Elizabeth stretched, blinking herself into a comfortable, slow wakefulness. Her bed was warm and she inhaled deeply as she nestled into Dwayne's chest. The sunlight was weak but present and she wiggled her toes, the socks she was wearing feeling very soft against her feet. She sighed in contentment and wet her lips gently, taking a delightfully deep breath, breathing in his smell, taking the time to enjoy waking up beside him. It was blissful, so natural and perfect...but she frowned softly as clarity slowly came to her.
Why was the room bright? Her little bulb didn't produce such an...such an oddly...oddly natural light...
"No..." she whispered softly, opening her eyes fully.
She finally sat up, her face creasing into a small grimace when she faced the weak sunlight lighting her room and the pillow she had been clutching at. A pillow? How could she have ever squeezed at a pillow as if it was Dwayne's chest.? It was so soft and squishy, how could she have thought it was anything other than a pillow?
She let go of it, shaking her head as she did, disappointment pouring over.
She had fallen asleep.
"God dammit..." she whispered, her voice taking on a pained hardness.
Elizabeth took a shaky breath as she took stock of the fact: the time she had spent with Dwayne had been cut short last night. Cut short because of her.
She had fallen asleep.
Their time was precious and she had slept through it.
"God dammit..." she repeated, shaking her head in disappointment, absolutely hating herself for falling asleep. She thought of the coffee Marko had prepared for her - the coffee she hadn't even touched - and she tutted in annoyance, running her hands over her face and up into her hair, letting her trim nails graze over her scalp.
She should have chugged the coffee and then asked for seconds, thirds, even fourths.
While she could begrudgingly admit that she felt incredibly rested, the pouring of regret and sorrow continued to rain down upon her. She couldn't escape it. She had fallen asleep when she should have been talking. She had so much to learn, they both had so much to discuss, to process and she had fallen asleep.
She had fallen asleep on him...
He needed her patience and love just as much as she needed his and she had done that?
Just as Elizabeth thought she was going to cry for how utterly rotten she felt, her hands brushed against the pillow she had been holding, her fingers meeting material that was definitely not part of the pillowcase.
She laughed softly, a sudden and relieved little exhale of air as she saw a darkened, worn patch of leather..it was his jacket. That's why she could smell him, that's why she had attached herself to the pillow..he had left her his jacket. Biting her lip through the thankful, relieved smile fighting for dominance over her face, she tugged it out.
It was creased a little oddly and she smothered her smile, realizing that she had likely been sleeping on it before somehow - probably through some tossing and turning on her part - nudging it under one of her pillows. Had he folded it under her head? Draped it over her pillow? Left it beside her? She didn't know but, as she buried her face into the familiar and comforting material, she was thankful, almost overwhelmingly so.
She remembered what she had said to him yesterday in her little outpouring of emotional words. She had said that upon waking, it felt as if he had never been there, that it had added to her loneliness...and now, she woke up with his jacket.
A reminder of him. Not him, of course that was impossible...but a piece of him.
At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be with Dwayne. To throw herself into his arms and thank him, kiss him, appreciate and love him. She didn't know how she would wait until sunset.
She pulled away from the jacket and breathed a deep sigh.
Tonight, she would drink coffee. She would-
-Elizabeth lowered the jacket minutely as her eyes met something that, like the jacket, didn't usually belong in her bed.
It was the small, oddly small considering it was a hardback, edition of Dracula that she had taken from Grandpa's old and eclectic collection of books yesterday.
She wet her lips again as she remembered. It had been stacked without thought in a pile of eclectic books of wildly differing genres and she had swiped it in a moment of bravery. It had been largely too much, too overwhelming to read, all she could think about at the time was the darkness that David and Paul had shown her. Now, however, feeling refreshed and revived she thought she could possibly handle it...but she didn't remember sleeping with it?
She was sure she had left it downstairs, actually.
Draping Dwayne's jacket over her lap, she moved to pick up the book, frowning when she saw it was wedged open with something, a little piece of paper folded and poking out of the cover. As she opened the worn book, her face lit up with a mixture of love, relief and a little smattering of grief, too. There, between the battered index and that tatty cover was folded piece of paper.
She pulled it out, knowing it was a note from him even before opening it.
She took a breath as her fingers deftly flipped open the stark, white scrap of paper she recognized as being from the pad near the phone downstairs.
'I am always with you. See you tonight'
She smiled tightly and folded the paper once more, holding it tightly to her chest.
She shook her head. She hated that she had fallen asleep but, as she wriggled her toes in the socks he had slipped on her feet, looked down his jacket and felt the note in her hand, she loved that she had something of his, she loved that he had done that for her.
He had dressed her, put her to bed and made sure she had something tangible, something that was his and then, to top it off he had written her a note. His handwriting was neat despite the fact that it looked a little scrawled, like something he had written with fluid ease. Had he stood over her as she slept? Did he write the note downstairs? At her table..?
She smiled again.
It was so...it was sweet and loving. It was a thoughtful, understanding gesture and Elizabeth knew that she would never doubt his love. She would never doubt her love.
She glanced down at the book, frowning with a happy curiosity as something new caught her eye. She saw that a large amount of pages had been dog eared whereas the were pristine and straight, if not a little stained and worn, before. She opened up a page at random and saw that a whole paragraph had been very neatly crossed out.
She definitely hadn't done that and it hadn't been defaced in any such way when she had first picked it up.
Elizabeth read the lines carefully, the pencil providing no real barrier. She tilted her head, eyebrows knitting together when she realized exactly what had been crossed out. She glanced at the page top and saw it was only Chapter Two and, as she scanned the lines under the weak barrier, she saw that she had, in fact, stumbled upon a scene in which Harker injures himself, his blood compelling forth a change from the eponymous Count. Harker thrusts out his crucifix and finds himself protected...
And suddenly, Elizabeth remembered.
Dwayne had told her crucifixes and crosses meant nothing to him. She had told him about her brief foray into the book and he had...he had made a...a guide for her..
She bit her lip and flicked through the book, feeling the paper note she was holding crease in her palm a little as she held the book tighter. She flicked through pages and pages with lines, words and entire paragraphs crossed neatly out. Here and there some words were circled, though they were few and far between...
"Dwayne.." she whispered, fingers dancing over a circled sentence, "...'there are lights...'" her voice broke a little, "...'and..you are one of the lights'..."
She bit her lip, eyes welling with tears of delight and longing. Never had she been on the receiving end of such a romantic gesture. As she bit her lip through a watery smile, a small tear dripped down her cheek and Elizabeth held the book close to her chest.
She loved him so much.
She felt no fear, just all encompassing love.
She smiled again, closing her eyes before sniffing lightly, rubbing her thumb over the spine of the book.
She had a lot to learn.