This fanfic had been written because I cannot stop crying whenever I remember one particular event in Mission Hurricane. My heart had been practically murdered. I have put so much hope into Amy and Ian ever since I've read the third book of the first series, a hope now so close to ending up in vain, thanks to you, Sarwat Chadda! I am crying because you just so cruelly stomped on my lovely Amian. T.T Doesn't she even realize Amian's beautifully complex history? Well, I'm going to remind all of you where our roots came from through this story. (Some events cannon, some not.) I hope you're reading this, Mister Chadda.
There is a music prompt for this story to improve reading experience. At the signal of an asterisk (*), please play the piano version of the song Dango Daikazoku (translation: Big Dango Family). I recommend HuichoMusic's version :D STOP HERE. Please set it up first before anything else. This is going to be a long, lo~ong read.
am-a-ran-thine (am'ə-ran'th īn) [ L., Gr., amarantos, everlasting, a—not + marainein—wither; infl. by Gk. anthos, flower ]
adj. of or like the imaginary flower that never wilts.
Amaranthine
7.
The heated conversation between his scowling mother's red lips and the old yet confident woman was making the young seven-year-old boy a little less than comfortable. Kabra and Cahill were fighting over something beyond his innocent mind's comprehension, and the sight of his mother poured into a sadistic new light made Ian flinch. He had never heard his mother say those words before, never seen his mother wear that face before, and never thought that she could possess such fierceness in her eyes that could have incinerated the whole of the Arctic regions. When the old woman, Grace, caught sight of their young spectator watching from a dark corner, her hard, dark green eyes softened into kind viridian orbs that gave him the permission to leave.
And he was just too happy to oblige. He gave the two women a professional nod that his mother had always taught him noble to do, hoping that his show of impassiveness was enough to hide the inner fear that he was feeling. Isabel and Grace were silent as they watched him silently take his leave. The sound of the closing door, though, served as their signal enough to start bickering all over again.
Ian was leaning against the brown, mahogany door, his hand over his pounding heart. He waited until his erratic breaths started to calm down, for the pulses of his body to return to their normal beating. He didn't know why he should even be reacting so fearfully in the first place, and it irritated him—it was his Papa's teaching to always get a firm hold on one's emotions. He says that they show nothing but weakness. And Ian was not someone who wanted to be classified as 'weak'.
Father would be very disappointed in him.
He could hear from this side of the door their frenzied arguments, snippets of their conversation involving things about…Clues? He wasn't quite sure. He tried to press his ear against the door, but it being sound-proofed prevented him from hearing any more clearly. Ian sighed, and decided that it was better for him not to eavesdrop about these. He wasn't even involved in these sorts of grown-up things, anyway.
He started walking away from the door, the farthest he could get away from it as his mind started to get consumed of wanderlust just the same. Even as he did this, though, he could not help but think of what he felt back there as his little form was shadowed by his mother Isabel's standing shadow, a silhouette that was slender and slim, like a snake, typical of the Lucian that she was. Her posture itself demanded authority and commanded respect, and, more terrifyingly so, domination. He didn't even know why his mother's posture should even be bothering him, but that may be because he didn't want to face the truth.
She terrified him.
It was so laughable; it didn't even make any sense. His mother was angry at that old Cahill woman, not him. So why should he even be terrified in the first place? There was no reason to, right? He tried to convince himself that there was absolutely nothing to worry about, that the future was not his to see. But no amount of self-convincing could delete the notion that his mother, one day in the near future, would turn to him and his sister with the very exact replica of that dominating posture, that malevolent face that he had just seen her wear, mere minutes earlier. He would never know what to do if Mum, the same person that he considered as his very flesh and blood, would also be the same person who'd tear through him with the gleaming knives in her eyes.
He shook his head, sending those dark thoughts flittering away. No. Of course not. What in the world had he just been thinking about? He mentally scolded himself for even giving his Mum so much as even a shred of doubt. She was his mother, and mothers were sweet and loving and would never do so much as to touch a single hair on his and his sister's head—other than as an act of affection, that is. Isabel didn't deserve it if Ian thought of her this way. She had been nothing but a mother to him and Natalie, pampering them with a royal life that other children of his age would surely be jealous of.
His thinking was suddenly forced into a halt when a laughing sound reached his ears. He had been buried so deep into his thoughts that it took him more than a second to realize that he was now standing at an arabesque archway adorned with elegant vines of trailing lianas, serving as the entranceway that led outside to the Cahill Mansion's well-tended garden. He was rendered speechless for more than a moment as he delicately stepped out, eyes darting back and forth, as if cautious of anything suddenly launching at him. The brilliant light of the high yellow sun replaced the shadows that covered his skin and he had to place a hand onto his eyes to shield them from the brilliant light.
The little laughter chimed again.
He slowly turned his jewel-toned eyes to the direction of the heavenly sound, and found himself staring at a girl of his age laughing at the fluttering butterflies that gracefully landed from tulip to tulip. Red was the colour of her fiery hair, and it shone like polished ruby when the sun reflected into it. He could see a discarded book lying openly onto the cool green grass, which was the same colour of her bright and innocent eyes. She crawled onto the bowing blades of the dewed grass on all fours as she reached for a purple wildflower, plucked it from its long stem, and added it to her little collection, a tiara of some sorts made of the wildflowers she picked from the humble garden.
He watched as her chubby little fingers worked into adding the very last piece that would complete her homemade, floriated tiara, festooned with wildflowers of iridescent colours—but the dark, royal nuances of purple was the colour that outshone all the others. Just as it was starting to register in his mind the right procedure of creating the little circlet, her hands stopped working, as if immediately fossilized. Ian averted his eyes from the coronet to meet her suddenly-shy green ones, now drained of the freeness that had only been so bright mere seconds ago.
"H-hello…?" she said, and her fingers tightly gripped around the little crown in her hands, as if afraid that the quiet stranger would steal it from her. "Wh-why are y-y-you—s-staring at me…like that?"
Ian found it a little amusing, the way she struggled to get the words through her lips. He frowned down at her, though, when he saw that her pale white fingers were specked with little dots of red blood. They were probably from the little thorns that wildflowers were so famous for.
