Based off a writing prompt on Tumblr. I haven't written Tiva in a really long time, and to be honest, I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to again. This is depressing, sorry. I blame the prompt.
Ending
"You'll write, won't you?" he'd asked in the early morning hours, their limbs entangled from the previous night's sleep.
She didn't respond, only tilted her head almost imperceptibly, staring at him with darkened eyes that seemed to will him into believing that she would never intentionally hurt him. He could only stare back blankly, unable to understand – perhaps for the first time – what she was trying to say with those eyes.
He wrote her weekly, just to perhaps make up for the time he didn't keep in touch, a time after which she'd told him he could have called. She was right, of course, as she often was – he could have. But he hadn't, and so he spent what little spare time he had to let her know that he still cared, even if he wasn't going to call.
He would, if he felt as though it wouldn't be some huge invasion of this new life she'd apparently carved out for herself, this new life without him – or anyone, for that matter. He'd never really tried living completely alone, and wondered how she was handling it.
He was, of course, alone, so terribly alone sometimes he couldn't stand it, but he got up and went to work every day and pretended he wasn't, after all.
He wrote her weekly, just to let her know that she still wasn't alone, because even though he'd said it once upon a time, it seemed like she kept forgetting anyway.
Months passed without a response. He thought nothing of it, really, as she'd said she wanted a clean break, after all. Wouldn't come home with him, for all the begging - yes, he supposed, he wasn't too proud to admit it now, that he had indeed begged.
He often wondered how she read his letters. Did she curl up on that sofa with a glass of tea, or perhaps a beach somewhere? Or perhaps it was in the late hours of night when she couldn't sleep, perhaps then she would reach for one?
Did she ever think about writing back, if only to say that she was still alive, or even to tell him to stop sending them, if that's what she wanted?
He never asked her to though – if there was one thing about her that he knew, it was that she couldn't be pushed or pressured into anything, never again. And he wouldn't, didn't before, even.
It was perhaps her desire for space – endless space – and his need to prove to her that he could give her whatever she needed that let him leave her there in the first place, besides.
So he never asked when, if ever, he could hope to receive a response.
A long day, and even longer week, and finally the conclusion long overdue to what he swears is the most overtime he has ever taken on, that's when it was, naturally. Of course.
A huge pile of mail sat waiting in his mailbox, and it wasn't until he'd finally stepped back into his apartment and put his keys down that he stopped to look at the addressee.
It was her. Her name. She was the addressee. Her address, with his return address stamped neatly in the upper left corner, faithfully every time, on the off-chance that she would want to write back and just needed his address.
Her name on every envelope, each stamped "RETURN TO SENDER," no reasoning behind it, just angry red-stamped capital letters telling him what he'd deep down hoped to never find out – that she didn't want his letters – and by extension, him.
He grabbed one at the top and began to tear it, angrily pulling it to his chest as though the act of tearing the envelope and its contents with it would fix anything at all, but he stopped, the envelope still crinkled and torn slightly from his meager attempt.
He didn't open the envelopes. They were hers, after all. He just tossed them in a pile on his desk, and surely, after a few days – or months, maybe – he would throw them out, finally tossing aside the relationship that, he supposed, was never truly meant to be.
He wondered if she was even alive, anyway, and he decided that if she didn't want him in his life, it didn't really matter.
He mourned her as if she'd passed.
He finally threw away the letters he'd written, the last beacons of hope for them, and along with them, the photographs. He finally realized that her eyes had been telling him what he refused to believe – until the letters came back, that is. That she was letting him go, and he should too. That it was the end, truly.
He never spoke of her again.