Maybe. I imagine it'll be difficult to retrieve whatever clothes he did have from 1936... He seems to be fine with scrubs I found for now, but he'll probably need some better clothes eventually at least. He looks like a medium.
[ She appreciates that. ]
I mentioned bringing him to the headmaster, but he suddenly became ill - as many students do - at the idea of answering to any sort of authority. So I'm going to have to watch over him for now, I suppose.
[ Time travel, that is. Being a little cryptic maybe because she's. Unsure. She doesn't like the idea, honestly, of Nen being capable of that but. Only for horribly selfish reasons, which is why she's not inclined to go into it further. ]
No. I'm going to get him some food and half expect him to not be there when I return.
[ Half instead of wholly because, well. She wants to believe! He's a good kid despite herself!!! ]
When Rose graces Nen with her singing voice the first time, she doesn’t actually know. A particularly stressful work day - one of her first ever at the academy - had found her wanting to observe music class during a free period. Aiden was happy to let her leave for an hour or so, noting how frazzled she seemed. Unfortunately, her stress was ill-timed. It was a block where music wasn’t in session. With teacher and students both absent, she naturally gravitated to the grand piano across the spacious room.
WIth special care, she lifted the lid and propped it up easily. The flat board was raised immediately after and only seconds later she sat in front of the instrument and her fingers set to work. A few test strokes of the keys sounded gingerly before she actually started to play anything. When she did start into a set melody, her voice wasn’t far behind. An alluring mezzo-soprano that reverberated incredibly through the room even over the chords coming to life beneath her touch.
Perhaps it was the whimsical nature of the song - Octopus’ Garden by The Beatles - that had its own sort of appeal. Or it could have been the sunshine smile on her face, mood visibly lifting the longer she continued to play. It wasn’t her intention to draw an audience but she did all the same. An onlooker that she was unaware of: the Water House professor she had told to smile more. The song came to a sudden close and the final notes hummed through the air before they faded out completely. Silence blanketed the room again until a contented sigh from Rose broke it and she stretched the last bit of bad feelings out.
Before she even had the chance to realize she was being watched, the viewer was gone. While she caught the sound of someone stepping through the halls just outside, she merely wrote it off as a student or teacher passing by on the way to their class.
It’s not that she planned to wait or be as traditional as all this. The talk of dead families on the first date had sufficiently killed any potential prospect of sex and the second just hadn’t struck a successful enough mood for her libido’s liking. It wasn’t anything either of them were necessarily doing wrong, but- It did have her just a little worried. What if they weren’t as compatible as she hoped after all? What if she liked the idea of all this, of motherhood, of come what may more than the actual application? What if, what if, what if.
When she hears the familiar beginning notes to Audrey Hepburn’s award winning introduction song from Breakfast at Tiffany’s play ambiently on some speakers nestled out of sight, she doesn’t actually mean to start singing the words. The lyrics resonate with her a special way right now though she supposes. The idea of crossing a wide river of difference between herself and Nen, making up daydreams in her head of what could be if they pull this off. The people surrounding them in the plaza turn their heads to catch the sound of her voice carrying on the evening air; most of them don’t recognize or understand the English words but they don’t have to in order to appreciate the magnificent quality of her quiet mezzo-soprano. The words fade away before long, final bars of the short, sweet melody hummed instead.
“What?” she asks Nen, once she notices he’s staring after the fact as well. She doesn’t actually remember all of what he finally says in response, eloquent and melodic in its own right. Rose only remembers that it had made her heart swell and head spin and led to quite a number of languid, lascivious kisses right then. Made it difficult to sit through the entirety of dinner where she could only steal teasing, fleeting, and obviously impatient touches. It’s a form of torture, she’s pretty sure, to have gone from so uncertain to so sure only to have to wait to act on said assuredness. Part of her was almost convinced he’d timed it on purpose.
She sings for him again later that night though in a much more unrestrained way. A symphony of sighs and moans in throes of passion that he orchestrates under slender fingers, the warmth of his mouth against her skin. Laughter, too, sounds in-between because she can’t quite help it when he casually questions how her work at the infirmary is going while fingering her clit, like it’s a perfectly normal and appropriate time to ask. And he smiles when she answers, when she tries to talk though breathless and trembling under his touch. A Chesire grin that she by all rights shouldn’t but does find handsome in that moment.
It was silly to worry, she thinks, entangled with him under the sheets later and drifting off to sleep. They can make this work.
They’re married now. Officially. It’s a lot easier than she’d anticipated, in some ways. In others, it’s still a bit of adjustment to make and leaves her feeling still just a tiny bit antsy underneath it all. She promised she’d stay (a promise she will break, eventually) but it’s all quickly starting to feel routine after the honeymoon. Most relationships do once the initial excitement and newness of it all fades, don’t they? That’s normal, even if they’re a couple that most people of the academy claim is anything but ordinary. While she doesn’t openly complain, Nen picks up on her lack of usual energy before overly long. The smiles wane quicker, the lilt to her voice is a little less sweet. There is no indication that this particular date will be anything more or less than one of their usual outings. But a step through the portal he conjures - after dropping the kids off with Blaise for what she presumes to be the evening, but the phoenix already knows is the weekend - has her feet squishing onto a surface much softer and rosier than she anticipated. Her heels sink into the sand, which prompts a surprised squeak though Nen assures that she doesn’t fall. She blinks her eyes a few times as they adjust to the suddenly far too bright afternoon sunlight. When it’s six p.m. in London, it’s two p.m. in Bermuda. They’re in Bermuda.
This is a change from the norm in absolutely all the right ways.
She’s still taking it all silently in when, “Bermuda advertises its ‘pink coral sands’ as an attraction to draw tourists,” Nen starts, keeping his hand still clasped with hers even though she appears to have stabilized. “And they are pink, but it’s not coral that gives them this color. It’s actually a less familiar organism, a single cell animal known as a foraminifera, which makes a small pinkish shell-” An abrupt stop. It’s very hard to keep talking when one’s mouth is otherwise occupied by, say, kissing. Which is absolutely a thing that Rose is doing now, pressing her lips to his with newfound passion. Perhaps maybe too much passion actually but her heels have already been kicked off and she’s stepping up on her tippy toes and she can’t seem to stop herself. So now it’s him who wobbles unevenly from the sand sifting beneath his feet due to the sudden unexpected shift in momentum. There was more to say about how it was organic versus mineral, therefore the explanation for the unique softness of it. She thinks it is comfortably soft as they tumble down onto it. She’s laughing all the while, enjoying the feel of the sun on increasing patches of bare skin; she gets delight in seeing Nen’s smile in-between still fervent kisses. She’s glad he doesn’t seem too bothered by being interrupted.
