Chapter Text
“You already know the story. You will die. Everyone you love will also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you can do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand the unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the very first time.” ~ The Iliad.
The first time you remember, it’s in a dream. The dream itself is flashes, of blonde hair, and a beautiful scowling face.
You see the student council room, the large ornate pillars, the long table, the endless stack of papers piling up. Then, another flash, the scowl, is replaced by a small, gentle smile, but it’s gone as quick as it appeared.
The next flash is different, you see a forest, dark, and empty, except for the blonde, and yourself, and the heart in a jar sitting between you. You’re reassuring her, and then she’s chanting, and you’re pushing the heart into her chest.
Another flash, and you see your wife, a look on her face you simply do not recognize. It’s angry, hateful even, as she takes the image of you, and the blonde, on the forest floor in. You watch the beautiful blonde change, and suddenly, she’s on you. You watch as she tears your throat out with her teeth, and close your eyes, and imagine this as a means of carrying any piece of you with her, an eternal act of love, shrouded in the savagery of your blood smeared around her mouth. It brings you peace, even though you know, in your heart, this life is over. You can’t find it in you to be upset, as the tears stream from her face - seemingly unnoticed by her, or Miranda.
You wake, with a jolt, gasping as your hands search your throat for the wound, for the blood you expect to be pouring from your neck. Instead, you find it dry, and your chest heaves with a heavy feeling you can’t place. Miranda is by your side, but your ears are ringing too loudly to hear a single word she’s saying to you. Who was that woman? Why do you ache at the sight of her face now burning in your memory. You know her, you are you sure that you do, and her name burns on the tip of your tongue but it won’t spill out.
“Feather” Miranda’s soft voice finally breaks through, hands gripping either side of your face with enough force to stop you squirming out of her hold. “You need to breathe, little crow, please.”
You realize, suddenly, that you aren’t in fact breathing, you’re hyperventilating. Sharp, jagged breaths force their way in and out of your chest, and you’re hit with the realization that you’re crying. The tears flow freely, but you can’t bring yourself to fall into your wife’s arms. She stood there, and watched, watched you bleed out on the forest floor and her face never showed more than disdain.
“-a dream, it’s just a dream my darling” Miranda soothes, and you can finally bring yourself to look at her. Her face is pinched with concern, as she runs her thumbs across your cheeks, brushing the tears out of your face. She’s beautiful, your beautiful wife who you love more than words can express, yet the tight feeling in your chest at how she let you die doesn’t dissipate. You try to find the words, try to express what you’d seen but she simply shushes you, pulling you into arms.
“I have you, don’t worry, you’re safe with me my love”
You don’t know why that suddenly feels like a lie.
However, you don’t push, and let yourself fall back asleep, in the warm embrace of your wife’s arms. You don’t dream of the blonde again that night, in fact, you don’t dream at all.
The following morning feels like a daze. As if someone else is controlling your body and you just watch. You mentally clock back in, as Miranda sips on her coffee, flicking through that mornings paper, Eva at her side, reading the little cartoon panels and sounding out the longer words. It warms you, the domesticity, and the safety you feel in that moment. Still, the image of the blonde from your dreams gnaws at you uncomfortably. The familiarity of her face, the look on Miranda’s, it all creates a sickly pit in the centre of your stomach.
“Darling?” You call out, watching your wife and daughter turn to you with the same, curious look on their faces. You smile at Eva, who beams at the attention.
“Eva darling will you get Cornelius and we’ll feed him his breakfast?” You ask, and watch as your daughter practically bolts out the kitchen in her excitement.
“He likes her far more than he likes me, I don’t know whether to be proud or disappointed”
Your wife watched your daughters retreating form with the telltale expression of adoration. Eva hung the moon and the stars in your wife’s eyes, and you feel the exact same.
“I was wondering if I could talk to you about my dream last night?”
Miranda turns to you, head cocked to the side, and you take this as a silent invitation to continue.
“I dreamt of a woman, a blonde woman without a heart. I clearly knew her quite well, and together we got her heart, and I put it back into her chest…but soemthing went wrong? I think, and she turned, into this zombie like creature. You watched, as this woman tore into me, and you didn’t help me. I know it was just a dream but it’s just left me so rattled” you ramble on. Your wife remains silent, and still, as you speak. After what feels like an eternity, she finally responds.
