Eliot spent the entire day there at Claire’s bedside as she was forced to sleep. He wracked his brain for all those long hours trying to find some solution to the problem that had made him keep his distance from her for so long even before he became literally lost in time for all these years. And it always came back to the very same problem that made her nearly take her own life to save him when he had only done all of this at all to save her.
Simply put, knowing the future was not a blessing at all. It was an absolutely hellish curse, as any Malkavian would tell you. Knowing so much of what was going to happen, as though it were all just memories to oneself, it made it nigh impossible to even carry on a conversation, or anything else, with the person whose future he could now remember as though it were his own, before it even came to pass.
Then there was the added possibility that others, namely Sean, could rip that future of Claire’s right out of Eliot’s brain, and then be sentenced to the very same hell that Eliot would now be facing if he were to attempt any kind of interaction with Claire at all. Neither of those outcomes seemed to be anything resembling ideal.
One could argue that if he simply told Sean and Claire about the future he now saw, at least in regards to that damning prophecy, then they’d be able to try and avoid it. But Eliot knew better. He knew too damn much, period. He knew that either of them knowing about the way that prophecy was meant to play out, would make them change everything about their very lives in some attempt at keeping it from coming to pass. And them changing anything at all in the present would simply invalidate all of the knowledge that Eliot now possessed: Knowledge that needed to be absolutely flawless if he were ever to have any chance at all of saving her when the time actually did come for that future to play out.
By the time sunset was less than two hours away, something else occurred to Eliot. His mind, powerful as it was, was indeed his biggest enemy. He thought it himself, all day long: He knew too much. If only there were a way for him to know less, yet somehow still know what he had to know, to save her. Otherwise all of this torture, torture they’d both been through now, would be for nothing. And knowing yet not knowing, somehow, therein would lie the solution he needed.
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When Claire awoke at sunset, her eyes quickly scanned Eliot’s old room, where she had slumbered that day. The only person she found there with her was one of their pretty young female servants who was still looking rather confused about the strangeness of that morning.
“Where is he?” Claire asked the young woman, Brianne, trying to bury the panic in her voice.
“He?” Brianne repeated hoarsely.
“Eliot!” Claire answered sharply, her mind already jumping to the worst possible conclusion for why he was no longer there with her, again.
“Oh, he spent most of the day here as well. He only left less than two hours ago,” Brianne offered quickly, despite wanting to ask her own questions then, as all of the household servants also wanted to after the scene that morning when their eternally nocturnal mistress of the house had been rushing through the halls during the deadly daylight they had all hurried to save her from.
“Left? Left how?” Claire asked with continued fear as she quickly stood and began dressing.
“Well, through the door, Miss Claire,” Brianne returned, looking further confused by such a question.
Claire let out an exasperated sigh as she yanked one of her many long dresses up over her sheer undergarments. “I mean did he...” then Claire shook her head. She had a feeling explaining what she was honestly asking would be more difficult than just going to find out for herself. With that, she hurried from the room, terrified to find out if her immediate fears about Eliot’s current location, as well as his current state, were founded or not.
Meanwhile, in the master bedroom, Sean was also waking to the very confused look on the face of another pretty young servant, Carlina. He tried hard to stifle his sigh as he rose from the bed to see that expression on the young woman’s face. “What dire thing has happened already today then?” he mumbled as he reached for a nearby shirt.
“He’s back, sire,” Carlina told him in the usual soft spoken manner of most of those bound to him.
“Could you be a tad more specific?” Sean replied, trying to keep his tone gentle as he buttoned the shirt.
“The one from the basement, sire. Eliot,” she clarified in a furtive tone.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Sean allowed another deep sigh to cover his own surprise at that bit of unexpected news as his eyes moved toward the bathroom between his chambers and the ones Eliot used to call his own, before all this time-walking nonsense or whatever it truly could even be called.
“So, where is he now?” Sean made himself ask Carlina a moment after finishing with the buttons.
“Not sure, sire. I imagine he’s still in his old chambers, with Claire,” she added more quietly.
“Of course he is,” Sean replied nearly inaudibly as he made his feet carry him toward the other room to greet their long missing magical friend.
