Three O' Clock In The Morning
A Casson Family Fic. Pairing: Tom/Rose Part One: Rose's POV
Based off of Rose's Blog, Entry 19 December 2010. What I believe Rose and Tom were thinking after their phone conversation.
I own nothing. And everything in italics belongs to Hilary McKay, from the Blog or from the novels. And so, two years after this happened, I FINALLY finish this story! D: Sorry for the long wait everyone
Tom came over from New York. Tom. I haven't spoken to him for months. For hours and days on end I manage not to think of him at all. But sometimes, I can't help it. Sometimes, at my weakest times, like at three o'clock in the morning when my resistance is low, I think about him much too much. Are we still friends? Or not?
T&RT&RT&R
Permanent Rose. That's what he calls me. I will let no one else call me by my full name, only Tom. And, deep in my heart, I have longed for one thing: to be Tom's Permanent Rose.
"Permanent Rose," said Tom."Permanent Rose. Permanent Rose."
Last night, or rather, very very early morning, when I talked to him, he spoke my name as if it was a caress...
T&RT&RT&RT&RR&R
For years I had no way of knowing (or comprehending) that I had a crush on him, but I knew one thing intensely. Without Tom Levin in my life - dashing, overconfident, closing out the silence with his music on his guitar – a sense of incompleteness haunted me. My paintings lost their sparkle. Dreams tormented me as I attempted to bridge the gap of distance between us waiting for a word – one word – from him. How could I have any way of knowing what is was then? I was only eight, and Tom was thirteen, and still the incompleteness disturbed me.
I went to New York at the end of that long, lonely summer, and it was like life itself, seeing him again. Like me, Tom had spent the whole summer in a sulk, as depressed as I was that he had heard no word from me – us I mean. The revelation (see how I just used a big word? It's from all the reading I've been doing) of Daddy's affair with Aunt Linda (Saffy's mother, no longer living) brought one good thing out of it. Daddy bought us all a computer to use, which meant that we could all be in contact with Tom quite easily.
And then came the Christmas I was eleven. The Christmas when I admitted to my lovable, ditzy big sister Caddy that I was always missing Tom. And how he occupied my thoughts and my mind wondered to what time it was in New York whenever my life got stressful. The Christmas that was all at once awful, lonely (I felt invisible to my family) and wonderfully jubilant because of my gift that I didn't guess at all.
Tom chose me for Christmas. He chose to come see us – I mean me – for Christmas. And that was what I didn't guess. One of the best things about that Christmas was that I received my own mobile, much to my delight. After getting it, I used it take dozens and dozens of pictures of Tom. Tom smiling at me, Tom leaning back with his guitar that Daddy bought him propped up on his knees, playing, Tom teaching me how to read through his little sister Frances (who almost died), Tom and I sledding together along with Sarah and Indigo, and my best friends Molly and Kiran. Tom – ever since that day I nearly got killed racing through the traffic just to see him, we've always had an intangible connection to each other – that no one else seems to understand but us two, because, I think, we have always known each other's hearts.
Snippets of a song he sang to me filter back through my memories.
"When you came to New York,
You were my favourite person in New York."
I have a picture of him in my mobile, taken when he was singing the song to me. His face is hidden, so I can't know what expression he had on his face. But for years I have treasured those lyrics, and hoped against hope that he might feel the same way I do. But does he? The question haunts me.
On 21 January 2008, at the age of twelve, I began my blog, which to my surprise was a great hit with my friends and family. No one knew that I had created it after my brother Indigo had taken me aside to basically warn me away from Tom. It was Valentine's Day that year. (I think that holiday should be banned). And so, disappointed that I had received no Valentine from Tom, Indigo noticed me sulking and he took me aside. He then basically warned me that Tom and I would never work out, because he said, "Tom is eighteen and you are thirteen. And Posy Rose, think about it. It is a long five years in between."