“My love, I would never let anything happen to the life we’ve created together. I would never let anyone hurt my little crow” Miranda says, a tone of finality in her words.
“But I-“
“That woman will never bother you again my love.” Miranda cuts you off with a smile, it’s not soft, as it normally is, it’s stiff, and forced.
You can only summon the energy to nod, before Eva bounces back into the room, with Cornelius on her shoulder. You don’t mention the dream again.
~
Weeks pass after the dream, and you’re willing to pass it off as a nightmare and have that be the end of it all, until, it happens again. Miranda is busy with work at the university, and Eva was getting stir crazy waiting for her mother to come home, so you opted to take her to the park.
The park bustled with life, from the children running across the grounds, engaged in games as far as the imagination could stretch, to the multitude of plant life scattered across the edges of the grounds, extending through to the grass, and the local forest. Your beautiful Eva, was enamored by the flora sprinkled on the edge of the grounds. Beautiful local flowers, and other non local flowers planted by people in the community.
You watch as Eva tip toed her away around the flowers, leaning in close to examine every individual feature of the plant. She would loudly hum, inquisitive about whatever was on her mind. Typically, she’d save her questions until Miranda would get home, and demand to create a “hypothesis” of why the flower was the colour it was, why the insects seemed to favor one flower or another. It always ended in a back and forth game of “but why?” On Eva’s part, with Miranda more than delighted to explain the science behind the questions.
However, today, it seemed she had different ideas. She takes your hand, dragging you over to a specific flower bed filled with pink flowers.
“Mommy, what are these called?” She asks, fingers gently running over the little petals.
You speak, before you can fully process the words you’re saying.
“They’re pink camellias my love, they’re pretty aren’t they? They represent longing, love and affection.”
You still. Why did you know that? You’ve never known much about plant life, or anything of the sort, but suddenly all you can seem to recall in this moment is information about the plants you can see around you. Then, it hits you, like a wave, with sharp stabbing pain in your temple.
You get a flash of a flower shop, teeming with life and colour. A stunning woman behind the counter, making apron she’s wearing look far too appealing for what it really is. You work here, you have for a while, why does it all feel…
So fuzzy?
Another flash, you’re hit with a violent wave of nausea and suddenly you’re in the nursery of the shop, sharing kisses with the stunning woman. She breathes your name like a prayer, and you find that you’d fall to your knees and worship this woman the second she’d ask it if you - not that she ever would.
The word ‘Tesoro’ burns at your ears, and you know, you know you’ve heard it before, a million times over - in sweet whispers, in impassioned cries, in the calm of the night.
You see your wife, again, at the other side of the counter, asking you to be her secretary - but you were her secretary werent you? It’s how you met.
It’s like reality shifts, and you say, no, you’re content where you are, content with this stunning woman at your side. How could you ever leave this? Miranda’s face twists in displeasure, and she storms out of the shop, slamming the door so hard the bell rattles aggressively in its place.
This was your life, it would be the way you’d live your life for the rest of-
Your ears ring ten times worse than before. You see Eva, tugging on your sleeve, a panicked expression on her little face. You try summon the words, anything to comfort your daughter, but nothing comes out.
“-mmy who’s Donna?” Eva asks impatiently.
“Sorry little crow, mommy zoned out for a minute. Where did you hear that name?” You asked in a daze. Brushing the hair out of Eva’s face, and giving her an affectionate Pat on the head as means of easing her nerves.
“You said it! You kept saying it when you went somewhere else - when you went to the zone”
Donna? The name felt foreign on your tongue, but it burned in your chest in a way that startled you. You knew one Donna, vaguely, the florist and gardener that Miranda knew. Did you daydream of Donna? It didn’t feel like a daydream, it felt as real as the feeling of your daughter’s hand in yours.
You tried to shake it, a strange trick of the subconscious, latching onto Names and faces that didn’t mean much to you. However, it wouldn’t shake, and the entire way home, all you could think of was the florists smile, and the feeling of her lips on your own.
