March 11th, 1893 — Visions Parlor Grand Opening, Diagon Alley, London

Divination was never a subject Rosalie was remotely interested in. Predicting the future in tea leaves and cloud shapes made even less sense to her than those who were interested in studying muggles. (While she held no ill will towards muggles, she didn't see a reason to dedicate an entire course of study to them. They were humans with no magical ability — and therefore not worth noticing.) It was guesswork and, for those without any legitimate seer abilities, interpretation of their client's bodily cues that guided most of these supposed fortune tellers. And, were it not for her friend's insistence in going, Rosalie would have never ventured into Madame Simone's Visions Parlor.

Even as she sat at the table and offered the first memory that sprung to mind — a random afternoon of playing Ezra's tile game, he looked up at her with a grin — Rosalie was still doubtful of what was to come. (Choosing her past was the easiest decision of the night, for there was nothing in the present she wished to know and the future now frightened her.) She shut her eyes in the dim light as her supposed diviner worked with her memory, held them tighter still when the air suddenly felt different. This was guesswork. This wasn't real.

And yet, when Rosalie opened her eyes, there sat a younger, semi-translucent version of the man she'd done everything possible since Halloween to forget.

She'd paid for the opportunity to talk to him, the fee considerable even with the discount. She ought to have gone into this with a list of questions to demand answers of. Only, the longer she stared at him, the less she could think of what to say. The diviner's stare was curious, forcing Rosalie into a further state of discomfort as she shifted away from the table somewhat. This wasn't real. He wasn't here. He wasn't her-

"I wish you had told me." Rosalie forced herself to say, her voice quiet in the dimly lit room.

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Ezra Applegate

  

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stunning set by Lady <3

There was something different about her eyes. There were a lot of things that were different here, strange, incongruent with the way that he remembered them, but her eyes were the first thing he noticed and what his focus stayed on. Her eyes were sadder now than they had been, which gave them the impression of more depth — or maybe that had something to do with the lighting in this room and the way it reflected off of them. Intentionally dim lighting, Ezra observed. Mood lighting, someone would say charitably, but he suspected Rosalie would see it as a sign of misdirection. She'd never been keen on this sort of thing.

"Do you?" he asked, with a note of keen interest, as though she were telling him something he had never considered before. He leaned forward and leaned an elbow on the table, peering at her eyes. "You reacted quite strongly when it came up. Would it have been different on any other day?"

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His expression was too earnest, his question too pointed, for Rosalie to answer quickly. Her reaction that day was extreme (she was far enough removed from the situation now to realize she should have had more of a conversation with him) but she'd been little more than a child crippled by grief back then. She wasn't even twenty that first summer together, how was she to know the appropriate reaction to such a devastating reveal? How could he have approached the conversation in such a deceptive way?

The seconds ticked by as Rosalie sat deep in thought beneath the weight of Ezra's (and the diviner's) stares. Ezra had seemed shocked by her confession last Halloween, as though the thought of his son dying hadn't once occurred to him. Rosalie didn't understand how he could avoid thinking of it regardless of who he intended to marry. A child's death was devastating, expected or not. None of it made sense.

"No, I suppose not." Rosalie answered. Their separation would have occurred no matter when he told her, though her reaction might not have been so dramatic had he spoken of it sooner. "I don't understand why you would have chosen me to pursue, knowing what you did about Ambrose's death. Did you think I could survive such a loss?"

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stunning set by Lady <3

"You don't understand?" Ezra echoed, one eyebrow raised. His expression implied that he did not quite believe her, and didn't think she believed herself, either. "I imagine you could guess." Her question just now implied that it had been a conscious choice on his part, pursuing her, but it wasn't. He hadn't chosen to fall in love with her, any more than she had chosen to fall for him. Generally speaking he thought most people would agree that no one chose who they loved... but in their specific case it seemed to go even beyond that. How could he not have pursued her, loving her as he did? And how could he not have loved her, knowing her as he did?

But maybe that was the root of the question. Maybe she was really asking how he could have let himself even know her in the first place, how he could have given himself the opportunity to fall in love with her, if he'd known that it was all destined the fall apart. It was a flawed premise, of course, but she didn't know that.

Ezra put his curled fist against his mouth and clicked his tongue, trying to decide how to answer her question. The difficulty was that there was no answer, because the question was so far removed from the real point, but it didn't feel right to dodge it, or to lie to her. "I think you could survive anything," he eventually responded. Then he followed with a question of his own: "Why do you think I told you at all?"

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Rosalie frowned. Of course she understood why Ezra had pursued her — it was the same drive that had consumed her that summer. There was something about him — about them together — that worked in a way nothing else in her life ever had. She had been powerless to stop it, not that she ever once had the thought to stop it. Ezra was it for her — her present, her future, her one true love. And, it wasn't her ego that told Rosalie she had been the same for him.

