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Keefe scoops up the book and moves an inch closer to fill the space that she put between them.
“No,” she whispers. This isn’t right. This isn’t... He couldn’t be alive. She’d checked for his mind and she hadn’t found it, and she knew Keefe’s mind like the back of her palm, so how could he be alive? He hadn’t come home for years even though she’d been sure he would. He couldn’t be here. This wasn’t right.
“Sophie-”
“No,” she insists, taking a larger step back. “Don’t- Don’t- He’s-” She shakes her head so hard she swears her ears wiggle.
“Foster,” he says calmly, trying to hand her back the book. “Just let me talk. We can talk this out, but we can’t do it here-”
“No,” she says, more fire spitting through the word. “No, he wouldn’t do that to me.”
Keefe’s eyes gloss with pain. And maybe Sophie is imagining it, because she wants him to feel it, but she swears she sees the flicker of shame and regret. He reaches out and Sophie flinches, eyes trained inside of his - though, she doesn’t take a step back. Keefe seems to notice and when his gaze meets hers again, he seems more sure.
“Foster.” He repeats it the same way he always used to, and all Sophie can do to keep from crying is remind herself of the grueling years of heartache she’d endured because of him. The thought of the blood that betrayal drew from her body keeps her from crying for him - she’d done enough crying for him over the last decade. She wasn’t about to cry over something that had affected her so long ago, something that she had learned - fought - to move past. And she definitely wasn’t going to cry for him in the middle of a public library.
One hand holds out the book she dropped. She flicks her eyes to it like it’s something dangerous, like he’s handing her a melder and not a copy of some basic human novel.
Sophie barely has the time to grab it from his hand before his other one reaches out and brushes her elbow. Sophie’s jaw locks up and the rest of her body tenses as he slips his hand around the base of her elbow. Sophie isn’t sure if it’s meant to keep her where she is or if it’s meant as an act of affection. Either way, she’s unsure of if she likes it.
“Foster, I’m here.”
Her grip on the book slips and it’s lost to the floor for a second time. Keefe’s head flashes in its direction as it slaps on the tiles. Slowly, he looks back to her, stealing one last concerned glance at the volume before accepting she doesn’t really care about it as much as he thought she did.
“Foster,” he whispers. “Don’t leave. Please. I know... I know I’m one to talk and I know that I don’t deserve for you to listen, but I want to talk to you. Please, can we go somewhere and talk this out?”
Sophie’s tears are beginning to blur her vision. All she can see is this smudgy mess of colours - until she blinks and the tears stream down her cheeks. Keefe follows them and she swallows, shaking her head.
“He wouldn’t do that,” she repeats.
He winces and asks, “Do what?”
Sophie’s chin wobbles. She shrugs, inhaling shakily. “Not come back? Give me false hope? I don’t know.” Her lips quiver and she shakes her head again, sniffling. More tears track down her face. “Why wouldn’t you come back?” she croaks.
“Sophie...”
She shakes her head again, more soft this time, and she sees Keefe’s gaze zone in on her face, rather than her eyes. His hands lifts up and cautiously, he cups her neck gently, using his thumb to wipe the tears off of her jaw.
“Don’t,” she whines, “don’t do that, like you...”
He bits his lip as lets his hand go higher, pushing the hair behind her ear so that he can hold her cheek against his palm. She makes a weak noise, closing her eyes to lean into it.
There’s so many emotions coursing through her at once and she can barely stand them all, so she doesn’t know how Keefe is so casually reacting. He seems emotional, sure, but he shows no sign of being overwhelmed.
“You look...” Her eyes flutter open, and he continues when she looks at him. “As beautiful as the day I left.”
The smile that cracks his face is pained. He looks like he’s reminiscing on a lost dream.
“I should slap you,” she whispers. “I really should.” She bobs her head to show that she’s serious, and Keefe’s smile turns bittersweet as he nods along with her. She whimpers, trying not to tremble as her face breaks. “But I can’t.”
“You can do it later,” Keefe promises, and she has half a mind in her to release a strangled laughing noise, that quickly turns into another whine. Sophie can’t rationalize why she chooses to do it, but before she can think, she walks into his arms. The bubble between them pops as she burrows into his shoulder. Keefe doesn’t miss a beat, wrapping his arms around her, holding her tighter than the seal on the farewell letter he’d left for her all those years ago.
She’s right next to his ear, so she remains hushed as she questions, “Am I dreaming?” Sophie’s aware it’s a futile thing to ask, but she doesn’t care. “I see you so much, that I don’t know anymore.”
“...You dream about me?”
Sophie’s sob is muffled by his shoulder. It’s him. She knows it’s him. Any other time she’s had a dream about him and she’s asked that question, it’s always been met with a quickly assured “no, you’re not dreaming”, because it’s what she wants to hear. This is the one time she’s ever heard anything different.
“I hate you,” she cries, body shivering with the words. “I hate you so much.”
“Okay,” Keefe says. “That’s okay.”
She nuzzles harder into his shoulder. Even with this sweater that makes him look far too stiff and academic like his father would have wanted, he smells like him. He smells like strawberries and sugar. He smells like her childhood. He takes her back to the good moments.
She’s tried so hard to replicate this smell for years. She’s held on to remnants of his old clothes, not daring to wash his capes out of the fear that she’d lose that last piece of him she had (a silly thing to do, as she liked to tell herself she’d forgotten about him and she didn’t care).
