A few days later, I was in the kitchen, busy making breakfast when there was a knock on the door. Since I was busy, I couldn’t get it just at that moment. “Gabriel!” I called, hoping that his elvish ears would hear me.
“I can get it, Joan!” Gabriel’s voice replied from the staircase. “I’m already almost there anyway.”
“Thank you!” I flipped the pancake that I was cooking.
The front door opened, there was a pause, and then it closed. Then Gabriel came into the kitchen, looking rather confused, and holding a huge bouquet of flowers. “This was on the front doorstep…”
“Oh my goodness!” I stared at the enormous bunch of flowers. I turned off the burner after sliding the last pancake from the frying pan, and onto the platter that held the rest of them. Catching a glimpse of a piece of paper amongst the many blooms, I asked, “What does the card say?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t read it.” He said, setting it on the table, and looking at it, looking just as surprised and confused as I was.
“Hm.” I leaned forward, plucked the card from the petals, and immediately sneezed.
“Bless you. What does it say?” the elf asked.
I felt my face heat as I read the card, partly out of embarrassment, partly in anger, and I sighed. It was an apology for making me angry, and saying that he wanted to see me again, but would wait until he heard from me again before just stopping by, lest he offend me again. “It’s from Ed.”
“I see.” Gabriel said, his expression and voice neutral.
“I’ll say one thing, this is a first. No one has ever given me flowers before.” I laughed a little, still a bit embarrassed.
“Really?” The elf seemed surprised by this. He went to a cabinet and pulled out a vase for the flowers to go in. “I would say that I don’t believe that for a second, but something tells me that would upset you.” He smiled slightly, filling the vase with water, then handing it to me.
And there he was, the Gabriel that I had missed, not the one that had been holding me at arm’s length lately. But to be fair, that was my own fault, I knew. The Gabriel I was used to could only return when the Joan that he was used to was there as well…the Joan that trusted him, and wasn’t angry at him…the Joan that loved him.
“Probably.” I laughed. “I would also insist that it was true, and you’d still pretend not to believe me, just to get on my nerves.” Taking the vase, I put the enormous bunch of flowers in it, and immediately sneezed again.
“You’re allergic to them.” Gabriel muttered. Stepping forward, he relieved me of the vase, and set the flowers by the farthest window. Then he said, in a thoughtful voice, “Elvish flowers would have been better, no one is allergic to them, I think it’s rather impossible to be.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen elvish flowers before.” I was intrigued by the thought, “But then again, I hadn’t seen an elf, much less thought elves were more than just a fairytale until…”
“Until the ball.” Gabriel finished my sentence quietly, shifting on his feet. I could see that he was uncomfortable.
“You have to admit, it’s understandable. They teach us in school that elves are just stuff of legends…”
“Because humans are frightened of anything and everything that they don’t understand…anything that’s different.” The elf went and stood at the sink, leaning on it, and looking outside. “It makes it difficult for my people to be here because of that…not without disguising ourselves so that we fit in.”
I looked down, “I can understand that, I think.”
“Do you?” his voice was quiet.
“I mean, I’ve never been in that situation, but I do understand what it’s like for someone to hide who they really are…I have to do it everyday, since I can’t use my magic, which is just as much a part of me as your wings are of you.”
“Then…then you understand…you understand why I did it then? Why I had to lie about myself?” he looked down at the sink, down at his clawed hands, and then closed his eyes, head hung a little, and I realized that he was ashamed. He looked positively forlorn.
“I do.” I said softly.
“Thank you.” He whispered. “Will you forgive me?”
“I…already have.” I muttered. Of course, it had only just been the day before, after storming angrily away from Ed, that I’d finally forgiven Gabriel, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Good.” was all he said.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
It was quiet for a little while. “Care for some breakfast?” I asked him, motioning at the pile of pancakes that I’d made.
The elf shook himself, “I’m starving, thanks.” He carried the plate to the table, and we sat down to eat together for the first time since the disaster at the ball. “Can I make a request?” he asked after a little while.
“It depends on the request.” I replied.
“I…I…I can’t say this in a way that sounds reasonable.” He said, frowning.
“I don’t understand.” I blinked, frowning.
Gabriel appeared to steel himself, and then said, “I don’t want you to see him again.”
“Who?” I was still confused.
“Ed.”
My eyebrows shot up as I was taken aback.
He’d never once seemed to disapprove of me spending time with Ed, not that I ever intended to spend any more time with the prince, but Gabriel didn’t need to know that. “Excuse me! You don’t have the right to forbid me from seeing anyone!”
“I didn’t say that I forbade you, just that I don’t want you to…I would never force you to do, or not do anything, nor will I ever…but…but all the same, I do not wish you to see him again.” Gabriel answered, jaw clenched a little.
