by intodust
Disclaimer: Dark Angel is the property of 20th Century Fox and Cameron/Eglee Productions; that is, it's not mine. The title and summary are from Mazzy Star's "Rhymes of an Hour."
First-season. Probably romance. AU, too.
- - -
In blackest winter she stands by the window and traces patterns in the frost, lines indelicate and thick with heat. Warmth radiates from her fingers, melting the ice and leaving clumsy silhouettes. Condensation on her fingernails catches the candlelight and glistens like liquid diamonds. The water leaves trails like tears on her skin when she presses her hands to her face.
She has never liked winter. It is a time for running and for freezing, when survival is at its most tenuous. There are no places to hide in winter and one can only hope that it will snow enough to cover footprints left in the snow. Here, though, it is warm. Logan doesn't like winter, either, but his reasons are so different, innumerable and none of them his own. She wonders if he would tell her about skiing trips and broken legs, about hot cocoa and fireplaces, because all of these are as legends, vaporous as ghosts. And as frightening. If he tells her that they were once real, she will be compelled to find them herself. She will want to fall down mountains and to fly.
Instead, he tells her a story. She doesn't listen to the words, but to his voice. She pretends this will save her, that the rise and fall of his words have no meaning outside themselves. She pretends that she is not dying, that this does not leave her empty. This is all she can have, all that is hers to take. She pretends that it is enough.
She closes her eyes and thinks of the future. His hands, worn with age and gentle as waves, and snow falling like cold stars far away, far away. The image stutters, freezes before she can see herself, before she can see what place she holds, what time has promised.
He whispers and she is caught in between. She remembers words unspoken and finds that they have come too late. They no longer matter. She refuses to think in terms of DNA and lines of programming, cool and rational and indecipherable, and thinks of emotions instead. He is suddenly unreachable, frozen oceans and cold starscapes.
When she opens her eyes, his are closed, as if it is real life that cannot be shared. This does not surprise her and she walks silently away, busies herself with kettle and water and stove. He does not have hot cocoa, as far as she can tell, and she settles for tea instead. She wants chocolate and cream, but spice will have to do.
Wind covers the city in visible waves, weaving throughout the high buildings and along the cold streets. The roads are unyielding beneath a slick layer of ice. She knows this because she slipped earlier, her bike tires sliding like silk across glass, and the sensation had been so sudden, so much like freedom, that she'd forgotten that she would land. The sharpness had bitten into her palms, torn at the skin and left jagged, humbling lines.
The kettle whistles and she pulls it from the heat, measures the water between two cups and carries them out to him, to where he waits. Steam wafts, rich and delicate, and she wraps her fingers around the mug as if she can absorb the heat, as if to take it into her body. It doesn't work. He watches her over his own mug and she wonders if he knows. The air is tranquil and the evenness of their breathing makes her drowsy.
He smiles and the tea cools, forgotten.
Later, the wind cries outside and razor-edged pleas dance in the air. He breathes against her hair and she does not listen.
- - -
The End.