This was written for a prompt that I received on tumblr! The prompt was from anonymous and read: I'm hoping you'll turn this prompt in one of your song ones. I would like something sad like forever winter but it's rose in Jake's position and he has to come in and save her. Thanks.
I had to think about what song I wanted to use for this one but I think I found it! I didn't want to make this the exact same situation so I took an old idea of mine that never made it into a longer fic format for this one, but I tried to keep it to a similar vibe as Forever Winter
The song is Run Away To Mars by Talk and the song Rose sings to herself is Empire State Of Mind by Jay-Z & Alicia Keys.
Warnings for this one: drug use, alcohol mentions, tobacco use, medical references, bodily fluids, swears, mostly written on my phone
Your colour's fading
'Cause I kept you waiting
Jake stood in the doorway of Rose's dorm room for a minute before his brain kicked into gear. He didn't remember if he closed the door behind him, just that he raced to the stairs, not quite beating the paramedics to the bottom floor. He hurtled out of the stairwell, watching the elevator door close and the gurney be wheeled out the front door. He scrambled onto the street, the winter air doing nothing to soothe him.
He was left helpless on the sidewalk as Rose was loaded into the back of the ambulance. The doors slammed, loud even against the general noise of a New York night. The sirens went on, the ambulance sped away, and Jake dropped to his knees on the concrete, not sure where to go from here.
Around him was the chatter of students, counting down the days until winter break and lamenting the exams that had between then and now. People were talking of Christmas and snow. Lovers were coming together for the first time, babies were being born. The world was turning and Jake felt still and frozen, the ambulance lights still flashing before his eyes, even though it was long gone.
How had they ended up here? Hadn't they done everything they had done so that they would not end up here?
He should have known better. Half a decade ago, yesterday, even this morning. He should have known but he didn't and, even if Rose survived, he didn't know how he was going to live with the fact that he had failed her.
"Please," Jake whispered to the wind, "let her survive."
There was nothing else he could do.
It's a wild, wild world
And you're a wild, wild girl
Rose tripped over her own two feet and laughed at herself, because there was no one else with her. There had been, at one point, friends, but either they had wandered off or she had wandered off, but Rose didn't mind. She could enjoy being alone on streets she didn't know.
"New York," she burbled, her high distorting her voice into something that made her giggle, "concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do."
She forgot the rest of the words but she was beyond care. She let things bubble around in front of her as she rummaged around in her purse. There was a half-pint of vodka stuffed in there but that wasn't what she was looking for. Triumphantly, she pulled out her pack of smokes, shaking one into her hand. The cigarette looked shiny in her palm and it sent her off laughing again. The distortion, the sounds, the colours, that was what kept her coming back to dropping acid, over everything else she'd ever tried. It made her mind feel settled, strangely, rather than alive. It made her feel like if nothing was real then she wasn't insane.
Her lighter was in her hand but the wind kept her from lighting the cigarette. At least, she thought there was wind.
Rose ducked around the corner of the next building, hoping that there would be no wind in an alley.
Instead, both her cigarette and lighter clattered to the ground, and she stared, open-mouthed, at the scene going on in front of her.
The first time that Rose had done drugs, she'd only been thirteen. Five years and many trips later, Rose had never experienced anything like what was going on in front of her, and she swore it was all real.
The bright red dragon.
The harpy.
The fight between them.
There was no instinct in Rose to run away. She took a step toward them, catching the dragon's attention. It looked at her, locked eyes with her, and Rose felt her heart stop.
"Rose," it said, in a voice that she recognized.
"Jake?"
She didn't know where the name came from. She didn't know what she was doing here or what had turned her into this alley. All she knew was that she couldn't move, even when the dragon shouted for her to run. Even when the dragon had to turn to chase the harpy and left her alone here.
Rose knew that, until he came back, she wouldn't move again.
Our sun's still shining
But it seems half the size
Jake ignored Gramps' repeated calls, knowing that he'd only want a report on what had happened with the harpy but Jake wasn't in the mood to give a report. He winged his way back to the alley he'd had the harpy cornered in for about five minutes. In that alley, he had seen Rose.
In the years since their goodbye, Jake had thought he'd seen Rose hundreds of times. But, it was never truly her. A girl with the same hair, a laugh that he'd remembered wrong, a complete fabrication of the imagination. If he was being honest, Jake would say that he'd never really thought he'd see her again. He hoped that he would. He hoped that something would at least bring them together enough so that he would know that she was happy, so that he could update the memory in his mind, of her drifting away to a new life.
He touched down inside the alley, wondering if there would be something left to track her by or if she'd left something behind so he could find her. She'd known his name too. Jake found none of that. Instead, he found her, sitting on the grungy ground, a small bottle of vodka in her hands that she was sipping from, even though it was barely 6:30 in the morning and she looked haunted, in the way people did when they hadn't slept properly.
Rose turned her head and stared at him, struggling into a standing position.
"You came back."
"You're still here." And drunk. She was definitely drunk.
"Do you know where to get breakfast?" Rose asked.
"Yeah."
"You wanna get breakfast with me?"
"Yeah."
It was so bizarre that it was that easy, at least for the moment, for them to walk side by side down the street, toward the 24-hour diner that Spud said had the best milkshakes in the entire city. Rose kept sipping from her vodka bottle. She offered him a taste but Jake shook his head. He wanted a clear head and he could admit that he was too much of a baby to drink straight vodka without any chase.
"Why are you drinking so early?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
Rose put the empty bottle down on the rim of a garbage can and followed Jake up to the diner doors. Jake held the door open for her, taking her in. The dark circles under her eyes, her shaky hands, the way that she was stick thin - not in the still rounded, muscled way she'd been when he'd known her, but she was fall over in the wind thin now. She played with the ends of her long blonde hair, although now it had thick blue streaks through parts of it. Her eyes were big and blue as she sat in the booth across from him, staring at him.
"Is your name really Jake?"
"Yes."
"You knew my name."
"Yes."
"I don't know you, though. You don't look familiar. I don't know anything else about you."
Jake frowned. She knew that the dragon she'd called Jake last night and the human sitting in front of her were the same person but she didn't seem to consider that important at all.
"Well, I guess that's true," Jake said carefully.
"What should I know, then?"
