Chapter Text
It had been - for want of a better explanation - the most magical night of her life. Initially, she was annoyed; she was sopping wet and smelled of dank canal water and she was irritated that she’d lost her phone to the murky depths of the Raamgracht.
And she was fucking freezing.
Something passed through her, however, when his hand had touched her’s. It was sinewy and strong and there was confidence in how he grasped her. He’d pressed his palm to her wrist and curled long fingers around her forearm and met her eye determinedly before he’d offered her a nod and she’d wrapped her fingers around his wrist in return.
He’d hauled her from the water like she weighed nothing then perched her on the edge of the boat, dripping from every inch of her body.
It took her a long few moments to catch her breath.
“Are you alright?”
She turned to him, a touch startled, and blinked - his eyes were so blue she got lost in them for a moment.
“Ah, yes,” She shivered. “Cold.”
“Come, I have a shower, you need to get yourself warm.”
“Oh, no, I-” She hesitated, looking up at him again. She should have felt more wary, she should have felt more reticent or reluctant to let this stranger help her, but all she felt was safe, inexplicably.
“And you're upside down, an...an-an-and you're drenched. But you're safe.”
She blinked. “Okay.”
He grasped her hand again and she felt a tingle go up her arm, a warmth spreading through her that made her body quake all the way down to her toes as he helped her to her feet.
He’d done everything possible to make her feel comfortable. He’d left her alone in his house for longer than was necessary; he’d made her tea, given her clothes and warmth and made her a delicious dinner and she couldn’t remember a time that she’d felt that at peace. She certainly couldn’t recall having felt that way since she was at least sixteen years old, or even before.
It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, like the skies had opened.
She’d felt free, for just that one, beautiful night.
She felt like not a single other thing in the world mattered.
They ate, they sang, they danced - he told her stories that made her laugh and they drank wine that made her cheeks flush.
In the morning, when she woke to the sound of bicycle bells and a slight crick in her neck from sleeping on his tiny couch, she had worried the blanket of warmth would dissipate. For a moment, in the quiet of his floating house as she looked out over the living room bathed in the light of morning and her eyes stopped on the closed curtain over his bedroom, she worried that the feeling would disappear.
It didn’t. It still hadn’t - and it sat in her heart like she’d lost something precious.
It didn’t go away when she went to the bathroom to change and felt giddy at the sight of a pink rubber duck wearing a crown, rested on the edge of the sink, or when she nervously stepped out in her clothes from the day before - that still smelled a touch like the canal - and saw him there, shifting eggs in a pan.
She was glad she hadn’t imagined him.
When he gripped her hand and hauled her up onto his boat, she’d thought there was something that passed between them, something that could have been a kind of jolt, a spark, something that made her shiver. But it was nothing compared to the bolt that hit her in the chest when she kissed him, when their lips touched and the sound he made in the back of his throat made her knees wobble.
His thumb had brushed against her bottom lip, a tenderness that didn’t actually surprise her at all, after the night they’d shared.
She meant it when she admitted that she’d never forget him.
How could she?
He took her breath away.
She did wonder if she hadn’t had to leave, if she’d have asked him his name. She wondered if she’d have given hers. She thought she just might have.
Rebecca sat on the plush stool in her wardrobe, flanked on either side by her floor length mirror and a wall of Louboutins. She had the blue blazer she’d been wearing that day, in her hands, brushing her thumb across one of the brass buttons, lost somewhere between London and a canal boat in Amsterdam.
Ted was leaving today. They’d said their goodbyes at the club and she’d stood by his desk the evening before, just staring at the empty surface, wondering what on earth her life would be now, without him in it. She could barely fathom it. Ted was a light, her guardian angel, perhaps, if she was feeling whimsical.
Had he saved her utterly and completely? Probably.
His absence felt like a loss too.
