Hi! I'm so sorry for the long wait to update. Since school started back, I've been extremely stressed and busy and this is the first time I've gotten to decompress and actually write. Also, my interest in Red Queen had waned for a bit but my motivation has returned. So, without further ado:
G is for Goodbye
AU. Post RQ Series. The year is 352 of the New Era. Mare and Cal are married.
The tension had been palpable at breakfast that morning.
They'd pretended not to notice the friction in the air as they sat around the wooden table, picking idly at their toast and eggs. After a while, he'd excused himself to go work in his workshop in the backyard. She'd nodded wordlessly, feigned a smile and let him kiss her before he left.
After he'd left, she lingered for some time in the kitchen. It was probably no more than twenty minutes but it had felt like hours as she stared into her half-empty mug of coffee and tried to keep her eyes from straying to the calendar hanging from the fridge.
December 17, 352 of the New Era.
She'd celebrated her fiftieth birthday exactly one month beforehand. It should have been a jubilant occasion, all of her remaining friends and family gathered to celebrate her surviving the horrid events of her teen years and emerging as the strong woman she is today.
But she hadn't felt strong. She hadn't even felt worthy of celebrating. Instead, she'd hid in the bathroom and cried during the cake-cutting, all too aware of the blue-eyed man who would never get to reach this milestone, never be sung happy birthday by his loved ones, never celebrate his fiftieth birthday one month after hers. On December 17th, 352 of the New Era, Maven Calore should have turned fifty.
Instead, his mangled, distorted corpse lies buried six feet under in a sloppy, hastily marked grave near the Choke. She supposes his mother's body is somewhere near there too. The thought that at least they're close to each other in death brings her some comfort. But then she remembers her hand in their deaths and the overwhelming shame keeps her awake at night.
Her quiet agony had persisted through dinner, another painfully silent meal eaten at the table Cal had carved for their fifteenth anniversary three months ago. This time there's no escaping the unbearable pressure in the room as they go to get ready for bed. Cal showers quickly beforehand and then slips into bed. She goes into the bathroom to brush her teeth, doing it in half-darkness so she won't have to see her hollow eyes and the lines around her mouth.
When she emerges, Cal is already asleep and she murmurs a quiet prayer of thanks. She doesn't want him to touch her, at least not today. As soon as the thought crosses her mind, her skin runs hot with shame. Tears well in her eyes before she can help it.
"I'm sorry." She whispers, standing the middle of the room. "I'm sorry that I haven't been able to let go of him. This isn't fair to you, Cal, it really isn't. You're my husband. I know you love me. You've sacrificed so much for me your entire life. And yet, here I am, still pining for a man dead for thirty-two years now while I wear your ring on my finger. God, I'm still the same, aren't I? Same old selfish Mare."
She sniffs, a tear falling down her cheek. "But that always the difference between us, right? You've always been too good for me. You're brave and generous and compassionate. You bring light and all I've ever been good for is darkness. I'm just too damaged to love you completely. Maven was too. Maybe that's what brought us together. Maybe that's why a small part of me is still in love with him today."
The room is silent aside from Cal's light snoring and she feels so indescribably alone.
She slides underneath the covers, feeling as if the soft cotton is an enormous weight pressing down on her body. She reaches out a slim hand to touch Cal's back when a barely audible noise as her eyes flicking to the left side of the room.
Maven Calore is standing in her doorway and she wonders if she's fallen asleep.
He looks seventeen again, his blue eyes alight with the same fire, his lips quirked up slightly as he watches the bewilderment cross her face. His long, lean body is draped across the wood panel as if he belongs there. The sight threatens to tear her heart in two.
"Maven." The name leaves her lips in a choked gasp.
He smiles for real now and she feels her heartrate quicken. He moves toward her, with the same quiet, purposeful steps and he looks so real that she thinks she might be able to reach out and touch him as if he's actually there and not a figment of her imagination.
"Happy belated birthday," he murmurs when he's standing a mere foot away, "We would have celebrated being alive for half a century this year." He smirks, a heartbreakingly familiar sight. "What an achievement."
"What are you doing here?" She whispers, "I mean, you're not real, are you?"
He says nothing, watching her as she watches him. "You're not happy, Mare."
"No shit." She chokes out, feeling rage bubble up inside her now. "And it's all your fault. Why the hell did you make me love you, Maven? Why can't I let you go? It's been thirty-two years since you died, three whole decades. And yet you're still a ghost in my marriage, a shadow I can never seem to shake off."
Blood rushes to her cheeks as she barrels on, "You know what kind of person you've turned me into? I lied to Cal, my husband, about one of the most important things in our relationship. I told him I couldn't have kids, Maven, that whatever the hell Ptolemus Samos and those torturers did to me messed up my insides too badly. I couldn't bring myself to give my husband children because I knew that I wouldn't love them absolutely, which is what every child deserves. I can't give birth to Silver children, burner children, without wondering what they would look like with blue eyes instead of bronze. With your nose instead of his. With your intelligence and quick wit instead of his war-prowess."
"I hate you," she whispers, "Because I still love you."
She breaks off, her breathing ragged and tears on her cheeks. He's staring at her, as calm and composed as always. He looks so young that she suddenly feels ashamed of her frown lines and nearly grey hair.
"I hate it when you cry." He murmurs, eyes tracking the moisture on her cheeks. "Mare, you need to stop crying over me."
"You say like it's easy." She snaps at him. "Was it really that easy for you, Maven? To let me go? To go off into the afterlife without a single thought for the people you left behind?"
He smiles at her gently and she feels all her anger drain out of her. "It's nice up there, you know." He says, pointing up at the sky. "Heaven or whatnot. I didn't believe in any of that until I died. I was so damned sure that I was going to hell."
"Maybe it is hell actually," he muses, "To live in my perfect world and know that it's not reality. That every ounce of perfection is fabricated, a product of my own imagination."
"What's your perfect world?" She asks shakily, fearing the answer.
"I live close to the beach." He smiles dryly. "I guess in heaven I got over my aversion to water. It's not a big house, just large enough for the five of us. The furniture is worn down slightly after so many years and it's comfortable. Not pristine or expensive like the palaces of my childhood. I'm married to you, obviously. We have three children, two boys and a girl. They're five, four, and one right now. I think I reached the pinnacle of happiness when our daughter was born. I'd wanted a girl from the beginning."
"Please," she manages to get out, "No more." Her throat is burning with the need to cry. "I don't need any more what-ifs. It hurts too much."
That gentle smile is back. He reaches out and skims her cheek, the touch dancing along her wrinkled skin and making it feel smooth and youthful again. "I just wanted you to know that I'm happy. So you can be happy too."
"Even if that means letting you go?"
"Especially if it means letting me go." Maven looks pained. "I've held you down for too long. It's time for you to well and truly move on. Even if it is with my brother."
"Goodbye, Maven."
That night, she dreams of waves crashing on sand and pattering feet of small dark-haired and blue-eyed children. She sees Maven again, laughing as he pushes a giggling little girl in a swing.
He looks happy.
For the first time, she feels as if she can get there too.