Sophie pulls back, daring a look at him. He’s grown out his hair so the ruffles tickle the bottoms of his ears. The bags under his eyes are dark, the result of stress and lack of sleep, but somehow they fit him. His eyes are dulled from the toxins of the human world, a clear indicator he hasn’t had a detox from any elvin doctor or a bottle of youth in a good, long while...
But even with what most would call flaws, he’s handsome. He’s handsome to the point where it’s painful because she shouldn’t be focusing on his face of all things and she shouldn’t be letting her heart flutter. Sophie tries to convince herself that she should be furious - he left her and everyone behind and as far as she knows, he didn’t plan on coming back.
But... There’s no anger left. There’s no fight left. She got it all out over the past few years. All that’s left is that longing for him.
“Your eyes look the same,” he murmurs, brushing his fingers along her cheek.
“Why wouldn’t they look the same?”
His lips twitch and he shrugs. “I know it’s stupid, since I have a photographic memory, but I... Always had the fear I’d forget. I drew you... over. And over. And over, so many times... Hoping I wouldn’t forget the way you looked.”
Sophie shakes her head, blinking to release the tears that are burning in her eyes. “Don’t... Don’t.”
“I’m not lying,” Keefe says. “You’re on my wall in my apartment.” He looks sheepish after he admits it. His cheeks are flushed as he says, “The only painting on my wall is one of you. You can... come see it, if you want.”
“Not yet,” Sophie says shakily. Her hands feel scarily numb as she lifts them from his chest to cup his face and her eyes seem too frantic as she searches his face for any sign of discomfort. She’s breathing heavily, and her heart is aching, and she knows Keefe can feel what she is from the way his eyes widen and the fingers he has gliding across her cheekbone in a dance stop.
“I want to be angry later,” Sophie announces.
Keefe dips his chin.
She swallows. With a small, inner, “screw it”, she leans in and presses their mouths together. She gives him the room to pull back, but Sophie barely has the time to move her mouth against Keefe’s before his hand appears on her waist and pulls her frame flush against him. She can feel his other tangle into the base of her hair, and she whimpers into the kiss when she swears she can feel his cheeks warm beneath her hands.
He’s softer than she imagined. With the way he takes his time to devour her mouth with purpose, she can’t help but feel a burden being lifted. She doesn’t know where it’s taken from, but something inside her feels lighter when she kisses him, so she knows it’s a good thing. They pull back, but their foreheads press together. Sophie knows she’s breathing heavily, but she can’t find it in her to be embarrassed.
“I figured it out.” She holds his eyes with hers. “It took me awhile, but after you left, I figured it out.” She gnaws on her cheek momentarily, and then reveals, “You liked me.”
It’s Keefe’s turn to cry, evidently, because she watches the way his eyes well. It makes her want to full-on bawl in the middle of the aisle, but she knows they’re pushing it as is. His tears spill over as he strains to correct, “No, I loved you.”
“Well...” She makes a broken sound. “I love you.”
Keefe’s laugh sounds relieved. Though, Sophie’s not sure if relieved is the right word - it looks like he’s been waiting to hear that news all his life. “I thought you said you hated me.”
“They go hand-in-hand,” Sophie assures, and it only has Keefe laughing more, laughing to the point where the hands that are on her are shaking. Perhaps it’s disbelief, like he’s heard something that he thinks is too good to be true. Because... Sophie can’t see it any other way. When she was younger, she could talk herself out of Keefe’s looks, but this was so obvious. She didn’t need to examine it from a different angle or even be an Empath to figure out that this was good news to him. Great news. He looks like he’s soaring.
“I love you, Sophie.”
Her heart leaps. She has to say it again. She knows she does, since she never got the chance to before he left. This is her chance to make up for all those years. “I love you, too.”
They look like two lovers reunited after a war to eavesdroppers. And maybe they are - but the question remains whether the war that separated them was brought on by the world, or by themselves.
“Say you’re not leaving,” Sophie pleads.
Keefe watches her. He sucks his lip in, contemplating his response, and the look in his eyes makes Sophie want to cry harder. “I know you probably didn’t plan to, but... I’m here, Keefe. I can’t just leave without you - you know that. I’ll talk with the Council, I’ll figure it out with our friends. I’ll make it all work if you just.... Just try. Please. Please try.”
He stays silent. Sophie worries she’s going to have to brace for heartbreak when he opens his mouth, but it closes. He takes a deep breath. After swiping at his eyes, he nods. “Okay.” His voice is hoarse. “I’m not leaving.”
She grips his sweater tighter, nodding. Their foreheads meet and she breathes in his calming scent, letting it ease the headache that’s beginning to form at the base of her skull. She knows it’s coming from all the tears and built-up snot, but she knows she’s not going to be able to stop for awhile, so she’s going to have to live with it.
Sophie sniffles. “I am going to kill you in a few minutes, I’ve just got to get warmed up.”
Keefe’s laugh comes out choppy because of the tears. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes. His lip quivers, something she hasn’t seen from him before, and he holds her tighter. “I’m so sorry, Foster.”
Sophie’s exhale makes her shiver. She has it in her to force a laugh. “Shit,” she replies, “you’d better be.”