Nate wakes up late. Well, later than his usual, at least. He looks at the clock on the bedside table, and sees it's half past ten. He stretches, then turns to the other side of the bed - empty. He can still smell her. He can still feel the warmth of her presence. It feels like she had left the bed just moments ago. He sits on the side of the bed, his feet bare on the floor. He feels tired, he's always felt tired since... since that day. He puts his head between his hands, his arms resting on his knees. He had the dream again, last night. The dream where he'd been in a coma, and was on the brink of death, and she somehow brought him back to life. He often has that dream. He ruffles his hair, it's gotten long and shaggy and he needs a haircut. His fingers trace the scar that runs down the exact middle of his left eye; it's deep, and the tissue feels alien, and it will never not hurt - though all the doctors say it had been a minor miracle that the wound wasn't any deeper, else he would've lost that eye. He looks around : the door is closed, and so are the windows. The house is quiet. It's time, he thinks, to go take a shower.
The hot water that runs down his body soothes him. The last visions of the dream start to ebb away from his memory, but that's all right - he knows he'll have that dream again soon enough. As he finishes the shower, and dries himself, he can hear the sound of a car approaching. The unmistakable crunch of tires on gravel. The doors opening and then being slammed shut, and above all, the sound of their laughter. Nate smiles, he loves having that dream. It always reminds him that his dreams did indeed come true. It was hard, at first, he needed a lot of physical therapy for months on end, but Geraldine was his rock. She never left his side. He got better, and things got better. And one day she told him she was expecting - and this time there were no doubts, no second thoughts. They were out in front, on the sofa, when Geraldine told him the news. They'd soon find out that a baby girl would be gracing their lives, and when the time came to choose a name for her, well - they were stuck. They couldn't decide on one, and it was only about halfway her pregnancy that they found the perfect name. A fragrant, beautiful, but unassuming flower, they'd often seen it in their own garden, and, they thought, Violet may be the one. Violet Mae, indeed.
If Geraldine had a soundtrack that played around her wherever she went, it would be one filled with the trilling, thrilling beauty of birdsong. Horns would blare in the background, and everything would be in the major key. It would be sound of happiness, and joy and love. It's the sound of her soul. It's a perpetual song that plays inside her heart, and she dances as she walks, her footsteps trailing flowers in her wake. When she sees Nate waiting for them by the door, she races Violet to see who can reach him first - she always lets her win. They kiss by the door, and Nate bends down to grab his daughter. She hugs him tight, and they go in the kitchen. 'Why didn't you wake me up?', Nate asks, and Geraldine says she just couldn't bring herself to do it, he was sleeping so soundly. It did do him good, though a huge part of him would have rather woken up early and gone with them. It's a ritual they have every Saturday morning, to go to the town, and then shop for groceries in the market. Sometimes they have their breakfast at the diner across the general store, the same where she'd seen him years before. Who knew they made great pancakes? Violet loves them, even more than the ones they make at home. Nate sits with his daughter on his lap - she looks so much like her mother, though sometimes, in certain lights, she looks like him too. They were long sporting the same hairdo, long Dutch braids running down their backs.
Later that day, they have lunch outside and immediately after, Violet plops down on the sofa, and falls asleep. It's warm out, a beautiful late spring day. Nate and Geraldine sit by the sofa, down on the porch floor. Hands held, her head resting on his shoulders, they sit in peace. 'You know', Nate says, 'I dreamt all the while I was under. And some of what I dreamt are things that came to pass. But also... had already happened. Somewhere else. Somewhen else. To a me that wasn't me, with a you that wasn't you.' Geraldine nods. 'You told me about that once, when we were at the planetarium.' Nate feels proud that she remembers that moment still. But he knows her well, he trusts her well. When she said she remembered everything, he believed her. 'Yeah. What I dreamt was... it felt like I was part of a pattern somehow. Not just me, you, us, all of us. Something that has happened, is happening, hasn't yet happened, will always happen. A loop - a loop we wanted. And all the time while I slept, it was your voice I sought, your voice I clung to whenever you visited, its echoes sounding deep inside my soul.' Nate stops talking and stares straight ahead. 'Sometimes I dreamt you'd stopped coming. I... I don't know where I was, but I felt so immensely sad, I prayed that I could somehow cry on the outside, and someone would notice and wake me up before I died.' He turns back to Geraldine, she'd unbraided her hair, and was now letting it fall all over her shoulders. 'But that was just a dream, just a dream.', he says.
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