"Can we set up a few ground rules before we go in there?"
September had faded into October, and they had been back together for just over a month. Danielle had also been fired a month before. Hana was six months old, and they were all packed for a week off, to be spent near the lake, regardless of whether this experiment succeeded or failed.
Nancy and Ned were seated in Ned's Jaguar in the parking lot of Dr Strathman's office.
"You mean besides the ones we've already gone over?"
This was to be a dry run, because even though they were pretty sure it would work, Ned had never been the one to take Nancy under before. With Nancy's blessing Strathman had emphasized to Ned how he was not to misuse the ability to have her in that state of mind, wasn't to do anything she was uncomfortable with him doing.
She nodded. "I mean like you not using it as a truth detector for things you should ask me while I'm awake."
"Like what?"
She shrugged and toyed with the hem of her sweater. "Things I don't want you to ask in front of Strathman, that's why I'm telling you now."
"You mean like... sex?" he dropped his voice on the last one, even though she was the only one who could hear him.
She half-smiled. "There are things you want to ask me about sex?"
"Have you ever faked it for me?"
Nancy looked down at her hands. "Three or four times."
"Three or--" Ned broke off, aghast. "Why?"
"Because it seemed like the easiest thing to do at the time."
"Talk about being honest with each other... I thought you'd tell me if you..."
He trailed off, blushing slightly. He had no problem talking about it while alone with her in their bed, but this was public, and daylight.
"You shouldn't have to fake it."
She reached up and touched his face. "I don't have to. But sex isn't always about that with me. Sometimes it's just having you close to me and knowing you want me. Yeah, it's not like that all the time, but it's not the end of existence for me if I don't. And when it's physically uncomfortable--"
"You mean when I hurt you."
She took his chin in her hands and turned him to face her, then held his gaze. "You don't hurt me," she said. "Physical discomfort isn't pain."
He appeared to shrink back from her a little. "Man, you're great for my self-esteem."
Nancy glanced at her watch. "And we have to go in, or we'll be late."
--
He didn't find it at all difficult to put her under. They'd had therapy sessions where she had screamed at him, cried, threatened to hit him over the head with a chair, but that was over with now. At least, he hoped it was. The doctor monitored the first try as a favor to them, but he couldn't sit in on the real session, not once he was confident that Ned knew what to do and wouldn't cause any damage.
So that night Ned settled down into the papasan chair beside their bed with his wife in his arms, her head against his shoulder, and as he whispered the words to put her under her body seemed to grow heavier against his, until she was resting quietly and he was pushing her hair back from where it had fallen against her cheek. She was in an ivory sweater with a deep v-neck almost revealing the silk camisole she was wearing underneath, jeans and white socks and her reddish gold hair half pulled back from her face.
"Hey," he said softly, his hand still resting on her cheek.
"Hey," she replied, softly.
"Who am I?" he asked her, stroking a finger down her skin, very softly, watching her expression.
She smiled. "Ned," she whispered.
"That's right," he replied. "And you know my voice."
"Yes," she breathed.
"Do you remember Jean's voice?" Ned asked.
Nancy moved deeper into his embrace, so suddenly that his hand slid over her cheek, into her hair, down to her shoulder. She murmured some terrified affirmation against him.
Ned tilted his head down, pushed her gently back. The tears he could feel on his skin were gleaming on her cheeks. He rested his forehead against hers, tasting her breath. "He used to get inside your head like this, didn't he."
"Yes," she replied, her lips trembling.
"Who else?"
"Michael Delgado," she whispered.
"Anyone else?"
"The doctor," she said. "With you."
"Did Jean tell you he was the only one who could?"
"At first," she said. "And then he went away and told me the word so he could find me again."
"What word?"
She shook her head, Ned's thumbs stroking the tears from her cheeks. "I don't remember."
"Tell me," he whispered, leaning in close to her, his face against her cheek, his breath on her ear, and a slow shudder trembled down her spine as she gasped in a breath, lashes fluttering over her skin, eyes closed. She tilted her face and Ned found himself kissing her, the doctor's half-remembered admonishments fading at the taste of her. He pulled back, finally, his throat thick with unshed tears. "Tell me."
"I can't," she murmured, her wet face flushed and contorting.
