Summary: A few weeks after the Homecoming Ball, Allie still avoids the ballroom.
The nightmares start immediately, robbing Allie of sleep and making her wake in a blind panic. They always start the same: she’s in the ballroom, nearly overcome with happiness as she waits to give her speech. The lights flicker off suddenly, plunging the room into darkness, then people start screaming, and then the distinct popping sound of gunfire echoes around the room.
It’s the ending that changes; sometimes Allie jerks awake when Drake collides with her, sometimes when he doesn’t get in front of her quite fast enough and the bullet hits her instead, sometimes when Liam can’t get to her and is dragged off while she screams helplessly.
She’s usually tangled in the sheets when she finally gets her eyes open, still feeling like she’s screaming and fighting against some unseen assailant, until she finally calms enough to realize it was just a nightmare. Usually it’s Liam who manages to bring her completely out of it, his hand cupping her cheek or running through her hair, his voice low and soothing in her ear as her shaking subsides.
“It’s okay, my love,” he murmurs. “You’re okay. I’m right here.”
But even though she’s fine physically, she doesn’t feel okay, not really. Weeks after the Homecoming Ball, Allie still can’t bring herself to go near the ballroom. It was closed off for a while afterwards, for the investigation and so the damage could be repaired. Drake is fine. Maxwell is fine. Hana is fine. It’s just a room, she tries to tell herself.
But it’s a room that now holds so many horrible memories that Allie doesn’t know how she’ll go in it again. She dreads the first event scheduled after that night. Not the event itself, but having to go back in that ballroom. Allie doesn’t say anything at first, hoping that somehow these feelings will diminish enough that she’ll be able to walk back in that dreaded room without wanting to run.
That, and she knows how silently Liam has been struggling, too. He puts on that brave, stoic face in public, one of reassurance and strength, but when they’re alone, he opens up and holds onto her while they murmur their worries and fears.
Liam asks her one night what will make it better, neither of them able to sleep. He’s been plagued with nightmares too, though he’s usually so quiet when he wakes from them that Allie doesn’t always wake when he does. She can tell when he’s had one in the morning though, the look of sheer exhaustion on his face and the way he’s watching her.
“You could have the ballroom torn down,” Allie answers, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat against her ear, their fingers laced together.
She’s mostly joking, though part of her wishes she could just take a sledgehammer to the walls and the floor and everything else in the room. It would make her feel better, she thinks, to see it crumble to the ground.
Liam smiles when she glances up, a hint of humor behind it that she hasn’t seen in a while. “If it wasn’t a historical building and I didn’t need permission, I would help you right now.”
Even though they can’t actually wipe the ballroom’s very existence from the palace, Liam’s words and knowing that he would do it makes her feel a little better. Allie curls against him after a few quiet moments, burrowing against his chest and closing her eyes as his lips brush over her forehead.
“Goodnight, my love,” Liam murmurs in her ear.
It’s the first night she doesn’t jerk awake in a panic. When she wakes to sunlight filtering in through the windows, Liam is still sleeping next to her, and she realizes they both finally made it through the night without having nightmares waking them.
Allie is feeling brave a few days later as the staff prepares for the upcoming event; she can’t bring herself to go in the ballroom quite yet, but she watches the beginning preparations through the open doors. Liam finds her there, his arm slipping around her waist as they watch in a comfortable silence. Her breathing stays blessedly even, her heart not pounding quite as much as it has been every time she walks remotely close to the ballroom doors.
There are no nightmares that night either. Instead, Allie dreams about the night she and Liam met, and their spontaneous trip to the Statue of Liberty. She can feel a hint of a smile on her face when she wakes up and sees Liam watching her in amusement.
“You were smiling,” he tells her, and kisses her until she’s laughing and tells him what she was dreaming about.
The morning of the event, Allie wakes early when the bed shifts, their room still dark. Liam is climbing out of bed, turning around when she touches his hand.
“Hi,” she murmurs sleepily.
“Good morning. You can go back to sleep,” he says, sitting back down next to her.
“Mm. It’s okay. I’m up now,” she yawns, stretching and then pushing herself upright.
Liam cranes his head down, pressing his lips to hers and groaning quietly when she runs her hands through his hair. They get ready together, taking their time, sharing slow kisses that make her sigh in pleasure. As horrifying as that night was, as trying as the last few weeks have been, this, Liam, is why she’s here. Why she’ll always be here.
When they’re both dressed, Liam snags her around the waist and kisses her deeply.
“I love you,” he says huskily, and she glances at him curiously, not missing the slight hint of vulnerability in his voice.
“I love you, too,” she reassures him.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, and suddenly she understands.
“Liam,” she murmurs, cupping his face in her hands. “Did you think…I wasn’t going to stay?”
He says nothing at first, but his face says it all.
“I love you,” she says again. “I’m not leaving. Not you. Not Cordonia.”
She smiles, tugging his head down to kiss him again. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers against his mouth.
Allie shrieks quietly when Liam suddenly hauls her up against him, kissing her so fiercely, so desperately, that she’s gasping for breath when he sets her back down.
His expression is one of undeniable certainty and happiness, one she hasn’t seen since he’d shared the wishing well with her and made love to her in the garden maze.
“I was going to go check on a few things for tonight,” he says as he gazes at her, twining their fingers together. “Join me?”
She still has yet to set foot in the ballroom, and part of her still dreads it, but she tells him yes.
The ballroom is bustling with activity, and even though her throat clenches at first, a knot forming in her stomach as she remembers the Homecoming Ball and the sheer terror of that night, her thundering heart gradually begins to slow as they circle the room. Liam keeps a strong, warm grip on her hand, his fingers reflexively tightening around hers every so often as they check in with the staff.
As much as Allie still thinks she’d feel better if they could just tear this room down, part of her feels like she’s finally starting to beat the fear and the anxiety that have been hanging over her. She squeezes Liam hand as they head back out of the room, stopping him. Allie leans in, brushing her lips over his, and feels him smile against her.
“What was that for?” he asks.
Allie shrugs, smiling as she sees Drake and Bastien come in from a side room. Drake lifts a hand briefly in greeting, and Allie waves back.
“I’ve been fighting coming back in this room for so long,” she says to Liam. “Dreading it.”
She tilts her head up. “It’s…kind of a relief, having it done with.”
Liam tucks her in close, watching her watch the ballroom come together.
“I know there are more fights to come,” she says with a sense of acceptance.
There will be, she knows. Their life isn’t an easy one, and probably won’t ever be. But she’s here, Liam’s here, and right now, in this moment, they’re okay and she’s content, and that’s what she focuses on.
“But I’m happy this fight I’ve been having with myself is over. I’m happy I’m here,” she finishes.
Liam smiles softly, brushing his lips lightly against hers. “So am I, Allie. More than you can know.”