RP: River's Return!

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

Awareness came slowly: hallway, texture of stone under her hand as she leaned.

Not the Academy. No, she wasn't there... hadn't been there for a long time.

Serenity? No. Stone. Stone...

Hogwarts. Oh. Without thinking about it, she reached back--- felt the rings there. But there should be a ribbon.

Stephen. She needed Stephen. And, looking up, realized that she'd found him: the door in front of her led to their quarters.

Of course. Where else would she have gone?

She let herself in.

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[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen sat at the desk in his office for the greater part of an evening, a blank parchment in front of him and an idle quill in one hand. He had not thought of a way to explain popcorning to the Admiralty, still less how it might involve Jack. At last he gave up even the pretense of an attempt, and decided to call it a night, early though the hour still was to an insomniac's schedule.

There was no perceptible disturbance to the heavy wards on the door to his quarters, nor any disturbance of the mundane locks that bolted it. He murmured a charm to light the pitch-black room as he entered, less out of a need for light than out of habit, knowing as he did the location of every object.

The light revealed an object that had not been there when he left. Stephen froze. Some mistaken instinct insisted that movement would dispel the phantom, for such it must be.

In the shock of it, he lost even the involuntary level of mental shielding he'd learned to cultivate. His mind stood wide open. He radiated disbelief, and hope, and fear. He had always considered popcorn to mean death, in the knowledge that those who came back did not come back the same. Yet his dear friend Susan had recently come back, and as herself, a self that remembered Hogwarts and Stephen (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/966125.html); it was the only such instance he knew. It was enough, barely, to give him hope. Not nearly enough to counter his natural pessimism.

River -- surely not his River -- was curled in their bed (it had been theirs, after all, before everything else; it was theirs in the end, hers still). She appeared to be asleep. She appeared to be herself, wearing something he remembered her wearing.

When he spoke, the words too were involuntary, and hushed. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." He experienced the sudden beginnings of an impulse to cross himself, but Stephen Maturin did not believe in ghosts.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

It was more the sense of his mind that wakened her than the sound of his voice. She sat up, stretched with a dancer's grace, even as her eyes sought him, her face lighting when she found him. "Stephen? Lao gong?"

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The words, and the look on her face, unlocked something. She remembers, then -- or at least some of it. Even as the thought arose he had already crossed the distance between them to kneel at the bedside, the movement itself weighted with the old worshipful solicitude he had known for her.

Long before she had become popcorn he had already given up the hope of ever hearing River speak to him again.

If this is not real, it is the cruelest dream with which I have ever been cursed, he thought; and, daring, reached to take her hand between his, to test the tangibility of it. "Yes," he answered her. "I am here." Her hand was warm and dry, her fingers lacing between his automatically in the old way. "And so are you, then, querida --" Still, a question in the upward lilt of the final word.

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His mind provided the answer to at least one of her questions: she'd been popcorned, as Simon had once been. "I'm here, lao gong." And then she was moving, flinging herself into his arms. "I'm here---" as she buried her face in his neck and clung.

Stephen--- and not-Stephen, something essential missing from his scent, and she looked up. "You don't smell right---" bending her head, a quick nip to his neck, light, playful and yet deeply sincere. "You still taste like you, though."

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Startled by the unpredictable nip, Stephen almost laughed. "For a ghost you have sharp teeth, my dear." His arms wound about her tightly. "Sweet Mother of God, so it is you, for true. I had thought --" And then he was reluctant to say it.

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He didn't need to say it--- not that part, at least. "I'm here," she reiterated, snuggling against him, relishing the warmth and security of his arms, content in that moment simply to hold him and be held, and yet wanting to reassure him--- needing to, as much for her own sake as his, needing the comfort of feeling him content as well. There was enough in her memory to feel a profound sense of threat at the idea that all might not be well with him, or between them, and she wanted--- needed--- the sense that they were together, and that all was well.

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Stephen tried to take comfort in the solid presence of her in his arms -- her, his River, his wife; he still wore the wedding band she'd given him, had never taken it off even through his affair with another woman, even after River herself was long gone. He felt dazed. The physical evidence contradicted everything he had thought he knew. What she said failed to process on a visceral level.

