It was strange being home. Nick had never experienced that before. He had gone on plenty of trips, holidays and out of town assignments for work and such. Each and every time, it felt good to be home. No matter how long he was gone, one night or ten, it was good to go home. Nick liked his home. He liked his house. It was his and his alone. Other than the bones of the house itself, he'd renovated and rebuilt almost everything and did most of it on his own. This house was a part of him. It was exactly how he wanted it to be. He'd made it an extension of himself.
But coming home this time was different. He had felt numb, almost, walking through the woods back to his car. There was a citation on the window for parking it there overnight. The fine wasn't too much. He was lucky it wasn't towed. But Nick didn't give that any thought. He barely processed it. He put the picnic hamper in the backseat and drove back home in silence. Didn't even turn on the radio. He just felt empty, somehow. And when he walked in the front door, he did not take a deep breath of the scent of his house and he did not smile and he did not feel the familiar comfort of being home. It was all just…strange.
The first thing he did after putting the hamper in the kitchen was go upstairs to take a shower. That should help, shouldn't it? Wake him up and readjust his mood. A shower was good for that. The hot spray of the water on his body to wipe away the external grime. The white noise of it clearing his mind. But when Nick stood under the water and closed his eyes, all he could see was the fairy realm.
Christ, was he really believing in such things? Fairies?! It was absolutely ridiculous. Fairies weren't real. Of course they weren't. They couldn't be. Magic and all that, it wasn't real. There was just no way.
But if it wasn't real, if it wasn't possible, what the bloody hell had he just seen?
All those strange things about Jennifer, everything that had felt just slightly off, it was all explained by fairy magic. Her presence in the woods, her clothes, her golden glow, her way of just appearing and disappearing without a trace, her slight confusion over mundane things like tea and beer and cars. And then there was the strange thing with his dining table. Apparently he was hearing the wood sing? That was an odd thing to consider. All of it was odd. But somehow it all made sense. She'd explained things, answered all his questions, not hesitated at all. He was well-trained to know when people were lying to him and making up stories. Jennifer had been telling him the truth.
There was a chance, of course, that it was all an elaborate hallucination he'd concocted. Maybe he'd been poisoned or he had a brain tumor. Nick gave up on the shower and turned off the water. He dried himself off with a towel and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at himself. He looked alright. Normal and all. He didn't think there was anything off about him. Nothing different from a few days ago, not so far as he could tell. But despite his same ordinary look, Nick did not feel the same.
And really, how could he feel the same? With all he'd experienced over twenty-four hours, how could he possibly come out the other side without feeling some sort of change? Even if it was all a product of a diseased mind or an elaborate dream, it had been real enough to alter him this way. It was as though this whole experience had opened his mind to a wider world than he'd been aware of. Like…like Dorothy going from Kansas to Oz, walking out the front door into brilliant Technicolor. He'd never realized he'd lived in black and white. Because he'd never known that he'd been missing color. Now, he couldn't fathom going back to how things were before. Things had changed. He had changed.
Nick put some comfortable clothes on and let his hair dry on its own without bothering to brush it. He went downstairs again to put away the picnic things and find himself something to eat. He'd not eaten since breakfast in Jen's house. And with all the anxiety and emotion of meeting the fairy queen and hearing her story about Dane Majors, Nick had not worked up much of an appetite. But now it might be a good idea to figure something out.
He puttered around the kitchen in silence while making scrambled eggs and toast. Usually he'd put the radio on to listen to the news or a sports game. Maybe put the telly on and watch the rugby while he cooked so he could go sit down and eat in front of the screen without missing much. But Nick wasn't in the mood for it right now. He wanted the silence. For just a little longer.
When his food was made, instead of sitting down at the kitchen table or on the sofa, he went to the dining room. He sat down at the beautiful live edge table he'd just finished a few days before. At first, he couldn't hear anything. But he listened harder and focused, and then he heard it ever so faintly. The wood was singing again. It was so subtle that his mind may have been making it up. He sat down with his food and ran his hand over the sanded wood. Nick could have sworn that the song changed at his touch.
"What are you doing?" he murmured quietly. "What do you want to tell me?" He ran his hand over the wood again, slower this time. And though he heard no words and only the smallest hint of a melody, he felt it. He felt a sense of calm and peace and rightness come over him. "I guess you're doing alright," he said softly. Before, Jen had said the wood was happy. This seemed to indicate it still was. Or else he was truly losing his mind, talking to a wooden table and expecting it to answer back.
Nick ate his little meal and tried to refocus his mind. He was back home and he had to go to work tomorrow. Best focus on that. What was he working on? What casework awaited him? Unfortunately, he could not quite recall at that exact moment. They'd finished up that killing with the prison. That guard and prisoner and the doctor, the mess with the girlfriend and the other guard wasting police time. They'd arrested the warden. Had he finished his report? Oh he must have. Nick wouldn't have left on Friday without having finished. But maybe something else would land on his desk on Monday. He hoped it would. He hoped he'd get to the station and sit at his desk beside Duncan and get to focus his mind on the work. That was what he was best at. That was what he needed to remember. All the rest of this could wait.
Now wanting that distraction, Nick did his dishes and went to sit down on the sofa. He'd watch television the rest of the afternoon. He didn't need to worry about chores or anything. He could fix dinner later. For now, he could wile away the hours with something mindless to keep him from thinking so much about…all the rest.
That plan had worked quite well for him. There was an old action film on some cable channel, so he watched Arnold Schwarzenegger do all that macho stuff with guns and fights and creative ways to kill the bad guys. Nick even smiled a time or two at some of those stupid one-liner puns.
He put the radio on while he cooked dinner and ate in front of the television again, this time watching the evening news. And by the time the ten o'clock hour came, it was time to shut it all off and head to bed. Busy day tomorrow, to be sure.
Nick went to bed and turned out the light and closed his eyes. He willed himself to sleep. And he failed. His mind had drifted back to all that had come before. The giant trees. The enormous flowers. The palace that matched his tattoo. The flying.
The flying. That was something he could not forget. Surely that had been real. He'd dreamed it, before, just after he met Jennifer. But flying for real had been different. Holding her hand and soaring through the air, the speed and precision and power of it. It was incredible. The most incredible thing he'd ever experienced.
Well, one of the most incredible things. His mind's eye drifted to the vision that had begun all of this, the cause for her to bring him to the fairy realm to start with. That image would be imprinted on his brain till the day he died. Jennifer straddling him, her golden skin and golden hair glowing and flush with arousal, her movements elegant and erotic, her head thrown back in ecstasy, her wings unfurling in a glittering golden explosion of magic.
That's what it was, surely. That was what had happened. Her magic had surged as she lost control over herself, and her hidden wings and sprung forth to visibility. Nick had never seen fairy wings before that. He'd thought them beautiful. Unspeakably beautiful. They fit her so well. And it was not until he'd seen a few other fairies that he saw that their wings were all unique. Nick could not help but think that Jennifer's were the most impressive by far.
He rolled over to get more comfortable as he felt exhaustion finally overtake him. He fell asleep thinking about Jennifer and her wings. He wasn't worried, in that moment, if any of it was real or what he was going to do about it. But he fell asleep with a smile and finally feeling the comfort of home.