Jake was grateful that the waitress came over at that moment, taking their orders. It gave him enough moments to think as Rose debated over the peanut butter or the strawberry milkshake. He'd dreamt of one day getting to talk to Rose again but he hadn't thought it would be in this way. He hadn't thought he'd be faced with the choice to tell her, all over again, what they had gone through. It hurt to know how fully he'd been erased from her, but, wasn't that what she had wanted, and he had wanted for her? She'd had her normal life. He wasn't going to screw things up for her.
"That I'm going to pay for breakfast."
Rose laughed and it was such a beautiful sound.
"And I'll walk you home."
"That's very sweet of you."
Jake both wanted it to be sweet and he wanted her to know that he wasn't letting her go home alone. He truly didn't think that she'd be safe on the streets anymore. He still wanted to protect her. He had left himself behind to feel the hurt so that she could be protected. He wasn't going to fail her now.
"And then what?" Rose asked. "Are we going to see each other again?"
Jake swallowed. "Are you going to want to?"
The waitress put Rose's milkshake down on the table and she pulled it toward her forcefully, taking a long gulp of it and sighing happily. "Well, breakfast is the way to a girl's heart."
And it was Jake's turn to laugh.
And it's a wild, wild world
Out here
Rose loved it when the music was so loud that her entire body vibrated. She didn't care about the words or the sounds, she just cared about volume. She spread her arms and gleefully ran into the crowd, feeling an arm wrap around her shoulders and pull her in.
"I've been looking for you," she said.
Andrew smiled at her, the smile that was always a little too predatory for Rose's liking, but what did she care?
"Why were you looking for me?"
"You know where Molly is?" she asked coyly.
"I always got you, girl."
A brush of hands and Rose popped the entire ecstasy pill in her mouth before he was gone. She let the crowd pull her in closer, the colours and the noise not just giving her an artificial high. She found her way toward the centre. Everyone was dancing. Everyone was as happy as she was. She felt hands on her waist and she turned to look at a boy who looked like she did, with the side eyes, and a body that was heated to the touch. Rose let him pull her close and kiss her. She didn't care who he was. She would barely remember later the basic strokes of his face and she didn't care that he wouldn't remember her. She let him pull her closer and closer until they were kissing, the music thumping her heart out of her chest, the other ravers giving them a soundtrack.
Until she was abruptly pulled away from the moment. Jake's hand was on her shoulder and she didn't care about the boy behind her the moment that she saw Jake's face.
"Get away from her," Jake growled.
"You need to get happy," Rose said, and then she saw the people behind him. "You must be Trixie and Spud! He's told me so much about you!"
The two exchanged uneasy looks.
"Yeah," the girl finally said, "we're Trixie and Spud. Jake said you invited him to a party."
"It is a party!" Rose exclaimed. "You just need to get happy!"
"I'm happy," Jake said, "come on, I promise."
"They're not happy," Rose said. "They're not happy at all. If the people you brought aren't happy, how do I know you're happy? I don't."
"Man, what are we doing at a rave?" Spud said but he had to be so loud to be heard over the music that he wasn't exactly whispering in Jake's ear the way that he'd intended to and Rose heard every word.
She pointed an accusing finger. "See, I told you."
"It's not our scene," Trixie said.
"You guys can go if you want," Jake said, "I'm going to stay here with Rose."
The words sent Rose flying. Someone was picking her! No one had ever picked her before! She wasn't going to give him a chance to change his mind and she grabbed onto his hand, feeling shiny and happy all over again.
"Come dance!"
"Text me!" Jake shouted to Trixie and Spud but Rose didn't care if they heard him.
She pulled him away, into the throbbing center of the crowd, and held him close. Rose had been held before, in many a situations like this, but never with someone who seemed to see her so clearly. She was used to being distorted in the way that she saw herself and the way that others saw her. It was where she was safe, but Jake didn't make her feel safe. It made her want to jump out of her skin and rabbit run into the woods, where she could stay forever. She was always running. It was why she was here, in New York, leaving behind even more problems than she was finding.
Jake's hands were on her hips, more reminiscent of the way that one would dance at middle school, and it was too sweet for Rose, who always needed to feel the fire burn.
She brought her face close to his.
"You're on drugs," Jake said, in a flat, matter of fact way that did nothing to douse her mood because Rose, was, in fact on drugs.
"So? Did you want to be?"
"If I'm going to kiss you, Rose, you're going to have to be sober."
Rose bent her head so that her lips were just under his ear, her breath tickling a spot that she knew would be sensitive for him.
"I'm never going to be sober, Jake."
Rose took a step back from him, showing off, because she knew how she looked. She knew how the heads turned when she walked by, even though countless other people were dressed as skimpily as she was. The holographic bikini top that showed off her underboob not so tastefully, the chains hanging from it down her exposed torso and stomach, all the way down to her hipbones, where her matching skirt started, so short in the back that the curve of her cheeks were more than visible.
"I'm going to go find someone who's going to be fun," she sang, closing her eyes and twirling to the music. The sweat ran down the curve of her back and it just made her feel alive. She twirled, believing for a moment, that her feet would leave the ground, and she would never have to be anything else but a floating, dancing anomaly in the sky.
She bumped into people and other people bumped into her but that was why she came to places like this, to feel a second of accidental connection.
She felt a hand catch hers and she knew without looking that it was Jake. She'd seen him for the first time a week ago and she already knew him without sight, without smell, without sound.
Rose opened her eyes and there he was, a fire in his eyes that made excitement pool into her stomach. She felt like her heart was going to explode as he pulled her in toward him, their lips meeting in a rush like Rose had never felt before. Rose grabbed onto him as he lifted her, twirling her, surrounding her, in the way that she had always wanted. She was covered, as if he were a human blanket, and she never wanted to get out of bed.
Before my time runs out
What If I run away to Mars?
"Jake, what the fuck is going on?"
Jake shut his bedroom door carefully and went to join Trixie and Spud in his and Spud's living room. It was well on its way to dawn and they had barely convinced Rose to leave the rave that early. And that was only because she was becoming crabby on her comedown. It had been easier to get her back to his apartment and zip off her big platform boots and leave her with a t-shirt of his to borrow and let her sleep it off in his bed. Jake didn't even care how much glitter and make-up she left smeared across his sheets, because he would know where she was. The more he learnt about her, the more he was beginning to realize just how unstable she was.
"What do you mean?" Jake asked Trixie, knowing it was easier to be ignorant. He went to sit down on his couch, thought better of it, and went to start the coffee pot.
"She's nuts," Spud said pointedly. "A rave? And she was on, like, hard drugs, man."
"I know."
"You told us she was a drunk last time you saw her but what do you really know about her?" Trixie asked.
