If you're still taking Phi/Terry/Quilt prompts, #4, 10, or 21 would all be amazing. (I think Phi/Terry/Quilt might be my favorite ship across all fandoms right now and the current fic influx is watering my crops and clearing my skin this week)
(Ahhh, you are so so lovely! Phi/Terry/Quil is definitely my favorite ship across all fandoms right now, and it is so delightful to hear the same from someone who isn’t the four of us! I’ve gone with “desperately”, and this is a continuation of the time loop one from the other day. <3 )
"I don't want to sleep," Quil confesses, breathed softly into the darkness that's fallen over them. She sits with her knees pulled to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, unable to relax. Behind her, Phi makes a low, pained sound, and her hand presses to Quil's back, warm and firm and grounding. "What if-- What if we didn't--" Her voice breaks. "What if you're not--"
"Then I'll come for you again," Phi says, quiet and sure. "And again, and again. As many times as it takes."
Quil chokes on a strangled sound and shakes her head, presses her forehead to her knees and breathes unevenly there. "You can't. Phi, you can't. You'll just be sending yourself into the same curse I've been living. You can't do that."
"What should I do instead?" The blankets rustle behind Quil. An instant later, warmth presses to Quil's back, and Phi's arms wrap around her, enveloping her. "Leave you trapped in it? That I can't do. I'll come back for you." She presses a warm kiss to Quil's shoulder. Quil leans back into her embrace, into her touch, fights back the burn of tears. One day isn't enough to get used to having this again, when it's been such a long time. "Every time. But I don't think I'll have to." Her arms wrap around Quil's middle, drawing her back against her, holding her close. "You're done, Quil. You've done enough. More than enough."
Quil shuts her eyes against the darkness and tries to trust in it, but she can't. She gave up hope too long ago, and she doesn't remember how to carry it without its weight pulling at her. "I don't want to sleep," she says again, the faintest of breaths.
Phi's quiet for a long moment. "All right," she says at last. She doesn't unwrap her arms from Quil, but pulls at her with them, urges her back, urges her down. "Lie down with me, then. We'll stay up together."
She's tried it before, tried staying up late enough to watch one day turn into the next. It never works, it just makes the days longer, makes the wait more endless. But Phi is here with her, is coaxing her down and wrapping around her so tight, as though to say to the world that she won't let her go, that her strength outmatches that of the even the strongest magics, of even the most terrible curses.
Quil lies down, and Phi pulls the blankets up over them both and then wraps around her, arms around her stomach and legs twisted through hers, her face pressed to the back of Quil's neck, breathing there slow and warm. Her breathing's so easy, like she really isn't worried at all about what the morning will bring.
"I love you," Quil breathes, while she still can.
Phi's arms tighten around her. She noses Quil's hair aside and presses a kiss to her nape. "I love you, darling," she answers her. "I'm bringing you home."
Quil nods, and holds her tight, and waits for whatever the dawn will bring.
She doesn't remember falling asleep. She doesn't even remember feeling like it was possible. She just wakes, abruptly, with light falling across her face and her heart in her throat. For a long moment, she can't bear to open her eyes.
She does, eventually. She must. She blinks them open and her breath catches, her heart lodges up into her throat. A thousand mornings and more, she's woken up to the same ceiling above her, but today, there's the dense green of a tree canopy overhead. She sucks in a sharp, sobbing breath, and there's movement behind her, there's a touch on her shoulder.
She whips around, sees Phi there behind her, and the smile that breaks across her face when Quil meets her gaze is more beautiful than any sunrise. "Darling," she says, and Quil throws herself at her and clings to her, weeps into her shoulder, trembles violently in her embrace.
"Let's go home," Phi says eventually, and Quil scrambles to her feet, drags Phi up to hers. Phi stands with her, laughing, and clasps tight to Quil's hand as Quil starts to recite the incantation for Teleport, holding fast to the thought of home in her mind.
The trees around them blur, dissolve, and melt away. An instant later her vision clears, and the walls of Fairport Hold rise up before her. The stones glow warm in the light of early morning, and Quil is running as soon as her feet are steady beneath her, pulling Phi along with her.
It's too early for most of the hold to be up yet. They race through the halls without stopping, without being stopped, until Quil bursts through the door of their suite, pulls herself up short before throwing herself at the door to the bedroom because it's already open, because Terry's sitting at the table with a half-empty cup of coffee clutched between white-knuckled hands, and he jumps to his feet the moment the door opens. His gaze goes to Quil's immediately, and he looks staggered to see her, but not surprised.
"Quil," he breathes, and drops the cup onto the table, ignores the rattle and how near it comes to tipping and spilling, because he's already halfway to her, and Phi releases her grip on Quil's hand just in time for Quil to launch herself at him.
He catches her likes he doesn't weigh anything at all, spins with her, laughing like he can't believe it, and she would be too, or would cry to have him in her arms again, but it's been so much time, and she won't waste another moment of it.
She buries her hands in his hair and kisses him, kisses him with the pent-up grief and longing of a thousand and more days, and he holds her tight and kisses her back like he's missed her just as much, like he's ached for her just as desperately. He squeezes the breath from her, and she pulls back just enough to say, "You're here," before pulling him back in.
"You're here," he echoes, and his voice shakes, and she never wants to stop kissing him, but she breaks away to press her face to his shoulder as the tears break free from her and pour from her, soaking his shirt in an instant.
"I love you," she tells him, now that she can. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
And he holds her and shushes her, cradles her against him and gives the words back to her, and Phi comes up to wrap them both in her arms and Quil frees a hand to clutch at her, too. And finally, finally, for the first time in a thousand days and more, she wouldn't change a thing in the world.
