lyra silvertongue (silverspeak) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-06-11 19:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, lyra silvertongue, will parry |
Who: Will Parry and Lyra Silvertongue.
When: June 11, early evening.
Where: Their rooms.
What: Meeting again after ten years. In other words, FEELS.
Rating: PG13?
It all felt terribly anticlimactic, walking (stumbling?) out of the doctor’s office. Pantalaimon was tucked protectively around her neck, by turns nuzzling Lyra protectively and turning his head sharply back and forth, still not convinced they were out of danger. They’d been prepared to fight there way out of the room, expecting though they did to not make it out alive. But relief wasn’t possible, not when she had so many questions; certainly not with so much adrenaline pumping through her body. Fighting would have been natural, comfortable even. Expecting that people might be trying to hurt, even kill you, had been a fact Lyra had long believed with the same certainty that she knew she would die if Pan was ever severed from her. But this? This was something entirely different. Though she didn’t trust anyone, keeping her eyes suspiciously roving from face to face as she passed (shoulders back, head high, a touch of her father’s confidence in her chin, the straightness of her back) there was a distinct lack of hostility about them. And the room, the keys she was holding in her hand?
What in the hell was going on?
It wasn’t clear to her how she’d made her way to the room scribbled on a small piece of paper, clutched in her shaky hand. Her head pounded and her legs felt wobbly, the way they often did after a particularly grueling run. Light only exacerbated the problem, and she wasn’t sure she would have made it to where she was meant to go had she been forced to climb stairs. As she rounded the corner, her heart swooped and she reached deep down into the pocket of the luxurious fur coat she was wearing. But there it was, the comfortable, familiar weight of the alethiometer.
Though she wondered what good it would do without her books.
Pan, as if reading her thought, tried to be practical: “You have your notebook,” he reminded her, gently nipping at her other sleeve of her coat where the small, leatherbound book was housed. “And you’ve studied with an attention I didn’t think you possessed. We need to go inside and make sure we aren’t being watched.”
Without replying, Lyra pushed the key into the lock and opened the door. It was clean, non-descript and strangely sterile. It reminded her, vaguely, of the rooms in Will’s world, but shinier, somehow. Brighter. Traces of another person suggested she might not be alone, so she retreated to the small, unoccupied bedroom and closed the door behind her. Lying down, closing her eyes, she breathed in sharply as if she’d been holding her breath these past minutes. Maybe she had.
Ever since the first moment Will had arrived here, he had been trying to discover what the purpose was. No one had been able to give him a satisfactory answer to that question, but he knew it had something to do with that glowing blue cube they called a tesseract, and the people who surrounded it. He was uncertain of whether SHIELD or any of its agents could be trusted, but also unafraid of them, and so he had done what seemed the most logical thing and signed up for their training program. If that turned out to be a bad idea, he at least trusted that he would be able to find some way out of it. And in the best case scenario, he might get the answers he was looking for.
Lyra's departure had hit him hard, but hadn't slowed him down. He missed her, but that was a familiar feeling, as normal to him now as having his soul split into two, human and daemon. It was beyond cruel of the universes to make him endure losing her again, but neither was he accustomed to universes being kind to him. They only seemed interested in piling on responsibilities and burdens that he didn't want.
At least, training had distracted him from being preoccupied with Lyra's disappearance. He had thrown himself into it wholeheartedly, though he had yet to get past their initial testing. He was trying to get accustomed to the idea of logging his duties and mental state, since writing in a journal had never been his style. If there was one thing that his father's letters had taught him, it was that writing down information made it possible for it to fall into the wrong hands. He wasn't doing very much of anything that he would consider dangerous so far, though, so he had been going along with it. He understood on some level that he was being tested, and he was determined not to be found wanting.
And in his free time, he was going to the gym. Although he'd fought for his life multiple times, he'd never actually had any formal training, and the physical training was coming soon. He wanted to be ready, and in the meantime, it was cathartic to run until he couldn’t anymore or hit a punching bag until his arms ached. The latter was precisely what he was doing when Kirjava found him.
His daemon was also breathless, though less from exertion than from sheer excitement. "Lyra," was all she said before turning tail to dart off again, and it was all she needed to say. Will grabbed the water bottle he'd brought with him to the gym and chased after his daemon. He was surprised when she led him back to their room-- was Lyra here already? Was she staying with him now? Heart pounding from much more than just exercise, he opened the door, and Kirjava darted inside to scratch at the door of the unoccupied bedroom in his unit. Will followed, and after a heartbeat's hesitation, he lifted a hand and knocked.
In the time it had taken Kirjava to find Will and return to their now shared room, Lyra, with rather impatient nips from Pan, had managed to sit up on the bed, blonde hair falling forward, as she bent over the tiny gold compass. It was difficult to read it without the extensive notes she made, more difficult still given the fact that her mind was moving in a million different directions. Stillness and clarity, always a necessity when reading the golden compass, were now even more essential to the mere possibility of being able to ask and answer a question. Pan rifled through the pockets of her fur coat, thrown hastily over the chair in her room, and produced the black notebook with her shorthand definitions for the myriad symbols on the compass’ face.
