’re right,” Lottie nods, lips ghosting against Jackie’s. It was hard to deny how attractive Jackie was, but knowing she was Lottie’s, and that only Lottie got to have her like this, just made it one hundred times more so. “You kind of drive me crazy, you know that? In the good way.”

 

Jackie lightly pulls on one of Lottie’s braids. “As long as it’s in a good way,” she says. It makes her feel good, warm, hot when Lottie says things like that. That Jackie drives her crazy. That she thinks Jackie’s hot, that she thinks about Jackie all the time. Jackie wants to be thought about. She’s afraid of being forgotten, insignificant. It’s hard to feel those fears when Lottie looks at her like that, though. “You drive me crazy, too. In the good way.”

 

Lottie can feel the searing heat inside of her just from the way Jackie looks at her, too. She thinks she wouldn’t mind going mad if it was because of Jackie. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” she tells her and it’s so true it makes her heart pound. “It’s kind of ridiculous.” She’s so distracting. Lottie already struggled with her attention span, now she had Jackie taking over what little control she did have. She didn’t care. 

 

“Yeah?” Jackie asks. She reaches to brush her fingers over Lottie’s chest, feeling her heart beating through her shirt. Lottie can’t stop thinking about her. She finds it ridiculous. Jackie doesn’t, though. She thinks it’s the best thing in the world because it means that, finally, finally, it feels like someone wants her in the same way she wants them. It’s not too much. It’s not too little. It finally feels equal, and she could cry because she's so happy. 

 

“Yeah,” Lottie nods. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know what to do with it all. All these feelings I have for you. I’ve never felt like this before.” Sometimes it feels like she’s drowning when Jackie isn’t around, which is just stupid and silly because Lottie has never been someone who depended on others. They always let her down.

 

But then Jackie just kept showing up for her. After she almost froze to death, and when Misty amputated her toes, and when she nearly beat Lottie to death, and even after that, when Lottie begged to die, or even after that, when Lottie told her she was sick. Jackie never stopped being there for her. 

 

“But these are… these are real feelings,” Jackie murmurs. She believes they’re real feelings. Like this, it’s impossible to deny that Lottie loves her, wants her, needs her. Jackie can just look at her and tell. She can feel it. That drives her crazy, too.

 

Lottie nods again, more eagerly this time. “They’re real,” she agrees quietly. “So real.” She needs Jackie to know they’re real. “It’s the most real thing I’ve ever felt.”

 

Jackie reaches behind herself and unclips her bra, shrugging it off her shoulders before she’s pressing back against Lottie and leaning in for another kiss. 

 

It never ceases to take Lottie’s breath away, seeing Jackie bare. It’s just for her, no one else gets to see this. Maybe no one else ever really has. Maybe Jeff, maybe Shauna. But they don’t matter right now. Not to Lottie. 

 

She presses back in for the kiss, already hungry and wanting. Needy and selfish. She wants her so bad.

 

The look in Lottie’s eyes is something Jackie’s never going to get tired of. She deepens the kiss, nibbles on Lottie’s lips, nips at the bottom one. When Lottie opens her mouth, Jackie wastes no time sucking Lottie’s tongue into her mouth. She groans. She just wants Lottie closer.

 

Lottie sighs into Jackie’s mouth, into the kiss, hands already exploring all the exposed skin that’s at her disposal. It’s so nice and perfect, just like Jackie. She tastes so wonderful, just like always. 

 

Lottie’s hands dig back into Jackie’s hair. It’s nearly dry, but she can still feel the coolness of it between her fingers. She tugs on it lightly, curls her fingers up like she had with her shirt.

 

A small moan leaves Jackie’s mouth as Lottie tugs on her hair, though eats consumed by Lottie’s mouth against hers, warm and solid and already kiss swollen. Her hands start wandering. She ghosts them over Lottie’s back, down her thighs, feeling for the hem of her dress as she searches for skin, heat, anything. 

 

It's so easy to just fall into Jackie's touch, the taste of her lips, her tongue, hands scraping along her body, seeking out skin in the same way Lottie's hands do. 

 

She breaks off just long enough to shift her weight, tugging her dress up to help Jackie remove it. It's the easiest thing in the world, to lose herself in Jackie. What more could Lottie possibly want?

 

Jackie happily tugs Lottie’s dress off, taking advantage of the way the movement has forced them to part to look down at Lottie with heady eyes. She’s been able to look at Lottie all day, but there’s just something intoxicating about it being like this. They’re not lying on the beach having to control themselves. They were in their private hut, the place that belonged to no one but the two of them. 

 

Without really thinking, she grinds her hips again as Lottie’s, sighing softly before moving back to reattach her lips to Lottie’s, so soft and plush and sweet. 

 

Normally, Lottie would feel scrutinized under someone's gaze like this, but never with Jackie-- she only feels loved and wanted and seen. 

 

Her eyes flutter as hips roll into hers before they're kissing again and Lottie's hands slide easily back into Jackie's hair, tugging gently again. She wouldn't have minded just laying here with Jackie, but she thinks this is very nice, too. It always is with Jackie.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” Jackie whispers against Lottie’s lips, reverent, worshipful. Lottie deserves to be worshiped. She saved Jackie’s life, again and again, like Jackie matters, like she’s important. She makes Jackie feel important. 

 

Lottie doesn't have words to say back. She just thinks Jackie is beautiful, too. Her heart, her soul, her eyes. The flavor of her lips like ecstasy in Lottie's mouth. 

 

She kisses her like she wants to devour her and like she wants to be devoured in turn. One hand still in Jackie's hair, she pulls her head to the side as she wraps her lips and teeth around the skin of her neck, her other hand hooking around Jackie's back. She bites down and sucks and tastes the dew from the lake still clinging to Jackie's skin and Lottie thinks that she can taste fire and ash, too, and it just makes her want more.

 

Jackie moans, tilting her head even more to give Lottie more room. She wants Lottie to make her up completely. She wants everyone to know that she’s wanted, needed, loved, that her girlfriend likes her enough to leave such pretty marks all over her skin. And Jackie does think they’re pretty. She certainly didn’t before, not back home, but she loved them out here, and she loves them when they’re made by Lottie. 

 

Lottie is pretty sure she can taste Jackie's desire on her skin, under her teeth where her pulse beats, mere centimeters away. She lets go of that mouthful of skin only to take in another, at the crux of her neck and shoulder, biting down a little harder this time, leaving indents of her sharp canines in soft, silky skin. 

 

“God,” Jackie whimpers, moving closer, her chest pressed tight against Lottie’s, brushing against her bra. She wants Lottie to eat her alive. She wants her to rip her open and lap at what spills out, making Jackie hers completely. There’s a small part of Jackie that wants to play things cool and take control, but, really, that’s just a really small part of her brain that mostly turns itself off when they’re touching each other. 

 

The reaction she gets from Jackie just makes Lottie want to do it again. So she does, digging her teeth into another spot along Jackie's neck. For a small moment, she wonders what her blood would taste like on her tongue, warm and sticky. 

 

She pulls herself away from the thought, breathing heavy as she looks at the marks on Jackie's skin. Her pupils are blown wide. She wonders if they'll turn into little red welts as she runs her tongue along them, soothing the marked, hot skin. It almost tastes like metal. 

 

This isn’t the first time Jackie’s thought it, but she just doesn’t think it’s fair, the way that Lottie can just turn her into a mess so easily. The feel of her teeth, her hot tongue lapping at Jackie’s skin. Lottie’s too good at this. Or maybe she’s just perfect for Jackie. Her name is thick on Jackie’s tongue as she slurs it out, sighing as she tries to press closer. 

 

The shudder that runs through Lottie is visceral and electrifying as she listens to Jackie moan her name. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of that, of this, of hearing her name said with such heat and devotion. That alone makes Lottie tremble. 

 

She kisses back up to Jackie’s lips, capturing them with a searing kiss as her hands trail down to her hips, gripping them as she pulls Jackie into her, breath heavy in her chest. Her whole body burns with her desire, and it feels like such a carnal, feral thing inside of her she thinks she should be afraid of it.

 

But she’s not, she wants more. She wants Jackie. 

 

Jackie gasps as Lottie pulls her closer, wrapping around her tighter. The way they kiss always makes her feel warmer, like she’s on fire. Lottie takes charge so well; she doesn’t even have to say anything, really do anything, to make Jackie feel like she’s melting. That’s what it feels like: melting. 

 

It does make her think of something from earlier. When they pull apart, struggling to breathe, Jackie pants, “Nat… called you a pillow princess earlier. Is that… what you wanna do?”

 

Lottie is panting, too, when she looks up at Jackie. Her brow furrows a little. “I just want to make you happy,” she says. That’s all she ever wants. She just likes making other people happy. 

 

That makes Jackie smile, even with her flushed cheeks, her racing heart. “You do. All the time. Every way. But I want to make you happy, too. So much.”

 

“You do,” Lottie says back, breathless, “I promise you do. That was just…Nat was being facetious.” Lottie didn’t think she was a pillow princess, not really. Maybe with Nat but she was always a lot more confident and dominant than Lottie. 

 

Lottie had never minded. “I just want you.”

 

“I’m yours,” Jackie says easily. Okay, she’s done talking for now. Maybe this counts for the pillow princess thing regardless. Lottie was laying against the bedding not that long ago. Jackie leans back in for another kiss. She really likes it when they kiss. She can’t remember why they stopped.

 

That’s all Lottie cares about. Jackie is hers. Not Jeff’s, not Shauna’s, not the Wilderness’. Lottie’s. She proves that to herself with the kiss, already deep and wanting, needing. She licks into Jackie’s mouth, arms circling around Jackie’s back, pulling them flush together. 

 

It’s easy to get back to where they left off, hungry kisses, probing tongues , the desire for them to press closer and closer until it’s like they’re connected. Jackie wants Lottie to know that she’s hers. All of her, every part, even the ones she doesn’t know how to share. All Lottie has to do is ask. 

 

Lottie kisses Jackie like she needs her for air. She kisses her lips, the corner of her mouth, back down her neck. Teeth scrape along her collarbone as she moves lower until she can wrap her lips around Jackie’s breast, sucking. Her hands grip onto Jackie’s hips and pull her closer. She just needs her closer.

 

Now that makes Jackie loud, a ragged moan spilling from her lips as Lottie latches onto her. Her hands tangle into Lottie’s pigtails, and Jackie was already planning on redoing them, but now she knows she’ll have to since she’s making such a mess. She rolls her hips as she pushes against Lottie. They’re both just trying to get closer. 

 

The sound makes Lottie smile, maybe a little bit smugly. She feels like she knows what Jackie likes best already, what makes her the loudest, what makes her come the fastest. She likes that she can know someone that well and that someone knows her that well, too. Because it’s all the same with how Jackie knows how to touch her, too. How to make Lottie loud, how to make Lottie come undone completely.

 

Speaking of, Lottie redoubles her effort as she feels Jackie tugging at her hair, releasing her mouth with a pop before moving to the other side of her chest. This time, she scrapes her teeth along the sensitive skin before biting down.

 

Lottie knows Jackie so well. Really, sometimes it seems like she knows Jackie better than Jackie knows herself. Knows just how to make Jackie feel so good that her head might explode. It doesn’t help that Jackie feels like she’s easy. Maybe just for Lottie, but she is, crying out again and moaning lowly as teeth bite down. 

 

“Lottie, I’m so-- Again. Please,” Jackie manages, shuddering. She’s so close. They’ve barely even touched, and she’s so close. 

 

How could Lottie say no? She runs her tongue along the hardened nub once before biting down again, hands squeezing Jackie’s hips and pulling them down against her own as well. It drives her crazy in the best way possible, to have Jackie like this. If this was what it meant to go insane, then maybe Lottie didn’t actually mind losing her mind.

 

Jackie’s eyes roll back. She feels herself shuddering, moving into Lottie’s touch, trying to get closer even as she feels her pleasure crash through her like a wave. It makes her tense, relax, become almost boneless as she lets Lottie hold her. Her fingers twitch in Lottie’s hair, still holding her tight. 

 

Releasing her mouth, Lottie looks up at Jackie, her pupils still blown wide. She was breathing heavy but she still leaned forward to press a kiss to her lips again, longing and deep and lingering. It was nice to know she could still turn Jackie to mush with just her mouth. It reminded her of that first night, of dragging Jackie back to their hut after they’d both finally realized they wanted each other. 

 

They’d been stupid to try and pretend this was anything else.

 

Still trembling with her pleasure, Jackie knows she’s only helping to make the kiss sloppy as Lottie presses lips to lips. A part of her wishes she’d lasted longer, but it was really all Lottie’s fault. She’s just too good. Jackie wonders if she knows it’s not fair. She pulls away to tell her, but the look in Lottie’s eyes makes Jackie lose track of what she was thinking. She’s responsible for that. Lottie looks like that because of Jackie. It’s beautiful. 

 

Lottie smiles up at Jackie, soft and sweet and completely, utterly in love. She’d fallen fast, and she’d fallen hard, and she knew it, and she just didn’t care. Maybe she was just afraid of losing it all again too quickly. She’d wasted too much time second guessing already, she wasn’t going to do that anymore. 

 

“You’re amazing,” she finds herself mumbling.

 

The words make Jackie shiver again, and she smiles back, her hands brushing against Lottie’s soft cheeks. “I love you,” she says. She loves Lottie. She figures Lottie already knows, but Jackie needs to make sure. She needs to say it. She spent so long not saying it. She’s not making that mistake again. 

 

Lottie’s face moves into Jackie’s touch like a magnet, nuzzling against her palm. “I love you, too.” It’s so easy to say back because it’s the most true thing Lottie knows or feels. “So much.” She loves her so much. 

 

Jackie brushes her thumbs over Lottie’s cheeks. Lottie thinks she’s amazing. Lottie loves her. These are the things that make Jackie’s head spin. It’s all real. It’s all hers. One hand moves around to un clip Lottie’s bra, tugging it off before pushing gently on Lottie’s shoulders to get her to lay down. “My turn.”

 

Lottie leans back when she's urged to, helping Jackie slide off her bra and feeling the velvet deer fur press against her back as she lays down. She licks her lips, starting up at Jackie and the hungry look on her face. 

 

For once, Lottie's hair, now mostly tamed in twin braids, doesn't spill out beneath her. She reaches up to twirl a stand of Jackie's around her finger. “I'm yours.”

 

She’s all Jackie’s, and that thought is enough to make Jackie shiver, leaning in to give Lottie a wet, heated kiss before she starts to move down her body, licking at her jaw, biting on her neck, sucking at her collar bone as she slowly makes her way down. She stops at Lottie’s breast and pulls one into her mouth. This isn’t where she’s planning on stopping, one hand moving to play with the hem of Lottie’s underwear. 

 

Lottie revels in the sensations Jackie leaves behind in her body as she lavishes skin with her lips, her tongue, her teeth. Her head rolls back and she sighs, one hand digging into Jackie's hair. Without even thinking about it, her hips lifting, moving into Jackie's touch, as light and teasing as it is. 

 

She's preoccupied with Jackie's lips on her chest, making her head feel dizzy. She's sighing Jackie's name and digging fingers into damp hair. She loves this girl more than anything and if she was wiser, it probably would have scared her more.

 

As it was, Lottie simply didn't care. She just loved and was loved in return and she wasn't going to question that anymore.

 

Jackie bites down teasingly before moving to the other breast to show it the same attention. Her hands are still moving, though, and, as Lottie’s hips lift, Jackie tugs her underwear down to her knees, not able to worry about it enough to pull them all the way off. 

 

Lifting her head, Jackie looks up at Lottie’s face before she starts moving down again, her lips brushing against Lottie’s sternum, her stomach, her hips then her thighs. 

 

This is probably her favorite place to be, if given the option. Jackie just thinks she’s addicted to Lottie, to the way she tastes and feels and sounds when Jackie does something she likes. She just wants her mouth on Lottie all the time, until her jaw is sore and achy and she just doesn’t care. She just wants more. 

 

Lottie actually lets out a soft cry as she feels teeth on her flesh. It feels good. She likes it a lot. Maybe she's just a glutton for pain, she played center back, after all. She threw her whole body into every tackle, never minding it caring about the scrapes and bruises and grass burns she got. 

 

She liked being marked, as if that somehow made her more real. 

 

She likes it the most when Jackie leaves them on her.

 

Her arms are long enough that she can still grip Jackie's hair as she kisses Lottie's thigh. She's already hot, wet, dripping with her want, her need to be touched by Jackie. It's more addicting than any drug, she thinks, the feeling she gets when Jackie buries her head between Lottie's legs. In fact, it might be what divinity feels like.

 

Pulling herself closer, Jackie starts slow, cleaning Lottie up with even strokes of her tongue against her thighs before she starts working her way in. When she finally meets Lottie’s center, though, she stops wasting time.  She licks into Lottie, long and steady, like she’s savoring it. Because she is. 

 

This is undeniable, indisputable proof that Jackie Taylor likes girls. Loves them, really, or at least one specifically. She can’t go back to how she was before. She just can’t. At this point, it isn’t possible, and she wouldn’t want to if it was. She doesn’t want to be that Jackie Taylor. Not when being this one feels like actually being alive. 

 

The anticipation only builds as Lottie feels Jackie's lips so close to where she wants them. But she doesn't have to wait long and in the end, it's always worth the wait. Her eyes roll back and her hips rise into Jackie's touch and she moans and stutters on her breath. If it were possible, she thinks she can see new colors, head spinning, legs burning. 

 

She doesn't know when she became this person, so attached and in love with a girl who she'd always only admired from afar-- but she doesn't want to go back to whatever or whoever she was before. Pills be damned. 

 

It’s a point of pride that Jackie knows she can make Lottie feel so good, can tell it’s real from the way she moves and moans and feels, the way her breath shudders and her heartbeat seems to echo, loud and fast, through the rest of her body. Jackie likes being good at things; she likes to be perfect, and she takes doing the things that she enjoys very seriously. This isn’t any different. 

 

She nudges Lottie’s legs open a little more as she wraps her lips around Lottie’s clit and sucks, tilting her eyes upward and watching Lottie’s facial expressions. She wants to see. She really, really wants to see how good she makes Lottie feel.

 

Lottie’s breath catches in her throat, mouth hanging open as she moans and cries out, completely overtaken with the feeling of Jackie’s mouth between her legs. She doesn’t think anything in the world will ever feel as good as this, really. It’s not possible. 

 

She lets Jackie move her however she wants. A loud gasp rips through her and the hand in Jackie’s hair tightens. She can’t do much else except moan and pant and call out Jackie’s name. Why would she ever want to do anything else? 

 

Jackie groans as Lottie pulls her hair, her eyes closing as she pulls Lottie closer, pulls one of her legs onto her shoulder. She wants to keep making Lottie respond like that, wants to keep hearing those noises. The way that Lottie says her name is just so pretty. Why wouldn’t Jackie want to hear it all the time?

 

God, it’s like the earth itself has opened up and is swallowing Lottie. Her body jerks and writhes under Jackie’s touch. She cries out her name. She’s so close to the edge she thinks she might explode. Jackie’s name tumbles from her lips, begs for her, pleads for her, until she’s finally tumbling over, the pleasure and ecstasy of her release washing through her like a flood. 

 

Lottie thinks she’d ruin herself for this girl. She’d ruin the world if she had to. 

 

After cleaning Lottie up, Jackie wipes at her mouth and moves to lie down next to Lottie, pressing her nose against her temple. “Maybe one day we’ll make it through lying down next to each other for longer than ten minutes before we give into our lust and carnal desires,” Jackie teases.

 

Lottie’s body is still twitching by the time Jackie is next to her, and she gives a breathless laugh, shaking her head. “But I like giving into my desires for you,” she says, grinning from ear to ear. Her face is still flushed and she feels so warm and liquid. Why nap when they could have this? It felt so nice. Jackie touching her always felt so nice. “Maybe I just really like it when you touch me.” She rolls over, draping an arm across her midsection. “And you’re so good at it.”

 

The words make Jackie blush, and she smiles back, wider, looking at Lottie and admiring the flush of her skin, the heat and sweat and sight of her, like she’s still affected. Jackie scoots closer, pleased by the weight of Lottie’s arm on top of her. “Yeah?” she asks. She wants to be good at it. She loves it when Lottie tells her that she’s good at it. It makes Jackie feel all fluttery inside.

 

“Yeah.” Lottie nuzzles in closer, too, brushing her lips against Jackie’s cheek. “It’s like you just know how to touch me.” She just felt so loved and adored by her. Sex had mostly just been a way to pass time before, a ‘why not’ or a ‘sure okay’ more so than anything Lottie had ever actively seeked out or wanted. Like going for coffee. 

 

But with Jackie it was so much more than just sex. It was like connecting with her soul and body. Something beyond herself. “You make me feel loved.”

 

Jackie laughs softly. “Well, I love you a lot, more than anything, so I’m glad it shows.” She shifts her legs, tangling them with Lottie’s. She’s still half dressed, but it’s not worth moving to take off her shorts and underwear when she’d rather stay tangled in Lottie instead. 

 

“I like touching you,” Jackie says, like it’s an admission, even though she knows Lottie already knows. “I like the way you feel, and the-- the noises you make… the way you taste. I like it all. I just can’t help it.”

 

“I can tell,” Lottie says back, nestling her head into the crook of Jackie’s neck. She lets out a warm breath against her skin, comfortable and satisfied and just plain content. Lottie’s never been a very content person. It was hard for her to relax, to let go of the paranoia and worry. But with Jackie, it was the easiest thing in the world.

 

“It’s nice to hear, though,” she murmurs, “that you like it, too.” 

 

Feeling like she’s sinking into their bedding, Jackie hums, happy and relaxed. “I didn’t think I ever would.” She didn’t think she’d ever let herself. The closest she got was dreams, was a girl who owned half of her heart even if she hadn’t been able to say the words out loud for so long. After Shauna died, Jackie didn’t think she was ever going to feel good about anything ever again. She’s glad she was wrong. “I really do like making you feel good, though. And I like… I like that you make me feel good, too.”

 

“That’s my favorite part,” Lottie grins, “making you feel good.” And those noises Jackie makes and the way she looks coming undone because of Lottie. It sends shivers up her spine just to think about. How beautiful she looks crying out Lottie’s name, knowing that she’s the one who gets to have her like this.

 

“I can tell,” Jackie teases. And Lottie doesn’t have to do much to make Jackie feel good. Really. She’s too good at it. It’s just not fair. Jackie can still feel that pleasant sting of teeth digging in. It’s a good thing that happened after the beach day. She almost wishes they’d gone in deeper.

 

The smile on Lottie’s face just grows. “I just like hearing you say my name like that,” she admits, but she thinks Jackie already knows that anyway. “Really, it’s for selfish reasons.” Like just the idea of being wanted by someone so much makes Lottie feel warm. 

 

Jackie laughs. “Yeah, you’re very selfish.”

 

“It is nice, though,” Lottie mumbles, “being with someone who I can know likes me. That you’re not just, you know--” she shrugs-- “looking for a quick fuck.”

 

“I think I’ve been in love with you since before I ever even kissed you,” Jackie says softly. She doesn’t know when it happened; one moment Lottie was just always there, and she actually cared about Jackie, actually wanted to be around her, actually wanted her to live, and the next moment Jackie couldn’t imagine her life without Lottie in it. She needed her. She adds, “I just didn’t have the words for it.” And it had felt so fast, so soon after Shauna.

 

It’s kind of surprising to hear, actually. Lottie figured Jackie had still loved Shauna, even at that point. But what did Lottie know? She hadn’t even understood the signs that Jackie liked her, that she wanted to kiss her. That she wanted more. “I missed just being your friend,” Lottie murmurs, “I thought for sure you hated me, at first. I told myself I was okay with that but-- I don’t think I would have been.”

 

Jackie sighs, leaning in to press her forehead to Lottie’s temple. “I missed being your friend, too.” She’d felt so worried when Lottie had started acting strange, even more distant than usual, and she hadn’t known what to do. Not when she found Lottie acting weird in the lake, not when Lottie freaked out during the seance. Jackie was already starting to pull away from all of them. They were all starting to resent her. She just imagined that Lottie felt the same, and she clung to Shauna because she’d been so confident that Shauna would love her no matter what. She’d been wrong, of course, but still.

 

“I never hated you, I promise,” Jackie says. “You confused me a lot, and I was worried, and then-–” She remembers Lottie looking down at her at Doomcoming, telling her she doesn’t matter anymore. “I never hated you.”

 

“I think I confused everyone,” Lottie shrugs, “even myself.” It had all fallen apart so quickly for Lottie. One day she was taking her last pill and the next she was seeing dead deer and rivers of blood. Fire and light and you don’t matter anymore. 

 

That night really only comes to her in flashes and what she does remember she can’t trust. She doesn’t know if what she remembers really happened or not. She’s been too afraid to ask. “I never hated you, either. I don’t think I ever could.”

 

“You’re the only one,” Jackie says. But she believes Lottie, she really does. She thinks that Lottie, at one point, at least for that one night, hadn’t cared about her at all, though. It’s okay now because Jackie has her, and she loves Jackie. She’s mostly pushed the words out of her mind. She knows they don’t mean anything anymore. 

 

“That’s not true,” Lottie protests. She can’t be totally sure, but she doesn’t think the others ever actually hated Jackie. Maybe they were mad at her or upset or tired of her, but hate was such a strong word among them all. Not when they’d been a team, not when they’d all been so close.

 

Then again, love bred hate, didn’t it? “I think people just needed someone to look to and you-- it was like you’d already given up on us.”

 

Jackie gives a small shrug. “I gave up on me. I wasn’t–- I wasn’t any good out here. And it just seemed like… like no one looked at me like they were supposed to anymore.” Like she was their leader. But it made sense, didn’t it? Jackie’s just not capable of leading out here. Maybe she hadn’t been capable out there, either. “And then I read Shauna’s journals, and I just… I gave up on everything.”

 

“But you are now,” Lottie says, “I mean, look at you. You know how to fish and set up lines and you made a map with Nat, you built me a garden and helped with this hut.” She sits up enough to look back down at Jackie, into her eyes. “You just needed someone to believe in you. And I-- I’m sorry I didn’t.” She’d been so worried about what was happening to herself at first that she hadn’t even noticed everyone else slipping, least of all Jackie.

 

Blushing, Jackie rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “I haven’t done that much. Saying that I know how to fish is really a stretch, and I-– I think I was more of a hindrance than a help on the garden. Same with our hut,” she mumbles. It’s hard not to believe Lottie when she looks like this, though. She can see where everyone got their belief in her over the winter. Maybe it all went away because Jackie’s been hoarding this feeling for herself. “It’s not your fault. You had a lot going on, Lottie.”

 

“You’ve done a lot,” Lottie insists. She won’t let Jackie downplay her contributions. She’d done so much for them all now. Especially Lottie. “Maybe you’re not in charge anymore, but you’re a part of this group. We need you.” Then, quieter, “I need you.” It’s selfish again, but it’s the truth. Lottie can’t hide from it. 

 

She glances away. “I just wanted to help everyone, you know?” she lays back down, burrowing into Jackie. “I never wanted to be in charge.”

 

“I wouldn’t have done anything without you,” Jackie says back. She knows it’s true. She thinks Lottie knows it’s tried, too. “I need you, too. I wouldn’t be here without you. I wouldn’t have even made it through the first snow.”

 

Jackie pulls at Lottie to get her to lie on her a little more. “Heavy is the head,” she murmurs. “I think you did your best. You tried. You have so many something to believe in, and that’s what we all needed. You weren’t a bad leader, babe. It’s just hard out here”

 

Scooting closer, Lottie rests her head on Jackie’s chest, tucked under her chin. She doesn’t think she was good at leading at all. She’d never wanted that anyway. But before she even realized what was happening, people were looking to her for answers and for permission and for salvation. What else was she supposed to do other than try and give it to them? She’d tried so hard.

 

“I don’t think I was ever going to be enough,” she says. “They needed more than I could give them.”

 

“I don’t think anyone could have been enough during the winter. Everyone was cold and starving. There was no food. Everyone kept slipping further and further into themselves,” Jackie murmurs. She doesn’t think that anyone’s leadership would have survived months of starvation. But the team needed Lottie, so they’d kept her alive. Jackie needs Lottie. She’ll do whatever she can to keep her alive. 

 

As happy as Lottie is to be alive right now, to have Jackie, she feels deep down as though she shouldn't be. She doesn't deserve to be. If they'd just let her die, then Javi would still be alive right now. An innocent life, worth more than she could ever hope to be. He had saved them. 

 

“I wish there was something more I could've done,” Lottie confesses quietly, “I wish I'd been enough.”

 

Jackie shakes her head. “There’s nothing else you could have done,” she murmurs. One hand takes one of Lottie’s pigtails, playing with the end of it. “Unless you can secretly summon cheeseburgers from the sky and didn’t tell anyone. Or unless you found a pay phone we could use.”

 

“Or if I'd just been able to get us food,” Lottie mumbles. 

 

“Want me to tell Nat that?” Jackie asks, raising an eyebrow as she tilts Lottie’s head to look at her.

 

“No,” Lottie grumbles. She didn't mean it like that. She glances away. “They all thought I got us the bear and the birds, maybe if I'd believed too It would've given us something else.”

 

“Lottie,” Jackie sighs. “Nobody believes in it as much as you do. There’s nothing else you could’ve done. You went out hunting without anything to hunt with. You almost died twice. There’s nothing else.”

 

Lottie doesn't think anyone believes in It anymore, actually, but she doesn't say that. “Aside from dying myself, I guess.” But she didn't want to die, not really, not anymore, and she was still trying to figure out how to live with that.

 

“You’re not allowed to do that.” Jackie tugs on Lottie’s chin, meeting her eyes. “You’re not.”

 

“I'm not going to,” Lottie says back with a soft conviction, “I don't want to die anymore.” 

 

Jackie nods, wrapping her arms around Lottie again. “Good. That’s good. I… I don’t want to, either.”

 

Lottie hugs Jackie back, holding her tightly. She knows how terrified Jackie gets when Lottie talks about dying. She hates making her feel that way. But Lottie's always been like this, she thinks. She's never really wanted to be alive, not even she was apparently nothing but a mistake. 

 

“It's just strange, to feel this way,” she admits on a quiet breath, “when all my life I've wanted to…I just never really wanted to be alive.”

 

“Maybe it’ll start feeling normal soon,” Jackie whispers. “When you’ve felt this way enough.”

 

It's a nice thought, really. One Lottie hopes can come true. “If it does, it'll be because of you.”

 

The words make Jackie smile. She’ll make this feel normal for Lottie. She’ll make Lottie realize that being happy is something she can have, something she deserves. And, if it means that Jackie gets to keep her, then that just makes Jackie especially lucky. 

 

Resting her head back on Jackie's chest, Lottie lets out a long breath. “Maybe I saved you so you could save me, too,” she whispers.

 

Jackie moves just enough to press her lips to the crown of Lottie’s head. “I think so.”

 

Lottie looks down at their legs intertwined, and to the thin, white scars that line her thighs, the bottom of her stomach. Jackie never asks about them and Lottie's never said anything. 

 

“I tried to…do it, once. Kill myself. After an incident at the country club. You remember that week I was absent in sophomore year? My mom was really mad at me and I'd stopped taking my pills because I hated the way they made me feel and it got…bad. I almost hurt someone. They took me to the hospital and I had to stay there for two days and then when I got home my mom just…wasn't there. She never even told my dad what happened.” Lottie's never told a soul about that. She never thought it mattered. It feels like it matters now. “And then I went back to school the next week and it was like nothing had happened. I felt so alone. I know it was my fault, it's not like I ever said anything, but I couldn't help it. I didn’t think anyone would care.”

 

It couldn’t be easy to say something like that out loud. Jackie knows that, and she’s so fucking grateful for the amount of trust that Lottie has in her. She wants to tell Jackie things, and it makes Jackie feel needed. She is needed. Lottie needs her, and Jackie needs Lottie. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. She’s sorry that Lottie felt like that. She’s sorry that no one was there. She’s sorry that it even happened in the first place. “Thank you for telling me. You’re– You’re never going to have to feel like that again. Never. I promise.” She offers Lottie a squeeze. “And if you do, you won’t be alone.”

 

There’s a small moment where Lottie feels too raw, too exposed, but then Jackie is telling her that she doesn’t have to ever feel that way again. That she’s not alone. It sort of breaks something in her. Something that she thinks she’s been holding onto for a long time, even after their first kiss, their first night together, their first declarations of love. It was the fear of still being alone. The fear that all of this was just temporary, just like everything else in her life.

 

But Jackie wasn’t temporary. This wasn’t temporary. The hardened part of herself shatters in this moment and Lottie squeezes Jackie back and says so quietly, so softly, “Thank you.” It’s all she can say. She doesn’t look at Lottie like she’s studying her. She doesn’t ask her ‘and why did you feel that way?’. She’s not afraid of the dark, messy parts of her. She loves her despite them. Or maybe she loves them, too. Those broken, jagged edges inside of her. It doesn’t matter. Not really. Jackie loves all of Lottie somehow, someway, and Lottie loves all of Jackie, too. That’s all that matters.

 

“I love you.”

 

This is something significant, a moment that Jackie thinks she’ll look back on and see as something between them settling into place and solidifying. It’s big of Lottie to share this with Jackie. She’s always noticed the little scars, worried about them since the day Lottie cut herself to ground herself in reality. Jackie can’t help but check Lottie over sometimes, searching skin with her fingers, memorizing Lottie to the point that Jackie would know her blind. But she never said anything. Lottie didn’t try to pry information out of her. Jackie wants to return the favor. 

 

“I love you, too,” Jackie whispers, pressing her fingers to the crown of Lottie’s head and scratching softly. “So much.”

 

Lottie is quiet, settled against Jackie. She feels safe and it feels like the most important thing in the world that she does. “If I ever start to feel that way again, or-or like I want to hurt myself, I promise I'll tell you first. I-- I'll try.” It's the most she can do right now. She hopes it's enough.

 

Jackie nods, swallowing tightly. That’s all she could ask for. “Thank you. I won’t let you hurt yourself, okay? We’ll… find better ways to deal with it. Like we talked about. Better ways to make you feel real.”

 

Lottie simply nods. Being with Jackie is the most real she's ever felt, this she knows. “Just being with you helps. Feeling you, holding you.” She burrows a little further into Jackie. “I just need you.” As long as she has Jackie, Lottie thinks she'll be okay.

 

“Good thing I’m not going anywhere, huh?” Jackie asks, smiling softly as she presses a kiss into Lottie’s hair. 

 

“You better not,” Lottie says, pressing her nose against Jackie’s neck. “I won’t survive without you.”

 

“Right back at ya,” Jackie says, shivering slightly at the feeling of Lottie’s nose before sighing contentedly and resting further into their bedding.

 

Lottie curls up against Jackie and holds her tight. Maybe they’ll only have a few minutes, or maybe they’ll have more, but either way, this is all Lottie ever wants, to hold and be held. Such a simple thing, she hopes it's okay with Jackie.

Notes:

I was going to apologize for how often they get naked but isn't that kind of the point of fanfic? anyway, never thought of all the ships these two would be the ones that would take over my life and i have zero regrets! We hope you all enjoy it, too! Again, thanks so so so much for all the comments we love hearing from you guys!

Chapter 32: there's a madness in loving you

Summary:

Down by the water, Jackie and Lottie just can't seem to keep their hands to themselves. Or their lips, their tongues, their teeth. Really, it's becoming a problem. But they still make time to talk. A little bit of communication goes a long way, something that Lottie and Jackie are both learning, and it makes the moments in between all the sweeter.

Notes:

Unlike some people (envy), I (vi) can get chapters put up relatively on time. Not quite the weekend, I know, but it's getting crunch time for me as we near the end of the year, so things are getting a little stressful! That being said, we have plenty already written for you guys, so we'll always be sure to have something for these two fools each week, no matter what time it comes out to you

Title comes from a quote by Leo Christopher. "There's a madness in loving you, a lack of reason that makes it feel so flawless."

Lottie is content to just lay there with Jackie until she hears Natalie calling out to everyone that there’s food ready if anyone is hungry. She doesn’t know how long it’s been, but she knows that she feels warm and sleepy by the time they stir. 

 

“Are you hungry at all?” she asks Jackie, scrubbing a hand across her face to try and wake up just a little bit.

 

Food isn’t really on Jackie’s mind as she lies with Lottie holding her. “We can go eat if you want to,” Jackie says. She knows they probably should eat. They’re all constantly in need of food, even if they’re not actively starving in the same way they had been back during the cold. Jackie just doesn’t always have the easiest time eating.

 

“We can wait a bit,” Lottie tells her, laying her head back down. She doesn’t mind. And besides, she kind of just wants to spend the rest of the night with just Jackie. It was nice watching them all together today, but now she just wanted to stay here. It felt suddenly terrifying to go outside their hut, as if somehow more than just Jackie had heard her words. She knows that’s not possible but the fear is there. It always has been.

 

Jackie nods, letting one hand go to Lottie’s head as it lays back against her as the other lazily drifts over Lottie’s body, feeling bare skin and heat. “A bit sounds good. It was a late lunch, anyway. We can hold off.” 

 

Lottie is more than happy to just stay here. She moves her head just enough to place a kiss on Jackie’s chin. “Look, we actually laid down without, you know, getting hot and heavy.”

 

Jackie actually laughs. “Lottie, you’re naked.”

 

“Well, I mean, after that part.”

 

“I think that part still counts as when we laid down,” Jackie teases.

 

Lottie gives a huff, pouting. “I guess I could put my clothes back on. Would it count then?”

 

“I feel like you still, you know, came a few minutes ago, so it probably still counts, yeah.” Jackie brushes her fingers over Lottie’s cheeks. She’s so cute. Jackie could probably just stare at her for hours. 

 

“It's been long enough!” Lottie protests, but she's not trying very hard. She sort of melts into a puddle when Jackie looks at her like that, with that sparkle on her eye, as if Lottie were something precious or special. 

 

She leans up and places a soft kiss on her lips. “Then again, I don't think it's a bad thing. Maybe I just can't keep my hands off of you.”

 

“It’s not a bad thing,” Jackie agrees, sighing against Lottie’s lips. “I definitely don’t mind.”

 

“Good, that-- that's good,” Lottie manages to mumble through the kiss, not really wanting to pull away yet. 

 

Then, she remembers something. “Did you still want to go to the river with me? It's okay if not, I just-- I should probably wash up.” And she likes Jackie's company, maybe a little too much. Maybe just the right amount. Even if they're just sitting, doing nothing, Lottie loves being with Jackie.

 

Nodding, Jackie doesn’t pull away from the kiss just yet, either. Maybe she also has a problem keeping her hands off of Lottie. “I probably need to wash up a little, too.” It doesn’t matter where Lottie goes, though. If Jackie has the option to go with her, she’s always going to take it.

 

“Okay.” Lottie presses her lips against Jackie's as she speaks, unwilling to pull away. She still tastes so good and Lottie thinks she can even taste herself on Jackie. She loves it. 

 

This isn’t the first time Jackie’s finally understood why so many of her classmates were constantly horny in high school, but it definitely lingers in the back of her mind as they kiss. She thinks she’s okay with just kissing; it might be her favorite part. Or one of them. Maybe she just loves everything about being with Lottie. She’s completely, utterly, head over heels in love, and it’s driving her crazy. Jackie doesn’t think she minds. 

 

Lottie has always liked the kissing part. She's not sure what it is or why, but it definitely is one hundred times better with Jackie. Just knowing that she's the only one that gets to kiss her now, knowing that Jackie is the only one who gets to kiss Lottie-- it makes her entire body feel warm. And she knows that Jackie would be just fine with just kissing. She's not looking for more. Lottie isn't just a body to touch, replaceable if needed. 

 

And she thinks that just be it-- Lottie isn't replaceable to Jackie. She doesn't think she's ever felt that way before. 

 

When she finally pulls back from the kiss, she's breathing heavy and her cheeks are flushed again. “Do you-- do you want to go now?”

 

Jackie nods as she looks at Lottie, her lips parted and her pupils wide. “Yeah,” she breathes. “Yeah, we can go now.” They can go whenever Lottie wants. Jackie doesn’t care. She’s just happy to go along with whatever Lottie wants.

 

The unfortunate part of getting up is that Lottie has to put clothes back on. But she's just going to take them off at the river, so she figures she can save herself time by just pulling on her dress. It hangs loosely around her body but it covers enough. She holds her hands out to Jackie. “We can probably just slip out the back.”

 

Throwing her sweater back on as Lottie puts on her dress, Jackie takes her hands and nods. She grabs them a two blankets and shoves her feet back in her shoes, and then she’s tugging them out the door, glancing around at the rest of camp before starting in the direction of the river.

 

There’s only a few girls sitting around the fire pit, picking at some of the food, and it’s easy for Lottie and Jackie to slip away unnoticed and head to the river for some privacy.

 

It’s not a far walk at all and by the time they get there, Lottie is already missing the warmth of having Jackie’s body wrapped around hers. She waits for Jackie to set their blankets aside before she’s tugging her back into her, wrapping arms around her shoulders and pressing a heated kiss to her lips. Maybe it’d only been a few minutes, but she was already craving the taste of her again, so sweet and tangy.

 

Jackie wraps her hands around Lottie’s hips and stands up on her toes, leaning up into the kiss even more. She likes the way that Lottie’s lips feel against her own, likes how soft they are. Even now, they’re a little kiss swollen from earlier, and that plushness feels perfect against Jackie’s own. It’s hard to want to move away. Jackie doesn’t think she could if she tried.

 

And really, Lottie thinks she can just chalk her eagerness to pull her dress off up to wanting to get clean. They’d been out at the lake all day, sweating a little, tanning, standing in sand. It made sense, really. She threw it down next to their towels and tugged at the bottom of Jackie’s sweater, eager to get her clothes off as well.

 

It’s pretty easy to get Jackie to tug her sweater off, letting it join Lottie’s dress as she toes at her shoes and steps out of them. She fumbles with the button of her shorts for own a moment, a breathless huff leaving her lips and she finally gets it off and shoves them and her underwear down until she’s standing in front of Lottie and looking up at her, breathing heavy.

 

God, Lottie is so head over heels for this girl. The way she’s looking at Lottie now, the way she always looks at her, those big, beautiful eyes staring at her like she means something and like she wants Lottie so bad she can’t handle not having her.

 

Lottie reattaches their lips, gripping Jackie’s jaw with her hands cupped around her cheeks. She kisses her deep and heavy, open-mouthed and wanting, as she starts to walk them back towards the river.

 

Over the last few months, Jackie's steps have grown more sure in the forest, more confident, even at night, only the moonlight above to show them where they’re going. Which is a good thing because she refuses to move too far from Lottie, as much of them touching as possible, hands against hips, lips desperately touching lips, legs getting tangled. 

 

Jackie gasps as her feet touch the water, leaning more into Lottie to try and cling to her warmth. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be used to the cold. That doesn’t really matter, though, not when Lottie will always be there to keep her warm.

 

Wrapping Jackie up further into her arms, Lottie moves them into the cool water, immediately moving her hands to lift Jackie’s legs up and around her waist. She’s already light, and the water just makes her even lighter, and Lottie likes holding her like this, arm muscles barely straining to hold her against her as they kiss. 

 

It’s nice to be able to do this and not have to worry about Lottie’s ribs, even if Jackie can’t help but reach to brush her fingers over the scar in Lottie’s side, the ribs that were broken but are better now. She still gets worried, even as she wraps her arms around Lottie’s neck and presses them flush against each other. 

 

A shiver runs through Lottie not because of the cool water, but because of the fingers grazing her skin. Her scar. Just another to add to the pile, really. She knew Jackie still worried even though Lottie was healed now. At least as much as she could out here. It still ached when the weather shifted or after a long day bent over in the garden, but that was normal. She thought that was normal.

 

Besides, she just wanted to focus on Jackie right now, on the taste of her lips, or the inviting warmth of her body against Lottie’s back so nice against the jarring chill of the water. She bites down gently on her bottom lip to get her to open them, tongue sliding against already swollen skin.

 

Jackie lets her lips part, moving her hands to Lottie’s hair and tugging on one of her braids. She moans into Lottie’s mouth, pressing herself up, closer, as close as she can. There’s no way to get closer, even as they strain with it, desperate for it, as if they weren’t just wrapped up in each other not that long before.

 

Lottie just can’t help-- she’s thought it before and she thinks it again now-- Jackie is like a drug to her. Except there’s less downsides to indulging in Jackie. She can kiss her and hold her and fuck her without consequence. And she’s trying her best to let go of the guilt, too. So far, it’s working.

 

She squeezes Jackie’s ass as she pulls her closer, kisses her harder. She feels a little insane with how much she always wants to be kissing Jackie, she was never like this before. At least, she didn’t think she was. She doesn’t think it matters anymore. She wants to be this way.

 

It feels like they’re trying to consume each other. Jackie doesn’t mind being consumed. She gasps as Lottie squeezes her, pulls her even closer. Her nails dig into Lottie’s shoulders. There’s nowhere else in the world that Jackie wants to be but right there, being held by Lottie Matthews. She doesn’t want to be home. She doesn’t want to be at Rutgers. There’s nowhere else. She’d take this over anything in the world.

 

“God,” Jackie groans, panting as she parts just enough for them to breathe. She laughs. “I love you. I love you so much.”

 

Lottie lets out a heavy breath, smiling at Jackie. “I love you so fucking much,” she sighs, nuzzling against her before giving her another kiss, just a bit softer this time. “I think I’d pretty much do anything for you.”

 

“Just be here,” Jackie says, brushing a hand against Lottie’s cheek. “And love me. I’m a simple girl, Lottie Matthews. I just want you to want me.” Love her, hold her, never, ever leave her. She just wants all of Lottie. Sometimes it’s hard to put that into words.

 

“Easy,” Lottie replies, leaning into Jackie’s palm. “I already do. So, so much.”

 

Jackie feels her smile widen. “I know you do.” She feels the same. She loves Lottie so much it feels like it’s leaking out of her pores. She wants Lottie all the time, desperately, making her feel dizzy with it. Her legs tighten around Lottie’s waist. “I’ll always feel the same. Always. I’ll always be here for you.”

 

“I know,” Lottie echoes, smiling just as wide as she looks into Jackie’s eyes and sees-- knows-- that she’s telling the truth. There’s nothing more true. Leaning back in to kiss her again, Lottie uses one hand to press against Jackie’s back, holding their bodies together. God, she loves her so much, it makes her lightheaded. Or maybe it’s the lack of breath from all the kissing. She wasn’t about to stop soon.

 

It’s like breathing to lean back into Lottie’s lips, to kiss and kiss and kiss until this is the only thing her body really knows how to do. Jackie can’t shoot a gun; in fact, she’s not even allowed around weapons at all. She sucks at putting up fences. She’s horrible at building huts. Her fishing techniques could use a lot of work when nets aren’t involved. But she can kiss Lottie Matthews, and she knows Lottie enjoys it. That’s probably the only skill she could ever really want.

 

Lottie thinks that they were both aware there was never really going to be any washing. Neither of them can keep their hands off the other long enough for that. Not when they’re left alone like this. 

 

She makes sure Jackie’s legs are tight around her waist before moving her other hand around, sliding over her stomach, before moving down slowly. And she keeps kissing her the whole time, too. She just wants to keep touching her.

 

As she feels Lottie’s hand start to move, Jackie kisses her a little faster, panting into Lottie’s mouth before brushing her tongue against plush lips. Her hips roll, already anticipating Lottie’s touch. 

 

So much for them managing not to touch each other. They’d just have to try again another time. Try and fail, if their track record means anything. 

 

Lottie doesn’t really care about restraint at this point. Why would she? She’d rather fall headlong into this, into Jackie. She kisses her harder, more, already feeling Jackie’s body moving into her touch. And she’d hate to make her wait when she clearly wants her so much. 

 

The spot between Jackie’s legs is so warm, Lottie’s fingers rubbing slow circles at first before picking up. Teasing her near her entrance as she bites down on her lip again.

 

This is what Jackie thinks heaven looks like, feels like. She moans as Lottie bites down on her lip, and her hips jerk forward, trying to get Lottie closer. She always just wants Lottie closer. 

 

Sue her, alright? Not only is Lottie insanely pretty and a girl, which is apparently the only kind of person that Jackie thinks she’s really attracted to, but she’s also completely in love with Jackie. She’s sweet, smart, funny, caring. And she makes Jackie feel so good. It’s only natural that Jackie would want, need Lottie this bad.

 

It’s hard for Lottie to want to take her time when all she wants to do is hear Jackie moan and give her what she clearly wants from Lottie. She’s all the more happy to give it to her, pressing two fingers into her slowly until she can feel her clenching around her. Her breath is heavy against Jackie’s lips, kissing down to her jaw again, her neck, lapping up the bit of water that had splashed up there.

 

Jackie tilts her head back as a ragged sound leaves her mouth, as Lottie kisses her neck and licks up the water on it. It’s so hot. She feels like she’s on fire, spreading down her chest, making her feel light headed. Her head being titled is just as much for her own benefit as Lottie’s. Jackie is practically buzzing as fingers move inside her and lips trail across her skin. 

 

Lottie moans into Jackie’s skin at the sound, at the feeling of nails digging into her skin. She can’t believe how good it feels. Well, maybe she can, with Jackie. It always feels this good with Jackie. Just listening to her makes Lottie feel good.

 

She moves her hand between Jackie’s legs, fingers curling. She remembers the wonderful noises Jackie made when she bit her earlier, so she does that again, softly at first, then harder, her unnaturally long canines digging into skin again.

 

The way Lottie touches her makes Jackie moan again, louder, made louder still by the feeling of teeth biting into her neck. She’ll wake up in the morning with more new marks than she can count, all over her neck and chest, showing just how well loved Jackie is by Lottie Matthews. And Jackie will savor each and every one. They’re all gifts, just like the necklace that now hangs against her skin. 

 

Lottie finds herself wanting to bite down harder but she refrains. She doesn’t want to actually hurt Jackie and it scares her a little, how much she wants to break skin and taste blood. Instead, she focuses on the movement of her hand between her legs, and the taste of water on her skin. She just loves everything about Jackie. What more is there to say?

 

Her free hand comes up to hold the back of Jackie’s neck, fingers curling into hair, holding onto her like her life depends on it. And, really, it does.

 

“Harder,” Jackie gasps. “More.” She just wants everything that Lottie will give her. She wants the stretch and sting before it settles in her body, making her feel so good. She’s never really liked pain, but being with Lottie doesn’t really hurt. It’s just a pleasant ache that lingers around, reminding her how cared for she is. 

 

Lottie can do harder, Lottie can do more. She pauses her pace only to slide in another finger before resuming. She'll do whatever Jackie wants of her. She'd end the world for her, she thinks. A thought that should also terrify her, but it doesn't. Not even a little. 

 

She moves her head to the other side of Jackie's neck and finds another spot to bite down, sucking. She feels a little animal, with how much she enjoys the taste is Jackie’s skin.

 

“God,” Jackie moans out, clinging to Lottie even tighter. It feels so good. She never thought anything would feel this good. The water moves around them, sloshing against their skin, a cool touch mixed with heated ones. Jackie doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of this. She doesn’t want to. “Lottie.”

 

Lottie shudders at the sound of her name. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. She moves her mouth back to Jackie's, mumbling against her lips, “you're so beautiful.” She loves her so much. Lottie never thought someone as unlovable as herself could ever love someone else this much. But she does, god she does. She's desperate with it.

 

Jackie kisses Lottie back, sloppy and frantic, even though she knows Lottie’s not going to be taken away from her, even though she knows Lottie’s not going anywhere. “You, too,” she breathes. “You, too.” Lottie’s gorgeous, wonderful. Jackie honestly thinks she’s perfect. The prettiest girl she’s ever seen. Endlessly, ridiculously beautiful.

 

They're both so desperate and frantic, as if they hadn't touched in ages. But it's not true. Lottie knows it's not. They just did this earlier, before coming here, but there's something in the back of her mind that is making her feel this way. 

 

She ignores it. Kisses Jackie more. Bites her lip, sucks on her skin, fucks her hard. Gives her whatever she wants 

 

It’s getting harder and harder for Jackie to hold herself up as they move against each other, as Lottie’s teeth bite into her lip and her fingers curl and reach and hit that spot deep inside, making her gasp as she moans and cries out. She’s so close. She feels like she’s on the edge of a cliff, just waiting to tumble off. They should be relaxed after the time they’d spent together in their hut, but it’s kind of like a craving. Silly, horny teenagers who can’t get enough of each other have sex in the woods. If this was a horror movie, a killer would be watching them. 

 

They’ve already lived through a horror movie and then some. The most dangerous things out there don’t even feel like threats to them anymore. The last time they were in the water like this just a few days ago, Lottie bit Jackie’s lip hard enough to make her bleed. She can still feel the sting of it, and she returns the favor by accident, nipping at plush lips without realizing there’s a give until she tastes iron on her tongue.

 

Lottie feels teeth cutting into her lip and it makes a shudder run down her entire body as she moans. She tastes the same iron Jackie does and she’s more than willing to share it, licking it into her mouth, kissing her harder. She moves her hand a little faster, she wants to feel Jackie coming in her hand. Wants to taste her own blood on Jackie’s lips, in her mouth. Wants to cry her name as loud as Jackie cries her own.

 

Jackie moans again into the kisses, sucks Lottie’s lip into her mouth, holds on tight and moves her hips with each touch as she feels that tight coil stretch and snap. She tenses and gasps when she comes, pressing her forehead against Lottie’s so that she can breathe. It never stops feeling good. It doesn’t seem like it ever will.

 

Holding her through it, Lottie mutters words of encouragement to Jackie as she feels her release. It’s so wonderful, it makes Lottie moan into Jackie’s mouth, too. She only stops once she feels Jackie’s body coming down, pulling her fingers out slowly, lamenting that the water had washed off the taste of her already. She moves her hand to her back again, keeping her upright. “You’re so fucking hot.”

 

Shivering as she feels Lottie moving her fingers out, Jackie leans into Lottie, panting against her. Her eyes flutter open, and she moves to where she can look at Lottie’s face, smiling and blinking at her with a heady look in her eyes. She reaches to brush her fingers against Lottie’s lip, a small bead of blood brushing against her. “Sorry,” she murmurs, bringing her finger to her own lip and licking it off. 

 

Lottie simply shakes her head. “I liked it,” she says back, licking her lip where Jackie's finger had been, finding another bead of blood. It makes her feel alive. It makes her feel normal, to know she bleeds the same way everyone else does. It makes her feel intertwined with Jackie, knowing her blood is inside of her, too. 

 

“We match,” Jackie mumbles, though hers has almost healed after so many days. She hadn’t thought it hurt, either. Not in any way that mattered. It had felt good, just like everything Lottie does felt good, and now Jackie feels thoroughly fucked. She doesn’t even have words for it. At least, not words that don’t make her already flushed skin even redder. She’s grateful for the darkness. “You’re so good.”

 

Smiling, Lottie rests her head on Jackie's shoulder, letting the feeling of cold water and a warm body bring her comfort. “It's easy to know what you like now,” Lottie says, “you're very vocal about it.”

 

Jackie can’t help but tuck her face away, more and more heat trailing from her cheeks and down to her chest. “Shut up.”

 

Nudging her chin, Lottie shakes her head again. “It's a good thing, I like that you're loud.” And she does. She likes that she can hear how much Jackie likes it when Lottie touches her.

 

At least Lottie likes it. It makes it a little easier for Jackie to not be embarrassed. She feels like she should be, with the way they get teased, with how unladylike it is. But, god. When Lottie’s touching her like that, making her feel so good, Jackie just wants to let her know. She wants to let the world know. Because she likes when Lottie’s loud, too. Her hands move, trailing over Lottie’s chest and palming at her breasts gently.

 

Lottie hums softly, arching her chest into Jackie's touch. She's discovering a lot of new things about herself and sex with Jackie, and it's kind of exhilarating. She likes that she's comfortable enough with Jackie to try new things. She just likes being with Jackie. She leans forward and places a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth.

 

Letting her legs unwrap from Lottie’s waist, Jackie can still feel the way they tremble, still weak from the pleasure Lottie had given her. But Jackie wants to be closer, wants to return the favor, and the angle was too awkward for her to want to fumble through for too long when all she wants right now is to put her hands everywhere. She keeps them on Lottie’s breasts, liking the way Lottie arches into her touch.

 

Lottie misses the tightness of Jackie's legs around her, sure, but she does like this, leaning into the touch more, prodding her for more pressure, more touching, more everything, really. She sighs happily, then, resting her head on Jackie's shoulder and smiling. “You're just so lovely,” she mumbles dreamily.

 

Jackie’s fingers focus on the sensitive skin of Lottie’s breast, plucking and twisting as she feels it puckering and tightening under her fingers. She smiles as Lottie relaxes against her, and she has no problem keeping them like that for a few minutes. It’s clear Lottie wants more, and Jackie wants to give it to her. She wants to give Lottie everything in the world. But she also likes the teasing. Eventually, she slips one hand between Lottie’s legs, the slick contrast between the water letting her easily slip her fingers inside. “You’re gorgeous.”

 

Soft moans fall from Lottie's lips at the touch of fingers. God, she knows just how to make Lottie melt. She's already feeling hot and electric by the time Jackie’s hand slides between her legs. A louder moan pulls itself from her throat and she moves her body closer, wrapping her arms around Jackie's shoulders. Lips brushing against old bruises and new ones on her neck.

 

“So gorgeous,” Jackie murmurs, agreeing with herself as Lottie moves into her touch. Each moan that pulls itself out of Lottie’s mouth feels like a winning goal, and Jackie thinks that moments like this make missing nationals worth it. It’s a selfish, stupid thought. The world outside of this place has to be better than the ways they’ve starved and suffered for about a year, now. But that’s easy to forget as she moves her fingers between Lottie’s legs and hears, sees, feels her pleasure. 

 

To Lottie, this is the best her life has ever been, really. There's no place she'd rather be. No one else she'd rather be with. Maybe in another life, another time, but in this one, she only wants Jackie. Her breath picks up pace and her hips move into Jackie's touch. She digs fingers back into her hair, tugging. “Bite me again,” she pants, “please.”

 

The way that Lottie’s hands pull at her hair absolutely steal Jackie’s ability to think for longer than she cares to admit, her body working off of instinct as her fingers meet Lottie’s hips, pressing in and curling to hit that perfect spot. But her mind catches up with the words, and she moves her lips to Lottie’s neck, kissing the marks she’s already left behind before biting down, not breaking skin again but leaving fresh indents behind. 

 

Lottie gives a high pitched, breathy moan, rolling her head to the side-- but a cry leaves her lips when teeth dig into her flesh. God, it feels so good. Lottie isn't sure it should feel this good, but it does. It really, really does. “Fuck,” she pants, clinging to Jackie, “yes. Jackie.” It's all she can say, curses and Jackie's name, a hymn from her heart. She loves her so much. 

 

Jackie loves when Lottie says her name, and she smiles into her skin, kissing and soothing the place she just bit down. Her fingers move faster, and her free hand tugs Lottie even closer. This is kind of perfection. It’s kind of wonderful. She thinks she could stay in this moment forever. 

 

By the time Lottie can feel herself building to the crescendo of her pleasure, she's babbling incoherently into Jackie's ear, calling out her name like a mantra. “Jackie,” she sighs, her voice an octave higher than normal, “I'm so close.” She tugs on her hair again, pulls her closer. “Please.”

 

The words make Jackie shudder, and Jackie lifts herself up as Lottie pulls her closer. She always wants to be closer. She likes being closer. And the way that Lottie says her name is addicting. Jackie attaches her lips back to Lottie’s, hungry, desperate. “You can,” she breathes. “You can.”

 

Lottie nods, breathless. Every exhale is met with a moan, rising in pitch, until finally she can feel herself snapping. She lets out a loud cry, clinging to Jackie, body shuddering with her release. Her eyes roll back up into her head even as she tries to keep herself from losing it completely. She so easily could with Jackie. Just let go and melt away into the water with her. She kisses her back, sloppy and exhausted, panting against lips. “I think I know why men fought wars over women,” she exhales, smiling.

 

“You’re ridiculous,” Jackie says, laughing. It does make her feel good, though. The thought that she makes Lottie feel so good that she says such silly things makes Jackie all warm inside, and she moves her hands slowly up to Lottie’s neck. “But so pretty.”

 

“I’m being serious, you know,” Lottie huffs playfully, “The Trojan War was literally fought over one woman. I think I’d start a war for you, if it meant I got to keep you forever.” She rolls her head into Jackie’s touch, savoring the cool feel of her wet skin against her warm cheeks, still flushed and red. 

 

“Sure, Achilles,” Jackie says, still laughing. A part of her knows that’s wrong, but she’s never been all that interested in myths and fables, sinners and saints. It all seemed so far away from a world of cars and electricity and hot water. Of course, there wasn’t any of that out here. Nothing except a fair share of ghosts that decided to leave Jackie alone, at least for tonight. “Do not start any wars for me,” Jackie teased, trying to sound stern but unable to keep it up for too long. “It’s nice I make you all silly, though.”

 

“No, no, not Achilles, Paris! The prince of Troy? Hence the Trojan in Trojan War?” Lottie corrected. Maybe it was silly, but she’d always loved history. She liked learning about the world before it had become what it was today. A world where people like her didn’t have to be crazy and feared, but where they could be worshipped and revered.