While extremely enjoyable, sex on the beach is a bit sandier than she would have preferred. Go figure! If she’d let him finish earlier, she’d have known there was a perfectly good bungalow he reserved they could have used for this purpose. But then she couldn’t have crossed something off her sexy bucket list (yes, of course she has one). So Rose stands by her sandy choice. Even if she’ll feel the fine grains of it stuck in unexpected place for days to come.
A shared shower, dinner, and a change of clothes finds them lazily curled up together in a hammock on the veranda overlooking the sea. It’s quiet. Peaceful. Easy. She wishes it were always like this, honestly, but for right now she’s content to pretend that it very well could be. In a wine-induced sleepy haze as the hammock sways, she starts to sing softly, “Manta rays above us in the open sea, I wonder if you think of me. Now we're swimming deeper, nothing's as it seems. Creatures sailing silently. Or so I've dreamed, since I met you. I've been hollowed by your body. I've been hypnotized by all you are. Oh, all I want is to know your name and whisper it in your ear, but I'm weightless like I'm falling on the moon. I'm falling slow for you…”
There’s more that her heart wishes to sing, but she pauses at the surprisingly soft kiss pressed to the top of her head. Over the hushed rush and recede of ocean waves, she can make out Nen saying that he loves her too.
With their children’s mixed genetics, Rose hadn’t known what to expect. Couplings among yokai didn’t work the way her pairing with Nen did. Their children are not quite hanyo, but part wolf and part something else entirely. Mutts never seen by the world until now. But she’s always been quick to say that they’re hers and she wouldn’t have them any other way. Still, one of the apparent drawbacks of their patchwork physiology is (without body modifications, which they are still too young for) being more susceptible to common illnesses. Like the stomach flu. The first signs of it are a gutache settling in that the older one is stubbornly trying to hide. A little too much like their mother, in that regard.
Also like their mother, they are actually a terrible liar to those that know to read the signs. Nen doesn’t have to feel their forehead with glasses that can scan them over in a blink for any abnormal sign, yet he does. Only to immediately frown at the obvious fever his child is running. “I feel fi-” they start, drawing back slightly in crankiness caused by being unwell. But they pause as their eyes glaze over. For a worrisome moment, Rose wonders if it’s a flare-up of their powers she doesn’t quite yet understand. In actuality, it’s a much more tame thing by comparison. Nausea. A direct result of which is the little one’s head dipping down before spraying vomit onto Nen’s shoes. He really doesn’t have much luck with them, it seems like.
To her credit, Rose claps a hand to her mouth before he can see the amused smile at his expense painting her face. Something about how wholly indifferent he looks with the entire situation just makes it that much funnier. The humor fades quick enough, however, as from the bathroom down the hall comes a quiet. pathetic groan of “Mooooommmmmmmmm,” and the sounds of upchucking echoing off the laminated walls to mimics their sibling’s. Rose rushes to fetch them at the call, setting off a whirlwind combination of mother and nurse mode being activated simultaneously.
Nen assists where he’s asked to, knowing full well to try and combat his wife’s headstrongness right now isn’t in his best interests. Eventually, the two children are cleaned, changed, medicated, and fed with applesauce (that doesn’t stay down and causes the cycle to start anew, but she takes it in stride). Once everything is said and done a second time, it’s to bed with them. The pair are snuggled up next to their mother for the night who sits on her and Nen’s bed with her back against the headboard.
Both kids are overtired from the exhaustion of stomach pain and crying their poor little eyes dry. They’re still wiggling and making weak noises of discomfort when their mother sets into singing a quiet tune just as Nen appears in the doorway. It’s a sure-fired solution to get them to sleep, she knows, because it’s worked numerous times before.
“Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waitin' for me my lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships that go sailin'. Somewhere beyond the sea, he's there watchin' for me.” Her eyes lift to catch Nen’s gaze, smiling softly before her attention is back to the ill children cradled in her arms. They’re settling into slumber with each sing-song word. “If I could fly like birds on high then straight to his arms, I'd go sailin'. It's far beyond a star, it's near beyond the moon. I know beyond a doubt my heart will lead me there soon. We'll meet beyond the shore. We'll kiss just as before. Happy we'll be beyond the sea and never again I'll go sailin'. I know beyond a doubt, ah! My heart will lead me there soon.”
As the final words fade, Rose’s attention is brought to a sudden shift of weight on the bed as Nen settles in to sit next to the trio. “You should rest, too,” he whispersays. “After all, who will heal the healer if she falls ill?” “No one,” the blond answers, resting her head immediately in the crook of his shoulder as if it’s actually heavy and difficult to keep lifted up. It suddenly feels like it is. She’d been so focused on their children she hadn’t noticed the weariness in her own bones until this moment. His arm instinctively wraps around her shoulders in response, allowing her to easily lean into him for extra support. “Well. It used to be no one,” she adds, eyes closing. “Now I have you.”
Nen almost corrects her, saying something smart about how he isn’t really a healer, but refrains. She wouldn’t hear him anyway, he thinks, because her vitals behind his glasses show that she’s already asleep. A record. He removes his glasses and sets them onto a nightstand situated at the side of the bed. Quiet coats the room, sounds of Rose and his children breathing like a personal white noise that lulls him into a rare relaxed state.
If someone would have asked her a little over century ago if she saw herself a mother or a wife she likely would have laughed. Sometimes, it feels like just yesterday she was a fresh-faced nurse at Mythian Academy. She’s upgraded to a doctor now and not quite looking her age -- on the other side of four hundred, just barely! -- but there’s a more mature air about her. The way she holds herself these days in higher than before, still just as friendly and personable but noticeably aged. Most of the time. There are occasions still that she lets her hair down, acts half as old as she’s supposed to be. Even if those moments may be growing fewer and farther between, she delights in them when they happen.
Tonight isn’t one of them but is instead remarkable in its own right. It’s their hundredth anniversary. It’s a milestone humans only dream of reaching still, so understandably there’s no set tradition for it. Rose isn’t expecting anything, honestly, since it’s just another day (or so she tries to convince herself), it’s not that important (her mind blatantly tries to lie). Nen had remembered all the rest: the silver, the gold, and the diamond.
He remembers this one too even if it doesn’t come with jewels.
