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Jonas hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep in years. Even in his childhood home in his own soft bed he cannot rest, lying on his back and staring straight up at the ceiling until dawn begins to break over the tops of the trees outside the window.
When the front door opens downstairs around 5:00 AM, Jonas is awake to hear it. He assumes it is his mother because the person makes no effort to conceal the sound of their shoes crunching over broken glass. Jonas had meant to clean up the mess from Katharina’s breaking and entering, but like so many little things it slipped to the back of his mind, overshadowed by greater priorities.
The stairs creak under his mother’s feet until she arrives at the top of the landing. Jonas contemplates going out into the hall to greet her, but ultimately decides against it. She’s home safe now. There will be enough time tomorrow to get her to the bunker after she’s had a chance to rest. He waits to hear the door to her bedroom open and her mattress springs squeal.
Instead, he hears a soft voice call, “Jonas?”
Jonas sits bolt upright in bed. Martha is standing in the doorway to his bedroom like a ghost, her pale skin glowing in the semi-darkness. Jonas throws the blanket off himself and scrambles to stand up, but once he does he remains frozen, unable to take even a single step forward.
Martha crosses the space for him, just as tentative as she’d been that morning. Her feet come to a stop roughly a meter away, leaving her out of arm’s reach.
Jonas doesn’t know what to say. He forces his mouth to open anyway, terrified that if he says nothing she will leave.
“Where is your mother?”
Martha flinches, and Jonas knows instantly it was the wrong thing to ask, undoubtedly a reminder of the last words Katharina said to the pair of them.
“I don’t know. She took the time machine this afternoon and disappeared with it. She could be anywhere right now.”
Jonas nods. Katharina has a role to play in this just like everyone else, but her business has never concerned Jonas. For Martha to be here right now, Katharina must be well and truly gone.
“Why have you come?”
The hurt on Martha’s face compounds as her mouth opens and closes. “I had to see you. After I left, I started to doubt everything. I couldn’t believe that you were really…” She trails off and takes a step forward. Jonas’ heart pounds as she bridges the gap between them, and his eyes slip shut when her hand touches his cheek, softly tracing his nose, his jaw, his lips, before running down his throat. Her fingertips linger there long enough for Jonas to open his eyes again, and he glances down to see them trembling against the scar around his neck.
“Jonas, what happened to you?”
Jonas can’t answer that. The decades that separate them are too numerous, the atrocities committed by and against him more numerous still. Instead he grips her soft hand under his own and squeezes it, trying to condense his feelings into that one single touch.
“I told you I would fix everything,” he whispers, an echo of the explanation he had given her yesterday.
“Does that mean you’re going to disappear again?”
Jonas doesn’t answer that. He casts his eyes to the ground to avoid looking at her until Martha’s other hand comes up to cup his face. She forces him to meet her eyes.
“Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it. I’ve already lost Mikkel and my father, and my mother too, for all she cares. If I have to lose you a second time, I’ll…I’ll…”
It takes a moment for Jonas to register that Martha has thrown herself at him, and longer still for him to fold her into his embrace. Tomorrow she will die in his arms, but tonight she is alive in them, soft and whole.
In this stolen moment, Jonas holds on tight and doesn’t let go.