So I did think about it, and for quite a while nothing could really cheer me up. My reason for it was my stubbornness in regards to Tom. He sent a note back to me when he was first here – he did that for no one else at that time. He called me Permanent Rose. Even back then, I knew he was the only one who could get ever get away with referring to me by my full name – even in my family I go (usually) by Posy Rose, a mere nickname. Tom respected me enough to let me into his and Indigo's best friendship circle so that I was his best friend along with Indy, and he esteemed me enough to call me Permanent Rose. A name that I allowed no one else to call me. Except Tom. And, he sent me that lovely silver guitar necklace after I lost the first one and cried for two weeks. He sent me a proper Valentine's card the year I told Indigo that all the Valentines that I was mass-producing "were all for Tom, really." And they were – and truly, I was most concerned about Tom's reaction to my card, no one else's, because that is the way I do special. As I was saying, back to the matter of my blog. One could say I really wrote it for Tom and no one else, though like I mentioned before, it is quite popular – for a blog. And I think my parents, family, and friends noticed this fact as well. To my dismay. Read 2nd August 2009 for that hint. So.
Tom visited us again when Michael named the twins, Jassy and Juniper in September. Indigo, pale and thin and lean, sat nearby, idly thrumming at the guitar strings as Sarah leaned over his shoulder, now and then raising her head to chat with Saffy, who lay on the floor near them. David and Buttercup (my nephew, real name Carlos. After a sealion Caddy was fond of) had gone out into the garden to play football, leaving Tom and I alone in the midst of a busy, buzzing family, as eager as bees in a beehive about Caddy and Michael's new arrivals, the twins Jassy and Juniper.
Tom sat near me, his arm draped lazily over his black guitar that Daddy had bought for him, idly humming bits and pieces of a song called Everything I do (I do it For You) by singer Bryan Adams, and as he hummed, his eyes meet mine and I stared into his own for several moments before he murmured something about going to South America in the fall. My heart fell at those words.
"South America?" I asked, my lips trembling faintly. "But Tom that's so far away…"
And then Tom looks deeply into my eyes, looks and looks until I cannot look away, and then responds lightly, "Yes. It is. But what's that to you, Permanent Rose?"
Everything, I thought but didn't say as I averted my gaze so that Tom wouldn't be able to see the disappointment in my eyes. Hastily brushing my hand in front of my face as if to ward off revealing tears, I dashed out of the room, clambering up the stairs to my little bedroom, where I crouched, safely hidden under the bed, blinking my eyes quickly, promising myself that I wouldn't cry. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I shrank back under the bed in an attempt to conceal myself more – especially so because it was Tom looking for me.
"Permanent Rose?" Tom called out as he walked into my room. I took one glance at him and saw the same anguish in his eyes that I knew was brimming over in mine, and let out a sigh. Which immediately alerted Tom to my presence under the bed.
"Permanent Rose!" Tom exclaimed, getting on his hands and knees to find me, and then he extended his hand to me. For a second I ignored him, still somewhat angry that he would be going to South America for two months (where there is certainly to be lots of pretty girls that would get to have my Tom all to themselves) and then reached out my hand to take his. I scooted out from under the bed, grasping his hand firmly as he pulled me out. I noticed that his guitar was missing. He must have left it downstairs. As I raised my head to face Tom's gaze, I saw him looking downwards – at my neck. I blushed, knowing full well that he was staring at the little silver guitar necklace he had sent me so many years ago.
"You kept it," Tom breathed, his eyes seeking mine.
"Yes," I answered simply.
For a moment we just stood there, enjoying the close sensation of each other's presence as Tom held me near to him. And then Tom murmured in my ear;
"Permanent Rose," he whispered. "Permanent Rose, don't you ever take that off. Let the whole world know that by wearing it… I consider you to be … mine. My Permanent Rose."
As his words cascaded over me, a tingle throbbed over my body as I wrapped my arms around him. I felt his lips brush against my cheek lightly, and lifted my face to him again, smiling, hoping for something more, when a voice shouted from downstairs,
"Tom! Come on, David and I want to go hang out with you one last time before you leave!"
Footsteps echoed on the stairs, and Indigo burst into the room, causing Tom and I to break apart. His eyes darkened suspiciously at seeing Tom so close to me, but he brushed it aside. The memory fades away and I find myself sitting at the table, idly sketching out a face of someone. Tom. I glanced up at the clock, and noticed that it was three fourteen in the morning. A tendril of something that occurred when I was only around eight or nine comes to me – a conversation that I had once had with Caddy.
