that beach in oregon.

Devon

Before her eyes even open, Devon can smell the saltwater. Breathes in and opens her eyes, slowly, finding she's lying on her back on a rocky shore. Her lashes flick and she blinks a few times, sitting up, finding her body unharmed. She sees her feet are facing the water. A jacket weighs heavy on her; it's too warm. She shrugs out of it gradually, unsettled but not surprised: she can sense that it's summer the way animals know when the seasons change and begin to feed or mate or build or migrate. It's in her bones, even if the rest is sliding from her mind, like those lost memories: farther away the harder you reach for them.

Devon inhales again, slowly, looking around the beach a bit, looking for signs of life, for time of day. She knows the time of day, though. This is easy for her: a shadow, a cast of the light. She finds she is rather certain of the day, down to which half of the hour she's fallen in.

Something heavy in the pocket of that jacket. She blinks, disoriented and groggy, fumbling for her phone. It's the same one she's had since she moved to Colorado from Massachusetts. It's banged up, but has no new cracks or dents. And it has a full charge. And she was right about the time, right about the date, though it's still a shock to see it.

There are many missed calls. Her voicemail is full. She has a lot of texts. She doesn't read them, doesn't listen to her voicemail yet, her stomach sinking: mum. They talk all the time. Texts, emails. They talk on the phone at least a couple of times a week. And she's been gone for months. She probably started calling Rafael. Brian and Sheila probably did, too. And Naomi.

Devon doesn't even hold out hope that she still has a job. Even if it were somehow explained, no one keeps a waitress on the payroll who has been gone for three months. Waitresses and baristas don't take sabbaticals.

She breathes in, exhales. Tries to steady herself. She can't remember clearly what was said behind her as the Ladies came forward. She knows Oiguina and Assawetough and Hannah kept the others away from her so the price could be paid, but she doesn't know if they could explain it to Rafael or what happened to him, and suddenly, she realizes that they're all dead now. Centuries dead. Little Faith, too.

Tears are in her eyes and falling before she knows what to do. Before she comforts herself with the knowledge of lives lived in isolation and peace and control of their own destinies. Before she thinks about how silly it is to be crying over people who died four hundred years ago. They were her friends. They were the only coven she's ever known, and she only had them for a night.

Devon is crying then, sobbing, bent over with the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes. She knows she needs to call someone. She needs to call Rafa and see if he's still in Oregon or if he gave up and went home. She needs to call her mum and tell her... something. And she has to call Rafa first to see what he told her poor human mum and her poor kinfolk godparents and her poor human roommate Naomi and her poor human employers when everyone started pinging his phone or knocking on his door wanting to ask the scary boyfriend what the hell happened to the nomadic girl who took up with him.

She has to. But at the moment, she just really misses her sisters. Grieves them, and Mary Goffe, and Faith, and even Ulu, who she never knew. So at first, for a little while, Devon just covers her eyes and tucks her legs close and cries beside the water.

--

It passes because it has to. Because the longer she's here, the further away the rest feels. The more she cries the more she talks to herself, trying to calm down. It's grief. It'll linger. But the longer she stays here, crying by herself, the more the loneliness starts to press against her. And reason asserts in the back of her mind: you aren't going to feel less lonely if you just sit here alone forever. So she sniffs, and wipes her face, dragging up the hem of her shirt to dry her eyes.

Then, still without even checking the multitude of voicemails or texts or emails, Devon taps Rafael's grumpy-looking face on her contacts list.

Somewhere else, his phone rings. That picture of her staring sideways at the camera with her middle finger lifted, fingernail black, shows up on his screen.

Rafael

Considering wolf probably has no other friends than her, and considering he's probably nearly forgotten he has a cell phone by now, it's impressive that he answers on the second ring.

"Devon?" He sounds far away. He sounds -- cautious, and beneath that, barely contained, a sort of raw hopefulness. "That you?"

Devon

Devon?

"Yeah," she exhales, and fresh tears are flooding her eyes at the sound of his voice. The fact that he's cautious. The fact that this signifies to her that it really is him, because of course he hardly ever dares to hope. He's so grumpy. She's shaking, and so she grips her phone a little harder.

"Yeah," she repeats, when he wants confirmation. "It's me. I'm here." Here is = ?

"I think I'm on that beach in Orgeon." Devon starts crying in earnest now, not sniffling, but they're rolling down and her voice is a little choked. "Did you stay? Can you come get me?"

Rafael

It's me.

Doesn't say anything to that. No jesus christ or thank god or whatever else one might say when a long-lost loved one suddenly resurfaces. Just -- this exhale, this rush of breath barely caught by his cellphone mic. Then a beat of silence, awkward.

"Had to go back," he says. He can tell she's crying; feels wretched about it. "Stayed a couple weeks. Told me you'd gone to keep your word, that blonde girl. Before I came back from Newbury. So I tried to wait for you. But then people started looking for you. Your mom was freaking out. I didn't know how to tell her. I told Brian, and Sheila. Don't know if they believed me or what they told your mom. Your roommate called the cops, anyway. That's when I went back to Denver.

