Chapter Text
In the end all it took to repair that old clock in the hallway was a good cleaning, it was a little anticlimactic, really. The clockwork had gotten too dusty, and the oil had ossified slightly. When Mr Wilhelm had tried to show Elise she hadn't even been able to tell; just the smallest things it seemed were enough to disrupt the mechanisms and grind a clockwork to a halt. Regardless, it was not a thing Elise could have repaired by herself, despite its easy solution. To fix the clockwork it had to be taken apart piece by piece to carefully identify the issue with an experienced eye and, importantly, a magnifying glass. Early in the morning Mr Wilhelm had to come all the way up the mountain to take out the clockwork and take it to his workshop for disassembly. Intending to spare him that particular ordeal in the future, Mr Wilhelm wasn't getting any younger after all even if he liked to act like that sometimes, Elise had paid close attention when they removed the inner workings. Next time she would bring down the clockwork herself, though she hoped she wouldn't need to any time soon.
Rosmarine had been awfully excited about the whole thing; bouncing up and down she had watched Mr Wilhelm and Elise strip the clock of its weights, pendulum and head piece. The offer to watch Mr Wilhelm do the repairs in his workshop had been accepted in a heartbeat. Elise herself had gotten quite bored of it after the first ten minutes, but Rosmarine stayed the whole time, quietly observing.
It had bemused Mr Wilhelm greatly, he was clearly pleased by the admiration his work received. When Elise had returned to pick up the clockwork and Rosmarine, Mr Wilhelm complimented her.
“What a keen lass you got yourself there, Elise,” and the old fool even had the audacity to wink at her.
The clockwork was wrapped in layers and layers of thick cloth and Mr Wilhelm impressed upon Elise to treat it with the utmost care. After all, it was a delicate thing, a clockwork, he reminded her with a smile and Elise didn’t bother hiding the roll of her eyes as she left with Rosmarine in tow. Teasing like that made her wary, even when it was as good natured as Mr Wilhelm's. Elise didn't entertain any delusions that folks really believed Rosmarine was her cousin, playing along was simply the polite thing to do.
Though such glum thoughts were hard to sustain, things were different now; and the skip in Rosmarine’s step was just too infectious. Their arms linked together, she kept on rambling the whole way back, only taking occasional breaks between torrents of information when Elise reminded her to breath. There was little chance Elise would remember much of what she was saying, it was all a little disjointed and hard to follow but Elise listened carefully anyway, even if her interest in the mechanical workings of a clock was modest at best.
Time had not changed Rosmarine's enthusiasm; as starry eyed as the day they had met, it still spilled out of her and would gush about the most trivial of things. When Elise saw not much more than her old clock, Rosmarine saw every little part that made it special, found the extraordinary in Elise's everyday and with that made Elise's everyday special.
While watching Rosmarine stumble over her own words, Elise took care to make sure she didn't start stumbling over her feet as well, and if that meant pulling her a little close and keeping their arms tightly linked together, oh, that was quite alright with Elise. They deserved a little time like this, the last few weeks had been so busy with cleaning and all those repairs around the house. It had stood empty for too long and fallen into disrepair much faster than Elise had anticipated. Constant noise hemorrhaged their ears as they replaced floorboards and window frames, tended to leaks in the attic, retiling some of the roof, but the house had never felt as alive. Slowly but steadily the house changed, traces of Rozenmarine everywhere embedding themselves in the very foundation of the house, as the house turned into home.
Occasionally Mr Gustav, Freya or Leb dropped by to help, brought food and drink or whatever they thought the two might need. The kids came over too, mostly to loiter about and fish for a story from Elise’s travels, curious if not very helpful.
They both appreciated the company, but there was something about working together with just the two of them. Elise would glance up from whatever task she was focused on and see Rosmarine flitting about the house, hear her footsteps, wooden clogs resounding against the floorboards in a pretty rhythmic ‘clack clack clack’. Whenever Elise would need a pair of extra hands Rosmarine was suddenly right at her side helping her hold a board up or take some nails out of her hands.
But today they wouldn't be doing any of that, today was just for them. What was all that work for if they couldn't take a day to enjoy it, enjoy this home they had made, maybe laze about just a little. Tomorrow after mass they planned to go fishing using a rod Mr Gustav had lend them. Rather Rosmarine would be fishing while Elise would prop up her feet and watch some clouds go by, pointing out the shapes to Rosmarine who'd be concentrating on whatever you did when fishing. Elise was sure Rosmarine would tell her all about it.
