Writer's Note: Thank you for your reviews/comments! I hope you all had a good weekend. Alas, Dr Hopper wasn't a Once Upon a Time reference (if it's not MSec, chances are I'm not watching it). I was doing something else with the names though, so there's kind of an Easter egg inception thing going on with Laineyvb131's 'Runaway'. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this chapter! (I think...)
Chapter Thirteen
People often talked of the souls of soulmates being like two halves of an amulet, shattered and one day destined to rejoin. Elizabeth thought that analogy clichéd—which it was—but as she lay there, curled up against Henry's side, all her jagged edges absorbed by him, the fit so perfect that it hid every last fracture line, feeling for the first time in her life that she was whole, she conceded that, clichéd as it was, the sense of completeness that analogy alluded to was true.
Early morning sunlight shone through and around the curtains, filling Henry's bedroom with a soft golden glow. Elizabeth lay with her cheek rested to Henry's shoulder, his arm loosely slung around her, her legs still tangled with his. The Ink kitten had awoken at the same time she did; it had opened one eye and peered at her from where it lay over Henry's heart, the Ink puppy curled around it, and then had closed that eye again and nestled back down. With the warmth that Henry radiated, the snugness of the bed contrasting sharply with the chill in the room, she could quite easily go back to sleep too, but she needed to pee and brushing her teeth hadn't exactly been a priority last night when they'd stumbled through the doorway into his bedroom, their lips and tongues engaged in other activities, so her mouth felt furry and the lingering taste of cola needed attending to.
She eased herself away from Henry's side, careful not to wake him, and then slipped out from between the sheets and padded over to the bathroom. Her toes curled into the cold floorboards, and a shiver rippled through her bare skin, causing the muscles at the back of her neck to tighten.
When she returned, bladder emptied, mouth rinsed with a quick swig of Listerine, leaving her tongue still feeling furry but at least minty-fresh, she found Henry lying in the exact same position, still sound asleep. A sly smile crept to her lips, a sense of pride filling her chest at the thought that she'd worn him out—and how she'd worn him out. Not that she had anything to compare it to, but soulmate sex was most certainly worth the hype. Henry seemed to agree. And although she definitely wasn't jealous of his previous girlfriends, she couldn't deny a slight smug satisfaction at the knowledge that she'd swept any thoughts of those For Nows from his mind.
By the time they'd collapsed onto the mattress, their bodies slick with each other's sweat, hearts pounding, chests heaving for breath, Henry had been so tired that he'd barely managed to mumble his promise of pancakes for breakfast against the nape of her neck before, a second later, he succumbed to sleep. The memory of the promised pancakes caused her stomach to rumble—after all, extracurricular activities required extra calories. She daren't make a start on the pancakes on her own, though—the sound of the smoke detector blaring and the smell of his apartment going up in flames probably wasn't what he'd like to awaken to—but she could manage the coffee. Possibly.
She tiptoed over to the large wooden dresser at the end of the bed. A duffle bag sat on the floor next to it, half packed and zipper open. Going home for the holidays, perhaps. She would ask him over breakfast. They could chat while they ate, and then once they'd refuelled maybe they would head back to bed for another round or two, and after that…who knew. Normally, the uncertainty would make her feel uneasy—she liked to know what she was doing and when she was doing it, she liked to feel in control—but a frisson of excitement buzzed in her chest at the prospect of finding a new path with Henry, one where she could love and be loved and never be alone.
She eased open the top drawer of the dresser, but it held only balled-up pairs of socks and folded boxers and briefs, so she slid it shut again. Then she moved to the next drawer down. The oak squeaked as she pulled it open, and at the sound, she paused, her pulse quickening. She glanced back over her shoulder. The Ink kitten blinked at her from its place over Henry's heart, as if to say, Do you mind? Some of us are trying to sleep, but Henry and the Ink puppy were still out cold. She returned to the open drawer and then, at the sight of all the t-shirts inside, she frowned.
It wasn't the t-shirts themselves that made her frown—that's what she'd been looking for, along with some pants or shorts or something so that she wouldn't be wandering around his kitchen in the nude—but the emblem and text on the chests of the tees made no sense. Each one bore the EGA insignia of the US Marine Corps, and the lettering beneath confirmed: USMC ROTC.
But why would Henry have ROTC Marines uniform?
Unless…
Her chest tightened and the pit of her stomach turned sour.
No.
He couldn't be.
