It was only a quarter to eight when Elira and Vincent arrived at the weapons shop. Elira had had to run to catch up with him at the train station, her coat flung over her shoulders haphazardly. He'd left without her. He'd tried to leave her behind.
The ride from MiraCletus had been an uneventful one; Vincent hadn't said a word to Elira, hadn't even spared her a glance. Elira had tried to start a conversation once or twice, but he had ignored her completely, looking out the window he sat beside as if the decor of Neo-Midgar fascinated him. Eventually, she had given up, a slightly troubled look on her face as she'd watched the other people on the train in silence. If he didn't want to talk right now, that was all right, she'd told herself. It would just take some time. They had rushed it and he had retreated; it would take some time to gain that ground back. She would just have to wait on him...
She sank wearily onto her sofa in her apartment and let her eyes roam distractedly over her livingroom. There was still a little more than an hour before her shop opened for business, but Vincent had gone straight to work, heating up the furnace and starting on the moldings for an ordered weapon. He hadn't looked at her. It hurt. More than anything now, Elira found herself in need of someone to talk to, someone to thrash this out with since Vincent was unwilling. Someone else she could trust...like a mother...
Benita arrived about five minutes before the shop opened. Elira took her up to her apartment without an explanation and although Benita squawked at first, she followed. Vincent didn't look up as they passed through the forge. Elira tried not to look at him. She wondered idly if Terry would show up today; all the more reason to be in her apartment.
"All right, what's this all about?" Benita demanded, though her tone was tinged with worried curiosity more than anything else.
Elira didn't bother to remove her shoes as she walked into her kitchen and leaned her hip against the sink. With a sigh, she crossed her arms over her chest and turned to Benita. Benita took a couple of steps onto the linoleum and frowned a little. "What is it, Lir?"
Elira looked to the floor. "Beni, I need to talk to someone about...something."
"Someone about something. Right. Gotcha. Well, I'm here if ya wanna yap."
Elira couldn't help but smile and Benita's manner. "I...I trust you, Beni...you're almost the only one..."
It didn't take Benita more than a second to cross the linoleum and take Elira into her short arms, holding her around the waist since Elira was almost a full head taller than her. "You can tell me anything, honey. I'm here fer ya, anytime ya need me. An' you can trust me." She withdrew a little and winked. "After all, I've been keepin' my own secrets fer years and years."
Elira giggled, her voice a little thick, and she realized she was closer to tears than she'd thought. "Thanks, Beni." She wanted to say something meaningful that didn't sound too stereotyped, but after a moment of futile thinking she decided to go with the corny but heartfelt. "I knew I could count on you."
Benita smiled. And then she took a few steps back, leaning her elbow on the countertop. "Now, what's the matter, Lir? Men problems again?"
Elira would've laughed had not Benita's guess hit the mark. "Um...well, yeah. I guess you could say that. It's kind of hard to say. I...I'm not really sure because it's not his fault. It really was both our faults...or maybe it wasn't either of our faults." She shook her head in confusion.
Benita was nodding, a lopsided frown on her face that was neither reproving nor judgmental, just knowing. "You slept with the new guy, didn't ya, and neither of ya knows what comes next 'cause you don't know each other well." Benita wasn't asking, she was stating. Elira nodded, a little awestruck.
"Yeah, that's basically it. How'd you know?"
Benita shrugged. "When you've seen it once, you've seen it a hundred times. Post-intercourse syndrome I call it. Happens to a lot of people. Besides, I saw the way you two avoided looking at each other when we went through the forge."
Elira raised an eyebrow. "Oh." She sighed, looking back to the floor. "I just wish he would talk to me. I told him this morning that I didn't feel ready for a relationship, and he just nodded. And now he's not talking to me! I have no idea if he wanted the relationship to continue, or if he's glad I backed off, or what! And I'm...I'm afraid that..."
"That there was some'n there an' ya jus' threw it away," Benita finished for her.