"Those flowers are dirty," he pointed out, pressing down his concern, and trying to sound matter-of-factly.
The girl's shyness was gone as soon as it appeared. She laughed. "Oh, this?" She lifted up her little circlet of wildflowers. "It's a tiara! I make it when I'm sad, and now I'm happy because of it." Then, as if a brilliant idea crossed her mind, she stood up, all too enthusiastically, bouncing up to him with the tiara in hand. "Do you want to try it on?"
Ian was repulsed, and an automatic response was to take a horrified step back, a hand placed in front of him to stop the girl from coming any nearer. "I'd rather not, thank you. I think I…" He looked down at her hand, the crown of flowers—dirty flowers—direly turning him off. "…better leave."
He had already turned around and was ready to walk away from the light of the sunny garden, back into the shadows of the mansion. But just as he was about to—
"W-wait!"
A hand onto his arm prevented him from walking back into the shadows. He felt something unusual stir up from within him as she held onto the fabric of his clothing, and in that fleeting moment, he felt like he had been plunged into eternity itself. But eternity had ended up all too soon when he looked back at her, causing her to misinterpret his gaze and shyly withdraw her hand back. Her eyes turned to the ground, the faint signs of a blush pinking her cheeks.
"I-I'm…m-m-my name is…" She heaved a breath, as if that could make her words come out straighter. For a moment, she remained wordless, eyes staring down at the ground as if the plain green grass was such a fascinating sight. Ian arched an eyebrow at this; he had never seen someone so contemptible of speech. Then, as if she had already mustered up enough bravery, she looked into his eyes, that gleefulness returning as she held out her hand to him. "Amy! My n-name is Amy."
Ian made sure to copy the sharpness of his Mum's eyes when he looked down at the filthy hand being offered to him. Amy seemed to understand the meaning of his gaze, so she awkwardly withdrew her hand back to brush it clean against her clothing. Certain that her hand was now unsoiled (though he was still a bit displeased at her methods) he took it this time, shaking it with as much nobility that a Kabra could ever possess.
"Ian Kabra," he said, ever so smoothly. He wanted to show her how it was to be a Kabra—flawless, pristine, and elegant in speech, so much unlike her pathetic stuttering malady. "As you know, my mother, Isabel, had been invited by your grandmother Grace to—"
Amy cocked her head to the side. "You have a funny voice."
He blinked, all Kabra composure lost. "What?"
"Your voice," she repeated with a stifled giggle bubbling out of her. "It's kind of funny."
"It's an accent," he corrected through gritted teeth, meaning to get out of here as fast as he could. Did she not know that he was brought up in Britain? "Americans…" he muttered under his breath as he started to turn away again.
"Are you sad?" came her random question to stop him from getting away any further, a pout in her face, lower lip jutting out.
"Wh-why would you think—" Ian composed himself. "No, no, I am not sad."
"You're so serious," Amy interrupted. "Serious people are sad because they don't ever smile. Do you ever smile?"
Ian blinked once again at the circle of her rather pointless logic. Where are all the random things coming from? And where in the thick head of this girl did she find the authority to know if he was sad or not? By each passing second, she was turning him off.
"Wear this!" Amy held out her crown of flowers to him when Ian didn't say anything any further. "It will make you happy, promise!"
Ian feigned a smile as he picked the flowery tiara from her hands with his two fingers. He hoped that she would get the clue that he didn't like wearing flowers onto his head with the disgusted look he wore onto his face, but, for some reason, he made an effort of pressing down his disgust. Curse her—why does her smile have to be too…lovely to resist? He gingerly placed it onto his head, and there goes Amy's laughter, her delightful applause enough for him to forget that he was wearing something dirty onto his head at all.
"Hello there, Prince Ian!" Amy attempted a curtsy, but only ended up bobbing like a clumsy daffodil. He smirked at her gaucherie, too amused to even say a word.
Prince Ian. He liked the sound of that.
"Well? Aren't you going to help me create my tiara?" Amy interrupted his thoughts, her big, innocent eyes inches from his as she peered into his face inquisitively. It was as if she thought that his eyesight was that of an old man near to blindness. "It's only fair if a prince has a princess, right?"
Ian merely shrugged, stepping away. Was this the kind of 'royal life' that peasants had? How pathetic. "I don't know how."
"Oh." Amy's shoulders slumped for a second, before she had an idea to light up her features again. "How about you pick the flowers first, then I show you how to make the crown?"
"Okay…I guess."
"Ooh, but did the tiara make your sadness go away?" She had a worried look etched onto her face, as if anxious to see if her happiness therapies were just as effective as she thought it was. "A-are you…happy now?"
He wasn't aware of the little smile that wormed its way into his lips. He took her hand in his and put something onto her palm.
"A little."
Amy looked down at her palm to see what he had just given her. A wildflower.
Nice to meet you.
10.
The ten-year-old girl slightly pushed open the library's huge and heavy door with her two hands, making a loud creaking sound that reverberated throughout the entire chamber of shelves filled with books from every single corner. But even the pleasant scent of the old papers and newly-delivered books could not entice and stir awake the passionate bookworm from inside of her—she was looking for someone.
She searched and searched, but she could not find him. That is, until, when she finally reached the last of the aisles of shelves from the farthest corner of the library. She stopped, hand onto her chest to stop the hammering of her frantic heart, telling it that it had no more reason to panic—she had found him. Hidden by the shadows was Ian Kabra, a frighteningly dark yet melancholic aura surrounding him. Amy gulped, fearing what his sharp tongue would have to lash out at her when she announced her presence—
"Leave," said Ian, not even bothering to turn around to know who it was, reading her mind with lethal precision. "At once."
"But Ian, I—"
"I said," the boy turned, fixing with her a gaze that could have cut through steel. "Leave."
Amy flinched at the low tone of his voice, terrified of the silent rage. Strangely, she would rather have him shouting at her than this. Never in her entire life did she witness anyone else possess such anger, such self-hatred, that she was witnessing right now. Seeing it all radiate from him in vibrant tones, flaring from his amber eyes, it frightened her—but her fear was far too insignificant to be something that she should focus on, only one question in her mind demanding to be answered.