"I know she's Rose -"
"She is not the Rose that you knew," Trixie interrupted.
"Definitely not," Spud agreed.
Jake felt too ganged up on and, in an act of pure pettiness, didn't offer them any coffee.
"But she is Rose," Jake argued, "and I'm just getting to know her again. I don't know why she's like this. What if it is my fault? What if being the Huntsgirl was better than what I sent her back to? I did that to her. And, if that's true, I have to help her."
"So, this is a duty thing?" Trixie asked. "Like the dragon stuff?"
Before Jake could open his mouth, Spud was shaking his head. "No way. It's Rose. It's never been about duty and honour with her. We all know there was a point in time when you would have given it all up for her."
Jake pulled himself up onto the counter, looking out the window at the terrible view that he and Spud could afford and sipping at his coffee. He didn't want to tell his friends anything because he still didn't know what to think. He loved Rose. He had always and would always love Rose and that wasn't something that was ever going to change. He knew that. But, it was also true that he didn't know this version of Rose and, maybe, she was someone he would have love for and wouldn't fall in love with. Deep down, though, Jake wasn't sure the distinction mattered. Spud was right: Jake would sacrifice for Rose. Over and over again. They were tied together and he would do what he had to make sure that she was all right.
"I need to help her," Jake said. "Look at her, she's a mess, and we know it. She needs help. And it doesn't look like anyone else is here. She hasn't mentioned her family at all. And her family was all that she wanted. Something went wrong and I have to figure it out. I have to help her."
"You want to help her," Trixie said.
"What's so wrong with that?" Jake snapped. "Listen, I'm sorry that you guys ended up somewhere that you didn't want to be. She really did tell me that it was a party. Thank you for staying. Thank you for helping me get Rose out safely. I appreciate it. I don't get why you're sitting here attacking me!"
"We're not attacking you!" Trixie said quickly.
"We just know you, man, and, like, you can get obsessive. And we know how you've never stopped talking about Rose and now she's here and she's hurt and ..." Spud looked helplessly at Trixie, who finished his thought.
"Jakey, we just don't want you to get so caught up in her storm that we lose you too."
"You won't," Jake assured them, still annoyed with them, but touched by their concern. "I promise you."
Jake could tell that there was more that they wanted to say but Trixie stood up and stretched, deciding to leave it for another day.
"I'll see you guys later, okay? I've gotta get in a nap before my econ class."
"See you, Trix."
"Bye."
Spud sat on the couch and ran his hands through his hair. "Jake, we mean it, be careful."
"You already said that."
"I know. I know. I just remember how hurt you were after Homecoming."
Jake shied away from the memories.
"Are you really the best person to help her?"
Jake remembered the way that she'd looked at him tonight when he'd taken her hand. He thought of the way that she'd melted into him, letting him support her. He saw the way that she wore her hurts all over her skin and how all he'd wanted to do was go back and heal her, save her from everything.
"Yes," Jake said, with conviction, "I am the best person."
He was her person.
Would you find me in the stars?
Would you miss me in the end
Rose screamed.
Then, because it felt so good, she screamed again.
She threw her hairbrush at the wall and then poured herself a shot of tequila, not caring that her shaking hands spilled some on her desk that was covered in her homework. Homework, by the way, that she'd finished because she was passing all of her stupid university classes and wasn't that what her stupid parents wanted from her anyway?
Another drink.
One more drink.
Jake didn't like it when she drank too much and did too much and she was trying to be better. Everyone hated who she was but no one understood why she was this way. No one had ever tried to understand. She kicked a lump of clothes under her dorm bed and paced around the small area, so grateful that she didn't have a roommate. She had her own place to hang her head and go insane because insanity brought her peace.
There was a knock at her door and Rose knew that it was Jake. He never had to text her to come get her at the lobby doors, somehow, he always just got into her dorm room. Rose never asked him how because, even though there were a great many things she was sometimes tempted to ask him about, she never did. Truth was the scariest thing of all and she was so worried to find out that what she believed in wasn't actually the way that the world was.
Rose opened the door, realizing too late that the tequila bottle was still on her desk.
Jake didn't say anything but she could read the disappointment in his eyes.
"What's going on?" Jake asked as he walked into the room, taking the bottle off her desk and, for the time being, putting it underneath. Like everyone else in her life, Jake believed in out of sight, out of mind. Rose was the only person who ever saw the things that everyone else said.
"My sister's coming to visit," Rose said. "My parents are sending her as an ambassador."
"An ambassador?"
Rose sat down on her bed and she wished that she was spinning. She wished that there was more than blood in her veins and that she had something to help her breathe. She hadn't had enough alcohol to help her, just enough alcohol to make her into a human being. Rose didn't like this stage. She almost hated it more than the comedown because, at least in the comedown, she was something else entirely.
"To judge me. To see if I'm better or worse. To see if she should tell my parents to drag me home kicking and screaming because they were all right when they told me that I can't be on my own and that the states are a bad idea."
Jake nudged her over and Rose made room for him on the single dorm bed. Rose was half on top of him so that they could both fit but Rose didn't think that either one of them minded.
"What do you think?"
"I think I've been better here," Rose confessed. "I'm not perfect and I'm never going to be perfect but I really have been better here. All my old friends are there. I think it would be easy for me to burn out there and just hit a point where I'd never recover."
"Do you want to recover?" Jake asked quietly, after a moment.
"Someday." It was a hard thing to admit. She'd never admitted that before, that someday she might need to become someone else, and she didn't know where she would find the strength to do that. She was weak. It was what she'd always been told. She was this way because she wasn't strong enough to be anything else. "When I figure it all out."
"What's 'it'?"
"I'm still figuring that out."
Jake took her hand and squeezed and Rose squeezed him back desperately.
"You're the first real person I've ever met," Rose confessed.
"What do you mean by real?"
Rose turned her head to find that Jake was already looking at her. "You are exactly who you say you are. You've never pretended that you were anyone different. It's a rare quality."
"Rose ..."
"I'm glad you found me that morning," Rose interrupted, her heart suddenly beating too fast, in a way that she wasn't familiar with. It wasn't a chemical high but, perhaps, an emotional one. "I'm better because of you."
"I'm better because of you too," Jake said, and Rose smiled at the ceiling.
If I run out of oxygen?
