Ends by Wanderamaranth

This is the drabble that inspired One Promise Kept: Book 5.


Title: Ends
Author: wanderamaranth 
Rating: T
Warnings: angst, reference to character death
Notes: Posted with permission from the author.  Yes, this inspired OPK 5.  So, thank wanderamaranth ... or blame her.  Whichever you feel inclined towards.  (^__~)

*~*~*~*

They turned, Alice’s skirt sweeping the floor as she released the bottom hem, focusing her eyes on Tarrant’s off-center gaze. “Everything ends.” he told her, a sad smile crooking his features. One bandaged and be-thimbled hand reached up to touch the side of her face, and she leaned into the touch, tears in her eyes.

“Not this. Not us.”

Acceptance and something else--some sort of inner light--glowed about him. “Everything, my Alice. To say that nothing ends would be to say that nothing changes--and change is what makes the impossible, possible. I could not take that from you, even for another minute in your presence.”

“Damn change. Damn the impossible becoming possible. I just want you to stay.”

He kissed her forehead to hide the tears in his eyes. “I’ll still be here.” he said, then leaned down and brushed a kiss on the top swell of her bosom. “Here, as well. I love ye, Alice. And we have these dreams, which is a kindness most don’t receive. They‘re enough.” he lied. “They have to be enough.”

“Tarrant, no!”

The dream was already ending. She woke to cold sheets beside her and the lack the indentation in her pillow’s neighbor that would have signaled Tarrant taking his rest beside her. Yet of course it there was no indent.

Of course.

Just as she had every morning since the accident, she started her day with a sob and the determination that this impossible thing--his refusal to return to her--she would conquer. Somehow. Someday.

Even if she had to fight Death and Tarrant himself to retrieve him.