This was the position she remained in, some five minutes later, when the scratching at the door and the sound of footsteps snapped her head up and the fur on Pantalaimon to raise. His lips curled back, showing a sharp set of white, dangerous teeth, causing Lyra a moment to admire how impressively frightening he could look. But there wasn’t time to consider him, not when the sound at the door refused to let up. She looked around the room, trying to find something to arm herself with, and came up rather short. Pressing her fingers to her lips as Pan began a long, low grumble, she slipped toward her fur coat, finding in the pocket a tiny pistol. Green eyes alight on the door, waiting for the knob to turn, she remained frozen in the same position for some thirty second before, with growing curiosity, she decided to see who was behind the door.
With only the swish of her high-waisted, beige trousers giving her away, she closed the five-steps distance between herself and the door and, with Pan poised to strike, ready and waiting to her left, turned the doorknob slowly and pulled, revealing behind it two strangely familiar figures.
It was all too much for one day. The boy -- man? -- who stood in front of her recalled the Will Parry she’d fallen in love with and -- Kirjava? Surely whoever was holding her here couldn’t be so good as to conjure up a person’s daemon? The breath went out of her and she felt in that instant like her heart was likely to give out entirely, her lungs might crush under the tightening weight of her ribs.
The colour drained from her cheeks and the hand holding the pistol dropped, slowly, to her side. With barely the volume of a whisper, his name breathed out of her like a question -- “Will?” -- and Pantalaimon, the traitor, was suddenly rushing to his Kirjava. But still, she stood, bracing for disappointment or -- what? Something worse?
Will didn't know what to expect when the door opened. Last time, Lyra had been the spitting image of the last time he'd seen her before returning to his own world; she'd been so young that he'd felt tall and old and a little bit awkward and around her. Would she be older now? Or even younger? If there was anything that he'd learned about this place, it was that anything seemed to be possible.
Even if he'd known exactly how old she was this time, nothing could have prepared him for actually seeing her again. She was instantly recognizable, yet different; she had grown into her magnificence, in a way that reminded him (somewhat unnervingly) of her mother. But she wasn't altogether the same as the poisonous golden woman, he could still see her fierce and genuine nature in her longer limbs and sharper features.
"It's me," he said, not that he thought she really doubted it. The only reason for doubt was the impossibility of it, even while it was staring them in the face. Maybe he had been right to begin with; maybe they were meant to be here together. Maybe she'd only left because she needed to be here at this age.
But it put them in the strange position of her being the one unused to this universe, and him to act as a sort of guide. He wasn't altogether sure he was up to the job, having only been here a few weeks himself-- or had it been almost a month already?-- but he could try. And what he didn't know, they could figure out together.
Starting with how to approach this particular reunion. She'd been the one to break the ice first before, but she was new. He wasn't nearly as comfortable with throwing himself at people, but after a moment's hesitation, he held out a hand to her. Unconsciously, he'd chosen his strongest hand first, the one with all of its five fingers still remaining, but the other lifted a moment later, extending toward her in invitation.
For a strange, pregnant moment, Lyra was without words. His voice was deeper, but easy and familiar and, though he'd filled out and grown considerably, all the handsome features she remembered from ten years before stared back at her. But she still had difficulty imaging a reality in which Will Parry, the boy she'd travelled universes with, could really and truly be standing, flesh and blood in front of her. But of course, he was more flesh and blood, the evidence of it currently rolling around the floor with her beloved Pan. And that's how she knew it was him, really and honestly him. When Lyra looked at Will, it wasn't an everyday sort of seeing: it was something deep and fiercely intimate, a way she hadn't looked at, or been looked at, since they'd said goodbye until Death.
The questions of where they are seemed suddenly less important, though they'd come rushing back later, when this feeling -- elation? Awe? Neither seems big enough -- wore off. For now, she could only let out a strangled, choking sort of laugh, when she thought at first that he was raising his hand for her to shake.
With no regard for how she looked, no consideration of decorum or maturity, of the alluring flirtatious modesty and coyness she'd learned to adopt in recent years, Lyra shrank back through the years and became again the dirty-faced street urchin she had been ten years ago, when he first met her. And, rather dangerously dropping the gun, she hurled herself through the space between them, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck as she said his name again, this time without any hint of a question:
"Will!"
To Will, it would have been overwhelmingly strange if she'd behaved politely. They'd met in a universe just as strange to them both as this one was, and under dangerous circumstances; that wasn't the sort of situation that brought out the niceties in people. Those had never been particularly Will's strong suit, anyhow. He didn't fit in formal situations; not only did he feel uncomfortable in them, but most people he met still had trouble looking him directly in the eyes. And usually he averted his gaze anyway, to go unnoticed, but when it came to Lyra, he could only stare.