Did his mother's praise really mean…this much for him?
She took a deep breath, telling her to muster all the courage she can. It was a ritual she often did to steady herself before taking the dive. After doing so, she opened her eyes, and Amy then fearlessly took her steps towards him, even as he tried to back away in alarm. She gently but firmly took his hand in hers and placed a purple wildflower onto his palm. He was rendered rather shocked, but the firmness in Amy's green eyes made every effort to calm down and sweep over his ambers' bewilderedness.
She smiled.
"You stood up for me even though your mother is against it."
Then, she left, leaving Ian stunned at what her words had just implied, looking down at the freshly-picked wildflower resting at the palm of his hand.
Thank you.
14.
His amber eyes probed into hers, a distraught message written all over his face, as if desperate for her to understand what he meant. Amy didn't know what it was that she saw in his eyes, and she didn't have the time to ponder over it when he suddenly advanced on her, his gentle lips faintly touching hers for the briefest of moments, the slightest of seconds, yet the sweetest of kisses.
He pulled away, and through the whispering wind she heard him say something along the lines of "Forgive me."
She arched an eyebrow at this, blinking worriedly at him. "What for?"
A smirk smoothly replaced his unreadable expression as he looked away. "No reason. Now, shall we move on, Alistair?"
The vibrant city lights of South Korea's shining capital animatedly flashed across fourteen-year-old Amy's dark and contemplative face as they sped past the busy traffic of the city of Seoul. The expression she wore was something that blocked out any sort of thing that dared do so much as approach her. She did not want anyone, even Dan, who was sitting beside her just as quietly, to speak to her for the moment, because she was afraid that even the tiniest of movements would completely shatter her now broken heart. Her inner thoughts, those echoing memories, painfully ringing inside the hollow chamber in her head, were far louder than anything else and she needn't any more noise that that. It was hard enough to keep her tears sealed in. Any word spoken would finally make her snap and burst like the pathetic bundle of emotions she currently was.
She could still see him, his features clearly etched onto the sheen of her eyes. The desirous feeling in her hand was still just as vivid and fresh as her eyes first landed on him, his smooth, raven dark hair being blown by the wind an unknown texture that her fingers wanted so much to caress. His eyes were magnificent orbs of amber itself, a charming yet calculating pair that never failed to make her fall into a stupor and wanting to stare in them forever. And then his voice…
"Lovely."
What did he see in her that made him say that?
More importantly… what did she even like about him, that evil, double-crossing Kabra, in the first place?
When she looked at the dark, stained glass windows of the police car, her reflection stared back at her, and she wondered how he, Ian Kabra, of all people, could ever be the only person in the whole world to ever call her that. No one had ever…called her 'lovely'. A bookworm geek is far from anything of the sort, and yet...
A blush spread across her face and she pressed down a capricious feeling that threatened to rise from the pits of her stomach when she remembered that fleeting moment when their lips…faintly made contact. Oh, just lovely. Why did he have to do that? She could still hear him, see him, haunting her like a living nightmare, and she wondered if this hideous spell he put upon her was intentionally made to be incurable. No, no, it was not a spell—but a curse, a horrible, wicked curse, something that she won't be recovering from any time soon.
It was just a peck. A brush of lips. It was something that she shouldn't even be making a big deal out of. Their lips touched, so what? It was clear that those feelings were merely feigned and she was a fool for falling, so what other point was left for her to dwell on? He threw her away like a used tissue paper when he and his sister basically trapped them in that cave to die. She shouldn't be falling for someone like him. Her feelings…were unreturned.
Or were they? Because the way he looked at her as if she was the loveliest being who he had ever laid his beautiful autumn eyes on, the way he held her hand with the gentlest of touch as if she was the most expensive, fragile piece of china, the way he took her in his arms and brought her up in the air with his strong grip, the way he said her name in the sweetest, loveliest way possible, it just…there was just something.
She can't get him off of her mind.
The police car finally got them home, and Amy raced even faster than a greyhound when she ran into her room and slammed the door, ignoring Nellie and Dan's concerned calls. She closed her eyes and let the tears fall, her back pressed hard against the door, making sure to keep it locked, for no one to see just how shattered she really was.
She opened her eyes, and when she did, the sight before her shocked her beyond her worst nightmares.
Gently placed onto the thick, smoothed quilts of her bed, was a wildflower, its velvety carnation pink petals shivering from the tender force of the blowing breeze from the open window.
So that was what he meant.
"Forgive me."
Then its little petals drifted apart from each other, carried away by the wind's command.
14.
His hand slipped from the Janus serum and it landed onto the snow, where the brute Holts were frantically racing to get it, fighting against the harsh, merciless blizzard. Without knowing it, his feet had found their doomed way onto empty air, and he would have fallen to his death hadn't he quickly grabbed onto the edge of the snowy cliff. He gripped it hard with all the force he can muster, holding onto his weight and trying to keep up, the falling snow and bits of debris from above strewing his eyes and face with the unwanted litter. He was dangling onto the high air, and while he could hear the action of the other Cahills squabbling from above that he couldn't see, looking down below was the nauseating sight of the far away ground that hungrily lured him in with its gravity.
His hand was starting to slip, and he could feel sweat beading his forehead as his breathing started to grow erratic. He can hear the rock he was holding on release the horrible sound of a crusty crack, and before his eyes he could imagine himself clearly cracking the same way when his very bones crashed onto the ground any second now. He tried to hold still, but his fingers were losing their strength, they couldn't hold on much longer, they couldn't—
He fell, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the worst. But no. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was still dangling onto the air, just as he had been mere seconds earlier, but the difference was, he wasn't the one holding on.
Someone else had held onto him when he couldn't.
"Hang—h-h-hang on, I've g-got you!"
It was Amy.
He wasn't sure how to react, but, needless to say, he was stunned.
It was Amy.
The girl who he intended to kill just mere days ago.
And she was saving him.
From his death.
She strained to pull up on his weight, her stuttering not a cause of her difficulty of speech, but of the cold, blistering wind that chattered her teeth and froze her fingers. Nevertheless, she kept her hold tight, pulling, harder and harder, until Ian rolled onto the snow of the ground, breathless from his near-death experience.