"Please," he whispered, his thumbs stroking the wet track of her tears softly over the hollow just behind her earlobes. She fell foward heavily into his embrace and he maintained the caress, feeling the slight movement of her breath against his shoulder.
"You can't have me," he barely made out, her voice muffled against him. "He won't let you."
A rush of ice water flooded his stomach. "He's dead, baby," Ned whispered. He picked up her leaden hand and led it under his shirt, to his chest. "You feel that? You feel my heart?"
"Doesn't matter," she whispered.
"Do you love me?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Then give me a way in."
For a long moment she didn't respond, and then she tilted her face back to his and he kissed her again, slowly, fingers tangled in her hair. Then she pulled back, gasping and breathless. She reached up, put the flat of her palm against his, wove their fingers together.
"Deeper," she whispered. She pulled her sweater over her head and began to struggle out of her jeans.
"Nan," he whispered, unsure.
"He would have me make you forget," she murmured, biting her lip as she pushed down her jeans. Ned stilled her hands and she tilted her head back, against his shoulder. "Let me."
She tugged her jeans off and then her socks, revealing polished toes, and then she straddled him and kissed him hard. She put her hands on his shoulders as he leaned into it, and then he felt her fingertip slide over the place where his neck met his right shoulder. She bent her finger and the tip of her nail bit into his skin. He shivered under her touch as she traced a line over his muscle.
Then another.
When she was finished writing the word on his skin, he broke the kiss off and stared at her. Then he leaned forward, mouth flush against her ear, and spoke it aloud. She slipped deeper into the state and he caught her as she slumped sideways, her lips slightly parted.
The pressure was building inside him, the pressure of having her close to him, creamy flesh and the tremble of her thighs, the silk strap sliding down the curve of her shoulder, the drowse in her gaze. He took a deep breath. "Nancy," he murmured.
She made a soft noise.
"Do you have anything else in your head? More words, more instructions, anything else?"
Nancy couldn't meet his eyes, her own eyelids were so heavy, but she tilted her head and tried to speak, failed, then swallowed and tried again. "You weren't supposed to be here," she said. "He-- this is--"
She sipped in another breath and tilted backwards, and he caught her again, her head lolling, her hair casting a shadow over the curve of her cheek.
"You... you're safe," he stumbled, remembering Strathman's instructions. "You're safe, nothing can hurt you here..."
She made a soft noise that seemed to come off disbelieving.
He traced his thumb over her cheekbone. "Tell me."
"This is where he told me to leave you," she breathed. "This is where he told me to stay on the pill and wait until he came back for me."
"He will never be here again," Ned whispered against her cheek. "But I'm here. This is going to be our place now and we will make another password and you will be safe inside your own head, Nan."
She smiled, very very faintly.
"Do you hear my voice right now, baby?"
"Yes," she said slowly.
"I'm going to be the only one," he said. "Just me, just this voice, just these words. No one else is ever going to be inside your head again. No one. No one ever again."
"No one," she repeated.
"I'm the only one," he murmured.
"Yes."
"Anything else, anyone else... anything Jean told you--" she shuddered at the sound of his name, "anything he told you was a lie, baby. Anything. Only what you heard me and Dr Strathman say."
She inhaled and nodded, slowly.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I love you too," she replied.
"Say the words," he whispered. "Say the words with me." He twined his fingers around hers.
It was after, once she was conscious again, once she was stirring and he was climbing into bed next to her. She coughed, her torso lifting off the bed with the force of it, reached up and tugged the clip out of her hair, and rolled over onto her side. He looked at her, and she was gasping for breath, loud shallow gasps, her eyes reddened.
"Ned."
She reached out for him and he leaned over her on the pillow, pushed her hair back, kissed the softly parted lips. Her arms snaked between them and she was tugging her shirt up, and when they broke she drew her silk top up over her head and tossed it over the edge of the bed.
"He was inside me," she keened, her voice shaking.
He took her into his arms, hugged her hard, and she sobbed harder than she ever had, because Strathman had never been able to take her that deep (and he felt a deep sense of pride at that). She was shaking, her arms up around his neck, her leg draped over his.
"I love you," he whispered. "He'll never be inside you again."
"I love you," she whispered.
--
When he woke, she was in one of his white button-downs, cuffs loose, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, as she looked out through the mesh curtains. His gaze traced down the smooth curve at the back of her leg, as he pushed himself up on his elbows, the sheet pooling at his waist.