He had barely even noticed the gun, much less considered it a threat; his gaze was on her face, taking in every bit of it, every similarity and every difference. He hadn't been able to look at her in quite the same way when she'd been here before, not as heatedly, because she'd been so young, so-- as strange as it had felt to assign the word to Lyra-- innocent.
But she was a grown woman now. Around his age, he thought, though he couldn't tell for sure. It hardly mattered, because even with years between them, she was still Lyra and he was still Will.
He felt a rush of relief when she finally threw her arms around his neck, and returned the hug just as fiercely, arms going tightly around her middle and upper back, the fingers of his good hand tangling in her hair.
"Lyra," he said, and there was a smile in his tone now, because there was a smile on his face. He closed his eyes and just enjoyed the moment, the scent of her hair, her arms around his neck. He'd really missed her.
It was the only time or place she could remember forgetting to consider where Pan was, and what he might be doing. Though they’d learned, painfully, to be apart from each other, it was rare that a moment slipped by without Lyra giving thought to what her daemon was doing, how far or close he was. But even Pan couldn’t break through the totality of being here, hugging Will, and for a few happy moments, there was nothing else but the two of them, intertwined in a manner she’d long given up hoping for. But suddenly, a jolt. She pulled back, though she kept her hands clasped about his neck, and though her eyes were wet and blurred, she forgot her emotion for a moment as a sick, sinking feeling took hold of her.
“But how did we get here?” She asked, searching his face. “You en’t used the knife again, have you Will?” But how could he? It was gone, she knew it was gone. And then, as if an old memory came crashing back on her, she whipped her head about, looking for something that wasn’t there. “Are there specters here? Are we in danger?” She could hear the panic and fear rising in her voice, bubbling up from her chest. It wasn’t something she was apt to show to most people, Will being perhaps the only exception. Lyra sensed Pan go still, suddenly, and prick his ears back -- he too was waiting for the answer. Her questions put a stopper in the other, stranger questions still to come: about what to do next, about how to fill the space and distance of ten years. About what happened now, with them.
Whether it was because they had not grown up together the way Lyra and Pan had, or because their first meeting had been after their painful separation, or simply because of their differing natures, Will and Kirjava had never been quite so close, but both were content with it. Kirjava frequently went off on her own, or (when they were at home) remained at home with Will's mother while he went out to watch over her, but she was far more attached to Pantalaimon. Vaguely, Will could hear her purring, and when he pulled back from Lyra he saw his daemon rubbing happily against the pine marten, back arched.
Her initial wariness had made sense, or at least it hadn't struck him as odd, but her questions made him pause, and frown. "Don't you remember this place, Lyra?" he asked. He had heard that people left and came back, but he hadn't heard that they didn't remember it. He didn't know if that was normal, or whether it was only Lyra. "You were here when I arrived. Just… younger."
Regardless of what had happened to her memories, it seemed obvious that she was going to be needing an explanation, just as he had when he'd first arrived. A strange thought struck him, and he wondered if he'd been here before and forgotten. Lyra hadn't mention such a thing, but maybe it had happened before she'd arrived. That thought was too strange to even consider, so he shook his head, pushing that thought away.
"It's that thing they call the tesseract," he said. "It wasn't made by the knife. I don't know how it was made, but I was thinking if I could get close to it, I might be able to see if I could feel the edges of it." He figured it probably went without saying that closing it with them on this side could be really problematic. "There aren't any Specters here, I don't think. And Xaphania-- you remember Xaphania? She was here." He paused, because Xaphania had left before he'd arrived, he'd just taken Lyra's word for what the angel had said, but explaining that would only make this more confusing. "She said Dust isn't leaking out. But then she left. There's another angel here, Castiel, but I don't think he knows anything more about it."
The more Will explained, the more puzzled the expression on Lyra’s face grew. She’d woken up this morning like any other: bathed, brushed, made up her face. Her upcoming exploration up to the Northern witch clans had been occupying much of her time and headspace and now here was Will, trying to tell her that she’d been here before. Had she been here before? The panic swelled, but became more familiar, like the sensation she had when she’d drank too much and couldn’t quite make out the events of the night before. But unlike a Sunday morning, the consequences of having or having not been here sometime earlier seemed more frighteningly important. If she’d left and forgotten, might she leave and forget again? Would she and Will go on like this forever, finding and then losing the other one, never even having the consolation of memory?
She bit at her lip, shaking her head so her curls brushed her shoulders, her once neat appearance now marred by the exertion of fighting earlier. “I’ve never been here,” she said firmly, looking at Pan who also appeared disturbed. She watched as Kirjava nuzzled him, and the visual display of their daemons made her remember that the fact that they were here, now, mattered almost as much as the urgent questions now flooding up toward her lips. Questions could wait.
But she was breathless and felt unsteady, and she unclasped her hands from his neck in order that she might brush an errant curl back from her face. “It feels like a dream, Will,” she breathed, as if the air was escaping her before it could fill her lungs. “You look real and you feel real,” she reached out and took his bad hand, gently brushing the fingers there, pressing each one for assurance. “But I was -- only a few hours ago, in London and I have things, people --” For once in her life, Lyra couldn’t find the words. She wanted simply to revel in the fact that they were both in the same place, but she couldn’t trust it. Not yet.