When you arrive home, Miranda is cooking in the kitchen, humming to herself as she does. Eva bursts into the kitchen, questions upon questions about what Miranda is cooking. You press a kiss to your wife’s cheek, and make a distracted comment that what’s cooking smells good.
“Actually, can I ask you something my love?” You question, mind still narrowed in on Donna Benevientos eyes.
Your wife hums, a silent gesture to say that you can.
“Have i ever been to the Beneviento florists with you? Or at all, to your knowledge?”
Anyone who didn’t know your wife, would fail to notice the way she stops stirring the pot in front of her - it’s just for a moment, a stutter in the consistent movement she had going, but it’s enough of a response to tell you she know’s something.
“No feather, why do you ask?” She responds casually, too casually in fact - your wife has never been casual about anything, ever.
“I don’t know…I was just thinking a lot about it today” you respond, you can be just as vague as your wife if that’s how she wants to play this.
“Mama! Mommy knew so much about this pretty flower today - a pink one” Eva proudly declares, tugging on your wife’s arm.
You share a look with Miranda. You’re aren’t entirely sure what it means as her eyes sweep over your face, searching for something in it. She does this, for a long moment, before seemingly satisfied with what she finds.
“Don’t Fret about the florist dear, it’s not worth fussing over that hermit.”
You don’t mention Donna again that day.
~
Again, weeks pass after your strange daydream, if you can even call it that, of Donna and her flower shop. You find yourself in the university, waiting for Miranda to finish with a meeting. Your eyes roam the various plaques and trophies displayed in the case, scanning over names you recognize and names you don’t.
You see Dani’s on a variety of athletic trophies, and find yourself smiling. She could never stick to a sport, despite being phenomenal at every single one she tried. Last time you spoke, she was working in physiotherapy, and still skateboarding on the side. If she noticed you hadn’t aged alongside her, she didn’t ask.
You eventually land on a plaque, names of student body presidents throughout the years, until you find a name you recognize. Bela Dimitrescu. The eldest sibling, notoriously callous. You remember many nights spent comforting Dani about why her sister wouldn’t speak to her. You remember dancing with her, at the ball, a blue dress that complimented her eyes.
Callous? Why didn’t that image sit right in your head, you know you’d heard it before - multiple times even, but your mind struggles to tie the word to Bela. You didn’t even know her that well, you were sure of it, Bela and yourself never crossed paths - so why were you so hung up on -
Your ears ring, again. The flash’s Come slower this time, and you’re met with the image of Bela, holding your hand as you walk through a city you don’t recognize. Your arms swing together as you walk, and she raises your joined hands to press a kiss to your knuckles.
“I could spend the rest of my life here with you” Bela declares, using the hold she has on you to spin you into her. She looks at you, in a way you can only describe as adoration. You know the same is reflected in your own eyes.
“Hey, I’d live in a dingy little house with nothing around for miles if it meant I was with you” you chuckle, “I’d go anywhere with you”
Bela preens under the statement, making sure to kiss you extra hard, as if trying to force every bit of feeling she has into it.
It flashes again. This time you’re in a hotel room, Bela lies asleep, bare back facing up, you gently run your fingers from the base of her neck to the base of her spine, leaning in to press gentle kisses to the freckles on her shoulder.
It’s domestic, and you’re met with the sudden realization you could spend the rest of your life this way.
It flashes again, and the scene is much more disturbing than any of the ones prior. You’re in an apartment that you don’t recognize, but you know it’s well furnished, and lived in by the way it’s decorated. Miranda stands in the apartment, a tight hold on Bela’s shirt, expression nothing short of a snarl.
“You won’t take her from me, not again!” Bela growls, hands clawing at Miranda’s, trying to fight her way out of Miranda’s hands.
Miranda laughs, it’s a cruel and twisted sound, and Bela thrashes further in her grip. “She was never yours to have - she’s mine. I will come for her, every single time without fail.”
“Where’s her choice in that?” Bela demands, “where’s her freedom? If you loved her at all - if you loved her like I do you’d let her choose!”
Miranda huffs in irritation, dropping her hold on Bela. She’s clearly grown bored of this conversation, and suddenly cult members flock in. Bela watched helplessly as they drag you out of your home, thrashing and screaming in their hold. You scream Bela’s name, cry out for her, and Bela has to sit, and listen, until your cries eventually fade out into the distance.