He buried his face in her hair. She did smell like her old self, and right: the apple-rose sweetness of the perfume she wore. "God, River, where have you been?" He did not expect to be told where she had been in reality, if she had been anywhere at all. It was a pure expression of the bereavement he had felt, and the incredulity he now felt at this unexpected gift of her return.

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He drew a deep ragged breath. "You have been gone since July, sweetheart, and it is November now." What he had been doing in the months intervening he would rather not say -- but it was only after that thought had crossed his mind that he realised his barriers were down, and by then, she likely could have read everything, or enough to do harm anyhow. Anxious, he leaned back just enough to be able to see her face, trying to gauge her reaction.

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The guilt hit her like a shockwave; too formless at first for her to process--- and the worst of it was that she wasn't sure she even wanted to. "What happened?" she breathed, her fingers sinking of their own accord into his shoulders--- not out of anger, but from a desperate need to hold him, hold herself steady.

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Only after she spoke did Stephen understand that what he had feared was not her anger; that, he was willing to face, if it came. What he feared was that awareness of what had happened, even now that it was all past, would shock her back into mental retreat again.

He would need to choose his words carefully. Even so, it sounded to him damnably like special pleading. It had never been his wont to explain such things.

"It was wrong, and I am sorry," he began, with characteristic understatement. "I did not want any harm to come to her or to you because of my inability to fight it, or to find a cure for the affliction." The wave of revulsion that washed through him at the thought of it belied the almost clinical tone with which he spoke of the phenomenon. An affliction: could it really be called something so simple? The experience had been little short of demonic possession, except that the demon was somehow another iteration of himself. "I tried." Those two words encapsulated the cocaine-fueled research binge, born of desperation, with River already withdrawn in their quarters; his subsequent move to the Ravenclaw dorm, helpless to stop what was happening to her or to him; his eventual bitter acceptance.

"What happened cannot be excused, I know. You had told me such an event would be unacceptable. (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/457007.html?thread=22535727#t22535727)" An event -- that made it sound as though it had only happened once; he did not intend to mislead, and regretted the effect at once. "And I did love her, in my way, in the end; and for that, I cannot apologise. How much of it was for her and how much of it was for what possessed her, I may never know. The distinction is immaterial anyhow." The distinction, in truth, had become so blurred over time that he could not have used it to excuse his actions even if he had believed such easy absolution to be fair or possible.

What had never changed was his love for River, a torch he had always tended, perhaps even to the point of insensitivity. He remembered with a pang Sarah in their final conversation, complaining that she wanted to be married someday, that she saw no future for them; and himself, still wearing River's ring, looking down at his hands as she spoke.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

At first, she almost couldn't listen--- can't-look-can't-look--- but his horror of her retreat was what drew her out--- made her reach for the switch in her mind, so that she could listen, absorb, with the necessary detachment.

She let him finish; the image that lingered most strongly in her mind was his own sight of himself, his hand with her ring on his finger. Without conscious thought, her hand reached for his, found it: strength and calluses--- and the cool hard comfort of the wedding band under her fingers. "It was... like the Academy," she said softly. "It made you... dance, even if you didn't want to." Clinging to that, wanting, needing to believe that, to focus on it--- and, with the switch in her mind thrown, appreciative of the irony: "You didn't like it when I liked to dance, either." She could even laugh--- she hadn't thought she could do that, when she'd thrown the switch; maybe it was a... side effect... of her coma and kernelhood.

Her other hand moved over his shoulder, finding the mark on his collarbone. "What did she think of this?" It was a little mocking, a little cold--- it surprised her.

She wondered if the switch in her head had a rheostat now. Because she was definitely feeling--- just not hurting.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen looked away, then, when she reminded him of how he had felt about her 'dancing' and her enjoyment thereof: partly because he did not relish being reminded of such a painful thing, and partly because even murder, at least the kind of fierce and uncompromising murder she meant when she spoke of 'dancing,' seemed cleaner than the contemptible behavior to which Stephen had been reduced.

