They are on a train. The vibrant white clouds, littered against the big blue sky, look like the culture of Candida albicans she once grew on blue agar gel. The mountains, a family of sleeping tortoises, still have a dusting of melting snow. The fields are a glowing yellow-green, as jolly as the sheep and children and yellow daffodils grazing about.
A clump of trees blurs past.
She abandons the serene view and turns her attention to her husband, silently standing beside her in the dimly-lit train car. "Leo…" but the words fail to come out. Did we make the right choice? Are we going to be okay? What are we going to do?
But he doesn't need her words—he never had. He sits down beside her, kisses her hair, and pulls her near.
She closes her eyes.
"Mum!"
She looks down and a doe-eyed four-year-old girl stares back at her. She's my daughter? Oh she's beautiful! She takes in every detail: the brown tendrils spreading from her pupils into her blue irises, the missing tooth in between her pink lips, the blonde sections of an otherwise wavy brunette hair, the skin—that familiar shade of pasty.
She bends down to look at the white piece of paper she's holding.
Little arms wrap around her neck and kiss her cheek. "You're the best mum ever!"
She can't help but smile.
She feels a presence behind her, but she doesn't look back. She knows exactly who it is.
"How's my wife?" He kisses her cheek as his hand glides across her side. She meets him in front. Their second child, with a possible third…
"Alright, I suppose." Her knees tremble. She wishes the kitchen away and the bed walks in with a few small, burning candles on top of the dressers. He doesn't even notice.
But she can't protest against his actions. "Oh, Leo." He is distracting her. "Leo…" She can't think of anything else. "Leo, Leo, Leo," as if that's the only word she knows.
"Leo!"
Jemma's eyelids snap open. Her eyes slowly adjust in the dark, barely recognizing the walls of the Bus. Her heart is working double-time, pumping about twice the normal amount of oxygen through her arteries, making her feel so alive. She can almost feel the chemical change in her brain, the increase of endorphins, prolactin, and oxytocin, inducing a certain kind of euphoria and relaxation she is a stranger to.
It takes her a minute to process what was going on, and another half wondering—hoping, praying—that she didn't just scream out loud. (She couldn't! She was in a state of paralysis right? Right...)
She slows her breathing and turns to the clock on her night stand. 4:07 am. She turns to the window (Bright blues, whites, and greens flash in her mind's eye.) and sees the stars slowly disappearing into the indigo sky.
She closes her eyes. Green grass. "You're the best mum ever!" Their second child…
"Ugh! You can't be dreaming about these anymore, Jemma!" she hisses, more to herself than the ceiling.
She gets up and heads straight to the shower.
She steps in and turns the faucet on. Her hand brushes against her bare stomach. (She remembers his hand under hers moving in a curve.) She adjusts the knob closer, much closer, towards the "C."
An hour later, she was eating breakfast in the kitchen, reading the latest article in Biochemistry on her tablet.
"Good morning, Jemma!"
She gasps, nearly choking on a grain of cereal. Train, husband, daughter, wife, candles, bed. Leo… She can feel her heart racing again, pumping warm blood throughout her body. She reaches for her cold glass of water and takes a moment to breathe.
She manages a bright smile for the curly-haired boy.
"Oh hey, Fitz!"