I think you could survive anything.

Ezra had always held such unwavering faith in her meager abilities. This version of him — the one who could still look at her without the layer of resentment that now existed — thought her worth such confidence still. The thought was even more sobering than the heavy conversation they were having. Rosalie broke eye contact, her gaze dropping to the lace of the tablecloth. Ezra had loved her, why had he chosen to destroy everything so close to their wedding?

Her hands fidgeted on her lap beneath the table. "Guilt? A case of cold feet? I've asked myself the same question thousands of times now." She muttered.

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra tilted his chin down slightly and looked at her, both eyebrows arched. His expression would say what his words didn't: both of the explanations she'd offered seemed rather thin. Guilt was the more likely answer, because it was perfectly reasonable to assume that he would be feeling guilty in the situation as she understood it, but it didn't explain why he would have told her. If he'd been feeling guilty about tricking her into marrying him, he could have broken it off for any reason at all, or no reason at all. There was no reason to admit to what was presumably a well-guarded family secret if he intended to chase her out of the relationship. As for cold feet, well — she could not seriously have believed that, he didn't think, so it didn't even merit thoughtful consideration in his response.

"Thousands of times," he said. "And you've never come up with an answer that feels right."

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"No, I haven't." Rosie admitted. Ezra didn't even move after she slapped him, he hadn't done anything but profess his love for her. Surely, if he was intending to confess something so damning he would have had a better handle over his expectations. He wouldn't have just stood there while she fled.

She still couldn't bring herself to look back up towards him. Her allotted time was running out faster than Rosalie could think. The puzzle pieces were all laid out before her, she just needed the time to figure them out. Would the diviner allow her more time without the sacrifice of another memory? They all seemed infinitely more precious now, almost like they were the last remnants of a gift she'd carelessly lost. What would she sacrifice next to keep this conversation going? What was she willing to lose?

The diviner cleared his throat, snapping Roaalie from her rising panic. Minutes. She had minutes left. "Why were you surprised on Halloween? You acted like it was the first you'd heard of my reasoning."

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra frowned faintly. Halloween — the knowledge of it was there, somewhere, but it was hazy and hard to grasp. Too far removed, temporally or emotionally, from the memory she'd used to summon him up for it to feel as though he'd really experienced it. It was more as though someone had given him a summary of what had happened after the fact than as though he had lived through it himself.

"That was the first time you'd explained it. Wasn't it?" he asked, but his tone had changed almost imperceptibly. Where before he had been earnest and prodding he now sounded unsure of his answer. The fogginess of Halloween had reminded him of the distance between them, which had nothing to do with the physical space. He was made of memory, and that was fine when they were talking about the moments he could reach out and touch, but for her it was the distant past. He didn't even know how distant; he didn't know what today's date was. He had been aware of the circumstances from the moment she'd opened her eyes to see him, but this was the first time that he really felt insubstantial.

"You sacrificed something to do this," he said. "Do you... want to hold my hand, while I'm still here?"

He couldn't really have explained why he thought to offer it, but it seemed significant — like the contact was something she could have in return, for whatever she had chosen to lose.

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Yes, her answer formed immediately and instinctively, despite her frustration over his non-answer. She was consumed by the same thought that had nearly led to disaster between them on Halloween: just once more. Rosalie no longer remembered what it felt like to simply hold his hand in her own, or if she did the memory was fogged over in her haze of grief that she couldn't be certain if it was a real or imagined feeling. She wanted to hold his hand, wanted to experience that love again.

But, Halloween had revealed more than just their differing beliefs over why their relationship ended. Halloween had revealed a side to him she didn't know could exist — a side that hurt to be on. His face then didn't even look the same as it did now. Almost like he had removed every ounce of compassion when he spat those vile accusations at her.

She shook her head in a silent no before finally looking up at him again. Unshed tears welled in the corners of her eyes. Did this version of Ezra even know what happened on Halloween? Did it matter either way? "You said things on Halloween — awful things. And I know — I know I deserved most of them. I just — I never thought I'd hear such words from you."

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stunning set by Lady <3

The grief showed on his face, though it wasn't clear whether he was disappointed that she'd refused his hand or dismayed at where the conversation had turned next. You didn't deserve them, he thought; he did not need to recall what was said on Halloween specifically to be certain of this. He couldn't fathom any situation in which Rosalie would deserve anyone saying something cruel to her, much less awful things, plural. But he couldn't find the words she meant in his mental inventory; he didn't remember. Maybe the limitations of the spell used the summon him, or maybe something else, but in any case he couldn't come up with the right context to give her a solid answer.

