"Nathaniel!?"
For the briefest of moments, Vivian rapidly blinked her eyes. Open and shut, open and shut. Convinced she must be hallucinating. In a moment the figure stood before her would vanish again. That the lack of sleep and anxiety of days passed had caught up to her, and was tormenting her. Toying with her.
But the smile printed across his face before her was unmistakable. Not even a hallucination could recreate it. A look she had longed to see even just once more. And she knew it was real.
Before she had time to come up with another coherent thought, particularly one of doubt, she jumped down from the branch she was perched atop. Long past caring about her shoeless foot. Both of them engulfing the other in a hug, so tight that had they held it much longer the world might've started to spin. Scared that if they let the other go, they would disappear again.
After a moment, she pulled back, though not quite letting him go completely, clutching his arms as if they were an anchor. Looking him up and down, examining and analysing his appearance. Not caring about the dirt on his face or the tears in his clothes, but checking for any injuries. Like this was too good to be true, something had to be wrong. Good things didn't happen anymore. Something always went wrong. Like a price that had to be paid in return.
Nathaniel seemed to be looking her up and down all the same. Not for injuries though. Instead, he was taking in how pretty she still looked. Despite days of exhaustion, arguing, and roughing it in the woods against the very elements themselves. Even the dirt streaked on her clothes or embedded under her nails, the rough state of her hair, or the look of lingering tiredness under her eye's couldn't smear how perfect she looked to his eyes.
"I thought you were dead," she whispered, maybe to herself, maybe to him, before she looked back up from the ground, and directly at him. Voice louder and unwavering this time, "I thought you were dead!"
Her voice carried a multitude of emotions, mainly frustration this time. Her hands moving to push and punch at his chest - albeit rather softly- and slapping him. All the while he just stood there and took it unwaveringly. Still grinning subtly to himself, unable to snuff his smile out even if he tried, relishing in his luck, just to have her in front of him, even if she was stood there hitting him.
But then her hands came to a halt once more. The frustration in her eyes being replaced now with regret, and the glassy sheen of guilt.
"I should've gone looking for you. I should've known better," she begun again, almost fearful he'd resent her for leaving him, not stopping even when his hands rose to cup her face, an almost amused expression on his face, "Everyone said you were dead. I'm sorry. I just gave up when I should've-"
But she was cut off, his lips against hers preventing her from suggesting any of this was her fault any longer.
Vivian instantly reciprocated, her hands finding the hair at the nape of his neck and leaning into it as much as he was. Both of them finally committing to what they'd been longing for for so long. Something they thought they might not have ever got.
"V?" A voice, Jades, called out from a distance.
She had turned round, realising Vivian wasn't following alongside the group, and when she had seen what was happening, her jaw dropped so much she almost had to pick it up from the floor. This causing Jace to turn as well, wondering what on earth his sister was looking at.
"Nathaniel?!" He called out, squinting his eyes, double checking as if his they were sadistically deceiving him, before another figure Vivian had briefly seen stepped out, "Jackson?!"
