#miss missing

Kitty Reed was a heavy sleeper. Roni liked to say that she could have an entire parade in the bedroom and Kit wouldn’t notice until her own internal clock woke her up at precisely 8:15 a.m.

So when someone knocked at the door at 2:00 in the morning, Roni was not at all surprised when she was the one who startled awake while Kitty simply snored and rolled over in her sleep. She sighed and swung her legs over the side of the bed, stepping around until she found her slippers, then tugged her fuzzy robe down from where it hung on the bathroom door and wrapped it around herself and put her glasses on before heading downstairs to see who was at the door.

Peeking through the peephole at the porch, she immediately recognized her wife’s younger coworker and unlocked the door, swinging it open to reveal Lacy standing in front of her with windswept hair and a coat covered in snow.

“Lacy, honey, what are you doing here?” she asked. Lacy startled as if she hadn’t noticed the door open but barely skipped a beat in flashing a warm smile.

“Mrs. Reed,” Lacy greeted cheerily, “sorry, I know it’s late. I was on a walk and really needed to warm up before I could get home.”

Veronica’s jaw dropped. “You walked here?” she verified, feeling horrified when Lacy shrugged, then nodded. Even as an avid jogger, Roni only ran about halfway to Lacy’s apartment every day before turning back, and it took her a good 25 minutes even at a brisk pace. “Come inside; you must be freezing.” Sluggishly, worryingly sluggishly, Lacy followed her gesture, allowing Roni to take off her coat—soaked and frozen—and sat on the couch where she was directed. Roni took the decorative quilt from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her tightly, tucking it to entrap any warmth she might still have in her.

“S’Kit at work already?” Lacy asked, her words colliding with one another. That, too, was upsetting—she clearly had no idea what time it was.

“Not yet, sweetie. I’m going to go get her, though, as soon as I make you a hot drink. You really need to warm up.” Lacy’s eyes tracked her to the kitchen, where she took a pot off its handle and lit the stove, then measured out about a cup’s worth of 2% milk and began to heat it. Glancing back at Lacy once more to ensure that she was still warming up comfortably, Roni bounded back up the stairs to wake her wife.

“Kitty, love, wake up,” she spoke softly, harshly contrasting with the ice cube she pulled out of her robe pocket and pressed to Kit’s neck. It did the trick, waking her almost instantly, however rudely.

“What the hell, Roni?” she demanded, rubbing her eyes before managing to focus them on the clock. “It’s only 2:15.”

“Bit of an emergency,” Roni said, and Kit was immediately awake, all business, sitting up in bed wide-eyed and ready to handle a situation.

“Did Sophie call?” she asked, barely managing to hide her worry.

“No, not in days; nothing unusual there,” Roni sighed. Kids, she thought. She should give their daughter a call tomorrow.

“Then what?” Kit pressed while Roni was sidetracked in thought. “Your dad? Or is something wrong with the house?”

Roni shook her head. “Your protege is downstairs,” she replied, smiling a bit as Kit looked confused.

“Who?” she asked, and Roni raised an eyebrow exasperatedly. “Medina?”

“Yes, who else?” Roni said fondly. “She says she walked here.” It was Kit’s turn to be shocked by that.

“Her place is like four miles from here,” she pointed out, and Roni nodded. Kit sighed and got out of bed, her oversized t-shirt hanging over her pyjama pants as she stood. “I’ll go see what she’s up to,” she announced. Roni followed her down the stairs but went to the kitchen rather than the living room so that she could stir the cocoa, but heard surprisingly little yelling from the other room, which only became more suspicious as the minutes ticked by.

Kit had already assessed the scene. She wasn’t FBI material for nothing, and Lacy hadn’t exactly set up a challenging scene—a blanket, recently unfolded, strewn across the floor, a coat dripping on the coatrack, and two sets of wet footprints: one leading toward the couch, and the other leading out the door.

“Damn it,” she cursed, “she left. Did she say what she wanted?” Her worried wife stood against the doorframe in her silk nightie, watching her shrug on her coat proudly, already knowing that she was going out into the snow after her even in her PJs.

