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Locked.

He stood there for one point five seconds — long enough to tell himself wait, give her a second, don't⁠—

Cal. CAL. Please don't make me go⁠—

He put his shoulder into the solid oak door.

It gave. Not dramatically — one solid, controlled impact, the frame splintering at the latch, the door swinging inward. He caught it before it hit the wall.

The room was dark. She was in the bed, sitting up now, her whole body shaking, her hands clutching the duvet, her eyes open but not seeing the room — still somewhere else, somewhere that was making her face do things he was not going to be able to forget.

“Cal?” She said it like a question. Like she wasn't sure he was real.

"I'm here." He crossed the room. Stopped at the edge of the bed — didn't touch, not yet, not until she was back. "Sage. I'm right here. Look at me."

Her eyes found him.

Something in them broke open.

"Cal—" Her voice cracked completely. "Cal, the dark — it was taking you — I couldn't — I kept holding on but I couldn't—" A sob slammed into her so hard it folded her forward. "I couldn't hold on⁠—"

"Hey." He sat on the edge of the bed. Held out his hand, palm up. Waiting. "I'm here. I'm right here. The dark's got nothing on me. You hear me?"

She looked at his hand.

Then she launched herself at him.

Both arms around his neck, her legs trying to wrap around his midsection and not making it — he was too wide, she wasn't tall enough, but she tried anyway and he caught her without thinking, one arm banding around her back, the other hand cupping the back of her head, and she was shaking so hard, teeth chattering, he could feel it in his own chest.

"Shh." Low. Steady. "Shh, baby. I'm here. I'm right here."

"Don't make me go," she sobbed into his neck. "Please don't make me go. Please come back. Please⁠—"

"I'm not going anywhere." He held her tighter. Just shy of too much. "I'm not going anywhere, sweetheart. You don't have to leave. Nobody's making you go anywhere."

She cried. Hard, hiccuping sobs, the kind that had been building for a while before the nightmare finally gave them a door. He held her through all of it, sitting on the edge of her bed in the dark with her clinging to him like he was the fixed point and the void was still out there and maybe to her it was, maybe it always was, and this was what he could do — be the fixed point. Be the thing that didn't move.

After a while the sobs started spacing out. Her breathing began to find a rhythm.

He looked at the door.

The frame had splintered clean at the latch. Wood chips on the floor. He'd fix it in the morning. He'd fix it and not say anything about it and she'd either mention it or she wouldn't.

She lifted her head from his neck and looked at the door too.

Looked at the frame. At the wood on the floor.

Looked back at him.

He met her eyes and said nothing.

Something moved across her face that he couldn't name — not quite shock, not quite gratitude, something deeper and more complicated that lived below both of those words and didn't have one of its own yet.

"You broke my door," she said. Barely a whisper.

"I'll fix it."

She stared at him.