#deeper water

Then, she’s gone, whirling around in a flash of white-blonde hair and waddling off like an ungraceful arctic fox to her dressing room. Aragon doesn’t watch her go. No need. She turns, too, and throws her bottle away in the nearby trash can. Nearby, masters of eavesdropping Anne and Jane stare at her in dumbstruck shock, and Aragon isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or punch them at their stupid expressions.

  “What?” She snaps at them.

They say nothing, too intimidated by her bright, flashing eyes. Aragon snorts and then goes on her way.

She doesn’t speak to Joan until the end of that show day, after two performances, and by then they’re both exhausted. Aragon hides it as she always does, but Joan is slouched in a position that’ll make her back hurt later, rubbing the goosebumps on her forearms like she was cold, despite it being a rather warm early spring day. Her eyes are vacant and far away.

(why? why? why?)

Aragon throws an arm over her shoulders in a friendly way, as if they have known each other for centuries, and she can feel the trembles wracking Joan’s frame. The girl vibrates against her and rattles her rib cage to a rhythm conducted by aquaphobic horror.

  “Let’s do this!” Aragon says, and the words ring oddly hollow in her mouth. Her chest aches in a way that reminds her of when Mary was taken away from her when Joan smiles up at her- tremulous, but trusting, and Aragon thinks that this is the first time she’s been told such a thing, been included in something, been the center of someone’s attention.

And it terrifies Joan.

(why why why oh why why why--)

But Joan sucks it up- Aragon can see her swallow in a thick way that makes her own throat hurt. She smiles again, this time more for herself and says, “Yeah”, but it doesn’t come out right. It’s a squeak, a mewl, a bleat, a pathetic excuse for a reply because her terror has her by the neck with yellowed fangs dug in and she can’t even answer correctly. Aragon glances down at her, eyebrows twitching together, then nods.

There’s no going back. There’s only the here and now- only the salt spray that bludgeons even her dulled sense of smell, mouth dry and tasteless still from hours of singing, that Joan hides her face from by burrowing against Aragon like-

-like a small animal, a baby kitten maybe, one Aragon had plucked off of the streets back before marriage in her past life, nursed back to health with dribbles of milk and lovingly smashed up food, and learned to love again through loving something else. After Henry and Mary, her heart felt like ground beef, or pulpy chuck, maybe- all mashed up and masticated, run through the grinder twice over. It’s still sore, still tender, but it’s been healing. They’ve all been healing.

Was Joan?

(wet too wet too cold why why why--)

And as if on stage cue, her chest twinges, the stab smothered in a rough clear of her throat, and Joan sniffles. Aragon can’t tell if she’s crying. 

They take Aragon’s car. The drive is silent, aside from Joan’s sniffles and gasps and mewls of distress. She spent it rocking back and forth in the passenger seat, looking very anxious and very regretful and very, very ill. But she doesn’t tell Aragon to turn around or stop, even when she had looked like she was going to vomit at one point. Her nose squirted out blood shortly after that, the stress too much for her poor little body, and Aragon wordlessly gave her a napkin with a pitiful frown.

The surface of the lake churns, roiling over with wavelets and riptides. Little dimples and indents are left behind by the rain, like the pattering of unseen children, jumping in puddles with bright red boots and yellow rain slickers. Aragon parks in the grass and she and Joan sluice through evergrowing puddles and mud to get to the shore. They stop. A runner of blood hangs pendulously from one of Joan’s left nostril and she swipes it away swiftly. 

Joan dry swallows. Her eyebrows furrow, knitting together, as she tries to figure out what to do next- paralyzed by indecision by the sandy shores of the water, little wavelets lapping at them, ratty sneakers she bought from a thrift shop squashing down temporary imprints into the wet earth. Aragon thinks that she looks a hell of a lot like an indignant kitten, when she’s got the tip of her tongue barely poking out from between her clenched teeth and face all scrunched up in something close to the cousin of a scowl like that.