On the surface, one might assume his unease at Eliot’s return was because of the relationship he and Claire had shared. But that sort of thing had never bothered Sean, even if she did seem to care a great deal more about this lover than any of the former ones. She truly believed that he was the key to saving her for so long, and then, to realize that saving her was wrecking Eliot’s own mind... Her response to that was something that truly tore at Sean.
Claire had very nearly taken her own life in the hope of saving Eliot’s. And now that he was apparently back... That inspired nothing short of true terror in Sean at the thought that something like that may very well happen again if Eliot’s mind was even closer to breaking now than it had been before he had spent another fifteen years trapped inside Claire’s memories, as well as her future.
When Claire had nearly reached the bottom of the twisting staircase that led to the large circular main hall of their home, she encountered a young male servant who had been on his way up those same stairs.
“Yes, Donovan?” she greeted his urgent look, trying to hide her own annoyance at any delay to her finding out what had become of Eliot since she had supposedly helped him finally get back to their own timeline that very morning.
“Mr. Bonaparte left this in the study for the Prince, and for you, Miss Claire,” he told her as he held a piece of parchment out to her with slightly shaking hand.
“What?” Claire asked worriedly, trying not to immediately give into panic again. She reached for the note, just as Sean had since been informed of her location and had begun making his way toward the study as well. She cast Sean a wary look before beginning to read the note aloud.
“Claire... and Sean, We all know too well of the reasons I stayed away, even when I could have come back, all those years ago. And, I’m sure you can guess that the reasons I had for distancing myself from my old life are even more prominent now. However, we also know that all of this will have been for nothing if I can’t even be part of that old life any longer. Now, I’ve had a long, long time to try and devise some sort of solution to the problem of the present, as well as that of the future. Now that I have finally found my way back to my own life, please allow me the time I need to solve the other problem of actually being able to function within that life. Do not look for me, do not try to bring me to you, as I’m sure you both easily could. I will find that solution; a way to somehow un-know the things I now know. And I will return once I have found it. And most importantly, I will save you, Claire. Otherwise, none of this will have meant anything at all. I love you and miss you, and I will do everything I can to return to you as soon as I possibly can. Eliot.”
“What?” Claire repeated with more than a bit of upset as she came to the end of the note
“May I?” Sean asked as he nodded to the note. Wordlessly, she handed it to him, looking away with a combination of disbelief and despair as she sniffled slightly.
Sean’s eyes scanned the note, looking as wary of its contents as she did then as well. “So, he’s OK then? Not trapped in his mind any longer at least?” he managed as he finished reading.
“Depends on your definition of trapped,” she mumbled sadly.
“Still, he found a way to break free from that trance, coma, what have you. He’s back now, right? I’d say that’s a vast improvement, isn’t it?”
Claire just scoffed, “Maybe you should read it again.”
Sean sighed as he tucked it away in a pocket. “Yes, he can’t be with us right now, but he’s not stuck in that state any longer. Take that as a win, Claire, we need one.”
She scoffed again as she looked up at him, “And, what about that un-knowing nonsense? How does that make any sense?”
“I suppose it means he wants to forget. Forget the future it seems, but still, forget,” Sean offered his best guess.
Another look of disbelief, “Forgetting the future he tried so hard to discover? How will that help? How will that keep all this from being meaningless?”
Sean took a moment to offer any kind of reassurance he could then, “It’s something he needs to do to be able to be near us at all anymore, isn’t it?”
Claire shook her head up at him, “And if he forgets everything he’s seen in the last two fucking decades, how will he ever stop any of it. See? Pointless!”
“It’s either that or never be able to be around you again. And if he’s not around, then, how could he even try to save you?”
“But if he makes himself forget, how could he even hope to save me! See the problem here, Sean?” she reiterated.
Sean let out a heavy sigh, “Perhaps he is trying to find a way to forget everything except the only things he actually needs to know in order to save you at all. That’s what I’d do in his situation, assuming I ever could be,” Sean added more quietly, a slight look down.
“So, he wants to give himself selective amnesia... of the future?” she asked with obvious doubt in her voice.
Sean couldn’t help a small smile as he moved to place his hands over her shoulders. “Is that really any stranger than anything else we’ve ever had to encounter in this long, strange, life?”