Jennifer's lying with her head on his stomach, looking up at the ceiling, and his fingers are in her hair. It's warm in the room–their room, Duke reminds himself, and he smiles. He twines one of the dark curls around his fingers–or maybe it twines itself around his fingers, claiming him in some way that he's never been claimed before.
Gently.
Quietly.
With a whispered request.
He might also be a little drunk–it was a summer day and their drinks were always cold and plentiful–but she's so soft and is talking to him gently so what does being a little drunk matter?
His free hand is resting on her stomach, sandwiched in between hers, and he could feel her small fingers alternating between rubbing between his knuckles and just tracing patterns on the back of his hand. She was steady in the light press of her fingers on his skin, consistent, strong.
Warm.
"I used to have this dream," She's saying to him in the dark, her voice slow, soft, and winding around him, "well, I guess it was more of a nightmare."
He keeps his hand moving steadily through her hair, partly in an automatic motion but mostly to comfort her. Even though he couldn't see her face and all he could feel was her hair and her hands, there was a tension that sprang up in her hands as they worked over him.
"I…I would be in this old, old house–my parents and I would go on these road trips growing up and my mom was just fascinated with abandoned places and we'd walk through them sometimes and there'd just be this feeling of not belonging that would cling to you–anyway." She's rambling a little, and he knows she knows it, but he keeps his touch consistent, even squeezing the hand that's under his on her stomach.
"So I would be in this old, old house, and I'd be looking for something. Always, always looking for some thing–even though I never knew what I was supposed to be looking for. And I'd avoid the second floor for as long as possible because once I went up those stairs, everything would change."
He keeps listening to her, closing his eyes and letting himself envision her dream. He sees a large, midwestern style home, with faded paint and missing windows and doors. Something open and missing, with a front like a scared face. For some reason, everything was bathed in yellow light–something in her voice always did that–which somehow made the image that much more haunting. He sees her walking nervously around the wrecked first floor, stepping carefully over ransacked furniture, graffiti on the walls–she walks the whole circle of the first floor, always coming back to the dilapidated stairs across from the front door.
"Once I climbed those stairs, I would just feel like I was being pressed down on. And there were all these doors but only one's open at the end of the hallway and it was cracked and I could just barely hear something. It sounded like my name."
The hand under his is curled in a fist now, while the one on top keeps trying to continue her caress over his knuckles, but he only starts to try to ease the tension in her hand under his.
In his mind, he sees a long, dark hallway–everything was painted in a midnight blue now as she talked, such a fearful contrast to the yellow outside–and there she is, walking down it towards a cracked door that in another life, had been painted white. There's light coming through it, something from outside that was almost yellow like before.
"And even though I wanted to run away, I had to keep walking until I finally reached the door and when I pushed it open, there was a man sitting in a chair, facing the door–he never looked the same, his face was always different–and he never–"
She stops, her voice quaking slightly as she lets out a slow breath, before saying, "It had no eyes. He had no eyes."
He pulls one of her hands up to his lips and kisses her fingers and palm gently, and he could feel her slowly relaxing under and against him. He can just barely hear the waves smacking against the side of the Rogue as they rocked the boat gently. He tries to run his fingers through her hair in time with each wave.
Almost in a whisper she says, "He'd try to speak but by then I was already screaming myself awake. I…"
She rolls her body so her ear's pressed against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, as the hand he'd had on her stomach moves to petting her side. He can't see her eyes, but he knows that this nightmare is something that still bothers her–hell, she probably still has this same nightmare today.
"I had that nightmare all the time when I was in the hos–when I thought I was crazy." She says quietly.
He pulls her gently up to kiss her, rolling so that she's under him, and mumbled between kisses, "You're safe here. You're safe with me."
After she dies, he starts having her nightmare.
Only he's forced to listen to what the eye-less man says.
"You lied."