Rose steps into their home easily after a long day at the hospital and kicks off her shoes. It’s quiet without the kids. She misses them, will have to see if she can gather them up soon for a reunion. It’s always hardest to wrangle the one up in the stars but they never fail to bring such remarkable gifts when they do finally pull into earth’s port. Because of it, she can never stay angry at how much time has lapsed since she saw them last. Before she can piece together a plan to get the children to return, she hears-
The piano? It had been gifted to her after one of her runaways, likely thinking it would make her happy again. Get her to stay. To his credit, it had worked. For a while. Either way, she’s the only one who knows how to play it besides the kids and the only person who should be home is-
“Nen?” she asks, head tilting as she steps into the main room. He lifts his gaze to meet hers and the sound of Chopsticks comes to an abrupt halt. Before she can ask what he’s doing, “I thought you could teach me,” he says. That’s their anniversary gift, she realizes, as she smiles brighter than she has for a while now and takes up the offer. Getting to share with him something so deeply personal as her love of music. Something that, even after a hundred years, is new and wonderful to explore and enjoy together.
He’s a quick study. He’d probably be quicker, honestly, if she wasn’t so distracted by how handsome he looks when he focuses on hitting the correct keys, getting the proper timing. If half their piano lessons didn’t become make-out sessions instead. But it’s still not long before she’s greeted to the sound of Jeux d'eau as she steps through the door after work. Or some other classical Opera pieces that she loves to sing along to. With that to welcome her every night, how could she ever entertain the idea of leaving?
It’s the longest stint of togetherness they have yet, Rose happier than she’s ever been.
When someone steps through a portal into her office, she thinks for a moment it’s the very person she’s avoiding. No, not avoiding- Okay, well, maybe. It’s complicated. As things with them can tend to be when they’re having a rough patch. Not that she’s admitting they’re having a rough patch. Nevermind the fact that it’s been days since she saw him last. Or was it years? It felt like days, but maybe it’s actually compromise of only a few months.
“Mom,” they start, voice stern but sharp, “You need to-” “I don’t need to do anything,” she’s quick to throw back. “If your father sent you to get me thinking it’ll guilt me into coming back, it’s not-”
“Mom,” they say again, this time their voice cracking just the faintest bit followed by an audible swallow. A harder sniffle than intended. For the first time since her child stepped into the infirmary, Rose looks up at them. For the first time since they were actually a child, there’s tears burning the bottoms of their eyes that they’re trying hard to bite back.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, standing up from her desk and removing the distance between them in one swift motion. “Hey, what’s-” A shake of their head is the only answer and dread settles into her chest, a vice grip on her lungs making it suddenly difficult to breathe. Mom, they’d said. Mom, you need to come home, they were trying to say. “It’s dad,” they finally admit.
The next while is a blur. One second she’s packing up everything she needs to and the next stepping through the portal to Japan, to home, to their little house by the sea with the boats that Nen had built for the children. It all looks the same as she remembers, even though she’s not really looking at it. Please don’t tell her it had been years since she was here last. “Where is he?” she demands of the other children that remained, getting only a point to the direction of the study.
Barging through the door of it, she finds him there in the middle of a familiar type of chaos. Information littering every known surface either in the books on the shelves or his haphazard scrawlings on everything from post-it notes to the lampshade. It had never bothered her, honestly, but she can see at a second glance that this is different than the usual disorder. This is wrong. The equations aren’t finished, the writings are bare bones. They all stopped making any semblance of sense at some point, even for Nen. Half-ideas and sentences trailing off into the growing void of his thoughts reflected in reality laid out before them. One elbow rests on the aged desk to prop up his head while the other idly leafs through pages of a notebook once, twice, thrice, almost like he’s hoping the results will change.
She remembers laughing about the gray that had begun to pepper his hair a while ago now, telling him how it made him look even more distinguished and intellectual. Now tufts of silver overtake the brown like unwanted weeds of mortality. Combined with the wrinkles and sunspots lightly lining his skin, it makes him look the beginnings of every bit as ancient as he actually he is. Rose had always known that this time would come, but awareness doesn’t really prepare you for it actually happening. “I couldn’t remember,” he finally says, breaking the silence that had festered between them for far too long (it had been years, hadn’t it?), “the shape of your eyebrows. How many eyelashes you have. The definition of your ears.” A beat as his gaze finally rises to take her in. “The human ones.” He couldn’t remember a lot of things these days, but those in particular had been bothersome. Because even with her standing right in front of him, he knew somewhere in the recess of his mind that he would forget again if she was out of the room for too long.
He knew it - he - wasn’t going to get better.
It’s swifter than even Rose anticipates. Most people would count themselves lucky to have years, but it goes by in what feels like a blink. They’re together through it all. She refuses to run this time at his silent frustration at being unable to keep control of the going ons in his own head. He says just like his mother before him that he isn’t afraid of death, not really, but he always was a better liar than she was so she can’t tell if he means it. Rose imagines it must still be terrifying to lose yourself a little each day without any way of finding it again. His life is extinguished rather anticlimactically for such a great deity. There one minute and gone the next; nothing in the end but ashes coating the shimmering surface of Japan’s sea. She had once thought it would feel like her heart was eroding inside her chest at Nen’s death. That she wished he would’ve ended the world after all because the thought of one without him is too difficult to bear.
She almost does.
But the reality is, in fact, somehow far worse. Grief overtakes every facet of her world, taking the sound and color out of everything. While she had experienced loss before, she never truly fathomed the concept of ‘heartbreak’ until this. And it isn’t a clean break. It feels like her heart is splintered, tearing her body asunder from the inside. It’s as metaphorical as is it is physical; sobs rack her aching chest, sinuses burn from the excess amount of crying she does in such a short amount of time. Where once had been love so plentiful and comforting even in the worst of times there is now a dry, barren chasm that she’s forced to find a way to cross alone. Where once had been beautiful symphonies was now a silence that settles into her soul. The only thing that eases the pain even slightly is the bits of his genetics that remain in their children. The familiar doses of magic in their bloodstream mixed with impressive knowledge of machinery.
They ask her to sing for them in their grief. For him, because he loved her voice so. But she can’t, her voice cracking in painful ways soon as she utters even a single note because it only reminds her of how Nen isn’t there to appreciate it as he always had, as perhaps she’d taken for granted. How she’d do anything to see the silent upturn of his lips at the sound of her love songs for him just one last time.
