Eyes went wide, but it was the only sign that Sarah's stomach had just dropped through the floor. She had always been told internalizing was bad and getting it out, no matter the fashion, was good so she intended to let him.
"Of course she existed, Stephen, you saw her, you knew her," she said softly, staring steadily at the mark. She was not about to deny its existence, it was by far the least she could do for the woman now... gone. "That's the reality, not what has happened to us. They aren't us, nothing fits. You and I both know it. Only some elaborate intrigue of age-and-body-altering, belief-changing and time-leaping could possibly make those people us." There was no way they were simply being given their own memories from the future.
"And I never learned if I remembered her, how would I have even determined that?" she asked in a whisper. Honestly, until this moment it had never occurred to her to wonder if there had been some connection there - after all, Stephen had a far stronger one than she did with Dieter, was it possible... she had known River in some way through these memories? Now it was too late to ever know.
"We didn't negate River," she said firmly, forcing herself to say his wife's name. She was tired of all the 'he' and 'she' and 'they' that was used so frequently in this mess.
" 'They' are us." His jaw was set. "That is certain enough. The office is not too far from here if you need the proper ambience to be reminded how they are inextricable from us. Can you tell me you did not know me then, already? you did not know what it would be like?"
"They can't be us," Sarah insisted, getting out of the chair. "No matter how much they might be like us, they aren't us. Do we need to sit here and hash out the details? Physically, they aren't us as even if it is the future, your age still does not fit. He was/is taller, lighter-haired, with an entirely different accent, not scarred in any way and any number of other things that are impossible to reconcile as the same person, even if the resemblances are otherwise there. Just because I knew you the moment I saw you, even when I could not place it, does not mean it was me knowing you."
She ran her hand through her hair. "Those children? Can't be mine. One of them? Is not even his and I could not even imagine having a child with someone else before you if we're already living through all of this. Most of all? I can't imagine having a child because I refuse to have children! So she? Isn't me because she wanted those children. What about you? You have to be able to make some points of difference between the two of you. Being the future would certain gives us an explanation, but it isn't the right one."
"Not the future, no," Stephen agreed, running one hand through his hair from back to front so that it stood up like the fur of an angry cat. "Not that. I already have a child, I'd not add more to a world already groaning with a surfeit of humankind, I did not even intend --" Well, but there was really no need to go into the whole 'maybe being a mother will make Diana happier' reasoning, especially since things had not exactly worked out that way.
"No, I had long ago rejected the notion that those people are our future selves," he said, remembering Susan's tentative suggestion and his vehement denial. "Yet they cannot be separated from us. You are younger, and I am older, than we remember them being, but the essential sameness -- it is irreducible, there is something I cannot explain or hope to explain, but I know it every time I touch you --"
"Of course they can't be separated from us, they don't want to be," Sarah growled, frustrated because she was not at all certain what he wanted from this and she wanted to give it to him so badly. At least they saw eye-to-eye on both this future concept and the concept of children. "They lurk and wait until we are at our most vulnerable, they deliberately draw us in to where we are most vulnerable and then take over. We fight them, they only fight back harder. We ignore them and we drive ourselves mad... and end up there anyway. They are never going to let go of us, Stephen. I hate talking about them as though they are entities, but that's what they've become. It isn't just memories now at my disposal, it is something in there that is of those memories. I know you experience the same thing, especially when they 'meet' again and win over us once more. Maybe it is a delusion, maybe we are crazy and have developed some kind of split personalities from being given these memories. Or maybe we truly are possessed by some kind of spirits that got here the same way the rest of us did."
She sighed heavily. "And if the positions were reversed, I'd do the same thing they are to be with you," she said defeatedly. Yet another likeness. "Fine, she is me and I am her. I'm not going to stand here and deny the things that are the same, the places where the line is so blurred it can't be found. But it doesn't change that this will never negate anything that came before in your life."
"No." It was a flat denial. He breathed in, deep, and tried again. "On the first of April, this year, some of us here at the school had exchanged bodies involuntarily; I know what that is like; it is nothing like what we have been experiencing. I'll not deny it can feel like ... being possessed. Yet even when they are forcing us, even when I wish them away most strongly, what he feels is still part of me, inseparable from my cognition." He sat on the edge of the rumpled bed and buried his face in his hands. "Damn it, Sarah, do not try to tell me none of this is real."
Sarah went after him, the only think she felt she could do right now as the rest was not making all that much sense to her. She went to the bed and sat, wrapping her arms around him as she rested her chin on his shoulder.
"It was just theories, I'm not saying this isn't real," she said quietly. "I love you, and that's real. All we go through, no matter how terrible or not-so-terrible, is painfully real. Whatever it is affecting us doesn't make this less real. I know fantasy, I've lived fantasy and this is real. I remember everything even when I'm not in control, this could never be anything but real to me. But the answers aren't there, the few ideas we have had have been discarded now for one reason or another, so I don't know what to say, except that I love you, Stephen."