You jolt from the vision with a startled whimper, clutching at the side of your head as a violent migraine rips through you in waves. You nearly feel as you’re about to collapse, as you sway on your feet. If not for the fact you collide directly into Alcina, who is leaving Miranda’s office, you fear you’d have fallen over all together.
“Oh dear!” Alcina cried out in alarm, putting both hands either side of your shoulders in attempt to ground you. “Are you alright, dear?”
You want to assure her you’re okay, thank her for catching you, you want say anything but the words that tumble messily out of your mouth. “Where is Bela?”
A pin could drop, and you’d hear it, in the silence the question creates.
“My…Daughter Bela?” She asks, almost cautiously, throwing a glance back into your wife’s office. You simply nod at her question, eyebrows pinched together.
“She is currently head of cardiology at the hosptial a few towns over…she’s happy, last I heard”
The answer feels like a weight in your stomach and you can’t fathom why. So far away from her sisters? It feels wrong.
Your wife appears in the doorway before you can ask any other questions, a familiar scowl on her face as she looks between you two.
“Feather, enough about Bela. We should get home.”
Finality once more, and just like always, you do not mention Bela again that day.
~
The flashes do not stop coming. You see Donna, and a garden in a home of your own, she dedicates whole flower beds to her affections, and your days are spent in what you can only call a tranquil paradise.
Bela and yourself live for a year and a half in Paris, you spend most of your time in art gallery’s, with Bela finally relaxing by your side. Every problem you had seemed so far away, when you were away with Bela.
There were also bad memories, memories of Miranda twisting Donna away from you; the pain of her betrayal, the blood pouring from your neck. The way they both watched you bleed out.
Your own betrayal of Bela, how you refused to believe her, and she was later admitted. All because the one person she had chosen to confide in - didn’t believe her.
It had all begun keeping you up at night, unraveling in your mind until your thoughts became fuzzy with a life you once lived. You got confused, more often than not, at which life went where - which came first? Which came last? You’d think about it until your head threatened to split under the weight of the ache it caused.
You need answers, and you’re not entirely sure Miranda will give them to you - whether she’d want to.
Why could you remember so much about women you couldn’t recall meeting? Why did it feel like the same broken record, repeating itself and skipping at the same moment. Even in your confused haze - you knew one thing for certain. In order to get any real information from Miranda, you’d have to have enough information built up to make her tell you. For that, you’d have to go straight to someone you knew wouldn’t lie to you.
~
Mia’s home lies just outside the property line of the university. You always wondered why she’d chosen to live so far out of the way - but for a brief moment, as your car enters Mia’s driveway, you feel as if you can breath for the first time since your dreams began. You know she’s home, the dim light of her living room being the only light lit up in the whole house.
She opens the door before you’ve even switched off the ignition, a small smirk, affectionate in nature, welcoming you. You wonder if for some strange reason - she knows. Knows about the flashes, the dreams, the paranoia creeping it’s way into the corners of your mind.
Your phone buzzes. You don’t need to look to know who it is. When it buzzes a second time, then a third, and forth, you switch it off. You’ll deal with her annoyance later - or better yet she’ll deal with yours.
“Well hello stranger.” Mia calls out, resting her body weight into the frame of the doorway. “Been a long time since you’ve been out here - did the matron herself let you off leash for once?”
The teasing quip is left hanging in the air, you’ve no energy to respond in the same manner, you’ve no energy for anything.
Concern takes over Mia’s face near instantly, and she’s ushering you inside like a worried mother. You’re seated, with Mia kneeling in front of you before you can blink, her hands on both of your knees.
“What’s she done?”
The question is simple, direct. You don’t know how she knows, and quite frankly, you don’t want to know. Mia’s mind has always worked strangely, too adept, always knowing too much about too many things - and to put it quite frankly, her dislike of your wife has never been one she kept a secret.
Your mind struggles to form a response. Has she technically done anything? You weren’t sure. You could be spiraling, a psychotic break, imagining the whole ordeal start to finish.
“This is going to sound crazy, I know, but you need to listen - you need to hear everything I’m about to say before you interrupt me”
Mia squeezes her hands around your legs, a silent promise to listen, and doe eyes stare up at you - attentive and earnest.
