Tuck Everlasting - Miles Tuck x Rose and Thomas and Anna, angst
tuck everlasting month 2020, day 16
A/N: so, first of all, i changed miles' canon age for when rose leaves. also, in the books miles has 2 kids - a boy, and a girl named anna. i, of course, decided to include her because miles with a daughter would have been perfect - exactly what he needed. the emphasis, however, lies in the word would...
Summary: But time has a way of changing things. Her mother had told her once, when she was young enough to wonder what the world had planned for her, that what’s hidden wants to be found. The more you tried to hide something, the more it would work to show itself in small but meaningful ways.
Rose had known the Tucks for 9, long years.
She first met them when the family came into town, having just settled nearby, looking for men to help build their would be home. Even then, Angus Tuck was a self-made man. He knew how to build houses (after all, he had made their first home, before it burned down) and was only looking for help on account of his age. He was nearing fifty and wasn’t as spry as he used to be, so he decided he could use the help of another man - someone young, who could follow directions efficiently. Rose’s brother had fit the description perfectly, and a deal was struck: he would help the Tuck’s with building their home, and they would let him use their horse for farm work.
Rose had met Miles Tuck that day and believed they were kindred spirits, of sorts. He was just as bookish and quiet as she, and while he was blunt and occasionally harsh with his words, his heart was well-meaning and made up for his shortcomings. He was 2 years older than her, at the time, and when the Tuck’s departed, her brother teased her relentlessly.
The next morning, she joined her brother in going over to the Tuck’s homestead, helping Mae unpack her things and cook a large dinner for the men on an open fire. They bonded, speaking of literature and culture, technology and faith. Those days were simple and happy, spent bonding with a family she adored and learning about the world they had come from. There was quite a lot of world, beyond Treegap, New Hampshire, and to hear about it was fascinating.
After a long day’s work, the four men would eat as though they hadn’t seen food in years. They would thank Mae and Rose, praising their cooking, and would have a smoke afterward. Jesse would sneak off sometime before the pipes were pulled out, and Miles would drift away from Angus and Roses’ brother, not caring for conversations of hunting or fishing. Rose would sit beside him, quietly, and start up a conversation with Miles, the two smiling and laughing in the firelight.
When the cottage was finished, Rose helped Mae move the last of her valuables indoors and sighed. “I suppose I no longer have an excuse to come and bake with you.”
Mae had smiled, and there was something in her eyes that sparkled as though she knew a secret. “As long as Miles lives here, I’m sure you’ll find a reason or two.”
Rose had stuttered, thoroughly embarrassed by the older woman’s words, and Mae said nothing further on the matter. When she said goodbye to the Tuck’s, Rose couldn’t look Miles in the eye.
As they walked home, her brother looked at her with raised eyebrows. Rose shoved him and told him to shut up.
Miles had called on her a few weeks afterward, asking her if she’d like to take a stroll through town. She had smiled, then, admiring the redness in his cheeks and the sincerity in his tone. They courted for a year, and on a beautiful autumn day, they had gotten married.
They had vowed to love each other. They promised to stand by one another and let nothing come between them. They had sworn to be honest with one another, no matter what.
That had been 7 years ago. Rose was 22 and naive to the ways of the world.
Now, staring at her mother, a six year-old Thomas playing on the ground beneath her, and another baby kicking in her stomach, Rose had seen much more of the vast, unexplainable world. Her mother handed her a cup of tea and she sipped at it politely, trying to wonder how to begin.
Her mother had told her once, when she was young enough to not believe her, that what’s hidden wants to be found. The more you tried to hide something, the more it would conspire against you to show itself in small but meaningful ways.
Rose had thought her mother to be too faithful, then - too reliant on the universe working in her favor. Then she had met the Tucks, and throughout the years, she learned bits of their secret.
“Nothing could make me love him less.”
“Of course, not.” Rose’s mother sat across from her at the table, her hair streaked with silver, her eyes heavy with wisdom. “You are his wife, after all.”
Rose nodded. She had never questioned her vows. She loved him and had no secrets. But something ate at the back of her mind, gnawing at her, asking her if perhaps Miles had broken his.
“But you are a mother and every mother loves her child more than anything else.”
Rose looked at her boy - his dark curls falling into wide eyes, his cheeky smiles and soft hands. “I would do anything to keep Thomas safe.” Her hand went to her stomach, and the baby inside moved. “Anna, too.”
“Then you know what you must do.”
At first, there wasn’t much to question. The Tucks had come from out of town to settle, and no one knew their prior family. They joked that youth ran in the family. Jesse looked as though he hadn’t aged a day from when he met Rose, but that was because he was a boy and excitement held onto adolescence tightly. Mae was no younger than her own mother, and yet her hair maintained the same vibrant red of her younger years. Not a single hair turned silver to match the few she had when they first came to Treegap. Rose only ever seemed to get older with time, but motherhood was exhausting and easily deepended wrinkled and added crows feet to smooth skin. If she ever mentioned it, Miles would kiss her, saying she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and Rose would get lost in his love.
After a while, it was their health that Rose found peculiar. Angus and Mae were well into their fifties, approaching that heavy age where the world pulled them closer to the ground in which they would one day lay, leaving aches and pains in the morning, and tiredness in the evening. However, the couple never seemed to be bothered by time, and in the winter, when aches were at their worst and illness swept through the town like a breeze, the family stayed unaffected by the damp that set into their home or the draft that came under the doors.