When I run away to Mars
Jake wasn't sure what to think when he met Heather. Rose had a lot to say about her twin, often spitting venom about how she was their parents' golden child and she acted like it. She said Heather was annoying and perfect and everyone always loved Heather better. Rose had turned to Jake with wide-eyes and begged Jake to promise that he was still going to like Rose better, even after meeting Heather. And, of course, Jake had promised her because, no matter what, he was going to like Rose best.
Now, he, Spud, and Trixie were sitting at a restaurant that was just one step above a fast food restaurant, waiting for the arrival of Rose and Heather.
"Why do we have to be here?" Trixie asked.
"Because Rose doesn't have normal friends."
Spud snickered. "Right, we're the normal friends."
"I think he's right and that's just sad," Trixie said.
"She's getting better," Jake insisted. "She's taking way less of everything and she's not just passing her classes she's actually doing pretty well in some of them!"
Trixie held up her hand. "Save it. I thought you were supposed to be convincing the twin to not put Rose into a crate and ship her back to Hong Kong."
"Yeah, also that."
Jake jumped to his feet when Rose walked into the restaurant, her twin gliding along behind her. For a split second, Jake took in the both of them, and quickly compared the two of them. Heather definitely looked healthier than Rose, who still bordered on skeletal. Heather's hair was just as long as Rose's but was pinned back in a careful updo that made her look like a business professional at eighteen. The fact that she was wearing a lavender sweater suit didn't help the image at all.
"Rose," Jake said, giving her a kiss on her cheek, the way that she always did. She wasn't shaking like a leaf which meant she'd found something to curb her desires, but her eyes were reasonably bright and clear, and her breath just smelt of coffee.
"Jake, this is my twin, Heather. Heather, this is Jake, and his best friends, Spud and Trixie."
Heather didn't seem nearly as snobbish as Rose had let Jake to believe, despite the initial image she presented. She happily introduced herself to everyone and didn't even seem to mind squeezing onto the end of a booth
"How did you all meet?" Heather asked.
"Oh, Spud, Trixie, and I have known each other forever," Jake said. "Rose and I just met almost two months ago."
"He picked me up out of a dumpster," Rose said, her voice full of acid.
"That's not true," Jake said. "It was just an alley in New York. Rose got a little turned around."
From the way that Heather was looking at him, Jake thought that she thought he was lying, but it wasn't as if he could tell Heather the whole truth.
"Good that you found someone who would actually help you," Heather said to Rose. "You know how dangerous the city is."
"Well, I haven't been left for dead or kidnapped or sold off to the highest bidder yet!" Rose snapped and she slammed her hands down on the table, surprising Trixie and Spud, but Jake and Heather barely blinked. "I need a cigarette."
Rose grabbed her purse and stormed off.
"I should go after her," Jake said, jumping to his feet, but Heather's hand shot out and caught his wrist.
"Stay, Jake," she begged, in a voice that was so much like Rose's. "Is she okay? Really?"
"She hates that you're here," Jake confessed, sitting back down and shaking Heather off. He didn't want to know what Rose would say if she saw them touching. "She's doing so much better, even since I first met her. She's really trying. I don't know what happened before - she won't talk about it - but I'm worried that you being here is going to make her spiral."
Heather closed her eyes and Jake could see that she was fighting down tears.
"I'm sorry that hurts."
"It's what I expected," Heather said, with an awkward laugh. "She's always hated us. Well, hates isn't the right word. She's always had this other world in her head and I don't think she ever properly trusted us. I don't think our parents helped much, either."
"We're going to go check on Rose," Trixie said suddenly, grabbing Spud's arm. "I think you two need a moment."
"Thanks," Jake said, and, even before they were gone, he asked Heather, "why didn't you parents help? Were they abusive or -"
"No!" Heather interrupted. "God, no. They're just not warm and fuzzy people. Very academic and not in touch with their own emotions. I took after them but Rose always felt too much, all the time. They sent her to psychologists and doctors and psychiatrists and they prescribed her therapy and medications, one after the other, but nothing ever helped."
"Why did she need all that?" Jake asked. "What made her an addict?"
"Probably the doctors and the meds," Heather confessed. "And us. For not believing her. She thinks we think that she's crazy and we're trying to fix her and she doesn't want to be fixed."
"I don't understand."
Heather took a deep breath. "From a young age, Rose always thought that she was someone else. And not in the way that other kids play pretend. She really believed that she wasn't raised by our parents and that she was actually much older. She believed so strongly in the existence of the supernatural and would look for it absolutely everywhere. We'd be walking down the street in Hong Kong and she'd say something like 'that's a messenger fairy, did you see her?'. My parents were pretty no nonsense. We didn't even get to believe in Santa Clause. She grew up always hearing that she was wrong. No one entertained her and she withdrew and I was too young to realize what was happening when it was happening. I have a lot of regrets about that but I worry that our relationship is too far gone and that if I push her, she could just be lost to us forever. I don't know if she sees that other world when she's using or if using makes her forget every world - you'd have to ask her. She certainly won't talk to me about anything."
"Fuck."
Jake's head spun. His wish hadn't worked, not in the right way. She hadn't gotten what she'd wanted and what she needed. If what Heather was saying was true, there was a part of Rose that remembered the Huntsgirl and everything that entailed. It made Jake wonder why she'd never asked about the dragon she'd first seen in the alleyway. It made Jake realize that there was so much about Rose that he didn't know.
"I'm glad she's doing better. Our parents didn't think she would, so far away from home, but I think they were suffocating her too much. I just ... She's my twin, Jake, my only sibling. I don't want our family to get a call one day that she took too much and she was with a group of stupid friends who left her to die."
"I don't want that either," Jake assured Heather. "I really care about her. I really ... I really just want what's best for her."
"She's lucky to have found you," Heather said, and she reached across the table to squeeze Jake's hand. "She needs more people in her life like you."
"And you too," Jake said. "She needs someone like you too, okay? We'll work on bringing you two together."
Heather broke out into a relieved smile. "Thank you."
I can't tell which way's home
I've been gone for so long
Rose was glad when she put Heather back onto a plane and hoped that she never saw her twin sister again. She wished that she could just block her family's numbers and disappear into the fog. The fog always seemed like something that would be comforting to disappear into. It was something that she liked about the east coast and the fact that she was usually up until all hours. The fog was very common, if one knew where to look for it.
Rose left the airport, thinking that she'd gone above and beyond in her sisterly duties by even dropping Heather off. Heather had done nothing but nag at her from the moment she'd arrived until the moment she left. Rose knew that she was supposed to be better now but seeing Heather had left her so empty that she needed something to fill her back up and put life into her.
