Closed A Moment Alone

[Elsie Baros]

Elsie wasn't entirely sure, but she was almost positive the Cliffs was off limits. She didn't really have much of a care for the rules though, not to that effect, so she wasn't upset or anything when she got a note from Rowan asking to meet. It had been ages since they'd had a picnic together on the grounds, and though she was curious as to why it would be on the cliffs, she was excited to spend some quality time with her sister. They were best friends, nothing alike, but it worked. They had two completely different personalities, but, they loved each other, and they were stronger together than they were apart, though they had been a part often the last two years. They had other lives to worry about. Elsie had Agnes, and Rowan was dealing with problems that popped up in her relationship with Elio. As much as Elsie wanted to tell Rowan all about what was going on in her life, after hearing what Agnes had said about how dangerous it was, she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was bad enough Elio knew and though she knew she'd hear it if Rowan managed to find out and then realise Elio knew already, well, Elsie was prepared to take that risk. She found Rowan near the edge, looking out over the rocks and water, quill and ink in her hand. There was a little basket of food off to the side, though it was clear she hadn't eaten any of it and Elsie quietly approached, so as not to scare Rowan, and sat beside her. "Sickle for your thoughts?"​

 

[Rowan Baros]

Silence is golden, the way it sounds surreal, Rowan wrote, tapping the quill idly against her mouth as she sat at the edge of the cliffs deep in thought. She'd been feeling a lot of emotions lately and she'd found that talking them through with Elio didn't always seem to help. Sometimes it made it worse, or she wasn't able to properly convey what she was feeling. It was odd, because she'd always felt like speaking was something she was good at, but searching her memory for a time she'd come across clearly was coming up blank and so she turned to another medium she'd started getting back into recently. Poetry. It is not your conversation, that makes me feel sustained, she bit her lip, looking over the parchment again, thinking about what she wanted to say. She went back and crossed out the second half of the sentence before continuing, that keeps me entertained, she'd always had something of a love-hate relationship with her writing, because she wasn't particularly good at it, but, she tried as best she could. But rather the way you look at me, that makes me feel sustained. She looked up then, as she heard Elsie address her and smiled. "Sorry, I'm, yeah I'm writing again." It had been a long time since Elsie would have seen it, so she was sure she would be surprised.​

 

[Elsie Baros]

Elsie was a bit surprised when the first words out of Rowan's mouth were not a greeting, but rather that she was getting back into her poetry. Despite what Rowan thought of her work, Elsie always enjoyed it, because most of the time it was some really uplifting kind of stuff. Neither of them really were thinkers and had always been more of the type to act on their feelings, but, lately it had been difficult to be able to do that, moreso for herself than for Rowan she thought, but there was clearly stuff going on with Rowan that she didn't know about. She'd known Elio and Rowan talked stuff out and such, but she didn't know anything beyond that since there was a lot going on in her own life and any time they got to be together was usually kept minimal, and either Elio was with them, or Agnes was, though, at those points Agnes was usually pretty quiet and left Rowan and Elsie to catch up quickly before they went off to do other things, so this was a rarity for them, one Elsie hoped they would be able to get more into once the exams for this year were over. She missed their morning dances together, where Rowan would help her warm up, but, she supposed she couldn't have everything. "What are you writing, and why? Is something going on... it's been over two years since I've seen you write anything..." she trailed off, suddenly concerned that something bad had happened, the last time she'd done this was when their Dad got injured.​

 

[Rowan Baros]

"Yeah, I've... had a lot on my mind recently," Rowan said, looking back over what she'd written so far. None of it was really calling to her in any kind of way, and for the most part she wasn't happy with it. For the moment all she was trying to really do was get her thoughts onto the paper, though that was harder than she was hoping it would be. "I've been trying to get it down, but it's frustratingly difficult to do that when I'm struggling to really understand what it is I'm actually feeling... you know?" She asked, turning to look at Elsie. She didn't really mean to put all of this on Elsie quite so suddenly, but, this was what she'd initially wanted to discuss with her, so, why not start now. "Do you want something to eat, I only made sandwiches with some fruit..." she said, gesturing to the full spread. Cucumber sandwiches, tofu, lettuce and tomato, the fruit was probably going to be eaten first though, since it didn't keep as well, not that she was expecting them to be out here particularly long. "With Dad it was easy... I was angry and upset and... well, yeah we all were. But, things are complicated and I don't really know what to do about any of it," she said, sighing. It had been a hard few months, but the last week or so especially had been the worst and she wished, it had nothing to do with Elio, really she did, but, she couldn't deny that there was definitely a part of her feeling frustrated with the whole situation and it was so complicated because neither of them really understood what was going on, it was all just so... frustratingly complicated, she felt like she was drowning and had no way out.​

