Glimpses (a The Walker Boys serial)

1.

Quinn wakes to tear-stain cheeks. Tangled in the sheets, she strains to escape, but every heartbeat tumbles her closer to the kind of despair she knows all too well. She finally throws off the bedclothes, too drained to go any further. Her small victory will have to be enough for now.

She slowly exhales a breath built on nightmares and old fears, and inhales deeply, willing herself to calm down, before she wakes the figure sleeping beside her. God knows they've already spent too many nights like this, her facing off against her ghosts, him taking on the role of champion without her ever asking.

"Quinnlan?" His voice is thick, sleepy. No doubt he was having the sort of dreams she'd happily live within for a night. "What's the matter?"

"I had a dream," she whispers, barely able to force out the words around the lump in her throat. She is getting used to breathing around it, since it feels ever-present, even now, a month after she literally ran back to him, rain-soaked, out of breath and time and hope. Healing will take time.

The gentle shifting behind her tells her Jonah is out of bed. Next, a soft light fills the room from the beside lamp, and then Jonah's arms, warmer than the golden light spreading across the room, slip around her waist from behind. He pulls her closer. She folds against him, thinking only of being near him.

"Tell me about it?"

Leaning against Jonah's chest, Quinn sighs. She hates these moments, hates feeling weak, letting memories strip her of all her bright moments, but a part of her knows that like Helena, her therapist tells her regularly, it's all part of the process. All part of her growth, and part of regaining the right kind of strength. For too long, Quinn believed she was strong because she was alone. She is beginning to realize now that she can be strong and surrounded by those she loves.

Loving others, letting them in, letting them see her, doesn't make her weak. It makes her better.

"Mother was there." She lets the steady rise and fall, the thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat soothe her rattled nerves. "It was like she was alive again, or never died. I was...happy. And sad." The frown tugs at her lips as she tries to string her thoughts into words that made sense. "Happy because she was there, but sad because I knew what that meant. I knew it meant she would try to tear me down again."

Jonah presses soft kisses on her shoulders, the heat of his mouth seeping into her. "Then what happened?"

She shudders. "She said I would never amount to anything if I didn't listen to her and change my life. I can still hear her voice, so cold, so biting. I think a part of her really believed she was saving me from...whatever she thought I was in danger of, but she couldn't see that all I ever needed was her love. And yours." Despite her best attempts at holding back tears, she feels them gathering in her eyes. "It's taken me this long to see that it wasn't my fault." She isn't sure what she's referring to by it: the distance between her and her mother, distance that led to her running away to New York, the lost years, the car accident. All of it.

"It wasn't. It isn't." Jonah rests his chin on top of her head gently. "It breaks my heart that she wasted so much time and damaged the relationship you could have had, but Moira's issues were hers alone. Never yours, sweetheart."

Quinn nods, because she wants him to know that she's listening, and more, that she believes him. The old Quinn would have shut down, shut him out, refused to speak or listen. She would have ran away, thrown her walls up so high that he had no hope of climbing them. The new Quinn, the woman she's becoming...stays. Speaks. Listens. Believes. She gives love instead of merely taking it. She accepts that she is worthy of love.

"Jonah Walker," she says, wriggling around in his arms so she's facing him. "How long are you going to be this patient with me, and love me like this?"

Dipping his head, he meets her eyes in the glow of the lamplight. "Forever, Quinn Reynolds."