A Million Moments Per Second

by Smokeycut

Summary:

Nel and Vibeke share one final moment together, but for Nel it’s far more than just a moment. It’s a lifetime, lived in a single second, before everything comes crashing down.

Notes:

So, my second Valhalla fic! I’ve been in a big mood for the series lately, and I’ve got at least one other fic planned for it. It’s a longer one though, so hold on a while! Until then, I hope you enjoy this!

There are only seconds left, if that much. The ravine is collapsing around them, and the water is rushing closer. The earth has scant minutes before the sea swallows the land, but Nel has far less than that to spend with her beloved.

Vibeke wakes with a gasp and a jump, and she has no time at all to process what’s happening. She doesn’t need to. It doesn’t matter. All that mattered in that moment was that her dearest heart was cradling her, giving her own life to keep Vibeke awake just a second longer.

Long enough for a kiss goodbye.

Their lips touch, and in that second before the water crushes them, Nel’s mechanical mind shifts in a way it never has before. All functions switch off. Her arms, her legs, what’s left of them anyways, are inert. Her breathing halts. Her link with the world cuts out entirely. No smell, no balance, no hearing, no nothing. Nothing but sight and the sensations her head can feel. With so little brainpower devoted to keeping herself running, her mind perceives more than it ever has before. She sees things, she hears things, she feels things, all sorts of things. A simulation, or a second life. Both are accurate words to describe what Nel experiences in the second before their deaths.

A millisecond ticks by and she’s born. June MacRae is screaming in pain, but Nelson is holding her hand and whispering encouragements in her ear. It’s Halloween night, they’re not even in a hospital like they ought to be. They’re at home. Nelson’s eyes go wide and he breaks out into a smile as his daughters are born.

Twins. June hadn’t told him she was having twins. He can’t help but laugh as he cradles the babies in his arms. They’re so beautiful, so wonderful, so completely and utterly perfect.

Their names are Violet and Nelson, and they kick each other in their crib every night for the first six months.

Another sliver of time passes, and she’s a little girl, growing up in rural Scotland. There’s so much green in the highlands, like a canvas of rolling grass and dirt for the girls to explore. They spend most of their time roughhousing, of course. Each time Nel wins a spat, Violet comes back to win the rematch. They push each other to fight harder, nastier, dirtier, but they don’t hate each other. Not at all. How could they hate the one person in the world who feels the same way they do?

She’s six years old and she asks her father why she has his name. He smiles, ruffles her long blonde hair, and tells her that he and her mother had made an agreement. If they had a daughter, her mother wanted her name to be Violet. If they had a son, he had wanted the name to be Nelson, to pass on his name. When they had two daughters, he didn’t see any reason why a girl couldn’t be a Nelson too.

But she likes Nel better. It suits her.

More milliseconds pass, and she’s a teenager. Violet dents a locker in rage when she learns that she’s got dyslexia. Nobody understands why it makes her so angry, nobody but Nel. Violet hates them for not figuring it out sooner, but more than that, she just doesn’t want to seem stupid.

After Violet’s suspension for damaging school property, Nel spends a week as the only one of the two able to attend their classes. She fills out a second set of worksheets and homework as Violet, and she makes sure not a single spelling error is found.

Time slips past her yet again, like trickling water, and she’s in her twenties. She gets her hair cut and dyed blood red, so nobody will mix her up with her sister ever again. They still do, of course. Only their parents have ever been able to tell them apart. Up until she meets Vibs, that is.

She’s at a bookstore in Culloden when she sees her. A young woman with ebon hair and ivory skin, sitting in the corner of the store with a stack of books to one side of her, and another in her hands. She reads so fast, faster than Nel has ever seen before. She finishes a page in what seems like just one second, and spends the same amount of time on the next. It’s like her eyes are searching for something, digging through the words for a special treasure. It keeps Nel’s attention for five minutes before someone bumps into her and breaks her focus.

She mutters a curse under her breath, and that’s what finally pulls the girl away from her book long enough to acknowledge that she’s in a place with other people.