 

Not that Lottie wants that for herself. She just wants Jackie and she has her, so, really, Lottie wants for very little. Having control of her own mind would be nice, though.

 

She buries her face in Jackie’s shoulder. “I’m not silly. I just like history.”

 

If it was possible, Jackie’s smile widens. “Paris like the city?” she teases. “It all goes back to French, doesn’t it?” Really, though she’s just giving Lottie a bad time. And Jackie loves to hear her talk. She loves the sounds of Lottie’s voice, the ebb and flow of it, the way it’s so soothing. “You’re very silly. Wanting to go to war for a girl? Silly stuff, Matthews. And I haven’t even washed your hair yet. Though, you’re really hot when you, you know, come.”

 

“Now I know you're just messing with me, Taylor. I know you did good in history, too “ Lottie huffs, rolling her eyes, but really, she doesn't care. She'll take whatever Jackie wants to give her. And she would start a war for her, any day. 

 

She blushes, though it's hard to see, she can still feel her cheeks warming as she leans back into Jackie's neck. “Only you can make me come like that.”

 

It’s nice, the way that Lottie doesn’t actually let Jackie play dumb, and it makes her smile, brushing her hands over Lottie’s hair, trailing one hand down to tug on a pigtail again. 

 

Jackie knows that her cheeks flush red at the words, even if the night sky is covering it pretty well. It’s intoxicating, knowing that she’s the only one that can make Lottie feel like that. Maybe Lottie’s just being sweet, but it feels genuine. The reverse is certainly true. No one makes Jackie feel as good as Lottie does. “Come on. Let me wash your hair.”

 

Lottie watches Jackie's face, she can see her blushing in the moonlight and it makes her feel hot all over again. She can't help it. She'd just bled and come and cried out for her and she thinks she already wants to again. “Okay,” she murmurs, glancing at her fingers playing with one of Lottie's braids she'd done earlier. “You can redo them when we're done.”

 

“I plan to,” Jackie says, offering Lottie a soft smile. She tugs Lottie down to her, pressing their lips together. Her tongue brushes out against Lottie’s bottom lip, the tang of blood still clinging to it. When she pulls back, she licks her own lips before undoing one of Lottie’s pigtails, holding the tie in one hand while the other starts undoing the braid. “Squat down,” she huffs, laughing quietly to herself. “I can’t reach all the way.”

 

“Yes, my lady,” Lottie teases, giving a soft grin as she bends down in the water, up to her neck. She turns around to give Jackie better access to her hair, already feeling it soak up the water and grow heavy. The feeling of Jackie's fingers combing through her hair makes her feel as if she could doze off right there. It would be pretty nice. She thinks Jackie would catch her.

 

Jackie rolls her eyes as she moves over to the other braid and works through it, watching Lottie’s wavy hair start to spill out and soak up the water. She tilts Lottie’s head back so she can start combing her fingers through all of it, working out the tangled piece by piece. 

 

Her hands can’t help themselves, wandering over Lottie’s body as she waits in front of Jackie. They linger at her breasts as Jackie presses closer, her front to Lottie’s back. “Sorry,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s shoulder before pulling away, moving to get her own hair wet. She just can’t seem to help herself. She wants to touch Lottie all the time.

 

Lottie's eyes do drift closed for a moment. Jackie's hand brushes through her hair delicately, gentle even as she pulls the tangles apart. She shivers. “It's okay,” Lottie mumbles back, missing the pressure when Jackie moves away. She turns around to watch her again, hands reaching through the cool water to grab Jackie's. “You don't ever have to apologize for touching me. It's my favorite thing in the world.”

 

“I’m trying to be behaved, you know,” Jackie teases, squeezing Lottie’s hands back. Otherwise, she knows they’d probably stay out there all night. Which would be really hot, but it wasn’t something they’d planned for. Would it be a walk of shame back in the morning if neither of them were ashamed? 

 

“I think it's a little late for that,” Lottie grins, tugging Jackie to her, pressing their lips together softly. They've far surpassed being behaved and Lottie couldn't care less. When she pulls away, she nuzzles against Jackie's cheek. “We are very bad at being behaved.”

 

Laughing, Jackie puts her hands on Lottie’s cheeks and kisses her again. Her words are muffled against soft lips, saying, “Speak for yourself. I’m very good at being behaved.” Just not around Lottie, apparently. It’s really, really hard when Lottie looks like some sort of goddess, wet and coated in moonlight. And she’s Jackie’s. Jackie gets to look and appreciate her and not worry about being caught and upsetting someone. It’s amazing.

 

“I guess I've just always been a wild child,” Lottie mutters back, mouth still against Jackie's. Their lips meet with every word. Her hands slide around Jackie's waist again, pulling her closer. “I can't help myself. You're just so hot. I want to touch you all the time. And kiss you, and taste you and just--” she sighs happily. “You.”

 

“Me?” Jackie teases, laughing again, liking the way it feels against Lottie’s lips. But she gets it. God, she gets it. It feels impossible to pull her hands away, to leave Lottie alone. Jackie thinks that she’s attached to Lottie in ways that she’s never felt with anyone else in her life. 

 

“You,” Lottie repeats, her voice and eyes filled with love. She gets what “hearts in their eyes” feels like now. It's the only way she can look at Jackie. She's everything to her. She's the only girl Lottie wants to look at. The only person Lottie wants to be with. She noses against her cheek, kisses it, lingering. She doesn't want to be anywhere but here or with anyone but Jackie.

 

“You’re ridiculous,” Jackie murmurs, but she’s so fucking… smitten that she doesn’t even have the words. This kind of all consuming need to know Lottie, to have her and love her and be loved by her was almost too much to take. She doesn’t know if she’d be able to feel like this about someone else because she doesn’t know if there is anyone else that would feel the same about her. Every time Jackie worries that she’s being too much, Lottie lets Jackie know that she’s not.

 

“I'm okay with that,” Lottie nods, pressing another kiss to her cheek, then her forehead, then her lips, sweet and soft for every one. “As long as I get to be ridiculous with you.” That's all Lottie really cares about. She thinks she would feel so alone and isolated out here if it weren't for Jackie. She can't even imagine what that would feel like.

 

Jackie acts like she’s thinking about it, really considering it. “I guess,” she says, but she’s preening under every kiss, smiling as she moves in closer. She stands on her toes and wraps her arms around Lottie. “I like being ridiculous with you, too.” She likes everything with Lottie, if she’s being honest. And she is. Jackie’s being so honest. Her nose presses against Lottie’s neck, breathing her in.

 

Such silly words shouldn't make Lottie feel as happy as they do, but god-damned if they do. So much so, she feels compelled to lean in and kiss her again, really kiss her, long and lingering and sweet. What else is she supposed to do? She doesn't think there's any other thing. 

 

There’s something about kissing Lottie that’s so addicting that Jackie can barely stand it. She just wants to keep kissing her, pressing even closer, her hands going to Lottie’s hips. The push and pull, the way their lips slide so perfectly against each other. It’s like they’ve become moulded to fit each other. “I’m getting kind of wrinkly,” she murmurs, threading her hands into Lottie’s hair.

 

“Does that mean you want to get out?” Lottie exhales back, already a little out of breath. And yet she still wants to just kiss Jackie. She can do that wherever, really. She'd kiss her anywhere. What was it that Dr. Seuss had written? In a plane, or on a train. In the rain. Anywhere.

 

“Do you?” It’s not that Jackie wants to get out, necessarily. She’ll do whatever Lottie wants. But maybe she is trying to lead them in one direction. She doesn’t like feeling pruny, that’s all.

 

“If you're ready, I'm ready,” Lottie answers. She doesn't really care one way or the other. She tries not to let herself feel strongly about things, it only ever got her into trouble before. It's easier to just go with the flow and do whatever everyone else wants to do. “I'm easy to please.”

 

“I just… wanna do whatever you want to do,” Jackie says, playing with Lottie’s hair again. She’s trying to be better. She’s trying to be good. One of Shauna’s biggest problems with Jackie was that, apparently, she controlled her life. Jackie doesn’t want Lottie to start resenting her, too. She doesn’t think she’d survive it.

 

“That's funny,” Lottie starts, “because I want to do whatever you do. So I guess we're at an impasse. Maybe we'll turn into raisins while we try to decide.” She's teasing Jackie, but she knows already that Jackie's always had issues about being the one in control, even if she didn't mean it in a bad way. “It's okay to tell me what you want to do. If I don't want to do it, I'll tell you.” At least, she'll try. She doesn't want Jackie to think Lottie will resent her for it, like Shauna apparently had. Lottie could never. The only person she's ever resented was her father, and even then, she doesn't hate him. She doesn't want to yell at him for controlling her life or making her feel like such a failure. She just wants him to love her. 

 

She just wants Jackie to keep loving her.

 

Jackie huffs, trying to glare at Lottie but unable to keep it up. She sags against Lottie, pressing her ear to Lottie’s chest. “You promise? You’ll tell me if you don’t want to do something and not just… act like I’m supposed to know?” Her voice is quiet, unsure. She’d thought she knew everything about Shauna, and she guesses that Shauna thought the same. That must have been why it was so upsetting when Jackie didn’t know exactly what Shauna wanted, when she treated her badly. Jackie knows it’s her fault, she gets that, but, god. She wishes that Shauna would have just used her words. She knew so many. It shouldn’t have been hard. “I want to get out. I like touching you. I don’t like feeling like I’ve got old lady hands while I’m touching you.”

 

Lottie is gentle and kind when she puts a hand on Jackie's head, stroking her hair. “I promise.” She leans down to place a kiss on the crown of her head. “Besides, how could you possibly know what I'm thinking when half the time I don't even know?” It's a joke to help lighten the tension, but it's also true. Lottie so often wonders what her own mind is trying to think. It's just as frustrating for her as anyone else.

 

Scooping Jackie into her arms, then, she starts to walk them towards the shore. “Then we'll get out, because I don't want you feeling like you have old lady hands, either.”

 

Lottie picks Jackie up so easy, too easy, like she weighs nothing. And Jackie feels her eyes flutter shut, her hands wrap around Lottie’s neck, and she lets herself sink into Lottie’s embrace. It feels nice. She lets herself enjoy it. “I always want to know what you’re thinking,” she murmurs. “Even when you don’t know. Especially then.”

 

Lottie doesn't understand it fully, but she loves that she can pick up Jackie like this and hold her in her arms. She feels so light. It's barely any effort to walk them up to their towels and set her down on dry land. “I'll try my best to tell you when I can,” she says, “right now I'm just thinking about how lucky I am. About how I had a good time today and that's thanks to you. I'm glad I went to the lake, even if it was…painful. I'm glad I had you there with me.” She knows she never would've survived that alone. Sometimes, she still thought about letting the water take her, right below the spot where the sky took Laura Lee.

 

Jackie stays close to Lottie even when she puts her down, and she moves to wrap her arms around her in a gentle hug. “I’m glad you had a good time, even if it hurt. I’m really proud of you, you know. I know it wasn’t easy.” Pulling away, Jackie stands on her toes to give Lottie a kiss before grabbing their blankets to dry off. 

 

Lottie burrows into Jackie for a moment. Her eyes grow misty but she blinks it away quickly. She's not sure anyone's ever been proud of her before-- or if they have, they've never said so. She sighs, deflating. “You make me feel strong.”

 

“You’re one of the strongest people I know, Lottie,” Jackie says softly. “I wish you could see that.”

 

Lottie just sighs. She wishes she could, too, but she knows that's wrong. She's not strong, she never has been, she never will be. “I think I'm just good at faking it.”

 

Jackie wraps one of the blankets around Lottie’s shoulders. “Shut up.”

 

Half a smirk curls up Lottie's mouth. “Make me.”

 

Rolling her eyes, Jackie can’t help but smile, too, pressing herself closer. She stands on her toes and pulls Lottie’s face to hers, brushing their lips together. 

 

Her smile makes Lottie's grow and she leans forward, pressing her lips more firmly against Jackie's. It's nice that Jackie thinks she's sharing, maybe one day she can be enough of a person to actually be.

 

Maybe one day this will stop feeling so consuming. Jackie tries to imagine a life where she and Lottie can grow old together, but it gets hung up in the details, like being in this place or leaving it, the constant threat of starvation that lurks in every cold breeze. But that doesn’t matter right now as she brushes her tongue against Lottie’s lips, politely asking for entrance. 

 

Lottie is more than happy to part her lips for Jackie, letting her in. She'd let Jackie consume her whole. She wraps her arms and the blanket around Jackie's shoulders, pulling her body against Lottie's own. They're warm, wrapped up in the blankets, naked bodies pressed together. Lottie thinks it feels like heaven as she kisses her girlfriend under an oak tree, next to a river, in the middle of the forest.

 

This is the best that Jackie’s ever let herself feel, and she sinks into it, into Lottie, into the overwhelming feeling of being well and truly loved by someone. Just as wonderful is the feeling that she loves Lottie back just as much, that she can, that it’s okay. No one’s going to yell at her or hurt her over it. It’s okay. 

 

Slowly, Lottie backs them up until her back hits the trunk of the tree, arms still tight around Jackie. It's a nice night out and they're not in any hurry, she thinks they're okay to take a moment to themselves right here. It's just so nice having Jackie in her arms, her lips on Lottie's, tongues in mouths. 

 

Moaning against Lottie’s lips, Jackie leans in more, practically begging. She doesn’t care about making it back to camp or even worrying about someone catching them. All she cares about is Lottie, the way she makes Jackie feel. She tastes the inside of Lottie’s mouth, scrapes her teeth against soft lips, feels Lottie’s hips under her fingers. Her mind is going to mush, only able to focus on what’s right in front of her. Jackie thinks she’s okay with that.

 

Bark digs into Lottie's back through the blanket but she doesn't care at all. She hardly notices, too caught up in the feeling of Jackie. There's just Jackie and her teeth and her tongue and her fingers on Lottie's bare skin. She pulls her in closer, bodies flush together, her own hands in the bare skin of Jackie's back, palms pressed between her shoulder blades, over the ridges of her spine. A body she's mapped out by the feel under her fingertips. It's beautiful to know someone so well.

 

It just becomes too easy for Jackie to move closer, to press against Lottie and love her and feel her so close. Her lips are like heaven, and her hands make Jackie feel so warm and cared for as they map out her body. She thinks Lottie must know her inside and out. She thinks she’s okay with that. 

 

It's been only minutes since the last time they'd touched each other and Lottie is already craving the taste of Jackie again. She pushes her back just enough to turn them around and press Jackie against the tree instead, still kissing her, until she pulls back to take a breath, licking her lips. 

 

Really there's no need for foreplay. She drops the blanket around her shoulders and follows it down until she's kneeling in front of Jackie, hands on her hips. She kisses the bone there, looks up at Jackie and sees the moonlight trickling through the trees, illuminating her form. She looks like an angel. Maybe she really is Lottie's salvation.

 

Jackie’s breath stutters, first from the feeling of being pressed against the tree and then as she watches Lottie get on her knees. She brushes her fingers through Lottie’s hair, over her cheek, down her jaw. She’s so beautiful. She looks at Jackie like she’s beautiful, like she’s adored. 

 

Yeah, okay, Jackie’s been told she was beautiful all her life. Gorgeous, pretty, hot. But sometimes she didn’t feel it. You’re so hot, mumbled against her lips, warm breath spilling over her face, and she’d feel anything but hot. She’d felt like she was wanted just because she was there, not because she was her. 

 

Lottie doesn’t make Jackie feel like that. She makes it all feel good. She makes Jackie feel like being called beautiful is real, not just something to inflate her ego or make it a little easier to try and get in her pants. Jackie looks down at her, worshiped, worshipful. It’s more holy than a church. “I love you,” she murmurs.

 

Lottie thinks the ground here must be consecrated simply because Jackie has walked across it. Wherever she walks is made holy. A shudder of anticipation runs up her spine, presses her cheek into Jackie's palm. “I'm yours,” she murmurs, “body and soul.” Her lips graze skin just above Jackie's pelvis. She gives her one last gaze before diving in, ducking her head between Jackie's legs, finding her already wet and wanting.

 

“I’m yours,” Jackie breathes. “I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours.” She’s Lottie’s, now. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be anyone else’s. And while there’s a ghost with a grip on her heart that won’t go away, Jackie doesn’t think she can belong to Shauna Shipman anymore. Not even if she wanted to. She loves Shauna, she still loves her, she’s always going to love her, but it hurts. It doesn’t hurt with Lottie. Even when it aches, it’s in the most perfect way. Her hips press forward and her head tips back, and Jackie feels a little like she’s dying in the best way.

 

Lottie's tongue tastes Jackie like it's the first time. She savors her, takes her time, lets her mouth work against Jackie's center. She wants to drown in her. Is an ache real if it feels good? Because she aches for Jackie, even with her lips wrapped around her center, sucking and licking and loving. Fingers dig into her hips. She loves her, she needs her, she exists only for her. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie moans. “God.” It feels so good. She doesn’t even feel in control, one hand gripping at the tree behind her, the other petting through Lottie’s hair. Her fingers tremble; she doesn’t want to pull Lottie’s hair out. It just feels so good.

 

Honestly, Lottie wouldn't mind if Jackie pulled her hair out. She wouldn't mind if Jackie pulled her whole head off, really. She just wants to keep her mouth right where it is, savoring every moment she gets to enjoy her like this. Her face is firmly between Jackie's legs and Lottie wants to die here.

 

“I love you,” Jackie says, again and again, her back arching off of the trunk of the tree as her hips roll into Lottie’s mouth. She likes the way Lottie’s fingers feel as they dig into her hips. She likes the way Lottie’s mouth feels as it moves between her legs. It makes it harder for her to keep herself upright. Eventually, her babbling just becomes the sound of Lottie’s name, over and over again, as she feels her pleasure coiling tight below her stomach before it releases. She feels boneless as she slides down the base of the tree, unable to hold herself up.

 

Lottie is panting, but she doesn't want to pull away. And she stays there until she can taste Jackie coming in her mouth and she laps up every bit of her she can. It tastes like ambrosia and ecstasy all at once. Sweet and salty and wonderful. 

 

She's quick enough to grab Jackie before she falls too far down the tree, scooping her back into her arms and kissing across her neck. “I love you, too,” she murmurs in her ear.

 

Jackie shudders, laughing as she finds herself pressed back into Lottie’s arms, being held close. Her head tilts back, letting Lottie press kisses all over her neck. “You’re just… really good at that,” she pants. “Really good.”

 

Lottie hums into Jackie's skin, lips brushing across her pulse. She nuzzles into her, sighing contentedly. “You taste so good,” she says back, “I want you all the time.”

 

“God, I get that,” Jackie says, holding onto Lottie tighter. “I really, really get that.” She brushes her hands through Lottie’s hair. She thinks Lottie tastes good. She wants Lottie all the time. It’s crazy. Jackie didn’t think it was possible to feel like this.

 

Lottie lays her head on Jackie's shoulder again, letting her breath trickle across her skin. “You make me so happy.” And it was so damn true. Lottie had thought that she knew what happiness was before, but after Jackie, she knows now that she wasn't even close. She's never been happier.

 

Pressing a kiss into Lottie’s hair. Jackie says, “You make me happy, too.” She doesn’t know if she’s been this happy in a long time. Not since she was a little kid. But Lottie makes her feel good and wonderful and happy, and it’s so nice.

 

Lottie wants to ask a selfish question, but she's trying not to be that way. She doesn't want to be that way. So she just lets out another soft sigh and tucks Jackie into herself. “You promise?”

 

Jackie brings her hands to Lottie’s face and brushes their lips together, smiling against Lottie. “I promise,” she says. “This? It’s real. It’s so very, very real.”

 

Lottie nods. She believes Jackie so wholeheartedly. Of course she does. She places her hand over Jackie's heart and feels the thump of it under her palm, grounding and steady. It beats for her. It's incredible. “It's real,” she repeats, “we're real.” 

 

Holding Lottie’s hand to her chest, Jackie places another sweet kiss to Lottie’s lips. “So real. And that’s yours, okay?” She puts her hand against Lottie’s heart. She knows that’s hers. She knows Lottie’s hers. 

 

It's terrifying to realize that the flesh and blood of Jackie's body, the organs that work to keep it alive, the heart that beats a rhythmic sound, is Lottie's to take care of. She wants to so badly. She nods again, a smile on her lips. “I'll treasure it forever,” she murmurs, “this gift.”

 

That’s something that Jackie knows in her heart to be completely and utterly true. Lottie will take care of her heart. She’ll be careful with it. And Jackie will do the same.

 

By the time they make it back to their hut, the fire is out and the food is gone, but Lottie doesn’t mind. She’s not all that hungry anyway. The village is quiet and peaceful, everyone already squirrelled away in their huts and probably asleep. Well, most of them. Lottie is pretty sure she heard some heavy breathing coming from Tai and Van’s hut next door, but she just smiles to herself about it before pulling Jackie inside their own hut with her.

 

She hangs up the blankets they’d used to dry themselves off before turning back to Jackie and taking her hands in her own. She kisses each one on the knuckles before pressing one to her cheek. “No old lady fingers,” she says.

 

Wiggling her fingers against Lottie’s cheek, Jackie repeats, “No old lady fingers.” It’s been a good day. She knows it was hard on Lottie. None of this was easy. She hopes, though, that it’ll get easier with time. Her eyes glance over at the picture she drew for Lottie, and she pulls Lottie back to her, wrapping her arms around her in a hug. 

 

It’s easy to fall into Jackie’s arms. Lottie knows what the hug is for. She understands that today wasn’t easy for Jackie, either. There are people who didn’t make it here with the rest of them. People that should have. “I’d still love you even if you did have old lady fingers, just so you know.”

 

“Yeah?” Jackie asks, laughing quietly, attempting to not wake up the rest of the village. She moves them towards their bedding. “I’m so glad you’d still love me even if I had old lady fingers.”

 

“Of course I would,” Lottie grins, “I’ll love you no matter what.” She follows Jackie down onto their bed, sitting next to her and resisting the urge to immediately pull her into her lap. “Old lady or otherwise.”

 

And that’s nice to think about, really. Jackie’s never liked imagining herself as getting old. She’s never even liked thinking about getting to be her mother’s age. She’s thought about college, even post college, a nice house, a white picket fence, a faceless husband, but she’d never really imagined getting old. It didn’t seem like much of a possibility.

 

Out here, it seems like even less of one. But Lottie’s promising to love Jackie no matter what, even when she gets old, and it’s more comforting than she cares to admit. She presses against Lottie, pushing her to lay down so that she can crawl on top of her, laying on Lottie’s chest. Her nose presses against Lottie’s neck. 

 

Lottie’s arms reach up to wrap around Jackie, squeezing her tight. Her weight on Lottie is a familiar comfort, one that she finds herself constantly craving. One she doesn’t think she can sleep without, let alone live without. 

 

Her nose is cold against Lottie’s skin and it makes a shiver run through her body, but she likes how Jackie is always cold where Lottie is warm, and soft where Lottie is hard. Her opposites don’t clash with Lottie’s, they compliment them. Maybe they weren’t made for each other or forged with the same iron, but they’ve molded themselves to fit with each other, and that feels more like love to Lottie than anything else. She doesn’t think she was made for anyone, anyway. She was a broken piece that was supposed to be thrown out, but then someone had picked her up and shown her that she could fit, if she found someone she wanted to fit with.

 

And she had, and Lottie wasn’t going to ever let her go.

Jackie presses her lips against the bite mark she left on Lottie’s neck before pulling away and leaning over Lottie, her eyes bright. “Since I don’t have old lady fingers, maybe I should put them to good use.” She gives Lottie a mischievous grin before trailing her fingers down, slowly.

Notes:

These two handsy kids just can't help themselves. But, we're getting closer and closer to the solstice, as well as the start of season 3 in our little canon divergent universe! We hope you guys are enjoying! We love hearing from folks, be that comments or kudos! Feel free to reach out to us on our socials as well.

Thanks for reading, guys! See you next week <3

Chapter 33: sorrow is my own yard

Summary:

Only one more day until the great Yellowjackets Summer Solstice Celebration! The girls are all excited, preparing for the fun that's sure to come. Meanwhile, Jackie and Lottie are busy, well, doing what couples do in the Spring. Nat sees-- and hears-- a little more than she probably ever wanted, and Jackie learns that she really likes being told what to do. Happy Summer Solstice everyone, here's to hoping nothing bad happens, right?

Title is from "The Widows Lament In Springtime" by William Carlos Williams

Notes:

Guess who's late to posting the chapter again? (it's me) But! It's a chunky one for you all. Happy holidays if you celebrate, I hope everyone ate as much food as I did and here's a light, fluffy chapter for you all to settle down with. It's also the last in between chapter, as our s3 officially starts next chapter! Yay!

The next few days are full of similar jobs and chores, with a few added responsibilities as the days grow longer and the solstice draws closer. They plan the celebration for a few days after the lake trip. It’s still supposed to be fun, but there’s an added somberness, something that grows as a small group heads to the plane and comes back with Shauna and Javi’s bones. 

 

There’s more to add to the village. Most of the huts are undergoing added waterproofing. The garden is getting extra space. A table is being built so that they can all sit around it, like they had in the cabin or the mall food court or even for soccer banquets. Game ideas are thrown around at night, some better than others. 

 

It’s in the middle of the day. Nat and Jackie are standing outside of Nat’s hut, passing a water bottle back and forth as they draw out in the dirt a list of things that still need to be done. Jackie’s grateful for her new headband, keeping her hair mostly out of her face as she takes a swig and passes the water bottle back to Natalie. 

 

“If it’s only gonna get hotter, we need to think about, you know, storage,” Jackie says, writing it in neat script in the dirt.

 

Lottie mostly helps with rearranging the village and setting up the layout. Akilah and Mari help her expand the garden, and now they have a whole section just for plants to feed the animals. They’ve been growing their collection, and now Mortimer has some mountain goat friends and they’ve been finding a few eggs every now and then that they can add to the food in the mornings. 

 

Today, they’d finished building a trough for water for the animals instead of using one of the water buckets, and Akilah is admiring their work as Lottie toddles off, looking around the village for her girlfriend.

 

She spots Jackie and Nat by Nat’s hut, poking at the ground with a stick. As she heads over, she catches the tail end of their conversation.

 

“We’ve got the stuff made for drying shit now, so we can start making more jerky, especially outta the fish, since they go bad sooner,” Nat nods, drawing an ‘X’ in the dirt by the word fish. “Maybe we can build some, uh, in ground storage things? Keep it cooler? I think Tai said something about that, was in the book we were using.”

 

Lottie stops behind the two and leans over, looking at their list. “We can use clay by the river to insulate a storage place like that,” she points out, head tilted as she reads the rest of the list. “What’s ‘bone tag’?” she asks.

 

Jackie adds ‘clay’ next to ‘storage’ and looks up at Lottie with a smile, even when Nat groans. “We’re still workshopping the name.”

 

“Better than ‘capture the bone,’” Van says as she walks by, heading to her and Taissa’s hut. 

 

“Debatable,” Nat says, rolling her eyes. “River clay’s a good idea, though. Thanks, Lott.”

 

Holding out her hand, Jackie says, “Yeah, she’s pretty smart.”

 

Lottie's eyes crinkle as she smiles at Jackie, taking her hand. “I try.”

 

Nat shakes her head, but she's smirking to the side. “Right, well, guess we can get started on those after the solstice?” To which Lottie nods. 

 

“I can show you how to make them, Nat, if you want,” Lottie offers.

 

“That’d be great. Thanks, Lottie.” Nat stands, brushing some dirt off her pants. “I’m going to go see if Misty has that supplies list of things to see about scavenging from the plane. Are you still coming with, Jackie?”

 

“Yeah, if you still want me to. I can help with that,” Jackie tells her. 

 

It’s mostly a slower day. Some of the others are working on the table, though it looks like Mari and Robin are mostly just sitting around while Tai and Mel do most of the work. Jackie can hear them all chatting in low voices, but she doesn’t know what it’s about.

 

As Lottie looks around, she thinks this might be a good chance to break off, if Jackie and Nat are going back to the plane. Once they split off, Lottie gives Jackie a quick kiss on her cheek before heading off towards the river, checking once behind her to make sure no one was following her. 

 

“Who what would it have been?” Tai says to Melissa in a hushed breath. “The only person not in the cabin that night was Coach.” 

 

“He was already judging us for Javi, it's not that much of a stretch to think he would try and kill us,” Mari agrees. 

 

“We need to be looking for him,” Tai states, “it's crazy that we haven't been yet.”

 

“What's crazy?” Nat asks loudly as her and Jackie walk by, arms folded.

 

“We were talking about Coach Scott,” Mari says. 

 

Jackie exchanges a wary glance with Nat. They don’t talk about Coach much anymore. Jackie doesn’t see much of a reason to. He’s gone. He left. He might even be dead. He’s probably dead. 

 

“We all know he’s the one that tried to kill us,” Mel adds. “We should be looking out for him, right? Making sure he doesn’t do it again.”

 

“We should have done it months ago, Nat, right after we first got settled here,” Tai says. 

 

“Why? He left, he's probably dead,” Nat says, maybe a little too quickly. She tries to hide her fidgeting. She knows he might be alive, actually. He'd seen her cutting up Javi. He'd looked at her in horror and she'd told him to go. He had a place to go, apparently.

 

“Exactly,” Jackie says, looking from Nat to the others. “Come on, guys. Think about it. He was starving, he could barely get around on his own, and he had no way of getting any kind of food or shelter. I really doubt he made it through the winter.”

 

“Doesn't hurt to double check though, does it? We're settled here, we have the time,” Tai argues back, raising her brow as she looks from Nat to Jackie and back, as if she's testing them. “I can lead a small group out to look.”

 

“No,” Nat snaps, “we have more important things to do. We don't need to worry about someone who's already dead.”

 

“If he is still alive, he could be dangerous to us, isn't that important?” Mari states, a challenge. 

 

“He’s hardly dangerous now, even if he is alive, even if he burned down the cabin,” Jackie says, and when she sees the starts of a protest, she continues, “Once again: starving one-legged man. Who, I should remind you all, could barely get out of bed the last few weeks we were in the cabin! If he burned down the cabin, it’s only because we were all asleep and he got lucky. That won’t happen again, not out here. He doesn’t have any weapons. He only has himself. And, again, he’s probably dead. What’s the point of sending a search party after a corpse?”

 

Nat rubs at her eyes. “We’re not doing this, okay? We have more important things to do. Things that everyone should get back to. Mari, if you’re gonna be sitting around, you can at least be working on stuff for dinner. C’mon, guys, get to it.” 

 

She heads towards Misty’s medical tent, and Jackie follows after, stuffing her hands into her pocket as she glances over, but she doesn’t say anything else. 

 

“Fine,” is all Tai says, before she's back to work with Mel. They look over at Nat and Jackie but don't say much else and Mari stands up, stalking towards the butcher table to go pick through the cuts for today. 

 

Robin follows her nervously.

 

Once in Misty's hut, Nat rubs her head. “You got that list ready yet?” she asks impatiently as Misty jumps up to greet her.

 

“Oh! Right! Here you go!” Misty says with her characteristic enthusiasm, handing over the list on a small scrap of paper. “Anything that you can find in the plane that can be broken down into thread, maybe some of the leather off of the seats that are still in there might be good. You might can ask Lottie about some plants that might be good to add to the garden.” 

 

Jackie looks over the list. Wire, any more paper that might be available, the leather, thread. More miscellaneous things than stuff that’s exclusively for the medical hut, but Jackie doesn’t point that out. She just looks at Nat. “Ready?”

 

Nat doesn't wait for either of them to say anything before stalking out of the hut. She only stops to look back and wait for Jackie once she's at the edge of the village. “Let's get in and out quick,” she tells her, shouldering the gun.

 

“Yeah, sure,” Jackie says, trailing after Nat once again. She doesn’t say anything at first, letting them walk away from the village in silence. Finally, she says, “Wanna talk about it?”

 

“Talk about what?” Nat asks without looking at Jackie.

 

Jackie shakes her head. “Nevermind. Let’s just walk in silence and not talk about anything at all.”

 

Nat snorts. “Like you can manage that.”

 

Jackie starts to say something, frowns, and keeps her arms crossed over her chest for the rest of the trip. Somehow, it felt longer than usual.

 

The trees seem thicker than normal as Lottie walks through them, but she takes note of how they feel as her fingers pass along the bark. It’s strange how silent the world seems sometimes, and how silent her head has been lately. From the moment they’d landed here, Lottie had felt something different about it. 

 

Once she’d taken her last pill, she’d started hearing the forest in different ways, too. She’d listened and waited and when It spoke, she’d been ready. She’d been there. 

 

Now, it was silent, and it scared her sometimes. In a way, It had been a comfort to have in her head. A familiar presence, always there, always reachable.

 

But now It was gone. She’d been trying to get it back, little things here and there, but tomorrow was a special day-- it was their celebration for the solstice. It was a celebration of the gifts It gave them. 

 

Lottie wanted to give her thanks to It, but she didn’t think anyone else really wanted to hear her talk about the Wilderness, even though they’d asked her to perform the rites for the funeral service they were doing. They’d made paper lanterns to release for them, as a symbol of their thanks for their sacrifices. After all, they were only alive now because Shauna and Javi had fed them.

 

She finds a spot that feels different. She’s not sure how, but the energy in the grove is vibrating when she steps into it and pulls out the pocket knife she’d stashed away days ago. The camp had been looking around everywhere for it, Mari and Melissa throwing blame on the other-- “She’s the one cutting up things all day,” Mari had said. 

 

“I literally have my own knife for that! You were the last one to use it cause you were cutting up leaves!”

 

Lottie had stayed silent and, eventually, they’d all just concluded that it was lost.

 

It wasn’t.

 

She kneels beneath a tree and holds her hand out, palm up. The clean, heated steel feels warm against her skin as it slices through like butter. Blood wells to the surface and she curls her fingers in, squeezing. Her blood drips onto the leaves below.

 

“I thank you for everything you’ve given us, and give you my blood as an offering,” she whispers, closing her eyes. 

 

She begs for some sort of reply, holds her breath as she waits-- but her head is as silent as always and the only thing she has to show for it is a fresh new cut.

 

Natalie finishes ripping out the last bit of leather and tossing it into the pile her and Jackie had gathered before she backs out of the plane and swipes her arm across her forehead. “That everything on Misty’s list?” she asks, looking over to Jackie.

 

Jackie comes out of the cockpit with what’s left of the wiring in her hands and adds it to the pile. “I think so.” She looks at Nat and then away, attempting to be nonchalant. “You know, for the uh, funeral tomorrow night. I know we don’t… have anything to bury, but it might be good if you talked to Lottie about doing something for Laura Lee. I think she’d appreciate it.”

 

Nat takes stock one more time before she begins to gather everything back up. “Why don’t you talk to her about it?” Her brow goes up and she stands, hefting the pile of leather under her arm as she holds some of the stuff out for Jackie to carry. “She’s your girlfriend, right?”

 

Jackie takes the rest of it. She raises an eyebrow back. “Is she? Oh, my god. I’d totally forgotten. But maybe you’ve forgotten that you’re the leader? So if you say that it’s a good idea to do something, then that means more than me saying something and her not knowing if she should go through with it because what about the others, and what about what Nat might say. I just,” she pauses. “I don’t want her to think we’ve forgotten about Laura Lee. Because she was the first we really lost out here, after being out here. I don’t think we should forget that.”

 

“No one’s forgotten that,” Nat says back, but even she’s not sure she truly believes that, “we were all there when it happened.” Still. She sighs. “But, fine. I’ll ask her if she wants to do something for her at the funeral thing.” Which already made Nat feel awkward and uncomfortable. They’d had a funeral for her dad back home, her mother had cried into her vodka bottle the whole time, and then passed out the second they got home.

 

“Did you uh-- did you go see where they buried the others? It’s nice. It’s-- I think it’s nice.” Nat clears her throat. Javi and Shauna had grave sites now. Sure it was just their bones, but it was better than letting them rot on the plane. 

 

Nodding because that’s all Jackie wanted, she falters when Nat asks if she’s been to where the others are buried. There’s a newly made little pouch hanging from the necklace that Lottie made for her that’s tucked against her skin, small but still capable of holding the bones of Shauna’s pinky. It was made from a rabbit pelt; it was the only material she could find without asking, and it was kind of funny, wasn’t it? She thinks it’s pretty funny. It just looks like leather, the fur on the inside, the stitches neat and careful and the cause of several lovely stab wounds on her fingers.

 

“No,” she says. “I haven’t– I haven’t really had the time.”

 

“You should go,” Nat tells her, “before the big gathering. You should say good-bye alone.” She thinks Jackie should send off Shauna herself, not the group. Even Nat knows Shauna would hate all this funeral, solstice celebration shit. 

 

“I’ve already said goodbye,” Jackie says dully. She said goodbye every day for months. She’d tried to leave with her. Shauna’s not there. She’s in the forest, in Jackie’s head, in her heart and her liver and her stomach. She’s still everywhere, even when she leaves Jackie alone. She just wishes she’d leave her alone, some days. 

 

Jackie’s careful not to trip over a root, her steps more sure these days. “I’ll try.”

 

“I mean actually say good-bye,” Nat corrects, but she doesn’t push it. “All I ask.” It’s better than trying to do it in front of a bunch of people who don’t quite understand. Or in front of her current girlfriend, who still sometimes looked like she wondered if she really was just a replacement. She’d told Nat she worried about it still, sometimes, that it made her feel guilty. Nat wasn’t going to tell Jackie that.

 

“Yeah.” What’s there to say goodbye to, though? Shauna’s not there. She wasn’t there when Jackie begged and pleased and ached. She’s not there now that Jackie finally thinks she doesn’t need her. She doesn’t need Shauna. 

 

(There’s a voice that whispers that she does, that she always will because of the two of them, Shauna was always stronger. That’s why she can’t let go.)

 

Jackie doesn’t want to talk anymore, which she’s sure is always a surprise when that happens. She just doesn’t want to talk. They should get all this shit back to the camp and figure out the rest of tomorrow and go their separate ways for the night. 

 

Nat is usually fine with the not talking but something feels off about it this time. She doesn't say anything though, she lets Jackie sit with her thoughts until they're back. “Lets get this stuff to Misty and make sure we got what she needs.” 

 

Nodding, Jackie keeps walking until they make it back to the village, she drops off the supplies that’s in her arms and then the list itself, telling Misty, “Let us know if we missed anything.” 

 

Nat follows after Jackie. “You’re gonna play bone tag tomorrow, aren’t you?”

 

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Jackie says, shrugging. “That name sucks.”

 

“The fuck else do we call it? Capture the bone?”

 

Jackie snorts. “That sounds better than bone tag.”

 

“Then let’s do it. Let’s have fun.” Natlaie doesn’t quite sound the most enthusiastic. “The stakes are high, sure, but, hey, losing wouldn’t be so bad. It’d just be playing servant to Mari for a few hours.”

The look Jackie gives her makes Natalie laugh.

 

Raising her hands, Natalie says, “Okay, so it’d be that bad. But it’ll be so much fun. Plus, Lottie and Tai are gonna arm wrestle. Van’ll get bragging rights. We’ll have a good dinner. It’ll be good.”

 

“It’ll be good,” Jackie repeats.

 

Frustrated, Lottie stashes the pocket knife by the tree she’d found and stands, wrapping her hand with a handkerchief she’d brought with her. “What do you want me to do?” she asks to no one, to nothing. To everything. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

 

The silence aggravates her enough that she leaves without saying anything else. She thinks that, if It wants to give her the silent treatment, then maybe she’ll do the same.

 

She knows that’s not true, though. She’ll make another prayer tomorrow, another offering. If not for herself, then for the others, who have been lost to this place.

 

When she gets back, she makes her way over to the water bucket and glances in, finding the water a little more murky than she thinks is good for her open wound. “I’m going to refill the wash bucket,” she says as she grabs the current one, emptying it in the animal trough. 

 

She’s leaving just as Nat follows Jackie out of Misty’s hut.

 

“Great, so, I can count on you to be on my team tomorrow, then, yeah?” Natalie is trying her best to be a leader, to be a friend, to be diplomatic or whatever. It’s what they need of her. She just wants to keep them all alive. 

 

“Sure, Scatorccio. We’ve always made a pretty good offense,” Jackie says, offering up a wave. She doesn’t catch sight of Lottie in the main part of camp, so she heads over to the garden. No girlfriend. It’s not that Jackie’s upset that Lottie isn’t around. She just…

 

Jackie just wants to be with Lottie all the time. It drives her crazy. She’s trying to be better with it than she was with Shauna. 

 

Shauna. It’s probably a good idea to do what Natalie said. To say goodbye. Jackie heads away from the the garden towards the little graveyard, the pouch around her neck growing heavier under her shirt.

 

It’s a nice area, set aside for two marked graves. It looks like Travis has already been there, one of Javi’s carved animals beside one of the markers. The other…

 

“Hey, Shipman,” Jackie whispers, leaning down in front of the fresh dirt. She breathes out a sigh, closing her eyes. “How am I supposed to say goodbye?” It didn’t really feel like Shauna was gone, some days.

 

It’s just bones in a grave. Bones that have been picked clean by hungry mouths. Shauna’s not there. 

 

“Would you want me to be happy?” Jackie asks. 

 

There’s no answer.

 

Of course there wouldn’t be when she wants one. 

 

Jackie gets up, patting the dirt. She can’t say goodbye. Instead, she says, “I’ll see you around, Shauna.”

 

Lottie decides to just wash her cut off at the river, grabbing the rag they leave there to scrub with and cleaning out the inside of the bucket. She sets it aside, then, and dips her hands under the cool water, watching it flow over her skin and wipe away the blood. It dissipates into nothing the moment it hits the water, like it doesn’t even exist, like Lottie doesn’t even exist.

 

She pulls her hands out and dries them off, before dunking the bucket in and filling it. She rewraps her hand, then heads back to the village.

 

When she makes it back, Mari is beginning to sear the portions of meat they’ll eat for dinner, and the others are finishing up their chores for the day. She doesn’t see Jackie, though, so she sets the bucket down and heads towards the storage shed to stash the knife again.

 

“Hey, Lott!” comes Nat’s voice and Lottie freezes, turning to look at Natalie. “You good?” 

 

Lottie nods. “Did you need something?”

 

“Uh, yeah, yeah, I just, uh-- you know how we’re doing the thing for Javi and Shauna tomorrow? I just wanted to see if maybe you wanted to do something for Laura Lee, too. There’s no-- nothing to bury, but we could make her a grave marker, too, if you wanted?” She gives a reassuring grin and shrugs. “Again, if you want to.”

 

Lottie is a little confused. Most of the others don’t really bother to talk to her, but Nat does make an effort. It’s just never about things like this. About the deep, hard things.

 

“Did Jackie put you up to this?” she asks.

 

“What? No! No, I--” Nat tries to lie but she can already sense Lottie can see through her bullshit. She shakes her head. “Alright, fine, yeah. But she was right to. So, do you want to?”

 

Lottie isn’t sure. Does she want to? She isn’t sure. “I don’t know. Maybe. Can I, um, think about it?” 

 

Nat nods curtly. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Of course. Just, uh, lemme know before bed time? So I can know what to plan for tomorrow.”

 

Lottie nods, too. “Okay.” She watches Nat scoot away awkwardly, catches the morose glance she gives Travis before ducking back into her own hut. Lottie scans the area once more as she looks for Jackie again, but when she doesn’t see her, she ducks into their hut and heads over to the little mirror, unwrapping her hand. It’s not going to be possible to hide this from Jackie. She should’ve tried somewhere less conspicuous. 

 

Walking back into camp, Jackie stops when she sees Travis staring at one of Javi’s drawings. She says, “He was good.”

 

“Is that one artist’s opinion about another?” Travis asks, not looking at her.

 

“No,” Jackie says quickly. “No. Just… saying.” She pauses, thinks about what to say, but she feels off, today. “How are you holding up?”

 

Travis just shrugs. 

 

“Right… I’m– I get it. I mean, sort of. It’s okay, you know. To be sad.”

 

“I don’t need permission,” Travis says, sighing. He looks at her, though. “Thank you, Jackie. See you around?”

 

Yeah, she gets it. She offers him half a smile and a wave. “Bye, Travis.”

 

With that, she heads to her and Lottie’s hut, perking up a little when she sees Lottie through the window. “Hey!” Then, she notices Lottie’s hand, the very suspicious location of the cut. “Hey…”

 

There was really no point in hiding the cut anyway. Even if Jackie hadn’t noticed right away. Still, Lottie closes her fingers around her palm and just smiles, meeting Jackie over by the door. She pulls the curtain aside. “Did you find all the parts you needed from the plane?” she asks.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie murmurs, taking Lottie’s hand.

 

Lottie face falls a little. She doesn’t say anything. What is there to say?

 

Jackie moves them over sit down on the bedding. She keeps a hold on Lottie’s hand, looking it over, brushing her fingers around the cut but not quite touching it. “Is it,” she hesitates. “Is it a blood sacrifice kind of day or– or is your head– are you having trouble feeling things?”

 

She’s not sure why, but Lottie expects Jackie to be angry. She expects sighs of disappointment and frustration and ‘Lottie, how many times have I told you not to do that? You can’t just do that’.

 

But that’s not what happens. Jackie is gentle when she takes Lottie’s hand and gentler still when she brushes her fingers along Lottie’s palm. “It’s for tomorrow,” she answers after a beat, “I didn’t want to make everyone uncomfortable.”

 

So it’s a blood sacrifice kind of day. It’s just been awhile since one of those. Jackie was kind of hoping that Lottie was done with that. But, since she’s not, Jackie just nods, unable to let go of Lottie’s hand. “Does it have to be blood?” she asks. “Does it have to be yours? Could it be an animal’s?”

 

“Il veut du sang,” Lottie mumbles. She’s quiet for a long moment. “I’m not going to ask anybody else to do it.” She would never ask anyone to bleed for It, for her. She curls her fingers around Jackie’s hand. “It’s just a little bit.”

 

Jackie pulls Lottie’s hand close. “It adds up,” she murmurs. “Are you sure that it can’t be one of the animals?” Jackie doesn’t want to sound desperate, but the thought of Lottie hurting herself makes her feel sick.

 

Lottie doesn't really know what to say. “Yes,” she decides on. It can't be an animal, she knows that. She'd never anticipated being the only one left who would believe. That was fine, really. “It'll heal.” She lifts Jackie's hand to her lips, brushes them over her knuckles. “I'm okay.”

 

“Can you wait awhile before you do it again?” Jackie asks, swallowing. “I’ll do it, too. Just… let your hand heal before you do it again. Please?”

 

Squeezing Jackie's hand, Lottie feels a surge of panic. She doesn't want Jackie to do that, to hurt herself. She realizes the hypocrisy of it all, she does, but the Wilderness has already hurt Jackie enough. It can't have her. She's Lottie's. 

 

“It was just for tomorrow,” she answers, “I can wait a bit.” She can try. She'll try.

 

Jackie sighs. “Just… let your hand heal, okay? That’s a really terrible place to do it. You use your hand for so much, and there always a chance the scab will open if you flex you hand or do anything.” She knows. She remembers from when she cut her own hand to try and make sure Lottie would be safe. 

 

Lottie will remember that for next time, then. Not her hand. “Okay.” She can do that. 

 

She wants to move on from this, though. “Was your day good?” She asks, scooting towards Jackie. She just wants to hold her girlfriend.

 

“It was alright. Just getting ready for tomorrow. What all did you do?” Jackie asks, pulling Lottie to her. 

 

Lottie likes this better. She wraps Jackie up in her arms and holds her tightly. “I helped Akilah finish building the trough after I minded the garden,” she answers, “pretty slow day.”

 

“That’s still a lot. It’s not easy building a trough. Or a table, apparently,” Jackie says, leaning into Lottie. She checks her nails, her tone light as she says, “So, have you talked to Nat today?”

 

Lottie furrows her brow a little. “I have,” she says. She wonders if Jackie will bring it up herself or if she'll pry it from Lottie. “Why?”

 

“I was just wondering if she mentioned anything about tomorrow.”

 

“She did,” Lottie says, deciding to play along.

 

“Yeah?” Jackie looks up at Lottie, her eyes glancing over Lottie’s face. 

 

“Yeah.” She waits a moment before adding, “oh, did you want to know what we talked about?”

 

Jackie huffs. “Do you want to tell me what you talked about?”

 

Lottie's brow goes up. “I think we both know you already know the answer to that.”

 

“Sorry,” Jackie murmurs, reaching to brush her hand through Lottie’s hair. “Is that… something you think you’d want?”

 

Lottie looks away. “There's nothing to bury,” she murmurs, quiet now, all the playfulness gone. “It doesn't feel right. I-- I don't know if she'd want that.”

 

“I know, but it might be… nice, right? To have a place for her?” Jackie’s hand goes to Lottie’s cheek, soft and gentle. “You don’t have to, but Nat told me earlier that it might be good. To say goodbye. I don’t know. It’s not like Shauna’s really there, either. But it’s nice to have a place where no one can forget. Shauna. Javi. Laura Lee, too. Even if there’s nothing to bury.”

 

“At least they have bones left,” Lottie says. She feels bitter and she doesn't want to be. She shakes her head. “Sorry. I'm sorry. That's not fair, I just-- there's nothing of her left. Just-- this dress. And I've already torn it and stained it and…” there was just nothing. It didn't feel fair.

 

“I don't know.”

 

“You don’t have to apologize,” Jackie says quickly. “I just thought it might be something good for her. I thought it might seem more… real to hear it from Nat. But you don’t have to do anything. Promise.”

 

“Maybe,” Lottie says after a while. She doesn't know. She doesn't want Laura Lee's spirit to be stuck out here. She wants her to move on. 

 

Jackie brushes her lips against Lottie’s cheek and doesn’t press the matter any further. She feels like she’s done enough of that for the day.

 

Leaning into the touch, Lottie lets out a sigh. “Can we just enjoy the rest of tonight?” She asks. “Before the ceremony tomorrow.”

 

“Yeah, of course,” Jackie says, shifting to wrap her arms around Lottie. “Of course we can. I didn’t mean to totally just bring down the mood. I’m sorry.”

 

Lottie shakes her head, nestles into Jackie's grip. “You didn't.” If anything, Lottie did. She was having a hard time letting go of someone she never even had, technically. It was stupid and selfish. She felt so stupid and selfish. 

 

Somehow, Jackie still feels like she did. She moves to press her lips to Lottie’s cheek again, then the other because she knows that Lottie likes that, and it usually makes her feel better. “Are you going to play bone tag or capture the bone or whatever Nat decides to call it tomorrow?”

 

It does always make Lottie feel better and she hums contentedly. She'd thought about it, she really had, but ultimately, she doesn't think she wants to. “Travis said he's sitting out, so I probably shouldn’t, to keep it even,” she says. She doesn't think anyone but Jackie would care if she played or not, so it would probably be fine. 

 

“You’re gonna miss out,” Jackie teases. “But don’t think this gets you out of arm wrestling Tai. I think Van’s looking forward to losing.” Though, it really doesn’t matter to Jackie if Lottie wins or loses. She doesn’t care. It’s just nice to see Lottie joining in on things.

 

“That's okay,” Lottie says. It's okay, really. She doesn't mind. She doesn't. “Let the juniors join in.” It was better for them to join than Lottie. She's not sure anyone would pick her, anyway. 

 

She gives a breathy chuckle. “I know, I know. I'll try and make you proud.”

 

Jackie kisses Lottie’s lips. “I’ll be proud no matter what, just so you know. I just want you to have fun.”

 

Sighing happily, Lottie leans into the kiss. “I want to give you bragging rights, though. Mostly just to shut Van up a little.”

 

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Jackie asks, grinning as she kisses Lottie again, and again. “She just talks so much.”

 

“Mmmhmm.” Lottie almost forgets what they're talking about. “So much.” She kisses Jackie a little more, leans further into her. “You know who else talks too much?”

 

“Who else talks too much?” Jackie asks, laughing quietly.

 

“You. Right now.” 

 

Jackie laughs louder, smiling so wide that it gets hard to keep kissing Lottie back. “So what are you gonna do about it?” 

 

Lottie thinks Jackie's laugh must be the sound angels make. She wraps her arms around Jackie's middle and pulls her in, kissing her, deep and hard, before pulling away. “That.”

 

That’ll do it. When Lottie pulls away, Jackie’s blinking slowly back at her. “That,” she starts, swallowing and nodding. “That’s good.”

 

And that makes Lottie smile wide. Now she really has forgotten what they were talking about, at least for now. It's in the back of her mind, like always. “Should I do that again?”

 

Nodding again, Jackie’s eyes move from Lottie’s lips to her eyes. Yes, she thinks that Lottie should do that again. She’d like that a lot, actually.

 

Really that's all the encouragement Lottie needs to surge forward and kiss Jackie again. She definitely likes doing this more than talking about her feelings or Laura Lee, or burying a dead girl without a body. 

 

Lottie likes distractions and Jackie is her favorite one. She moves to push her back until she's laying on top of Jackie, still keeping her lips on Jackie's. 

 

Yes, this is a much better way to spend their time, she thinks.

 

Maybe it’s for the best most of the time if Jackie just shuts up and lets Lottie kiss her. She likes kissing Lottie, anyway, likes it when Lottie lays on top of her and keeps them pressed together. Her hands move to Lottie’s waist, holding onto her. Her eyes are hazy, fluttering shut. She wants to just stay like this forever, if she can.

 

It’s not nearly a long enough amount of time kissing Jackie, Lottie thinks, when Mari can be heard calling out that dinner is ready. She groans against Jackie’s lips, pulling away already breathless as she looks down at her. “What if we just skipped dinner?” she asks.

 

Jackie doesn’t even like eating anyway. “I’ve never cared for Mari’s cooking,” she breathes.

 

Lottie nods, licking her lips. “It’s the worst,” she agrees, already moving back in to kiss Jackie again, shifting her body so that she can settle between Jackie’s legs, hands planted on either side of her head. 

 

Wrapping her arms around Lottie’s back, Jackie puts her hands on her shoulders, gripping tighter. Her heart beats a little faster as Lottie leans over her. She doesn’t really know what happens to her brain when they’re like this. It’s kind of ridiculous that she used to spend makeout sessions thinking about school or soccer or what she might eat for lunch, what that would mean for what she could have for dinner. Now, though, there’s just Lottie. And whatever manages to wiggle its way to the front of her brain, but mostly Lottie.

 

Lottie sighs into Jackie’s mouth, fingers curling up into the fur of their bedding. The cut on her palm stings but it does little to dissuade her from what she was concentrating on, from losing herself in Jackie. 

 

Her hips seem to roll into Jackie involuntarily, slow and steady as she prods at Jackie’s lips with her tongue. This was all she cared about right now. She wasn’t even that hungry. Not for food, anyway.

 

With a shudder, Jackie moans as Lottie rolls her hips, and she rolls hers back. Her lips slip open, happily letting Lottie in. She brushes her fingers up and down Lottie’s back, around to her stomach, under her dress. Fingers brush against soft skin, searching. 

 

Lottie shivers. She loves the feeling. She loves getting lost in Jackie. It's her favorite thing to do ever, she thinks, as her tongue dips inside Jackie's mouth. She rolls her hips again, another shiver running through her as she moans into Jackie's mouth. 

 

She doesn't care about dinner at all, really. This is much better.

 

It’s the feeling of Lottie moaning into Jackie’s mouth that really does her in, and she relaxes as she lets Lottie’s tongue explore her mouth. Their tongues brush against each other. Her hand slips to Lottie’s waistband, inside but not yet in her underwear. She lets her fingers tease and wander, rubbing at the slick heat between Lottie’s legs but not yet doing anything about it. 

 

Another moan falls from Lottie's lips and her hips rock into Jackie's touch. She licks at the inside of Jackie's mouth, breathing heavy. God, it's always such a wonderfully overwhelming feeling, even just the light touch of fingers between her legs. 

 

“Jackie,” she sighs, teeth scraping her bottom lip. 

 

With that, it’s Jackie’s turn to lick inside of Lottie’s mouth, sighing happily. Her fingers continue to tease until she starts to feel Lottie’s wetness through the cloth. It’s so hot that Jackie can’t help but moan, too, finally pushing Lottie’s underwear to the side so that she can slip a finger into that warm, wet heat. 

 

This is starting to feel just as necessary as sleeping next to Lottie, like Jackie needs them to touch each other or her body can’t function properly. She’s never seen herself as having an addictive personality, but that’s what this feels like. Jackie can’t bring herself to mind. 

 

A stutter catches itself in Lottie's throat, hips moving to greet Jackie's fingers. She can't help herself as she moans again, high and breathy, pressing her forehead to the side of Jackie's head as she pants. 

 

It's incredible, really, the way Jackie makes her feel. Lottie doesn't think anyone else could ever make her feel like this. It has her breathing heavy and sighing Jackie's name and wanting to never let go of her. She's never going to let go of her.

 

“You’re so pretty,” Jackie whispers, her movements shallow at first, taking her time as she presses her fingers in, draws them out. She turns her head to press kisses against Lottie’s neck. She loves the way that Lottie feels on top of her, and her hips rock up to meet Lottie’s, pressing her fingers in deeper. The moans, the heavy pants, the way Lottie moans her name and feels so hot and perfect, it all makes Jackie moan herself. This is her favorite place to be. She’s happy she gets to have it. 

 

Lottie's arms shake as she tries to keep herself upright, not from exertion, but from the feeling of heat coursing through her. Little, airy breaths leave her throat every time she feels Jackie's fingers slide back into her and she buries her face against Jackie's neck. She thinks she wants this to last forever. It's a moment she wants to repeat over and over again. It's a moment she knows she gets to have over and over again, as long as she has Jackie. 

 

“I love you,” she sighs again, “fuck. I love you.”

 

“I love you, too,” Jackie breathes. “So much. I— You feel so good. I love touching you.” She loves all of it, all of this, all of Lottie. Her head tilts to the side, giving Lottie more room. Her hand moves a little faster, a little deeper, her thumb brushing against where she knows Lottie wants it. 

 

It's hard for Lottie's mind to find words at the moment. She's okay with that, though, her mouth preoccupied with moans and soft sighs of pleasure. She runs her tongue along Jackie's neck, tasting salt. Digs her teeth into skin once more. She feels the cut on her hand stretching and tearing open as she lays her palm flat on the ground, leaning further over Jackie as she shifts to straddle her. At this angle, she can roll her hips down into Jackie's hand easier, feel her deeper inside. 

 

“You--” Lottie exhales-- “feel so good.”

 

Jackie moans at the feeling of Lottie’s tongue and teeth, at the way she straddles her, at the feeling of her hips rolling into her hand as she takes control. She’s just so pretty that it blows Jackie away. She gets to have this. She gets to keep it. Their friends are eating dinner, laughing and talking and planning for tomorrow, and Jackie doesn’t care that much at all because Lottie is on top of her and moving so beautifully. Jackie uses her other hand to adjust Lottie’s pants, to help her with the angle. She lets another finger slip inside as Lottie’s hips bear down. 

 

When another finger slides into her, Lottie lets out an audible gasp, inhaling sharply. It feels so good. How can it keep getting better? Feeling better? She isn't sure but she loves it. 

 

Scraping her teeth across Jackie's neck once more, Lottie leans up, then, reaching down to throw her dress off, her bra, too. She's hot and panting, and she wants more. She moves her hands to Jackie's shoulders, straddling her still as she rocks her hips. She watches her face as she does so, drawing out the movement. She wants to look into her eyes so Jackie can see just how good she makes Lottie feel.

 

It’s impossible for Jackie to look away. Her eyes are wide, taking in all of Lottie, as much as she can, her face, her hair, her chest. Her eyes get stuck there, watching, unable to look away until her eyes roll back from the feeling of Lottie rocking her hips. Lottie’s so gorgeous. She looks like a goddess, chasing her pleasure, taking it, and Jackie made her feel that way. Jackie’s the only one that gets to make Lottie feel that way. 

 

Lottie watches Jackie watch her and it makes her all the more aroused, really. She's already burning but it makes her shudder and moan, arms shaking, muscles taught. Her hips meet Jackie's fingers as she moves, as she fucks herself on Jackie's hand. 

 

She reaches out a hand and takes Jackie's chin between her fingers, pulling her head back up to look at her. Holds her gaze. “I want you to watch,” she pants, voice raspy and low. 

 

Jesus Christ. Jackie nods, feeling a rush of heat to her face, pooling below her stomach. She wonders if she can come just from this. “You’re beautiful,” she says, reverent.

 

“Good girl,” Lottie purrs. There's something deep clawing its way through Lottie. She's not normally like this, she knows that, but there's something different about the world, as it crawls closer to the solstice tomorrow night. It feels special. 

 

“Oh, my god,” Jackie breathes. She thinks Lottie’s trying to kill her. She also doesn’t think she really minds. Jackie curls her fingers, watching Lottie closely. She won’t look away. She isn’t going to look away.

 

Lottie takes in a sharp breath, lets it out in a high pitched moan. Her hips move on their own as she thrusts down into Jackie's hand. The one Lottie has holding Jackie’s face moves to her chest, planted in the middle. It's the one with her cut. Wet blood smears on Jackie's skin and Lottie's eyes grow heady and dark. She licks her lips. 

 

Her other hand snakes down and slides into Jackie's pants, under her underwear. She's already so hot and wet and it's easy for her to slip two fingers inside of Jackie, even at this angle. She pushes in knuckle deep and then curls them, holding them there for now.

