AN: Chapter 5 is a) the halfway point b) what happened in Georgia c) my favorite chapter d) longer than I planned, but it didn't make sense to split it when the entire chapter is about one trip.
Guest 1 – If you don't like Cameron now…
Guest 2 & everyone else – As always, I really appreciate your feedback!
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Three months earlier, they'd been working a weapons trafficking case and found evidence that might implicate a high-ranking U.S. Senator. Over the course of their investigation, Nell received some encrypted emails from a conspiracy theorist by the name of Reynolds, claiming to have proof of Senator Braxton's involvement in the case; Reynolds used to work for him. He agreed to talk further and hand over his evidence, but only if they (specifically, Nell) met him in person.
Of course, Reynolds lived in a shack in the middle of the woods in rural Georgia. And he refused to travel.
After much debate, Hetty had decided their best course of action was to meet him – while he was an unusual character, nothing in his past indicated he was dangerous. Nell gladly volunteered for the trip and Hetty didn't need to be convinced. In addition to Reynolds only trusting Nell, Hetty was of the opinion that Nell had earned the right to follow the case through until the end.
Hetty informed Callen he'd have to accompany Nell, and he'd tried everything possible to shelve the trip altogether. He seemed to be the only one considering the real risks of meeting a potentially unstable person when they were representatives of the government Reynolds proclaimed to hate and distrust. Despite his arguments, Hetty and Nell wouldn't be swayed, to the point that they convinced Granger their plan was the only course of action available.
Callen ignored Granger's orders, as he loved to do, and kept protesting until Hetty played her trump card: Nell was going whether he went or not. Hetty would just send a different agent along with her. He remembered her tossing the name Will Cameron around.
That had sealed it for Callen, because if Nell was determined to go, there was no way she was going without him.
Hetty had been pleased at the arrangement – it would be good for Nell to get out into the field, and she also knew, of the possible agents she could send, Callen was the most invested in her safety. Truthfully, Hetty hadn't envisioned any scenario where he would allow anyone else to go with Nell. On the flip side, he was one of the best at staying level-headed in high pressure situations – for the most part. She knew if things got out of hand, Nell could generally keep him from getting into too much trouble.
A few days later they were in Georgia, and had managed to find the only motel within the remote vicinity of Reynolds' home, 40 miles outside of Atlanta – or as Callen called it, the middle of nowhere.
"No place can be 'nowhere'," Nell informed him, as they got out of the car. "Since every place is, in effect, somewhere."
"Can't you ever just agree with what I say?"
She didn't have to think about it. "No."
The Pine Gables Motel had definitely seen better days. It was two stories and badly in need of a paint job. The forest closed in on the motel from three sides, as if eager to overtake it, and the short road the motel was on led to a few general stores and shops in the town center. Houses were scattered few and far between.
"There are no actual gables," Nell remarked, sounding disappointed.
"That's what you're focused on?" Callen asked, incredulously. "I know I've seen this exact motel in at least four horror movies."
"Your phone's GPS led us here, and it's the only motel around, so you can sleep in the car tonight if you want, but I'm getting a room."
"What if everything's booked already?"
Nell surveyed the nearly empty parking lot – a beat up Chevy pick-up in the back and two non-descript sedans near the motel. "Yeah, we better run fast before the rooms are gone."
He looked at her disapprovingly. "You never know if a busload of tourists got dropped off for a convention or something."
"A convention around here? On what?"
"I don't know." He waved a hand at the wilderness threatening to envelop the motel. "Trees!"
"Let's see the inside," she suggested. "If you don't approve, we'll move on, otherwise we're staying."
He thought that was fair. "Agreed."
The wind picked up as they walked toward the office entrance. She had to admit the trees swaying around them as they approached the run-down building made for a creepy atmosphere. "You know, you might be right? I could see a serial killer living here. Probably owns this place, waiting for unsuspecting travelers like us to arrive. The tagline would be: stay the night…forever."
She laughed, thinking she was hilarious, and he muttered something about how she wouldn't be laughing the next morning when she woke up to find he'd taken the car and left her there.
To their relief, the clerk was a pleasant, middle-aged man who didn't give off any murderous vibes. He told them the only reason the motel existed was because the road was one of the only throughways between towns and they mostly got tourists on road trips. Callen tried to picture him and Nell on a road trip across the country. It surprised him how much he didn't hate the idea. Outside of Sam, he couldn't imagine spending that much time with someone without killing them. And even Sam was a close call.