"Yeah!" Elira exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "Maybe I'm not ready right now, but who's to say I won't be ready in a little while? But what if the sleeping together scared him away, or my 'rejection', if he took it that way, did? What if...what if he was hurt by something I did and now he'll never trust me and never come back to me even if it might work out...?"
"Shh." Benita stepped forward and put a hand on Elira's arm. "Settle down, or you'll give yerself an ulcer. Besides, no man's worth this much worry."
Elira smiled, realizing that her cheeks were wet with tears that had been forced out by the confusion and fear she'd just battled over with words. "He understands me, Beni, in a way no one has ever understood me before. Even if...we never start a...a relationship like that, I don't want to lose him. He...he needs me, too. We understand each other...because we've almost got the same fears. He trusted me last night, Beni, and now it's like he doesn't. As if he's afraid of me." She shook her head, looking back to the floor. "I want him to know that he can trust me. I'll never hurt him the way he's been hurt before. I'll never reject him or judge him."
"But it sounds like he's rejectin' you, Lir," Benita observed. "He's not talkin' to ya."
Elira thought about this for a moment before shaking her head. "No, I don't think that's it. It's more like...he's protecting himself. He's afraid of getting too involved because of the fear of rejection." She closed her eyes and said in a voice that was no more than a whisper, "But he can trust me."
Benita's hand moved from Elira's arm to her shoulder, patting her gently. "Well, Lir, it sounds like you've got quite a case here. The on'y thing I can suggest is to give 'im some time. Although it goes against my whole beliefs system, I'm gonna say that not all men are stupid. Vince there strikes me as one a the sharper ones. When he sees he can trust ya, maybe he'll come back. Jus' give 'im a little time."
Elira nodded, wiping her eyes dry with the sleeves of her shirt. "Thanks, Beni, for listening to me. I think I really needed that. It's sorted out a couple of things in my mind."
Benita smiled. "Hey, in this world, we women have gotta stick together." She punched Elira gently in the arm.
Elira chuckled. "Yeah, I guess so."
Benita took a breath and let her eyes flit up to the digital clock on Elira's microwave. "It's five after nine, Lir. We'd better get downstairs."
Elira nodded and, checking her reflection in a small oval mirror she had hanging on the wall beside her stove to make sure she looked presentable, followed Benita through her door and down the stairs.
She had been walking over to the furnace to see how her molds were doing, trying her best to keep her eyes from Vincent, but, in her attempts to look at anything except him, she neglected to watch her footing and tripped headlong over a hitch in the floor she'd always stepped over before. Just as images of broken bones and a bloody nose had hurtled at her, someone had caught her. Someone with a golden arm. The expression on his face had not been masked for that moment, showing a mixture of fear and, almost, pain as he'd set her on her feet. And then he'd turned away to sit back down to what he had been doing, not sparing her another glance.
For all of not wanting to become closer to her, he did not want to see her hurt. And so, Elira continued to trust him. And continued to wait.
And Benita was never more than a phone call away when the loneliness came back to haunt her, the loneliness she'd escaped for the short time she'd been with Vincent. And even though Benita didn't intimately know or understand her fears the way Vincent did, even though she couldn't be her soulmate the way Vincent was, she did her best to listen when Elira worried about Terry, or about how long she would have to wait on Vincent.
Vincent withdrew more and more each day. He began to leave during the lunch hour and never arrived before or stayed after work longer than necessary. Occasionally, Elira would steal a glance at him only to see that he was doing the same, allowing himself a momentary glimpse of her through those red eyes. And sometimes she would see a glimmer of something that looked like a recognition of loss sweep over his features before he lowered his eyes to his work again. Elira's heart jumped at this the first couple of times, her hope rekindled. But he never attempted to restart the friendship. Elira had to fight off the fear that he was slowly rejecting her, and every day the battle became harder. He didn't want her closer to him. He didn't want to need her. He seemed to prefer the hell of loneliness to her company.
