Title: Lover

Synopsis: "I wish I had been born as Vincent's red eye." Ada examines her relationship with her beau and all that it implies. Vincent/Ada.

Rating: T for some mentioning of the deed. Oh Ada, you dirty, dirty girl.

A/N: I can't tell if this is completely in character or completely out of character. Whenever I write Ada she ends up sounding smart. I like to believe that she is, and that her stupidity is both because of her unabashed happiness, and because of the façade most women had to put on in that era. Or maybe not. Psh, I don't even know anymore. Anyhow, I doubt anyone will read this fic, but if you're here, I beg you to enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pandora Hearts, its characters or anything affiliated with it.

…

"I live to let you shine."

—Gregory & the Hawk

…

He talks like a character out of the romance novels that I have devoured since I hit puberty and could understand what a man and a woman could do when they meet each other. Vincent speaks like the protagonist. He is misunderstood, brooding and smiles when he does not mean it.

This, of course, is no reason to love him. I know that. No one can say that I have not spent hours of my life pondering the reasons why I love him, examining every detail of our relationship to try to find some concrete reason as to why I feel for him the way that I do. He is not what he appears to be; I have known that since it began, and am reminded of that every time he stares into the distance. After every time he says that he loves me without looking into my eyes. These flaws do not phase me; does any man have a truly clean past? I think not. Vincent's past may be stained black, but I cannot help my feelings for him. I love him.

"Miss Ada," he tells me as I walk towards him. "Good evening." He bows like a proper gentleman, keeping one eye on me as he does so with a smiling face. It's almost like his expression mocking the very practice of bowing as he does it so elegantly. I am lost. All of Vincent's actions are so practiced. I can count on one hand the number of times that I have seen Vincent flustered, scared or embarrassed. He is infallible; he has been taught well. I cannot tell if it is natural, or if he is a skilled actor. I like to believe that it's a bit of both.

I love the way that his red eye shines in the moonlight. Being somewhat of a self-proclaimed occult expert, I know what they all say about red eyes being a mark of misfortune. It's an old-fashioned idea, of course, scoffed at by modern peoples. The practice of disowning those with red eyes has been considered superstitious and unnecessary for years. But I see the way that people look at Vincent when he crosses the street. I see how they avert their eyes and pretend that they don't notice him as soon as he makes eye contact with them. And I see how Vincent pretends that there is nothing wrong at all, and he just keeps walking as if ignoring another human like that is normal. They fear him. His differentness frightens them as if he were some kind of monster.

And when this happens, I cannot help but to wonder what his life was like before the Nightray household adopted him.

Of course, I can romanticize what his life was like before. Perhaps he really was like the hero of a novel; his family was poor but he—being enterprising, clever and lucky—was able to rise up out of great adversity because of those circumstances. This is the story that I tell myself when I feel ill at ease with the relationship that we carry out with one another. It lightens my heart to think of Vincent as being a protagonist. But perhaps, I think to myself at other times, his life was something darker. There is a flash of emotion that darkens his eyes occasionally that makes me think so. I feel that sometimes he is not with me when we are together, as strange as that sounds. I sometimes feel that he in some far off forgotten world of the past where no one was warm and my Vincent was always left alone.

"You are looking lovely tonight." He takes my hand and kisses it gently. I blush; I am defenseless against him. Whenever I am with him, I am reminded of how weak I really am. A lock of golden hair falls into his eyes and I must restrain myself from pushing it back myself. "More lovely than usual in this moonlight."

As of late, I have found restraint to be more and more difficult on my end. I am demure. I am shy, little Ada Vessalius, unpopular both in school and with men. I do not know why Vincent picked me of all of the women that he knows. Perhaps he treasures me for what I am. Perhaps he just hates me less than everyone else. I do not know, nor do I wish to.

As I was saying, I am not a paragon of womanly beauty like so many others of my age and sex. I am cute and I believe this is all I will be able to achieve when it comes to looks. I have used this to the greatest effect that I can and with time I have come to terms with my appearance. I have found that there is no use crying in front of the mirror, begging God for the Roman nose and almond eyes that never reached me. I have a woman's body but a girl's face. Perfect to be called 'sister' or 'friend', but—before Vincent—never 'lover'. To be considered this strange new word is a titillating feeling, exciting and terrifying at the same time. Not bad, of course, but there are many times when I just do not know how to act the part.

