Author's Notes: This is the last chapter. However, while this fic is ending, but I think the entire AU is not. I have some ideas about what "post-Hymns" is like, and I want to explore that, I think, along with some other stuff in the series that's not stictly canon. So keep an eye open for that sometime!
Additionally, art for Hymns will still be organized with the tags I've been using on Tumblr thus far, including new art, and links to new art will be added as I can whenever I make new posts on the AO3. If you're interested in keeping up with fanart I get, looking directly on Tumblr is the best bet, especially since I can't add links directly on . Again, my tumblr account is Pipesflowforeverandever and you can go to that blog and search "hymns art" to see all the fanart for this series.
This is the chapter that made me cry the most, by far.
The song in this chapter is "Here for You" by Good Co, and I highly recommend you find the drabble Rose Tea and read it if you haven't yet.
88- Epilogue
...
What a wonderful day.
In the living room, the sun shines bright. Rays stream past baby blue curtains, and the nursing home's resident kitten is curled up on the daybed. She flicks her tail almost in tune to the music as the song finishes. The half dozen people in the room sleepily applaud, claps like soft, dripping rain- polite and grateful, even if tired from it being the perfect time to fall asleep like the little cat already has.
The piano player flexes their fingers for one last song before they retire, its chords soft and slow, like looking at yourself for the first time through glass so ancient it's turned yellow; another filter, another time, both long ago and very, very close. The musician parts their lips and glides five fingers over black and white keys as they bid adieu.
I don't know just what to do…
When all I do is run.
It's getting to be…so hard for me…
To carry on.
…He catches a glance as he walks by the open room's entry, seeing the flowers in a jug upon the piano and the ones outside as people in wheelchairs sit and enjoy the fresh air. He hopes, with time, so may he.
Henry died surrounded by loved ones, leaving behind a darling husband named Marvin and a beautiful daughter named Linda. That's what the old obituary says.
He has been dead for quite some time.
A man with red hair eventually has soft shadow fall upon his face- still a shade darker than the rest, but so much brighter than the darkness that used to shroud him. He looks better in it.
He looks different.
The music- the twirling sound of notes like you can hear a couple's slow ballroom dance- fades to the back of his ears as honey eyes blink softly and rosy cheeks turn away, dust motes like glitter in their slow descent to the earth-toned carpet as they continue to glide where he was watching.
And back and forth, one step at a time, the man feels light in the shape of windows fall over him with walls' shadows in between as he lingers down the hall with a rose in his hand.
I go out most every night…
But I only reach the door.
…This one. His orange hairline shines at a different angle as he tilts his forehead up to look. His lips pull back and he bites the inside of his mouth.
I kid myself…to think…
I could do more.
But someone promised him he can do more, and so he grips the doorway and peeks in, slow and wide-eyed.
The piano in the background picks up flight like a butterfly stuck atop an indoor vase, stringing in and out of wine glasses, table lamps, and couch pillows as it either tries to find the window or delays the end on purpose.
There's a silhouette inside, someone in a rocking chair looking outside at the birdfeeder outside their window. The fact that he sees her again is suddenly so, so real, and the fog lifts with a dose of reality like a shock to the heart; a hand comes to his face and he releases a soft gasp-
He thinks to leave after all, but she's already turned her head to see who has come to visit.
An Asian woman with hair woven from clouds adjusts to give a glance. She's under a quilt knit yellow, pink, blue, green; and a face far more wrinkled with laughter and age than his becomes even more clear as she gives him a smile.
The heart in the man stops beating, and so Linda uses the time to look him up and down, evaluative. Who knows if she knows, too- how much smaller he seems than the last time they met, how a sweater and black pants instead of a white suit rounds out his shoulders- how tennis shoes instead of heels and a bare head instead of a top hat is so tiny…so much more meek and less grand than the character he was before.
She looks at him, and she decides.
"…You seem familiar."
In the mirror, I can see myself…
But it's someone I don't know.
…A lifetime flickers over his eyes, all the times he played over and over and over in his head; he's used them to pity himself. It's different seeing what you thought was gone for good.
And so anxiously, he huffs barely a chuckle, a nervous drop of his eyes all over the room not searching for what to say, but rather searching for the soul that's left his body.
Inevitably, they fall back upon her. His beloved granddaughter.
She is here. She is alive.
And every time…I close my eyes…
Back to yours.
And suddenly his smile firmed, just a little, just enough.
"Yes, dear," finally arrives a proper greeting, "My name is-…Joey." One more shift in his eyes, like flames of a candle in this soft shade of a room with no light but from outside.
His smile turns up more for a second with a slight exhale, hiding a grimace with a grin of amazement as true as the hurt he feels to say this.
"I knew you when you were just a baby."
And what can she say to that?
Nothing. It's so ridiculous. She's so old, and he's so young! And so Joey sees her wrinkles go even deeper as she belts a laugh.
It's such a strong, healthy laugh.
Since you've gone I've been so low…
Don't know what else I can do.
…In a trance, Mr. Drew allows himself closer, and its almost like some of his black magic charm is back.
"Well, not right from birth," he corrects, "But I did know your father." As if he's admitting he never knew her at all.
