------
He says, "Good night you moonlight ladies.
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams?
And rockabye sweet baby James".
------
It was night, always night, when he remembered.
Night in the desert and howling, the wind tore at his soul. Down in the canyons it wandered, hungry and searching the silent wastes in low, echoing desperation. Like him, it swept across the lonely hills from strange and distant places and always, always, its hoarse cry was caught in that piercing, agonized wail.
On nights like these, Remus Lupin remembered,
He remembered James. Peter. Lily. Sirius. He remembered and mourned them all, for buried or not, they no longer lived. The good years, brimmed by once happy memories now bittersweet with age, spilt forth from his consciousness and he alone was left to drink what was left of a draught once believed to be steeped with immortality. As embers cooled by the desert wind was the great spirit of their youth: all but extinguished. And the grief, initially so bright and encompassing, had faded somewhere across the ten thousand miles since. Acceptance and resounding emptiness had settled on him somewhere in New Mexico he suspected. Memories were all he had left. And her.
Always her.
The words she'd spoken that night remained a hymn for a man apart. He'd been so lost for so long, but he had carried that song and the melody of memories along each step of a journey without a destination. Her words, he knew, were the most dangerous memories of all. Hope, after all, took root slowly and quickly so that as it grew it engulfed.
On nights like these, with the wind crying in the canyons, with the scent of wild desert roses like a whisper of summer, with the stars sparkling for any and all who would hold their piercing gaze, he thought of her and wondered if she had kept her promise.
On nights like those, in Peru and Ethiopia, New Zealand and Tibet, Patagonia and Kamchatka, he dreamed of her.
Always her.
But on that night in another lonesome, ageless land, Remus Lupin lay awake, a restless thought brewing in his mind until it demanded realization. As dawn came to light the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, it crystallized.
Perhaps, finally, he thought, it's time to go home.
-----
You take the high road and I'll take the low road
And I'll be in Scotland before ye.
For me and my true love shall never meet again
By the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomand.
-------
On nights like these, she tried not to remember. Cloudless night and the moon shone silver streams of light across her bed, taunting, always taunting. And the moon never beamed without bringing her dreams…All she had left of him and Then was left glaring from a radiant perch, hung high in a darkness so big and so black nothing escaped. Except the moonlight of course and tiny, lost points of illumination she had loved and admired from far away.
Among other things, once upon a time.
Many people would not believe it possible to willingly resign oneself to a life of such polished, perfected detachment. But Minerva McGonagall's heart had been broken many times and she had gotten quite good at putting the pieces back together in such a manner as to be resolutely impermeable. After all, it was not for nothing was she here now amongst the best and the brightest Britain had to offer its magical youth. She was a fast learner and casualties of the heart, suffice it to say, were no longer a problem. She dealt in reality now, in the tangible and the touchable. Dreams? They were made and used and wasted on longings for a tomorrow that never came. But, for all her ability, the emotions that had once been as much a part of her being as Gryffindor pride remained unchangeable.
True love, it would appear, was not as easily transfigured as a teacup.
On nights like these, she told herself about all that had been won in the war, how much so many others who had fought beside her had lost, and that Gryffindor was for the brave.
But, despite the logic in the lies she perpetuated to make it through the day when it was easier to pretend somehow, in the hush of the long hours of the night she could no more deny the truth of the matter than she could See the future for herself. The tide of tears that she once thought she would drown in had, naturally, recessed with time. Because after all, nothing lasts forever. Still, every night she remembered him.
Always him.
She thought of her life in the space between Then and Now. The years had accumulated quickly, yet passed so slow. And yet how could that be? Time, she'd been taught, was a constant. It neither ebbed, nor waned, nor disappeared. Time flowed. Except on those most grim occasions when it stood still altogether. The way it had that morning. The words, clear and full of brutal promise, were engraved in her mind the way she had read them twelve years before. They haunted her, always, and she would have hated them but for another truth she was powerless over. One that lingered no matter how she attempted to dispel it from her presence: hope. But when summer had come, he had not. And with every passing year, another piece of her was sacrificed upon the altar of broken dreams.
