Chapter Text
“We didn’t miss anything.”
Her younger self gently pushes her back down by the shoulders. “Do you remember what we promised?”
Lottie is about to respond when her younger self speaks again, stealing the breath from her lungs.
“It’s time to meet her.”
Lottie takes a deep breath and stands up. Her feet hit the concrete ground of the tunnels, and she can hear the distant cries of a baby. Maybe it's their baby waiting for her up the stairs, maybe it's their child, Lottie even half-expects to see her own corpse lying on the ground, but from what she can make out in the dark, she’s the only one here.
Maybe Callie is the Her her younger self referred to, even if when she had first said it, Lottie’s mind had traveled far back, to a lake and a soft nightgown and an unyielding gaze. But it couldn’t be, Laura Lee was far too kind for It to want to keep her.
Lottie slowly walks up the stairs. Is this It? is It waiting for her at the top of the stairs, glad to finally embrace her again after so long? She knows this isn’t heaven, she’s doubted its existence for so long, and it sure doesn’t feel like hell, so maybe her younger self was right, maybe she didn’t miss It.
She reaches the top of the stairs, and this she knows, she’s been here before. She grabs the stick lying at the altar and uses it to light one of the unlit candles. She wonders if this is some sort of initiation ritual. This is exactly what she did before, right before her visions started to be a lot stronger, she had taken a part of It then, she’ll be a part of It now.
She blows on the stick to put the fire out, and just like the fire, the tunnel ceases to exist; darkness wraps around her. Lottie’s heartbeat quickens, she can feel It coming on, nothing happens for a while, until finally a haloed figure steps out of the dark, veil covering her face, antlers crowning her head.
So this is the Her she was talking about.
She doesn’t move at first, but Lottie has done this before, too. She raises her arms, now covered in that old jacket she used to love so much, and watches as She raises her arms too.
Lottie steps forward, hoping to embrace Her, embrace It. However, when she finally flings her arms around Her Lottie doesn’t feel the yellow tarp beneath her fingers, nor Mari’s hair, she doesn’t even feel Her body, what she feels is the wind grazing against her cheek and bringing an earthy scent up her nose.
Lottie opens her eyes, the lake is just as she remembered it, and the plane has just started to take off.
A scream tears itself from her throat. Lottie doesn’t even think about it, but before she knows it, she’s knee-deep in the water calling out Laura Lee’s name. She doesn’t remember how far out the plane got before it exploded, but she knows she doesn’t have much time.
“Jump!” She screams as loudly as she can, until her voice is nothing more than a shrill sound. “Laura Lee, jump!” She feels all of her nerve endings like a live wire, expecting, hoping, wishing that it will be different this time.
She’s had this dream countless times, and each and every time, no matter how much Lottie wills it to change, it ends with Laura Lee exploding into flames, Lottie’s heart breaking as she wakes with a start.
Her knees give out on her when she sees the smoke, but she doesn’t stop screaming, she doesn’t stop calling Laura Lee’s name.
“Please,” this time the scream breaks out into a sob, “Please come back.”
The left side of the plane starts to wobble, and Lottie cannot do anything anymore; she can’t stop it, all she can do is let her tears run down her face.
She can barely see it through the tears, but the plane starts to wobble further, until the door breaks open, and before Lottie can even register it, Laura Lee jumps out of the plane, falling down into the lake with a splash.
Lottie doesn’t stop crying, still, her heart stops at the surprise of things finally working out this time. She doesn’t move a finger, she barely breathes, then the seconds pass, and pass, and Laura Lee doesn’t come out of the water.
Her brain finally starts up again, and realizes that she still isn’t in safe turf, she sprints forward, or at least tries to. Even with the density slowing her down, she makes it far enough to be able to swim, and then Lottie swims because her life depends on it.
She pushes herself underwater, forcing her eyes open despite the sting. She keeps swimming forward, turning around to see if Laura Lee has strayed one way or another, her hair crowding in her face, making it more difficult to see.
Is this what her afterlife will be like? Reliving again and again the moment where she failed? It had told her what would happen to Laura Lee when she was baptized; she can still picture her angelical face distorted by the fire, even after all these years; she knew it meant something, and yet she decided to ignore it.
