- eternity elapsing -

Important things should be eternal. You dwell on this through your haze of disbelief and hope, swelling inside you like a balloon, lifting your feet to hover a couple inches above the ground, as you look at him.

He's stumbling over his words, fidgeting and talking to your toes. He's taller than you, and looks old for his age, the features of his face prominent, defined – but in that moment no one has ever seemed so childish and unsure, reflecting his every insecurity.

Even so, you can't get enough breath to formulate a response, not even a smile; so, because you can't do anything more, because you're such a coward, you slip the shen onto your necklace and try to tell him with your gaze alone that your heartbeat is all you can hear and his face is all you can see while you dread the closing of this book of fairy tales.

And you think, with the connection that's just been forged between you and him, he understands, but he turns away and in the end you're just barely thirteen and feeling a thousand shades of foolish.

:~:

Your fingers are cold. Sometimes – on bad days – you worry that it's a sign, it's beginning, any second you'll drop dead to the floor. Then, on good days, you remember that your fingers are always cold, anyway, and just because you're a little chilly doesn't mean you're dying (even though, well, you kind of are).

Shivering, you stare at all the mummies you pass, eyes wide open but blind, blind, blind, wrappings rotten, revealing windows of long-decayed flesh: This is your future. This is what's waiting for you.

And she's right, because it is so unfair, from so many angles and for so many people – for your family, who've always seen this coming; for your friends, who will have the chance, at least, to live long and happy lives; for you, never able to have that opportunity, never really grow up at all; but most unfair of all, you think, for her. 'Cause you'll be gone. Forever.

Your eternity is always elapsing, even while you watch it collapse behind her eyes, hidden beneath the determination, ferocity, and most of all, fear. Terror.

Tick, tock, Walt, whispers the clock. Tick, tock.

So you kiss her.

And for a second, time stops.

:~:

Eternity has always seemed so monstrous, so impossible, like wanting to pluck the moon out of the sky and cradle it in your hands, breathe on it, and release a million stars that cover everything, making the ugly things beautiful, the already beautiful even more so.

But that's just it. It's perpetually out of reach, so much more than brushing the backs of hands, an electric charge – thing is, a single spark isn't enough to start a fire.

Maybe you can lie down together and lace your fingers, reachingreachingreaching for all those sofaraway stars and trying to make eternity a little more possible than it was; maybe you can bring it within your grasp. If only for a moment.

Then it'll be enough.

a/n: in case anyone is confused: the first is sadie, the second is walt, and the third is... whoever you want it to be. i see it as both of them. both of them being salt, which i now ship no matter where rick takes the last book. ;)

i've had this written since may and have been dying to post it, so please, now favoriting without reviewing.

~whispered touches

disclaimer: i don't own the kane chronicles. it belongs to rick riordan.