And then, realization: “Do you live here? In this flat, with me?”
Will thoroughly disagreed, because there had most definitely been a Lyra here when he'd showed up. He felt certain of it, but there was a nudging doubt in the back of his mind that he was trying to ignore. What if she hadn't really been, what if he'd imagined the whole thing? No, Matty and Castiel and Tinkerbell had known her too. He looked down at Kirjava, who looked back up at him, and her gaze steadied him. They hadn't gone mad; Lyra had been here. There was something else even more strange going on than madness.
He filed that away for later, and didn't argue. He could find out what had happened to her without freaking her out even more.
"It does," he agreed. "I've been here since last month and it still seems that way." Though it had been less so without Lyra here. His skin tingled where her fingertips brushed over his hand, and once she'd finished touching each of his fingers, he turned his hand over and took hers. He didn't know if what they were to each other was supposed to be different or the same (he didn't see how it could be exactly the same, but being different didn't have to mean worse), but it felt natural to hug her and hold her hand.
He gave a slight smile. "Yeah. I do."
Just as Will filed away the story of another Lyra, she felt the moment his lips turned up in that soft, almost-smile of his that the rest of her questions -- there were so, so many questions -- could wait for later. Where moments before she'd felt exhausted, frightened, now her body felt as if sleep was an impossibility, years and years away. She was caught between a new, unsettling embarrassment that had never really been a part of her relationship with him before, and the familiar easiness that comes when two people share the sort of unbelievable journey they had.
Lyra opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. She laughed, lightly, and then gave herself leave to look at his face: to really look at it, to soak in all the lines, the handsome strength of his features, the strange way time had changed him and hadn't really changed him at all. "You grew up," she said, her face caught between troubled cloudiness and the giddy ecstasy of being reunited. "You grew up all this time without me, and I want to kiss whoever brought me here but it en't fair, either." Her lip trembled, but she smiled brightly, the glittering mischievousness of the 13-year-old Lyra flashing across her matured features. "I always knew you were going on somewhere near and terribly far away, but seeing you makes it more real." She sighed, shaking her head. "Oh, Will. There's so much that's happened and I wasn't there and it en't fair."
It felt somehow terribly ungracious to bemoan time lost when he was here, real and in front of her. But the realization of the time elapsed, the fact that Lyra couldn't know what -- or who -- had happened to Will in the time since they painfully parted made it impossible for her to know if she was allowed to kiss him. Everything between them swelled and made her feel the space and time between them and so she stood, looking every bit the confused, humbled Lyra who'd so often apologized to him ten years before for being naughty.
"There's not a lot," Will said. It was strange; he'd spent every Midsummer Day imagining this, imagining himself telling her what had happened to him since he'd seen her last, and now that she was actually here it all seemed so inconsequential. He'd had stories that he'd considered writing to her in letters, but hadn't ever put pen to paper; he'd kept them inside his head, but for the life of him he couldn't remember a single one just now.
They would come to him later, maybe, when he wasn't so dazzled by her simple presence. Although he had a feeling that whatever stories she had to tell would be far more exciting and interesting, even if some of that was embellishment. She was the real adventurer of the two of them, the storyteller; the moment his adventures had been over, he had been back to his responsibilities, looking after his mother, trying to clean up the mess he'd left behind in his world. Mary had helped him with all of that, so it hadn't been as impossible as it should have been, but it also wasn't all that interesting to hear about. He did intend to end up with more stories to tell by the time he saw the harpies again, but for most of his lifetime so far, his mother had been more important than adventuring.
Ending up here was more the kind of stuff that would make for a good story, but apparently he might not remember it if he ever got back home, since Lyra hadn't. He shoved that thought away a second time, more forcefully than before.
"It's been ten years," he said. "I went to the bench to see you, every year. I took care of my mum. I went to school. I'm going to be a doctor, but I'm not one, yet." That was a fairly accurate short summary of his life, he thought. It wasn't intended to be interesting, just reassuring; it would be less unfair if she knew what he had been through, surely. "How long has it been for you?"
What he didn't say, couldn't really find the words to say, was that despite the consequences of being in yet another world, he was glad to be in it with her. She made it real, and made it feel possible that they could figure their way out of this. Even without the knife working, or without the alethiometer, if she didn't have that. Or maybe they were just meant to live here together and not go home; this was a universe with a hole in it that didn't leak Dust, so maybe it was also a universe that wouldn't slowly make them sick and wear them down to death.
As he spoke, Lyra felt the beat of her heart strengthen; everything, every part of her body had felt somehow off-kilter, somehow not quite right since her arrival, and though excitement and adrenaline still coursed through her, the reassuring sound of his voice -- always so calm, always so steady -- made her feel more like herself than she had in such a very long time. Even if he was glossing over the details, she took in every word, thirstily, wanting to fill in the gaps, the uncertainties, to be able to easily cross back to where they had been before all the time had been unfairly syphoned away from them. It felt so strangely possible and impossible to be Will and Lyra again -- thrilling and easy, terrifying and straining.
