Even In Another Time
Summary: "It's been a year, and you know that's a few seconds relative to Carmilla's lifetime, so you're not sure how to go about honoring one year together. Still, you're not sure how obvious this gift might seem—it's so immature and cliché—but you wanted to get her something thoughtful, something that could last throughout her lifetimes." – Carmilla, Hollstein, Laura's POV, future!Hollstein
Rated: T
A/N: Posted this over on Tumblr and thought I'd post here because some folks might want it here? Hope you enjoy.
Even In Another Time
someone will remember us
I say
even in another time
- Sappho, Frag. 147
It's been a year and things have gotten back to normal. Well… as normal as one can expect at Silas. Sure, there are still the gnomes and occasional alchemy club mishap, but nothing quite like missing girls and spinal fluid. You know she can't forget, but you don't expect her to.
You suppose a lot has changed between the two of you, but you're both still the same people. You've just realized you're stronger together, happier. (You've promised not to tell people that she smiles because she has an image to uphold.)
She helps you with her homework, you teach her more efficient means of using the internet and social media. She refuses to get involved with Twitter, and you understand that you're really not the person to be teaching anyone about it.
When you see her reading in German, or overhear her speaking on the phone in French with a professor at Oxford, or when she casually mentions that Mensa is weird because it's "full of people who find joy in mathematics and the least sexy parts of any science field," you feel a little… insignificant. You'll often make a joke about her brain and her age and wisdom, and she'll roll her eyes and kiss the corner of your lips.
At the end of the day, she makes time for you. You think of all the things she's seen—the tragic and the tragically beautiful—and those same eyes spend a significant amount of time skimming over your face each day. Her hands have held items now in museums, priceless artifacts—they're the same hands that touch your body so delicately. You don't know what it is about you, really, but you do feel special just being with her. She makes you believe you're important.
You pull the piece of paper out from your desk drawer, nervously chewing your bottom lip. It's been a year, and you know that's a few seconds relative to Carmilla's lifetime, so you're not sure how to go about honoring one year together. You know how obvious this gift might seem—it's so immature and cliché—but you wanted to get her something thoughtful, something that could last throughout her lifetimes.
You take a deep breath before tucking the paper into the card you made—"I Choo-Choose You" for some Simpson's humor—and you're doing your best not to just immediately ask her to incinerate the card and gift and you because how do you give anything of value to a girl who could have anything?
"Do you have a hernia or something?"
You close your eyes and breathe evenly, "While I normally appreciate your humor LaFontaine, I'm trying really hard not to panic at the moment."
"Look, Dances with Vampires," they say, walking over and pulling up a chair beside you, "I was genuinely concerned. You're sitting all rigid and creepy, like when the alchemy guys accidentally spiked the fruit punch with—"
"Yes, LaFontaine, I remember," you say, cringing when you recall the rigamortis-like line leading into the health clinic.
"Your quiet panic mode, huh?"
You nod.
"Worst comes to worst, I'll tell Perry something angsty and she'll stress bake some stuff for you two."
"That's nice of you, but… I should do this myself."
They nod and smile, giving you a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Hollis, your neuroses are part of you, so I can't give you this whole 'Be yourself' chat as if you can leave your panic behind. Carmilla lo-… likes?… you and your weird, just like you like her and her vampiric tendencies."
"It's not a tendency. I've been dating a vampire for a year."
"This is true," they admit, "but you don't have to give her something. You do every day by being with her and looking at her the way you do and love-liking her the way you do."
You give LaFontaine a small smile. "Thanks Laf."
"Um… I also came here because this," they say, lifting their arm and showing you a small towel soaked in blood. "I fell running away from the library after some… research, and I know you have a lot of Neosporin for… stuff."
"My father takes first aid seriously."
"And there's the bite marks."
You glare and they just laugh. You pull out your bulk-sized Neosporin and box of various-sized bandages before getting to your feet. "I trust you to not ruin my room."
LaFontaine nods.
"I'm going to go before I lose my nerve."
"Go for it, Hollis."
You see her looking up at the night sky, sitting on a bench just off the quad. You're a few minutes late, but you suspect she's been here for a while.
"Hey," you say, and with moonlight in her eyes when she looks at you, you feel breathless.
"Hey you," she says, her voice elegantly raspy.
You fill the empty space beside her and look up at the sky. You almost ask about the first landing on the moon, or the first photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope—what it all was like to experience the universe with the world for the first time, but when you feel her cool fingertips tuck some hair behind your ear and you turn to look at her again, your thoughts are suddenly back in the moment. While thoughts of galaxies and the vast universe exist in the back of your mind, you feel small but present and so very significant as she looks at you with a hint of a grin. You close the distance and kiss her.
She presses her lips to yours and when you take a breath, her tongue grazes your lips.
"Hmm," Carmilla hums with a light chuckle, parting from you, leaving you in a small daze—even now, a year later, "Hot cocoa?"
You roll your eyes, "Yeah, but I have this girlfriend who keeps stealing it."
"She sounds like a really big… bad person."