But the music in her dies with him, rendering her unable to sing again.
looking at my own comments like 'wow that's extra, sorry to anyone else who ever comes in here'
[ 'We should talk then,' he'd said. Then has arrived and she's still wholly unprepared. Her fingers tap anxiously on the nearest surface to where she sits, gaze out the closest window but not focused on anything in particular. It's been a non-stop rush in the clinic. Werewolves asking for blood bags for vampire friends, a young kraken's tentacles to massage, and Kevon apparently dealing with some relationship drama in the aftermath of the attack that has him simultaneously wanting a distraction and distracted. Before she knows it, it's evening and Nen should awakening soon.
She waits for him in his campus housing. It might as well be theirs these days for how much time the woman spends here. This isn't really the space Rose sees herself sharing with him long-term though; he knows of her dreams of a quaint little Kyoto home someday. If there even is a long-term or someday anymore. She's not actually sure. He knows her fears, regrets, hopes, and dreams yet he doesn't know the fact that she'd been feeling like she was suffocating for some time now. He doesn't know that she wasn't unhappy but she wasn't happy either and how it had driven her to leave. He doesn't know because she didn't tell him.
She still doesn't want to tell him. Not really. Yet, she also doesn't want to run away either. So guess it's 'talk about our feelings o'clock,' which she's never been a huge fan of. And she admits she's just a little nervous over what he'll think about her actions upon waking up not hindered by prescription grade drugs and pain. The taptaptap of her fingers intensifies as her other hand rests lightly on her stomach. ]
Ohayou, [ she'll greet quietly once she hears him since this situation seems more fitting of it than her usual okaeri. ]
[Nen comes in, moving slower than he usually does, for reasons including: having recently been maimed. But he's doing better than he was the other day, thanks in part to some supernatural magical equipment that started repairs on a cellular level. There's no prosthetic eye in his head yet, so he looks downright piratical, wearing a patch over the empty socket strapped down around his skull. He's gotten a few jokes. They haven't bothered him.
He's quite happy, despite everything. He hasn't had children in over a thousand one hundred years. The news has been ringing around in his head since the fateful day, along with nausea, pain, and the dire concern that his ability to shape reality through code will affect his ability to make himself a replacement eye that works without causing problems. But mostly it's been the news. Children!! and he's alive for it. Next stop, murdering Sylwia so they have a nice place to grow up, though to be fair, it's as likely as not they'll be able to breathe underwater, so the murder might just be for--]
Thank you.
[He sees her and kisses her immediately. He may be a thousand years old, but he's still sort of generically dudelike in many ways, plus with various physiological excuses listed above, so he's definitely missing some of the cues that things are not all 100% perfect, fair weather smooth sailing. He holds her waist, and sets a hand on her tummy, presses his mouth to her forehead after they've vacated her lips.] We've some planning to do, I think.
[ It's not what she's expecting. Maybe she should honestly just stop expecting things. That might be a lot easier than working herself up over what could be, the worst that she tends to plan for. Rose had hoped he was happy with the news, of course. And he is. He had been even in the infirmary fresh with pain and the chemical compounds of strong as hell drugs breaking down in his blood. But she figured that in their absence he'd be a bit more... aware of how they needed to make, as he'd put, 'constructive changes.' Guess she underestimated the high that the idea of fatherhood would create.
When he kisses her, she thinks for the briefest of seconds maybe they don't have to talk after all. Maybe things will be fine. Maybe he could just kiss her again and again until she's content enough to keep going as they are. She has to fight every urge to sneak in another kiss as if they can just smooch all these problems away.
But getting caught up in maybes and half-truths about her own happiness - not to mention kissing instead of talking like a girl herself - was what had driven her to try to run away in the first place. 'Maybe' isn't going to cut it anymore. ] We do, [ she answers, giving her best attempt at a smile. It's unfortunately not very convincing. ]
[Jubilation is a weird look on Nen, but not a bad one. He stops kissing her in a moment. A long one, filled with the brush of his nose across her brow, a breath through her golden hair, a glance at the doorway. He probably isn't actually, entirely up to snuff as far as physical recovery goes, but he'd try.
He'd try if she didn't want right away to talk, at least. But she does, and he's got enough reserve and understanding to divert the conversation back onto what he thinks is the proper track. As a matter of fact, he's been giving this a lot of thought. He's sensed it wasn't all confetti and party poppers. He's made a mental list (and maybe jotted down a few notes) on what it could be, possibly Googled a few articles on modern women and demon partnership practices. He's also had quite a few painkillers, which maybe sort of impaired his understanding of what she was likely going through.
And in the end, he settled into territory adjacent of the truth, but probably
not]
You don't want to get married away. You'd like to postpone it? Or not at all? You're concerned I'm particular about my traditions because I'm ancient.
[ completely derailed her train of thought is what he just did. He might see it in her deer in the headlights stare or feel it in the way she tenses just slightly under his touch at the word married alone. A visceral reaction to the way it sounds like the snapping shut of a steel cage.
Rose had come in with ideas of how this would play out. The things they'd talk about and what she'd say had all been mentally rehearsed several times over. Every worst scenario had run through her head as well as some good ones, but again- Maybe she needs to stop thinking so much of how things are going to go because they almost never do.
Of all the turns she had anticipated their conversation taking, this wasn't actually one of them. ]
-want to marry me?
[ It seems silly to question once she does. They'd talked of children and dove into surprising depth on their first date. It'd always felt a bit more 'serious' from the start for a lot of reasons like those. And still did now because of the fact she was already carrying those discussed children ahead of schedule. Marriage was the next logical step. But marriage - the traditional idea of it - conjured up a lot of emotions for Rose that were likely telling of some underlying issues. Namely: confinement. ]
I didn't think- [ That's not true. She thought too much, just not apparently one the same wavelength as him. And now she's thinking too much again, her mind frantically trying to piece together some of the possibilities she'd run through her head prior. But all it's doing is causing a weird short-circuit effect in her head that reflects in her speech. ] Uhm. I mean. That's... I think, maybe, we should.
I think we should see other people.
[ wait
no- ] Not like that, I'm not. I'm not leaving you or anything. I mean, I was but that- I changed my mind because I meant what I said. I love you. I want to start a family. I still want to be with you, I do, but I also want to. Explore other options, possibly.
[ Ineloquent and not quite as planned, but. It still gets the point across. ]
[Record scratch. RRRZZzbbbt. The lovely music in Nen's mind, the optimism, the beautiful melody and shimmering refrain, everything he thought it would turn out like-- abruptly chokes short. The record doesn't just scratch, somebody knocked over the endtable holding the player and then a car came in through the wall and smushed it under its wheels. And then maybe the roof falls down.
