Was written for the S U N S E T S Competition on HPFC, and I own nothing except Cassie.
He sees her through the window – silhouetted against the night's sky. Making an excuse to the elderly couple he's talking to, he pushes out of the overcrowded house. Salty air snaps against his face, as he clambers up the dunes towards her.
"Hey."
She half turns. Her eyes flash for a moment, and then she recognizes him.
"James."
"Cass."
They sit in silence for a while, watching the sun paint the sky pink as it sinks beneath the waves. Her green eyes are sparking with tears, but neither of them broach the obvious topic. Not yet. He earned the right to call her 'Cassie' rather than 'Silver' at some point during the months she dated his brother. He hardly knows her, preferring to stick labels on the extremes of her personality, rather than dig down to find the rest. Redhead. Serpent eyed. Slytherin.
And Slytherins don't cry.
So to see her, sinking under the weight of her broken fairytale, watching the waves, and the sun, and the tawny sky, green eyes too bright, is unreal, featureless, a shadow among the memories he will keep. He shifts position to look at her, and she doesn't flinch under his gaze. She is haughty, proud – the ice princess – that has always been her problem.
"Why aren't you inside?" he asks.
"I didn't want to be," she replies, coldly. There is another pause; this one taut with a new tension.
"Cassie," he begins, and his tone makes her look at him properly for the first time. Her gaze is fire, warning him to stop. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" she spits. There is another silence, while he measures words and wonders what will offend her least. "I should go back –"
"We can congratulate them later," James interrupts, catching her wrist and pulling her back down. There will be plenty of time for VictoireandTeddy, but for now it is James and Cassie. She wrenches herself free. The sky above turns from purple to grey, and stars begin to show – glimmering like the unshed tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," he starts, once more. She remains silent. "You know he loved you though?"
He hopes that was the right thing to say. He heard Dominique tell Rose something similar once upon a time, and it felt like a good time to recycle the phrase. Perhaps it worked, or perhaps she was just tired of her ice princess act. Whichever it was, she crumbles a little – her shoulders hunch, her head drops, her eyes close.
"I know," she whispers. "He loved me once. It wasn't enough."
"It wasn't your fault," he continues. Neither of them look at the other – both staring out at the sea and the sky and the stars, trying to recapture moments that had already passed by. She says nothing in reply to this, and he cannot find a way to go on.
A breath shudders through her, and passes out through slightly open lips. A simple thing, but it's enough.
"We should go in," he says, eventually. She nods.
"I'll follow you."
It's the best he will get it, and he recognizes it as such. There's no point in feeling bad at leaving her alone on the sand, starlight dappling her curls, because they're poles apart and he doesn't want to bring them closer. Still, he turns at the door to Shell Cottage, ready to take the plunge back into the whirlwind of an engagement party, and watches almost proudly as her shadow stands up, and heads slowly back down the slope.
So I have absolutely no idea what happened there. :/ I had an idea... And then it turned into something else, and I was considering it turning romantic at one point, but it didn't feel right. And apparently it sounds like Al's died at one point, which wasn't intentional, but I quite like. Which sounds horrible, I know. Sorry. :/ Anyway – I hope it's okay, and please review?