If the boy has already heard of her, Ellie doesn't notice. As the door swings open, as she braces herself for the onslaught of unknown feelings, it's as though there is nothing left but the two of them. And not in the cliched way, in the thousand stories that she has read and heard and watched; it's as though the air has been sucked from her lungs, the light from the sky, the earth from her feet. She's no longer anchored to anything except Flynn, and he's just past her reach, brushing her fingertips, so close but not close enough. She blinks and he's gone, there's nothing there except a void.
She blinks again and suddenly he's back, in front of her, and there's a solidness beneath her thin shoes and she takes a deep, deep, shuddery breath and the air tastes so warm. She reels forwards, catches herself, pulls herself upright on legs that forgot how to be adult legs, that have gone back a decade ago, the legs that belonged to a shy little girl who would never grow out of her shyness.
Another breath, forced in and forced out because she can't remember how to otherwise, another long, slow, shaking breath, pulled into trembling lips that want to say his name and nothing else for the rest of time. She's forgotten who she is and where she is and why she is, all she knows is that his face is so much sweeter than she could picture in her own head.
She tries so hard but she can't stop the tears.

She doesn't even notice that one fairy leaves the room and another enters, not until Flo jumps against her leg with a little too much claw, and then Ellie turns, almost angry before she realises she doesn't know how to be angry. She wipes at her eyes, runs her fingers through her hair, turns to see what must be another sibling. This one is older than the first, and has the same hard look in her eyes that Jasper used to when they were children, before he became whatever monster he is now. She wants to snap back, she wants to show this girl that whatever she thinks she knows is wrong, but Ellie doesn't know how to snap, how to say a thousand words with a glare. So she smiles softly beneath the drying tears, looks from Flynn to this girl and back, because nothing can keep her from her man. If he is still that.
“I can stay,” she says, just a touch more sharply than she ever thought she could, but then weakens. “I can stay, can't I?”

Flo, now curled up underneath Den, has decided already that she's staying, regardless of what her fairy does. And if Ellie ever tries to leave again, the cat will just have to drag her back somehow. She is certain that the dog will help.
And even if he's reluctant, cats can be very persuasive.

i o d i n e .

kiss me,
beneath the milky twilight.