Fic: Yes is a world (or five times Mitchell tried to convince Annie he’s worth marrying)
Title: Yes is a world (or five times Mitchell tried to convince Annie he’s worth marrying)
Author: ms_smilla
Pairing(s): Mitchell/Annie
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not for profit, but for fun, these are not mine.
Warnings: Season 2/3 spoilers, a little bit of angst, ‘cause it’s me, and then a little bit of fluff.
Summary: Mitchell tries to convince Annie that he is worth marrying.
Author's notes: I’m trying to cheer up my writing - it’s all been a bit dark to date. This came from cagedlight’s request/prompt for the being human ficathon. I’ve only just found it and I’m too late to officially take part but it was too good to miss - sorry!
~~
Yes is a world (or five times Mitchell tried to convince Annie he’s worth marrying)
~~
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
- Love is a place, E E Cummings.
~~
The first time is two weeks after she comes back to them. His arms are still wrapped in two-inch thick bandages and he can’t raise them above shoulder-height, but at least his foot is out of the plaster-cast.
Nina has been sitting at the kitchen table sorting through the eye patches that the local WI sent for George. Annie is at the sink, up to her elbows in Fairy Liquid, and he’s drying the plates she passes him; standing at her side, like he has for the past fortnight.
It’s half-way through the pile of dishes that she stops, takes off the marigolds, and without saying a word walks out into the garden.
He follows her, as he followed her for the past three months.
She’s sitting on the low wall that separates their house from the road. She doesn’t acknowledge him. He sits next to her and waits. It’s all he can do. He can’t bear to touch her in case she slips through his fingers and proves this is all some glorious dream and that when he wakes up she still be gone.
“They’re going to die.” She tells him.
Mitchell feels panic surge through him, blind, cold fear that blurs his vision and tightens his lungs. “What’s going on, Annie?” he demands, “Have you had some sort of vision?”
She turns and frowns at him. “What? Don’t be ridiculous, Mitchell.” She snorts, and he feels his skin prickle. “Some sort of vision?” She looks out over the fields in front of them, at the mountains in the distance, the blue haze of the forests. Next to her stillness he is itching, full of adrenaline but with nothing to do.
He watches her, the shadows under her eyes, the stillness of her face, the lines at the edge of her mouth, and his fingers twitch and his heart aches. “What’s going on, Annie?” he asks.
“I just-” she sighs, “I realised that Nina and George are going to stay together until they die.” She pauses, squinting out at the chickens in the next field, “and then I’ll be alone.”
He feels his jaw lock and his throat tighten. “I’ll still be here,” he tells her. She turns to look at him with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. And then she reaches out and takes hold of his hand.
The chill of her skin against his makes his tongue press against his teeth and his lungs burn in the early evening cold. He is suddenly, desperately happy that she is back, even as this silent shell of the woman she used to be. “We’ll travel the world,” he tells her, “and invent fake names and I’ll take care of you.”
She studies him and then her face crumples. She is crying, turning her face away from him, her shoulders hunching. He gathers her into his arms before he can help himself, and his hands tangle in her hair. “It will be okay,” he whispers into her ear, “I’ll take care of you-” but she hushes him before he can say anything else.
“Don’t.” She tells him.
He realises that she doesn’t believe him; and even with her in them, his arms feel very empty.
~~
The second time is four months after she comes back to them. Nina and George have just announced their engagement and despite Nina’s insistence that it will be a quiet ceremony, Annie has bought Nina every bridal magazine from the local newsagent’s limited stock.
He’s been quizzing himself, wondering how he’d best like his partner to propose to him, when the observation just slips out that “it’s just changed so much from when I got married-”
“Wait-” Annie stops him, “You got married?”
He frowns at her, “You don’t have to sound so shocked,” he tells her.
“Sorry,” she says, shaking her head, “I just never thought of you as the marriage type.”
He frowns, “there’s a type?”
She purses her lips and pushes them to the side, wrinkling her nose. It’s the expression she pulls when she’s trying to keep her foot from her mouth. Mitchell’s head jolts with a sudden, horrible thought; he feels his face flush, and he snorts, trying to make light of it, “does this type consist of any man but me?” he asks.
Annie’s eyebrows shoot up and her eyes widen, and Mitchell knows this is her who-me?-innocent face. “Jeeze, Annie!” He’s genuinely embarrassed, “It does, doesn’t it?”
“Stop flapping,” she tells him, trying to make it look like she’s reading a magazine and not hiding from him behind it.
He can feel the blush on his cheeks and he can’t stop staring at her, “What exactly is it about me that’s so un-marryable, then?” he scoffs.
She shrugs. The heat from his blush is making his head swim. His throat is closing-up. He crosses his arms and slumps in his chair.
