Redamancy (Ethan x f!MC)
Summary: The curtain of life threatens to fall, and the circumstances lead to a confession (set in Book 2, Chapter 11)
A/N: This was a request sent in by Pep who asked for a 2.11 confession fic, in which I also included a prompt request sent by the dearest @a-crepusculo from the 101 ways to say 'I love you' prompt list (still accepting, feel free to send in!) I hope you like what I came up with, my lovely and thank you so so much for sending the request in❤
Pairing: Ethan Ramsey X f!MC (Pooja Sharma)
Word Count: around 1.5K words
Rating: General
Category: Angst, with some fluff
Warnings: None that I noticed
Prompts: "Don't leave yet" from 101 ways to say 'I Love You' prompt list, And there was a confession, And one of them has an Illness.
Khamoshi. Silence.
Silence can be a vice, it can be a virtue.
It can bring joy, and also sorrow. Silence doesn't give an answer to questions, whereas at other times, silence is the only answer. Silence can be a suffocating cover, a restraint separating one from the world. But silence can also be a blanket, comforting one when there was no choice but to live separated from the world.
And right now, it was her cover, her comfort. It gave her time, which might very well be the last hours she spent on earth, to be with herself.
To think, to reminiscence, to laugh, to cry, with herself.
Letting her remind herself that she had come on this earth alone, and she will have to leave, alone. No matter how much she loves the others, or the others love her.
She remembers Alekhya, her stoic little baby, crying as if it was her life in danger. How Idhayan couldn't even come to the phone to talk to her, and all she could hear was silent sobs in the background.
But the conversation that hurt her the most was the one with her dad. He had seen her mom die, 16 years ago. And now, he was losing his eldest daughter, but there was nothing he could do about it. Behind the tough mask was a pain that escaped into his voice at times, and every time it did, she wanted to cry, and assure him that she will live to see tomorrow.
But she couldn't.
All she could do was pray, that even after her, they find their happiness. That their world never stops revolving, even in her absence.
Every moment she had spent in the room felt like a lifetime. Slowly being pushed towards the end by a strong and persistent force she just couldn't counter, even with all her might.
She remembers the faces that peek through the only connection of the room with the world outside. The world that didn't exist for her at the moment. The smiles of her friends were lost in the air, their eyes bloodshot with the tears that they tried to put a constraint on.
The silence lets her mind echo their laughs, their jokes, their teases around her. Lets her remember every word of them. Lets her hold them till the last of her breaths.
She missed the night sky. Gazing at the stars, taking their light within her. Letting the moon shine over her soul, make her its child.
She would have searched for her mother in the vast sky. Would have told her that the wait is over. That she was soon coming to meet her. That this is what destiny's plan was.
And amidst all, two ice blue orbs shine in front of her. The tears unshed that linger at their corner. The pain that hid perfectly in his labyrinthine heart. The rush that his mind carried out, pulling all stops in an attempt to save her.
She remembers the kiss outside his apartment, the soft-touch familiar to her. The memory was prized, she wanted to keep it in her heart till the end of time. The end of time was here.
He had told the world he wasn't single. Well, now his words are going to be proven wrong. Sorry, she mutters to him wordlessly, hoping that it reaches him.
The endless chain of thoughts, memories, regrets, and joys end as the door open. A curtain of plastic shines in the bright luminesce. Only when the steps come closer, do they reveal him, behind a hazmat suit.
"I came to check on upon you"
He moves to sit on the stool, but her signal beckons him to sit beside her. He does, wanting to spend every moment with her.
His subconscious shouts at him for thinking that she would leave. It tries to convince him that they are meant to be. That their time together had just begun. That it couldn't end this soon.
But the doubt, the fear of losing her forever to destiny makes him want to cry. Cry just like he did when his mother left him, only to never come back. Cry just like he did when he thought that he had lost every chance of curing his mentor.
They were still the parts of his life. But right now, he was losing his life, his strength, his pillar. The hand he wanted to hold till the end of his life. And there's nothing he could do to stop it.
