Maybe there’s a way out, but all there is now is the dancing, and trying to keep her balance on the blood slicked floor, and here has to be a way out and she’ll find it, but now she needs to keep Del from harm as best she can, which isn’t very well, but she’s trying- And then a soft voice threads into the old dream, Hope, wake up, Rosie will be very annoyed with me if I let you miss breakfast. And Hope wakes, and remembers, and smiles at Frodo, and her feet are whole, and she can hear Del scolding Sammie somehow down the hall, and everything is all right, even if her shoulders do ache from a late night writing and a unfortunate way of cuddling into the pillows.
Of course. She’s safe. She only needs to dance when she wants to. So she slips out of bed and darts down the hall, hurrying to make sure that she gets to her pancakes before Del steals all of the syrup again. And while everyone talks around her, a dozen conversations weaving in close to her skin, she wonders how she ever managed to forget all this laughter.
~