Did he think that just because I’d forgiven him for lying that this sort of thing was acceptable? If he did, he had another thing coming. “What does it matter if I choose to see him again?” Perhaps I was still a little sensitive about the fact that he had rather broken my heart even though it wasn’t as if he’d ever said he’d loved me. Who was he to think that he could trample my heart like that, and as soon as another man entered the picture?
The nerve of him! Telling me that he didn’t approve?! I was my own woman, and wasn’t just going to do something because he wanted me to…I mean, I did sometimes, but I wasn’t going to this time, not without a fight, since the whole idea was something I rebelled against, any man telling a woman that he didn’t approve of her seeing someone, whether male or female. If he’d been my father, yes, I would have obeyed, simply out of respect, but he was not, so I would not.
“I have the right to my own life, Gabriel!” I snapped.
“I know.” He sighed, getting up and putting his plate in the sink. “But…but he sent you flowers…and, well, the thought of you spending your time with him…It…it makes me angry. I know that I have no right to ask it of you, but I really don’t want you to spend time with him like that…in a way that means that he would send you flowers…”
“Why does it matter if I see him? Why on earth would it make you angry? It’s none of your business!” I cried, upset. “Am I not allowed to have my own life? To see who I want?”
Gabriel stood at the sink for a few moments, then took a deep breath and said, “You can choose to do whatever you wish, and if you wish to see him again, if you are intent on it, then I will not stop you. But I…I could not sit by and allow you to think that I was alright with it, not in good conscience.”
“Why are you not alright with it?” I pressed. If he cared for me, I wanted him to admit it. Because if it was just some strange idea that he’d gotten into his head that, because we were close or had once been close, he could dictate who I spent my time with, I would be quitting on the spot. Because that was unacceptable.
Gabriel paced back and forth, running his long fingers through his beautiful white hair, the first show of agitation that he’d shown since he’d initially told me that he didn’t approve of me seeing Ed. When he spoke again, there was now frustration in his voice. “Maybe I’m jealous. All I know is that the thought that Ed takes you on walks by the river, and sends you flowers makes my blood boil!”
Emboldened by this, but still angry, I shouted, “Well, if the thought makes you so angry, then maybe you should take me on walks and bring me flowers instead!”
Gabriel whirled about, his golden eyes flashing angrily. “Maybe I will then!”
In the back of my head, where my common sense was being held captive by my anger and annoyance, I knew that this was far from typical shouting-match material, and that, in all honesty, I should be at least a little happy to hear what he was saying. But I was still angry with him, and since my temper was in control, I paid little heed to rational thought and common sense. “Then I’ll tell him not to come back!” I shouted.
“I wish you would!” Gabriel stomped from the room, still clearly furious.
“Fine, I will!” I shouted as the kitchen door swung shut, and he left the house, slamming the front door behind him.
I sat down at the table and cried, upset that we’d argued.
But to be fair, it had been a ridiculous argument…He’d admitted that he was jealous that Ed had taken me out on a date, and that the prince had sent me flowers…Of course, he hadn’t known that I’d already decided that I didn’t want to see Ed again in that capacity.
The thought that he was jealous that another man had taken a romantic interest in me was, I’m ashamed to say, oddly pleasing to me.
--
It wasn’t until later on that night that Gabriel realized how absolutely stupid their argument had been. He was a little embarrassed at having told her that her spending time with another man, in a romantic capacity, made him jealous…and while it had been an argument, her response hadn’t been entirely bad. She’d said that she wouldn’t see Ed again, and Gabriel was pleased with that outcome. Now he guessed that he was supposed to take her on walks by the river, and bring her flowers.
Gabriel decided that the first was entirely dull, but the second would be acceptable, so long as he could get his hands on some elvish flowers, so she wouldn’t sneeze. But what would he do instead of taking her on a walk by the river? She always seemed to enjoy coming on cases with him…and he did enjoy his work more when she was with him but…but solving a murder, or any sort of crime, didn’t really seem like a romantic enough thing to do for a date.
Yet he didn’t know what else to do, since all a date was, from what he knew, was two people who liked one another spending time together doing something that they both enjoyed…if that was indeed the case, then every time that Joan had worked with him to solve a crime had been a date, and somehow, staring at a dead body, or staking out a suspect’s home, or even attending a fancy ball together so that they could keep an eye out for vampires didn’t quite seem like the proper kind of date material, even though they had both enjoyed doing such things…perhaps his definition of what a date was wasn’t correct.
Gabriel sat down on the couch, putting his head in his hands, feeling like an idiot. He had no idea how to court her properly, and he had no one to ask. Perhaps he could write to Mrs. Hudson and ask her what kind of dates her husband had taken her on when they were still only courting…he would think of something.