The old woman continues to rock, the chair squeaking softly back and forth with baby birds in their nest singing harmony. Amused, as the truly strange stranger knowing her father doesn't make much sense either with as young as he looks- 40? 50? Can't be a day over 50-…she plays along.
"Which one?"
Oh, that voice is lovely. The man's brow curls and he fiddles with his hands, melting on the spot at how that sound washes over and through him. Another short chuckle that can barely hide tears wanting to come, and his head dips down before he has he strength to lift it back up. Behind clean glasses are eyes nearly pinched shut with emotion, and underneath are lips he can feel quiver, but he still manages just fine.
"Both," he answers with a nod, "But I knew one before the other." A pause, as Joey absorbs her perfect face, her beautiful expressions. "I suppose you…always felt like Henry was your father, didn't you?"
Some cotton white hairs brush over her eyes as Linda tilts her head. "I never doubted it for a second, and never understood anyone who did. Blood doesn't make family." And somehow after already facing him, she seems to face him even more directly. "Don't you agree?"
The woman with a full life can't know how much that question means to him.
"…Yes," he whispers, leaning in closer to his north star. The glassiness over his eyes glimmers as he does. "I do."
Not every day Linda has someone that understands. It makes her giggle, rough in the back of her throat. "More people need to get that into their thick skulls!"
"Yes," he answers reverently, setting a knee next to her rocker to look at the robins and maple leaves too, "They do."
And although she's never known him- and how odd it is he seems to know her- she lets him stay. A young woman comes into the doorway, leaning in and watching. Francine's clothes are new, too, and she gently holds a little boy with brown hair and skin as he sucks his thumb and watches the second reunion.
I'll spend…my day…
…Joey Drew stares out the window, just as his ray of sunshine is. She's in a yellow dress, and it takes everything in him to keep from crying until he looks back out at the trees that go on past his sight and the sun beaming on a man who believed no one would ever see it again. He twirls the rose he brought in his hand, gently smoothing over the shape of the thorns.
Waiting here…
…Francine hugs Gabby just a little bit tighter.
For you.
…Back in the living room of the nursing home, the pianist plays one note, two notes, three. The sound lingers, and they hold their fingers there, feeling the vibration in their fingertips, and they press one last time before slowly pulling away.
Just as he was a child, blinked, and became an old man, so he had blinked and little Linda went from the smallest baby to the brightest old woman.
The song is done.
"Would you like me to get you some tea, dear?"
"…I'd like nothing more."
A hand places itself on another, the sound of running water drumming now the piano is gone and the birdsong is replaced by crickets. As Francine looks up into the stars, Sammy tilts his head down, releasing a soft sigh as each trickle of the brook echoes right into his heart. He holds her hand back, twitching his eyes to her in recognition that it's okay; with a new body and a world of new sensations, it's so easy to become overwhelmed, and so a signal from one to the other is appropriate about where different boundaries lie.
She squeezes it back, glancing down at her thumb as she strokes his knuckles. He seems…happy. And she's happy in return. There's a lot ahead of them, and sometimes its suffocating, and so the fact that her best friend can manage to smile makes it easier for her to smile too.
Kicking her boots, she can still feel the cold breeze over water pass through her leggings and give her goosebumps.
He feels one more pulse in the grip on his hand before a gentle weight falls upon his side. He can guess her head is turned up, hair glistening with moonlight and the spots on her face matching the constellations she seeks. Francine is doing such, in fact- marveling at galaxies she was worried she'd never see again. The rich blues and purples come to her eyes and fill her up with something amazing that there's not a word for yet.
Sammy, in turn, tries to control his tensing up; still so bizarre to be so close. Still such a brief time ago no one was with him at all. He listens to the melody of the night, still trying to accept he's not just imagining it.
He wished for something for so long that he had forgotten what it was really like.
"…I wish you could see it."
Francine's eyes have not yet fallen off the sky, but now rather than the vast infinite, she was seeing the stars around his head.
It's hard to describe, from someone blind to someone seeing, how strange it is to hear people lament for you when there's nothing to regret at all. Perhaps this isn't truer for anyone else in the world than it is for Sammy Lawrence. They feel so bad it's happened to you when you just want to enjoy the day you were once afraid would never come. But she means no ill will, and he cannot feel tired of her after all she's done to try to understand and to be there. So instead of correcting, with hints of both mischief and solemnness, he offers something she has forgotten:
"I don't need to see to hear every song I've never heard, Francine."
The grin on his face widens a touch before growing smaller, and it's the first time she sees that the glint in his eyes isn't just hope for the future but joy for what's here now. So, so much.
There's a pause for a good, long time before Sammy feels her shift, curling up next to his side and holding him close. She doesn't care about the hesitation it takes for him to turn and hold her back, his grey eyes lifted up to the heavens finally there above. The fireflies still light up the twilight, lily pads float without rush nor care across the pond, and his glasses are tucked in the collar of his shirt. Everything stays.
Yes, Francine Vahl has that promise of his to keep, but she'll never forget the second one she made. Just as he helped her in one world, she'll be there in the next.