 

Jackie feels something left behind on her skin but doesn’t react other than to feel her breathing quicken, and she gasps as Lottie’s fingers press inside her. “Lottieohmygod,” she slurs, the words running together, nearly nonsense.

 

Lottie thinks she really likes that, the way Jackie seems to be drunk on her, on the feeling of Lottie's fingers inside of her, her own inside of Lottie. It’s easy to let her hips grind against Jackie, filling herself up and pushing her own hand into Jackie. “I need you so bad,” she moans.

 

“I– Fuck,” Jackie rasps out, her eyes slipping closed before she forces them to flutter back open. Lottie wants her to watch. She wants Jackie to watch. Jackie doesn’t want to take her eyes off of Lottie, even when she already feels so ridiculously close.

 

Lottie's blood is on Jackie's chest and her pupils dilate when she sees it, bright against her porcelain skin. She can see the pleasure in her eyes, see how close she is, the dam getting ready to break. She doesn't want that yet. Lottie's nails dig into Jackie's chest. “You can't come yet,” she tells her, voice breathy but low. 

 

Jackie groans, feeling her insides rolling, the heat between her legs growing. “You…” can’t tell me what to do sits on Jackie’s tongue, but it’s pretty clear that Lottie can tell her what to do, and Jackie doesn’t really mind at all. She’ll do it easily. But she curls her fingers in retaliation, moaning as nails dig into her chest.

 

Lottie groans, breath stuttering again. Her head rolls back and she sees stars. She thinks she can see the stars in the night sky, all the way out into space. Past the planets and to distant galaxies. Maybe even the edge of the universe. Jackie makes her feel like she's suspended in time. Like she's moving through it at the speed of light. “Jackie,” she moans, moving a little faster.

 

It’s so beautiful that Jackie doesn’t think she can take it much more. It’s hard for her body to reckon with wanting to do what she’s told and wanting to feel her release. But she wants to do what she’s told. God, she really wants to. She certainly can’t look away, not when Lottie’ looks like that. Jackie stares at her before she pushes herself up onto her elbow and catches one of Lottie’s breasts in her mouth.

 

It's so beautiful and wonderful and Lottie can feel her body filling up with heat and fire and pleasure. “Fuck, Jackie,” Lottie cries out, back arching. She feels like she's losing control. She likes it. She loves it. She wants more of it. She rolls her hips again, again. Feels herself building until she can barely hold on. “Jackie,” she moans again, “I'm gonna come.”

 

“Please,” Jackie says, pulling away and pressing her lips all over Lottie’s chest, moving to her collarbone. “Please.” She wants Lottie to. It’s like Jackie can feel Lottie’s pleasure. Or maybe they’re both just so close that she can’t tell the difference. 

 

It's so easy to let go, then. Lottie isn't even thinking about being quiet when she finally snaps, when her orgasm rips through her and her hand tightens on Jackie's shoulder. Her body shudders uncontrollably through it, hips bucking into Jackie's hand as she comes. 

 

She curls her own fingers inside of Jackie, wanting her to come now, too. Needing her to, in fact. She needs to hear it, see it, feel it right now or she feels like she's going to burn up into nothing.

 

Jackie bites down on Lottie’s collarbone, and it’s nothing at all to give in. She can’t stop it, the way she shudders and moans and comes as Lottie touches her. She thinks it was permission enough, the way that Lottie presses in more, harder, like she’s desperate for it. She’s so fucking desperate for it.

 

Her head rests against Lottie’s chest as she finally comes down, panting hard, her heart pounding. Jackie lifts her head, looking at the hand on her shoulder. She’s not really sure why she does it, just that she does, that she lifts Lottie’s hand and brings it to her lips, pressing a kiss, feeling Lottie’s blood on her face. 

 

It takes a moment for Lottie's mind to catch up with her, body still twitching and electric as she watches Jackie smear blood on her lips as she kisses her palm. After a moment, Lottie pulls the hand away, replacing it with the other one, fingers grazing Jackie's cheek. She thinks she's the most beautiful thing in the world, the galaxy, the universe. And she's all Lottie's. 

 

Groaning, Jackie leans bonelessly into Lottie’s touch, aching at the feeling of her hand being pulled out from between Jackie’s legs. Her tongue darts out against her lips, and her eyes close. She’s content, her eyes fluttering shut. “That was,” she manages, panting, “so good.”

 

Lottie is gentle, now, and chaste as she leans down to press a soft kiss to Jackie's lips. There's a smudge of blood on the corner of her mouth and Lottie licks it clean before leaning back up. She feels weightless in a way that she can't explain-- it's not physical, no, she can feel all her weight and the way her muscles sag happily, and the heaviness of her bones makes her feel more real-- a way that makes her feel like she's outside of herself looking in, watching the moment. 

 

Blinking, she gazes down at Jackie's face before smiling, tired and satisfied. “I'm glad you liked it,” she says, voice silky and honeyed.

 

“And you liked it, too?” Jackie murmurs, looking into Lottie’s eyes. She pulls her hand out of Lottie’s pants, tugging Lottie closer. The answer’s clear in Lottie’s eyes, in Lottie’s smile, but Jackie wants to hear the words. She wants to know. She likes to hear the words, especially when they fall from Lottie’s lips. 

 

Lottie moves as Jackie urges her, settling on top of her, nuzzling into her neck. She presses her lips to Jackie's pulse. “So much,” she sighs.

 

“Good,” Jackie says, settling them into the bedding. Her smile turns teasing. “I’m glad. Especially since it seemed like you really liked telling me what to do.”

 

At that, Lottie moves so she can look into Jackie's eyes as she says, “You seemed to like doing what I told you to do.”

 

Humming, Jackie looks up at the roof of their hut before closing her eyes. “Maybe. Who can really say, though, you know?”

 

“I can,” Lottie coos, leaning over Jackie when she closes her eyes, brushing lips against her cheek. “You did what I told you to.”

 

When she blinks her eyes open, it’s easy for Jackie to get lost staring up into Lottie’s as she leans over her. Her fingers move to brush over Lottie’s cheek, and she sighs, smiling. “Yeah. I did.”

 

The way Jackie looks up at Lottie makes her heart swell. It's so easy to see the affection in her eyes. And somehow, it's for Lottie. 

 

She leans her cheek into Jackie's touch. Her body still feels like it's buzzing, like there's still something just beneath the surface of her skin, itching to get out. She lays her head in Jackie's chest, though, and listens to her heartbeat. “I love you.”

 

“I love you, too,” Jackie murmurs, brushing her fingers through Lottie’s hair. She lets them lay there for a few minutes, content to feel Lottie’s weight against her. Eventually, though, Jackie nudges at Lottie. “I wanna wrap up your hand so it doesn’t get dirt or anything in it.”

 

Lottie has completely forgotten about her cut until Jackie points it out. That's when Lottie remembers she'd smeared it across Jackie's chest and she sits up, looking down at her. “Shit,” she mumbles, leaning over and rustling around for something to use as a rag. “Sorry, I didn't mean to…”

 

Except that she had meant to, hadn't she? She's quiet, then, as she wets the rag with their cup of water and starts wiping her chest clean.

 

Jackie smiles, cupping Lottie’s cheek and making the taller girl look at her after she wiped the blood off Jackie’s chest. “It’s okay,” Jackie says. “Nothing to apologize for. I didn’t mind.”

 

“I just .. Didn't realize,” Lottie mumbles, looking down at Jackie. She opens her hand and gazes down at her palm, at the blood smeared across it, too. “It doesn't hurt.” She thinks it's probably supposed to 

 

“I just don’t want it to get infected,” Jackie says. It probably should hurt. It definitely should hurt. She wonders if Lottie’s hurt herself so much that the nerves are deadened in that part of her hand. Taking it, Jackie presses a soft kiss to the edge of the wound. “The last thing you need is an infection.”

 

“I know,” Lottie answers. She knows. She probably wouldn't live through an infection. She holds the rag out to Jackie, shifting to sit beside her. “I'm careful.” Usually.

 

Without saying another word, Jackie calmly starts wiping the rag over Lottie’s wound. It’s familiar, similar to how Jackie took care of her after Misty beat her up. At least it’s not so grave. Jackie’s grateful it’s not so grave, even as she watches the blood ooze at the corners of the wound, like a tear in Lottie’s hand. She presses another kiss there, this time to the pads of Lottie’s fingers.

 

Lottie watches Jackie with intent eyes, noting how delicate she seems to be despite Lottie telling her it doesn't hurt. She knows it should. Lottie brushes her fingers against Jackie's lips. “Much better,” she murmurs.

 

“Good.” Jackie offers Lottie a smile. “You should cover it, though. To keep it protected, you know.”

 

To be fair to Lottie, she'd covered it before Jackie had come back and seen it. Maybe she should've kept it covered. “I will,” she says. She likes to believe it's true.

 

Jackie’s honestly just glad Lottie showed it to her without Jackie having to push too hard to figure out what happened. She hates when Lottie gets hurt. She thinks she’d hate the not knowing even more.

 

Lottie reaches over and grabs the handkerchief she'd wrapped it in earlier and reties it around her palm. “See?” She says, wiggling her fingers. “Like nothing ever happened.”

 

“Cute,” Jackie says, watching Lottie with soft eyes. Lottie, who’s naked from the waist up and still sitting on Jackie’s lap, and Jackie can’t help laugh a little. “So, we missed dinner, probably.”

 

“Oh, we definitely missed dinner.” Lottie smiles, soft and warm. “I don't think I mind, though. Unless you're hungry?” 

 

“Mmm,” Jackie hums, and then shakes her head. “Nope, I think I’m good.”

 

Lottie wraps Jackie up in her arms, nuzzling into her neck. “Me too.” She kind of just wants to stay in here all night, really. She doesn't think she'd mind, and no one had come to call on them yet, so it was probably fine.

 

“You kind of better than dinner,” Jackie says, looping her arms around Lottie’s waist and holding her close. Her skin is so warm, and Jackie finds herself relaxing. Even in the heat, Jackie still feels like she needs to get warm.

 

“Am I?” Lottie asks, smiling into her skin. “I don't think I'm quite as nutritious, though. We should probably eat something eventually.” They couldn't exactly afford to miss a meal out here, even now when they felt like they had enough 

 

Jackie tilts her head back, staring at the ceiling of their hut as she mumbles, “I mean, I do like eating you.” Which, seeing as how they’d engaged in group cannibalism multiple times probably wasn’t the sexiest thing to say. Sue her. Jackie Taylor was cute, and she was pretty, and she was pretty much unavailable for the entirety of her high school career. She’s not exactly well-versed in sexy.

 

Lottie laughs a little, shaking her head. “You're welcome to do that anytime.” As long as they're talking about the sexy way and not the starving way. Then again, Lottie would let Jackie eat her like that, too. She'd begged her for it at one point. She didn't really want to die anymore, though. Not when she promised Jackie she'd stick around for her 

 

“Thank you, I think I’ll take you up on that,” Jackie says. She likes the way that Lottie feels pressed against her. She likes the way Lottie touches her, the way she tastes. Jackie just likes Lottie. It’s hard to wrap her head around how much, sometimes. The way this feels, the ways Jackie feels, it’s all a little new and strange and exciting. She doesn’t think she could ever be without it again.

 

“Please do.” Lottie thinks she’d let Jackie do whatever she wants, really. Even now, even when she feels like this, this strange itch inside of her that she feels like has been building for a few days now. She can’t really decide if it’s good or bad. All she knows is that it exists inside of her and it made her break open her cut to bleed on Jackie. 

 

The fact that Lottie seems to want Jackie just as much as Jackie wants her is always something that Jackie finds to be utterly incredible. It blows her mind. Just as much as the fact that the entire team seems okay with it. Of course they were all fine with Tai and Van, but that’s Tai and Van. The only bad part of everyone knowing about her and Lottie, Jackie thinks, is all the teasing. But no one hates them. No one’s stopped being their friend over it. 

 

Jackie gets to have this, and no one hates her because of it. It feels so good. It’s such a relief. It also hurts. She’s been lied to her entire life, being told that no one would ever love her if she was like this. If she liked a girl. She moves to bring Lottie’s lips to hers. She gets to have this, and she’ll do anything to keep it.

 

Lottie sighs against Jackie’s lips. She’s content to just stay here like this for the rest of the night. She feels like it’s something important. Maybe it’s not anything unusual for them at this point, but Lottie wants to stay here. She wants to stay with Jackie. 

 

“Are you excited for tomorrow?” she asks after a quiet moment, still leaned close to her, lips brushing against lips. She wants Jackie to have a good day tomorrow, she thinks she deserves it. They all do.

 

“I think it’ll be nice,” Jackie says. She thinks that, much like with the lake, they all need things that reminds them that they’re just teenagers. That, even out in the middle of nowhere, working day in and day out to simply survive, that they also need to enjoy life as well. That’s equally important. Teasing, she adds, “It’d be nice to win and have the others wait on me all day.”

 

“You know I’d do that for you anytime,” Lottie offers, “you don’t even have to win a game.” In fact, Lottie thinks that sounds like a really nice way to spend a day, waiting on Jackie, doing whatever she wants and giving her whatever she wants. She doesn’t think Jackie would agree entirely. 

 

“I know you would,” Jackie says. “I just don’t know if I wanna spend a whole day telling you what to do.” As they were both finding out, apparently Jackie would rather have Lottie tell her what to do. But it’s also more than just that, Jackie thinks. She doesn’t want to control Lottie. She doesn’t want the others to think that she’s controlling, that she doesn’t care about Lottie’s feelings, that she’d rather tell Lottie what to do all the time. 

 

“I wouldn’t mind if you did,” Lottie tells her. She brushes her nose against Jackie’s cheek before kissing it. “I think I’d like doting on you all day.” God, would she ever. She’s head over heels for Jackie. Whipped, chained, all the words. She doesn’t care. She’s that. She loves it. 

 

Relaxing a little more, Jackie says, "I know you wouldn’t.” Jackie doesn’t think Lottie would automatically start resenting her. Still. But she smiles. “I mean, you’re totally welcome to dote. I’m just not going to tell you how to do it. You’re a smart girl, Lottie Matthews. I believe you can figure out how to dote on me without me telling you.”

 

“But wouldn’t it be more fun if you did?” Lottie asks, raising a brow. She sits up enough to look down at Jackie again, tilting her head curiously. “You could just try it, if you wanted.”

 

Her body squirms, and Jackie meets Lottie’s eyes. Such pretty eyes. What’s she supposed to be doing? “Like… right now?”

 

“Or…whenever.” Lottie shrugs. “Do you want to? Right now?”

 

“Uh…” Jackie stares up at Lottie. “Kiss me?”

 

Lottie gives a soft chuckle. “As you wish,” she murmurs, leaning down to plant a chaste kiss on her lips.

 

It’s just a kiss, but it makes Jackie feel warm from her head to her toes. “Again.”

 

Lottie can do that. This time, she lingers a little longer, before pulling away and licking her lips. Her eyes watch Jackie’s intently again.

 

“Don’t stop,” Jackie murmurs, her eyes slipping closed.

 

Lottie can do that, too. She presses her lips to Jackie’s and this time she doesn’t pull away. She kisses her long and slow. She doesn’t pull away.

 

It’s such a good kiss. Lottie’s a really good kisser, and even just that makes Jackie hum happily, the sound catching in her chest. She’s flushed, but it makes her bold, and she only trips over her words a little. “Put your tongue in my mouth. Taste me.”

 

Lottie is quick to follow instructions, slipping her tongue between Jackie’s lips and licking into her mouth. She tastes divine, really. It’s only been moments, but Jackie tastes like heaven. She wants to taste her more and it’s hard to hold herself back from just taking what she wants, but she does, only pressing her tongue to Jackie’s, humming as she enjoys the flavor.

 

The press of Lottie’s tongue against her own has Jackie moaning softly, wrapping her arms and legs around her, clinging to her. This is good. Jackie doesn’t think she’s going to be telling Lottie how to dote on her anymore when she’s too tempted to simply get lost in this moment and stay there happily. 

 

Lottie certainly doesn’t mind just doing this, really. Jackie already seems to be lost in the kiss, she’s totally fine with that. She takes the lack of instruction as permission to deepen the kiss more, sucking in Jackie’s lower lip before sliding her tongue back into her mouth happily, melting into her grip, a tangle of limbs.

 

This is exactly what Jackie wants. She moans again when Lottie sucks on her lip. It’s a needier kiss when Lottie’s tongue enters her mouth once more as Jackie sucks on it. She’s not really in control of her body anymore as her hips roll up into Lottie’s, seeking out pressure subconsciously. 

 

Slotting her leg between Jackie’s, Lottie leans into her, giving her just enough pressure. She’s smiling into their kiss, sighing. Her teeth scrape along Jackie’s lip before her tongue brushes over it. 

 

She feels like her mind is buzzing and she rolls her hips again and she moves a hand to Jackie’s side, pushing her shirt up to expose some skin. Her fingers trail along bare skin, nudging at her bra.

 

Suddenly, Lottie pulls back, her head snapping up as she looks to their door. A moment later, there’s a knock.

 

“Uhhh, sorry to interrupt, but if you guys get hungry, we left some food under a bowl in the pot,” comes Natalie’s nervous voice. 

 

The sound Jackie makes is strangled, slightly choked as she looks up at Lottie and then at the doorway. “Thanks!” she says, her voice coming out higher than normal, and she moves her hands to cover her face. “We’ll get it in… a bit.”

 

It’s silent inside and out for a moment before Nat speaks again. “Cool. Uh, see you tomorrow, then.” 

 

Lottie can hear her boots crunching a few sticks and leaves as she moves along, and then her voice once again, telling the same thing she’d just told Jackie and Lottie to their neighbors, Van and Tai. 

 

At least they weren’t the only ones skipping out on meals for something else.

 

Lottie sits up a little, moving her hands to pry the ones from Jackie’s face off. She smiles down at her. “Your face is as red as a tomato,” she teases.

 

“I’m feeling a lot of conflicting emotions right now,” Jackie mumbles, looking up at Lottie. Her breathing is still heavy, her skin flushed. It’s not fair that Lottie can just tease like this.

 

“Like what?” Lottie probes, one finger twisting a strand of Jackie’s hair around.

 

Jackie laughs. “Mildly embarrassed one of our friends could have walked in on us, really turned on. Just,” she leans into Lottie’s touch, “happy to be here, but that feels kind of like a baseline feeling with you these days.”

 

The words kind of make Lottie’s heart melt. She leans forward and presses a kiss to Jackie’s forehead, then her nose, then her lips again. “I’m sure Nat knows not to walk in here unannounced,” Lottie grins.

 

“I mean, I’m sure, but still,” Jackie says. But still, she can’t help but grin against Lottie’s lips as well. She doesn’t think anyone will walk in on them. She doesn’t think it would even be the worst thing in the world if they were caught, just mortifying. Jackie just can’t help that stirring of worry in her chest that’s still left over from being back home, the feeling that reminds her that she hasn’t really changed at all. Not completely, even as she wraps her arms back around her girlfriend and holds her close. 

 

Lottie burrows her face back into Jackie’s neck, brushing her lips along the line of her pulse, kissing the skin. She’s already marked up with Lottie’s teeth indents but really, what’s a few more? She scrapes them gently over Jackie’s skin. “Are you embarrassed?” 

 

Shivering, Jackie murmurs, “I probably will be in the morning at breakfast.”

 

Running her tongue along the skin there, Lottie hums. “There’s no need to be.”

 

“Not even when Mari makes fun of the way I, ah, moan your name?” Jackie brushes her fingers up and down Lottie’s back. Her head tilts to the side.

 

“She’s probably just jealous,” Lottie murmurs, biting down gently on Jackie’s pulse.

 

“I would be, too,” Jackie starts, shuddering, “if I didn’t have you.”

 

“You do,” Lottie whispers, moving her face up to press her lips to Jackie’s ear. “You have me. Only you.”

 

Sometimes, like when Lottie spills her blood, Jackie gets this feeling that she’s sharing Lottie with something none of them understand. But she chalks that up to her insecurities and tries not to let it rule her life. “I have you.”

 

Lottie moves her face so she can look down at Jackie again, into her eyes, framing their faces with her hair so that the only place Jackie can look is back at her. “I promise.”

 

There’s nothing and no one else in the world that Jackie would rather look at, staring up into Lottie’s eyes. Swirling and infinite, like looking at the night sky. “I believe you.”

 

Lottie doesn’t need to say much more, then, pressing her lips back to Jackie’s, soft at first, before running her tongue along Jackie’s lips, asking silently to taste her again. 

 

Yes, Jackie thinks. Yes. She’s eager to open her mouth for Lottie, eager to let Lottie in, to feel more of her. She loves the soft kisses. Jackie thinks she could spend the rest of her life cuddling in Lottie’s arms with just the soft kisses. But, god. She always seems to want more.

 

Lottie is eager to lick back into Jackie’s mouth, buzzing. She feels like she’s buzzing. Her hand goes back to Jackie’s side, fingers trailing along bare skin. She pushes her shirt up a little more, hand brushing against the cloth of her bra. She just wants her so badly. It’s only been a few minutes but she wants her again, like her thirst can never be sated. Like she’s starving and nothing can fill her.

 

At this point, the teasing is just becoming too much. Jackie pulls away from the kiss just long enough to pull off her shirt and put them on a bit more of a level playing field. Sort of, at least. She looks in Lottie’s eyes and sees hunger reflected back at her. She’d let Lottie eat her whole if she asked, if she wanted.

 

Eyes trace over Jackie’s exposed skin, now, Lottie’s tongue licking her lips before she’s diving back in, crashing their mouths together and kissing her, deep and longing and rough. Teeth scraping against Jackie’s lip, drawing the lower one into her own mouth as her hands slip under the cloth of Jackie’s bra to grip her breasts. 

 

She feels a little rabid with her want but it was a special few days, wasn’t it? She couldn’t wait for tomorrow night, to feel the energy of the solstice running through her veins. This was more than enough for now, though, palms on skin and tongues in mouths. This was her favorite part.

 

Jackie’s back arches into Lottie’s touch. She just wants to be closer. It’s hard not to want to be closer, even when they’re so beautifully, wonderfully close. Lottie’s teeth on her lips, sucking and biting and teasing. Jackie just loves her so much. Her touch makes Jackie warm. It’s like she’s been brought in from the snow again, only, this time, Jackie goes willingly.

 

Lottie thinks Jackie looks really pretty when she’s splayed out beneath her like this, hot and sighing and clearly searching for her touch. She kisses down her cheek to her jaw, her neck, stopping to leave a mark along her collarbone, teeth clamping down on it. Hands push up her bra, then, and Lottie wraps her lips around Jackie’s breast, sucking.

 

“Just,” Jackie stutters, taking a deep breath before she sighs softly, “just like that.” Her head tilts back into the bedding, a moan low in her throat. “Just like that.”

 

Really, Lottie’s always been good at following instructions. She tries really, really hard to be good at that, actually. Her hand comes up to the other breast, pinching and squeezing as her tongue lathers along skin. Teeth graze hardened flesh. She leans her leg forward, putting just a little more pressure between Jackie’s.

 

“God, I love you,” Jackie breathes. She just can’t shut up. Her hips rock against Lottie’s leg slowly, chasing that wonderful feeling.

 

Lifting her head just enough to look up at Jackie, Lottie smiles. “I love you, too.” She loves her so fucking much it hurts. In the best way possible. Her mouth goes back to Jackie’s chest, this time biting down softly on her breast before sucking. Listening to Jackie’s breathing quicken and her heartbeat pacing. Blood rushing in Lottie’s ears. Her body almost felt like it was moving on its own. She wanted Jackie so badly.

 

Jackie moans at the feeling of teeth, of warmth, of a body moving on top of hers. Her nails scrape against Lottie’s back, feeling her muscles tense. It shouldn’t be possible to feel like this. Jackie doesn’t think she’ll ever stop feeling like this. 

 

Lottie feels herself moaning, too, her breath pooling out over Jackie’s skin as she pulls back to breathe. She doesn’t want to stop touching her, it feels like a need. More than a need, a necessity. She would die without this, she thinks. Her mind is racing but there’s little coherent thought, except Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. All she wants is Jackie.

 

Her hands reach around Jackie’s back, unsnapping the clasp of her bra before pulling it off and tossing it aside. Her mouth goes back to her chest eagerly, sucking only a little before she’s biting down, harder this time.

 

Jackie does understand that being bitten is supposed to hurt, and it does, but not like twisting an ankle or skinning a knee or taking a slap to the face. There’s nothing jarring about it. She thinks she’s always liked this, that prickly pleasure-pain that comes from someone digging their teeth in. She wouldn’t mind if Lottie pulled flesh from bone. She wouldn’t mind if Lottie ate her whole. 

 

Mostly, though, Jackie knows that Lottie won’t. She knows that Lottie wants her, needs her, just as much as Jackie needs Lottie. She won’t do anything to take her away. Jackie holds onto Lottie a little tighter. This is just another way of getting closer. It feels so good.

 

It’s enrapturing, the way Jackie clings to Lottie. It’s addicting. It’s everything she’s ever wanted. Everything she’s ever needed. She moves herself closer, if that’s possible. She tries. She presses her knee harder between Jackie’s legs, soothes her reddened skin with her tongue before moving to the other side, repeating the process. Teeth scraping lightly before digging in.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie breathes out. Her body shudders. Her nails dig into Lottie’s back. The knee pressed between her legs is almost perfect. It’s enough for Jackie to rock forward, letting her hips move against it. They just had each other. It’s like they can’t get enough of each other. There’s a different look in Lottie’s eyes tonight. At least at the moment, Jackie can’t say that she minds.

 

Truly, Lottie loves it when Jackie says her name like that. There’s no better sound, aside from her moaning and crying out when she comes in Lottie’s hand. There’s nothing better than that. She shifts her thigh to press more into Jackie’s hips as they move against her. She thinks about how wonderful it is that Jackie her’s, only her’s. She feels oddly possessive of her in the moment. She doesn’t question it, mouth moving to Jackie’s ribs, kissing for only a moment before teeth dig in there, too.

 

“Fuck, Lottie, baby, I love you.” It all comes out of Jackie’s mouth like a flood, mixed in with nonsense and sounds that are only trying to be words. She doesn’t know if it’s supposed to make sense. Lottie feels so good that it’s got Jackie feeling pretty fucking nonsensical. 

 

Oh, Lottie really likes that. It makes her skin vibrate and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She’s decided she wants to leave her mark all over Jackie’s body, even in the spots only she can see. She kisses back along her chest, takes a mouthful of skin and bites down. Sucks on the skin. She feels like she wants to do this all night, she wants to fuck Jackie all night.

 

Jackie’s back arches again, each time she feels teeth sink into skin. It leaves her panting, sweat beading at her forehead. She moves her hands from Lottie’s back to her waist, then frantically to the button of Lottie’s pants before undoing the button of her own. She just wants them touching everywhere, every way. 

 

It’s truly so lovely the way Jackie’s body reacts to Lottie’s touch. Fumbling fingers reach to strip them further and she’s all the more eager to help her, lifting Jackie’s hips and pulling her pants down and off before shucking her own off, moving back to Jackie, slotting her leg between hers and applying pressure. Her mouth goes back to Jackie’s chest, hands on her sides, holding her tight and steady. Nails digging little indents into her skin, leaving behind little half-moon marks, because Jackie is hers and no one else’s. Nothing else’s. 

 

Without really thinking about it, Jackie’s body rocks against Lottie’s. She feels so good. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt so good. Her head hits the bedding again, soft furs and blankets cushioning her. Lottie’s nails dig into her sides, and Jackie hisses and moans, her eyes rolling back. 

 

Lottie smiles into skin, soothes a new red mark with her tongue before she’s smothering Jackie’s lips with her own again, already licking into her mouth. Most of her life, Lottie was too afraid to take what she wanted. But with Jackie, with this, she wasn’t afraid. She would take whatever she wanted from her as long as Jackie let her. 

 

After a searing kiss, Lottie moves her mouth back down Jackie’s body, past her chest, to her stomach, her hips. She isn’t trying to be gentle when she finds her thigh with her mouth and bites down. 

 

It’s a relief when Lottie’s lips are on Jackie’s own, a tease when they’re pulled away. Jackie understands the desire to hear how good this all feels. Really, she wants to practically scream about it. She’s never actually thought it would feel good, and she’s really fucking happy that it does. 

 

That being said, they live in really close proximity to an entire group of people who already spend way too much time teasing her about her sex life. Jackie doesn’t need to give them any more ammo. Still, she cries out, loud, as teeth dig into her thigh, her body jumping like she’s been shocked.

 

Lottie has enough of herself to not bite down harder and draw blood, she doesn’t think that’s a good idea right now. Instead she lets go and moves her hands to tug Jackie’s underwear off quickly, before licking her lips. She doesn’t care much for teasing and taking her time, Jackie is already shuddering under her hands, so she wastes no time in dipping her head between her legs, liking a long, tantalizing stripe up her center before diving in.

 

This is a much gentler way to be consumed, and Jackie sighs, her hands moving to Lottie’s hair. One holds Lottie close, keeping her there, right there, while the other pets through it, recognizing how silky smooth the thick strands are even when most of her mind has narrowed between her legs. Legs that bracket Lottie on either side, one wrapping itself around Lottie’s back to nudge her closer with a foot.

 

Taking the hint, Lottie moves in closer, hands gripping Jackie’s hips. One hand slipped up her body to pinch at her breast. Wraps her lips around Jackie’s clit and sucks, enjoying the taste, the sound of her sighing and moaning. Even if all she wants is to hear Jackie cry out, she thinks this is just as enjoyable. 

 

Jackie stutters out a long, low moan as she feels Lottie’s lips around her clit, sucking and making her feel like she can see new fucking colors or something. It’s amazing. It’s mindblowing. It’s making her brain feel like it’s coming out of her ears. At least she’s kind of shut up. 

 

Lottie is sure, now, that this is her favorite place to be in the world. Right here between Jackie’s legs, tasting her, hearing her, feeling her. She licks and sucks and kisses, panting and moaning into Jackie, enjoying every moment of it. This was the best feeling in the world. There was nowhere else Lottie would rather be. Nails dig into skin again as she grips Jackie’s leg tightly, bending it at the knee and up to her chest for better access. She dips her tongue into her, drawing out every movement, wanting to hear Jackie’s moans more.

 

It’s a little ironic to Jackie that, even in this position, Lottie’s the one with all the control. Jackie doesn’t really even want it. She’s happy it’s with Lottie. She’s happy to let Lottie move and taste and take, happy to let Lottie have as much of her as she wants. Jackie hopes she wants all of her. She hopes Lottie takes it. She’s so wet that it feels obscene, and she’s worried that, when she comes, she won’t stop. It’ll be a good way to die, and least.

 

Lottie doesn’t mind the control. She has so little of it in her life, even before she’d lost her mind. Every little moment of her life had felt so rigid and planned and she’d always felt like she was in the backseat of her own life. She tried to find control in little ways. This felt like a nice way to have it, even if she’d also be perfectly okay letting Jackie take control.

 

Tonight, though, she liked it. She wanted it. Craved it almost as much as she did Jackie. She lapped up the wetness coating the inside of Jackie’s legs before moving her mouth back to the bundle of nerves and pressing her tongue to it. At this angle, it’s so easy to move her other hand down and slip two fingers back inside of Jackie. She wonders how many times she can make her come before she falls apart.

 

With Lottie’s fingers inside of her, it doesn’t take Jackie much longer to feel her pleasure tightening inside of her. She moans, rocking her hips into Lottie’s fingers just a few times before she feels herself coming. She shudders with her pleasure, holding Lottie to her before her grip slackens as she focuses on breathing. 

 

It’s such a holy thing, watching Jackie come undone in Lottie’s hands, mouth. She holds her through it, lets her body come down before she finishes cleaning up the mess between her legs. She’s licking her lips as she crawls back up Jackie’s body and looks down at her, eyes still heady and wide, panting. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmurs.

 

“You make me feel beautiful,” Jackie says, her voice raspy and breathless as she looks up at Lottie. Her heart is still pounding. She doesn’t think she’d be able to stand if she tried at the moment. She has no intention of trying, though. Not when Lottie’s looking down at her like that. Jackie plans on staying right where she is.

 

Tilting her head, Lottie meets Jackie’s gaze. She lifts a hand and sets it on her chest, over her heart, feels it beating rapidly under her palm. “You’re beautiful all on your own.” She lowers herself to lay against Jackie, brushing their lips together gently. “But I’m glad I can make you feel that way.” She’s so happy someone actually loves her. She’s so honored someone actually cares about her like this, that she can actually make someone feel good about themselves.

 

Jackie makes a soft, contented noise against Lottie’s lips as the taller girl lays against her, steady and grounding in Jackie’s favorite ways. Her fingers brush over Lottie’s face. She smiles. This isn’t the first time Jackie’s been told she’s beautiful. It’s not the first time she’s felt beautiful. But being with Lottie really does make her feel that way. It makes her feel desired. She can still feel Lottie’s desire pressed into her skin, written all over her body. 

 

Lottie rests her head down on Jackie’s shoulder, letting out a long breath as she feels her own body relaxing, too. She noses against her jaw, closing her eyes and letting herself feel the steady beat of Jackie’s heart across her entire body. She feels sated and warm, even as her veins continue to buzz and her bones feel restless. She thinks it’s just being excited for the solstice tomorrow, it could really be something special.

 

“You’re really good at making me stop talking,” Jackie murmurs, happy and sweet. 

 

Laughing, Lottie shakes her head. “I like hearing you talk.”

 

“Well, I am really good at talking,” Jackie teases. She’s really good at talking herself into corners, or saying things she doesn’t mean. Right now, though, she doesn’t think she could say one thing to Lottie that didn’t come straight from the heart. Even if it skipped the process of getting filtered through her brain, first.

 

Lottie smiles. Jackie was always the talkative kind, even before she became captain. She was always smiling or happy looking. Lottie knows some of it was a front, but there weren’t many others around that tried to be optimistic for everyone else, especially when they were all down as a team. “I think I could listen to you forever.”

 

“Sap,” Jackie says. Her fingers brush up and down Lottie’s back, feeling soft skin under her fingertips. “You’re such a sap.”

 

A shiver runs up Lottie’s back but it just makes her sigh happily and deflate further into Jackie. “You made me this way,” she mumbles, “I just love everything about you.”

 

Laughing quietly, Jackie pets her hand back through Lottie’s hair again. “Well, I’m so sorry for making you this way.”

 

“Don’t be,” Lottie states, “I like it.”

 

Softer, Jackie whispers, “Sap.”

 

“Only for you,” Lottie says back, just a softly.

 

“I know we just…” Jackie stops herself, swallowing. She feels like they’re not close enough. She understands that’s a ridiculous feeling. “Kiss me again. Please.”

 

Lottie can do that. She lifts herself up to hover above Jackie before pressing their lips together again. She always wants to kiss Jackie. It’s so easy to follow the command. 

 

Jackie sighs into the kiss, relaxing, nudging Lottie’s arms to get her closer again. No need to hover. They can just press against each other and melt together for all Jackie cares.

 

Their bodies press together as Lottie lowers herself again. Jackie’s skin is still so warm and it’s easy for Lottie to give in more. She wraps her arms around Jackie’s shoulders, pressing bare skin against bare skin. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in a while. It was so nice to just be here with Jackie, even if they’d missed dinner. Lottie didn’t mind.

 

Yes, this is what Jackie thinks she needs, now. More than food or water or sleep or even air. It’s hard to do anything when Lottie isn’t around, but when she’s there and they’re pressed together like this, Jackie feels on top of the world. It’s like scoring the winning goal or winning homecoming queen. It’s better. It’s more real. When they break away, she smiles up at Lottie, unable to help herself.

 

The grin on Lottie’s face matches Jackie’s. She feels soft in a way that she knows is only possible with Jackie. She feels real and grounded and safe. Even out here. Especially out here. She tries very hard to ignore the little voice in the back of her mind that wonders if they’d get to have this back home. She has it now and that’s what matters. She’d always been good at living in the present. 

 

She does, however, realize how thirsty she is, reaching over to grab their shared cup of water and noting how low it is. “Are you thirsty?” she asks Jackie. “Or hungry?”

 

Groaning, Jackie props herself up slightly before leaning back against the bedding. “I can go get us some water and a plate. In a minute. When my legs remember how to work.”

 

Lottie chuckles, ghosting her lips over Jackie's jaw. “I can get it,” she tells her, taking the last sip of water in their cup before setting it aside. “It's probably a good idea to eat, though, after all that activity.” Even if Lottie really just wanted to stay here wrapped up in Jackie, maybe even indulge in her again if she wanted.

 

“Thank you,” Jackie says, pressing their lips together before flopping down. “It’s probably a good idea. I guess.”

 

“Well if we eat, we'll have more energy,” Lottie points out, tracing a finger along Jackie's collarbone, “to do more activities.” 

 

“Like what? Playing checkers and going for a walk?”

 

Lottie grins, leans over Jackie. “Like sex,” she says, kissing her quickly before she's sitting up, stretching and looking around for her clothes.

 

“I mean, right, yeah. Like sex is good, too,” Jackie says, watching Lottie move around their hut.

 

Deciding she doesn't really want to put clothes back on, Lottie simply grabs her cloak and throws it over her shoulders. It covers enough and she's still wearing her underwear, despite how wet they were. “Unless you just wanna play checkers,” Lottie half jokes, “that's fine, too.”

 

Jackie looks Lottie up and down, licking her lips. “I’m afraid I don’t know where we keep all the board games out here. We should probably just skip straight to sex.”

 

“What a shame,” Lottie grins, “I'll be right back. Don't miss me too much.” She kneels enough to press a kiss to Jackie's forehead before heading out. 

 

The camp feels a little eerie when it's dark and empty like this-- it reminds Lottie a little of her house back in Jersey, just big, long, empty hallways, always so dark and cold. Lonely. 

 

She's not back there, though, and she blinks away the thought, heading over to the cook pot. There's an upside down bowl in it, covering up the food enough to keep bugs off it. She turns out over and finds just a single serving left, meaning Tai and Van must have already grabbed their share. She scoops the rest of us into the bowl and then heads over to the water bucket. 

 

She's reaching in to full up their cup when she hears something rustling around in the brush. Pausing, Lottie looks around for the source, thinking it most likely is just another girl coming back from going to the bathroom or something. 

 

But she doesn't see anyone. The moon isn't quite full tonight, but it's full enough to illuminate the clearing they live in, and all Lottie can see are shadows and still huts.

 

She sets the bowl and cup down, then, and moves towards the direction of the sound, eyes focused and searching. It feels a little like something is calling her that way. 

 

Jackie manages to sit up while waiting for Lottie, starting to just wrap one of their blankets around herself before she feels self-conscious and pulls on her striped sweater. It’s silly to get self conscious, but old habits. She attempts to make herself a little more presentable, brushing her fingers through her hair, brushing her hands down her sleeves. Then, she just waits.

 

Lottie's focus is solely on searching for the source of the sound, so she doesn't notice someone approaching her from behind.

 

“Lottie? What the fuck are you doing out here?” Nat says blearily, causing Lottie to jump a little. 

 

“Fuck, Nat,” she exhales, “you scared me.”

 

Nat rubs at her face. “Now you know how it feels.” She squints in Lottie's direction. “You didn't answer the question.”

 

Lottie furrows her brow. “I was getting some food and water.” Sometimes, it feels like Natalie still doesn't trust Lottie. Sometimes, it feels a little demeaning. She tries not to get hung up on it. 

 

“In the bushes?”

 

“I heard something,” Lottie mumbles, heading back over to the bucket and dunking her cup in. Nat does the same after her. “At least, I thought I had.” 

 

Nat looks off in the direction Lottie had been standing, then back to Lottie. “Was probably just an animal.” 

 

Lottie just nods absently. She doesn't think it was just an animal. It felt like something was watching her. She looks back over her shoulder. She doesn't notice Nat watching her face, before her eyes drop a little. 

 

“Lottie, jesus, are you not wearing any clothes?”

 

Turning back around, Lottie raises a brow. “I have my cloak on?”

 

Nat is averting her gaze. “Yeah that-- that's not covering everything.”

 

Lottie shrugs. “It's nothing you haven't seen.”

 

“Yeah, when you weren't fucking our team captain.” 

 

Frowning, Lottie picks up her bowl. “Nudity isn't inherently sexual, Nat.”

 

“I fucking know that,” Natalie snaps, “it's just-- nevermind. I'm going back to bed.” 

 

She's stalking off before Lottie can say much else, so she just sighs and makes her way back over to her hut, ducking inside. 

 

Jackie makes grabby hands at Lottie when she comes back inside. “What was it?” she asks. Their window still allowed sound to carry, and she could hear Nat and Lottie talking, even if she couldn’t hear everything. Something about nudity. Jackie can see far more skin through Lottie’s cloak when there isn’t anything under it. 

 

“What was what?” Lottie asks back, handing Jackie the cup of water before she sits next to her, setting the food bowl between them. 

 

Jackie takes a sip of water and sets it down. “I thought I heard you say something about… hearing something. Do you know what it was?”

 

“Oh, um, I don’t know. Nat came out to get some water, too, I guess, so I never got to find out.” Whatever it was, Lottie still felt like she could feel it. She was trying not to get her hopes up, though, in case it was nothing. She wanted to have a good day tomorrow.

 

“And she saw you all naked,” Jackie teases.

 

“I’m wearing my cloak,” Lottie repeats the same argument she gave Nat, “that’s not naked.”

 

“I can see your boobs.”

 

“That’s still not naked,” Lottie argues.

 

“And your nipples.”

 

“Still not naked.”

 

Jackie laughs. “Almost naked.”

 

Lottie looks down at herself, spreading her arms out. “I guess that’s true. But it’s not like we haven’t all seen each other almost naked.”

 

“Yeah, but not after I just,” Jackie pauses, “you know, fucked you. Or you fucked me. Whatever. Not much room for… imagination.”

 

“Is that…a bad thing?” Lottie had never really considered the idea. It had never really been a problem back in Wiskayok, mostly because no one else was ever around. 

 

“I’m just… not used to sharing,” Jackie says. Or, well, apparently she was, she’d just never been aware of it. She doesn’t like the thought of other people looking at Lottie, though. Even if she knows that Lottie’s hers.

 

Scooting closer, Lottie shucks her cloak and leans into Jackie, wrapping her arms around her. “You’re not sharing me,” she says, trying to reassure her, “if it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll make sure to not be so…almost naked around the others.”

 

It’s kind of amazing how comfortable Lottie is with her own body, the way she doesn’t even bother with the cloak, the way she’s nearly nude as she wraps her arms around Jackie to comfort her. Jackie can barely stay alone for a few minutes before she’s putting her sweater back on. She’s fine with her body. Really, she is. She doesn’t see most of the flaws in it until her mother points them out; she knows she’s pretty even with them. But she doesn’t have Lottie’s effortless ease. Or maybe she just doesn’t have Lottie’s disconnect, the way nudity is just nudity, and it’s natural. 

 

Jackie wraps her arms around Lottie and snuggles into her. “It’s fine. I can get used to it. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable or anything.” Or grow to resent me because you think I’m controlling everything.

 

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Lottie tells her, “I’d rather make sure you are. If it doesn’t matter to me either way.” She presses her lips to Jackie’s cheek. Lottie simply didn’t care about her level of nudity because she’d never really had to. In fact, she sometimes liked the attention. Maybe it was a bad thing, but she hadn’t ever thought that hard about it. Mostly, she just wanted to make sure Jackie was okay. That’s all Lottie cared about.

 

“You’re really hot, Lottie. Really hot. And I like looking at you. I like knowing that other people also think you’re hot,” Jackie says. “Just… there’s some parts of you that I just want to be for me. Some parts of me that are just for you.”

 

Lottie nods. “I’d like that, too.” She hugs her a little tighter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just wasn’t thinking about it.”

 

“I’m not,” Jackie says, maybe a little too quickly. “Uncomfortable. I’m not. Promise.”

 

“Okay,” Lottie replies, even if she thinks Jackie might be lying a little. “Still. I want some of me to be just for you. So I’ll be better about it, okay?”

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s lips. “I love you.” She looks at the bowl of food, the cup of water. “We should probably eat a little, huh?”

 

Humming, Lottie follows Jackie’s gaze. “I guess, yeah.” She reaches into the bowl and takes a piece, holding it up to Jackie’s lips. 

 

With a smile and a huff, Jackie opens her mouth, taking the meat out of Lottie’s fingers and licking them when she pulls away. “Gonna hand feed me?”

 

“It’s maybe not grapes, but I was hoping it would be just as sensual,” Lottie says, leaning in to brush her lips against Jackie’s cheek. 

 

“You’re a sap and a nerd,” Jackie states. She goes ahead and shucks off her sweater, and it’s just as much an attempt to be comfortable with herself as it is an attempt to simply be comfortable. But being with Lottie makes her feel comfortable.

 

“What? How does that make me a nerd? I just want to be sexy with my girlfriend,” Lottie pouts.

 

Jackie hums, leaning forward to kiss the pout on Lottie’s face. “Dunno. You just are.”

 

The kiss is nice, but Lottie still pouts. “Am not.” 

 

“But you’re a hot, sexy nerd,” Jackie teases. “Even when you pout.”

 

Lottie picks up another piece of food, popping it in her own mouth as she chews thoughtfully. “Fine, but only because you said so.”

 

“I do say so,” Jackie says, reaching forward and eating a piece on her own. She takes a sip of water before passing it off to Lottie.

 

She’s not actually that hungry, but Lottie eats about half of the bowl in hopes that Jackie will eat half as well. She’s more eager to finish eating because she already feels like she wants to melt back into Jackie, into her lips and her touch and her warmth. 

 

When the bowl is empty, she sets it aside and takes one last sip of water before holding it out to Jackie. “Feel better?”

 

Bite after bite, Jackie eats half the serving size in the bowl, matching Lottie’s pace. She knows she’s supposed to eat, and at least when Lottie hand feeds her, it’s gentler than when the others did it. But Jackie’s a big girl. She can feed herself. Taking the cup and drinking slowly, Jackie nods, humming her affirmation as she looks at Lottie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I feel great.”

 

“Hmmm, right,” Lottie hums, scooting closer to Jackie and reaching for her, then, hands caressing her sides. “Of course.”

 

“I just couldn’t move my legs earlier,” Jackie says. She wiggles her toes and adjusts, moving closer to Lottie to lace her hands around Lottie’s neck. But I’m great. Got my second wind and everything.”

 

“You poor thing,” Lottie coos, “you know I’d carry you anywhere if you needed.” She pulls Jackie into her lap, then, brushing their lips together. “Good, cause that was just halftime.”

 

“I know you will,” Jackie mumbles against Lottie’s lips. That’s what makes being with Lottie so nice. She knows. “Just halftime? What plays do you have up your sleeves, Matthews?”

 

“I mean, we could always go into overtime,” Lottie murmurs back, hands circling Jackie’s waist to her back, fingers feeling warm skin.

 

Jackie hums, playing with Lottie’s hair. “Maybe I should… even the scoreboard.”

 

“You are down, two to one,” Lottie teases, looking at Jackie with hungry eyes.

 

“I hate losing,” Jackie says, pushing on Lottie’s shoulders to get her to lay down. 

 

Lottie lays back, pulling Jackie with her. “I know you do. You’re such a sore loser,” she chides, “but I suppose that’s why we won a lot of games.”

 

“What can I say?” Jackie starts, pressing her lips against Lottie’s. “I’m a winner.”

 

“You really are,” Lottie says into Jackie’s lips, the words muffled by them. “I like it when you win.”

 

“Great. Because I want to win tonight.”

 

Later, when they finally go to sleep, Jackie dreams she’s laid out on the table in the center of the village, plates and cups set around her. Ice cold hands brush through her hair, over an ear that’s no longer there. She’s the feast, she knows, dishes of sides placed around her like it’s Thanksgiving and she’s the main course. 

 

As Jackie sits up, she meets Lottie’s eyes, sitting at the head of the table, watching. There’s an entire universe in Lottie's eyes. Jackie can see all the stars. The others are there, waiting, but Jackie doesn’t notice anyone but Lottie, always Lottie, only Lottie, now, even with those cold fingers holding her neck.

 

When Lottie moves forward with the hunting knife in her hand, pressing Jackie back down and kissing her deeply, Jackie’s not even worried. When she feels the sharp blade against her neck, she doesn’t care. And, when she wakes up, tucked still in Lottie’s arms, she doesn’t think it was a bad dream. Just a dream. One hand goes to Lottie’s chest, reminding herself that this isn’t a dream. It’s wonderfully, groundingly real.

Notes:

Look, I know they fuck a lot, but they deserve it, right? And, well, let's just say things are about to get a little more dire. They're stocking up for winter, like squirrels with acorns! But also as always, I hope you guys enjoyed! We love all your comments and thank you so so much for reading! Happy holidays!

Chapter 34: summertime is always the best...

Summary:

The solstice is here! Before the nightly celebrations begin, it's all fun and games for the Yellowjackets. Mari has a bone to pick, or maybe she doesn't, and Lottie and Tai have a test of strength. Travis has a tea party with the wilderness. The day is busy with hellos and goodbyes, but Jackie and Lottie still manage to make a little bit of time for each other in the midst of it all.

Title comes from part of a quote by Charles Bowden

Notes:

This is, of course, not on our set scheduled day, but, really, when is it ever? It's that time of the year. But, hey! Better late than never!

Lottie thinks she dreams. She doesn’t quite understand it, the way she feels as she sleeps. She’s standing in the clearing, her clearing, the tree across from her, pulsing with life. Its roots beat like veins. The moon rises in the sky, blood red. It sets, it rises, it sets. As if time is moving too fast. The world circles around her, it moves on without her. 

 

The forest morphs and changes. She’s standing in front of the entrance of a cave. It changes again and she’s standing over a pit, staring down. It changes again and the ground is snowy, now, and she’s standing in the middle of the village. The others are lined up with her. She holds out her hand but no one reaches back.

 

A hand on her chest wakes her up. Blinking, Lottie’s vision clears to show Jackie, still wrapped around her, fingers splayed on her skin, feeling her heartbeat. Lottie lifts a hand and puts it over Jackie’s. “It’s real,” she says.

 

Jackie blinks some of the sleep out of her eyes. She should’ve known that Lottie would wake up when she did. Smiling, Jackie nods and softly says, “I know.”

 

Lottie knows Jackie doesn’t actually need the reminder, but she likes to think it helps. It helps her, too. She turns enough to press her lips to Jackie’s. She can hear rustling outside as others begin to wake as well, probably excited for the day to come. “Did you sleep well?”

 

“Always,” Jackie says. That’s just how it is, now. She always sleeps better with Lottie right there, and she wakes up better with Lottie there, too. “You?”

 

“Always,” Lottie mimics. She leans up to press her lips to Jackie’s. “Are you excited for today? You better not lose to Mari’s team. She’ll never shut up about it.”

 

Groaning, Jackie flops back onto the bedding. “I mean, I’m excited. We totally shouldn’t lose. Like, it’d be embarrassing. It’s me, Nat, and Tai on a team. Verses Mari and Miserable Quigley. We should win. I’ll be embarrassed if we don’t.”

 

“Aren’t the JV girls playing, too?” Lottie asks, tilting her head. “I’m surprised Misty wanted to play. Considering she’s not very, um…athletic.”

 

“Yeah, I think so. And Mari has Van, so that’s a loss, I guess.” Jackie rolls her eyes. “I guess she just wants to feel included or whatever.”

 

“I’m sure Nat had to do some convincing to let that happen,” Lottie mumbles. She rolls over, then, wrapping her arm around Jackie and burying her face in her neck. “I’m sure it’ll still be fun.”

 

Jackie laughs, wrapping around Lottie as well to keep her close. “I’m sure it will. I wish you were playing, though. That would be fun.”

 

“I don’t think anyone else really wants me to,” Lottie shrugs. She was okay with that. There was a reason she was center back.

 

“That’s not true,” Jackie says. If Misty was playing, then she didn’t see any reason Lottie couldn’t. Still, she doesn’t push it. Instead, she leans into Lottie and smirks, “Maybe we can do something later tonight.” After all of the seriousness.

 

Lottie raises a brow, though she thinks she might have an idea of what Jackie is suggesting. A grin curls onto her lips. “Oh yeah, like what? Checkers?”

 

“I was thinking more like… tag.” Jackie sits up, then, untangling them from each other and stretching. Her back pops, and she sighs, smiling back at Lottie.

 

“Aren’t you guys basically playing tag?” Lottie points up, pouting only a little when Jackie pulls away from her. She pushes herself up to sit as well, watching Jackie with a fondness, even as her back cracks. “If only we had a masseuse out here.” She reaches out and scratches Jackie’s back with her nails through her shirt. “Or a hot tub.”

 

“Yeah, but you’re not playing with us,” Jackie says. She groans. “One day, I’ll get used to not sleeping in a bed, and my back will stop making weird noises, and it’s gonna be great.” She can’t help herself, though, as she leans back into Lottie for another kiss. “I don’t really need either, though. I’ve got you.”

 

Lottie just hums. She presses into the kiss, letting out a soft breath. She had other plans today, most of which involved talking to Travis. They were going to honor Javi tonight, along side Shauna, and he hadn’t talked about his brother at all since his untimely death and their, well-- Lottie pushed the thought away. Javi had saved them. It didn’t matter in the end if his death was an accident or not. 

 

“Hmm, I don’t know, I don’t think I’m nearly as nice as sitting in a hot tub.”

 

Jackie shakes her head. “No, you totally are. I mean, hot tubs are nice, but they’re not you, and you hold me at night and keep me warm and are, like, amazing.” 

 

“You’re just saying that because you like me,” Lottie teases. But she’ll take it. She likes that Jackie would pick her over a hot tub, or anything, really. 

 

“Well, I do like you a lot,” Jackie agrees. Just one more kiss, and then she moves to get up and start getting ready. She changes out of the shirt she slept in, puts on a cleaner pair of pants. The others are already starting to move outside. Jackie can hear excited chattering.

 

“I like you, too,” Lottie says, moving to join Jackie as she discards the clothes she’d slept in and starts putting on new, cleaner ones. It feels like a dress day, so she slips on Laura Lee’s and grabs one of her lighter jackets before glancing at Jackie. “Ready?”

 

Pulling her hair up, Jackie fluffs it in the mirror before giving Lottie a nod. She puts on the cloak Lottie made for her and walks over to Lottie, standing on her toes to wrap her arms around Lottie’s neck. “Ready.”

 

Lottie steals one more kiss before she forces herself to walk them out the door, otherwise she’s afraid she’ll simply pull Jackie’s clothes off and decide to say screw it to the solstice and just keep Jackie for herself.

 

But it’s nice to see everyone in such high spirits. Most of the girls have sequestered off into the teams they’ll be playing Capture The Bone on (Lottie thinks they should’ve spent more time figuring out a name), whispering amongst themselves as if strategizing how best to beat the other team. “Think you should go join your crew?” Lottie says, nodding at them huddled together. Even Nat is there, though she looks a little unamused with whatever Melissa and Tai seem to be saying.

 

“I guess,” Jackie says, sighing. She squeezes Lottie’s hand. “I’ll see you later?”

 

“Of course,” Lottie nods, placing one last kiss on Jackie’s cheek. “I’ll try and watch as best I can.”

 

Laughing, Jackie says, “Good luck with that.” Then, with one last look, she heads towards the group that’s gathering.

 

“Ready to bring your A game, Taylor?” Nat asks, an eyebrow raised.

 

“Always,” Jackie tells her, offering a salute. 

 

Van’s got her arms wrapped around Taissa’s waist, grinning widely. “I love you so much, but you’re going down.”

 

Tai snorts. “In your dreams.”

 

Lottie has a few tasks she needs to get done first before the post-game celebration and the ceremony tonight, so once she sees Jackie integrate herself with her team, she turns to head off on her own, only stopping by the storage shed to grab a basket and the pocket knife, which she slips into the pocket of her jacket before heading off.

 

No one follows her.

 

They break into their teams, and Nat reminds everyone how the rules work. A coin is flipped to decide which team gets the bone first, much to Van and Mari’s delight. Mari started out with the bone, taking off into the woods as everyone else set up their places, Van’s loud voice starting the count.

 

Jackie’s steps were becoming more and more sure out in the forest the longer they stayed in camp, and she used that to her benefit, breaking off by herself as she looked for Mari. She overheard some of the others from both teams, quiet whispers and planned calls to try and find where the bone might have gone. 

 

Mari gets unlucky that Jackie ends up seeing her. Or maybe Jackie’s the unlucky one. Either way, she’s light on her feet, and, while she’s never been great at defense, that doesn’t stop Jackie from throwing her body to tackle Mari to the ground. 

 

“Oh, hi, Mar,” Jackie teases, pinning Mari down. “Fancy meeting you out here.”

 

“Jackie, what the fuck?” Mari whines, wiggling as she tries to get away, but Jackie stays where she is, reaching for Mari’s closed hand.

 

“Give me the bone.”

 

Mari grunts, crawling, even with Jackie still on top of her. “Get off me, gaywad.”

 

“That’s not nice,” Jackie coos. She’d be offended, scared, if they were back home. Out here, though, it’s just a word. “Give me the bone, and I’ll let you up.” She reaches for Mari’s hand, only for Mari to pass off whatever’s in it to the other, and, yeah, it’s getting a little frustrating because this isn’t a part of the rules, Mari. 

 

“You suck!”

 

“That’s not very nice, either,” Jackie teases.

 

“What are you two doing?” Van asks, jogging up with Nat and Tai hot on her heels.

 

Jackie looks up at them. “Oh, you know. Hanging out.”

 

“Jackie won’t get off of me!” Mari yells. But Jackie does, and Van helps Mari to her feet.

 

“Mari won’t give up the bone,” Jackie says, crossing her arms and waiting.

 

Nat sighs. “You know the rules, Mar. You get tagged, you give it up.”

 

Mari looks at Jackie, and Van starts smirking. When Mari holds up both hands, empty, she says, “I don’t have it.”

 

Nat, Tai, and Jackie exchange looks, and Jackie groans. “Well, where is it?”

 

Mari taps the side of her head where Jackie’s missing ear is supposed to be. “Didn’t you hear me, Cap? I don’t have it.”

 

There’s the crunch of a stick, and everyone looks to see Misty with the bone. Van and Mari high five.

 

“Fuck,” Jackie starts, taking off in a run.

 

Tai looks to her girlfriend in utter betrayal. “You knew.” Before she’s sprinting after and quickly overtaking Jackie.

 

“Pedal to the metal, Jax.” Shauna’s voice is loud in Jackie’s ear. “You gotta be faster if you want to win.”

 

Jackie wishes she had Shauna’s speed as she pushes herself harder, already feeling a catch start to form in her side.

 

Lottie can hear the sounds of her friends yelling and whooping and calling out as they chase each other around the trees. It reminds her a lot of being back in Wiskayok. Of listening to the way they communicate and work together on the field, or during a scrimmage, or even just running around playing stupid party games in a backyard. 

 

She turns back to her own work and kneels down, using the little trowel she’d made for her garden to dig up some soil and pluck a few mushrooms from the ground. Setting them in her basket, she stands and glances around, finding herself alone. The only people who hadn’t joined in the games were her and Travis, and he was still moping back in his own hut. She was hoping he’d be open to talking to her later, after the games and Van’s storytime were over. 

 

But it sounds like she’s got at least a little bit of time before then, and so Lottie clutches her basket and heads off further into the woods.

 

Tai and Jackie both manage to catch up with Misty, but she’s already tossing the bone through the air and into Gen’s waiting hand. Gen makes it into the circle, their pseudo-goal, much to the cheers of her team. 

 

Van lets out a victorious yell, and Jackie hears Misty’s goofy “Olly olly oxenfree, we won!” over the sound of Tai’s groaning. 

 

Jackie huffs, fluffing her hair, and Mari trots past her and holds her hand above her head in a backwards L, looking overtly pleased with herself. “Sike! I was just decoy, bi-atch.”

 

“That’s backwards, Mar,” Jackie points out, rolling her eyes.

 

Mari’s smile drops, but it picks back up as she raises her other hand and starts the chant that the winning team joins in on. “Buzz, buzz, buzz!”

 

Beside her, Shauna scoffs. “Moron.” So, Jackie realizes. It’s going to be one of those days. Shauna looks at her, rests a hand on her chest, over the pouch of Jackie’s necklace. When Jackie blinks, she’s gone.

 

Nat’s rolling her eyes, but she gives a half-hearted clap. “Don’t be sore winners, guys!”

 

The clearing Lottie reaches is a familiar one. She sets her basket of mushrooms down and lowers herself onto her knees, sitting back. She listens, but all he can hear is the thrum of life around her, the beating pulse of the forest. It’s a comforting sound, but not the one Lottie is looking for.

 

At this point, she feels like she’s giving up on ever hearing It again. She’s trying really hard to be okay with that. Still, she’s afraid to simply stop giving it offerings, especially now when things are so good.

 

Carefully, she slides the pocket knife out of her dress and flicks it open. Not the palm this time, even if it’s the easiest.

 

Still, she takes a moment to look up at the tree, the symbol. “Please,” she whispers, “just talk to me.”

 

Her answer is still silence. Lottie closes her eyes and shakes her head. She thinks about not doing it, about just saying fuck it and leaving-- but she’s too afraid. Too afraid it’ll punish them all for her misdeeds. Someone has to do it and she’s fine with that being her.