And, yes, partly because the analogy meant that she knew he had liked it. Somehow it seemed less sordid to admit to having loved someone than to admit having enjoyed the physical aspects of an affair with that person, though both represented an infidelity.

Though he looked away, his hand reciprocated her grip, fingers intertwining, and tightening when her other hand reached to touch the mark she had made on him long ago. "She hated it," he admitted, voice low. He remembered Sarah deliberately covering it with her own hand, not wanting to see it.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

...the switch definitely had a rheostat now. Because the surge of fierce triumph that went through her at his words was detached, or at least controllable--- but very much there nonetheless.

She stroked the scar gently, deliberately, and asked the question that, of all of them, she liked least. "And now? Where... where is she?" And what is she--- to you? went unspoken, but not, she felt confident, unheard.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen wrapped his arms about River and held her close. "That is what matters most." It was not an empty reassurance. After months deprived of free will, Stephen found that the element of choice meant more to him than it ever had. He had always taken for granted the ability to shape his life and choose his causes. One did not miss the air one breathed until one found oneself drowning. Conversely, he had always found it difficult to trust in the commitments that others professed. Now, River's profession that she would choose to stay with him touched him inexpressibly. He found that perhaps for the first time, he believed it.

Why should he not? She had somehow found her way here again. It was not so farfetched suddenly to believe she might always find her way back.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

One did not miss the air one breathed until one found oneself drowning.

That was entirely too close to home--- too reminiscent of the Academy. She returned his embrace. "If I can, I'll come back," she promised. "Whatever happens. And---" she hesitated, wanting to ask the same of him, knowing at some level that she could trust implicitly that he would... but still wanting to hear it, unforced--- to hear that he would say it.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen did not know precisely what she waited for, only that she expected him to say something. He thought. At last he said: "We will always come back for one another, when we can, just as we did after April Fool's Day. We always have found one another again."

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

Contented, she curled into his arms and relaxed against him. "And we always will."

After a moment, she added, "Did... has anyone else gone... missing?"

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

He had not expected the question. He should have expected it. Hesitant, he confirmed what she must have suspected. "Yes, sweetheart, they have. Your brother followed not long after you." Stephen's jealousy at that was best left undiscussed. "Then there was poor Fillerbunny. In a way it was a mercy. Mister Bignose lives in the COMC shed now."

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"Simon? And Fillerbunny?" She started. "Oh... no." It wasn't until her vision blurred that she realized she was crying. Her fingers knotted of their own accord in his shirt in a reflexive desire to make sure he wouldn't leave.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen bundled River into bed without further ado, and tucked the coverlets about her snugly. "There you are, love." And he was off to summon Aloysius. Whatever possibilities might have been in River's mind, they were not likely to involve the practical food Stephen asked the elf to bring: soup, a blend of fruit juices (on the slim chance that popcorning might be conducive to scurvy), toast.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

River rolled her eyes at the thoughts in Stephen's mind, but allowed herself to be tucked in anyway. So very much like Simon--- they showed they cared by fussing. Well, he was welcome to fuss--- as long as she was welcome to snuggle.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

The elf returned quickly, and arranged a traylike contraption that would allow River to eat while remaining in bed. Stephen looked on, mostly because he was unwilling to look away, then find that he had imagined her return after all. When Aloysius had gone, Stephen moved a chair to the bedside, close enough that he could reach River. "You should eat what you can, but do not force too much. I can hardly imagine the state of your digestive tract."

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She giggled--- that was so very Stephen. "You're too far away," she said, patting the bed next to her. "Come here."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Since the tray itself was suspended on a sort of arm reaching over the bed, it would not be upturned by movement; so Stephen complied, though he had to walk around to the other side of the bed to do so, and he had the presence of mind to remove his shoes before climbing over to join River, somewhat awkwardly. She wanted him close, and he thought he could understand why. If popcorn were nothingness, it must have been very lonely. He did not like thinking about it, and refocused his attention on the girl beside him. A protective arm reached around her shoulders. "There, now you have no excuses." He looked at her expectantly. She would eat.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

She smothered a giggle, then looked up at him under her lashes. "I'll be good." Obediently she took a spoonful of soup.