So you start. You spill the contents of your mind - or what’s beginning to feel more like minds. You tell her about Bela Dimitrescu, the two years you seemed to spend with over and over again. The good, the bad, the zombie, the asylum. You tell her of Donna beneviento, a garden dedicated to her love for you, a florist shop’s nursery - the feeling of a gloved hand brushing down your cheek. You speak for what feels like hours, eyes watering at feelings you did not realise you possessed - love you had not realized you had lost. You continue, until you see the look on the woman you call your bestfriends face.
Solemn, cautious, recognition.
She knows what you’re talking about.
You suddenly feel as if you can’t breathe. Your throat constricts - you can hear Mia’s voice but it sounds so far off in the distance that you can’t focus on a word she’s saying, you can see the panic taking over her face - the pleading way her mouth wraps around the words you cannot hear. This woman - your bestfriend, a liar, suddenly seems so far away from you in this moment.
“Tell me.” You say simply. “If any bit of you had love for me, you’ll tell me everything that’s going on.”
~
A loop. A reset. An unending cycle of violence you’ve built a home within.
You feel so incredibly ill.
Mia holds you with a tenderness akin to the way a wounded animal is cradled in one’s arms - close for comfort, but far away enough in case the creature chooses to lash out. Looking at her now, you know she wouldn’t blame you if you were to bite, scream, claw your way out of her hold.
A nineteenth century woman, who shared your face, had been your wife’s lover, years upon years ago. They raised your daughter, or at the very least a girl who shared your daughters face. A life was lived, you held its memory’s within you, written text etched into the lining of your own skin - yet you’ve never felt so detached from a life you once called your own.
“Do you love me?” You ask, tentatively. “Do you love me, even though I’m a stranger in your friends skin? Do you even view me as my own person?”
“I do.” Mia answers calmly, she’s staring, concern blatant on her face, in her eyes.
“Am I her, underneath it all, Am I the woman you fought so hard to get back?” You ask, watching the way her face contorts. It’s painful, the question seems to twist the once calm look on her face into a grimace. The question sits, in the silence of the open air, and the silence between you two creating a tense, uncomfortable atmosphere.
“No.” Mia answers finally, choking out the word like the very syllable of it is acidic in her mouth. “-but I love you anyway. I love who you are right now, in this moment. I love my friend, the one I have now, and the one I had then. I’ll love every version of you”
It settles in the air, in your head, can you trust this woman? Can you trust that she sees you, and not a stranger from a century ago, that she knows you.
She stares at you, concern still pinching at her brow, but now she’s nervous. The way she fiddles with the hem of her shirt, how she glances at you, and away to the pitch black expanse of her garden. Mia helped you paint and decorate Eva’s room, move your belongings into Miranda’s home post graduation. She’s always been fiercely loyal, loyal to you, never faltering in making her opinions of your wife known.
“Does Miranda love me?”
Mia’s expression hardens at her wife’s name. This nervous, tentative energy she’d had since your arrival dissipated in a second. You know she always had this dislike, this innate hatred of Miranda that almost came like second nature.
Mia goes to speak, and stops herself - Taking a shaky breath, she sits down beside you. Her hand finds yours, and she gives it a squeeze, then another, before taking another breath.
“I believe-“ she begins quietly, “I believe that Miranda loves the idea of you, in her own, twisted way. She feels you belong together - no, that you belong to her. That in any time, in any place, it is destiny that you are hers.”
Mia twists to face you now, eyes stern, as she continues to speak.
“I wouldn’t call it love, because in her mind you are still that woman from a century ago. You’ve no other sense of self in her mind, she has formed you to what she desired, it’s never been love, it’s always been control. It’s safety, familiarity, but it’s not love, not to me.”
You nod, and Mia squeezes your hand for a final time before releasing. It’s quiet, for a long time, and she sits with you in the silence, waiting for you to speak.
“I don’t think it’s love either” you voice carefully, eyes welling up in tears. “I don’t think someone you love could watch you, live a life, fall in love, and rip it all away from you.”
Mia wraps her arms around you, pulling you into a tight hug, and the emotions you were holding in come spilling out as you sob into her arms.