 

The blade slices along her side this time, along the same scar a different knife had left there months ago. It’s harder to squeeze blood from, but Lottie uses a rag she brought to soak it up, before pressing it to the dirt. “Please accept this offering,” she murmurs, before placing a smaller piece of cloth over her side and standing. She thinks the others might be finishing up soon, and so she starts her trek back, mushroom basket in hand.

 

The walk back is filled with the gentle ribbings of the winning team, Mari and Van playing a game of seeing who can be the loudest and most obnoxious in their celebration. Jackie likes to think that, if their team had one, they wouldn’t have been as loud. As it is, she keeps feeling her teeth grind together every time she hears Misty cheer, even if she tries to smile through it.

 

“You’re what ‘grin and bear it’ looks like in the dictionary,” Nat says, walking beside her.

 

“This is going to be a miserable fucking day,” Jackie says, rolling her eyes. 

 

Nat pats her on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine. I think some folks are going to wash up in the river. Looks like Gen’s gonna try to get a quick hunt in, and then we’ll all get together for whatever story time Van’s got cooked up. I’ve been thinking about starting an inventory today. Wanna help? You’ve always been good at all that list bullshit.”

 

With a long suffering sigh, Jackie doesn’t quite manage to hide her small smile. “I guess.”

 

When Lottie does make it back to the village, the others are all still absent, so she heads over to the storage shed and replaces the basket and pocket knife, slipping it into the spot she’s kept it hidden in the past few weeks. Wrapping up the mushrooms, she then moves over to the little table they’ve set up to help prepare herbs and stuff, setting them on the top and grabbing a bucket of water to begin washing them. 

 

They’re the good kind of mushrooms, the one that make you relax and not sick. Lottie had made sure they were the right ones. She didn’t want Travis throwing up everywhere, she just wanted him relaxed. She thinks it’ll help him open up and talk about his feelings about Javi. She hopes it will.

 

When she hears distant voices, Lottie lifts her head and glances around, looking for the others as they all begin to trickle through the trees, dirty and sweaty, but smiling. And judging by the fact that Mari is smiling, Lottie can guess that only means one thing.

 

It’s about to be a long day. 

 

As they all start breaking off, Jackie spots Lottie and heads over, offering her a smile. “So, don’t be mad? We totally lost.”

 

“I could guess by Mari’s shit eating grin,” Lottie laughs, shaking her head. She pulls Jackie into her regardless, holding her tight. “You poor thing. How can I make it better?”

 

“Shove Misty to the ground again?” Jackie mutters, holding onto Lottie tighter.

 

Shauna snorts. “Yeah, that’ll show her.”

 

Sighing, Jackie pulls away enough to say. “Really, it’s nothing. You make it better just by being here and being yourself. What’d you get up to while we played?”

 

Lottie knows Jackie’s joking but it still makes her swallow thickly. “Just by being here? You don’t even want a kiss?” she teases, looking down at her with soft eyes.

 

“Just some foraging and stuff. Picked out the best plants for dinner tonight. I can show you, since you’ll be cooking it for the winners, if you want?”

 

“I mean, I’m not gonna say no to a kiss,” Jackie teases, but she groans, laying her head against Lottie’s shoulder. “Sure, fine. I guess I had to learn how to cook at some point.”

 

Chuckling again, Lottie takes Jackie’s head between her hands and places a kiss on her forehead. “Cmon, I’ll show you what I picked out.” 

 

“After you,” Jackie says, smiling as she lets Lottie lead her towards the table with the food.

 

Lottie takes Jackie’s hand and squeezes, leading them off while the others either head off to wash up or change in their huts. 

 

“Did you at least have a good time?” she asks once they reach the table. That was what mattered most or something like that.

 

“I would have had a better time if we’d won,” Jackie mutters. “Just to shut up Van and Mari.”

 

“Well, Mari never shuts up,” Lottie points out, “and hey, there’s still a chance I’ll beat Tai, right?” That was supposed to be happening soon, too. After Van’s storytime. Lottie sighs. She’s pretty sure she isn’t going to win but it’s nice to hope.

 

“Here,” she gestures, then, to the table and the herbs she’s laid out, “I think they’ll make for a good mix for the deer soup. At least Melissa lost, too, so you don’t have to cut up the meat, right?”

 

“Small mercies,” Jackie grumbles. She still finds dealing with the meat gross, even if she’s done it a couple of times now. Never with the knife, though. Mostly just carrying its gross, nasty chunks back and forth to get cooked. Maybe she can be on vegetable duty tonight. The few meager veggies they have. 

 

Lottie furrows her brow before tugging Jackie back to her and folding her up in her arms. “It’s only for one night,” she says, “and I’ll help you the whole time, okay? It won’t be so bad.”

 

“Aw,” Jackie murmurs, getting on her toes to pull Lottie in for a kiss. “You’re so sweet.”

 

“Gross,” Mari teases, faking a gag as she walks by to head to her hurt. “No slobbering on each other over the food.”

 

“We don’t slobber!” Jackie says, indignant. 

 

Mari snorts. “Sure, you just try to eat each other. Your neck looks like it’s been mauled, Jackie.”

 

Lottie pulls away enough to examine Jackie’s neck. “It’s not that bad,” she mumbles, “is it?” Still, she shoots a glare over at Mari before taking Jackie’s hand again. “C’mon, let’s go relax until we have to start preparing lunch.”

 

“I don’t think it’s that bad.” Jackie hadn’t bothered checking it in the mirror. She has no idea what her neck looks like. But she’s happy to take Lottie’s hand and follow her wherever she wants to go.

 

Smiling, Lottie tugs Jackie away from the prying eyes of the others as they all mill about. She considers maybe going to the river, Jackie is a little scuffed up with dirt on her knees and legs, but then she decides better and just leads them back to their hut, grabbing a wet rag along the way.

 

“How did you get so dirty?” she chuckles, tugging Jackie to sit on their bedding.

 

“I tackled Mari to the ground,” Jackie says, sitting heavily on their bedding and pulling her hair down. “Didn’t matter because she didn’t have the fucking bone, but still.”

 

Lottie takes the rag and wipes down Jackie’s scraped knees, washing away the dirt. “She deserved to be tackled,” she nods, smiling. 

 

“I know,” Jackie whines, letting Lottie clean her off. “And then she called me gaywad.”

 

Lottie tries to stifle the next laugh but she can’t. “Well, I mean…” she trails off, motions gentle as she moves to Jackie’s other knee, wiping off the dirt. 

 

“Lottie!” Jackie says, indignant. “You’re not supposed to agree. Or laugh at me.”

 

“But you are!” Lottie argues, laughing, smiling. “And so am I, and so are Tai and Van. It’s tragic, I know. We’re all gaywads.” She leans forward, pressing a kiss to Jackie’s cheek. “It’s just a shame Mari clocked that first.”

 

“That’s a horrible word for it,” Jackie pouts. “Like, that sounds awful. Gaywad. Ugh.”

 

“Yeah, it is,” Lottie says, softer now. “It’s not the worst one though, is it?” There were plenty of worse words for it, for the way they were. They both knew that. 

 

Lottie sets the rag aside and scoots closer. “She’s just trying to get under your skin.”

 

No, it wasn’t the worst one. There were plenty of other words that Jackie’s spent most of her life living in fear of. Words that she’d once used casually without really getting their sting, until it clicked. Until it hurt. She moves until their knees touch. “I know. It’s silly.”

 

“No, not silly,” Lottie says, shaking her head. She reaches over to Jackie and pulls her into her lap. “Just letting her win. And she already won once today.” She nuzzles against Jackie’s cheek. “Don’t let her win again.”

 

Groaning, Jackie wraps her arms around Lottie and pushes, until they’re laying on their bedding, Jackie’s head resting on Lottie’s chest, right where she can hear her heart beat properly. “I know. You’re right. It’s fine.”

 

“We can still mope a little, if you want,” Lottie murmurs, tucking Jackie into her side as she wraps her arms around her tighter, “I don’t mind.”

 

“Just until story time,” Jackie mumbles. Then, they’d need to go out there and be people. Pulling away and moping and hiding out here had never done Jackie any favors.

 

“Just until then,” Lottie agrees, burrowing her nose into Jackie’s hair and closing her eyes. She wouldn’t mind staying in here for the rest of the day but she knew that wasn’t an option. They had the rest of the day to enjoy and then they could curl up together at night. They’d both probably need it, after the funeral.

 

“I think I’m gonna tell Nat I want to do something for Laura Lee, too,” Lottie says after a quiet moment.

 

“Yeah?” Jackie says, moving to look at Lottie. Her eyes are soft, and she brushes a hand through Lottie’s hair. She wonders what made her change her mind.

 

Lottie nods, meets Jackie’s gaze. She can’t hold it for very long. “I don’t know if it’s…what she’d want but I think it’s what she deserves. I want her to be remembered, too.” And she wanted to let go of her. If Jackie could do that with Shauna, then surely Lottie could with Laura Lee.

 

“I think she’d like it, if she knew it was you doing it,” Jackie says quietly. Her hand goes to one of Lottie’s, rubbing the back of it with her palm. “She deserves to be remembered.”

 

Lottie turns her hand around and squeezes Jackie’s. “I hope so,” she murmurs, then tugs Jackie back to her. 

 

It’s easy for Jackie to go back into Lottie’s grasp, sinking into her touch and closing her eyes. “I know so.” 

 

“Thank you,” Lottie sighs, “for asking about it. I don’t think I would’ve ever considered it without you saying something.” She hadn’t really wanted to think about it. She still sort of didn’t. 

 

But she thinks it’s better this way. She thinks Laura Lee deserves to rest.

 

“I just wanted to remind you that we haven’t forgotten about her,” Jackie says. She knows the others haven’t either, even if they don’t talk about her, or Shauna, or Javi. Rachel, or Coach. Everyone that died in this place, even if they didn’t talk about what they’d lost.

 

Lottie presses her face into Jackie's hair. “I know.” Even if it feels like they all have. She hopes they haven't. 

 

She shifts, then, moves to hover over Jackie and look down at her. “I'm still happy you did, though. You didn't have to.”

 

“I wanted to,” Jackie says. She looks into Lottie’s eyes, open and earnest, now, in ways that she hadn’t let herself be back home. 

 

“I think that just makes me love you more somehow,” Lottie mumbles, leaning down to ghost her lips against Jackie's. No one's ever shown Lottie such attention and care. Such compassion, empathy. She'd always known Jackie was a kind soul, despite how cruel she could be if she wanted. It was another thing entirely to experience her true kindness first hand. 

 

Of course Lottie fell in love with her. Of course she was falling more and more each day. She had little control over it and she didn't want it any other way.

 

The words make Jackie soft, even more than the touch of Lottie’s lips against her own. “I love you, too,” she whispers. More than she can say. It still feels stuck in her throat some days, but it’s there. It grows more and more.

 

Lottie leans in the rest of the way to kiss Jackie fully, one hand resting on her cheek, thumb stroking against her skin. She loves her and Jackie loves her back and it’s just kind of fucking incredible to Lottie. Gaywad or dyke or whatever, she was in love with Jackie Taylor and nothing was ever going to change that.

 

Jackie thinks she wants to spend the rest of her life kissing Lottie. However long they have out there. Rescue no longer seems promising, though Jackie won’t say the words out loud to Nat or the others. Even if she misses the ease of being back there, back in the world, there’s something a little comforting about not going back. If they all don’t starve in the winter, if they live another year or ten, Jackie wants to spend it with Lottie, with their lips pressed so softly together. She wants, and she wants, and she wants. And here, she gets to have.

 

It’s for the better, Lottie thinks, that they’re all out here. That they’re probably never getting rescued. Would it even be rescue anymore? What would their lives even look like back in Wiskayok? Lottie just wanted this. This girl, this life. Her soft lips and sweet words and cool skin. 

 

When Lottie pulls back just enough to breathe, she stays close, looking into Jackie’s eyes. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to-- she knows by now that Jackie can tell what she’s thinking just by seeing her.

 

This will be a moment that Jackie’s going to want to crawl into and live in for the rest of her life. Just the two of them, hovering on the edge of something more. Frantic kissing or curling up in each other’s arms. It could go either way. She’d be fine, no matter which direction it goes. 

 

The way that it ends up going, however, is to be determined, as the sound of a horn fills the air, and Jackie groans, closing her eyes. “Fuck.”

 

Even Lottie groans a little, resting her forehead against Jackie’s for a moment. “I really hate that stupid horn sometimes,” she jokes, giving Jackie one more kiss before she’s sitting up and holding out her hands for her. “At least Van’s storytime should be fun, right?”

 

Jackie rolls her eyes but let’s Lottie help her up. “Sure. Fun. Maybe she’ll tell Gremlins again.”

 

Taking Lottie’s hand, she walks out of their hut, swinging their arms before simply wrapping herself around Lottie’s as they move to join the others.

 

Mari passes them, smirking as she says, “Don’t be a sore loser today, Cap.”

 

“Wasn’t planning on it, Mar,” Jackie says, sticking out her tongue.

 

“Don’t be a sore winner,” Lottie counters to Mari who just shrugs and struts away. Really, what were any of them going to do, anyway, if she was? Nothing, probably. 

 

Lottie meets eyes with Nat as the other girl leaves her hut, rubbing the back of her head and sighing. “Go find us a good spot to sit,” she tells Jackie, “I’ll be right there.” 

 

She sends her off with a peck to the cheek before moving to cut Natalie off before she can join the others as well. “Hey,” she says, “I, um, thought about what you asked. Last night.”

 

Watching Jackie go, Nat looks back at Lottie, her eyebrows raised. “Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.” Lottie hates how suddenly clammy she feels. “I want to do something for her. For Laura Lee. I was going to, um, make something for her later, before the ceremony tonight.”

 

Nat softens, especially as she notices how Lottie seems to stumble. “Good. I think, yeah, that’ll be really good. D’you need help with anything?”

 

Lottie looks over her shoulder as if expecting to be watched before she glances back at Nat. “Do you, um-- will you help me make a grave for her? I don’t really…know much about Christian burial things.” She knew Nat herself wasn’t exactly religious, but she does remember her dad’s funeral was held at the church.

 

“Uh, yeah, yeah. I can help with that. I mean, Laura Lee wasn’t exactly Catholic,” Nat says. “I guess we’ll just strip out some of the bullshit. But we’ll do it up right.”

 

“There’s a difference?” Lottie asks, blinking. She shakes her head. That’s not the important part. “Thank you, Nat. It means a lot.”

 

Nat snorts. “Yeah, there’s a whole lotta folks who think Jesus is the shit but can’t really agree how. But it’s no problem, Lottie. We’ll do something nice.”

 

“Guess it sounds bad if I say I thought they were all the same, huh?” Lottie mumbles, shrugging. She can see everyone else has been gathered and nods towards the crowd. “C’mon, I heard you guys lost. I can’t wait to see how Mari and Misty make you pamper them.”

 

Laughing, Nat shakes her head. “I’m not gonna get offended.” She rolls her eyes, stuffing her hands into her back pockets. “I’m sure it’s gonna be horrifically shitty. That why you wanted to sit out? Knew it was gonna suck no matter who won?”

 

It’s Lottie’s turn to shake her head. “I just wanted to make sure the JV girls got picked first. I didn’t want to make it uneven since Travis was sitting out, too.” 

 

“Well, we probably could have used you.” Nat pauses. “Actually, I dunno. Van might’ve had you and Jackie separate to make it fair.”

 

“I’m kinda surprised her and Tai agreed to be on separate teams, though now that you mention it, I assume that was Van’s idea?” Lottie asks. She’s not sure she would’ve liked playing against Jackie. She probably would’ve done whatever she could to sabotage her own team, which isn’t exactly a very sportsman like thing to do. 

 

“Somebody said something about it being more fair. Mel, I think. So that they couldn’t do a ‘couple mind tricks,’” Nat says, putting air quotes around the last few words.

 

Lottie snorts a laugh, putting her hand over her mouth. “It would be Mel to say that, wouldn’t it?” It’s nice, though, Lottie thinks, joking and laughing with Nat like this again. “Kinda screwed herself in that one, though.” 

 

“Somehow, I feel like we would’ve gotten our asses kicked even worse if Tai wasn’t on our team.” Nat sighs. She glances over at where Jackie’s waiting, helping Van corral the others for her story as the redhead puts on the special cloak she made. Nat thinks it’s kind of silly. She guesses, though, that they all sort of need silly these days.

 

“So it was a loss either way,” Lottie states, smiling. It’s just like when they’d split up for scrimmages. Tai and Lottie were always hot commodities, being the two most aggressive players on the team. Neither of them were afraid to push and shove and tackle. Tai was just more brazen about it. 

 

“We should get over there before Van starts,” she says, then, turning back towards the others. She’s wearing one of the white and brown cloaks they’d all made together for the day, matching for when they feast and for the ceremony after. It’d been Van’s idea. Lottie thought it was a good one, but she could tell it made some of them a little uncomfortable, Nat included.

 

Without saying too much else, Lottie motioned for Nat to follow her back over, slipping her hand into Jackie’s when she came up behind her. “Like herding cats.”

 

Jackie gives Lottie a smile, immediately leaning into her touch. “Tell me about it,” she says.

 

“Welcome to the first annual summer solstice festival!” Van says as they all quiet down, spreading her arms and grinning as the others cheer and clap. “Before we get started, congratulations to the winners of Capture the Bone, a name I still think we should consider workshopping further!”

 

The winners give an even louder cheer, though Jackie can’t help but be amused by how loudly Tai boos. She’s always been a sore loser. Jackie guesses they both are, in a way. 

 

“Per our wager, I hope the rest of you enjoy being our servants for the day,” Van teases. 

 

Jackie rolls her eyes. That’s worse than losing the game, honestly.

 

Mari gives an enthusiastic call, making eye contact with Jackie as she does so.

 

“Now,” Van goes on, “let’s get started, shall we?” 

 

Lottie shifts in her spot, but stays close to Jackie. She wonders what Van has cooked up this time and listens intently as the story begins.

 

“Previously on, The Yellowjackets,” Van says dramatically, grinning from ear to ear. There’s some more cheering and Lottie can’t help but feel happy and warm at the sight of everyone smiling.

 

“On the verge of making history, by sweeping nationals without giving up a single goal,” Van continues, her usual enthusiastic cadence picking up pace, “thanks mostly to the raddest goalkeeper in the history of the sport!”

 

Lottie snorts. There’s playful booing as some of the girls pick pinecones and toss them at Van, who bats them away easily. “Let’s go, let’s go!” She catches the last one perfectly out of the air. There was a reason she was their goalkeeper, after all. Lottie had always admired Van’s coordination.

 

“Our heroes. No, our she-roes--” Van quirks a brow and Lottie half rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling like the rest of them-- “were robbed of fame and fortune by the cruel hand of fate and by mechanical failure-- or possibly pilot error. Unclear.”

 

It’s a little distasteful but Lottie doesn’t say anything. Whatever brought them here didn’t matter in the end. 

 

“But! No mere plane crash could keep our intrepid girls-- and a few dudes-- down. No, they rose to this new challenge like the champions they were always meant to be.”

 

Jackie thinks about what would have happened if they’d actually made it to Seattle, became different kinds of champions.

 

“To be a champion takes many things,” Van starts, and Jackie thinks it’s sweet, but she admittedly stops paying attention. She doesn’t want to think about the hardships, the losses. 

 

She glances over at Travis and wonders if he thinks the same thing. If he thinks about starving through the winter, the only source of food coming from the most awful place. The most horrible sacrifice.

 

Jackie tunes back in as Van says, “But with their sacrifices came miracles. They survived hunger. They survived blizzards. They survived… the shit bucket.”

 

A bunch of the others laugh and groan, though Jackie wrinkles up her nose in disgust. She doesn’t remember that. Then again, there’s a large stretch of time where she barely paid attention to anything.

 

“Now,” Van says, “could they survive an unthinkable attack by a raging psychopath? A homicidal monster masquerading as a hot if you’re into that kind of thing soccer coach? You bet your ass they could.” She smirks and looks at Nat. “Thanks to their unlikely new leader, they escaped the burning confines of their old nest and made a new place for themselves. Seeing their courage, and their faith, the Wilderness then provided the greatest miracle: a deer, and, with it, spring. They sent out scouts to find a new home. Nat’s training allowed Gen to provide us with game to eat. Tai’s building skills helped them figure out how to build new shelters.”

 

“Handy lesbians for the win,” Tai says, offering up a salute.

 

“Jackie’s ability to draw more than stick figures helped them create a comprehensive map, and I guess she helps keep the day to day on track, sometimes,” Van adds, and Jackie laughs, even as the others give little whoops. It feels odd. She’s grown unused to feeling like this. Van keeps going. “They build animal pens and gardens and learned how to not just survive, but thrive. Thanks to the fact that they’re a team, they never gave up hope that their story does not end here.”

 

Everyone cheers and claps, and Van takes a bow, basking in the limelight.

 

Lottie thinks it’s nice to see everyone like this, just light-hearted and happy and enjoying the moment. Van mentioning the Wilderness makes Lottie’s skin prickle but besides that, nothing happens. She wonders if they even still believe in it, or if they’re just using it as a way to cope. She thinks she knows the answer. 

 

When Van finishes, everyone starts breaking off into their separate groups again. Melissa drags herself begrudgingly over to the butcher’s table, while the winners all spread themselves out and relax back, having the day off from chores. 

 

Nat makes her way over and motions to Van, Tai, Gen and Jackie. “Meeting time,” she tells them, ducking into her hut. 

 

Lottie reluctantly lets go of Jackie’s hand. “Don’t have too much fun,” she says to her, smiling.

 

Even though she thinks Lottie should be a part of whatever meeting Nat wants to have, Jackie still sighs, squeezing Lottie’s hand before following the others to Nat’s hut.

 

As they all get situated, Misty pops her head in, offering Nat a tentative smile. “Are you all meeting now? Would you want me to take minutes?”

 

“Nope,” Van says immediately, not even bothering to hide her displeasure. Jackie takes comfort in the fact that it seems like she’s not the only one that doesn’t always want to have Misty around.

 

“Thanks, uh, Misty, but, we’re good. If we need it, we’ll just have Jackie do it,” Nat says. “Um, you were the MVP today. You should just… relax. Enjoy it.” 

 

Misty gives a smile and a nod and little chuckle. “Okay!” 

 

“Bye, Misty!” Van says, her tone singsong-y and a little patronizing. Tai slaps her knee, and Jackie shakes her head, even if she and Gen both can’t stop the small smile from crossing their faces.

 

Nat lets out a long breath. “Who’s up first?” When none of them say anything, she starts with Gen. “How’s the hunting lately?”

 

Gen shrugs. “Good. The deer are running like crazy in the north valley.”

 

Jackie nods, not taking minutes but making a mental note. She doesn’t know if it’s just that they’re more experienced or the new location, but they’re already having an easier time surviving now than they did when they first crashed. Learning from their mistakes, she supposes. Now they just needed to figure out how to better preserve their food, save it for if they’re still here when things get cold.

 

“You see anything while you’re out there?” Tai asks.

 

Van adds, “Like murderous pyro tracks or-–”

 

“Stop,” Nat says. “You guys, we’ve talked about this. There’s no way that he’s alive.”

 

“It just… wouldn’t make sense,” Jackie adds quickly.

 

Nat shakes her head. “We’ve scouted every inch of this place for miles. There’s no sign of him. Either he starved or he froze to death.” 

 

Jackie flinches, but the others don’t say anything.

 

“I’m telling you guys, Coach is dead,” Nat finishes. “Now. What have we been working on to waterproof the shelters?”

 

Tai says, “Mixing up mud and moss has been working pretty well the last few days on the storage buildings. I say we start on the huts tomorrow. Maybe Mari and Akilah’s, since I think they’ve consistently had the most problems with leaks when it rains.”

 

Nodding, Jackie says, “I’ll let them know so they can be around to help. Good idea waiting for tomorrow though.”

 

“You just don’t want to get stuck doing all the work, loser,” Van teases.

 

“Speaking of, it seemed like the game went well, right?” Nat asks, looking to Van.

 

“Our plan went off without a hitch,” Van says. “Oh, and it seemed like everyone was having fun. We should do this more often.”

 

“Good. Great. Okay, I think that’s really all I have for right now,” Nat says. “Let’s get back to work. Or resting, I guess, for the winners.” Van and Gen high five, and Tai and Jackie linger at the doorway.

 

“I think this is going… well,” Jackie says. 

 

Tai looks around. “It could certainly be going worse. I just… I don’t think we should shove the Coach thing under the rug, you two.”

 

Jackie sighs. “Tai, we’ve looked everywhere. He’s just not out there.”

 

“But what if he is?”

 

“Look, in the morning, I’ll go out a little ways, not far, to, like, one of the places we haven’t really been to in awhile.” Nat starts to say something, but Jackie continues. “There’s a meadow out that way, and we haven’t really needed it because of Lottie’s garden, but there’s some plants I’ve been thinking about picking up for her, anyway. I’ll be quick about it. It’s not that far. Just checking for signs of one-legged man or whatever. It’ll be fine.”

 

“You’re sure?” Nat asks.

 

Rolling her eyes, Jackie says, “I think I know the forest almost as well as you do, at this point. I helped make the map, don’t forget.”

 

“How can I? Your handwriting and boob tree drawings won’t leave me alone in here,” Nat tells her.

 

Tai sighs. “I’d just feel better if we knew what happened to him.”

 

Jackie doesn’t even know if it matters. She still doesn’t believe Coach would do that to him. Honestly, she hopes he’s dead. He seemed like he would have been happier dead, those last few weeks. 

 

“Well, guess it’s time to face the music,” Nat says. “Or, I guess, the sound of Mari begging for a refill.”

 

Lottie takes her time, heating some water and grinding up the mushrooms she’d found earlier. While that was brewing, she found Travis sulking inside his hut again, curled up in his hammock as he stared blankly up at the ceiling.

 

Knocking, she paused in the doorway. “Hey.”

 

Travis lifted his head enough to look at her. “Hey.”

 

“Do you want to talk?” Lottie asks, hesitant but assertive. She wants him to know it’s a choice, but that it’s probably better for everyone if he says yes.

 

“About?”

 

Lottie sighs. “You know what.”

 

He’s quiet.

 

“I made you some tea, if you want it,” she offers, “it’s mushroom tea. It should help you…relax.”

 

He lifts his head again, more inquisitive this time. “Mushroom tea?”

 

Lottie nods. “The kind that make you a little--” she gestures with her hand-- “not the kind that you vomit.”

 

“Why?”

 

A little softer, but a little more serious, Lottie says, “because you need to talk about him, Travis. And about your feelings. Before tonight, preferably, so he can be honored in peace.”

 

Travis frowns even as Lottie can tell he’s trying not to falter his expression at all. 

 

“Please,” Lottie goes on, “it’ll be good for you.”

 

Finally, sighing, he sits up. “Fine.”

 

Lottie leads him away from the others, carefully pouring the tea before handing it to him. She watches his face curiously as he sips it, then gulps it down.

 

She can hear some of the others talking back in the village again, but none of them seem to notice their absence for now. “C’mon,” she says, leading him off, just a little farther away. She wants them to have some quiet, away from the excitement. She knows what it’s like when you feel like you have to hold everything in for the sake of others. She doesn’t want him to feel like that even if she can already tell he does.

 

It’s not terrible, playing at servants. Admittedly, Jackie’s never been in this position before. Usually, she was the one being waited on in these games. But it’s not the worst thing in the world. She gives Mari a saccharine sweet smile as she fills up her glass with berry wine, and she helps bring meat from the butcher table to where Tai’s preparing the food for later. Some of the others are making sure their outfits are ready for tonight, so Jackie checks in on that. 

 

And refills on berry wine. “Oh, Jack-Jack!” she hears Mari call.

 

It makes Jackie take a deep breath in, out. Then, she plasters on a smile and refills Mari’s cup. “Careful, Mar. You’re coming off as a bit of a lush,” she says.

 

Mari frowns. “Whatever.”

 

Travis trails his hands through the bushes, over the leaves. He’s stumbling a little and Lottie stands in the clearing behind him, gazing up at the trees. “Are they kicking in yet? Can you feel anything?”

 

“I feel everything,” Travis mumbles, voice lofty, “and nothing. Did you ever notice that everything and nothing are both filled with things?”

 

Clearly, he’s pretty high. Lottie struts over to a fallen log and plops down, knees curled up to her chest. She pats the spot beside her. “Why don’t you sit with me?”

 

Travis stumbles over, collapsing to the ground next to her, laying his head on the branch as he looks up into the treetops and sighs, eyes wide. 

 

“Dude, you are so high,” Lottie puffs.

 

Laughing, Travis says, “I am so high.”

 

Well, now’s as good a time as any, Lottie thinks. “You know it’s okay to be angry about what happened to Javi. And to your dad.”

 

That makes Travis stop laughing. He doesn’t speak right away.

 

“Well, what about Jackie?”

 

“Grieving’s not a competition, Travis,” Lottie tells him, shifting so she can look at him a little easier. “I-- I mean, I’ve talked to her, too, about Shauna. About letting go. Maybe just cause I need a shrink doesn’t mean I am one, but I like to think I know just a little bit about it.”

 

At that, Travis seems to sober a bit, sitting up on his elbow. “You had a shrink?”

 

Hesitant, slightly ashamed, Lottie glances at him then back towards her feet. “Shrinks,” she corrects, “plural.”

 

Travis sits up a little more, only giving a soft grunt of acknowledgement. 

 

Drawing in a breath, Lottie wonders if she should even be telling him this. Maybe it’ll help him open up. She had to try, right? “And the pills they gave me made it so I stopped…you know…” does he know? “seeing things.” Her face scrunches. It’s hard to talk about. She picks at a branch between her feet.

 

“Anyway, um, whose therapy session is this, anyway?”

 

Travis is looking at her almost sadly, now, as if he sees something about her that most of the others don’t. “And then you got out here and started seeing things again.” 

 

Lottie tries to hide her surprise as she says, “Until I didn’t.” Because it had left her, abandoned her, the moment after Javi had drowned. 

 

It’s quiet between them for a quick beat. Then Travis unfurls from himself. “Do you hear something?”

 

Lottie feels something squeezing in her chest. “No. Why? Do you?”

 

Travis is already standing, stumbling over towards a tree. “It…It’s the trees.”

 

Lottie inhales sharply. She tries not to let herself hope but-- she stands, following after him.

 

“They’re crying,” Travis croaks. “No. No, they’re-- they’re screaming.” He reaches for the tree and Lottie moves towards him. His hand is only on the bark for a brief moment before he’s crying out, grabbing his head, dropping to the ground.

 

Lottie rushes over, grabs him. “Travis it’s not-it’s not real,” she tells him, voice desperate. He’s fighting against her, pushing on her. “It’s not real. It’s not real!” She’s not sure if what she’s saying is to him or herself. She kind of wants it to be real.

 

Finally, Travis stops fighting against her and her hands curl around his bicep, clinging to him. “You really can’t hear that?” he asks, eyes wild and frantic, voice cracking.

 

“No,” Lottie shakes her head.

 

Something like a warning flashes across Travis’ face. “You will,” he pants.

 

Lottie’s gaze goes to the tree. She doesn’t hear it, but she wants to. Fuck she wants to.

 

Before she can say much else, though, Travis is walking off back towards the village. She hesitates, then follows after him quickly.

 

Both of them are silent all the way back and Travis peels off to go back to his hut. Lottie watches him for a moment until she can’t see him anymore, before sighing and making her way back towards the center where she can hear Mari making a show of her new status.

 

“No one’s rubbing your feet, Mari,” Jackie says with a sigh. “That’s just gross. And demeaning. Your feet are gross.”

 

“They’re the same as everyone else’s feet!” Mari says indignantly.

 

Jackie crosses her arms. “And everyone else’s feet are gross, too.” She sees Lottie coming out of the treeline and relaxes, shooting her a please help me look.

 

Lottie almost misses the glance, her mind preoccupied with what had just happened. Had it really reached out to Travis? Talked to him? Tried to tell him something? But why? Why him and not her, after everything she’d given It? 

 

She feels Jackie’s gaze on her, though, and turns to look at her, noting the pleading look in her eye. Mari is saying something to Jackie, who looks rather cross with the younger girl. She puts on a smile, then, and heads over. 

 

“Hey,” she says, wrapping her arms around Jackie, “Nat says she wants to talk to you.” It’s a lie, obviously, but Mari doesn’t need to know that.

 

Mari huffs. “Fine.” Her voice turns into a singsong. “Oh, Mel!”

 

“Absolutely not!” Tai says from near the fire, where she’s starting to work on the food. “She’s touching too much meat to touch your nasty feet, too.”

 

Jackie wraps her arm around Lottie, mumbling, “Thanks,” as they head towards Nat’s hut. Curious, because she hasn’t seen Lottie around, she adds. “Where were you?”

 

Lottie swerves them around Nat’s hut and towards the river. “Anything to get you away from her,” she teases. “I was talking to Travis.”

 

“My hero,” Jackie says. “Yeah? It go well?” She raises her eyebrow as she notices they’re very much not headed to see Nat, but she doesn’t make a comment.

 

“It went…not not well,” Lottie shrugs, “he’s still pretty um-- closed off, I guess is the word.” Lottie gets it, though. It had taken her this long to talk about Laura Lee. “I think he’ll be okay for tonight, though. I think he just…needs to feel his feelings.” Lottie’s just sorry she can’t help with that.

 

“I mean, Coach Martinez was his dad, and he wasn’t exactly the most… feelings forward guy,” Jackie says. “I guess I can see why Travis wouldn’t be that great at sharing his feelings.”

 

“Yeah,” Lottie mumbles, “guess a lot of us have that in common.” Her father certainly wasn’t a feelings forward guy. The only feelings he ever expressed for Lottie was disappointment, guilt, and exasperation. She was just a burden to him.

 

“Isn’t it great to have emotionally constipated dads?” Jackie asks, but she squeezes Lottie’s hand, rubs her thumb over Lottie’s knuckles.

 

Lottie just hums. She doesn’t care to talk about that anymore. “So on a scale of one to ten how insufferable is Mari being?”

 

“Solid eight,” Jackie says. “Pretty fucking insufferable, but I want to get her room for improvement. She could always be worse than calling me Jack-Jack and asking me to massage her feet.”

 

“Oh, eww,” Lottie gags, sticking her tongue out, “she’s really pushing her luck, isn’t she?” She wraps her arms around Jackie’s waist and pulls her into her. “Good thing I got there when I did.” They’re far enough away that they can’t be seen easily and Lottie presses a kiss to Jackie’s lips, walking her backwards until she’s pressed against a tree. “She doesn’t need to know Nat didn’t ask for you.”

 

Jackie laughs. “She’s taking this thing very seriously.” Humming into the kiss, she wraps her arps around Lottie’s neck as her back hits the tree, smiling up at her. “She might figure it out. You know, when I’m not at Nat’s hut.” 

 

“Then we better be quick,” Lottie murmurs, leaning into Jackie to kiss her again, hands slipping under her shirt to rest on her hips, feeling warm skin under her fingertips. 

 

“Lottie Matthews,” Jackie gasps, her words mumbled against Lottie’s lips. “Are you trying to get a quickie with me in the forest?”

 

“Maybe,” Lottie grins. It hadn’t exactly been what she set out to do, but kissing Jackie just made her want to melt into her. And they’d been interrupted earlier while Lottie was already buzzing, excited for the solstice and the energy it was bringing her. “I can always let you get back to massaging Mari’s feet, though, if you’d prefer that.”

 

“The only person whose feet I’d consider massaging is you,” Jackie huffs, pulling Lottie in just a little closer. “I’m not gonna complain if you’re getting me out of having to serve those royal assholes for a little bit.”

 

Lottie moves in closer at Jackie’s urging, smiling down at her. She brushes her lips tantalizingly against Jackie’s. “I’d take your place if I could,” she murmurs, “but I think Mari would throw a fit. So I guess I’ll just have to settle with serving you instead.” 

 

She’s not subtle as she lets one of her hands slide under the hem of Jackie’s shorts. “Think of it as a preview for later tonight.” 

 

Tilting her head back, Jackie sighs happily. She doesn’t mind having to deal with Mari, not really. Not when she has this. She’s not really subtle, either, popping the button of her shorts open, moving her hands to Lottie’s hips. Maybe she just wants this, too. So much. 

 

With the button undone, Lottie slides her hand all the way into Jackie’s shorts, between her legs. Her free hand tangles into Jackie’s hair, tugging her head gently to the side so that Lottie can kiss down her neck. She doesn’t know what it is, really, but she feels insatiable for Jackie today. She wants all of her and more. 

 

There’s a low moan that gets stuck in Jackie’s throat as Lottie’s hand tangles in her hair, the other one in between Jackie’s legs. She doesn’t need much. Just being with Lottie makes her ridiculously turned on. Her fingers dig into Lottie’s hips.

 

Not wasting any time-- it’s called a quickie for a reason, not that Lottie wants or cares to be quick when she’s with Jackie-- Lottie slides two fingers into Jackie, who’s already so hot and wet it makes her shiver. She sucks on a spot on her neck using her own body to press Jackie against the tree. She feels possessive and needy. She doesn’t want Jackie to have to serve people like Mari. She wants her all to herself.

 

“Fuck, Lottie,” Jackie breathes, moving her hips as she adjusts to the feeling, shivering as Lottie sucks on her neck. Her hands move up, scraping up Lottie’s body to her shoulders, desperate. One leg lifts, wrapping around Lottie. It’s good. It’s so good. Jackie wants to sink into this feeling. To live in it forever. She feels loved. So very, very loved.

 

It’s always so wonderful hearing Jackie say her name like that. Lottie moves her hand a little faster between her legs, scrapes teeth along her neck. When Jackie’s leg wraps around her, she drops her hand to hold onto it, pulling her hips closer. “You’re so pretty like this,” she murmurs in Jackie’s ear, lips pressed against her temple.

 

“I-– Yeah?” Jackie breathes, her breaths quickening. She’s holding on tight, her hips rolling to meet Lottie’s hand, her eyes rolling back. She’s glad Lottie thinks she’s pretty. Lots of people think she’s pretty, but she doesn’t give a single fuck about them. She doesn’t. She doesn’t. Because they aren’t Lottie, and they don’t make her feel like this. Jackie’s not in love with them. It makes her head spin.

 

“Yeah.” Lottie is panting, too, turning on just by the sounds Jackie makes and feeling how much she wants her just by how wet she is. “So fucking pretty.” She smothers Jackie’s mouth with her own, licking into it to taste her tongue. When she pulls away, there’s a thread of spit connecting their mouths. “Tell me how much you want me.”

 

“So much. I always want you,” Jackie says immediately. She chases after Lottie’s lips, after the taste of her, the feeling of being more and more connected. It’s so hot. She can’t help herself. “Lottie, I’m-- I’m gonna come.”

 

“So soon?” Lottie purrs, but really, they didn’t have too much time to spare. Sooner or later someone would come looking for them and if Mari had her way, it would be sooner. She smiles against Jackie’s lips, kisses her deep and hard. “You can come.”

 

Yes, so soon, and it’s a little embarrassing, but Jackie doesn’t care because she feels so good. She feels it wash over her as soon as Lottie gives her permission, her hips still rocking desperately. Did she need permission? Jackie doesn’t know, doesn’t care as she moans into Lottie’s lips. When they part, she’s blinking at Lottie slowly with parted lips. “Fuck.”

 

Lottie swallows Jackie’s moans greedily, feeling a shiver run up her spine. It’s her favorite thing in the entire world, really. This feeling, this girl. She feels drunk on her already. 

 

Lottie pulls her hands slowly out of Jackie’s shorts, bringing her fingers to her mouth and cleaning them off before buttoning her shorts back up. “Feel better?”

 

“I…” Jackie actually doesn’t remember. Was she feeling bad? Maybe a little irritated. She doesn’t feel anything, at the moment, except for pretty relaxed. She definitely feels relaxed. 

 

Jackie puts her hands on Lottie’s cheeks and pulls her in for another kiss, humming against her lips. They’re just really soft. She thinks she wouldn’t mind kissing Lottie forever. 

 

It’s Lottie’s turn to sigh into the kiss, wrapping Jackie back up in her arms. She smiles against her lips. “You’re so perfect,” she mumbles.

 

“You made me a mess,” Jackie manages. When she pulls away, she buries her face against Lottie’s neck. It feels like an early morning, the rest of the village stirring around them, and she just wants five more minutes. Five more minutes for them to stay right where they are.

 

“Hmmm, my apologies,” Lottie hums. She pulls Jackie tighter against her. She kind of really doesn’t want to let go. She wants to stay just like this. She doesn’t much feel like sharing Jackie today. But she knows she has to, at least for a little bit. She can already hear voices growing louder, heading towards them.

 

Groaning, Jackie pulls away. She straightens her clothes, brushes her hands over her shorts. “Okay. The day’s mostly over, you know? Just gotta make it through dinner.”

 

Lottie nods. “Just dinner and the ceremony. Akilah should be finishing up with the lanterns.” She needed to find Nat again, then, and see about setting up another grave for Laura Lee. “Just a little longer, and then you’ll never have to do anything Mari says ever again.”

 

“Who knew that’d be something I’d ever have to worry about?” Jackie teases. They start walking back, Jackie taking Lottie’s hand in one of her own, lacing their fingers together.

 

As they get closer, she spots a crop of red hair. “Matthews!” Van calls. “Don’t think you can go canoodling by the river and get out of this!”

 

Oh god, Lottie had almost completely forgotten about the stupid arm wrestling contest. Between whatever was going on with Travis and Lottie’s preoccupied thoughts about Jackie, it’d slipped her mind. “I’m not, I’m not,” she says, shaking her head. “Is that happening already? Can’t we wait till after dinner or something?”

 

“Don’t be chicken, Lottie,” Van teases. “If you want to back out now, that’s totally fine.”

 

“I’m not chickening out,” Lottie frowns. “Go set up the area or whatever. I’ll be right there.”

 

“Milady, we have our flattest stump already set up in your honor,” Van says, sweeping her hands out in the direction of a small table set up for Lottie and Tai. 

 

Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s shoulder. She still feels loose and relaxed from a few minutes before as she gives Lottie’s hand a squeeze. “You’ve got this,” she says.

 

Sighing, Lottie nods. She squeezes Jackie’s hand back and follows Van over to the prepared stump where Tai is already sitting, arms folded. Seeing Lottie approach, the others begin to gather around, too.

 

Van steps up, grinning. “Alright, alright! Everyone get over here! It’s time for the best part of the day!”

 

Lottie looks across the stump to Tai. “Well…I’m left handed, so which hand do we use?” 

 

Tai looks at Lottie and raises an eyebrow. “I’ll be nice. We can do it left handed.”

 

“Tai’s good with both hands,” Van says conspiratorially. 

 

“We didn’t need to know that,” Gen says. 

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “She means I'm ambidextrous. Which I basically am.”

 

“Don’t be too confident, Taissa,” Jackie says. “That’s never a good look.”  She remembers how they thought the game against Shawnee High was going to be their easiest match last season only for it to end up being one of their hardest. She doesn’t think Lottie should be underestimated. 

 

But Tai’s always been cocky in situations where she thinks she’s obviously going to win.

 

Lottie rubs her arm. “We can do both, I guess? To make it more fair?” She doesn’t mind starting with her left hand, though. 

 

“We’d have to do best two out of three, then,” Tai states, leaning forward and putting her arm down, hand ready.

 

Lottie sighs again. “Right. We agreed just one.” She leans forward, then, and clasps hands with Tai. She can feel the other girl tightening her grip the wider her grin gets and Lottie suddenly feels that competitive rush she always gets right before a game.

 

She really doesn’t want to lose, if only to wipe that smug grin off of Tai’s face.

 

Van puts her hand on top of theirs, smirking too. “Ready?” She looks at both of them. “Set.” Lottie feels her muscles all tighten. “Go!”

 

The moment Van lets go of their hands, Lottie feels Tai begin to push against her arm. It’s a little startling at first, but Lottie recuperates quickly, pushing back. Tai is strong, of course she is. And maybe she has more at stake in this, but Lottie wants to win, not for herself, but for Jackie.

 

Her right hand squeezes tight on her knee and she pushes harder. Tai’s arm begins to fold. She can hear the other girls yelling and whooping. And sure, Tai has been doing most of the tree chopping, but Lottie’s been hefting buckets of water and baskets full of heavy dishes back and forth for months now. When she hadn’t been able to walk, she’d worked on her arms. She hadn’t wanted to just sit around and atrophy.

 

Tai looks a little panicked now. Her arm is bending towards the stump and Lottie isn’t letting up. They struggle for a few moments, her hand just inches from the wood. Lottie can feel her arm beginning to burn but it’s nothing, it feels like nothing.

 

And then, with one last surge, she pushes all her strength into one last movement, and Tai’s hand slaps against the trunk. 

 

Panting, Lottie lets go of Tai’s hand and sits back. She gives a smile. “Good game?”

 

Tai looks shocked, at first, before she clears her throat. “Good game.”

 

Jackie’s the first to give a loud cheer, wrapping her arms around Lottie. Mari whoops, too, and Jackie remembers that Mari would have bet on Lottie if they hadn’t nipped that in the bud. She grins widely at Van. “So, that means Lottie picks the next storytime, right?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

 

Van looks the most shocked, her jaw still open and slack. She blinks when Jackie turns to her. “Uh, yeah,” she grumbles, then moves over to Tai, giving her a consolation pat on the shoulder.

 

Lottie is still a little shocked she won. “We can do the right hand, too, if you still want?” she offers to Tai, who frowns.

 

“I don’t need your pity offer, thanks.”

 

The others are still ribbing Tai as much as they are congratulating Lottie, who just shrugs, a little anxious with all the attention, and stands to grab Jackie’s hand. “I honestly didn’t think I’d win,” she murmurs to Jackie.

 

“I had complete faith in you,” Jackie says, pressing a kiss to Lottie’s cheek. And, okay. Maybe she’d been a little unsure. But she’s glad Lottie won. It’s nice to have something to brag about. Plus, it’s not really that surprising. Especially not with how nice Lottie’s arms are.

 

That does make Lottie feel a little better, even though she can see Tai sulking in the corner. She thinks that maybe she should’ve just let her win, she looks like she needed it more than Lottie. Then again, maybe she would’ve known and that would’ve made things worse.

 

“Thanks,” she says back to Jackie, hugging her tightly. She turns back towards Tai and Van. “No hard feelings, right?”

 

“Nope,” Tai says through a thin-lipped smile, “no hard feelings.” 

 

Lottie flinches a little but doesn’t push it. “Um, it’s about lunchtime, right?”

 

Mari claps. “That’s right. I have my order ready, if someone wants to take it,” she says, going to lay back on one of the blankets they have set up.

 

It’s going to be a long day.

 

“Don’t let it spoil your dinner,” Jackie mutters, pressing one last kiss to Lottie’s lips. “You’re fucking amazing, Matthews. Now, I gotta go play servant for a bit.”

 

WIncing, Lottie grimaces. “Sorry.” She lets Jackie go reluctantly, following the others back towards the firepit and where the losers are preparing lunch. 

 

She’s not really sure what to do with herself now, she feels restless, like her skin is vibrating again. She gets up, then, paces towards the storage shed, but she stops short. Instead, she heads towards the garden. There’s not much to do in it, but she thinks maybe spending some time with her hands in the dirt will help this strange feeling.

 

Jackie helps Melissa serve lunch to the winners, and pretty soon whatever mope Van got into over Tai losing is quickly replaced. Lunch is a pretty quick affair otherwise, mostly on the go as everyone gets ready for the solstice, prepping for an actual meal at dinner as well as the service after. 

 

When there gets to be a small lull, Jackie gets a piece of paper from the back of one of Shauna’s journals, coveted and often hoarded in her and Lottie’s hut, and takes a little time to start sketching. 

 

Seeing Lottie in the garden, Nat heads her way. “Hey, do you want to see about setting up a marker for Laura Lee?” she asks quietly.

 

Lottie’s head snaps up and she blinks. “Oh, yeah,” she says, trying to clear her mind. “Right. Um, yeah.” Standing, she wipes the soil from her dress, Laura Lee’s dress. “Hold on,” she says, then, heading towards her and Jackie’s hut once again. 

 

Once inside, she pulls the dress off, holds it in her hands delicately. The tag still has her name written on it, in Laura Lee’s neat and frilly handwriting. She closes her eyes and whispers, “I miss you.” The fabric feels heavy in her hands as she folds it up, sets it down to pull on a new shirt, then heads back out, dress in hand. 

 

“It’s all I have left of her,” she tells Nat, “to bury.” 

 

A wave of emotions passes over Nat’s face as she looks at Lottie before she nods, unable to look at her any longer. She shudders. It’s hard to know if this would be any easier if they had bones or a body like with Shauna and Javi. 

 

They head to the small cemetery. Nat has some wiring from the plane to help tie together a cross marker. 

 

It’s quiet between them as they head up to the grave site they’ve all already chosen for Shauna and Javi. There’s two graves already dug for them, rocks and crudely made crosses from wood marking the spots. They don’t need to dig anything for Laura Lee’s grave.

 

Lottie walks over to the other two and decides to put Laura Lee next to Shauna’s. They were teammates, after all. They were friends, at one point. 

 

She kneels down and scrapes away some of the brush with her hand before setting the dress down gently. Her hands shake a little and her eyes burn. She sets her palm on the fabric, fighting the urge to take the dress back and hoard it in her hut again. 

 

She can’t do that, though. She needs to let her rest. “Lets find some rocks,” she says, but doesn’t quite move yet.

 

Nat reaches out and pats Lottie’s shoulder. “You wait here,” she says. “I’ll go find some.”

 

Lottie appreciates Nat’s gesture, staying in her spot while she listens to the other girl begin to rustle around for rocks to pile up. She pets the dress before pulling her hand back into her lap. “I hope you found peace,” she whispers. She thinks that maybe she’s grateful Laura Lee isn’t here for all of this. She thinks that maybe death was a mercy.

 

It’s not too difficult for Nat to take her time, letting Lottie have that moment to finally think about letting go. It’s a big step, and it’s hard. She doesn’t think any of them are ready for it. She knows Travis isn’t ready to let go of Javi. Jackie certainly isn’t ready to let go of Shauna, no matter how little she talks about her. Lottie and Laura Lee got close out here. Nat thinks that’s probably hard to let go of.

 

She comes back with batches of rocks, dropping a few off before she has a pile set aside. Nat’s not impatient. She’s just waiting for Lottie to be done.

 

When Nat comes back with the last bit of rock, Lottie is still staring down at the dress. She’s afraid to look away, she can’t explain why, but she worries it will disappear if she does. “Do you think she’d like it?” she asks. “Getting a grave?”

 

“I bet she’d think it’s really nice,” Nat says. She shifts her weight around, trying to think of the best thing to say. “I think she wouldn’t want you to be sad about her for too long. And of us, really. It’s all about moving on to somewhere nicer, right?” Nat sighs. “She didn’t… have to suffer with the rest of us for so long.”

 

“She’d probably say this was God’s design,” Lottie mumbles. And maybe it was. Who knew, Lottie sure didn’t. She still wasn’t even sure the Wilderness was real at the end of the day. “She didn’t deserve any of this.” 

 

Reaching over, Lottie picks up a rock and sets it down gently on the dress, right in the middle. “Thank you,” she says, looking over at Nat. “For doing this with me.”

 

Maybe it was by design, though Nat’s just not sure. She’s always thought that her life was a cruel fucking joke. It’s just a shame everyone else was dragged out of the sky with her. “No, she didn’t.” None of them did. They’re not terrible people, Nat doesn’t think. They’ve just had to do terrible things. 

 

Nat picks up a rock and sets it beside Lottie’s. “It’s nothing.”

 

“Maybe to you,” Lottie replies, taking another rock and setting it down, too, “but not to me.” Her eyes flick back up to Nat’s. “Not to her.” 

 

She helps Nat put the rest of the rocks on top of the dress, making a matching grave to the ones beside it, before she finds two branches that look about the same size and thickness and letting Nat fix them into a cross. 

 

She stands back, then, examining the grave, the way it actually marks the fact that Laura Lee was real and there and she’d lived and she’d died. Lottie lifts a hand and wipes at her eyes.

 

Offering Lottie’s arm a squeeze, Nat says, “You know I’m here for you, right? Promise.”

 

Lottie wonders if that’s true. She wants it to be. Without saying too much, she turns and wraps her arms around Nat. “Thank you.”

 

Nat wraps her arms around Lottie, holding her tighter. Lottie’s always liked things that she could feel, Nat figured. Nat’s just never been good at giving it back. After a few moments, she pulls away, scuffing her boots against the dirt. “I… should probably help with dinner for tonight.”

 

Lottie pulls away, nodding. She doesn’t look at Nat. “Right, yeah. I, um-- I’ll be down in a minute. I just want-- to say good bye.”

 

“Okay,” Nat says. “Take your time.” She gives Lottie one last look, and then she walks back to the village.

 

Lottie waits until she can’t hear Nat’s boots crunching against leaves and twigs before she turns to look back at the grave they’ve constructed. 

 

“I don’t really know how to do these things,” Lottie mumbles, “they all want me to do something for all of you, though. I said yes, cause I just-- I wanted to be good for something, you know?” She rubs her arm. “I know you weren’t ever actually mine, but-but you were the first person to believe me. You helped me believe in myself. And I have Jackie now, so I-- I think it’s time I let you go.”

 

She kneels once more in front of the grave, pressing two fingers to her lips before touching the stone. “Rest in peace, Laura Lee,” she murmurs, “I’ll never forget you.”

 

With that, she stands and starts to make her way back to camp, taking her time.

Notes:

Ayyyy we're officially in season 3! This section gets a little long, so we didn't break it like the ep itself breaks (these two can't keep their hands off of each other smh), but things are going super well! And will definitely continue to do so!

Thanks so much for reading! If you want to show us love love, we adore comments and kudos, even if it takes us a bit to get to them all!

Chapter 35: of what might be

Summary:

Dinner goes smoothly and no one spits in anyone's soup, as far as they're all aware. But their funeral service is still interrupted by what the Yellowjackets can only assume is a crazy, feral animal, right? Either way, Jackie and Lottie try not to let it ruin their night-- they had plans, after all, and not even mysterious, terrifying screams from the forest or dead best friends can stop them. Happy solstice, Yellowjackets.

Title comes from the second part of a quote by Charles Bowden

Notes:

Here we are, in the second half of the solstice-- and posting on time! It's a miracle! Ahem, anyway, hope you enjoy! We're all still so happy (mostly) and having fun times, I wonder how much longer that'll last?

Nat comes back before Lottie, and Jackie looks up from where she and Tai are starting on the stew. It’s a pretty straightforward process: Tai chops the plants, Mel brings the meat, and Jackie adds it to the pot. Look at that, she’s cooking. It’s not even that difficult.

 

When she sees Lottie, Jackie offers her a tentative smile from her place by the fire, giving her a small wave.

 

Lottie is still a little zoned out by the time she makes it back and she just barely notices Jackie wave at her from over by the dinner pot. She gives her best attempt at a smile, waving back, but she thinks she’s had enough socializing for the day (and they still have dinner and the funeral to get through) so she heads to their hut instead, stepping inside and sighing.

 

Her body deflates once she’s in, and she pulls her jacket off, hanging it up before she lowers herself onto their bedding. She feels a little depleted already, when earlier she’d felt so energized and vibrant. 

 

Her eyes catch the robe she’s supposed to wear tonight during their ceremony. They all decided to make matching ones for the solstice, but Lottie’s is adorned with a cape that drapes behind it, decorated with flowers and pinecones and leaves. 

 

It feels like they’ve made her the center of their more sacred and religious practices. She thinks Laura Lee would’ve made a much better prophet. 

 

“You can go check on her, if you want to,” Nat says as she walks up to the firepit. “I’ll take over from here.”

 

Jackie stands and brushes her hands down her shorts before she heads to their hut. She’s quiet as she steps inside, toeing off her shoes and sitting down on the bedding with Lottie. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t think she needs to.

 

Lottie looks up when she hears Jackie enter, but doesn’t move until she sits beside her. She leans over and sets her head on Jackie’s shoulder, arms still wrapped around her own legs. It’s nice that Jackie doesn’t ask her about anything, it feels nice that she just seems to know.

 

“Let’s lay down for a little bit, okay?” Jackie murmurs, brushing a hand through Lottie’s hair before she nudges her to lay down. She gets behind Lottie and wraps her arms around her. She can’t take away the hurt, the feelings, but she can at least be there for Lottie. Jackie hopes that’s enough.

 

Lottie thinks that maybe she’s been sad her whole life, but this feels like a deeper, more bone deep sadness. It’s the painful kind, not the numbing kind. She grabs Jackie’s arms that are wrapped around her and holds onto them. Brings one up to her lips and presses them to Jackie’s knuckles.

 

Jackie just holds on a little tighter, pressing her face against Lottie’s back as she holds her. She’d wrap Lottie up in her arms and keep her safe from everything that hurts, if she could. She wants to. God, she wants to. It’s not really possible, but she wants to.

 

It’s so easy to sink into Jackie’s arms and feel the comfort of her weight around Lottie’s body. Still, after a while, she turns around in Jackie’s grasp and buries her face in her neck, liking how comforting it is to hear her heartbeat and feel her pulse against her nose.

 

Taking a deep, relaxing breath, Jackie lets it out slowly. She hopes her heartbeat is soothing, nice and even right now since they’re tangled up together. “I’ve got you,” she whispers. “I’m here.”

 

Lottie doesn’t cry, but she thinks she comes close. She knows she’ll probably cry later, but right now she just feels heavy, weighted down by it all. She wants whatever energy she’d had earlier back, because despite not doing much, she feels exhausted. 

 

“Sorry,” she mumbles after a while, “this probably isn’t how you wanted to spend today.”

 

“I don’t really care how I spend my days as long as you’re there,” Jackie admits. She tries to lighten the mood, adding, “It beats having Van and Gen tell me what to do.”

 

Lottie does smile a bit. “You like when I tell you what to do.”

 

“That’s different,” Jackie huffs. She brushes a hand through Lottie’s hair. “I don’t share a hut with Van or Gen.”

 

“Good,” Lottie says, her voice soft, “I don’t want you to do what anyone else tells you. Only me.”

 

“Only you,” Jackie murmurs. Only Lottie. 

 

The words make her shiver a little. Lottie presses in closer, putting one hand on Jackie’s chest to feel her heart beating. “I love you.”

 

Jackie offers Lottie a smile. “I love you, too.” She holds Lottie’s hand there, lets her feel each steady beat. It’s Lottie’s. It will be for the rest of Jackie’s life. 

 

Lottie’s fingers curl up into the fabric of Jackie’s shirt and she closes her eyes. Somehow, they’ve become each others’. They’d both lost someone who felt like the only person who would ever love them, and yet they found each other. It’s greater than a miracle, really. 

 

Lifting her face just enough, Lottie presses a soft kiss to the underside of Jackie’s jaw. She doesn’t think she needs words to tell Jackie how thankful she is, how grateful she feels to have her. They both know.

 

It’s easy to hold onto Lottie after that. They don’t have to say anything. They can just be there for each other. Jackie likes that. It’s selfish, but she likes knowing that she’s a comfort for Lottie. The main comfort. She’s always been selfish, and she knows it. At least, here, she can make it mean something.

 

Lottie is feeling mostly relaxed by the time she hears voices outside their hut.

 

“Mari, leave it alone,” Nat grunts.

 

“She lost fair and square, she doesn’t get to just hide out the whole time,” Mari protests. 

 

Their voices are slightly muffled by the curtain hanging up over their window but Lottie can hear them clear enough. She groans a little, squeezing Jackie tighter. 

 

“Mari, c’mon, leave her alone,” Nat insists. “Just-- dinner’s almost ready, alright? There’s no point anymore.”

 

“I know,” Jackie murmurs as Lottie groans, laughing quietly. She should feel bad that she’s not doing what she’s supposed to, but, look, she’d been helping out for most of the day! She helped with the stew. She served up berry wine. She should get to hold her girlfriend for a bit when she’s able, sketch her face when she’s away. It’s not like it’s a super busy day. Most of the others have been just hanging out, too. Her fingers brush against Lottie’s jaw. “Just a few more minutes.”

 

Wrapping her arms all the way around Jackie, Lottie pulls herself in closer, burying her face in Jackie’s chest. “Life is so cruel,” she moans, sighing. She just wants to stay here forever with Jackie, even if she’s feeling a little better. Dinner being almost ready means that it’s also almost time for the funeral ceremony. 

 

Lottie didn’t feel ready for that, but she didn’t really have an option. She would do it because she had to.

 

“It’s not fair,” Jackie agrees, laughing a little louder. Lottie doesn’t get like this often, even if she can be pretty pouty. It’s cute. “It’s just a few hours. Just dinner and then after. And then we can come back and cuddle or sleep or do whatever. Promise.”

 

“Are you sure we can’t just skip it all?” Lottie asks, not moving. In fact, she tightens her grip on Jackie, as if that might prevent her from getting up and leaving.

 

“I wish. But I don’t think that’d be appreciated very much,” Jackie says. She kisses Lottie’s hair. But she doesn’t make any move to get up. Not when it’s so nice to be in Lottie’s arms.