The gesture was so like River -- her chin on his shoulder, arms wrapped around him -- that he winced. "What collapses you all into one another?" he whispered. "You, River, Diana -- " They all had dark hair, pale skin, a certain grace, a certain way of moving, a certain joie de vivre. If he had been thinking more rationally, he would have noted the many ways in which each woman was quite different from the others, especially where personality was concerned. Rationality, for now, was far away.
Nor did he give thought to how this might pain Sarah, to be given something very like a declaration that she was interchangeable with other women he had loved. He had no thought for anything beyond the immediacy of his own pain, jagged and sharp, something he wished he could dig out of his chest like a bullet.
It could not have been more of a blow had Sarah actually been slapped across the face (not that for one moment did she ever think that would be a possibility) because of the sheer shock of the words. Not all that long ago she had feared being cast off for thinking she had anything in common with River, and here he was telling her they were, not the two of them but all three, quite easily meshed and possibly even swapped. Hell, perhaps there were even more he could swap out now that she was all he had. 'Stop it now.' It was the pain she was feeling that was talking, not rational thought, and so she did not let go. She was determined to be here for him and she had vowed she would be no matter how bad it got, even if she had not imagined something as inside-rippingly painful as those words.
"I can't really answer that, Stephen, as I've only met me, so you'd be the judge of that far better than I am," she said, willing the sharp quality out of her voice. "I could guess, but I've done more than enough guessing, so why don't you tell me? Perhaps it will help you to hear yourself say it." It could not possibly hurt more than it did, could it?
The edge to Sarah's words, the way she spat them out, put him in mind all the more of Diana, spitfire that she had been. He had spent so many years hanging on Diana's every word and wish, it made sense that her memory should haunt him long after her death, imprinted on his heart. The injustice of likening anyone to Diana Villiers -- let alone a woman who had tried to do nothing but good for him, who was solicitous where Diana had been callous, who idolised him the way he had idolised Diana herself -- simply did not register for him. Diana was at once sui generis and the map by which he would ever chart his passions.
Next to those long years ruled by Villiers, his time with River was scarcely more than wispy ephemera; mere months, and the last month protracted into fading nullity. The mark she had carved into his flesh was the most lasting effect she had had on him. Everything else about her seemed already distant. She surfaced at moments like this, overlaying Sarah's hold on him so similar to the way River used to hold him. He had not unmade the bed, even though he knew the house-elf had changed the linens, because it hurt too much to look at those sheets and remember when River had stolen them from his dorm room, made a nest out of them. The nest he had seen when he came to her room the first time ... she at once guilty and proud of her theft ... I only took your sheets. You can have them back if you want--- now that I've got you instead...?
Stephen was not the sort of man who wept openly. (What would you expect from someone capable of performing surgery on himself?) So he was simply quiet.
His silence was both a relief and a pain to Sarah, for it did not add to her pain but it also did not ease it. She had no idea what was going on in his mind and no way to gauge it when she was so emotionally involved. Leaving to lick her wounds simply was not an option as it did not even occur to her for more than a brief fraction of a second. Foolishly, she still believed he might need her, if now only to fill the interchangeable role of woman at his side. No, those were words that would not fade for some time, no matter what happened. It was a pain that tore at confidence in her uniqueness, her belief that when she had his sole focus that it was because there was something about her that another did not have (and that something apparently now was just the memory self?). She did not have the luxury of expectation that his words were in pain, because that meant giving herself hope she could not afford. River's popcorning changed nothing in her perception - she would always be the other woman, and now just a clone in his eyes as well.
But she loved him. Nothing would change that, no words he could say or action he could take. So she sat, now resting her cheek on his shoulder as time ticked on, making no move to do anything except just what she was. Even now, she had no intention of abandoning him.
They stayed like that for a long time. Finally Stephen could bear the similarity in pose no longer, and shifted, turning to Sarah. "It was just like her," he explained. "The way you were sitting, with your chin on my shoulder. She would come up behind me just like that, at Sortings very often, and rest her chin there just so." He put his arms around her, lifted her from where she was and pulled her into his lap, holding her as much to comfort himself as to comfort her. "I cannot bear it," he said, into her hair. "And yet I must. I ought not to indulge so."
His words froze Sarah to her bones, leaving her far colder than even the dungeons should allow. So inadvertent, her action to bring relief only causing more pain. There was no resistance in his efforts to re-situate them, only needy greed as she slid her arms around him and clung tightly. She did not think about it, if her favorite action would remind him of anyone else, she just simply buried her face against his neck in the spot she normally did and clung to him even more. No longer did she delude herself that this was bringing him any comfort, so she was confused as to why it continued. But, as long as it did, she would be here.
"I'm so, so sorry, Stephen," she whispered hoarsely, meaning it on so many levels from River's popcorning to the way she had been sitting with him just like River would have.
"I know," he soothed. "I know, you need not say it -- " He had known from the first that her coming here would do neither of them any good, but she had insisted, and so here she was. He would not ask her to leave, not now. If left to himself, he should like to take another dose of laudanum and make everything go away for a while. He was unused to being cared for.
