A/N: Hello! Back again! Won't delay anymore: enjoy!
February 12 - 4 years after
Nesta's nearly out of breath when she knocks on Amorette's door, having practically sprinted from her house. Only half her mind had been present all day with Cassian and Ollie, and then with Avery and Nicky when they came home from nursery. As soon as they had put the children down to sleep, Nesta had told Cassian she was going to see Amorette for an hour or so, given him clear instructions on what to do if Ollie woke up coughing again, and bolted out the door.
Amorette appears almost instantly. "How's Ollie?" she asks, ushering Nesta inside.
"Fine," she says. "We've got a new tonic to give him. The usual, they said, slow development and weaker lungs, but now the healer says it'll even out by the time he's twelve." Nesta calms herself enough to grin-how can she not?
Amorette takes her hand and squeezes it. "That's wonderful, Nesta. What's wrong, then? Here," she adds, handing her a glass of wine.
Nesta downs half of it in one go before saying, "Cassian and I kissed last night."
Amorette's eyes widen. "Oh. Wow."
"Thanks. Anything else to contribute?"
"Well..." Amorette hesitates, then says cautiously, haltingly, "I'm not...quite sure what it is you want me to say."
Nesta tosses her hands up. "Anything other than the downward spiral that's been going around in my mind for the past eighteen hours would be welcome."
Amorette chuckles. "Well...did anyone catch you this time?"
"No, thank all."
"So..." Amorette swirls her wine in her glass. "You're spiralling because...you enjoyed it, I assume?"
Nesta straightens. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Nesta," she starts, then stops. Her small lips are set patiently and her blue eyes are gazing thoughtfully at a spot above Nesta's head. "Here's what I think. I think you should let yourself be happy."
Nesta tenses again. "What-"
"Nesta," Amorette says, moving closer to her on the couch and setting a hand on her thigh. "You kissed a male you are bringing up three children with. You liked it. You are bound to no one and nothing else besides the children. You have no blood ties to any land. You have no duties outside motherhood beside what you assign to yourself. You are free. At this point, Nesta, dear, there is nothing stopping you."
Nesta holds her hands tight against her middle. That can't be true, can it?
"Spell it out for me," Amorette says, not unkindly. "It'll help you sort through it all."
Distantly, Nesta nods. She's not looking at Amorette anymore, rather at the tiny details on the teal cushions. "Well, you're going to leave, aren't you?" She doesn't mean to sound so blunt; she's thrilled for and proud of her friend, off to a big Ciyaluck hospital to cure whatever horrible vaginal disease she's currently specializing in.
"I don't know yet. But you shouldn't count on me staying here," she says gently.
"So you're gone," Nesta says, almost to herself. "And then...the shop...we're looking to spread out. So I could be sent...oh, but I don't think that's what I want!" she exclaims.
"What's not what you want?"
"I don't want to leave! And I don't want you to leave, either, but I've got no say in that."
"I wouldn't go that far. You've got some say. I mean, if they ever make a formal offer-"
"When they make a formal offer-"
"I'm definitely going to want your opinion. But continue. You want to stay here."
"Cassian can't stay here, though," she says, the words falling so plainly and simply from her mouth. Amorette has that effect on her. She frowns a little-she's changed so much these past years, hasn't she? And yet, some things are still exactly the same. While she can admit to herself what she wants, she still can't bring herself to do anything about it.
"You want Cassian to stay here?"
"I mean..." Nesta rubs her forehead.
"Paint me a perfect picture," Amorette suggests.
"A perfect picture?" Nesta pauses, but really, she doesn't need to think about it. "You're here to stay. I'm here to stay. The shop is...doing as well as Adil wants it to, but I don't have to do any travel. My children go to school here. They learn to read. My sisters are here. Cassian is here."
"In what capacity?"
"In my capacity," Nesta says, then burns scarlet.
Amorette is patient. "And yourself? Besides being here."
"I'm...under control." She doesn't have to go to the lake anymore, in this perfect picture of hers. The magic inside of her is either gone or permanently dormant. She doesn't have to learn about it and she never worries it will rear its ugly head again.
"Zeyn is married to some nice girl," she adds.
Amorette smiles slightly. "Some nice girl?"
"Someone who makes him happy," she clarifies. Nice girls make people happy. Elain is a nice girl. Perhaps in this fantasy vision where her sisters live here in Sugar Valley, Zeyn falls in love with her. Nesta dwells on this image for a few moments: cheery people, leading peaceful, easy-going lives.
