AN: Written to the song Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova.
Summary: AU. The higher you are, the harder you fall. They know this, but it won't stop them. Time to fly, they said.
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of the Abyss.
in which we soar
hey sis, why are you looking so down?
He's caged under layers of blankets and sleeping when she enters. The curtains, she notices, have been opened. It must have been Aston. The sun floods the room with light. She silently maneuvers around the familiar, squeaky floorboards until she reaches his bedside and sits down without a sound.
The wooden seat groans against her weight.
It's been a while, she thinks turning her head this way and that to take it all in. Half-finished model planes were scattered throughout the shelves, mingling with How-To books and open bottles of glue. Rough sketches of future Albiores were stacked up to dangerous heights with balled-up wads of paper littered around the waste basket. His favorites were taped to the walls.
Her eyes drift back down to her sleeping brother. His face looks so peaceful, so unlike when he was awake, when his face was flushed with excitement and adrenaline. She brushes several silver strands from his face and marvels at how they could be blood-related when they were so different.
She should have been the one piloting the Albiore.
At her touch, his eyes flutter open. "Hey, sis," he blinks drowsily. Silence, and then: "How long have I been sleeping?" His voice is hoarse, but he's okay. He's okay, he's okay, she chants over and over again in her head.
She watches him with guilt bubbling in the pit of her stomach before averting her eyes away.
"A few days," Noelle answers. She chews her lower lip and clutches her hands together on her lap, her fingers fiddling with the frayed ends of her shirt. She hears him shuffle under the covers, trying to get comfortable. He falls back on his back and head on his pillow with a small 'plop' and breathes in and out in steady intervals. She imagines his eyes trail over toward his bedside window.
And then he speaks:
"Noelle―" She flinches at the inevitable, and her stomach clenches tightly. "―I can't feel my legs."
Her teal eyes meet his maroon, and she tries not to look away this time. His voice, although strangely hollow, was calm. A small, expectant smile lingers on his pale lips, and he leans over to place a cool, steady hand over her trembling ones. He should be the one shaking, Noelle thinks as her heart beats slowly faster and faster.
"Ginji, I'm―" Noelle stops and breaks off in mid-thought and bites her lip in frustration. The peace has been broken, and some sort of emotion she couldn't identify begins to cloud over her brother's features. Her fingernails bite sharply into creasant-shaped marks on her skin, but she perseveres and says, "There's something you should know."
Ginji, I'm sorry.
He doesn't say a word as she speaks, his eyes finally breaking contact with hers and staring blankly into space. She watches him blink every time, as if he was waiting for the ceiling to magically disappear and open up to reveal the sky again. It breaks her heart, but she doesn't stop. She tells him what the healers told her and the others. That he had been hurt badly. That he was lucky he survived, but there was nothing they could have done.
He most likely would never walk again.
And Ginji is quiet through it all. She wishes he would interrupt her, get angry, throw a fit. Blame her. But he doesn't say anything until she finishes.
He's been holding her hand through it all. Squeezing it, he looks at her blue, blue eyes and says, "It's all right." He smiles. "I'm all right."
The sky is a beautiful, clear blue with clouds obstructing the sun's rays, and the window lets in a gentle seabreeze. Perfect flying conditions, Noelle thinks absent-mindedly as Ginji lies back down with his head toward the sky, that beautiful sky, and his maroon eyes become blurry.
Don't fall, don't fall, she tells his tears.