Which isn't to say that Nen visibly flips the fuck out. He actually does rather the opposite. He goes quiet, nearly motionless, his dark eyes regarding her unblinking for a long moment, both the organic one and the prosthetic. She can see her reflection on the surface of his stare, miniaturized and dimmed out, slightly distorted. For an uncomfortably long moment, he plays the part of a manikin. A slowly processing, inscrutably disapproving manikin.]
You're not leaving me, [he repeats. There's no perceptible stress on the words you and me, but maybe just the fact he repeated that particular sentence at all kind of implies-- something. Cutting. Just hard to say which direction he's cutting in.] But you're exploring other options.
To be the father?
[The question has a highly clinical quality that is probably not in reality, all that clinical at all.]
[ For an uncomfortably long moment, she's very small. Not scared, of course, but- Uncertain. She would've almost preferred him visibly flipping the fuck out instead of being so unsure as to what's going through his head.
Suddenly, things feel tense as a guitar string being tuned too tightly. On the verge of snapping, loudly and painfully. Something that can hopefully be repaired, if it does, with time. But will be very inconvenient and frustrating in the meanwhile. ]
No, [ is the easy answer. It's also the truth. Another twist, twist of the tuning peg as she mulls over the right words in her head. ]
Not... I don't want anyone to replace you, or. Be the father. You are. That's not changing. [ That's the problem though, isn't it? Wanting to have your cake and eat it too doesn't work out as well in practice as it does theory. There's going to have to be changes, really, Rose just hasn't accepted that. ]
I just want what we have to be a little more... flexible, I guess. I feel. [ 'Trapped' sounds harsh. Horrible. Like she's unhappy. She isn't. Or so she's still telling herself, even now. ] Like I'm missing something.
[ Her freedom, she knows, but that also sounds bad in all the ways she's trying to avoid. ]
[He doesn't understand, and pride prevents him from making that as clear as it could be. He looks at her in silence that stretches too long, the fuzzy edges of his painkiller high growing grainy and difficult in their effort to sharpen into something intelligible. To the layman, or even to hear, it looks like he's either choosing his words or he has none.]
Do you want to move away from Mythian Academy? [he asks, finally.] Find another job? [he remembers, you know-- that she had been a musician. Gigs everywhere, in different parts of the world, and as many teachers for each instrument, each style, new skills to learn. It's a thing apart, he imagines-- albeit with some difficulty, from being stuck at the one school, patching up silly children, handing out sex education posters, posting notices for influenza. Less the adoring crowd.] I travel often.
I understand this place can be confining.
[Confining. He knows the concept-- just not how it applies to her, evidently. To them.]
[ It's a little ironic, maybe, to be asked if she wants to leave in the aftermath of a failed attempt at running away. She hadn't figured Nen would be alright with that, that it was ever an option. That's what happens when talking is secondary. Conclusions are drawn, assumptions made. The wrong ones. ]
It's not the academy, [ she says, choosing her words a little less carefully. It might help them to get back on the same page even if it's not as delicate as she'd like it to be. ] It's not the job, it's...
I'm not good at this. [ A vague gesture between them. ] I meant what I said, I've never had to think about an us quite so seriously. I knew there would be changes. But I'm... having trouble, I guess, adjusting. I miss. I miss being able to be with who I want to, do what [ read: who ] I want to. I'm so worried you'll think it means I love you any less or differently, which isn't true. I just, I.
I miss being free, like I used to be. I feel like I lost that somewhere along the way.
[She makes disclaimers. The right ones, probably. The ones you should make, when you're trying to give somebody the great talk that's meant to transition monogamy to polyamory, or at least a closed relationship to an open one. On paper, she's doing it just right.
Of course, when it comes to nuance and the caustic pride of an ancient sea god who was bereft of his original love a thousand years ago, it's very difficult to get anything right, broadly speaking. Never mind just so. And to him, her words seem to contradict the furtive shiftiness in her conduct, how hard it had been for her to meet his eyes just now, and maybe-- and maybe he can almost remember the shadow of weird discomfort in her face the weeks before. Moments of silence, of pause that had dug too deep. He'd thought she was merely remembering something old, or worrying about the children. He'd asked once or twice. It'd seemed like nothing.]
I hadn't realized I had taken so much from you.
[He steps away. His turn now, to look away. To adjust some random object on the table, straightening it so that it looks tidier with the others. Pretending this is of consequence.]
[ It feels like the paper's on fire, actually, and maybe it'd be better to just stomp it out before it catches anything else. But maybe there's something to be said for trying, at least. Better late than never? It's hard to say. Just like everything is right now.
Sometimes she was remembering things past. Like now, she's reminded of her father and how he'd always known the exact things to say that hurt. But mostly, in recent weeks, she'd been thinking of all the things she had decided she wasn't allowed to do and how stifling it'd been. ]
Just because something's missing doesn't mean you took it, [ she says, a slight slump to her shoulders. Fatigue, maybe, which is expected of a pregnant woman perhaps overworking herself in recent days but also a tell of something deeper. Rose hates conflict, always has. Even on such a small scale, she'd just rather... not. Though this is getting them somewhere, at least, whereas lapses of too long silences and avoidance hadn't. ]
This isn't what I imagined it'd be and maybe. Maybe I should've made it more clear, what I wanted. [ A pause. She looks at him now, this time with purpose. ] Just because it isn't what I thought doesn't mean it can't be though.
Is that what you think? That I was going to build a cage around you. [Nen's face is clouded with some indeterminable feeling. And also drug haze. There's a lot of things screwing with his clarity right now, between emotion and chemistry. He studies the counter, but thinks about her voice. She is trying to make a change, that much is clear— and he's old enough to know that there is no stopping it when this is what your partner wants.
He'd always liked strong women. It was true when he was an ordinary man, and it's true now. Haruko had passed away so long ago that he had never even thought to compare Rosie to her, but the blistering heat of their old fights comes back to him now, wafting on the edges of his armor-like skin, so vague he would think he had imagined it. Haruko had liked to fight more than Rosie had, though. Never physically, only with words. They're different. But it slides into harsh and eye-smarting focus now, the possibility that he's going to have lost both of them.
No god keeps love always. Not even the gods of love. Especially not them.] That I had already. You may love whomever you wish, Rosie. [He doesn't sound hurt. His voice is as flat, as neutral as the empty white spaces of blank energy that he sculpts as a god.] My children weren't of my blood. I was my wife's second husband before. I don't know who you think I am, Hanako. But I don't think it's me.
