between one June and another September (Twilight, Mary/Leah, metafic)
Title: between one June and another September
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Mary Blake (Renesmee Cullen)/Leah Clearwater
Rating: PG
Warnings: a little bit of language. nothing big.
When: Third of the Mary Blake 'verse. Set after the one unchanging thing is I. Post-BD, naturally.
Summary: In the beginning, she comes home.
Disclaimer: Twilight isn't mine. Meyer can keep it.
Author's Note: It's finally finally done! You know, only about two months after I started it. :P Anyways. This fic is Mary/Leah, but I left a lot of it rather subtextual, so yes, you probably aren't reading too much into it. The title and all of the poetry excerpts are from marina by T. S. Eliot, except for the last one, which is from Civilization by Carl Phillips. You don't even want to know how close I came to including this entire scene that was basically just them reading poetry. A lot of it. Symbolic poetry! Poetry I love! I had somewhere around fifteen tabs of poems open before I shook myself and went 'no Betsy no! write the story! geek about poetry on your own time!' Random piece of trivia: elocation (or, exit us) by Evie Shockley came thisclose to getting included, because it is just such a Mary poem. Anyways, yeah. Story time! (Can you tell I'm really nervous about this one?)
In the beginning, she comes home.
*
“My cousin’s daughter,” Charlie tells people who ask, and when they ask how old she is, “15.”
Mary tries not to show her joy at being able to give her real age. It is the first and last time, and she knows it will not last for long.
*
“You grew up!” Seth Clearwater says, his sister behind him, glowering at nothing in particular.
“A bit fast for my liking, but yes,” Mary says. Leah’s eyes soften around the edges.
*
Leah keeps her distance.
Mary can’t blame her.
*
“Thanks for the ride!”
“No problem, have a great first day!” Charlie says through the window, and Mary smiles and turns to face the school.
She can do this.
She can be normal.
*
According to her human anatomy book, the average human blinks once every 2-10 seconds.
Mary already knew that.
*
Leah comes over with her mother, eats fish fry with them and stares at nothing, moves swift and heavy and silent with her hair cropped short and spiky like Mary’s own. Charlie asks about Seth’s departure for college and Mrs. Clearwater says he got there safely as Leah stabs at her food.
Mary thinks about ying and yang and the imbalance of power and how pale her arms look when compared to Leah's dark tan.
“I wish I could come to La Push,” she says wistfully, and Leah’s guarded eyes flick over to her for just a split second.
“Of course you can,” she says, looking unperturbed by her mother’s sharp sound of disapproval. Mary smiles as wide as she can without showing her teeth.
*
She has only been on the beach five minutes when Leah lopes up, something of the wolf in every move she makes.
“I like the ocean,” Mary says by way of explanation, and Leah nods sharp and sits down a bit away, looking out to the beach.
“I like the sunset,” Leah says unexpectedly, and her voice is cautiously friendly.
They sit in silence.
*
“It’s not that I don’t like you so much as you smell like bloodsucker,” Leah says bluntly, and Mary laughs.
“You smell like werewolf,” she says lightly, feeling unexpectedly relieved. “Maybe one day I’ll get used to it.”
*
“So if you want to stay in one place for more than a few years, you have to go to highschool again?” Leah says, and Mary nods morosely. Leah considers this seriously for a long moment and then leans back, stretching across the couch. “Christ, that blows.”
“Language, Leah,” her mother chides from the kitchen where she and Charlie are cleaning up.
“Well it does,” Mary mutters under her breath, and Leah laughs out loud.
Her smile lights up the room, and Mary shivers.
*
Apotheosis is the exalting or raising of a human to the rank of a god, Mary tells Leah the third afternoon on the beach, and Leah shifts and nods.
Mary leaves things unspoken because she does not know how to say them, but Leah knows what she meant.
*
“How do you like the kids so far?” Charlie asks her at dinner.
“They’re really nice,” Mary says. “I sit with a group every day, and today a boy invited me to the movies. I said no, but still.” She smiles. “I like them,” she says again, “they’re nice,” and she thinks once my mother sat here and talked about her day, only she knows her mother and can’t imagine her loving the normality like Mary does. It is like twisted déjà vu.
