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“Hey, it’s okay.” He kissed her forehead. “You were amazing. You saved the dragon, and probably us, and we’re all okay, and everything will be fine. That woman said the rescue team will be here within the hair. We’re almost out of this.”
Sally shook her head. “Gracie…”
Harry kissed her again and squeezed her tight. “We can’t do anything about her now.”
Sally heard the tightness in his voice, and she knew he hated saying that, hated the reality of being helpless while their daughter was in danger. But he was right. They were in a raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. They’d survived dragons and a plane crash. It was a miracle they were still alive.
And yet, the agony was threatening to tear Sally’s heart in two. If something happened to Gracie…
“Thank you so much.”
Sally lifted her face and saw the stewardess, smiling down at her. More thanks came from the other passengers. She wanted to smile and tell them it was nothing, but it really was nothing to her if Gracie wasn’t okay.
“Is something wrong?” the stewardess asked.
“Right before the plane crashed, we found out our daughter—” Harry’s voice cracked, and he stopped. “Our daughter was kidnapped.”
A scowling blonde pushed her way past the other passengers and the stewardess. “How did you find that out?”
“They… they texted me… using her phone,” Sally said, her voice thick.
“Let me see it.”
She stared at the hand the woman thrust in her face. “Why…?”
The woman groaned and withdrew her hand. “I’m a snow witch. I specialize in charms that affect media, like books and movies. I may be able to charm the kidnappers into turning themselves into the police.”
Sally looked at Harry with wide eyes, then she turned back to the witch. “You… you can do that?”
She shrugged. “I can try.”
Sally couldn’t pull her phone out of her pocket fast enough. She unlocked it and saw that she had over fifty missed texts. There were only two conversations important enough to check before she handed the phone over to the witch.
Mom: The police came. They said Harry called them? They took our statements and our phones, and they’re doing something to try to track Gracie’s location. I’ll let you know when we know more
Nothing from Gracie’s number.
“Here. This is the last thing they sent me… M-my mother said the police came, and they’re trying to track her location…”
The witch screwed up her face, tapping and sliding her finger across the screen. Scrolling up and down, Sally guessed.
“Good. Many people get scared and don’t call the police, but that’s the worst thing you can do,” the witch said. “My boyfriend’s a police officer. Oh, I’m Crystal, by the way. Yeah… I might be able to do something here.”
Frost collected at the tip of her index finger, crawling across Sally’s phone screen and disappearing into it.
Sally held her breath. She felt Harry doing the same.
Crystal smirked. “Oh, yeah. He’s looking at the phone right now. I’ve got him.”
It felt like everybody on the raft was holding their breath now.
Crystal’s smirk became a triumphant grin. She handed the phone back to Sally, all the frost gone from the screen. “Done. He’s a real wimp. Dialling the police right now.”
“And Gracie?” Sally’s voice was nearly a whisper.
Crystal shrugged. “She wasn’t holding the phone. I charmed the screen so I can see everything it sees and hear everything within a few feet, and I didn’t hear her. He’s crying now. Giving the police his address and everything. I bet he calls his mom after this.”
Sally breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Compared to jumping out of an airplane and trusting a mad scientist’s parachute and rocket, that was nothing. It’s literally what I do for my day job.”
“So… why… did you do that? The… jumping out of an airplane.”
Crystal sighed and sat down beside them. “Ow. Hold on.”
She tugged at straps crossing her torso in an X-shape, and the rocket Sally hadn’t noticed still strapped to Crystal’s back came loose. It looked just like the rockets Wile E. Coyote ordered from ACME in Looney Tunes. Crystal propped it up beside her and settled into her spot.
“That’s better. Well, long story short, my cousin took off from the North Pole on a magic-powered ice floe last night, and Emma and I left this morning to find her and bring her back home. Well, Emma kind of forced me to come along. Don’t get me wrong. I love Lily. But search and rescue missions aren’t my thing, and I had to break a date with my boyfriend to do this. I’d much rather be sitting on a sofa watching a movie with him than jumping out of planes.” She paused, her blue eyes becoming distant, and her lips curled up into a smile again. “Knew it. He’s calling his mom right now.”
“Why did your cousin take off?” the stewardess interjected.
Sally looked around, and she realized Crystal had a captive audience.