She'd told him what had happened after her parents and Chris. He'd promised her he'd never leave her and that she'd never lose him. So, he couldn't be.
And yet, the olive drab t-shirts continued to stare up at her, their text and insignias goading.
It had to be a mistake. There had to be some explanation.
She abandoned the dresser, the drawer still lolling open, and stepping over last night's outfit and matching red underwear that lay on the floor, she strode over to the closet.
The closet door opened with a creak. Inside, near the middle, sandwiched amidst the flannel shirts and denim jackets, hung the Blue Dress uniform of the Marines.
The clench in her chest tightened; it felt like she couldn't breathe.
But that didn't mean the uniform was his. Right? He could be storing it for a friend. Right…?
Her gaze darted to the photographs tacked to the inside of the closet door. Henry had arranged them haphazardly, a spiral of rectangular blocks rather than the neat grid she would have opted for. The image in the centre showed two rows of young men—the row in front kneeling, the row behind standing—all wearing olive drab tees and cammies. Near the middle of the first row was Henry.
Her heart ached and sank with the weight of inevitability.
He really was in the military.
She'd known this would happen, she'd known better than to let herself get close to him, and yet she'd let him win her over, she'd let herself believe that this time things would be different, and now she was going to end up losing someone else she loved, now she was going to end up going through that pain all over again.
She couldn't.
She wouldn't.
She grabbed her clothes from the floor and yanked them on as fast as she could, leaving the band of her panties twisted and digging into the flesh of her hips and her bra straps tangled. She didn't care; her dress covered them—and her coat would cover the unzipped back of her dress.
She crept over to the side of the bed and then laid her palm flat next to Henry's heart.
The Ink kitten looked up at her and miaowed—a long, silent miaow—and then it rested its chin to the Ink puppy's back and closed its eyes again.
"Come on," Elizabeth muttered, and she gave the Ink kitten a swift tug using her Ink sense.
But the Ink kitten nestled further into the Ink puppy's side and refused to budge.
"Come on. Or I'm leaving you behind."
The Ink kitten ignored that, perhaps believing the threat to be empty—which it was.
"Fine." Elizabeth gave another tug, much harder this time, and the Ink kitten lurched away from the Ink puppy's side.
The Ink kitten scrabbled for purchase and yowled, trying to claw its way back to its resting place over Henry's heart, but Elizabeth dragged it across Henry's skin and over onto her palm. In his sleep, Henry frowned, like a bad dream was murmuring, but thankfully he didn't stir.
She collected her coat and heels from the living room and hurriedly pulled them on too. The Ink kitten ran frantically up one arm, across her shoulders, and then down the opposite arm, before reversing its path and completing the loop. A prickle of gooseflesh trailed in its wake. Maybe it could sense that this wasn't the pancakes and life that Henry had promised them, that this wasn't part of their plan. But Henry's promises were as empty as her threats, and in the long run the Ink kitten would come to see that she was only trying to protect it, that sometimes alone was best.
She strode along the streets, the world around her a blur. Vehicles rushed past; her heels clack, clack, clacked against the concrete sidewalk; the bitter breeze stung her eyes to tears. Somehow she made it back to the apartment, and before she knew it, she was slotting her key into the door.
The moment she pushed the door open, the key still lodged in the lock, the Ink kitten stopped its frantic run, paused for a second on the back of her hand, her skin numb and purple from the cold, and then made a galloping dash up her arm and hid, quivering, beneath the jut of her left collarbone.
What the…?
But before she had time to question what on earth it was doing or why it was acting so strange, Aunt Joan stood up from the couch, smoothed the wrinkles from her long beige skirt, and turned around to face Elizabeth. She clutched her hands in front of her, part prim and proper, part like she were resisting the urge to throttle someone.
"And where, pray tell, have you been?"
oOoOo
Henry awoke to the sound of whining. For a moment, he thought a real dog had somehow gotten into his apartment and was sitting at the end of his bed, peering up at him, but then he remembered he wasn't hearing in the traditional sense and that the sound was coming from the Ink puppy.
He lay still for a while, sleep lapping at the edges of his consciousness. Slowly, images from the night before began to wash over him: Elizabeth kissing him on a moonlit window ledge while fireworks exploded outside; Elizabeth gripping the sheets in her fists as he lowered his tongue to her and tasted her for the first time; Elizabeth perched on top of him, her eyes squeezed shut, her hair cascading over her breasts, her hips rocking into his.