"I think it's time for you to make your feelings clear."
Nesta winces inwardly at the words. "Haven't I been clear enough?" she asks, knowing the answer.
"Evidently not."
What hurts her the most is that to her, her feelings for Zeyn are perhaps the only thing in her mind that is clear right now. Everything else is jumbled up, but with Zeyn, the one person who has always been nothing but good to her, in the most perfect way...
"I know," she mumbles. And it's not fair to him, truly. "I'll talk to him."
"Collect your thoughts," Amorette offers. "Tell me what you're going to say to him."
So she does, thinking all the while that even though this is only one of the two looming dramatic conversations she needs to have, it will still grant her monumental relief when it is over, alongside the inevitable pain.
May 16 - 1 year after
Every day of pregnancy seemed to be worse than the last, with every realization that her body seemed less and less like her own accompanied by the truly terrifying thought it would soon somehow expel three people from it, and that she was supposed to find someone or some way to care for these tiny people. Worse still, was the utter cheer of other Sugar Valley residents as they pointed this out to her.
"Won't be long now!" said Leyla, from Sugar Books.
"They can play together!" beamed Classia, a female from Prythian with her own baby.
The worst by far was what Zeyn said to her. "What if you had the babies today? You'd share a birthday!"
Nesta had jerked so hard she spilled some of the isti Zeyn had given her on her hand. "It's-it's too early," she stammered. If only because it wasn't, really; not for triplets.
"Suppose so," he had said, and proceeded to indiscreetly hint at whatever surprise he had planned for the day.
Nesta's birthday was not something that she had ever been fond of in a while. First, it was just one more year without her mother, then her family had lost their fortune and it was another day they couldn't afford to celebrate (though Elain tried-for each of them, every year), and then as a Fae it just felt pointless. What was special about the years passing by if they would never stop?
And this year, of course, she was so spectacularly unenthusiastic about the passage of time, for a myriad of reasons, but it didn't seem as though Zeyn had given her much choice, as he followed her home that day, holding a large bag of food.
How had he even found out about today, she wondered. And who were these guests he was going on about.
"You don't strike me the type who likes a surprise party," he said.
"I am not."
"So it's a dinner! Right here, in your house. You don't even have to go anywhere. And I'll cook! Well, Miri's cooking, too."
Nesta sighed inwardly. "Zeyn, thank you-"
"Don't thank me yet. You haven't seen the cake." He winked at her. "Your pots are this drawer?"
Cake was always good, at least. "On the right."
Nesta tried very hard not to think about her last birthday-and Zeyn did make it easy, regaling her with tales of his own celebrations. And then his "guests" arrived-turning out to be her fellow employees of the shop and her healer, Amorette.
Leyla complimented her on her decor. "I love the red," she said, pointing to the throw pillows Nesta picked out for her new couch.
"Thanks."
"You painted in here," she noted. "Are these all from Sugar Books?" she asked, referring to the slowly-growing collection on Nesta's bookshelves.
"Of course," she said. "Wouldn't want to throw away business elsewhere."
"Gracious," Leyla said. "I actually don't keep so many at home. I just...read whatever I want at the store, you know? Keep more room in the house for my things."
A valid way to live, Nesta thought, for an archivist, but she liked to own books. She never again wanted to live in illiterate squallor.
"Ooh, these are pretty," she said, turning to a set of glass berries she had purchased while visiting a neighboring town with Zeyn.
The rest of the evening mirrored her conversation with Leyla. Pleasant, calm. Not particularly exciting.
It was not what a heroine in a book would strive for, but normalcy was still a luxury. If a quiet dinner party was the most she got, was that really so bad? She had been hungry; starving. She had been unloved and entirely alone. Sharing a potato stew recipe with a neighbor was not one of the adventures she'd dreamed she'd have as a young girl, but having enough was so much more than what she had for a long time.
After her guests had helped clean up and she was putting herself to bed, arranging her pillows to support her head and belly, a few things became clear to her:
The first, Cassian and her sisters were not writing back. In retaliation for her leaving or ignoring them or whatever reason. If it had not happened tonight, it would not happen in the future.
The second, she could not go to Prythian and risk being turned away in person. She would not survive the mortification.
