A/N: If you don't like blood, you might not want to read the beginning of this. If you still want to read the bulk of it though, you could start where it says, "Thorne gasped, eyes flying open."

Safest Place

If lips were flower petals, that's what Thorne imagined Cress's to be.

They were impossibly soft, and sweet, and warm, and Thorne had kissed many girls but he had never really known what it was to drown in a kiss. He would gladly give up all his air for her.

She giggled and kissed him harder. He was happy to reciprocate.

She giggled again, and then she laughed, and something was wrong. He tried to pull back, but strong arms tightened around his neck.

He opened his eyes and if he'd had the room to move, he would have recoiled in repulsion. Icy horror filled his veins.

It was not Cress in his arms. It was Queen Levana.

"Brave Carswell Thorne," she said, voice sickeningly sweet, lips red as blood and breath like sour roses. "I will grant you the freedom you long for." She smiled, and it was vile.

She lifted an arm from his neck and in her hand was a long, sharp knife. It glinted in the light.

"No!" he said, and before she could sink it into his skin he grabbed her wrist, its point just inches from the exposed flesh of his neck. She was strong – nearly too strong – but he managed to get her down, he was on top of her, he had the knife in his own hands-

"Do it!" Cinder was shouting. "Stab her, Thorne! Kill her! Kill her!"

He plunged the knife into her stomach, his veins on fire, no other thought than to kill kill kill.

Her eyes widened, and her red lips dissolved into glossy, crimson blood. He'd done it, he'd done it, he'd-

He gasped and drew back violently. The knife clang to the floor as it slipped through his fingers, hands covered in blood, red and sticky and warm and endless. Her blood, her blood-

Cress's eyes stared up at him, wide and filled with horror and betrayal, blood bubbling from her lips. She was choking, she was drowning in her own blood.

Icy terror washed over him. He'd done it, he'd killed her, Cress. His own stomach felt like it was being ripped out of him.

"No," he was saying, gasping, sobbing as he put his hands on the gash in her stomach, trying to stop the river of blood pooling around them. "Cress, no, no, I love you, I love you, I'd never do this, you've got to believe me, Cress, Cress-"

He was too late, the blood was filling the room, hot and thick and metallic. It had filled his shoes, he could feel it up to his elbows, it was going to overtake them, Cinder was screaming, they were all going to die and it was his fault. He'd done this, Cress-

"Thorne!"

Thorne gasped, eyes flying open, cheek stinging painfully. Cress stood over him in the darkness, her hand poised as if ready to strike again. Her eyes were wide and filled with alarm.

"Cress," he breathed, relief washing over him like a tidal wave. He held back a sob that Cress seemed to hear anyway, because she lowered her hand and sank into him, wrapping her arms around him tightly.

"Oh, Captain," she said into his neck, and he realized his entire body was shaking, skin hot and damp, and he could still feel the blood between his toes, he could still taste the iron on his dry tongue.

But no, it wasn't here, in the Rampion, his home. All that was here was Cress.

Slowly, as he felt himself regaining control of his limbs, he settled his own arms around her until he was squeezing tight, burying his nose in her soft hair.

Cress smelled sweet, warm and familiar. Alive.

"You're alright," she was saying into the fabric of his shirt. "It's okay, I'm here, I'm here."

She was no stranger to these dreams that still came to him after so many months. They came less often than they had during the first few weeks after the battle on Luna, but they still came.

He'd never had one with quite so much blood, though.

He wanted to thank her, to tell her he loved her for being here, for not giving up on him before he deserved her, but the moments after his nightmares were the only times his words got stuck in his throat.

Cress leaned up as his trembling began to subside, and it calmed Thorne to be able to see her face, even in the shadows, lit only by the faint light of dawn peeking through the Rampion's window. Her eyes were clear and her lips were perfect and she was perfectly fine, perfectly alive, perfectly real.

She reached up and brushed his damp hair back from his clammy forehead, and Thorne realized how feverish he was, how much he'd been sweating. The cool air against his face felt good, and her touch was sweet and gentle.

"Thanks," he finally croaked, his breathing coming easier again. Cress smiled, relief in her eyes. She leaned down and pressed her lips to his, impossibly soft, warm, hers and only hers.

"I'm here," she said again, against his lips. "I love you."

Her words brought an uncomfortable prickle to the corners of Thorne's eyes, but he hoped she couldn't see, not even after such a dream as the one he'd just had.

He wanted to say it back, but words were beginning to stick in his throat again. She kissed him once more, running her fingers along his warm cheek and said, quietly, "Let's go outside."

Thorne thought he would have preferred to stay in bed, but as she took his hand, threading her fingers through his remaining ones, and led him out of the Rampion, he realized there was no better sensation on Earth than the feeling of cool morning air meeting his hot, clammy skin.

The morning was fresh and cool, damp and sweetly scented and quiet, the birds not even yet awake. Only the very tips of the monstrously tall trees that surrounded their clearing glowed gold, and the lake stretched out dark and vast before them.

