2.
"Carpe Diem..."
Joseph's voice made Alice open her hazel eyes, turning her head to look through the vent at him and seeing his handsome face break into a smile, bringing her hand to her eyes to rub them, the day had dragged on as it often did in the Hell that was Briarside, the only thing that you looked forward to was meal time and if you were lucky, going to the art center or library but you had to be on your best behavior for those. "You look exhausted Alice, you should get back upon your bed and go to sleep before Francine comes in the morning for shower time," he said, frowning softly as he watched her. She smiled and shook her head, she had spent the duration of her time trapped in her cell that day talking to him through the vent and she didn't want to go to sleep just yet, she couldn't understand why not. She supposed it was because she had never met anyone that had the same affliction that she did and that understood how hard it was to be able to see things and not be listened to when you gave warning to those around you.
"Mm...no I'm alright Joseph, go on with what you were saying about carpe diem, I have heard the term before but it never registered to me, I guess because no one ever told me what it meant before, I never knew it meant to seize the day," she said as she rolled onto her side, reaching out to pull her thin blanket down to cover herself with. She had never had such long conversations with anyone before and she was thrilled to have someone to talk to now, despite the late hour and that they had to speak with hushed voices so the night crew would not know they were awake, lest they lose their privileges to other things. She found herself anxiously awaiting breakfast so that she could see him face to face again, he was so lovely to look at and she found that it made her heart skip a beat when he would look to her and their eyes would meet, she wondered if it was the same for him but didn't have the gall to ask him. She brushed her messy hair from her eyes as she heard his soft chuckle echo through the vent, her eyes watching his through the wrought iron as his eyes met hers, almost as if he had known what it did to her and what she was thinking about it.
"Its a beautiful saying really, I have found that living by it, especially with the things that I can see before they happen helps me, seize the day or die regretting the time you've lost," he said softly as he pulled his own blanket down from the bed to cover himself with to avoid the cold that was settling in. He like Alice did not want to move just yet, he had never met a woman outside of his family that was so intelligent that he could carry on long conversations with and found that just the mere sound of a sigh emitted from her lips made his heart beat even faster. If hers was skipping a beat every time that their eyes met then he was gaining that skipped beat into his own heart every time that he heard the softest of sounds coming from her. He raised his finger to his lips when he heard the night orderlie walking down the corridor, closing his eyes to make it seem like he was asleep on the floor, knowing that she would follow suit, though she rolled onto her other side, the orderlie not noting it much as many of the patients did that. He had seen them lay on the beds, on the floors, half out of bed and in so many positions that he wondered how any of them got any restful sleep as he wandered into the next corridor, Joseph's eyes opening to watch her roll over to face him again, smiling when his eyes met hers again, the eyes he had dreamed of for so long.
"I think that is our cue to sleep, he comes by every morning at two o'clock so that means Francine will be here in six hours or so, she won't be kind if she finds out that we haven't slept all night long on your first day here," Alice whispered with the softest of giggles as she watched him through the vent, her heart thudding in her chest as she did so. She didn't want to get in trouble mostly because she was worried that he would be moved to a room further away from her if they were to get caught and she would have to sit around all day waiting for meal times just to see him again, the thought alone weighed heavily down on her. She didn't know why but she had a very strong connection to Joseph Walter Adams and the thought of not seeing him as much as she could all day long brought and ache to her very heart and soul, it was something that she couldn't quite explain but she knew that it was the way she was thinking. She raised her hand to the vent, her pale fingertips pressed through the wrought iron as she did so, her eyes meeting his and a soft smile appearing upon her pale lips as she watched him. "See you in the morning, it's only six hours from now," she whispered softly to him.
Joseph raised his hand to meet hers, his own fingertips pressing to hers as his eyes watched hers, the thudding in his chest so loud that he was sure that it would start to echo off the padded walls of the cell for her to hear it. "Six hours...'tis twenty years till then my lady," he whispered, remembering the line from Romeo and Juliet as he did so, the most famous scene upon the balcony where he spies his lady love and eavesdrops upon her thoughts to herself. Alice was his Juliet, his sun that rose in the East and set in the West, and though he would never utter these words aloud for fear of what the would proclaim of them, he knew them to be true, for he had never seen true beauty before this very night speaking to her. He now understood how Romeo Montague had felt the moment that he had spied Juliet Capulet and lost his heart to her with just one kiss of his lips to the back of her hand, he had lost his heart to Alice in the very same gesture that day when they had parted to go to their cells.
Alice couldn't help but to smile when he quoted one of her favorite books of all time, one she had read so many times that she knew it by heart and would never forget the line's uttered within it as her fingertips pulsed against his in much the same fashion that her heart was beating within her breast. "To that I say, good night, good night, parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow, kind sir," she whispered and watched his ever widening smile that she had quoted from the same book that he had, as if it were kismet, they had been meant to meet and if this asylum is the only place fate could have her rendezvous then she was nothing more than grateful to be here. Never before had she had such intense feelings for anyone in her entire life, she had a feeling that she never would again for she had lost her heart to the young man with the gorgeous brown eyes in the cell next door when he had placed his lips to the back of her hand and kissed it so tenderly. She never wanted it back either, she wanted him to have it though she barely new a thing about him, she didn't have to in order to know that she was falling for him so quickly, she knew that he felt the same with the way that he looked at her.