And the third, whether or not the children growing inside her were hers, she still owed them this much: she would not let them ever live as she had in that small village. They would not need to beg. If no one wanted to respond to her reaching out-fine. She was going to stop trying. She could waste her energy on this no longer.
You owe them this, she told herself sternly as she choked back tears.
She would be a model expecting mother, from now until birth.
After that...well, it was anybody's guess.
May 16 - year of
It was officially spring in Illyria, and that morning was the first since she arrived that Nesta thought she didn't have to don any outerwear. When she entered the kitchen, she saw Cassian didn't have on his uniform with the thicker sleeves, either-although he was wearing a smirk.
"What?" she asked, scowling.
He shrugged and passed her a glass of orange juice, but his expression didn't change.
"I'm going to be late," she said shortly. Which was not true, but her skin felt too hot at the idea of staying here.
"Have a good day," he called after her. She mumbled something in response.
She tried to dissect the situation logically in her mind. The only way Cassian could know her birthday was if either she or Feyre or Elain had told him. She had not, there could not be more than a sixty-six percent chance of him knowing. Since she wasn't entirely positive Feyre knew her birthday, that lowered it, too. But surely when Elain was brought into the equation, that raised it indisputably, because Elain would never let Nesta have her birthday without a celebration. Then again, she probably would have sent her a gift, or at least another one of her letters, wouldn't she? But Cassian always left them for her on the table, and no new ones had been added in the past week or so. Perhaps she had sent it early? Or Cassian had hid this one? No, they were in a good place; if ever she suspected him of reading her mail, now would not be the time. But what if Cassian had told her sisters she was ignoring their letters...and now they were coming here? Was that why he had smirked at her? Was all of this some-some joke? The rapport they had between them now, was that nothing? After feeling settled here, finally, with a job she actually enjoyed, were they planning on dragging her back to Velaris? Well, she had news for them-
"You know, you look particularly cross today, considering it's your birthday," Emerie said, interrupting her chain of thoughts.
Nesta blinked. "How do you know it's my birthday?"
Emerie shrugged a little. "You're the High Lady's sister. I think it's common knowledge."
Nesta put down her pen. "It is?"
"Yes. I have this chocolate for you. It's got those nuts you like in it." Emerie handed her the blue-wrapped rectangle. "I assume you already have dinner plans."
"Thank you," she said, taking the chocolate gingerly. The same brand Cassian had once given her. "And no. Not that I'm aware of."
Emerie huffed in amusement and rolled her eyes. "All right. Sure."
Nesta whipped around and began busying herself with rearranging some stacks of paper until she was sure the red in her cheeks had disappeared. "I haven't made any plans."
"Romantic dinners are supposed to be a surprise, are they not?"
"There aren't any romantic dinners." Her entire face must be crimson.
"All right," Emerie said again, in the same tone as before.
"Are we investing in swimwear this year?"
"You can leave early, if you want some extra time to get ready," Emerie said, in the closest thing to teasing Nesta had ever heard from her.
She did not stay early. Instead, she stayed as late as she possibly could, until Emerie physically ushered her out of the store.
"Honestly, he's not going to bite you," she said while locking the door behind Nesta.
Of course not. And they ate dinner together all the time-sometimes with Emerie, and sometimes he was away, but most times were just the two of them. That wasn't new. But Nesta had had a whole day to think about what would happen if Elain or Feyre were waiting for her when she arrived, and she didn't like any scenario she imagined.
Though it took her significantly longer than usual, she did force herself to trudge back, craving for the first time in a while a drink.
She steeled herself before she opened the door. She did that slowly, too, letting her shadow fall in before taking a step inside, and watching it lengthen before picking her head up to survey the house.
There were no decorations-no vines of flowers that Elain used to drape or multicolored faelights the people in Prythian used. Wait-there on the table, between two table settings, was one, glowing a pale pink.
"I was beginning to think you had gotten tied up with the new rope," Cassian said.
She turned and looked up at him. "What?"
"Your new rope. At the shop."
"Oh."
"Tied up with the rope. It's a joke."
"Oh...yes. Very funny." Were those new plates? She didn't recognize them. And what was that bottle on the table? It couldn't be champagne. There was no way he would give her any.
Cassian snorted. "You seem really amused. Come sit. I kept the food warm."
