Work Text:
1:
Roses are for romance, but when Fiona thinks of them she remembers her family. She sees her mother's house in Kearny - the green bushes filled with bright red buds bursting to life every spring. As a girl she and Patrick would linger in the summer light with their shears and baskets, cutting blossoms for the table and chuckling together. The tradition changed as she got older, and as a teenager she would help little Claire pick the blooms for vases and bury their faces in the sweet-smelling flowers.
Roses die young on the vine. Fiona should have remembered this.
2:
Carnations are for love, but they remind Fiona of funerals - cheap and plentiful, they had adorned Claire's casket when she was placed in the cold, dark earth of the Kearny churchyard.
They had come in ruddy bunches from Donnegal, white and lying in boxes from County Cork and bursting in yellow sprigs from tabletop vases.
They've lost half their petals by the time Fiona says 'yes' to O'Neil's question.
3:
Aloe is for grief, but Fiona will always think of it as a lifesaver, a little pot sitting in the rocky earth by her bathroom windowsill. She'd never been able to grow anything as green and lush as her mother could. But this small green plant, needing little but water, grew wild, giving her something to soothe her cuts and burns, sealing her knife wounds and easing powder burns. As she learned her art she cut more pieces from that plant than she could count.
That plant is ultimately what she misses most when she leaves the entirety of her belongings in Dublin.
4:
Michael showed up on her doorstep the morning after the pub incident with a handful of tiger lilies. Thrusting them forward with a pained smile, he said 'I saw these and thought of you'.
She's not surprised - they're bright orange, the petals curling backward like a wild flame, spotted over with lovely brown freckles. She wrinkled her nose at him. "Tiger Lilies. Do I look like a tea matron?"
Later, she would look up the meaning of those blossoms and shake her head, irritated.
"I dare you to love me."
Well, Fiona was never one to turn down a challenge...