An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I'm still terribly behind on reading and linking to fic, so many of you may have read this already, but I have to post this recommendation to read it if you haven't.
This story, fair warning, does not have a happy ending. However, I think that might be one of the reasons it’s so good. Personally, it took a set-up that seemed almost trite to me and transformed it into a narrative that felt, if a bit unlikely romantic at first, true and real, in the end.
It affected me so much that I wrote a lengthy comment to the author at the end, and I'm going to include that here, below the fold, to avoid spoilers. I'll just say that for whatever reason, this fic had turned out to immediately be one of my very favourites by this author, and that's saying something.
My comment/review:
Wow. Dude. Wow.
I didn't expect to like this so much, to be so drawn in. Your writing is always excellent, of course, but this was supposed to be a shorter story, one with a premise that seemed not uncommon in fic but at the same time one I could not easily relate to, one that I knew how it would end, and thus would not become too involved with the characters and their outcome. One that, fittingly, but at the risk of sounding trite, was supposed to be... easy.
Almost as a rule, I don't cry over fic. I know a lot of people do; they get catharsis through being emotionally attached to fictional characters, and sometimes I envy them for it coming more easily to them. Although I love reading and writing fic, however, I rarely detach enough from the act of reading, of taking in the story but being rooted in the physical reality around me, as well as the separate experience of my own life, to have that kind of reaction. Too aware of my surroundings, perhaps, or part of the mechanisms I've developed to cope with being an empathic introvert. Same thing with movies, and while I maybe respond to the immersive qualities of film a bit more often, frequently it is because the plot is just generically sad, or reminds me of feelings I've had in the past, more than an actual attachment to the characters as if they were real people I felt invested in. But the way you wrote this story, these characters, both romantic and awkward, surprising themselves by falling in love and realizing the ultimate hopelessness of their situation at the same time; their interactions with people outside their circle of two, and the realistic, detailed depiction of struggling with an unpredictable, lethal illness, all drew me in despite myself. I may even have cried... just a little bit. Just a tear or two - - not to blow my cover. ;)
I actually think this may be my favourite story of yours, ever. I understand that it was difficult for you to write, and that you couldn't, for several reasons, be completely happy with it. But perhaps that reflects on just why it is so good: because it's uncomfortable. It deals with real feelings, Delphine's in particular: her headlong stumble into love she didn't expect, her nervousness over how to handle things properly, to strike the balance between doing what her love compels her to do and being realistic, (or at least appearing realistic for Cosima's sake, to counter Cosima's skepticism,) her overwhelming delight and joy at pleasing Cosima that surprises them both in its fierceness and simplicity, and her drained, dissonant confusion at trying to navigate life with her child in their grief. It's difficult to read without feeling; it's difficult to feel without getting overcome by the feeling; surely it makes sense that it was difficult to write. I actually think the epilogue is perfect. The tone it strikes is both devastating and indicative of the fact that life *does* go on when it feels like it shouldn't. Delphine *won't* ever love anyone quite the way she loved Cosima. Delphine will feel pain around this for the foreseeable future, and it will affect how she raises their son, and that's terrible. But it's also just the way that it is, the way that life goes. And she may very well love someone again, fiercely, but in a way that she can only love that person. And her son will grow up and they'll both have lives informed by the tragedy of knowing and loving and losing Cosima, but also by the joy of having had the time with her that they were lucky enough to get.
I hope you'll take that from writing this, at least, that although is not a piece you may feel satisfied with, that is something that is evocative of a truth about real life: it can never be completely whole and satisfying if we look at it with "what ifs." We never get enough time with the ones that we love, or exactly what we think we want. We're surprised by love and know it's dangerous. But we fall anyway. :)
