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Vignette #1
by Cindy Rae
Arms still as hard as the granite he'd carved their home from waited for
her.
It was their night.
They'd snuck across the park like two teenagers looking for a place to
neck, and made the fire escape ladder in almost record time. They
should, after all these years. The path was familiar enough.
"Your key still opens the door, you know. You could just go in. Just
wait for me."
"Think I'm too old?" she asked him, giving him a saucy smile as she
refused the help of his hand. She began to climb. Her derriere swayed
softly as she scaled her own building. He would never tire of the sight.
"Perhaps it's me that's too old," he answered her, following behind. If
she fell, he would catch her. If she fell, he would always catch her.
"You're ageless, and I'm immortal," she told him with a wink, looking
down. "Haven't you heard? As parents, that's part of the deal."
Parents. They were that. And more. Decades that had sometimes been hard,
had also been kind. Very kind.
They were on the roof before the moon cleared the trees. "Did you sit
here, sometimes, waiting?" She was surprised she'd never asked him that
before. This was the tenth time she'd demanded to reach the balcony the
same way he did. The tenth time he'd accompanied her across the park, to
the fire escape ladder, and up to the roof. He would climb down first,
then pick her off the bottom rung, as they reached her old terrace.
"Sometimes," he answered her question. "When I wanted to feel near you.
Or when I was waiting." He always felt near her, now, now that her life
was Below. It was a blessing.
They dropped to the tiny
sliver of stone that had once been the only place in the world that was
'theirs.' They had vast rooms of stone, and tunnels and caverns, now, to
share, and a brownstone that had once belonged to Peter Alcott. A cabin
in
But, once upon a time, they'd only had this.
Before that, they had even less.
He drew her back to his front, as he lifted the much-patched cape around
her, giving her his warmth. He enfolded her closely, watching her watch
the moon.
She sighed in contentment, and felt his warmth, his love, his strength,
and all that he was, wash over her, as it always did. She tugged the
corners of his cape close, enjoying the sensation of being cocooned,
with him.
His world was in his arms. He would ask for no other.
She hated to break the silence, but felt obligated to. "I suppose I
should light a candle," she told him, feeling the gentle night kiss them
in its somber beauty. They always had candlelight on the balcony.
Especially on April 12th.
But she would have to move away to fetch it, and he was far from ready
to let her go do that yet.
Vincent's soft voice, the one she never tired of hearing, was sincere.
"How can you say we need light?" He squeezed her shoulders and wrapped
his titan's arms around her more firmly, loving the familiar feel of her
when she stood this way.
The brilliant warmth and light of a thousand suns danced behind his
closed eyelids as he held her. If she closed her eyes, too, she saw the
same.
"There is enough here to light our way, forever."
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