“Stop sulking, Mitchell.”
“I’m not!” he snipes.
“You are. You’re pouting.” She tells him. She puts the magazine back on the coffee table. “I’m sorry,” she starts, her voice very soft, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
He snorts.
“You’ve got to admit though - long-term relationships haven’t been your thing.” She tells him. “They’re usually a big part of getting married.”
“I have had plenty of long-term relationships.” He protests. Annie looks sceptical. “I have!” he scolds. And then, before he can help himself, “besides, I don’t think you’re the best judge of what constitutes marriage-material.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she hisses.
“Just look at Owen-” he scoffs, and then stops himself when he catches her frozen expression.
He waits for her to begin screaming at him. But she doesn’t. Her silence is worse, somehow. “I’m sorry-” he tries, feeling nausea roll in his stomach.
“I know.” She tells him, picking up a magazine and burying herself in it.
“I’m really sorry, Annie.” He tells her. She sighs.
“You don’t have to keep telling me.”
“I think I do.”
“You really don’t.” She hums. He can’t help but smile at that.
“You’re right; I’m not really marriage material.” He concedes. She sighs heavily, dropping the magazine into her lap.
“What is this? Reverse psychology?” she scolds. He smiles at her, trying to get her to smile back. “Why do you think you’re not marriage material, Mitchell?” she sighs.
“Can’t go into the church.” He tells her. Annie closes her eyes and breathes in and out through her nose, very slowly.
“Mitchell,” she tells him, “It’s not about the church or the trappings or the vows,” she looks at him, and he is shocked to see her eyes are full of tears. “It’s about being there, for that person, every day for the rest of your life. Never leaving them, never hurting them, and being willing to give up everything for their happiness.” She sniffs, getting to her feet and swiping at the eyes. “Sorry.” She says, as she leaves the room.
Mitchell feels his skin burning at her implied accusation; he wants to storm after her, shake her and scream at her until she realises that he harrowed hell for her, he killed for her, he never hurt her. And if that doesn’t prove he’s marriage material he doesn’t know what will.
And when it occurs to him, a clear epiphany after ten minutes mired in frustration, that he is the one who has hurt her most deeply, abandoned her more than anyone else, he feels like running after her, flagellating himself and begging her until she grants him forgiveness.
Instead, he makes a vow. To be a better man for her. To try and fix what he has broken.
~~
The third time is four months and two weeks after she comes back to them. He can’t help himself; he leans over and buries his face in her hair. “You smell of coconut,” he tells her.
She nudges him sharply in the chin with her shoulder. “Mitchell!” she hisses, “Sit up!”
He does, but the world is still blurry and the ceiling is rolling over his head. “oh.” He moans.
“C’mon,” she says, right next to his ear, and then he’s pressed tightly against her, moving outside, away from the lights and the wedding dinner, into the dark and cool of the hotel garden. “There we are,” she says, sitting them down, “much better.”
“I’m sorry-” he tries, feeling the world spin above and around him.
“I know.” She tells him, not looking at him, twisting a strand of hair around and around her fingers.
“I’m really sorry, Annie.” He tells her. She sighs.
“You don’t have to keep apologising,” she says, “everyone’s entitled to get drunk at some point.”
“I’m not sorry I’m drunk,” he blurts and she turns and raises her eyebrows at him, “Okay, I’m not only sorry I’m drunk, I’m sorry for what I did to you.”
She shifts so that she’s looking away from him, so that her expression his hidden in the dark. She is the only thing he can focus on. She hums, and then says, very quietly “It’s okay.”
When he reaches out and tries to hold it, her hand is very cold, and her fingers don’t curl around his. “Every time you’ve needed my support I’ve not been there,” he confesses, “and the very last things I said to you were unforgivable.”
He waits for her to answer him, for any response, but she is as still and quiet as a statue. “I’m so sorry, Annie,” he tells her, and his throat hurts, “I know you don’t need me, but I need you, the moment you went away I felt it, I knew then and I think that I’ve been falling in-”
“Shh.” She says, and her hand tightens around his. He feels his heart aching. “It’s okay, Mitchell. Thank you for saying it. I’m sorry too - I’ve got a lot of stuff to sort out, but it will be okay from now on, I’m sure-”
“Annie-” he tries again before the words get stuck in his throat or he loses his nerve, but she cuts him off.
“Tell me about your wedding.”
He tries to catch her eyes, to see what she’s feeling, to understand what’s going on. He feels bereft of something. “You want to know about my wedding?”
She nods and shifts closer to him. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” he replies, overwhelmingly relieved that she’s curling her arms around his and leaning her head on his shoulder. He runs his fingers over the soft skin on the back of her hand, following her lead, not wanting to scare her away. “What do you want to know?”
“I guess I just want to know what it was like.”