On nights like these, the past haunting her bed, the brilliant moonlight vividly mocking her, she thought of him and cursed his broken vow. But, like always, morning came and she told herself that indeed, nothing does last forever.
------
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone…
------
November, 1981
He was alone, a solitary figure poised in unspoken agony against a flat, slate colored sky. Last man left standing, with nothing left to say. There were no words to offer fallen comrades, there was only forgiveness to be asked. Tomorrow would dawn for Remus Lupin, dark thought it may be, while his friends were dead and gone. Try though he might, Remus could not comprehend fully the reality of the situation at hand. How could it be that he would never hear James laugh, or Peter sigh, or Lily tease, or Sirius…or Sirius.
The still-settling earth assaulted his senses, making his head swim despite the chilly London air of the late November afternoon. The service had ended and the mourners departed. He read the words only his eyes were left to see:
Peter Pettigrew
1960-1981
Beloved friend and companion. Honorable in life and in death.
Another funeral for another Marauder. Half-serious, half-cynical, Remus wondered if his would be the next. He begged forgiveness from Peter. Little Peter, who'd proved them all wrong. Poor Peter, who'd been so brave while he had merely been blind.
For the second time in his life, Remus sought absolution for his own existence.
Peter…James…Lily…
He dropped to one knee and laid a beloved memento atop the impassive stone. The scarf's colors of Gryffindor house stood stark against the grey of the stone and the sky, defiant gold and boldest scarlet stealing the somberness away, if only a little. Fleetingly, Remus felt proud of his friend who had gone out in a blaze of glory, while he was left fading to ashes. For a long moment he stayed there, quietly reflecting on a life he'd never lead again.
A hand upon his shoulder brought him back. He rose, and the hand dropped to his side, finding a place in his own.
"He died bravely. He was a Gryffindor to the end."
"I know." Remus replied softly. He looked up into the solemn grey eyes of Minerva McGonagall and momentarily felt lighter. She had a way of easing his troubles, whether she knew it or not.
"Gods…" as she spoke, her mirthless eyes reflected his own misery, "I think I need a drink."
He squeezed her hand lightly, and they turned, leaving the dead to rest while they sought to endure the troubles to come.
"Come on. Let's go," he replied.
And, searching for meaning or truth or faith or something in between, they drank. In the darkest corner of the closest tavern they hunted for the casual memories that defined their fallen friends. James' ridiculous glasses…Lily's affinity for Muggle films…Peter's fear of snakes…the bizarre and the insignificant idiosyncrasies that made up the people they had loved. They did not speak of Sirius.
She laughed until she found herself crying.
He cried until he found he was laughing.
Amidst the alcohol and the anecdotes of Marauder lore (now nothing more than legend), she became his confessional as he plead guilty, so guilty, for crimes of high treason on grounds of survival. She heard of his sins and though she offered no means of atonement, her presence alone gave him reason to face a tomorrow without compromise. He'd forgotten when it had started, but somewhere between pranks and prefects he had begun to live with no other thought than to love and be loved by she. But for just as long he had lived in fear of envious angels…or perhaps just the demons in him.
For the meantime, Remus Lupin was able to forget the patient darkness that quietly threatened to overcome him.
-----
"At last they were strangers, their pasts were forgotten. They were also strangers to themselves who had forgotten who or where they were. The library door was thick and none of the ordinary sounds that might have reminded them, might have held them back, could reach them. They were beyond the present, outside of time, with no memories and no future."
-----
She wept.
And though they welled without relent, her tears proved no relief. The dark, abiding hurt inside her could not be undone despite the waves of anguish and despair ever raging in her weary soul. Spells of dry, wracking sobs came and went, leaving none of the trauma resolved nor her heart less heavy. Instead, the tears merely split forth like rain in August: unpredictable and leaving oneself with a definite, intense feeling of dissatisfaction.
It was on the third day at midnight under a sky with no stars in lovely, lonely London-town when she realized the tears, all those tears, were no longer for herself, for her fallen friends, or for the orphaned child she'd not see for many years…they were for him.