Rose called Jake but he didn't answer and she tried not to wonder what he was doing.
There was so much that she didn't know about him. They had made no promises to one another.
It still stung when he didn't answer the phone, however.
Rose went to the nearest dingy bar and flashed her ID at the bartender, even though he didn't even bother to look at it.
"Long Island Iced Tea," Rose said.
"That kind of day, eh?"
Rose thought that this bar was built for people who were having that kind of day but she just nodded. It wasn't as if she was the only one in here, either. There were already guys playing pool in the corner, two girls who clearly hadn't stopped from the night before in the corner making the most noise, and a guy at the end of the bar who was staring at her. Rose ignored him, reading him as the old creep that he definitely was. She might have issues but she didn't have the daddy issues that would cause her to hook up in a dirty bar bathroom with a pot-bellied, old enough to be her grandfather skeeze. That, she could proudly say, she had never done.
She drank three Long Island Iced Teas.
"No more," the bartender said, "unless I see you eat some food."
"You have food?"
"I have hash browns."
"Fine," Rose said, "I'll eat some hash browns."
Rose, however, wasn't above using her sexuality to get what she wanted, and she guessed that her boobs were out enough because her she got her fourth Long Island before she got her hash browns, which she dutifully picked at whenever the bar tender watched her.
The man at the end of the bar was steadily moving closer to her, sliding one stool over every time he ostensibly got up to go to the washroom, until he was sitting right next to her. Rose drained her Long Island.
"Another?" the bartender asked.
"She'll have another," the old man said, and Rose just let it happen.
She was starting to feel the alcohol and it made her head loll and her fingers go numb. The world was starting to slip away and Rose was relieved. The world was so vile, sometimes, in the way that it left her behind. She dragged her phone out of her pocket but still she hadn't heard from Jake and that just made her want to drink more. How was it that she hadn't known him for very long and yet he was now a part of her soul? She wasn't supposed to rely on anyone. And, yet, there was him, and he would be disappointed that she had ended up here, in this bar, before noon.
"You have a boyfriend?" the man asked.
Rose scoffed. "That's not very original."
She pulled her Long Island toward her, knowing that it was going to be her last. She had to get back to her dorm, after. She could drink what she had in there or she could sleep it off, either way, she had to get out of this bar. She sipped on the straw a little too forcefully, emptying the glass a little too fast.
"You look like a girl who wants to party," the man tried again.
"I've never heard that one before either."
The man touched her leg and Rose glanced down, about to break all of his fingers to get him off of her, when she noticed the baggie between his fingers. She covered his hand and slid the baggie into her own hand, recognizing it immediately.
"Is that what I think it is?" Rose asked.
"I'll call you Snow White," the man said.
"You want to party with me?" Rose asked.
"I want to party with you," he said with a lecherous look.
Rose finished off her drink and hopped from her barstool. "Thanks!"
And she ran for the door before he could realize that he had her bill and she had his drugs. She ran onto the street and kept running, even though she felt like she was going to fall down, even though she wasn't an athlete, even though she was sure to get herself lost. She ran until she was sure that her heart and lungs were going to explode and leave her in a billion pieces and then she calmly took a cab back to her dorm room.
Rose let herself into her messy little space and sat down at her desk. She put the baggie of cocaine onto her desk next to her half-full tequila bottle and stared at the two, wondering what she was doing.
Why was she even trying when she always ended up here? She was destined to be here.
Rose took out her phone and called Jake again, thinking that he could help her make it different. He seemed to want to help her. She needed to shatter the barrier in her that she had built and open herself up to being completely honest with him and she needed to let it hurt when he was completely honest with her, but she could do it. With him, at least, she thought that she could do it.
"You have reached the voicemail box of Jake Long. Please leave your message after the tone."
Rose unscrewed the top of the tequila bottle and took a glug, waiting for the long beep.
"Jake? I ... I just wanted to hear your voice. I just think that yours is the voice I always want to hear. This world always gets away from me but then you're here. I don't know where you came from." Rose felt tears slip down her cheeks and she wasn't sure when the last time she cried was. Pain was the price of honesty and Rose had never done well with pain. "I think that you're someone that I could have loved. Don't you think so?"
Rose took another drink of the bottle and then realized that she had nothing else to say. He hadn't answered the phone. She was all alone and the walls were closing in.
Rose hung up the phone and tossed it away from her. She clung tightly to the tequila bottle like it could be a savior to her but the answers she was looking for weren't going to be found in the bottom of the bottle. If the bottle had ever helped her, Rose would have never started taking drugs.
She took the baggie of cocaine. It was more than she'd ever taken before and she took cocaine so very rarely. Still, she knew what to do with it.
She knew what she wanted to do with it.
It's an empty world
Up here
Jake kept level with his grandfather, watching the city slip by below him. There was nothing going on today and Jake wished that he was doing anything else rather than following Gramps around on patrol but Gramps said that he'd been neglecting his duties in the last few months and that he needed to prove that he was still playing an active role. Jake didn't feel like he'd been neglecting his duties at all - he was still responding to every cry of help that he heard, making regular visits to the people, circling around the city as he flew from place to place. But, Jake also hadn't told Gramps about Rose, keeping her a secret between he and his friends. He knew what Gramps would say about Rose and the way that she was now and Jake just wasn't ready to hear about it.
Besides, he didn't have much of a choice. Fu was holding his cell phone hostage until Gramps gave the order for Fu to give it back to Jake. Jake would rather fly around the city with Gramps for a few hours rather than spend a couple of days without his cell phone.
Finally, Gramps signaled for them to descend.
"Jake, you need to be more aware of who you are and the way that your absence impacts others," Gramps said.
"Gramps, I am aware of how I impact others," Jake assured him. "I promise."
"I trust you," Gramps said, taking Jake's cell phone from Fu and handing it back to Jake. "Don't let me down."
"I won't," Jake promised. "I promise."
Jake grabbed his phone out of Gramps' hand and took to the air as he checked his notifications. There were a bunch of things from Trixie and Spud and Jake just swiped those away, knowing that they would be mostly memes and he could check them any time. He had two missed calls from Rose and then, surprisingly, a voicemail.
Jake called her back but didn't get an answer, which made him nervous. He angled his wings so that he would start heading toward campus. He checked the voicemail and became even more nervous.
"Jake? I ... I just wanted to hear your voice. I just think that yours is the voice I always want to hear. This world always gets away from me but then you're here. I don't know where you came from. I think that you're someone that I could have loved. Don't you think so?"
