A/N: Thanks for the reviews, and sorry for the confusion—Realizations was never meant to be a one-shot. This chapter is the second of three.
Chloe signs the letter with a quivering hand and seals it carefully in an envelope. She plans to deliver it to Senel the next day, before she leaves for Gadoria. She expects to find him sleeping, and knows he will remain so until she is hours away from the Legacy. That is precisely her intent, for once she leaves the letter, she doesn't know how much time it will take to gather the courage to face him again. She does know that it will be long.
Morning comes. Chloe walks the path to Senel's house, and never before has it seemed quite so long. She enters quietly, despite knowing all too well that waking Senel would be near impossible even if she were to attempt it. Nervously, she places her hand on the door handle that he himself has touched so many times.
The door is never locked. If it were, no one could come to rouse Senel from his sleep in the mornings, and he would waste away afternoons in a lazy slumber without a thought to his duties. Chloe smiles at the thought.
Senel sleeps deeply, resting flat on his back with his tired head tilted a ways to the side, eyes peacefully closed. Chloe pauses for a moment to remember this sight, to take in the sound of his breathing and the gentle motion of his chest rising and falling and the sight of his unruly white hair tousled against the pillow. She strains to immortalize each small detail that makes up Senel in her mind, for this is the last she will see of him for weeks.
Hands trembling, she places the letter beside him. She whispers a faint farewell as she tiptoes away from the one she lives her whole life for in secret, knowing that nothing will be the same between them when she returns. Whether the change will be for better or worse, she can't say.
It is not until early in the afternoon that Senel wakes, the sound of Shirley's melodious laugh echoing in his ears. He sleeps so soundly, she says, that Chloe somehow managed to make her way inside his house and leave a letter mere inches from his face without waking him. And yes, it must have been Chloe, for the envelope reads in shaky black cursive "Coolidge," the name only she uses for him. Perhaps it is a goodbye letter, words to remember her by until she returns. Perhaps it is something more.
Senel puts the letter in his pocket. For now, there are monsters he must exterminate. The morning hunt has passed already. He has no time for letters.
The beasts surrounding Werites Beacon are many, and the envelope remains sealed until late in the evening, when Senel opens it without expectation.
He stares at it for what could be hours, unable to process the words before his eyes. How could Chloe have felt this way, and he not have known? He has fought beside Chloe through the toughest of times, and shared conversations and moments completely unknown to their other friends. He thought he knew her better than anyone. Perhaps he had been wrong.
Was it possible? He knew her doubts, her fears, her past. And yet… he hadn't known this. He couldn't have known her at all.
Senel does not sleep soundly that night.
Lying still beneath the sheets, he is consumed by thoughts of the letter, and the strong yet vulnerable girl who pained to bare her feelings in it. He thinks back to all the times she has left him in confusion, without a clue to why she would act the way she did. He can finally make sense of them now. Chloe loves him.
She loves him, and it's clear that she thinks he doesn't return the feelings. The letter itself is weighed down by defeat, as if she expects him to recoil with shock immediately upon reading it. He is indeed shocked, but not in the way she would think.
He doesn't know what to think.
Senel has changed, the others say. He no longer sleeps heavily, now waking at even the faintest noise from outside his window. He loses himself in memories far more often than ever, and appears content to stay in his room for hours at a time doing nothing of note. The mention of Chloe's name stirs up a jumble of unreadable emotions rarely seen in him, and no one can imagine why. Does he simply miss her? Has she told him something unknown to the others? She is going to Gadoria on a visit, is she not? Surely, after all their experiences together, she could not have chosen to embark alone on some reckless pursuit that Senel has promised to keep a secret?
Senel will not say a thing. He has not been so distant, so emotionally shut, since he first came to the Legacy. He spends his time apart from the others, doing what they can only presume to be thinking.
He thinks of the time Chloe nearly drowned in the Waterways, having neglected to admit that she had never been taught to swim. She was terribly ashamed by it, and especially upset that he had been the one to find out, as if this small shortcoming would somehow detract from her worth in his eyes. He didn't think any less of her for it. He just wished she could learn to accept her flaws in the same way, rather than condemning herself for every fault she could find. It wasn't even as if she had many of them to begin with.
He thinks of the time they trained together at her request. Until that time, he hadn't realized how reassuring it was to fight alongside another, to have someone looking out for him as he did the same for her. She revealed the past she had hidden from the group, and he shared with her the memories of Stella he had long kept locked away. He realized then their unspoken partnership, somehow closer than what they shared with the others. They had something, the two of them. He just hadn't known then what it was.
He thinks of the time she slapped him in the face. She had leaned toward him with unreadable eyes before swiftly raising a hand and smacking him, hard. It hurt like hell, and nothing could have helped him more. Stella's death had held him prisoner, forcing him back with whys and what-ifs that threatened to forever block his way forward. Stella was his past, he accepted this now. And he owed it all to the bitter sting of her battle-worn palm against his cheek.
He thinks of the time he exhausted every last shred of his strength to stop her from racing after Arnold and carrying out the revenge she had chased for so long. She triumphed over him in her determined rage, and cut him so deeply he thought he would never wake to see her again. It was all he could have done to try and change her mind. He had to prevent her from striking the blow that would haunt her life forever, even if the attempt could cost him his own. And even as his very surroundings began to blur, he still called out to her not to go. He had been mortally wounded, and he hadn't thought of himself. Not once.