When he mentioned his mother, her mouth pulled down -- what would happen, now, to the people they'd left behind? Lyra didn't have a mother, but she had people, bears, a few friends she thought might miss her. Still, this was nothing to Will's separation from the person he'd spent so much time and energy caring for and tending to. She'd always desperately wished she could have met Mrs. Parry before she returned to her own world. Somedays, she'd spend hours trying to imagine what she might look like, how she might love Lyra. Perhaps all she needed was a daughter -- and Lyra had once felt she very needed a mother. If they'd only been allowed to stay together, in his world, she might have helped Will. All this she tried to convey only with a squeeze of his hand and the gentle tugging of the hem of his shirt.
"It's been ten years for me too." Lyra said, feeling a kind of relief wash over her at his words. It didn't matter that another Lyra had been here -- an imposter Lyra, she jealously felt, bothered that some happy version of her had managed more moments with Will. That time might work differently had never been a thought Lyra had entertained -- those Midsummer Days too important, too valuable to consider that time, once the holes closed up, might flow differently. "I went to the bench, too. Every year, sometimes more. I don't live in Oxford anymore, but Pan and I make the trip every year. And we sit and think about you, and try to feel you there. We’re just quiet, together. Which isn't really very easy for me, you know."
And then, a flash of the older Lyra she'd grown into -- curiously more concerned with her appearances, and perhaps even ever-so-slightly vain: "I don't look more than ten years older, do I?" She wanted to appear cheeky, wanted to tease him the way she'd become accustomed to teasing boys who weren't half so handsome, or good, or kind, or brave as Will. But the question came out strangely more anxious than she'd meant it to. It meant a great deal to her, what he thought now. Surely he'd imagined her growing up beside him as much as she had: did she meet his expectations? Live up to the surely impossible ideal in his head?
She’d been there. Will had known it, had never doubted that she would keep her promise, and yet the actual knowing of it made his heart beat faster. He honestly didn’t even know enough about what was supposed to be happening between them right now to feel overly nervous about it; there was just a strange energy inside him, thrumming through his veins. He expected that they were just going to pick up where they’d left off, even if that had been years ago. And they were, already: they were putting the pieces back together of the lives they’d lived.
He was surprised, and yet not surprised, to hear that she’d moved away from Oxford. Before meeting her, he’d dreamed of traveling to distant jungles and exploring with his father, but when he’d returned to his own universe, he’d somehow felt that the most important place to be was home. He’d gone through so much and given up so much just to be back there, that truthfully, he’d been glad just to be home and feel his mother’s arms around him and lay down the burden of being responsible for the well-being of all the universes in existence. And then he’d gone back to simply being responsible for the two of them, putting off everything else until a time that seemed right.
Because timing was everything, really. Timing was what had gotten him into Cittagazze at just the right moment to meet her, and their timing seemed to be lining up again now. Weird and impossible as it was, it seemed to Will that pieces were falling into place. For the universe, and for them. It was a satisfying feeling.
“I know,” he said. “I always thought I was going to talk, because I had things to say, but I never really ended up doing it. And I tried to imagine you talking, but I couldn’t think what you would have said, either.” Maybe the things they had been through hadn’t been so different, after all. They’d had that in common, at any rate.
At the question, he took a moment to scrutinize her face the way she’d done his. The fierce look in his eyes softened a little bit when he was looking at her, unconsciously. The differences were there, but they seemed superficial to him; all he saw was the Lyra he’d known, just a little bit older. After a moment, a slight smile appeared on his face, and he said, “No.”
Lyra squirmed under the weight of his eyes, unnerved and all the while overjoyed to think she was standing before the person who'd always been able to see her better than anyone. She shifted, felt her cheeks flush with colour and met his steady gaze, all the while wondering what he saw. There were things she wanted to tell him and others she wanted to hide, shamefully, away. All the best parts of who she was had been accomplished for this very moment, so she might present them up on a silver platter for him to look at: see, Will? I did something good and meaningful. I didn't waste my life. I'm worth it, I promise I'm worth it.
But in front of him, she could only recall the naughtiness: the things she'd done and hoped he'd never know. To anyone else, they might have seemed too terribly minuscule to matter. To Lyra, they were the difference between she and him.
Whether he saw the bad parts, the vanities and superficialities, the personas she’d adopted in order to get her way, the traces of her mother that Lyra detected with increasing urgency the older she got, the white lies and big lies and small acts of petty thievery, still he smiled. And it was impossible not to smile back, not when it had been so long. She took a deep breath, feeling stuck between all the things she wanted to say and do, and the startling realization that she simply didn’t know what to say.