Crystal took it all in stride, shrugging again and leaning back against the edge of the raft. “I don’t know. This is all really weird. I just woke up this morning knowing she had left and knowing I had to help bring her back. Emma and my mother had the same thing happen. It’s like we all had the same dream or something, but we can’t remember it.”
She paused again. Sally watched her, expectant, wondering if she was spying on her daughter’s kidnapper again.
Crystal’s blue eyes refocused on Sally. “She’s safe. He just untied her, and now he’s apologizing to her. She sounds really confused, but otherwise fine.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” Sally let her head drop against Harry’s chest, exhausted.
He hugged her and rested his head on top of hers. “Hey, Sal?”
She hadn’t heard that nickname in a while.
He hesitated, and then he continued in a soft voice, a voice only for her to hear while Crystal regaled the masses. “When I was watching you take care of that dragon, I was so proud of you. And… terrified. I realized…” He sighed. “I realized I never moved on, Sal. There’s never been anybody for me but you. I love you, and I want to give it another go. You and me. Us. Together again.”
She lifted her head from his chest and looked up at him. His green eyes looked back at her, the same shade as hers but darkened by night, earnest.
“Things can’t be the same, Harry.”
“They won’t be. After you left, I reevaluated my life. I got a counselor, and I started working on myself. My priorities. Delegating work to others. Trusting others so I could delegate to them. I don’t work late anymore, and when it’s my turn to get the kids, I don’t leave them to anybody else. They’re my kids, too, and I realized it’s important for me to make time for them. Time to be with them. I want to try this, Sal.”
She stared at him. Her heart was pounding, and that lone butterfly that had reacted to his smile earlier was up and at it again, fluttering its lonesome way around her stomach.
“Do you still love me, Sal?”
“Of course I do.” She answered immediately, and she kissed him immediately, before he had a chance to respond.
And there was only one response.
He kissed her back.
He cradled the back of her head in his hand, tangling his fingers in her matted mane of red curls, and for a moment, there was nobody else. There was no raft, no ocean, no plane crash. Just warm, soft lips she knew so well and had missed more than she knew, lips that knew and missed hers, arms she used to rely on holding her close, the other half of her heart beating in his chest against hers.
But they were in a raft in the middle of the ocean, floating above the sinking remains of their plane.
And someone’s phone was suddenly ringing.
It wasn’t Sally’s, but it brought her back to reality. She pulled back from Harry with a shy smile. “Oh, we should probably tell everybody we’re alive.”
“Yeah, probably,” he said, but as her eyes dropped to her phone, his stayed on her.
“Emma?” Crystal said, answering her phone. She frowned. “Wait, what? Slow down. She what? Oh, okay. Um… well, that’s not good.” Crystal dragged her hand over her face and sighed. “Okay. Come back here and pick me up. We’ll go as far as we can with the dragons, and then… I guess I’ll go in alone, and you can get more help. No. No, if it’s as cold as I think, there’s no way you can survive it. Just… just come back and get me. Okay. Bye.”
She ended the call and slumped back against the raft with a heavy sigh.
“What’s going on?” the stewardess asked her.
“Well, I can tell you why the dragons are migrating. Lily’s magic is out of control.” Crystal sighed again.
“And… what does that mean?”
“It means we’re in trouble. She’s the most powerful snow witch in existence, maybe in history, and when she loses control, bad things happen. Ever hear about those freak blizzards in Nebraska?”
The stewardess nodded. “The ones that come out of nowhere and NASA can’t figure out? Yeah. They started… four years ago, I think?”
Crystal nodded. “That was Lily. Her mom died four years ago. Basically, when she gets depressed or anxious, her emotions trigger her magic, which triggers a blizzard.”
“But there hasn’t been one since last July.”
“Which is when she moved back to the North Pole.”
“So, she’s like Elsa from Frozen?” Harry asked.
Crystal shrugged. “Kind of. She even wears gloves to protect others from her magic. The movie gets it all wrong, though. It takes effort to use magic, and if you use too much, you can pass out, or even die. You can’t just make ice castles willy-nilly.”
Crystal stopped. Sally looked up from her long list of unanswered text messages, and Crystal’s blue eyes were staring off into space again.
“Is it Gracie?” Sally asked hopefully.
Crystal nodded. “Yeah, the police have arrived. She’s fine. But…”
Sally’s stomach dropped. “But what?”