Jake waited to hear more but there was just the clank of the bottle in the background and then Rose's voice cut out. Jake flapped his wings faster and called Rose again and again but never got a response. He dropped into his usual transformation spot on campus and booked it toward Rose's room, hoping that she would answer her phone. Rose was usually pretty good about answering her phone, especially when it was him, but he was haunted by the tone she had in her voicemail.
Jake let himself into her dorm room and ran up the stairs, hammering on her room.
"Rose? Rose!? Answer the door!"
She didn't answer the door. With one flick of his dragon claw, Jake had the door unlocked and he threw it open.
Rose lay on floor, a tequila bottle empty at her side, the remains of white powder on her desk. Jake dropped to his knees at her side. There as vomit around her mouth and her breathing was too shallow, but she was breathing. Her heart was beating.
Hands shaking, Jake grabbed his phone and called 911, crying as he said, "You have to hurry, I think my friend is dying!"
I skip stones and wonder
How long till I'm discovered?
Rose felt like she was floating. It was everything that she'd ever wanted. To be free. To float. To tumble around and not think.
Everything was blackness. Everything was quiet.
For the first time in her life, Rose felt peace.
It's a quiet life
Up here
The lights of the waiting room were way too bright as Jake paced around. He hadn't heard a single thing about Rose yet. She'd been taken to get her stomach pumped but then she'd started to seize and that was the last thing that Jake had heard. He watched the clock. He'd managed to catch Heather on her layover to tell her what had happened and now Rose's whole family was on their way. Jake didn't know what was going to happen when they landed and he was so afraid that their very present was going to hurt Rose.
He saw Heather first, rushing into the waiting room and spotting him.
"Jake, what's going on?" Heather asked.
"I just found her like that," Jake said, "it was awful. She looked ... i thought she was going to die in my arms, Heather."
Jake felt himself breaking down and he told himself to pull it together. He couldn't be doing this when he looked at Rose's parents and tried to explain to him that he had really thought that she was getting better. She had really seemed to be turning into someone else, someone who wanted to try.
"She's going to be fine, Jake. She's going to have to be. I can't -"
"Heather," a woman said.
Jake looked up, seeing the woman who so resembled her daughters.
"Mom, Dad," Heather said, "this is Rose's friend, Jake. He found her."
"You mean he gave her the drugs," said Carl, Rose's father.
"NO!"
"Dad!" Heather said. "I just spent three days with Rose and getting to know Jake. She -"
Melinda, Rose's mother, held up her hand. "I'm going to go check on how my daughter's doing."
"Heather, go with your mother."
Heather looked helplessly at Jake before she obediently followed her mother up to the information desk. Jake wished that he was standing up there with them, getting a full progress report, but he was left looking at Carl and evaluating the man in the same way that the man was sure to be evaluating him. Jake could see the hardness in the man, the logical brain over the emotional brain, that both twins had told him about, but he could also see the worry lines around Carl's eyes. Those worry lines wouldn't be there if he was as heartless as Rose claimed him to be, when she was on one of her benders.
"I'm sure you're going to tell me you're a fine, upstanding young man," Carl said, and Jake was caught completely off-guard.
"I'm just -"
"Rose has never had good people in her life," Carl said,
"I was helping -"
"She never overdosed when she was in Hong Kong with us. You're the only person we've heard her mention since she got here. And now she's in the hospital and you're the one to find her? I've been around the block a couple of times, kid, I'm not stupid."
"I never said -"
"Get out of here, before you do anymore damage," Carl said. "I don't want you around her ever. I never want to see your face again."
"I just want to know she's all right! I just care about her!"
"Out. Before I call security."
Jake looked over to Heather but she was staring down at her shoes, pointedly not looking at him. Jake knew better than to cause a scene in a hospital and, against his will, he turned and walked out of he hospital, but he didn't go far. He sat down on a bench outside, hung his head between his legs, and cried. He cried in a great ugly way, the way that someone does when their heart is so broken they can't breathe. The snot ran all over his face and the tears seemed to fly in all directions and Jake felt so shattered that, for a moment, he thought that this was how Rose must have felt, walking through her day to day, and he understood why she might feel like she wanted to fly apart.
His phone buzzed and Jake barely had the strength to look at it, knowing that it wasn't going to be Rose, and knowing that he couldn't stand Spud and Trixie's merriment.
Heather: she's alive but critical. they didn't know how the seizures affected her. They're keeping her in a medically induced coma until her body has finished detoxing. They say it can take up to eight days.
Jake: And after 8 days?
Heather: We see if she even can wake up
Jake: I'm not what your parents think I am. I never got her drugs. I tried to help her.
Heather: I saw that she was better when I was there. I really did. I believe you that it was you. My parents aren't going to.
Jake: I need to see her.
Heather: I'm sorry. They've told the security staff you're a threat to her. This is what I meant. It's not that they don't care, it's that they already have these ideas in their heads about what the right way to care is.
Jake: Will you text me updates?
Heather: Whenever I can.
Jake: Thanks.
Heather didn't respond and Jake just stared at his phone, picking it back up to listen to Rose's voicemail again.
"I think that you're someone that I could have loved. Don't you think so?"
Jake was never going to get that out of his mind. They had never labelled themselves as dating but Jake had felt everything about them went beyond labels like that. Every touch between them felt deeper. They had kissed a few times but the intimacy of her hand in his had been more than he could bear on most days. They were supposed to grow together, they were going to fall in love. It was what he had really believed, sitting across from her in the diner that very first morning. She had come back into his life because they were meant to be together.
Now, Jake was thinking that she'd come back into his life so that he could fix his mistakes, try and give her the life he'd been trying to give her the first time, and he'd fixed absolutely nothing.
Before my time runs out
What If I run away to Mars?
Rose was empty.
She felt like she was missing something and her floaty little world wasn't what it had been. She didn't know how long she had been here but the colours were muted compared to what they had been. She wasn't flying as fast. She was slowing down.
In this pleasant little sphere of darkness, Rose was starting to feel aches. Not full on pain but she was worried that would come, and she wanted to go to where there was no pain, ever again. She wanted to escape.
She wanted to give into her deepest desire and just run.
She bounced from corner to corner of her darkness, looking for the way out, looking for somewhere to run.
Would you find me in the stars?
Would you miss me in the end
Jake: Will you come see me?
Heather: Where are you?