"I'll get on the first plane over. Probably be there in a few hours. Can you get to the airport? Uber or something?"

Devon

"Hannah," Devon can't help herself. That blonde girl. Hannah. Who literally gave her up to be hanged or burnt at the stake and ended up becoming her sister, as close and as necessary as Asswetough, as Oiguina. She aches to think of her. She aches to think of Rafael alone for months, with only what 'that blonde girl' told him to give him peace.

"She called the cops?" Devon repeats, of Naomi's action. "Shit, what happened?"

They're talking over each other. She wipes at her face but she keeps crying. At this point she hardly even knows why, exactly. All of it. Everything. Grief. Worry. Guilt. Overpowering, body-wracking relief.

She realizes she is nodding and not answering him.

"Yeah." The Uber account on her phone is still linked to his money, anyway. His credit cards. His vast bank balances. "Just. Stay. Stay on the phone, I'm going to get a car right now." And then she starts crying, very hard, even though she feels really stupid for it and she's trying to stop: "Please don't hang up."

Rafael

Answers her the best he can, piecemeal:

"Think she thought I killed you. Called me asking why you weren't picking up. When I couldn't give her a good answer, think she got scared. Next day cops were at my place with a warrant. Had to go in for questioning."

And,

"Not gonna hang up." Reminds him of that other time, long ago, when it was frigid cold and she was underdressed and he was driving to get her. "Don't cry. Baby, don't cry."

Devon

"Oh, god..." Devon mutters, regarding Naomi, regarding the police.

But then she's sobbing, and begging, and he's calling her baby, which he never does. She calls him 'babe', sometimes, somewhere between an endearment and a claim and a simple statement of her opinion of his appearance, but he doesn't really call her things. Babe or baby or dear or sweetheart or darling or often even her name, unless he is Very Serious.

For a second it seems like him urging her not to cry is going to have the opposite effect and only make her cry harder, but she doesn't want to be crying in the first place. She forces herself to breathe in deep, even if it's just through her mouth, and there's something hitched and asthmatic and shaky about it, but she does it. It actually is hard for her, for a moment, to exhale. She ends up, perhaps absurdly, yawning. And then her mouth fills with air again and she sighs it out. She sniffs and then inhales, deeply, this time through her nose. Exhales slowly.

He can hear her take these breaths, some of them tremulous, until she gets herself under control a little. Sniffs again. "Okay," she whispers, sounding rather small at the moment, sounding -- for this is what she is -- just overwhelmed. Too many emotions, too much in her mind. "I'm going to call the car."

He promised not to hang up, but it's still difficult for her to take the phone away from her ear. Feels like a disconnection she can barely handle right now. She opens up Uber. She taps the button to request a car. She is reminded to turn on her GPS, mutters jesus fucking christ in annoyance as she turns it on and tries again. She waits a few seconds, gets a notification that 'Antonio' is on his way, and then she puts the phone back to her ear.

"I'm going to the airport," she says, somewhat dumbly, because she doesn't know what else to say. If she tells him she can't wait to see him, she's going to probably start crying again like an idiot. If she asks him when he'll be there she knows he won't know yet and then she'll probably start crying again like an idiot. She almost asks him if he thinks she should eat, then realizes that is an idiotic thing to ask and he doesn't know how her stomach feels.

"I miss you," is what Devon finally settles on, because she can say this without breaking down, because she really does miss him, even though it feels like she just saw him a few minutes ago, a few hours ago. At most a few days ago. Not three months. Those three months, for her, are gone.

Not gone. They're there, written under her skin. She just can't remember them. It's different.

Rafael

She hears him -- make this sound, this exhale, harsh, like he's been gut-punched.

A long silence.

"Miss you too. So much."

Beat.

"Coming to get you. Stay at the airport. Be there on the next flight. Promise."

Devon

A sort of long almost-silence. Because she interrupts, worried: "Babe? Are you al--"

Miss you too. So much.

And she understands her, brow beetling deeply and her bright eyes closing. That he isn't there to show her how he feels with his body folding around her, by holding her, anything like that. That he had to find a way to the words through the intensity of whatever it is that made him make that sound. That they don't come anywhere near capturing what that feeling is.

Nearby, a car is rolling to a stop in the parking lot beside the part of the beach Devon is on. She sniffs again, wiping her face. It occurs to her that he could just buy her a ticket, pick her up in Denver, but she's glad they aren't doing that. It's stupid. Doing it this way doesn't actually get them together faster, probably. But she doesn't care. She's glad he's coming to get her. She's glad she doesn't have to get on a plane alone, no buffer between her and all those strangers.

"All right," she says, standing up and half-turning, waving briefly at the driver. "Car's here. I'll be at the airport."

A brief pause. "Love you, Rafa," she says quietly.

Rafael

"Love you, Devon." He doesn't even hesitate this time. "See you soon."

And this small gentleness: he lets her hang up first.