Conversations and Regrets
Summary: Lily's learns the sad truth about Frank's plan for after the curse is lifted.
A continuation of the scene on La Quila where Frank reveals his plan to "rest" after the curse is no more.
Canon to my other story, "Allow me to manage my own safety"
Soundtrack Suggestion: Trader Sam
xxx
The breeze whips a few strands of hair across her neck, but that's not what makes her shiver. It's what he is saying that is making the hairs on her neck stand up and a ball of anxiousness beginning to form in her belly. She feels her head shake as he explains to her what will happen once he breaks the curse, and she has to fight the urge to argue with him right then and there.
"Hey Lily, look, everything that you see that's new in this word, I've seen hundreds of thousands of times." He tries to explain himself, wills her to understand. He's had his time, there was nothing else left for him to see here. Sure, he's considered leaving the Amazon if the curse was lifted. But why? It made no sense to go out into a strange world with nothing, knowing no one. Besides, he was tired. It was his time.
When we find the tree, I'll be ready.
Her eyes are fixated on his, trying to understand, trying to listen to his rationale, but as she leans in closer, somehow all she can do is offer an honest contradiction to his words.
"Yes, but none of it has been meaningful…" She whispers, afraid if she speaks too loud, he'd hear the sadness in her voice.
He stares back at her as if he didn't understand what she said. But when the words sink in, Frank feels a moment of distress. He's come to expect blunt and truthful statements from Lily by now, and at most he's been able to absorb or deflect them with wit or charm; but now, as the heaviness of her words wash over him, he can't help but feel conflicted.
His arms suddenly feel heavy and he rests them atop his knees, leaning on them wearily.
Lily senses that perhaps her remark was a bit out of line, too forward. A trait she knows that too often that not upsets with those who are not accustomed to a woman being so direct. She doesn't usually care, but right now as she stares across at the man who just bared his deepest secrets, it seems that she ought to backpedal just for a moment. After all, she's not the one who has been tied to a river by a mythical curse for 400 years. What right does she have to make assumptions about how he's lived his life?
She blinks and sits back, feeling an apology bubbling up from her chest. "I'm sorry. Frank, I-I shouldn't have said that." Her hands comes up and away from her lap and land at her temples as if she's trying to will the words back into her mouth, but more words come tumbling out instead. "It's not my place to place judgment on you, and after all you've gone through. I didn't mean to lessen what you've experienced… " Her words trail off as she feels heat creep up her neck in embarrassment.
He gives her a reassuring smile. "It's ok, I know you're just being honest. I've learned to appreciate that about you."
Her apology is heartfelt and it occurs to him suddenly that she tends to ramble when she is nervous, which makes her words even more endearing.
"Honest. That's being polite." She knows he could have said anything else; nosy, meddling, presumptuous…So she's appreciative of his take on her comment, and relief washes over her.
Frank looks back down at his hands. "I've had a lot of time to think about this. So…" He offers a final say on the matter, but stills feels that somehow she's managed to plant a seed of doubt in his brain.
"I know." She relents, and sits back against the hard wood behind her on the bench.
She feels desperate to reach out to him, convince him otherwise, but the time isn't now, it's not right. They still need to turn water to stone, whatever that means, and find the tree, so there is ample time to sway his decision. Still, an ache lingers in her chest. It's almost as if he's gone again, falling through the treetops and into the abyss, without even a chance for her to know him. She wonders questioningly when she'd begun to care so much about that.
A silence falls over them. They both find it difficult to keep discussing the current topic, and instead they let the jungle speak for a stretch of time. The air is humid, but not uncomfortable, and it seems as if the animals are extra boisterous, their hoots and calls echoing throughout the trees. Lily's mind is already exhausted from everything she's absorbed today. She can't fathom continuing an argument about a decision that, so it seems, he's already made.
Frank stands up to retrieve two metal mugs and a nearly empty bottle of what she assumes is whiskey or bourbon. She can smell the vapors of the liquor as he pours a generous amount into a cup and hands it to her.
He pours the rest of the liquid into his cup and sits back down across from her. "You know, MacGregor told me something interesting about you."
Lily's eyebrows fly to the top of her head as she fiddles with the cup in her hands. "Oh? Do I want to know?" She takes a sip and has to hiss out a breath of air as it burns her throat.
Bourbon. Definitely Bourbon.
Frank grins at the look on her face. Though he can't tell if it's from the booze or the anticipation of what he is about to say. "He told me about you standing by him. When no one else in your family would."
Lily's shoulders relax. "Oh. Yes." She blinks down at the cup and then back to him. "He actually told you about that? When on earth did you two have time to gossip?" She takes another sip, and it hurts a little less this time. The resulting warmth of the drink feeling rather nice in her belly.
