Charlie couldn't have been unconscious for more than a few seconds. As such, the chaos she was met with when she roused would have been more appropriate if she'd spontaneously combusted.
She couldn't immediately understand what the shouting voices were saying, but before she even opened her eyes she could tell there were multiple people racing around the kitchen. The arms which held her were Floyd's, this she knew with absolute certainty; there was a specific way he'd always held her, even before they'd been together, as though she was the most precious thing he'd ever come across and more delicate than glass. But everything else was a mystery.
As Floyd lowered her back into the chair she'd been sitting in before, Charlie forced her eyes open. A sound emerged from her throat, somewhere between a groan and a whimper, and when he had her seated he crouched before her, his eyes wide, frightened.
"Freckles," he said, searching her face as his mother appeared behind him. "Are you alright? What happened? Do we need a doctor?"
"No," Charlie replied with a grimace. The last question was the only one which had stuck in her pounding head. "No, I'm okay. This happens sometimes."
"What do you mean it 'happens sometimes'?" Floyd demanded, horrified.
"That's it, I'm calling a doctor!" Janie declared.
Charlie shook her head weakly. The room swam around her. "No, you need to call my parents," she said. "Floyd, you need to call my parents, they - they -"
"Okay, Freckles, okay," Floyd soothed her. "We'll call your parents." He gestured to someone behind her, probably the driver, who she knew had her father's telephone number.
Charlie slumped back in her chair.
"Charlie," Floyd said warily, resting both of his hands on her knees to prompt her eyes back to his, "what's wrong?"
"It's -" Charlie began, and just the thought of it threatened to send her spiralling once more. "It's, um - it's the, um - it's, um -"
"Breathe, Freckles," Floyd said, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. "Same time as me, alright? In and out." He encouraged her to follow the rhythm of his breathing, one deep breath in and then a deep breath out, over and over until the tension in her shoulders relaxed.
"You're safe, Charlie," Floyd assured her quietly, running his thumb across her cheek. "I promise you're safe. I won't let anything bad happen."
Charlie couldn't look away from his eyes. She couldn't believe she'd almost forgotten their particular shade of brown. Even worried as they were, with eyebrows dipping above them in concern, his eyes were still beautiful, still warm and lovely. Still safe. She lifted a hand without thinking and her fingers grazed the exposed skin of his wrist where he was still holding her face. "It's the snow," she confessed quietly, her eyes flitting between both of his.
"Reminds you of Bastogne?" he asked softly, so no one else would hear.
Charlie nodded and shut her eyes; even just the name of the place made shivers wrack her entire body, had images of blood on snow flashing through her mind. There had been so much blood. And that was where Skip and Alex...
"Breathe, Charlie," repeated Floyd.
In and out. In and out. Charlie focused all of her concentration on regulating her breathing again.
Footsteps in the kitchen and then: "Her parents said they usually shut all the curtains and turn the radio on loud to distract her."
"I'll get the living room," a voice which sounded like Robert's announced in reply to Charlie's driver. Then his footsteps on the floor tiles sounded as he left the room.
"I should go to a hotel," Charlie whispered, opening her eyes and meeting Floyd's.
"You're staying here," he replied with a defiant shake of his head.
"You can't be alone on Christmas Day," Alice reasoned from across the table.
Charlie managed a strained laugh. "I would've been alone anyway." Her parents always had plans on Christmas.
"Ma'am, would you like me to drive you to a hotel?" the driver asked from the doorway.
"She's staying here," Floyd said before Charlie could reply.
"Will there be trains tomorrow?" Charlie wondered to the room at large.
"No, honey," Janie answered her gently, as though speaking to a small child. "No trains on Christmas Day. But we're more than happy to keep you here until the twenty-sixth."
While Charlie was inclined to doubt Janie's words, there was nothing but genuine glee on the older woman's face. So, after a beat of consideration, Charlie sighed. She turned to the driver. "Would you please come back on the twenty-sixth to drive me to the train station?" she requested.
The driver nodded. "Any particular time, ma'am?"
Charlie had no idea what time the first train to New Hampshire would be at, but she replied, "Nine AM, please," anyway.
"Of course."
"Merry Christmas," she offered as the driver turned to leave.
