When she quietly slipped out of bed he stirred, and when she opened the front door, the ocean entered his dreams. It would have anyway, without the help of the distant, familiar sound. Even when he wasn't living within earshot of the sea, even when he was hundreds of miles from any serious body of water, when he slept he could feel himself keeling over waves that didn't exist.
And the dreams always take him back there.
In this one he's walking away from her. She follows him until she just stops, unwilling to put up the fight anymore.
He doesn't turn to see her stare after him, but he knows she does all the same. He heads toward the beach, and the surf gets louder as he puts a comfortable distance between them. It was so much easier when he could convince himself, and her too, that he just didn't give a shit.
The part of him that knew it was just a dream reached for her under the heavy blankets. But his hands only collided with cold air and mussed blankets. He slowly shook off the dream as his hands traveled over the sheets.
He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, he wondered what time it was, but it was far too dark to read his watch.
He knew she couldn't have gone far. It had been snowing heavily for days and the few roads that made it all the way up to their temporary home were under thick feet of snow. Not that she'd go anywhere anyway, but there was always the vague, unspoken worry in the back of his mind.
He swung his legs groggily out of bed, knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep till he found her. His feet were cold. Again. His toes curled when they hit the bare wood floor and he moved his feet around until they connected with his tennis shoes. He slipped his feet in and marveled at the fact that they now felt even colder. Would he ever just feel warm?
He stood up and glanced at his sweatpants balled up at the end of the bed where Kate had hastily discarded them. He though about the struggle that would ensue were he to attempt to pull them on over his shoes, and gave up without even trying. Instead he grabbed the heavy down comforter and wrapped it around his shoulders. He felt ridiculous, like a 6 year old with a makeshift cape, but at least he was warm.
He wandered into the hall and his undone shoelaces clicked on the floor. As he passed the rickety old heater, he kicked it. Fucking thing. He made his way to the living room, hoping she was sitting snug on the couch trying to keep warm. But she wasn't there, and the little fire in the Ben Franklin stove had gone out anyway. Nor was she in the kitchen or the bathroom. He was running out of viable hiding places.
He headed towards the front door. The knob was like ice, but he didn't care because as he pushed the door open he could see her standing at the edge of the porch, staring into the black. She had what Jack could only assume was the thinnest blanket in the house wrapped tightly around her shoulders. But she didn't shiver at all, just stood stoic, framed by the door like the lost heroin in a John Ford movie.
She either didn't hear him or didn't acknowledge him, he wasn't sure which. The surf was so much louder out here, tumbling recklessly into the cliffs just yards beyond their door. Trying not to disturb her, he leaned against the door frame and continued to take her in. She didn't belong here, just south of the Arctic Circle, just north of some nameless Norwegian fishing town. She belonged in the heat and the sand and too bright sun.
At least her feet were warm. Her slender, bare legs ended in fuzzy, tan, boot like slippers. He suddenly recalled a dream he had ages ago. Back before Africa and Prague, across oceans and all the places between there and here. He was at home in LA, and she was on his balcony, trapped outside in a snowstorm. She hadn't been wearing shoes, and he had worried. That's just what he did, he worried, even in his dreams.
A cold wind pushed her hair back, yet she remained still. Finally, she turned her head toward him slightly, the moon illuminated her profile and he could see her dimple form as she smiled.
"You just gonna stand there Shepard, or are you gonna come over here and warm me up?" she raised her eyebrows.
He smiled and nodded into the dark, with out a word he approached her and wrapped his arms and the heavy blanket around her. She leaned her back into his chest and their bare legs and heads were the only parts of them at the mercy of the wind.
He wondered if this was the first night she had gotten up like this. He doubted it. It was far more likely that this was just the first night he had noticed. It was her MO. They'd move somewhere, stay for a couple weeks, or months if he was lucky, then she'd get restless. She'd go to bed later and wake up earlier, pad around the hotel rooms or houses or apartments she couldn't leave, fidgeting and constantly on edge while she tried to make herself useful. Usually she only succeeded in making herself and him more nervous .
