Forever and Always

~14~

"Are you sure your all packed?"

"For the fifth time Jessie. Yes I am packed"

But even after all the reassurances, Jessie still nervously bites the edge of her lip as she looks over Elliot's bags.

Elliot rolls her eyes playfully, "May I remind you that while I'm fully packed. You still have to pack for your own camp".

But Jessie just ignores her. "Are you sure you have everything you need? What if something happens? Maybe I should skip camp..."

It seemed that at that point it had been enough for Elliot. She slipped in front of the smaller girl and gently placed her hands on her shoulders, "Jessie no". Brown met blue as Jessie felt herself start to calm down just at the sight of them. Elliot seeing that Jessie was already starting to relax a bit starts to massage her shoulders lightly causing the Canadian to slump slightly as the tension left her shoulders.

"Everything will be fine" Elliot whispered quietly leaning in right beside Jessie's ear. Jessie closed her eyes and just let herself be enveloped by everything that was Elliot. "Nothing will go wrong" Elliot continued pausing slightly when she feels Jessie wrap her arms around her waist and lean her head against her shoulder. "You've already missed enough camps because of me and I don't want you missing anymore. Especially with the Olympics coming up so soon".

Jessie slowly nodded against her as the two just stayed like that swaying in the middle of the room.

It was only when Jessie pulled back so that she could look at Elliot to see those brilliant blue eyes. "Okay" she whispered back letting Elliot know she agreed.

But Elliot could tell. She could tell by the way Jessie was studying her face. As if committing every detail to memory. She could tell by the way Jessie held onto her a bit too tight. Or by the clear signs of stress etched across her face and the bags under her eyes.

Elliot slowly moved her hands up to the base of Jessie's neck and twirled her fingers in the baby strands of her hair. Knowing how much it calmed her down when Jessie did it for her, hoping it was help for her as well. Which it thankfully did.

Elliot smiled seeing how Jessie leaned into her touch. "You're going to go to camp and kill it. And then I'll be here when you come back".

Jessie let out a soft sigh before settling on a small smile. Even after all this time, Elliot could read her so well. That she could tell that Jessie was secretly anxious of her going off to camp only to come home to an empty house.

"Promise?" Jessie asked her voice breaking just a tad.

Elliot smiled and inclined her head the tiniest bit, "I promise".

Neither knew what they were doing in that moment. But as brown met blue they suddenly became aware of how close they were. With only a couple of inches between the two, their foreheads nearly touching, they weren't quite sure how the distance was closing.

They were only a breaths hair away from each other when they heard the quick footfalls of socked feet against the wooden flooring.

The moment was broken when the pair looked to the door to see Jules sliding into the room on her socks. Jessie's head rested against Elliot's chest with a sigh as Elliot lifted her head to look at the child. "What's up Jules?"

But she didn't say anything. Instead she walked over to the pair causing them to separate. Elliot scoped Jules up into her arms. Leading to Jules wrapping her arms around Elliot's neck and burrowing her face into her neck.

Jessie sighed and put on a smile. Jules had been very clingy since Elliot had come home. Which was understandable. Jules was living off the attention she was getting off of Elliot. Sometimes it seemed that Jules was getting closer to Elliot than Jessie was.