With a groan, he rolled onto his side and then groped through the sheets; hoping to find her; hoping that as he snuggled against her, her touch might tether him to those memories; hoping that as his fingertips explored the skin that he'd mapped out last night, the morning light might lead to them making new memories.
But the sheets were cold and empty.
He blinked open his eyes and then looked around the room, his vision blurry.
Maybe she'd gone to the bathroom.
"Elizabeth?" he called out, his voice gruff from sleep—amongst other things.
He waited.
A bicycle bell trilled outside, the sound distant through the glass, and a car sailed by, the roar of its engine rising and falling like a breaking tide.
"Elizabeth?" He tried again.
He waited.
On the sole of his foot, the Ink puppy whined.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and then hunched forward and scrubbed the sleep from his face. The floorboards were freezing beneath his feet, and the Ink puppy dashed up his leg, his abdomen, his chest, and took a seat on his shoulder. It whined again and trembled with agitation, like it was urging him to hurry. He reached for his briefs, which Elizabeth had discarded somewhat impatiently on the floor next to the bed, and then pulled them on and eased to standing.
Maybe she'd made a start on breakfast—given what she'd told him about her cooking skills, he hoped not—or maybe she'd woken early and had made herself a coffee.
The air didn't carry the aroma of burnt food or coffee though, just a cold tingle that warned of frost outside, and if she were in the kitchen, surely she would have heard him call her name.
He padded through to the living room, pushing the closet door and dresser drawer shut on his way past, and then stopped and peered around, from the tatty old couch to the small dining table in front of the window to the kitchen area with its breakfast bar and wooden stools, all empty.
He frowned.
Where was she?
oOoOo
"And where, pray tell, have you been?"
Elizabeth's stomach both clenched and dropped.
Crap.
Aunt Joan.
Just what she needed…
Aunt Joan looked at Elizabeth expectantly, her hands clutched in front of her, the tightness of that grasp the only sign of tension in an otherwise calm facade.
When seconds had dragged into minutes and Elizabeth had still failed to answer, Aunt Joan continued. "I called last night to let you know I would be coming by this morning." Her gaze broke away from Elizabeth's and drifted over Elizabeth's outfit, from her sex-mussed hair to the tips of her high-heeled toes. Her lips curled into something between a grimace and a sneer. "But, evidently, you didn't return home in time to receive my message." She met Elizabeth's eye once more, and if the Nobel Committee were ever to launch a prize for passive-aggression, she would surely win it.
A blush threatened to burn through Elizabeth's cheeks, but she tried to play it cool.
She slid her key free from the lock, stepped into the apartment, and pushed the door to behind her. Then, shaking her head to herself, the epitome of nonchalant, she wandered over to the kitchen counter and placed the key down against the tiled surface with a chink. "I was staying at a friend's house. There was a party and it was late and I didn't want to walk home on my own in the dark, so I slept on her couch and then helped with the clean up this morning."
She paused. Her head cocked to one side.
Too many conjunctions?
She ran the lie back through her mind.
Definitely too many conjunctions.
"If there's a boy…" Aunt Joan's tone took on a warning edge: The games were over.
Elizabeth turned to face her. She folded her arms across her chest, pinning the fronts of her coat against her, and she leant back against the kitchen counter. "There's no boy." She shrugged.
Fortunately, the Ink kitten was still cowering beneath her left collarbone; if it were to make an appearance and Aunt Joan were to see it, there was no way she'd be able to lie her way out of that.
But it wasn't only Elizabeth meeting her soulmate that Aunt Joan was concerned about.
Aunt Joan frowned and pursed her lips, the definition of a thunderous look. "After everything I've done for you, I'm not going to stand by and watch you throw it all—"
"There's. No. Boy." Elizabeth's voice strained. For some reason, hot tears pricked the corners of her eyes and the thought of Henry last night, caressing her cheek and murmuring, You sure?, before she nodded and pulled him down for a deep kiss flashed through her mind.
She pinched her eyes shut, as though she could squeeze the tears and memory back to from wherever they came. But Henry lingered like an afterimage. "God…" She choked on the word.
A long silence followed before Aunt Joan spoke. It sparked like a cloud of static.
"I know you think I'm too strict with you, Lizzie, but I don't want to see you get hurt. Despite what you may think, I'm only trying to protect you."