It feels like she’s offering him an olive branch. “It was very windy,” he says. “It’s always very windy in Dublin.”
“You had it outside?” she asks, her voice muffled by his sleeve.
“No,” looking down at her, he can see her eyelashes and her lips, his fingers stroking across their interlocked hands. “No, we had the wedding at her church and then the reception at her parent’s house.”
“What was she like?” Annie asks.
He sighs, “You’d have liked her,” he says, “She was bubbly, never stopped laughing.” As he watches her, Annie closes her eyes and shifts, pressing closer into his arm. “Are we okay, Annie?” he asks eventually. He wants to sound casual, but he can feel every muscle in his back tensing.
“Yeah,” she says softly. “We’re okay. What did she wear?”
Mitchell can’t stop himself, he laughs, feeling every tense muscle relax, “You’re wedding-dress obsessed,” he tells her. Annie lightly punches him in the arm. “Okay, okay! It was white,” he tells her, “with a sash sort of there,” he reaches across to draw a line across her ribs, she squirms and bats his hand away.
“Ticklish” she reminds him. He holds her hand again, and pulls her closer. “Did she have a crinoline?”
“No,” Mitchell laughs, “those were out of fashion, thank god, but she did have a corset, which was just as problematic.” Annie hums in agreement, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand, and he concentrates on feeling every whorl and pore of her skin against his.
“Tell me about yours.” He whispers into her hair.
She freezes, and he misses her fingertips’ movement so much that he wishes he hadn’t asked. “I, um-” she stutters, “we set a date, but we never made any plans, really, so-”
“It’s okay,” he soothes her, “tell me about what you imagined your perfect wedding would be.”
She bubbles with laughter suddenly, “It's changed a lot since I was young.” But she sobers suddenly, and he catches her glance up at him and away very quickly, with something very dark in her eyes. “I don't care much about the ceremony anymore.” She tells him.
“Annie,” he teases, trying to get her to smile, “Were you one of those girls who used to play ‘wedding’ all the time?”
She does smile, but she won’t look at him. “Maybe,” she grins, “When we lived in London our house was just down the street from the church, and my sister and I used to watch the weddings. I had some great ideas about how my wedding would be.”
“Twenty bridesmaids all in a cathedral?”
“And a horse-drawn carriage and the long, white dress with a bow on the butt.” She looks up at him, and laughs. “I was six years old; you can’t judge me. Stop pulling that face.”
“And now?” he asks. And he can feel her tense at his side. Don’t run away, he begs.
“I think it’s a little complicated.” She replies, after a while.
“How so?” he asks, he can’t stop himself, he feels like they’re finally getting somewhere and he won’t let her stop now.
“I think I’ll be here forever.” She says, and her voice is very quiet in the dark, “the ‘death do us part’ bit is a bit redundant.” She sighs. “He’d have to want to stay with me forever.”
“Yes.” He tells her. And his voice is so heavy, so strong in the night air.
She turns to look at him, and he feels like every muscle, every nerve, every bone is open to her gaze. He wants her to see into the heart of him. He wants to see into the heart of her, but her face is perfectly still and perfectly blank, a horrible skill she learnt when she was away from him.
With every passing second it gets harder not to run away, not to hide in the bushes or turn away to throw-up. But he doesn’t, he can’t, because he’s just promised her he won’t, ever.
She looks away from him, finally, back to the party in the hotel restaurant. She smiles, a half-smile, slightly cynical, which looks wrong on her face. Annie has never been cynical.
“Come on,” she says, “they’ll be missing us.”
“Annie?” he whispers, he can’t seem to find his breath.
She reaches out to him, holding his hands and pulling his weight against hers; he’s still a little unsteady on his feet.
“We’ll see.” She tells him.
~~
The fourth time is five years, four months and two weeks after she comes back to them. He’s been counting the days. Every year he buys a diary or a calendar and ticks off the days just to make sure.
They’re in Italy, in Venice, sitting on the edge of the Fondamenta Zattere allo Spirito Santo, as far down as they can possibly go, watching the cruise ships sail in and out. It’s been a challenge for him, Venice. There are so many churches, but she wanted to come.
It’s so beautiful at night, watching her in the Piazza San Marco, the stone towering grey and glorious above them, memories echoing in the folded drapes in the arches. They eat turistico’s meals in little tavernas near the fish market, and in the midday sun they retreat to their hotel room and leave the windows open but pull the shutters closed. She loves the teal colour of the water and the quietness of Venice, filled only with the sounds of chatter in Italian and shoes against cobbles and water lapping against stone.
She opens a bottle of Morretti, and offers it to him. “Nah,” he tells her, “Not now.”
She shrugs and bumps her knee against his, and then holds it there. “Too early?” she asks him. He looks at the crease of her wrist, where she puts her weight on her hand, leaning into him.