[He straightens another brochure, and finally looks back at her.]
[ Hanako, he says, and she's suddenly a small girl playing in the snow unaware of the way everything she loves will turn to ash in her hands. How she'll wonder if it's her fault, later in life. How she'll wonder if right now all she's meant for is truly to ruin. ] I love you, Nen. [ She says it before she can stop herself, forceful but every bit of sincere as she likes to pretend she isn't.
He's not going to lose her. Not if she has anything to say about it, anyway. Rose may have a bit of a problem with letting go. The shackles of her past, the lessons taught by the scars on her back. It's not always a good thing, the way that she holds on with everything she's got, but maybe this is a time it'll serve her well.
In contrast to his neutrality, her voice seems to be more emotionally charged than before. Something tight to it, the tinge of hurt and uncertainty. Beneath that edge, however, the chime of something sweeter. Hope. ]
And I know enough about the person you are that I can say that. [ But not for the first time and possibly not the last, she can't help but wonder if love can be enough. Wishes with the entirety of her heart that isn't his already that it's possible. ]
It doesn't have to be a cage but that also doesn't mean you have to let me go. I still want to be here, be with you, love you just the same as I have and I'm. I'm sorry if that's not enough. [ If she's not enough. It wouldn't be the first time, actually, that Rose had worried she wasn't. ] I'd hoped it was, but- That's all I can give and so if it's not then. Then, I don't know.
[ If this can work, if she can keep going on as she had and pretend she's happy with it. ]
[The same as I have, Nen thinks. Means deception, waiting to be pushed to the brink. It means coming out with the truth too, though, and he's not impulsive or over-emotional enough to ignore that. Even if he has been fidgeting with various nursing office objects and having more feelings than average.]
Between the two of us, I don't think you are the one with particular reason to be concerned about being enough. [His voice is less neutral now, breaking into stresses over key words. I don't think you are the one. Particular reason. Being enough. But he doesn't wield the lines like knives or icebergs or terrifying sci-fi god lasers or anything. He only holds them at arms' length for the moment, looking her in the eye. Daring her to try again.
'If that's not enough.' As if she hadn't been the one who wanted more and different; hadn't found them inadequate the way that they were.]
So we will quarrel, have our problems, and our children. Then find comfort in the arms of others. Is that it? I should gossip about this with someone. You'll find some reprieve from my foibles. Then pretend nothing is different when we come back together. How very modern.
[ It's very possible that she's not the one and, in a way, she hadn't asked to be. Or asked him to be. Rose didn't believe that there was one person who could be everything a person wanted or needed. But she still stands by that it doesn't make him less either or what they have...
Well, it's true that she found it to be inadequate. Not Nen. He's not everything but he's a lot more than anyone else is and possibly ever could be. It says a lot, too, that she wishes he could be everything, wishes that she still didn't want more and different despite herself. Wishes she could just be happy with what she has. She thinks, not for the first time, that maybe she's just greedy. It's possible that she's hooked on love and can't stop chasing how it makes her feel pretty and wanted in ways she never imagined she could be.
There's a reason love is called a drug. ]
It is, [ she agrees. ] Just like I am. [ Long-lived but not quite as ancient as he is, not quite as traditional or rooted in times past. Perhaps she's not the only one who has trouble letting go.
She thinks that she could be more her father than he is in this moment. There's a plethora of things she could find to say that might possibly cut him in similar ways. Instead, she chooses to be more her mother. She's feeling decidedly more maternal these past couple days than she has in the entirety of her kept quiet pregnancy. Instead, instead, she keeps his gaze and remains as steadfast as she possibly can. ]
So maybe things will be different. Maybe things will change. And if they do, I want it to be with you rather than without, but- I do want you to be happy, too. I want this to work in a way we can both be.
Edited (noticing a typo 8 hrs later ignore me) 2017-11-14 22:02 (UTC)
pretends this isn't like an actual week late, whoops
[ On his birthday, no matter what disagreements they might still be having, Nen will come back from work to an organized workshop. All the notes and haphazard writings scattered about have copied, compiled, and laid out nice and neat. The only hint at the culprit is the scent of roses still lingering on the air.
In place of his old slippers there sit a new pair: ]
[ They come with a note that reads I told you I'd get you a new pair.
On his desk with the rest of his notes also sits a sea-themed scrapbook. ]
[ The cover has a picture of them, Rose caught in the middle of laughing and holding onto Nen as he smiles in kind. The pages are of a similar color scheme, all lovingly hand-crafted but left otherwise blank beyond another little scrawl with For the memories we'll make as a family. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
text;
I might have to ask for a rescheduling of our date tonight.
There's a naked boy in my clinic I need to take care of.
[ In character no context theater. ]
no subject
Did his clothes catch the influenza?
no subject
I actually think they got lose in the space-time continuum, which is admittedly a little out of my area of expertise.
no subject
Should I bring you by some clothes? What size is he?
[He could just
spy, but he's being good.]
no subject
[ She appreciates that. ]
I mentioned bringing him to the headmaster, but he suddenly became ill - as many students do - at the idea of answering to any sort of authority.
So I'm going to have to watch over him for now, I suppose.
no subject
[;) ;)
;D]
1936? That's a little less mundane than gastrointestinal reactions to authority.
no subject
[ This is the man that's going to be her husband, everyone. But it does make her smile slightly at her phone, so. Y'know. ]
It is.
He asked if there were other time travelers in the academy. I figured you'd know more about that than me though.
no subject
Do you think he will stay? He might be the sort of boy who doesn't think he should have to.
no subject
[ Time travel, that is. Being a little cryptic maybe because she's. Unsure. She doesn't like the idea, honestly, of Nen being capable of that but. Only for horribly selfish reasons, which is why she's not inclined to go into it further. ]
No.
I'm going to get him some food and half expect him to not be there when I return.
[ Half instead of wholly because, well. She wants to believe! He's a good kid despite herself!!! ]
congratulations on passing ur exam!!!
( x )
no subject
five times rosie sang for nen and one she didn't
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
looking at my own comments like 'wow that's extra, sorry to anyone else who ever comes in here'
She waits for him in his campus housing. It might as well be theirs these days for how much time the woman spends here. This isn't really the space Rose sees herself sharing with him long-term though; he knows of her dreams of a quaint little Kyoto home someday. If there even is a long-term or someday anymore. She's not actually sure. He knows her fears, regrets, hopes, and dreams yet he doesn't know the fact that she'd been feeling like she was suffocating for some time now. He doesn't know that she wasn't unhappy but she wasn't happy either and how it had driven her to leave. He doesn't know because she didn't tell him.