Outside the King's Arms they'd stood, she would remember many years later, and he had worn rain in his hair and sadness just the same. Her heart would have gone out to him then if it hadn't already. Even in grief his courtesy was unwavering and he had walked her home to the Kensington flat she kept. Or, perhaps, it was simply because he didn't know where else to go. Regardless of motivations, upon her threshold they'd both sobered enough to realize neither wanted the other to leave. Tonight, of all nights, neither wanted to be alone.
The unforgiving Muggle streetlamps reflected in his eyes as he leaned in and softly brought his lips to hers. All she saw was stars.
When he kissed her, the first walls crumbled and she led him inside. The door closed and her lips found his again. It felt…it felt so right. The moment was electric, the positive and the negative forces of invisible existence combining to create sparks. Light. Hope.
He pulled away abruptly.
"I should go," he said, meeting her eyes and looking torn. She reached out for him as he turned to go, unwilling to let him abandon her to a miserable future of might-have-been's. His hand on the doorknob, he looked back in confusion at her touch. She leaned in, pressing her forehead to his, and whispered the one word she never knew he has always wanted to hear her speak
"Stay."
She kissed him again, and this time, the dam broke. Like her tears had done, inhibitions, clothes, and grief fell outright.
She knew he was not a Healer, or an Empath, or a Medi-wizard of any kind, but all the same his touch melted away the cold gripping fear and heartache that had slowly taken hold over the years of war she'd borne witness to. His hands, gentle and kind, spoke volumes with a caress that words could never do justice. In his eyes that shone with the darkness they wanted so desperately to escape she lost herself and in his kiss was found. They made love through the night though it had been there all along.
Afterwards, they lay together in a quiet peace, the sound of the other breathing enough to prove the dream was in fact, not. He was the first to confront the reality.
"How…" but she saw his struggle to find words for what had never been said. She smiled.
"Shhh. Sleep, Remus. If we have anything on our side, it's time. We have tomorrow. In the morning I'll still be here, I promise." She kissed him softly, her words lingering in the darkness, unseen but all the more powerful for it. It was a hidden assurance, the subtlety of her meaning evident to both, but still unspoken in full. As she had said, they had tomorrow. For the first time in many nights she slept in an ease and a tranquility seeming too good to be true. Begging to be broken.
In placid morning sun, she woke alone. The arms that had held her close and safe not hours before were gone from her own embrace. Confusion resounded through her groggy mind as she pulled on her dressing gown and ventured forth in search of her absent lover. In the end, not a trace, no article of clothing, no forgotten memento, remained to indicate he had ever been there at all. Until she found the note.
Minerva,
Please know I am sorry. That you asked at all means more to me than I can ever express to you, but it's too much for me to stay. I am leaving Britain and do not expect to be returning soon. Your home and life are here, and I wouldn't presume to ask you to part with it. This is my road to travel, and if or where it ends, I do not know. I never said the words aloud, and won't belittle my feelings for you by scribbling them beside my goodbyes. Simply know they are true and I'll be back again in summer.
Yours always,
R. J. L.
Again and again the words spoke themselves, burning into her mind with brutal clarity. Years would pass and she would forget how to tell the Weasley twins apart, who Sven the Sonorous had defeated in the twenty-third Goblin Revolution, and how to wash the edge out of her laughter. But she would never forget those words.
She sat very still for a long time, unable to fully appreciate the situation at hand. He was gone. Gone. The word felt too brief on her tongue. Too chaste, too insubstantial to be of use. Gone. He was gone. Departed. Vanished. Disappeared. She tried them all and nothing fit, none had the weight of the black, wrenching anguish that tore with unmerciful hands at her already troubled heart. This was a final blow and enough to break it altogether. Letter in her hand, the morning light splashed the room in brilliant white.
Though they had fallen upon the many graves of her family and friends, Minerva McGonagall had no tears left to shed. To no one at all, she promised that the time for grief was over.
