And Infinity Stretches On (New Fic)
Title: And Infinity Stretches On
Fandom: Harry Potter Next Generation
Pairing: Teddy/Lily L.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I mean seriously nothing.
Summary: The could've beens and the would've beens blur into each other, places, words spilling until everything is interchangeable and everything hurts.
A/N: Title and last quote taken from one my favourite Brennan quotes of all time (except for the eye poke, I mean you can’t really beat that), it’s from the Bones episode ‘The Skull in the Desert’ (S01E17). Beta'd by the gorgeous HeartofPaperBloodofInk. This is my first ever fan fiction so comments, especially con-crit is greatly appreciated!
****
Her world begins and ends with him, it always has, and she thinks it always will. Sometimes, she thinks, there’s nothing between them but something unsaid, something undone. Other times, there is everything, miles of bitterness and the staleness of missed opportunities. The could’ve beens and the would’ve beens blur into each other, places, words spilling until everything is interchangeable and everything hurts.
The first time is a summer’s day, warmer than usual, he’s back from France, gone for almost five years. A lot can happen in that time. A ten year old can turn sixteen. The girl who he used to carry around on his shoulders, can turn into a girl (a woman, almost) who doesn’t need a blue haired boy to hold her up; innocent eyes become jaded, not so innocent anymore. But, some things will never change, she still looks at him with the devotion she used to. Sometimes, when the light catches her green eyes, turns them gold, he wonders, he wonders if she can see the same expression, the same devotion, the love, in his.
She presses her lips to his, ‘what ‘re you doing?’ he says and she looks far younger than usual, eyes wide, ‘I’m sorry,’ she pulls away, but not too far, close enough that he can place a thumb below her chin and draw her back, he doesn’t, he wants to, but he doesn’t. He turns away.
It’s Christmas (not quite, but the lights are still up), there’s a ring on the hand of the woman he loves. It slips right off sometimes, too big for her slender finger. The girl (always a girl to him), wears dozens of rings, metal, plastic, one silver, none of them is quite right. None of them make up for the loss of the one which sits on another’s hand. She puts in on once, when she finds it in the grass (lost again), it fits perfectly, the metal smooth on her skin, but it doesn’t mean anything (how can it?). It slips right off (this isn’t a movie). The ring itself is gold, a round cut diamond in the middle; it shines prettily in the sunshine. The woman who wears it chases the light, holding up her hand at every opportunity, as subtly as she can.
They’re under the mistletoe (that’s what tell themselves, explain it away). The two of them sway, not quite to the tune that’s coming from the stereo, the breeze from the open window rifles through her hair. He brushes away a lock, the edge of his thumb grazing the edge of her smile. They stand still for ages, eons (the earth keeps on revolving; it doesn’t mean their worlds don’t stop, a touch from colliding). She’s reaching up (eyelids fluttering shut), he’s reaching down, they finally meet, for a moment, joined at last, but not quite. He turns away.
It’s autumn (the leaves outside are red enough). How they get there is not important, not the part she’ll remember when she plays the scene over and over in her mind. The important part is the way the light hits his cheek bone, the blueness of his hair against the white of the pillow, how real this all feels, because this isn’t a dream (not anymore).
She moulds herself to him and lies with her eyes closed, her head tucked in the curve of his neck. She imagines this being every morning for the rest of her life, she’s sure, so sure.
He listens to her heart beat, feels it against his back, lub dub, his training tells him, just like any other, undistinguishable from anyone else’s but he’s sure in that moment that he would recognise that sound anywhere. He can’t help but imagine this to be every morning for the rest of his life.
He discards the peace, the contentment he feels after a moment. Slowly, so slowly, he slides away from her. He puts on last night’s clothes on by one; it takes him a while to find his right sock. He stands for a while, just watching, hopelessly trying to take a mental picture, it will slip away, sooner than he would like to believe. Finally, he stoops to kiss her (this is goodbye). He turns away.
She hears the door shut louder than it could’ve been, she’ll hear it in her dream louder still, the sound of his rejection. She lies there longer than she should, tracing the outline of the indent he left in the mattress, that’s all there is, even that goes away. It doesn’t seem real that she should have felt so much happiness and such emptiness in less than an hour, but this isn’t a dream.
The last time, where they are, what time it is, everything slips and slides, she imagines frost on the pavement though she thinks it is summer, and weak sunlight, though there are stars, all she knows is the hardness of the park bench, the smooth glass of the bottle, beaded with condensation, and the warmth of his presence (but everything is cold).
‘You okay?’ he says, she inclines her head and makes a soft sound, tongue against the roof of her mouth, lips closed, slightly blue, it’s not really an answer.
‘It’s the only way I can get her back, we really connected in Paris in last time and we need that now, more than ever,’ she really doesn’t want to hear about this now, but when has she ever walked away from him? It’s always him who turns away. She is the constant, fixed (bound).
‘What d’you think I should do?’ she makes no response, and he doesn’t wait for it ‘of course, it’s not the best choice but it’s the only way…Lily? Are you even listening to me?’
She looks at him for a beat, green eyes on purple; ‘D’you ever think about that night Teddy? That night when-‘he cuts her short, looking flustered, cheeks red, hands twitching in his pocket,
‘ That was a long time ago-’
‘It’s been less than six months,’
‘Yeah, well, uh, a lot has changed since then…’
‘So you’re saying that it was a mistake, and you never meant any of it,’
‘No,’ he says ‘no, of course not,’ if her pride hadn’t been wounded, if her heart hadn’t been taped together, then perhaps, perhaps, she would’ve heard the hurt, the pain in his voice, she just hears embarrassment.
‘Y’know what? I don’t even care’ even the hasty swig of her drink doesn’t mask the bitterness, she may be able to fool him, but she can’t fool her herself, she does care, and she always will, but it’s nothing he has to know.
The liquid burns her throat, it’s nothing compared to the burning in her heart, nothing like the pain she has felt everyday for the last three months. She looks at him one last time, memorising the indigo of his eyes, just the palest hint of grey, the curve of his mouth, I’ll never be able to forget she thinks and she realises then she doesn’t want to. She squares her shoulders.
‘Next time you sleep with a girl who’s been in love with you since she was six, be man enough to admit it,’ she gets up, leaving the empty bottle beside him ‘oh yeah, and don’t leave her when she’s sleeping and make her feel like some cheap girl you picked up on a street corner, but maybe that’s all I am to you, so who even cares?’
She doesn’t bother to stop the tears rolling down her cheeks, she doesn’t wipe them away. And then, finally, she’s the one who turns away.
This is it, she thinks, finished before it ever had a chance to start; I’ve lost him for good. For years she’ll believe that the park bench is the end.
Nothing in this universe happens just once.
There’s no unique event, no singular moment,
Infinity stretches on both sides.
(She’ll get another chance)