She squinted down at the floor when he pulled her chair out for her.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Fine. Thank you," she added, as he ladled some duck onto her plate. Her favorite, the kind he made with the lemon.
"You have nothing to be scared of, you know."
"I'm not scared."
"Sure. That's the face you make when you're comfortable."
She scowled at him before straightening and relaxing into what she hoped was a smile, but at his laugh she guessed was more of a grimace.
"Come on, Nesta, give me some credit. I haven't mentioned anything, have I?" His tone was laughing but the slight crease between his eyes told her he was uncertain.
"I don't mind that it's my birthday," she said, offhand and ever-casual.
He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Really," she said, pausing to swallow some duck. "I mean. I don't really see the point in birthdays anymore. But it's not...whatever. I don't really care either way."
"Well, if you don't care either way..." he grinned at her. "Humor me, will you?"
She rolled her eyes. "What do you want from me?"
"Minimal to no effort on you part, I promise." He shook his head slightly as he uncorked the bottle of bubbling amber liquid. Nesta caught a whiff as he poured it into two flutes-definitely not alcohol. Far too sweet. But she took it when he handed it to her, albeit hid her smile.
"When I first met you..." he started, then trailed off. "We didn't get off to a good start the first time. Or the second time." His eyes darted around the room a bit before meeting hers again. "I have the Mother to thank for not messing up the middle of my second chance. I know you don't believe in Her, so I'm not sure what it was that convinced you to go along with it, but I thank that too."
Nesta didn't move for the next few moments. Neither did he. They only looked at each other until he started again.
"I'm not sure I know how to quantify in words what these past few months have been, but...I suppose I'm going to have to try-" here he paused to laugh, and her own lips tugged upwards slightly-"so...they have been...wonderfully unexpected." He paused again, opening his mouth a few times before finally saying, "When you're really there...when you don't give up on yourself? You're the most incredible person in the world. And I...am grateful to a lot. For everything. Happy birthday, Nesta," he finished, clinking his glass against hers.
He had it to his lips, tilting his head back, when he paused. "You're not going to drink?" he asked, for she still had not moved.
"It's poor etiquette to drink to one's own toast," she said softly.
"Oh." He put his glass down.
"You can still...drink...if you..."
He was hesitating now, his finger outstretched towards her but still very much on the table. His eyes lowered from hers to her lips back to his glass. He was going to drink now, make her toast to him so she would be allowed to drink, and then he would make fun of her for following the etiquette rules, and that would be the end of it.
The vision of the rest of the night played so vividly in Nesta's mind just then, as he lifted his hand. The night that would play into tomorrow, and the next day, and the next...nice and pleasant and nothing more.
And although she could have sworn on her mother's grave just that morning that birthdays did not matter to her...perhaps that was the reason why tonight, she decided she wanted-more.
So she grabbed his hand before he could touch his glass, and his gaze shifted starkly to her. He opened his mouth to say something, but this time, she was faster, making good use of her inhuman speed for the first time. Standing in front of him while he sat on the chair, they were about the same height. She was even a bit taller. Her left hand was still clutching his right. But her right was on the back of his neck, and before she could lose her nerve, her mouth was on his.
It was chaste, small. Quiet and soft. The same way she might kiss the top of his head.
She opened her eyes before she stepped back, still so close their eyelashes touched.
He wasn't saying anything.
Her mind went blank. It was times like these she envied the Fae and their pantheon, her sister's newfound faith, for she desperately wished she had some higher power to call upon to intervene now.
She drew her hands back to her chest. "I'm...I don't know what came over me," she said-or tried to say. Her voice caught, coming out barely a whisper. "I'm-"
He stood up, nearly knocking the table over. His arm shot out to still his glass before it tipped. She blinked at the sudden movement, and then he was kissing her again.
It was decidedly less chaste this time.
Less chaste, perhaps, but still soft. He held her delicately; very close against him, but his hands were gentle. She almost could not reconcile this tenderness with what she had seen him do in battle. Almost.
Her courage tonight had shocked her, but it was running out. She didn't want to push him any further than he went himself, so she tried to meet him with the same sort of caresses as he was stroking down her back, loosening her hair. But it proved a more difficult task than she could've imagined. How could she not tug his hair when her hand was wrapped in it? How could she not claw at his shoulders, his back, when her nails were quite possibly the only thing that would allow her to stay tethered to this moment? And how could she not lock her leg around his waist in an attempt to hoist herself upwards when she-well-when she wanted to?
