[ dread submerges her stomach, a churning wave of nausea that worsens the longer clara takes to speak. she has the clues to the puzzle in front of her, if she dared to look at them, study the finer details of the bigger picture. kovacs' need to save someone. clara's devastation, once they had broken apart to go their separate ways. her insistence that the chapters of her life wouldn't end happily.
no one has ever needed rescuing from a happy ending. a prick of discomfort gnaws at her — guilt, alina realizes, for possibly knowing more about clara than she has any right to know. here she is speaking of riddles, and alina's pockets are filled with secrets she isn't prepared to share. isn't ready to drag them into the light, where her own eyes can examine them too closely.
she hesitates, unsure of how to offer clara comfort — helpless, as her eyes fall to clara's spinning fingers, rotating her ring in dizzying circles. alina leans forward to clasp her hand on instinct to ground her, offering a reassuring squeeze. ]
Some riddles are worth solving.
[ and solving others will only hurt. she can't be certain which this is; every secret kept from her, locked away in the dark, has only ever been intended to mislead her down a path she wouldn't follow otherwise, to use her. but something nags at her, a sense that the one person this secret harms above all else —
is clara herself. the small, ruby charm clasped to alina's necklace dangles when she leans forward, a free hand settling between clara's shoulder blades. there, the thundering beat of the other woman's heart is painfully obvious, stampeding against alina's palm. ]
Whatever it is, I'm not going anywhere. [ a beat, her fingers weaving tightly between clara's own. ] You don't have to run.
no subject
no one has ever needed rescuing from a happy ending. a prick of discomfort gnaws at her — guilt, alina realizes, for possibly knowing more about clara than she has any right to know. here she is speaking of riddles, and alina's pockets are filled with secrets she isn't prepared to share. isn't ready to drag them into the light, where her own eyes can examine them too closely.
she hesitates, unsure of how to offer clara comfort — helpless, as her eyes fall to clara's spinning fingers, rotating her ring in dizzying circles. alina leans forward to clasp her hand on instinct to ground her, offering a reassuring squeeze. ]
Some riddles are worth solving.
[ and solving others will only hurt. she can't be certain which this is; every secret kept from her, locked away in the dark, has only ever been intended to mislead her down a path she wouldn't follow otherwise, to use her. but something nags at her, a sense that the one person this secret harms above all else —
is clara herself. the small, ruby charm clasped to alina's necklace dangles when she leans forward, a free hand settling between clara's shoulder blades. there, the thundering beat of the other woman's heart is painfully obvious, stampeding against alina's palm. ]
Whatever it is, I'm not going anywhere. [ a beat, her fingers weaving tightly between clara's own. ] You don't have to run.