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It occurs to Nancy that this is not the first time she has been in Ace’s bedroom.
The first time she was here never really happened; although the memories are real. The emotions were too. The second time she was here, she lied to him. But now she’s going to tell him the truth. Or at least as much of it as she can.
The apartment isn’t as bare as it was last month. Everything about it is familiar, from the well-worn plaid shirt hanging over the back of a chair, to the ace of diamonds playing card print on the wall. It’s so recognisably, comfortably Ace that Nancy could happily stay forever.
She sits on the edge of Ace’s bed expectantly. He sits down too, a foot away. After a moment, he stands up again and worries his lip. His eyes dart from the bed to the couch across the room, but he seems to resolve in sitting back down. He’s in the same spot, his arms crossed now.
Over the last two months, Nancy has spent more than one sleepless night wondering what would have happened if she’d chosen him instead of their town. She has imagined coming back to this room in a million different ways, but never like this.
“So,” Ace starts, just as Nancy takes a breath to speak.
Ace lets out a nervous puff of amusement, but nods at her encouragingly. “Go on.”
“I owe you some answers.” That much is true, at least.
Ace stares at the wall, but Nancy can see the slight pout of his mouth from this angle.
“Yes, you do,” he says. There’s no judgment or anger in his voice, just agreement. Patient as always.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Nancy confesses. And she really doesn’t. How far back should she go? To the night she killed Temperance? To the month that never happened where she’d lost him? To the dreamscape at the bluffs? How much can she even tell him without activating the curse?
“Well, how about you start from the beginning,” encourages Ace. “Who cursed us?”
That’s low stakes. She can answer that. “It was Temperance.”
Ace nods slowly, then turns his head to look at her, eyebrow quirked up in question. “At the veil?”
“Yes,” Nancy says, swallowing thickly.
“I thought so,” he says, looking away again. Of course he knew. It was silly to think that he wouldn’t notice her pulling away right when they were on the precipice of—something.
Ace uncrosses his arms and puts his hands down on the comforter.
It strikes Nancy how easy it would be to place her hand next to his. To let her little finger graze along the side of Ace’s own and feel the warmth of his skin. The effort to suppress the action is draining, like a light's slowly being strangled inside of her.
Ace’s voice is hard as he asks: “And why did she do that?”
Nancy has spent weeks wondering how she could have avoided this fate. She had shown her hand to Temperance when she went to her to get the soul splitter to save Ace’s life. She should have been smarter. She should have seen five steps ahead. She should have known what Temperance was doing and stopped it from happening. She will never forgive herself for not stopping her sooner.
“Well,” Nancy starts. “She wanted to destroy Horseshoe Bay—”
“I remember that part,” Ace says, a note of amusement in his voice.
“Right. And we were at the veil, and I had Ryan’s hatchet and I was going to kill her. And she knew that. She knew I would do anything to stop her. She must have had this—” Nancy gestures between them “—in her back pocket the whole time.”
“So what, she blackmailed you?”
Nancy shrugs in half agreement.
“Kind of. She gave me a choice. I could do what she wanted. I could let her destroy the town. And she would let me have—what I wanted too.”
She flicks her gaze and meets Ace’s eyes. They are wide, glassy. He’s looking at her with an intensity she’s never seen before. He takes a deep, steadying breath in and bites the inside of his lip.
Ace clears his throat and then asks: “So when she mentioned blindspots she meant—”
His tone is deliberately light, like he’s afraid she’ll bolt if he presses her too hard.
Nancy nods, too exhausted to pretend anymore.
“Yes, she meant you. And how I— How we felt about each other.”
“Feel,” Ace corrects. “It’s still very much a present tense thing for me.”
Nancy’s cheeks flush.
Her heart is bursting. She wants to tell Ace how much he means to her. She wants to push her hands into his hair and bury her face in the crook of his neck. To lean up and kiss him softly, knowing that he feels the same way as he kisses her back.
She wants.
But she can’t have any of it. Not now, not ever.
Ace is watching her mutely. After a moment, he reaches over and takes Nancy’s hand in his. Nancy stills, frozen by fear. Her aching heart tapping out a rhythm that leaves her breathless.
“But you do feel something,” says Ace, quietly. He leans down to search her eyes for confirmation as his thumb strokes her knuckles.
A flush of heat goes up the back of Nancy’s neck, both at the words and the sensation of Ace’s fingers tracing over her skin. Even without the tragic mystical weirdness, this would be an awkward conversation. Talking about feelings? Being vulnerable? Letting her guard down?
It has never really come easy to her.
“Ace, the only person I wanted to talk about this with was you,” Nancy confesses.
She has spent too many sleepless nights lying awake in her bed, composing emails that she never sent and rehearsing conversations that never happened.
“So then why didn’t you?” Ace asks gently. His thumb is moving slowly up and down Nancy’s own. The contact a slow kind of torture.