 

[Elsie Baros]

Elsie wasn't surprised to hear Rowan had been going through stuff, that had been obvious for ages. Though she could tell it might have gotten worse recently, given she was now back to poetry. She wanted to ask her outright what was going on, but it was hard to do that when Rowan was looking at her so pathetically with those big blue eyes of her. She really couldn't deny her twin anything when she got like this and so she knocked her shoulder against Rowan's. "Tell me about it, maybe I can help?" And it would distract her from what was going on in her own head, hopefully long enough that Rowan wouldn't notice her own weird mood and try to get the answers out of her, because Elsie knew she wouldn't be happy with "I can't tell you" as an answer. She'd attempt to drag it out of her and that wouldn't end well for anyone really. She crossed her legs and turned to face Rowan as she began talking, understanding the struggle of emotions only too well. She wasn't sure how people seemed to just get it so quickly but she certainly never did. It was a constant struggle. She looked over at the little basket and immediately pulled out some of the cut up mango. One of her favourite fruits. Of course there would be no meat in any of this, but Rowan still didn't know about that, and it was best she never did. She nodded along with Rowan, understand exactly where she was coming from, since she'd been right beside her the whole time, Zennon, Isaak, Gracie, Azelea and Lukas were kind of off on their own, but, the others were always around. "Clearly something is going on... and I'm going to take a wild guess and assume its..." she looked at her pointedly, "Elio?" At Rowan's nod, she leaned back slightly and continued, "we haven't really talked about what happened after your confrontation with him in the Hospital Wing, so... I know you guys are back to being friends again," that much had been obvious even without needing to be told, but there seemed to be more too, they were over the top affectionate. It was bloody disgusting. He'd licked her ear. Her ear. The f*ck kind of sh!t was that? "Has something else happened?"​

 

[Rowan Baros]

Talking about Elio was simultaneously incredibly easy and incredibly hard. She didn’t have a lot of context to explain any of it and whilst Elsie was probably a bit more equity than most, being sort of between her and Elio orientation wise, she likely didn’t have a similar situation, nor probably would she ever. Rowan didn’t think this was the typical kind of behaviour of someone. Sure, on paper it probably looked like she and Elio had the perfect relationship, but it was definitely far from it. The most frustrating thing about all of it, though was that their boundaries had to constantly change and sometimes it happened without them even realising that was what was happening. Exhibit A, the incident with Alice, exhibit B, the incident with Chrys, there was probably an Exhibit C but she really was really wasn’t bothered to really try with that one. She had enough material already without trying to jump into more. She didn’t actually think Elsie was going to be of much help, but it was sweet she’d offered and Rowan definitely wanted to try and utilise her uncanny understanding to figure out what she had done wrong. She and Elio always worked stuff out no issues, well, after a week of completely misunderstanding each other and being angry and upset over stupid things; but then they always clicked. This time was different, they hadn’t had the normal fight that she would have expected, Elio had anticipated it somehow, and stopped it in its tracks. She supposed she was impressed, but, it also meant she hadn’t really gotten her message across. It wasn’t anything specifically that had happened, she wasn’t angry that he’d kissed Chrys or anything and she wasn’t even really that angry over him rejecting her, though that certainly still stung whenever she thought about it. She was just, exhausted, agonisingly pained and so unconfident in herself that things had started to spiral. She looked up at Elsie the tears in her eyes starting to roll down her cheeks and she tried to clear her head enough to speak. “I love Elio,” she said quietly, to the point that Elsie had to frown and move closer, “I love everything about him. His smile, the way he pushes his glasses up his nose when he looks through his lens, the way his hand searches for mine sometimes when we’re just sitting together doing nothing, you know, the little things and... I’ve never worried about that before, because it’s Elio and I knew what I was walking into when I came back into his life,” she started, realising it have been far, far too long since she’d been able to talk to Elsie. “At first I was content that he didn’t reciprocate my feelings, I mean, he’s not attracted to me, so I understood that,” she said, sniffing and wiping the tears away harshly. “But we snuck out to the cliffs one time, he wanted to show me some stars and it was probably one of the most romantic moments anyone’s ever had and... well I told him that I needed his help to get over him and we had this massive fight,” she said, squeezing Elsie’s hand hard when he sister offered it to her. “We didn’t talk for a couple of days and, Merlin, I thought I’d done it again, that I’d lost him again and I felt like my heart was going to just rip itself out of my chest, because it did, it followed him and I thought, this is it, this is the end of us as friends, he’ll never trust me again,” she told her sister, finding it difficult to talk now that her crying was in full swing. “He wrote me a note and I met him in the common rooms and... and he told me he loved me too but I didn’t get it at first, but he said he had the same feelings for me that I had for him and I didn’t believe him, how could I believe him? It made no sense, still makes no sense!” Rowan ripped her hands away from Elsie and stood up angrily. “I don’t understand any of it Elsie, I’m constantly convinced he’s going to come to his senses. He’s going to realise he’s been tricked or something, or he’s going to realise he doesn’t feel that way about me and he’s going to find Chrys and get married or something, or Caspian even, I saw them kissing once in the roof of the green house, he doesn’t know I saw, but there was something there!” She shook her head, frustrated tears continuing to fall. She’d spent so long with all of it bottled up and now she was free to rant and scream and cry and she was letting all of it out because, in the end, after everything she knew, and promised and said, everyday it hurt. She was in pain constantly because Elio looked at Caspian, or Marco, or Chrys, or dammit even Ava and Alice. And she knew it wasn’t fair, she knew none of it was fair and that was why she couldn’t tell him. Because she knew he’d end up hating her for it in the end. So she lied to him, and she hated herself even more because he never lied to her. And so this is what it had come to, Rowan pacing across the cliffs, screaming and crying and hurting because she was too over whelmed to deal with any of it. “F*ck,” she said, falling to the ground in Elsie’s lap and screaming. “I love him so much, it... it just f*cking hurts so much.” She cried, finally allowing herself to just let everything out.​