"I do love you, you know." He stroked her hair as though she were the one in need of comfort.
It was her own fault for coming, yet Sarah could not regret doing it despite the pain. He had eaten and she had fussed after him and those were two things she had not even expected to get out of him. It was only by biting the inside of her cheek until it actually bled did she keep from crying as he told her he loved her. She simply nodded in response, hoping it was an adequate enough reaction from her as she sat there. She hated herself for needing the comfort his touch was giving and for actually taking comfort when she should be giving it. Her hands smoothed down his back, aware of the motion though it was by far not very much.
"It is as I said, I have weathered this before," he said softly. She was young, so young; it was very possible she had never experienced the death of someone as close to her as River was to him -- or even as close as River was to her. "I'll not die of this, sweetheart." He kissed her cheek. "You need not hold vigil over me."
"Of course she existed, Stephen, you saw her, you knew her," she said softly, staring steadily at the mark. She was not about to deny its existence, it was by far the least she could do for the woman now... gone. "That's the reality, not what has happened to us. They aren't us, nothing fits. You and I both know it. Only some elaborate intrigue of age-and-body-altering, belief-changing and time-leaping could possibly make those people us." There was no way they were simply being given their own memories from the future.
"And I never learned if I remembered her, how would I have even determined that?" she asked in a whisper. Honestly, until this moment it had never occurred to her to wonder if there had been some connection there - after all, Stephen had a far stronger one than she did with Dieter, was it possible... she had known River in some way through these memories? Now it was too late to ever know.
"We didn't negate River," she said firmly, forcing herself to say his wife's name. She was tired of all the 'he' and 'she' and 'they' that was used so frequently in this mess.
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She ran her hand through her hair. "Those children? Can't be mine. One of them? Is not even his and I could not even imagine having a child with someone else before you if we're already living through all of this. Most of all? I can't imagine having a child because I refuse to have children! So she? Isn't me because she wanted those children. What about you? You have to be able to make some points of difference between the two of you. Being the future would certain gives us an explanation, but it isn't the right one."
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"No, I had long ago rejected the notion that those people are our future selves," he said, remembering Susan's tentative suggestion and his vehement denial. "Yet they cannot be separated from us. You are younger, and I am older, than we remember them being, but the essential sameness -- it is irreducible, there is something I cannot explain or hope to explain, but I know it every time I touch you --"
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She sighed heavily. "And if the positions were reversed, I'd do the same thing they are to be with you," she said defeatedly. Yet another likeness. "Fine, she is me and I am her. I'm not going to stand here and deny the things that are the same, the places where the line is so blurred it can't be found. But it doesn't change that this will never negate anything that came before in your life."
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"It was just theories, I'm not saying this isn't real," she said quietly. "I love you, and that's real. All we go through, no matter how terrible or not-so-terrible, is painfully real. Whatever it is affecting us doesn't make this less real. I know fantasy, I've lived fantasy and this is real. I remember everything even when I'm not in control, this could never be anything but real to me. But the answers aren't there, the few ideas we have had have been discarded now for one reason or another, so I don't know what to say, except that I love you, Stephen."
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Nor did he give thought to how this might pain Sarah, to be given something very like a declaration that she was interchangeable with other women he had loved. He had no thought for anything beyond the immediacy of his own pain, jagged and sharp, something he wished he could dig out of his chest like a bullet.
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"I can't really answer that, Stephen, as I've only met me, so you'd be the judge of that far better than I am," she said, willing the sharp quality out of her voice. "I could guess, but I've done more than enough guessing, so why don't you tell me? Perhaps it will help you to hear yourself say it." It could not possibly hurt more than it did, could it?
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Next to those long years ruled by Villiers, his time with River was scarcely more than wispy ephemera; mere months, and the last month protracted into fading nullity. The mark she had carved into his flesh was the most lasting effect she had had on him. Everything else about her seemed already distant. She surfaced at moments like this, overlaying Sarah's hold on him so similar to the way River used to hold him. He had not unmade the bed, even though he knew the house-elf had changed the linens, because it hurt too much to look at those sheets and remember when River had stolen them from his dorm room, made a nest out of them. The nest he had seen when he came to her room the first time ... she at once guilty and proud of her theft ... I only took your sheets. You can have them back if you want--- now that I've got you instead...?
Stephen was not the sort of man who wept openly. (What would you expect from someone capable of performing surgery on himself?) So he was simply quiet.
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But she loved him. Nothing would change that, no words he could say or action he could take. So she sat, now resting her cheek on his shoulder as time ticked on, making no move to do anything except just what she was. Even now, she had no intention of abandoning him.
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"I'm so, so sorry, Stephen," she whispered hoarsely, meaning it on so many levels from River's popcorning to the way she had been sitting with him just like River would have.
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"I do love you, you know." He stroked her hair as though she were the one in need of comfort.
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