She looked down at her thumb brushing over the insignia on the brass button, and she allowed herself to wonder just for a moment, what he was doing. Maybe he was making breakfast for his daughter, or shopping for groceries or fishing another ridiculous Englishwoman out of the canal. There was no way to know. They hadn’t given those pieces of themselves to each other. All they had was that one little sliver of life, a breath released between beats. If she pressed her eyes closed, she could still feel the rumble of his deep voice, through her chest.
Her phone chimed and she blinked her eyes open, glancing at it face-up on the bed, realising in that moment that a tear had broken free. She stood quickly, leaving the blazer on her stool, and reached for her phone as she brushed at her cheek.
It was a notification. Ted’s flight was leaving in a little over an hour.
She couldn’t let her last memory of him be an empty desk.
***
She’d thoroughly confused the young woman at the ticket counter. She’d stood there, glanced at the board above their heads and asked for a first class ticket to Norway - it was the top of the list, leaving in a little over twenty minutes.
A point the woman had profusely insisted on repeating with apologies that she was certain she’d never make it to the gate in time.
She didn’t care, she was never going to actually use the ticket. But that was far more complicated to try and explain.
She’d beaten Ted there by a good fifteen minutes and found herself standing by the window, watching the planes taxi back and forth as she tried to imagine what she was going to say, how she was going to express everything that she felt.
How do you express appreciation with words, for a life saved?
There was a KLM plane that passed in front of her, and she was reminded rather unexpectedly of a vintage poster on a houseboat in Amsterdam and wondered, with her crumpled ticket to Norway pressed to her chest, if this feeling was ever going to go away.
She was at the point where she was fairly certain she’d never be able to look at a stroopwafel without feeling a tightness in her chest. And she fucking loved stroopwafels.
She caught movement in the reflection of the window and her breath hitched before she turned.
“Now what the heck you doin’ here?”
She smiled. God how she was going to miss that stupid moustache.
“I just bought a ticket to get through security so I could come and say a proper goodbye.” It was harder than she’d expected, to say even that, now that she was looking him in the eye. Their chatter was as it always had been, effortless - a softness in their exchange that came from a true friend, a gentleness in his eyes that made her feel comforted even though she knew no matter how many times she’d asked over the last few days, he really wasn’t ever going to stay.
She’d known for quite some time that one day he was going to leave. The day had just come far quicker than she’d imagined.
She didn’t really know what to say, how she could properly express everything that she felt - until just one phrase came to her and her heart skipped a beat when he said the same thing at exactly the same time.
It added weight to it, unwittingly. Even though it was quite simple.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
His expression wavered as her tears broke free and she tightened her arms around him when his soft, soothing chuckle reached her ears. A part of her wished she could hold on, wished she could ask him one last time to stay in the faint hope his answer would be different.
But that wouldn’t be fair.
He needed to go and she needed to stay. That was how it was always supposed to be. And even as her lip quivered and her tears burned, watching him walk away, she felt something in her shift.
She took a few deep breaths, her cheeks hot with tears as she tried to steady her breathing, watching him join the line and board the plane - her eyes fixed on him until he was out of sight.
She let out a shuddering breath and dabbed at her cheeks, pressing her palm to her chest as her breathing slowed, calmed and stilled.
What surprised her was the feeling of peace. For a moment she felt like she was floating. She turned to look back out at the planes, watching what she figured to be the same KLM plane taxiing in the other direction. The blue of it, the same as the blazer she’d left haphazard on the stool in her wardrobe.
She knew she was never going to throw that blazer away, even if it did still smell like canal water.
She was startled into turning around when she heard the sound of boots hammering on the tiles, the rattling of a gurney following them before she spotted a familiar hat being wheeled off the plane. She stood, stupefied, as Beard was led away, flanked by paramedics and she nearly ran to him, her tears forgotten, replaced by concern. But she caught his eye and he winked at her, slightly shaking his head and she stopped in her tracks.
Oh that fucker.
She chuckled, offering him a faint wave as they wheeled him around the corner.
She couldn’t help but laugh.
Of course, Jane.