“No,” he tells her, “don’t worry, I don’t have any rules about appropriate times to drink alcohol anymore. I’m not going to disapprove.”
She smiles at him, glancing at him from the corners of her eyes. “Don’t you worry,” she tells him, “I’m not going to worry; you don’t need to approve or disapprove of what I do, you’re not my dad.”
His skull hums and his breastbone feels like it is pressing against his heart. “No, I’m not.” He says, and he can hear how thick his own voice sounds. She smiles, as if acknowledging their hidden messages, and leans slightly, to look at their feet where they dangle over the side of the wall.
She wears her hair up, her cardigan tied around her waist. There hasn’t been anyone else for him for five years.
He hasn’t kissed her yet.
“Annie,” he asks, his hand reaching out to stroke her wrist, her forearm, the curve of her shoulder; she turns to look at him and he can see his reflection in her eyes. The bottle clinks against the stone as she puts it down. His fingers stroke her clavicles, the base of her throat, the curve of her cheek. “It’s been five years.” He tells her.
“Since?” she asks.
“Since we sat in the garden at Miskin, and I promised you-” he clears his throat, trying to breath, “-since I promised you I’d stay with you forever.”
“Yes,” she says, and closes her eyes. “Five years isn’t forever, Mitchell.” She chides him, but she’s leaning in and the chill of her against him is enough to make all his hairs stand on-end.
“I know,” he sighs, resting his forehead against hers, “but I want you to know that I love you-”
“Mitchell-”
“-and I will stay with you, and I will never hurt you and I will give up everything for you. Just so you know.”
“Mitchell,” she sounds exasperated, “will you just kiss me already? I’ve been waiting for years.”
~~
The fifth time is twenty years after she comes back to him. They’re in bed together, she’s nibbling on some toast and flipping through the paper and he’s watching her; watching the way she picks each page up by the corner and raises her eyebrows when she reads something she doesn’t agree with.
It’s taken him months to work up the courage to ask her.
Months of long-distance phone calls to George, whispering behind closed doors at the other end of the house so that she won’t catch him. A whole three days worth of shopping with Nina to find the bloody thing. He thought about restaurants and treasure trails and adverts in the newspapers, but it all seems to be such a sham. Nothing matters except her answer.
She doesn’t notice, at first. There are a few seconds before she registers what he’s holding out to her. And then she turns to look at him and the ring-box in his hand and he can barely breathe.
“I can’t walk into a church, and I can’t go before a priest, and you can’t go to a registry office,” he chokes out, “but I want to marry you.” He feels the palms of his hands begin to sweat. She is so calm and so still. “I know what marriage means for us; it means forever, and I know I can do that. So whilst I can’t legally marry you, I can marry you and-” he tries to swallow, but his mouth is so dry, “I can do the rest of it, Annie: With my body I honour you, all that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you? All the important bits, right?”
She doesn’t say anything, just takes the ring box from his hand, and looks at the ring inside.
“I love you-” he starts, but she cuts him off.
“Forever?” she asks, and she looks up at him with the indecipherable look she perfected in hell. “Me, and only me forever? Forsaking all others? Honour me with your body? No blood, forever?”
“Yes.” He tells her, desperate for her to believe him, because nothing has meant this much to him, and he is sure that nothing else ever will. “We can’t get legally married, but I can mean every word. I can promise you forever.”
She hands the ring box back to him. “Go on then.” She says.
The ceiling cartwheels overhead and his lungs burn and his hands shake as he tries to pull out the ring and put it on her. Her hands steady his. “No,” she says quietly, and he is terrified; breath-stopping, eye wateringly terrified. The terror doesn’t stop until she qualifies her ‘no’ with an “ask me.”
He feels his stomach roll and he can taste bile as he holds the ring out in trembling fingers and asks her, “Annie, will you marry me?”
She smiles, a lovely wide-open smile. “I’ll certainly get engaged to you,” she giggles. And he can breathe, the sudden rush of oxygen filling his head and making him giddy. He grins back, taking her fingers in his own and pulling himself closer to her so that he can rest his forehead against hers and watch as he puts the ring on her, breathing in the air that she has just exhaled.
“You never know-” she says, and leans forward to kiss him, her lips cold and sweet against his, “-we might get married one day.”
She smiles at him, and he feels so much love, burning him with every breath he takes. “Yes.” He affirms.
“We’ll see.” She says.
~~
The end.
For those who want to know: Just as “love is a place [and ...] / yes is a world / & in this world of / yes live [..] / all worlds” so too “love all love of other sights controls, / And makes one little room an everywhere. [...] / Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.” And so: “My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, [...] / Whatever dies was not mixed equally; / If our two loves be one, or thou and I / Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.” And that’s the moral of the story folks!