Elizabeth paused a moment longer. Then she let her hand fall away from the bridge of her nose and curled her fingers over the edge of the counter. She looked Aunt Joan in the eye. "I know."
And she did know. Aunt Joan might not be aware of the real reason why she ended up feeling the way she did the summer of junior year, but she'd been right to say that relationships were nothing but trouble, she'd been right to insist that Elizabeth focus on her career.
Elizabeth lowered her gaze to the carpet and shook her head, causing the ends of her hair to tremble. "I'm sorry. I'm tired. I never should have gone to the party."
Aunt Joan eyed her, like she were considering whether or not she ought to pursue the matter.
But perhaps Elizabeth sounded remorseful enough—it helped that she really did wish she hadn't gone to the party, that she hadn't allowed herself to get close to Henry, that she hadn't been gullible enough to believe that she wouldn't be hurt again—for Aunt Joan gave a curt nod.
"How's your application coming along?" she said.
Elizabeth's lips flinched at one corner; she couldn't quite muster a smile. "I got the grades I need. I just have to finish filling out the forms and I'll send it off this week."
"Good." Aunt Joan held Elizabeth's gaze for a long second. Then she stooped down and picked up her brown leather purse from where it slumped against the foot of the couch. When she straightened up again, she peered down her nose at her chest and rearranged the front of her blouse, making sure the folds of silk covered the shiny pink scald mark over her breastbone. "I left your allowance on the table. There's a little extra so you can buy yourself something for Christmas. I'll be staying at the apartment in London if you need me."
"And Will?"
"With a friend." Aunt Joan looked to her again. "You'll be all right on your own."
"Of course," Elizabeth said, though it had been a statement, not a question.
She would be all right on her own. Alone was safest. Alone was what she wanted. Alone was what would stop her life from imploding once again. She only wished she'd remembered that before she slept with Henry.
oOoOo
Henry strode along the red brick path that led towards the main entrance of the library. A cold breeze lifted three or four fallen leaves from the browning tufts of grass and swept them across the path, causing their brittle edges to scrape and skitter over the bricks. On the front of his neck, the Ink puppy shivered. Whether it was from the cold or from the mix of anticipation and agitation that bristled around it, he didn't know; he'd already stopped by Elizabeth's apartment, thinking perhaps she'd wanted to shower and change there, but after two knocks and several long minutes of waiting no one had answered, and his Ink was growing more impatient by the second.
He took the stone steps two at a time, his hand running along and steadying him against the rusted iron railing, flakes of which scratched at and embedded themselves in his palm. Then he pushed open the double doors that stood between the central columns and strode into the shadows that draped the foyer.
Inside, the air was thick and warm, a kind of drowsy heat that could lull one to sleep in a matter of seconds—that is, if a rather verbose textbook hadn't beaten it to the punch. The Ink puppy rose to its feet as they neared the main reading room. It performed a little jog on the spot that suggested he might find Elizabeth in there.
He didn't know why she would have left his place early to go to the library, and although he wouldn't put it past her wanting to read ahead for next semester's classes, the timing seemed a little odd. At the very least he would have expected her to stay for breakfast, and then they could have headed to the library together, stopping by her apartment first, so that she could change.
The Ink puppy added a whimper to its hop-step, and the tingle of excitement around it grew.
On the opposite side of the reading room, sitting at her usual desk, beneath the fogged glass of the large arched windows, was Elizabeth.
At the sight of her, warmth blossomed through his chest, a smile sprang to his lips and all his questions about her earlier absence faded. He strode along the aisle between the first two bench desks; no one else was there, so all the chairs were tucked in, leaving no obstacles to dodge.
"Hey," he said as he neared. "I was looking for you." He came to a stop behind her chair, squeezed her shoulder and ducked down to press a kiss to the top of her head. Her hair was damp and she smelt of soap and toothpaste and coconut shampoo. "I was going to make you breakfast."
She stared at the sheets of paper in front of her—with all the lines and fields and checkboxes, they looked like application forms—and the pinch in her brow deepened. "I have work to do."
He sank onto the seat beside her. The Ink puppy had run along to the back of his hand and was sniffing towards her, but the black turtleneck and jeans she wore covered most of her skin and the Ink kitten was nowhere to be seen. "Last I checked it was the holidays. And you still need to eat."
"I'm not hungry."
The slight chill to her voice and the distance that surrounded her caused the first prickle of anxiety to creep through the pit of his stomach and his smile to falter.