It had happened after Tom had first left for New York to return to his little sister Frances, and I had not known what to do with him gone. Emptiness was filling me but I had no idea why, so I was angry and frustrated and lonely. Caddy found me upstairs on my bed one day, staring mournfully at the clouds, wondering where Tom was.
"How are you doing, Posy Rose?" Caddy asked, entering the room.
"I'm fine," I muttered.
Caddy tried to comfort me.
"Posy Rose, it doesn't make sense anyway. After all, Tom was more Indigo's friend than yours, and you are only eight years old."
He was more my friend than Indigo's, I answered in my mind. Aloud, I said,
"More than eight." I stated, giving Caddy a hard stare. "Nearly nine."
"Darling Rose, even nearly nine-year-old's don't fall in love," Caddy reminded me.
I looked up at her, my voice pretty much a growl,
"Who said anything about falling in love?" I retorted. I thought over her statement "fall in love" and grunted. "Falling! Falling is by accident! I didn't fall in anything!"
"Oh. Right. Sorry, Posy Rose," Caddy soothed, patting my back as I turned away from her.
"And I am definitely not in love!"
I sighed as the memory ended. I glanced down at my likeness of Tom, slowly beginning to smile as I regarded the nonchalance, the devil-may-care expression I had etched into his eyes. Tom never lets on about his feelings. It's what makes knowing him so thrilling. One clear thought arose from my brusque words to Caddy after he had left, and I knew with absolute certainty now that my words were true. I had never "fallen in love" with Tom Levin, I had … well, I always just loved him. One might say I grew to love him and only realised it (dimly) once he had gone, taking brightness out of my life that I discovered far too late that I needed and longed for. But at eight nearly nine, I was far too young to understand the significance of my emptiness, although my family caught on quickly enough. See: conversation above with Caddy.
I glanced at the digital clock again, seeing that it read three twenty a.m. My mind dragged itself to the one idea that kept nosing its way into my head like a hamster that wanted you to cuddle it in your hands. Are we friends? Or not? I wondered to myself. Does he really care for me – does he love me? Or is it all in my imagination?
I thought over how he had murmured my name to me,
"Permanent Rose. Permanent Rose. Permanent Rose." That had been enough. No one else has ever been allowed to call me by my full name – except Tom, and that is because I could see, even from the moment that I first ran into him – literally! – that he had music in his soul that sent its song into the white canvas of my heart, painting it in a rainbow of colours. We were only friends at first though; it couldn't have been any other way, and, for another matter, I was too young to understand that my growing closeness with the American boy translated into something far deeper than just mere friendship. I sighed, staring down at my picture of him again. I know, in my heart, that I will always love him – nothing anyone says can ever change that for me. My love for him… it's hard for to express. It's just there. It's a comfortable kind of love, but one that carries a tangible knowledge of pain with it since even my own family (Indy) has suggested at times that they aren't completely fine with it. And if Tom should happen to love me back, oh bloody bloody hell (that's how mad it would make them, Bill especially.)
My mind circuits back around to my conversation on the phone with Tom,
"When are you going to come see us?" I'd said, of course really meaning me but not voicing that desire out loud. "We all really miss you here, Tom."
Tom's chuckle had sounded over the other end of the line,
"Oh, Permanent Rose, I'll come in due time."
"Like, at Christmas?"
"As you wish," Tom'd replied to me over the phone and I struggled to keep from blushing. At the Banana House Bill and Eve let us watch very few films or TV, though they've gotten more cultured over the years, but one time at Sarah's she'd shown us the film The Princess Bride, which I had immediately taken to, since it reminded me of the legends of King Arthur and his knights in the book I like to read the most. In the film, the male protagonist – who reminded me a lot of Tom – had used the phrase "As you wish" to say, without saying it out loud, "I love you" to his sweetheart. A shiver rolled down my spine at his words though I tried not to let it excite me too much.
"Are you sure?" I whispered into the phone.