PS: reviews are love.
Author: ms_smilla
Pairing(s): Mitchell/Annie
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not for profit, but for fun, these are not mine.
Warnings: Season 2/3 spoilers, a little bit of angst, ‘cause it’s me, and then a little bit of fluff.
Summary: Mitchell tries to convince Annie that he is worth marrying.
Author's notes: I’m trying to cheer up my writing - it’s all been a bit dark to date. This came from cagedlight’s request/prompt for the being human ficathon. I’ve only just found it and I’m too late to officially take part but it was too good to miss - sorry!
~~
Yes is a world (or five times Mitchell tried to convince Annie he’s worth marrying)
~~
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
- Love is a place, E E Cummings.
~~
The first time is two weeks after she comes back to them. His arms are still wrapped in two-inch thick bandages and he can’t raise them above shoulder-height, but at least his foot is out of the plaster-cast.
Nina has been sitting at the kitchen table sorting through the eye patches that the local WI sent for George. Annie is at the sink, up to her elbows in Fairy Liquid, and he’s drying the plates she passes him; standing at her side, like he has for the past fortnight.
It’s half-way through the pile of dishes that she stops, takes off the marigolds, and without saying a word walks out into the garden.
He follows her, as he followed her for the past three months.
She’s sitting on the low wall that separates their house from the road. She doesn’t acknowledge him. He sits next to her and waits. It’s all he can do. He can’t bear to touch her in case she slips through his fingers and proves this is all some glorious dream and that when he wakes up she still be gone.
“They’re going to die.” She tells him.
Mitchell feels panic surge through him, blind, cold fear that blurs his vision and tightens his lungs. “What’s going on, Annie?” he demands, “Have you had some sort of vision?”
She turns and frowns at him. “What? Don’t be ridiculous, Mitchell.” She snorts, and he feels his skin prickle. “Some sort of vision?” She looks out over the fields in front of them, at the mountains in the distance, the blue haze of the forests. Next to her stillness he is itching, full of adrenaline but with nothing to do.
He watches her, the shadows under her eyes, the stillness of her face, the lines at the edge of her mouth, and his fingers twitch and his heart aches. “What’s going on, Annie?” he asks.
“I just-” she sighs, “I realised that Nina and George are going to stay together until they die.” She pauses, squinting out at the chickens in the next field, “and then I’ll be alone.”
He feels his jaw lock and his throat tighten. “I’ll still be here,” he tells her. She turns to look at him with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. And then she reaches out and takes hold of his hand.
The chill of her skin against his makes his tongue press against his teeth and his lungs burn in the early evening cold. He is suddenly, desperately happy that she is back, even as this silent shell of the woman she used to be. “We’ll travel the world,” he tells her, “and invent fake names and I’ll take care of you.”
She studies him and then her face crumples. She is crying, turning her face away from him, her shoulders hunching. He gathers her into his arms before he can help himself, and his hands tangle in her hair. “It will be okay,” he whispers into her ear, “I’ll take care of you-” but she hushes him before he can say anything else.
“Don’t.” She tells him.
He realises that she doesn’t believe him; and even with her in them, his arms feel very empty.
~~
The second time is four months after she comes back to them. Nina and George have just announced their engagement and despite Nina’s insistence that it will be a quiet ceremony, Annie has bought Nina every bridal magazine from the local newsagent’s limited stock.
He’s been quizzing himself, wondering how he’d best like his partner to propose to him, when the observation just slips out that “it’s just changed so much from when I got married-”
“Wait-” Annie stops him, “You got married?”
He frowns at her, “You don’t have to sound so shocked,” he tells her.
“Sorry,” she says, shaking her head, “I just never thought of you as the marriage type.”
He frowns, “there’s a type?”
She purses her lips and pushes them to the side, wrinkling her nose. It’s the expression she pulls when she’s trying to keep her foot from her mouth. Mitchell’s head jolts with a sudden, horrible thought; he feels his face flush, and he snorts, trying to make light of it, “does this type consist of any man but me?” he asks.
Annie’s eyebrows shoot up and her eyes widen, and Mitchell knows this is her who-me?-innocent face. “Jeeze, Annie!” He’s genuinely embarrassed, “It does, doesn’t it?”
“Stop flapping,” she tells him, trying to make it look like she’s reading a magazine and not hiding from him behind it.
He can feel the blush on his cheeks and he can’t stop staring at her, “What exactly is it about me that’s so un-marryable, then?” he scoffs.
She shrugs. The heat from his blush is making his head swim. His throat is closing-up. He crosses his arms and slumps in his chair.
“Stop sulking, Mitchell.”
“I’m not!” he snipes.
