Chapter Text
Shinra’s hands were always pale, but they looked almost translucent when pressed against the chilled glass of the tank. They appeared thinner than suited a man of his age, and their bones stood out in almost frightening relief against the papery flesh.
The object behind the glass did not see or feel pity for him.
“Gone,” the young doctor mumbled, then clenched one of those frail hands faintly into a fist. “Gone…”
The object floating in the tank did not respond, even when Shinra leaned in and unfastened the lid of the container. No alarms blared; he knew how to disable such trivial things. So he was left to free the specimen with a slosh; a smacking of liquid against the glass, and the drag of sodden white sleeves as he lifted it out. Then he sat down heavily, staring at the roughly round thing resting in his lap.
“Should I blame you? Or should I blame myself? She doesn’t seem to want either of us, after all.”
It didn’t make sense to him. Not only had the woman rejected him, but she had made no attempt to retrieve the very thing she had been searching for for the past twenty years. He had always known where it was, and learning that was what had driven her away. Her search for this very object and his obstruction of that search had driven her away.
“… But she left us both to languish together, unwanted.”
Celty Sturlson’s head offered no reply. Shinra brushed it’s wet bangs back absentmindedly, wondering how the dullahan had liked to keep her hair when it was hers to style.
“You’re all I have left of her, you know?” Shinra asked sadly, then smiled. It was a broken, faint expression. “But you aren’t her. You probably have a different mind, a different personality, a different will slumbering peacefully behind that pretty face, don’t you?”
His fingers traced the curve of the face; the soft line of the jaw, and then the slightly-parted lips.
“She never let me touch her like this.”
Shinra laughed quietly; paused; waited for a response that never came.
“If you were to ever wake from this enchanted dormancy, who’s to say you wouldn’t reject me, too?
"I still love her. I’ve loved her for twenty years, and I always will love her. I’ve done everything I can to keep her close, and I won’t let her go just because that’s what she wants…
”… but what if I’ve lost…?“
Shinra’s words died; he ran his fingers through the head’s hair, as if it would soothe him. His deepest fear was that Celty was out of his reach forever–that nothing he could say or do would reach her, let alone bring her back to him. He couldn’t charm or manipulate her into staying, and even the most extreme physical force was a hopeless thing to contemplate using against someone like her.
He would go to any lengths without hesitation, but what if there were truly no lengths he could go to?
"I can’t…
"Gone.”
A strange, hollow smile plastered across his lips, Shinra bent in double and rested his forehead against the head’s damp brow. Then, his tears mingling with what liquid was left from the tank, Shinra moved to kiss each eyelid–the left and then the right, taking his time and savoring the action.
“She’s… gone.
"She’s never coming back… for either of us.”
Still smiling, Shinra began to sob softly, his shoulders shaking and his spidery fingers convulsively tightening and then loosening at the head’s temples; her hair tangled around the digits, trapping them.
“I’ll take you home with me…” Shinra whispered, his fingers still flexing but now restricted by the knotty snarls around them. “I’ll take you home… I’ll keep you safe…
"We’ll wait for her together, alright? Alright.”