Her arms snaked around her own waist, hugging herself as if to keep steady, to secure reality. “I’ve imagined what it might be like, seeing you again. What I’d say. Only now that we’re here, right, I can’t hardly imagine where to begin or what matters now that you’re standing right...there.” She shook her head, still in disbelief. “I’m so frightened, Will, that I’m going to wake up any moment now, and I’ll have fucked it all by not telling you everything, or anything at all -- especially not how I feel, which seems much more important than telling you about my dear old bear, about Serafina Pekkela and the Costas and what happened in my world when I got back.” She cut herself off, turning her head and looking down where Pan and Kirjava had been moments earlier.
It always seemed so much easier for them. She wasn’t scared, new Pan wasn’t far. She could sense him, somewhere, likely searching for the sunlight of the outdoors. If they could slip back so quietly and easily into before, surely it meant she and Will might too.
Tilting her head some, as if the question hurt to ask, she gathered her height and tried to appear unafraid of his answer. But appearing nonchalant had never been Lyra’s strong suit, not in front of him: “Is there someone waiting for you, at home?” It came tumbling out, blurted rather than poised. A fierceness returned to her features.
Although he had spent years imagining what she would be like as she grew up, Will hasnt really known what to expect. What he saw now was a Lyra who had grown up differently than he had, grown apart and away from him, but not changed much on the inside. She was still the liar who could discover the universe's truths, the fighter and adventurer who needed protecting. Still reckless and impulsive and too showy when she was trying to deceive, who drew too much attention to herself when she should have been trying to go unnoticed.
He saw the vulnerability and the guilt and didn’t entirely understand it, but it wasn't wholly unfamiliar, because she'd looked much the same when she confessed to asking the alethiometer about him, and when she'd given him away to the men who were trying to find his father. And she was bursting with things to tell him now, so he stayed quiet and listened, but before she'd gotten to the actual telling, the question came bursting out of her.
At first he was going to say yes, because it was true, his mother was at home and she was surely missing him. She was without him or even Kirjava to look after her, and she had gotten much worse over the years. He had been hoping since he'd got here that Mary would have figured out that he was missing after a few days at least, and that she would have made sure his mother was alright in his absence. Or that the hospital would have called when he didn't show up for work and his mother would have picked up, and they would have realized that she needed help, because that was what medical professionals did.
But that wasn't what she was asking, and he knew it. And with that understanding came the realization that her answer might be different from his, and that there was someone waiting for her at home that thought of her as his Lyra, too. He looked away from her for the first time, then, because that thought made him equal parts jealous and angry and sad and even, confusingly, a little bit glad because maybe she hadn't been alone. Maybe she'd been happy. But he only looked down for a moment, not even all the way to the ground but just down to her chin rather than her eyes, and then met her eyes again. And he said, again, but this time without the smile: "No."
She was uncomfortable, and so was he, and regardless of anything else, he felt he ought to take care of that. Reminded strongly of their very first meeting, he asked, "Are you hungry? There's food in the kitchen." And then, because he didn't actually want it to seem like he was changing the subject or ignoring everything else she'd said, he added, "You can tell me everything while you eat."
Because as hard as it might be to hear, he did wan to know everything. What had happened in her world, and how she felt. And if she was worried that she might regret not saying something, then the simplest solution in his mind was simply to say it all.
Lyra didn't see all the small ways they'd grown up differently and apart, only the incredible gulf that had always existed between them: Will was impossibly good, impossibly brave and noble and kind, and she was, and always would be, a terrible liar who would never, could never, be able to match him. She stood in front of him, feeling the relief and confusion of his answer wash over her, and also the frustration of his question.
Food? How could she possibly think of food! Because if he didn't have anyone waiting for him at home -- and she couldn't imagine how it was possible -- then what was keeping him back? What was keeping her back? Why wasn't she brave enough to do something better than stand there, in front of him, her blouse rumpled and her hair a mess and a frozen, stupid expression on her face.
"I en't hungry," she replied quietly, resisting the urge to stomp her foot (a habit she hadn't altogether done away with, even as adulthood engulfed her). Her speech, too, slipped back into the old, sloppy vernacular of Jordan College, making her feel childish and foolish all over again when she'd really meant to dazzle him with her maturity, her years of experience, her prettiness. The last time she'd seen him, she'd promised that she would love him forever, every day, that she'd wait for him and find him and cling to him so tightly that not even the dispersion of death would be able to keep them apart.
And so she did the only thing she could do and reached back for him, and clung, and let the fears of his changed feelings dissipate the way the ghosts had when they emerged into the cool, open air. "If you leave, I won't know what to do," she said fiercely, choking on the possibility now that she'd found him. "I'll kill everyone of them if you go, I swear I will, so you better stay. You better stay and you better be real because I can't lose you again. I really truly couldn't bear it if I did!" Her face pressed into his neck even as she spoke, so the words were have lost, have said into his throat.
She pulled her face away, her eyes wet and her skin hot, but her gaze steadying, held by his eyes. "Everything I said. Not a bit of it's changed, Will. Every morning I've woken up missing you with all the atoms that make me up 'en I thought it'd get better with you here but it hurts even more just now, not knowing what comes next. Not knowing if you'll be here when I wake up again tomorrow, if you'll just be a dream and this place," she shrugged. "Something I made up to stop hurting for you, even for a little while."
