(no subject)

[themidnightson]

The Back Door opens and closes.

Two people leave, one dressed for the weather and one decidedly not.

The snow is still covering the ground except for well worn paths that have turned slushy and gray-brown. But it isn't falling right now. And Edward paused, while the door swung closed, to look across the expanse. Would anything feel far enough here to him? Was it just another distraction from?


Except he could not chance these things;
And he did not trust the Front Door after all the things it had thrown at them.

Comments

[noteful]

It's a running back over of things, of connecting the points from the beginning more firmly to the points at the end, of letting everything settle.

(In other words, it's the mental equivilant of going back over the notes she hasn't physically been taking, highlighting and drawing arrows and circling things.)

And while there are places she could ask for details, or clarification, what she's stuck with is the . . . weight of it all. The honor and the burden and the expression of trust and . . . if the number of people who know about this really would fit comfortably in a small room, why is she one of them?

It's quietly baffling.

She is, after all, just ordinary little Meg Ford. From Canada.

[themidnightson]

Aside from the totally skewed view Little Meg Ford from Canada has of herself:

The answer to that is remarkably simple for her singular audience.

She knows because he made a mistake -- and she didn't.



With quiet refrain, "Didn't you know Meg Ford, from America, was already taken."

[noteful]

Meg looks up at him for a second or two, and then wrinkles her nose.

I'd stick my tongue out at you if that weren't completely childish.

[themidnightson]

His lips tugged very faintly to one side.

"It was a mistake," is said in nearly the same tone. A quiet that is not softness, only a lower register of speech for him. This statement is not a surprise. Even she'd said it must be the day it happened. "You already knew that."

[noteful]

"But it was mistake you could have covered. Easily."

In eighty years, she'd guess he's had a lot of practice at both not making that mistake in the first place, and covering it if he did.

"And you didn't even try."

[themidnightson]

Edward stayed still, too still, for a second.

"No, I didn't." He looked away, even when his face stayed frozen in his mind from her gaze. "I can't be sure that and this still aren't a mistake. Especially right now."

With Bella still lying in a hospital bed.

[noteful]

"No one ever can," she says.

"If we knew things were going to be mistakes when we did them, well, we'd have to be rather stupid to go ahead and do them."

And they are neither of them stupid.

She'll try to keep it from being one.

But . . . they can't be sure it wasn't.

"Why especially right now?"

[themidnightson]

Edward raised a hand, his first two fingers rubbing across his forehead. Before his fingers closed into a loose fist that brushed his nose before dropping back to his lap.








He may have missed the fact none of the thoughts that question evoked had become words.

[noteful]

"Edward?"

[themidnightson]

"I made a similar decision recently."

Except that it wasn't similar -- and it felt sour even in his head to say he decided it. But she deserves to know, to be able to walk away. Even if Bella keeps refusing to see anything but her being saved in it.

"That led to catastrophic events."

Kidnapping. Mutilation. Torture. Stalking. Murder.

[noteful]

Oh.

"May I ask what happened?"

[themidnightson]

It takes two seconds to stop the slew of James' memories.
Two very long, very graphic seconds to Edward.




"My-" pauses, with a distasteful expression. At over a hundred, and the way things worked, have always worked, for their kind, the term girlfriend will always ring juvenile and strange.

He tries again, one hand curling tight when the rest of him held perfectly still.

"Isabella is still in the hospital."

[noteful]

"Edward, I'm so sorry.

"Will she be all right?"

[themidnightson]

"In time." A minute frown following the thought of months, not weeks. "She's resilient." There something annoyed and relieved and almost affectionate in those words. What they lacked though was approval.

He should be walking away, but it was already too late.

[noteful]

"Good.

"She's what you were . . . worried about the other day, isn't she?"

It's not rocket science to make the connection.

And she doubts she needs to specify the day.

[themidnightson]

A small nod. "Yes. She was-"

It takes some will power and a reminder that Meg should know the risks, especially when Milliways keeps bringing in everything else they never thought would happen here.

"-still comatose then."

[noteful]

Meg nods.

She's a doctor's daughter, after all, not that one needs to be to know that comatose is never a good sign.

"I'm glad she's woken up."

[themidnightson]

Strangely enough, it's there.
There where his expression softens.

Where his lips shift, and he almost speaks to agree.
Settles for a simple nod because there aren't words enough.

[noteful]

Meg's smile is very soft.

"You care about her a great deal, don't you?"

[themidnightson]

This should involve words, shouldn't it. "I do."

[noteful]

Maybe.

Maybe it's one of the things that doesn't need to involve words.

Meg nods and waits.

Whether he resumes with this topic or changes to another is entirely up to Edward.

[themidnightson]

His family would be far more effusive on that subject.
They can't or won't stop thinking about it. Baseball. Hospital.
They find the recent events even further proof of their assumptions.


He can't say they are wrong.
But he did get off the track somewhere.
Which is harder to find his way back to.

(She could be awake again on the other side of The Door.)

Edward forced himself to focus, sifting through words and thoughts, both his and hers -- and far too many others in the vicinity. Until. "You deserve to know there are substantial risks."

[noteful]

"To knowing you?

"Or to knowing about you?"

Or both?

[themidnightson]

"To all of it." Edward shifted, with an slight marring effect to his face in the change of his features. An expression change far too fast for the human eyes. "There are many reason we didn't inform people to what we were even during or after the baseball game."

It was safer for everyone involved if they were simply super powered and strange. All the leaps of assumption, small and large, made by many from there, and made by those who interacted with them, were left to their devices to do so.

"And why very few people know the truth still."

Though that circle was widening.

[noteful]

"Ignorance has its own set of risks.

"And I'm glad to know you."

So.

There it is.