Work Text:
How do we rewrite the stars?
I stand there, staring at the burning circus building. With the tears streaming down my face, the embers sparking off the building against the black cloud of smoke in the night sky look like stars.
He might be gone. He ran in there to look for you.
My mind accuses me of these things which I know aren’t my fault. I had come out the back of the building. He hadn’t seen me, so he had gone to look. Risking his life for me.
We’re both so far gone. So in love. But how can we rewrite the stars?
I ponder my love for this man. How could someone as prestigious as him love a help like me? His parents had asked the same.
Why are you spending time with the help?
I was wondering the same thing. I have gotten used to being viewed as less than what I know I am. He had everything but came to our show. He had stopped even lower by loving me. But suddenly, my thoughts are interrupted by a loud crack. The roof of the building was collapsing. A scream escapes my throat, but even as it does, I see a blurred figure coming from the building. P.T. Barnum, carrying the only man I had ever loved.
He’s alive! Breathing!
Relief floods my body as I see him take a shuddering breath as he lays on the ground.
We aren’t out of the clear yet. He could still die. Just look at him.
He is covered in burns. His forehead is cut and bleeding. An ambulance arrives and takes him away. I feel protective arms around me and know they are my brother’s. He is the only one who knows of my feelings for this man, and even this small gesture gives me so much support.
Would I be allowed to see him?
I ask my brother if I would. He says it would be worth a shot and I can go and try in the morning. We go home and he tells me to try to sleep. My dreams are filled with fires and burns and stars.
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I wake up the next morning filled with determination to see Phillip. I walk to the hospital and through the doors. I tell the nurse at the desk that I would like to see Phillip Carlyle. They ask for my name and I tell them it’s Anne Wheeler. Then they let me through the doors. I see my lover lying in an otherwise empty row of hospital beds. I pull up a chair and think of everything he had done for me and how I shut him down.
You know I want you. It’s not a secret I’ve tried to hide. But I can’t have you. We’re bound to break, and my hands are tied.
I had told him that after he professed his love for me. I did love him. He knew that and I had known it since I first looked I to his eyes during that new act. I had told myself that he couldn’t be mine because he would find out what was real and hate me for it. But even when his parents had spoken of me so poorly, he had come running after me. He had defended me. All I had done was push him away. And now, he could be dying.
How do we rewrite the stars? Say you were made to be mine. Nothing could keep us apart, you are the one I was meant to find.
I sang, tears filling her eyes. I knew that every word that I sang was true, weather he heard then or not. I loved him and wanted to be with him.
It’s funny how I only realized this when I could lose him.
I thought, taking his burned white hand in my own darker one. I sat there all day, holding his hand and worrying for the man I loved. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I felt a slight movement against my hand. His fingers kept moving, and slowly, the eyes I feared I would never see open again fluttered open.
You’re here!
Of course I’m here!
I thought, but nothing would come out of my mouth. I was so happy, that all I could do was lean down and kiss him.
We had the chance to rewrite the stars, and we took it.