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but i think our lifelines became too intertwined
and now we've paid the price
and you cried, “love's like watching someone die,”
and we should have just closed our eyes
— walk alone, pvris.
"I’m coming with you.”
Tally nods resolutely to herself, like she’s already made a decision whether Sarah agrees or not.
Some wild, untamed part of Sarah rears its head at the words, and for one moment, she can see it: she and Tally trekking across Africa together, looking for the last piece of the Song. For one shining second, she wanted nothing more than to agree, to let Tally join her on her next journey, never mind the consequences.
But then she looks back over Tally’s shoulder, as patrons squeezed into the building that would be holding her sister’s weddings. In an instant, the moment was gone, replaced by a suffocating sense of disappointment and something else that, something that Sarah had denied she felt for too long.
Fear. She was terrified. Terrified to think of Tally getting hurt again, terrified to think of a world where Tally wasn’t alive and safe, back at Fort Salem with her sisters.
She couldn’t risk it. She hadn’t been strong enough to refuse Tally’s company before, had even needed the gifted Knower by her side, but Sarah’s priorities have shifted. Maybe if Tally hadn’t already gotten hurt once, she might’ve made the choice she so desperately wanted to make. If it was someone else, someone like Petra or Anacostia, she might’ve said yes.
But this was Tally, so Sarah steels herself and straightens up her spine, as serious as ever. “No.”
She forces herself to stay calm and collected, to not show just how much this affected her, as well. Any cracks in her resolve that she sees, Tally will slip right through, and Sarah won’t be persuaded.
Not this time. Not again, not after—
“I’ll take something from you.”
Tally reels back at her harsh answer, a look of shock and confusion flashing across her features. Sarah immediately regrets the rejection and wants to take it back, if only to escape the sudden hurt in Tally’s eyes, but she bites her tongue.
“What?” she scoffs, “Is it because I don’t have my Sight?”
Sarah’s heart, which had been stuck in her throat and barely beating since the moment Tally had followed her away from the wedding, suddenly drops into her stomach. She takes an involuntary step forward, itching to reach out with her thumb and smooth over the crease between Tally’s brows.
“It’s because you have a much greater part to play now, and I can’t risk your safety.”
She couldn’t put Tally’s life at risk like that again. She was a Steward of the First Song now, and it was Sarah’s promise to keep her safe.
But that’s not quite it, is it? a voice in the back of her head taunts her. To her displeasure, she realizes that it’s her own.
Meanwhile Tally stands there with her eyes locked on Sarah’s, hard and unwavering, and she’s never been more beautiful. The young determined witch refuses to back down—even if it is the General of the Army herself that she is going against, in her office in the dead of the night—and while it only makes Sarah’s job harder than it has to be, she can’t help but love her for it.
And Goddess, does she love her. When they are quiet, when they are still, when they are no longer General and Cadet, or General and former Biddy, but they are only Sarah and Tally—
In all her three hundred and twenty seven years of life on this Earth, Sarah had never been too aware of the passage of time. She had known on an abstract, long-since-detached level that with each tick of the clock, the seconds passed by and the rest of the world grew older. She had known that with each new Biddy she took on, a witch lost fifty years of her life while Sarah gained fifty more.
All Sarah had was time; she needn’t concern herself with how much was left. Thus, the limitations of the rest of the world had bypassed her altogether.
That was, until Tally Craven.
Sarah had always been conscious, on some level, of the adoration and hero worshipping the young witch did towards her when she’d first arrived at Fort Salem as a private. As the U.S. Army General, Sarah was no stranger to being idolized as the most revered and powerful witch alive. and over the years, had seen many soldiers before Craven who had looked at her with the same gleam of admiration in their eye.
Except, none of the soldiers before her had made the split-second decision to sacrifice their youth for Sarah’s survival, and Sarah is certain that they never would. Biddies trained for years to take on her burden—physically, mentally, emotionally—that it was a miracle that they’d remained linked for so long in the first place.
It seemed that Tally Craven was a different breed of witch, in that regard.
