Work Text:
Ophelia Fairchild heard the gentle but clear chime of bells as the door to her store was pulled open. The sound of Chicago at night rushed through the opening, the street reduced to a soft din by the late hour. Ophelia checked her watch, surprised. It was only ten minutes til eight, and she had already gone halfway down her mental checklist of final tasks for the day. Anyone showing up now was cutting it damn close.
Frowning, Ophelia started walking towards the door. She wasn't quite sure yet how to politely tell the extremely tardy patron to piss off, but she had always been quick on her feet. "Excuse me?" She called out, working her way through the veritable forest.
The two saw each other at the same time, Ophelia rounding a corner as the guest turned her head to face her. They were pale, with features like freshly waxed marble, her posture straight but not tense. Short blonde hair was draped around her face, and her eyes were a calm but piercing emerald. The expression she wore was placid, distant, bearing no sense of surprise or annoyance at Ophelia's interruption. If anything, that absence made it worse; Ophelia felt like she was being regarded with only polite interest. It was hard to stifle her rising indignation at the mere idea of being judged.
"Excuse me," Ophelia restarted, checking her annoyance with a sharp exhale, "but we're about to close for tonight, ma'am."
To Ophelia's surprise, the stranger's facade softened. "Oh." She said slowly, her lips going taut. "My apologies. I… needed a moment, off the street." One of her hands, barely poking beyond the edge of her coat's cuffs, tightened their grip on a frail-looking cane. The other seemed unsure where it belonged, and fidgeted between the woman's hip and opposite arm.
A pang of guilt dimly moved out from Ophelia's core. Tonight certainly wasn't the first time someone had ducked for a moment into a store as friendly-looking as hers. Guilt became concern as she stared into the stranger's eyes, searching for distress. "Is someone following you?" She asked quietly, her heart starting to pound a little faster.
Surprised, the woman shook her head once. "No, nothing like that." Her voice seemed stuck between reassurance and some other complicated hurt, a feeling she was pushing further and further back in her throat. "If I'm being honest, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed tonight."
Relief, and a bit of self-recrimination at how quickly she'd assumed the worst, washed across Ophelia. "I understand," she nodded. She'd had to hide a patron or two before, too, and the minutes of terrifying confrontation repeated themselves in her nightmares. Still… "I do need to close for the night, ma'am, so you can't stay long."
"Of course." The woman bowed her head slightly, grateful. She smiled thinly, casting her gaze at the greenery beyond them both. "You have a lovely collection, Miss..?"
"Ophelia." She responded promptly, as she always did for complements like these. "That's very kind of you."
An awkward silence descended on them both. Ophelia watched the woman patiently, hoping that she would make her adieu soon. Instead, she kept staring at the flowers in their planters and the trees in their pots. "Have you been here long, Miss Ophelia?"
"Just a few years." Ophelia frowned as she answered. "I used to work at my dad's at Oak Park and 34th -"
"- Across from the Medical Unit?" The stranger interrupted, recognition flickering across her stony visage.
Ophelia raised a confused eyebrow. "You mean MacNeal?" She offered. "Yeah, that's the one. Never heard it called that before, though."
The stranger seemed to wilt slightly, a twitch in her posture as the mistake settled in. "Of course." She tut-tutted herself, exhaling slowly through her nose as her expression grew distant. "I haven't been to Chicago in a while."
"How long..?" Ophelia stared at her, perplexed. Curiosity was defeating the good sense to hurry her out the door, at least for now.
"A while." The woman repeated curtly. Her fingers clenched the cane tighter, and there was tension at the corners of her eyes as she stared intently at the greenery around her. "I…" She trailed off, then smiled thinly. "Work has kept me away."
"Oh, yeah?" Ophelia half-asked noncommittaly. "You're on vacation, then?"
"Just for a few days." The woman answered. The weak smile returned, more fragile than before. "To be honest with you, I was considering heading back early."
"And lose the time off?" Ophelia asked, aghast. She had friends who would die rather than give up a second of vacation.
The stranger in the store regarded Ophelia for a moment. Her stare was judging, but only softly so. Another deep, controlled breath. Another twitch in the fingers holding her cane.
"A… friend told me not long ago that I needed to live for the future. I believed her then, but now…" She turned, and stared back out the window at Chicago's quiet streets. "Now that I'm in the future, I can't find my place in it." Quietly, so quietly Ophelia couldn't hear it, she whispered something more.
A pang of familiarity pierced Ophelia's heart, followed by uncertainty. She wasn't a therapist. She didn't know this woman. Hell, she needed to push her out so she could lock the doors for the night. Still…
"Maybe that just takes a bit." Ophelia said timidly. "You don't have to know now, do you?"
A soft snort. "No." The woman said, a hint of amusement in her voice. "I don't." She turned again to face Ophelia, and her marble expression bore no cracks. For a second, though, Ophelia could swear the air smelled more fragrant, as if the flowers had begun to bloom. "Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Ophelia. I think we should call it good night."
Ophelia blinked, glancing down at her watch. It was eight on the dot, the second hand ticking along in dutiful ignorance of the world beyond. "Uh. Right, yeah, it is late." She put on her best customer service smile, and gestured to the door with a hand. "Will I see you tomorrow..?"
"Druvis." The woman answered. "Perhaps. It is a very lovely store."
"I'm glad you think so, Druvis." Ophelia walked forward, and Druvis dutifully retreated out. They smiled at each other one last time, and then she was gone.
The blinds came down a moment later, and thirty minutes on, Ophelia stood outside on the street, fiddling with her keys to lock the door. Cars traveled occasionally behind her, and distantly jets rumbled above. Lights twinkled from the skyscrapers Ophelia no longer noticed, and streetlamps cast deep golden hues across the sidewalks. She walked away, her mind already thinking about dinner, about tomorrow, about the bills looming in her future.
Ophelia Fairchild never saw Druvis again.