Lottie resurges for air and pushes her hair back before diving back into the water. It isn’t long before an exploding sound comes from above her, a few miles away. A chunk of metal splashes down into the lake, throwing Lottie off balance. She kicks faster. If a piece of the plane made it this close, then she shouldn’t be that far from where Laura Lee jumped.
Her lungs burn, she uses one of her hands to hold her hair back as she looks around, then kicks faster. She has to resurface one more time before she finally sees Laura Lee, slowly falling farther down into the water.
Lottie dives further down, reaching for her. Her hand manages to catch her cardigan, so she uses it to pull her closer, then she grabs onto Laura Lee’s other shoulder with her right hand and pulls her even closer until they’re in some sort of hug, once she’s got her secure Lottie’s left hand lets go of the cardigan and wraps her arm around Laura Lee’s waist.
Dragging both of them back up to the surface is harder than she ever thought. Every part of her body now just feels like a dumbbell, dragging her down the lake, still, she’s able to break through the surface. Her eyes feel sore, but she still can see some of the others venturing into the water to help Lottie and Laura Lee. She secures her grip and keeps swimming. Then, like a miracle, Travis and Misty reach them just when Lottie starts to think that she can’t go on anymore.
Lottie doesn’t say anything when they first reach her, too shocked at seeing Travis’ face, but he doesn’t stop to acknowledge the fact that he is going to die and it’s gonna be Lottie’s fault, instead he gestures towards Laura Lee, “Misty can carry her, and you can grab onto my shoulders for support.”
She falters at first, she doesn’t wanna let go of Laura Lee, but she also knows that she’s too tired to carry both of them to shore; besides, she knows Travis means well. Lottie nods and carefully leans into Misty enough for her to take Laura Lee’s waist into her arms. Travis shifts Laura Lee’s arms so they’re looped around Misty’s neck. Lottie wraps her own around Travis’ shoulders and pushes herself onto his back, she’s caught her breath enough now that she can afford to take a good look at Laura Lee, however, it does nothing to quell her fears.
Her skin has always been pale, but now it’s a few shades lighter, with a grayish hue seeping its way into her, there’s a slight burn on her left cheek, pink and blemished; her head rests around Misty’s neck, along with her limp hands, all of her body is limp, really, as if someone had sucked out all the life out of her.
“Misty,” she mutters, “Is she-?”
Misty briefly stops swimming to press her free hand around Laura Lee’s neck. “There’s still a pulse, we just have to hurry up and treat her as quickly as possible.”
Travis and Misty speed up the pace until their feet can reach the bottom of the lake, then Lottie frees herself from Travis and loops her arm around Laura Lee, helping Misty bear the weight. Once they make it to shore, they lower her to the ground, and Misty quickly pushes Lottie off her, sitting her down.
The first person to get close to Lottie is Akilah, who plants both her hands on the floor as if she’s the one who’s out of breath. She follows Lottie’s gaze until she sees Laura Lee, a gasp escapes her throat, “How did you know it was gonna explode?”
“I-”
“Akilah,” Misty interrupts, “Help me tilt her head back! Quick!”
Akilah scrambles to Misty’s side, she tilts Laura Lee’s chin back with one hand and presses on her forehead with the other, meanwhile Misty is doing chest compressions, humming Staying Alive .
Lottie wraps her arms around herself, trying to do away with the cold seeping into her skin. “When is she gonna wake up?”
Misty briefly stops the chest compressions to check on Laura Lee’s pulse, then resumes with her work. “I don’t know, but she’s going to wake up.” She takes a quick breath, now speaking in a lower volume, “She’s going to wake up.” Misty brings her hands to Laura Lee’s face, one of them pinching her nose, then brings her mouth down to hers.
Lottie can’t tell how much time passes until Laura Lee’s head springs from the ground, her mouth open to cough out droplets of water. Misty catches her, bending her body and caressing her hair.
“It’s ok,” she shushes, “let it out.”
Lottie crawls over the little space that is between her and Laura Lee, clutching the flannel someone put around her shoulders at some point. She doesn’t say anything, just cradles Laura Lee’s face between her hands.