----
It's never over
My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
It's never over
All my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her
It's never over
All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
It's never over
She's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever.
----
By way of a forgotten America, Remus made his way home. Black Rock and Birmingham fell behind as the spring wore away. Main streets and byways of tiny empires in various stages of decay came and went, deep in oblivion and careless of wayfarers. It was a road paved in ruins. But where there was ruin, there was hope for treasure. Or so he once believed.
As he had for many years, Remus blended in with the scenery, avoiding the cities, treading the periphery of existence. Now that he'd found where he had been headed all along, it would not do to be detained. Texas. Louisiana. Tennessee. Virginia. North. He no longer cared to take time to explore each new locality. Custom and culture no longer interested him. The money from his last job would stretch thin, but it would get him home.
Home…
To England. To her. The thought of her filled him equally with excitement and apprehension. She had once made a promise, but he had fled before the morning had lighted on the bed they'd shared. His devotion may well have outlived hers. Even after of a dozen years in constant motion spent on a search for penance, this thought was perhaps the most grievous to him. He knew the path where those solitary years had lead, but only his own stretch of the road. Where the trail had diverged, he had lost sight of the other. He hoped he could find his way back.
Voracious, restless thoughts gnawed on the edge of his consciousness day and night.
What if...what if…
Her words, for all their potential, had not been the same as his. There was no resounding oath that lay between them. No, "I'll be waiting. Come back." He had not given her the chance. Now the only bonds connecting them were the heavy chains of a past that, try as he might, he could not forget. No. There had only been a "tomorrow." And tomorrow was never enough to satiate those hungry for forever.
Up the coast and around the City. Through Connecticut, rural Massachusetts, and into Boston. He was going home. How hard could it be to find her again? After all, there was only an ocean left between them. Only an ocean…how he wished it was that simple.
He was not sweeping home from a brief interlude or an extended holiday. He had left, and that was the vicious truth of the matter. He had left, but not forgotten her.
Never her.
She had to know his existence, his whole reason for being had taken two distinct forms in his mind: one, a baby boy now grown out of the infancy in which Remus had last seen him. A boy with his father's burdens and his mother's strength, he was sure. A boy with no memories of his former life when for his first Christmas his father had proudly paraded him about with reindeer antlers on his head. When his mother had charmed his favorite bear to hug him so he would never be without comfort. When he had been so loved and so much adored. When his sixth word had been Moony…Those memories and others were what Remus had left in him. He had the past, and it was all he had left to offer to Harry.
And the other reason…in many ways, the only. For Harry he had refused to die, but he lived for her.
Boston was appealing with its quiet chaos and roiling multitudes. The wind was warm, blowing from the west when he departed. Carrying him east over the last and longest mile. To home. London was a flood, to say the least. Every sight and sound and scent and surface was a portkey, sucking him back to another place in a time beyond the painful rites of passage he'd undergone. It hurt like hell.
And then he was there. The Kensington house she had owned. Pushing open the black iron gate surrounded by high hedges, he took his first steps into the world he had left behind those years ago. The large Victorian home was as he remembered, largely unchanged apart from the small garden which had been repotted and planted and the manicured lawn that stretched across the yard to his right and around the side of the house.
He stared momentarily at the wrought iron entrance he'd seen only once before. In daylight now he surveyed it, this last and temporary barrier. In each corner was carved an intricate design in the form of a lion, a serpent, a raven, and badger, signifying nothing to the common pedestrian, and everything to he who looked closely. Remus smiled, entering.
A thousand thoughts from which he could not form words entered his mind as he knocked on the door. A yet unclaimed copy of a Muggle newspaper – The Times, he noted – lay by the doormat. A name was printed neatly in gilt script on the mailbox. He traced it with his finger, trying to remember the last time he had heard the sound of her name. Too long, Remus decided.
He was about to knock again when the sound of metal on stone came crashing from behind him. Hand still poised, he whirled around.
She caught him off guard. There was dirt on her simple Muggle skirt and streaked across her left shoulder. Pale skin like water lilies, secretive and fragile, was exposed in the sultry afternoon air. Her dark hair was bound back in a tight twist, though stray locks had escaped and curled about her ears and neck in the humidity.
