The air was crisper as it filled her lungs, sharper, heavier.
Eve knew this was a dream and yet she couldn't find a way to wake herself. Her mind rebelled as soon as she recognized just where her dream self was heading yet her feet continued carrying her closer.
Waverly on one side. Doc on the other.
They simply walked with her among the uneven terrain of the quiet forest each holding one of her trembling hands in their own but not as a means of restraining only of – comfort.
"NO."
A voice that wasn't her own and the sounds of hurrying feet pulled her attention around as the dark-haired child hurried toward her with the grace and speed of a jungle cat.
"We had a deal Haught." Eve snapped glaring up at the ginger-haired cop jogging behind the child.
"She deserved a chance to say goodbye." Nicole defends already wrapping her arms tightly around the Garden's waist while Waverly nuzzled affectionately against her side. Not even that could hide the sight of her tears.
"What the hell Haught? Alice Michelle, you get away from her right now."
Eve scoffed at the call that followed the scolded cops while the child's arms were already locked around her neck by the time her true mother had caught up to them. Her eyes finding and holding Wynonna Earp's angry glare over her daughter's shoulder before turning her face into the younger child's hair breathing her in one last time.
Fresh apples, and a rather flowery mixed spiced vanilla.
"Why?" the little girl demanded her tear-filled eyes finding Eve's own watery ones when she pulled away.
"I have to go." Eve whispered. A simple answer that carried a heavyweight.
"No." Alice rejects "Stay."
Eve gives a weak sniff of a laugh at that pulling the sobbing girl in for another motherly hug. "If only it were so simple." She whispers against her bubblegum scented hair. Alice was crying harder now against her shoulder and Eve could already feel her mind beginning to waken from this cursed nightmare.
"D—Don't forget me 'kay?" Alice hiccupped pressing something small and metal into Eve's hand.
The chain of a necklace.
"Never."
Her eyes snap open as her body jerked upright her sleep hazed eyes casting around for any sign of the danger, she'd just been so casually resigned to accept.
Alice's room was still dark and the child herself still lost in her own dreams snuggled in at Eve's side. One hand fisted tight against the front of Eve's sleep shirt keeping her close the other wrapped just as tightly around the corner of her favored blue blanket.
"Since when do you talk in your sleep?"
Eve's eyes find Gus's in the low lighting sitting in the rocking chair beside the window. The waking immortal didn't answer as she tugs the fallen comforter back around Alice's shoulders after gently freeing her shirt from the younger girl's grip.
"I say anything interesting?"
Gus shrugs "Mostly repeating 'No' or 'won't go back' what's up?"
Eve carefully extracts herself from the sleeping toddler sitting up a little straighter. "Bad dreams." She answers as she runs a hand through her tangled hair.
The last few nights have been plagued by visions like the one she'd just shaken herself from.
The previous one she found herself trapped in a glass box in the middle of the sheriff's office back in the town protecting the gateway to Eve's own version of hell like some common dangerous animal while the failsafe lounges in a chair her black booted legs kicked up on a desk as she puffed on a cigarette "You really thought I'd let you go free?" the dark angel would question in between drags of her cig blowing out a long breath of smoke toward the angry immortal she'd managed to trap once more.
A lightweight of a hand against her shoulder has Eve starting in surprise but Gus doesn't let go. "Come with me." The elder woman says in a low tone.
Eve's gaze immediately dropping toward the sleeping child on the bed.
"She'll be out till sunup." Gus soothes.
Eve lets out a slow breath still doing her best to punch down the growing maternal side that had been slowly reemerging the longer she allowed the closeness to a child that wasn't her own. True at first, she'd only allowed the 'bonding' out of spite for the woman whose face she'd stolen, and yet, no matter what most believe she'd never been as attentive in her mothering with any of her three boys as she had with Alice in the last few days but then again even from the start Eve had always longed for a daughter.
A daughter she'd been repeatedly denied. Three sons instead. All of them long gone while she remained trapped in the garden waiting on the snake to somehow release her.
"Come on Nonna stop throwing heart eyes and let Ally sleep." Gus huffed giving Eve a playful swot on her arm. "She had a big day today and will possibly have an even bigger one come morning."
"I can't help it." Eve lamented leaning over to run a hand in Alice's soft curls. "She's just so beautiful."
Alice picked that time to roll over onto her back her dark hair now obscuring her sleeping expression as it fell across her face.
"I still can't believe you taught her how to ride a pedal bike before a motorized one." Gus remembers eyeing the new addition of the child-sized bicycle now leaning up against the door to Alice's bedroom closet.
"It's important a child learn such means of independence early." The first mother reminds in a low hiss reiterating the point she'd made earlier when she'd first offered the topic last afternoon after spotting the mode of transport in a shopfront window. "Give them the means but also keeping an eye on them so they don't stray too far too fast."
"I know that dear, but also knowing you I'd have guessed you'd have at least taken her for a spin around the park on that motorcycle Curtis left you in his will." Wynonna's Aunt points out.
"I'm working her up to that." Eve covers chewing once again at her nails before she dropped her hand at Gus's curious expression at the nervous tick. "I know you said you don't have any of the strong stuff but why not go down and at least have a shot of oh I don't know some warmed milk or something before we each go back to bed?" Eve goes on fisting her hands deeper into the pockets of her borrowed sleep pants.
At that Gus had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing outright and waking Alice with her giggling. "Wynonna Earp, you and I both know you've never been one for warmed milk no matter the time of day it was suggested not even when you were little and another thing since when did you think I was being completely honest about not having some kind of stash about the house?" the other woman questions. "I lived in Purgatory for heaven's sake."
Eve was sure she'd drawn blood with how hard she'd clenched her fist at the mention of her former prison. "You've been holding out Aunty G." she accuses with one of Wynonna's more playful smiles.
"I couldn't have you drinking me dry day one now, could I?" the elder woman winks slipping her arm around Eve's shoulders.
"I'll be back Daisy girl." Eve promises pressing a feather-light kiss against Alice's forehead before allowing herself to be lead away from the bedside.
"You're giving me cavities." Gus jokes but Eve could tell she was also hiding happy tears as she tugged the other woman out the door and out onto the landing toward the stairs. "Now you and I are gonna have our own little talk." Gus says as soon as the bedroom door had been closed behind them.
Eve straightened up at once with a nervous exhale of breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "I was afraid you'd say that." She sighed once again running a hand through her copied dark wavy hair.
"Three questions." Gus bargains her arms now crossed tight over her chest. "For every answer, you give me that I feel you're not fibbing on I'll let you have another shot."
"That seems fair." Eve agrees once again diving into what she'd been able to glean from the real Wynonna Earp's mind in the short time they'd been in proximity to one another. "Three questions three shots." She nodes "but I get to ask questions too."
"Deal." Gus agrees "you get the glasses I'll go get the bottle." She smiles already turning toward her bedroom door.