 

[Elsie Baros]

Whatever was going on with Rowan was absolutely way beyond Elsie. She hadn’t realised at all how much had been going on in Rowan’s life and as she kept talking and crying, Elsie couldn’t stop her own tears from leaking and ended up crying right along with Rowan. She couldn’t stand to see her sister in so much emotional pain. It killed her inside that she couldn’t do anything about it. This thing between her and Elio, it was messed up complicated, way too much for anyone to handle let alone two teenagers who barely even knew themselves. Three teenagers! Since this meant that now Elsie was involved as well. She just sat back and watched and listened, rubbing the tears from her eyes periodically as she let Rowan rage and scream and cry and talk and explain everything she was doing and what was happening and going on, finally running her fingers though her hair as she cried into the denim of her jeans. She tried to sooth Rowan as best as she could, but she was shaking so much, Elsie started to worry she might have triggered an Earthquake, but no, it was the sound and feeling of her sister tearing herself apart on the inside and Elsie dearly hoped Rowan felt better having let all of that out, because that was a lot of pain, a lot, a lot of pain, and she definitely had no idea how to fix it. What was she supposed to say? There was nothing to say. And so as Rowan cried, Elsie cried with her, sharing in the heartbreak of her sister finally realising how much trouble she was in, because Rowan hadn’t said it out aloud, but they both knew this wasn’t a conversation she would have with Elio, because he’d never forget and Elsie knew Elio well enough that he would think about this scene every moment for the rest of his life and honestly, she was surprised Rowan had managed this long with all of this pain inside. She wasn’t sure she could. “Ro... Ro I love you, let me help you, let me help you, please.”​

