First and Last Kiss
Disclaimers at the ready: the characters do not belong to me, they belong to the author, although i wish they had something like this at the end of the book. I like closure.
This is my first Tuck Everlasting story, I felt I needed to write it after reading it yesterday, it's such a lovely book :)
So, I think that's everything, hope you enjoy!
Winnie Foster sat by the slowly rusting iron gate that surrounded her enclosed garden and mulled over her birthday which she had celebrated the day before. The sun was beaming down and she watched the leaves fall from the trees within the forest that her family owned. Yesterday could have been the day that changed her life forever but it hadn't, she was still the same Winnie that she had always been, she was still mortal like everyone else.
Well, nearly everyone else.
When she was just ten years old she had come across the Tuck family. Although she'd only spent two days with them she'd considered them very dear friends, and had even helped Mae Tuck escape from prison after she'd murdered the man in the yellow suit.
The Tuck's seemed an ordinary family. There was Angus Tuck, the head of the family and the wisest person Winnie had ever met. At the age of ten he had made her see that the world must go on as it should, regardless of what happened between them. Tuck had gotten Winnie to understand that normality was the backbone of the world, without it everything would crumble. Winnie knew that if she ever saw him again she would thank him for his wise words.
Then there was Mae, the compassionate mother, she always put her family first, including Winnie when she was with them. She'd put herself in danger for a little girl that she regarded as a daughter, and Winnie had been willing to put herself in Mae's place to help her escape that fated night ten years ago.
Miles was the Tuck's oldest son; Winnie had felt instantly that if she'd had an older brother that he would've been just like Miles. He'd taken her out fishing, just like he had done with his daughter when he lived with her. She'd enjoyed it, just not the bit where they'd kept the fish aboard the ship; she didn't like the feeling of murdering the poor creature. Miles had understood, just like a big brother would.
Lastly there had been Jesse, as soon as she saw him Winnie had known what love felt like. Everything about him was perfect and even though there had been an age gap, Jesse had fallen for Winnie too. He'd given her a bottle of water from the spring and urged her to drink it once she'd turned seventeen so they could be together. As much as she'd desperately wanted to, Winnie had given the water up to keep her toad alive, because however much she wanted to spend eternity with Jesse she couldn't do it. Tuck's words would always resonate in her mind and she knew that humans weren't meant to live forever.
The reason the water from the spring was so special was because whoever drunk from it would live an immortal life. The Tuck's had unknowingly drunk from it and faced a life where they would never die. That was the reason why Jesse had given the bottle of water to her. The plan was that as soon as she was physically the same age as him, Winnie would drink the water and it would freeze the aging process, then they could spend till the end of the world together.
That had been his plan, but it most certainly wasn't hers.
Winnie breathed out a heavy sigh and lay back on the grass so she could sunbathe; thinking of the past made her weary and it had her feeling slightly lonely. She listened to the sound of the autumn wind as it blew the leaves against the forest floor, it was soothing, almost like a melody from a music box.
That was when she heard it; the music her grandmother always assumed was the elves. It was the music from Mae's music box.
Quickly Winnie sat up and saw him emerging from the forest, Jesse Tuck, looking exactly the way he had been ten years ago.
"Why, how do Winnie Foster," he smiled as he approached the gate.
"Jesse." She whispered as she stood up eyeing him with interest.
"You do look beautiful I must say." He complimented as he brushed the back of his hand against her soft cheek.
"You don't look too bad either." Winnie blushed as she still felt where he'd touched her cheek.
"You've changed."
"You haven't" she giggled.
"Perks of the water. I have this fine lookin' face till the day I die, if I ever do." Jesse joked, "But have you taken it? Are you ready to come away with me?" he asked now serious.
"I didn't take it." Winnie admitted sadly. "I gave it away."
"To who?!" Jesse asked flabbergasted, after all their persuasion to make her keep the water a secret, she'd gone and given it away to someone who didn't deserve it.
"There is a toad that lives in the forest, he comes to visit now and again, and I gave it to him to keep him safe."
"You gave the water to a toad?" Jesse laughed as his tense body relaxed.
"Yes, he's my friend."
"No matter, I know where the spring is, I'll take you to it." He said eagerly as he took her hand and started pulling Winnie towards the wood.
"I can't."
"Why not? You want to be with me don't you?"
"Of course I do, but that's why I can't drink the water."
"You lost me."
"Your Pa, he told me that I wouldn't want eternal life. It's not normal; it's not something we were meant to do. He didn't wish it on anyone, especially me, and that day I gave the water away, I knew that I would lose you, probably forever. But I'd be gaining a normal life, I'd get to stay on the wheel and even though right now I don't think I'll be happy, when my time comes when I have to die, I'll know I've made the right choice."
"But Winnie, Pa doesn't love you in the way I do; he doesn't understand that we'd make each other happy. We'd enjoy life together and we'd never be apart, we were made for each other you and me, you don't need to die. I don't want you to die."
"Jesse, you have to understand me, I can't live forever, I don't want to."
"Am I not enough to live for?"
"You are, but I want to be mortal, I want to have children, see them grow up, watch my grandchildren grow up and then die. I can't have that if I'm like you, Miles showed me that. I saw how much it hurt him that he couldn't see his children grow up in fear that he was going to outlive them. I don't want that."
"Can I stay with you then, at least for a while? We could still get married, run away, have our own children. Please Winnie, I can't let you go."
"Staying together would only make it harder when you eventually have to leave." A tear expelled from Winnie's eye and she couldn't see herself going on any longer.
He had to go before her heart shattered into pieces.
"I see." Jesse looked downcast, he knew what she was right but he didn't want to leave, not again, not forever. "Can I just do one thing before I go?"
"What's that?" she sniffed as she rubbed away the tear from her cheek.
"Let me have a first and last kiss with you? Call it something to remember me by."
Winnie nodded in silent agreement as she held her breath in shaky anticipation. It was as if the whole forest had fallen silent in waiting for them to have a moment that would be forever etched into their memories.
Slowly Jesse moved his face forward so that he was centimetres away from Winnie's lips. She was only a couple of inches shorter than him so as she lifted her face to the heavens she caught him in a soft, yet loving kiss.
As his lips parted against hers they knew that once this moment was gone, it could never be recreated ever again.
After a minute or so he broke away and silently brushed Winnie's cheek before walking away back into the forest, leaving her to cry silently as her heart well and truly shattered into a million pieces.
Just like that he was gone from her life, forever, never to be seen again.
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On her deathbed Winnie looked out the window to the forest that had been so poignant in her life. She smiled weakly knowing she never did regret not drinking the water that would've kept her alive forever.
Her husband had died two years before her, but she'd always known that her heart had really belonged to the immortal Jesse Tuck.
As she struggled to get her last breath she saw a figure leaning on the rusty garden gate with a warm smile on his face looking just the same as the day she met him. He gave a short wave and she was gone, off the wheel of life, just like Tuck had said.
Jesse saw Winnie's smile before she'd closed her eyes and passed on. She'd still looked beautiful at the age of seventy-four; she was gone now, just like she said she would. He knew she'd made the right choice in the end; eternity wasn't as cracked up to be without Winnie Foster.
He heard the back door open as he saw Winnie's eldest daughter step out into the garden, he could see the resemblance between them and he smiled.
Winnie still lived on through her children.
One day he might find someone like she had done, he had eternity to look.
But there would always be one Winnie Foster, the one who he would love forever.
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