So it hadn’t surprised her when she’d paid Tally a visit in the infirmary, less than a few hours since the surgery. It hadn’t surprised her when Tally had confessed how much she missed her, or when she’d confronted Sarah in her office about the lingering effects of their bond.
“We’re connected—”
“That time has passed.”
Oh, how wrong she’d been back then.
What Sarah hadn’t expected was for those feelings of adoration to eventually become mutual, even long after their link had been severed. Tally laughed like the wind and hugged like the world was ending, which it might as well have been. She greeted everyone around her with unrestrained warmth and freely-given touches that Sarah had wished from afar that she could capture and keep for herself, like her own little piece of the sun.
There had been a magical pull that was drawing her closer to the young Knower, as if the forces of nature had somehow conspired to throw them together no matter what.
The Mother always had a plan, after all.
Except that at the time, Sarah was the General. Craven was a cadet. This could not, should not, and would not happen. Ever.
Sarah had fought against it at first, of course she had. After all, Craven was a soldier, just like the rest of them. She’d been thrust into battle even before finishing the Citydrop, and while Sarah hadn’t known the cadet enough back then to categorize her as more than an ‘unfortunate casualty’, she knew the former Biddy well enough now that the thought of Tally being in danger sent tendrils of fear to wrap her heart like the witch plague itself, so much so that all seven of her trained Biddies couldn’t even bear the full weight of her emotions.
In the end, she hadn’t stood a chance.
The longing wasn’t something new to her, but she’d kept the flame smothered within herself for years, refusing to stoke it. A constant rumbling of something under her skin, present and simmering. It was like she was born with it, a yearning settled so deep inside her bones it may as well have been a part of her, old as the earth.
She’d given in too easily, had foolishly allowed herself to become wrapped up in the young, sweet, naive, mortal witch who'd managed to strip her of her resolve one day at a time, tearing down the wards Sarah had oh so carefully crafted around herself until warm brown eyes peered through the cracks and finally saw her. For everything that she is, and isn’t. For everything she would never be, and everything they could be together.
For the first time in three long and lonely centuries, Sarah Alder knew what it felt like to open up and be seen.
Now, she’s paying for it.
[Oh, what a foolish thing you’ve done, Sarah].
Because now, she was acutely aware of each and every tick on the clock, and she wondered how she had let herself be ignorant for so long. She’d died and come back, without the Biddies and only slightly less immortal than before, but the truth was always there. Now, every moment that passed by came with the dreaded knowledge of Tally’s own fragile mortality, and the bleak realization that it would only take a second.
That’s all it took. One second. It only took one second for the witch to take Tally away from her, and in that second, pain was all Sarah knew.
The revelation ached like the pulse of blood behind a bruise, unending and always present, simmering just under her skin. She had made up her mind then, back in Germany, when she’d locked eyes with Tally one last time before the cave collapsed.
“What will you have me do while you’re gone?” Tally asks her.
Don’t hate me for leaving, Sarah thinks to herself. “Celebrate your loved ones while you can,” she says aloud, and is just barely able to tear her eyes away from Tally long enough to start breathing normally again.
Tally sniffles and wipes at her nose with her thumb, shaking her head at herself as if she’s embarrassed to voice her true thoughts aloud. It transports Sarah right back to the infirmary, just before Tally had confessed how much she missed her—a little strange and definitely inappropriate.
Her mouth opens and closes a couple times, as though she’s tasting the words on her tongue before she says them, to make sure they’re safe out in the open.
“Please stay,” comes a plea, just barely above a whisper, voice rough with the strain of holding back tears. She’s trying to smile, trying to put on a brave face, but her dimples aren’t as pronounced, and Sarah can see her hurt in the tight clench of her jaw and the glossy sheen over her eyes. “At least stay for the wedding, please?”
“I can’t.” She shakes her head. Tries not to see the crestfallen look on Tally’s face as she starts to turn away, despite every fiber of her being willing her to be closer, as close as she can get.
“I must go now.” She immediately tries to put more distance between them, but Tally follows her down the driveway. “There isn’t much time. The Mother—”
“Fuck the Mother!” Tally screeches, loud enough to startle a group of wedding guests a few feet away. A jolt goes through her as a hand clutches for her jacket sleeve, fingernails digging into the leather. “I just got you back!”
