Misperception (pt. 9)
Sigma x Reader
All Moira knows is that Siebren must not, and cannot know.
Present Day
Moira has several browsers open. Her thin eyebrow furls when she finds that she must open another.
Again, she finds her mind rewinding the scene from earlier. It begins to play.
“HOW DO YOU NOT REMEMBER? I’VE KEPT THIS STUPID THING FOR SIX YEARS!” You had shrieked.
Moira had felt cool about yours and De Kuiper’s relationship all the way up until that moment. All the way up until you slid a glimmering band off your thin fingers.
Now, at her desk, Moira continues to examine the engagement ring pinched between her long violet nails. It certainly was a lovely piece of jewelry and a considerable investment, the band pure silver and the jewel itself a tack-sized, but brilliant sapphire.
As Moira’s eyes narrowed back up to her monitor, the images seemed to disclose nothing as a photo of De Kuiper smiled benevolently back at her.
She had located faculty tab on your undergrad university’s website.
All she could piece together was that De Kuiper had been one of your academic advisors and one of your professors.
But many could say the same. Yes, your name was listed beneath his, but so were other students. Nothing particular stood out that could explain your strong reaction to him.
Moira did take a closer look, however, clicking on each of the student’s names and viewing their profiles. Afterward, she found that she had been incorrect. One thing did stand out.
De Kuiper was the head of astrophysics, and he was really only to advise students in that prospective field. But she saw it when she clicked on your name—Y/N Y/LN.
Moira would’ve admitted she exhumed a soft huff of surprise at your radical appearance, much different from how you carried yourself as a practiced academic.
Yet, that was not the important thing that stood out.
It was the short description under your name. Department of Chemistry, instead of astrophysics. You should have been listed underneath your own department’s advisor, a middle-aged woman with a black bob of hair, Dr. Beth Donovan.
Moira wondered then, if that hiccup could correlate with what she observed earlier. Siebren had said, and Moira certainly believed him, that he didn’t recall ever meeting you.
But Siebren couldn’t recall many things.
With a sigh, Moira massages the tips of her fingers into her temples. She had to figure this out.
If you were, who she thought you were, the coincidental meeting between you and De Kuiper could undermine everything they were trying to accomplish with the peerless astrophysicist.
Once more, Moira returned to the search results and scrolled until she glimpsed something that could not be ignored. It was a video, and in the thumbnail, she could easily make out de Kuiper. The title: “Best Blastoff Ever!! ❤️❤️”
Moira clicked on it.
The video began shakily, filmed vertically on a phone camera; it pointed downward at the person’s pink sneakers, then rustled upward A round face came into view, a freckled girl with dark eyes and two curly ponytails. She shouted into the camera.
“Hey guys! Good morning, Molly here!”
The camera whirled to the people directly behind her.
“Here with my awesome roommate Y/N, and the world’s greatest, and my personally favorite professor, Dr. de Kuiper!”
There was a modest cheer from others standing nearby. You were next to de Kuiper smirking, but not unkindly.
Now Moira remembered, glancing back at the title, then back again to the video where de Kuiper stood outfitted in spacesuit, the crisp emblem of “Archangel” on his shoulder.
This was literally the day he went up. Moira watched intently.
“Yeah,” you began.
“This knucklehead is going to space.”
There was something in the way you smiled up at him, and something equally jarring in the way he stared back.
The video was back on Molly’s face then as she grinned into the camera.
“Dr. De Kuiper wanted us all here because, well, I don’t really know but—,”
The camera fell off her face when there came a sudden, hysterical cheer from the others around her.
When she set the camera onto the scene, de Kuiper was on his knees in front of you and you had your hands up to your face as you sobbed hysterically.
Molly began to screech and jumped up and down so erratically that she dropped the phone. The video promptly ended.
It was just as she had feared, Moira knew. The two of you were engaged.
And perhaps...the two of you would still be happily married today if the spacecraft hadn’t imploded that same day—if they wouldn’t have declared de Kuiper dead and locked him away, your heart with him.