*
Everyone carries within them the seeds of their own destruction.
*
“Bella jumped off these cliffs once and nearly drowned,” Leah says.
“I’d say it’s probably a lot more fun when you’re practically indestructible,” Mary muses, and Leah grins, wide and all teeth.
“Oh, it is,” she says. Mary takes two steps forward to the edge.
“No power in the ‘verse can stop me,” she quotes to Leah with a sudden smile, and the air rushes past her face as she falls, light and effortless.
*
But that is not what is important. What is important is that they also carry within themselves the ability to be reborn and to create new life.
*
She cuts cleanly through the water and comes up to laugh in joy.
Leah’s fingers brush against hers in the water.
*
“Isn’t it hard?” Leah asks unexpectedly as they tread water. “Being part of two worlds at the same time?”
She had almost forgotten her heritage, here in the mist and the rain and the sand and surf, here with Charlie and Sue and Leah and boys who ask her to movies and all the trappings of an almost-normal life.
“Yes, it is,” she says softly.
“Show me,” Leah says, and takes Mary’s hand firmly. Her eyes are steady and dark, and for the first time in ten years Mary shows another person her thoughts.
*
Mary does not know what Leah thinks she is proving, or who she thinks she is proving it to, and at some level she doesn’t even care.
*
She and Charlie go to La Push one night in the dark and they sit around the fires and listen to the stories. By the time the dinner and dancing has done, she has fallen asleep on Charlie’s shoulder. She wakes up long enough to drag herself up to bed when they get home, and is asleep again by the time Charlie comes up to say good night.
She dreams of - she does not remember what she dreams of.
*
She reads T. S. Eliot aloud to Leah in her bedroom while Charlie and Sue watch TV downstairs, and ends up with her head in Leah’s lap and half-asleep as Leah plucks the book out of her hands, turns the page and reads the next poem.
“What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter."
“I like that one,” Mary murmurs, and Leah smiles and continues reading.
*
When she looks back, she can’t even tell when it started, when Leah first looked at her with dark eyes and she shivered, the first time Leah brushed tanned fingers against hers and it meant something more.
She does remember the first time they held hands in public, the way Charlie’s eyes widened a bit when he’d seen and then he smiled suddenly and she'd released breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
*
O my daughter.
*
The sun comes out.
Leah shows up by eight, teeth flashing in her face, the perfect antidote to the moping Mary’s been feeling coming on.
“Hey Mr. Swann!” she says as she bounces up the steps and through the door. “Can I take Mary out to La Push?”
“Yeah, sure,” Charlie says, easy and smiling too like this is so normal, and maybe it should be. Leah catches Mary’s hand and they wave bye and head out, running and laughing and Mary feels so very young. They go to the cliffs. It’s almost summer, the sun just hot enough for the water to be cool and refreshing. Mary slices through the water, twisting and turning to evade Leah as they fight mock battles under the water and then come up to breathe and laugh.
She glows like ice beneath the water and Leah looks like fire in the sunlight and they are in perfect symmetry. It feels like dancing.
“Bet you can’t beat me to the top,” Leah says, and Mary scrambles for the rock, leaving the grey soaked with water behind her as she climbs. They roll onto the top almost simultaneously and collapse in the heat, arguing about who won.
It is something close to perfection.
*
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
*
“What is this? What are we?” Mary asks Leah, suddenly desperate to know. “What do I mean to you?” Leah is silent for a long moment, staring up at the sky.
“You’re Mary,” she says finally, and rolls over to face her. “You’re you. And I love it.”
Mary is not sure that’s an answer, but for now it’ll do. They have all the time in the world.
“I found a poem for you,” Leah says, almost cautiously. “I think you’ll like it. I’ll read it to you when we get home.”
“Thank you.” Mary says it softly, and Leah ducks her head, shy for a moment, and then looks up again, smiling.
“I did beat you to the top, though,” she says, and shrieks as Mary dives at her.
*
They walk home together in the dusk, holding hands, and on the side of the road by the forest Leah turns to her and says, “Do you think this is what love is like?”
"Yes."
Maybe later she will say I love you, but for now this is enough.
*
Don't
you know it, don't you know
I love you, he said. He was
shaking. He said,
I love you. There’s an art
to everything.
