Work Text:
The letter: there's an envelope and a slip of paper and olds words renewed tucked into the inside pocket of his coat, to the right of his impetus heart. It burns against his chest, as if desired to leave an imprint, a reminder of the now-or-never thoughts that have been plaguing him for the past few months.
He'll show it to her, if she'll have him. He'll give her more than he once could offer, try for whatever she wants, as much as he can give.
Because the past is the past, the present can be the present and the future isn't the future.
- - -
The place: a lonely restaurant in the lowers of the west side, festooned with violins and candlelight, with men smoking cigars and women drinking whiskey sours.
It's the last place anyone would expect her to be—the queen fiddling while Rome burned—but perhaps that is the very point. Few would think to look for such taste. Except him: the one few would think to go to with this puzzle.
The hostess allows him to slip by, through a smattering of smoke from a woman's cigarette reminiscent of Holly Golightly, and he makes his way to her, inspecting the way her pointed yet fragile shoulders lift to the slightest sway of the mellow trumpet.
- - -
The boy: he kisses her cheek, lingering for a moment stretched long, and asks for a dance in her ear. She bares no startle—not that he, of all people, has found her—merely accepts his hand and trails onto the dance floor.
The piano pings to life behind heavy velvet drapes, room falling hush, all breaths held, the feathered bows harpooning the first violin strings. Her eyes don't touch his as she gathers herself in his arms, frame locked, head tipped, and subsequently follows his assured lead.
- - -
The girl: delicate in his arms, so similar to the twin she keeps locked inside, that wonder woman of Brooklyn he knew so many years ago.
Maybe she's trying to find that girl again, pull her from the gallows and rebirth once more; her hair is chopped short and there is the noticeable absence of studded leather booties and unimaginably heavy smoke screen.
The ceremonial green gown is gone, that last drowning, billowing piece of a life she no longer has. The life she is glad to be rid of (but will never admit to).
- - -
The sea will change and with it the sun and the moon.
There is no wheedling, no mollycoddling as the music swirls around them, that somber melody weaving a nest.
- - -
The confession: in it, he is small and she shakes.
"I don't want to let you go," he whispers, finger tracing the line of her cheek.
Those spectacular blue orbs flutter up to meet his for the first time tonight, cherry red lips parting uncertainly. His forehead falls onto hers.
"Please don't go. Don't go to Paris."