Water Ch. 124 - When We Were Beautiful

 

“Lay down babe.  Do you want to talk about it?”  He asks her, when he see she’s finally calmed down.  She lies back in bed and takes a deep breath.

“I can still feel you in my arms, it was so real, so life like.  You passed out in my arms, Jon.  I can still hear your cries and feel your tears.”  She takes another deep breath; it doesn’t seem to be helping with the gasping from when you cry so hard.

“You know it’s not real, the kids are safe and so are mom and dad.”  He’s on his side, with his arm over her, caressing her arm.

“It was so real, so life like.  I can even smell the smells in the dream.  I can smell the stale smell of the arena; I can hear the crowd screaming.”  She closes her eyes and lies there, with her hands on her belly, protecting her babies. 

He lays his head on her shoulder and  puts his hand on hers, both now are protecting their babies and Jon says, “It’s going to be okay, try to get some more sleep.”  He takes his fingers and rub them up and down her fingers, wrist and arm.  She loves the way it feels, but even his touch can’t take the thoughts away. 

“Would they really tell you that in your ear buds?” asking that question makes her heart race, thinking how traumatic that could really be.  To hear that in front of 40,000 people?

He gives her a chuckle and says, “I better not ever hear anything like that in my ear pieces.  I would kill someone.” 

She sighs and relaxes enough to put her arms above her head.  She looked over at the clock, 1:30 and asks Jon, “Honey, will you go check on the kids?  Make sure they are covered, it’s a little chilly in here.”

Sitting up, “Of course I will.  Do you want anything while I’m up?” he asks.

She shakes her head no, but says “A glass of water, if you would?” 

He leans into her personal space, blows the eyelash off her cheek and says, “Make a wish.  You only want water?”

“Yeah.  Thanks babe.”

Jon grabs his shorts off of the floor and slides them on.  He does a walk through and checks on all 4 kids.  All are sleeping except for Stephanie.  When she sees her dad, she has to ask, “Dad is Beth okay?”  And that startles Jon.  Twice in one night he has been scared half to death, he’s convinced he has 100 gray hairs from the whole night.

“What are you doing up Steph?  Beth is fine, she had a bad dream. “he sits next to his only daughter, puts his arm around her.  He just sits there for a minutes, soaking in that he is with his children, all are healthy and alive.  He lightly bumps her in the head and wonders, “How are you doing?  We dropped a pretty big bomb on you the other day, are you okay?”

Stephanie looks at her dad like he’s crazy, “Dad, I love the idea of having new babies.  It’s going to be so cool and having Beth around all the time will be awesome.”  She hugs her daddy, the daddy that’s always been there for her – even when he was thousands of miles away.  Jon ALWAYS made time for the kids and being on the road changed nothing.

“Get back to bed.  I have no idea what Beth has planned for us tomorrow.  We may need all the rest we can get.” He kisses his daughter goodnight, tells her that he loves her and leaves her in her room. 

All the others are tucked in and warm, he grabbed Beth a glass of ice water and went back into the bedroom. 

She was sound asleep.