One
To be frank, Lucy feels like shit.
Her tongue is sandpaper, her head a supernova. Her feet are numb from cold, while her torso and neck melt from the warm body that presses against her.
Lucy opens her eyes, flinching as she blinks. The sunlight streaming in from the window, through the pink curtains and the purple oxalis plant, stabs her already throbbing brain. Even the small flinch sends an unpleasant ache down her spine.
If she isn’t mistaken, Lucy’s hungover.
And oh, what a glorious pain it is.
“East.” Lucy gently shakes the sleeping furnace curled up behind her. The faint echo, the miraculous resonance of her voice brings tears to her eyes. The effortless grasp of a round hip makes them spill over. “Please tell me I’m not going fucking crazy, because I think I just…woke up.”
Lucy hasn’t slept in—well, since she died a year ago. How did she manage to awaken, unless she had slept?
Esther grumbles, tucking her head into Lucy’s neck and grips her tighter around the waist. “Luce, you’re so loud right now. It’s so early.”
Lucy squeezes her eyes shut, relief sending silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Esther is holding her. Without Lucy thinking about it. Without spending every ounce of concentration on mimicking gravity. Lucy is in Esther’s arms.
“Exactly. I’m loud, and I’m sweaty, and I’m cold, and my head hurts. Esther, I think I have a body again!” A desperate, breathy laugh escapes through her tears. Lucy rolls them over so Esther is on her back. Her legs straddle Esther’s waist. “Look! I’m naked!”
Esther’s eyes pop open. “What?”
Lucy laughs louder this time, thrilled with how her joy echoes around the room.
Sitting back on Esther’s hips, Lucy runs her hands up and down her unexpectedly corporeal body.
Purple glitter clings to her legs and sticks to her fingers.
The sheets tangle around them, trapping her feet.
“No more damn shroud or a stupid veil! I can touch my hair again!” Glitter hands and all, Lucy buries her fingers in the mass of black coils that frame her face.
Exactly how she remembers her hair, same length, same texture, just a bit damp from sweat.
“You’re alive?” Esther’s blue eyes widen in disbelief as she takes in the miracle of Lucy atop her. Her jaw falls open, and a joyous cry tears from her throat when she wraps her hands over Lucy’s round hips.
“I’m alive!” Lucy grins and rubs the muscles in her aching neck. “Oh, it hurts so good! I have to pee so bad! I forgot about bladders! This is amazing!”
“Go pee!” Esther laughs, halfheartedly trying to nudge Lucy off the bed and toward the bathroom.
“I want to do this first!” Lucy’s eager lips find Esther’s. She presses her back into the pillows, tangling her fingers into Esther’s hair and tracing her ears with her thumbs.
Esther wraps her hands around Lucy’s neck and waist and pulls her closer, kissing her back as if she might never get to do so again.
Lucy breaks away, breathless with a manic grin on her face, despite the throbbing pain from bending down. “Wow.”
“Wow is right.” Esther beams, her blue eyes heavy from sleep and her brown curls a mess across the pillow.
Absolute perfection in every tangible, kissable feature.
Tears flood her lovely eyes, even as her lips manage to form a teasing smirk.
“Your morning breath is atrocious. Very garlicky. Notes of stale wine and dry mouth.”
Lucy crows with laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks as she covers her mouth. “I have morning breath? Oh god, I haven’t brushed in a year, and I just kissed you! I’m so sorry!”
“Like you’re always telling me: don’t apologize for things out of your control.
And never apologize for kissing me.” Esther surges up onto her elbows to kiss Lucy again, a quick, chaste kiss that leaves Lucy hungry for more.
“I’ll take hungover garlic breath over cold nothing any day.
” Curling around her, Esther laughs with Lucy until their giggles mellow into soft murmurs of delight.
“Now, go pee, so I can really kiss you.”
Lucy’s exuberant joy falters, and panic fills her instead. Her throat closes, brain faltering around her thoughts.
“What’s wrong?”
Lucy can’t answer, her tongue caught by the roof of her mouth. She furrows her eyebrows. What isn’t wrong? Is there any way to answer this question without sounding like a child? Without sounding like a burden?
But no, this is Esther, her East, her sunrise bells.
Esther would want to know about this. Esther would share this vulnerability with her, sing it out to the world like she wasn’t showing the world where it could hurt her the most. Lucy just spent a year learning it’s safe to share every feeling and thought with this woman.
She can’t fall back into silence, not with Esther.
In a throaty whisper, Lucy asks, “What if this ends? What if this is me about to move on? What if this isn’t real? Come with me? Please?”
Esther leans up on her elbows, running her hand up and down Lucy’s thigh. “I’m here. I promise.”
“Sorry,” Lucy whispers, her vision blurred.
Now that she’s said it out loud, it sounds ridiculous.
But the dread of losing this aches. “If this is real, if being alive again is permanent, I’ll get used to being on my own.
But I’ve been in the same room as you every moment for the past year.
And I’m not sure what’ll happen if I go in there alone.
What if that’s it? Like the final doorway? ”
“Luce, your door is stone and metal with bird shit all over it.” With a kind smile, Esther’s blue eyes look at her in earnest. “This is a bathroom door. It’s okay to be scared, but this isn’t the end.”
Lucy nods. Esther’s unfounded reassurance strengthens her resolve. “It’s not the end. It’s my first of many times being alone again.”
Esther reaches up to touch her face. “Never alone. I’m here. You’re here. We’re not alone anymore, not even when we have to piss.”
Lucy huffs out a laugh and nods. “Okay. Be right back.”