 

Jackie’s right but Lottie still huffs. “I guess,” she mutters back. She nuzzles into Jackie, brushing her lips against her neck. “Maybe we can stay in bed all day tomorrow.”

 

Groaning, Jackie says, “I can’t. Tai and Van aren’t letting the Coach Ben thing go, so I offered to do a little trip out to part of the forest we haven’t been to in awhile to check for signs of life. But the next I’m all yours.”

 

Lottie gives a little whine, huffing. “There’s no way he’s still alive. Why bother?” It’s sad, it should be sad, and Lottie is sad-- but he did abandon them all when they needed him. 

 

“I know that, and you know that, and Nat knows that, but some people think that the guy who liked to stare at the ceiling for hours on end and barely got out of bed and had trouble getting around because he only had one leg suddenly found a way to survive in the freezing cold,” Jackie says. It sounds so stupid. There’s no way he’s alive.

 

“Why do you have to go look for him?” Lottie asks. “Why can’t Tai or Van do it if they’re so worried?”

 

Jackie shrugs. “I guess they could, but I offered. It’d be kind of shitty if I backed out now.”

 

“You’re too nice sometimes,” Lottie mumbles, scooting up enough so that she can be face to face with Jackie. She’s pouting and she knows it, but maybe she just wants to spend time with Jackie. Maybe Jackie is the only one who can make her feel better when she’s like this.

 

“You’re so cute,” Jackie says, pressing her lips to Lottie’s pouty lips. “It’s just for tomorrow. I’ll be back before you know it. And we’ve still got later tonight.”

 

Sighing, Lottie leans into the kiss. “Fine, but you owe me a whole day of cuddling, then.”

 

“An entire day. I’ll stay in your arms, and we’ll barely leave the hut,” Jackie says. It would be perfect.

 

Lottie smiles. It sounds like the best day, really. Sure, they’ve spent days together, curled up in each other’s arms, but that didn’t mean this day wouldn’t be just as great. She kisses Jackie again, slow and lingering. “Perfect.”

 

And if Jackie should probably spend a day helping to waterproof the huts with the others, then it would still be okay. The work isn’t going anywhere. The weather is nice. She just wants to be with Lottie all the time. Sue her for giving in some days. 

 

Humming, Lottie presses in a little more as she kisses Jackie, savoring the feeling and taste of her lips. Basking in the warmth of Jackie’s embrace. Lottie doesn’t really think there’s anything better than this. And she gets to have this whenever she wants. It’s hers. Nothing and no one can take it away from her.

 

As much as Jackie wants to just stay there in Lottie’s arms, she knows they’ve got to get up. She really doesn’t want to, though. She wants to just stay right there, the two of them wrapped up and comfortable together.

 

When they pull away to breathe, though, Jackie sighs. “We’ve gotta get up.”

 

“I’m busy,” Lottie mumbles against Jackie’s lips, “you said a few more minutes.”

 

Well. When she puts it like that. Jackie leans in. “A few more minutes couldn’t hurt.”

 

Lottie doesn’t have to convince Jackie very often and this is no different. She kisses her more, tongue sliding against lips, arms still wrapped tight around her. A few more minutes, or until someone actually comes calling for them, Lottie thinks either one is fine.

 

Jackie thinks that Lottie’s so hot. It’s actually hard to think, hard to do anything except roll with it. Roll with the kisses, let her lips part at the feel of Lottie’s tongue. One hand tightens in Lottie’s hair, tugging at it just a little bit. 

 

A soft moan escapes Lottie’s lips as Jackie tugs on her hair. Lottie slips her tongue easily into her mouth, sighing happily. This is what she wants, this is all she wants. Her body is craving it again, like it had just a bit ago. Like it had been since last night. Her hands curl up tighter in the back of Jackie’s shirt, unwilling to let go until absolutely necessary.

 

Arms wrapping around Lottie, Jackie pulls herself closer. They’re tangled together, how they always end up, each brush of lips growing more frantic. Jackie imagines she can taste how much Lottie wants her. God, it’s fucking incredible.

 

“Guys, we’re about to start getting ready to serve dinner,” Nat says from outside their doorway. “Better get dressed and hurry up.”

 

Lottie lets out a long breath, groaning again. “Dammit,” she mumbles, “I was just getting worked up.”

 

“After. I’m all yours,” Jackie promises, catching her breath. As she sits up, she adds, “I mean, I’m already all yours. But… You know what I mean.”

 

Lottie sits back, too, hands still clutching Jackie. “You better be,” she teases, already knowing she is. She gives Jackie one last kiss before letting go of her finally, standing up and stretching her limbs. She’s a little stiff, but it doesn’t really matter for the rest of tonight.

 

“Of course I am,” Jackie murmurs. She stands as well, fluffing her hair and fixing her shirt as she starts to get ready. Her cloak is next to Lottie’s, and she heads over and ties it on. She likes the other one that Lottie made more, but that’s probably intentional. That one was meant to be worn whenever. This one’s stiffer, for special occasions. She presses a kiss to Lottie’s cheek. “I’m gonna go help set the table before it’s time to serve. Love you.”

 

Lottie nods. “Okay,” she says, “I’ll be out in a minute.” She thinks Jackie’s cloak looks nice, it matches the others as well. And she looks good in it. Lottie lets her go without much fuss, even if she kind of wants to make a fuss anyway. “If you spit in Mari’s soup, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

 

“Don’t be gross,” Jackie says, laughing. She heads outside, joining Tai to help get the place settings together at the table.

 

Tai doesn’t look up at her. “I wish I could spend the better part of the day making out with my girlfriend when I’m supposed to be helping.”

 

“It wasn’t the better part of the day,” Jackie argues. She lowers her voice. “And she basically just buried Laura Lee again. Cut her some slack.”

 

Even though she still doesn’t look at Jackie, Tai does soften a little bit. “You could have at least said something.”

 

“We weren’t busy. I bet you could have snuck away with Van if you wanted to.”

 

Huffing and rolling her eyes, Tai walks back over to the fire. “Help me start ladling bowls.” 

 

Lottie waits just a little bit before she starts getting ready, fixing her hair and clothes before pulling on the ceremony cloak. For now, she leaves the cape behind, she can come grab it before the funeral, then ducks out of her and Jackie’s hut.

 

The winners have already taken their seats at the table and Lottie slinks over, sitting in her spot with the open seat next to it for Jackie.

 

Mari is across from her, arms folded over her chest, with Akilah next to her, and Lottie gives Akilah a wave before glancing around, looking over by the firepit where Jackie and Tai are filling bowls and Nat is lining them all up for them to present all at once. It all feels weirdly ritualistic, something Lottie thinks might be her fault.

 

She focuses back on the dinner, though. It’ll be nice, she hopes.

 

“God, the service here is slow,” Mari says, and Gen laughs next to her. 

 

She snaps her fingers. “Oh, garçon!” 

 

Jackie rolls her eyes as she and the rest of the members of the losing team carry out the bowls of stew.

 

“Okay,” Nat says, sounding tired. “For your solstice dining pleasure or whatever, we have deer soup.”

 

“Also known as braised venison stew, served with our finest vintage of berry wine,” Tai adds.

 

Standing next to Mari, Jackie shoots Lottie a wink before giving Mari a saccharine smile. “Bon appetite.” 

 

“Nice French,” Mari said, smirking as she takes the bowl. “Learn that from Frenching your girlfriend?”

 

“You know, I heard someone say she chipped her tooth on her vibrator,” Shauna whispers in Jackie’s ear.

 

“Don’t be jealous just because the last time you got any action was back home with a toy, Mar,” Jackie says. It’s a little crass, but it makes Mari shut up. Jackie goes to take her seat next to Lottie, her hand brushing against the taller girl’s under the table.

 

Nat sits and clears her throat. “Okay. Let’s, uh, let’s dig in, shall we?”

 

Lottie thinks about kicking Mari’s shin under the table, but refrains, choosing to simply smile. She takes Jackie’s hand and laces their fingers together. 

 

“First,” Van says, as the others all take their seats, too, “Lott?”

 

It’s the first time in a while that they’ve asked her to say grace but Lottie figures it’s a special occasion, so she can suck it up. 

 

“Right.” She shifts, bows her head and closes her eyes. She thinks about Laura Lee. “We thank the Wilderness for the abundance and happiness we’ve enjoyed these past months.” She pauses and looks around, before adding, “And for allowing us to have one another.”

 

“Amen,” Van says, and the rest of the team joins in. “Alright! Feast time.”

 

Jackie bows her head during the prayer, closes her eyes, wonders if she’s supposed to feel something, but she just really doesn’t. A slight chill that’s out of place, but nothing else. Instead, she turns to the stew and digs in, savoring the meal. With the table, it’s almost like dinner after a game. She used to get to restaurants before the rest of the team, Shauna in tow (because she was Jackie’s ride), to try and get them all a table big enough for the entire team. If they were home games, she’d make a reservation in advance. This is almost the same. It’s almost as good. 

 

Lottie’s hand in hers, Jackie wonders if it’s almost better.

 

Lottie feels something strange in the air, and for a moment she wonders what it might be. But the feeling is gone quickly and so is the thought, because there’s smiling faces around her and Jackie’s hand is warm in her own. So, instead, she digs into the soup and savors the moment. It feels happy. It feels good.

 

She sees Nat over at the head of the table and gives her a gentle smile, too. Despite her reservations, she thinks today has been one of the best days they’ve all had in a long time, and a lot of that is because of Nat. Lottie was never going to be who they needed, not like this. 

 

That was okay with her.

 

It’s a nice meal. One of the best they’ve had in awhile, and everyone seems to enjoy it. Jackie doesn’t know if the food tastes better because of the occasion or because they’ve actually gotten better at cooking their meals. 

 

Eating one-handed actually works out pretty well when Jackie and Lottie have different dominant hands, and Jackie’s perfectly content to hold onto Lottie unless it’s absolutely necessary to let go. 

 

Everyone enjoys the food, the wine, and, when the meal is over, Jackie helps clear away the plates as it becomes time to head towards the little cemetery.

 

Lottie waits for Jackie to finish clearing the plates and table before she comes back over to her. “Can you help me with my cloak?” she asks quietly. She doesn’t really want to put it on alone. She doesn’t really want to do any of this alone.

 

“Of course I can,” Jackie says, going with Lottie back to their hut. She has her own mane of fronds and flowers to put around her neck, but Lottie’s is intricate. She’s careful as she helps put it on, careful not to mess anything up. When she finishes, Jackie presses a kiss to the corner of Lottie’s lips before pulling away. “There we go.”

 

Lottie stands still while Jackie helps her, taking her hands when she finishes. She gives her a weary smile before pulling her into a hug. She doesn’t say anything, but she thinks they both kind of need this moment. 

 

They both need this. Each other, this moment, this part of the night. They both need this opportunity. Jackie still doesn’t know how to say goodbye to Shauna. She doesn’t think she ever will, not when Shauna was her other half for so long that there are still times where she can’t make sense of herself when she’s not with Lottie, when she doesn’t have some sort of tether. But Jackie thinks this is a good step. She holds Lottie a little tighter, and then she pulls away.

 

“Shall we?” Lottie asks, taking Jackie’s hand and pressing her lips to her knuckles. It’s not really a question, they have to and they need to and it’ll be good. It’ll be good for all of them. Lottie swallows and leads them out. They meet up with the others around the fire before Nat nods and heads towards the little cemetery they’ve made. Lottie really hopes they won’t have to add any more to it, but she knows that they will. 

 

Something inside of her tells her they will.

 

It hasn’t been practiced, but there is something ritualistic to the way they’re moving, walking in silence and gathering around Lottie at the cemetery. It’s somber but not stifling. This is supposed to be a good thing.

 

Jackie sees some of the others smiling softly as they pass around the candles and light the few lanterns they’d made. She sees Tai looking at Shauna’s grave, a melancholic smile on her face before she looks away, wiping at her eyes. She lost a friend, too. Jackie knows that, now, even if she’d been so jealous about it for so long. Her hand goes up to her necklace, the little pouch. She takes a deep breath, lets it go. She’s trying to figure out how much she can let go.

 

Lottie doesn’t see the lanterns, though she knows they’re there. She’s staring at the three graves they’ve made. Her bottom lip is already warbling but she takes a deep breath in and closes her eyes for a moment. 

 

When she lets her breath go, she swallows and prepares. “On this…” she starts out, her voice already carrying the sadness and guilt she’d been holding onto for so long, “shortest night of the year, we gather to honor three souls that have slipped into the darkness that lasts forever. We celebrate their sacrifice.” She’s practiced this a million times. Her voice cracks. “We grieve their loss.” She has to stay strong. “And rejoice at the knowledge that they’re still here with us.”

 

In some form or another, they’d be with them all forever.

 

Even if she doesn’t take her eyes off of Lottie, Jackie can feel a cold hand on her shoulder. She can’t tell if it’s a comfort or not. At least it’s not overwhelming now like it has been before.

 

Those who are holding lanterns light them up and let them go. They drift slowly into the sky but Lottie is still staring straight ahead, at the grave markers in front of her. 

 

“We know that they are because we can still hear them. Because we can still feel them.”

 

At least, Lottie can. She doesn’t know if anybody else can. 

 

“Because they haven’t gone. They’ve just returned to a place that waits for all of us.” Death. The last stop for them all. Even if they made it out of here.

 

Lottie feels her eyes growing warm again. “We call to Javi, now with the Wilderness, to watch over us.”

 

A chorus of voices behind her. “Watch over us.”

 

“We call to Shauna, now with the Wilderness, deliver us.” 

 

“Deliver us.”

 

Lottie falters. “We call to Laura Lee--” she swallows again-- “now with the Wilderness, guide us.”

 

“Guide us.”

 

“Guide us,” Jackie whispers, her voice rough. Shauna haunts, and, from the way Travis acts sometimes, she wonders if Javi haunts, too, in his own way. She hopes Laura Lee made it out, though. She hopes Laura Lee found her heaven away from this place.

 

There’s a moment of quiet, and then, “Do you hear that?” Mari asks.

 

If they didn’t before, they do soon, as an awful, screeching sound fills the air, like the trees are alive. Like they’re in pain.

 

Jackie steps forward, out of the half circle, immediately reaching for Lottie.

 

Lottie’s eyes widen and she looks around frantically. For some reason, her first thought goes to Travis. She turns to him. The screaming fades, stops. “Travis,” she says, “is that what you heard?”

 

Travis just stares at Lottie, the rest of them looking around. Nat stares at the trees, but she says, “Come on. Let’s head back to the village.”

 

Jackie presses herself to Lottie’s side, taking her hand and holding it tightly.

 

Lottie wants to press, but Travis is already heading off after Nat. She feels Jackie’s hand squeeze her own and she glances down at her. She doesn’t really understand what just happened. Was the Wilderness upset with them for trying to honor their dead? Was it upset with her for trying to bury Laura Lee? The screaming had only started after that.

 

Blinking herself out of it, though, Lottie feels how taught her own muscles are as she wraps an arm around Jackie. She turns them to follow the others back, glancing once more over her shoulder at the site they’d made before turning away.

 

It’s probably just some weird, freaky animals, Jackie thinks. That has to be it. It can’t be anything else. All the same, she keeps close to Lottie the entire walk back. Any ideas she’d had earlier about the two of them potentially ditching camp to have a romp somewhere in the forest were dwindling, becoming more wary at the thought that they could get eaten by some sort of giant, screaming animal.

 

What kind of animal screams like that, anyway? Jackie knows she’s not exactly a wilderness survivalist of any kind, but big, screaming animals seem like they’d be more common knowledge. 

 

Everyone breaks off tentatively, heading back to their huts after saying good night.

 

Lottie’s mind is still reeling by the time they make it back to their hut. She ditches her cloak and cape outside somewhere by the fire, not caring to drag them along anymore.

 

Once they’re safe inside, Lottie can feel her mind beginning to relax. She looks over at Jackie, though, tentative and a little worried. “Are you okay?”

 

Jackie dropped her cloak off at the doorway, stepping inside to cover their window with a blanket before she looks back to Lottie and walks closer. “I’m fine. Are you? Do you know what that was?”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “No.” She wishes she did. She reaches for Jackie. “Besides that, are you okay?” Okay with how everything went, okay with what Lottie had said about Shauna.

 

She just needs Jackie to be okay.

 

“I’m fine,” Jackie repeats. She reaches up and puts her hands on Lottie’s face. “I’m fine. You did— you did a really good job tonight. It was good. It meant something.”

 

Lottie isn’t sure that’s true, but it’s hard to not believe Jackie. She reaches up and puts her hands over Jackie’s. “I hope so,” she murmurs. She leans her cheek into Jackie’s touch. “I just wish I could’ve done more for them.” 

 

“I know,” Jackie says. She knows. But she thinks this is the most that can be done in this place. This is the most they can give. 

 

Lottie lets out a long breath before she leans forward and wraps her arms around Jackie. Buries her face in her neck and holds her tightly. She wishes it was enough. She knows it’ll never be enough.

 

All Jackie wants to do is hold onto Lottie, and so that’s exactly what she does. She feels cold fingers in her hair only once more before they’re gone, and then it’s just the two of them, arms wrapped tight around each other for comfort in the middle of the place that’s now their home. 

 

Slowly, Lottie moves them back towards their bedding, before sinking down onto it with Jackie still in her arms. She holds onto her tightly, clinging to her like a lifeline. It’s really what they’ve become for each other, a lifeline. Maybe more.

 

Lottie presses against her. “I’m glad you were there with me.”

 

Jackie curls up in Lottie's arms, comforted by the way Lottie holds her. “I’m glad you were there, too. I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

 

“I don’t know about all that,” Lottie murmurs, “but I’ll be here with you forever. I promise.”

 

It’s such a nice promise. Jackie believes her. She wants to believe her. It feels like Lottie loves her just as much, like she wants to love Jackie just as much. It’s such a warm feeling. Jackie tilts her head, brushing her lips against Lottie’s jaw, her cheek, the corner of her lips. “I love you.”

 

“I love you, too,” Lottie says back, so easily, so readily. She loves her so much it hurts. It feels wonderful. A searing pain that will always remind Lottie that Jackie Taylor has her body, heart and soul. They’re hers. 

 

She turns her head enough to capture Jackie’s lips in a kiss. She holds onto her tightly. She loves her so much.

 

Jackie knows, now, that this is exactly where she’s supposed to be in this life. She still thinks about the fact that maybe things weren’t supposed to happen like this. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to go this way. But it doesn’t matter if she gets to have this. Her lips press against Lottie’s. It’s not quite gentle, but it’s solid. Real. Sometimes, that’s what’s needed the most.

 

It doesn’t matter to Lottie anymore what was supposed to happen or what did happen. She has Jackie here and now and she isn’t going to let anything take that away from her. 

 

She moves into the kiss, a little more needy, a little desperate. Her skin is vibrating again and she likes it. She’s barely thinking about what they’d all just been through, already, because Jackie’s skin is warm and her lips are so soft and she tastes like heaven. 

 

Humming, Jackie sinks into the feeling easily. It’s better to just push everything else aside, focus on this. The plush feeling of Lottie’s lips on hers, how hot Lottie’s skin is. Jackie doesn’t waste any time brushing her tongue against the seam of Lottie’s lips, wanting in.

 

Lottie’s lips part easily for Jackie, craving the taste of her, too. This is all she really wants, she doesn’t think she needs anything else, either. Food or water or air, none of it seems necessary when she’s with Jackie like this.

 

Hands search for the bottom of Jackie’s shirt, fingers slipping under the hem to claw along velvet skin. She lays her palms flat against Jackie’s back and pushes her closer. She wants to be closer.

 

With a sharp breath, Jackie moves closer, feeling like a part of her brain is clicking into place, and all it wants her to do is seek out more, more, more of Lottie. Her skin, her taste, her smell, everything about her. Jackie wants it. She wants it desperately. 

 

Her tongue dips into Lottie’s mouth again and again as the kiss deepens. She moves her hands to Lottie’s hips, tugging at the waistband of her pants.

 

Lottie moves eagerly into Jackie’s touch, shifting them so that they’re laying down as she pulls Jackie on top of her. Her hands nudge Jackie’s shirt up further as her mouth welcomes Jackie’s tongue, brushing her own against hers. She lets out a high pitched sigh, nails scratching gently across Jackie’s back.

 

“Fuck,” Jackie says, panting as they pull apart from each other to breathe, and she takes a moment to struggle with pulling off her shirt before she’s diving back in for another kiss, deep and needy. Her hips straddle Lottie’s waist. Her hands go to Lottie’s shoulders. 

 

Lottie can barely contain her eagerness as she waits for Jackie to remove her shirt, hands going back to bare skin the moment she’s done. She pulls her back down on top of her, kissing her, deep and needy, letting her want and her desire take over completely.

 

Jackie shudders and moans into the kisses. She can feel how much Lottie wants her. She can taste it inside her mouth as Jackie licks into it again and again, craving the taste, the closeness. Her hips roll once against Lottie’s, making her groan just from the feel of it. 

 

A breathy moan works its way out of Lottie’s mouth. Her hands go up into Jackie’s hair, curling and tugging before they scratch back down to her spine. She shudders with the feeling of it all, wanting more. Always wanting more. She sucks Jackie’s bottom lip into her mouth, sighing. 

 

Needing to feel skin against skin, Lottie shifts enough to reach down and tug on her own shirt, pulling it up and off. She’s completely forgotten about the fresh cut on her side-- all she can think about is Jackie.

 

It’s so good to be kissed and touched and loved, and Jackie’s lost in it until her hands start brushing up and down Lottie’s side and touch a fresh cut. She pulls away, staring at it, how uniform, where it’s located, and she makes a sad noise as she tries to recover her breathing. “Lottie.”

 

Blinking, panting, Lottie looks up at Jackie, confused. But then her eyes follow Jackie’s sight line and Lottie remembers earlier that day. It was one of the first things she’d done. She moves Jackie’s hand away from the cut. “It’s nothing.”

 

“It’s not,” Jackie argues. She doesn’t want to argue. She wants to take Lottie’s clothes off and make her feel good. She wants Lottie to do the same thing until Jackie can’t remember her own name. But she can’t stop worrying. “It adds up.”

 

Lottie doesn’t think that’s true. “It’s just blood,” she says, “it comes back.”

 

“Yeah, but it takes time! Your hand’s not even healed.”

 

Lottie sits up, pushing Jackie back. “Which is why I didn’t use my hand again.”

 

“Baby, the point is that your body hasn’t recovered from cutting yourself yesterday,” Jackie says, letting Lottie push her to move even if it makes her feel a little distressed.

 

Lottie looks away. “It wasn’t a lot.”

 

Jackie tentatively reaches out for Lottie’s face, nudging her to look at her. She feels like she’s messed up somehow. “I know. I just… don’t like seeing you hurt. At all.”

 

Lottie’s eyes flick to Jackie’s face for only a moment before she has to look away again. “I’m not hurt, though,” she says quietly. It doesn’t hurt. Maybe that’s the problem. 

 

Something tightens in Jackie’s chest at those words. She doesn’t really know what to say. She doesn’t know how to respond. It doesn’t hurt. She still doesn’t think Lottie should do it. Is it for selfish reasons? Does she not want to have to share any part of Lottie? She doesn’t know. It makes her feel even more guilty. “I really love you,” she murmurs.” You know that. I… I just don’t want you to be hurt.”

 

Lottie doesn't really comprehend what's happening. She doesn't understand why it upsets Jackie so much when it's just a little cut. She wishes she could understand. 

 

She reaches out, hesitant, putting her hand on Jackie's. “I really love you, too,” she says, “I didn't mean to…upset you.”

 

“I just worry,” Jackie says, taking Lottie’s hand and lacing their fingers together. “I’m worried that one day it’ll… it’ll be too much.”

 

“It won’t,” Lottie reassures her immediately, squeezing Jackie’s hand. “I promised I’d stay.” And she was determined to keep that promise. She wanted to stay for Jackie. She needed to.

 

“You promised,” Jackie murmurs. She sighs, nods, and leans in, pressing a soft kiss to Lottie’s lips. Lottie promised. Even if she hurts herself, even if Jackie hates it, she has to trust that Lottie will stick to that promise. 

 

Lottie wraps Jackie up in her arms. “I promised.” She’s not going to break that promise, she’s not. For once in her life, Lottie wants to keep a promise. 

 

She leans into the kiss, presses in more. She wants more.

 

It’s easy to just give in from there. Jackie doesn’t want to stay upset. The thought of it makes her anxious, like something will go wrong if she pushes this. So she deepens the kiss, leaning back into Lottie’s body. 

 

Lottie thinks it’s easy to just forget all of it and fall into this instead. It’s something she’s always done, she knows that. With Jackie, it’s just better. The feeling is overwhelming in the best way possible. She kisses her more, pries her tongue into Jackie’s mouth, licking against Jackie’s. She just wants this. She just wants and it’s hard to deny herself that anymore.

 

Jackie moans against Lottie’s lips, as their tongues meet. She pulls herself closer, threading her fingers into Lottie’s hair. Maybe it’s a bit of a problem, the way the rest of the world fades into nothing. She’s never been like this; she’d never seen herself as the kind of person to lose herself in another. 

 

But that’s not true. She’s always been like this. She’s just never been like this for someone she was dating, for a guy. She’d happily lose herself in Shauna. Now, Jackie is more than content to lose herself in Lottie.

 

It’s all Lottie’s ever wanted, really, to have someone, anyone, to be with. To lose herself in. She likes that Jackie can lose herself so easily in Lottie. It feels easy to do the same. She wants it so badly. She needs it, needs her. 

 

Lottie’s hands go back to Jackie’s skin, fingers grazing up her spine until they reach the clasp of her bra. She undoes it so easily, with a flick of her thumb and finger. She just wants to feel all of Jackie. 

 

Maybe, if the night had gone differently, if they hadn’t heard those strange screams, or if Jackie hadn’t freaked over Lottie hurting herself, Jackie would have had them go back into the forest. She misses the look Lottie got on the field, the excitement and joy of it. Running with the others that morning, actually playing together, Jackie thinks that it was… nice. She wants Lottie to feel like that again. 

 

She doesn’t know if this is the right night for that, though. Instead, Jackie slips her bra off, tosses it aside. She keeps them connected, her lips never straying too far from Lottie’s.

 

Lottie licks her lips, eager to get back to tasting Jackie’s even in the small moment they’re apart. Her mind has already washed away whatever it had been feeling earlier after the funeral and just moments ago, when Jackie had looked at her with those big, sad eyes. All she wanted was this. And it was hers.

 

She wraps her arms back around her, kisses her hard. Hands press against her back. “Jackie,” she sighs into her lips.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie whispers. Such a pretty name. It sounds so good, tumbling from her lips, mumbled against Lottie’s own when neither of them can manage to pull away. Her hand slips under Lottie’s back, going to fumble with the hooks in her bra this time, to return the favor. 

 

When Jackie undoes her bra, Lottie pulls away briefly enough to yank it off, setting it aside before yanking Jackie back to her. Kissing her, touching her, tasting her. “I love you,” Lottie breathes, “I need you so bad.”

 

“I’m yours,” Jackie moans. “I’m yours.” She pushes on Lottie, laying her down. Jackie presses her hands to Lottie’s shoulders and starts trailing her lips down. Down her jaw, her neck, her collarbones. She lingers at Lottie’s breasts because she can’t help herself, because they’re right there.

 

Lottie sighs happily, lays her head back. She lets out a breath, tangling her hand in Jackie’s hair. “Jackie,” she moans again, pulling her closer, chest arching into her touch, her mouth, wanting more. Always wanting more.

 

Such sweet noises, such a sweet girl. Jackie moves her mouth lower, down Lottie’s stomach. Her lips touch the fresh cut on Lottie’s side. She licks it, not really sure why, unable to stop herself. Then, she looks up at Lottie. “I want you to sit on my face.”

 

Lottie shudders when she feels Jackie’s tongue against her cut. It makes something inside of her coil tight and burn. Oh, she likes it. She fucking loves it.

 

Especially when Jackie looks up at her like that, with those eyes. She nods, eager, sitting them up and pushing Jackie onto her back before she starts stripping her pants off, her underwear. Presses a kiss to her lips, rough and needy. 

 

Jackie looks up at Lottie, reverent. Her hands go to Lottie’s waist, pulling her closer. They meld together, lips to lips. Her fingers splay out, touching as much skin as she can. Up and down Lottie’s back. Up to her shoulders, and then scratching down. She sucks Lottie’s bottom lip into her mouth and nips at it. “I love you.”

 

Lottie moans again into Jackie’s mouth, rolling her hips. “I love you, too.” It’s all she can think to say. She kisses Jackie deep and sweet and licks into her mouth. “Taste me.” She looks deep into her eyes before she sits up again, moving up her body and staring down at her, one hand digging into her hair.

 

Yes. Jackie leans her head into Lottie’s touch, closing her eyes for just a moment before she opens them again and stares back up at Lottie, tugging until Lottie is above her. She wants to taste. She wants to make Lottie feel good, so good, like she deserves. And, yeah, Jackie wants this, too. She likes this, the way Lottie feels, the way she tastes. It might be one of her favorite things. Her tongue licks a long, slow stripe against Lottie’s center, and she lets out a contented sigh before pulling Lottie even closer. 

 

It’s instant, how good the feeling is. Lottie’s head rolls back and she lets out a breathy moan, fingers tightening in Jackie’s hair. Her hips buck into her mouth, wanting to be closer, too, as she braces one hand against the wall of their hut. “Fuck, Jackie,” she exhales, her voice high pitched and airy. Just like how she feels. She wants more of her, all of her.

 

With her hands moving to squeeze Lottie’s ass, Jackie takes her time licking into Lottie. She’s so hot and wet, and Jackie lets out a happy noise. It feels amazing, knowing how worked up she makes Lottie, knowing how much Lottie wants this. And Lottie really seems to want this. It’s present in her voice, in the way her body moves. Jackie loves how Lottie pulls at her hair. She loves how high Lottie’s voice gets. She just wants to make Lottie feel good. It’s nice to know that seems to be the case.

 

It feels hard to control herself like this as Lottie tries to temper her breathing, moaning as she feels Jackie’s tongue against her. She’s trying not to pull her hair too hard even if she knows Jackie likes it. She doesn’t want to ruin this. This night feels special. She wishes she could feel the moonlight on her skin, too, but she thinks just knowing it’s there is enough when Jackie already makes her feel like she’s floating and burning and falling. 

 

And her skin is buzzy and her veins feel like lava and she’s panting, already, sighing Jackie’s name over and over. And it’s not frantic or hurried like earlier even if Lottie’s heart is racing. It’s just them and this moment and it’s perfect.

 

The way Lottie says Jackie’s name is a gift. It’s perfect. It makes Jackie feel warm, like she’s doing something right. Like she’s doing everything right. She’s still pretty shit at survival, but she can make Lottie feel good, so that has to count for something. Her lips wrap around Lottie’s clit and suck, and maybe she just wants to hear Lottie cry out for her louder. She just likes knowing how much Lottie enjoys her. It’s one of the best things in the world.

 

The act makes Lottie actually cry out, unable to control herself as she bends forward, hand grasping the fur that they slept on. She tries not to buck her hips too hard into Jackie’s mouth but the motion is involuntary as she feels them rocking against her. She can feel herself building, feel it starting from between her legs and bleeding out into every inch of her body, from the tip of her toes to the top of her head. “Jackie,” she stutters, “I’m so close.”

 

Good. Jackie wants to taste Lottie’s pleasure. She thinks she wants it more than anything else in the world. It’s funny, how much can change in a year, a few short months. She’s different now than she ever would have been back home. She’s different now with Lottie than she was with Jeff or Shauna or on her own. Her tongue dips back inside Lottie, fucking her, holding her. Jackie’s head feels like she’s floating. She really doesn’t mind that she can barely breathe. It’s totally worth it.

 

“Oh, fuck!” Lottie gasps, both hands now gripping the fur on top of their bedding so tight her knuckles are turning white. Her breaths are heavy, panting, moaning with each exhale. It doesn’t take long after that, until she’s seeing stars and crying out as she comes in Jackie’s mouth, arms shaking. It’s the most wonderful feeling, too, and it makes her dizzy with pleasure and fire.

 

Jackie laps at Lottie until she’s clean, like she’s starving, like she’s dying, like she needs this. She needs this. She needs everything that Lottie will give her. She needs it more than she can say. Not that she can say anything, right now, but that’s okay. It’s so worth it, her hands running over Lottie’s thighs, trailing to her hips. Jackie burns between her own legs, but that doesn’t matter, not at the moment, not when she’s overwhelmed with how good Lottie feels.

 

Lottie is still gasping and panting by the time her vision comes back to her. She’s still shuddering when she leans back, looking down at Jackie as she sits on her hips, sweaty and smiling. She brushes her hair back with one hand. “God, you’re so fucking good.” 

 

The words make Jackie shiver, and she smiles after she wipes her mouth, breathing heavily. “Yeah?” she asks. She likes the words. Of course she does. She loves knowing she did a good job at something. Her hands go to Lottie’s hips. Jackie can’t stop looking at her like she hung the moon. 

 

Lottie likes it when Jackie looks at her like she’s the only person on earth, and the way she’s looking at her now makes something deep within her stir. Something she didn’t really know existed before. “Yeah.” She leans down, pressing her lips to Jackie’s. “So good.”

 

“I just wanna be good for you,” Jackie rasps against Lottie’s lips. That’s all she wants. She doesn’t think it’s too big of an ask. She’s done pretty well with it so far, at least.

 

“You are,” Lottie tells her, smiling. Somewhere, she thinks about how she doesn’t need Jackie to be good for her, but the thought trickles away. “So good for me.” 

 

Jackie makes a pleased noise in the back of her throat, and she’s pants when they pull away from each other to breathe. The words feel so good, warm and sweet as they settle over her. Jackie would be whatever Lottie wants her to be. She doesn’t mind. In fact, she looks forward to it. 

 

Lottie kisses Jackie again, softer this time, but a little demanding. She runs her tongue along her lips, tasting herself on Jackie’s, before slipping her tongue into her mouth again. God, she just loves her so much. She wants her all the time, all to herself. 

 

Sighing softly, Jackie parts her lips for Lottie, letting the kiss deepen. Soft and sweet and aching. Lottie can have all of her, everything. Jackie doesn’t mind. She wants it, actually, wants all of Lottie. She wants Lottie to have all of her.

 

The invitation is taken immediately as Lottie dips her tongue into Jackie's mouth, savoring the taste. She swallows the soft sounds Jackie makes and lets the feeling of them sit in her stomach. 

 

After a moment, she leans back up, hand brushing along Jackie's face. She wants to see it bathed in moonlight again, wants to see her entire bare body basking in its glow. 

 

Shifting, she tugs at Jackie's arms to get her to sit up. “Come,” she urges her softly, moving to stand, still holding Jackie's hands.

 

It’s not hard to listen to Lottie’s words. Jackie stands, holding onto Lottie’s hands tightly. Whatever she wants. Jackie will do whatever she wants.

 

Grabbing her normal cloak, Lottie drapes it over Jackie's shoulders before she picks up her ceremonial cloak and puts it on herself. She takes Jackie's hand once again and leads them out of their hut, away from the village. The moon isn't full, but it sheds a bright light down on them, illuminating the dark forest-- not that Lottie needs the light to know where she's going. 

 

They reach a small clearing, with a familiar tree. In the dark, it's hard to make out the stains on the bark, still red. She pushes Jackie's back against it, before pressing in for another heated kiss. 

 

Jackie grunts as her back hits the tree, her hands moving up to tangle in Lottie’s hair. It’s the second time today that Lottie’s pushed Jackie up against a tree, but she really doesn’t mind. She kind of likes it, kind of likes the way Lottie leans over her, surrounds her. Her fingers go to the strings of Lottie’s cloak, tugging, pulling, pushing it off her shoulders when she gets it unlaced. Her hands wrap around Lottie’s waist, bringing her in closer.

 

Lottie is already lost in kissing Jackie by the time her cloak drops from her shoulders. She pushes the one on Jackie’s shoulders off as well, exposing her chest as hands explore the bare skin. It feels so nice under her fingers and she lets them drift up Jackie’s sides, to her breasts, cupping and massaging. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie breathes, groaning against Lottie’s lips as her head tilts back, thudding against the tree. She arches into Lottie’s touch. Her body craves it, aches for the way Lottie touches her. It’s like she’s addicted. She just can’t help it; it’s so good.

 

Humming, Lottie moves her lips down Jackie’s cheek to her neck, kissing the skin there, wrapping her lips around it and sucking. Teeth scraping, only barely fighting the urge to bite down. She does anyway, wanting to hear Jackie make those wonderful noises she always does when Lottie has her like this.

 

Jackie moans as Lottie bites down. Her fingers dig into Lottie’s waist, trying desperately to pull her even closer. She just wants Lottie closer. Is that so wrong? She doesn’t think so, not really. She wants to feel Lottie all over. She just wants to feel good. She already does as those teeth dig in. 

 

Lottie kisses lower once she’s dug her teeth in enough to make Jackie moan like that. She kisses down to her collarbone, teeth digging in there, too. Fingers massage the sensitive skin of Jackie’s breast as she rolls her hips against Jackie’s. She’s burning to hear Jackie cry out for her again. 

 

“God, Lottie,” Jackie moans out. What else can she do? Her body jerks into Lottie’s touch, into the feeling of hips rolling against her own. She clings to Lottie even tighter, her hands raking up from Lottie’s hips to her back. 

 

Lottie’s shoulders roll into Jackie’s hands, muscles tensing and untensing under her touch. She kisses lower and replaces her hand with her mouth, sucking on the sensitive skin of Jackie’s breast as she sinks to her knees, still tall enough to reach all over Jackie’s chest and wherever Lottie wants to kiss. 

 

Her free hand wraps around Jackie’s thigh, squeezing and digging nails in gently, just enough to leave impressions behind when she moves her hand away.

 

When Lottie has her like this, Jackie doesn’t think there’s anything else in the world that matters. Her mind narrows to just this. She’s love drunk, she thinks, drunk off of Lottie more than any wine. Her eyes follow Lottie, her hands tangle in Lottie’s hair. She can’t figure out what else to do. She doesn’t think there’s anything else to do, except enjoy what’s happening.

 

On her knees now, Lottie looks up at Jackie and all she can see through the dappled shadows of leaves is Jackie’s face, eyes heady, wanting. She wants and she needs and that makes Lottie want more, too. Need her more, too. 

 

She trails hot, open-mouthed kisses down Jackie’s abdomen, biting down on her hip, sucking on the skin there. Both her hands hook around the backs of Jackie’s thigh, squeezing, nudging her to spread them so Lottie can slot between. She can already feel how hot Jackie is and she can only imagine how wet she already is. 

 

She needs to taste her, here, in the moonlight.

 

Jackie has no problem letting Lottie spread her legs. She aches for Lottie’s touch, for anything she wants to give Jackie. They were just like this, just a few hours ago. Maybe a little bit more clothes, but still. It just seems like Jackie keeps wanting more. It doesn’t stop. She wants Lottie to have everything she wants. Lottie deserves it. And it seems like she wants Jackie most of all. 

 

Who would Jackie be to deny such a pretty girl her wants? 

 

Lottie is already eager, wanting, craving. But she pauses just long enough to pull a needle from her cloak on the ground and prick her finger. Blood wells to the surface, enough for her to press to the tree before she lifts her hand up and offers it to Jackie. Her eyes are dark, lidded, urging her to take, to taste.

 

After scolding Lottie over cutting herself, after feeling so much anxiety about it, Jackie can’t help it as her eyes widen when Lottie offers her hand to Jackie, a bead of blood at the surface. Jackie leans in, slow, and takes Lottie’s finger into her mouth, tasting metal, salt, that distinctly warm taste of blood. She sucks, and she brushes her hand through Lottie’s hair before offering her hand to Lottie. 

 

She hadn’t been expecting the offer, but Lottie’s eyes light up when Jackie does. She takes her hand gently, wets the end of the needle with her mouth, and then pricks her finger. When blood wells up, Lottie takes her finger into her mouth and sucks, tasting that sweet, coppery metal that makes her shudder. 

 

It’s almost what she wants.

 

She smiles, then, presses her lips to Jackie’s stomach, just below her bellybutton, then kisses lower. Lower until she reaches between Jackie’s legs. She licks a long stripe against her, eyes wide as she watches Jackie’s face, wanting to see how she makes her shudder.

 

Another Jackie Taylor would be disturbed by the fact that she and her girlfriend had basically just drank each other’s blood, but this Jackie’s too busy with her eyes rolling back, her head thumping against the tree behind her. Her hands grip at the bark, a little blood smearing on it, barely there as she moans when Lottie’s tongue touches her. She’s hot and sensitive, her body flushed. She wants, she needs. She knows Lottie will give it to her.

 

Yes, that’s exactly what Lottie wants. And she has it, now. She gets it. She gets it whenever she wants. Lottie grips Jackie’s hips tightly as she ducks her head between her legs, burying her tongue in Jackie, licking and tasting her and having her. She’s hers. No one and nothing else’s. Hers. Lottie’s hands tighten.

 

“Lottie!” Jackie cries out. She shudders, her skin flushing all the way down her chest, into her hair. Her hips jerk forward, again and again, unable to get far from the way that Lottie holds onto her. It’s like she’s trying to keep Jackie from moving away. There’s nowhere in the world Jackie would rather be. 

 

The more Jackie cries out her name, the more Lottie fucks her with her tongue, lapping at every bit of her she can. She’s panting, moaning into her. She wants so bad it makes her burn. Her desire is raging inside of her, body tensing with it. She can feel the blood on the tip of her finger smearing onto Jackie’s skin. 

 

She moves her hand, then, lifting one of Jackie’s legs over her shoulder, hooking her arm around it. She leans back, panting, staring up at Jackie as she takes two fingers and presses into her. She wants to hear Jackie cry her name louder.

 

Jackie sees stars, she thinks, new ones, ones that haven’t been placed in the sky just yet. They dance across her vision, bright and relentless, and she whines. She’s sensitive and wet, and it only grows as Lottie’s fingers enter her. She moans Lottie’s name, jerks her hips, desperately searches for more. 

 

When her eyes open, Jackie looks down and meets Lottie’s gaze. Sweat beads at Jackie’s forehead, trailing down. She can’t look away. She’s not sure what she’s doing, or why, but that’s been most of the night, so she brings her hands to her own chest, rubbing and moaning and whining out Lottie’s name.

 

It’s exactly what Lottie wants, staring into Jackie’s eyes as she watches Lottie fuck her. And Lottie watches as Jackie grasps at her own chest and it makes her shudder, moaning when she leans back in. Lets her tongue press against Jackie’s clit before she sucks on it. Blood is nice, but this will always be Lottie’s favorite flavor. She knows that, it’s not even a question.

 

Her hand moves a little faster. Breath comes a little heavier. Eyes flashing. She thinks she needs this. She thinks she might die without this.

 

A little blood smears over Jackie’s chest as she frantically touches herself, and she wails loudly, her leg twitching around Lottie’s shoulder, the other barely holding herself up. “Lottie, please, I’m so-” She’s so close. She barely gets the words out before she’s coming, sharp and intense, crying out Lottie’s name. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie rasps out. Her hips are still rolling. “Please don’t stop. Please. More.” She’s shooting for demanding, but it’s just begging, desperate. Jackie feels out of control, and it’s only gotten worse. She doesn’t want the control. She wants Lottie to take it, keep it, keep her.

 

It’s pure bliss the way Jackie comes in Lottie’s mouth. She feels Jackie’s leg tensing, her body shaking. She’s still moving into Lottie’s touch. She wants more. Lottie can give her more.

 

She keeps moving her fingers between her legs, standing up slowly, taking Jackie’s leg from her shoulder and urging her to wrap it around her waist. She kisses Jackie deep and heavy, tongue licking into her open mouth before she’s pulling away and burrowing into her neck, where she wastes no time in biting down.

 

The movement makes Jackie moan, loud and keening, her head tilted back. Her leg wraps around Lottie and pulls her in close, and she bears her throat so that Lottie has more room. This feels wild, animal. Jackie thinks Lottie craves it. Jackie thinks she craves it, too.

 

Yes, Lottie craves it more than anything she’s ever craved before. She craves it like a need, like more than a need. Like something she’ll die without, something she can’t exist without. Her tongue finds Jackie’s pulse and bites down again, teeth digging into her skin. Fingers curling inside of Jackie, begging to hear her cry out more.

 

“Like that,” Jackie begs, gasping as Lottie bites down. It shouldn’t feel that good. It shouldn’t. It does. God, it feels so good. Everything that Lottie does feels good. It feels freeing and wonderful, like she’s getting everything she’s ever wanted. Something inside Jackie wants this desperately. Something inside her cannot stop aching for it.

 

Lottie feels like her mind is racing, breath quickening. She moves her fingers in the way she knows drives Jackie crazy. Moves to the other side of her neck to bite down there, her free arm wrapping around Jackie's lower back and pulling her hips into her touch more. She digs deeper into her, pants against her sweaty skin. Whatever this desire is, Lottie knows it'll never be sated. She thinks that's a good thing.

 

This is how Jackie thinks she’s supposed to die: not from cold or starvation but from feeling so good, good in ways that she was never supposed to, that she would never allow herself anywhere else. But she allows herself, and it’s so good that Jackie thinks she’s dying, so overwhelming that she cries out loud as she comes, holding onto Lottie as tight as she can.

 

The second time Jackie comes, it makes Lottie's entire body ignite. It so fucking good, the feeling of Jackie clenching around her fingers, or the sound of her crying out Lottie's name as she comes undone. 

 

God, this is definitely the most amazing thing in the world. Jackie is the most amazing girl in the world. She unwraps her mouth from around Jackie's pulse and presses lips to lips, gentle and sloppy.

 

Jackie pants against Lottie’s lips as the two of them kiss, sweet and soft and perfect. She’s slumped forward against Lottie, unable to move, unable to keep holding herself up. She doesn’t mind. She hopes Lottie doesn’t mind.

 

Jackie is like putty in her hands and Lottie loves it. Slowly, she pulls her hand out from between Jackie's legs, wrapping her up and holding onto her tightly. She kisses the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her nose. Nuzzles into her. A breeze runs through the clearing and it makes her shiver slightly, realizing how sweaty and damp her own skin is. It's beautiful.

 

Melting into Lottie’s arms, Jackie trusts the taller girl to hold her up and keep her safe. She trusts Lottie implicitly. Here, in the dark, it’s just the two of them, but it feels as if they’re not alone. The forest is alive. Or maybe it’s dead and full of ghosts. Jackie doesn’t know if she believes in the thing that Lottie believes in, but she believes in what exists between the two of them. It’s everything to her. 

 

Lottie runs her hands up and down Jackie's back, soothing her as she moves them back to sit on one of the discarded cloaks. She looks so beautiful, boneless and limp in Lottie's arms, the light of the moon making her skin glow. “I love you,” she murmurs, leaning over to kiss her again. It's a need to her as inherent as breathing.

 

“I love you, too,” Jackie slurs out, curling up in Lottie’s lap. She loves Lottie so much it consumes her. She leans forward as they kiss, still seeking out Lottie’s lips. Mostly just for comfort. She just wants to be touching, now. She sighs heavily, pressing her face against Lottie’s neck. “You’re so good.”

 

It’s easy for Lottie to wrap Jackie up completely in her arms, bare skin against bare skin. She pets one hand through her hair, the other hand resting on her back, fingers tracing over the ridges of her spine. “Only for you.”

 

Jackie hums, pressing into Lottie’s arms even more, content and warm. Maybe a little too warm, her heart still pounding, both of their bodies covered in sweat. Even still, she shivers into Lottie’s touch, her lips brushing against Lottie’s pulse. “I’m okay with that. I want you all for myself.”

 

“I’m yours,” Lottie assures her, turning her head just enough to kiss the top of Jackie’s head. “Only yours.” She only belonged to Jackie. Something inside of her roils, something dark and deep. Something that doesn’t feel entirely like her. It wasn’t her. Because she wanted to be only Jackie’s. And she was. She told herself she was.

 

“You’re mine,” Jackie agrees. She wants it to be the truth. She’s desperate for it. Pulling away, she looks at Lottie, gazing into her eyes. Her fingers brush against the scar on Lottie’s forehead. “Mine.”

 

Lottie closes her eyes. She thinks she’d be able to recognize Jackie’s touch even if she was blind, even if she wasn’t in her own mind. She knows it to be true. She nods. She’s Jackie’s, truly, fully. She’ll never be anyone else’s.

 

When she opens her eyes, she’s looking down into Jackie’s sparkling, hazel eyes, one of her favorite things to look at. She lifts her hand and traces the line of her own scar across Jackie’s forehead. Whatever had happened that night, Lottie doesn’t blame Jackie. She never had, she never would. 

 

When it had happened, Jackie remembers that stab of fear as Lottie had slammed her head into the window. The shock of it, the horror. But now she only feels a bone deep sadness. She’s sorry that it happened. She’s sorry that none of them were there for Lottie. She’s devastated that the only one who really was threw a Bible and then ended up dying. 

 

But Jackie’s going to spend the rest of her life being there for Lottie. She’s going to do everything in the world that she can. Her eyes drift closed. She promises. 

 

Lottie takes Jackie’s hand and presses her lips to her knuckles. She knows what Jackie is thinking about. “It wasn’t your fault,” she says softly. 

 

“Maybe not,” Jackie murmurs. “I’m still sorry it happened.” 

 

“You don’t need to be,” Lottie tells her. Truthfully, Lottie doesn’t know if she’s sorry it happened. She doesn’t know what her life would look like now if it hadn’t. She wonders if she’d still hear Its voice.

 

Instead of saying anything, Jackie takes her hand from Lottie’s and brushes it over Lottie’s cheek. She’s still sorry it happened. She’s still sorry that Lottie got hurt, and not just from the cut.

 

Lottie leans into Jackie’s touch, eyes closing. She can feel how Jackie feels, just from the way she touches her, from the way she looks at her. Lottie thinks she’s in tune with Jackie’s emotions, she thinks she’d be able to know with just a glance. 

 

“I’m okay,” she whispers, “because I have you.”

 

“You do,” Jackie tells her. Her thumb rubs soothing circles against Lottie’s skin. She leans forward once more, pressing her lips to Lottie’s jaw. “You have me.”

 

Lottie can’t help but to lean more into Jackie’s touch. She nuzzles against the side of her head. It feels so nice, to have someone. To actually have someone who wants her and wants to stay. Who’s seen her at her worst and still wants to stay. She’s not just an obligation. She’s a want and a need. 

 

“Mine.” She says the word softly to Jackie but in her mind, she says it darkly to whatever waits inside of her head. Jackie is hers.

 

All Jackie’s ever wanted, really, is to be someone’s. She thought she was Shauna, but Shauna had never really been hers. Not really. Not in the end. But with Lottie, she feels like they’re each other’s. It feels like they belong, shaped by this place to slot together. Jackie doesn’t think she’d fit with anyone else. She doesn’t want to be anyone else’s. 

 

Lottie pulls Jackie back into her body, wrapping herself around the smaller girl, enveloping her. She likes how small Jackie is, she likes that she can fully wrap her up and hold her in her arms like this. She loves her so much it consumes her. She lets it consume her. 

 

Jackie lets herself be held, curled up against Lottie with her face pressed against Lottie’s neck. She can feel the way Lottie’s pulse beats as her lips touch it, soft and soothing. A gentle kiss, something that’s just for the two of them. This moment is just for the two of them.

 

If Lottie could, she thinks she would squirrel Jackie away from the world, away from all the things that could hurt her. But she knows she can’t and she knows that’s not fair to Jackie, either. Still, she wants to. She feels like she needs to. Losing Jackie would mean losing herself and Lottie’s only just found both of those things. She burrows into Jackie and lets out a long breath. “I’ll never let you go,” she says, “I promise.”

 

It’s so warm and comforting that Jackie thinks she’d be fine if Lottie never let go of her. She thinks she’d be okay if they just disappeared into each other, if they just kept holding each other forever. It’d be okay if Lottie never let her go again. “I know,” she whispered. “I won’t let you go, either. Never.”

 

“I know,” Lottie repeats, holding her tighter. She doesn’t want to let go, but she knows eventually she’ll have to. Right now, though, she doesn’t. She loves it. Loves her. Loves this. 

 

After a moment, despite her wanting to stay out there, Lottie unravels enough to look down at Jackie. Lottie’s skin is still vibrating but she’s more relaxed now, calmer. She doesn’t feel like she’s going to combust if she’s not touching Jackie. “We should probably head back,” she murmurs.

 

“Probably,” Jackie says, even though she makes no move to actually get up. It’s not like anyone’s going to look for them right now. It’s not like she has anything to do before the morning. They can just stay like this, even though Jackie sits up as well, lacing her arms around Lottie’s shoulders.

 

Lottie tilts her head as she looks at Jackie, arms hooked around her shoulders. “We can stay here longer if you want,” she says, “I just don’t want you to get cold.” Because Jackie is always cold. Lottie wants to keep her warm.

 

“It’s hard to be cold with you around,” Jackie teases. “You’re better than a space heater.”

 

Lottie lets out a breathy chuckle. “I hope that’s a compliment.”

 

“A major compliment, for sure.” Jackie’s always been cold, but there was a while after getting lost in the snow that it had been worse. It got pushed to the side after Lottie was hurt, but Jackie still remembers the cold. She remembers how it settled into her bones and stayed there. It gets chased away with Lottie around, though. She’s just so warm that it’s impossible to stay cold.

 

“Good, then.” Lottie doesn’t really remember getting cold before, when she’d almost frozen to death. She hadn’t felt cold at all. All she remembers is Laura Lee. The plane. The weird dream. She hadn’t even felt cold when Jackie and Mari and Akilah had dragged her back to the cabin, or when she’d been lowered into the tub of hot water. She wonders if she was ever actually cold, sometimes.

 

Instead of moving, then, she nudges Jackie to lay down with her, reaching over and dragging her other cloak on top of them. “We’ll have to go back eventually, though.”

 

“I know,” Jackie mumbles. The last thing she wants is anyone coming to look for them and finding her completely naked. But, for right now, she nestles herself against Lottie, sighing happily. “But we can stay here for right now.”

 

“We can.” Lottie doesn’t mind. She also doesn’t mind if people did see them, but she knows Jackie would, and so eventually they’ll have to get up and go back to their hut. She wishes they’d have been able to go out to their spot after the funeral, but she knows it wouldn’t have been possible. 

 

Jackie presses her face back into Lottie’s neck, breathing in softly. It’s so weird to be so comforted just be the way that someone smells. She’d know Lottie with her eyes closed. This has just grown so familiar. Months of touching, of holding each other, of staying near each other and being comforted by each other. It’s the most important thing in the world to Jackie. She never wants it to stop.

 

Lottie wants to stay like this forever, but she thinks they should try and get some real sleep, so eventually, she urges Jackie to sit up with her and head back to their hut, where she wraps them both up in their blankets and Jackie in her arms, before she’s settling in happy and warm and at peace.

 

Despite the tiniest trickle of dread that is trying to worm its way into Lottie’s head.

Notes:

And that's a wrap on the solstice! But don't worry, the rest of everything that comes after is gonna be just as-- if not more-- fun than the party :) How do y'all think summer is gonna go? And how will they deal with the ever looming pit we all know is there? Take your guesses! Thanks again for reading, we love you all <3

Chapter 36: you can't blame gravity

Summary:

With the Summer Solstice officially over, it's time for the girls to all get back to routine. For Jackie, that means getting up and following through with her word to look for their dead coach-- but not without pausing for Lottie's attempt to keep her for herself. It's a nice day, though, despite some of the girls sporting hangovers and headaches, and Jackie thinks it's gonna be an easy in and out. It's just a shame that she's wrong, much to Lottie's chagrin. It's all such a cliche pitfall for Jackie, who's gonna help her now?

Notes:

Happy holidays everyone! This chapter is a wee bit shorter than some of the recent ones but it's a doozy! And lots of stuff happens so don't worry content wise. Hope you all are having good weeks and enjoy! We're really starting to get into the big season 3 stuff now!

Title is from a quote by Albert Enstein, "You can't blame gravity for falling in love"

It’s probably from being so tired, but Jackie sleeps well through the night, only finally starting to stir when she hears the rest of camp. She moves herself closer to Lottie, not really bothering to start waking up properly just yet. Her main agenda for the day is to go searching for some dead guy. She really doesn’t want to bother with it.

 

When the world outside begins to wake, Lottie does, too. But she feels warm and soft and a little bit gooey with how sweet it feels to wake up with Jackie in her arms. It’s not much different from most days, but Lottie is grateful for it every time it happens.

 

As her body wakes, Lottie can feel the excitement from yesterday trickling away from her. She wishes she could hold onto it, it had felt new and energizing, something she hadn’t really felt in a long time. She’d felt closer to the Wilderness than she had in a while, too. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to want that, but she did. God, she did sometimes.

 

When she feels Jackie stir, ever so slightly, she squeezes her a little more tightly, as if silently telling her she’s not allowed to get up yet. She doesn’t think Jackie wants to, anyway.

 

Breathing out a soft, happy breath, Jackie squeezes Lottie back. It’s cute, the way Lottie doesn’t want to let her up. Not that Jackie had any desire to go anywhere. She’s warm and comfy in the arms of the girl she loves. What’s better than that? There’s nothing else in the world she could want.

 

After a moment of listening to the shuffling of feet outside around camp, Lottie shifts enough to press a kiss to the top of Jackie’s head. “Good morning sleepyhead,” she coos.

 

“Good morning,” Jackie says, her voice groggy still with sleep as she moves in Lottie’s arms, leaning up to look at her face. She smiles at her, leaning forward to give her a chaste kiss.

 

Jackie feels sore but in the best way. From running, from knocking Mari down, from Lottie. It’s like Lottie’s teeth are still in Jackie’s skin, biting firmly embedded in her skin. She really doesn’t want to get up at all, but, if she doesn’t, then it feels like people are just going to keep talking about Coach Scott. 

 

Lottie leans up into the kiss before wrapping her arms tighter around Jackie and pulling her back down. “Don't get up yet,” she says in a soft, pleading tone. She presses her face into Jackie's neck. “Stay here with me.” She wants to ask her to stay with her all day, but she knows she won't-- not because she doesn't want to, but because she needs to do something else today. 

 

Even if Lottie thinks that something else is pointless, she knows Jackie will do it anyway. She knows she feels like she needs to. Still, she can ask her to stay just a little longer, can't she?

 

“I mean, if you’re gonna wear me down,” Jackie teases, sinking back into Lottie’s touch. Really, she doesn’t need a lot of convincing, though.

 

“I am,” Lottie confirms, feeling Jackie relax back into her arms, just like she knew she would. She likes to think she knows how Jackie would react to most things, especially things that have to do with Lottie.

 

She presses another kiss to her head, before nudging her face so she can kiss her lips, soft and sweet and in no rush. After all, a dead man won't be going anywhere anytime soon, right?

 

Smiling against Lottie’s lips, Jackie feels like she’s melting into the kiss, one hand moving up to brush against Lottie’s cheek. When she pulls away, she murmurs, “I’m not gonna be able to leave if we keep this up, you know.”

 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Lottie grins, fingers digging into Jackie's hair, scratching against her scalp in the way she knows makes Jackie putty in her hands. She nips at her lips. “I'm just trying to cuddle with my girlfriend.”

 

“This…” Jackie trails off, her eyes fluttering shut as she leans into Lottie’s touch. It takes her a minute to figure out what she was trying to say. “This isn’t cuddling anymore.”

 

“Are you saying I'm lying?” Lottie says, breath hot on Jackie's skin as she presses her lips to her cheek, then the side of her mouth. “That's so mean. I would never lie to you.”

 

“Maybe just… just over exaggerating,” Jackie manages, holding onto Lottie a little tighter. 

 

“Uh huh,” Lottie mumbles back, brushing her lips against Jackie’s again, pressing in a little more.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie says, drawling Lottie’s name out as they kiss, but she’s not exactly pushing Lottie away. In fact, Jackie pulls her closer.

 

“Yes?” Lottie asks, not pulling away either, letting her tongue drag along Jackie’s bottom lip, asking for her to part them silently.

 

“I…” Jackie thinks she should get up. She hates that she feels like everyone’s going to start hating her again if she doesn’t do something, but she does. It’s stupid, but she does. Even still, she doesn’t move, and she lets her lips part.

 

A smile curls onto Lottie’s face as she feels Jackie’s mouth open for her, tongue slipping in to lick against Jackie’s. It’s a nice way to wake up, Lottie thinks, holding the girl she loves, kissing her deep, passionately, but still lazy and sleep filled. She moves them until Jackie is on her back below Lottie, bodies pressed together. Yes, this is definitely the best way to wake up.

 

Jackie hums into the kiss, tightening her arms around Lottie as their lips touch, such a nice, languid way to wake up. Better than a boy sneaking into her bedroom before school, better than a boot to the ribs. And she gets to keep this forever. 

 

Lottie likes the way Jackie’s lips feel against her own as she hums, deepening it just a little more, licking into her mouth, tasting her. It’s so nice, waking up with this. Much better than all the times Lottie woke up alone, aching, wishing someone could see the pain she was in inside, the pain she tried so hard not to show. The pain she sometimes still felt when she remembered those days.

 

But today she has Jackie. And tomorrow, she’ll have Jackie, too. She rolls her hips tauntingly, slow and purposeful.