His hand strokes her hair, as she lay close to him, their hearts beating in unison. The urge to feel her soft skin against his, to kiss her forehead, to intertwine his fingers with hers, had never been as strong as it was at the moment.
Her eyes look up at him. They say a hundred words. The expression of affection and pain, regret and sorrow, and a melancholy, linger in them. But there was something that broke his already shredded heart into a billion minuscule pieces, no hope of them ever getting back together.
It was... Acceptance.
She had accepted her fate. She had accepted that today, it all ended. Her life. But his own too, along with hers.
A strange desperateness grips his heart.
He wanted to light one lamp that could once again bring the glow of hope in her heart. There had to be something, anything, that would give her a reason to strive. To hold on to that breath she had accepted she would have to give up.
Looking into her ambers which now gaze at an unknown point, his heart leaps into a pace just minutely faster.
Being close to her, wasn't something he wanted. It was something he needed, a bare necessity of life. He remembers those tumultuous days of living without being able to touch her, to feel her soft skin. The push, the staying away. Every moment just brings them closer to each other than leading apart.
A truth, a realization that had struck him weeks, months ago floats back to him. The clock ticks steadily and time slips beyond his reaches. He shifts a little, his heart trying to convince his mind and doing a great job at it.
Her eyes, which had closed for a moment, suddenly open up. There's an anxiousness interjected in the calm breaths she had been taking and her hand moves to hold his hazmat suit-clad one.
"Don't leave yet" Her voice is more than a request, and he feels a tear slipping out. No more convincing was needed. He knew what he had to do, and he wasn't going to waste a single second.
"I am not leaving, Rookie." Her hold on his hand became a tad bit stronger. "Not now, not ever."
He urges her to look up to him, and as she does, he feels their eyes glowing with the same intensity.
"I ran a lot. Out of fear, out of cowardice. I put on a facade of stoicism when on the inside I was breaking with the distance between us. I thought it was for the better, me staying away from you." He sees the tears glistening in her eyes "But it was for the worse."
"I am glad you realized" She tries to offer him a tiny smile, but the tears curtain it.
"Every day I spent with you, and without you, has led me to a realization. A realization that didn't exist before you came into my life. A feeling I never understood until I met you."
He tucks a stray lock behind her ear and brings the hand of hers that held his to his lips, placing a chaste kiss on it.
"I love you, Pooja. And I want you to know, that this is not the end. There are going to be hundreds of days of me saying it to you. I will not let you leave me, not so soon."
"I don't intend on doing it." A mellow giggle made him smile. He loved seeing her this way, smiling till the end of time. And every time he knew that he was the reason behind it, his world seemed to stop and a merry spring comes around.
"Ethan, I love you too. Always and forever." She raises herself with slight difficulty, placing a kiss on his lips through the hazmat suit. By now, both of their tears fell freely, all restraints that ever existed out of the window. The kisses are intermixed with gazes that say the three words over and over again.
Love.
He never believed in it.
Neurochemical response was what he thought it to be.
But today, it felt as if a new definition of love had opened up in front of him. It was something he couldn't capture in any amount of words.
For him, love was finding a soul to trust after being broken over and over again by the people closest to one. Love was finding a home, not in the four walls but in a person's heart. Love was having that shoulder on which one could lay their head along with all woes and joy. Love was having a hand to hold for an eternity, knowing that he would never lose it.
Love was what he felt when he was with her.
His Pooja. His Rookie.
In their world, communication occurred through gazes. And that's what went on, as they lay in silence, talking about nothings and everythings. His only wish was to make her smile, while hers was to hold on, till the end.
Time passed like a rapid river current, not stopping even for the mightiest rocks. And suddenly, surprising them both, the door flung open. For a moment, worry clouded both of their features, hearts beating faster as if preparing for the worst-case scenarios.
"Ethan, we have found a cure."
PS: And the saga of angst continues. I want to write fluff so bad but my brain said "No😘"... I hate it here. Also, thank you very very much for reading & I am extremely grateful for you🤍
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