Sarah freezes mid-step, Tally’s grasp on her arm quite possibly the only thing grounding her to the outside world. She’s almost afraid to look at her, for fear that she may never be able to leave if she does, but her eyes betray her as soon as she feels Tally tug on her arm to turn her around.
A tear slips down Tally’s face in slow motion, and Sarah’s heart constricts at the knowledge that it was she who put it there. She can’t help herself; she reaches out and brushes the teardrop from Tally’s cheek, but another one falls just a moment later, and Sarah hates herself for it.
“Oh, Tally…”
“Don’t go yet," she chokes out, followed by a softer, "Please, Sarah..."
Every nerve ending in Sarah’s body ignites at once, a visceral reaction to broken words. It is the first time Tally’s said her name.
Before she knows it, she’s reaching for Tally and pulling her towards her chest, cradling her head against the crook of her neck. Tally lets out sob, muffled in the fabric of Sarah’s shirt. She feels the rumble of it against her chest, feels the tremble in Tally’s shoulders as she encases the young cadet in her arms.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me to come with you.”
She can’t do it, especially not when Tally is looking at her like that, wide brown doe-eyes deep and dark with a suffering that Sarah feels all too well, yet so warm with love that finds herself mesmerized with ease.
“I do. More than anything,” she admits, because Tally deserves the truth from her for once, doesn’t she? “But I won’t let you come, Tally.”
Tally’s face crumples a little at the sound of her name, and that’s when she knows Tally knows that it’s over, that Sarah is not going to change her mind.
Sarah watches the muscles in her neck work under her skin as she struggles to swallow. “I’m not going to make it easy for you when you come back.”
“I know.” She tucks a strand of hair behind Tally’s ear, brushes her thumb under her eye to wipe away the rest of her tears. “You never do.”
“And you owe me a dance.”
Her knees nearly buckle as overwhelming relief floods her. Tally understands, and she forgives her. Even when Sarah is in the process of breaking her heart, Tally already forgives her.
Sarah laughs wetly, and she is struck by a sudden, powerful urge to take Tally by the shoulders and kiss her senseless, to kiss her forever. She can imagine years of being with Tally, loving Tally, kissing Tally, all spread out in her mind's eye, and the sight is inviting and terrifying all at once.
Despite herself, she’s unable to keep her eyes from flickering down towards Tally’s mouth, and of course, one doesn’t need her Sight to notice.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Tally breathes out, a pink flush spreading all the way down to her chest. “Not if you’re not going to—”
Sarah kisses her, of course.
Tally freezes for just a moment beneath her, her mouth forming a perfect o beneath Sarah’s for a split second before she makes a soft, surprised sound—broken in the middle—and kisses Sarah back with fervor.
She hears and feels the catch in Tally’s throat, feeling the slight tremor in her hand as it moves to fist in Sarah’s hair, then down the nape of her neck. The gentle rake of nails against her skin sends goosebumps erupting all over at the sensation, a chill shooting down her spine.
By the time they break apart, her lips feel swollen and so are Tally’s, and they’re both panting a little. Sarah’s grip on her forearm must be borderline painful by now, but all Tally does is tug her closer that way, the hand in her hair pulling her back down for another.
Eventually, the bell chimes. Tally makes a strangled noise as she reels back, head whipping around before she turns back towards Sarah with a clear reluctance to move. “It’s starting.”
“Tally,” she sighs against soft lips that she never wants to part from again. She doesn’t ever want to let go of the woman in her arms. But, “Tally, I’m sorry.”
A wetness coats her own cheeks as Tally’s body trembles beneath her, red hair a curtain in front of her eyes now as she attempts to shield her cries. Sarah hates herself a little more for it.
This time, when she pulls away, Tally doesn’t follow her. It seems to take everything in her not to, Sarah can see it in the way her knees nearly buckle, her hand dropping to her side in a tightly clenched fist.
This time, when she turns around, she doesn’t let herself look back.
Suddenly, she wishes she had the Biddies with her. At least then, she would not have to bear the weight of this silent agony alone.