Lyra skipped over the Lines from the corner she rounded, for Will she thought. Don't step on the cracks or you'll break your mother's back. They'd learned the phrase from Will. It must've meant more to him than to either of them. They hadn't had a conventional mother, but then neither had he. Someone somewhere had stepped on too many of Will's "Lines" Lyra reasoned. Someone had broken his mother, someone had broken him. She pushed the thought away before it could spell tears from her.
"But he had someone to really love him and someone to really love in return." Pantalaimon said. He'd grown a great appreciation for Elaine Parry from his time spent with Kirjava. Kirjava may not have been Kirjava before their moment together on the docks, but she still knew who she was and where that came from. Pantalaimon's feet skittered along the tiles and in a rush of embarassed lonliness Lyra scooped him to her breast.
"But we had that too, Pan, we've never been lonely."
"We were never lonely, Lyra because we were whole ourselves." Pantalaimon nuzzled her neck knowing the next words would hurt them, "We made our whole elsewhere now. We're going to lose it."
"Oh, Pan!" She whispered and hugged him tighter.
"Lyra!" Will brightened as they entered his room, Kirjava lept from the sunny spot on Will's dresser to greet them. They embraced: he still in bed, stitting up now, she standing next to him. "They said you might not come today, Lyra. I thought they'd keep you away."
Lyra hesitated in pulling away, had he meant the nurses?
"The nurses said people don't visit much on Sundays." Kirjava added. Lyra relaxed.
"You're having a good day, Will?"
"Now." He smiled in return.
They left the care center together three days later. Will had had a bad day on Monday, but she'd convinced the nurses it was a fluke and taken him for a walk. The staff already had too many old people to deal with, Will was young and they couldn't understand his illness. Sometimes they'd talk to him, asking him questions he couldn't respond to until they frustrated him and forced him to shout. They always left more angry than they'd entered his room. Despite his reputation as a learned man of science, he seemed to them just an oddity. His presence was never missed in chart collections. His belongings were added to the small storage room down the hall. Typically this was where belongings stayed until a family member arrived to collect the belongings of their deceased. Will was not dead.
"Yet." He mumbled under his breath. They had made their way through Oxford to a familiar house. She'd supported him on the walk from the hospital and they'd taken a taxi from there. She'd held his hand the whole time. Now he was back in bed, his own this time. Lyra heaped the covers back onto him after helping him into bed. "I'm sorry, Lyra, I'm so sorry." He whispered and with sudden desperate strength gripped her hands in his own. Kirjava lept onto the covers and rubbed against Will, to calm him. Lyra sat down calmly at her place beside him.
"Will?"
"I didn't mean for this to happen, I really didn't!" His jaw jutted out in relentless determination. Tears fell slowly down his face. More than anything, this hurt Lyra. It wasn't his fault! They couldn't have known! It wasn't his fault! It wasn't their fault!
"Will, it's not your fault. We didn't think -"
"No!" He cut her off fiercely, "No. I should've known, more than anyone I should've known. I love you so much Lyra. It's not fair to leave you like this, to have you taking care of me. Don't remember me this way..." His head fell to his chest slowly, his shame wouldn't let him meet eyes with her any longer. "Don't remember me this way..."
"But
Will I love you no matter how you are. I love you because I can't not
love you, because it would kill me to keep that from myself. You know
that, Will, you know that"
She pulled his chin toward herself and kissed him slowly. "You know that Will." She looked seriously into his face, studying.
He looked, and saw in her eyes what was really there. That same love he felt when he was strong enough, that same love that forced him to not care about himself just so he could continue caring about her. His love, his Lyra. This was his world. Love was now the only place he could exist. Time was short and there was no longer room for anything else.
"I know." He kissed her back, but the tears wouldn't dry soon. "Let's go somewhere, Lyra."
"You can't, Will! You're not fit - "
"I'm fit anywhere just as much as I can be anymore. Besides," that sheepish look she loved so much to see in him flashed its way across his face, "Wherever we go, as long as you're there, so is my world. That's where I am."
"Then let's stay here, Will. We can stay and get you a hot bath and some sleep and maybe tomorrow -" His face fell at her words and she stopped.
"Lyra." Kirjava flowed smoothly into Lyra's lap, surprising both she and Will. "What about tomorrow?" Lyra's heart broke. She'd felt it so many times it was almost a pitious thing now. Tomorrow doesn't count if you don't give today a chance. Tomorrow never arrives if today is where it ends.
Lyra smiled. "Let's go somewhere."
Pantalaimon discovered Will's slightly used walker in the downstairs linen closet. Lyra brushed the bits of cobweb from its handles and brought it to their room. He didn't have back problems, he didn't have leg problems. He had heart probelms, he had walking problems, trouble with exhaustion, trouble with living. Living was becoming too difficult for Will's body to tackle each day. Living had become a daily struggle for his mind to cope with. But his heart was there. Not literally. Literally, his heart was failing and would continue to do so for a short time before succeeding. His dæmon, his love. The things that were Will were still there. Some days they could overpower everything his body said was impossible and bring back the William Parry they knew. Today will be like that, Will reminded himself. Today must be, for Lyra.
