Page 75 of Harper's Song

She takes my hand and his once they finally part and brings them together, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Be friends, please be friends now,” she whispers. “For me.”

“Family,” Scar says hoarsely as looks directly into my eyes and shakes my hand. I just nod, can’t actually speak. Then he returns my hand to Harper and walks off to pull his knife out of Reggie’s chest.

And I could just lie down and fall asleep with Harper in my arms, but Tank’s in some sort of a rush to get us out of there, so it’ll sadly have to wait.

I don’t remember a whole lot of the way back to the vans. I think Chance or someone, possibly even Scar had to help me walk part of the way. But I do remember the rising sun casting a pale golden light across Harper’s face, her soft hand in mine and her beautiful voice telling me to hold on and that she loves me.

And that’s all I ever really want to remember.

26

Harper

Jax fell asleep with his head in my lap in the back of the van that brought us back to safety. He has been asleep for a day and a night now and I’m getting worried despite assurances from Doc, his wife Anne, and even Melody, a club girl who is interning at the ER of the hospital here in Pleasantville and came to check on him three times now.

He just needs rest. He’s been through a lot. He’ll be just fine.

That’s what they’ve all been saying.

And to be fair, I’ve been sleeping for most of that time too, in one of the five hospital beds in Doc’s basement infirmary at Sanctuary. They brought us here to the MC’s HQ soon after I was rescued. Cherry, the woman who tried to free me was gone by the time it was all over, otherwise I'd insist we take her with us. She must've slipped out of the house while the fighting was going on. Thankfully, we’ve remained alone in this sick room, even though my father and the rest of the MC are still in Idaho fighting the war Jax and I were hurt in.

But I need him to wake up now. I need to know he’s truly all right. And I need us to start the rest of our life together.

It’s almost nine in the evening. There are no windows in this room, but it’s time for another sunset which we should be spending together. We are, so to speak, but it would be so much better if he were awake. As I’ve told him a couple of times already. Along with other things, which I would much rather tell him when I’m sure he can actually hear me.

I sit in the plush armchair I brought down here from the upstairs living room so I can sit beside his bed and take his hand. It’s warm and strong even in sleep and I bury my face in it.

Feeling his fingers stroke my cheek is almost as good as getting kissed by him for the first time.

He smiles at me as I lift my head to look at him, his eyes just slits.

“Harper,” he says in a voice that’s hoarse and gravelly from days of disuse yet dreamy all the same. “Where are we?”

“Home,” I tell him. “At Sanctuary. How do you feel?”

He moves his arms and shrugs his shoulder, wiggles this way and that on the bed.

“Not too bad,” he finally says then his eyes go wide. “And you? Did they hurt you?”

I shake my head and stroke his cheek, liking the prickly stubble covering it. But I prefer him without anything covering his beautiful face.

“Don’t worry about me,” I say. “It’ll take more than getting chained to a bed to break me. You found me in time.”

“Just in time,” he says and his eyes look lost and glassy so I just know he’s imagining all the ways it could have all gone very differently. And very wrong. I don’t want him to think about that.

So I lean down, my hair falling like a curtain around us and kiss him. And in that kiss all the bad that was, and all the bad that could’ve been is like nothing, like less than nothing, like a single wispy black cloud floating across a cloudless, bright blue sky lit by a warm golden sun.

“When you’re well and when all this is over, we’ll go somewhere, just the two of us,” I tell him later, when I’m lying beside him in the bed, our bodies pressed together, our legs and arms entwined, his strong heartbeat in my ear keeping the perfect rhythm to the gorgeous melody already playing in my head. A new song. Better even than the ones I wrote at the cabin.

He doesn’t reply, just strokes my hair gently.

“And we’ll stay there for as long as we have to,” I add. “Forever sounds good, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Forever does sound good,” he says quietly. “But what about your music?”

“We’ll figure it out, I’m sure we will,” I say fast, even though I’m not so sure. The thing is, I could tour on my own, I could travel the country to sing my songs and entertain people every night and it would be my dream come true.

---