Falling | Richard & Natalie
Natalie Hammond did not cry.
In America, exactly two people had seen her cry: Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s father, and both were for decidedly good reasons. Natalie had had every intention of ensuring it stopped there. Two was more than enough. She didn’t spend all that time outrunning what happened to her while she was still living in London to let it all crumble. She came here because no one knew who she was. She came here because it was a clean slate.
She had no idea, when she fell asleep that night, that she’d be adding a third name to that short list.
Richard’s house was warm. It was clean, much nicer than her apartment - and, most importantly he was in it. Before him, she had a very strict rule: nosleeping over. Spending the night, sure, but sleeping, actually sleeping together, simply was not an option. But there was something about the way he stopped her last time, the way he’d lightly touched her hand and said, “Why don’t you stay over?”, and she suddenly knew that if she went home she wouldn’t even be able to sleep.
This time was different. He didn’t have to ask. She didn’t even make to leave. She was curled into him and wrapped in his arms as if she were made to be there, and it felt warm. And, for some reason, it didn’t frighten her. It should have, but it didn’t.
Natalie didn’t check the weather before she’d gone to his house. The morning had promised her sun, maybe some cloud cover, but there was no storm expected. At most, she thought there might be a drizzle. A drizzle would have been fine.
But when the storm started, her world came crashing down around her. She lost all sense of where she was, who she was with, or what she was doing. The rain is what had woken her senses, but it was the first roll of thunder that snapped through her body and made her aware. She jolted, sitting upright at first, as if trying to remember what was happening - and then there was the flash of lighting that took her breath away.
Natalie flung herself out of the blankets and practically fell out of bed, stumbling desperately through the dark of the room. The only sounds she heard was the rain, the thunder, and in the back of her mind two screams, one short, one prolonged, and the horrible crack of the windows, and the thunder.
The room was pitch black and her hands found the farthest wall. She followed it, hoping beyond hope she’d find a light switch - light, the room needed light - and she didn’t even realize she was already crying, desperately trying to catch her breath as she clawed at the walls. She was tripping over a pair of shoes, her own clothes, and by the time she’d given up searching for the light switch - light, the room needed light, she needed light - she’d sunk to her knees.
Natalie’s stomach lurched as another roll of thunder clapped across the sky, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She wasn’t ready for this, she hadn’t planned for this - she was always ready for a storm, she always made sure she was home, in her apartment, with Elizabeth at her side to braid her hair and watch a movie or listen to music on the noise canceling headphones. But suddenly her entire world was upside down and she couldn’t even fathom her thoughts into coherent sentences, all she could hear was the thunder, the screaming-
A soft touch to her shoulder brought her back and all at once she could hear Richard’s voice. She spun around, her hands flying to her head, clutching at the hair by her temples.
"Natalie! Natalie? Natalie."