"To you as well, ma'am," he replied. "Have a great Christmas," he bid everyone in the room, and then turned to head back to the front door with Janie on his heels.
"Curtains are all closed," Robert announced as he re-entered the kitchen, just after his mother left it. "In the living room and in the hall upstairs, too."
Charlie's cheeks burned, realising how much trouble she had already caused when she hadn't even been invited here in the first place.
Floyd tapped her knee and pushed himself up to his full height, then offered his hand to Charlie with a small smile. "Let's go get you set up upstairs, huh?" he suggested. "Robert's room is already made up. It's like we were expecting you."
This made Charlie smile and she nodded weakly, placing her hand in his and rising to her feet. She gave Alice, John, and Dave, who were all still sitting at the kitchen table, a smile and whispered her thanks to Robert for closing the curtains as she passed him. He nodded back in acceptance of her thanks and Alice gave Charlie a smile.
Floyd picked up her bag, still sitting by the door from when the driver had placed it there, and led Charlie out of the kitchen. And then she was back in the living room, significantly darker now than it had been before, following Floyd on her way to the stairs.
Charlie wasn't sure whether Floyd was aware that they were still holding hands. Part of her hoped he was, that he was doing it intentionally, but another part of her silenced this train of thought; Floyd had given her no indication he still harboured romantic feelings for her. Probably, he was just being nice. A good friend. He had always been so good at being a good friend.
The wooden stairs creaked beneath Charlie's feet, reminding her of the house back in Aldbourne. She missed that house so much. At home in Lancaster the staircase was made of marble and covered with a long rug down the centre; the stairs made no sound when she walked on them, regardless of what shoes she was wearing. But in Aldbourne the stairs had creaked. Charlie remembered listening to the creaking as men from Easy attempted to leave in the early hours of the morning so they wouldn't be late for training.
Once Charlie and Floyd were at the top of the stairs, he led her down a short hallway and pushed into a room at the end of the hall on the left. "I'm next door," he told her, gesturing to the door perpendicular to this one, the room at the very end of the hall, "so if you need anything you can just knock."
Charlie nodded, starkly aware of the warmth of his hand. Surely he'd noticed now.
Robert's room was small and clearly hadn't been lived in for a while. Charlie smiled when she saw it. There was a single bed in the middle of the wall opposite the door, with a desk on one side and a nightstand on the other. Behind the desk was a window with navy blue curtains drawn across it - Charlie smiled at this, too - and beside the nightstand, on the wall to Charlie's left, was a wardrobe. The walls were light blue, the floor wooden, and there was one light in the centre of the ceiling, round and dome-like. In spite of how the room had clearly been abandoned for a while, there was a certain charm to it all, as though it had once been lived in and loved and wouldn't be able to lose that no matter how much time passed.
"My mom just washed the sheets yesterday, so they're all fresh," Floyd said, finally dropping Charlie's hand as he set her bag down at the foot of the bed. She missed the comfort of his hand in hers immediately.
Charlie smiled softly. "Your mom is wonderful," she said. "I like her a whole lot."
Floyd chuckled to himself. "Yeah, well, she likes you too. Always told you she would, didn't I?"
Charlie nodded. Every time they'd spoken about his mother he'd told her that she'd be obsessed with Charlie and, though Charlie wouldn't have gone quite that far, she was glad to know that she did like her rather a lot.
"Can I see your room?" she asked after a beat. She wasn't sure where the words had come from, and she especially wasn't sure what Floyd's reaction to them would be, but he surprised her by nodding.
"Yeah," he replied easily. "Come on."
Floyd's room was much the same as Robert's, with all the same furniture and colours: light blue walls, dark blue curtains drawn across the window, wooden floor, white ceiling. But this one had clearly been lived in much more recently. The bed had been made but there were creases in it, where the job had been haphazard, and there were personal items on the nightstand and desk.
Beneath the desk the chair had been pulled out and placed beside the wardrobe. In its place was a dog bed, with various toys spilling out of it and across the floor.
Floyd followed her gaze and laughed. "Rosie likes to curl up in corners," he explained. "Originally I put her bed next to mine but she kept trying to fit under the desk chair, so I moved it."
Charlie grinned. "She is such a cutie."
Again, Floyd laughed. "She can be a handful but, y'know, she's mine." As all the best things are, Charlie thought.
