Archive of Our Own ^beta

There are nights when she still thinks about him.

It feels wrong- in a way- to call him her father. Because in so many ways he wasn't. But then, it feels even more so to call him Franz; it's at the same time too distant, too clinical, and yet so familiar that she can't help herself but to choke on the syllables. So she chooses "father," no matter how hollow it might sound to her at times.

A lash gets stuck in her mother's green eyes and she blinks until tears come out, washing the impurity out of her face and down onto the stony rooftop in pitiful droplets like rain. It's long past curfew, but she couldn't bring herself to care right now even if she tried. The moon is out and the night is cool and the dark makes it easier to breathe. Her lungs contract as she holds the air in her throat until her ears start to ring with the silence of it all.

"This seat taken?"

She exhales with a quiet gasp, her heart jumping slightly even as she finds her body too exhausted to move. Ulrich stands quietly next to her, having somehow walked all the way from the door to the edge of the roof without so much as a sound to mark his presence. His earthen gaze meets her wet, emerald stare and she wonders how long he's been standing there.

"Don't worry, I wasn't spying or anything." He utters the words seamlessly, crouching beside her. It's as though he's read her mind, yet it doesn't feel violating or presumptuous. She ponders fleetingly whether he would even be capable of such a thing.

They sit together for what feels like a long time, and for a while he's made her forget all about her father.

But inevitably the thoughts return, and she curls uncomfortably in on herself as though the shield of her knees and arms tucked against her shuddering breast might somehow repel the memories from her mind. It doesn't work.

"You okay?"

His voice brings her back again, and her breath hitches like she's been trapped underwater. She swallows once, hesitant. Then she shakes her head solemnly. "Not really," she manages dryly.

More silence. He doesn't seem to know what to say and she doesn't blame him.

"I keep thinking about my father."

He blinks. It's become so quiet that she can hear the sound of it, doesn't have to see his face to know what he looks like right now. She counts it as a blessing as she focuses on the treeline below and refuses to meet his gaze, tears running openly down her nose and chin. A sigh escapes him and traces of it lingers in the dark before them like cigarette smoke.

"You miss him?"

If it were anyone else it be a stupid question. But because it's Ulrich she knows that he means it in earnest. "I don't," she whispers, and she wonders if God is real and if He'll strike her dead on the spot for saying so. Several seconds pass and her heart hasn't stopped, so she continues, "I know that I should. But I don't."

She sniffles, wipes her nose with the back of her hand. At this point she could give a damn about appearances as she looks at him, snot dripping down her nostrils. "Does that make me a bad person?"

He looks unerringly back at her, his stalwart expression giving nothing away as he seriously considers her question. He blinks twice before shaking his head. "I don't think so."

She nods but isn't fully convinced. "I want to miss him," she supplies, unfurling as she speaks, his answer disarming but not disabling. Her feet dangle over the edge of the abyss and she ponders briefly what it would feel like to slip down and fall. "I know how I'm supposed to feel. But I can't-... he wasn't-..."

When she trails-off she allows herself to lean on his shoulder, and he doesn't move away. He's a rock and she's always envied him for his strength, craved it for her own. Her tears run down the front of his shirt in blistering trails like wildfire.

"Did you love him?" he asks eventually.

She thinks. Really, truly thinks. Then: "I don't think I knew him well enough to say."

He makes a sound torn between a scoff and a sigh. His hand finds hers in the approaching night, and he squeezes it gently but firmly.

"Yeah," he says, voice fried with a mixture of contempt and bitterness and all-too tangible understanding. "I know what that's like."

They sit there and bask in the silence and starlight, each warmed by the other's touch, and Aelita knows then that everything will be alright.