“You are. You’re pouting.” She tells him. She puts the magazine back on the coffee table. “I’m sorry,” she starts, her voice very soft, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
He snorts.
“You’ve got to admit though - long-term relationships haven’t been your thing.” She tells him. “They’re usually a big part of getting married.”
“I have had plenty of long-term relationships.” He protests. Annie looks sceptical. “I have!” he scolds. And then, before he can help himself, “besides, I don’t think you’re the best judge of what constitutes marriage-material.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she hisses.
“Just look at Owen-” he scoffs, and then stops himself when he catches her frozen expression.
He waits for her to begin screaming at him. But she doesn’t. Her silence is worse, somehow. “I’m sorry-” he tries, feeling nausea roll in his stomach.
“I know.” She tells him, picking up a magazine and burying herself in it.
“I’m really sorry, Annie.” He tells her. She sighs.
“You don’t have to keep telling me.”
“I think I do.”
“You really don’t.” She hums. He can’t help but smile at that.
“You’re right; I’m not really marriage material.” He concedes. She sighs heavily, dropping the magazine into her lap.
“What is this? Reverse psychology?” she scolds. He smiles at her, trying to get her to smile back. “Why do you think you’re not marriage material, Mitchell?” she sighs.
“Can’t go into the church.” He tells her. Annie closes her eyes and breathes in and out through her nose, very slowly.
“Mitchell,” she tells him, “It’s not about the church or the trappings or the vows,” she looks at him, and he is shocked to see her eyes are full of tears. “It’s about being there, for that person, every day for the rest of your life. Never leaving them, never hurting them, and being willing to give up everything for their happiness.” She sniffs, getting to her feet and swiping at the eyes. “Sorry.” She says, as she leaves the room.
Mitchell feels his skin burning at her implied accusation; he wants to storm after her, shake her and scream at her until she realises that he harrowed hell for her, he killed for her, he never hurt her. And if that doesn’t prove he’s marriage material he doesn’t know what will.
And when it occurs to him, a clear epiphany after ten minutes mired in frustration, that he is the one who has hurt her most deeply, abandoned her more than anyone else, he feels like running after her, flagellating himself and begging her until she grants him forgiveness.
Instead, he makes a vow. To be a better man for her. To try and fix what he has broken.
~~
The third time is four months and two weeks after she comes back to them. He can’t help himself; he leans over and buries his face in her hair. “You smell of coconut,” he tells her.
She nudges him sharply in the chin with her shoulder. “Mitchell!” she hisses, “Sit up!”
He does, but the world is still blurry and the ceiling is rolling over his head. “oh.” He moans.
“C’mon,” she says, right next to his ear, and then he’s pressed tightly against her, moving outside, away from the lights and the wedding dinner, into the dark and cool of the hotel garden. “There we are,” she says, sitting them down, “much better.”
“I’m sorry-” he tries, feeling the world spin above and around him.
“I know.” She tells him, not looking at him, twisting a strand of hair around and around her fingers.
“I’m really sorry, Annie.” He tells her. She sighs.
“You don’t have to keep apologising,” she says, “everyone’s entitled to get drunk at some point.”
“I’m not sorry I’m drunk,” he blurts and she turns and raises her eyebrows at him, “Okay, I’m not only sorry I’m drunk, I’m sorry for what I did to you.”
She shifts so that she’s looking away from him, so that her expression his hidden in the dark. She is the only thing he can focus on. She hums, and then says, very quietly “It’s okay.”
When he reaches out and tries to hold it, her hand is very cold, and her fingers don’t curl around his. “Every time you’ve needed my support I’ve not been there,” he confesses, “and the very last things I said to you were unforgivable.”
He waits for her to answer him, for any response, but she is as still and quiet as a statue. “I’m so sorry, Annie,” he tells her, and his throat hurts, “I know you don’t need me, but I need you, the moment you went away I felt it, I knew then and I think that I’ve been falling in-”
“Shh.” She says, and her hand tightens around his. He feels his heart aching. “It’s okay, Mitchell. Thank you for saying it. I’m sorry too - I’ve got a lot of stuff to sort out, but it will be okay from now on, I’m sure-”
“Annie-” he tries again before the words get stuck in his throat or he loses his nerve, but she cuts him off.
“Tell me about your wedding.”
He tries to catch her eyes, to see what she’s feeling, to understand what’s going on. He feels bereft of something. “You want to know about my wedding?”
She nods and shifts closer to him. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” he replies, overwhelmingly relieved that she’s curling her arms around his and leaning her head on his shoulder. He runs his fingers over the soft skin on the back of her hand, following her lead, not wanting to scare her away. “What do you want to know?”
“I guess I just want to know what it was like.”
It feels like she’s offering him an olive branch. “It was very windy,” he says. “It’s always very windy in Dublin.”