Nesta may have been able to, in the right setting, deny her cravings for drink, but this was different. Cassian was sweeter than wine. And his hand fit perfectly against the small of her back...oh, would he not move it? Did he not feel this same rush of heat throughout his body?
Evidently he did not, because just then he broke apart from her, and breathed out, rushed, "That's your souffle."
Nesta blinked. She lowered her leg. "What?"
"The timer. I have a souffle..." He unhooked her arms from around his neck and turned, rather mechanically, to the kitchen.
She rubbed at her forehead. He must have...that wasn't one-sided. It was not. He was just...he just still had the presence of mind to not burn the house down. That was all.
"Here," he said, placing it on the table.
Did he want them to sit back down? Was he serious.
"Bit early for dessert," she said dryly.
"It is not," he said. "You were late for dinner."
"Hm."
He sat down. Nesta wanted to die.
So that was...all right. Fine.
She would just-well. She would. Move. She supposed. She tried to tell herself this calmly. Nothing was wrong. Just-the worst mistake of her life, and she would move in with Emerie. Everything was fine, and she didn't need to rush to her room or outside or slit her own throat-
"Hey, Nesta," he said, interrupting her slippery slope to suicide. "Sit with me." He pulled her chair next to him and yanked her into it.
He threw an arm around her and covered his face with the other. Nesta kept her own folded in her lap, her jaw locked, and her face pointed downwards, so it was a moment before she realized he was shaking with laughter.
"All right," she said angrily, standing up. "I'm-"
"What! Nesta!" He pulled her back, forcing her to look up at him. "Why are you-what's wrong!"
He couldn't even make his voice go up, so overcome with the stupid grin on his face, laughter still lacing his voice. She latched onto her anger the same way she latched onto his shoulders, because otherwise, she would cry. And tonight would not end with Cassian seeing her cry.
"Stop laughing," she snarled.
His eyes widened. His laugh turned surprised. "But I'm happy! Sorry, Nesta, we can't all keep our emotions clean off our face! Not all of us learned how!" He shook his head, still grinning.
Nesta stilled. Her fists relaxed. "You're happy?"
"Are you out of your mind? Of course I'm happy."
She couldn't bring herself to look in his eyes. "Then why did you stop?"
"So that your souffle wouldn't burn."
Was he really as stupid as she first thought he was in her family's estate? "Then why are we sitting at the table?" she said through gritted teeth.
He laughed again. At her this time, she knew it. "Oh, no, sweetheart-look at me. I just...I don't want to mess this up, all right? We don't have the greatest track record. I think it would be better if we went slowly."
They had been going slowly, had they not? And why did slowly have to mean they weren't allowed to have sex, anyway? Why did sex have to be the endgame? And who was he, to make these executive decisions?
"I'm not going to lie to you, I'm thrilled that you seem to hate that."
"Shut up," she snapped.
"Happy birthday. Really. And a happy Wednesday to me. Ouch," he added when she pinched him.
"Hush," she said, but without most of her bite.
He kissed the top of her head. "Happy birthday," he said again, softly.
And it seemed as though it was.
February 13 - 4 years after
"Are you absolutely sure?" Adil is asking her.
"Positive," Nesta replies firmly. "Cassian is at home and the healer said there's no reason to expect anything amiss as long as we give Ollie the tonic as she instructed. It's just a few hours in Chokecherry. We'll be back before dinner."
"I can go with Maz," Zeyn says.
Nesta rolls her eyes. "Please. This is important."
Zeyn laughs, but Adil doesn't look any less anxious. "Are you sure?" he asks her again.
"Do you want it in writing?"
"Just-go, then. And...hurry back." Adil gives her an odd look.
Zeyn shakes his head. "Let's go, then," he says, and heads out to meet the carriage.
"Nesta," Adil says, when he is out of earshot. "Do...what's right for you. He can take it." He gives her a short nod before walking away.
Zeyn will take it, she knows. It'll hurt, yes, but ultimately it's not him she's worried about. Nesta knows that someone losing her isn't too bad as she doesn't have so much to offer in the first place. But what is she going to do if she loses Zeyn as a friend?
June 12 - year of
Nesta knew she had not had the happiest life, what with her mother dying young, her father all but abandoning her and then dying too, losing her sister twice to the Wall, watching her other sister be violated in the most horrifying way she could imagine and then experiencing the same violation herself...but even if at all had been a walk in a rose garden up until this point, she still thought the past month would've won the title of best of her life.