 

Morning sex feels like a great way to start the day, and Jackie rolls her hips back, loving the way that it feels. She loves everything about Lottie. This girl that she’s known but not really known for most of her life, someone she’s always considered a friend, even if they weren’t always close, and now she’s the most important person in Jackie’s life. Now she’s everything. 

 

Lottie’s hands are lazy and unhurried as they drag down Jackie’s body, feeling her still naked form beneath her. She’s so warm still, the blanket of sleep yet to work its way off their bodies and Lottie likes how it feels. She kisses down Jackie’s neck, tongue tasting her still salty skin, sticky with their love from last night. 

 

This morning, she sucks on the skin like a salve, teeth only gently scraping, reminding her of last night but leaving it there. Morning sex is meant to be soft, warm, languid. Like honey, dripping from the jar. She wonders if Jackie is wet and dripping, too, already.

 

With soft sighs and roaming hands, Jackie lets herself get lost in the warm, gooey feeling of slowly coming to wakefulness this way. The way Lottie’s mouth and tongue feel on her skin. The way Lottie’s hands travel over her body like they’ve got nothing but time. It feels like they’ve got nothing but time, like they’re the only two people in the world. Jackie shivers even as heat rolls through her body, unable to help it. 

 

The heat that Lottie can feel makes her shudder with anticipation. She knows how much Jackie wants her, it's the same as how much Lottie wants Jackie. It's infinite and unending. She's always desperate and craving her, she feels like she's drowning in it. 

 

Lottie kisses down to Jackie's chest, lathering her skin with her tongue, brushing it against her breast before wrapping her mouth around it and sucking. She tastes the sweetness of Jackie's skin, loving the feel of her nipple hardening under Lottie's tongue as she caresses it. Only she gets to have Jackie like this and the thought drives her all the more crazy 

 

It’s sweet and slow, and Jackie finds herself getting lost in it, lost in Lottie. Then again, that’s her favorite place in the world to be, so lost in her girl that there’s no way out, wrapped up in her love and care. She doesn’t want to be anywhere else. This is Jackie’s favorite place in the world. 

 

Her hands go to Lottie’s hair, petting through it, working out the tangles. Jackie moves a knee in between Lottie’s legs, breathing in sharply as she feels the heat and wetness there, swallowing before she lets the breath go, and she smiles. It’s nice to be wanted, nice to know that she’s wanted, nice to want. God, it feels so good. Jackie loves it. 

 

Lottie’s breath catches when she feels Jackie shift, legs between each others’ now. She rolls her hips against Jackie’s thigh, already knowing how much she wants her is evident by how hot she is. She shifts her own knee up to add more pressure between Jackie’s legs and is greeted with that same slickness that’s between her own. It’s incredible to Lottie how, even after all this time, Jackie still seems to want her just as much as those first few nights. She hasn’t gotten tired of Lottie.

 

Sitting up enough to look down at Jackie, Lottie is enraptured by the red tint to her cheeks and the hooded look in her eyes, pupils dilated as they stare at each other. She smiles, sweet and honeyed, before leaning down to kiss her fully again, unable to fathom even a moment of time where she doesn’t want to be doing just this.

 

The slow, familiar slide against each other makes Jackie moan quietly. Lottie’s lips are plush, perfect, already kiss soft, either from the morning or the night before. She deepens the kiss, just wanting more. Her fingers scratch against Lottie’s scalp. 

 

Lottie hums, taking her time, gentle, soft, slow. They’re in no rush, really. They have all the time in the world, Lottie thinks. She feels liquid, sweet, happy. Opens her mouth more for Jackie, rolls her hips again, moaning. Hands on Jackie’s chest, kneading, massaging. If Jackie has to get up and leave later today, then Lottie wants to give her a reminder of what she’ll be coming back to.

 

“God, Lottie,” Jackie murmurs. Her back arches, her hips roll, and she sinks into their bedding and the kiss. It’s so soft and sweet, though. It’s like a fucking indulgence. She feels like she’s indulging in the best thing in the world. She smiles against Lottie’s lips. 

 

Maybe this is an indulgence, a decadence they weren’t supposed to have in a place like this, but Lottie thinks she wants to be done with denying herself the things she wants. With, at least, denying herself this and Jackie and some semblance of happiness, no matter the location. She’d spent the first nineteen years of her life hiding away and shrinking back from any bit of true happiness. She wants to be done with that.

 

Lottie exhales against Jackie’s lips, a soft moan in her throat. “Jackie.” She feels a shiver run up her spine, the pressure between her legs perfect for this easy and lax moment. 

 

“I love you,” Jackie says, holding Lottie closer. “I love you so much.” She loves her more than words. She loves the way Lottie feels and tastes and talks, the way she says Jackie’s name, the way she loves Jackie back. Lottie loves Jackie back so much. Jackie knows. She feels it. It makes her tear up. She pulls back to look at Lottie and breathe, even though her breath stutters. “Lottie, I love you.”

 

Sometimes the amount Jackie loves Lottie scares her a little. She’s never been loved like this, not even in her wildest dreams. But here Jackie is, looking up at Lottie like that, her eyes misty, telling her that she loves her, she loves her so much. And Lottie loves her, too. So fucking much. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and also the most wonderful thing in the world. 

Blinking, Lottie stares down at Jackie, her own eyes warm. “I love you, too, Jackie Taylor,” she breathes, before she’s kissing her again, a little more needy and desperate now. Still not hurried, but more fervent than before. Wanting and taking and having.

 

God, it’s so nice to sink into Lottie’s kiss, and Jackie tugs at Lottie’s hair a little firmer, keeping her close as they move against each other. Jackie would do anything for Lottie, anything she wanted or needed or asked. She knows it. She thinks that Lottie knows it, too.

 

It’s probably the most terrifying part, to Lottie, knowing that Jackie would do anything Lottie asked of her. She worries if she loses herself she’ll ask too much of her and she’ll hurt Jackie. She doesn’t want to hurt Jackie. She only wants her to know how much she loves her. 

 

Lottie can feel herself building as she presses into Jackie, only asking of her to love and be loved back, with the way she touches her, with the way she kisses her. With the way she moans as her hair is pulled and her skin is warmed.

 

Jackie thinks she just needs a little more before she tumbles over the edge, but she’s not in any hurry. God, she’s okay with whatever Lottie does with her. She feels so loved and happy, fuzzy and warm as Lottie moans against her. Jackie thinks she’s so beautiful. And she’s Jackie’s. That’s incredible. Jackie has a person who wants to be her person, that doesn’t resent it. 

 

Lottie is panting against Jackie’s mouth, kisses sloppy and unhurried, even as she moves her hips just a little faster, craving that burn between her legs. Her world has narrowed to Jackie, only Jackie, always Jackie. Nothing else matters because nothing else exists. She loves her, she loves her. So fully and freely. She takes Jackie’s hands from her hair and clasps their fingers together, holding them down above Jackie’s head, watching her face as they both near their release. 

 

Moaning against Lottie, Jackie strains against Lottie’s hold, not to try and get away but to try and get closer. She manages to brush their lips together again before flopping back on the bedding as she looks up at Lottie. Her lips are parted, her eyes flutter shut. Her pleasure crashes over her in waves. She presses into Lottie more, her hips rolling, feeling it like a war, pleasant flood. 

 

Watching Jackie struggle, watching her release take over her, makes Lottie shudder. Hips rolling up against her own makes her moan. Listening to Jackie’s breath and the sounds she’s making has Lottie’s body flooding with pleasure, too, as she feels herself finally releasing, even as their hips still move. Her grip in Jackie’s hands tightens as she does so, breath hitching. 

 

Jackie arches up and presses her lips to Lottie’s a little rougher than she intended as she moans. Her hands strain in Lottie’s hold, her fingers clenching. She wants to touch. Huffing, she wraps her legs around Lottie and tugs her closer. “C’mere.”

 

Lottie moves at Jackie’s command and presses her lips to hers again, releasing her hands so she can move how she wants. As much as Jackie would do whatever Lottie said, Lottie will do whatever Jackie wants her to. She’s hers to love, to have, to control, if she wants that, too. Lottie doesn’t care. She’s just happy she has someone who wants her at all.

 

“Good way to wake up, huh?” Jackie asks as she pulls Lottie into her. “We gotta start doing this more. The morning sex thing.”

 

Lottie nods, curling around Jackie’s side. “I agree.” She thinks it’s a great way to wake up, actually. “And to think, you wanted to get up.”

 

Giggling, Jackie says, “Silly me. But I can admit when I’m wrong, you know.”

 

“You’re so humble,” Lottie grins, pressing her nose to Jackie’s cheek as she snuggles against her. She feels the urge to beg Jackie to stay with her today again, but she refrains. They’ll have tomorrow.

 

“I know. It’s one of my best qualities,” Jackie says primly. She doesn’t want to get up. Not when Lottie’s made her feel so good, not when she thinks she could just fall right back asleep. Maybe that’s what they’ll do tomorrow: cuddle and touch and sleep all day long. It sounds nice. Jackie lets out a long sigh. She doesn’t want to get up. 

 

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Lottie asks, lifting a hand to draw circles on Jackie’s bare chest. It’s not technically her asking Jackie to say, it’s her asking why can’t she stay, there’s totally a difference. 

 

Jackie sighs. “If I go today, then maybe everyone will stop saying shit when I don’t find anything. Maybe they’ll let that poor man be dead.”

 

Lottie gives a big, dramatic sigh, letting her displeasure be known. Still, it’s more of a pout. She can’t be that mad, just disappointed. Not in Jackie, though. Just in that she really wants to spend the day with her and everyone else seems to be pulling her away. 

 

“I guess,” she huffs. “Just don’t stay out too late.”

 

“You’ll barely even know I’m gone,” Jackie says, grinning. She can’t help it as she leans in to press a kiss to Lottie’s pouty lips. “I’ll be back before dark. Honestly, sooner. I don’t think it’s gonna take me super long to walk around and not see anything.”

 

“I always know when you're gone,” Lottie protests, “I wait for you all day to come back whenever you leave.” And she does, even if she's busy herself. All Lottie thinks about is Jackie.

 

“I’ll be back before dark,” Jackie repeats, pressing aim for another kiss. It does make her feel good in an extremely selfish way, how much Lottie loves her and misses her when she’s not around. It makes it even harder to want to get up.

 

“Promise?” Lottie mumbles against Jackie's lips, holding onto her tightly.

 

Jackie smiles. “Promise.”

 

Then that's all that matters to Lottie. She smiles and kisses Jackie again. Of course she promises, of course she'll come back to Lottie. Where else would she go? 

 

Even if all she wants to do is get lost in the kisses, Jackie pulls away with a groan. “If I don’t get ready now, I never will. You’re just–” she brushes her hand over Lottie’s cheek, “so pretty.”

 

Lottie leans into Jackie’s touch. “You’re very sweet.” She sits up with Jackie, though, glancing around. “We better get dressed before someone comes knocking, I suppose.”

 

“I suppose,” Jackie repeats. She laughs quietly, pressing her head against Lottie’s shoulder. “Can you help me find my bra?”

 

“Mmm, I guess,” Lottie says, wrapping her arms around Jackie for a moment before she’s shifting them to start searching around the hut. She tosses her cloak over and finds it under there, with some of their other clothes. 

 

“So if I just don’t give you your bra, does that mean you can’t go?” she teases, dangling it by Jackie.

 

Jackie laughs louder, reaching for the bra only for it to be pulled away. She huffs. “I mean, how much do I even need it at this point? I feel like I’m just wearing it as a habit or something.”

 

“I do like taking it off you, though,” Lottie grins. “But if it doesn’t matter, then I guess you can have it back.” She tosses it over to her before searching for her own. She can hear the others gathering up outside, everyone finally awake and getting over their berry wine headaches. Lottie wonders if anyone will mention the sounds from last night, the ones she’d nearly forgotten about once she and Jackie had fallen into each other like always.

 

But they were ever present on her mind this morning now that she was awake and relaxed. Once she’s dressed, she picks up her cloak and Jackie’s matching one, holding it out to her. 

 

Jackie fixes her hair in their mirror after she slips the cloak on, fluffing it and trying to decide if she wants to pull it back before giving up. Instead, she grabs her backpack, throwing in some paper, including the drawing of Lottie she was working on the day before, and walks to the door. “Breakfast before I head out?” she asks, still putting off the day.

 

“Of course.” Lottie reaches for Jackie’s hand, intertwining their fingers and squeezing. Jackie might have to go off and be useful or something but they can at least dilly dally on the way out. She presses a quick kiss to her cheek before they step out and head to join the others at the firepit.

 

While everyone doesn’t look bad, necessarily, it’s easy to see that everyone is feeling the wine from last night. Mari is stirring the food around absently and Van is sitting with her head in Tai’s lap while the other girl combs her hair. Lottie doesn’t spot Nat anywhere, though, as she sits in her usual spot.

 

“You two look oddly chipper,” Mari grumbles.

 

Getting herself and Lottie food, Jackie gives Mari a bright smile. “What’s not to be chipper about? Yesterday was nice, I slept really well, and it’s the start of a beautiful day. C’mon, Mari. Don’t let a little hangover get you down.”

 

Mari just groans but Akilah chuckles behind her, as does Mel. Lottie takes her plate from Jackie with a grin. “Party too hard, champ?” she asks Mari, who just groans louder and pulls her hood up.

 

Giggling, Jackie sits beside Lottie and brushes their legs against each other as they eat.

 

Van cracks an eye open only to close it. “You two really are too happy this morning. It’s not fair.”

 

“I can’t believe I’m the one to wake up on the right side of the pile of furs,” Jackie says.

 

Lottie smiles back, picking at her food. “Maybe just tone down the berry wine next time, huh?”

 

Van, without opening her eyes, gives a limp thumbs up and Tai rolls her eyes. “I told her not to drink too much.”

 

Lottie chuckles. 

 

Across the way, she sees Nat appear as she steps out of Misty’s hut, the smaller girl behind her as they start heading towards the others, too, Nat rubbing the weariness from her eyes as she approaches. 

 

Jackie eats a few bites, setting her plate down as she meets Nat’s eyes. “Morning, Nat.”

 

“What-- oh, yeah. Mornin’,” Nat grumbles, grabbing a bowl and filling it up with some food. “You still going out to check for signs of, uh-- you know.”

 

Lottie glances between the two but doesn’t say much, picking at her plate still. 

 

“All set,” Jackie says, patting her bag. “I’ll head out after I finish eating, take some notes for the map. Sound good?”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Can you, uh, check some of the traps out that way, too?” Nat asks. 

 

Lottie thinks she looks a little nervous, fingers fidgeting. She doesn’t say anything about it, though. Maybe she’s just worried about what happened last night.

 

“Sure,” Jackie says. “Makes it an actually productive trip.”

 

Tai rolls her eyes. “It’s good to make sure, and you know it.”

 

“Whatever,” Jackie says. It’s going to be fine. Honestly, it’ll probably be a little boring.

 

Lottie has things she wants to say, but she keeps quiet about it. Even if Ben was the one who set the cabin on fire, it’s highly unlikely he’s still alive somehow. And if he was, what exactly does Tai want to do with him? Lottie doesn’t really know but she has a guess.

 

“Just be careful,” she says to Jackie, “we still don’t know what those sounds were last night.”

 

Jackie presses her lips to Lottie’s cheek, Jackie murmurs, “I’ll be careful. I’m sure it was just, like, angry birds or something.”

 

“Birds don’t scream,” Taissa says, sighing.

 

“We don’t know,” Jackie says indignantly.

 

Lottie doesn’t say much about that, either. She just loops her arm into Jackie’s.

 

“Whatever it was, it was the first and only time we’ve heard it, so it’s probably just some animals,” Nat says, rubbing her head. “I can go with you, if you want, though, Jax.” Nat, however, looks like she’d rather be doing anything but that.

 

Jackie waves Nat off. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a walk in the woods, and, look: no snow this time. I’ll be fine.”

 

“You fuckin’ better,” Nat says, nudging Jackie before she takes her bowl and a second one and heads back over to Misty, handing her the second bowl. 

 

Lottie watches her, and watches Misty, before she leans back against Jackie. “Just don’t go too far out.”

 

Grinning, Jackie says, “I’ll be good. I know my way around better, you know? It’ll be okay.” She sets her the little that’s left on her plate down and stands, shouldering her bag. “Probably best to get this started, huh? Sooner I walk around, sooner I can come back.”

 

Something in Lottie suddenly wants to beg Jackie to stay. It’s a feeling low in the pit of her chest, but as she looks around, she can’t find an excuse to give her. So she nods and stands. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with? Or Nat?”

 

“If you went with, we all know nothing would get done,” Tai says.

 

Jackie gives Tai a frown, even if she knows that Tai’s probably right. “As if you and Van are any better,” she mutters. She stands on her toes to give Lottie a kiss. “I’ll be okay.”

 

“I know,” Lottie says, even if she doesn’t. She doesn’t know. But it’s fine, she trusts Jackie. She does. She gives her hand one last squeeze. “Good luck.”

 

“Thanks, baby,” Jackie says. Just one last squeeze, and then she tugs on the straps of her bag and heads out.

 

Mari manages to get over her hangover enough to tease, “Don’t be gone too long, baby.”

 

Lottie just rolls her eyes at Mari before she picks up her and Jackie’s plates and sets them in the dirty dish bucket. She decides to spend the day working in the garden, she thinks. It’ll help keep her occupied until Jackie gets back.

 

For the record, Jackie’s walk actually starts off really well. She heads to the section of the forest they haven’t been to in awhile, taking new notes for the map and checking the traps they’d laid down weeks ago, getting more and more sparse the farther out she goes. The weather is nice, the walk is easy, and she doesn’t see any signs of human life out there except for the things the team has done. She sets her bag down against a tree and pulls out a piece of paper to add a particularly gnarled bush to her map section, figuring she can finish this last update and start heading back. 

 

Until she sees something that stands out. 

 

“What the fuck?” Jackie starts, frowning as she puts the paper down and steps forward, seeing something shiny and weird several feet away. A wrapper? Like, for a candy bar or something. 

 

Jackie’s eyes widen, and she moves toward it, nearly scrambling in her haste. She doesn’t even realize it’s a trap until she’s falling. 

 

Here’s the thing: the fall would have been bad if Jackie hadn’t landed wrong. It was already a big drop; she was going to hurt herself regardless. But, when something gets fucked up for Jackie, it gets fucked up. Truly devastating results. The way she lands has her left leg twisting in all the wrong ways, her ankle bending like it’s not supposed to. The noise she lets out startles the birds, makes her ears ring and her sight blackens. It narrows, blurs, fades. She thinks she’s going to be sick. 

 

There’s nothing particularly wrong but when Lottie accidentally pricks herself on a thorn, she feels like it’s a sign. An omen. She puts the finger in her mouth to stop the bleeding, standing from her spot in the garden and dusting her pants off, before she goes over to the handwashing bucket and sticks both her hands in.

 

Dirt and blood mix with the water and she’s stuck staring for a moment as it all swirls around, together, like the water is no different from the blood or the dirt. 

 

She pulls her hands out and looks around. Jackie’s not back yet but she’s done most everything she can with the garden. 

 

She doesn’t let the worry inside of her build, though. She tries not to. She heads over to the river with the bucket of dirty dishes.

 

When Jackie manages to open her eyes again, she realizes that she’s at the bottom of a hole. A large hole, actually, one that definitely wasn’t there when she started walking in this direction. Her leg hurts so bad that she can feel it vibrating through her entire body. Trying to move it makes her scream. Touching it makes her feel like she’s going to puke. Visions of Allie’s bones sticking out of her body fill her head, and Jackie can’t look at it.

 

She looks up instead, trying to gauge how deep the hole is. Her head pounds, though, and Jackie isn’t the greatest at calculating distance even when she’s not in excruciating pain. She kind of needs glasses. She doesn’t think glasses would help with this. 

 

“Help!” Jackie chokes out, her voice cracking. She thinks that, maybe, she can try to pull herself up if she gets closer to one of the walls. Jostling her leg makes her vision black out, though. She feels useless.

 

Hot, frustrated tears pour down Jackie’s cheeks, and she doesn’t bother wiping them away. She’s just so useless. She wishes she wasn’t so useless. Something has to give. Jackie can’t just stay here. She has to get back to Lottie. 

 

When Ben had set up his pitfall trap yesterday, he had been expecting-- hoping, really-- to catch something like a deer or a rabbit or even a coyote, who knows. He just wanted to catch something edible. 

 

Something other than what he had caught, which was a whimpering, crying teenage girl.

 

But not any teenage girl, no, one of the girls from the high school soccer team he was supposed to coach. In fact, it was the captain of said team. Ex captain. Ex team. Crashing in the middle of nowhere had been bad, losing his leg had been worse-- watching his team of girls cannibalize one of their own and then cut down an innocent child, well, that had certainly been the worst of the worst.

 

He stares down into the pit at Jackie, unsure of what he’s supposed to do. Perhaps he could just slip away unnoticed. Maybe he even should.

 

But something inside him keeps him standing there. Call it whatever you want-- empathy, humanity, compassion-- it made Ben sigh.

 

“Jackie, be quiet!” The last thing they needed was for a predator to find them, whether that was a bear or a group of hungry teenagers.

 

Ben thinks he’d prefer the bear.

 

The voice shocks Jackie to her core, and her head snapped up. At first, she thinks she imagined it, thinks it’s just like Shauna’s voice ringing in her ear, but it’s not. It’s real. 

 

“C-coach?” Jackie stutters, trying to push herself up before crying out again, unable to help it. She doesn’t want to be loud. It’s not like she means to. It just fucking hurts. “I— Coach, I thought you were dead.”

 

She doesn’t scream or yell or call out for help. She doesn’t need to; this is help. This is Coach Scott, and, even if things had been pretty awful through their time since the crash, and even if he hadn’t always been around, he was still their coach. He still cared about them. At least, Jackie thinks so. She thinks it’s some sort of misunderstanding. She just doesn't get how he’s alive, though. 

 

“Yeah, well, that was kind of the point.” Ben rubs his face, though, as he looks down at Jackie. She looks a little pathetic down there, her face is covered in dirt and smudged tears and her hair is a mess. Her leg is, well, twisted in the wrong way.

 

“Alright, look, I can’t exactly get down there and help you, so you’re gonna have to set your leg enough to straighten it,” he starts out. “Think you can do that?”

 

“It hurts,” Jackie says. She finally looks at her leg, trying to figure out the damage. Her left leg took pretty much the brunt of her fall, and it doesn’t seem particularly happy about that. She feels pain around her shin, deep bruising forming, but thankfully no bones poking through. Her ankle is swollen. She feels it twitch as she trie: to move it, sending a spark of pain. Her hands tremble and her, and Jackie looks up at Coach Scott. “What do I need to d-do?”

 

“You need to feel along your leg and find out where it’s broken,” he tells her, “I’m going to throw down some rope and a thick stick, which you’ll tie to your leg as a makeshift splint.” 

 

That sounds horrible. Jackie clenches her teeth and her eyes closed, feeling tears slip out again. But she nods. She needs to do this. She needs to get out and get back to Lottie. “‘Kay.”

 

“On the count of three, alright?” Ben doesn’t know why he’s helping. If she gets out of that pit, it’s likely she’ll just go back and tell the others and they’ll come hunt him down, right? He supposes he can’t help it. Despite it all, he still cares for these little monsters.

 

Jackie mumbles along with him for the count, feeling along her leg until she finds the bump, the break. It’s not poking through her skin, but, god, it really hurts, and it’s more than she expected. 

 

When Ben tosses down the rope and the stick, it doesn’t land quite where it’s supposed to. Jackie crawls to it, her fingers digging into the dirt. A wave of nausea rolls through her, and her vision spots, but she manages to tie the rope around her leg, around the stick. “I think my ankle’s fucked, too,” she says, her voice thin.

 

“Yeah, not much we can do about that right now,” Ben sighs. “Just hang tight, okay? I’ll be right back.”

 

God what’s he doing? 

 

Well, he’s getting a ladder, that’s what he’s doing. But, really, it’d be easy to just leave and not come back.

 

But he does come back, and he glances over the edge of the pit again, before dropping it down, as well as another rope, thicker and longer this time. “Tie that around your waist. I’ll try and help pull you up, but you’re gonna have to climb the ladder yourself.”

 

Jackie doesn’t know how long Coach Scott is gone, but she thinks it’s nice when he comes back. With ropes, too. That’s really nice. She manages to adjust herself so that she can crawl, crying out softly as she does so, until she can use her good leg to pull herself to the edge of the pit and tie the rope around her waist. She doesn’t know if it’s tight enough, but it’s on, at least. “Okay. I… I tied the rope.”

 

Ben slides the ladder down next to where Jackie is, sitting near the edge to get better leverage on the rope. “Alright, start climbing and I’ll pull you up as best I can. Try not to put any weight on that leg.” Though it doesn’t even seem like she could even if she wanted to. Ben could tell even from here that it was broken very badly.

 

Nodding, though she doesn’t know if he sees, Jackie rests her head against the side of the hole before she grabs onto the ladder and starts pulling herself up using her good leg. Her nails dig into the dirt, searching for leverage. It’s actually harder than she thought it would be to climb a ladder with just one leg, she realizes that pretty quickly. 

 

She slips a little, her eyes widening as she lets out a loud yelp, holding onto the ladder and the wall of the hole once more, digging in hard enough to make her fingers hurt. “Sorry,” she says. “I can’t– I can’t. I’m sorry.”

 

“Jackie, you have to,” Ben states, his voice tired but firm, “if you want to get out of that hole, you have to do this. It’s not like I can come down there and help you.” He doesn’t think he sounds particularly motivating but it’s hard to be anything other than jaded at this point. He’s not even trying.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie murmurs. She needs Lottie. She has to get back to Lottie. If she gives up, Lottie’s going to be so upset, and, after all, Jackie promised she’d be home by dark. She has to.

 

It takes way too long, but, eventually, Jackie makes it to the top of the hole. She groans as she pulls herself out, and she’s panting as she flops onto her back. But she gives a breathless laugh. “Oh, my god. I’ve gotta– I’ve gotta…” She really needs to close her eyes and rest for just a moment.

 

Ben pulls as much as he can, helping Jackie hobble up the ladder until she’s flopping onto the ground next to him. She looks exhausted. He almost feels bad when he leans over and wraps the rope over her hands, tying them together. “Sorry,” he says, even if he doesn’t exactly mean it, “but you’ve already seen me. I can’t have you running back to tell the others.” 

 

He stands, grabs one of his crutches and the end of the rope that’s attached to Jackie in two places now. He nudges the other crutch towards Jackie. “Get up,” he tells her.

 

“Coach?” Jackie asks, looking confused and a little devastated. “Wait, no– I-I have to go back. Lottie’s gonna… be looking for me.” She struggles with the crutch, struggles to stand, struggles with the jumbled thoughts in her head. “I won’t tell,” she says, feeling something like panic bubbling in her chest. “Please, Coach Scott, I won’t tell.”

 

“Stand up,” is all Ben says. He doesn’t trust her. He doesn’t trust any of them anymore. Not after what he saw, what he can’t unsee-- Natalie, covered in blood. A young boy’s body cut up like cattle on a table. White snow stained red. “I won’t ask again.”

 

Swallowing tightly, Jackie stands up, unable to put any kind of pressure on her left leg. “Why?” She doesn’t even know what she’s asking.

 

“I saw what you all did to Javi,” Ben answers as he starts hobbling along, tugging Jackie with him. He doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing, or what his plan is-- all he knows is that he can’t just let her go back.

 

Maybe he should’ve just left her in the pit after all.

 

“S’not like that,” Jackie says, trying not to stumble. They have exactly two good legs between the two of them. This isn’t shaping up to be a fun trip. “They were gonna kill Nat, gonna– There were cards, Coach. And he fell. He fell.” She can’t stop moving because if she does, he’ll tug the rope, and ashes, ashes, Jackie falls down. She doesn’t want to fall down. Jackie wants Lottie. “Where are we going?” she asks, looking around.

 

Ben doesn’t really know what to say to that. He doesn’t think that’s any better. “Home.” If one could even consider a cave a home.

 

“Lottie?” Jackie asks hopefully.

 

“What?” Ben asks, stopping a moment to look back at Jackie, confused. “No.” They must all be really far gone if even Jackie was following Lottie’s weird teachings. Ben had thought at least Nat was immune, too, but it turns out they’d all fallen for it. All the more reason he couldn’t let her go back.

 

“We’re going somewhere safe.”

 

Jackie thinks the only safe place is a hut in a little, crudely made village, wrapped up in soft furs and threadbare blankets and the warm arms of a pretty girl. She tries to remember where he’s taking her. She doesn’t want to get lost. Her vision’s a little blurry. It’s stupid. 

 

“Please,” she tries again. “I won’t tell. I won’t. I promise.” She doesn’t know what he’ll do if she stops. Tied up and forced to follow after him, Jackie wonders for the first time if the others were right about Coach Scott. Her eyes sting, making her vision even blurrier, and she sniffles. “Please. She’ll be sad if I’m not back.”

 

“I don’t trust you,” Ben tells her, not pausing or looking back this time. He just wants to get back to his cave and then he can figure out what to do next after that. “I can’t. Not after everything that’s happened.”

 

“We didn’t look for you for months, and we let you be, and we moved on,” Jackie says, her words starting to slur. She stumbles, forgets not to use her leg, feels a wave of nausea overcome. “Why aren’t you dead? We all thought… I thought… You’d be better if you were dead.”

 

“Really not helping yourself here, Jackie,” Ben sighs. 

 

“I’m gonna be sick, Coach.”

 

He stops, then, running his hand down his face. “Well hurry up then. The faster we get back, the faster you can get off that leg.”

 

“Thanks,” Jackie mumbles, hobbling over to a tree and leaning against it. It’s a shame that breakfast comes back up. It’s not the same as drinking Misty’s poison; she feels more like a freshman, her body reacting poorly after running laps for the first time on a nearly empty stomach, her head floaty in the worst way. 

 

She’s starting to realize she’s not going to be going home soon. Awkwardly, Jackie wipes her mouth. “I didn’t want you to be dead,” she says. “You just seemed… most of the way there. Before you… left.”

 

Ben doesn’t watch as Jackie wretches. He knows what it feels like to be in so much pain it makes your stomach turn inside out. 

 

“Thanks, I guess.” He doesn’t really have much else to say, he’s not exactly in the mood for talking. He wants to get back to the cave before someone comes looking for Jackie.

 

As they start walking again, Jackie quietly mumbles to herself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

 

Ben doesn’t say much else for the rest of the walk. He doesn’t think there’s anything else to say. He’s sorry, too. He won’t say it, but he is. 

 

Jackie can’t stop crying. “I’m sorry.” She just hates that Lottie can’t hear her.

 

Lunch passes and Jackie still isn’t back but Lottie isn’t panicking yet. She thinks that maybe it’s just taking her extra time to check the traps and reset them, she knows how Jackie can kind of fumble with things like that sometimes. And she’s so meticulous with it. 

 

It’s almost dinner time now, though, and Lottie is having a hard time holding her panic back. It’s filling her up like a broken faucet, the more time passing making her more and more anxious.

 

It’s only when she sees Mari hauling the pan out to start cooking that it all truly sinks in. The sun is beginning to set and Jackie hasn’t come back yet and that horrible feeling Lottie had been ignoring since she’d woken up this morning feels like it’s choking her.

 

“Nat,” Lottie says, her voice cracking, “I’m worried. Jackie’s not back yet.” 

 

Nat can’t help but feel a little worried herself, remembering the last time Jackie had gone out on her own. “I know. I know.” She gets her lantern and grabs the gun. “Maybe she just got a little turned around.”

 

“She was just going out to the traps,” Lottie says weakly, “she knows the forest so well.” She’s so worried it’s making her brain fuzzy. She can’t think straight. 

 

She grabs her cloak and slips the pocket knife into her pocket. She’s already heading out of camp without looking to see if Nat is following.

 

“Lottie, you don’t know where you’re going!” Nat calls, trudging after her. She stops beside Tai, grabbing her arm. “We’ll be back soon, okay?”

Tai gives a sharp nod, already knowing this means she’s de facto leader for the time being, whether it’s two minutes or two hours.

 

Jesus, Nat hopes it’s not two hours.

 

She catches up to Lottie, handing the taller girl the lantern even though they don’t need it right now. “She should’ve gone this way. Come on. She’s gonna be fine. It’s Jackie.”

 

Lottie doesn’t care if she doesn’t know where she’s going. She has to find Jackie. The panic inside of her is telling her that something bad has happened. She gives Nat a hollow, terrified glance. “She didn’t have any way to defend herself, Nat.” 

 

No gun, no knife, no ax. Just her pencil and paper. 

 

“We’re going to find her.” Nat doesn’t leave any room for argument, for doubt. She can’t, even if she feels it creeping in.

 

You don’t know that, Lottie wants to say, but she wants, more so, to believe Nat. And so she does. She believes her because they have to find her. They have to. It’s Jackie, she promised.

 

They search every trap along the path Jackie said she was taking and they’re all reset. It means she went through here and she was fine. So then why wasn’t she back? Where was she?

 

“Jackie!” Lottie is getting desperate now, calling out to her as the shadows begin to creep ever longer, covering the woods in darkness. “Jackie!”

 

Nat’s voice joins in, but she’s more focused on scanning their surroundings, looking for any sign of Jackie Taylor. She doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that she’s the one to see Jackie’s backpack first, set carefully near a tree. 

 

“Jackie!” Nat calls out again. She should be around here somewhere. She wouldn’t go too far from her stuff. And then she sees the pit, and Nat lets out a string of curses.

 

Lottie runs to the backpack, dropping to her knees. “Where--” she’s looking around wildly when she hears Nat curse. Her gaze follows Nat’s to the hole in the ground. Not just any hole, a manmade hole, clearly dug out, perfectly square. Lottie’s breath comes up quick, heavy. She’s trying not to hyperventilate as she stumbles over to it, both hope and dread mixing inside of her.

 

“Jackie!?” She falls to her knees again, hands gripping the edge of the pit, but there’s nothing inside. No one. “She’s not--”

 

Something wet and slick sticks to her hand. She lifts it and finds blood on her palm. She’s shuddering now, choking on her own breath. Her feet stumble over each other as she stands again, already moving off in another direction, calling out Jackie’s name, louder now, more desperate. 

 

“Lottie, hey, Lottie!” Nat says, reaching for the taller girl. “Hey, you can’t find her like this, okay? You can’t. You’ve gotta breathe. Try to breathe.” Even if she feels it, too. Panic. Worry. The inherent knowledge that something’s fucking wrong. 

 

Nat tries to figure out what happened. Jackie put down her stuff. She fell in the hole. She got out. Now, she’s not there. If she was hurt, though, there’s no way she went very far. 

 

Lottie is trying to breathe and it’s not working because something happened to Jackie. Because her stuff is here and there’s blood on the ground and a fucking hole dug by a person and-- “How did this get here?” she asks sharply. “This-- we didn’t-- so who did this? Who dug this?” 

 

To Lottie, there’s really only one answer. There’s really only one other person out here. 

 

“Maybe it was here before, all covered up, and we didn’t notice,” Nat says quickly. “Maybe— Maybe we just didn’t walk there before. Don’t worry about that. Let's see if we can retrace her steps, okay. Here. Grab her bag. See if anything’s in there.”

 

How can she not think about it? She can't help but think about it. It makes no sense. Things aren't making sense to Lottie again, she can feel her mind crumbling, overwhelmed with worry and fear and panic. 

 

Her hands tremble as she opens Jackie’s bag, digging through it. There's not much inside, she wasn't supposed to be gone long. 

 

Lottie pulls out her sketchbook, maybe she added to the map where she's been, where she was going before-- before she disappeared. 

 

Her fingers fumble, trying not to rip any of the pages, she doesn't want to ruin Jackie's book. It feels too precious at the moment. 

 

She stops on a page with a familiar face looking back at her. It's her own face. Lottie chokes on a sob. She tries to remind herself they don't know yet. She might be okay. She has to be okay. She promised she'd never leave Lottie and Lottie believed her.

 

She still believes her. 

 

She calls out for her again, voice high, scratchy, increasingly desperate. Birds flutter from trees with how loud she is. Bugs stop buzzing. 

 

She waits for an answer. 

 

She gets none.

 

Nat doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what to do. Not to help Lottie, not to find Jackie. This threw her for a loop. She couldn’t have prepared for this, as annoyed about this and everything else as she was this morning. 

 

“We need to look for tracks,” she says. “Any-any sign of where she might have gone, how she was walking.” Jackie could be hurt, especially from that kind of fall. Nat thinks that calling out for her might be useless at this point.

 

Nat is thinking logically about all of this, but Lottie isn't. She can't. It's getting dark and she holds up the lantern, trying to light it. “I-I can't see. How can we find tracks if we can't see?” 

 

She looks back down to the ground. Their own footprints are clear in the damp ground, leaves strewn about, but Lottie isn't a tracker. She hasn't been walking the woods every day like Jackie and Nat and Gen and Travis. 

 

“We have to find her, Nat,” she says, barely containing the pain in her strangled voice, “please.” 

 

“We will,” Nat says, hoping she sounds determined. “We’ll light the lantern and look some more. If we don’t find her tonight, we’ll find her tomorrow. We’ll send out a bigger group. We’re going to find her. She’s gonna be okay.”

 

Lottie isn't going back until they find her. She doesn't say that out loud but she thinks it, she knows it. She won't rest until she finds Jackie.

 

They get the lantern lit with one of the matches they have left. There's footprints but there's also something else. A trail of something, leaves askew.

 

Lottie only looks at Nat once before she's following the path, calling out again. They have to find her. 

 

They have to.

Notes:

Did you guys think it was gonna be Mari still falling in the hole? Or did you guess it was gonna be Jackie? It was one of the main things we wanted to change because we realized early on without Shauna aorund to tick Mari off, she wouldn't storm off and fall in the pit. Don't worry, though! She'll get her moment later i'm sure :) Thanks again for reading and we love all the comments and kudos and anything else! Happy holidays again, stay safe and see y'all again next week <3

Chapter 37: love doesn't die with death

Summary:

Ben shows Jackie around his personal dream house, complete with cuisine and extracurriculars, both of which would make anyone a little batty. Lottie and Nat get the gang together for a scavenger hunt to vary degrees of success, and call Travis the Lorax because he speaks for the trees, and the trees are angry.

Notes:

Happy New Year! Sorry for the late chapter, but the holidays always get a little hectic. But here's some bright, shiny, not at all traumatized JackieLot to ring in the new year!

Title comes from from a quote by Kate O'Neill.

Jackie thinks, at first, that Coach Scott has dragged her to another hole in the ground, but it’s a cave. He’s been in a fucking cave this entire time, just living down here with the dripping, the scraping sound of other things living here, too. 

 

“Nice… digs,” she manages, finally sitting down, her leg stretched out in front of her.

 

Ben hobbles over and sets down a bowl and cup in front of Jackie. Boiled water and a roasted bat. “Home sweet home.” He slides to a sit as well, letting out a long breath. What the hell is he supposed to do now?

 

Jackie takes the water but turns green at the meat, looking like she might be sick again. She just takes a long drink, holding onto the cup tightly. “Please, let me go,” she says, so tired. “Please, Lottie… they’re all gonna look for me.” Maybe she’s being a little overconfident, but a girl can dream.

 

Ben picks up his own bat. He likes to pretend they’re chicken wings as he picks what little meat there is off the bones. “It’s just a bat. Think of it like…a rat crossed with a demon.” 

 

He frowns. “Why? So you can go tell everyone where I am?”

 

“Gross,” Jackie manages. She can’t eat, anyway. Her body doesn’t seem capable of it. But she shakes her head. “No, no, I won’t. I just want to go home.” She looks at him, her eyes big and glassy. She just wants Lottie. She knows, in her bones, that if she gets back to Lottie, everything will be okay. “I promised her I’d be back. ‘S getting late.”

 

“Your loss,” Ben grumbles, but leaves the bowl there. “Jackie, I told you, I can’t. I just-- I can’t.”

 

“Are you going to kill me?” Jackie asks.

 

“What? No. No. I--” Ben shakes his head, rubs his face. “I’m not like you guys.”

 

“So, what? We just become roommates, Coach? You keep me in this fucking cave for forever?” Jackie asks. She looks over at him. “Not only is that, like, wildly inappropriate, but they will come looking for me.” At the very least, Lottie would, and Nat would come after her just to keep Lottie from tearing up the forest looking for Jackie. “And what then?”

 

“I-- I don’t know yet. I haven’t figured that out.” He hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. All he knew was that he couldn’t let her go back.

 

Jackie looks at him. He’s all worn down, haggard. He’d shaved his beard only for it to grow out again all scraggly. She says, “You must’ve been lonely these last few months.”

 

Ben looks back at her. “At least I haven’t had to deal with Mari’s snoring.”

 

“It’s not so bad anymore.” Jackie shrugs. “I actually haven’t really heard it since we moved. Since…” She meets his eyes. “Since the cabin burned.”

 

Ben has to look away. “The-- the cabin burned down?”

 

“Tai and Van and a bunch of the others think it was you.”

 

He’s quiet. “I just wanted to be left alone.”

 

Reeling back, Jackie can’t keep the shock out of her voice as she asks, “You did it? It was you?”

 

“I saw what you all had become,” he tries to defend, “I saw you all bowing to Natalie and-- what happened to Javi. I was worried you would-- you were all going to come after me next. It’s not like you needed me anymore.”

 

“That’s not– It’s not like that,” Jackie tries to defend. “It was supposed to be Nat.” Her voice is quiet. “There was a hunt because… because we needed food. You were there, Coach. And Lottie– Nat got picked. Javi fell into the lake somehow. He– I don’t– It was awful. It was just awful.”

Jackie swallows tightly. She tries to clear her head. She doesn’t want to think about back then. She barely remembers things, too worried about Lottie, too wracked with a fever, still cold and fragile. “We never would have tried to kill you. It was never about killing. It was about… food.”

 

“You say it was never about killing but then you hunted each other?” Ben points out. “I survived without that, didn’t I?” He sighs, leans back, rubbing his face again.

 

“It’s a lot easier when you’re only feeding one person,” Jackie says. She thinks it makes sense. She thinks so. God, her leg hurts. She feels it in her spine, in her mouth, behind her eyes. It makes her whole body feel like shit.

 

“So why then? Why not do it earlier?”

 

Jackie’s chest feels tight. “Nobody… nobody wanted Lottie to die.”

 

“Maybe things would’ve been better off if she had.”

 

“No!” Jackie says. “No, no, they wouldn’t– they wouldn’t have. Shut up, Coach. Just– just shut up.”

 

Ben is taken aback for a moment, blinking as he stares at Jackie. “Seriously? Of all the people, I had hoped you wouldn’t fall for whatever weird cult shit was going on with Lottie. You and Natalie, but…”

 

Her eyebrows furrow. “There’s no… cult shit. Nobody really– And I know it makes her sad, but it’s not about the wilderness or the dirt gods. I don’t care about… any of that. Just her. That’s all.”

 

“Last I saw, almost all of you believed in whatever that was.” 

 

“It’s easy to believe in anything when you’re dying. Who’s Paul?”

 

Ben lets out another long sigh. “He’s-- was-- my boyfriend.”

 

Jackie blinks. Well, okay. That makes a lot of sense, actually. “I mean, that explains why you didn’t stare at our asses.”

 

“Jesus, Jackie.” Ben shakes his head. “Nat said the same thing basically.” 

 

She shrugs. “I mean, we notice. And you got, like, super uncomfortable when people flirted with you. Which makes sense because, yeah, gay. I guess also because we were kids.”

 

“Even if I wasn’t gay, you’re all underage. Or were.” God, how long has it been? At least a year. Ben is trying his hardest to not lose hope, but it gets harder each day.

 

“‘S fine. I don’t even like guys,” Jackie says.

 

Ben kind of laughs. It’s hollow and pathetic. “So you finally figured that out?”

 

“God. Did everyone know?”

 

He shrugs. “Jackie, you were hanging all over Shauna at every possible moment. It’s more surprising you didn’t know.”

 

Well. She did know. She just didn’t want to. She said she didn’t. She pushed it down and away. “It was safer not to know,” she murmurs.

 

“Yeah,” Ben agrees, his voice quiet. He gets that all too well.

 

After a moment, he looks at her and asks, “So what changed?”

 

“My mom’s not here to tell me it’s wrong to be a dyke or look at my friends like that or tell them I love them,” Jackie says. “And I lost Shauna, and then I almost lost Lottie, and I guess I sort of just figured that was worse than maybe getting called a few shitty words.”

 

Ben just nods. He gets that. “So…” he gives her another look, “you and Lottie?”

 

“She’s so sweet, and she loves me,” Jackie says. She realizes that she doesn’t really have to justify it with the other girls. They mostly just tease. But she needs Coach Scott to understand that Lottie’s not some crazy cult leader. She’s just a girl. He used to know that. “I think I’d die without her.”

 

“You’re still just a kid, Jackie,” Ben says, exasperated but too tired to argue too much, “don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?”

 

“No,” Jackie murmurs. “I don’t.”

 

Nat is panting as she tries to keep up with Lottie. It’s getting too dark to see. “Lottie, Lottie, we-- we have to go back. We have to get the others, get some supplies, figure out where we are.”

 

Lottie doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t stop walking, doesn’t stop calling out in desperation. “I’m not going back without Jackie.” She can’t, she just can’t. She needs to find her. She needs her.

 

“You’re no good to her if you get hurt, too!” Nat grabs Lottie’s wrist, planting her feet firmly. “If you get hurt out here looking for her, how’s she gonna react, Lottie? She’s not going to be okay with that. She’s gonna freak.”

 

Lottie whirls on Nat. “I’m not going back without her.” There’s something dark in her eyes, something dark worming its way into her head. She can’t hear her own thoughts over the panic in her body. 

 

She can’t stop moving, because when she does, the dread fills her up like thick, tacky tar. It’s trying to drown her. 

 

She’s stronger than Nat. Apparently, she’s stronger than Tai. Lottie twists her arm and yanks it from Nat’s grip. She can’t go back without Jackie. She just can’t.

 

“We’re not going to stop looking,” Nat says, “but we’re not going to find her on our own. More fucking people means that we get to spread out, right? Fucking think, Lottie.”

 

“Then go back and get more people,” Lottie snaps back. She just can’t go back. She can’t. 

 

“You’re gonna get lost out here, dumbass. You don’t know where you’re going.”

 

Lottie doesn’t really think that matters right now. Jackie is lost, too. They’ve lost the trail they’d started following. “I’ll figure it out.” 

 

Somehow, Lottie knows she won’t get lost. Somehow, she knows It won’t let her.

 

“We’re going back,” Nat says.

 

“Make me,” Lottie growls.

 

“I’ll tell her about this when we find her,” Nat says, figuring the only way to make Lottie see sense at this point is to use Jackie. “That you wouldn’t listen to reason. What about if you get hurt, too? How do you think she’s going to handle it if you get hurt because of her?”

 

“None of that matters, as long as I find her. I don’t care if she hates me, I just-- I need her.” Lottie voice cracks, she feels like she’s cracking. Jackie promised. She’d promised she’d come back and everything would be okay. If she could just find her then everything would be okay.

 

Maybe she left on purpose, a familiar voice murmurs in her ear. Lottie remembers dreaming about her, sitting on a log, listening to Shauna Shipman tell her how she’ll never be her. How Jackie will never love her the way she loved Shauna. Maybe she just got tired of you.

 

Maybe that’s true, but Lottie doesn’t care. Jackie could hate her for the rest of her life and Lottie wouldn’t care, as long as she was safe and alive. 

 

“She’s not going to hate you, idiot. She’s going to hate herself, blame herself for you getting hurt. She’s going to think it’s all her fault,” Nat tells her. She adds, “We know she got out of that pit. We know she wasn’t bleeding out, so she’s- she’s alive. She’s not going to starve or dehydrate or die if we go get help.”

 

Maybe that’s why she left you, the voice tells Lottie. Maybe she got tired of you never listening to her. Lottie shakes her head. It’s pounding and her eyes are burning. “Fine.” 

 

If she dies out there, are you going to blame yourself? Lottie presses her palms to her eyes. “No.”

 

Nat’s just grateful that Lottie agrees, but she feels a frown tugging on her lips as Lottie seems to disagree with herself. “Lottie?”

 

Blinking, Lottie squints at Nat through the pale lantern light. “I--” she looks around but it’s just them. “Okay. We can go back.”

 

Nodding, Nat puts a hand on Lottie to lead her back towards the village, herding her like that day she and Jackie found her at the plane crash. “We’re just regrouping. We’ll find her.”

 

Lottie simply nods. She feels like something is wrong. This is bad. Something bad is going to happen, has already happened. She looks over her shoulder. She sees a shadow among the trees. She recognizes her, blonde hair, blue eyes.

 

Maybe it’s all your fault.

 

They make the trek back to camp, following the paths that Jackie had laid out and Nat had memorized in the map. When they get to camp, they’re greeted with hushed voices around the campfire. 

 

“We need lanterns and torches,” Nat starts. “Break into pairs. Something happened while Jackie was in the woods. She could be hurt.”

 

Lottie is still buzzing. She looks at their hut as if she expects Jackie to walk out and greet her and smile but she doesn’t. Because Jackie is missing. 

 

People start gathering up supplies, lighting torches, splitting into pairs. They map out where each pair is going to go, they agree to meet back every hour or so to make sure no one else gets lost, to check in and see if anyone has found her.

 

Lottie clenches the knife in her pocket. She’ll do anything to get Jackie back. Anything.

 

Nat hands Lottie a torch and a few bites of what Mari had made for dinner. “You need to eat while we walk. Keep your strength up.” It’s going to be a long night, she knows it.

 

Lottie doesn’t even think she can eat but she takes the food anyway. “Can we go now?” She wants to get back out there. She needs to, before the shadows catch up to her or to Jackie.

 

“Yeah, alright. Just be careful.”

 

Lottie doesn’t wait for much more of an answer. She grabs the lantern and heads off. She’s going back to the pit, to the way they came from, to see if she can follow the tracks again. She needs to find Jackie.

 

She’s not coming back here without Jackie.

 

Nat doesn’t actually know how long they’re out there looking, but the sun’s gone down and come back up, and it’s as if Jackie Taylor has disappeared off the face of the fucking planet. She doesn’t understand what happened. “Lottie,” she says, her voice wary.

 

As they searched, Lottie’s fear only grew. She ignored the whispers in her head as best she could, but by the time the sun was coming back up, they were winning. 

 

She was beginning to think that, maybe, Jackie didn’t want to be found.

 

She’d almost forgotten Nat was with her. She’s still walking, her legs sore and aching. Her side aches, too, that bone deep pain that reminds her they were broken not that long ago. “Just…just a little longer,” she begs.

 

“We’ll find her,” Nat starts, “but you can’t help her if you hurt yourself.” There’s no appealing to Lottie’s better nature or whatever, just appealing to the part of her that cares about Jackie so much it makes them both a little stupid. 

 

“I can’t go back,” Lottie says. She can’t go back without her. She can’t.

 

“I’m not leaving you out here by yourself.”

 

Lottie stops by a tree, leans against it. She thinks she can feel the energy from it seeping into her skin. “I have to keep looking. She-- she could be hurt o-or need help. She’s all alone out here. I can’t-- I can’t just leave her.”

 

Clenching her jaw to fight off a wave of worry and stress and fear, Nat tries to be strong. She has to be strong for all of them, now. Her arms wrap around herself, fingers pressing into her skin. “You’re not leaving her. You’re… making sure you’re taking care of yourself so you can find her. You can’t help her if you’re hurt, too.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I can’t go back.” The idea of sleeping in the hut she shares with Jackie without her makes Lottie feel haunted.

 

“Please.” Nat hates begging. She doesn’t know what else to do.

 

“How am I supposed to go back there without her, Nat?” Lottie asks. “She’s all I have.”

 

“You can stay in my shelter. And this isn’t giving up.” Nat could promise that, at least. They’d find Jackie. They had to. “We’re not giving up. Just getting our strength back, maybe coming up with a better plan. You’re not gonna be any help if you’re exhausted, though.”

 

Lottie doesn’t want to go back but she knows Nat won’t take no for an answer. She wraps her arms around herself and just nods. “Only for a bit.” Only long enough for Lottie to figure out where to go next, where to look next.

 

Only long enough for Lottie to slip away without anyone noticing.

 

Nat can’t hide the relief that sags through her body. “Only for a bit.” Once again, she starts leading them back, making sure that Lottie is walking along with her. 

 

Morning comes and Ben still has Jackie tied up in the cave and he still doesn’t know what to do with her. He does end up untying her, though-- it’s not like she can go anywhere. She’s less mobile than him at this point and she hasn’t eaten anything since they got back yesterday.

 

He sets another plate down in front of her. “Please eat,” he says.

 

Jackie’s had her eyes closed, but she hasn’t slept. She can’t sleep. Her body would rebel against the idea of it even if her mind allowed it. There’s no sleep without Lottie, though. She can’t. Still, she cracks an eye open, glancing up at Coach Scott. “More flying rat?” She rasps out, her voice scratchy.

 

“Bon appetite,” he shrugs, sitting down next to her again and munching on his own.

 

Wrinkling up her nose, Jackie turns away from the plate. “Is that what you were yelling at? Asking the bat why it didn’t want to be eaten or something?”

 

Ben doesn’t care to reply to that. “Eat.” He doesn’t want to be responsible for her starving to death, at least.

 

“I thought I saw a candy bar,” she muses. “That’s how I fell in that stupid fucking hole. I wasn’t gonna, like, eat it. But it was so weird to see food that wasn’t living thirty minutes before eating it.”

 

“You did,” Ben replies, “I put it there.” 

 

Jackie’s eyes blink open wide, confused. “Why are you eating bats if you have candy bars, Coach?”

 

“Well, they’re not candy bars, technically,” Ben explains, “and there were only a few of them. I’m trying to save them for, you know, special occasions.” 

 

God. He’s really terrible at killing people. Jackie wishes he’d just make a bigger attempt at it so that she could try and fight, try and get back to Lottie. She needs to get back to Lottie. 

 

Ben isn’t going to force Jackie to talk if she doesn’t want to. Eventually, he finishes his bat and stands without a word, hobbling off.

 

When he comes back, after a bit, he tosses an unopened peanut butter protein bar onto Jackie’s lap. “I’ll be back in a bit.” 

 

“Yes, I’m sure you’re very busy,” Jackie murmurs, looking down at the protein bar. Actual, real food. At least, the kind of food made in civilization. She doesn’t know what to think. But Jackie doesn’t eat it. She sets it down beside her instead. 

 

When she’s sure Ben is far enough away that he can’t hear, she struggles to move, groaning and biting her lip as she crawls to the cave wall. Her fingers weakly claw at it before she manages to get a strong enough grip to pull herself up and stand on her good leg. 

 

She has to get out of there. Jackie has to get back to Lottie. She just needs to figure the way out first. Even though she doesn’t know the way, she starts hobbling, determined to get out and get back to camp, even if she has to crawl.

 

The sun is shining through the trees when Lottie and Nat make it back to the village. Most of the others are back already, too, and Lottie feels a spike of anger about it. They should be out there looking, like Nat and her had been, for hours. She wanted to get back out there.

 

Mari is preparing breakfast as they come around but Lottie doesn’t stop to eat. She’s not hungry. She’s not tired. She’s just scared and worried and trying to fight off the voices that keep telling her Jackie is dead. She wouldn’t believe it until she saw Jackie’s dead body herself and even then, Lottie wouldn’t want to believe it. She couldn’t.

 

Jackie had to be alive. Because she’d promised. She had promised and Lottie intended to keep her to that.

 

“Come on,” Nat says, tired, her feet dragging. “Let’s go to my hut and just… take a breather, okay?”

 

Lottie just nods and follows Nat over to her hut. She stops just outside of it, though. She doesn’t feel right going inside, not when Jackie could be out there helpless and in need. She needs her. Lottie wrings her hands together. 

 

Clearing off a little space, Nat sits down heavily, leaning against the wall. “Just a breather,” she murmurs. Just a minute. 

 

Lottie doesn’t sit. She watches Nat as the other girl flops onto her bed. She looks ready to pass out. Lottie knows she won’t be able to sleep, even if she wanted to. 

 

What she needs is to find Jackie and she can’t do that by sitting around.

 

Her head against the wall, Nat murmurs, “Just a few minutes, Lottie. Promise.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Lottie waits until she’s sure Nat is asleep, or at least not as conscious as before. Then, she slips out the back of her hut and makes sure no one else is watching as she heads back into the forest. She doesn’t know where she’ll look next, but she knows where she’s going first.

 

It’s like second hand nature, Lottie doesn’t even have to think about where she’s walking before she’s in front of her tree. It’s still stained with her blood from the night before. And Jackie’s.

 

Lottie lifts her hand and pulls the pocket knife out. She gouges her palm and smears it against the bark. “Please,” she begs, both angry and pleading, “give her back to me.”

 

“She’s not yours,” Shauna whispers in Lottie’s ear. At least, it looks like Shauna, sounds like her, has her same inflections. It has the same anger she carries deep in her chest, the snowflakes in her hair.

 

Lottie’s never actually seen Shauna before, after she’d died. After they’d eaten her. She knows Jackie does often. Sometimes she’s in Lottie’s dreams. Sometimes Lottie thinks she can feel her spirit, hovering around Jackie. 

 

She’s just never seen her like this. Like she’s still there with them, even if her face is gaunt and pale and there’s frozen flakes of snow on her eyelashes and in her hair.

 

“She said she wanted to be,” Lottie murmurs.

 

“She tried to get back to me for months. Why would being with you make that any different? What’s a few short months compared to years of love?” Shauna asks. “She belongs with me. She belongs in this place. You belong to this place.”

 

It’s as if Shauna knows Lottie’s fears, the ones that she’s held since the moment she’d realized she loved Jackie and wanted to be loved back. Jackie was never truly hers. She’d never really belong to Lottie.

 

“Is she still alive?” Lottie asks. She thinks Shauna knows the answer, she thinks that’s why she’s there.

 

Shauna stares at Lottie, a blank look on her face. “What’s worse, Lott? If she’s dead and with me or alive and wants to be?”

 

“I don’t…I don’t care if she doesn’t want me anymore,” Lottie says, “I don’t. I just-- I need her to be alive. Please.”

 

“Maybe if you pray harder, she’ll come back.”

 

Lottie doesn’t know if Shauna is mocking her or if she’s being honest. Either way, Lottie puts her bloody hand back on the tree. “I’ll do anything,” she tells whoever will listen.

 

“Maybe that’s just not enough,” Shauna whispers, her voice fading into the gloom.

 

“It has to be,” Lottie whispers before removing her hand.

 

She steps back, blood dripping from her fingers, and then sets off again. 

 

It has to be enough.

 

Jackie is so fucking lost.

 

Caves shouldn’t go on this long. They shouldn’t twist and turn around, they shouldn’t branch off, and they shouldn’t be so fucking dark. She has no idea where she is, no idea on how to even get back to Ben’s section. 

 

Leaning heavily against the wall, Jackie notices the smell of the cave change, and there’s a part of her that hopes, really hopes, that maybe she’s getting closer to getting out. She doesn’t know how she’s going to walk when it’s already a struggle using the wall.

 

It’s such a struggle. She presses her head against the wall, breathing slow. When she opens them, she sees a light, bright and warm in front of her, and the relief makes her hobble a little faster.

 

She’s standing in the lake, cold water lapping at her shoulders, soothing the burn. Jackie blinks against the sunlight as it beats down on her face, warm and comforting. She feels relaxed. 

 

On the shore, she sees Shauna and Lottie laying next to each other, talking and laughing. Jackie waves, wanting them to look her way.

 

All Ben had to do was go check his traps and reset up his pitfall, but by the time he got back, only a few hours, Jackie was gone. 

 

“Fuck,” he hisses, hobbling around quickly. She couldn’t have gone far, she had no way to walk, not really. He had to find her before she got out.

 

Shauna stands first, wading into the water until she’s in front of Jackie, holding out her hand. Her touch is soft and rough at the same time, her fingers calloused but the center of her palm silky smooth. Shauna laces their hands together and grins. “It’s nice here, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Jackie agrees. She gives her best friend a smile. She looks back at Lottie. “Coming in, Matthews?”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “You know I can’t.”

 

Frowning, Jackie starts to head to the shore, pulling Shauna with her. She doesn’t want to be in the water if Lottie can’t join. 

 

With a tug, Shauna forces Jackie to stop. “I can’t go back. You have to choose.”

 

Jackie feels her face fall, but it’s not much of a decision anymore. She hopes Shauna understands. “I can’t leave her alone.”

 

The water’s temperature grows cold. Shauna’s fingers are like ice. She pulls Jackie closer. “Wrong choice.”

 

“Just stay, Jackie,” Lottie says, turning away when Jackie tries to walk towards her. “You don’t belong here, anyway.”

 

“She’s already told you,” Shauna whispers in Jackie’s ear. “You don’t matter anymore.”

 

Ben knows he hadn’t seen Jackie on his way back into the cave, which means she hadn’t found the entrance again. He was far back in it for a reason-- if anyone did find the entrance, they’d still have to find their way through the winding and twisting tunnels to get to him.