He tried not to think about it as he held on to her. It was weird how her body seemed to radiate a heat from within, impervious to the extreme cold. He didn't know how long she'd been out there, but surely she should feel colder than this. His hands moved down her nearly bare body, passing lightly over her tank top and underneath at her stomach. His other hand rested on her angular hip bone, his fingertips just dipping underneath her cotton underwear.
She leaned back and tired to look at him. "This hand action gonna go anywhere, or are you just making sure I'm still in tact?"
"When are we leaving?" he asked.
She exhaled slowly. If he had to, he would have guessed that she closed her eyes too, but he couldn't be sure.
"Leaving?" she asked casually.
"Yeah, leaving." He continued. "You seem…distracted."
"Look around, Jack." She tried to gesture to the snow laden trees and hills around them, but her arms were bound by the blankets. "We can't exactly go anytime soon."
He nodded, his chin bobbing up and down on her shoulder.
"And we haven't been outside for days, I just needed some fresh air."
"Okay." If she was willing to say it, he was willing to believe it.
She maneuvered her face around to the right and kissed his jaw lightly. "Look up." She whispered.
He tilted his face skyward. It was the kind of night sky that only comes after a big storm, when things are cold and windblown and so clean.
"Ever seen that many stars?" she asked. He glanced at her, her face alight with astonishment, almost childlike in a naïve sort of wonder.
"Nope." He answered honestly.
She looked back at him, the openness in her expression was gradually clouded by something more akin to regret.
"We will have to leave eventually though." She said.
"I know." He looked at her a second, then as an afterthought added "What do you say we go someplace warm?"
Then she grinned that lopsided smile that made everything worth it and she turned to face him inside that big bedspread, her abandoned blanket slipped unnoticed to the floor. She kissed him and her hands slid upward and out of the warm confines of the blanket, pulling his face closer to hers.
And as she wrapped her legs around him and he carried her inside he knew that it would never be normal.
As he made for the bedroom, he knew that they would always have to take care and exist only in the dark corners of the world.
When she murmured something about fire and living room, he switched direction. And he knew that they would never be able to just throw some sleeping bags in the car and head up the 101, elope at the Santa Barbara courthouse, then make their way as far as the Washington coast, stopping whenever they wanted just to fool around and laughing all the way there.
As he smiled and dropped her unceremoniously on the couch, he knew that being with her meant doing without certain bits of himself. And he knew he was capable of it because he knew she was making different sacrifices for him. Because at the core of it, that's what loving somebody means, and he knew he loved her.
As he crouched in front of the old fashioned stove and rekindled the fire, he turned to look at her he knew that he could never fix what had once been broken, he'd just have to make do with all the good that was left in her. And there was so much of it that the fixing didn't really seem necessary anyway.
He slipped off his shoes and they both laughed as she tried to detangle herself from the folds of the blanket. And as he removed her slippers and pulled of her underwear, he knew that he didn't know much of anything at all, he just wanted to be where she was. The two of them could reside in this beautiful mess as long as it would let them.
And minutes later, Jack was finally warm. All of him from his fingertips to his toes.
They slept late, only actually moving from the couch to the bed just before the sun rose. Then they busied themselves with mundane household chores. Kate attempted to fix the busted heater because Jack was just no use with tools unless they were of the medical persuasion.
He made them lunch in the tiny, sparse kitchen. Then, just after it got dark, they got sufficiently bundled and went for a short walk above the cliffs.
The stars weren't quite as bright as the previous night, but the moon gave off enough light to make walking the precarious path safe. At the far edge of the sky, there was a blue glow that moved and shone like heat waves, they could see the northern lights. It was the first time either of them had seen it.
Kate moved closer to the edge of the cliff and looked at the dark ocean below. Jack did the same.
The frothy, angry surf would find its way to other shores through warmer currents. It would travel slowly, exiting the dark night of the North, circumnavigating the globe until it turned blue-green with heat and lapped lazily at more temperate beaches under a Pacific sun.
Maybe the water churning beneath them, moving too quickly to even reflect the moon, would find their lost island easier then anyone else could. Maybe it would reside there quietly for years, shaping the already smooth coast line.