"Hey," he murmured.
She turned and smiled at him, then put her coffee cup on the nightstand and climbed back into bed with him. She leaned down and kissed him, and he closed his eyes at the feel of her hair as it brushed over his skin.
"You ready to go?" he asked as she broke off.
"In a minute," she whispered.
"In a minute," he replied, reaching up to cup her face, tilting his face back to kiss her.
The makeup she put on was amazing. No more puffy discolored skin around her eyes, she looked fresh and rested and glowing. She pressed her fingertips against the passenger window, the glass cool from the fall wind, and he smiled to himself as he pulled into his parents' driveway.
--
Helene, as though sensing her parents' eyes on her, gave a last halfhearted kick at the brightly colored toy hanging over her before falling asleep. The excitement of seeing her parents again after a night at her grandparents' had been enough to keep her awake for the car ride, but not for much longer after Ned had put her down in the playpen standing in their bedroom.
Nancy lifted herself off the bed, leaned over to check on Hana, and then settled back down, her arm over Ned's waist. He smiled to himself.
"Don't wanna go," he mumbled, voice muffled as he pressed his face against Nancy's shoulder.
"Then don't," she told him softly, fingers plucking gently at the shirt over his back. "Tell your boss I tied you to the bed and wouldn't let you go."
He smiled and made the same response she had, that his boss probably wouldn't go for that, but added that he probably would insist upon videotape.
"Do you have to go?" she asked him softly, and the plaintive vulnerable sound of it was enough to make his heart beat painfully in his chest. He brushed her hair back from her cheek and nodded, his fingertips resting at her ear.
"At least for a few hours," he murmured. "I have to finish a few things up so I can stay here with you for a week and not get calls every day asking what to do."
"You're that important?" She was drowsing, her eyelashes curled as they brushed her cheeks, her voice low and soft.
He smiled. "I'm that important," he replied.
"Good," she said, but after she fell asleep and he tried to extract himself from her embrace, she still wouldn't let go.
--
Ned tried to close the door quietly the next morning, but Nancy woke to a mewling cry that sounded from the other side of their bedroom door. The cry wasn't repeated, so Nancy kicked off the covers and walked to the bathroom instead of pulling on a robe and tending to the child just yet.
Helene was still asleep but Hana was awake when Nancy checked on her daughters. She picked up Hana and made a nest for her out of cushions and pillows on the living room floor before going to the kitchen to start on breakfast.
She scowled in annoyance as she saw the round table. Ned had left his coat on top of it when he had come home the night before. She picked it up to hang it in the closet, and saw the stack of mail underneath.
"Nice," she muttered. She cracked some eggs into a bowl and scrambled them, and then Helene woke up and started howling. She turned the stove off so the butter wouldn't burn, poured herself a cup of the decaf that had just finished brewing, and brought Helene in the kitchen to nurse while she went over the mail.
That was how Ned found her, after he'd finished his morning run and came back into their cabin, still breathing heavily, his skin gleaming with sweat. Nancy was seated at the table with their daughter in her arms, her robe belted loosely around her, looking down at a plain white envelope in her hands.
She met his eyes and whatever greeting he was about to mutter died on his lips.
"I'm pregnant," she told him, in a low voice. "I took the test this morning."
He was quiet for a minute. "I thought," he said, gesturing at her and the child in her arms, and a half-smile quirked her lips. "How far?" he asked.
She shrugged, and tossed her long reddish-blonde hair over her shoulder. "Not long," she replied.
Then she tossed him the envelope in her hands.
He recognized it from the night before, when he'd gone through the mail; it was addressed to Nancy, her married name, no return address, their home address computer printed onto the envelope. The flap was ragged where Nancy had torn it open; he flipped it back and took out the piece of paper inside.
Then he fell into the chair opposite her, staring at it.
"Marriage certificate," he said, his voice strained, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her nod.
Their first marriage certificate, signed by them both and witnessed, the piece of paper Nancy's father had demanded as proof that Ned had married his daughter on a moonlit beach the year she was nineteen. The absence of which had allowed that marriage to be treated as a meaningless youthful mistake.
"How," he asked, flipping over the envelope, studying the paper, but there were no hints, no return addresses, no explanations.
"I don't know," she replied. "But I think we've finally won."