"Sure!" Tom exclaimed. "I wouldn't miss a trip out to see the Cassons – to see you – for the world." He had paused, and I heard the husky sound of his breathing echoing over the phone line. "Rose, you're the reason I want to return to England every time. I know, I'm best friends with Indy, but you – you! You brought me into the circle of the Casson family; you made me belong… and," He began to fumble around with his words, "and now I feel as if you are a part of me."
"I feel as if you are a part of me too, now," I confessed. "You have meant so much to me, Tom."
I can hear the smile in Tom's voice as he answered,
"And I you. Permanent Rose, Permanent Rose, Permanent Rose, you brought me to life during the time I was first here, a lonely kid who kept getting beat up at school and by life, but that day you nearly got yourself run over," He stopped in his speech to let out a small chuckle; the incident that happened with me crossing a heavily-trafficked street just so I could meet Tom that ended with him saving me somewhat has now become a Casson-Levin family legend between both houses. "You reminded me of something I didn't know I was missing when you listened to my tall tales-"
"They weren't tall tales," I interrupted, a smile lighting up my face as I recalled his stories. "They were truth. Or, at least, they contained part of the truth. You just had to be able to see it."
"And let me play my guitar for you and you encouraged me in my love for music," Tom went on without skipping a beat as he continued to rattle off how much I meant to him. "And then your surprise trip to see me when I went back to America! You, out of your entire family, seemed aware I was missing… you so much."
"Me?" I asked, feeling breathless. Were my ears playing me false? Did Tom really just say that he missed me the most?
There was a short silence over the phone line, and then Tom's voice whispered,
"Yes, Permanent Rose. You. Only you. You were my sunshine during my dreary days here in this place; you were the person who instigated a friendship between me and Indy… being parted from you left me with an emptiness I couldn't find the answer to… and then I realised it was because my life was bare and grey without you in it, filling it up with all your bright colours."
Another pause filled the air between the phones as I waited, unable to breathe. And then Tom's voice mussitated,
"I love you, Permanent Rose."
For a moment, I couldn't speak. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. I repeat the words to myself over and over, and it seems like my body is glowing with all manner of bright colours: red for my blush, green for my bewildered head, and purple all over my body for my happiness.
I could hear Tom admonishing me to be quiet,
"But you mustn't let anyone know," He urged me. "But don't forget what I told you. I love you, Permanent Rose. All of my songs are about you. When I'm apart from you my thoughts are filled of you. If I ever get a girlfriend, please believe me when I tell you that it's not really serious between us (and that I have probably been compelled to do by my family, who doesn't understand how much I care about you) since I truly love you, Permanent Rose. Would you believe me on that, Permanent Rose?"
The excitement coursing through my body and the tremors running through my mind are so loud I could hardly hear myself answer,
"I love you, Tom," I said. "And yes, I would. You know I would."
I heard Tom mutter a curse and then he directed another comment towards me,
"You're such a wonderful person, Permanent Rose," he went on, "But dammit, it's now twelve: forty five here in America and I have a gig on the morrow, so I must bid you goodbye. I love you, Permanent Rose."
"I love you, Tom," I declared. "Goodnight. Try and get some rest now so you can make lovely music."
"I'll send some of it to you in an email when the gig's over," Tom promised. "Goodnight, Permanent Rose."
With a loud CLICK the phone went dead and I quickly pushed the button to silence it so that no one in the family would hear. Joy was trembling through my body as I went to get a piece of paper and sit back down again, thinking and thinking over mine and Tom's friendship over the years and how it grew into love. The sun begins to rise out of the earth, chasing away the grey clouds of night and marshalling in hues of pastel pinks and blues. I smiled at the beauty of the day, although I know that darkness does begin at dawn - it's a major fact of the Casson family, but I now know that at my times of weakest resistance in regards to having Tom on my mind every second of my every waking hour, I can remember those conversation and his declaration of love for me and take heart in that. Even if another girl should come between us for a while, I know Tom will come back to me, because he always does. I found myself hoping, as the pageantry of the sunset gave delights to my artist's eye, that that day would come soon. And somehow, even though our love might not be smooth, I take confidence in the fact that one day – one day – despite possibly undergoing pain and testing each other in this sort-of relationship that everyone can see, we will be together.