"I’m not a serpent, Father. I’m a crow...” || Mr&Mrs. Crowe
mrsxcrowe ⋰ candice,
It would be the wind that would first steal her attentions away from the box in her hands, that chilling bite of a near winter prickling at the ruined flesh of her cheek as she tried to turn her head away from it. Eyes shutting for a moment against that tenderness, still sore in some ways—sensitive to extremes, she reminded herself, a part of that blonde unable to not notice the similarities between such a scar and her own heart. Sensitive. Beating with life.
When her eyes had been averted, even for that split second of attempted shelter, Candice would see him—an outline of a familiar frame at first but then he’d truly come into focus—that blondness so unlike, yet still so similar to her own. Lauren. Her heart stopped beating in her chest—feet slowed, as time came careening to a stop.
Lauren—her Lauren.
Seconds stretched out within that space of remembering, of memories which seeped forward against the bars her mind had placed them behind. Kept tightly closed within boxes and jail cells, protected against the melancholy of the day—against the bitterness of reality—let loose only in the safety of loneliness, of the pitch black of night and the soft embrace of all those stars. Candice had once marveled in the grin of the heavens, of the way the stars looked down upon the world with an awe which seemed to match her own, for as a child the world had seemed so big—yet here, and for some years now, when she looked up into those breaths of star dust she saw little that couldn’t be compared to a pair of eyes. The warmth of a smile. The life and world she had found in one man.
Everything reminded her of him—of them—perhaps that was what had allowed her own warmth of heart to continue, stoked by the hope that she would see him again. That she would find him.
Such a thing, and the relief which set her nerves tingling within her arms and legs—which had her chest lifting and emptying with deep and happy breaths, would be what filled Candice then. What had her eyes glassy with tears that could only look happy as she set down the box. Leaving it where her feat had once been planted—rooted in spot—that person she’d been following—her surroundings—all but forgotten as she ran towards him.
As she pulled him close.
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, burring her face into the side of his neck, holding on tightly, “Please tell me this is real—” a mumbled thought falling free from her lips, heart hammering so hard against her chest that he had to have felt it. Please don’t be a dream.
Standing there, staring with mouth slightly agape and eyes widened, Lauren saw a single moment in time, the split second Candice finally saw him. She was still so, so beautiful, with a face that just shined naturally like the sun and expressions that only showed how much INNOCENCE was still inside of her. This moment, this painting of her back lit by the sun as if it was granting her her own personal halo, Lauren knew it was a scene he would see every single time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life. His beautiful, good, loving wife. She was everything a wife was supposed to be, everything any normal, sane man could wish for, and he had wished for her. He had wished for the perfect wife, and perfection manifested in Candice Marie Crowe.
His perfect wife. His loving, good, innocent, beautiful wife. He loved her, he did. He loved her, and yet his heart was thumping against his ribs and his palms started to sweat as they always did when he was confronted with something wrong. This was WRONG, his perfect wife was wrong, because no one knew that he had such a wife. If they did know, it was in stories told of his wife’s passing or how he lost her in the fray of the initial outbreak or whatever seemed most sympathetic at the time. Candice was not supposed to exist, or if was to exist, it was only as a MEMORY of a dead wife. He loved her, he did, but now lingering under the surprise was hate for her, hate for contradicting him in front of campmates she had not yet met.
The image stayed still, a painting by da Vinci or statue carved by Michelangelo, before he felt marble crushing against his bones. His movements were slow, sluggish from shock as his arms hovered around her waist limply before pressing them against her. She wasn’t a mirage, or any other type of hallucination, she was real and breathing and in Cheyenne. Lauren had thought he left her behind in Bristol, not an outlandish assumption as the distance between England and America was one he didn’t think anyone had the gall or patience to cross anymore, and his throat was bobbing at the thought of his past catching up with him—it was a strange thing to hate your past and also be obsessed with it, missing the river water of Bolivia while having nightmares of his cult leader father standing over his bed at night, frantically whispering tales of enemies in the tree line.
❝ Candi, ❞ Lauren finally breathed, literally as the long held exhale left him and his lungs stopped burning, shock-widened eyes hidden by his wife’s hair against his jaw; if he saw his expression in the mirror, he might have thought it was his father telling him that America blew up the world. It took a lot of willpower to force the feelings of panic and sickness away, or at least far down enough that he could act naturally, as any bystander must have thought he was being attacked with the way his body was so RIGID, so that he could wrap his arms tighter around Candice and place a hand against the back of her head. ❝ Oh my God. ❞ He whispered, trying to sound heartfelt instead of scared.
❝ How... ❞ Lauren began, pulling back far enough to be able to look down at her face, though his arms stayed tight around her lower torso. ❝ How are you even here? ❞ The question was to be taken at face value, how did she end up in Cheyenne, without much thought yet given to the fact that she even knew where he was, or knew that he was in the States shortly before the outbreak began.