But he wasn't dead.
He tried to stand up, quickly, but when he did, his eyes only caught the fleeing of Amy's red mane as she ran away from him as swiftly as she ever could, not wanting to engage in any sort of conversation with him or anything. He was left standing idly on the snowy top of the Everest, watching as the others muscled their way into the fight for the Clues, and he was completely left out, the bobbing heads of the small wildflowers his only living company.
Wait. Wildflowers?
But how was it possible, that these flowers could still persist to grow even in the harshest conditions—the very top of Mount Everest, for crying out loud?
He watched Amy as she ran farther and farther away from him, all noise ringing out into non-existent silence, the distance between them stretching for miles. He knew her message. And he knew…that maybe, just maybe, that even if they were planted onto a thorny ground, their love still had the slightest of chances…to bloom.
Because I still haven't moved on from you.
oO0Oo
14.
It was like a stampede of wild animals.
All of the other Cahills are heatedly scurrying towards the gauntlet, and the sight of her cousins, her relatives, her very flesh and blood, advancing towards her with their feet powered by their bottomless lust of power itself, eyes so full of rage and frightening tenacity that they nearly caught fire, pushed her to continue running forward, pumping her legs and forcing them beyond their boundaries even as her lungs painfully started to choke for air. Dan was alongside her, but even if his presence was something she had to thank for, (they had, after all, survived through the countless boulders of death that Cahill life threw at them,) the rocky terrain wasn't making anything so easy. And, just as she had predicted, she tripped onto a mossed stone, and nearly had her face falling flat onto the ground—hadn't her hand been caught by warm fingers that she had grown so sensitive of.
She looked back to stare onto Ian Kabra's apprehended amber eyes, and speechlessness washed over her to make her blood run cold, yet her face flush hot.
Why were her body reactions just so fickle when it came to him? The fact that it was a fact frustrated her to no end.
"Let me go." Her voice was barely above a whisper, and even though her words were clear and plain, she found it quite odd why she wasn't even trying to squirm away.
"Please." His usually composed voice was roughened, by exhaustion or desperateness, Amy wasn't in the position to tell. He squeezed her fingers with his hand, and Amy found herself actually liking the feeling of their connectedness, for once. "Just let me explain—"
"Let! My sister! Go! You Cobra!" Dan screeched, who had now turned around once he noticed that Amy wasn't running beside him anymore. The younger brother's eyes were fuelled with hate as he pointedly threw his gaze onto the tall Lucian who still had his long tawny fingers gripping Amy's tightly, as if he had no plans of letting her go at all. But even so, the normally astringent eyes of Ian that were so immune of Dan's impertinent insults blinked with hurt—and the Kabra slowly let go of Amy.
"As you wish."
Amy watched him go, a mask of indifference placed over his face as he floundered for his sister, leaving her with the dancing grass that sprouted out of the rocky landscape. She heard his brother call for her, "Come on, Amy!" but she was too unfocused at the moment, too bewildered, and it almost scared her to look down at the hand that Ian Kabra had so ardently held onto just mere moments ago.
But she did look down at her palm, anyways. And found a white wildflower, its green, woody stem now the broken remains of its former standing grace.
I won't let you go.
14.
In the end, he decided to flee for America, after all.
Ian quickly bounded up the stairs of the porch of the Cahill residence's humble apartment, and smoothly dusted off imaginary dirt from his sleeve. He had been more than eager to see her sunny face again, for she was the only person to drive away the darkness that always seemed to follow him wherever he went. Then, he raised his clenched fingers, poised to knock onto the brown mahogany door. But just as he was about to do so—
"Well, Ames, thanks for inviting me over!" a boy wearing nerdy Coke-bottle glasses said, all too cheerily as he opened the door, stepping out onto the porch, and therefore incidentally bumping into Ian. "Oh, hey there," the boy said, pathetically adjusting his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he passed by.
"Mm-hmm…" Ian quietly mumbled to himself, eyes narrowing at him in a death glare that Lucians such as him had been so skilful at executing.
"Ah, I g-guess I should…probably go, heh-heh," the boy chuckled nervously to himself as he started skittering away—not before Amy appeared in the doorway, that is.
"Wait up, Evan, why are you—" Then, her green eyes flittered over to the standing British boy just beside her. "Oh."
The silence was impregnated.
"Um…" The 'Evan' boy pointed at the direction behind him, the tension between the other two too heavy for him to stomach. "I-I should go, shouldn't I?"
"Yes, Evan," Amy said as she smiled at him. Then, she lifted up the bouquet of flowers she held in her arms, and Ian's eyes widened at the sight of them. How could he have missed… "Oh, and thanks so much for the flowers."
Evan saluted at her playfully, and gave one suspicious nod over at Ian before he all too happily skittered away like a coward. Ian's eyes followed the boy as he walked away, one question stamped onto his mind on which he just simply couldn't shoot the answer down with a dart gun.
Just who on Earth was that cretin?
Amy cleared her throat, forcing him back into reality. "So…Ian." She offered him a flat smile when he turned to look at her. "You came. Even after what you said."
Ian's eyes landed onto the flowers she held onto her arms. More than a second lasted in that fleeting moment when he finally looked back up at her, returning her flat smile with one of his own—only, of course, his flatter than hers, even flatter than that vile food Americans so fondly called 'pancake'.
"Yes. Didn't I? I came." His sweet, honeyed voice betrayed the bitterness in his eyes when he made sure to harden his gaze at her. "Pardon me if I change my mind again."
He turned away, walking back into the shadows of night, far away from the light that she radiated of. But, unlike so long ago, when they had first met, this time, Amy did not stop him from doing so. It hurt him that she didn't.
Somewhere in the distance, a wildflower wilted, its last holding petal letting go of the stalk, and falling gently onto the ground until the wind came to pick it up and bring it to…
…to nowhere.
I should have been the one who gave you those flowers.
16.
Amy couldn't help but notice just how dark his apartment was. So thick were the red curtains draped over the windows that they completely cloaked the entire house in gloomy darkness, even if it was the middle of a bright sunny day—at least, outside. Her hands uneasily gripped onto her knees as she sat timidly on the couch, hoping against hope that what she had said would at least make him feel a little better.
