September 13, 2024 – 10:55 PM
Alexandra Rowle — Played by Emma
The anger, pulsing hot and heavy in her blood, was a sharp distraction from the chill settling in her bones. The more she struck at him, the less she felt the ice forming around her toes. Alexandra paid no mind to where her blows struck, relishing only at the contact - at the ache forming in her knuckles. It didn't matter that Philip seemingly wanted her to hit him, nor did she fear what his eventual reaction would be. For a short while, all the world narrowed down to the grief ripping through her and the swing of her arms.
She released a guttural shriek of indignation when he embraced her. For all his invitations and encouragement to hit him, this position lent itself only to frustration on her end. Her nails would have ripped his back to shreds had he less layers on, but instead she left only gouges in his jacket. It wasn't satisfying enough. It wasn't the relief of her tightly wound grief that she normally kept buried deep.
"Let me go!" She shrieked again, not realizing how distraught her own voice was. There was a wetness on her cheeks that she hadn't felt in years - that she hadn't allowed herself to feel since that night when she begged him to grieve with her. "Let me go!" Alexandra shrieked again. "You have no right! You weren't there! You -"
Alexandra didn't finish her statement — she couldn't finish it for the pained sob that came out instead choked out all her other arguments. She stopped clawing at his back, stopped fighting entirely, as she clung to him and cried.
October 3, 2024 – 12:38 AM
Philip Rowle — Played by MJ
“No,” Philip had protested firmly, in spite of her shrieking. No, he had no right; no, he hadn’t been there, he had never been; no, he wouldn’t fucking let her go. He couldn’t say whether this last was to aggravate her or in hope that she could find some comfort. But he could feel the pain physically wracking her body and echoing through his chest. Years of his pain, suppressed by the curse and left to haunt him. It was worse when she fell limp against him – his arms snaked more tightly around her, tight enough to almost break a rib.
This was the way to fall apart. “No,” he murmured again, his breaths coming heavy and ragged. No, it hadn’t been her fault. No – she was not an automaton after all. “No. I know.” He leant over her, burying his face towards her – without meaning to, he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. I’m sorry, maybe that was to say, or don’t you dare let go. Because Alexandra was warm and angry and so alive, a channel for all his hurt – and, perhaps for the first time, he thought that he might need her.
October 6, 2024 – 7:59 PM
Alexandra Rowle — Played by Emma
Alexandra registered his repeated refusals but couldn't find her voice to fight him further through the force of her sobs. This was the embrace she'd needed all those years ago, the support she'd forcefully demanded and failed to receive. This was the sort of comfort she had once envisioned being able to find in her husband. And now that he was finally providing it, now that Philip had at long last shown up for her, Alexandra found herself clinging to him like his embrace was the her sole lifeline in a stormy sea.
She cried for what felt like at eternity, the endless parade of grief uncontrollably pouring out of the tightly sealed cavern she'd kept thoroughly guarded since Frederick's death. When they finally began to subside, with her fingers cramping and stiff from the white knuckled grip she'd kept on him, Alexandra drew back just enough to firmly kiss him.
October 18, 2024 – 12:09 AM
Philip Rowle — Played by MJ
Philip didn’t know if he had been crying too, or if it was her tears wetting him or just the snow slowly melting from their clothes and their hair, but if she was stumbling through the dark of the past years, he was with her through it for every step, wandering blindly. Wondering if they even deserved to survive.
Her mouth met his before he had any comprehension of what she was going to do, but that didn’t matter – this didn’t need to make sense. He wasn’t sure if it was a distraction from the pain, or an expression of it, but he didn’t want to let her go now, was afraid for the moment to end. So he kissed her back with the same hunger or fierce conviction, clasping the back of her neck with one hand and curling the other better around her waist beneath her still-damp cloak, gasping for breath and kissing her again.
November 19, 2024 – 11:15 PM
Alexandra Rowle — Played by Emma
Alexandra didn't allow herself to think as she sank further into his touch. She didn't dwell upon the lost or the misery or the frigid cold seeping into her very bones. There was only Philip, alive and warm and passionate against her. There was only the warmth of his breath on her mouth, the grip of his hands on her neck and waist.
(Distantly — so very distantly, buried far beneath the all the other thoughts she refused to acknowledge at present — Alexandra realized that this was her first kiss. Philip had kissed her countless other times, of course, but she had never initiated any act of intimacy between them. Every touch exchanged was perfunctory, rigid even. This though - this was entirely hers for the first time in her life.)
She didn't know how much time passed before she came up for air, but when she did she seemed to come back into herself all at once. Shock danced its way across her features as her body first tensed then instinctively drew away from him. Alexandra buried the surprise quickly, too suddenly aware of all that she had shared and the accusations he'd made. A breath passed as her armor began to click back into place, the walls she built so carefully around her heart fortifying once more. Then - "you will never suggest I had a hand in our son's death again." She declared just as forcefully as she had kissed him.
December 8, 2024 – 7:52 PM
Last modified: December 8, 2024 – 7:55 PM by Philip Rowle.
Philip Rowle — Played by MJ
And just like that, he could mistake her for a stranger again. She was back to being the woman he had married sleepwalking – she had recovered so fast, from the fight and the tears and the kiss.
Philip felt – winded, dazed, delusional. He staggered half a pace backwards, body and brain trying to catch up with the change in her. “Fine,” he agreed, more readily and seriously than he had meant; he wasn’t actually sure, in this moment, that he had the will or the capacity to provoke her to anger again. His hand came to his mouth, as if to check that he hadn’t imagined it all. I know you didn’t, he almost said, or only if you don’t scare me like that again, but the strange softness between them... it couldn’t stay.
With a jerky nod, he glanced out beyond the greenhouse’s fogged up glass. “When the snow stops, we’ll fly back to the house.” She had broken one broom, but they could share his.