"Right before…uhh…the tribe showed up." He smiles sheepishly, and she narrows her eyes at him, but doesn't dredge up the details of his failed attempt to deceive her one last time. He takes a big gulp from his cup, and she watches, irritatingly, as he makes no face whatsoever.
She sighs. "I see. Well, yes, of course. How could I not? He's my brother, and he has every right to be happy no matter whom he decides to share his love with. It is the 19th century after all. Society is changing…" He watches her as she explains her thoughts on her brother. The affection is apparent on her face and in her voice, and he thinks of how nice it is that they support each other like they do. It comes from a place of love.
"Head first, figure it out on the way down…" He mumbles to himself amusingly. It's all making sense now.
She tilts her head, not really hearing his words. "Anyhow. That's all he told you, hmm?"
"Yep. But I am curious about something else." He takes another sip from his cup, as if to muster the courage to ask her his question.
Lily squares her shoulders, prepared. "Ask away."
"What about you?" His head tilts to one side and a sly grin comes to his lips. "MacGregor sounds like he's figured out his love life…What about Dr. Lily Houghton? I'm sure the one and only famed botanist of all of England, must have suitors lined up around the block to court her." He's almost apprehensive of her answer. Not that it was his business, but he's often wondered over these last few days if there is someone waiting back in England for her to return. He holds her eyes, afraid that if he looks away, she might sense his anxiousness about her answer.
She continues to stare at the metal in her hand. "Ha!" She shouts a little too loudly for her own ears." She brings her voice back down an octave. "Hardly. If you can imagine that." Frank's eyes seem to be skimming themselves over her, and she feels the heat of his gaze. A habit of his that once made her feel uneasy, is now causing an entirely new sensation in her body and she looks down at her empty cup wondering if it's him or the alcohol that's making her feel this way.
"No actually, I can't." He says truthfully.
She glances up and their eyes meet again. He's still smiling at her softly, and Lily feels the same butterflies in her stomach she had earlier as he was teaching her how to navigate. She clears her throat, and sits up a bit straighter. "Well, anyhow…no. One can be hard pressed to find a man not intimidated by a woman who — "
"Wears the pants in the relationship?"
She grins at him. "Precisely."
"So I focused all of my energy on my studies, and research. MacGregor has been there with me, helping me submit to associations that wouldn't even so much as glance at a paper written by a woman." She breathes out a puff of air, and wipes an errant strand of blonde hair over her ear. "Maybe it's better this way anyhow. Once I return with the petal, then I can focus on helping those who need it."
"Sounds lonely." The words fall out his mouth before he has a chance to think about them, and he too wonders if the bourbon made him do it. She stares at him looking mildly shocked. He feels himself stutter, trying to explain. "I mean… needing to do all that, uh, research, on your own…without the support of, you know, all the associations and professors and…" His hands start making some sort of on and on gesture, and he stops speaking before he rambles on further.
Nice. Frank. His jaw sets, and he finishes the last of his drink in an attempt to avert her attention away from his fumbling words.
She's taken aback by his observation. Maybe he was more astute that she gave him credit for. He tries to backpedal, directing his comment to her research and her career…but she knew what he meant. He had a point.
A tiny one, her brain argued.
Although she's always adamantly known she didn't need to depend on a man for her own achievements, whether it be in life or her career, there's still something to be said about companionship and sharing the success with someone…special.
That's why MacGregor is here with you…again her brain interjects. Yet someday she knows he too will find his own way with someone he loves, and where will that leave her? With her research?
She feels her head begin to spin and she suddenly feels too under the microscope right this moment so she decides to turn the tables on the man across from her.
"Enough about me…What about you? Hmm?" He groans, knowing the conversation would eventually circle back to him. He's reluctant to share, but knows it's only fair. He can see the spark in her eyes, fixated on him. "Frank Wolff…400 hundred years…I mean there must have been a few… special women lucky enough to occupy your…attention.?" She feels awkward asking him, but she's also eager to hear his answer. Who has Frank found out here in the Amazon that could make him…happy?
He fidgets, much to her delight. "I mean… yes. There have been a few…" He rubs his suddenly sweaty palms across the fabric of his pants. Did the jungle just get warmer? He wonders aimlessly.
"Mhmm…" She encourages him.
"I mean, the locals out here are pretty scarce, so when the tourists starting coming out from all over, eager to learn about the dangers of the Amazon…"
"You were happy to oblige?" She smirks at him.
"I mean…" He shrugs his massive shoulders. "I wanted to be a good host."