At first, Laura Lee tears away with a hiss, hand absentmindedly coming near her burned cheek. Lottie inwardly curses herself and brings her right hand back to Laura Lee’s cheek, who this time leans into her touch; she’s vaguely aware of Misty standing up, handing Laura Lee over to Lottie, Laura Lee’s eyes come up to meet Lottie’s own, and a ragged breath escapes Lottie’s lips.
“You’re alive?”
Laura Lee barely shakes her head up and down, a frail attempt at a nod, but it doesn’t matter, because Lottie has already flung her arms around her and buried her face into her wet hair.
“You’re alive, you’re alive, I-” She steps back to cup the right side of Laura Lee’s face with her hand again, but this time, Laura Lee covers it with her own.
“Why did you-
“We need to go back to the cabin,” Nat says. “It’s gonna get dark soon, and you guys need to dry up”
She’s only standing a few feet away from them, and even though worry is clear on her face, she looks way softer than when Lottie saw her last. Natalie’s presence startles her enough to take a look around. All of the Yellowjackets seemed to have gathered around them in a small circle, but aside from Travis, this is the first time Lottie is really aware of their presence since she came back. She takes a quick look around. Mari is standing right next to Nat and a soaked Travis. Jackie, Javi, and Shauna sans flannel are right next to them, wearing the same dumbstruck look that practically everyone else is wearing.
“What the shit just happened?”
Nat turns to Mari, a scowl clear on her face. “We’ll figure it out later, We need to take them inside first.”
Lottie turns back to Laura Lee and offers her hand to help her up.
They didn’t get back to the cabin right away, though it only took Misty a couple of minutes to scoop some handfuls of lake water onto Laura Lee’s face to help with the burn. The way home would’ve been awkward if everyone wasn’t so worried. Laura Lee was stripped of her cardigan, which Misty used to try to dry her off. She told Mari to give her hoodie to Laura Lee, and the fact that Mari didn’t complain just showed how scared they all were.
Misty stayed by their side, urging everyone to walk faster so she could treat Laura Lee’s burn as soon as possible, but aside from her constant fussing, no one dared to speak. Although the look Coach Ben was constantly giving Laura Lee couldn’t be anything but an ill-timed “I told you so.”
They’ve let them take the room for a night, Misty brought the makeup bag she used as a first aid kit and bandaged Laura Lee’s face after she plastered it with Aloe ointment, once she declared there was nothing left to do they took them out of their remaining clothes and changed them into new ones, then tucked them into the blankets. Van had stood up from her chair near the door when everyone burst through, with Laura Lee leaning on Travis and Lottie’s shoulders, demanding to know what had happened. Laura Lee opened her mouth to speak, but she and Lottie had already been shut behind the bedroom door before she could say anything.
Travis had tucked them in, murmured a low “Sleep well,” then went out the door. As soon as he left the bedroom, Lottie took Laura Lee between her arms.
“You really scared me.”
Laura Lee’s arms come up around her. “I got scared, too,” she withdraws enough to look Lottie in the eye. “Lottie, what did you see?”
Lottie frowns. “What do you mean?”
The slight frown that had previously been on Laura Lee deepens as she disentangles herself from the hug, lying on her side instead. “What did you see that made you scream like that?”
Lottie bites her lip. Should she tell her the truth? Or maybe make up something about a vision? Laura Lee believed that she could see things, things God had shown her, but how could Lottie tell her that her god isn’t the god that rules over the wilderness, the god that had turned Lottie into a prophet? Letting her in on the darkness that has been surrounding them, it feels like blasphemy.
“Lottie,” Laura Lee draws closer to her, “You can tell me, you know I’m not gonna freak out or anything.”
Lottie sighs and tries to stop her hands from shaking as she takes Laura Lee’s hands under the blankets “This isn’t how it happened before. Last time I couldn’t make sense of what I saw on time, I couldn’t save you” she takes a moment to clear her throat “But even when you weren’t there the others believed on my visions, on my understanding of them, of It. They believed in me, and in It, at least until we got rescued.”