"The worst," you say with a smirk.
She gives your cheek a brief kiss, "Thanks for tolerating me for a year."
"Happy Anniversary works too," you say, letting out a breathy laugh.
"Happy Anniversary," she says quietly.
You swallow nervously, feeling the card in your jacket pocket, but Carmilla reaches into her nearby bag and pulls out a box.
"I'm not good at this," Carmilla confesses, looking almost nervous. She takes a breath to steady herself, and—knowing it's not really necessary—you find it endearing to know she feels similarly. "But I got this for you."
She hands you the box, and it's slightly heavier than you expected. You open it, and inside you find a gold-plated pocket watch with a compass rose on the front. You pick it up from the box and feel the gentle ticking.
"It's beautiful," you say, running your fingers down the chain of it.
"I don't really pay attention to time," she says, "Well, I didn't for a long time. It seemed really insignificant knowing I'll always wake up tomorrow and every day after. I thought the only changes that mattered were the ones I could see—the ones that marked the world around me, something visible."
You place the watch back in the box, but keep it open, resting in your lap. You take her hand, smiling down at the look of hers in yours.
"Then I met you and clocks suddenly weren't some symbol of cyclical agony or boredom, but a way to track the time until I could see you again… note the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and now a year that I'm lucky enough to be with you," she gives your hand a slight squeeze, "Every day there are changes, and even if I can't see them, I feel them. You're somehow the most consistent and revolutionary thing in my life, Laura."
You don't know what to say, so you kiss her again. It's soft and slow, seemingly stealing moments from the rest of the universe to slow the two of you down.
"You seem pretty good at this to me," you mumble against her lips.
"You make it easy."
You feel the corner of the card poke into your side through your jacket and pull a small face.
"What?"
You shake your head. "I'm actually really bad at this," you mutter, taking the card out of your pocket. You hand it to her.
She laughs as she reads the cover. "Simpson's humor is always a good thing."
You can feel your face flush, "You know my go-to is my great sense of humor."
She opens it, and she quickly reads your short Happy Anniversary! Love, Laura before unfolding the paper.
"I know it's cheesy," you say as her eyes scan the page, "but I just remember that time I woke up and you were just… looking at the stars. You said how comforting it is, putting it all in perspective, and," you pause and lick your lips, "you're that comfort for me. You're that light I look to…so I wanted you to see that whenever you look up at night."
Carmilla looks up from the paper, "You got a star named after me?"
You nod, biting your lip. "It's not like super official, but my dad has some sway with the IAU, so maybe someday 'Carmel Kärnten' will be in astronomy books. At the very least, Astronomy Club promised to let me know nights it's most visible," you explain rather quickly, "I'm also rather fond of calling it simply, 'Carmilla.'"
She smiles, teeth and all. She shakes her head before taking your face into her hands and pressing her lips to yours. She parts with a few small pecks on the lips, chuckling, "You're actually really great at this, Laura Hollis."
You grin, "So this means you like it right? Because I can't really return a star…"
She laughs, and you're heart still races, excitedly thudding against your sternum at the sound of her laughter—the kind that's actual joy, the kind you know she hasn't shared with the world in a long time. "I'll keep it until it burns out."
"I…" you pause, demanding your voice to sound braver, "I love you…" you say, and it seems to hang in the air for a moment, and you wish you were as well-read as Carmilla, that you could quote something beautiful in a different language for her to really know how deeply you mean it. You've said seemingly everything in the very limited English language but those three words strung together, and now you wish you had more to offer.
Your panic is quelled by Carmilla's hands taking yours, her lips curling into a timid smile, "I love you too." Then she kisses you again, and you both bend time again, slowly deepening the kiss. Your sure that the way her lips feel on yours is better than any other language you could know to tell her how you feel toward her.
You part with a dreamy sort of sigh. "Now let's find your star," you say, putting your clock watch securely into your jacket pocket before moving closer to her on the bench, resting your head on her shoulder to look at the sky together.
"Our star," she says, using her free hand to hold the unofficial certificate.
"I checked with Astronomy and Astrology club to make sure it wasn't like… associated with a weird myth or marking someone's butt in a constellation," you explain, earning yourself another one of her laughs, "but I hope you know how to find it because I definitely didn't study astronomy as thoroughly as I should have."
You feel her chest shake with silent laughter. She takes your hand and kisses your palm before folding it in hers. She points up with your enjoined hands. "That's the North Star."
"Well, I know that," you say, scoffing.
"And this," she says, moving your hands to the right, "is Saturn. So based on this certificate here, our star is… here," she says, guiding your hand slightly lower to the right.
"Mm," you sigh, pulling her hand toward you so her arms are wrapped around you, "Let's just say they're all ours."
"They are."
With the ticking of the clock watch in your pocket and Carmilla's fingers tracing aimless patterns along your shoulder, you listen to her make up myths about the constellations. You know she's making them up because they all involve a girl and an immortal falling in love and they all end happy. Of all the places Carmilla could be, she's here with you—writing new stories in the sky.