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Mary Blake (Renesmee Cullen)/Leah Clearwater
Rating: PG
Warnings: a little bit of language. nothing big.
When: Third of the Mary Blake 'verse. Set after the one unchanging thing is I. Post-BD, naturally.
Summary: In the beginning, she comes home.
Disclaimer: Twilight isn't mine. Meyer can keep it.
Author's Note: It's finally finally done! You know, only about two months after I started it. :P Anyways. This fic is Mary/Leah, but I left a lot of it rather subtextual, so yes, you probably aren't reading too much into it. The title and all of the poetry excerpts are from marina by T. S. Eliot, except for the last one, which is from Civilization by Carl Phillips. You don't even want to know how close I came to including this entire scene that was basically just them reading poetry. A lot of it. Symbolic poetry! Poetry I love! I had somewhere around fifteen tabs of poems open before I shook myself and went 'no Betsy no! write the story! geek about poetry on your own time!' Random piece of trivia: elocation (or, exit us) by Evie Shockley came thisclose to getting included, because it is just such a Mary poem. Anyways, yeah. Story time! (Can you tell I'm really nervous about this one?)
In the beginning, she comes home.
*
“My cousin’s daughter,” Charlie tells people who ask, and when they ask how old she is, “15.”
Mary tries not to show her joy at being able to give her real age. It is the first and last time, and she knows it will not last for long.
*
“You grew up!” Seth Clearwater says, his sister behind him, glowering at nothing in particular.
“A bit fast for my liking, but yes,” Mary says. Leah’s eyes soften around the edges.
*
Leah keeps her distance.
Mary can’t blame her.
*
“Thanks for the ride!”
“No problem, have a great first day!” Charlie says through the window, and Mary smiles and turns to face the school.
She can do this.
She can be normal.
*
According to her human anatomy book, the average human blinks once every 2-10 seconds.
Mary already knew that.
*
Leah comes over with her mother, eats fish fry with them and stares at nothing, moves swift and heavy and silent with her hair cropped short and spiky like Mary’s own. Charlie asks about Seth’s departure for college and Mrs. Clearwater says he got there safely as Leah stabs at her food.
Mary thinks about ying and yang and the imbalance of power and how pale her arms look when compared to Leah's dark tan.
“I wish I could come to La Push,” she says wistfully, and Leah’s guarded eyes flick over to her for just a split second.
“Of course you can,” she says, looking unperturbed by her mother’s sharp sound of disapproval. Mary smiles as wide as she can without showing her teeth.
*
She has only been on the beach five minutes when Leah lopes up, something of the wolf in every move she makes.
“I like the ocean,” Mary says by way of explanation, and Leah nods sharp and sits down a bit away, looking out to the beach.
“I like the sunset,” Leah says unexpectedly, and her voice is cautiously friendly.
They sit in silence.
*
“It’s not that I don’t like you so much as you smell like bloodsucker,” Leah says bluntly, and Mary laughs.
“You smell like werewolf,” she says lightly, feeling unexpectedly relieved. “Maybe one day I’ll get used to it.”
*
“So if you want to stay in one place for more than a few years, you have to go to highschool again?” Leah says, and Mary nods morosely. Leah considers this seriously for a long moment and then leans back, stretching across the couch. “Christ, that blows.”
“Language, Leah,” her mother chides from the kitchen where she and Charlie are cleaning up.
“Well it does,” Mary mutters under her breath, and Leah laughs out loud.
Her smile lights up the room, and Mary shivers.
*
Apotheosis is the exalting or raising of a human to the rank of a god, Mary tells Leah the third afternoon on the beach, and Leah shifts and nods.
Mary leaves things unspoken because she does not know how to say them, but Leah knows what she meant.
*
“How do you like the kids so far?” Charlie asks her at dinner.
“They’re really nice,” Mary says. “I sit with a group every day, and today a boy invited me to the movies. I said no, but still.” She smiles. “I like them,” she says again, “they’re nice,” and she thinks once my mother sat here and talked about her day, only she knows her mother and can’t imagine her loving the normality like Mary does. It is like twisted déjà vu.
*
Everyone carries within them the seeds of their own destruction.
