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The cold bites at Aura through the warmth of her jacket, impossibly sharp needle pricks against her skin. She tucks her hands into fur-lined pockets and attempts to shake the discomfort off, but it runs so much deeper than the freezing air. It’s in her head, every bitter uncertainty about doing this; about not doing this.
Aura doesn’t know what she feels worse about – that it took her two years to do this or that she still doesn’t feel entirely ready for it? Bringing Lana to Metis’ grave feels like moving on too fast, but hesitating makes her feel like she’s stuck in some stagnant, agonizing cycle of grief. She can’t figure out which direction she’s failing in. Both at once, maybe.
She tries to steal her mind from that worry and focus on anything else. Her racing mind settles on the rhythmic crunching of snow beneath her boots, and the same pattern just a beat off from the woman behind her. If it weren’t for that, Aura wouldn’t be sure Lana was following her without turning to look. She’s said nothing for the entire walk through the cemetery thus far, a courtesy Aura knows is born from the suddenly tense demeanor she adopted as they departed the Space Center, and yet she wishes Lana would say something. Anything to drive away the deafening quiet they’ve settled into.
But what could Lana say to salvage this? Aura hasn’t been in the mood for condolences for the almost ten years she’s been without her partner, nor does she want to reminisce in the way most people would when making this visit. She clutches memories of the past close to her chest, guards what she had with Metis so desperately. That’s why it’s taken her so long to invite Lana to do this, and – shit , now she’s just thinking of how awful she feels again.
Fortunately – or maybe unfortunately, based on the sudden, unsteady pace her heart has picked up – they’ve arrived and she can’t linger on the thought any longer. Metis rests all the way in the back of the cemetery, beneath a humble gravestone and a tall oak tree that was noticeably shorter when she was first buried a decade ago. It’s nothing short of pitiful in the winter, its usually bright green leaves shed to reveal twisting, distorted branches. A crow perches in one.
An omen , Aura’s mind immediately jumps to.
“So. Here we are,” she announces, because she doesn’t know what else to say.
“You come here every year?” Lana asks. Another courtesy – Aura’s told her this before, she must be trying to make conversation without intruding.
“On her birthday. Like clockwork.” Save for two years ago, when she was in the middle of serving a year-and-a-half prison sentence for what she did in her attempt to save Simon. Metis will forgive her for that, she hopes.
Lana fidgets beside her, clearly uncomfortable for as hard as she tries to hide it. “If you’d like a moment alone–”
“I didn’t bring you here so I could be alone,” she cuts her off, far too clipped. Aura takes a deep breath to calm herself before she accidentally does it again. Lana doesn’t deserve that tension; she’s only trying to support her.
But why did Aura bring her here? She’s never bothered with emotional support. No, she always shuts down any attempt at it regardless of who it’s from – Simon, Lana, Athena. She’s never been good at opening up in that way; she doesn’t think she’ll ever be. Repressing her emotions has just been second nature since Metis’ death, and maybe even long before then. She at least makes attempts now to let the little things out: she told Lana she loved her for the first time a few months ago, and she worked up the courage to apologize to Athena not long ago too (and hasn’t had the guts to speak to her since).
So Lana’s here for what, then? A fun outing? What a great date idea, visiting your dead girlfriend on her birthday together. Nothing more romantic!
Aura’s throat is suddenly dry. It hits her all at once that she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and she hasn’t for ten years. It still feels like she might be going through the motions just as she did when Simon was in prison and maybe Lana’s part of that too. Maybe asking her out for coffee years ago wasn’t the big display of progress Aura thought it was –
Her breath hitches when Lana’s hand finds her shoulder. It’s hovering, almost, uncertain, but Aura leans back into it and Lana makes her reassurance fully known, holding onto her.
“I’m sorry,” Aura chokes out. “I–”
“Don’t apologize,” Lana says. “I was the same way when we went to see Mia.”
Quiet and sentimental, but that’s not what Aura’s going through now. Her mind is a perilous storm, booming and vehement in all the remorse it insists on. She still has so much she needs to answer for – the apology to Athena wasn’t enough, she still hasn’t truly apologized to Simon, Lana deserves one for putting up with her, and Metis…
The dead have no expectations, and still Aura falls short of them.
“Is this betraying her?” she asks, her voice shaking. “Or am I not doing enough to heal?” Lana’s grip on her shoulder tightens a little, her comfort lost to the cold. “I feel wrong no matter what I do.”
How pathetic must that conflict sound, caught in this rocking back-and-forth of uncertainty that just can’t settle on what she should be upset about: who she’s failing more, Lana or Metis?
“It’s not wrong,” Lana assures her. “You’re grieving.”
“It’s been ten years.”
“But when you spend so long in denial –” Lana shakes her head. She did it too, just as Aura did, threw herself into loss and blame as if it could take the mourning away. It did nothing of the sort, and now they’re both left here, still recovering. “It’s never as simple as time.”
Lana takes Aura’s shaking hand from her pocket and holds it herself, her careful grasp providing all the warmth Aura needs to let the tension drop from her shoulders; to let herself cry. Lana’s there for as long as Aura needs her. It feels like hours of sobbing, of letting her heart break all over again as she mourns all she’ll never get back. Lana’s thumb runs tender circles across the cold back of Aura’s hand, a constant motion she finds solace in for the reminder that she is not alone in her grief anymore.