[Closed] To Meet the Hours

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 28, 2720 - Late Evening
The Good Pan Bakery

Once, she might not have had to ask. There was a time—had it really been ten years? Only ten?—when they had spent every daylight hour together all summer long, without so much as a word or a plan. Every Roalis. Wasn't it fitting, then, that she should do so again now?

His voice dropped between them like a stone. It has. A weight, to be sure, but somehow not one she minded. Maybe it was the smile that curled at the edges of his mouth. The smile wasn't happy in the least—neither, it had to be said, was hers. Years and years between them, and more than just time besides. Still, she thought she could bear it. If he wanted her to.

Aurelie didn't know what to say now. Something in his face stopped her. His hand was so warm between her own, large and solid. A hand that could hurt her as easily as anything, and still she... Oh, she was stupid, wasn't she? Even now she couldn't help but think he wouldn't.

I don't have any boats anymore, she thought. Henrietta was long gone, too—Aurelie had been sad about that, as a little girl, thinking of her poor Henrietta abandoned and alone. She liked to think that Nurse had taken her home and given her to some other little child who would love her as she deserved. (She knew it wasn't likely, but the fantasy remained.) They could find new games to play. Better ones. It all seemed so much easier, with him there. More difficult, too, but... She could face it, she thought.

Desiderio took off his glasses to rub at his eyes; they looked awfully irritated now. Aurelie's expression shifted to one of concern. He looked... Oh. He sat straighter, and there was not so much as a flicker of anything in his field (all around her, always, filling the air between them in a way she did not remember it doing when they were younger). Aurelie froze in place; he settled his glasses back on his nose, and a tear rolled down the side of his face.

He was talking about—about Shadow, Aurelie realized, who had snored and whined a little in his sleep. His paw twitched, then settled. Don't do it, she told herself. Aurelie nodded; Shadow needed a bath, a proper one, and they could do that together. (He was their dog after all, their pup, the first of...) And then other things. Other than cooking and needlework, he was saying. Aurelie could have laughed. She didn't know how else she liked to spend her days, either. Don't do it, Aurelie.

"That sounds like—like a plan. A good one. A good... a good sort of day." She was smiling at him in some twisted, fond way. He was smiling still, too, and it made her heart ache rather terribly. He had done so much to her, and so much for her now in so quick a span. Hurting and helping together. Yet here he was, offering to help around the house, to spend time with her. To bathe the dog with her, to...

To be her friend, in the way she had missed for so very, very long. All she wanted was his company—they didn't have to do anything at all. She could have sat quietly next to him doing nothing, and she knew she would have been happy to do so.

"I don't know what else I like to do," she confessed, voice choked. He had laid his other hand on top of hers, a gentle pressure. She could feel the ring there, if she let herself. With a small pang of guilt, she ignored it. Instead she turned her hand upwards, catching his fingers with her own. She squeezed, gently.

"But we can certainly find something. Whatever... whatever you'd like. I can think of nothing I want more, Des." Her smile didn't feel so sad now. Her heart was still heavy, and her head still tangled—but no more than she had tangled their fingers together. That had to be all right. And if it wasn't?

If it wasn't, then it was too late anyway. She wasn't about to let this go.

[Desiderio Morandi]

the good pan, old rose harbor

late evening on the 28th of roalis, 2720

H

er hands were so warm, all folded up in his. He wondered if he should perhaps have kept his distance. After all, they were hardly children; she might have reached for him, but that meant – very little, outside of this room. Outside of this circle of lamplight. Even downstairs, to Elwes, it likely meant little. He could imagine what it might mean – at the very least, he was beginning to, his mind thawing from its shocked numbness – and each new option was worse than the last. Certainly he thought he knew what Clerisseau or Tanqueray would see if they somehow burst through the door at this instant, and it was unspeakable.

He was not even sure, not really, what Aurelie saw. He was not sure what he saw, and less sure what he felt. It seemed a very silly fancy, at best: a mad attempt to recapture something that had long gone and would never come back. Morandi was not fanciful.

Nor, he thought, was Aurelie Steerpike. Or this version of her, anyway.

It was a strange and altogether unfamiliar smile on her face now. Her eyes and even her lips looked sad; they looked warm, too.

The choked sound of her voice surprised him into admitting, “Nor do I. My daily routine is somewhat…” He trailed off. “Oriented to work.”

He thought it likely that she understood, if in a – very different way.

(He would have to ask Elwes about space and exercise, he realized. There was a great deal he could do on his own in the morning, in the flat; a part of physical discipline was doing the best with what one had. If a part of him balked at doing any of this in front of – well – it was like embroidery, or anything else. He was simply unaccustomed to company.)

His breath froze when she caught his hand in hers. Their fingers slid not-so-neatly together. It was almost funny, how long his were now; staring down, he wondered what it would have been like, had they grown up properly – together –

He had the horribly embarrassing vision of her witnessing those awkward middle years at Anastou. And her? When had she grown so – so…? (But she would have been very different, he reminded himself. And so, perhaps, he thought terrifiedly, would he –)

Des.

“Nor I,” he agreed, very firmly and sharply, fixing his face into something approaching dignity. “It will be a good sort of day.” There, that: something which he did have control over, gods help.