You cry for Bela, the heart she still can’t access, the love she felt for you that was strong enough to break through the curse Miranda has forced upon her. You cry for the loving, kind, woman who you aren’t sure exists anymore.
You cry for Donna, alone, in a flower shop, still afraid, still under Miranda’s thumb. You cry for the loneliness she must feel, how she must feel after loving you, confiding in you, and having you ripped out from under her god knows how many times.
Could a woman who’s meant to love you watch Donna kill you in her name?
Could a woman who’s meant to love you watch Bela rip your throat out under the influence of someone else’s heart?
The thoughts feel clumsy in your mind - jumbling around, messily colliding in ways that make you wince. Dozens upon dozens of lives, aligning, for the first time in your mind. If you swallow back the feeling anymore you fear you’ll choke on it; the loss, the love, the agony of letting go until there is no longer anything to hold onto.
You have to speak to your wife.
~
It’s late when you return. Miranda sits in the dark, sat in an armchair in your living room. A single glass of whiskey rests on the table beside her - an open bottle sitting beside her glass.
Murderous - she looks absolutely murderous as she stares at you, unblinking. A dangerous gleam in her eyes - but you cannot bring yourself to be afraid, not now.
“You turned your phone off.”
“I did.” You respond curtly, taking a seat in the chair across from a woman you once felt you knew. “I had to figure things out - I had to think.”
She dislikes this answer. It’s clear in the pinch of her face, the worrying of her brow. Her lip nearly twitches into a snarl - it’s the one part of her expression she chooses to keep under control.
“Feather, as angry as I am at this moment, I need you to understand how worried you’ve made me today.”
You scoff.
Miranda’s head cocks to the side at the sound, the energy, the attitude you are presenting to her is not one she is familiar with. At least, as far as you are aware.
“I know. I know about the loops, the resets. My time with Bela, and Donna. I know about it all - and I know you’ve been lying to me this entire time.”
The facade she had been putting up shatters, in an instant. The cogs turn in her head, as she tries to summon words - any words to justify, or explain her actions. She fails.
“I know everything you did to me, and to them, in these realities, and I’m afraid to sit across from you Miranda. I’m terrified of the lengths you have gone. I sit here, petrified of the woman I married.”
She swallows thickly. Slowly rising, cautious, short, steps toward you.
You fight the urge to rise up so quickly you knock the chair out from underneath you, like a wounded prey, you don’t know what a sudden movement will do to the predator before you. You stand, the ground underneath your feet feeling as unsteady as you know your hands are.
Miranda’s eyes look wounded, and you hate the ache it causes within your chest. A dull, throb of pain, at knowing you are causing that look.
“I didn’t do those things to you, as much as it may feel like it right now. They weren’t you, they were just stepping stones on the way to getting my feather back to me, perfect as the last day I saw you” she begins, taking steps until she is right in front of you.
Miranda’s words are strong, she believes them, and that makes this even worse. She reaches out, holding your wrists and trying to pull you closer to her - to reassure you in any way she can. You attempt lurch away on instinct.
“Feather I would never hurt you” Miranda pleads, her hands gripping tighter around your wrists as you thrash in her hold.
“But you did!” You scream back, your own voice feels foreign to your ears, never once had you spoken to her like this, but it all boils out and you can’t stop it pouring out of you like a spout.
“You hurt me! Over and over! Every reset, every single goddamn time you stood by as someone else hurt me, you did this!”
Miranda’s face twists in what you can only describe as agony at your words. Her hold on you loosens, and you finally break out of her grasp with a rough tug of your arms. Your wrists ache, and you know bruises will be left in their place.
“It wasn’t you, I did it all to get you, to get back my little crow and claim back the life we once had. I did it all for-“
“YOU LOVE A GHOST” you roar, hands thrown up in the air, and you force yourself to take several steps back from your wife, making futile attempts at leveling your breathing.
“You love a ghost, you love a woman who had my face and if you have to change reality so many times to get that - then I was never the woman you loved at all” you hiss out, wrapping your arms around yourself, as if sheltering yourself from a woman you loved - no, love - no, you aren’t sure anymore .