*
“Bella jumped off these cliffs once and nearly drowned,” Leah says.
“I’d say it’s probably a lot more fun when you’re practically indestructible,” Mary muses, and Leah grins, wide and all teeth.
“Oh, it is,” she says. Mary takes two steps forward to the edge.
“No power in the ‘verse can stop me,” she quotes to Leah with a sudden smile, and the air rushes past her face as she falls, light and effortless.
*
But that is not what is important. What is important is that they also carry within themselves the ability to be reborn and to create new life.
*
She cuts cleanly through the water and comes up to laugh in joy.
Leah’s fingers brush against hers in the water.
*
“Isn’t it hard?” Leah asks unexpectedly as they tread water. “Being part of two worlds at the same time?”
She had almost forgotten her heritage, here in the mist and the rain and the sand and surf, here with Charlie and Sue and Leah and boys who ask her to movies and all the trappings of an almost-normal life.
“Yes, it is,” she says softly.
“Show me,” Leah says, and takes Mary’s hand firmly. Her eyes are steady and dark, and for the first time in ten years Mary shows another person her thoughts.
*
Mary does not know what Leah thinks she is proving, or who she thinks she is proving it to, and at some level she doesn’t even care.
*
She and Charlie go to La Push one night in the dark and they sit around the fires and listen to the stories. By the time the dinner and dancing has done, she has fallen asleep on Charlie’s shoulder. She wakes up long enough to drag herself up to bed when they get home, and is asleep again by the time Charlie comes up to say good night.
She dreams of - she does not remember what she dreams of.
*
She reads T. S. Eliot aloud to Leah in her bedroom while Charlie and Sue watch TV downstairs, and ends up with her head in Leah’s lap and half-asleep as Leah plucks the book out of her hands, turns the page and reads the next poem.
“What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter."
“I like that one,” Mary murmurs, and Leah smiles and continues reading.
*
When she looks back, she can’t even tell when it started, when Leah first looked at her with dark eyes and she shivered, the first time Leah brushed tanned fingers against hers and it meant something more.
She does remember the first time they held hands in public, the way Charlie’s eyes widened a bit when he’d seen and then he smiled suddenly and she'd released breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
*
O my daughter.
*
The sun comes out.
Leah shows up by eight, teeth flashing in her face, the perfect antidote to the moping Mary’s been feeling coming on.
“Hey Mr. Swann!” she says as she bounces up the steps and through the door. “Can I take Mary out to La Push?”
“Yeah, sure,” Charlie says, easy and smiling too like this is so normal, and maybe it should be. Leah catches Mary’s hand and they wave bye and head out, running and laughing and Mary feels so very young. They go to the cliffs. It’s almost summer, the sun just hot enough for the water to be cool and refreshing. Mary slices through the water, twisting and turning to evade Leah as they fight mock battles under the water and then come up to breathe and laugh.
She glows like ice beneath the water and Leah looks like fire in the sunlight and they are in perfect symmetry. It feels like dancing.
“Bet you can’t beat me to the top,” Leah says, and Mary scrambles for the rock, leaving the grey soaked with water behind her as she climbs. They roll onto the top almost simultaneously and collapse in the heat, arguing about who won.
It is something close to perfection.
*
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
*
“What is this? What are we?” Mary asks Leah, suddenly desperate to know. “What do I mean to you?” Leah is silent for a long moment, staring up at the sky.
“You’re Mary,” she says finally, and rolls over to face her. “You’re you. And I love it.”
Mary is not sure that’s an answer, but for now it’ll do. They have all the time in the world.
“I found a poem for you,” Leah says, almost cautiously. “I think you’ll like it. I’ll read it to you when we get home.”
“Thank you.” Mary says it softly, and Leah ducks her head, shy for a moment, and then looks up again, smiling.
“I did beat you to the top, though,” she says, and shrieks as Mary dives at her.
*
They walk home together in the dusk, holding hands, and on the side of the road by the forest Leah turns to her and says, “Do you think this is what love is like?”
"Yes."
Maybe later she will say I love you, but for now this is enough.
*
Don't
you know it, don't you know
I love you, he said. He was
shaking. He said,
I love you. There’s an art
to everything.