Her name is Vibeke. Vibs, her friends call her. Or at least that’s what she’d like friends to call her, if she could make some. But she doesn’t tell Nel that, no, not for another year. Instead, she asks if Nel has ever read the book she’s reading. She hasn’t, so Vibs offers to explain it. They spend over an hour hanging around in the corner of the store. When they do finally leave, Vibs offers to bring Nel back to her’s for a while. She refuses, says she has better things to do. Even in a second chance at life, she doesn’t have the faintest clue as to how one ought to treat the girl of her dreams. And so, like a confused kid on a playground, she digs her heels in the dirt and acts like she doesn’t find her cuter than any girl in Scotland.

But with the passing of another millisecond, they run into each other again. She’s in Culloden again, this time with Violet by her side, boasting about her latest MMA win. Nel snorts and rolls her eyes at the obnoxious bragging, at the exact moment that Vibeke exits the store the sisters are walking by, engrossed in another book. Body collides with body, all three women let loose an annoyed “shit!”, and then their eyes lock.

But Nel, in that moment, reacts on instinct and snatches Vibeke’s falling book out of the air before it makes contact with the ground. She pushes it into the other woman’s chest and makes a comment that comes across far ruder than her intentions. Vibeke stares daggers at her for a moment, but says nothing. She just stares, and that’s enough to throw Nel off her guard. Red creeps onto her cheeks, but she pretends she isn’t blushing like an idiot.

She apologizes. For the first time in her life, Nel MacRae apologizes, and that throws everyone off their guards. The twins forget where exactly it was that they were heading, and Vibs doesn’t refuse their company for the rest of the afternoon.

They end up on a hill in the highlands that evening, as the sun dips below the clouds and paints the sky orange and pink. Violet and Vibeke watch the sunset in silence, but Nel can’t care less about it. Not when Vibs is cast in an orange glow that makes her seem like a painting brought to life. It’s a moment that Nel will never forget. She’ll hold onto it until death arrives for her in two thirds of a second.

Someway, somehow, Nel manages to accept Vibeke’s offer to have dinner together. She does it with about the same amount of grace and dignity that she’s had thus far, but the way Vibeke smiles afterwards is enough to break Nel’s shell for a few moments more.

The years tick by as fractions of a second, and Nel doesn’t know how on earth Vibeke stands her, and she doesn’t know how she can stand Vibeke. Always so perfect, so beautiful, so patient. But then she sees the Vibeke beneath the surface. The steel beneath the softness, the smoldering rage at injustice, and the venom that can be spat when it was most needed, but never when it wasn’t. But Vibeke always knew why she chose Nel, why she continues to choose her every day.

Contrary to how she acts, Nel has a heart. A heart that gives and gives and gives, but only when she thinks nobody is looking. And that’s enough to bring a smile to Vibeke’s face.

It’s Christmas Eve, in the home of Nelson and June MacRae, when Nel stops caring. The parents are on the couch, sipping from mugs of cocoa and enjoying another night of peace and familial love. Violet is having a cigarette outside, deciding whether or not to text the girl she hooked up with a few nights before. She slips back inside to see Vibeke curl up on Nel’s lap and rest her head in the crook of her girlfriend’s neck. For a moment, just a moment, Nel freezes up. But moments only last so long. So she presses her lips against Vibeke’s head and places a gentle kiss there.

“I love you.”

It’s enough to turn all eight eyes on her. She’s never said those words before. Not to her sister, not to her parents, and certainly not to Vibs. But on Christmas Eve Nel shows her heart, and everyone is glad to have seen it.

But moments only last forever. Wonderful moments and painful moments alike. The arguments, the love making, the time spent apart and the time spent in quiet togetherness. Years stack on top of years, but nothing ever blurs together. Every moment is precious and unique, so how could she ever let one slip by? Even when they’re old and cold and grey, she lives on with her beloved. She still has a few milliseconds left, and she won’t dare waste them.

But eventually, the final moment has to come. It comes with the drop of a plate and the collapsing of knees. Vibeke tries to catch her, but she’s gotten too slow. The heart attack takes Nel quickly, at least she could say that. But she’s thankful. Thankful for every moment spent, and thankful that her last sight could be of Vibs.

The last millisecond passes, and the water comes crashing down. It’s the end of the day. It’s the end of the world. But Nel MacRae dies happy, with her greatest love in her arms.

Notes:

I don’t really have much to say here aside from the fact that I just really love Nel and Vibeke.

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