"Parting is indeed such sweet sorrow Bright Eyes, and I can't wait for it to be tomorrow just so that I might let my weary eyes rest upon you once more before the doors of our cages are barred once more to keep us apart, but they will never truly be able to keep us apart," Joseph whispered before reluctantly moving his fingertips from hers, watching her pull back just as slowly. He knew that he should get up to sleep upon his bed but he couldn't bear the thought of moving from where he could see her, he wanted to watch her until sleep overtook his burning eyes, just so that his last image before then to be Alice. He noticed that she as well didn't move from the floor, watching him as well and he knew that she had to be thinking the same thing that he was, just wanting to watch him as much as he wanted to watch her, to not be apart for even a moment in the night. He had never felt this way about anyone before but he knew that was he felt was not merely an infatuation, but irrevocable love within his heart for this woman alone, he would devote himself to her and her alone if she would just allow him to do so.
Alice smiled softly as she curled up under her blanket, her eyes never leaving his as she felt her eyelids grow heavy with sleep, she knew that she would not be able to stay awake for much longer but she wanted to stay awake for as long as she could, despite that she kept drifting off. She forced herself to open her eyes every time that they would begin to close but that was not going to work forever as she saw him doing the same before both their eyes closed at the same time for the final time, sleep washing over them like waves crashing to the shore. She was thrown into dreams almost immediately, as if he had walked out of his own and into hers, he asked for her hand to dance and she gave it to him, letting him lead her into a waltz. As they spun together, their hospital clothing changed to proper attired for a fancy club somewhere different, such as New Orleans, and the scenery changed to match as they spun together, eyes never leaving one another's as they did so and though she knew that it was a dream she wanted nothing more for it to ever end.
Joseph's hand was warm in her own as they walked along together, leaving the night club to walk together under the stars, pointing out the different constellations and talking excitedly about the ones that they recognized and laughing at the ones that they didn't. Alice noticed that he looked older, maybe mid twenties and upon passing a shop window noticed that she looked older as well, wondering if this was perhaps what the future held in store for them. Night turned to day rather quickly, they sat upon a large porch in the middle of the forest, somewhere that she had never been before, her head upon his lap as he read to her from Macbeth, smiling softly as his voice soothed her in the summer heat, the sun reflecting off the pond in the large front yard. His hand rubbed her arm tenderly, as she brought her hand to touch his as he rubbed her skin gently, she had never had a man touch her in such a manner but it was as if this were all routine to her, thus the fascination with the dream as it continued to shift.
This time it was not broken, she saw herself with golden eyes, a color that she had never seen on anyone but Jacques before so she was a bit bewildered as to why she saw herself with such as she stood on the steps that led up to a stone cottage, Joseph close to her and taking her hand to turn her. He brought her hand to his lips as he bent to kiss it, making her giggle softly before he slipped a hand to her waist to lead her in a dance outside where they was no music, but yet the two of them made their own within their heads. She smiled softly at the scene as it played out before her, she had never seen anything so sweet before in her entire life, she had merely read about it in novels that she was banned to read at home so she had had to sneak them and hide them under her mattress where her father could never find them. It was such a simple scene, but there was so much depth and meaning behind it that her brain couldn't fathom all that it was supposed to mean before it shifted once more, her brow furrowing in her sleep as she watched on.
Joseph himself had had the same dream about the stone cottage and dancing with Alice in front of it, but the next scene he saw was his own grave, the date upon it reading 1947 for the death year and his sister, now forty-nine years old standing before it with her grown children and their brother Gabriel. It was his turn for his brow to furrow as he tried to gain knowledge of the things around them, wanting to know if this was simply a dream of a vision of the future though surely it had to be a dream when he saw Alice come to visit his final resting place. She was no more than twenty years of age, as though she had never aged a day in her life and her eyes were a bright golden color that looked almost alien to the hazel eyes that he had dreamed of and fallen madly in love with long before he had ever met her. As it started to shift, he felt himself call out to her though he knew that she could not hear it, this was a dream after all and that meant that nothing within it was truly real no matter how much that he wished it was.
As the hours passed, Francine came into work to start her rounds, starting first with Nathan whom she was infatuated with but also in fear of because of how different he was, only the higher up staff knew the truth about the young man with the violet eyes and what happened during the full moon. She took him to the showers and waiting for him before escorting him back in his clean pajamas to await breakfast, watching as he crawled onto his bed in a catlike manner, picking up a book to read. She took her sweet time as she watched Jacques walk into the asylum, she was always uneasy around him and didn't know why, there was just something about him that made her skin crawl though she would never dare say such aloud, she had worked too hard to get to the position she was in now to be intimidated. She made her way to her least favorite corridor, opening up the door to Mary Alice's cell and sighing haughtily when she found her sleeping on the floor before walking over to her and pulling her up swiftly by the arm. "Up and at 'em, we're on my schedule not yours," she said, her voice dripping with disdain as she pulled Alice along the corridor.
Having been jarred awake, her vision was blurred and she found that she was unable to walk steadily because of how tired she had been, but staying up late to talk with him had been worth it as she showered under the cold stream of water and dressed in clean attire to be escorted back to her cell and locked in. She sat on the cleaned bed, hearing Joseph be taken to the showers next and sighed, she found that she missed him when he was far away from her like this, the seconds ticking by like minutes, the minutes passing like hours, it was almost unbearable to her as she played with the messy strands of her short hair. Her mind wandered back to the dreams that she had had, wondering what they meant, there were so many hidden meanings within them that she was not sure that she understood what had been real and what had been merely a dream during that time. She sighed softly, her mind a thousand miles away as the time passed by, waiting patiently for breakfast to come to once more be near the man that had started to steal her heart away to make it her own, she realized it now and the time just couldn't slip by fast enough.