She swings her feet over the edge of the bed and takes a few hesitant steps to the bathroom. “Oh, this is so nice! Your rug is so fluffy! I’m walking, East!”
Esther grins behind her. “I can see that. Looks good from this angle.”
Lucy shoots her a smirk over her shoulder. “I will need to wear clothes eventually.”
Esther shakes her head. “Nope, I finally get to look at you in real life. Plus nothing I have will fit you. You’re six sizes smaller than me and really tall.”
“I said eventually, East. Not right away.” Pushing through her panic, Lucy closes the bathroom door behind her, thankful beyond measure when she doesn’t fade into nothingness.
Pissing has never felt so joyous. Lucy finds a spare toothbrush, squinting at herself in the mirror as she brushes her teeth.
At the stretch marks and blemishes from her acne scars.
At her brown skin, with warm undertones, instead of just ashen and translucent.
So familiar, so normal, exactly how she remembers.
And yet, she’s never appreciated herself more.
Lucy can feel her own touch as her fingers trace each blemish, see herself without an ever-present veil and a shroud.
A whole year has passed since she bathed, and while her body has technically been in a weird stasis, that year is very apparent to her nose. Her sense of smell is definitely working, even if her sight is blurry again. The wine she drank a year ago wafts from every pore.
Lucy pops her head out of the door. “Can I take a shower? You’re too polite to say anything, but I stink, and a shower sounds like heaven.”
Sitting up eagerly where she waited in bed, Esther winks. “Of course! Can I join you?”
Lucy simply grins in response and leaves the door open.
She runs the shower to cleanse herself of purple glitter, stale sweat, and death.
The bathroom echoes with her voice as she hums to herself, with the squeak of the taps as she turns them, instead of passing through the metal handles.
The steaming water pouring from the showerhead burns her skin as rivulets run down her body, pleasant in comparison to how life used to burn through her.
To be alone is delightful at first, to exist in a blissful solitude that she missed, but it hurts her heart as soon as the thought enters her mind.
“No, not alone.” Lucy is by herself. “Solitude, not loneliness.” For the first time since she appeared in Esther’s bed one year ago, Lucy is in control of herself. She can choose what she wants to do. And she can feel and experience everything so much sharper.
Except for the vision. That’s blurry. She needs to get glasses again. But once armed with new glasses, Lucy can forever decide where her body goes. Where her life will lead.
Just so long as Esther is in it.
Within minutes, Esther steps into the shower with her. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to join you or not. But I remembered I still have a dress of yours that you can wear if you want, so I came to tell you that. Also, I got scared and wanted to make sure you were still real.”
Lucy puts her arms around her, drawing Esther under the water with her, delighting in the soft, comfortable warmth of her skin under her hands. “Of course, you can join me. Why did you get scared?”
Esther chews on her lower lip. “I can’t feel you anymore.
” She taps her chest. “I could always feel you here after you…well, let’s say died for the sake of simplicity, because I assume you’ll find a brilliant explanation for where you went, but it’s all over my head.
When you were dead, it was like you were in my body with me.
And you’re not there anymore. I got scared that you were gone. ”
Lucy rests her hand over Esther’s, enjoying the comforting thump of Esther’s heart through her palm. “I’m here. And I’m alive.” And she kisses Esther to prove it, water streaming down around them.
When they finally leave the bathroom, Lucy decides that she isn’t ready to wear her favorite dress yet.
Even if she’s still too hungover to worship Esther the way she really wants to, the only place Lucy wants to be was in bed with her.
So she takes her hand—such a monumental joy, being able to take Esther’s hand—and pulls her love back under the pillowy pink duvet. “Thank you. For hoping.”
As if sensing Lucy just wants to be close, Esther curls up around her, and Lucy practically purrs at being held by her East. Her touch, her dream girl, her affection is real.
When was the last time she’d been held like this?
Has she ever allowed herself to enjoy this with anyone else?
So familiar after all their dreams, their year together, and yet nothing can compare because this is real.
“You know, Defective Barrett is going to be so pissed about all of the paperwork he needs to do now that you’ve turned up alive. ”
Lucy barks out a laugh. “Oh Lord, I’m going to have to come up with a reasonable story for where I was all year.” Lucy groans and pulls Esther close. “I wonder if Angel will be pissed that he has to act happy I’m alive.”
Esther shakes her head. “You know he won’t have to act. And I bet he’ll be glad he doesn’t have to do your taxes again next year.”
“Oh fuck! I have to do taxes?” Lucy whines, burying her face into her neck.
She presses a kiss to the tattoo hidden behind Esther’s ear.
That is easier than thinking about how to reconnect with her brother.
Now that she knows it’s possible to come back from the ghostly plane, maybe she can help her father find his way back.
Even if it means bringing back her mother too.
“You have to work, too. I’m tired of doing your job,” Esther teases. “After all, we should get a bigger place.”
Esther’s assumption that they’ll live together makes Lucy grin; she doesn’t want to be anywhere Esther isn’t, and the confirmation that Esther feels the same is a warm balm she didn’t know she needed.
Her East will still be her home.
The sheer joy of being alive, being with Esther, far outweighs the undercurrent of life’s anxieties burning through her.
Taxes, rent, interpersonal relationships, her brother—all things that she can’t—won’t—neglect anymore.
For the first time, she’s thrilled to face them all, with Esther at her back.
Even work. “Oh, Gilda’s going to kill me! ”
“Don’t worry, Luce.” Esther presses her lips to Lucy’s neck, and Lucy melts under her kiss. “I’ll be with you when you face Gilda. I just got you—well, not back. I just got you for the first time, and I want to keep you.”