The heavy silence between them was broken when his fragile teacup landed gently onto the saucer in his hand with a deafening clink. Amy had to cringe—it had been so silent for a long moment now that any sound made pierced her ears. Ian's back was turned to her as he stood across from her, as far away as he could get without having to look into someone else's eyes—for fear that they will see the way his own were painfully rimmed with red. And Amy understood, which was why she had kept her distance from him, giving him the privacy of being with himself as she retold to him the strange vision she had had mere days ago when she had recovered from her coma.
She hoped that her story of Natalie and Isabel being happy together in wherever they were right now would help heal his lethargy, even if just...a little bit.
"…why are you telling this to me?" Ian finally whispered, a voice so quiet that she had to strain her ears to hear the pained words.
Amy stood up, and walked over to him, closing the distance that they had formerly had. Her hand landed onto his shoulder comfortingly. "Because I…I wanted you to feel better." She forced a wavering smile for his sake, turning him from the shoulder to face her. And as she did, she saw the mirror that perfectly reflected how she felt at the moment—on the verge of tears, grieving for the loss of a loved one, but even as she tried to make him look into her eyes, he was avoiding hers as much as possible.
"Natalie…she's happy now." She choked onto her words, tears now glistening, the emotions building up inside of her being the cause, but forced them out through her lips nevertheless. "A-a-aren't…you…h-happy…for her?"
Ian looked down, and Amy saw him clenching his fingers, so tightly around the handle of the little teacup and the fragile saucer, that she was afraid that they might just crumble, so much like the remnants of his sanity that was currently dangling on a thin thread. She watched as his grief flared from inside of him, and she herself felt as if she would snap any time soon. He heaved a breath, and let it out in a slow, painful hiss as he turned away to hide the stream of tears—even so, the wet, dark spots dotting the carpet was unmistakable to Amy's downcast eyes.
Nevertheless, his words came out perfectly straight.
"A little."
21.
"…happy birthday to you!"
Once Jonah finished singing his own hip-hop version of the ever so famous birthday tune for the now twenty-one-year-old Amy Hope Cahill, everyone else started cheering and running forwards to give their beloved Madrigal cousin their respective hugs. The stunned, work-weary girl stood in the middle of her surprise party, where banners lined the walls and confetti colourfully littered the ground. Everyone started tackling her in a gigantic bear hug, Hamilton being the root of it all, the joyous greetings of 'Happy birthday, you little damsel!', 'Look at yourself, child, you're all grown up!', and Nellie's unmistakable 'My kiddo's just turned twenty-one…my kiddo!' a wonderful musical chorus to her ears.
Amy was near to happy tears at the pleasant surprise, hugging everyone back and thanking them profusely. As she was doing so, though, she was able to spot Dan standing in the corner. So she dragged him in by the shoulder and into a hug as she ruffled her dweeby little brother's straw-coloured hair. To which, of course, he was incredibly disgusted of.
"Amy, what the heck are you doing?"
He wasn't still the dweeby little brother that he had been all those years ago, was he? He had even outgrown her—nearly more than three inches taller. "Well," Amy said, finally letting him go. "Aren't you going to greet your only sister a happy birthday?"
"Well…" he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Glad to see you alive, I guess. How old are you again? Seventy-eight?"
Amy chuckled. He was acting nonchalant, yes, but she knew that deep inside, he was just as happy as she was. They were siblings, after all. "Twenty-one, you dweeb," she corrected, jokingly punching him on his arm. But a feeling of emptiness was still within her, as if the party was still not complete. Was there someone here who hadn't attended?
But suddenly, as if to answer her question, Jonah spoke through the microphone, his famous voice booming across the large garage of the Cahill mansion. "And now," he said, a drum roll from out of nowhere started hammering all throughout the room's four vibrantly decorated corners to build up the suspense. "The moment Amy's been waiting for…Jake Rosenbloom! Take your cue, dude!"
She heard the sound of a door closing and opening from behind her, and she turned around to see her boyfriend dressed up in a goofy sort of clown costume. Amy giggled. Jake's face had been painted red and white, and he was wearing a colourful mascot heavily decorated with all the vivid and iridescent colours of the rainbow.
"Well, well, well," Jake said in a low, feigned tone as he scratched his chin thoughtfully, making all the audience laugh at the farce. He looked around, as if looking for someone. "I heard there's a party here, and I came all the way to see the birthday girl. Now, where's she?"
All fingers pointed at the redheaded girl in the middle, and Amy raised her hand playfully, like a girl about to recite in class. "I'm—" but she burst out in a fit of giggles, which she tried to smother with a cough. "I'm over here, Mr Clown."
"Ah, there she is!" said Jake, as if he had just seen her standing in front of him. Then, from out of nowhere, he produced a paper crown painted gold from his hand, and respectfully put it over her head. "The princess of the day."
The princess of the day.
At that, her eyes suddenly snapped open with…recognition? Memory? Déjà vu? For no known reason at all, she started scanning the room for…for someone. She didn't know who. She didn't even know why, but she just…did. All the noise of applause and the burst of cheery merriments were drowned out in the silence of the emptiness in her own heart, because even if Jake was here, the party still wasn't…complete. It just wasn't, no matter how much she wanted to believe that it already was, too much in fact. She didn't even know that deep a crater within her even existed in the first place. Her eyes, as if on unknown instinct, just started craving to see someone that she wasn't even aware who. Without her mind's consent, her heart just burst out in irrational, illogical, foolish and unfounded tears, and while everyone else misunderstood them for tears of joy, they just weren't.
Because it's not fair if a princess didn't have a prince.
24.
He wasn't feeling very well this day, and the cause was not the migraine he was so accustomed to suffering from. But however unwell he was feeling, it wouldn't be such a polite thing to do to just stand up and walk away without even congratulating the bride, whatever the excuse. It would be very un-gentlemanly for a Kabra like him to do such ignoble thing. But for some reason that he couldn't quite point with his finger, he just…wasn't feeling well. Maybe he should just do the exchanging of courtesies some time in the future—reasons are unknown, but he just wasn't ready to do it. He couldn't do it today.