He nodded once, jerked his chin. Another tear slipped loose, taking a frustratingly long path down through his scars. He had no free hands to wipe it away. His palm was pressed against hers. He was sharply aware of the ring pressed between her fingers.

Glancing down again, he fumbled with his other hand, tried to take her other hand in his the same way she had. It was very messy indeed. But he did not think it would seem appropriate tomorrow, when they were both well-rested and – knew better.

“You should rest,” he said firmly, if reluctantly. “I should rest as well, and I shall, as soon as I can. But you should rest.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Roalis 28, 2720 - Late Evening
The Good Pan Bakery

Cass was only downstairs, doing the books and her other tasks for the evening. Tasks that they'd interrupted, and likely would be finished soon enough. Aurelie wasn't stupid enough to think that she had left solely for this purpose; they had been given some space to themselves deliberately. To talk, she supposed—Aurelie wondered at it a little, even as she was grateful.

Neither of them were children anymore; being alone together as much as they had been then was barely appropriate. Now? Aurelie supposed that was a complicated question that rather hinged on what one saw, were one to look at the pair of them. None of it, Aurelie knew with a sort of uneasy certainty, looked appropriate. She couldn't begin to guess what Cass herself would have seen, what she made of this. Any of it—Aurelie, Desiderio, what they had said of how they came to be here. She hadn't asked, and Aurelie didn't know if she wanted her to.

Yet still, she couldn't bring herself to regret the odd tangle of their fingers, finding the new way they fit together. It wasn't as if she had... any sort of intentions, no matter how over-active her imagination was. Certainly Desiderio didn't; they both knew very clearly what she was. There was just a great measure of comfort in this simple thing, after so many years.

All the same, she rather hoped Cass would be downstairs a while longer—she didn't know that she wanted the other woman to bear witness to this precise moment. (Humans, she knew, took a rather more lax approach to the proper way of doing things, but surely even to them this was... Not quite the done thing. No explanation Aurelie could offer would make it any better, either.)

When Desiderio spoke, Aurelie laughed, a short, quiet sort of laugh that caught her by surprise. He sounded so firm, so certain that tomorrow would be a pleasant day. As if he could make it so by force of will and discipline alone. It was a very odd way to respond, odd and no small degree of amusing. If anyone could do such a thing, she supposed Desiderio certainly could. Aurelie put her faith in it.

Another tear escaped as he nodded, and Aurelie watched it moved over his scars with a kind of aching fascination. He didn't move either hand to wipe it away. He would have had to let go of her to do it; she didn't know if it might have been better if he had. Certainly her own reluctance to part kept her from doing anything exceedingly foolish, like giving in to the urge that suddenly filled her to reach out and wipe it away herself. Somehow, she didn't think that he would much appreciate the gesture. Somehow, she didn't think that would seem even as benign as clasping his hand had been.

Instead, he moved to take her other hand. She should not have let him; she shouldn't have done any of this. The whole thing was an awkward sort of fumbling. Quite against her common sense, she merely tried to help. Only for this one night. If it was only for now, then it was... Not right, but surely allowances could be made. It had been so very long.

"I'm all right to stay up a bit longer," she started to protest. The end turned into a small yawn, rather neatly making a liar of her. She ought to go to bed, he was absolutely right. And he needed to rest as well; she wouldn't keep him from it. Aurelie had the most ridiculous urge to ask him to stay with her, to sit by her side and hold her hand just like this until she fell asleep. That was entirely too much; she wasn't a child, and he wasn't her nursemaid.

"Perhaps you're right," she admitted ruefully. Once she said it aloud, she was aware of just how exhausted she really was. Her head hurt, and her eyes, and many other places of her she felt it best not to consider with Desiderio's long fingers wrapped up with her own. "I don't want to keep you from... from sleep yourself, either. I'm sorry." She hesitated moment more, looking at him. Fixing the image of this moment into her mind, to burn it into her heart and carry for all the days and years beyond this one. She couldn't help but feel she would never get such a chance as this again. It made it very difficult for her to let go.

But let go she did, if recluctantly. Her hands felt suddenly cold and empty; she ignored the feeling. She folded up the pillowcase carefully, no longer bothering to keep the design hidden. When she stood, Shadow woke and came to his feet as well, wagging his tail sleepily. Aurelie looked down at him and smiled.

"Are you ready for bed too, sweetheart? Come on then." She snapped her fingers softly, and Shadow came to press himself against her side. She looked at Desiderio again apologetically. "If I could trouble you again...?"

When they made their way to her bedroom door, Aurelie paused again. Shadow pushed his way inside as soon as she opened it, sitting down in the middle of the floor and looking at her expectantly. Aurelie leaned on the doorframe, looking at Desiderio. There was something she felt she ought to say, but when she searched for it, she couldn't think of what it was. Thank you, maybe, although that didn't seem right. Neither did "I'm glad we got to talk", or any other inane pleasantry she could think of.

"Goodnight, Des," was what she settled on in the end, looking up at him and smiling. "Sleep well."

Aurelie must have been more tired than she thought. She had expected to lie awake a while, with the way her heart was beating in her ears as she got undressed and into her nightclothes. But she fell asleep as soon as her head hit her pillow, Shadow curled up on the floor next to her; she could still feel the pressure of his fingers around her own. I'll see you tomorrow.