But it was her eyes he saw first and most. The pale gray of rainclouds and far off mountains he had never climbed. In their pristine depths he saw many things and nothing. Shock and sadness. Anger and resentment. Joy? He couldn't be sure; it had come and gone too quickly for Remus to acknowledge it had been real. He wasn't even sure she'd actually spoken until the harshness of tone and severity weighed in.
"You're late."
Twelve years since he had seen her last…and Minerva McGonagall did not seem pleased to see him again.
-----
Summer days are gone too soon
You shoot the moon and miss completely
Now you're left to face the gloom
The empty room that once smelled sweetly.
-----
The fact of the matter was, she had given up on him. It had not been an intentional decision but remained unavoidable: the product of lonesome aggregation and the passage of time. Every summer she had waited, conflicted and torn by seemingly opposite emotions both struggling for fulfillment, neither the whole truth. Faith and surrender. Faith in him, or maybe just the desire, the dream of faith in him, played out against the relentless option of concession. Of admitting defeat and surrendering to brutal rejection. For years the latter had been winning the struggle.
Still…something had brought her back to Kensington each summer though the disappointment weighed heavier, hurt more, every year. Well, at first. But like all her battle scars, in time they had faded and she done her best to cover them well. What pained the most did not show. And in the later, most recent years, she had been able to rationalize and place both her thoughts and motivations elsewhere come July and August, so that by autumn she had buried her heartbreak so deep, most days she could pretend it didn't exist. But it was never permanent. The house always wins and the devil always finds you in the end. When she was younger, Minerva sometimes let herself imagine what her reaction would be if she ever saw him again. Depending on her mood, she pictured a flood of anger and passionate rage. Other times blissful reunion, happiness without the stain of resentment. But she had never cried. Not anymore and not for him.
Immediately, without warning she was struck to the bone in a moment of elegant pause.
Him.
The stance, that posture, the curve of his neck, all were unmistakable elements of a figure she could not put behind her. Unbelievably enough he stood now in her yard, the late afternoon light highlighting the grey in his hair and sharply illustrating the lines on his face. He was changed. But then, she acknowledged, so was she. Overcome with disbelief, Minerva McGonagall wasn't even conscious the garden trowel had fallen from her hands. Vaguely, as though she'd been submerged in some misty medium of clouds or cotton, she heard it clang upon the stone path. But his eyes had found hers and she could not tear them away for all the world.
A maelstrom of bittersweet proportions seethed quietly below the surface of whenever her thoughts strayed to Remus Lupin. Now, in the restless haze of dying day, it bubbled over, spilling forth in a collection of emotions long since pushed from heart and mind. Torn between wanting to hurt and hold him, Minerva lashed out with one of the few weapons remaining in her arsenal, sarcastic indifference.
"You're late," she said lowly, her tone severe and cutting, "What are you doing here?"
He didn't seem to hear her.
"Minerva…"
"Why are you here, Remus?" she repeated with slow, cold emphasis.
"I—" he began, appearing suddenly lost and . The unsure moment passed and Remus continued, "It was time I came home. And, I needed to see you again. It's been too long."
"Why would you need such a thing? I have little to say to you anymore. It's been a long time, suffice it to say, and we're nothing more than strangers to each other now," he looked at her as though he were trying to call her bluff. She pushed past him heading for the stairs. "I think you had better leave," she said as she strode past, head held high.
"Minerva, wait. Let me explain myself at least. You deserve something in the way of a reason for why I acted they way I did."
"You disappeared. What else is left to explain?"
"Much more," he took a breath and looked at her in a way that made her suspect he'd been expecting a reaction such as this from her. Her eyes narrowed. It only served to irritate her further knowing that he might still be able to predict her emotions after twelve years.
"I came to tell you not only why I went away, but where I was and why I left so abruptly. In short: everything. I didn't want you to think—"
"What was I supposed to think?" Minerva interrupted, turning on him, livid, "That I was a fond farewell to England? A last bit of fun before you packed you bags?"