Was she mad at him?
But why would she be mad at him?
Maybe she was just concentrating.
Or maybe she was tired—they'd had a late night, after all.
He studied her for a moment, his hands resting in his lap though he itched to touch her, to hold her, to feel some of the closeness that they'd shared only hours before. "So…I'm heading back to Pittsburgh this weekend, for Christmas with my family. I thought maybe you'd like to join me."
Elizabeth joggled a couple of pieces of paper into alignment, placed them to one side and then pulled her notebook towards her. Her voice drawled. "And why would you think that?"
His mouth hinged open before her words had registered. When they did, his chest tightened and his tongue stalled. "Because we're—" He began and then stopped himself. A tentative frown crept to his brow and his voice softened. "Do we need to talk?"
"No," she said, and hunched over her notebook. "You need to leave me alone."
His frown deepened. "Elizabeth…what's going on?"
Instead of replying, she ignored him and jotted down a couple of bullet points.
He reached out and laid his hand above her knee. The Ink puppy dashed around to his palm and snuffled at her through her jeans. "Look, if I've done something wrong or if you're embarra—"
"You lied to me." She turned to face him so sharply, the look in her eyes so dark, that he recoiled and his hand retreated to his lap.
"What are you talking about?"
"You're in the Marines, Henry."
What on earth…?
The open drawer and closet door flashed through his mind.
She must have found his uniform.
"I didn't lie to you," he said. He tried to keep his voice level, but it strained nonetheless. "You never asked."
"You promised me I wouldn't lose you." Her voice strained, too. "You promised me you'd never leave me. How can you promise me that when you're going to be serving in the military?"
"Only for a few years, then I'll be back."
"Yeah," she said and looked him dead in the eye. "In a box."
He tried to take her hand. "I'm not going to die."
But she snatched it away and folded her arms over her chest. "Oh, so now you're immortal?"
A heavy frown crumpled his brow—she was being more than a little ridiculous. "I never said I was immortal, and you can't expect me to be."
"I don't expect you to be. That's the point."
"So, what? You're breaking up with me because one day I'll die?"
"Of course not," she said, and she shook her head like now he was the one being ridiculous.
For a fraction of a second, something akin to hope glimmered in his chest: it was an argument, nothing more.
But then she stilled and met his gaze. "In order to break up with you, first I'd have to be dating you, and we were never together."
He paused. He remembered how they'd sat side by side on the window ledge and how she'd said 'okay', he remembered how she'd kissed him and he'd kissed her and how right it had felt when they'd walked hand in hand back to his place, he remembered how he'd made love to her and how he'd looked into her eyes, seen her soul and found that she was what had been missing, she was the one who would make his life complete.
He hadn't told her yet, though; he'd wanted to save those words for the clear light of day.
"Last night—"
"Was a mistake." She pursed her lips and bit down on the inside of her cheek. The look in her eyes was so cold it would make arctic tundra feel welcoming. "We had a deal. Semester's over. I never want to see you again."
She continued to stare at him for several hour-long seconds, that same hard stare. Then she twisted back to face the desk, hunched over her notepad, and began writing again.
He watched her. It felt like his whole world had fragmented, the lens through which he saw life shattered, and now it was being wrenched away piece by piece.
They couldn't be over. They were meant to be together. They were soulmates.
But what could he do? What could he say? She'd made up her mind, and the heart wasn't a debate he could win through a well-reasoned argument—assuming she'd even listen to reason.
"So, that's it?" he said. "We're done?"
She turned over the page and began writing on the opposite side.
"What about our Inks?" The desperation in his voice spilled over into anger. "Are you at least going to let them say goodbye?"
She reached across the desk, picked up one of the application forms, and then copied down a question from it onto her notepad.
"Elizabeth?"
She placed the application form back on the pile and then resumed writing.
"Fine." He bit out the word, though nothing about the situation or the way he felt was fine.
He rose to his feet, his muscles stiff and straining against the movement, as though his body were physically incapable of leaving, while on the back of his hand, the Ink puppy howled, its nose raised to the Ink-equivalent of the sky. Elizabeth continued to write like he meant so little to her that she couldn't see him, like his existence didn't even impinge on her awareness, but he leant over her anyway, kissed the top of her head and breathed in her scent one last time.
"I love you," he murmured. "You hear me? I love you."
He waited a moment for an answer that he knew would never come.
Then, with his Ink still howling, he turned and walked away.