It was Will's turn to be embarrassed, now, because the offer of food-- which had been intended as a sort of invitation, an attempt to make things better between them-- now seemed silly. She was even older now, she wouldn't need him to take care of her, even in this new universe that was likely stranger for her than for him. Or maybe she did need to be cared for, but not in the way that he was thinking-- she was just upset, she wasn't sick or ill. And she was upset for the same reasons he was, that they had been apart so long, so why was it so difficult for them both to figure this out?
She reached for him and Will’s arms went back around her immediately, tightly. A slight smile returned to his face as she started to speak again, one that she couldn't see because her face was buried in his neck, but relief had washed over him at the contact and warmth was welling up inside his chest as she continued. She was better with words than he was, but he hoped she could feel his heart beating faster with her closeness, with her impassioned speech. Her words reassured him that yes, she was his Lyra still, even after all the time apart. His grip on her tightened, to reassure her that he was here and real and that he wouldn't leave.
And he didn't know how to express that he'd felt the same way, that she'd been his first thought when he woke up every morning and the last before he went to bed, that she'd also occupied his dreams and many of his waking moments, that even when he wasn't thinking of her there was still a part of him that was conscious of her existence, in much the same way that he was aware of his daemon even when she was out of sight. He didn't know how to tell her that none of the girls that had glanced his way over the years could have ever compared to her, even with their un-mussed clothes and makeup and speech; that he didn't need her to dazzle him because what he wanted was the girl that had crossed universes with him and fought beside him and not cared about the dirt on her hands and face or the tangles in her hair.
When she lifted her head, he didn't let go, except to move one of his hands from the back of her head to her cheek. There were so many words on the tip of his tongue that he felt like he was bursting with it, but just the sight of her beloved, tearstained face made it impossible to say them all. He still opened his mouth to say something, but wasn't sure what would come out.
"Lyra," he said, just her name, voice slightly breathless even though there was no real reason to be except for her simple proximity, his tone so heartfelt that he thought maybe it made up for all the things unsaid. All the I love yous that she hadn't been around to hear, the sentiment that had really only deepened in the time they'd been apart. His heart beat with it, and he could hear it in his ears, but still couldn't seem to make any of it come out of his mouth.
Maybe it was too big for words. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and after a moment's hesitation he summoned the courage (though why it required courage in the first place when it never had before, he didn't really know) to close the last few inches between them and kiss her. Once, twice, and then he leaned his forehead against hers. Then it was as if a floodgate had been opened, words started to spill out of him: "I'm here. I'm real, and I'm not leaving. If we both leave this place, it'll be like before, remember-- when we decided it together because there wasn't any other choice, but until then I'll be here with you."
There it was, that feeling she’d only ever had once and then, fleetingly: home. Lyra held her hands tight to the back of his neck, pressing him to her so he couldn’t get away, couldn’t slip through her fingers like the mirage she was only barely convinced he wasn’t. Tears were falling unabashedly down her cheeks now, but she was laughing as much as she was crying, as if her body suddenly contained too many feelings and didn’t know what to do with all the energy they were soaking up.
“Can’t we be like everyone else and make terrible promises about forever that we can’t possibly keep? At least just for tonight?” Her eyes looked up into his, darkened by the shadow their touching foreheads cast over their faces, and for a moment they were under the protective shade of the mulefa’s trees, and suddenly she wished they were lying down rather than standing up and so she kissed him again, shivering now, quickly but with force. It was as if she needed to keep pressing him tightly to her, pressure to the brink of pain just to convince herself it wasn’t all in her mind.
Her laughter ceased, but still her body shook -- not with cold or anxiety, exactly, but an effect of all those swirling emotions that couldn’t quite find any proper outlet. A heavy sigh crossed her lips and she played unconsciously with the hem of his shirt, flushed, happy, terrified and confused. “I’m afraid of moving, Will. I don’t want to blink or look anywhere else. I don’t want to sleep in that horrible room without you. I don’t want to sleep at all.” Though he’d always been able to quiet her fears, this one -- that he’d go as quickly as he came -- was impossible to shake.
Things seemed to make much more sense after he'd kissed her; she was laughing and crying at once, but Will understood that sentiment. Being together again was wonderful and painful, and it put them at risk for losing each other yet again (a third time now, for him), but that was a risk that Will was prepared to take. He'd gone through most of the bittersweet on their first reunion, so he was prepared for it now, but it was there nevertheless.
And he felt it more strongly when she asked him to make a real promise to stay, because what she didn't know was that had been one of those promises that he wasn't at all sure he could keep. He wanted to believe it, but Lyra had already been taken from him once, without warning. Now he was fairly certain that it had been done to bring her back at this age, from the same point in time as him, so that they could be here properly, together-- but that still wasn't something he knew for certain.
"Yes," he said, but there was a sad edge to his smile. He kissed her cheek, tasting salt when he pulled away, from her tears. "I'll be here with you forever. I promise."