"Of course not—"
"Save it, Remus," she accused all fire and fury with eyes that shone with the sparkle of stars that rose at dawn.
"James and Lily, Marlene and Simon. The Bones'. Gideon and Fabian. Benjy. Caradoc. Dorcas. Are these names that sound familiar to you, Remus? Every meeting there were fewer of us there. We were outnumbered more so every day of that godforsaken war. But the difference was they had no say in the matter, Remus. They were all hunted down, murdered one by one. James and Peter were stolen from our midst. You, Remus," she hissed, "Abandoned us."
She felt her expression of contempt soften slightly.
"You abandoned me." She said it with the air of unchanging resolution. What had been said and done was passed; there was no going back from here.
"They were your friends, Minerva," he replied softly, "But they were my family. With them I was someone rather than something. James and Peter gave me the chance at a life with some semblance of normalcy, and it was more than I could do to live in the shadow of the life they had given me after they were dead and buried."
She caught in his expression the look of a man with neither friend nor faith. A man who had chosen to walk through fire because at least it was an escape from darkness. It brought the severe stoic in her to a pause. Grief, she knew only too well, was as addictive as it was destructive. But the man before her did not possess the look of one riddled to the core with self-pity. No. Something else had haunted his sleep, just as it had for a time, her own.
It was guilt.
"It's more than I deserve to ask you to understand why I went," he continued, "And I won't pretend that your anger with my actions isn't justifiable. On the contrary, I half expected to be bludgeoned close to death with a teapot on first sight." That small slow smile crept quietly across his features in exactly the same manner as it had in her youth.
Damn his rationale. It would have been so much easier if he would just bellow and holler like any other male defending his actions. But then, Remus Lupin was a singular man in many ways.
"Careful: I might yet," she snapped, unsympathetic
"It would be small penance for what I've merited." Again, the specter of a smile that she heard more than saw. But her head was swimming and it was all she could do not to scream at him. Howl out the hurt and betrayal, to make him feel even the smallest bit of pain, if he felt any at all. Instead she walked up the steps and folded her arms across her chest. Minerva paced to the far end of the porch more out of a desire to do something rather than a need of space. She faced the garden wall and potted plants along the railing, remembering the care she had put into seeding and cultivating each one.
Twelve years and a few rosebuds are all there is to show for it, the energetic girl in her whispered. She wondered when it was she had become so jaded. She faintly heard his footfalls behind her.
In the eternal moment that lasted as Minerva turn to face him, she became painfully aware of one thing about all else: the fragility of petals, which withered in time no matter how much love one poured into them. The brightly colored buds bloomed covering the loneliness in violent and resplendent hues. But it was never enough, never would be. Flowers did not blossom forever and could not return the affection.
"Do you remember what I wrote to you that morning?" he asked softly.
"How could I have forgotten?" she replied bitterly. The hair she'd meticulously pinned back earlier in the day had grown bored of its captivity. It tickled her ears and neck as it fell in the heat of the late afternoon, irritating her with its defiance.
"I meant what I wrote. I needed to get away," he said, as though he could will her to understand. Minerva kept her gaze unwavering and devoid of compromise. "For a long time I believed I would have been better off dead," Remus hesitated only slightly, but she heard the pause nonetheless, "There were precious few things that were worth living for. But you were one."
"Then why didn't you come home?" she asked and knew her tone betrayed her composed exterior. He looked small and tired again, as if he had spent many nights looking for the answer to the same question.
"I don't have an answer for that…at least not an easy one. I just knew I wasn't ready. It's a poor excuse, I know, but I didn't exactly know where I was going and once or twice I lost my way." Minerva looked up. His eyes, a light blue she remembered best in spring, were sparkling with sadness and serenity. The corners of his mouth turned up. "I found it though, in the end."
"And the other part of what you wrote…?" she asked, holding his gaze.