“Why didn’t I tell you we had a death curse? I was trying to protect you. You’re always telling me to trust my instincts, and they were screaming at me to stay away.”
At that, Nancy pulls her hand away. Ace furrows his brow, frustrated.
Nancy stands and strides across the room. She stops, turns. Looks at Ace as he gazes at her from the bed. She sinks down again—this time onto Ace’s couch. He walks over to join her, but sits as far away as he physically can whilst still sitting on the same piece of furniture.
He’s giving her the space she needs, even now.
“I get that you’re scared, Nance. I am too—”
“I’m not just scared, Ace. I am terrified. I am petrified that I’m going to say the wrong thing, or get too close, or just forget for half a second. And then you’ll be gone,” Nancy rushes out, her voice thick with emotion.
“What if just trying to break the curse makes it worse? Or we trigger it accidentally? I can’t take that risk,” she says, her voice finally breaking.
Nancy’s vision blurs. She tears her eyes from the spot on the wall she’s been furiously staring at since she sat down. She feels defeated. Saying all of this out loud, and saying it to Ace, makes all of it feel so much more real than it did before. It’s sharper, deeper.
“I’ll take that risk” Ace says, his voice hoarse.
His find hers, a flash of blue that drops to her lips for a second before flicking away. There’s a twitch in his jaw as he looks at her. Knowing that, despite everything, he still wants to kiss her sends a thrill up her spine even as her heart is breaking.
“But don’t you see? This is the problem,” Nancy replies, almost feverish with worry.
“How we feel is not a problem, Nancy,” Ace replies, bordering on argumentative. “The curse is the problem.”
“At this point, aren't they kind of the same?” Nancy asks, deflated. “We’re cursed because of how we feel, and if we act on those feelings, then you die. Ergo, problem.”
It’s then that she realizes they’re both crying. Ace’s eyes are big and glassy, tears sticking his lashes together. Nancy’s chest heaves with heartbreak. She reaches out and swipes a tear from Ace’s cheek with her thumb.
“I can’t believe you don’t even want to try,” Ace says, his voice like broken glass. “After everything we’ve done this past year, this is where you draw the line? At your own happiness?”
“I’m not drawing the line at my happiness, Ace. I’m drawing it at your life. I can’t lose you,” says Nancy.
Not again. Maybe one day she’ll tell him about the month she spent in Temperance’s hallucination. How happy she’d been with him. How sorrowful she’d been at his death. But not today.
Ace sniffs and swipes his cheek with his sleeve.
They sit on the couch like that for an hour, neither of them wanting to leave. Soaking up each other’s presence after almost two months of sad, confused silence. Nancy finds that she doesn’t really want to leave. As bad as she feels right now, being alone would be worse. Misery loves company.
Nancy’s phone buzzes in her pocket. It’s a lead on a case she’s working on. She stands to leave and Ace walks her to the door.
He tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear. Nancy watches him hungrily, her eyes catching on the flash of his silver hoop. She wonders briefly when he started wearing it again.
She’s halfway out the door when Ace says: “I’m going to talk to Bess about it.”
“Ace—” Nancy starts, but he interrupts.
“No, Nancy. You’re not the only one in this. I can’t live with myself not knowing that I didn’t do everything I could to break this, okay? Please just let me look into it. If it's not possible then, fine. I can accept it. But I can't sit back and do nothing."
It goes against Nancy’s every instinct to not reach for him. To not beam the way she wants to at the knowledge that he would go to such lengths to be with her. She’s spent the last two months trying to rewire her brain with fear and determination so she can keep him alive, and it’s a struggle to go against that.
“I can’t give you my blessing, Ace. But I can give you this,” Nancy says, turning her wrist upside down and undoing the buckle of her watch.
It’s always been a little too big for her, and she’d had to punch a hole in the leather strap to stop it falling off her wrist.
Ace offers her his arm. Nancy places the watch on his wrist and buckles it, her fingers brushing the skin of Ace’s inner arms. Once it’s secure, Ace turns his wrist to look at the watch. It’s old, something vintage with a big pearly face and thick crystal made of glass.
“If you do anything, at all, and this cracks. Please just stop what you’re doing.” Nancy looks over Ace’s shoulder at the broken barometer on his wall. She briefly wonders why he hasn’t replaced it yet. A conversation for another time.
“I will, Nancy. I promise.”
Without another word, Nancy leaves. She feels a sob trying to claw its way out of her throat as she walks to her car. Her wrist feels naked without the watch, but she’s glad that Ace at least has something to protect him. A way to know when he’s gone too far. She resolves to check whether the inside of her locket is glass too, so she can have her own portable warning sign.
The fact that she’s even thinking about precautions makes something fizz in her stomach.
It’s a little too close to hope for her liking.