They took two connecting rooms and Callen deemed them fitting enough to pass his inspection. They were clean, slightly over-sized, and had comfortable beds, which was more than they'd expected when they'd been standing in the parking lot. The décor was mid-90's chic mixed with faux knotty pine, and it made Nell nostalgic for family vacations at the cabin they used to rent in Maine.
They'd had little time to do more than drop off their things before they went to meet Reynolds.
Callen half-expected to report back home that he'd been right, that Reynolds was beyond insane and had tried to kill them, or something equally bizarre that would prove his suspicions correct. To his amazement, their meeting was incredibly anti-climactic. Reynolds was a bit out there, for sure, but far short of crazed or even threatening toward him or Nell.
It took five minutes to peg him as completely harmless. He regarded Callen with suspicion until Nell 'vouched' for him as nothing more than a fellow agent sent along as a bodyguard for the trip, and Reynolds more or less ignored him after that. Callen figured if Reynolds had any idea of the numerous ways Nell knew to incapacitate him, he wouldn't have been so comfortable around her.
Reynolds apparently felt Nell understood him in ways no other woman ever had, and she'd utterly charmed him in turn. She earned three 'live-with-me-forever-in-unwedded-bliss-because-I-don't-believe-in-state-sanctioned-marriage' proposals. In fact, his immediate affinity for Nell was the only thing that bothered Callen for the entire meeting, and Nell handled it before he could say a word. She let Reynolds down easy (she 'wasn't ready for the commitment he deserved'), and they got their information and left with only a handful of lectures about how the government 'denied the truth'. One of those 'truths' was that aliens had taken over half of Congress (Callen was inclined to believe him on that one).
Callen waited until they were a safe distance from Reynolds' shack – or as the man called it – his 'bunker'. "I think that went well. We're still alive."
"You set the bar so high," she told him, as they made their way through the trees and back to the rental car.
Callen couldn't resist. "You two had chemistry, sure you don't want to stay in Georgia? Live in the woods and dream up conspiracies for the rest of your life?"
"You don't 'dream them up' if they're true," she said smartly, as he looked at her sideways.
"Don't tell me that –"
"All I'm saying is the government is vast and full of thousands of people with thousands of opportunities to take advantage. I'm sure plenty have exploited their positions and we'll never know."
He couldn't argue with that kind of logic, but if she admitted she believed in some of the craziness Reynolds had been throwing around…well, he could never let that go. "Do you subscribe to those conspiracy magazines? Hey, we can turn around, drop you off back at –"
"Admit that there are things you will never know," she cajoled, breathing in deeply. It was early autumn, and the weather was beautifully mild. "Believe it or not, I like it out here. I'd have been fine living in the woods." Once upon a time, before the life she had now.
He shifted his gaze to her, then back in the direction they'd come from. "Really?"
She huffed. "Not with the crazy guy, okay? At least," she muttered, "not that one."
She brushed by a branch that got caught in her hair and reached up to rip it away instead of spending the time to untangle it. The sharp pain told her she'd lost some hair to that one.
Callen reached over and pulled a leaf from the vicinity of her ear. "I could see you out here every day."
"Doing what?"
He shrugged. "What do people do in the woods?" Actually, he didn't know, but if you asked Reynolds, they probably spent a good part of their time running their conspiracy theory blogs and maintaining their solar panels. "Appreciate nature?"
"Let me guess, you appreciate nature by looking out your windows?"
"Exactly."
She made a show of easily jumping over the trunk of a fallen tree. Reynolds hadn't bothered to make the 'path' to his home very accessible or easy to follow (that was probably the point). Callen shook his head at her theatrics, though the effect was lost when he stepped on the tree to get over it and slipped on the edge. She reached out to grab his arm, and neither of them fell.
While he honestly could imagine her anywhere, living any kind of life (she was as adaptable as anyone he'd ever known), he didn't know what he'd do if she weren't on their team anymore. Granger would probably try to replace her and – no, he'd never let it happen. "I'm grateful we won't lose you to blissful forest living. Hetty wouldn't forgive me if I came back without –" He got distracted by an insect buzzing around his head and started wildly waving at it, accidentally hitting her in the shoulder.
"Watch it! I'm not an insect," she complained. "Would you relax?"