Rosmarine was still buzzing with excitement when they arrived back home and Elise pulled the door closed behind them. It used to chafe against the floor, leaving behind deep scratches in the wood along with a grating sound echoing in your ear until suddenly it didn't, it had only needed some small adjustments. It had been jarring, the door of course, but then also the change. Elise had been so used to it, to gritting her teeth and just pulling a little harder, an almost ritualistic song and dance of complaining about that rotten door; then Rosmarine had just gone and fixed it.
And how very upset Elise had been at first. It had been simmering in her gut, an uneasy twinge she couldn't explain from the moment they had started working on the house. All this time she had lived with them, that squeaky floorboard, the jamming doors and windows, little wounds all easy to fix but it was not just the clock arrested in time, frozen in the moment unwilling to move on.
“Do you want to put the clockwork back in?” Elise asked, though it was a settled matter to her anyhow, what with Rosmarine's enthusiasm.
“Would that be alright? It's your Granny’s clock…”
“I am sure you paid more attention than me earlier,” Elise encouraged her, before pushing the clockwork into Rosmarine's hands. While Elise had never said anything, Rosmarine mended the house with a tender hesitancy. They both understood.
“If you are certain…,” Rosmarine said, taking the permission for what it was and pulling Elise along all the way upstairs.
Elise watched as Rosmarine got to work, honestly she had thought the novelty of watching Rosmarine would have worn off by now. It hadn't, or maybe Elise just liked to look at her in general, she wasn't sure. Feeling so sappy was somewhat embarrassing but Elise figured she was allowed to fawn over Rosmarine and indulge in this for a little longer, nobody had to know. Even if she had a terrible feeling people knew anyway.
When putting the clock back together Rosmarine was very careful, eyes squinting in concentration, a habit Elise had noticed only recently. There were lots of little things Elise had started to notice, after all Rosmarine had taught her how.
“Really, I should have gotten it fixed ages ago,” Elise said idly while helping Rosmarine remount the headpiece of the clock. She really had only ever needed to ask Mr Wilhelm — if only that had been as easy as she made it sound like.
“Maybe it just wasn't the right time,” Rosmarine smiled at her, hanging one weight after the other onto the metal chains.
“Mmmh,” Elise responded with a thoughtful hum, “you know how to wind it up?”
Rosmarine nodded her head, “but wouldn’t you like to…?”
“No way, that's your job from now on, lassie,” Elise said with a smirk. “Every seven days, and don't you miss it even once.”
Rosmarine giggled, but Elise’s smirk held steadfast, well it wobbled a little, but it held.
“Don’t worry, I won't miss it,” Rosmarine replied with that pretty laugh and then she let the palm of her hand run down Elise’s upper arm all the way down to her hand to give it a short squeeze.
“Well, uhm, good,” Elise scratched her cheek, that smirk definitely gone now as she was fighting a losing battle against her stuttering heart.
“I am going to open the windows so we can hear the church bells,” Elise said quickly, marching to her bedroom and avoiding Rosmarine's bemused expression.
When Elise came back Rosmarine had set the clock’s hands exactly to 12 o’clock.
“Leb said she would be extra punctual today, with the bells,” Elise said leaning against the door frame. It probably wouldn’t be long, they had dawdled a bit on their way back.
Silently they both waited for the echoing chimes from Kieferberg reaching their ears. Elise looked at the clock and Rosmarine, and felt almost impatient to hear the familiar tick-tock of the clock once again. She had missed it, the steady sound she would hear faintly through the door as her Granny Holle had read her bedtime stories. For so long Elise had kept the clock’s hands standing still, clinging to jammed drawers and broken hinges like scabs to pick at over and over, never allowed to heal.
“Don't you want to wind it up at least once?” Rosmarine asked gently.
“Trying to get out of your chores already, huh?” Elise said, but walked over to the clock regardless. “I would like that,” she admitted quietly.
Elise was right, they didn't need to wait long. Soon they heard the chimes ringing, faint but clear and Elise pulled at the metal chain to lift up the weight. Then finally she let go of that weight, and time moved on.