And Elira began to wonder if perhaps the fear of rejection wasn't the only fear holding him back.
The news that he was looking for another job brought her to her knees, groping around for the pieces of her heart, her eyes blinded by burning tears. He had seen her for her, the person inside, and was now leaving...just like Eagan...
Just like Eagan...and she found herself hard put to deny it. She was revolting. And so, she would curl up in her bed at night, alone and empty, her mind filled with questions about how fate could've made her so horrible without showing her what it was that made her horrible. She began to withdraw, not answering the phone, not talking to Benita. Any close relationship would end this way; she believed it. There was something wrong with her that made people want to leave.
Like her mother.
And, without even consciously realizing it, she began to slip back into the isolation, into the dark place she'd lived for two and a half years after Eagan's death. Where it was safe.
Benita became worried and called Barret, but Elira wouldn't talk to him. She couldn't trust him; she couldn't trust anyone.
And Vincent pretended not to see what he recognized all too well.
And Benita became angry.
The three workers glanced at each other as if to confirm what they'd thought they'd heard. "What?" one of them asked finally.
"You heard me! Out! Go for a fifteen minute break, er some'n. Just get out of here!"
One of the men frowned. "But, Elira..."
"Is in her apartment right now, so officially I'm the boss. And I'm tellin' ya to go fer a break. Now, go on!" Benita put her hands on her hips and glowered, letting the boys know she meant business. After a moment of confusion, the men hesitantly left what they had been doing and walked out of the forge. As Vincent stood from his work and started for the door, Benita grabbed his arm. He looked first at the offending hand, and then at her, glaring with brilliant red eyes that clearly expressed his distaste for the personal intrusion. But Benita was not to be deterred.
"Not you, Vince. You sit back down."
Vincent made no move. Benita sighed, unimpressed with his hostile look. She'd basically been raised from her adolescence by bikers, so she wasn't going to let a man like Vincent intimidate her. She glared back. "Now, buddy, before I clock ya!"
Vincent didn't react to her words for an inordinately long few seconds as the two of them stared at each other, two wills clashing together. But then, as if finally seeing the I'm gonna make you sit, or die in the effort! in her expression, Vincent went back to his stool and sat. He picked up one of the metal moldings for a shot gun and began to polish it, not looking at Benita as she pulled a stool up and sat across from him.
"What do you think yer doin', Vince? An' don't play dumb. Elira told me everything, an' I know you see what's goin' on."
Vincent said nothing for a moment, running the cloth over the smooth metal with measured strokes, undisturbed by how much Benita knew. "I don't want her to get hurt."
Benita scoffed loudly until it was almost a laugh. "Yeah, we'll I've got some bad news fer ya. Yer hurtin' her!"
There was a silence. "It's better this way."
Benita raised her eyebrows. Better? He thought this was better? He obviously hadn't been seeing as much as she'd thought. "How is it better this way, Vince? Have you seen the way Elira wanders around here like a flippin' ghost?"
Vincent shook his head slightly, not breaking a stroke as he polished. "You wouldn't understand," he answered, his voice tinged with a finality that said he wanted the conversation to be over.
But Benita wasn't going to let him get away without at least trying to knock some sense into him. And maybe she would have to knock hard to get through the stubborn shell of incommunication he'd put up. "What's not to understand?" she began, letting her tone become mockingly easy-going. "You got yer wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, an' now it's over."
Vincent stood so quickly that the stool clattered to the cement floor behind him. Benita started, surprised by his reaction. Perhaps she'd knocked a little too hard...
Vincent towered over Benita from the opposite side of the table, his eyes bright. "I'm not like that."
Benita hardened her expression, unwilling to let him see how he'd startled her. "Then what is it?" she asked, softening her voice. "Surely ya don't think Elira did some'n wrong?"
Vincent turned and righted his stool before sitting down again. He didn't answer right away, picking up the discarded cloth and metal piece to continue polishing. "It's not her. It's me."