 

But that also meant that if he somehow lost his “captive” he would have to look through the tunnels for her. “God dammit, Jackie,” he curses as he struggles his way through the tight twists and turns. If she was dead, well, he didn’t really know what he’d do. He just hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

 

Shauna’s arms are wrapped around Jackie’s body, pulling her in deeper. Snow falls, and, as Lottie walks away, Jackie can hear the animal shouts and cheers of girls yelling, laughing, hunting. 

 

“Stay,” Shauna says. 

 

“Lottie?” Jackie begs, even though the other girl doesn’t turn around. “Lottie!”

 

There, on the ground. Ben spots Jackie’s body, limp and unconscious. He races over to her as much as he can on his makeshift crutches, dropping them to grab onto her and start dragging her out, one hand covering his own mouth. 

 

This deep in the cave, there are gas fumes, he figured that out early on after almost passing out, after seeing things he knew weren’t real. They couldn’t be real.

 

When he gets them far enough away from the fumes, he checks Jackie’s pulse. Still beating, thank god. Now he just needs her to wake up. He shakes her. “C’mon,” he grumbles, “wake up.”

 

Lottie disappears into the trees, and Shauna keeps pulling Jackie deeper. Snow blocks her vision as water comes up to her chin, her mouth, her nose. She tries to call out Lottie’s name, but it’s taken by the water, and Jackie can’t breathe as the darkness and Shauna’s cold arms claim her. 

 

She gasps for breath, choking on air and blinking her eyes open. “Lottie!” she cries out, frantically searching for the one person who could make this better but walked away.

 

“Hey, hey! Calm down,” Ben says, sitting back but holding Jackie down so she doesn’t sit up too fast or hurt her leg more, “breathe, Jackie. Breathe.”

 

Panic crawls through Jackie’s lungs instead of air, making her gasp and shake as she tries to get up. “Please, please, please.” She needs to get out. She needs to find Lottie. 

 

“Jackie! Jackie, stop. Stop!” Ben does his best to keep her from getting up. “Just breathe! Relax, you’re okay.” Well, as okay as one could be, stranded in the middle of the mountains, holed up in a cave under a tree marked with an omen of a symbol that no one knew the meaning of.

 

Coach Scott’s voice finally sinks in, but all it really does is make Jackie cry. “Please let me go back,” she begs. “Please.”

 

Letting out a long breath, Ben sits back, running a hand through his messy hair. He doesn’t say anything, because he can’t. He can’t let her go back, he just can’t. And he’s sorry, really, he is-- but he just can’t. 

 

“I know you’re a good person,” Jackie says, trying to curl in on herself even when her body won’t let her. “You know we’re not monsters. Everyone was just so hungry. It was the only way. It was awful. Everyone regrets it. We wouldn't do it again.”

 

Ben lays his head back against the cave wall. He's exhausted after the day, he doesn't want to deal with this right now. “Even if that's true,” he starts, “you said they all think I burned down the cabin.” Which he had. It wasn't anything he'd planned out or plotted-- it had been a spur of the moment, reactionary thing. He doesn't think he regrets it. “They're not just going to be okay with me after that.” 

 

“They won’t kill you,” Jackie says. “We don’t want to kill anyone. They won’t kill you. Maybe make you stay at the village, but at least you wouldn’t be eating bat every day.”

 

Ben isn't sure he believes that. He wants to, he really does-- they're his girls, after all. He's watched them grow and learn and laugh and cry for four years. He's helped them become the best players they could be. He's watched them claw their way up from the bottom to state champions, underdogs in every sense of the word. 

 

But he can't believe that. Not anymore. Not after all he's seen, not after all they'd done. 

 

He grabs his crutches and lays one next to Jackie before standing up himself. “Don't go that way again,” he tells her, “there's poisonous gas back there.”

 

“Coach, I can’t stay here,” Jackie says, gritting her teeth as she stands. “I need to go back.” She’ll just try again. She knows it. He knows it, too. 

 

Ben knows that, he does. Still. “We don’t always get what we need, do we?”

 

“Like an adult who was around enough to make sure we didn’t kill each other?” she asked bitterly.

 

“Yeah,” Ben says, “like that.” He starts to head back to the main part of the cave.

 

Jackie limps after him. “I’ll just keep trying. If you come back with me, it’ll look better,” she starts. “But if you don’t, it’ll be okay. I won’t tell them. I won’t. I-– I won’t.” Her head hurts. Her leg hurts. God, it’s like a full body hangover.

 

“You want me to go back there willingly? To, what? Await my trial?” Ben scoffs.

 

“Why’d you do it?” she asks. But she doesn’t wait for an answer. “Why’d we eat a kid? Why’d they hunt down Travis? Why’d I let Shauna die?” She’s breathing heavy, leaning against the crutch, grateful that it holds her up. “It’s all awful. It’s all–- it’s all awful.”

 

Ben kind of agrees. At this point, he’s not even sure why he’s fighting so hard to stay alive. He only knows that he doesn’t want to die. “I don’t know, Jackie,” he answers honestly, “why does anything happen?”

 

“Everyone was starving,” Jackie murmurs. “But we’re not, not anymore, not really. They forgave me for being useless, for killing Shauna for– for letting them down. They’d forgive you, too.”

 

“You didn’t kill Shauna, Jackie,” Ben sighs. “Any one of us could’ve gone out and gotten her.” But they hadn’t, and one of the girls he’d been responsible for had frozen to death. And then they’d eaten her and all he’d done was watched. He rubs his face again. 

 

They make it back to the part of the cave he’s been living in for months now. Ben sits back down and starts trying to spark up a fire. “Are you going to eat tonight or should I just skip your portion of bat?”

 

She might as well have. They all know it. Jackie moves to sit down, tries to hunch in on herself until her leg stops her. “I’ll eat your fucking bat when you take me back,” she says sweetly. “Kill me fast or kill me slow, Coach, but if you don’t let me go back, you’re gonna kill me no matter what. And that’s gonna be a lot worse than almost killing us by burning down the cabin.”

 

Ben can’t help it when he snaps back, “Why? Is your crazy girlfriend gonna come eat me?”

 

“No one’s hungry enough for that. She’d probably just kill you and bury you with your leg,” Jackie says angrily. She frowns, quieter. “She’s not crazy.”

 

“That’s not much better.” Ben pokes at his fire. “I think we’re all a little crazy out here.” But even Ben knew there was something more going on with Lottie. Both Ben and Bill were aware Lottie was on some sort of medication, they had to be, as her coaches. He just didn’t know what. 

 

“She’s not going to do anything to you,” Jackie sighs. As long as Jackie makes it back, at least. Because Lottie loves her. She loves her, and she wouldn’t give up trying to find her. “It’s Lottie. You know Lottie. You’ve known Lottie for years. All of us, really.”

 

“You’re right, I did know you all,” Ben admits, “but something changed out here. And it started with her. Even you know that.”

 

“You don’t even know what happened,” Jackie says. “You were too busy being drugged by Misty fucking Quigley. Which she’s done again, by the way. But it was my idea to have the seance. If anything, it’s my fault. I started it.”

 

Ben frowns. “Of course she is.” He’d hoped she’d learned to stop all that, but he had a lot of hopes that would never come true. “We both know that’s not what started it.” At least, he hoped Jackie knew. He hoped Lottie would have the decency to tell Jackie about whatever it was she took that medication for. Again, though-- blah, blah hopes and all that. 

 

“Lottie’s sick. That doesn’t make her the root of all evil,” Jackie says, frowning deeply. “She didn’t make anyone do anything.”

 

Ben shrugs. “I never said she was. Or any of you. There’s just something to be said about mob mentality.” He throws a dead bat into the pan over his fire and sits back. “I know you think I abandoned you all, but there came a point where you all just didn’t need me anymore. I was useless to you.” He looks over at her, seriously. “Who’s to say it wouldn’t have been me had I stayed, when you all decided Lottie was more important to keep alive than everyone else.”

 

“They didn’t eat me when I was useless,” Jackie says, frowning.

 

“Well, didn’t you have Lottie’s blessing or whatever?” Ben points out.

 

“Jesus,” she mutters. “She wouldn’t have let them eat you. She didn’t want anyone to get eaten. God she-- she thought she was gonna die and begged us to eat her. Everyone else made the decision to… to hunt.”

 

Blinking, all Ben can say is, “Oh.” He hadn’t known that. He’d left before then. He’d found himself hoping Lottie would just die and then maybe everything would go back to normal. Now, he doesn’t know what he thinks. He feels a jab of guilt, though. “Is everyone else still alive?” 

 

Jackie leans her head against the wall. “Yeah. We went to the crash and holed up. Eventually it warmed up and we got food, better shelters. We’re not starving anymore.”

 

“That…that’s kind of incredible, actually,” Ben admits.

 

“It’s nice,” Jackie mumbles. She’s so tired. She can’t sleep. There’s a Lottie shaped hole that’s keeping her awake, made worse by the pain and the fuzziness in her head. She wants to go home. She wants to be wrapped up in the comfort of warm arms. She wants Lottie. 

 

Ben looks down at his measly bat in a pan. “Sounds like it.” He pulls it off the fire and sets it in his bowl, before standing to grab another cup of water. He sets it by Jackie. “Get some rest,” he tells her, before taking his bowl and hobbling off again. 

 

He needs to think.

 

Rest doesn’t come. Every time Jackie’s eyes close, they flutter back open, looking around for Lottie as if this is some sort of bad dream. It’s not, though. Or, if it is, it’s not one she can wake up from.

 

There's a noise from the bushes behind her and Lottie swirls on her feet, hope swelling in her chest. 

 

It's dashed quickly as she watches not Jackie, but Travis, part through the bushes and stare at her. “Lottie?” His eyes go to her bleeding hand. “I thought you were resting back at camp.”

 

Lottie can't look at him for long. “I can't.”

 

“The rest of us are looking for her, too,” he offers, “it's okay if you rest for a bit.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “You don't understand.”

 

His eyes go to the tree and her bloody handprint in the bark. He doesn't have to say anything for Lottie to know what he's thinking. 

 

“It won't tell me anything,” she croaks. 

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

There's silence between them. The last time they'd been alone together, Lottie had been trying to comfort Travis about the ceremony and Javi. It'd only been a few days ago.

 

An idea strikes her. “But you-- It talked to you.”

 

A wary look passes over Travis’ face. “Lottie, I-- I don't know.”

 

She takes a step closer to him. “You could try to talk to It again, get It to tell you where Jackie is.”

 

Travis looks over his shoulder, as if expecting someone to pop up behind him, bail him out, but it's just the two of them out here. “I don't have any mushrooms or anything.”

 

“I know where to find some.” Lottie is practically begging. She's do anything to get Jackie back, and he knows it. “Please, Travis. Please. I need to find her.”

 

Apprehensively, Travis finally nods. “Okay. I can try.”

 

Lottie had memorized where a large patch of the mushrooms grew instead of opting to plant some back in her garden, just in case they took over and killed all the herbs. She leads him directly to the spot, bending down and plucking up a handful of them before using her shirt to wipe the dirt away. She holds them out to Travis and he hesitates, staring at them in her palm. 

 

“Travis,” Lottie says, a bit more forcefully this time, “It's trying to communicate with you. You might be the only one that can help find her.” She's silent for a beat, then she adds, quieter this time, “please.”

 

He takes the shrooms and swallows them quickly. 

 

Lottie isn't patient enough to wait around for them to kick in, so she ushers him back towards the tree with her blood on it. 

 

By the time they get there, she can tell they're starting to work. His pupils have dilated and he's stumbling around the clearing on shaky legs. She watches him with attentive eyes 

 

“They-- they're screaming. No, crying. No, no-- yelling.” 

 

Lottie advances on him. He drops to his knees suddenly, hands digging into foliage and dirt. “What are they saying? What's It trying to say?” she prods.

 

“I don't know. I don't know. I-- they’re coming. No. They're coming. No, no, no.”

 

Lottie grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. “Who? What's coming? Travis, what about Jackie? Where's Jackie?”

 

He grabs his head, cries out. “Stop! No!”

 

“Travis!” Lottie shouts back. 

 

He drops to his hands and knees again, crying out into the dirt and leaves. Lottie, desperate and falling apart, drops to her knees with him and screams back.

 

Behind them, Lottie hears footsteps. She doesn’t know who it is, doesn’t care, simply puts up her hand to stop them in their tracks.

 

“Travis?” Tai shouts, concern coloring her voice.

 

“Oh,” he heaves, “oh, they’re coming. They’re coming. No, no, no.”

 

Lottie leans in closer. Whatever he’s seeing, hearing, she knows it has to be It. She almost feels jealous, but she reaches out to him, tries to keep her voice calm. It’s not working. “Talk to me,” she says, desperate, “who’s coming?” Is it Jackie? Is it someone else? Who else could be out here? Did someone hurt Jackie?

 

“No. No, no, no I don’t-- I don’t wanna see them.” Travis is leaning back, trying to get away from her. Lottie follows after, hands reaching for him, grabbing, pleading. 

 

“Talk to me, Travis! Tell me! Who? Who’s coming? Where’s Jackie?”

 

He pushes against her. “I don’t wanna see them, no. No! Get away from me!” His hands press to his ears again, he’s losing his grip on reality and Lottie knows what that’s like-- but right now, she doesn’t care. If It’s talking to him, it might know where Jackie is. She knows It does.

 

“Travis,” she says, voice firmer now, darker, “talk to me.”

 

He doesn’t reply. Instead, he just starts muttering to himself. “One, one, one, one. Two, three, eyes on me.” Lottie doesn’t understand. She hates that she doesn’t understand.

 

She tries to stay composed, reaching back out for him, grabbing his arm. “Hey, hey.”

 

“No!” He cries out again, there’s tears in his eyes. Lottie doesn’t care. “No, no, no, no. It’s trying to get inside of me. It can’t-- I can’t--”

 

“I know it’s scary, but you have to try. It doesn’t want to hurt you,” she tries, she thinks. It doesn’t want to hurt any of them, right? “It doesn’t want to hurt you. Just-- just listen. Please--”

 

Before she can do or say anything else, Travis is shoving her onto her back and pressing on top of her, a hand going to her neck. It squeezes. “What are you doing, Lottie?” he stammers.

 

That’s when Tai and Van finally move. “Travis, stop!” Tai runs towards the two of them, Van close behind.

 

“Travis, get off her!” They manage to wrench him away, Van curling the boy into her arms as he breaks down, sobbing into her.

 

Lottie is yanked up to her feet by Tai, who shoves her back. “What the fuck, Lottie?”

 

Lottie pays her no attention, she shoves Tai as well, trying to get to him. “Travis.” She was so close, she thinks. He heard It. “Travis.” 

 

Tai steps between them again and glowers at Lottie. “What are you doing to him?” she hisses. “Hasn’t he been through enough?”

 

Lottie, panting, tries to get around Tai again. They were so close. “It’s fine,” she huffs, “he was just learning to hear It. He needs to hear it, he might-- It might know where Jackie is.”

 

Van curls even more protectively around Travis as Tai keeps herself between Lottie and him. “Walk away, Lottie,” she tells her, firm. “He doesn’t know where she is and this--” she gestures back at the terrified, sobbing boy-- “this isn’t helping. Him or Jackie or you.”

 

Lottie looks between the three of them. She feels anger boiling up through her veins. “Fine.” She turns hard on her heels and stomps off, hand throbbing as she realizes it’s still bleeding. She clenches her fist.

 

She’ll find Jackie herself.

 

Except that, hours later, she still has no luck.

 

She's exhausted, struggling along on legs that barely hold her up.

 

“Lottie, if you keep going like this, you’re going to get lost.”

 

The bouncer girl had been following Lottie for a while now and it was becoming increasingly more difficult for Lottie to ignore her.

 

But she wasn’t real. She couldn’t be. Lottie had buried her two nights ago. Buried what was left of her, even if that was only a dress and her memories.

 

Lottie keeps walking, looking for any sign of Jackie. Her hand is numb but she can still feel blood dripping from her fingertips. 

 

“It’s not your fault, what happened,” Laura Lee tells her again, appearing beside a tree as Lottie gazes around it. “To me or her.”

 

She looks at Laura Lee’s face-- half of it is charred. Lottie winces, turns around and walks the other way. 

 

“I did, you know,” Laura Lee calls to her again, this time appearing right behind her when Lottie stops to try and get her bearings, “love you.”

 

Lottie swallows. “I wish you’d told me.” It's the first time she's talked back to her.

 

Laura Lee tilts her head. “I wish you’d told me, too.”

 

“Lottie!” Nat calls. She feels so fucking dumb. Of course Lottie had wandered off the second she closed her eyes. Of course Nat is missing not one but two of her teammates. She doesn’t know what to do. Everyone else is taking shifts between rest and searching. All other chores have basically come to a stop. 

 

Everything had just been going too good, and Nat doesn’t fucking get good, easy things. It’s not her life if there isn’t a goddamn fight. “Lottie! Jackie!”

 

When Lottie tries to walk forward again, Laura Lee is in front of her, hands held out. “This isn’t healthy, Lottie,” she pleads quietly. “You don’t know where you’re going. Don't you think It would have told by now where she was if It knew? You don’t even know if Jackie left on purpose or not.”

 

“She wouldn’t,” Lottie says a little too quickly, “she-- she promised. She wouldn’t.”

 

Laura Lee looks at her sadly, almost with pity. “Lottie, do you really think she can love you right?” 

 

Lottie’s gaze searches around her before falling back to Laura Lee. She can’t look away. “I-- she-- I don’t care. I love her.”

 

“You loved me, too,” Laura Lee says, “and that didn’t save me.” 

 

Lottie swallows. “I tried.”

 

Laura Lee gives a sad smile. “Maybe that's just not enough.”

 

She’s gone when Lottie blinks. It’s getting dark out. Does that mean she has to try harder? Or that she shouldn’t try at all?

 

No one will ever love you the way I do. 

 

It’s her voice but not. Lottie’s alone again. Just like always, Lottie is alone. 

 

But she can’t stop looking. She can’t. She has to find Jackie. She leaves another bloody handprint on a tree and starts off in a different direction. She has to find her. She has to or she thinks she’ll die.

 

She knows she will.

 

At least Lottie is leaving bloody trails everywhere. Nat resigns herself to spending her time looking for Lottie. If she’s lucky, the others will find Jackie and this mess can be over with. If she’s a little less lucky, Lottie will find Jackie and the two of them will be doing… whatever it is they do after being separated, and Nat might have to see that. It doesn’t matter, she’s not a prude (not like Jackie), but Jesus. 

 

The two of them never seem to want to stop fucking. 

 

Nat calls out for Lottie, long into the night and until her throat starts hurting. She’s not lucky. She never has been. 

 

“Lottie, you need to go back.” 

 

Laura Lee is back again, she sounds so desperate now. She’d left Lottie alone for so long again but she was here now and she wasn’t leaving, no matter how much Lottie ignored her. 

 

“This isn’t healthy, Lottie.”

 

She knows that, okay? She knows that. But she can’t stop, she doesn’t think she could now even if she wanted to. She doesn’t want to. She wants to find Jackie.

 

She needs to find Jackie.

 

“Lottie, please.” Laura Lee is in front of her now, holding up her hands. “It’s been two days without any signs. Almost three.” She looks so pale. Lottie thinks she looks like a ghost. She’s just a ghost. “You need to accept that she’s gone.” 

 

No. Lottie shakes her head. “No.” She can’t, she won’t.

 

She steps around Laura Lee and keeps walking. She doesn’t know where she is anymore. She’s lost and she knows it. Or maybe she isn’t. She’s so tired. She can’t see straight anymore. The world is burry, colors smudging around her as she walks. Laura Lee is the only one she sees, but Lottie thinks she can hear all of them. Every soul this place has claimed.

 

“She left you, Lottie,” Laura Lee says, more firmly now. When Lottie blinks, she can see something dark in her eyes, something that’s never been there before. “Whether by choice or not, she’s gone. She never belonged here. But you do.” 

 

Lottie tilts her head. That doesn’t make sense. They all belong here. Don’t they all belong here? She shakes her head again. She’s so tired.

 

“You’ve always belonged here.”

 

When Lottie blinks next, she’s alone again. It’s dark out and she can’t see anything. Her lantern ran out of fuel long ago.

 

She drops it and keeps walking. She has to.

 

There’s a horrifying thought that crosses Nat’s mind: what if they’re both dead? What if she’s managed to lose two of her teammates? There’s no snow to use as an excuse, just Nat’s own shitty leadership that had Jackie going out by herself. And then she’d closed her eyes, leaving Lottie to go out and hurt herself and fucking get lost, too. 

 

It’s an all night affair, trying to find Lottie or maybe even Jackie. For as good as Nat’s gotten with tracking, she’s exhausted, it’s dark, and Lottie has the added benefit of being completely unpredictable. Nat can figure out and guess what an animals going to do next. She can’t do that with Lottie. 

 

The sun is coming up now and Lottie is still walking. Her legs feel like lead, they shake with each step she takes. 

 

“Go back, Lottie,” says one voice.

 

“She’s not yours, Lottie,” says another.

 

“You belong to the Wilderness, Lottie.”

 

The world is shifting around her, she just wants to find Jackie. She’s trying to call out for her but she can’t find her voice. She’s so thirsty. 

 

She finds the river somehow, collapses into it onto her hands and knees, desperate. She’s crying and heaving and trying desperately to breathe. 

 

“She left you. She was always going to leave you.”

 

Lottie chokes on a sob.

 

“You don’t belong to her.”

 

Everything hurts. Lottie’s arms shake.

 

“She’s gone, just accept it.”

 

Lottie lets out a loud sob, she can’t hold them back anymore.

 

“She was never going to love you right, anyway.” Laura Lee’s voice is right next to her, Lottie feels like she can almost feel her breath on her skin. “I loved you first.”

 

“No,” Lottie croaks, “no, please, I have to find her, please.”

 

“She's gone, Lottie,” Laura Lee says more forcefully this time. She moves towards the river, the water, her finger disturbing the surface. “Look.” 

 

As the ripples disappear, then, Lottie see it, sees her. Except something's wrong. It's Jackie but she's not moving. There's blood everywhere. Lottie veins turn to ice. “No,” she exhales, breath stuttering, “no, no, no. No!” She falls forward into the water and crawls towards the slumped over body. She pulls her into her lap, curls herself around her. She can feel warm blood on her hands. “No, no, please, no. Jackie.” She's sobbing now, tears moving with blood and water. “Please don't take her from me, please. Please! I need her! I need her!”

 

Ghostly hands rest on her shoulders. “No you don't, Lottie,” she whispers. “You only need It.”

 

The weight in Lottie's arms disappears. “Where--” Jackie's body is gone. She throws her arms around wildly, desperately searching for her. “Where is she? Where'd she go? Where is she?”

 

Laura Lee appears in front of Lottie, reaching up with translucent hands and cupping her face. She cradles her jaw and wipes away her tears with her thumb, just like Jackie always does. “She's gone, Lottie,” she whispers, “but I'm here.” She leans forward, pulling Lottie into her embrace. “This is all you need.”

 

Still, Lottie sobs. Because Laura Lee isn't real. And now Jackie is gone, too.

 

The sun is barely peaking through the valley, the trees. Cries echo out all around Lottie. The screams they’d all heard the night of the solstice. They rattle around in Lottie’s head and make her eyes feel like they’re bleeding. Her ears pound. She cups her hands over them and clenches and screams, loud and feral and raw. 

 

The sounds mix together. Animal and human, wild and bloody. Grief and pain. They scream at Lottie and Lottie screams back. 

 

And she’s just so angry. At herself, at the Wilderness, at whatever is in her head telling her that Jackie is gone. She can’t accept that. She won’t. She can’t. She won’t.

 

The knife is in her hands again. Blood is mixing with the water. The blade pierces through her palm, tearing skin as it rips out the other side. She just wants her back. She would do anything. Anything. 

 

But it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

 

It’s the sound of screaming that stirs Jackie from her pity party, trying to figure out where, exactly, the sound is coming from, turning her head to try and locate it. It’s that sound from the solstice, those loud, awful screams.

 

And it’s Lottie.

 

Jackie struggles, forgetting about the crutch in her haste to stand, using the wall and crying as she tries to put weight on a broken leg, feeling it buckle, unable to hold up her weight. She doesn’t care. She has to get back, now. She has to, as she starts pulling herself towards where the sound was coming from. 

 

Nat finds Lottie at the river, her hand bleeding as she cries and screams. She lunges forward, grabbing Lottie’s wrists and forcing her to drop the knife. Lottie's stronger than her, and she’s going through something awful, but Nat’s stubborn and mean. “Let go of the fucking knife,” she snarls. “This isn’t helping anything. You bleeding out’s not gonna help anything.”

 

Lottie doesn't know who it is at first, fighting against her, trying to rip away the only thing Lottie feels is real right now. The knife, the pain, it's the only thing that's real. 

 

Because Jackie being gone can't be real. Jackie leaving her alone can't be real. Lottie losing everything can't be real.

 

But it's Nat, and Nat is real, too, and Lottie clings to her, desperate, sobbing, confused. She thinks she sees Laura Lee. She thinks she hears Jackie, crying too. She thinks she feels Shauna's cold grasp around her throat, choking her. What's real? What's not? Lottie shakes her head. 

 

“She's gone,” she sobs, it's all she can say. It's all she can think. “She left. She's gone. It-- It took her. It took her from me.”

 

“She’s not,” Nat says, just as much for herself as for Lottie. God, she wishes she believed it. “We just haven’t found her yet. But you can’t keep going like this.” She takes the bottom of her shirt and presses it to Lottie’s wounded hand, but that’s not enough, so Nat just takes the fucking knife and rips off enough for a bandage. 

 

Nat clenches her teeth. “If you get yourself killed, what’s she gonna do then, huh? You think she’s gonna come back from that? You think she’s gonna be okay with that? Get up. We’re going to the village. You’re going to rest, if I have to make Misty fucking put you to sleep with some fucking tea or something. But you’re going to rest, and then we’re going to go find her.”

 

Does it matter if Lottie dies? She doesn't want to live without Jackie. She can't. It's not a possibility anymore. 

 

Lottie sees blood and she can't tell if it's hers or Jackie's or someone else's. Everything she loves dies. Everyone she's loved leaves her. They always leave her.

 

She doesn't fight Nat as she pulls her up to stand. There's no point. Nat believes Jackie is still alive but Lottie doesn't. It's telling her she isn't. It showed her. It tried to. She doesn't want to believe that, either. 

 

There's shadows dancing around her vision. She can't tell whose voice is real. She hears Nat loud and clear. She looks into her eyes and sees how afraid she is, too. Fear is all they have left. 

 

“I'm sorry,” she croaks, “I'm sorry.” She's just so sorry.

 

“We’ll find her,” Nat repeats as she starts pulling them towards the camp, forcing Lottie to lean on her. Lottie’s heavy, but Nat can shoulder the weight. She always has. 

 

They get back, and Nat lays Lottie down in her hurt before she goes to get Misty to see about the wound and if there’s anything they can give Lottie to help her calm down. She hates seeing Lottie like this. She thinks, if she was more aware, Lottie would hate the others seeing her like this, too. 

 

Each step is a new kind of agony, the grief of defeat. Lottie hadn't wanted to come back here without Jackie but now that was the only option, this was the only way it could have happened. 

 

Her entire left arm feels numb. Nat deposits her in her hut but Lottie doesn't close her eyes, only lays on the bedding and stares at the roof, wondering when the last time she'd fallen asleep without Jackie was.

 

She can't recall. 

 

There's footsteps, voices. Lottie looks up and sees two pairs of eyes looking back at her. She doesn't know who's who. 

 

One of them takes her wounded hand, cleans the cut with a cold rag. Lottie thinks it should hurt but she feels nothing. She feels nothing at all. 

 

The wound has made a hole that goes all the way through her palm, out the back of her hand. It shakes as she holds it up. Her whole body shakes. 

 

“Drink this,” says a quiet voice, “it'll help calm you down.” 

 

Lottie looks into the mug. She sees a pair of dead eyes staring back at her. She takes the cup but doesn't drink. Warm hands prod at Lottie's chin. 

 

“I'm here for you, Lottie,” Laura Lee smiles, sad and soft, “as long as you stay here, with me, it'll all be okay.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “It’s not. It won't.”

 

Nat watches Lottie warily, setting up at the mouth of her shelter. 

 

Misty comes by, putting her arm on Nat’s shoulder. “You need to rest, too. You were out all night. Try to sleep.”

 

Nat shakes her head, but her eyes are already drooping. “Make sure she doesn’t hurt herself,” she mutters.

 

She’s just so tired. Lottie can barely keep her eyes open. She doesn’t want to sleep. She’s afraid she’ll wake up to a world without Jackie. She’s afraid she’s already living in it. 

 

The past few days are a jumbled mess in her head. She remembers a backpack, the pit, blood. Stumbling around in the dark. Crying out Jackie’s name.

 

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

 

No sign of her, not even a trail or a lost shoe or anything. Just nothing. As if she simply walked into the forest and disappeared.

 

As if she simply just left. Left Lottie.

 

Lottie sways as she tries to stay sitting up, but someone is ushering her to lay down. Her head hits the soft fabric of a repurposed blanket and her eyes finally close.

 

She doesn’t want to wake up.

 

This time, Jackie tries to remember which tunnel leads to a near death experience by cave fumes, shoving the protein bar Coach Scott had given her earlier into her pocket before using the wall to guide herself out. She makes it out into the sunlight, harsh and blinding, covering her eyes as she pulls herself out of the cave. 

 

Now, she doesn’t know what else to do. She doesn’t know where to go or even how to. She can barely move. But she can’t stay, either. 

 

Jackie is once again gone and Ben is exasperated. He knows now he can’t just keep her there. He can’t stay there, either. 

 

“Jackie!” He calls out, hoping she’s close by, hoping she didn’t go back to the deeper part of the cave.

 

She’s not there, thank god. Still pressing a cloth to his mouth, Ben heads to the entrance. 

 

There she is.

 

He grabs at her, tugging her back. “Jackie, wait,” he says, “you don’t know where you’re going.”

 

Jackie blinks at him, her eyes heavy. He’s just going to drag her back, offer her more bat, keep her away. She’ll just do this again. Maybe next time, she’ll make it a little father. “I… no, I don’t.”

 

Ben let’s go of her. She’s just going to keep trying to leave. He can’t keep her here. “Just…if we’re going back, we’ll need to bring my supplies.”

 

Jackie feels such a deep sense of relief that she could cry. It chokes her throat as she manages to ask, “Really?”

 

Sighing, Ben nods. “You’re just going to keep trying to leave, aren’t you?”

 

“I’ve gotta go back, Coach,” she says. “I promised.”

 

He’d heard the screams, too. He doesn’t know what they are, but he knows it can’t be good. As he looks at Jackie, he feels himself caving. “The least I can do is bring some supplies back as an offering.” And hope they don’t decide to kill him on sight. He wants to believe Jackie, that they’re different, but he thinks he’ll believe it when he sees it.

 

And now he’s about to go see it. “C’mon. Help me gather it up. We’ll want to leave soon so we’re there before dark.”

 

Finding a little more strength, Jackie follows him back into the cave and helps him gather up the supplies that he’d managed to find. She used the crutch he let her borrow, actually remembering to pick it up and lean on it. She hadn’t realized how awkward it was, clearly made for someone much taller, but, god, she doesn’t care. 

 

Soon, she’ll be back home. Soon, she’ll be with Lottie, and everything will be okay again.

 

Ben ties the supply box around his waist like he had originally and looks around the cave one last time, before they’re setting off. He might be walking straight into his death, but he’s not sure he really cares anymore.

 

All he can do is hope that Jackie is right. Hope that things are better and that they’ll forgive him for what he’d done. Even if he doesn’t think he can forgive himself.

Notes:

Everyone is doing so, so fine. Clearly. But, hey, at least we're getting close to a reunion, right? Right? Thanks so much for reading, guys <3 We love kudos, comments, questions of all kinds. Hit us up here or on our socials, and see you all soon!

Chapter 38: i'll crawl home to her

Summary:

Jackie and Lottie are reunited and it feels so good. Or, well, it should feel good. Somehow, things aren't quite as either of them thought they would be. They can pretend for now, though, can't they? At least until they have Tribal Counsel to decide Ben's fate. Only Nat and Jackie seem to be on Coach's side, and that means they're not on Lottie's side, right? Maybe she just needs some time to cool off, surely things will go back to normal in the morning.

Notes:

Here's a nice hefty chapter for you guys, only a little bit late! Hopefully now that all the holidays are over, we can get back on a nice schedule. Enjoy!

Title is from "Work Song" by Hozier

The walk is so fucking long, from the hole in the ground so that Jackie can trace her steps back to camp, but Jackie doesn’t even remember it. She just remembers blinking, and the sun’s in a new position in the sky, hovering up above her before sinking down. But the second they start getting close enough, Jackie’s yelling, her voice hoarse and cracking but still just as loud as if she was yelling commands on the field. 

 

“Lottie!” She cries out, frantic. “Lottie!”

 

At first, Nat thinks she might be imagining things when she hears Jackie’s voice. She swears she hears it.

 

Then she hears it again and so do all the other girls, and suddenly they’re all rushing towards the sound.

 

And there she is. Jackie Taylor in the flesh, limping along with a crutch-- and behind her, Coach Scott.

 

“Coach,” Nat breathes as the other girls all pause to stare as well. No one knows what to do.

 

As the others join, Jackie looks up at them, leaning heavily on Coach’s crutch. She looks at Tai. “So, he’s alive. I was wrong.” But among the crowd of faces, she doesn’t see the one she wants. Her face falls. “Where’s…” she starts. She needs Lottie.

 

Nat snaps out of her stupor of staring at Coach long enough to see the pale, pitiful look on Jackie’s face. “Guys, clear out, give them space.” She wants to go to Coach, she feels the need to protect him as she sees Tai and Mari glaring his way. A few of the others are helping to move the box of supplies he has tied to his waste.

 

Nat reaches for Jackie. “Here, she’s in my hut,” she tells her, leading Jackie back over to where Lottie has been sleeping for the past few hours. “She’s…she passed out a bit ago but we can wake her.”

 

Jackie nods, leaning more against Nat than the crutch. “He said he’s sorry, so I promised no one would eat him,” Jackie mumbles against Nat’s shoulder. “I fell in a fucking hole. Because of a candy bar.”

 

Nat gives a half laugh, choked with wet tears. “Jesus fucking christ, of course you did.” 

 

They reach the hut and Lottie, who’s passed out still. Her hand is wrapped tight, but she’s dirty, covered in mud and leaves and twigs, blood smeared on her clothes. She’s asleep, but it’s restless, Nat can tell. She’s been tossing and turning the whole time, mumbling to herself, mumbling Jackie’s name.

 

“Just…be gentle. I think she’s a little-- her head isn’t in a good place right now,” Nat says to Jackie as she sets her down next to Lottie. “She was so…she wouldn’t stop looking for you.”

 

Looking Lottie over, Jackie feels her heart breaking. She did that. She’s so stupid. Lottie’s hurt and upset, and it’s all her fault. Jackie lays down next to Lottie, facing her. Her hand reaches out and pulls a twig out of Lottie’s hair. “I’m so sorry, baby. I tried. I promised.”

 

Lottie’s dreams don’t make any sense. They rarely do. These feel different. They feel wrong, bad. They feel like they’re trying to tell her something. She can’t figure out what it is.

 

She hears a voice. The one she’d been longing to hear for days now. The one she thought she’d never get to hear again.

 

Her eyes open slowly. She’s still so tired. She sees Jackie’s face laying next to hers, looking at her through hazy tears. 

 

It’s not real. It can’t be real.

 

“You’re not real,” Lottie croaks. She’s not real. Maybe she's a ghost, like Laura Lee.

 

Jackie brushes trembling fingers against Lottie’s cheek. “I’m real. I promised I’d come back. I promised.”

 

Fingertips graze her skin and Lottie shudders. “You’re…” Is it real? Is she really there? She could never feel Laura Lee’s touch, but she can feel this. She reaches out and puts her hand on Jackie’s chest. She feels a heartbeat. A horrid, low sob rips itself from her throat. “You’re real. You’re real. You’re here, You’re-- you’re--” Her fingers curl into the cloth of Jackie’s shirt, unbelieving, hysterical. “I thought you were dead. I thought you-- you left.”

 

Unable to stop herself, Jackie lunges into Lottie’s arms, wrapping around her tightly, even as she cries out in pain as she hurts her leg. She doesn’t care. God, she doesn’t care. “I’m so sorry,” she whimpers. “I tried. I tried. I promised I’d come back. I came back. I’d never-- Never. Not on purpose. Never.”

 

Lottie’s whole body is trembling as Jackie’s arms wrap around her. It feels so real, it has to be real. But her mind is racing and she remembers seeing her dead and she remembers being told she left and she can’t make sense of it. “Where?” she asks. “Why?”

 

“I fell in a hole,” Jackie mumbles. “Found Coach. He’s not dead. My leg’s broke, I think. Do you like peanut butter?”

 

It’s a lot for Lottie to process. Too much. A hole? “We-- we found the pit. I saw-- your bag. It’s in the-- in our hut.” Coach? He wasn’t dead? “Where-- he’s not--” Lottie tries to sit up. Jackie’s hurt, really badly. Her arms tremble and she can’t see through the cloudy tears in her eyes even as she wraps her arms around Jackie.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie says. She just repeats it over and over again, a babbling mess. She’s so tired, and she’s in so much pain, but she’s never been more relieved than the moment Lottie’s arms wrap around her. Even when Lottie tries to sit up, Jackie clings to her. “I’m sorry.”

 

Lottie is sorry, too. How did she get back? Was Coach there? Why had it taken so long? Her head hurts. Her body aches. She still can’t process that this is real, that Jackie is here. After three agonizing days without her, looking everywhere for her, she’s here. She’s real. She’s real.

 

Lottie wraps her arms tightly around her and squeezes. “I didn’t want to stop looking. I’m sorry. I needed you. I needed to find you.”

 

“I’m sorry. I tried, I promised, I promise. But it hurt, and I was in a cave, and I couldn’t figure out how to leave,” Jackie says. “I didn’t-- I couldn’t-- I missed you so much. You’re all I could think about.”

 

Lottie clings tighter. “I thought I lost you.” She thought Jackie was gone. She thought she’d never see her again, hold her again, kiss her again. She’d been convinced she was dead. She thought she’d seen her dead body. She remembers seeing it, holding it. She remembers blood and pain and Shauna and Laura Lee. Remembers screaming and stabbing and crying. 

 

“Please don’t leave me,” Lottie cries, “please.”

 

Groaning, Jackie tries to adjust herself more comfortably without letting go. “Never. Never. I promised I’d come back. I promised.”

 

“You promised.” Lottie is aware, somewhere, that Jackie is hurt and she needs to be gentle, but she’s so afraid to let go. She’s so afraid Jackie will slip from her grasp again, that she’ll leave her again. “Why didn’t you come back? I looked for you. Everywhere.”

 

“Coach Scott took me back to his cave, and I couldn’t leave. It was super gross, and he ate bat, and there was this place with poison gas that made me see shit when I got lost,” Jackie tells her, tucking her head under Lottie’s chin. She thinks, maybe, this’ll make her feel better. She doesn’t need food or water or medical attention. Just for Lottie to hold her in her arms.

 

Maybe a bath, but that can wait. Jackie just wants to be held.

 

Lottie is sort of frozen. She doesn’t know what to think. What to say. Coach Scott found Jackie. And he kept her? “Why? Why would he-- why wouldn’t he let you go?”

 

“He thought we were gonna eat him if we knew he was alive.”

 

“But-- but we--” Lottie doesn’t understand. She can’t understand. “But you came back.”

 

“I wouldn’t stop trying so he helped me back. Do you like peanut butter?” Jackie asks again, pulling the protein bar out of her pocket with shaky fingers and handing it to Lottie. 

 

“Helped? Is he-- he’s here?” Lottie doesn’t acknowledge the offer of food. She hasn’t eaten in days but she’s not hungry. She doesn’t feel hungry. She just feels cold and tired and confused. Her mind can’t grasp anything that’s happening, not enough to understand what Jackie is saying. 

 

“Brought some stuff. Think he’s putting it away.” With her eyes fluttering, Jackie doesn’t know how much longer she can stay awake before she finally just passes out. The last time she properly slept was in Lottie’s arms. She wants that feeling back, now. She wants it to take away the pain and aches and fear.

 

“He’s just-- Where-- Nat…” Lottie tries to sit up. Her body is still shaking as she squints out the front door, looking for them. She can see bodies moving about, hear hushed whispers. “He took you.”

 

Jackie lets out a pained protest, still clinging to Lottie. “He got me out of that hole. He was just… worried I’d tell.”

 

“But he didn’t-- I was looking everywhere and I-- you were just-- He just had you.” He’d kept Jackie from her. He’d let her suffer without her. He’d let her think Jackie was dead.

 

“He thought I’d tell everyone, and then we’d eat him,” Jackie says. She tries to soothe Lottie. “But I’m here. I’m never going anywhere ever again.”

 

“But he took you!” Lottie says, her voice wavering, cracking, desperate. He’d taken Jackie from her. “I thought you were dead! I thought-- I saw-- you were dead. And he-- he just-- he let you-- he took you from me.”

 

“She was never yours.” Shauna whispers in her ear.

 

Lottie shakes her head. “No, she-- she promised. You said-- I--” Lottie puts her hands over her ears again, presses down hard, shaking. “I know, I know, I know.” She was never hers. She left. She was back.

 

Lottie’s head felt like it was splitting open. She felt nauseous. She hadn’t eaten anything in days. When she leans over to vomit, only bile and spit come out.

 

“She doesn’t belong to you.”

 

“Lottie?” Jackie’s eyes are wide and glassy and panicked, and she brushes Lottie’s hair back out of her face, tries to help her through it. Tears start streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I came back. I came back to you. I’ll always come back. I love you.”

 

Lottie flinches. She doesn’t mean to. Her head is pounding again. She can’t make sense of anything. She just wants to sleep. She wants Jackie. She wants to scream and yell. She wants to know why. 

 

“I looked everywhere,” she says again, “I tried to find you.”

 

Jackie can’t stop crying, folding her arms against herself after Lottie flinches. “It was a cave.” Her breathing feels labored. “I couldn’t-- I couldn’t find my way out. I’m sorry. Please.”

 

A cave? Out here? Where? Had she been close? Was she hiding? Lottie can’t make sense of anything. She just wants to hold Jackie but it feels like her body and mind are rejecting the notion. She doesn’t want that. Why does she feel so cold? So wrong? “It’s all wrong,” she chokes, “it’s all wrong.”

 

The pain and exhaustion that Jackie’s been dealing with for days is nothing compared to that. It’s like her heart stops beating in her chest, like her body wants to turn itself inside out. She feels like she’s been punched. A punch would have been kinder. 

 

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” Jackie gasps. She doesn’t want this to be her fault, but she doesn’t know what else it could be, and it rips her open. She wishes she wasn’t herself, the version made in this place that knows the truth: it’s all her fucking fault. At least before she didn’t know that. 

 

Before Jackie can implode into a black hole, Nat comes in with Misty. Nat says, “Coach mentioned your leg needed to be properly set. Let Misty look it over and work on it in here, and then we’ll move you to your hut.” She frowns as she looks Jackie over. “I know it hurts. It’ll be better soon.”

 

Jackie doesn’t think them setting her bones will hurt any more than Lottie telling her it’s all wrong. 

 

You don’t matter anymore.

 

Lottie looks up at Natalie. “Where is he?” she asks, a sudden darkness in her voice.

 

“He’s putting shit away in storage, I think. He brought back some decent stuff,” Nat says, looking at Lottie with a furrowed brow.

 

“And that-- that’s it?” She asks, trying to push herself up to stand. Misty looks like she wants to move to stop Lottie, but she’s already kneeling next to Jackie’s broken leg and the look Nat shoots her plants her in her spot.

 

“He just gets to-- be here?”

 

Nat stands, too, frowning. “I mean, that’s not just it. We’ve got some shit to talk through. Obviously.”

 

“It needs to be set better.” Misty hands Jackie a stick. “Bite down.”

 

It still hurts. Jackie still screams.

 

“Your ankle appears to be broken, too. Wow, Jackie. It’s kind of impressive,” Misty says. 

 

Jackie doesn’t care. She wonders if it’s still okay for her to sleep curled up in Lottie’s lap, or if that’s wrong, too.

 

“Be nice to her,” Lottie snarls, turning on Misty. Teeth bared, eyes dark. She’s angry and hurt and doesn’t know where to put it all. She feels like a cornered animal. She doesn’t know how to handle it. 

 

She feels so jittery, so heavy. Her breaths are shuddering in her chest. She falls back to her knees and wraps herself around Jackie, as if shielding her from everything around them. She’s shaking, wide-eyed, searching every dark corner of the hut. 

 

“You can’t have her,” Lottie growls. It can’t have her. It tried to take her away from Lottie. Coach Scott tried to take her away. Lottie’s head is jolted with blinding pain but she stays where she is, heaving with breath.

 

Jackie groans but sinks into Lottie’s touch, clinging to her even when it jostles her. 

 

“Both of you need to stay still,” Misty snaps. 

 

Nat frowns, “You might want to make that tea again.”

 

Lottie curls protectively around Jackie, glowering at Misty. She’s shaking, like a feral, wild animal. She feels like one, cornered and caged. She’s so afraid someone is going to take Jackie from her again. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to stand that. She thinks it might drive her to madness, if it hasn’t already. She feels fractured, broken, terrified. 

 

Misty huffs. “You’re just lucky there’s no open fractures like with Allie. That could have been bad. But you both need to hold still so I can splint the bones.” She looks at Nat. “There should still be some in the medical hut, if you’ll get it for me, please.”

 

Nat nods and steps out, looking back at them briefly before she goes. 

 

The discomfort of keeping her leg still means nothing to Jackie in Lottie’s arms. She mutters, her voice slurring, “‘S not wrong?”

 

“No, no,” Lottie shakes her head, “not you. No.” Not Jackie. Just Lottie. Just her head. Just Coach Scott. He’d taken her. She was so afraid he was going to take her again. 

 

She’s glaring at Misty the whole time. She doesn’t want Jackie to drink anything she gives her. She thinks it’ll just make Jackie sick. She thinks Misty wants to hurt Jackie. She won’t let her. 

 

“You came back,” Lottie mumbles, a little delirious. “You came back. Not wrong. No. I-- my head.” Her head was so wrong. All wrong. She’d thought Jackie was dead. She’d given up. He’d made her give up. She hates him, she thinks. She hates him.

 

Jackie would always come back to Lottie. She’d never give up trying to come back to Lottie. She remembers how the last time Lottie’s head had been so overwhelming for her, that touch had helped, so Jackie strains to brush her lips against Lottie’s, hoping it grounds her. 

 

“I recommend not engaging in any sort of sexual activity while you’re healing, Jackie,” Misty scolds as she tightens the splint on Jackie’s ankle. 

 

At that time, Nat comes back with the cup Lottie had drank from earlier and holds it out. “To help you sleep.”

 

Jackie thinks she could go to sleep right now if it wasn’t for the pain. She made it back. She’s in Lottie’s arms. Mission accomplished.

 

Lottie doesn’t want to let go of Jackie but she reaches for the cup first, gripping it tightly. “What’s in it?” she asks at Misty, her voice accusatory. She won’t let Jackie get hurt anymore, or sick anymore. She won’t let anyone take her away again. She won’t let anyone touch her.

 

“It’s just something to calm her down,” Misty says. “It’s what you had earlier, Lottie. She’ll be okay.”

 

Tentatively, Lottie holds the cup up to Jackie’s lips. “Drink,” she tells her, urging her to sip it. If anything happens to Jackie after she drinks this, Lottie thinks she might actually hit MIsty. Or worse.

 

Jackie takes a long drink, sighing quietly before she hands it back to Lottie. “I love you,” she murmurs.

 

“I love you, too,” Lottie says, her voice breaking. She’s so tired but she’s afraid to close her eyes. Afraid someone will take Jackie away again. Afraid she’ll wake up and it’ll just be a dream. Afraid that she won’t be able to tell what’s real and what’s not. 

 

She holds Jackie tighter, shaking. “It’s real.”

 

“It’s real,” Jackie whispers. She knows it’s real, feels it in her bones. Her body finally starts to relax, slumping into Lottie’s. Finally, finally. She can rest. 

 

Lottie holds Jackie. She isn’t going to let go. Even as Nat looks from Misty to the two of them. Lottie won’t let go. She shakes her head at Nat.

 

“Just let me help you get her back to your hut,” Nat offers, kneeling next to them.

 

Jackie grips Lottie tighter, her eyes clenched tight before she relaxes, still holding onto Lottie. “Can we?” she murmurs. “Go back?”

 

Warily, Lottie loosens her grip on Jackie just enough to let Nat help her stand with the girl in her arms. Her legs are still shaking as she walks and she’s dizzy, the world tilting on its axis. She’s trying her best not to jostle Jackie’s leg. She can’t see much. She thinks she sees blood but when she blinks it’s gone. It’s gone. It’s not real. It’s not real. 

 

Jackie in her arms is real. She focuses on that, it's all that matters.

 

Nat helps her set Jackie down on their bedding once they're back in their hut and Lottie sways. She turns before Nat can leave and grabs her arm. “Don’t let him near her,” she says, pleading, terrified, angry.

 

For her part, Jackie doesn’t seem aware enough of the situation to hear Lottie’s words, just that she’s talking. Her hand searches until she finds warm skin as she lets herself be soothed by Lottie’s presence. 

 

“Lottie,” Nat murmurs, frowning. But she doesn’t say anything else except, “Only if you agree to eat something.”

 

Lottie looks at Nat, looks into her eyes. “I need to know she’s going to be okay if I fall asleep,” she begs quietly, voice wavering, “please.” She’s not hungry. She’s not anything but afraid.

 

“She’s going to be just fine. He’s not going to hurt her.” Nat doesn’t think he will. No. She knows he won’t. He won’t hurt any of them. As it is, he’s waiting in that little prison Lottie insisted they construct. It’s not locked, though. Nat doesn’t see a reason when he’s being compliant. “You’ve got to eat. She needs to, too, but I’m gonna let her rest for a bit.”

 

“He already took her from me once,” Lottie says quietly-- she can’t fight it anymore. She’s so tired. She sinks down onto the bedding with Jackie. “I’ll eat.” 

 

Nat nods. “I’ll be right back. And, Lottie, he won’t. Not again.”

 

As Nat leaves, Jackie turns towards Lottie and pulls herself against her, sighing quietly. She’s only barely awake, sinking in and out of consciousness, fighting it. “I never stopped trying. To get back to you.”

 

Lottie shifts so that she can hold Jackie better without hurting her. “I know,” she murmurs, petting gently through her hair, “I know.” She knows. She thinks she knows. She doesn’t think it’s Jackie’s fault. It was Ben. He kept her from Lottie. He tried to keep her and make Lottie think she was dead. Make her think she’d left her. They promised. They promised each other and Lottie didn’t think Jackie would break that promise.

 

Jackie rubs some of the dirt away from Lottie’s skin. “Would’ve crawled. Tried to. I got lost, though. Had to… had to be dragged out.”

 

Nat comes back with a bowl of their dinner, holding it out to Lottie. Jackie doesn’t even notice she’s there, too busy taking in the way that Lottie looks so hurt and stressed.

 

“It’s okay,” Lottie murmurs, trying to sooth Jackie, “save your energy. Just rest.” She just wants her to rest and to be okay. She knows that’s not entirely possible, but she wants it anyway. 

 

Taking the bowl, Lottie holds it tightly in one hand while she keeps the other wrapped around Jackie. She doesn’t want to let go. She’s so afraid to let go. 

 

Still, she looks up at Nat and says, “Thank you.” 

 

With a tired look, Nat just says, “Eat.” She looks at Jackie as she turns to leave. “Rest. Both of you. It’s been a long few days. We all need it.”

 

Jackie wants to rest. She doesn’t. She wants to be with Lottie as much as she can, as long as she can. Forever. She wants to be with Lottie forever.

 

Lottie looks down at Jackie, then into the bowl of food. Eat. She’ll do it. For Jackie. 

 

She eats, only a few bites, but she eats. She’s so tired. She’s afraid to fall asleep.

 

Setting the bowl down, she shifts enough to wrap Jackie back up in her arms. She closes her eyes and lets herself feel the steady beat of Jackie’s heart. It’s the only thing that can calm her down. It’s the only thing that feels real. Lottie doesn’t feel real. This all feels like one long nightmare. She wants it to be over.

 

“I’m real,” Jackie whispers, for herself and for Lottie. “I’m real.” She takes Lottie’s hand, brushing her fingers tenderly over the cloth that covers it before she presses Lottie’s fingers to her pulse. She lets Lottie feel her heartbeat close and soft and real. “And you won’t leave me. You won’t walk away.”

 

“Never,” Lottie says immediately, “never.” She’d tried so hard to find her. She hadn’t wanted to give up. There were just so many voices in her head telling her to stop, to go back. Jackie didn’t belong to her. Lottie didn’t belong to Jackie. She doesn’t want to believe that.

 

“My Lottie,” Jackie murmurs, the words slurring together. Lottie won’t leave her. She doesn’t think this is wrong. She thinks Jackie matters. Jackie knows she does. Jackie keeps telling herself that Lottie does.

 

Lottie nods. “I’m yours.” She was Jackie’s. She was. Her head pounds, she hears whispering in her ears that she can’t make out. She thinks she sees the shadows of familiar, dead faces in the corner of their hut.

 

She screws her eyes shut and holds Jackie tighter. “I’m yours.”

 

“And I’m yours.” Jackie sighs, pressing her nose to Lottie’s neck. She smells like dirt and blood and sweat. Nothing’s ever been this comforting.

 

“Sleep,” Lottie urges, her voice strained but soft. “I’m not going anywhere.” She wasn’t going to leave Jackie at all. Nothing was going to take her away again. Nothing and no one. 

 

It’s easy after that to slip into a dark, dreamless sleep. After days of running off of pain and adrenaline and desperation, Jackie’s body can’t hold itself up anymore. She nuzzles in closer, groaning as her leg moves but not reacting otherwise except to cling tightly to Lottie.

 

Lottie can’t sleep. Every time her eyes close, panic runs through her and she jerks back awake, worried Jackie is going to be gone. 

 

Every time, she still finds her sleeping in her arms, but it brings little comfort. The fear is winning and Lottie can’t help it. She doesn’t have enough energy to fight it.

 

She listens for any noise outside of their hut. Misty comes in once to check on them and hand over a cup of water, one that Lottie stares at intently before taking the smallest of sips and waiting.

 

When nothing happens after a while, she drinks most of it. 

 

She keeps an arm tight around Jackie, laying as still as possible so she doesn’t accidentally bump or move her leg. She can’t imagine the pain Jackie is in. She thinks she might know. She wishes she could take it away. Her hand burns but she doesn’t think about it.

 

Her eyes are drooping when she hears movement outside their hut again and she stiffens, body straining. She squints against the darkness to try and see who is drawing the curtain aside and stepping in.

 

The figure squats next to them and Lottie looks up into the dark, glowing eyes of Shauna Shipman, lashes and hair still encrusted with snow and ice. The air in the hut turns cold and Lottie begins to shiver, despite the heavy blankets wrapped around her and Jackie.

 

“What do you want?” she asks the dead girl.

 

Shauna doesn’t say anything to Lottie, barely even spares her a glance. She brushes her fingers through Jackie’s hair, watching as the smaller girl shivers. She looks tiny like this, injured, clinging to Lottie even in her sleep.

 

“It’s not about what I want,” Shauna says, looking at Lottie after a few minutes. “It’s about what she needs. And what you need.” She snorts. “It’s not each other.”

 

Lottie doesn’t move, even as she watches Shauna’s fingers pet through Jackie’s hair. She feels defensive, caged. Cornered. She feels her muscles growing taught as she circles more protectively around Jackie. 

 

“No, I-- I need her,” Lottie argues, “I need her. I do.” Maybe Jackie doesn’t need Lottie, but Lottie needs Jackie. She’s not a real person without her. She can’t think straight without her.

 

“You don’t.” Shauna brushes her fingers over where the shell of Jackie’s right ear would be. “You need It. And It needs you. This place needs you.”

 

“I--” Lottie doesn’t know what to say. “Why me?” She wants to know. “Why would It-- It left me first.”

 

“Did It?” Shauna asks, pointedly looking down at Jackie.

 

Lottie feels ice in her veins. “I love her,” she says meekly. “I just-- I just wanted to love her.”

 

“So you went after a girl that’s already in love with someone?” Shauna raises an eyebrow. “That’s cold, Matthews. And I know cold.”

 

“I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to.” She hadn’t set out to fall in love with Jackie. It had just happened. “I just wanted to-- I didn’t want her to die.”

 

“Isn’t that what she wanted?”

 

Lottie’s eyes go down to Jackie, curled up in her arms. “That doesn’t mean she-- it’s not right. We-- we all need each other.”

 

“You don’t really need her, Lottie,” Shauna says, a look of pity coming across her face. “You just want to be needed by her. It feels good. She makes you feel like the world until she gets bored or scared or annoyed.”

 

Is that really such a bad thing? To want to be needed? No one’s ever actually needed Lottie. Not her family, not her friends, not her teammates. But Jackie had. Jackie does, she says she does. Lottie believes her.

 

“I don’t care,” Lottie mumbles eventually, nuzzling into Jackie, “if she gets bored or annoyed or-- or scared. If she leaves me. I’ll still love her. I promised.” She promised.

 

Jackie stirs briefly, enough to press lips to skin before sleep pulls her back under, mumbling Lottie’s name under her breath.

 

Shauna laughs. “Seems like you cared a lot not too long ago.”

 

Lottie’s heart pounds in her chest. “What do you know?” she snaps. “You were fucking her boyfriend behind her back.”

“And she still would have forgiven me,” Shauna says. 

 

Lottie knows that’s true. They both do. “Did you even ever really love her?” she asks quietly.

 

“What’s worse?”

 

Lottie doesn’t know. They both fucking suck. “She thinks you hated her.”

 

“You saw how controlling she was. How she dictated every part of my life. How she made ours so…” Shauna frowns. “Connected.”

 

“At least you were loved by someone,” Lottie murmurs. 

 

“It loves you, Lottie. More than she ever will.”

 

Lottie feels her eyes burning. “I-- I don’t care. I love her.” She burrows into Jackie. “I love her. I’ll always love her.”

 

“Do you think that’s enough to save her?” Shauna whispers.

 

She wants to say yes. She wants it to be true. But the longer they’re out there, the less Lottie can believe herself. “Go away.”

 

“I thought we were having a good talk,” Shauna says, her face an exaggerated pout she’d never sported in life. A pantomime. “Besides, you’ll never love her the way you love It. You were made for It, for this place. Why can’t you just accept that?”

 

Lottie doesn’t notice the difference because she can’t look at Shauna. It’s painful. “I never asked for this.”

 

“Who asks to fall in love? It just kind of happens, Matthews.”

 

“What am I supposed to do?”

 

Shauna fades, but her voice remains, echoing, growing, changing. “Give in.”

 

Lottie doesn’t want to give in. But she does. So badly.

 

Eventually, her eyes close, but her grip around Jackie never loosens. 

 

Nat stops by and cleans up after a while, taking the bowl of food, the empty cup of water. She comes back with fresh food and water and some of Misty’s tea for sleeping, and she gently tries to wake Lottie up. “Hey, Lottie. We probably need to have you and Jackie eat something. Coach says she didn’t eat at all in the cave.”

 

Lottie startles awake, subconsciously shielding Jackie until she realizes it’s just Nat. She rubs her hand across her eyes, head pounding. She’s really not hungry, she feels nauseous-- but she thinks Jackie needs to eat. That needs to happen.

 

Nodding, she shifts enough to sit up, still holding onto Jackie, before she brushes a hand against her face. “Jackie,” she coos, “can you sit up do you think?”

 

Everything feels fuzzy as Jackie blinks her eyes open, the lids droopy. She presses her face against Lottie’s chest, groaning. “So sleepy.”

 

“Man, I know she doesn’t feel good,” Nat murmurs. “She’s all dirty and gross, and she doesn’t even care.”

 

“Fuck… you,” Jackie mumbles, weakly flipping Nat off.

 

Lottie feels a faint smile. “Not that bad, I guess.” She grows considerably softer as she presses her hand to Jackie’s. “C’mon, you should eat something. Then you can go back to sleep, okay?”

 

Jackie sighs, moving around until she’s sitting up, her leg wrapped up tightly and stretched out in front of her. Natalie was right; Jackie does feel gross. Very gross, like she’s still down in that hole or in the cave. She wants to scrub herself clean. She doesn’t have the energy to lift her arms. 

 

“The tea’s for both of you,” Nat says. “Don’t worry; I watched Misty make it. It’s the same thing as earlier. It’ll help with sleeping.”

 

“Here,” Lottie reaches for the tea first and holds it up to Jackie. “Drink some. It’ll help your throat.” 

 

She glances back over at Natalie, giving her a weary smile. “Thanks, again.” 

 

After hesitating, Nat gives a nod. “Yeah. Of course. Just… let me know if either of you need anything.”

 

She heads out the door, and Jackie’s eyes follow after her before she looks down at the cup. Lottie would never lie to Jackie. Jackie trusts her completely, so she takes a sip from the cup that becomes a gulp, probably too much when she starts coughing. She’s sorry, she says as much, and she lets her head loll back against Lottie’s shoulder.