"Sorry. There's so many bugs out here," he informed her, as if she hadn't noticed them herself (or his frenetic gestures). "I can say, after this, I'm looking forward to going back to the motel. Even if it's straight from the set of Vacancy. That reminds me, I have to check the rooms for cameras."
"Yup, you're officially the worst person to travel with, ever. While you're at it, don't forget to check the bathtubs and closets for murderers," she advised, and when he swatted at her that time, there were no insects to blame.
Later that evening, after dinner and checking in back home (and Callen thoroughly searching their rooms for listening devices or cameras – none were found), Nell felt compelled to bring up their earlier argument which hadn't finished to her satisfaction. Callen thought Reynolds was mostly crazy; Nell thought his theories couldn't necessarily be disproved. She didn't know what she was after – Callen admitting he was wrong, maybe? Yeah, she knew it was unlikely.
"Just because he's eccentric doesn't mean all of his ideas are completely without merit," she told Callen as they got ready for bed.
"Yes, it does," he said, more for the fun of arguing with her than anything else.
"Eric already told us the account transactions and aliases checked out. Braxton was behind everything." She said it as if one thing being true meant that everything Reynolds said was true. She disappeared into her room and came back a minute later, brushing her teeth.
He was lounging on his bed, watching her instead of the television in the background. "The politician was behind the whole thing. Take in my surprise. I could have told you that before we came out here."
"Yoursho shinical," she said, as he propped his head up on his arms behind him.
"I can't win," he protested. "I disagree with you and I don't understand reality. I agree with you and I'm cynical. Pick one!"
"Idon hafta," she insisted, mostly because she couldn't argue his point.
"And why aren't you brushing your teeth in the bathroom like a normal person?"
"Becush itime –" She gave up, stabbing her toothbrush viciously in his direction. She left again, presumably to rinse. "I time it, two minutes," she yelled from the other room. "I haven't had a cavity since 2002."
"Whatever you – really, 2002?" That was impressive. "Hey, give me your toothpaste, I forgot mine."
She returned and threw something at him that he caught out of sheer reflex.
"Lemon Twist? I hate to break it to you; this isn't toothpaste. It's frosting."
She grinned. "It's deliciously citrusy."
He murmured that because it sounded fun to say and glanced up in time to catch a look of fondness pass over her face. He looked between her and the tube. "Where's the mint? You can't have toothpaste without mint."
"Try something new. You might like it."
"I hate new things," he said, adamantly, which earned him a decorative throw pillow to the head as she walked back to her room.
After brushing his teeth, he made sure to tell her, loudly, that he hated it. (He liked it.) She informed him that he was a liar, and that she was going to sleep. He gathered by her slightly muffled words that she was already in bed. She hadn't closed the door between their rooms, which meant that neither would he.
The wind picked up outside and set him ill at ease. The clerk had mentioned storms might pass through that night, and it wasn't uncommon to lose power in the area. He'd also mentioned that it took forever to get it back, a downside to being low on the electric company's list of priorities. Callen found a flashlight in the drawer next to his bed, but it was dead. Oh well.
He flipped out the lights. His room was dark, and faint orange light shone in from Nell's room, which told him she must have left the bathroom light on.
One minute he was staring at that light, the next he was jolting upright in bed, having no idea what had woken him. There was no sound outside except an occasional strong gust of wind, and he took in the silence. No hum of hot water heaters or the small fan that had been going in the corner when he'd fallen asleep – they must have lost power, and the change in environment woke him up.
That was when he realized his eyes weren't adjusting to the darkness. He couldn't see a damn thing. It wasn't dark, it was pitch black, no trace of light from anywhere and for a terrifying moment as he waved his hand in front of his face, he wondered if he'd gone blind overnight. He fumbled for his phone on the bedside table in slight panic, sighing with relief when the screen lit up, even though it hurt his eyes. He quickly pressed the button to turn it off, and then it hit him like he'd been shot (a term he never used lightly, because he knew what being shot felt like).
Nell.
Maybe she was still asleep, he thought. No, he prayed. He jumped out of bed, forgetting his phone until he heard it fall somewhere between the headboard and the wall. Great. He didn't bother trying to retrieve it, certainly not when he couldn't see a damn thing, and who knew how long it would take him to find it when he had a much more pressing matter on his mind.