When he told her this, she brutally tugged onto his hand to pull him up from his seat, forcing a cry of 'Ow!' from his mouth.
"Oh, don't be such a Brit-fuff-fuff, you hopeless dingbat," she scolded. "Let's go there and at least congratulate them. Your stupid headache can wait."
"I have told you, countless of times," he grumbled as he tried to get up from his seat, "that it is not a—"
"Oh!" Amy, interrupted, pleasantly surprised to see both of their cousins that have attended her wedding. "Ian, Cara," she acknowledged, sunnily smiling at the two of them as she clutched her new husband's hand, his and her golden rings catching the sunlight to glint harshly against Ian's eyes. "I'm glad to see the two of you here."
"Well, so are we." Ian regally got up as he formally dusted some imaginary dust from his tuxedo. "Congratulations, Amy." He looked at the man beside her, her husband, the love of her life, and gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement. "Congratulations, Jake."
"Best day of your lives, isn't?" Cara beamed happily for the two of them, her enthusiasm completely the opposite of that of Ian's. "We wish you the best!"
"I hate to interrupt the pleasantries, Mr and…and Mrs Rosenbloom," Ian chided, not really meaning what he said—because he was practically craving to get out of this bloody place as soon as possible. He dared tug onto Cara's arm to pull her to him, which naturally earned him a scowl from her. He merely ignored her, though, his eyes directly probing into Amy's. "But if you do not mind, we really should take our leave."
"What? Why?" Amy arched an eyebrow. "Aren't you going to the reception par—"
"No," Ian said, firmly, hand squeezing Cara's to silence her. This time, thankfully, Cara merely gave it up, albeit a little grudgingly, and let her partner do the speaking. "I have some business to attend to this afternoon." He gave her the most sincere smile he could ever muster, and was glad that it came out just as smoothly as he had hoped it would. He had been practicing this for weeks. "My…my apologies."
"Oh, no, no, we really don't mind," Amy said. "Thank you for attending our wedding."
Ian willed an over-rehearsed smile. "The pleasure is ours."
Cara leaned over to whisper to Amy's ear, intentionally said loud enough for the standing Lucian to hear. "I don't know why, Amy, but he's being such a pathetic sourpuss today."
Ian rolled his eyes as the two girls giggled.
When they finally quieted down, Ian and Cara awkwardly, silently, stood before the two Rosenblooms.
"Well," Amy said in a small voice and a wavering smile. "Goodbye, I guess?"
Ian intended to avoid answering her question. "Wild roses." He casually gave a glance to all the flowers that floriated the small, humble church. No one noticed how his amber eyes were glistening. "Aren't they just lovely, Amy?"
The girl was stunned by the sudden, random question, which had seemingly been just pulled out of nowhere. But she knew, she knew, that it was not, never was, never will be, just a random question.
It was a memory.
"Y-yes…" Amy said, blinking rapidly, looking anywhere about the hall, anywhere at all, not wanting to meet his eyes. She then decided to just stare at the ground. "W-wildflowers. They're…lovely."
Cara and Jake were a bit confused of her bewildered reaction.
But Ian was not.
I still remember how make the tiara, Amy.
27.
She had been staring at the ceiling for more than two hours now.
Her whole body was numb, her mind a blank white slate. She lay down on her bed, the pillows thrown away, the pink sheets crumpled on one corner, and the teddy bears discarded onto the floor. Her hair was a near semblance to electrified wires of copper, on her face painted the very image of exhaustion itself, even if she had just woken up from a good night's sleep.
When she should have come down over an hour ago, she was still on her bed on a beautiful day of Sunday. But no matter how high the sun had already risen, no matter how musical the birds chirped, no matter how much her husband tried to call her for breakfast downstairs, nothing enticed her out of her bed. She was—she was…she was simply—
—what?
Amy stopped and derided herself.
How was she feeling?
Simply what?
Was she just about to think that she was…sad?
No, no, no. There was no reason to be sad. To be sad is to be selfish, and she was not about to deem herself as such.
And yet…
…it cannot be denied that she was.
She sighed, rolled over her bed, and faced the ceiling again.
Something vague from inside of her was the wretched thing that controlled these emotions of melancholy, and she had nothing to do about it. Some…feeling…was causing her this sadness, and it was something whose existence she wasn't even aware of. What was this feeling, and why? Why? Why was she even feeling it, why should she be sad? Her life was beautiful, she had two healthy children, and her husband had been a very responsible father indeed. Jake loved her, and she did too. She had nothing to be sad about, absolutely nothing.
Her fingers gently trailed along the edges of the invitation card. She felt something sting, but she didn't know what the cause was. Ian Kabra and Cara Pierce were about to become Mr and Mrs Ian and Cara Kabra, and Amy and Jake Cahill-Rosenbloom had been so cordially invited over to this wondrous celebration of their union. She should be jumping for joy at the fact that two of her cousins, albeit distant, are about to find the happiness that their childhood had prevented them to have—their marriage only amounting to less than a week away. Ian had finally found the girl of his dreams, someone who understood him and was ready to look to the future and ignore his past. All these years, he thought no one else was out there who could ever do such thing—but fate, after having been so cruel to him, had been generously kind and gave him his Cara. Amy should not be sad about such wonderful news. They were going to be married. Amy should be happy.
But she felt selfish for feeling otherwise.
Something liquid dropped onto her cheek, interrupting her languid train of thought. She felt the bead of liquid roll down onto her chin, so she felt like she had released a tear, even if she absolutely knew that she hadn't. She stopped toying at the invitation cards and turned her fingers to face her. It was then that she realized that one of them had been pricked while she had been toying at the card's sharp paper edges, and it was now oozing with blood.
She couldn't understand it. She thought that her heart had already been cured when she had married Jake. Yes, it couldn't be denied that she thought that she and Ian had feelings for each other; yes, they had a silent agreement not to have any romantic issues long since then; and, yes, their history was history. They have gone through things together for a long time, yes, but the path only goes long enough until it would fork into two, separate journeys where one is just not meant to walk alongside the other. They have said their respective goodbyes and moved on.