What had frightened Rose the most, though were not trivial wrinkles or impeccable health. What had caused her to draw away from the family she had always loved and shook Rose to her core was Jesse’s fall.
When she thought about it later, she remembered how the sunlight seemed to bend around him like a halo, the branches falling with him like wings on his back - like an angel, her mother had said. Or, she said, in a quiet tone, like Icarus. A Greek tragedy - too reckless for this life, too young for his experiences.
Jesse should have died upon hitting the ground; a fall from that high, with his body hitting branches as he fell, his head bloody and his limbs lying at odd angles when he landed on the ground should have killed him. He was Icarus, after all, plummeting towards his grave. When he did not, the Tucks were relieved and Rose was, too. But she also had a mind that told her of mortal wounds - those injuries that people do not survive.
Something was broken that day, and it was not Jesse’s body.
Thomas had been four, then, still a toddler that needed a father to show him the way. Rose was still uncertain, in those days, believing in Miles and those vows she had made more than anything else in the world.
That was 2 years ago. She was 27 and growing fast.
“What do I do?” She looked at her mother for guidance but already knew she did not want to hear her reply.
Amongst the Tucks was a fallen angel. They were no longer in God’s grace.
“You already know what must be done.”
“But I cannot.” Tears were welling into Rose’s eyes and she pushed them back, not allowing them to fall. Thomas had stilled in her games on the floor and stared at his mother, eyes wide and full of wonder. “I can’t leave Miles… I can’t leave my husband.”
“You’re not leaving Miles.” Her mother put her hands on top of Roses’. “You’re leaving The Adversary.”
“No...” Rose fell to the ground and wept. Thomas grabbed her skirts, rubbing them between his thumb and forefinger. “They’re good people.”
“They’ve been claimed by evil.” Rose shook her head, but her eyes were filled with fear. “You have your children to think of. You must leave.”
“Where will I go?” Rose asked, her voice cracking, her head bowed.
Her mother leaned down to pick Rose off of the ground. Rose was sobbing still, her body shaking with effort, her breathing laboured and broken. Her mother smoothed her hair and let Rose cry on her shoulder. Thomas hugged his mother’s legs and patted her pregnant belly.
“Go to the Lord, Rose, and pray. It’s all you can do.”
Rose stared at the empty page beneath her and willed herself to write something down. She had loved Miles for 9, long years. She had been by his side all the while, never once believing him to be something dark and sinister.
When Jesse had fallen, Miles had been right there, calling out his brother’s name, holding the boy’s body to his chest. When Jesse’s eyes opened and he coughed up blood, the deep red dripping down his chin and staining his shirt, Miles had carried him to their home with tears of relief in his eyes. He had borne the burden of almost losing his brother, determined to not let anyone else suffer.
Rose had borne the burden of knowing that he shouldn’t have survived.
To the Tucks, Jesse’s prolonged life was a miracle. But Jesse’s life was heavy on Rose’s conscience - like a curse.
It was only fair, now, that Miles shared in her burden. A letter was the only way he could ever know the reasons for why she would do what she intended. Miles knowing why would explain her actions and the guilt of what she was to do would be his, as well.
She was going to explain herself - like a good, honest woman should. Honesty was one of her vows to him. Miles may have kept secrets and cast her in shadow, but she would shed light on her action and give him the honestly she promised one last time.
Rose was 29, now, and time was stealing away her life, one day at a time.
She could not wait any longer for another explanation to arrive. The rumors in town were insidious. The Tucks were an unnatural family. There was no other way - no other path she could take.
Rose looked at the grandfather clock that she had been given as a wedding gift. In only a few more hours, light would start to fill the house. She had to go, now. There was no time for explanations or apologies.
Rose stood and crept to where they kept their money box. She took what little they had, and prayed that the Lord would provide the rest. She turned, one last time, to look at her husband, pain in her eyes.
He was still 22, the same as they day they met, no changes made to his mortal body. He did not look like the evil he was supposed to be, but evil was a master at deception.
Her baby kicked and Rose held back a sob.
Stealing into Thomas’ room, Rose prayed to the Lord. She prayed for guidance, for strength, for something to make the bile in her throat lessen, something to make her actions feel like less of a betrayal.
Thomas woke at his mother’s touch, and she told him they were leaving. He asked her if papa was coming and a tear slipped down her cheek. She bent down to look him in the eye, and when she spoke, her words were thick with sorrow, but clear and low. “Not now, Thomas. We will see him again, one day, but not now.”
He didn’t understand, but followed where his mother led. Their footfalls were quiet, with the grace of God guiding them outside and into the night.
Rose had a destination in mind - somewhere Miles would never find them, somewhere where she would not see him at every street corner and in the aisles of a store. She thought of her life with him; her mind combed through those 9 years in a moment's hesitation and lingered on her mother’s words, spoken with gravity.
You already know what must be done.
Rose held Thomas’ hand in hers, the other resting on her pregnant stomach. Inside, the baby put her foot to where her mother held her. She knew what must be done for her children - there was nothing that was too difficult, nothing too unthinkable when done in their name. She prayed that one day, when she told Thomas of all that had been done, that he would not hate her for her actions, done in his name.
She did not look back at the farmhouse as she left. She had to leave Miles behind her. Still, she closed her eyes as she traveled into the night, the wind stinging her cheeks, damp with tears, and thought of the man she had met in Treegap, 9 years ago.