She tightens her grip on Laura Lee’s hands. “When we came back, I wasn’t some sort of prophet, I was just sick. They sent me away, tried to convince me none of it was real, but I knew what I had felt out here, knew that it wasn’t some trick of the mind; we communed with something here. I learned to live with it, pretended it was all in my head. I built a community, one where I belonged, from the ground up. Then the others came back and we helped each other out, we got back in touch with It, but then Natalie died, and everything just started to fall apart, and then I died. I died, and then it brought me back.” She squeezed Laura Lee’s hands. “I think It brought me back to save you. It must’ve realized It made a mistake killing you.”
Laura Lee frowns. “Did He-Did He show you this? How your future would look like?”
Lottie shakes her head.“It didn’t show it to me, I lived it, and then It gave me a second chance,” she licks her lips. “I didn’t actually tell you what I saw the day you baptized me, did I?”
Laura Lee shakes her head, “No.”
Lottie takes a breath“I saw the underground tunnel from the hotel I used to live in when I was little, I crossed paths with a deer and eventually walked up the stairs, and on top of it was an altar, lit up by a bunch of candles, I lit one of them and then I was back under the surface of the lake, and I saw you above me” she took a shaky breath “You were engulfed in light, at first you looked like an angel but later I understood-”
“The explosion,” Laura Lee interrupts. She sits up. “So, you saw me die?”
Lottie looks up at her from her spot on the bed. “I saw both of us die. I fell from the stairs in the tunnel.”
Laura Lee nods yet doesn’t say anything, she just looks down at her lap. “So what you’re saying is that it was a mistake, my death?”
Lottie nods, “Yes, maybe It just didn’t want you to leave.”
Laura Lee’s eyes snap to Lottie’s. “You said that before, when we found the plane.”
Lottie smiles, “Then it must be true.” She expects to see Laura Lee smiling down at her, but instead, she sees her gnawing on her lip. Lottie gets closer to her, encircling her arms around Laura Lee’s hips so she is basically lying on her lap. “You believe me. Don’t you?”
It took her a second to respond, but eventually Laura Lee’s hands came down around Lottie’s face, grabbing her cheeks. “I believe you, Lottie.”
Lottie lets out a breath, reeled in by Laura Lee’s caress, she gives a light squeeze to Laura Lee’s hip and lays her head back down to her lap.
They remain silent for a couple of minutes, Laura Lee’s hands playing with Lottie’s hair, Lottie thinks about closing her eyes and falling asleep like this. She’s given a lot of thought to the brief time she spent with Laura Lee before she died; she remembers thinking about her fervent gaze and soft touch while looking out the cabin’s window, lying on her hut, and at her bed in the asylum. Sometimes she wondered what Laura Lee would think of her now; other times she imagined a universe where they never crashed and they kept in touch after high school with frequent phone calls and sparse visits.
Lottie didn’t understand why it was that she thought of Laura Lee so often until she kissed a girl for the first time. After that, her what-ifs strayed farther from reality, leaving a bittersweetness in Lottie’s heart whenever she thought about it.
But now It gave her a second chance to stop wondering ceaselessly and instead soak up every second she could spend in Laura Lee’s presence, even if her feelings towards Lottie differ from Lottie’s feelings towards her.
Lottie is brought back out of her head when Laura Lee speaks up.
“Was I the only one who died out here, before you got rescued?”
“No,” Lottie answers, “there were others after.”
“You said that Natalie-”
Lottie lifts her head up to look at Laura Lee. “That was much later, twenty-five years, she lived out a good chunk of her life.” It is something she has been telling herself over and over since the accident at the compound, but she doesn’t know if the way she says it is convincing.
They’re interrupted by a soft knock on the door; however, Van doesn’t wait for the go-ahead before walking into the room.
“Hey,” she says, her visible eye darting between the two of them “can I talk to Laura Lee for a minute?”
Laura Lee, who had started to disentangle herself from Lottie the minute Van walked in, gives a tiny nod. “Whatever you need, Van.”
Van turns to look at Lottie, who is only now understanding the silent request for her to leave the room. She stands up, her strained legs giving her grief for the effort, then walks out of the room, giving Laura Lee and Van a tiny smile.