But why did it still hurt? She wasn't crying anymore, she wasn't dwelling, but everything still seemed as if…as if it's just wrong. It wasn't supposed to end this way. Wasn't she meant to have been healed already? Like any princess, she had already gotten her perfect, ever so perfect prince, Jake Rosenbloom, and, through him, she had already gotten her happily ever after, hadn't she?
Then if she did, it certainly wasn't anything that she had anticipated—because some piece is still missing, her life still wasn't complete, there were still, still, craters to fill, and incommodious riddles to answer. No one knew about it, but she was still in the middle of a losing battle with herself behind a closed door.
She couldn't understand it, it was all so vague, so fuzzy, but in the midst of the swirling storm, one fact was crystal-clear—
…I'm still under your spell.
30.
He waited until the servant finished tending to her needs, and he nodded at the maid before she scurried off to leave the two of them alone in the peace of the brightly-lit room. The pink and orange swirls of light of the beautiful sunset spilled onto the room from the open terrace, where a girl of fiery red hair and jade green eyes sat serenely onto a rocking chair while she looked at the spectacular painting that the lingering twilight had to display for her. Ian just stood there, admiring the way that she still held her head high, her back straight, even in the midst of her mind-shattering illness.
The seconds dragged on, and he silently stood there, the blue and dark purple hue starting to mix with the pink and orange rays of light as the shadows grew ever longer. Then, Amy, as if sensing only now the presence of a newcomer, slowly turned her head to meet the richness of his golden amber eyes.
He held his breath. He waited. Long seconds passed and dragged on, and he waited, ever so patiently, for her to recognize him.
But she didn't.
"…who are you?"
The question pricked right through the wall he had readily built and it all collapsed down on the ground in a heap.
It…it hurt.
He pressed down the rising emotions. He shouldn't feel anything about this. No, nothing, he should feel nothing, he knew it. He knew about her condition, and Jake had told him all about it. Once he had heard the news, he had immediately called for the charter, ready to cross the Atlantic, and flown from England to America—and, this time, unlike so long ago, he did it all without the blink of a hesitant eye. He wanted to see it for himself, since he didn't believe it. He couldn't believe it.
But now, he witnessed it. It was true.
Amy Cahill had the Alzheimer's disease.
(*)
He gulped down the rising emotions, telling himself to calm down take this professionally. He walked forward, taking each step gently and soothingly, not wanting to scare her away.
"My name is Ian Kabra," he said in a calming voice. Although it was painful forcing it out of him, a feigned smile spread onto his lips. There was nothing to smile about for the moment, but for her, he will. "May I know what yours is?"
The simple question thrown at her caused a distressed expression to sweep over her face.
"I…uh….um…A…Am…" She was having an extreme difficulty, not in trying to get the words out, but in remembering what the answer should be. "Well…i-it starts with an 'A', but I…c-couldn't quite…"
"How on this bloody Earth do you get these flowers all tied up?" exclaimed a frustrated seven-year-old Ian, his hands tangled in the prickly stems of all the wildflowers gathered in his lap. "It's impossible to make a tiara with this!"
She looked over his shoulder to check how he was doing it. Indeed, all she found was a mess of broken stems and plucked petals, but no tiara.
"Oh, Ian," she said as she burst in a fit of giggles, laughing at his…handiwork. "You don't do it that way!"
"Well, then, how?" Ian demanded. He did not like failing at doing anything, and any peasant who mocked him for it—well, it was not something that he was going to live with. "How do you expect me to create a fancy royal tiara with this dirty bunch of pathetic wildflowers?"
"There's only one way you could do it right," Amy responded in a playfully mysterious voice.
He was getting tired of this farce. "And that is?"
He put a comforting hand onto Amy's shoulder, saying back to her those exact words that she had responded to him, all those years to go. He looked deeply into her eyes, firmly willing her, to remember.
"Try again."
The girl blinked at how he so seriously meant those words, but, nevertheless, followed his advice. "M-my name…I am…I am...I-I…" A heavy pause befell onto Kabra and Cahill as the girl tried so desperately to dig within her mind and come up with the treasure, relying on the Lucian beside her to keep herself from falling in the deepness of that unfilled hole with his steadying gaze and firm yet gentle hold onto her shoulder. Even though, she came up with nothing, and it frustrated her, her feelings made clear in her next words.
"Argh!" She put her hands in front of her face to cover it, not wanting the stranger to see her embarrassment. She felt pathetic. "It's impossible for me to remember anything!"
But even as he said those surrendering words, she wasn't yet about to give up on him. She believed that he could do it. She picked up the mess of stems and wildflowers that he had thrown away in frustration, then handed it back to him, although he did not readily accept it with open arms. In fact, his were so irefully crossed.
"Why are you giving me that garbage back?" he spat at her. "I will never be able to create your oh-so-ridiculous tiara."
She spoke with a calming voice to soothe down his frustration. "You will never be able to create the tiara—"
"…if you don't try again," Ian finished, firmly looking into her eyes.
A few more seconds passed, the dark purple of the night slowly engulfing the vibrant colours of the sunset as silence reigned the room.
"Amy," she said, quietly, finally. "My name is…is Amy."
"Aha!" Ian raised the finally-completed crown of flowers into the air victoriously. "I am triumphant!"
"Interesting word choice," Amy giggled, joyously clapping her hands at his handiwork. "But, see, the tiara you made is…is…" She tried to find the correct word to describe the rather…uh…'imperfect' tiara lying in his hands, what with the cracked stems and slightly torn leaves. "…It's… well…it's well done, for a first timer!" she finally decided on saying with all the enthusiasm of the world radiating bright in her green eyes.
"I told you, you could do it," Ian said, making sure that his praise echoed the way that Amy had had, back when they were still children—little, foolish children who had nothing else to do with the world with their innocence and youthfulness. Those were the days he relished to remember, the moments he had always treasured and dreamed to come back to, if he had the ability to travel back to the past. The feigned smile on his face slowly wormed its way to genuineness, those thoughts, those memories, passing behind his eyes like sparking tendrils of light itself. Because it made him…his life, it…it made him…
…it made him complete.
All too suddenly, though, Amy burst in tears.