Lily smiles knowingly at him. She couldn't blame him. He's a grown man. A man that, by most standards, is ruggedly handsome and would be found very attractive to most women. She has certainly learned to appreciate his sense of humor, for the most part; and well, if she were completely honest with herself, the pull towards him physically was most certainly growing stronger and stronger by the day. Her eyes have fallen on the tanned skin of his forearms. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to his elbows, and even in the darkness, she can see the way the muscle under the skin moves when his fingers move.
Frank clears his throat and she blinks and looks back up to his face. "But, nothing that lasted of course."
"Oh?" Lily pulls her legs up to her chest, listening aptly.
"I mean how could it? They'd start to wonder why I stayed devilishly handsome year after year, and they slowly got older and older…" She shakes her head, and a laugh tumbles out of her lips. He laughs with her for a moment and then when he settles, he looks out across the water behind her. "No one special though. It wouldn't be fair to them."
"I see." She says, trying to not sound sad at his words, but she can't help it. It's different though. One that still stems from his decision to rest. It's a sadness knowing that the man she's just connected with, learned an amazing and unbelieving truth about…has chosen to end his life once the tree is found, having never shared his life with someone.
Sounds lonely, she laments.
Perhaps they had more in common than she once thought. A glimmer of what could have been flashes in her mind.
Again, she doesn't want to argue right now. Tomorrow is another day.
She feels the need to share an honest thought with him though, and she takes a deep breath to do so.
"I think, you are a very good man, Frank Wolff." Lily says softly, sincerity in her words. Now that there are no lies between them, no need to hide or deceive one another, she feels that her statement is in fact a heartfelt one.
A tenderness comes over him that takes him by surprise. He wonders why he feels so compelled to share such intimate details with this woman whom he'd only met days ago. He wonders if there is more to this feeling in the pit of his stomach that he's been ignoring since he's met her. He tries to stave it, push it back down before it gets in the way of his brain. But somehow it comes through. A pinprick of light in the darkness.
Hope. It sparks in his chest, just for a moment.
"Maybe…" He starts, but his eyes catch on a strand of her hair that's fallen across her cheek, and he wonders why he never noticed how the moonlight shimmers off of it before.
She looks at him expectantly, and he starts again. "Maybe…in another lifetime, if we'd met then…perhaps, we would have been …friends."
She breathes in his words, and her lungs fill with air. "I'd like to think we are friends now." She breathes out.
He smiles affectionately at her. "Good. Me too." He feels the pull again. Deep down in his gut, but he pushes it back. He blinks, pulling his eyes away from hers. "I should, uh, find a place to anchor for the night. Big day tomorrow…"
Lily watches him as he stands up slowly. She reaches for the cups and the empty bottle. "Right, right. I'll just — clean up here."
Frank gives her one last grin and walks to the bridge of La Quila.
Lily sets the cups and the bottle into a wooden crate and returns to her bench, pulling her sweater up and over the front of her body. She pulls the arrowhead out of her pocket and stares at it solemnly. It feels suddenly heavier than it did a few moments ago, and as she turns it over in her hands, staring at the rough carvings that line its exterior, it feels more like a burden than a key. The anticipation of her impending scientific revolution now suddenly overshadowed by the ache in her chest.
She ends up falling asleep on the spot on the boat he's determined as 'her bench', and rather than let her sleep alone above deck, he calls Proxima over to use her as a pillow and makes himself comfortable close by.
As he settles, he continues to fight the growing feeling inside of him that the dynamic between them has somehow changed. It feels almost like a living breathing thing and it threatens to derail his entire plan for when he finds the tree.
He shakes his head. It's too late.
It doesn't matter, my mind is made up, and tomorrow when we find the Tears of the Moon, I'll say my goodbyes, and that will be it. It's my time, it was my time long ago.
Regret of a different kind springs to his mind. Regret that he and Lily had only now just truly connected with one another. No lies or fake cannibals between them. He regrets that they'd wasted all that time arguing and hiding things from one another. It was one of the many things he wishes he could change about this expedition, but knows he can't.
Now, as sleep finally falls over him on his last night on this Godforsaken river, his last thought is not about his time ending, it's about how much more time he wishes they had.
xxx
Notes
I throughly enjoyed writing this one-shot. After the multi-chaptered fix marathon of "Allow Me to Manage My Own Safety", I really felt the urge to reconnect with the pulse of Frank and Lily's original story. This scene always struck me as one that could have kept going, and if you think about it, the deleted scene makes sense, only if they'd had a somewhat intimate or even lengthier conversation the night before.
I'd be interested to hear what you think…
Staarss (Melissa)