He automatically grabbed his firearm, and though he remembered the layout of furniture in the room, he still nearly took himself out on an armchair due to his haste. He felt along the wall toward the open door that led to her room and stepped inside. It was second nature to shut door behind him and lock it. "Nell?" He whispered, afraid to say it any louder for fear he'd wake her up and scare her. He received no answer.
Darkness didn't bother him, but he could admit the complete absence of light was rather troubling. He felt his heart rate quicken, his breath coming faster. His eyes couldn't adjust to anything, because there was nothing to adjust to. There wasn't a hint of light from the windows, like there normally would be even on the darkest of nights. The storm moving in had blocked any traces of light from stars or the sliver of moon that had been present when they went to bed. No glow from the parking lot meant the power was out everywhere, not just their rooms. Most people would probably sleep through it.
He knew general darkness didn't bother Nell, it was something about complete blackness that got to her on a primal level. His mind brought him back to that time in the gym when he'd done this to her. On purpose. He hadn't known, and the memory still filled him with remorse.
He remembered where the bed was and kept walking until he hit it, biting back a curse of pain. That was when he heard her shaky breathing and knew she was awake. He cautiously put his hand out and found her shoulder.
"Do you have your phone?"
She didn't answer him, though she reached out to take hold of the hand that was touching her. He felt around on the bedside table for her phone and found nothing except her weapon and badge.
He stood next to her bed and waited, feeling perhaps as helpless as he ever had. He didn't know what to do.
A few months ago, in the gym, she hadn't been able to talk; she'd hardly been able to breathe.
He made a sudden decision. Without asking (what answer would she give, anyways), he took his hand away from her, and when she inhaled sharply, he knew what she was thinking – that he was going to leave her.
"No," he said. "No." He went around to the right side of the bed, setting his gun on the nightstand within easy reach. He slipped under the covers and she made no move toward him from where she huddled on the left side. He reached over for her, feeling in every line of her body how unnaturally rigid she was under his hands. Normally he would have paused, reassessed what he was doing, but she needed him too much for him to care about anything except helping her. He felt a nearly indescribable need to make sure she was okay.
He pulled her back against him in one move, so that he was along the length of her back and she still wasn't moving much (or at all) to help him. He knew her fear was the darkness, and not him, so he ignored her unwelcoming body language and put his left arm around her, pulling her closer against him.
His right hand settled at the back of her neck, and she lifted her head slightly. He knew what she wanted and eased his right arm under her neck until she laid back down. She reached a hand up to clasp his, pressing them both to her face as she took another uneven breath. He felt the tears there and had to take a deep breath of his own, whispering that she was okay, they were both okay. He used his free hand, the one she didn't have a death grip on, to wipe away her tears.
It took a few minutes, some of the longest of his life (and probably hers), until he felt her relax slowly, melting into him a little bit as her body caught up to what her mind already knew. She wasn't alone. She was safe.
"I'm sorry," she managed, voice raspy from lack of sleep, from crying silently. "I don't mean to be pathetic."
He tightened his hold on her. "You're not pathetic. There's no shame in being afraid."
She shifted slightly, rolling over a bit so she could lie on her back, and it wasn't lost on him that she was very careful to make sure she didn't lose even a single point of contact between their bodies. The covers stayed firmly over them, a remnant of the protection everyone felt in childhood by pulling them up, staying where the monsters couldn't see.
He could feel it, in every way she moved, that she didn't want him going anywhere.
He turned a little, too, so he was more on his back, his arm still under her neck. She tucked her left hand up by her head as she leaned into him, and put her free arm over his chest. He found her hand and tapped on it over and over, the gesture meaningless except to reassure her he was still awake and there with her.
They laid there for a little while, until her heart, which had been racing so fast she could have been a sprinter, slowly eased back into a normal rhythm.
He racked his brain trying to think of options. She'd forgotten her tablet when she left her place in a hurry the day of their flight (they'd almost missed it, in fact), and he hadn't brought his because she was supposed to bring hers. They'd had to rely on their cell phones for the trip, which wasn't that bad, except for the screen size making it harder to view documents. "Do you have a flashlight in here? Where's your phone?"
He felt her stop breathing at the thought of him getting up, and curved the arm under her neck so he could run his hand through her hair.
She relaxed again. "I looked before bed, nothing in here of use. When I got into bed, I realized my phone was missing. It must be in the car, I was too lazy to go get it. It was almost dead anyways, probably completely dead now."
