Post New Moon, Kate & Edward

[themidnightson]

Edward was sitting on a bench outside Milliways. Even as much as he might want to try to make himself relaxed, it's not as easy to slip back into. His posture is too rigid, too still for calm, fingers pressed just too much against his legs. Before him, where his affixed gaze, all too black eyed still, rested, is the Lake-Ocean, and the setting sun.



Behind him is the Bar, and his Door, leading back to Bella's bedroom.

Presently, he's trying to count to ten minutes without running back to make sure she's real.
That all of this, every thought and image and assumption of reality is not a creation of insanity.

Comments

[themidnightson]

"Aren't anymore people in here than there were outside."

He means, in his head, but he doesn't say so out loud.

[ikissdhimbck]

He doesn't need to.

"All right, then."

She makes the first move toward the piano. She's small -- petite, even -- with tiny wrists and big blue eyes like a china doll's. When she's vulnerable she looks like you could break her to pieces with the tip of a feather. But she not only can be the brave one, she always will be.

She touches the polished surface and looks at Edward with a tentative smile.

[themidnightson]

Edward could never be called always the brave one.
The one that survived, that settled, that managed.


But never here. He reached out to let his fingers barely touch the piano surface. It isn't as though he can ever forget how to play or what it means or what he has before. But he hasn't touched a piano in any world since before Bella's birthday.

It is a truth uncontested by a near century that he plays because he's already made of too many words, always in him, running through him. He had to speak in a completely different way. And as much as it would be having to speak and be heard by another, others, he'll have to hear himself, too.




His fingers trailed the side, along the edge, before he sat down.

He ran his fingers across the frame right before the keys.

[ikissdhimbck]

She doesn't share the bench with him. She doesn't stand beside him. She doesn't even stand within his peripheral.

It's a private thing. Personal. Emotional. She understands that well enough -- as well as she can, anyway. Same as when her daddy would polish his violin; it seemed to her such a menial task, but he did it with a tenderness that bordered on reverence, something she didn't understand until he was gone and she started polishing the instrument in his absence.

She stands along the side of the piano a few paces from the keyboard, well inside his field of vision or outside of it depending on where he chooses to focus.

And gives him time to think. To reacquaint himself.


To say hello.

[themidnightson]

His hands set down lightly, with the kind of shift in any other life form would be a breath out but he has no need for breathing. His eyes shifted slightly closed, as he pressed down keys. Ever so. Light. Soft.

From someone made of more than granite, not even present.
Faint shifting notes, barely pressed down, that travel little.


He knows these places. He's walked here for so long. He can't feel tired, ever, but it makes everything else exhausting. With looking up, he asked, "Did you want something specific?"

[ikissdhimbck]

She watches the courtship, the dance in pianississimo, with the sort of anticipation one reserves for the awkward first waltz of a newly declared lady.

She flicks her eyes to his face.

There's only one song. There could only ever be one. And yet, she pauses. She considers. She gives it thought.

(She thinks of home.)

(She thinks of heartbreak.)

(She thinks of death.)



((It's all the same.))



"Ah," she clears her throat, swallows hard (chokes back emotion, bites down on pain). "Most'a what I know accompanies fiddle. 'Less, of course, y'wanted a lively tune -- but I reckon the mood's not right."

She wets her lips.

"See if y'can follow this, perhaps?"


It's tearing open a fresh scab and salving it within the same motion. She sings quietly.

[themidnightson]

She thinks of others, who would need to hear to follow and have. He has her memories, each one of them as she thinks them. All the details, the reasons, the people. The tune, the melody and the words before she can even make it to the question to ask if he can follow her.



But he's not them, he can do better.

Because he doesn't need her to lead him, Edward starts playing at the same second as her voice sounds. Playing first from the memory's tune, each one made for and of stringed instruments. That shifts in register and key to match and mingle with the exact placement of her tone before the first line is through.

It's almost too easy. It's blessing....and a curse.

Because he doesn't have to think about the playing.

[ikissdhimbck]

Her voice grows softer -- surprised, awed -- and then louder, to give him a worthy accompaniment.

He's gifted, truly.




But does he enjoy it? Her eyes linger on his face, rather than on his hands.

[themidnightson]

A little. He has an unfair advantage on both sides. They way most people at a century of playing can't claim to have the reflexes of a seventeen year old boy, and no seventeen year old could justify the skills of a lifetime.

He was good before this life. He plays prodigy enough now.






But not today. Today. He is simply Edward.
Not dead. Not whole. Only certain of a few things.

He doesn't owe anything here, but he still isn't free.

[ikissdhimbck]

Someday, she should like to know his story. Stories. Present, past. Lives lived through an hourglass that never empties its charge.

And will you never cut the cloth
Or drink the light to be
And can you never swear a year
To anyone but we?


Today is not that day.

He is simply Edward.

She closes her eyes.




And suddenly she changes the tune.

She might even smile as she does so.

[themidnightson]

He doesn't smile, but part of his expression shifts.
The smallest bit of surprise, perhaps.

Do you remember the paths where we met?
Long, long ago, long, long ago.
Ah, yes, you told me you'd never forget

Older, but not too old.

But something few people in the room would recognize.



And there are so many new and old things that need fixing.

[ikissdhimbck]

He is unflappable, and this is partly why she likes him so.

She can't fathom the depth of his experience, the years he's stretched on, the trials -- victories and defeats, new and old -- kept within his memory.

But, for a moment, she can at least stand beside him.



But, by long absence your truth has been tried,
Still to your accents I listen with pride,
Blessed as I was when I sat by your side.
Long, long ago, long ago.