2. The Morning After

The shifting of the thick duvet from off his chest stirs Declan into post-coital consciousness. All of his limbs were tingling, Holly J's remnant fingerprints from last night burning little forget-me-not bruises into his skin. He could feel a bruise blooming on the bottom of his hip on the right side. Their love, in his mind, was oozing from him physically as well as emotionally.

When he looks up Holly J is fiddling with her dress, trying to pull it back up. He watches her quietly for a moment, smiling. He can't help but smile. He feels as if blue birds should come flying in through the window, carrying wreaths and berries within their mouths, to drape across the bed, and sparrows to come and place a flower headdress upon her head. He shakes his head as he tries to think properly because she's talking about, but oh god, what a lovely voice she has. And skin. And neck.

"Man, this has been one amazing night. First the awards, then we reconnected. I'm just so happy to feel this close to you again." He exhales, and takes their fingers together, threading them as one.

Holly J looks down with a look of contempt on her face, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Cab's probably downstairs." She says slowly, in a dethatched voice.

He nods understandingly. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, of course." And with that, heels in place, and dress smoothed out properly, she gets up and walks out the room. Declan smiles to himself, feeling accomplished. As he falls back into the pillows, he can't think of how anything today could go wrong.

When Fiona comes into the apartment the lights are dimmed down. She tosses her keys into the glass bowl that is on the side table by the door before she walks across the hallway into the living room. "Declan?" She calls out, flipping on the light. There's no answer. Shrugging, she drops her Gucci purse on the couch and sits down, leaning backwards to kick off her heels. She had a very long day at Degrassi today.

For starters, she had to deal with Holly J crying wolf, claiming that she was forced into sex with Declan. When she had heard that her stomach had dropped to the floor. There was no way that Declan would ever do something like that. Men who did that were cowards and bastards—Bobby would do something like that. She had clenched her teeth, walking down the hallways between classes looking for her, but after she had handed her the letter that Declan had scrawled out to her hastily in shaky writing before packing his bags earlier that day, she had vanished.

She would have called him, but by now he was probably on the plane, and it'd be a long flight back. She picked up her iPhone, noticing the notification blinking on the lockscreen. There were two missed calls from Holly J, a picture text message from a grade tenner depicting some sort of chain letter, and a text message from Marco DelRossi, whom she had met through Declan, who was a part time teacher-writer for one of the scene papers in downtown.

She unlocked the phone and listened to the first voicemail:

"Fiona, I just left the loft. Do you think when you get the chance you could check on Declan? He seemed…really different right before I left. I just called things off…again. Oh god, did I make the right choice? I mean, I really like Sav. I love Sav…right?"

Her voice was heavy and rushed, as if she was covering up for the fact that she had been sobbing. The phone beeped, and clicked the message underneath it.

"Hello Ms. Coyne, please call this number back as soon as possible. It would seem that your order of block ice has been shipped to the wrong address—"

She deleted the latter message and placed her phone next to her. A shower, that's what she needed. She would take a hot shower, perhaps order some gourmet food from that new place up the block (they made the cutest little knishes ever!) and do a quick facial before attempting homework.

After gathering her towel and freshly imported peppermint soap from Ireland (Irish Springs wasn't cutting it for her), she flipped on the light within the marble bathroom, finding it odd that the water was running. In fact, the room was quite foggy from all the steam that was wafting around in it.

Grumbling, she walked over and yanked back the curtain, reaching for the knob to turn the water off when she saw a figure in the tub and jumped backwards, a hand clasped over her mouth.

Declan was laying there in his blue sweater, a bottle of Monet laying limply against his chest. His lips were pale blue and his eyes were closed. Two bottles of Fiona's prescribed Donoryml, 25mg per pill, was emptied out on the floor. As hard as she tried, she was not able to suppress the scream of anguish that spilled out of her mouth.

Hello Hello, all! I'm glad that you all liked the last chapter. I have a couple of things in mind for what I'm going to do, so this one is a little shorter than the last one was.

DollyJArmy: Aww, thanks so much. I'm a huge fan of your tumblr!

E-Dubs13: Thank you! I hope you like this one as well.

CandyLuver1910: Thanks! Enjoy!

Jiberty Fan: ! I really loved this review. I really hated how they portrayed Declan in this episode, and they're such powerful actors, they deserve more time together. Also, they're really ruined Sav's character, there's not much progression in him anymore. Thank you very much, I love Holly J and Declan together as well, of course.