He hardly paid attention to her words, mostly relieved she was speaking more normally, that she was getting more air. "My phone's dying, too. Then I dropped it and now it's lost somewhere in my room. I didn't feel like crawling under the bed in the dark. I could try to find it if you want…?" He deliberately left his next actions up to her.
"No," she said hastily, and his heart clenched at the near panic in her voice at the thought of him getting up, and the way she moved even closer to him (he hadn't thought it possible).
"Okay," he reassured her. "I'm not going anywhere."
"I mean, you never know what you're gonna find under there," she tried to joke, and he got the feeling she was glad he'd closed the door on his way in, cut in half the size of the room they were stuck in, the number of places to hide. Actually, it made him feel better, too.
He stared up at where the ceiling should be, seeing nothing. It must have been similar to being fully blind. No change between eyes open or closed. It was surreal. Every few minutes a howl of wind outside would cause her to tense in his arms, but other than that, there were no sounds except their quiet breathing (hers occasionally interrupted by a sudden inhalation that gave away her earlier crying).
He knew that if he found the situation unsettling, she must be experiencing a hundred different kinds of terrifying. He turned slightly toward her and breathed into her hair, plagued by the thought he wasn't doing enough.
"We could leave," he suggested. "Drive somewhere else? It's late, though, and who knows how far the power outage extends. My phone said it was past midnight before I came in here."
He could feel her shaking her head in the way she moved against him. "No. It'll come back. It's fine." Each word got quieter until he could barely hear the last one.
It wasn't fine. Nothing about it was fine. He felt he should be doing more. He should be fixing it.
Her next words interrupted his self-recrimination. "Do you think this…seeing nothingness and blackness forever…" her whispering trailed off, and then picked up again, "Do you think this is what dying is like?"
That caused him to jerk in surprise, because he actually knew. She got it, maybe a few seconds too late, and she tried to get up, but he wouldn't let her go. She gave in easily, because she didn't want to go anywhere.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, "I shouldn't have said that."
He had to share it with her (he'd already shared so much with her that he'd never told anyone). "Dying isn't like this. It's…happiness and light."
"Yeah?" She breathed, and the slow way she said that one word, the hopefulness she put into it – like she needed to believe it more than anything – made everything in him ache. At that moment he wanted to protect her from everything in the world, including dying.
"Yeah. I remember that, at least. Not much else, just the contentment. The peace. I don't know if it was my mind giving up, thinking it was the end, or if it was something else. I've always hoped it was something else…that at the end, there was more."
She hummed in the affirmative. "Me too."
The minutes passed, or maybe hours, he had no idea. It was as if time had stopped existing in that room with them. He knew she hadn't fallen asleep because her breathing hadn't evened out.
The strange sense of tranquility that had filled him, lying there with her, meant that her next words cut deep. "You don't have to stay here because of me. If you want to go back to your room…"
He thought it had probably taken everything in her to make that offer. He had to focus on his breathing for a minute before replying. It hurt that she thought he might do that to her. That she figured she might be more of a burden or obligation than anything else.
His silence went on too long, and she curled her hand into his shirt, an unconscious gesture to keep him there. He knew she didn't want him to go, but she'd rather suffer in silence (and it would be suffering) than ask him to stay if he didn't want to. It made him suddenly, irrationally, angry.
How could she keep putting other people ahead of herself? How could she not ask him to stay when she needed him there? She knew him now, and somehow didn't recognize that she'd made herself part of his life to the point that taking care of her was necessary to his own well-being.
He would have pushed her away, lashed out at her, if he didn't know how incredibly damaging that would have been considering the circumstances. The old him might have done it without thinking, without realizing until it was too late. He kept his composure, but couldn't keep the anger out of his voice. "You are crazy if you think I'm leaving you."
Her grip on his shirt eased. "Okay," she said, like he hadn't allowed her to start breathing again. "Don't be mad."
"I'm not mad."
She nudged his foot with her own, maybe in apology. "Don't lie to me."
"Stop telling me what to do. Or rather, not to do."
She waited another minute. "Maybe I am crazy. You know a lot of people think it, thanks to you."
"You're welcome." He let his hand start rubbing circles on the back of hers in a calming gesture, though it might have been more for him than for her.
"You're worse than me," she had to point out.
"I know I am," he admitted, wondering if she'd picked up on the fact that the accusation was mostly true when it came to her.
"Maybe you should interact more with our fellow agents in an effort to convince them you're completely sane." She was kidding. Mostly. "Mentor some new agents? Granger might have more productive ideas."