 

As Nat leaves, Lottie’s eyes search the hut. It’s empty. No Shauna Shipman. 

 

When Jackie coughs, Lottie grabs the cup and rubs her back. “It’s okay,” she says, “you’re okay.” She wants Jackie to be okay. She sets the cup down and brushes her hand gently through Jackie’s hair. “Do you think you can eat a little? You need to eat something.”

 

She remembers the peanut butter bar Jackie tried to give her. She pulls it out of her pocket. “Do you want this or some of the deer meat?”

 

“I’ll split it with you,” Jackie says, hearing the crinkling of the wrapper. How weird, to have food that wasn’t caught or picked just the day before.

 

“Okay,” Lottie agrees. She’s not sure she’ll eat hers, but she’ll split it for now if it’ll get Jackie to eat. Unwrapping it, she tears it in half and holds one out to Jackie. “Here.” 

 

Jackie takes half of the protein bar and starts eating small bites. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that she’d forgotten what peanut butter tastes like. It’s a crazy thing to miss. The textures are weird, and it’s crumbly, but Jackie doesn’t care that much. It’s good. It could be better, but it’s good. “Eat,” she says, closing Lottie’s hand around the rest of it. 

 

Lottie watches Jackie eat, makes sure she actually does. She almost forgets she’s still holding the other half until Jackie points it out. “I ate earlier,” she tells her. It’s not exactly a lie. She just can’t remember when that was. “I’ll have it later, okay?” Right now, she just wants to make sure Jackie is fed and drinks enough before she goes back to sleep.

 

“Lottie,” Jackie whines, pulling back enough to look at Lottie and frown. She doesn't know what to do. She doesn’t know how to help Lottie, especially when it’s her fault. If she hadn’t gone to trek around the forest, none of this would have happened. “Please.”

 

Lottie doesn’t feel hungry at all. She feels sick, still. “I had some while you were asleep,” she says. “Don’t worry about me for now, okay? Just focus on getting better.” Lottie just wants Jackie to be better. That’s all she cares about, even as Shauna’s voice still echoes in her head.

 

“I always worry about you,” Jackie says softly.

 

Giving a soft sigh, Lottie presses a kiss to the side of Jackie’s head. “I know.” She hugs her closer. “But I’ll be okay as long as you are.”

 

Jackie tries to keep her eyes open, but she feels the weight of them grow with each blink. She presses her lips to Lottie’s neck, tries to fight off  sleep even if it feels like her body is melting against Lottie’s.

 

Lottie’s happy Jackie at least ate some of the protein bar. It would be good for her. They could eat what Nat brought them once Jackie rested some more. She kisses the top of her head, whispering, “You can rest again.” Lottie’s not going anywhere.

 

“I really missed you.” Jackie missed her so much it had ached. It was more painful than any injury. But Lottie’s here now, and she feels solid and real. She won’t leave Jackie. She won’t walk away. 

 

“I missed you, too,” Lottie murmurs. “So much.” She’d missed her so much. She’d needed her so badly. She’d been so scared without her. She still felt so afraid. She couldn’t stand the idea of losing her again. She’d almost lost her forever. Lottie’s breath stutters in her chest as she swallows down the thought.

 

Jackie can feel the way Lottie’s breath stutters, and she sniffles as tears leak out of her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

Lottie just holds Jackie tighter. She knows if she says anything, all of the fear and pain and grief inside of her will come bursting out. It’s begging to be let go but Lottie doesn’t want to let it out. It’ll make it too real. She’s always desperate to feel real, but not this time. Not with this.

 

“I love you.” Jackie thinks that, if she says it enough, it’ll make everything okay. It’ll make everything go back to how it’s supposed to be. “I love you. I’m yours.”

 

For just a moment, Lottie wonders. She thinks about what Shauna said. She closes her eyes. “I love you, too.”

 

With those words, Jackie lets herself relax against Lottie once again, letting sleep overtake her. She wishes she could stay awake. She wishes she was better company. She wishes her stupid leg didn’t bother her so much that all she feels like she can do is sleep. She just wants to be with Lottie. Even as she drifts off, her fingers keep clinging, unable to pull away.

 

Lottie still doesn’t sleep. She can’t. Her eyes close but all she can see is Jackie's dead body or Shauna’s frost encrusted eyelashes or Laura Lee’s charred face. She’s just so afraid. She doesn’t know how to make it stop. Jackie is here in her arms but all she can think about is when she wasn’t.

 

For the most part, all Jackie does is sleep. She’s a dead weight on top of Lottie, in her arms, out of it until she’s woken up to eat or drink or relieve herself. She can’t do anything on her own. Jackie might have been pleased with the pampering, or she might have been frustrated with her own inability to do anything, but, truthfully, she’s too exhausted to muster up much energy to do anything more than cling to Lottie and occasionally mumble to her. 

 

Nat comes to check on them when she can, in between conversations with the rest of the team, with the man that used to be their coach. She doesn’t want to disturb Jackie and Lottie about all of that, but it gets to a point where she knows she needs to because something needs to be said. Something needs to be decided. 

 

Hovering at the mouth of Jackie and Lottie’s tent, she knocks before heading in. “Hey. I just… wanted to check on you two again.”

 

Time isn’t really a thing that Lottie can keep track of like this. She doesn’t know how much time has passed, she only knows that it has passed by counting each visit they get from Natalie. She thinks the sun has gone up and down at least once. The shadows in their hut had grown darker and then faded that many times. 

 

She doesn’t sleep much, if at all. She nods off every now and then but is almost always jolted awake by her own demons in her mind. They whisper to her and tell her that Jackie is gone even though she can feel her in her arms. They tell her that Jackie can’t love her the way she needs. They tell her she’ll never be enough to save her.

 

Eventually, Lottie gives up on it all. She lays on the bedding with Jackie, eyes drooping but unable to close. She doesn’t feel like she’s in her own body when the knock comes and she looks up to see Nat again. 

 

“She’s still just sleeping a lot,” Lottie manages to mumble, not moving.

 

“That’s probably for the best,” Nat says. It’s not like they have any painkillers. There’s nothing they can do to treat broken bones except wrap them up and hope for the best. And Nat’s hoping for the best, hoping her friend’s still able to walk eventually. Jackie’s always been so light on her feet; not the fastest, but still quick and controlled with her movements before they crashed in this place. It had just seemed like she was starting to get some of her confidence back before this happened.

 

Nat shifts on her feet. “We need to talk about the Coach situation. All of us.”

 

Lottie agrees. It’s easier for her to watch over Jackie while she sleeps, even if she’s so desperate to hear her voice and see her smile. She thinks Jackie looks almost peaceful when she sleeps sometimes, even as she whimpers quietly or mumbles Lottie’s name. 

 

When Nat brings up Coach, Lottie suddenly feels a rush of anger surge through her and her mind becomes more alert. She doesn’t quite sit up, but she shifts enough to look over Jackie at Nat. “What’s there to talk about?” In Lottie’s eyes, he was already guilty.

 

“I’ve listened a little to his side of things, and I want to hear what Jackie has to say about what happened, too. More than just… sleep deprived, pain-filled mumbles,” Nat tells Lottie, cringing at that look, at the tone of her voice. “We know. I mean… we know. But we don’t know why, and we don’t know what to do with him.”

 

“Who cares why?” Lottie says. It’s clearly not a real question. “He kidnapped her. And he wasn’t going to bring her back.” That was all Lottie needed to know. 

 

“But he did. That’s the thing. He brought her back, and he brought us more food and supplies. He seems… like he wants to help,” Nat tells her quietly. 

 

“So he just gets to get away with it?” Lottie says. 

 

Nat frowns. “Of course not. But we can’t just… we have to figure out what to do.”

 

“Just tell him to go back into whatever cave he crawled out from,” Lottie grumbles, laying back down and looking away. “He seemed happy enough to stay there before.”

 

“It could be helpful to have him around. He still knows more about a lot of this survival stuff than the rest of us.”

 

“Clearly you’ve already made your mind up, Nat,” Lottie says, “it sounds like you don’t need my input.”

 

“That’s not fair,” Nat says. “I want everyone’s input, including yours, including Jackie’s.”

 

“That is my input.” 

 

Still, she shifts again and gently rests a hand on Jackie’s arm. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

 

Blinking her eyes open slowly, Jackie looks up at Lottie and offers her a tired smile. “Feeling so great,” she mumbles. 

 

Lottie gives a wary smile. “I’m sure.” She presses her lips to Jackie’s forehead before motioning to Nat. 

 

“I want us to get together as a group and talk about Coach,” Nat tells Jackie. 

 

Jackie wrinkles her brow, her frown deep. “But I’m so gross right now.”

 

“I don’t think anyone will care.”

 

“I care,” Jackie groans. She holds onto Lottie tighter. “Nobody’s allowed to eat him. I told him we wouldn’t.”

 

Lottie doesn’t like the sound of any of that, but she tries to ignore it. “I can take you to the river,” she tells her, “help you clean off a little first.”

 

“We can wait to talk later over dinner,” Nat agrees. She looks at Lottie. “If you think you can get her down there, I can bring some clothes for both of you and leave them.”

 

“I can.” Lottie doesn’t have to think twice about it. She can do it. She looks back at Jackie. “Does that sound okay?”

 

Honestly, Jackie just doesn’t want Lottie to leave her. She’s okay with anything so long as Lottie doesn’t leave her. Nodding, she leans against Lottie more, sighing quietly. 

 

“I can help the two of you stand,” Nat says.

 

Lottie brushes her hand through Jackie’s hair once before moving to stand, using the wall of the hut to help her. Her legs are stiff but she feels steady enough. “I just need help lifting her.” Then she can carry Jackie to the river. She’s so light already.

 

Nat helps Lottie, and the two of them get Jackie up. 

 

At first, Jackie attempts to support some of her own weight, leaning against Lottie but planning to hobble down to the river. She feels a little annoyed about the knowledge that one of her calves is going to be more defined than the other, even more so when she realizes that the way her leg is covered is going to keep it from getting tanned. She groans, slumping against Lottie a little more. Pain, embarrassment, it all sort of blends.

 

Lottie wraps her arms around Jackie before nodding at Nat, letting her know she's got it from here. Once she's gone, Lottie bends down enough to get Jackie to hook her arms around her neck before she scoops her into her arms and starts walking. She ignores how her legs burn and her arms tremble. She knows it's not from straining them but from her lack of proper sleep, proper eating, proper rest. 

 

She tells herself she'll do it later. She thinks she will. 

 

It's lucky, though, that the river isn't too far away, and by the time they make it, Lottie’s breathing is a little labored. Still, she ignores it and sets Jackie down on a tree stump, keeping her leg straightened and away from being bumped. 

 

Silently, she reaches up to start undressing her, hesitating as her fingers graze the bottom of Jackie's shirt. It's slightly torn at the edges and dirty beyond even those first few days they'd been stranded. Lottie is almost afraid to see what sorts of cuts and bruises are hiding under the stained cloth.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jackie mumbles, her head bowed and her eyes closed. She’d noticed the way Lottie trembled, the way she hesitated. Lottie hasn’t eaten, hasn’t slept. She’s in pain, too, and it’s all Jackie’s fault. 

 

Lottie shakes her head. It's not Jackie's fault. It's Ben's. All the pain they're both going through is because of him. 

 

She blinks away some unfallen tears and lifts Jackie's shirt up and off. She makes a quiet, choked sound at the sight of the brushing along Jackie's torso. It's nothing as severe as her leg, but it still makes Lottie ache. Her fingers ghost over the skin, a silent apology for not being there, for letting this happen. 

 

Jackie presses her lips to Lottie’s jaw. “‘M okay. Only hurts a little.” She’s just happy to be back with Lottie. That makes everything worth it. That makes climbing out of the pit, being dragged across the forest, huffing toxic fumes, hobbling back, all of it’s worth it to be back with Lottie. She thinks she’d walk through hell for Lottie.

 

Lottie doesn’t think it’s okay at all. It makes something deep inside of her roil and burn. She swallows the thick lump in her throat, shaky fingers brushing down Jackie’s bare skin. “Do you think you’ll be okay to take your pants off?” she asks. 

 

She’ll have to be careful, so careful. She doesn’t want to hurt Jackie anymore than she already is.

 

“I think so,” Jackie tells her, leaning into Lottie’s touch. “It’d be nice to at least get one leg clean. D’you think my dad’s health insurance covers broken bones in the middle of nowhere?” She pauses. “Think Misty’d take it?”

 

Lottie gives a watery laugh, shaking her head. “I think she’ll take anything anyone will give her.” Breathing in deep, Lottie reaches to undo the button on Jackie’s pants, wishing this were a completely different situation. She wants to be undressing her girlfriend in a happy situation, in a situation where she can take her time for a good reason. Where she can touch her and kiss her and show her just how much she loves her with just her mouth and hands.

 

Carefully, so, so carefully, Lottie starts tugging Jackie’s shorts down, urging her to lift her hips enough to help a little. “Sorry,” she murmurs as she tries to maneuver the cloth over the makeshift cast Misty put on her leg as her fingers tremble. She feels terrible. She hates this. She hates that someone did this to Jackie. 

 

She swallows the anger rising in her throat like bile.

 

“It’s not your fault, Lott,” Jackie says, moving to help. She’s a little embarrassed that she can’t do this herself. She likes when Lottie takes off her clothes, but there’s not anything particularly sexy about this. “Come here.” She moves to tug at Lottie’s clothes. She gets that nothing’s going to happen, but Lottie’s almost as dirty as she is. They could both use this.

 

Jackie tugs at her and something inside Lottie breaks.

 

She’s wrong, it’s all Lottie’s fault. She should’ve gone with her, she should’ve told her to stay with her. She should’ve known something would happen. It had been too good for too long. She’s quiet but she’s crying and she can’t help it and she can’t make it stop. Her whole body trembles as she lays her head in Jackie’s lap, on her good leg, and sobs.

 

“Hey, hey, I’m okay. I’m okay.” And maybe Jackie isn’t at one hundred percent, but she’s there. She came back. “It’s not your fault. It’s not. You’re the reason I’m here. I promised. I promised.” She leans forward, cradling Lottie’s head and curling up as much as she can to protect Lottie. “I had to get back to you. Nothing… Nothing else mattered. Nothing else matters.”

 

Lottie can’t get words out, they’re all jumbled in her head. Jackie is there but Lottie is still worried it’s just a terrible dream. She’s worried it’s just another hallucination. She’s terrified she’ll wake up without Jackie, that someone will take her from her again. She’s terrified Jackie is already gone. She still sees her dead body. 

 

“I thought you were dead,” she stutters through heaving breaths, “I saw-- I thought-- you were gone.”

 

Jackie takes one of Lottie’s hands and presses it to her pulse. “I’m here. I’m sorry I took so long, but I’m here, and-and alive, and maybe a little worse for wear, but I’m here.”

 

Lottie grips Jackie’s pulse and feels it pumping under her palm. She tries to breathe in time with it, tries to hold back the shuddering sobs stuck in her chest. “You’re here,” she says out loud, reminds herself, makes it real. Speaks it into existence. Jackie is there and she’s alive and she came back to Lottie. 

 

She sits back up and cups Jackie’s face and looks into her eyes and convinces herself it’s real. It has to be. “I thought-- I thought It took you from me. I thought--” she thought she was going to be alone again. She doesn’t want to be alone anymore. “I’m sorry. I stopped looking. I’m sorry.”

 

It. Jackie doesn’t actually have to ask what “it” is. Maybe it’s real. Maybe it tried. Jackie doesn’t think she cares. “It can’t have me. I’m yours.” She leans forward and presses a kiss to Lottie’s lips. “It’s okay. I don’t want you to hurt yourself for me.” She looks at Lottie’s hand and frowns softly. “I guess I was too late.”

 

Lottie closes her eyes and tries her best to calm her breathing, matching Jackie’s. Lets the feeling of her soft, chapped lips fill her with the relief she’d been so desperate to feel. 

 

Opening her eyes, Lottie looks down at her wrapped hand. She barely remembers doing that to herself. She remembers Shauna and Laura Lee and the pain and grief that had rushed through her at the thought of Jackie being dead. She remembers her own reflection and the river and blood as the knife pierced through her skin. 

 

She reaches over and slowly undoes the bandage-- it’s dirty and covered in dried blood, anyway-- letting it drop to the ground next to them. She thinks it looks worse than it feels. She can’t feel it. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, the gash in her palm overlapped by the spot where the knife had dug out a hole. “I just wanted you back.”

 

Jackie’s eyes fill with tears as she looks at the wound. “I– I…” She doesn’t know what to say. She hates that Lottie hurt herself for her. She hates that Lottie hurts herself. “Please don’t do this again. I hate it.” Her own hand trembles as it takes Lottie’s, and she brings it to her lips, pressing a feather-light kiss to Lottie’s fingers. 

 

“I’ll always come back to you,” she whispers. “Nothing could keep me away. I choose you. I love you, and I choose you.”

 

Lottie’s lip quivers. She nods. “Okay.” She won’t do it anymore, for Jackie. Because she asked. Because Lottie would do anything for her, including this. Including hurt herself. She doesn’t want to hurt herself anymore. She nods again. “She said it wasn’t enough but I-- I love you, too. So much. I love you. I swear. I promise. It’s enough, right?” She’s begging, she’s begging. “Am I enough?” 

 

“Lottie, who said that wasn’t enough?” Jackie asks, feeling something cold and awful squeezing in her chest. She throws her arms around Lottie and tugs her close. “You’re everything.” She’ll tell Lottie that as much as she needs to. She hopes Lottie understands. She hopes it doesn’t take much convincing.

 

“I-- that I love you a-and that you love me. She said-- she told me it didn’t matter.” Lottie’s head hurts again. It hasn’t stopped. She burrows into Jackie. Holds her tight in her arms. “I-I’m yours. I promise. I’m yours.” She doesn’t want to be anyone’s but Jackie’s. 

 

She doesn’t want to belong to the Wilderness.

 

“It’s- it’s the only thing that matters,” Jackie says quietly. It’s the only reason she was still there. It’s the only reason she’d pushed and pushed and pushed to get back, to keep living, to not give up. “I need you.”

 

“You promised.” Lottie tries to calm her breathing more. She’s trying so hard to not panic. “I-- you want to stay, right? You want that? With me? I-- you don’t want to leave me?”

 

Jackie holds Lottie tighter. “I want to stay with you. I won’t leave you again, okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Never again.”

 

Lottie wants to believe her. She wants to believe her so badly, but the dark, cruel voice of Shauna Shipman keeps reminding her, in the back of her head, that Jackie had wanted to die. Jackie hadn’t wanted to stay with Lottie, she’d wanted to be with Shauna. 

 

“You-- you want stay with me, right? You don’t want to-- you don’t want to die anymore, right?”

 

“I don’t want to die anymore,” Jackie murmurs. “There was– In the caves, there’s this part that’s got these nasty fumes, the kind that makes you see things. But I had to get back to you. Nothing mattered but getting to you.”

 

Lottie can’t help but ask, “What did you see?” Did she see Lottie? Or did she see Shauna? 

 

Jackie stays quiet for a moment before she tells the truth: “We were at the lake, but you couldn’t come in. I– I tried to get to you, but Shauna… she held me back. And I kept trying, but you- you walked away. But I tried. Coach Scott pulled me out before it was too late.”

 

“I-- I wouldn’t. I would never-- I won’t walk away, I wouldn’t.” Lottie feels a little desperate. She needs Jackie to know she would never walk away from her. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

 

“Please don’t,” Jackie whispers. “Please.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I won’t. I won’t. I promise. I won’t.” 

 

Pulling back, Jackie faces Lottie, brushing her thumb over Lottie’s cheek before leaning in for another kiss, slow and deep and full of all her love. She knows Lottie’s going through something awful. Maybe Jackie’s pretty shaken, too. But this is real. It’s the only real thing left, and Jackie will do anything to convince Lottie of that.

 

The kiss isn’t just something desperate, it’s something needy. It’s something full of every feeling they’re both experiencing. It’s everything and more and Lottie leans into it just as desperately, wrapping her arms around Jackie and pulling herself to her. 

 

All Jackie wants is to keep Lottie close. She relaxes into the kiss, and she’s still so tired and gross feeling, but all of that seems to fall away when she has her lips pressed against Lottie’s. Nothing really matters except for this. Jackie came back. She came back for Lottie, and she’ll keep coming back for her. As long as Lottie wants her, Jackie will be there.

 

Lottie wants her forever. She wants to be Jackie’s forever. She presses in more to the kiss, tangles her hands in Jackie’s hair and brushes her tongue along her lips. She knows she needs to be careful, to be gentle with her, but she just wants to taste her. She needs to know it’s real.

 

It’s kind of terrible, but Jackie doesn’t really give a fuck about her leg at this point. All she cares about is Lottie. She easily parts her lips, letting Lottie’s tongue slide into her mouth, so fucking grateful she didn’t eat any of Coach Scott’s disgusting bat. Her hands slide under Lottie’s shirt, asking her to tug it off without words.

 

Lottie reaches down and pulls her shirt off, parting for only a moment from Jackie’s lips to throw it off her head before she’s back to kissing Jackie, hands going to her bare skin to pull her body against Jackie’s. She’s still on her knees, digging into the dirt, but she doesn’t care. She’d beg on her hands and knees if that’s what Jackie wanted.

 

Jackie knows that they came out this way to wash off, but that’s really the least of her worries at this point. She’s so comforted by the way that Lottie’s skin feels against her own, warm and soft even now, that she just wants to keep kissing and touching. She wants to curl up on Lottie’s lap and melt into her skin. She wants to never leave. When Jackie pulls away, her head is spinning, but she doesn’t care. “I want to be with you,” she whispers. “I want to. I want to.” She needs to, too, but that’s already been established, she thinks. Wants are choices. Jackie made a choice, and it was Lottie.

 

Nodding, Lottie stands enough to shuck off her pants and underwear before she picks Jackie back up and walks them into the water. It’ll be easier for her to hold onto Jackie in there and Jackie won’t have to put weight on her leg. 

 

Because Lottie wants her, too. No, Lottie needs her. She shows her that by crashing their lips together again and licking into Jackie’s mouth, holding onto her tightly. “I want you, too,” Lottie whispers against her. “I need you.” 

 

The cool water feels so good on Jackie’s skin, even if it weighs down her leg. She wastes no time wrapping her arms around Lottie’s neck, hands in her hair. She only pulls back to breathe, staring at the strand of saliva that connects them before lapping it up. “Say I’m yours,” she begs. 

 

“You’re mine,” Lottie says immediately. She’s hers and Lottie is Jackie’s. “You’re mine.”

 

“I’m yours,” Jackie agrees, sighing contently. 

 

Lottie presses their lips back together, scrapes her teeth against her bottom lip before sucking on it. Fingers dig into Jackie’s back. She wants her. She loves her. She needs her.

 

Jackie moans softly against Lottie’s lips, her head feeling light and fuzzy. The effects of whatever was in that tea are still floating around her system, but she’s okay with fighting it. Her lips part as an invitation. Slowly, she moves enough to brush their chests together. 

 

Lottie’s tongue slips back into Jackie’s mouth, licking against her tongue, too. She’d missed the taste of her. It had only been three days. It had been so long. She was used to falling asleep in Jackie’s arms, used to kissing her good night and kissing her good morning. She was used to this, bare skin against bare skin, chests pressed together, warm and comforting. 

 

Her arm wraps around Jackie’s back to hold in her place, the other cupping her cheek. She presses into the kiss desperately, savoring the taste. She thinks it’ll fix every broken part inside of her if she lets it.

 

That was the longest that Jackie and Lottie had been separated since they’d gotten together, and Jackie doesn’t want to do that ever again. She can’t do this without Lottie anymore. She can’t exist without Lottie anymore. She doesn’t want to. 

 

It feels so good to have Lottie hold her, and Jackie feels like she’s melting into Lottie’s touch, into her kiss. She wants to live in this moment. She needs to. Her hands dig into Lottie’s hair, and she sighs happily at the feeling of the soft strands.

 

Lottie can’t stop kissing Jackie, she doesn’t want to. She nips at her lips, kisses down to the side of her mouth, to her jaw, taking in the flavor of her skin, how it tastes earthy and salty and yet still like Jackie. It’s Jackie. She kisses her neck and sighs into her pulse, wrapping her lips around it and letting it beat against her tongue. Real, real, real.

 

Jackie lets out a breathy sigh. Her good foot touches the riverbed, helping to keep her held up as she presses in closer and tilts her head for Lottie’s mouth. She lets the water clean her hands, washing away the blood and dirt before she starts running her fingers all over Lottie’s body. She stops at her chest, touching and massaging, wanting to make Lottie feel good. Jackie wants to apologize for being gone for so long. She never wants to be gone that long again.

 

Lottie sinks a little lower into the water, letting the chill of it cool her body off, washing away the sweat and ache and panic that had been coating her skin for the last three days. She’d so desperately missed Jackie, all she wants is to touch her and feel her and hold her. Taste her, hear her, love her. Her breath stutters in her chest at the feeling of hands touching her. She can’t help the tears that start to form in her eyes. She’d thought, if even just briefly, that she’d never get to have this again. That she’d lost this, lost Jackie, lost the only thing that ever mattered to her. 

 

She wraps her lips around a spot on Jackie’s neck and sucks. Kisses, teeths gently. She’s too afraid to bite down, too afraid to hurt her when she’s already in so much pain. She just wants Jackie to know it’s still real. It’s so real.

 

“‘S good,” Jackie slurs out. It’s so good. She loves the way that Lottie’s mouth feels on her, and she loves the way that Lottie reacts to her touch. Jackie keeps it light as she feels sensitive skin pebbling under her palms before she focuses there. Her fingers pinching, her thumbs circling. It’s just slow and sloppy. She gets tired from holding her head up so she presses it against Lottie. Jackie sighs happily. “I missed you. Not just this. Missed you.”

 

Lottie shudders under Jackie’s touch, pressing lips against Jackie’s temple. She lets her head rest on her shoulder, back arching into Jackie’s touch. “I missed you, too,” Lottie sighs, “so much. All of it. All of you.” So fucking much it hurt. She doesn’t say that, she thinks Jackie knows. 

 

She lets her free hand drift down between them, tracing gently along her stomach. “I’m here,” she murmurs, “you’re here.” They’re together again and Lottie isn’t ever going to leave her again.

 

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m yours,” Jackie says softly. She’s Lottie’s, and she has been for a long time now. It feels like it, at least. It feels like forever. She doesn’t know how to live without this anymore. 

 

“Mine,” Lottie repeats, nuzzling back against Jackie’s pulse. She kisses it as she lets her hand dip between Jackie’s legs, feeling her warmth even through the cool water. Jackie was hers, no matter what anyone said. Like this, she’s just Lottie’s.

 

“Yes,” Jackie whispers. She’s Lottie’s. She shivers, sighs, wraps her arms tight around Lottie. It’s annoying that she can’t move her legs the way that she wants to. It’s not fair. But she tries to make up for it by wrapping her arms around Lottie and spreading her fingers. Her hands brush all over Lottie’s skin, taking her in. 

 

Yes. Yes, she her’s. And Lottie is Jackie’s. It doesn’t matter what anyone says to her. Real or not, dead or alive. This is the most true thing Lottie knows-- they are each other’s. “I’m yours,” she whispers into Jackie’s ear. “I’m only yours.” She moves her hand between Jackie’s legs, holding onto her tightly, shivering under her touch. 

 

“Mine,” Jackie says. Lottie’s hers. She won’t walk away. She won’t leave Jackie alone. She won’t walk away just because of a fight and go out into the cold forever. A soft moan works its way out of her throat, and she sighs. “Slow. I wanna… wanna feel you.” She presses a kiss to Lottie’s cheek, her jaw.

 

Lottie nods. She can do that. She can do whatever Jackie wants. She wants to. She moves her hand slowly, fingers delicate but purposeful, letting Jackie feel every movement. She sighs against her, lips brushing against the side of her head. 

 

Feeling her breath stutter, Jackie’s eyes flutter shut. “I love you,” she whispers. “I love you. I love you.” And this is what she wants because she can feel Lottie. Her hips move, wanting to feel Lottie deeper. Slow and sweet and comforting. It’s perfect. Everything about Lottie is so perfect.

 

“I love you, too,” Lottie breathes, “so much.” As Jackie’s hips move into her touch, she presses in more, sliding two fingers inside of her, still taking her time, going slow, letting Jackie feel each and every movement. 

 

Jackie shudders and moans. A few tears slip down her cheeks. It’s good. It’s so good. She missed Lottie so much. Now that she’s got her, Jackie never wants to let Lottie go. She hopes she never has to let her go again. 

 

Lottie kisses some of Jackie’s tears away, keeping a slow, tender pace between her legs. She wants her to feel her so deeply it’ll never go away. She’ll never stop feeling Lottie’s touch, even if they’re apart. She never wants to be apart from her again. 

 

“You’re so good,” Jackie moans. “Lottie.” She moves with Lottie, and it’s slow and aching and perfect. It’s everything she needs. It’s everything she wants. Jackie feels like she matters. She feels like she belongs, and all those fears that had preyed on her when they were apart seem to be washing away. She brushes a hand through Lottie’s hair and uses it to tilt Lottie’s face to her own, lips to lips, sinking into a slow, wet kiss. 

 

All Lottie can do is lean into the kiss. It’s all she wants to do, all she cares to do. All that matters. Jackie is all that matters in this moment. In every moment, really. She kisses her back, parts her lips for Jackie, licks into her, tastes her again and again. She curls her fingers, slow and sweet. “I love you,” she slurs against Jackie’s mouth, “I love you so much.” 

 

“I love you, too.” It’s all they can really seem to say. Jackie doesn’t mind. Those are quickly becoming her favorite words. She’s always loved to hear them, but, god, it feels so good to say them, too. It feels so good to know that no one’s going to try and stop her. Lottie is so sweet and soft and lovely. How could Jackie not love her? She doesn’t understand how anyone couldn’t. Then again, she’s drunk off the way Lottie touches and kisses her. Maybe she’s a little biased.

 

It’s all Lottie can think about. How much she loves Jackie. How much she wants to hold her like this. How much she’d longed to do it. How terrified she’d been she’d never get to do it again. Never get to hold her again. To hear her sigh her name, or call it out. To hear her moan as Lottie fucks her, touches her right. It feels almost too good to be true. But she knows it is. She knows.

 

It’s such a soft, sweet, real moment. Jackie thinks it’s what they both need. They’re both injured and hungry and exhausted, and they’ve both driven themselves mad worrying about the other, but, at this moment, there’s nothing else that matters. Lottie feels so good. She always makes Jackie feel so good. Jackie moans quietly, happily, panting into Lottie’s mouth as she smiles against her lips.

 

As Lottie can feel Jackie’s smile, she finds herself smiling, too. She’s still exhausted and her mind is still cloudy, but Jackie is home and so the rest of it will fix itself in time. She has to believe that. She does. Jackie being back, being real, will fix her.

 

She keeps her pace steady, moving her hand in long, slow strokes, pressing all the way into Jackie before pulling back out, her other hand splayed against her back, holding their bodies together.

 

“God,” Jackie moans. “Lottie. Lottie.” It’s so good. Nothing in the world’s ever felt so good. Nothing else will ever compare. They’re both so tired, and it shows, but it’s still wonderful, and it still makes Jackie’s toes curl. Well, it’s more of a twitch on her bad leg, but it’s nice to know she can move everything, even if it hurts. Jackie tugs Lottie even closer, sighing against her mouth.

 

Lottie doesn’t think she’d mind if this moment just lasted forever, even with all the pain and exhaustion and hunger. Because the rest of it is everything she’s always wanted. Jackie in her arms, sighing her name, kissing her. Sure, they’ve been like this so many times before, but right now, it feels like the most amazing thing in the world. Because she’d almost lost this. Just a few days ago she’d been in bliss, only to have it ripped away from her.

 

Never again. She would never let anyone take Jackie from her again. And right now, she takes her time, savoring every movement and feeling and sigh, swallowing soft moans and her name on Jackie’s breath. 

 

Jackie’s pleasure comes slow, at first, and then all at once, making her gasp into Lottie’s mouth. She tries to keep kissing, but her mouth just ends up moving sloppily against Lottie’s own. It’s just so good. She likes how close they are, how good it feels. It’s beautiful. Lottie is beautiful.

 

“You’re… so good,” Jackie mumbles, slumping forward even more. Her head rests against Lottie’s chest. “I love you so much. Not just– not just because of this. Just love you a lot.”

 

Lottie wraps Jackie back up in her arms, lays her own head on top of Jackie's and lets her listen to Lottie's heartbeat. It's a little off kilter, thudding against her sternum, uneven but steady. “I love you, too,” she reiterates, and she'll repeat it again and again until everyone knows it's true if she has to. And she knows Jackie loves her back, she does, even if voices try to tell her otherwise. 

 

Sometimes she just needs to be reminded. This is always a good way. Just holding Jackie works, too, and Lottie can feel herself relaxing even as she continues to curl herself around Jackie like a protective barrier. 

 

Even if she's still so worried someone will try and take her away again.

 

Jackie’s content enough to be held, the cool water and Lottie’s warm body soothing. She savors every thudding beat of Lottie’s heart, let’s it pump through her, sweet and real. Lottie’s real. She’s real, and it’s wonderful.

 

They stay like that for several minutes, just holding each other, before Jackie softly says, “We should probably rinse off.” That was, after all, what they’d came for.

 

Lottie doesn't want this moment to end, but she knows it has to. She still feels a little wild, raw with her worry, but she pushes it down and nods, pulling away just enough to press her lips to Jackie's forehead, brushing a hand through her hair. It still trembles and there's fresh blood welling up around the hole in her palm, the old cracked, dried blood washed away in the water. 

 

“Oh, baby,” Jackie murmurs, taking Lottie’s hand as she looks it over again, wincing. It’s so painful to look at; Jackie can’t even imagine what it feels like. “My poor Lottie. I’m so sorry.” It was Jackie’s fault. Lottie did it because Jackie was gone, and now she’s hurt. “I’m so sorry.”

 

Lottie feels a spike of shame as Jackie takes her hand and she looks away. “It doesn't hurt,” she mumbles. It's not nearly as painful as she thinks Jackie's leg is. That's a real injury, that's something that deserves sympathy over. 

 

She curls her fingers into her palm to try and cover the wound. “How does your leg feel?”

 

Pressing a kiss to Lottie’s fingers, Jackie doesn’t quite believe that it doesn’t hurt, but she doesn’t say anything about that. “We still need to keep it covered. I don’t want it to get infected.” She shrugs. Her leg moves through the water as she slowly bends the knee. “The water feels nice. The, uh, splint and cloth getting wet’s made it heavy, but it’s better. I’m just… tired.”

 

Lottie just nods. She will-- or, at least, Misty will make sure she does. 

 

“Don't move it too much,” she says, feeling Jackie shift under the water. 

 

Lottie lets out a long breath. “Yeah, me too.” She's fucking exhausted, really, but she's still afraid to sleep too long. She folds Jackie back into her arms. “We can sleep again soon.”

 

Humming, Jackie leans forward, trying not to move too much. “Sorry,” she mumbles. She’s looking forward to sleeping again, to curling up in Lottie’s arms and knowing that she’ll be there when Jackie wakes up. She could go to sleep right now, in the water. Lottie’s just so comforting. Sweet and solid and real. And Jackie’s. Lottie is Jackie’s. 

 

Jackie groans. “Soon. Just gotta… group meeting, I guess,” she says. Hopefully it will be quick. It’s not like they’re going to kill Coach Scott. Besides, he brought Jackie back. That counts for something, right? 

 

Lottie’s body subconsciously stiffens at the mention of it. She holds Jackie tighter. “Yeah.” She wants to skip it, really. She doesn’t think she can look Coach Scott in the face and be okay after everything that had happened. After he had taken Jackie from her and never actually intended to bring her back. 

 

The thought makes her shiver again and she presses her face into Jackie’s neck. She doesn’t want her to get taken away again. She’s so afraid it’s going to happen again.

 

“Meeting and then sleep,” Jackie murmurs, relaxing into Lottie’s hold. Her lips press against Lottie’s collarbone. “Sleep and not getting up. You’re gonna get tired of me.”

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I could never “ She would never. If it wasn't impractical, Lottie thinks she could spend every minute of every day with Jackie and still miss her. She's never felt this way about someone before, it still scares her sometimes. But she's so much more afraid of losing her again, for good, that it makes her want to never leave her side. 

 

“You’re sweet,” Jackie tells her. She worries, though, that, after this, Lottie’s just going to get sick of spending time with her. She’ll grow tired of Jackie, she’ll get that Jackie’s too much, too needy, too selfish. But she likes Jackie now. Maybe that’s enough, Jackie thinks, stopping her kisses and instead nibbling on Lottie’s collarbone.

 

“It's the truth.” Lottie wants Jackie to believe her, to know in her bones that Lottie could never get tired of her. Ever. It's not something Lottie can fathom, not when being with Jackie feels more like a need than breathing or sleeping or eating. 

 

Her eyes slip closed and she lets out a slow breath, the feeling of Jackie's teeth scraping gently on her skin making her shiver pleasantly. Every way Jackie makes Lottie feel is the best feeling ever, she thinks. It's something so deep inside of her. Something she can't live without.

 

Jackie laughs against Lottie’s skin. “Still sweet.” It’s also sweet, the way Lottie shivers when Jackie touches her. She wants to make Lottie feel good. God, she likes it just as much as she likes when Lottie touches her. It’s nice to make someone feel good and know that they like it because it’s her, not just because she’s there. 

 

“If you say so.” Lottie just lays her head back on Jackie’s shoulder, sighing contentedly. She’s getting cold but she doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to get out of the water. It’s nice to be able to hold Jackie like this without having to strain or feeling the way her body trembles now. She feels like leaving this moment will break whatever spell of peace that’s come over them and she desperately wants to hang onto it.

 

Closing her lips, Jackie sucks on Lottie’s collarbone and pulls her closer, pressing them flush together. It’s a bit of a balancing act, but it’s easier to do this standing right now than to figure it out later out of the water. Jackie doesn’t know if she’s going to be awake long enough when they get back to do what she wants. She needs to make the most of this, right here, right now. Her hand slips between them, pressing between Lottie’s legs, ghosting over her thighs.

 

A shiver of pleasure runs up Lottie’s spine, into her chest, warmth spreading out like a slow leak. Her hips move into Jackie’s touch almost subconsciously, seeking out Jackie’s touch, her affection. She loves the feeling of her. She loves that Jackie likes touching her. That she seems to crave it as much as Lottie does. Like they just can’t keep their hands off each other. 

 

And, really, they can’t. Lottie doesn’t care to try. She wants this all the time, to feel the reassuring weight of her lover in her arms or laying on top of her, beside her. She just needs it. It’s her only real medication out here. It’s the only kind she wants.

 

Jackie uses her other hand to keep herself held up, pressed against Lottie as she teases. Featherlight touches, slow and methodical, brush against Lottie’s skin, not quite touching where Lottie wants it. Where Jackie wants it, too. She’s teasing both of them in a way. 

 

She just wants to drag this out. She can’t help it. There’s something so lovely about the way that Lottie leans into her, the way that she shivers. It makes Jackie’s head swim. She’s okay with that, too. Finally, though, she pushes two fingers inside, savoring how warm Lottie is, inside and out. 

 

Lottie doesn’t think she’d mind if all Jackie did was tease her like this. Every touch was so light and inviting. So wanting. So needy. Lottie feels that way, too. She leans into it more, into Jackie, keeping her arms wrapped around her, unwilling to let go. She’s not going to let go if she can help it.

 

Her body shudders and she inhales sharply, hips moving into Jackie’s touch. God, she loves her. So much. She’d been so terrified, truly afraid she’d lost her. But she had her now. She has her. She sighs her name, brushes her lips against Jackie’s shoulder.

 

“You’re so pretty,” Jackie whispers, her eyes fluttering closed as she moves against Lottie, savoring the way that Lottie moves into her, the way she sighs so sweetly. “And you’re so warm.” 

 

Jackie has called Lottie pretty a hundred times over but every time, it makes Lottie blush. Plenty of people have told Lottie she’s pretty, but only Jackie says it like it’s a real thing. It only matters to Lottie when Jackie says it. She exhales against her skin, feeling the chill of it under her lips. She loves the way her cool skin compliments Lottie’s warmth. Lottie’s always been warm with no one to share it with.

 

Now, she has Jackie. She wraps her arms around Jackie’s shoulders and feels skin against skin. “You feel so good,” she murmurs.

 

“Good. Good.” Jackie thinks the same. She thinks Lottie feels so good, kind of perfect. She loves it when they’re this close, when they’re inside each other. It’s not even just about sex, although the sex is amazing. It’s closeness and intimacy, feeling so connected and real. Jackie just never thought she’d get something like this. She never thought it’d feel so nice. 

 

Lottie thinks that if she could, she’d crawl inside of Jackie and stay there forever. She wants to be with her forever. She’d let Jackie carve her out and hold her together if she wanted. She wants it. She wants her, only her. Wants to feel like this all the time. 

 

She rolls her hips into Jackie’s hand, letting herself take in every small feeling that comes with it. A breathy moan leaves her throat. She wants Jackie to know how good she makes her feel. She makes her feel like the most important thing in the world.

 

Jackie moans quietly along with Lottie, feeling her own skin heat up just from her movement. It’s just so good. It’s so good to know that she can make Lottie feel like this. She’s always thought she was good at making people feel good. Or, at least Jeff (and Shauna never complained when they kissed). But that had been simple, different. Not this. It’s nice that Lottie seems to think Jackie’s good at this. She curls her fingers, adds another. Her other hand is focused on making sure she’s stable, wrapped around Lottie, but she presses her lips against soft skin once again and sucks.

 

Lottie feels herself shudder again, breath coming up quicker. “Jackie,” she moans, face pressed to her neck. Louder still as Jackie’s mouth wraps around some of Lottie’s skin. As Lottie feels another finger slipping inside of her. It makes her head swim, dizzy with the feeling. Drunk on how Jackie makes her feel. Wanting more of her, needing it. She stutters, inhales, moans into her skin. Fingers curling up into Jackie’s hair. “So good,” she slurs, “I-- need you.” She needs her. She can’t survive without her. She doesn’t want to try. “Please.”

 

“I’m right here,” Jackie whispers. “Right here. I’m not going anywhere.” And she won’t. Never again. She’ll be right where Lottie can see her, where she can see Lottie, and she’ll make her feel so good. So fucking good all the time that she won’t even think about hurting herself again. Jackie doesn’t want Lottie to ever think about hurting herself again. She bites down on Lottie’s neck, not hard but enough for her to feel it. 

 

Lottie gasps, rolling her head to the side to give Jackie more room. The feeling rolls down her spine and into the pit of her stomach, between her legs, making her moan. She can feel it building, more and more, but she wants to hold onto it, just a little longer. She wants to stay here with Jackie, just like this. “Stay,” she begs, pleads, “stay with me.” She doesn’t want her to leave again.

 

Jackie presses open mouthed kisses against Lottie’s skin. “I will. I promise.” She keeps moving against her, keeps touching Lottie and holding her and loving her. God, she really, really loves her. She’s never loved anyone like this. She’s never let herself. “I promise.”

 

She’d promised. She’d promised to stay and then she’d left Lottie and Lottie hadn’t known what to do. She doesn’t want to think about that right now. She just wants to let herself get lost in the feeling of Jackie holding her and kissing her and fucking her. And it builds inside of her as she buries her face against Jackie’s shoulder, the tension like a wire, pulling and pulling until finally it snaps and Lottie cries out, holding onto Jackie tightly. Tighter. She doesn’t want to let go. She doesn’t want to let her go.

 

“You promised.” She’s panting and it’s not just from her release. There’s tears on her face. “You promised.” She’d promised she wouldn’t leave her and then she hadn’t come back and Lottie hadn’t known what to do. She still didn’t know what to do except hold her.

 

There’s a difference in Lottie’s voice that lets Jackie know that something’s wrong, and she pulls back. Her own eyes are glassy. “I know. I’m sorry.” She thinks she’ll be sorry the rest of her life. She thinks she’ll be sorry every time she sees Lottie’s hand. It’s worse than the scar on her forehead to Jackie. Jackie can’t just ignore this. She’s too close to Lottie now. There’s no separation between the two of them like there had been before. 

 

“Never again,” Jackie murmurs. “I’ll never leave you again.”

 

Lottie hadn’t meant to break down like this. She had wanted to stay in the warm peace that they’d found in the water, in each other’s arms. She wants to stay in the place where Jackie never left her that morning and Lottie never had to imagine a world without her. “Please,” she begs again, quieter, her voice broken, “please don’t leave me.”

 

“I won’t. I won’t. I’m gonna follow you everywhere. You’re gonna get sick of me.” Jackie moves her hand from between Lottie’s legs and holds onto her, tight. Lottie’s going to get sick of Jackie hobbling after her, but she’ll do it for the rest of their lives. She’s not going anywhere ever again.

 

Lottie shakes her head. “I won’t.” She won’t, she knows she won’t. She can already feel panic building at just the thought of Jackie being gone again. She wants to believe her. She wants to believe that Jackie won’t ever leave her again. 

 

There’s still a small voice of doubt in her head, one that sounds too similar to Shauna Shipman’s. Do you really think that’s enough?

 

“Even when I follow you to the bathroom?” Jackie manages to tease, though there’s a slight sniffle in her voice.

 

Lottie just nods. Even then. She wants Jackie to be with her in every moment, with every breath. She’s so afraid if she lets go again, Jackie will disappear for good. “Stay with me.”

 

Sighing quietly, a happy and relieved sound, Jackie presses a kiss to Lottie’s chin. “Okay. I won’t go anywhere. I’m yours. I’m yours.”

 

Circling Jackie back up in her arms, Lottie burrows against her. She believes her, she does. She has to. She thinks she might die if she doesn’t. She has to believe her. “I’m yours,” she repeats, “I’m yours, too. I promise.” 

 

Holding Lottie tight, Jackie can’t do anything but agree. “I promise.” She’ll do whatever Lottie wants, whatever she needs. Anything to make sure that they’re both okay. Jackie is more than aware of the fact that she can’t do this without Lottie, that she can’t be okay if Lottie’s not okay. 

 

Eventually, Lottie shifts her head and glances over at the riverbed to see a new pile of clothes waiting for them. Nat must’ve snuck them over and Lottie just feels a little bad, relying on her so much when she has so much on her shoulders already.

 

She leans her forehead against Jackie’s. “We should probably head out.”

 

“I think I’m getting kind of wrinkly,” Jackie agrees. Even if she doesn’t want to get out. The water’s so soothing, especially on her leg, and she knows it’s going to hurt worse when she gets out. She’s ready for it to stop hurting. She’s getting pretty tired of it, actually.

 

Nodding, Lottie grips Jackie against her and hooks an arm under her legs, trying her best not to bump the broken one before she starts heading for the river bank, holding onto Jackie tightly. Her legs shake as she walks them up to where Nat has left them clean clothes, setting Jackie down as carefully as possible on the tree stump. 

 

She feels exhausted and heavy, arms like lead, but she bends down and picks up the blanket they use for a towel and wraps it around Jackie. She doesn’t say much, her mind feels tired and she can’t think very well, but she methodically moves to help Jackie dry off, afraid that stopping will have her breaking down again. She doesn’t want to do that again.

 

Jackie tries to help Lottie where she can, moving her arms and helping to towel herself off. She can practically feel how exhausted Lottie is. They’ll get to rest soon. Hopefully, Lottie can rest soon. After whatever meeting Nat wants to have. Jackie’s leg probably needs to be redone in dry wraps. Or maybe it’ll just dry out on its own. She remembers when Dave Madison broke his arm and ended up in a cast, and he hadn’t been allowed to get it wet at all. But this was different.

 

Worried, she murmurs to Lottie as she gets her clothes on, “I can probably walk back if you let me lean on you. So you don’t have to carry me all the way back. I don’t want you to over do it.”

 

Once Jackie is dry, Lottie does her best to dry herself off, wringing out her wet hair as much as she can. It still feels heavy, but she thinks she can manage. She tugs on her shirt and pants before turning back to help Jackie. 

 

She shakes her head. “I’ll be okay.” She doesn’t want to make Jackie walk if she doesn’t have to. They don’t have a crutch for her yet and Lottie thinks that they’ll have to shave down the one Lottie had used all those months ago so that it’s the right height for Jackie. It shouldn’t be too hard.

 

“Come here,” Jackie says, holding her hand out for the blanket so that she can take it and motioning for Lottie to move closer so that she can wring out her hair a little more. Jackie knows how heavy it can be. It just holds water like a sponge, all thick and soft. Jackie just wants to bury her face in it most of the time.

 

As she lets Lottie help her with her clothes, Jackie sighs softly. “I just… don’t want you to get too tired. You’re already overdoing it.”

 

Lottie does as she’s bid and crawls over to Jackie, sitting next to her on the ground. She rests her head on Jackie’s good leg again, wrapping her arm around it. “I know.” She knows but she doesn’t think it matters. She doesn’t want anyone else to be near Jackie right now, she’s too afraid they’ll try and take her away. She doesn’t want to let go of her for the same reason.

 

“It’s just one more time,” she reassures her, “we can make you a better crutch tomorrow morning.”

 

“I don’t think I want you near any knives,” Jackie says softly, attempting a tease even if it falls flat. “Someone else can worry about the crutch. Just stay with me, alright?” She leans forward to press a kiss to the crown of Lottie’s head. “Just stay with me.”

 

Lottie half frowns. She’s too tired to feel upset by the tease. She knows Jackie doesn’t mean it that way, anyway. Still. “I didn’t mean to.” She’d lost control of herself in those last few moments before Nat had found her. She’d blacked out and when she’d come to, there was a knife pierced through her hand. She knew she’d done it to herself but she hadn’t cared. She still doesn’t.

 

“Okay,” Lottie says quietly, “I’ll stay with you.”

 

Jackie kisses Lottie’s hair again, brushing her fingers through it. “I know you didn’t mean to. I just…” She takes a deep breath in and a deep breath out. “Worry.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Lottie murmurs. She hadn’t meant to. She doesn’t want Jackie to worry. It seems like the only thing she can do is make Jackie worry. 

 

“‘S okay,” Jackie mumbles. It’s not okay that Lottie hurt herself, but Jackie knows that some of it is because of her brain. She knows there are some things that Lottie can’t help. Jackie loves her no matter what. “Okay, we should– should get back. I don’t want you to get too tired carrying me.”

 

Lottie sits up and nods. She moves to stand, folding up their dirty clothes into the dirty blanket and setting them by the tree to wash with the rest of the clothes tomorrow before she comes back over to Jackie, kneeling and holding out her hands for her. 

 

It’s easy enough to scoop her into her arms but standing up straight makes her tremble again. She can make it back to camp, though, it’s not that far.

 

By the time they do get there, dinner is already being handed out and Lottie sets Jackie down gently on their normal plane seats. Everyone is more quiet than normal, no one seems to want to talk about anything that’s happened. They’re all pretty tired, too.

 

Mari hands Lottie two bowls and Lottie returns to Jackie, sitting next to her and holding out a bowl. “Here.” 

 

Taking the bowl, Jackie gives Lottie a tired smile before leaning against her. She knows she should eat. She kind of just wants to sleep now, though. Lottie’s so warm, and she makes Jackie feel so safe. 

 

Lottie doesn’t feel very hungry, either, but she knows she needs to eat, so she picks at her food silently, chewing on small bits. She glances over at Jackie. “Please eat,” she whispers, “just a little.” She can see how tired Jackie is, but it was important for her to eat so that she could heal and stay healthy.

 

One bite at a time, Jackie eats a little of her food, leaning against Lottie. The bowl is loose in her hand, on her lap. This is frustrating. She hasn’t even done that much. Why is she tired? She doesn’t want to be tired. She shouldn’t be tired. But Lottie’s so warm. But Jackie needs to do what Lottie says.

 

Noting how exhausted Jackie is getting, Lottie reaches over to help her hold up her plate before searching for Nat, giving her a look. A ‘let's hurry this shit up’ look. She just wants to get this over with so she can lay down with Jackie again. She wants to sleep, at least a little bit.

 

Nat shifts in her seat, looking uncomfortable before she sets her bowl down and clears her throat. “We all need to talk about Coach.”

 

The man in question wasn’t around the fire with them, at least not at the moment, but neither was Misty, so Jackie assumes he’s around somewhere. 

 

“We know he’s guilty,” Tai says. “What’s there to talk about?”

 

At least someone is on her side, Lottie thinks. Though it's strange that it's Tai. 

 

“We gotta decide what to do with him,” Akilah pipes up. “Like…is he just gonna stay here with us?”

 

Lottie's grip tightens. She doesn't think he should be allowed to. She doesn't say anything out loud.

 

“I mean, he tried to kill us,” Van says. 

 

Mari shrugs. “It only makes sense, right?”

 

“Hey, no, we’re not-- We are not killers,” Nat says. 

 

“I told him we wouldn’t,” Jackie mumbles, leaning into Lottie’s touch. “I told him we weren’t like that. We wouldn’t kill him. We wouldn’t eat him.”

 

Van snorts. “He’s probably too tough to eat.”

 

“So, what? We just let him run loose?” Tai asks. “He knows where we live now. What if he gets the bright idea that we’re all cannibalistic monsters again and tries for round two?”

 

“We could… keep him here,” Nat says. “To watch him and make sure he doesn’t try anything else.”

 

Lottie sits up a little, looking down at Jackie. She told him that? Her eyes go around to the others. 

 

“So he gets to burn down our home and kidnap Jackie and all we're going to do is give him a slap on the wrist?” she says, indignant. “Show him around the place and pamper him?”

 

“He saved me, too,” Jackie argues weakly. “He could have left me down there. He helped with my leg.” She doesn’t want to fight about this. “He set the cabin on fire because he thought– he thought we’d turned into monsters. Killed Javi on purpose. If we hurt him, if we kill him, then we’re exactly what he thinks we are.”

 

“Helped you?” Lottie is confused. Why is Jackie defending him? “He took you, Jackie. Held you captive.” Lottie doesn't think she even cares about the cabin right now. Maybe she should but she doesn't. All she cares about is Jackie.

 

Jackie reaches for Lottie’s hand. “And he brought me back. He’s still– He’s still Coach Scott.” She looks at the rest of them. “I think he still cares about all of us. He just did something shitty because he was scared.”

 

“Yeah, because the natural reaction when you’re afraid is to try and kill people,” Mari says.

 

“It’s extreme circumstances. He was starving, too. And just like all of us wouldn’t do the things we did then now, neither would he,” Jackie tells them.

 

Lottie pulls her hand back. She doesn't understand. Why is Jackie defending him? Didn't she get hurt because of him? Wasn't she fighting so hard to get back but he wouldn't let her? 

 

“So that-- so that makes it all okay?” She doesn't understand. Her head is pounding. She's so tired.

 

Feeling her face fall, Jackie looks at Lottie, her eyes wide and her mouth tugged down at the edges. “It’s– It’s not. Okay. It’s not okay, but we-we can’t be like… We can’t be monsters. We can’t kill him. I think he’s sorry.”

 

“He is sorry,” Nat says. “And he brought food, supplies. That’s got to count for something, right, guys?”

 

Lottie stands up so suddenly it makes her dizzy. The two people she'd come to rely on most were suddenly making her so confused. So upset. Why? She doesn't understand. 

 

“He tried to kill us!” She says loudly, her voice wavering. She feels like crying again. She doesn't want him dead, right? She doesn't think she wants that but she can't get the words out. “All of us. And he--” she turns on her heels, looks at Jackie desperately-- “he took you. He-- he kept you. You said he-he wasn't going to let you come back. Why-- why are you--” she can't get the words out. Her head hurts.

 

It's not enough, is it? A voice whispers to her. Love never saved anyone.

 

Jackie follows after Lottie so fast that she doesn’t even realize she’s in pain. “Lottie, I–” She can’t stand for long before she’s heavily sitting back down. She can’t even fucking stand. This isn’t fair. “He changed his mind. I– That means something, right? And he’s the only other person out here.”

 

“I think he wants to help up,” Nat says, looking between Lottie and Jackie warily. “Nobody has to interact with him, but we can think about this as… retribution.”

 

“So, just to make it perfectly clear, you’ve already decided to keep him around, right, Natalie?” Taissa asks. “So you don’t really want our thoughts at all. Nice.”

 

Nat crosses her arms, her fingers digging into her skin. “He’s the only other person out here, like Jackie said. We all need each other. There’s strength in numbers.”

“Until we’re all just hungry mouths to feed,” Gen says. “Then we’re all monsters that eat people.”

 

“It’s not gonna come to that again. Not while I’m in charge and we still have plenty of food,” Nat tells them.

 

“We were doing just fine without him,” Melissa points out, “maybe even better.” 

 

Lottie looks at Natalie as if begging her to understand her pain. She wants someone to understand her pain when she can't. She can't figure out how to say it. Her head is spinning. It hurts so much. 

 

“So he just does one good deed and is suddenly forgiven?” Lottie tries again, shaking her head. Her voice grows low, dark. “He doesn't belong here. He's not one of us.”

 

“We’re not just forgiving him,” Nat says. “He’s gotta help out. And he can help out. He survived on his own for months. He knows things about surviving out here that the rest of us still don’t know.”

 

Jackie tries to stand again, reaching out for Lottie. “Lott, it’s not… It’ll be okay. He’s not gonna do anything again.”

 

Lottie kind of can’t believe what she’s hearing, seeing. She looks at Tai, at Mari, at Van. They agree, don’t they? Why isn’t anyone else saying anything? She turns back to Jackie, blinking, her face drawn in confusion and hurt. She doesn’t understand.

 

“No,” she says, brows scrunching, “no, it-it’s not. It’s--” This feeling deep inside of her, like always. It’s something telling her that nothing is going to be okay if he stays. “He took you and you-- you’re-- why are you defending him?” She takes a step back from Jackie. The others all turn to look at them but Lottie has already forgotten they’re there.

 

Panic starts to set in as Lottie starts to walk away, and Jackie hobbles forward a step. “Please, I-- I just don’t wanna be mad at him. I don’t. And he brought me back. I couldn’t have made it back without him. I tried. I tried.” She doesn’t know what’s happening with this conversation, doesn't know what she needs to do to make Lottie not leave her.

 

“Why-- why not?” Lottie feels like her entire world is breaking down. Things had finally started to feel okay, she’d just been sitting with Jackie and she hadn’t been the happiest, but she’d been content and she’d been okay because Jackie was there and she wasn’t going to leave her again. 

 

But she doesn’t understand why Jackie isn’t mad. “He wouldn’t have had to if he never took you in first place!” Doesn’t she get that? Doesn’t she understand how painful it had been for Lottie? Does she not care about that? About what had happened to her?

 

Because if Jackie stays mad at everyone that hurt her out here, she wouldn’t have anyone left, not even the girl that she loves most in the whole world. “People do awful things when they’re scared or hungry or hurt,” Jackie says quietly. “He changed his mind. He brought me back. That– that has to count for something.”

 

“And what if he hadn’t?” Lottie snaps, just the idea, the thought, making her breath catch and her muscles grow tense. 

 

“Lottie,” Jackie pleads. She doesn’t want to do this. She wants to go back to where they were curled up asleep in each other’s arms. She wants to go back to feeling okay again. Now, she feels like she fucked up, and she doesn’t know how to fix it.

 

Jackie won’t answer the question and that’s all that Lottie needs to know. She looks at Jackie and it hurts. It’s not supposed to hurt. Why does it hurt? Why does it feel wrong? She shakes her head again, backs up further. “I can’t--” she can’t, she just can’t. “I can’t-- be here.” 

 

If they all want to forgive him, then fine, Lottie doesn’t care. But Jackie? It hurts. She can’t be here right now. Lottie turns around and walks away. She promised she wouldn’t but now she can’t stop.

 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, Lottie, wait!” Jackie’s already trying to walk after Lottie when her leg gives out, and she stumbles. Nat lurches towards her, grabbing one side. 

 

“Stop it. You’re not supposed to be walking.”

 

Jackie actually doesn’t give a shit. She struggles against Nat, but it doesn’t matter. Of course it doesn’t matter. Hands hold onto her, and it feels like she’s being pulled down again. All that’s missing is the snow, Shauna’s voice in her ear. But Shauna’s quiet. She doesn’t need to say anything. Lottie’s actions speak louder than words. 

 

“Just give her some time to cool off,” Nat says. “It’ll be okay.”

 

But Jackie has to wonder if that’s true.

 

“Well,” comes Van’s voice from by the fire, “that went swimmingly.”

Notes:

Man these kids really can't keep their hands off each other, can they? Is this what the kids call wlw on mlm violence? What do you think Lottie's gonna do now? Will Coach survive? Thanks so much again for all the comments and interaction, we love hearing from y'all and reading all ur comments! Hit us up if you want and stay tuned next week for the thrilling continuation of dumb and dumber <3

Notes:

This started out as a joke, you know. And then it got quite serious.

The title for this fic is from "The Uses of Sorrow" by Mary Oliver.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you guys will stick with as we explore the aftermath with these two very sad, very lonely girls. Please check out our other works, as we both have one shots and other longfics here on ao3! You can also find us on tumblr as lottiezilla (envyzilla) and jackietaylorsversion (SouthbySoutheast). Again, thanks for reading!