Jake: outside of the hospital
Heather: it'll have to be quick, all right?
Jake: I promise.
He didn't have to wait long for Heather to hurry out of the side entrance of the hospital.
"What is it?" Heather asked. "Nothing's changed. She's done detoxing. At least, her body is. The doctors say that her brain activity isn't as strong as they'd like but there's reason to believe that part of her is still in there. They still don't know when she's going to wake up.
"Will you give her this?" Jake asked, opening his palm and showing off the small pendent.
"What is it?" Heather asked, picking it up and studying it.
Jake wanted to tell her to be careful. That it had took a lot of maneuvering to get that in his possession. Instead, he tried to look nonchalant. "It's a Chinese healing charm. My grandfather says it will help her. You just need to place it somewhere where it's touching her skin and you need to be careful that it doesn't end up with anyone else. It's tailored for her."
"What's on it?" Heather asked. "Will it interfere with her medicines?"
Jake shook his head. "There's like an incantation and a herb or two. It's just a gemstone. It's, uh, not something I ever really believed in, you know, but I figure if it'll give Rose a chance, why not give her the chance?"
Heather went teary eyed. "Yeah, of course I'll get it to her, Jake, thanks. And, I'm sorry that my parents won't change their minds. You deserve to sit with her. You're the reason she made it to the hospital in time at all. You'd think that would be enough."
Jake shrugged. "When she wakes up and tells them the real story, they'll have to apologize."
"They'll never apologize for anything," Heather said. "I should go. I'll get this to her as soon as I can."
"Thanks," Jake said, and he watched Heather disappear between the doors.
He hoped it worked.
If I run out of oxygen?
There was a light, coming into her darkness. Rose lethargically rolled over to face it. She was fading. The colours in her darkness were nearly gone and Rose could tell that it was nearly over. The darkness was going to become all encompassing and she hoped that it took all the aches with it. And gave her some water. Her throat hurt. She needed some water.
The light changed, taking on shapes and colours, until it become something recognizable.
"Jake," Rose said, stretching her arms out toward him, "of course you're here."
Jake grabbed her arms and pulled her into a hug, filling her with such a warmth. Rose hadn't realized how cold she'd been. She wrapped her whole body around him as he tucked his head in the crook of her neck and rocked her back and forth,
"You're in here," he said breathlessly. "I didn't ... I was so worried that you wouldn't be in here."
"I don't know where I am," Rose said, "but I'm tired of being here. I'm tired all around. I've been trying to nap but there's been no way to sleep. I'm tired, Jake."
"You can't be tired, Rose. This is your head, you're in a coma, and you're going to die if you give up!"
Rose let go of Jake and backed away, reaching out in all directions. In her own head? No, that didn't make any sense. She wasn't a fully formed little being inside of her own head. And if she was inside of her own head -
"How are you here?" she asked Jake. "Are you not real? You're just a figment of my imagination?"
"I gave Heather a dream charm to give you," Jake said. "I have the other half so I could come and visit you."
Rose snorted. "That's crazy. That's so crazy."
"No crazier than the fact that the first time you saw me, I was a dragon,"
Rose froze. "What?"
She thought she'd been drugged up and hallucinating. There were no such things as dragons, outside of the fairytales that her mother refused to read her. Her parents had been very firm about her fantasies, as had all of her doctors. They weren't real. She was just a girl and her name was Rose Dawson and she'd never been anyone else, no matter what that voice in the back of her head told her, no matter what flashbacks she'd claimed to have. It was all just a part of her overactive imagination.
"There's a lot I haven't told you," Jake said, "and I need to tell you everything, now."
"Like what?"
"But you need to tell me something first."
"What?"
Rose felt the need to pace, feeling more alive than she hadn't in a very long time.
"Were you trying to overdose and die?"
Rose shook her head. "I was trying to not feel. I'm always trying not to feel. Do you know what it's like, to have your parents start medicating you at, like five, because you're not like other children? Some of those doctors weren't very nice. And some of those medications just made me feel worse but I wasn't spouting nonsense and my parents preferred me that way. They think I was built to be this way, you know?"
"No, you're not."
"That's what they think. They never tried to save me, they just wrote me off! I started being this way to get their attention. I went off all the meds they prescribed to me and they basically treated me like I didn't exist because I kept talking about things that didn't exist! And then I started drinking. What would your mother have done if you had shown up blackout at thirteen?"
"Kicked my ass and grounded me, for the rest of my life."
"Mine left me to sleep it off on the lawn. Wouldn't even let me inside." Rose clenched her fists. "How was I ever supposed to be normal? There's always been this thing inside of me that's wanted to be the total opposite of everything around me. It's wanted to fight and run and I don't know how to handle everything! I don't even understand it!"
"Rose!"
Jake took her hand and Rose realized that she was heaving for breath.
"Let me help you understand it."
Rose nodded and she sat down, cross-legged across from him. With their hands clenched together, Jake began to tell her a story.
A story of a girl named Rose Hunter.
When I run away to Mars
Jake watched Rose nervously, not sure what Rose was thinking, and then a tear slipped down Rose's cheek, and Jake was quick to catch it with his thumb.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to make you cry."
"It's relief," Rose said. "It's ... I feel whole. There are two people inside of me. There is a world of magic out there. Everything I've ever been called crazy for and drugged against my will for, everything my family ever wrote me off for - and I was right! I wasn't crazy!"
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," Jake said. "I thought I was protecting you by not telling you but I don't get to make that decision for you and I'm sorry that I did."
"I understand but don't ever do it again."
"I won't," Jake promised, and took a chance to smile at her. She smiled back and Jake felt himself falling even more in love.
She watched him for a moment and then she asked, "So, what happens now?"
"You're being given a new start. You've detoxed. You can leave all the demons behind and figure out who you want to be."
"I don't know who that is."
"Well, you can tell your parents to stuff it but I think you need to give Heather a fairer shake."
Rose nodded. "Yeah, I guess it's not fair I lumped her in with my parents, eh?"
"Probably not." Jake kissed her forehead. "Whatever you decide, Rose, know that you've got me? Know that I'm here for you and I'm never going to let you down again."
"I know. Thank you, Jake, for everything."
"Please, just, wake up, okay? We can figure everything out as long as you wake up."
Rose pulled Jake into him, giving him a kiss that was both hopeful and bittersweet, and Jake didn't know what to make of it. He kissed her back desperately, his hands tangled in her hair, holding on to her for as long as he could.
Until he woke up in his own bed.
