They stumbled home a few hours later, laughing for no reason in particular. The cold night air bit at her cheeks and stung her fingertips but it hardly bothered her now; not when her dream was so close that she could almost taste it. She was holding Daniel's hand, and the tiniest portion of her brain was questioning her sanity in taking him back this quickly and easily, after the long nights of horror, to let him whisper a few sweet words in her ear and to let them burrow their way into her mind; she must be mad.

But the rest of her, the parts that were blinded with the hope of being free from the long nightmare, told her, take a chance! What more can you lose? And she listened to them with a delightful abandon.
He opened the apartment door and they fell inside, eager to escape the cold. Daniel shrugged off his jacket and threw it onto the peg by the door, with Jenna following suit.
'I'll get hot drinks, shall I?' She asked, walking into the kitchen. As she made the drinks she almost ran on autopilot, her brain turning over the events of the last few hours.
Something inside her knew that she shouldn't be letting herself go like this; that it was all a trick, a terrible joke that he would cruelly reveal and leave her feeling humiliated.
But all the parts of her that had been battered and broken down were reaching up for a tiny glimmer of hope; tiny flames she couldn't extinguish no matter how hard she tried.
When the kettle finished boiling she carefully poured the boiling water into the mugs. She'd started being more careful with everything, recently. Careful not to annoy Daniel in any way.
She carried the drinks into the living room where Daniel was sitting on the sofa.
'Here.' She said, handing him a cup.
He smiled. 'Thanks.'
She was about to sit down next to him when she noticed some material wedged behind him; it took a long, slow moment for her to realise that it was Matt's coat, and that he must have left it behind when he left after helping her learn her lines.
Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest; if Daniel noticed now, then it would be all over.

Time seemed to slow for the next few minutes, with her trying her best to act normal and cheery. Luckily, Daniel was absorbed by the TV and didn't seem to pay much attention to her.
'I'm going to the toilet.' He suddenly announced, and stood up. Stretching languidly he walked away into the hall and soon Jenna heard the toilet door open and close. Thinking fast and thanking any god there may be for the timely coincidence, she grabbed the coat and ran out of the living room. Freezing for a moment in the hall, she frantically wracked her mind for a good hiding place before turning into the kitchen. They had their washing machine in this room; she opened it and stuffed the coat inside. Daniel didn't do the washing, of course, so he would never look in there.

She spent a few moments making sure it wasn't obvious to anyone casually walking by and then hastily reentered the living room and sat down as she heard the toilet flush.

Daniel walked back in and smiled at her before sitting back down. Although Jenna still could not completely relax around him she noted that she felt a lot safer than she used to. She could only wonder what had really brought about- his change of heart; had he simply decided to take pity on her?
Not wanting to ruin the moment with thoughts if her own worthlessness she shoved the comments away to the back of her mind and instead dared to move slightly closer to Daniel. After so long of enduring heavy blows and harsh words, she felt a sudden craving for some sort of soft, soothing touch.
Although it made her heart race to lean this close to him - was she pushing his newly found forgiveness? - she pushed into his side in the hope of receiving any sort of affection. She felt like a child, begging for attention.
But his arm lifted and settled around her; and she wanted to cry with the sheer relief and joy of such a simple touch, nothing more than a warm arm settled about her waist. She closed her eyes and savoured it; determined to memorise the feeling.
And in that instant, she could almost forget everything that he had done to her. She wanted to freeze the moment, the moment in which she could relax at last; she could simply close her eyes and be.