World Enough, and Time
A/N: Set just after the end of the book. I love Audrey's ending, but I wanted more. This is how it went in my head.
Dedicated to Erik.
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Thursday, July 24, 2053 (Clare is 82, Henry is 43)
I wake early, as I always do, when the sun is still low above Lake Michigan. But today is different; today I have a feeling, deep in my gut, that this the day, the one I've waited forty-six years for. Forty-six years of hope and grief, anguish and serenity, loving and loved but always empty, empty.
My heart flutters as I get out of bed, shower, dress, and go downstairs, careful not to wake Alba and Grace and my grandson who is home from Cornell for the summer. Today, it is my turn. I feel light and jittery as I prepare my toast and tea, like I used to feel, when I was six and eighteen and twenty, when I knew that soon, soon he would appear for me.
I eat my toast more quickly than usual – it tastes dry in my mouth – and go into the dining room where I sit quietly with my tea, watching the waves flow and ebb on the shore. The rhythm is hypnotic; for a long time I sit, waiting, patient as I always knew I must be. Patience has seeped into my bones, become part of me. Is it all I have left?
After a while I feel it, and my heart jumps and begins to race. Someone is here. I sit very, very still, hardly breathing, hoping it's not a trick of my ancient mind. But then, yes, the floorboard creaks so softly, and I turn and Henry is standing in the doorway, his pale skin and grey hair shining so brightly in the morning light that it is almost blinding to look at him. He looks just as I remember him. I stand, slowly, as the greatest joy I have ever felt spreads through my being. Henry is here! Henry is here! I could sing and dance and fly, but I slowly go to him, and he envelops me in his warmth, in his scent I have missed more than I knew.
Tears begin to well in my eyes and he buries his face in my shoulder and holds me so tight I feel I will shatter. "Clare," he breathes.
I can barely form the word. "Henry."
His skin is so warm; his voice is full of reverence when he speaks again. "You waited for me."
"World enough and time," I reply.
He lifts my chin and we are kissing like young lovers again, passion and love and hope taking us out of time and place. This moment is the only thing in the world, the only people are Clare and Henry, Henry and Clare, displaced but caught finally together, one more time.
I think I may burst from feeling so much. I pull back and gaze at my long-absent husband. "Would you like to sit with me?"
He smiles, that Henry smile I see in his young namesake even though they share no common blood. "I'd like that."
I hand him a blanket I have brought every morning for just this occasion; he wraps it around his hips and we sit at the table. His hand rests on mine as we gaze out over the endless waves, and I know that my life is finally complete.