  “Gotta screw your courage to the stickin’ place, right?” She asks, trying to break the tension, and to her relief, it does. Joan nods, a sharp little jerky motion, and then kicks off her sneakers and wrangles off her socks with her toes. They’re bright pink with yellow elephants, and the water almost carries them away. Aragon bends down quickly, grabs them by the cuffs and flicks them over her shoulder, back in the vague direction of where their jackets and phones sit, bundled safely away from the surf. Joan startles a little at that, but when Aragon takes off her own shoes and throws them, she does the same, tossing her sneakers casually backwards. That tears a smile from her.

  “Let’s do this,” Joan says, and even if her voice catches in her throat a little when a clump of seaweed is washed up onto the shore like a snarl of a corpse’s hair, she steels herself again. Aragon feels that same twinge in her chest, she thinks it might be right under her sternum- as she mirrors her word choice, and they come as naturally to her as if they were her own. Her shoulders are squared, and for a moment, as the wind whips white-blonde tendrils of her hair into her face Aragon thinks that she can see a girl who could lead herself out of the maw of hell through sheer will and grit alone.

But then thunder grumbles overhead and the lake roils in response, and another line of blood drips down Joan’s face. She lets it fall.

It’s a terrible day to go swimming. At the same time, with the skies overcast gray and sprinkling down, little tepid spatters of rain rather than a steady drizzle, it doesn’t feel like swimming. It’s a far cry from the gorgeous azure summer day that most people would take a dip in, and Aragon wonders if that’s why Joan chose such a day in the first place. Maybe learning how to swim in a tempest would prove something to someone.

(who to who who would be proud who would cheer who who WHY)

Blood splatters against the wet sand and blooms into a glorious red flower. Its petals whorl outwards, swirling and flapping into magnificent crimson waves that dissolve into the ebb and flow of the tide. Plop, plop, plop. Flowers bloom and wilt with every hungry roll of water against the shore until Joan finally wipes the stream away and whispers, “I’m ready now.”

She isn’t, Aragon knows she isn’t because she’s sweating buckets and her eyes are shiny and have more white in them than grey-blue and she looks like she’s about to foam at the mouth like a hog in a slaughtering pen, but she nods anyway.

  “Alright.”

Aragon walks forwards, blindly into the water, and her hands carefully hold Joan’s, leading her deeper. Just until the water settles a little over their hips. She keeps her voice soft and warm and oh so gentle.

  “You okay?”

Joan nods, opens her eyes, which Aragon hadn’t realized she’d had squeezed shut, and utters something that sounds like the noise a lamb with its throat cut would make. Sweat runs down her temple. The water ripples with her body’s violent tremors of terror. She tried again: “Yeah. I’m good.” 

Aragon gives her the time to readjust, her eyes roving over the surface of the water like quicksilver, between the lightning and the gloomily dark bottom of rounded out pebbles and slabs of slate. It’s a little uncomfortable to be standing on them barefoot, the edges of the rocks and the corners of the bigger chunks digging into the soles of their feet, and Joan ends up standing up on her tippy toe to try to alleviate it. Aragon can’t help but be endeared by how even when she’s trying to be tall, Joan is still shorter than she is. When Joan turns back up to look at her, she knows that they’re ready to continue onwards.

Aragon holds Joan up at first. Aragon has never taught anyone how to swim before, so she’s not sure what to do. Joan’s sort of sprawled out on her stomach, splashing messily, cutting jags through the water’s surface. She punches and kicks like a drunk boxer, movements choppy. Aragon’s hands hover underneath her flat stomach (so thin so thin-- “Don’t you ever eat?”) as she follows her awkward crawl forwards, ready to--push her upwards, maybe? 

Joan’s hair’s getting her in the eyes. Locks of white-blonde are like thorny vines pricking against her corneas. Given their height difference, the water isn’t so deep on Aragon, so she reaches over slowly. 

  “Hang on, Joan-” 

Thunder.

Lightning.

Fission. 

The whites of Joan’s eyes are stark. She spasms in an awful way. She whips her head over to stare, floundering, and after a little awkward moving and rearranging of limbs and splashing of lake water, she's a koala bear clinging to Aragon. Her legs are cinched around her waist, arms thrown over her shoulders, and Aragon’s sort of hunched over because she’s supporting both of their weight and Joan hadn’t thought to bring along a swimming suit, so there’s the issue of her t-shirt and shorts billowing out like some Regency era dress and weighing her down too. She’s this close to choking her out with the strength of her grip.