Thorne could feel Cress relax just by the grip of her hand in his, and he felt something in himself loosen. He would never know anyone who loved the outside as much as she did. It was impossible.

Cress led him down the ship's ramp, feet bare as they brushed through the dewy grass. She led him up to the edge of the lake, where she finally stopped and looked at him. She reached up, pushed a sticky lock of hair from his eyes. Thorne knew he was still feverish.

"Let's go in the water," she said.

He blinked. "Now?"

Cress nodded. "I think it'll help."

"But we're still in our pajamas," he said. He raised an eyebrow. "Unless…"

He couldn't see the blush on her face in the low light, but by the way she looked away from him he could tell she was. Thorne felt his heart swell, and he leaned down and kissed her cheek. "Okay, let's go in the water."

They went in wearing the clothes they were dressed in, the cool water a slight shock to the system, but a soothing one as Thorne grew used to it.

He'd brought her here because she'd wanted to learn how to swim. They'd only been here two days and already she was a natural born fish.

"My dear," Thorne said had said when she'd asked him to teach her, putting a hand on his chest. "My darling Cress, one does not grow up alongside the beaches of LA and not acquire every bit of knowledge of swimming there is. A few missing fingers isn't going to hold me back." He winked. "And I'm army trained. Babe, you and me, we're a match made in heaven."

Cress had beamed at him, grasping her hands together in front of her chest. "Perfect!"

Thorne had grinned back, feeling his bravado melting away into something more genuine as she looked at him.

She had a funny way of doing that.

"Better?" she asked as he emerged from beneath the water, fresh, no longer coated in grime and sweat.

He nodded. "Nothing a little nature can't fix," he said, feeling more like himself. "A little au naturale."

This time he could see the way Cress's cheeks pinked in the growing light. "I don't think that's what that means."

"No?" Thorne shrugged, then winked. Cress rolled her eyes. She was getting harder to keep flustered.

But as she continued to look at him, he realized she looked relieved. She hated those nightmares nearly as much as he did.

He thought of the way the blood had risen, nearly drowned him in his dream. It made the water feel constricting all of the sudden, deep and engulfing – he was completely surrounded.

No, he thought, pushing the image away. He wouldn't let his nightmares take this from him too.

"Captain?"

Cress was still watching him, and he hadn't realized that she'd taken his hand beneath the water. The line of worry had returned between her eyes.

"I'm fine," he said. Then, "Just- in my dream, I- was drowning."

Cress looked suddenly alarmed. She tugged on his hand. "Captain, if you didn't want to go in to the water-"

"No," he said, and pushed up close to her, the fabric of her nightdress fluttering around his knees, rocks beneath his toes. He kissed her wet cheek. "It's good."

Cress relaxed into his grip as he circled his arms around her beneath the water. He rested his chin over the top of her head, the tips of her hair floating on the surface. The water rippled gently around them, and the line of the sun was halfway down the length of the trees, bright and golden. The birds were chirping. Thorne's skin was beginning to dry.

"Thanks, Cress," he said into the silence.

"I love you, Captain."

She seemed like to use that in lieu of you're welcome this morning, and Thorne's heart nearly busted an artery the way it sped up every time he heard those words. He didn't know how he'd gotten lucky enough to earn them from the sweetest girl in the world.

"I love you too, Cress."

She kissed him, her lips sweet and soft like flower petals, and he could still drown in her kiss – so many girls would have let him – but he knew she wouldn't. He loved her all the more for that.

They headed back to shore once Cress started to shiver, and the air was much warmer and lighter than it had been when they'd gone in. They grabbed the towels they'd laid out to dry the day before and sat on the cool, now dry, grass.

Thorne reached over and rubbed Cress's hair with his towel until she was laughing beneath his hands. When he pulled away, it was sticking up in every direction. He grinned, heart swelling. She was the cutest thing he'd ever seen.

"C'mere," he said. She scooted closer, and he picked a handful of tiny purple flowers growing in the grass around them. Looking back up at her with a mischievous smile, he began to stick them into her mess of tangled hair.

Cress didn't try to stop him, just propped her chin on her hands, elbows on her knees as he wove the flowers into her damp hair, towel hanging over her shoulders, dress still very wet beneath it.

She seemed utterly content.

Thorne felt calm.

Her eyelashes were long and dark, the brown freckles on her nose more prominent in the sun, skin less pale than it used to be. The sunrise had reached them ages ago.

"Done," he said, and pulled back. When she looked at him, she was springtime in a girl, the morning sun shining down on her in full. In that nightdress, her hair a mess of flowers, he thought she could be a little forest nymph, whatever that was (he'd heard Winter call herself that once).

Cress was the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.

He'd done a terrible thing to her, once, without his will. But with it, he'd do everything he could that was good and sweet and right, because that was what she deserved, that and the very sun itself. She deserved all the happiness in the world, and he'd make sure she got it.

But when Cress smiled at him like that, it easy for Throne to feel like he'd already succeeded.

He smiled back.