"I'm—I'm sorry!" she cried into her hands, the sobs wracking throughout her body, her convulsions travelling up from Ian's hand that rested onto her shoulder until her untold grief spread throughout his own body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry!"
Ian was genuinely confused, and this time he kneeled in front of her and made her look into his eyes. "Have I said something wrong?"
"Why? Wh-why am I even crying?" His concerned question was unheard. "And I don't—" She gasped, heaving in a mouthful of breath— "And I-I-I d-don't even know what I'm c-c-crying about!"
His eyes veiled themselves with confusion, but, more so, with alarm, readying himself to call in the nurse. "Should you not know the answer yourself?"
"I—I don't know, I—" She struggled with her words amidst with struggling with her tears. "Y-you just made me s-s-sad, and—and I…I'm never sad before, but now you're here, and—and…"
"…I made you sad?"
"I…I don't know, but you just…I feel—I feel like I know you, but I-I don't even remember."
"Maybe…" He produced a floriated tiara from behind him, a tiara not perfectly made, as there were some seams and creases and other certain imperfections lining the mini-circlet, but he was the one who had made it himself—because he still knew how to do it. "Maybe this would make you happy."
"A tiara…" She visibly flinched. "…out of wildflowers? But it's dirty!"
Strangely, he wasn't even offended. He merely chuckled. "Oh, this?" He lifted up his little circlet of wildflowers, as if he didn't already know that it was exactly the filthy thing she had been pertaining to. "There is nothing to worry about the dirt and whatnot. I made sure to cut the thorns." He daintily held out the small crown to her direction, his hands showing signs of little scratches and faint cuts which were barely even noticeable—but, undeniably, they were there. "May I?"
A second's hesitation crossed her tearstained features. Ian smiled at this, he perfectly understood—but he wasn't about to give up on persuading her.
"I promise," he assured, "that it will make your sadness go away."
This seemed to do the trick. She was still a bit tentative about having a crown of wildflowers placed upon her head, but, nevertheless, she bowed her head to him, allowing him to do as he wished. He felt victorious—triumphant, even—at successfully enticing her to it, so he royally placed the crown onto her head, ever so gently, as if he was handling an expensive, fragile piece of china that he wouldn't dare attempt to shatter. Once she felt the crown fit—and it did, most perfectly—Amy raised her head into the air, her tears no longer there.
Instead, there was a huge, bright, and innocent smile painted onto her sunny face.
Just as it had been, way back then.
"Th-thank you very, very much, Mister Ian!"
He felt a pang from inside of him at the way she chose to add a title to his name, as if…as if he was really a stranger to her. But he shook that feeling of darkness away. Somehow, Amy just had this effect on him whenever he was with her sunny presence—she just chased the darkness away. felt ridiculous asking her this question, but nevertheless went with it with a light-hearted smile, as if he was talking to a child.
"Are you…" There was a moment's hesitation flashing through his eyes, worry, anxiety, but he still urged himself on asking her the question. "Are you feeling happy now?"
"Very much!" was her immediate, bouncy reply. He wondered how one could ever quickly transform from melancholic to positively gleeful in just a number of seconds, but that was a question quickly ignored when she posed her next, pleasantly surprising him. "Can you show me how to make it? So that I will be happy all the time from now on?"
He felt himself at a terrible loss of words as he just stared at her, all hope gone. She was staring at him with her bright, childlike eyes, hoping to tempt a positive answer to come out of his mouth, like a little girl hoping for a mother to finally say 'yes' to bringing her to the playground. But he had never found himself too much at a loss for words to speak, his very tongue tangled in the middle of a messy ball of yarn.
You really…don't remember me, do you?
But his thoughts were interrupted by the previous servant coming back to bring him to reality. She had come into the room and announced his intended leave.
"Mr Kabra, your time is up."
This immediately earned a protest. "But he hadn't even shown me how to—"
"Hush." He put a finger to her lips to silence her. "Tomorrow, I promise to come back. You will pick the flowers, and I will show you how to do it." He bitterly smiled at the irony of this. Life really does love to make cruel jokes, doesn't it? "How does that sound for you?"
"Oh, yes, please do! Really? You promise?" Her face lighted up like the sun, chasing the shadows looming over him away. "You'd really come back?"
He took her hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Yes."
But the moment was interfered.
"Sir, I wouldn't want to intrude, but you really have to—"
Ian shot the interrupting maid with a death glare.
"—to…l-l-l-leave a-at once, S-S-Sir Kabra, Sir."
He sighed, and got up. He supposed that he had exceeded his welcome. Before he left, though, he gave her hand one more affirming squeeze and a calming gaze, before leaving her sitting in the middle of the dusk. The servant tending to her tried to talk to her and force a word out of her, but only his name was stamped onto Amy's blank mind as she stared at the door from which he had left, swinging absently to a close. But even if he had already left, the hope that he will come back to her life still lingered.
Because even though everything else had been wiped away, somewhere in her memories, he still remained.
And, for Ian, so did she.
Amy looked down at the hand that Ian had just held. He had left something in it, just before he had let her go. It was a sight that strangely seemed so familiar, yet so vague. Its purplish-red petals were fresh with dew, green leaves bright with life. It was…a wildflower.
No. Not just a wildflower.
It was a promise.
~Fin
…
…
…
This is how you know I've been watching too much of Jun Maeda's eye-pricking tragedies. I'm his biggest fan. (Fact: Dango Daikazoku was a musical composition he created for the finale of the anime Clannad, also by him.) Why do I like torturing myself?! Argh. My word, I don't even know. :P Speaking of words, yikes, I've written more or less 10,000. I'm sorry. Congratulations for anyone who hadn't fallen asleep on their respective keyboards. You are awesome. Seriously. Arigato, thank you. ^.^ Now that I've finished my Amaranthine project after having worked on it for a week, oh, finally, I can rest in peace. I should go have a break and grab a book. (I'm reading DJ MacHale's SYLO.)
Amians, we've lived through the Jamy Epoch and the Evamy Age. We can live through the Carian Era. Trust me, we got this. (*lifts up fist like a hard-core Tomas*)
Keeping Amy and Ian's Complicated Romance Alive,
Rival Argentica