Crystal’s brow furrowed. The silence seemed to stretch on forever, though it only lasted a few seconds.
Then she shook her head and refocused on Sally. “Your daughter’s fine. I was getting something from another charm. Anyway, Emma is on her way back with the dragons to pick me up, so, I guess…” Her blue eyes wandered to the rocket sitting next to her, and her lip curled in distaste. “I guess I’ll rocket up to her? The dragons can’t land here. Ugh, this is such a mess.”
“Look! Look! Is that a ship?”
“It is! We’re saved!”
Sally returned to her phone and her texts while excitement swept through the rafts. She didn’t have the energy for that level of enthusiasm anymore. Gracie was safe, and she and Harry were getting back together, and now she just wanted dry clothes and a soft bed.
So, she followed the wave of people from the rafts to the rescue boats to the Navy aircraft carrier which happened to be in the area for a training drill, and she accepted the hot cup of cocoa and the warm blanket the seamen offered her while they attended to the beleaguered passengers and flight crew. Harry stayed by her side, and neither of them batted an eye when two dragons and an elf landed on the flight deck. They saw from a distance Emma dismounting the baby dragon and conferring with Crystal, and then Crystal mounted the adult dragon and left.
Tired as she was, Sally noticed the baby dragon’s immediate discomfort at being left alone. It shifted from foot to foot, its head swiveling around the ship and wandering back to the night sky, looking after its mother.
Emma noticed, too. She patted the dragon’s leg, said something to it, and then scanned the deck until her eyes landed on Sally. She smiled, spoke to the dragon again, and Sally watched as they headed toward her.
“Hello,” Emma called out to her. “Glad to see everybody is okay.”
Sally had known the woman was small, but seeing her atop a dragon was very different from standing on the same level as her. The three feet of height difference between them was staggeringly obvious.
“Yeah, they just picked us up. Is everything okay with the dragon?”
“Well, she’s scared without her mother.” Emma patted the dragon’s leg again. “But it’s too dangerous for a dragon as young as her to fly into that storm, so we have to wait here until her mother comes back. I was wondering, since she trusts you, if you’d like to watch her until then?”
Sally glanced at Harry. “Um… what does that entail?”
Emma smiled. “Just letting her stay near you. It would be great if she could settle down enough for a nap. I have to call my husband and make some arrangements, but ideally, I’d like to fly as far north as I can with the dragons before I change transportation. That would be the quickest way to get things done. This little girl needs a rest, though.”
If Sally had more energy, she would have had a hundred questions. How did Emma know the dragon’s gender? How was she communicating with it? What kind of transportation did one take to and from the North Pole?
Sally nodded. “Okay.”
This was not how Sally expected her day to go. From her car overheating to the unexpected reunion with her ex-husband to her daughter being kidnapped while their plane flew into a flock of dragons and crashed, nothing had gone to plan. Nothing at all.
And yet, she was happy.
Cuddled up to Harry under a shared blanket with a dragon baby curled up around them, she was happy.
The dragon’s breath kept them nice and toasty, and after they got used to their predicament, it wasn’t so bad. Sally had always loved that moment when she could forge a connection with her patients, earn their trust.
“So, Paris,” Harry said.
Sally laughed. “Oh, I completely forgot about that. Guess we’re not going.”
“We still could.”
She turned to look at him. “After all this? No, I need a vacation from this vacation, and our daughter needs us.”
“I mean, for our honeymoon.”
She stared at him. He was giving her that smile again, the one that made her heart thump and her stomach flutter.
“Is that your idea of a proposal?”
He shrugged. “It’s the best I can do under the circumstances.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Well, it’s a nice thought, but I think we should try dating each other first to make sure this is going to work before we get into the legalities of it all. We won’t always be in life and death situations every day. We have to work together in our normal, hum-drum lives, too.”
“Always the practical one.”
He leaned in and kissed her. She loved the feel of his lips on hers so much.
“I love you, Sal.”
“I love you, too, Harry.”
Date of creation: 05/05/2025
Word count: 10,000 (maximum 10,000)
Prompt: A divorced former couple find each other on the same flight to Paris, sitting next to each other. How can it get worse? The plane gets into an accident, will they realize their long lost love while their worlds are falling apart?
Genre: Melodrama, angst, romance
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