They had been going as slow as Cassian deemed necessary, yes, but even then, it was still a high she had not ever experienced. While their tentative friendship had included spending most of their downtime together, the ante had been upped considerably. Cassian was now always sitting next to her, always touching her. He was not always talking, but he was certainly talking a lot. About everything. The trace memories of his mothers (in such detail she felt they were her own), meeting Rhys for the first time (she took great joy in knowing Cassian had loathed him at one point), and, consistently spurring an onslaught of emotion she was never sure she enjoyed or not, her. About her hair and her skin and her hips (a rather lot about her hips, actually), and about things she did that she didn't think there was anything to note.
"I love when you're preparing to flip a page in your book," he had said to her laughingly one night.
"What?"
"Like when you're still reading that page-" he punctuated this with a point at her book "-but you can't stand the wait of the second it takes you to flip the page, so you start lifting it as you're finishing reading it, so you can start the next page immediately after finishing that one."
She rolled her eyes, but she no longer fought to hide when her face flushed around him.
Nights had been spent separately, at first. But towards the end of May, he had gone for a short trip to Velaris, and when he had come back, they had started sleeping in the same bed.
She hadn't expected him to come home in the middle of the night. He never had before. So when he had been gone two days, she figured he would be there tomorrow afternoon. But she still missed him, missed his scent, and she didn't see the harm in sleeping in his bed
He woke her up when he came back that night, just past three.
"I missed you too," he whispered. "So I left as soon as I could."
She meant to say You didn't have to do that or Don't be ridiculous but instead she had only mumbled "good" and fallen back asleep against him, to the sound of his low chuckle.
There was no sex yet, to her eternal disappointemnt, but still. A girl could do worse than sleeping next to Cassian every night.
In mid-June, when they come back from another trip to a neighboring camp-he told her nobody terrified the lords like she did-Emerie was waiting for her at the shop, a slight smirk on her face.
Nesta glared to keep from blushing. Emerie had walked in on her and Cassian in the supply closet last week, and-well.
"How was your mission, Lieutenant?"
"It wasn't a mission. I'm no one's lieutenant. We should mark these coats down. People will still buy last season's coats in June if they're marked down."
"Well, either you're his lieutenant on official Night Court Military business or he just made up a reason to bring you along."
"Do you want your shop to go under or not? Mark these down," she snapped.
But Emerie only laughed. Really laughed. Emerie. "It's good to see you like this."
"I'm not like anything."
"Sorry. Could've sworn you were happy."
Nesta only made a show of rifling through some papers.
Emerie rolled her eyes and gathered the coats out of the closet. "You seemed happy when I found you in here last week," she said under her breath.
Nesta jerked her head up. She was never going to live that down.
June 1 - year after
Two weeks after her vow to herself and her unborn children, Nesta was deeply regretting it.
Her due date was rapidly approaching-Amorette guessed the second week of July at the very latest-and her body was not up to the task.
"It's not that you're not strong enough," Amorette had insisted. "It's that your body knows to focus on what matters. What matters right now is preparing yourself for labor."
So other things were deemed inconsequential by Nesta's body-like walking, apparently.
Bed rest. From now till labor.
She was allowed to go to the kitchen and spend a grand total of thirty minutes outside each day, but other than that, she wasn't to move. And Amorette checked up on her.
And so did Zeyn. Sometimes bringing along Miri or Leyla, sometimes joined by Adil, but he was there. Every day, without fail.
He brought her new books to work on from her bed, and sometimes things to read. He told her he didn't want her standing up to cook so he prepared meals for her and brought them to her bed. He never failed to offer her a back rub or to draw a bath.
Nesta wasn't stupidly argumentative. If her healer told her she needed bedrest, she would go on bedrest. But some of the protective measures were ridiculous-if she felt okay standing up, didn't that mean she was allowed to?
"You always say to listen to my body," Nesta complained to Amorette during one home visit.
"Well, normally your body speaks your language. You listen to me for now. Next pregnancy you'll know what to do."
"You take that back," Nesta snapped as Amorette laughed.
"You have a taker, at any rate."