She still doesn't want to tell him. Not really. Yet, she also doesn't want to run away either. So guess it's 'talk about our feelings o'clock,' which she's never been a huge fan of. And she admits she's just a little nervous over what he'll think about her actions upon waking up not hindered by prescription grade drugs and pain. The taptaptap of her fingers intensifies as her other hand rests lightly on her stomach. ]
Ohayou, [ she'll greet quietly once she hears him since this situation seems more fitting of it than her usual okaeri. ]
no subject
He's quite happy, despite everything. He hasn't had children in over a thousand one hundred years. The news has been ringing around in his head since the fateful day, along with nausea, pain, and the dire concern that his ability to shape reality through code will affect his ability to make himself a replacement eye that works without causing problems. But mostly it's been the news. Children!! and he's alive for it. Next stop, murdering Sylwia so they have a nice place to grow up, though to be fair, it's as likely as not they'll be able to breathe underwater, so the murder might just be for--]
Thank you.
[He sees her and kisses her immediately. He may be a thousand years old, but he's still sort of generically dudelike in many ways, plus with various physiological excuses listed above, so he's definitely missing some of the cues that things are not all 100% perfect, fair weather smooth sailing. He holds her waist, and sets a hand on her tummy, presses his mouth to her forehead after they've vacated her lips.] We've some planning to do, I think.
no subject
When he kisses her, she thinks for the briefest of seconds maybe they don't have to talk after all. Maybe things will be fine. Maybe he could just kiss her again and again until she's content enough to keep going as they are. She has to fight every urge to sneak in another kiss as if they can just smooch all these problems away.
But getting caught up in maybes and half-truths about her own happiness - not to mention kissing instead of talking like a girl herself - was what had driven her to try to run away in the first place. 'Maybe' isn't going to cut it anymore. ] We do, [ she answers, giving her best attempt at a smile. It's unfortunately not very convincing. ]
Especially about 'us' and what... that means.
no subject
He'd try if she didn't want right away to talk, at least. But she does, and he's got enough reserve and understanding to divert the conversation back onto what he thinks is the proper track. As a matter of fact, he's been giving this a lot of thought. He's sensed it wasn't all confetti and party poppers. He's made a mental list (and maybe jotted down a few notes) on what it could be, possibly Googled a few articles on modern women and demon partnership practices. He's also had quite a few painkillers, which maybe sort of impaired his understanding of what she was likely going through.
And in the end, he settled into territory adjacent of the truth, but probably
not]
You don't want to get married away. You'd like to postpone it? Or not at all? You're concerned I'm particular about my traditions because I'm ancient.
[...exactly.]
no subject
[ completely derailed her train of thought is what he just did. He might see it in her deer in the headlights stare or feel it in the way she tenses just slightly under his touch at the word married alone. A visceral reaction to the way it sounds like the snapping shut of a steel cage.
Rose had come in with ideas of how this would play out. The things they'd talk about and what she'd say had all been mentally rehearsed several times over. Every worst scenario had run through her head as well as some good ones, but again- Maybe she needs to stop thinking so much of how things are going to go because they almost never do.
Of all the turns she had anticipated their conversation taking, this wasn't actually one of them. ]
-want to marry me?
[ It seems silly to question once she does. They'd talked of children and dove into surprising depth on their first date. It'd always felt a bit more 'serious' from the start for a lot of reasons like those. And still did now because of the fact she was already carrying those discussed children ahead of schedule. Marriage was the next logical step. But marriage - the traditional idea of it - conjured up a lot of emotions for Rose that were likely telling of some underlying issues. Namely: confinement. ]
I didn't think- [ That's not true. She thought too much, just not apparently one the same wavelength as him. And now she's thinking too much again, her mind frantically trying to piece together some of the possibilities she'd run through her head prior. But all it's doing is causing a weird short-circuit effect in her head that reflects in her speech. ] Uhm. I mean. That's... I think, maybe, we should.
I think we should see other people.
[ wait
no- ] Not like that, I'm not. I'm not leaving you or anything. I mean, I was but that- I changed my mind because I meant what I said. I love you. I want to start a family. I still want to be with you, I do, but I also want to. Explore other options, possibly.
[ Ineloquent and not quite as planned, but. It still gets the point across. ]
no subject
Which isn't to say that Nen visibly flips the fuck out. He actually does rather the opposite. He goes quiet, nearly motionless, his dark eyes regarding her unblinking for a long moment, both the organic one and the prosthetic. She can see her reflection on the surface of his stare, miniaturized and dimmed out, slightly distorted. For an uncomfortably long moment, he plays the part of a manikin. A slowly processing, inscrutably disapproving manikin.]
You're not leaving me, [he repeats. There's no perceptible stress on the words you and me, but maybe just the fact he repeated that particular sentence at all kind of implies-- something. Cutting. Just hard to say which direction he's cutting in.] But you're exploring other options.
To be the father?
[The question has a highly clinical quality that is probably not in reality, all that clinical at all.]
no subject
Suddenly, things feel tense as a guitar string being tuned too tightly. On the verge of snapping, loudly and painfully. Something that can hopefully be repaired, if it does, with time. But will be very inconvenient and frustrating in the meanwhile. ]
No, [ is the easy answer. It's also the truth. Another twist, twist of the tuning peg as she mulls over the right words in her head. ]
Not... I don't want anyone to replace you, or. Be the father. You are. That's not changing. [ That's the problem though, isn't it? Wanting to have your cake and eat it too doesn't work out as well in practice as it does theory. There's going to have to be changes, really, Rose just hasn't accepted that. ]
I just want what we have to be a little more... flexible, I guess. I feel. [ 'Trapped' sounds harsh. Horrible. Like she's unhappy. She isn't. Or so she's still telling herself, even now. ] Like I'm missing something.
[ Her freedom, she knows, but that also sounds bad in all the ways she's trying to avoid. ]
no subject
Do you want to move away from Mythian Academy? [he asks, finally.] Find another job? [he remembers, you know-- that she had been a musician. Gigs everywhere, in different parts of the world, and as many teachers for each instrument, each style, new skills to learn. It's a thing apart, he imagines-- albeit with some difficulty, from being stuck at the one school, patching up silly children, handing out sex education posters, posting notices for influenza. Less the adoring crowd.] I travel often.