“You had it outside?” she asks, her voice muffled by his sleeve.
“No,” looking down at her, he can see her eyelashes and her lips, his fingers stroking across their interlocked hands. “No, we had the wedding at her church and then the reception at her parent’s house.”
“What was she like?” Annie asks.
He sighs, “You’d have liked her,” he says, “She was bubbly, never stopped laughing.” As he watches her, Annie closes her eyes and shifts, pressing closer into his arm. “Are we okay, Annie?” he asks eventually. He wants to sound casual, but he can feel every muscle in his back tensing.
“Yeah,” she says softly. “We’re okay. What did she wear?”
Mitchell can’t stop himself, he laughs, feeling every tense muscle relax, “You’re wedding-dress obsessed,” he tells her. Annie lightly punches him in the arm. “Okay, okay! It was white,” he tells her, “with a sash sort of there,” he reaches across to draw a line across her ribs, she squirms and bats his hand away.
“Ticklish” she reminds him. He holds her hand again, and pulls her closer. “Did she have a crinoline?”
“No,” Mitchell laughs, “those were out of fashion, thank god, but she did have a corset, which was just as problematic.” Annie hums in agreement, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand, and he concentrates on feeling every whorl and pore of her skin against his.
“Tell me about yours.” He whispers into her hair.
She freezes, and he misses her fingertips’ movement so much that he wishes he hadn’t asked. “I, um-” she stutters, “we set a date, but we never made any plans, really, so-”
“It’s okay,” he soothes her, “tell me about what you imagined your perfect wedding would be.”
She bubbles with laughter suddenly, “It's changed a lot since I was young.” But she sobers suddenly, and he catches her glance up at him and away very quickly, with something very dark in her eyes. “I don't care much about the ceremony anymore.” She tells him.
“Annie,” he teases, trying to get her to smile, “Were you one of those girls who used to play ‘wedding’ all the time?”
She does smile, but she won’t look at him. “Maybe,” she grins, “When we lived in London our house was just down the street from the church, and my sister and I used to watch the weddings. I had some great ideas about how my wedding would be.”
“Twenty bridesmaids all in a cathedral?”
“And a horse-drawn carriage and the long, white dress with a bow on the butt.” She looks up at him, and laughs. “I was six years old; you can’t judge me. Stop pulling that face.”
“And now?” he asks. And he can feel her tense at his side. Don’t run away, he begs.
“I think it’s a little complicated.” She replies, after a while.
“How so?” he asks, he can’t stop himself, he feels like they’re finally getting somewhere and he won’t let her stop now.
“I think I’ll be here forever.” She says, and her voice is very quiet in the dark, “the ‘death do us part’ bit is a bit redundant.” She sighs. “He’d have to want to stay with me forever.”
“Yes.” He tells her. And his voice is so heavy, so strong in the night air.
She turns to look at him, and he feels like every muscle, every nerve, every bone is open to her gaze. He wants her to see into the heart of him. He wants to see into the heart of her, but her face is perfectly still and perfectly blank, a horrible skill she learnt when she was away from him.
With every passing second it gets harder not to run away, not to hide in the bushes or turn away to throw-up. But he doesn’t, he can’t, because he’s just promised her he won’t, ever.
She looks away from him, finally, back to the party in the hotel restaurant. She smiles, a half-smile, slightly cynical, which looks wrong on her face. Annie has never been cynical.
“Come on,” she says, “they’ll be missing us.”
“Annie?” he whispers, he can’t seem to find his breath.
She reaches out to him, holding his hands and pulling his weight against hers; he’s still a little unsteady on his feet.
“We’ll see.” She tells him.
~~
The fourth time is five years, four months and two weeks after she comes back to them. He’s been counting the days. Every year he buys a diary or a calendar and ticks off the days just to make sure.
They’re in Italy, in Venice, sitting on the edge of the Fondamenta Zattere allo Spirito Santo, as far down as they can possibly go, watching the cruise ships sail in and out. It’s been a challenge for him, Venice. There are so many churches, but she wanted to come.
It’s so beautiful at night, watching her in the Piazza San Marco, the stone towering grey and glorious above them, memories echoing in the folded drapes in the arches. They eat turistico’s meals in little tavernas near the fish market, and in the midday sun they retreat to their hotel room and leave the windows open but pull the shutters closed. She loves the teal colour of the water and the quietness of Venice, filled only with the sounds of chatter in Italian and shoes against cobbles and water lapping against stone.
She opens a bottle of Morretti, and offers it to him. “Nah,” he tells her, “Not now.”
She shrugs and bumps her knee against his, and then holds it there. “Too early?” she asks him. He looks at the crease of her wrist, where she puts her weight on her hand, leaning into him.