Benita frowned inwardly. He did something wrong? Or did he think there was something wrong with him? "Elira don't think so."
Vincent didn't look up.
Benita sighed a little through her nose. When she'd been planning to do this, she'd thought to just yell at him until he acknowledged that what she was saying was true, but now that didn't seem the right thing to do. She found herself, in fact, feeling a little sorry for him. "So what, then you won't even be friends with her? That's all she really wants, ya know."
Vincent didn't answer.
Benita found a little of her rage again at his silence. "Well, you've got to do some'n, Vincent! I'm startin' to think yer the only one who can! Even Barret couldn't get her to open her door."
Vincent kept his reticence for so long that Benita began to wonder if the conversation was now over by default. But then, just as Benita was thinking of calling the men back in, if any of them had stayed around the shop, Vincent spoke.
"There's nothing I can do."
He wasn't going to do anything. "Well, you could talk to her, or at least smile in her direction! She thinks you hate her!"
That didn't get as big of a response as Benita had been hoping for. Vincent merely continued polishing as if what Elira thought didn't matter to him. And then he said quietly, "It's better if I just stay away."
"What, better for her or for you?" Benita demanded. "If you'd stop thinking 'bout yerself fer two seconds you'd see how badly she's takin' this!"
Vincent put down the now well-polished metal piece of the shotgun to pick up another. "I am thinking of her."
"Well then, tell me how you think this is better for her. Huh? She's depressed an' she's keepin' herself locked up in her apartment. Prob'ly not even eatin'. How's that better? An' what if, in a moment of despair, she grabs a kitchen knife and slits her wrists or some'n? I can't see how that could possibly be better for her."
Vincent stopped polishing. Benita looked at the cloth and piece to find, to her amazement, that the man's fingers were trembling. He didn't look up. Benita shifted her position on the stool, realizing that she had hit a nerve. He'd said before that he didn't want her to get hurt. Now he seemed to be listening.
"She's that depressed, Vincent, or she will be if ya don't say somethin'. So, you see? Ya gotta explain things to her."
Vincent put the cloth and piece down slowly onto the tabletop, keeping his hands on them. He still refused to look up. Benita had a feeling that she'd only broken through the first layer of his resolve to keep his distance from Elira, from anybody, and that it would take more than she'd already said. But what else was there to say?
She'd promised to keep Elira's words to herself. ...An' you can trust me... Had she been lying? No. Elira could trust her. She could trust her to be a friend, to do whatever she could to help. Even if it required the breaking of a promise. With a breath, Benita decided to bare Elira's soul.
"Vincent, Elira thinks yer some'n special and she don't wanna lose you. She says you two have an understandin' of each other, or that you have the same fears, or some such stuff. She wants you to trust her 'cause she says she'll never hurt ya like you been hurt before. An' she trusts ya, or she did until you went out lookin' fer another job."
Vincent looked up at this, quickly raising his head to meet Benita's eyes. Benita smiled.
"Oh, so you thought that was yer little secret, eh? Well, one a the boys saw ya slip into the weapons shop across the sector, the one run by one of our old customers. He thought that was kinda odd, so once you left, he went in and asked the owner what yer business with him had been. And he was told you were askin' about workin' there." Benita winked. "A mystery solved. Yer losin' yer touch, Vince."
Vincent gave no reply save to bow his head again.
Benita found herself feeling some sympathy for this man once more. He was different from most of the men she'd ever met. There were quite a few who wouldn't have thought twice about bedding a woman and then running off without a backward glance. But Vincent wasn't running; it was as if he was walking steadily with a permanent grimace on his face, a sense of loss tearing at him with every step he took. He, unlike most men, realized to some degree what he was giving up. And yet, he continued to say that it was for the best. Benita wondered what had happened to make him think that anything was better than becoming close to others. She wondered if his somewhat strange physical attributes were what kept him aloof, 'afraid of rejection' as Elira had said, or if it was something else, something deeper...