I am not the heroine of a novel. I do not have clever, original thoughts or a dashing, enchanting character type. I am just Ada. For a laugh, I contemplate myself to be the best friend kind of character. The Charlotte to someone else's Elizabeth Bennett, so to speak. But then I must resign myself to the reality that my position in life and general disposition has left me generally without companions. That is to say, for most of my life, I have been largely friendless. In fact, I believe that until I met Vincent, no one besides those whom I had lived with cared for me at all. I have never been special to someone the way that most people have been considered to be special, if that makes sense.

When Vincent tells me things, I feel excited. Not special, per se, for I am sure that words such as his have been uttered to most women at some point in their lives and I am just experiencing these feelings later than most, but the words make me feel that there is a place in this world for me. Suddenly I am significant in this large world, if only in a small way. I have made a ripple in someone else's life; that is a new thought that brings me a modicum of joy that I have not experienced before. A butterfly bats its wings in South America and someone dies. Vincent Nightray tells Ada Vessalius something beautiful and the world changes in some small way.

"You must be kidding," I tell him, blushing and looking at the ground. "But you…" I cannot avert my eyes any longer. "You are as handsome as ever." He smiles at me and I can feel myself melt under that gaze. "I am glad that I am able to see you tonight, Vincent."

There is something terribly powerful about Vincent's name. Whenever I say it a surge goes through me, a sort of power that is unexplainable but true and beautiful. I sometimes wonder if there has ever been a word more significant in our language than Vincent's name. It rolls of the tongue and cuts into whoever hears it. Vincent is a word that leaves a scar; Vincent is a name that someone remembers.

Vincent is a name that haunts me.

The only things I know about sex are what I have been able to find in books, and that information is not enough to keep me satisfied now that I know what love is. Tom Jones is a wonderful piece of literature, but not a bible to go by. Of course I would not consider those kinds of relations before marriage—I am a woman from a respected family; I have my reputation to consider if things between Vincent and I do not pan out as I intend—but I sometimes imagine them. I imagine Vincent, all of Vincent, and the glory that is the human body; his human body. I imagine what it would feel like for two to become one, then to separate and become two again. I imagine what it would be like for us to become one.

Again, the romanticism within my mind takes me away. I get distracted too easily; I create mountains out of molehills, as it were. Thousands of couples perform these deeds every day, every night, every minute, even. It is more commonplace than birth, I would think. Every birth must have had an act prior to it, and not every act ends in birth. For every baby that is born, these actions must have taken place at least four or five times, right? So commonplace and yet I… I cannot imagine what sort of loneliness must follow these acts. How you can become one with another person for just a few short minutes and then have to return to a life by yourself? The thought makes me shiver; even thinking about it makes me want to cry.

I wish I had been born as Vincent's red eye. I want to stay with him always, helping him to see and clarify things that he cannot uncover by himself. If I cannot be intimate with him until the end of eternity, I want to at least be a part of him. Two could become one, if I were his red eye. I would never have to leave his side for a moment. That is all I really want in this world; I never want to have to leave Vincent's side.

"Miss Ada," he says as he takes my hand in his, cradling gently it in his gloved hand, just looking at it with a certain striking simplicity. "The pleasure is all mine." Though he still holds my hand, he past me and into the distance. He does not look at me and he does not think of me. And this is fine.

Vincent may speak like he is in one of my romance novels; Vincent is not a romantic hero. He is not a prince charming, or even a Darcy. He is, at core, incomparable to any sort of work of fiction. He is real, he is flesh and blood. When I touch him, he is warm. When I kiss him, he is soft. When he holds me, he is strong. When I hold him, he is feeble. And perhaps that is enough for me to live by. This human creature is enough for me to wake-up in the morning for. Love has not given me a reason to live, but it does power my living with its strange intoxication. I cannot imagine what my life would be like if Vincent had not touched it in some way.

"I love you," I tell him.

Though he is still far away from me, Vincent smiles and touches my cheek as if I were delicate. "I love you, too." I am not.

…

Fin