The promise left a little bit of a bad taste in his mouth, but he bore it, for her. If that was what she needed to hear, even knowing that it couldn't really be true, then that was what he would say. There wasn't much he would or could deny her, not anymore. Truthfully, he wasn't even sure that he could choose the fate of the universes over her a second time, especially if he wouldn't have to watch her waste away. Or at least, if they would waste away together. Why hadn't that occurred to them, that they could simply exist in a reality that belonged to neither of them? Not that the ten years they'd have would be anywhere near enough, but it would be a better ten years than the ones they'd just lived through.
"We don't have to move," he said, and at least that much was true. He was more than content to stay right here until she was ready to move. "You can stay with me. We don't have to fall asleep."
As soon as the promise was out, Lyra felt safer, somehow. For so long they’d both of them had to make sacrifices, deny themselves of the only thing they wanted more than anything else in the world: each other. Of course the promise was hollow; what promise of eternity made by two people in love was anything else? And didn’t they deserve that? The chance to be one of many, rather than singled out and torn asunder across different universes? Close enough that they might feel the others’ breath, but so far away it sometimes felt like even thinking of Will was an impossibility.
Tilting her head up, she captured his lips in another kiss: longer, this time, and less cautious. She tried to convey everything, all the secrets, all the things she did and didn’t want him to know so that there might not be anything left hanging between them. She pressed herself gently to him, feeling less scared, now, that he might simply drift away into the air. He was here, and real, and the pressure and warmth of his lips -- which were softer than she remembered -- gave her the strength to not collapse under the confusion of the day, and the fear of a future that didn’t include him again. Though she’d been living it these past ten years, the possibility was more frightening now than she could possibly articulate. Having him back made the idea of his absence darker than all the terrible things she’d ever seen.
Pulling away, slowly, Lyra gave him a soft, lingering smile and then nodded, with her head. Taking his bad hand -- he always offered the other, but she so desperately favoured this one -- she pulled him gently back through the door she’d come out of some minutes before, brandishing a pistol and ready for a fight. “Come on,” she said gently, her voice smaller than usual as if it was holding in it something delicate and precious.
In the years that had passed between them, there hadn’t been anyone else the way that there had been Will. But Lyra, long hungry for affection, long aware of her horrible habit of craving the attention and approval of people -- parents -- had always needed other ways to fill her time, the space between her arms. For once, though, she didn’t find herself pushing, pulling at clothes and pressing kisses across hidden planes of warm skin. When she lay down and tugged Will to follow, she did it knowing that she’d be more happy lying next to him than she had ever been in the whole of her life. As she settled into the pillows, her eyes didn’t leave his and she wondered if it was absolutely essential that life continue to exist beyond the small flat they now shared.
“I suppose this means I won’t be able to defend my research on the northern witch clans,” she said with a smile, quietly. It was her way of saying she no longer wanted to go home: that she could not imagine being anywhere else.
Forever was a lie, a story that people told to each other to make themselves feel better. But being around Lyra had given Will an appreciation for fabricated stories, even if he would ultimately favor truthful ones. It seemed to cross the space between them, make the years of heartache easier to bear, because they could tell themselves that there was a happy ending.
Or at least, it made it better for her. Will didn't know that he could buy into it, not just yet. Perhaps that was because of the part of him that felt he ought to return home, to his mother, who needed him. But Lyra needed him, too. Maybe this universe needed them, although he hadn't yet discovered its reasons for bringing them here. He entirely believed that there was something at work here, however, and that the switch from younger to older Lyra was some sort of sign.
He had thought that she didn't want to move, and so was glad that she had taken the initiative for it rather than leaving it up to him. He closed the door behind them, even though it wasn't strictly necessary with only the two of them in the apartment. Kirjava had figured her way in and out already, so he had no doubt that she would show Pan the ropes, of that and also of the rest of the building, probably the rest of the city. He trusted that she would be present when he needed him, because she always did.
And he certainly didn't need her right now. He had Lyra. He couldn't even count how many times he'd lain beside her, just like this-- well, not quite like this-- under other roofs and more often under the stars, and on much less soft surfaces than this. Almost more importantly than the warmth he felt when she was around, she made him feel that everything would be right in the world as long as they were together. Because if it wasn't right, they would make it right.
Her smile elicited an answering one from him, and a slight laugh. "I think there are witches around here for you to study," he said. "If you want."
He'd gleaned that much from his perusal of the network, though he'd yet to talk to one. He'd yet to speak to most of the people around here, in truth; he'd had the longest conversations with those she'd befriended when she was younger and with the angel and with the SHIELD agents who'd interviewed him (though for that part, he'd mostly stared them down and answered their questions as simply and briefly as he could). He raised his hand to touch her jaw with his three remaining fingertips, watching her from a few inches away on the pillow.
"I'm sure we can figure this place out, together." And that actually wasn't a lie, even one told to make her feel better. They might not be able to control when they left, but what became of them while they were here would certainly be on their terms.