  “Shh, shh,” Aragon rocks Joan back and forth in patient, soothing motions. “I’ve got you, baby girl. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Joan pants and breathes harshly against the crook of her neck. Her nails have hooked into claws on Aragon’s back, but if it hurts, Aragon doesn’t say anything.

  “Your hair,” Aragon explains, voice so soft even after being climbed up like she was a ladder. She moves to take the black hair tie off of her wrist. “It’s in your eyes.” 

Joan doesn’t say anything, only looks at her expectantly, the uh, I knew that, dumbass clearly writ across her face. But with blood rimming her nostrils and her eyes blank with horror and lips chewed to shreds, her gaze was anything but insulting.

  “Let me fix it.” Aragon says, and she’s smoothing back Joan’s hair and tying it up into a little ponytail, and then swirling that around to cobble a messy bun. It’s not the greatest looking hairdo in the world, but Joan seems to appreciate it. Aragon tucks the loose strands of it behind her ears clumsily, fingers a little numb with the cold.

  “You’re all good to go, darling,” Aragon says, and Joan nods. 

The moment’s broken, and they go back to kicking and paddling around. More than once Joan splashes water up her nose and Aragon snarks about brain eating amoebas in warm waters. Zombified. Sticks her arms out and everything, tottering this way and that. Aragon doesn’t roll her eyes and they both are grateful for it.

Joan rolls her eyes in response to her own antics, smacks the top of the water again, and it somehow dissolves, momentarily, into a water fight: sweeping arms and frantic giggling. She’s so caught up in trying to drench Aragon in the bone-chilling water that she’s lost her fear of treading water on her own. Aragon points it out, cheering, one fist punched upwards as if to punctuate the air at it.

The day stretches on. It isn’t perfect, but Joan is eventually passably confident with a front crawl. She’d insisted, because the little print outs crumpled in the bottom of her bag from the internet proclaimed it the fastest. Aragon doesn’t push her on her rationale behind choosing it, only helps her get to the point where she can kick her way over to her across the length of a pool. Eventually, she’s exhausted herself, and she lets Aragon drag her back most of the way without snarking.

Aragon remembers the last time that she held her like this: Joan falling into an uneasy sleep on her chest after a nightmare knocked the wind out of her-- literally. She had wrenched upwards out of her slumped position over her desk, leaned treacherously to the left in her chair, and slammed down hard, hard enough that days after they’d found that she’d cracked a rib on the floor.

By the time that the sun is setting, dying red embers bleeding across the sky in long trails, they’re both chilled to the marrow of their bones. They slog through the last few feet of water, resistance heavier than it seemed earlier on, thoroughly wet. Water runs down in streams from Joan’s outfit, and she snorts when Aragon throws her shoes at her when she’s raced across the sand to grab her own. She hobbles after weakly and Aragon stops messing around when she sees her pallor. She jogs over and wraps a soggy arm around Joan’s shuddering frame.

  “Joan?” She says. She lifts Joan’s chin with a finger and can’t tell if that’s lake water or tears rolling down her cheeks. “Joan? Talk to me, baby. What’s wrong?”

Joan shakes her head and bumps it lightly against Aragon’s shoulder. Her eyes flutter shut and she breathes out softly.

  “Thank you,” She whispers. A line of blood creeps slowly from her nose. “For this.”

  “Did someone ever drown?” Aragon then asks suddenly. “In your past life?”

Joan actually laughs. She sluggishly swipes away the stream of blood. 

  “No,” She answers. “No one except me. In my own sorrow.”

Another laugh. Aragon pulls her into a tight hug and kisses the top of her head. Joan hugs back, with nails hooked into needy, grasping claws.

  “It’s okay,” Aragon tells her. “I promise. It’s okay, sweetheart.”

  “Now it is,” Joan agrees softly. “Thank you.” She nuzzles her wet head against Aragon’s chest. “Catalina?”

  “Yes?”