He thinks of the time they stood together in the woods, rain falling softly on their shoulders. He knew that, at the very least, he should be wary of the girl who had fiercely impaled him just hours ago, nearly ending his life with one skilled thrust of her sword. At the very least, he should have been angry with her, considering she had left him lying in his own blood as she rushed to carry out her ambition. But all he could do was stand contentedly as her pillar of strength as she rested her exhausted self upon him and gave in to the tears she had held back for so long. After all she had done, his action was to support her. He had always supported her.
Senel comes to a realization. He loves her.
Chloe has not changed, as far as she can tell. The letter, difficult as it was for her to write, has not made her a stronger person. It has not helped her purge any feelings for Senel, nor has it helped her decide on a clear course of action concerning them. It has not caused her to grow in any way. She is the same as always. And like always, she passes a fair bit of time reminiscing about moments with Senel and thinking.
Her thoughts do little to comfort her. Leaving the letter may not have been a wise decision after all, she now realizes. He always seemed to feel for her, but those feelings may not run as deep as she hopes. After all, has he ever shown himself to care for her beyond friendship? She can't recall a single time.
She thinks of the time he rescued her as she fought to stay afloat in the Waterways, sinking deeper and deeper with each useless movement. He didn't even begin to make fun of her, her inability to swim had been so pathetic, and he thought it even worse that she hadn't been able to admit it. He came to see her insecurities, ones he never should have known about. Ones that could only make her look worse in his eyes.
She thinks of the time she gripped him tightly in fear, standing over an ocean that threatened to swallow her up at any minute. He told her that she couldn't drown, that it was only an illusion, and that was all that had happened. He was anything but affected as she clutched his shoulders for dear life—not excited, not embarrassed, not moved whatsoever by the same closeness between them that brought a blush to her face and took away her very breath. He didn't feel a thing.
She thinks of the time he settled in his new house, and they all gathered there for lunch. She worked tirelessly to make her dishes perfect, though cooking had never been something she cared about in the least. She finally saw an opportunity to be the girl he wanted rather than the knight he ignored, but all her effort went unnoticed. He didn't think to try her cooking. He barely even spoke to her during the meal. It wasn't surprising, when she thought about it. He paid her most heed when they were fighting towards a common goal. Off the battlefield, she may as well not be there at all.
She thinks of the time she regrets like no other. He put his life on the line to stop her from making an irreversible mistake, and her response was to put her sword through his abdomen. He could never prefer the one who had left him for dead to the one who had been there to save his life. There was no way.
She thinks of the time they stood together in the rain. She wanted nothing more than to confess her feelings then, but he stood so quietly and indifferently that she knew that doing so would only ruin their time together. She leaned herself against him, silently begging him to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he didn't respond. In the moment that had so greatly affected her, all he had seemed to notice was the weather.
Chloe comes to a realization. He could not possibly love her.
She thinks that Senel doesn't love her. But he does, he knows this now, and he wants to tell her everything. Knowing her as well as he does, it's probably hurting her every day. He wants to make Chloe see exactly how he feels, to take his most trusted partner into his arms and tell her that all her doubts are wrong, that he cares for her far beyond the boundaries of a friendship. He wants Chloe to come home.
Chloe doesn't want to come home. She has made a terrible mistake, expressing feelings that Senel could not possibly return. She can't pretend to be strong as Senel tells her that he's sorry, but he doesn't feel the same. She just can't.
Both count the days until Chloe's scheduled return finally arrives.
Senel has been waiting for this day for weeks. He has decided not to wait for Chloe with the others. He will meet her later, so he can tell her how he feels in private.
Chloe has been dreading this day for weeks. She can imagine what Senel will tell her, and she cannot bear to hear the words.
"I've chosen Shirley," he will say. "I thought you knew that."
Chloe does not board the ship.
Three hours later, Shirley comes to visit Senel with news. Chloe did not get off the ship.
The others are worried. They assume something has happened to Chloe. Finally, Jay calms them. If something had happened to Chloe, he would know about it, for he knows everything, after all.
They ask him, then, why Chloe has not come home. He doesn't know.
Shirley wants to know if the letter said anything. Will asks, Chloe left a letter? Why didn't you mention it? What did it say?
Everything, Senel says as he fingers the torn paper. It told him everything he needed.
Senel knows where Chloe is, in more ways than one. He understands her, and he can say this now with certainty. He knows she does not want to face him. He knows she is worried about how the letter will change their relationship, for the letter says this itself. He knows she doubts herself so much, in spite of her strength and integrity, and she probably now regrets leaving him the letter in the first place.
Senel does not regret the letter. It sits in his pocket well-worn, folded and unfolded hundreds of times.
Chloe could not have written a worse letter, he thinks rather honestly. The letter is pained and depressing and written with the foregone conclusion that he doesn't care for her and probably never will. But it has done more than she ever thought it would.
He decides to take the next ship to Gadoria, leaving in one week's time.
Senel arrives at the port early that fateful day, for he has found a purpose far more important than his desire to stay in bed. The Gadorian ship will be landing. He expects to make the journey across the sea and search until he finds her.
He didn't expect that she would find him first.
