[That hopefulness almost hurts--not only because he can see his own past hopes reflected (see where they weren't enough), but also because he has to be the one to lay it to rest.]
No.
[Not "in a manner of speaking", though he'd been tempted to phrase it like that. No, doing that would make this harder to say.]
They're gone, Ciel. I can't sense Zero, at all, and...
[Well, the absence is obvious.
It feels too concise to put it like that, too neat. Nothing in life is neat like that. X has lived and persisted long enough to know better than to even begin to believe that, but... The fact of the matter is that's about all there is to it: gone.]
[She repeats the word, a little numbly. It was something she hadn't wanted to believe; she had refused to let her thoughts get that far, but now, here it was, plainly.
Their home already had precedent for it. Pascal being gone before their arrival and her strange and subsequent return, and of course, dear Miss Roll...
But the others... it seemed almost unimaginable for Zero to be missing, when he was why they were all there. And Axl was so lively. So -- noisy, even though she had... no recollection of him at all. What sort of time was he returning to? And Zero ... it felt ... as though some sort of opportunity had been robbed. To learn more about him from his time, if there was anything she could give back to him in the future. Presuming that there was anything to remember ...
This world was so illogical, and yet it felt even more illogical to be in a world without Zero. Even though... she hadn't even seen him again for herself in her time. A year. And how long had it been here? Still... now wasn't the time to dwell on this sort of thing. Not when X...]
... you wouldn't... say that if you weren't certain...
[She feels at a loss. The hope that had shone in her words fades, replaced with... an indescribable sensation. She hadn't been prepared for this possibility, and she should have been.]
... I'm sorry, X ... [Putting the Cyber-elf's feelings in front of her own, of course. It seemed only the right thing to do.]
[It's... touching she'd put him first, but X shakes his head.]
Ciel... I'm not the only one distressed by it.
[His chuckle's short, aborted and dry. He's unfortunately used to Zero vanishing, in a way, but that doesn't make it easy to accept. Still, it's a fact: Zero's gone, and X can manage. He's learned, in the past, how to. But Ciel? Ciel is young, she's not used to this--not yet, anyway, and he knows just from how she reacts to the news, how she pushes herself aside, that she feels similarly to him. The problem is that she doesn't have any of that preparation.
But blocking herself out doesn't change the reality.]
It's alright to be... out of sorts.
[He's not going to make her pull herself up. Not unless she decides she's flooding the house with dejected bubbles, anyway.]
[It was a little eerie sometimes, how similar their methods were. Like pushing a large, slow rolling ball back and forth of their silent struggles, yet without really wanting to reveal how they truly felt about it. And in this case, the metaphorical ball was bright red, with stripes of gold, blue and white...
It had always been that way between them since their arrival.
What had she learned in that time...? Since meeting him again, and that distance... even if it all came back to "Zero is Zero", he had never truly known her... but it seemed wrong, to dwell on that sort of thing.]
... I should have kept the possibility in my thoughts... There was ... no warning in this.
[At least the other time, he had dropped out of all communication of his own volition, and it had been a year. Being here with these timelines being out of whack just threw... everything out of whack. The sense of time, the responsibility...]
But that's how it usually is, here, isn't it? [Others, gone without a trace, but it hadn't hit like this.]
We'll just have to keep on...
[Brave words. She's not sure that she's ready to allow herself to be... out of sorts. She always finds a way to pull out of it, even with the worst she's faced at home. That wasn't the issue. She didn't really know what he was returning to, only that she would see him later, but ... that didn't take away that lingering ache, either. He had been that constant... she sets her books aside, absently pulling her knees toward her in that over-sized chair.]
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chiming
no subject
Date: 2017-03-23 06:00 am (UTC)From:No.
[Not "in a manner of speaking", though he'd been tempted to phrase it like that. No, doing that would make this harder to say.]
They're gone, Ciel. I can't sense Zero, at all, and...
[Well, the absence is obvious.
It feels too concise to put it like that, too neat. Nothing in life is neat like that. X has lived and persisted long enough to know better than to even begin to believe that, but... The fact of the matter is that's about all there is to it: gone.]
no subject
Date: 2017-03-24 11:08 pm (UTC)From:[She repeats the word, a little numbly. It was something she hadn't wanted to believe; she had refused to let her thoughts get that far, but now, here it was, plainly.
Their home already had precedent for it. Pascal being gone before their arrival and her strange and subsequent return, and of course, dear Miss Roll...
But the others... it seemed almost unimaginable for Zero to be missing, when he was why they were all there. And Axl was so lively. So -- noisy, even though she had... no recollection of him at all. What sort of time was he returning to? And Zero ... it felt ... as though some sort of opportunity had been robbed. To learn more about him from his time, if there was anything she could give back to him in the future. Presuming that there was anything to remember ...
This world was so illogical, and yet it felt even more illogical to be in a world without Zero. Even though... she hadn't even seen him again for herself in her time. A year. And how long had it been here? Still... now wasn't the time to dwell on this sort of thing. Not when X...]
... you wouldn't... say that if you weren't certain...
[She feels at a loss. The hope that had shone in her words fades, replaced with... an indescribable sensation. She hadn't been prepared for this possibility, and she should have been.]
... I'm sorry, X ... [Putting the Cyber-elf's feelings in front of her own, of course. It seemed only the right thing to do.]
no subject
Date: 2017-04-12 08:47 am (UTC)From:Ciel... I'm not the only one distressed by it.
[His chuckle's short, aborted and dry. He's unfortunately used to Zero vanishing, in a way, but that doesn't make it easy to accept. Still, it's a fact: Zero's gone, and X can manage. He's learned, in the past, how to. But Ciel? Ciel is young, she's not used to this--not yet, anyway, and he knows just from how she reacts to the news, how she pushes herself aside, that she feels similarly to him. The problem is that she doesn't have any of that preparation.
But blocking herself out doesn't change the reality.]
It's alright to be... out of sorts.
[He's not going to make her pull herself up. Not unless she decides she's flooding the house with dejected bubbles, anyway.]
no subject
Date: 2017-04-13 03:52 am (UTC)From:It had always been that way between them since their arrival.
What had she learned in that time...? Since meeting him again, and that distance... even if it all came back to "Zero is Zero", he had never truly known her... but it seemed wrong, to dwell on that sort of thing.]
... I should have kept the possibility in my thoughts... There was ... no warning in this.
[At least the other time, he had dropped out of all communication of his own volition, and it had been a year. Being here with these timelines being out of whack just threw... everything out of whack. The sense of time, the responsibility...]
But that's how it usually is, here, isn't it? [Others, gone without a trace, but it hadn't hit like this.]
We'll just have to keep on...
[Brave words. She's not sure that she's ready to allow herself to be... out of sorts. She always finds a way to pull out of it, even with the worst she's faced at home. That wasn't the issue. She didn't really know what he was returning to, only that she would see him later, but ... that didn't take away that lingering ache, either. He had been that constant... she sets her books aside, absently pulling her knees toward her in that over-sized chair.]