Three, two, one, I miss you
I'm sorry, I got issues
Rose woke up in the hospital, feeling like a person that she didn't know. She struggled to sit up as her room flooded with nurses, her parents being pushed to the back of the room. She ignored her mother and father as the medical professionals did their job of poking and prodding at her and, instead, watched her sister. She hadn't decided what to do about her family yet but she'd been given a new lease on life - Jake was right. She could do whatever she wanted.
"Rose," her mother said, when Rose had been declared stable and not at risk, "how are you feeling?"
"You should go back to Hong Kong," Rose said. "I don't think we need to have a relationship right now."
"Rose," her father said, "we flew all this way to see you."
"Our relationship is very broken," Rose said, trying to sound diplomatic. Her parents never listened when she said what she felt. "I cannot heal with you here. We can work on repairing it at a later date but I think you're going to be detrimental to my recovery."
"You've never had a recovery in your life," her father said. "You never stay clean."
"Jake will help me. I was doing a lot better with Jake to help me. I have someone to rely on. A sponsor."
"The boy who found you?" her mother said. "Good lot of good he did."
"I'm asking you to leave," Rose said firmly. "We aren't helping one another."
"If that's why you want," her father said.
Rose tried not to deflate. She'd been hoping for more of a fight from them but it was what she'd been expecting.
They all turned to leave.
"Heather?" Heather turned and Rose could see the hope on her face. She reached out her hand toward her twin, the first time she could remember doing so. "I was hoping you would stay with me. At least for a while."
Heather reached out and took Rose's hand. "I would love to. For as long as you want. I just want you to be okay."
"I want us to be sisters again," Rose said. "I want to start trying right now."
Heather leant over the bed and pulled Rose into a fight hug.
"We've always been sisters," Heather promised her. "We're always going to be sisters."
"Thank you."
What If I run away to Mars?
Would you find me in the stars?
Rose popped the bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling cider, watching the cork fly somewhere in the kitchen. Heather rolled her eyes at Rose's messiness and went to fetch it while Rose filled glasses with the cider, handing one to Spud, Trixie, Jake, Heather, and leaving the last one for herself. When Heather picked up her glass, Rose cleared her throat.
"Thank you all for being here today," Rose said, even though here was just Rose's and Heather's apartment, where they often were. "One year ago today, I woke up from a coma. For one year, I have been completely sober. It's been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and I know that without the support of each and every one of you, I wouldn't have made it. I know that I wasn't always the best person to any of you." Here she looked at Heather. "I know that some of us didn't get off on the right foot." Here she looked at Trixie and Spud. "But I want you all to know how much I love you all." Here she looked at Jake. "I want to thank you for the nights I called you at ungodly hours because I was going to lose my mind and you picked up. I want to thank you for the distractions you offered. And, I want to thank you all for being a part of my life, because I'm so grateful to be a part of yours. If it weren't for you, I probably wouldn't be standing at all today, let alone standing here happy and healthy. So, to you."
Rose raised her glass.
"To Rose!" Jake said, lifting his.
"To sobriety!" Heather said.
They all clinked glasses and Rose sipped the apple cider, not wishing that it was alcoholic. Not missing the way that she'd feel after a bottle of tequila. This was her life now and she was so glad that her life wasn't anything else.
"I'm very proud of you," Jake said, wrapping his arm around her waist.
"I'm proud of me too," Rose confessed. "I never thought that I would be proud of myself. Hell, I never thought I would even be sober for a whole minute let alone a whole year!"
Jake kissed her cheek and Rose felt warmed all over.
"It's only going to get better from here," Jake said.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"Does that mean you're going to dance with me?" Rose asked,
She knew exactly what Jake was going to do and she was already laughing as he put their glasses down and took her hands, pulling her into his living room. He pulled her in close, even though the song that Trixie had picked definitely wasn't a slow dancing song.
"I'll always dancing with you," Jake said. "Till the end of time."
"You promised me forever."
"Then I'll dance with you past the end of time," Jake vowed.
And then he kissed her and Rose could feel how much he loved her.
Would you miss me in the end
If I run out of oxygen?
Jake took Rose's hand and pulled her along. They raced through cobblestone streets in a world that they didn't know. They darted under the nearest awning, wrapping their arms around one another as the rain poured down outside. Her long blonde hair stuck to the sides of her face and Jake flicked the blue streaks off the back of her light pink dress in case they stained it.
"The sun was just out!" Rose laughed.
"Well, Paris decided that it was time to rain!" Jake retorted. "What now?"
He could see a café down the street where they could run for refuge. They were only a few minutes from their hotel where they could see if they'd brought better clothes for it. He watched Rose ponder and then she jumped out from under the awning, into the downpour.
"What are you doing?" Jake asked.
"Feeling it!" Rose said and she spun out into the rain, her dress billowing out before it got too wet and then it stuck to her thighs. She leant her head back and Jake watched the rain drops make their way down her face, across her collarbones, and under the neckline of her dress. He stood for a moment and just appreciated the image of her. The healthy pink glow of her cheeks and the way that he couldn't count every bone in her body. She looked truly happy as she lifted her head to look him in the eyes and made a come hither gesture to him,
Ten years ago, Jake had found her in an alley, drinking vodka straight out of the bottle, like it was what normal people did. Since then, their entire world had changed. Rose, and eventually Heather, had cut their parents off nearly completely, except for birthday and Christmas wishes that mostly went through Heather. They had tried family therapies but their parents weren't willing to change and Rose had confided to Jake that they were going to drive her to drink, and that had been the end of their interactions. Heather had been married for two years now with twin daughters of her own and Jake and Rose made the trip up to see them in Massachusetts at least once a month. Trixie and Spud kept ribbing Jake about when he was going to propose to Rose but Jake wasn't in a hurry and neither was Rose.
For now, they were pouring everything into travelling. Laying in bed one night, Rose had admitted to Jake that she was feeling unsettled and Jake had been filled with an old fear, wondering what she was missing, but when she said she wanted to see Stonehenge and drink coffee in Ethiopia, and go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, he had relaxed, because he could do all of that for her.
Jake joined Rose in the rain and took her hand, not caring if they looked like tourists, just enjoying that they had this moment together and thinking about the many more moments they were going to have together.
"I love you," Jake said, spinning Rose, and thinking that she was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen.
"How much?" Rose asked.
"More than anyone in the world loves anyone else," Jake said.
Rose grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "That's how much I love you."
And then she kissed him.
When I run away to Mars