He pushed aside the walker and took Lyra's hand. Not for balance, but because he loved her and would hold her hand anywhere to know she was beside him. Even in the land of the dead, even when hope doesn't exist, even right now. She's beside me.
"There's the garden, two streets over. The flowers should be nice." He was walking and speaking, Lyra didn't expect to hear much else until they arrived at the gardens, but silence was fine. He was beside her, and he was strong for her. She wished he'd save the strength for himself, but she knew in the end this was best for him.
"We could've had children, Will." Lyra put a hand to her stomach.
They paused at the corner before crossing the street. Pantalaimon and Kirjava were already waiting on the other side for them. Will smiled and caught his breath with one hand on his knee.
"I know you said you wouldn't leave me like that, but it wasn't bad for you - was it?" Her hand still rested thoughtfully on her stomach. "Your mum was so lucky to have you to love her, Will." He smiled again and began the street crossing. The entrance to the Botanic Garden lay at the other side. She would say no more about children. Decisions were already made. The end was just the place to re-evaluate, not to re-decide.
"There's a bench," Will paused again at the entrance, resting a hand on the stone structure for support. "Back, back a ways. Back by those..." He forgot the name and waved a hand in response. "Those plants we used that one day in Mr. Makepeace's - "He sputtered and began coughing. She rubbed his back until it subsidded. "It's back there." He nodded in affirmation.
"This way!" Kirjava appeared inside the entrance and shot past a fountain. A red blur followed her through another archway. Back they walked slowly, hand in hand, occasionally catching glimpses of red-brown and black in among the young plants. Back past another fountain and into the older parts of the gardens. The plants were thicker here and less well groomed, but the trees had deeper roots and Will liked the solid feeling of the place. Over a little bridge and in front of them: a wooden bench overhung by a sprawling twisted-trunked tree. In the wind shadows danced over the wood, revealing bits of slightly mossed brown into sunlight before gently covering them again with shadow. They took seats, side by side. Rustling behind them indicated both Pantalaimon and Kirjava had made their way into the tree above. As evidence bits of leaf began showering Lyra. Laughing, Will plucked them from her hair.
"I love you, Lyra." He couldn't look away now. A small cat hiss from above, "Will you marry me?" He pulled the ring slowly from his pocket and made his way to his knee.
Silence above. Lyra gasped.
"Oh, Will!" She fell onto her knees on the stone path beside him and hugged him. "Oh, Will!" She repeated. His heart beat faster, faster. "Will..." She held his face in her hands and kissed him, pulled back reluctantly, brought his hands into hers. Warm. He was so warm, she was so warm. Except... He looked down at the cold bit on Lyra's hand. Metal, gold. A ring. Sitting where his should be. He crumpled to the path, stunned. His hands dropped to the stone. The ring fell underneath the bench. His head spun, he couldn't...He felt sick.
"Lyra?" He looked up at her slowly.
"Will, look." She took the ring from the ground and slipped it down her finger, next to the other one. It was the same. "Look, Will." She pulled his hands from the ground and wrapped them around hers. "Will..." Heat ripped at her insides, tears would not come. "It's the same, Will. It's the same ring. You just get a little confused sometimes."
And suddenly his head cleared. He had the moment back. His head spun again, now with realization. His mouth fell open of its own accord.
"Lyra...you said 'yes'." His eyes spilled with tears as he hugged Lyra to him again and again "You said 'yes'!"
"Every time, Will. Every time."
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Author Notes
I expect you'll all kill me now. But in my defense, everything reads differently if you know how to read it wink
Yes
I had this end before I had the story in mind. I can't start if I can't
see an end. And I did what I meant to do - to explore different
variations of 'now' and 'eternity' and what they meant when you've got
your time known. Is the ending sad? I don't know, it seems more like a
hopeful promise of love to me, but then I've left a good deal open for
your own interpretation. After all, characters are allowed to have
their own stories beyond what is written about them. The stories you
tell are just the little pieces that make up what you are for what the
world sees from you.
In some other world, a slight breath away yet impossibly distant, the coin landed heads up and everything changed from that moment. Everything changed from thousands of little coin flips along the way because we're human and because we can love and make our own decisions. The end is only a time to re-evaluate, not to re-decide; that's when you decide if your eternity was the right one.
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Thank you everyone who has read this, and especially those who have enjoyed it - at least until this chapter. Thank you everyone who has reviewed, your reviews are very much appreciated and always encouraging to write more, and if not more, to write better. I hope you've all enjoyed reading, and please review!
The characters used in this story, His Dark Materials, and associated phrashing belong to Philip Pullman and all associated parties. I do not own the characters. I do not own the first chapter, an excerpt has been provided simply to show another story which sprang from the same instance using Philip Pullman's analogy of a coin-flip. Thank you Lord Asriel.