Living Daylights (Peter)
Phaedra shifted and stretched.
She was very, very comfortable. With eyes still closed, she couldn't quite place why. There was light behind her eyelids, but maybe she had forgotten to snuff out the lamp next to her bed. It was that warm glow.
She felt cool sheets, and before opening her eyes, she knew the planet had changed. Her bed in the abandoned house wasn't that great. This mattress had springs, and support. And the sheets were cleaner than they'd ever get with a washboard, soap and a river. She moved and her foot touched warm flesh.
Phaedra sat upright, fast. If her heart could race, it would be racing.
Peter was asleep next to her. Peter was asleep next to her. Her mind raced. He should be dead, he should be at least seriously injured, crushed, bleeding. She looked at him, lying there, trying to parse why he was able to lie there in that sunbeam--
Sunbeam.
Phaedra got off of the bed as quickly as she could, not at all taking care not to wake Peter, and started closing the blinds. She was too panicked to pay much attention to the fact that the sun wasn't hurting her, wasn't singing her, that it was morning, true morning...
Until she got to the last window.
Then she opened the shades, and the window itself, and stood there in the black tank top and underwear. Her black pants were at the foot of the bed, and her boots were, too. This was more clothing than Phaedra ever slept in, but that didn't matter.
It didn't matter what was in the closet, though she would bet her clothing was--the corset, the coat, the skin-tight stuff that she was so comfortable in.
Just under the window, there were tropical flowers reaching for the sun, and something that looked like a hummingbird.
She couldn't talk. Or move. She had to be wary of this, but... Phaedra could not stop smiling.