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan had a lot of feelings, there was a lot in the back of her mind about Elio that was killing her not to say. She loved him more than anything in the world, more than she had any right to, really. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was never supposed to love her back. The thought sobered Rowan and she sat up, tears still streaming down her face as she looked at Elsie. She was still crying, still shaking. But that was the point, wasn't it, the whole reason she was in this mess. She was supposed to have gotten over him and he was supposed to help her because he couldn't be with her. They would love each other as friends and they would move on. Except, that wasn't what happened at all. Rowan brought her hands up to her mouth with a shaky breath, realising just how much of a mess she'd managed to get herself into. She could never seperate her heart from Elio's now, she'd been too emotionally attached to him from the moment he'd admitted to her why he'd gotten so angry with her on the cliffs. She was angry at him. Deep down she always had been and it explained so much. The jealousy, the communication issues, the little micro annoyances whenever there was something going on. She wasn't his girlfriend, she didn't have a right to his life and yet at the same time, she felt like she did, like maybe he owed her something, and she owed him something too. That thought brought fresh tears and she fell forward into Elsie again, the pain of what was happening spurring everything else. She loved Elio with everything she had and she wanted him to love her just as much. And maybe he did love her that way, but they would never be compatible, not really. She wanted all of his attention all the time and she knew she just couldn't have it and it annoyed, and hurt her. She felt so incredibly guilty about it all the time, because she knew he deserved someone who was loving and affectionate and could give him everything and she was selfishly stealing that from him. She couldn't think of a worse betrayal. Every time he told her he loved her, she only loved him more and more and she knew, she just knew she couldn't live without him. The nine months they'd been seperated had been some of the words months of her life ever and she hadn't even known they were soulmates then. But they were and it sucked and she hated it, but... she didn't want it to stop, because being hurt by Elio being in her life was so much better than being hurt because he was out of it. The pleasure in loving him far outweighed the pain of loving him and that was why she knew she had to stay close, to be his everything, even if it was all emotionally. "I love him so much, it kills me what it's doing to him. I know he hates it, that he feels like he's betraying me every time he so much as leaves me for five minutes..." she said, sighing as she moved away from Elsie slightly. "He loves me just as much as I love him, but he can't give me everything and it kills him, it kills me and we're just in this endless loop of hurting each other, but... I can't stop loving him, it's too deep now. If I never saw him again, I couldn't bear it. The thought of him not being in my life... of not being part of it fills me with absolute terror." She said, wrapping her arms around her knees as she calmed a little. She looked out over the cliffs, realising she'd been crying into Elsie for a lot longer than it seemed. It had been lunch time when she'd gotten here, it had to have been closer to dinner time now. "Elsie... he's the other half of my heart, the only person I could ever feel comfortable enough with for anything, he's..." she smiled lightly. "He's Elio, my Elio, my heart and soul, my bestfriend, my eternity and the love of my life. I could never replace what I have with him, never." In all honesty, she had to admit that she didn't think she ever could have. Something about never forgetting your first love, but, it was different with Elio, because she saw all of this reflected back at her from him. "I get so... jealous of the others," she admitted after having been quiet for a while, the pain in her chest dulling somewhat. "He finds it hard to form emotional attachments with the boys, I think, that's why he has so many girl friends, but... sometimes I just wonder how I'm different... you know?" She asked, looking at the tear filled eyes that Elsie was furiously rubbing at. "There's something that makes me different, I think, but the way he reacts with the others, Alice, Ava, I think, I don't quite understand how I'm different." She admitted, laying her chin carefully on her knees. "I know he sees me and... and there's something in me that he sees that makes me different, but... I don't know what it is. Other relationships are easy, there's... you know... other aspects that differentiate, make it different," she thought briefly back to their recent discussion about Chrys, something like that would make sense to her, but this was hard to grasp. "I mean, I don't want to... you know, because it's Elio, but like..." she sighed again, "I'm lying... I'm such a liar," she couldn't deny that should the situation present itself, of course she'd want to, but, again, this was Elio, she couldn't think about it. "What do I do... I love him and I always will and of course he loves me, but... I never thought about how much I was losing by admitting that."​

 

[Elsie Baros]

Elsie wasn't sure how she was supposed to respond or even what she was supposed to say. She wasn't equipped for this, she didn't think anyone could be. Surely even adult people which degrees would find this difficult. She rubbed at her eyes as they sat and she listened to Rowan. It was getting dark now and Elsie hoped Agnes wasn't worried. It wasn't uncommon for them to be apart for long periods of time, especially since they were still a secret, something that made her feel worse, hearing all of this, but, she could see the way that Elio and Rowan looked at each other. It was the same way she'd heard Ava talk about Vader, or that she talked about Agnes. Of course all of this was incredibly difficult, after all, who could really know what the future was, but, the first step, in her opinion, was admitting that there were things below the surface that were making this more difficult. "Rowan... sweetie it's not your fault," she said, thinking that her sister probably needed to hear this. "It's not Elio's fault, or anyone's fault. It just... it just is what it is and, sometimes it's not great, but it can't be helped," she said, rubbing Rowan's knees soothingly. She could tell Rowan had been holding back for a long time. "You can't blame him, and you can't blame yourself. You both have feelings and they're both really valid feelings..." she said, trying to think about the best way to say what she wanted to. She loved Elio, and she trusted him with her sister more than anyone. If this were anyone else making her sister cry right now, she knew she wouldn't be so forgiving, but, Elio was different. She knew that if he was here right now and could hear this, he would hate himself and do whatever he could to make her stop crying and she honestly loved him for that. She knew Rowan would be safe with him, even if she didn't know that herself. "He loves you, Ro, no body else even comes close, trust me. The way he looks at you, my god." She smiled slightly, because she knew it was the same way she looked at Agnes and how Agnes looked at her. "He looks at you like you're the only thing standing between him and the rest of the world and he doesn't want you to move, he wants you to soar along with him... if that's not love, I don't know what is," she added, though she knew Rowan knew this. "You shouldn't feel guilty about any of it, I know it's not an ideal situation and the whole... physical thing... is obviously not you know... ideal but, I really think you need to find a way to tell him, because he can't be blissfully unaware for ever." It probably wouldn't be a particularly nice conversation, depending on how it went, and potentially quite mortifying, but, still, she thought it was important not to keep it from him.​