“No,” he tells her, “don’t worry, I don’t have any rules about appropriate times to drink alcohol anymore. I’m not going to disapprove.”
She smiles at him, glancing at him from the corners of her eyes. “Don’t you worry,” she tells him, “I’m not going to worry; you don’t need to approve or disapprove of what I do, you’re not my dad.”
His skull hums and his breastbone feels like it is pressing against his heart. “No, I’m not.” He says, and he can hear how thick his own voice sounds. She smiles, as if acknowledging their hidden messages, and leans slightly, to look at their feet where they dangle over the side of the wall.
She wears her hair up, her cardigan tied around her waist. There hasn’t been anyone else for him for five years.
He hasn’t kissed her yet.
“Annie,” he asks, his hand reaching out to stroke her wrist, her forearm, the curve of her shoulder; she turns to look at him and he can see his reflection in her eyes. The bottle clinks against the stone as she puts it down. His fingers stroke her clavicles, the base of her throat, the curve of her cheek. “It’s been five years.” He tells her.
“Since?” she asks.
“Since we sat in the garden at Miskin, and I promised you-” he clears his throat, trying to breath, “-since I promised you I’d stay with you forever.”
“Yes,” she says, and closes her eyes. “Five years isn’t forever, Mitchell.” She chides him, but she’s leaning in and the chill of her against him is enough to make all his hairs stand on-end.
“I know,” he sighs, resting his forehead against hers, “but I want you to know that I love you-”
“Mitchell-”
“-and I will stay with you, and I will never hurt you and I will give up everything for you. Just so you know.”
“Mitchell,” she sounds exasperated, “will you just kiss me already? I’ve been waiting for years.”
~~
The fifth time is twenty years after she comes back to him. They’re in bed together, she’s nibbling on some toast and flipping through the paper and he’s watching her; watching the way she picks each page up by the corner and raises her eyebrows when she reads something she doesn’t agree with.
It’s taken him months to work up the courage to ask her.
Months of long-distance phone calls to George, whispering behind closed doors at the other end of the house so that she won’t catch him. A whole three days worth of shopping with Nina to find the bloody thing. He thought about restaurants and treasure trails and adverts in the newspapers, but it all seems to be such a sham. Nothing matters except her answer.
She doesn’t notice, at first. There are a few seconds before she registers what he’s holding out to her. And then she turns to look at him and the ring-box in his hand and he can barely breathe.
“I can’t walk into a church, and I can’t go before a priest, and you can’t go to a registry office,” he chokes out, “but I want to marry you.” He feels the palms of his hands begin to sweat. She is so calm and so still. “I know what marriage means for us; it means forever, and I know I can do that. So whilst I can’t legally marry you, I can marry you and-” he tries to swallow, but his mouth is so dry, “I can do the rest of it, Annie: With my body I honour you, all that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you? All the important bits, right?”
She doesn’t say anything, just takes the ring box from his hand, and looks at the ring inside.
“I love you-” he starts, but she cuts him off.
“Forever?” she asks, and she looks up at him with the indecipherable look she perfected in hell. “Me, and only me forever? Forsaking all others? Honour me with your body? No blood, forever?”
“Yes.” He tells her, desperate for her to believe him, because nothing has meant this much to him, and he is sure that nothing else ever will. “We can’t get legally married, but I can mean every word. I can promise you forever.”
She hands the ring box back to him. “Go on then.” She says.
The ceiling cartwheels overhead and his lungs burn and his hands shake as he tries to pull out the ring and put it on her. Her hands steady his. “No,” she says quietly, and he is terrified; breath-stopping, eye wateringly terrified. The terror doesn’t stop until she qualifies her ‘no’ with an “ask me.”
He feels his stomach roll and he can taste bile as he holds the ring out in trembling fingers and asks her, “Annie, will you marry me?”
She smiles, a lovely wide-open smile. “I’ll certainly get engaged to you,” she giggles. And he can breathe, the sudden rush of oxygen filling his head and making him giddy. He grins back, taking her fingers in his own and pulling himself closer to her so that he can rest his forehead against hers and watch as he puts the ring on her, breathing in the air that she has just exhaled.
“You never know-” she says, and leans forward to kiss him, her lips cold and sweet against his, “-we might get married one day.”
She smiles at him, and he feels so much love, burning him with every breath he takes. “Yes.” He affirms.
“We’ll see.” She says.
~~
The end.
For those who want to know: Just as “love is a place [and ...] / yes is a world / & in this world of / yes live [..] / all worlds” so too “love all love of other sights controls, / And makes one little room an everywhere. [...] / Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.” And so: “My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, [...] / Whatever dies was not mixed equally; / If our two loves be one, or thou and I / Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.” And that’s the moral of the story folks!
PS: reviews are love.