"Tap tap."
When he looked up, Greg could barely believe what he saw.
Pearl was staring back at him through the window of his van. There
were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked tired. Instead of her
normally perfect posture, her figure was slumped with exhaustion.
On instinct he opened the door.
"Yes?" he said a little dully.
Pearl gave a relieved sigh, climbing past him into the back of the van
without saying a word.
"What's going on Pearl?" Greg asked, not sure if he should be worried
or annoyed, settling on confused.
She crawled on her knees over to the mattress and collapsed, burying
her face in the pillow and breathing in deeply.
Greg raised his eyebrows at her unprecedented behavior "Uhhhhhh...?"
"It still smells like her." She says, rolling over slightly.
"Everything in here still smells like her." her hand comes up, and her
finger tips trace over the side of the van absently.
Greg nods, understanding. Her scent hasn't fade at all. It's the
reason he still lives in his van, the reason it's so precious to him..
And now he thinks it might be the reason Pearl cared enough to fix it.
"Steven Smells like her too." He supplies.
"I /know/ that!" Pearl snaps. /Of course she knows that!/ "But he's
asked me to stop smelling him."
Greg smiles "Me too."
He collapses next to her on the mattress, heaving out a sigh of
exhaustion. Pearl looks slightly peeved, but doesn't move away, or
even say anything salty. After a second she sighs too, and relaxes
again, her fingers curling into the fabric beneath her. She thinks
she'd like to sleep now. Her brain doesn't let her though. It buzzes
on with possibilities and alternatives and what might have happened
differently, Whose fault it is, whose fault she'd like it to be, and
all the thing she wanted so badly that will never happen, and the
great loss that this tiny little planet will never appreciate, never
fully even recognize. And she wonders if she's going to hurt this bad
forever.
Her mind is buzzing when she suddenly realizes that she's curled her
fingers absently between Greg's.
She feels him go tense, everywhere except his hand, and she feels him
looking at her like he's confused and a bit afraid of her. That look
that would have you think he was some poor, abused puppy she's been
kicking around all these years. It grates her nerves just a little,
but it isn't exactly unprecedented. She has been so hard on him. But
only because it has all been so painful. /And it's /his/ fault Rose is
gone!/ But she knows that not true. Not really. It's not true and it's
not fair. The logical part of her mind knows that. But so many things
are unfair, aren't they?
And her fingers are curled in his all the same, because she knows,
deep down inside, she knows that he is the only one who really
understands what it was like to lose Rose. He's the only one who could
possibly understand that kind of loss. Whether she likes to admit it
or not, he's the only other living being who has /loved/ Rose like she
does. And he's the only other who's up late at night, exhausted from
the buzzing in his head, the /what could have been done differently./
And he's the only other one who's not trying to move on, because
moving on without Rose is so utterly incomprehensible that she honestly
can't believe anyone's really considering it as an option.
He is the only one who understands, and he's still staring at her like
she's insane, waiting for an explanation, because after all these
years, after all their suffering and all her harsh words, her fingers
are curled through his.
"I'm too tired to hate you right now." She says honestly. It's the
truth. She's hated him so long and so much, and now she's just /too/
tired.
He seems to accept this. She senses him relax again, and without even
realizing it's coming, she hears herself choke out a truer sentiment.
"I just miss her. I miss her so much."
She feels his gaze leave her, knows he's looking aimlessly at the roof
of the van.
"It was nice while it lasted." he breaths back, and she swears it's
the smartest thing he's ever said.
A moment passes before she manages to say "It really was."
Then she rolls her face back into the pillow and breathes deep. It
smells like him, but she doesn't mind because it smells like Rose too.
She thinks again that she'd like to sleep. Maybe now she'll be able to.
When you sleep you get to dream. And she always dreams of Rose.