 

[Rowan Baros]

Though she'd told herself the same thing constantly, and she'd thought about it to death, hearing Elsie tell her that none of this was her fault, called her to tears yet again. Rowan never thought she would be the type of person to cry over a boy, nor a boy like Elio, and yet here she was, crying, and she honestly felt both a release and a build up of emotions she had never wanted to have to deal with before. She didn't know when Elsie got so wise or so good at talking about this sort of thing, and she briefly wondered what might have been going on in her sisters life right now, but she didn't think too much on it, because right now, with Elsie, she could be selfish in ways she couldn't be with Elio. She knew she needed to talk to him, she'd known for a really long time, but, how did you talk about this to anyone, how did you talk about it to someone like Elio? She thought, for a long time, that she would be alone. Even when she was little she'd thought she would never have that because she knew people misread her, even as a child, people misread her a lot. She was used to people just not getting her and she constantly had to explain herself and meeting Elio that first time had been such a shock, he'd just... understood her to a degree no one else ever had and it had felt like nothing else in her life before. It was true, miscommunication happened between them all the time, but, that was all surface level stuff. Deeper into it, there was an aching she felt and Elio just always seemed to be whatever she needed in that moment, and he just knew her in ways she'd never thought she would ever experience. "He's just so... he's such a loving and kind person, compassionate and willing to go that extra mile for the people he loves. He'd do anything for his friends and I love that about him, I love his dedication and his energy and just his ultimate and unerring drive to being so open and honest and wanting to desperately to understand and help me, and other people around him," Rowan said, the tears falling freely as she let them. She was already puffy, red faced and blotchy, she didn't see the point in trying to stop the tears now. "Just his... his passion and the way he loves people, me... I never thought I would ever meet someone like that. I get misread all the time, it's hard to really understand what I want, or what I need and he just... it's like he's known me all my life, and I feel so incredibly seen, so understood when I'm with him, it's like... it's like the universe is just turning around us and he's my anchor to the stars." She added, sniffing. "I feel so privileged to be loved by someone who loves people like he does... I don't want to destroy that."​

 

[Elsie Baros]

Elsie listened to Rowan as she described Elio. She could agree with a lot of what Rowan was saying, since she had seen a lot of what she was describing in her own friendship with Elio, and yet, even knowing that, Elsie couldn't shake the feeling that there are lines he couldn't cross with others, that he would obliterate for Rowan. Rowan couldn't see it, because she was clouded but her own pain, but Elio saw her, he saw the elements that made her who she was. He saw her jealousy and her control issues and her anxiety and he loved her despite and even because of them. She wished that kind of devotion on everyone. "Look, Ro... I can't keep talking in circles with you about this, I know what he means to you, and that's great, but you need to realise that you can't bottle this up forever, you'll explode, look what happened today? I asked you one thing and you nearly blew up. If you had no control over your magic, who knows what might have happened." She said, sighing as she looked down at the long forgotten food. "You need to talk to him and you need to do it soon." She smiled sadly. "He needs to know."​

 

[Rowan Baros]

Rowan didn't look up from where she was staring at the ground as Elsie spoke. She knew what she was saying was true, she knew she had to talk to Elio and honestly, until she didn't there was going to be a weird... something between them that he wouldn't understand and that wasn't fair. But that didn't meant she wasn't scared of the thought, because really, how did you approach something like this? It wasn't exactly simple and the discussion wasn't exactly going to be easy, in fact, it was probably something that could really tear them apart, whether they talked about it or not. "You're right... you're absolutely right," she sighed, wrapping her arms around herself against the breeze that had started to set in. She needed to talk to Elio and she needed to do it soon. And it was going to be the most difficult thing she'd ever done in her life. Honestly, she didn't expect anything to come from it... but he deserved to know how she felt. She couldn't continue without him knowing. "Come on, let's head back to the castle. It's getting chilly," she said, after a while, the sun having left over an hour ago. They'd be lucky if they weren't caught on the way back really. "Thanks, Elsie, I don't know how I'd survive without you."​

FIN​