She was happy for him. She could only imagine how difficult it was for him to tell Ted that he didn’t want to go - so difficult, he’d waited until it was almost too late to stay. She smiled to herself, at the knowledge there was a little piece of Ted that would be staying behind in Beard. It was enough for her to embrace the feeling of peace that had been niggling at her, the peace she’d been fighting because she felt guilty feeling peace at the idea of him leaving for good.
But it was like coming to the end of the last chapter of a book that you’ve loved. It’s bittersweet to say goodbye, to close the book, but the really great ones leave you with a lightness of being so profound, you can’t help but feel grateful for them. For the small space in your life that they occupied.
Ted was one of the best books she’d ever read. But he had his own story and for the first time in far too long, she felt confident in hers.
She made her way through the terminal, tossing her crumpled ticket in the bin before she walked out into the sunshine, feeling the warmth of it on her face. She’d never really been sentimental enough, to be one of those people that appreciated all the different kinds of love you see at arrivals and departure gates at airports.
But that something that had shifted in her, touched that somewhat dormant sentimentality and she found herself stopping when she caught sight of a little girl, dashing towards her. She looked familiar, like a memory or a dream, her blonde hair catching the sun as she ran and Rebecca smiled, feeling a similar lightness in her chest she’d only felt a handful of times before.
But then the little one tripped and fell and she realised she wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
She dashed for her, crouching down without hesitation to ensure she wasn’t hurt.
“Little love, are you alright?”
"Jelka heb je pijn? Gaat het lieverd?" The voice of the man that reached her at almost the same time made her heart stop. He had his hand pressed to the crown of the little girl’s head, his face obscured by a pilot’s hat, but she would recognise that cadence anywhere.
She felt it reverberate through her soul.
She lifted her head up, feeling her heart in her throat. She couldn’t barely believe it. It was like the world stopped turning, all the planes and the cars and the people stopped and silenced and it was just him, right there in front of her, backlit by the sun.
“It’s you.”
He sounded almost as astonished as her and she couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face, she couldn’t help the way her heart thundered in her chest but at the same time, she was overcome with an astonishing sense of calm.
“Wie is dat, papa?”
He chuckled softly, glancing down at his little girl before he looked into her eyes again.
“Dit is…ahhhh…”
She didn’t hesitate, not this time. “Rebecca.”
“Rebecca.” He repeated, with a sense of awe that made her breath hitch. She didn’t really know what to say, where to go from here, how to express the serendipity of running into him again. She almost wanted to pinch herself.
“Hello, what’s your name?” She held out her hand to the little girl by his side, bending over to be at her eye level, to offer up her full attention to the sweet little thing by his side.
“Jelka.”
“It’s so lovely to meet you, Jelka.”
“Jij hebt slangen botjes oorbellen.” Jelka said, glancing at either side of Rebecca’s face with a wide grin, and for a moment Rebecca was perplexed, unable to discern what the little girl had said, before her father chuckled and she stood back up straight.
“What?”
“She said your earrings look like snake bones.”
Self consciously, Rebecca touched her earring with a soft smile. “Oh yes,” She breathed a laugh. “They do.”
“Have lunch with us?”
Rebecca startled at the directness of his request, it seemingly springing out of nowhere, like he’d been trying to hold it in and finally it broke free.
She smiled, feeling that same warmth, that comfort, that she’d felt that night on his boat - it was like it radiated outwards from him. She didn’t have to think about it. “Alright.” She clutched her bag in front of her. “But don’t you, have to,” She gestured to the epaulettes on his jacket, to the hat he still held in his hand.
“Oh, yes, but we have some time for lunch.”
“How much is some?”
“Well,” he smirked. “It was plenty, before we ran into you. Now it’s barely enough.”
“I assume you’re flying home?”
“Yes, we are actually.”
“I-” She hesitated. “I could come, if that’s…”
“Come?”
“To Amsterdam.”
He blinked and his face spread in a broad smile, his blue eyes catching the sunlight like gemstones. “Do you not have somewhere you need to be?”
“No.”