Her words sent a warm pulse through him, and his response was immediate. "I missed you, too." It was more instinct than conscious thought, but it was true all the same. How many days and nights had he spent thinking about her while he'd been in the wilderness? Of all of the people he'd left behind in England, she was the only one who had been so present in his thoughts that she actually came up in his log entries. He'd had to dance around the mention the first time it had come up in his meetings with Michaud, then combed through the rest of the entries to weed out the times she'd been brought up. Luckily, he hadn't ever used her name, so while the artist may well have had his suspicions, at least he wouldn't know exactly who the 'L' in question was.
The problem with saying I missed you, too was that there was, at least in the fairy tale version of these events, more he was meant to say following it. He could almost feel the rest of the speech hanging in the air between them, waiting to be spoken into existence. She probably knew the lines better than he did. But could he actually say them? The Lily he'd been thinking of on his long exile had been a girl of sixteen; she might have some things in common with the sparkling young woman standing before him now, but there was no guarantee of what. Worse than the unknown in that respect was the other half of the equation. The man that had written her all of those letters so long ago and had grand dreams of fame and fortune and marriage was a different person than the man who had emerged from the wilderness in America. There was no doubt at all about that. What if she no longer cared for him? What if he had the same difficulties connecting with her that he had seemed to have with everyone else? He could make some grand overture and propose to her all over again, but even if everything played out like a dream — a big if given his social and financial situation at the moment — what if they spent the next weeks, months, years, or even their entire lives as relative strangers, just going through the motions?
There was no way of knowing how this would end, and although he knew what he ought to say next, Alfred couldn't get the words past the lump in his throat. He couldn't promise (or even imply) that he could be there for her — physically, emotionally, or otherwise — when he wasn't sure it was a promise he could keep. He'd run out on one too many promises already, as far as his relationship with Lily was concerned. Merlin, what he had put her through.
"Lily, I — uhm," he stumbled. He glanced down at the ground nervously and felt his cheeks growing hot with discomfort. "I just — well, things are different now. Everything's different now," he continued, feeling like he was rambling even though he had spoken barely two coherent sentences. He just wasn't sure how to get to the point, and more particularly how to get to it in a way that wasn't cruel. How overt did he have to be when he said this? Trying to shoot for subtle and hoping she knew what he meant without it being stated outright seemed like the least painful way, but he dreaded the possibility of having to backtrack and say it again if it didn't quite click. "So I'm not sure — Well. With us."
How bloody articulate.
MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
The problem with saying I missed you, too was that there was, at least in the fairy tale version of these events, more he was meant to say following it. He could almost feel the rest of the speech hanging in the air between them, waiting to be spoken into existence. She probably knew the lines better than he did. But could he actually say them? The Lily he'd been thinking of on his long exile had been a girl of sixteen; she might have some things in common with the sparkling young woman standing before him now, but there was no guarantee of what. Worse than the unknown in that respect was the other half of the equation. The man that had written her all of those letters so long ago and had grand dreams of fame and fortune and marriage was a different person than the man who had emerged from the wilderness in America. There was no doubt at all about that. What if she no longer cared for him? What if he had the same difficulties connecting with her that he had seemed to have with everyone else? He could make some grand overture and propose to her all over again, but even if everything played out like a dream — a big if given his social and financial situation at the moment — what if they spent the next weeks, months, years, or even their entire lives as relative strangers, just going through the motions?
There was no way of knowing how this would end, and although he knew what he ought to say next, Alfred couldn't get the words past the lump in his throat. He couldn't promise (or even imply) that he could be there for her — physically, emotionally, or otherwise — when he wasn't sure it was a promise he could keep. He'd run out on one too many promises already, as far as his relationship with Lily was concerned. Merlin, what he had put her through.
"Lily, I — uhm," he stumbled. He glanced down at the ground nervously and felt his cheeks growing hot with discomfort. "I just — well, things are different now. Everything's different now," he continued, feeling like he was rambling even though he had spoken barely two coherent sentences. He just wasn't sure how to get to the point, and more particularly how to get to it in a way that wasn't cruel. How overt did he have to be when he said this? Trying to shoot for subtle and hoping she knew what he meant without it being stated outright seemed like the least painful way, but he dreaded the possibility of having to backtrack and say it again if it didn't quite click. "So I'm not sure — Well. With us."
How bloody articulate.
MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