“No,” she replied, “but she really didn’t look good, Kitty. She was pale and not talkative, which is really unlike her. I don’t know if she was just cold or what, but we need to get her warmed up.”

Since she hadn’t seen her that day, it had slipped Kit’s mind, but Lacy had gone home sick. Kit had clocked out for two hours for a dentist’s appointment, and in that time, Lacy had clocked on and lasted about 45 minutes on the floor before Eve told her to go back to bed. Kit had still been a little high on novacaine when the text had come through, but it definitely hadn’t been a dream, and Eve was as strict about not sending people home unless it was necessary as Lacy was serious about getting enough hours to pay the rent on her criminally-expensive studio apartment. Her coat was old and worn and already had a mini flashlight in the pocket for emergencies and she slipped her wool-sock-clad feet into her winter boots.

“Do you want me to drive you around to look?” Roni offered, and Kit shook her head.

“I don’t think she could’ve gone far,” Kit replied, confident that both illness and the snow would slow her down and keep her close, but also knowing that if Lacy was good at one thing, it was disappearing.

“Call if you can’t find her, or if you need me to pick you up,” Roni instructed, kissing Kit on the cheek as she left and shivering against the chill of the winter night as the door opened and shut.

Kit had been right about Lacy not going far. She was still walking down the sidewalk, coatless and unsteady, looking almost drunk from Kit’s distance. Not wanting to shout and wake all the neighbors (or, more specifically, not caring that she’d wake the neighbors but knowing that VERONICA wouldn’t want her to do so, and loving her wife), she rubbed up and down her arms reluctantly before taking off after Lacy, carefully avoiding the slick spots.

Lacy wasn’t so careful, and Kit took off running when she saw her hit a patch of ice and fall onto her back and not get up.

“Medina,” Kit breathed, both from exertion and relief, “are you hurt?” Lacy looked up at her, squinting against the streetlight’s glow miserably, almost tearfully. Kit almost cursed.

“Kit.” The word was a puff of smoke, hot air into the freezing night. She could visibly see Lacy’s plea for help hanging there, floating up to the sky and scattered by a breeze.

“Jesus,” Kit muttered, stooping down beside her, “okay. Anything broken?” Lacy shook her head, already scrambling to her feet, slipping a bit once more before Kit steadied her. “Hey, go slow,” she instructed, not liking just how much of Lacy’s weight was being leaned against her or how little she was wearing—a long-sleeve shirt, not even a sweater, and sweatpants, all grey, looking like it hadn’t even been a premeditated plan to go out in the first place.

“Sorry,” Lacy apologized, allowing Kit to lead her toward the house. Thankfully, she did seem fine, at least as far as the fall was concerned, not limping or hobbling, which was one less thing to worry about.

“No reason to be,” Kit brushed her off. “What are you doing out so late? I thought Eve sent you home.”

Lacy took long enough to answer that they’d managed to get all the way to the front door, where Roni let them in, relief evident in her face.

“I’m glad you came back, Lacy,” Roni greeted, helping to settle her back on the couch, tucking her legs extra tightly into the blanket as if it might restrain her. The mug of hot cocoa was sitting on the table, with a whipped cream cap and tiny chocolate chips on the top. Kit rolled her eyes. Her wife was so extra.  “It’s not too hot, but you should still blow on it,” she warned as she transferred the mug from her own hands to Lacy’s chapped red ones.

Kit watched her drink for a few moments before continuing the interrogation. “So, care to tell me why you were running around in the middle of the night in the snow?”

Lacy averted her eyes. “I don’t really remember,” she admitted. “My head hurt, and my apartment felt too hot, so I went for a walk. I just ended up here.”

“Yeah, you probably should’ve taken a fever reducer or a cool shower, not walked through the snow to come scare the shit out of my wife.”

Lacy looked scolded, and Roni swatted Kit on the arm.

“What she means is,” Roni translated, “we’re glad you reached out to us when you needed help, but next time, just call. We’d have come and gotten you in a heartbeat.”

Kit rolled her eyes. “How are you feeling now, kid? Head still hurt?” Lacy nodded, fighting against the closing of her eyes.

“Mostly just tired,” she replied. Kit frowned, knowing that it might be dangerous to let her go to sleep half-frozen.