The thought of Granger putting him to work as some type of…community outreach leader for new agents made him shudder. "Come on, Nell, we covered this, remember? I hate new things."
"I was new once," she reminded him. "What did you think of me?"
"Back when you joined us?" He had to take a minute to remember back that far. It was hard to recall those days now that he knew her so well. "You were…we didn't know what to make of you."
"In other words, you hated me."
"I didn't say that! Let's say you were an acquired taste. What I mean is, we had to get used to you." He wondered why each thing he said sounded worse than the last.
"I think you disliked me and don't want to admit it," she said, voice still completely even, and he hated it when she used that tactic. He knew her expression wouldn't have given anything away, either, if he could see her.
"That couldn't be further from the truth. Honestly, Nell, none of us thought you were going to stick around. It might not have happened right away, but once we got to know you we realized…uh, not that it took that long! That's not what…" Huh, he was still making it worse. "For future reference, how far up out of this grave am I going to have to climb?"
She had to take pity on him. "Not that far," she assured.
He felt her shaking slightly against him and couldn't believe it. "You're laughing!"
"Sorry," she admitted, not sounding sorry in the slightest. As much fun as it was to torture him, she couldn't keep it up. "I know all of that, Callen. Have you forgotten I work with Eric? Who couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it? He told me everything by the end of my first day, pretty much."
He should have been annoyed at her joke, but he only felt relief that she didn't think they'd hated her. "You're mean."
"It was too good an opportunity to pass up." She had given it a lot of thought over the years, and she understood what it must have been like for them. "I know you guys were a close group when I joined you. I didn't expect to be liked by anyone at first, and I certainly never expected to be loved. It's hard to accept new people when you already think of yourselves as a family."
"You're right. We definitely didn't warm up to you the first day. It took a lot longer than that." It wasn't lost on him the way she tensed slightly, as if expecting him to say something she really didn't want to hear. "Yeah, we didn't love you until…well, it was a long time. A really long time. I'd say…by the end of the second day?" He breathed a silent sigh of relief when she started laughing again.
"You're a liar," she informed him, voice too light to be serious.
"Prove me wrong," he challenged.
They both knew she had no way of doing so. What's more, she wouldn't have wanted to even if she could.
A sudden flash of lightning briefly lit up the room, startling both of them. Thunder followed a few moments later, hitting with a loud crack that had Nell pressing her face into his shoulder.
"This is the worst trip you've ever taken me on," she accused.
He was mostly glad she sounded more tired than afraid. "How is this my fault? I didn't want to come to Georgia in the first place."
"It's still your fault," she argued. "You owe me."
He wouldn't argue with owing her, under any circumstances. "I know," he whispered.
He thought about every time she'd been there for him, including the times he thought he hadn't wanted anyone. She seemed to know when to be there and when to back away, more so than he did himself. The truth was, he knew he owed her far more than she meant by her joke, and he didn't know how to tell her that. The best he could do was show her whenever he could. Like that night.
It occurred to him that maybe he got as much comfort from her as she did from him.
Once the rain started, they were both able to fall asleep to the strangely comforting sound. The next time Callen became aware of his surroundings, the storm had passed and the bit of grey sky he could see around the edge of the curtains indicated it was early morning. Light also filtered in from the bathroom, and he wondered when the power had returned.
They'd separated at some point, and she was sleeping a couple feet away from him. It made him realize how spacious the bed really was; it hadn't seemed like it in the dark.
He wondered if it was worth going back to his room, if she'd care that he was still there when she woke up. His musings came too late, because he felt eyes on him and turned to find her awake. He waited for her to say something, anything to let him know she was fine.
She smiled at him, brilliant in a way he didn't recognize, and he knew they'd gone far beyond 'fine'.
"I should get my phone," he said, not moving.
"Yeah, me too." She didn't make any effort to get out of bed, edging closer to him instead.
He automatically held his arm out for her and she curled up next to him, as if it was something they always did. "To hell with it, it has to be too early to get up. If there's an emergency, everyone knows where we are. They can call the room."
She wholeheartedly agreed, though it wasn't her priority right then. "I don't know if I'm going to be able to fall back asleep," she told him, and the irony, after last night, wasn't lost on her. "It's getting too bright in here."
Yeah, he thought, taking in the warmth of her next to him, it really was.
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