... I never said the words aloud, and won't belittle my feelings for you by scribbling them beside my goodbyes. Simply know they are true and I'll be back again in summer…
Remus dropped his eyes to the Muggle newspaper on by their feet. The date printed in cheap, seeping ink read July 3rd, 1993. Thirteen days inside of summer.
He looked up again, all humor gone from his expression.
"Remains very much the same," he finished for her.
She remained very still, unable to fathom where they went from here. In the end she decided inside was as good a place as any. At least there they could escape the unmerciful heat that stifled the city night and day.
She took his hand and studied it momentarily, not sure entirely sure of why she was doing it except, maybe, to reassure herself that he was real. She moved towards the door.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," he said, voice soft and sad. She believed him.
"Me too," she replied and a tear fell for the wasted years in their wake. What came next she could not tell anymore than when the heat spell would break. It would be hard, painful perhaps, but so were many things worth doing. That it was hard made it worth struggling for, she supposed.
Minerva McGonagall had never presumed to live a fairytale. They hurt; they could heal.
Slowly, they would heal.
She paused at the doorway, waiting for him to follow. As Remus shouldered his bag, he went to close the heavy, imposing gate that sealed the entranceway to her home.
"No," she called to him, "let it stay open. It's been closed too long, I think."
He looked up to catch her eyes and Minerva took a long, deep breath and was made blind by dazzling light that fell across her face.
-----
"Relief comes in two ways, dying or healing."
-----
She lay sheathed in pale linen and darkness. One arm lay possessively across his chest, as though laying claim to a stake both secret and prized, like the most hidden of desires. Or as though she feared he would slip from her grasp again. He ran his fingers through her coal-black hair, toying gently with the softy ebony threads and hoping his touch and words combined would allay her anxieties. Her head rested upon his shoulder and he studied her expression as a slender hand traced the paths of painful memories across his skin.
Her touch was as he had remembered. Deliberate. Docile. He was hypersensitive to it, feeling the ghostly residue of where her fingertips had been even as they moved away. With care she outlined a puckering, starburst scar on his stomach. Three long, cruel-looking slashes above his heart. She did not ask how, or when, or even how many. They were among the many secrets he wore, and did not require proper detail or documentation for her to understand the pain the cause. A time and place could not recount the raging beast or the lone wolf. Numbers would not do justice to all the harm he had brought upon himself and others in the space between. The scars were his alone, and alone together they had remained.
Alone he was no more.
Her body was warm as she pressed against him in the warm summer night, though her touch was cool. Fire and ice, he mused, recalling words written by a man he believed to be a kindred spirit. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. He held her close. I think I know enough of hate…He'd been cold too long, just as she had been; locked away behind the frosty exterior of an ice queen in her exquisite frozen palace.
He felt her trace the length of his collar bone, lightly trailing subtle fingertips across his shoulder and down the curve of muscle in his upper arm before coming to rest alight an array of dotted scars arranged in a semi-circle extending from below his elbow to his wrist. He could see the subtle focus of her eyes, the way she bit the inside of her lip more to the right than to the left as she wondered. He had told her where he had been, what he had done in the interim. It was the next step she could not divine. Questions were perilous and they both knew it; unfamiliar territory was never without some element of danger. But she was brave, far more so than he. She would ask eventually, staring down faceless demons and unspoken promises.
He had told her of the hells he'd been through and what it felt to be reborn in the ashes knowing all your world had fed the flames. But the spell without the magic was nothing more than empty words, hollow and unfulfilled. In the morning he'd still be here; he would prove himself to her.
His bridges may have burned but tomorrow he would pick up the pieces and begin to forge them anew.
All he needed was time.
---
The interluding lines between vignettes are as follows: Sweet Baby James, by James Taylor; Loch Lomand, a Scottish folk song (though I have come across references of it being an Irish tune as well); Marius' soliloquy from Empty Chairs At Empty Tables¸ from Boubil and Schonberd's Les Miserables; lines from one of my favorite novels, Atonement, by Ian McEwan; Lover, You Should Have Come Over, by Jeff Buckley; Shoot the Moon, by Norah Jones; and a Swahili proverb I came across while researching tribes of East Africa.