More silence. More sadness. I’m just about to abandon my policy of not prying when Doc finally opens his hand, revealing a small photograph. It’s old and weathered, as if it’s been carried around and looked at a thousand times.
Judging from the reverent way Doc’s holding it, I’m sure it has been.
“Is thatyou?” I ask, pointing at a chubby little boy on the left with a head of dark hair. He looks about seven or eight, and he’s got his arm around another little boy—a blonde with big dimples, maybe a year or two younger than the dark-haired boy. The pair seems inseparable, like two peas in a pod.
“It is,” Doc says. “Me and my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
He nods, but I can tell by the heaviness in his eyes that something is very wrong.
“Xavier,” he finally says, his voice breaking at the end. “That was his name. He died when I was… well, I suppose it’s been about twenty years now. This is the only picture I have left of him.”
I squeeze his arm again, then lean back on the desk next to him, knowing firsthand there aren’t any words to make this right.
“Goddess, sometimes it feels like yesterday,” he says. “Other times, it’s like it never happened at all—like it was someone else’s life. A story from a past I never knew but only read about in a book.”
I nod, quite familiar with the feeling.
“Holidays are… not the easiest for me,” he admits. “Especially this one. Harvest Eve was his favorite. Every year I think it will get better, that the pain won’t be so fresh. But it’s always there, just… right there.” He massages his chest, struggling to find his words. “We had so many traditions…”
I can’t even imagine what happened to his brother, but I don’t need to know the details of Doc’s past to know that he’s in pain. To know that his past, like so many, holds as much joy as devastation.
I rest my head on his shoulder and take his hand. He flinches, but just before I pull away, he laces our fingers together and rests his cheek on my head.
For now, it seems the rules of propriety are on pause again, granting us a moment of humanity instead. A surge of affection rushes through me, and fight back tears, not wanting to make him more upset than he already is.
Words may be useless and clunky right now, but there’s something I want to say anyway.
“Doc, sometimes it’s okay to… I don’t know. To make new traditions, to celebrate… It doesn’t mean that we’re forgetting the ones we’ve lost. I mean, how could we? Loving someone… It changes us on a soul level. And in that way, we always carry them with us.”
Doc lifts his head and turns to cups my face, and I look up at him with a soft smile. “I don’t know how to find the words for this,” I whisper, finally losing the battle and letting a tear escape.
That we’ve both suffered the death of loved ones is something that bonds us, just as our Arcana magick bonds us. But there’s more between us—so much more. And for the first time since this whole thing started, since I felt those very first sparks between us, I think Doc is starting to allow for that possibility too.
“The fact that your here is enough,” he says.
“You too, Doc.”
“Starla,” he whispers, his eyes drifting closed as he slides his thumb across my lips. I feel the tug-of-war raging inside him, tearing his heart in two. Hewantsthis. He feels the intensity of our connection just like I do.
But something in his heart won’t let him give in to his feelings. Won’t let him take the leap.
“When I was in the dream realm,” I say, “one of the things that gave me strength was you. Just knowing that you were watching over us, waiting for us on the other side, never giving up hope that we’d return.”
He opens his eyes, his brow furrowing. “Why would I give up hope? You promised you’d come back to me, and you never break your promises.”
The first sparks of humor alight in his eyes.
“I promised myself something too,” I say. “That I’d… I’d do something when I returned, and I haven’t done that yet.”
“What’s that?”
I lower my eyes, my lips still tingling from the touch of his thumb. When I finally speak again, my words are no more than a faint whisper. “I promised myself I would kiss you.”
His sharp intake of breath draws my attention back to his mouth, his full lips parting in both surprise and desire. It washes over me in a rush, unleashing all those highly inappropriate fantasies all over again.
But Doc doesn’t make a move.
