"I did all of those things, deeming you an imposter, refusing to accept you... not because I dislike you." Teeth bite over his lower lip, trying to keep his tone level for a little longer, recalling emotions that he had abandoned for over a decade.
"It is because I loved you— the other you— too much. And when I see you now, it reminds me of her, and the memories that we shared that died with her. Your face, your presence... It taunts me, reminding me that she will never come back. I can tell you about the day that she took me flying for the first time..." He smiles, ruefully, as warm memories flit before his eyes. "I can tell you how terrified I was, clinging to her as if death were upon me, in my younger childhood. I can tell you all of these things, but that is all they would be to you— stories that you assume to be true."
His next words fall harshly, as he cuts straight to the point, critical and unforgiving, diverging from his brief, fond tone. "The love that she showed me... You can do your best to emulate it, but that is all. It falls short. Even the way you smile at me, it feels flat. Artificial. Unreal. As if you're trying to compensate for the mother that you never were, yet."
"But, as I look at you..." He blinks a teardrop away, feeling it course down his cheek and run onto the edges of his mask. "I do not deny the happiness that I also feel. I have finished grieving over my mother years ago, but seeing her— you, I suppose— well and alive... triggers memories that I had left to rest with her death."
The removal of his mask elicits a small gasp of surprise from him, and he instantly lifts a hand, to rub away the worst of his tears, stifling an unsightly sob against the back of his hand. Crimson eyes instantly squint into slits, adjusting to the harshness of the light against his usually shaded vision, but as he blinks several times, they soon adjust to the lighting of the apartment room. "My world, a suitable place..." He tries to laugh at the very thought; it comes out bitterly, but as she holds his face, he glances down, failing to meet her eyes. "Had it been, I would not be here. At my age, I nearly thought her invincible. I did not think... that death could claim her."
Her fingers, gently brushing tears from his cheek, cause him to recoil from her touch, as if it had stung him, and wide eyes regard her incredulously. The foreign feeling of his mother's hand on his face was one that he had not felt in years, and in the instant that he backs away, a wave of guilt washes over him, for doing so. "Ah, I..." His gaze traces lines along the floor as he looks away, murmuring a small apology before slowly reaching to hold her hand in his, raising it back up to rest on his cheek. "I'm sorry. It's just... it's been so long since you last did that."
His sigh comes out shakily, and he allows his eyes to shut, taking in the finale of her reassuring words, words that he'd been yearning to hear for longer than he cares to remember. He blinks away a few more tears, but this time, out of gratefulness, not sorrow, and when he opens his eyes once more, he smiles, his gaze comfortably resting on his mother's content face, basking in the happiness that it provided him. "That is a lie, and you know it. 'Forever' does not exist, like your presence in my life. But, if you could swear, this time, that you will stay in my life— my life and my future life— for longer than you had in the past... That promise would mean just as much to me."
"Thank you... for vowing to protect me, to be with me, this time.
Though my past— your future— cannot be altered in my timeline, you still have yet to meet your version of me. And if you could give him a life where his parents were with him always..." He bows his head, to hide his smile, wiping away streaks from the corners of his eyes. "I would appreciate it, just the same."
"And... mother?" In that moment, if he tries, he can see, in the corner of his mind, a decade ago: a particular day at camp where she had crouched down in front of him, hugging her knees to her chest as she peered adoringly at his face. He had been hugging one of her spare capes tightly against his chest, then, as if hugging it tighter compensated for him not being able to rest in her embrace. (But he would when she came back to camp later that day, he had told himself.) He had murmured these words then, shyly— as he was when he was younger. The phrase is strange, and it feels out of place on his tongue, almost like a foreign language.
Because they were the last words he had said to her,
before she disappeared forever.
"I..." He struggles, stopping and starting many times, before he finally manages to return her sentiment.
"But if you ever leave this city and somehow obtain my younger self later on... Please wait a bit longer, before taking me flying on Minerva." He laughs quietly, but there is a certain, resolved joy to his laughter, that hadn't been there before. "I do not believe human children are meant to be airborne at the age of two weeks."
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