~1900~

“Did you ever think that we’d still be standing here, looking out at the stars, on the first night of the twentieth century?”

Sean’s voice broke into Claire’s thoughts as the two stood on the pier nearest their home. He was behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, his lips gently grazing the back of her neck as he spoke.

“Maybe not both of us,” she managed after a moment to even take in his words. Her mind remained as distracted as it had been on most of those long nights in recent memory. “You, maybe. It does sort of go hand in hand with that eternal life thing.”

“That is something we do have on our side, as it were. Both of us. I seem to recall being the one who made that so myself, a few centuries ago. I doubt it was that forgettable of a night for you either, my love.” Sean gently kissed her neck again. Though the tension in her was as tangible as ever, despite his gentle touch.

“Forgetting prophecies already?” she shook her head, still not turning into his arms as her emerald eyes stayed on the vast waters of the Pacific stretched out before them.

“Perhaps I’m just beginning to doubt our interpretation of them,” Sean offered after a slight sigh. He then turned her to face him, though her eyes didn’t come up to meet the icy blue of his. “It has been two hundred years since we heard those damning words, after all. We may have been wrong this whole time about what they even meant, really. You’ve had to have considered that by now. Especially after all this time, “ he reiterated.

“So that’s your conclusion?” she asked as she finally looked up at him, though there was a coolness to that look, slight though it was. “That we were wrong all along, and there’s nothing to worry about at all?” she let out a sound of disbelief.

Sean narrowed his eyes at what almost looked like a trace of anger at his insinuation that maybe that dark fate wasn’t coming for her after all; as odd as a response as that should have been, all things considered.

“There’s plenty to worry about, Claire. There always has been. I’m just saying that maybe some vague prophecy about snakes and a bunch of other nonsensical words, just may not be as pressing as we originally thought. I mean, two hundred years?” he repeated. His eyes met hers, searching for some reason why his suggestion that she may be safe after all would have been a likely cause for her seeming displeasure at the words.

“Maybe, after two hundred years,” she began pointedly, “you are becoming forgetful. I guess you’ve forgotten that the beginning of the prophecy already happened. And...” She shook her head and turned away from him again. “You seem to have also forgotten about the person who isn’t here, and should be. The man trying to save me from that prophecy you apparently no longer believe in? Remember him at all? Sorry, it’s not that easy for me to forget, it seems,” she muttered as she began to move away.

Sean grasped her wrist as she took a step. “That’s what you’re upset about?”

Claire just gave him a look of disbelief. “If you’re surprised by that, maybe you’ve forgotten a hell of a lot after all, Sean. Like how much I cared about him. I tried to kill myself to keep him from ripping his own mind apart just to try to save me. Or did you forget that too?” she asked bitterly.

Then it was Sean’s pools of blue that were full of disbelief at the accusation. “You honestly think I could ever forget what you did to yourself? I think about it every fucking night, Claire.”

Claire sniffled as she turned her eyes away again, tears of sadness and guilt both fighting to escape. “Yet you’ve barely said a word about it in nearly fifteen years. He’s been gone for nearly fifteen years Sean!” she exclaimed. “And you have never talked about it once! Pardon me for thinking you just don’t give a damn.” She sniffled again.

Another sigh from Sean. He then spoke with what almost sounded like defeat, “I suppose it is long past the time I finally admit to the real reason why I haven’t been able to bring myself to talk about Eliot’s current state, and why nothing seems to bring him back from it,” he stated, his voice growing even quieter then.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“I’m listening,” Claire stated warily.

“I know I yanked him back, that night, before he was ready to truly come back on his own. I never should have done that, Claire. I was just so terrified of what you had done...” he shook his head, as if to chase away any further excuses he could offer. “ I had hoped that him seeing you...” then Sean abandoned his original statement again, “I think that compelling him to come back, the way I did, when he wasn’t ready to come back... I honestly think that doing that, while he was in that state... it likely took away the power he had over his own mind, amazing as it was. I took away his control. And I’m pretty sure that makes me the reason he can’t get it back, and why he can no longer direct his mind to return him to the present anymore, after all.”

There was a long silence between them after Sean had finally confessed that theory, and his feelings of guilt over tampering with a mind such as Eliot’s: A mind which was capable of amazing things that even their powerful blood hadn’t granted either of them the ability to do, themselves.

Claire simply stared out over the ocean as she took in his confession, trying to determine if it could be the true cause of what had happened to Eliot. And more importantly, how she felt about it if it were. She had truly loved Sean even longer than she had loved Eliot. But if Sean was honestly responsible for Eliot being trapped inside the mind that was already tearing him apart before his unscheduled return back to astral form, floating through Claire’s memories, as well as her future...

And Eliot had done it all just in the hopes of finding some way to save her from that future...

After several more minutes, Sean had to speak up again, though in a whisper, “Silence really does speak a million words.”

“What am I even supposed to say, Sean?” she returned just as quietly, her voice quivering as she did, her eyes still locked to the dark waves below the stars that night.

“At least now you know why I never talked about him. It wasn’t because I didn’t care,” Sean paused only a moment, his sad eyes still glued to where she continued facing away from him. He then had to add, “I guess talking about something that you’ve felt guilty about for years is hard for anyone, right?” He spoke gently, but also with a deliberateness to his tone. And the immediate tension that took up residence in Claire’s body was proof that she had easily noted that deliberateness.

It took another long moment for Claire to compose herself in light of the dark thoughts that his words easily brought forth. Not that those thoughts had ever been far from the surface at all in three hundred long years. She then squared her shoulders and made herself turn back to her husband, though her eyes still focused on a spot below his sad eyes.

“If you’ve thought that this may have all been your fault, all this time,” she swallowed, “then why haven’t you ever tried to find out, for sure?”

Sean gave her a questioning look, despite his relief that she was at least still speaking to him, instead of rushing off in sadness and anger. Yet, anyway. “How would I do that even, Claire?”

She tried to bury her slight scoff, “Think about it Sean. If Eliot does know what’s happened to him to cause this, then you can find out. You can find anything you want, in anyone’s head. Anyone weaker than you, anyway.” She then added, more quietly, “Can’t you?”

Sean was then the one who avoided her gaze. He then had to respond, “So could you, Claire.”

Then her look of slight accusation turned to one of confusion. “What are you even talking about?”

Sean shook his head as he made himself look back at her, “You’re three hundred years old, Claire. You became Kindred only a week after I did. The only reason you can’t do what I do is...” he then let his voice trail away again.

“Is what?” she bit back sharply, already knowing that nearly every one of her kind thought her refusal to invade the thoughts of others, even mere mortals, was just a case of her being a naive idealist.

“Is because you won’t let yourself,” Sean finished with a simple sigh.

Claire scoffed again, “Didn’t the beginning of this conversation prove what a bad idea it is to mess with Eliot’s mind, in any way? Look at how much damage it’s already... it may have already caused,” she forced herself to make that allowance.

“Reading his thoughts while he’s in some kind of magical coma is hardly as offensive of an idea as you’re making it sound right now, Claire,” Sean disagreed, though tried to keep a gentleness to his tone as he did. “Besides, don’t you want to know what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling? If he has any idea at all of how to help us undo this, and bring him back, finally?”

Claire forced down her anger as best she could before responding, “Then why haven’t you done it, Sean?”

Sean let out another deep, sad sigh, “I just don’t think that I’m actually someone he’d want in his head. Especially if I did do this to him. But you? I’m guessing he’d desperately want you there right now, if he loves you anywhere near as much as I do.”