He raised both hands and ran them through the hair on the sides of his head. "I never thought you'd leave me," he pointed out — if they were on the subject of apparently impossible things that had since come to pass. "We're a long way off from where we should be, Rosalie." A long way off from what was right, and no way back — at least none that he could see. And anyway, he had no right to feel as anguished about it as he did; he was going to fade in a few more minutes, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to him then what became of Rosie and his actual self, wherever he was.

But for the moment he was here, and while he was here he could not help but care deeply. Maybe not about his own future, since he had no stake in it now, but about her — about the visceral, current grief she had brought to the table in the diviner's room. "Why did you do this?" he asked, trying to meet her eyes. "What were you looking for? From me?"

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There was such truth to his words that Rosalie could do nothing but nod in her efforts to hold back her tears. She never could have imagined herself capable of leaving him at the time from which Ezra was conjured. Their love was pure and genuine, as everlasting as all the romance novels led their readers to believe. It was why she still couldn't seem to move on, why she was drawn to him like a fly to a flame. They were supposed to be far, far from here.

She was grateful for this version of Ezra that still seemed to love her so, if only for how he was slowly steering them away from the painful subjects. She swallowed heavily. Despite knowing this version of him would never know otherwise, Rosalie still refused to cry in front of him. That was a vulnerability meant for a lover, a confidant, of which he could be neither.

"Will your firstborn son die to a blood curse?" She asked after a long pause, already heavily suspecting the answer would be no.

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stunning set by Lady <3

At the mention of a blood curse Ezra's eyes lit up with a mix of surprise and relief. It seemed as though her bringing it up had broken some sort of seal and he could talk about it now. Whether the seal was one of convention or magic was hard to say; there were multiple kinds of magic at play in this situation and he didn't know that he fully understood any of them.

"What an interesting question," he said, with a thoughtful look as he tried to determine how much he could say. "Curses are difficult to pin down, you know. Always hard to say what you can blame them for, at the end of the day. I suppose it's possible," he allowed. "Everyone dies eventually. It's impossible to predict what exactly will do it. But — I don't think that's what you mean."

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"It isn't," Rosalie huffed, frustrated with the lack of a direct answer. That Ezra was questioning the nature of curses themselves and not the specific one she mentioned was telling though. And if she had an infinite amount of time to sit with this version of him and think through her responses then Rosalie felt as though she might've been able to arrive at some sort of rational conclusion. However, there were four minutes left on the clock and her remaining memories suddenly felt infinitely more precious.

Sighing, Rosalie swiped at her watery eyes and struggled to see past her frustration to the right ask. Four minutes became three; she was going to lose him and with it any chance for closure before her answers were found. "What did you mean then? If you didn't mean that our son would die young?" She was watching him carefully now, blue eyes scanning his every feature for some hint of what he still hadn't said.

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra frowned at her question. It was direct, which made it difficult to half-answer, but it was impossible to give her a real answer when she wasn't asking the right question. She seemed to have heard and understood everything he'd just said, which made it seem like maybe he could be more candid here than he could elsewhere, but he was still hesitant to step over an invisible line and say something he wouldn't be able to take back.

"You already know, don't you?" he murmured, watching her carefully. "You came here looking for answers on a conversation you already had. You've never been able to figure out why I would have had that conversation at all. And since then you've heard things from me you never would have expected to hear." He hesitated slightly, then decided to press ahead, though this was riskier now: "And more than that. You know because you've seen it, haven't you, since you left? You know what I was trying to tell you. You've seen how bad it can get without you there to keep it at bay."

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No, I don't know! Rosalie thought to scream at him early on in his explanation. If she knew, she wouldn't have thought to summon him to ask all the wrong questions. If she knew, she could have somehow had a conversation with the real Ezra. Not that he'd ever speak to her again after the events of Halloween, but the fact still remained that Rosalie was incredibly overwhelmed by the puzzle before her.

But then, Ezra mentioned her having witnessed whatever curse afflicted him and Rosalie felt as though she'd been paralyzed. There was only one instance she could recall where things were bad, one particular party where she had carried Ezra through the woods. He had tried to blame it on a stomach bug but Rosalie had known even then that that was a lie. The curse did something bad to him then, but what? What would make him sick like that? What sort of curse would make him lie?

"What do you mean by without me there?" She asked, perplexed by how she had any part in his curse. They completed no rituals nor did they exchange anything beyond a ring and promises. That she somehow kept the curse at bay was even more confusing than what the curse was.

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stunning set by Lady <3

"That's what I was trying to tell you," he answered, leaning back in his chair. "I needed you. To survive it." He waited a moment, then added pensively, "I don't know why. If it was you, or if — maybe it was just having someone worth surviving for."

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