She didn't answer. Yes, it was painfully obvious now, Zeyn's feelings for her. She was almost embarrassed to be accepting his help so brazenly, but what else was she supposed to do when she was all but forbidden to move and he carried plates of roasted squash to her room?
He had tried to bring up the subject of the children's father and she had firmly steered the conversation away. She was by no means ready to discuss that. But perhaps that would help...make it clear where her feelings were.
In the meantime...she felt devious doing so, and cruel, but she let him sit by her. She tried to make herself as unappealing as possible-although how she looked right now should have done it-but she didn't want to be...well...mean. She was naturally short-tempered enough that some of it came naturally to her.
Everyone who had liked Nesta prior to Sugar Valley had had to work at it. What was in the water here that made her attractive to these people? Perhaps it was the jam.
February 13 - 4 years after
Neither Nesta nor Zeyn are pleased to see that Chokecherry's bookstore is doing well, but they do take solace in the fact that their newest publication isn't selling as much as they had clearly expected it to, judging by the marketing all around the town. Zeyn even manages to chat up a local author and slip them Sugar Books' card.
He comes back to sit with her on a bench. She hands him a sandwich she bought him.
"Guess we have to go back now," he says. "Kind of a shame. I'd like to spend the night here, actually. Maz told me they have a diner here with a breakfast better than Jamal's."
Nesta supposes that's as good an opportunity to segue as she'll get. "Maybe...you should stay here."
"Oh, calm down. I'm not saying their diners are better than ours."
"No," she says, swallowing, "that's not what I mean. I mean...I need you to understand, Zeyn, that when we go back to Sugar Valley...we're not going together."
His smile falters. "You're going somewhere else?"
"No." If she dropped dead she wouldn't have to have this conversation, right? But Zeyn deserves better, she reminds herself, and so she forces herself to continue. "Zeyn. When I came here...you saved my life."
He stills. He's not smiling anymore.
"You never stopped being lovely, right from the beginning. Even when I wasn't. And as if that wasn't enough, all your kindness when I arrived and your incredible generosity during my pregnancy...you were everything with the children. You-" Nesta stops to catch her breath. She sees Zeyn's eyes start to fill with tears and she can feel some pricking in her own. "Everyday I could tell myself if I wasn't good enough, they would still have you and Miri and Adil. You're their family. You'll always be the first male they ever loved.
"And I have...bastardized that. Because of my own cowardice. You found the strength to give everything to a bitter, pregnant female, and then her children, every day for three years...and I could never find the nerve to tell you what you deserve to know. I-I'm not in love with you, Zeyn." She sobbed a little, but forced herself to maintain eye contact with him. "I never will be. I'm sorry. You're-it's not-you're the most wonderful, greatest-"
"Please don't," he says immediately, voice hoarse. "Please don't-don't tell me I'm the greatest right now."
She wipes at her eyes. "I...suppose that's fair." She pauses to catch her breath. "Can I-can I tell you that I love you and that I want you to be happy?"
He manages a laugh. "Of course."
"And...I'm sorry."
"No. Don't."
"I would..." Nesta stops to take a shaky breath. "People get what they deserve in this world. There's a balance. That's what your Cauldron says."
"Yes."
"So one day...I swear to you, Zeyn, you're going to have someone just perfect for you."
"Nesta..."
"I've been to more places than you, right? It's a really big world out there. She's there. And I swear to you...when you have children...I'll try and give them everything you gave mine."
There is silence except for Nesta's muffled cries for an unbearable two minutes. Then Zeyn says softly, "They...I always loved them as I would my own."
"Please don't stop."
"Of course I won't!" He looks at her, appalled.
"I didn't mean that you would," she says hurriedly. "Just-I don't want you to." How best to phrase this? "I know...you might need time. But...I'll be here when you're ready."
Zeyn laughs bitterly. She's never heard him like that before. "That's what I told myself when I first fell in love with you."
Another tear slips down Nesta's face. He really is so good. She really does not-she would not be right for him! Even if Cassian had never come back!
"I'll go now, then," she says quietly, and stands up to leave.
He doesn't call her back and she doesn't turn.
Nesta doesn't pray much. She doesn't see the point-the Cauldron hated her, so if indeed it is the product of some omniscient Mother, shouldn't She as well? But in that moment, Nesta knows there's nothing she wouldn't beg to grant Zeyn peace, and a friendship with him again one day.
A/N: Well, that was certainly a lot! I'd love to hear your thoughts:)