1950's, Canada
Where did I go right
How did I get you
~*~
The sun is just turning that color, the orange-yellow of burnt September leaves that never fails to make him think of New Orleans in spring, and the wind, with the sea salt smell, blows easily through his too long hair and her arm is wrapped around his. Like he'd seen before, liked she'd shown him days ago (*--for linking). He brushed away the thought even as it clung to him.
He'd been talking to Alice for hours. First because he was tired of her grumping at him. Second because she wasn't as annoying as he'd constructed her forced presence to be. And third because once he got started talking to her, listening to her thoughts and response, he didn't feel like he needed to stop.
But that was the point, wasn't it? Of the vision of showing him, saying that -- before he could even ever understand. To try and help him, to understand, what she'd already seen, already knew, already accepted.
"I do need you," Edward said, after an indeterminate pause in their conversation, but without leaning toward her, or touching her hair, or looking at her. Sounding albeit ironically wry about it.
Alice gave a laugh, a softer high pitched hurmph of a laugh, when her head bumped into his shoulder. "You saying it like that doesn't change it."
He watched that lemony color fading, darker ones slowly taking its place, when Alice didn't move away. Her thoughts skirting over their conversation, and her unknown origins, following Jasper's voice where he was talking to Esme about gardening, and then circled back on to them.
Even, just like that, how she was sitting, she was closer to him in those seconds than any other than Esme stayed for very long. Then he usually felt comfortable to let them. And maybe she sensed that since she shifted slightly, a little closer, crossing her arms over her chest, still holding around his one.
Alice knew what it was to be alone -- undeniably and indescribably -- from even those you loved with your whole being. And she saw in him the first person not whom she thought would understand, but who she saw would. Someone who saw it in her and with her, even if they were saying no for this long. She believed, without waver.
How long was it since he believed in something that purely?
That unreservedly with all his untouchable, cacophonic, unsharable places.
How many times had he made that wish....until he had stopped wishing at all, gone through decades unasked for. And had that ever changed it? Just because he didn't look at the sky, didn't mean it wasn't sunny or cloudy or raining. Simply that he wasn't looking, had grown accustomed and distracted, to living the life he'd chosen and did, honestly and regardlessly, love.
That dream now ran at him, arms open, waiting through his scowls.
And he felt it, then, without anything changing. The sky was still it's lemon-orange, fading darker, and the wind was still salty sea, and when he turned his head, so that his lips and chin brushed spiky black hair at his shoulder. It wasn't like magic, or like walking in a show, playing a part like an actor.
It was simply life, and simply Alice, smallest truth, surrender, admission, request, when he whispered, the sound nearly lost in the breeze. "I need you."
There was a sigh into the arm of his shirt. The way her thoughts shifted, relieved not in the culmination of her vision coming true, but in Edward himself saying the words, meaning them, finally, finally, starting another large part of why she'd come this far.
They sat there the rest of the night, like that, without saying another word.
Not needing them, because tomorrow had the room for all of them now.
How did I get you
~*~
The sun is just turning that color, the orange-yellow of burnt September leaves that never fails to make him think of New Orleans in spring, and the wind, with the sea salt smell, blows easily through his too long hair and her arm is wrapped around his. Like he'd seen before, liked she'd shown him days ago (*--for linking). He brushed away the thought even as it clung to him.
He'd been talking to Alice for hours. First because he was tired of her grumping at him. Second because she wasn't as annoying as he'd constructed her forced presence to be. And third because once he got started talking to her, listening to her thoughts and response, he didn't feel like he needed to stop.
But that was the point, wasn't it? Of the vision of showing him, saying that -- before he could even ever understand. To try and help him, to understand, what she'd already seen, already knew, already accepted.
"I do need you," Edward said, after an indeterminate pause in their conversation, but without leaning toward her, or touching her hair, or looking at her. Sounding albeit ironically wry about it.
Alice gave a laugh, a softer high pitched hurmph of a laugh, when her head bumped into his shoulder. "You saying it like that doesn't change it."
He watched that lemony color fading, darker ones slowly taking its place, when Alice didn't move away. Her thoughts skirting over their conversation, and her unknown origins, following Jasper's voice where he was talking to Esme about gardening, and then circled back on to them.
Even, just like that, how she was sitting, she was closer to him in those seconds than any other than Esme stayed for very long. Then he usually felt comfortable to let them. And maybe she sensed that since she shifted slightly, a little closer, crossing her arms over her chest, still holding around his one.
Alice knew what it was to be alone -- undeniably and indescribably -- from even those you loved with your whole being. And she saw in him the first person not whom she thought would understand, but who she saw would. Someone who saw it in her and with her, even if they were saying no for this long. She believed, without waver.
How long was it since he believed in something that purely?
That unreservedly with all his untouchable, cacophonic, unsharable places.
How many times had he made that wish....until he had stopped wishing at all, gone through decades unasked for. And had that ever changed it? Just because he didn't look at the sky, didn't mean it wasn't sunny or cloudy or raining. Simply that he wasn't looking, had grown accustomed and distracted, to living the life he'd chosen and did, honestly and regardlessly, love.
That dream now ran at him, arms open, waiting through his scowls.
And he felt it, then, without anything changing. The sky was still it's lemon-orange, fading darker, and the wind was still salty sea, and when he turned his head, so that his lips and chin brushed spiky black hair at his shoulder. It wasn't like magic, or like walking in a show, playing a part like an actor.
It was simply life, and simply Alice, smallest truth, surrender, admission, request, when he whispered, the sound nearly lost in the breeze. "I need you."
There was a sigh into the arm of his shirt. The way her thoughts shifted, relieved not in the culmination of her vision coming true, but in Edward himself saying the words, meaning them, finally, finally, starting another large part of why she'd come this far.
They sat there the rest of the night, like that, without saying another word.
Not needing them, because tomorrow had the room for all of them now.