It takes you a moment to realize you’re crying, a steady stream of tears rolling down your cheeks, and darkening the fabric of your shirt.
“You don’t mean that” Miranda shakily claims, reaching for you and wincing when you flinch away from her.
“What you did, you did to me, and I remember it all, every single thing you did to me and the people around us” you sob, letting the tears finally take control.
Miranda sighs, folding her arms across her chest. She makes no effort to reach for you again, her eyes stay to the floor.
“I won’t apologize for fixing our life.”
“It wasn’t yours to fix, I had a life, I’ve had several lives, and you made it your job to ruin them. Where was my choice Miranda?”
She flinches. It’s been a long time since you’ve referred to her as her name. Long before you got married, back when you were her receptionist, back before you remembered a life from before. It’s colder than you’d ever been to her.
“You let everyone else suffer, you let me suffer - did you ever give Bela back her heart?” You choke out.
Her silence answers for her. You wonder if she stays silent for your benefit, or if she actually feels shame for what she did to the eldest Dimitrescu. You wonder if she’s only sorry she got caught.
“Can you give it back without her being here?” You ask, a desperate, clawing, hope making its way into her chest. You don’t need her to love you, god, you don’t even need her to like you, you just need her to be able to live a life she actually deserves. One where she can feel all the love you know in your own heart, that she can put out.
“…yes.” Miranda answer’s reluctantly, “but why should I? To have her crawling back to you? Is that what you desire?”
“I need her happy.” You snap, gritting your teeth so hard your jaw pops. “I need them all happy, and at the very least you owe them that for every single thing you’ve done”
Miranda steels. The accusatory tone you’re using clearly sits horribly with her. With her back straightened like a rod, she matches over to you. This isn’t Miranda, no, this is the cult leader - this is Mother Miranda, and her golden eyes cut sharply through you like a knife.
“I will tolerate a lot, as I know your emotions are volatile, but I will not tolerate disrespect.”
Her voice is like ice, and the chill in your veins worsens now that she’s less than a foot away from you. A couple more steps, and she’ll be in your face.
“If I were to trigger the loop again? To fix this, what then? I could wipe those insubordinate fools from your memory once and for all. Fix this mess once and for all, what would you do then feather, tell me-“
You both still at the sound of little footsteps pounding into the room. Eva is latched onto your leg, similarly to a vice, the most protective scowl on her face you’d ever seen on your little bird. You can’t help but fondly think, despite the rage coursing through you, that she looks so like her mother in this moment.
“You’re crying.” She says to you, in a very matter of fact way. She then turns to Miranda, scowl unchanging, “and you’re being mean.”
Your wife, whose demeanor resembled that of a predator mere moments ago, crumbles. It hits you both it seems, at the same time, what a reset would mean for you both. It means losing your little girl. A strong minded, beautiful little girl who has your eyes, and Miranda’s steely attitude. You look to your wife, unsure if you can even call her that anymore, and you both resign yourself to the same decision - it wouldn’t be worth the loss, not a single thing would be worth changing your daughter.
“I’m sorry.” Miranda croaks out, “I thought I could bring everything back to the world we knew, bring you back to me, but it isn’t possible.”
“Give it back to Bela, let them all go, you’ve loyal followers, you don’t need any of them.” You plead, and watch as the woman you thought you knew, simply nods.
“For me, there will never be another woman but you - but, if for you, there is another, I won’t stop you anymore.” Miranda replies, a watery, shaky smile on her face. “I will wait a lifetime for you feather, a million lifetimes, if you ever decide to come back to me.”
You have to look away, in fear you’ll start to cry all over again, and kneel to Eva’s level. You brush you hair out of her face, long blonde tresses framing her face. You press a gentle kiss to her forehead, and rest there for a moment, finding your words.
“Mommy has to do a few things, so you’re going to be with Mama for a little while. I’ll be back little bird, I’ll always be back for you.”
Eva, no matter what thoughts swirl in her mind, simply nods, unlatching from your leg with a little soft sigh.
You catch Miranda’s eye, for a final time this night, “I won’t abandon my daughter, we’re going to figure out how to do this once I return.”
“I know little crow, I know.”
With that, you finally gather the courage to leave the room. Gather the courage to seek out the women you once knew - once loved and lost.