Charlie was about to turn to Floyd and thank him for letting her see his room when her eyes caught on something on the nightstand. "My letters," she breathed, recognising her handwriting.
Floyd rubbed at the back of his neck and averted his eyes. "Yeah."
"You kept them?"
He coughed awkwardly into a fist. "Yeah, well, obviously."
"Right."
Charlie wasn't sure whether to be elated or embarrassed.
"Anyway," Floyd said with another awkward cough, "we should probably head back downstairs before anyone gets any ideas about what we're doing up here."
Again, the heat in her cheeks. All of a sudden she felt so much more the girl she'd been when she'd first met him, and equally loved and hated the feeling; on the one hand, who else could make her feel like that innocent version of herself, so young and full of life? But on the other, she hated the distance between them, the awkwardness and the formality. She longed for the days when she'd been able to say the first thing on her mind to him, had been able to crawl into his arms whenever she'd wanted and sprinkle kisses all across his skin. She didn't know what she'd expected, coming here, but the distance still hurt. It ached. Where was the Floyd she'd known and loved? Where was the Charlie he'd so adored?
Rosie greeted the two of them at the bottom of the stairs and Floyd scooped her up into his arms with a short laugh. "I forgot to take your sweater off," he said to her before kissing her cheek. The next moment he turned the corner into the living room, disappearing temporarily from Charlie's sight.
Charlie smiled to herself as she followed behind them, her heart all but melted.
"Thank you for letting me stay here," Charlie said to Janie shyly after she'd sat down on the couch beside Floyd. "I'm sorry for showing up uninvited. I really didn't expect to be here for more than an hour."
Janie brushed her aside with a smile. "Oh, don't you worry about it one bit, dear. The more the merrier, that's what I always say. You're more than welcome to stay whenever you like."
Charlie opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by a growl and Floyd's hushed reprimand of, "Rosie, no." Charlie turned to find him wrestling Rosie's Christmas sweater out of her mouth while she held onto it for dear life, growling playfully all the while.
When Floyd managed to pry the sweater away from her she lunged for it again.
Charlie laughed. "Should I go get one of her toys?"
"Half an angel, half a demon, that dog," Janie said with a shake of her head.
"She just needs to learn the word 'no'," Floyd replied without looking up.
Charlie glanced away from the exchange and met Robert's eyes. He gave her a nod and she laughed. "I'll go get a toy," she declared. And, when she returned, all it took was one glance at the stuffed duck dog toy in her hand for Rosie to lose interest in the sweater entirely.
"There we go," Charlie said with a smile as Rosie settled in Floyd's lap, quietly chewing on the toy.
Floyd rolled his eyes as Charlie sat back down beside him on the couch. "Don't look so smug," he snarked.
Charlie grinned. "Just because your dog likes me better than you," she teased.
"You know what, Freckles?"
"What?" Charlie raised her brows in challenge, smirking.
"You better watch yourself unless you wanna find something nasty in your bed tonight."
"You will do no such thing!" Janie interrupted.
"Coming down pretty hard out there, huh?" asked a man Charlie hadn't formally met yet. He entered the room while holding an equally unfamiliar woman's hand, gesturing in the direction of the covered windows with the other.
"You heading home?" Dave asked them from the armchair in the corner.
"Yes," the woman replied. "We should go and pick the kids up from my parents' before they tear the house apart."
"This is my oldest brother Harry and his wife Louise," Floyd told Charlie quietly while the exchange continued. "They have two kids, a boy and a girl, who you'll meet tomorrow."
Charlie nodded along with him. "Right," she said. When she tuned back into the conversation before her, Harry and Louise were saying goodbye. A moment later they were disappearing around the corner and preparing to venture out into the cold.
Janie and Dave both disappeared into the kitchen to make dinner together, then - and Charlie thought it was really sweet that they both refused any help from anyone else because they wanted to do it together - and John and Alice headed upstairs. Robert and Julia were speaking in hushed tones with each other on the next sofa along and beside Charlie Floyd remained quiet.
Silently, Charlie sighed. This was going to be a long Christmas.
***
A/N:
ahh!! we're so close to the end!! we have just one more chapter and an epilogue after this. thoughts? predictions? deleted scenes/bonus chapters requests? let me know your thoughts!!! <3