I understand this place can be confining.
[Confining. He knows the concept-- just not how it applies to her, evidently. To them.]
no subject
It's not the academy, [ she says, choosing her words a little less carefully. It might help them to get back on the same page even if it's not as delicate as she'd like it to be. ] It's not the job, it's...
I'm not good at this. [ A vague gesture between them. ] I meant what I said, I've never had to think about an us quite so seriously. I knew there would be changes. But I'm... having trouble, I guess, adjusting. I miss. I miss being able to be with who I want to, do what [ read: who ] I want to. I'm so worried you'll think it means I love you any less or differently, which isn't true. I just, I.
I miss being free, like I used to be. I feel like I lost that somewhere along the way.
no subject
Of course, when it comes to nuance and the caustic pride of an ancient sea god who was bereft of his original love a thousand years ago, it's very difficult to get anything right, broadly speaking. Never mind just so. And to him, her words seem to contradict the furtive shiftiness in her conduct, how hard it had been for her to meet his eyes just now, and maybe-- and maybe he can almost remember the shadow of weird discomfort in her face the weeks before. Moments of silence, of pause that had dug too deep. He'd thought she was merely remembering something old, or worrying about the children. He'd asked once or twice. It'd seemed like nothing.]
I hadn't realized I had taken so much from you.
[He steps away. His turn now, to look away. To adjust some random object on the table, straightening it so that it looks tidier with the others. Pretending this is of consequence.]
no subject
Sometimes she was remembering things past. Like now, she's reminded of her father and how he'd always known the exact things to say that hurt. But mostly, in recent weeks, she'd been thinking of all the things she had decided she wasn't allowed to do and how stifling it'd been. ]
Just because something's missing doesn't mean you took it, [ she says, a slight slump to her shoulders. Fatigue, maybe, which is expected of a pregnant woman perhaps overworking herself in recent days but also a tell of something deeper. Rose hates conflict, always has. Even on such a small scale, she'd just rather... not. Though this is getting them somewhere, at least, whereas lapses of too long silences and avoidance hadn't. ]
This isn't what I imagined it'd be and maybe. Maybe I should've made it more clear, what I wanted. [ A pause. She looks at him now, this time with purpose. ] Just because it isn't what I thought doesn't mean it can't be though.
Is it... something that you think we could do?
no subject
He'd always liked strong women. It was true when he was an ordinary man, and it's true now. Haruko had passed away so long ago that he had never even thought to compare Rosie to her, but the blistering heat of their old fights comes back to him now, wafting on the edges of his armor-like skin, so vague he would think he had imagined it. Haruko had liked to fight more than Rosie had, though. Never physically, only with words. They're different. But it slides into harsh and eye-smarting focus now, the possibility that he's going to have lost both of them.
No god keeps love always. Not even the gods of love. Especially not them.] That I had already. You may love whomever you wish, Rosie. [He doesn't sound hurt. His voice is as flat, as neutral as the empty white spaces of blank energy that he sculpts as a god.] My children weren't of my blood. I was my wife's second husband before. I don't know who you think I am, Hanako. But I don't think it's me.
[He straightens another brochure, and finally looks back at her.]
no subject
He's not going to lose her. Not if she has anything to say about it, anyway. Rose may have a bit of a problem with letting go. The shackles of her past, the lessons taught by the scars on her back. It's not always a good thing, the way that she holds on with everything she's got, but maybe this is a time it'll serve her well.
In contrast to his neutrality, her voice seems to be more emotionally charged than before. Something tight to it, the tinge of hurt and uncertainty. Beneath that edge, however, the chime of something sweeter. Hope. ]
And I know enough about the person you are that I can say that. [ But not for the first time and possibly not the last, she can't help but wonder if love can be enough. Wishes with the entirety of her heart that isn't his already that it's possible. ]
It doesn't have to be a cage but that also doesn't mean you have to let me go. I still want to be here, be with you, love you just the same as I have and I'm. I'm sorry if that's not enough. [ If she's not enough. It wouldn't be the first time, actually, that Rose had worried she wasn't. ] I'd hoped it was, but- That's all I can give and so if it's not then. Then, I don't know.
[ If this can work, if she can keep going on as she had and pretend she's happy with it. ]
no subject
Between the two of us, I don't think you are the one with particular reason to be concerned about being enough. [His voice is less neutral now, breaking into stresses over key words. I don't think you are the one. Particular reason. Being enough. But he doesn't wield the lines like knives or icebergs or terrifying sci-fi god lasers or anything. He only holds them at arms' length for the moment, looking her in the eye. Daring her to try again.
'If that's not enough.' As if she hadn't been the one who wanted more and different; hadn't found them inadequate the way that they were.]
So we will quarrel, have our problems, and our children. Then find comfort in the arms of others. Is that it? I should gossip about this with someone. You'll find some reprieve from my foibles. Then pretend nothing is different when we come back together. How very modern.
no subject
Well, it's true that she found it to be inadequate. Not Nen. He's not everything but he's a lot more than anyone else is and possibly ever could be. It says a lot, too, that she wishes he could be everything, wishes that she still didn't want more and different despite herself. Wishes she could just be happy with what she has. She thinks, not for the first time, that maybe she's just greedy. It's possible that she's hooked on love and can't stop chasing how it makes her feel pretty and wanted in ways she never imagined she could be.
There's a reason love is called a drug. ]
It is, [ she agrees. ] Just like I am. [ Long-lived but not quite as ancient as he is, not quite as traditional or rooted in times past. Perhaps she's not the only one who has trouble letting go.
She thinks that she could be more her father than he is in this moment. There's a plethora of things she could find to say that might possibly cut him in similar ways. Instead, she chooses to be more her mother. She's feeling decidedly more maternal these past couple days than she has in the entirety of her kept quiet pregnancy. Instead, instead, she keeps his gaze and remains as steadfast as she possibly can. ]
So maybe things will be different. Maybe things will change. And if they do, I want it to be with you rather than without, but- I do want you to be happy, too. I want this to work in a way we can both be.
pretends this isn't like an actual week late, whoops
In place of his old slippers there sit a new pair: ]
[ They come with a note that reads I told you I'd get you a new pair.
On his desk with the rest of his notes also sits a sea-themed scrapbook. ]
[ The cover has a picture of them, Rose caught in the middle of laughing and holding onto Nen as he smiles in kind. The pages are of a similar color scheme, all lovingly hand-crafted but left otherwise blank beyond another little scrawl with For the memories we'll make as a family. ]