Benita realized suddenly how long she had been silent. With a breath, she roused herself and tried to remember what point she had been stressing. Cursing inwardly at what aging could do to the mind, she searched her memory until it served her.
"You've gotta talk to her, Vincent, before she does somethin' stupid. I don't have to tell ya how unfair it is to keep her guessin' this way. She's gotta know why yer avoidin' her so she can stop blamin' it all on herself. It's draggin' her through hell."
Benita was pleased to see Vincent raise his head and nod a little. She smiled encouragingly at him. Not all men were heartless, lustful beasts. If only she were twenty years younger...
"You might wanna go to her now, Vince. She's been moping long enough."
Vincent gave another slight nod and stood. Benita watched him walk over to the staircase at the end of the forge, his coat flapping gently around his calves as he ascended the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, she exhaled noisily, hoping she'd never have to do something as touch-and-go as that again.
The door stood in front of him like a presence in the darkness of the hallway, barring his way. He knocked on it softly.
There was no answer. He was undecided whether or not to knock again. If he decided not to, he could turn around, leave the store, go back to his apartment and hope that the other store would hire him. And never look back, never knowing how Elira had taken his disappearance. Or he could stay and tell her that it wasn't her fault, that he wasn't rejecting her because of anything she was or anything she'd done. And risk coming closer to her. But, it was possible that he could tell her what needed to be said and convince her that it would be better for them to banish all thought of friendship. Then, she would no longer feel the sting of rejection, he would not have to fear harming her, and he could continue working here.
He knocked again, louder this time.
After a few moments of stillness, Vincent was able to discern muffled footsteps. They stopped on the other side of the door. Vincent wondered belatedly if she had been crying. Her tears had always cut him to the core.
"Who is it?" The voice was soft, but steely, as if it were masking pain beneath a layer of iron will.
Vincent closed his eyes, and replied, "Vincent," knowing that he had now committed himself permanently.
There was a long pause. And then a pointed question. "What do you want?"
"I want to talk to you."
Another pause. "About what?"
This time, Vincent was the one to hesitate. "Elira, I never meant to hurt you. If I'd have been able to see this from the beginning, I wouldn't have allowed myself to get so close. I have withdrawn to protect you, Elira. I am not rejecting you."
"Protect me?" The tone of the voice had become sharper. "From what?"
"Elira, I tried to tell you once how dangerous it is for someone to grow close to me."
There was a bitter laugh. "And I told you once that I was willing to take the risk."
Vincent winced inwardly. "Elira. It is dangerous. I don't wish to see you hurt, and that is why I have been withdrawing. We must both withdraw."
"And both go back to being alone?"
Vincent sighed. "Elira, that is preferable to the danger you'd be facing by becoming closer to me."
"I don't care. I'm willing to take the risk. I don't want to be alone anymore."
Vincent inhaled in slight irritation. She wasn't trying to understand his point of view, she was just arguing against it. Convincing her that he was right was going to take a little doing. "Elira, you haven't done anything to cause me to withdraw. It is my own decision."
There was no response. Vincent was preparing to descend the stairs having said what he'd planned to say, but Elira finally spoke up in a subdued voice, so quiet he almost had to strain to hear her. "Why are you so dangerous, Vincent?"
The question gave him pause. He would never be able to tell her. The rejection he'd receive from her if that time ever came would be so fast and furious it would leave him crippled. "There are things about me you'd never understand, Elira. You'll just have to trust me."
Vincent knew he'd said the wrong thing as soon as he heard the angry scoff. "Trust you? You want me to trust you? Vincent, I trusted you once because I thought you wouldn't hurt me like...like Eagan did, but I was wrong. And now you want me to trust you again when you don't even trust me?"
"Elira..."
"Go away, Vincent! Leave me alone!" Her voice was shrill, foretelling the tears to come. "We'll do it your way! We'll just never speak to each other again if that's what you want! Now, leave!"
He could hear her angry footsteps receding. That had not gone as well as he had hoped. With a sigh, he turned in the stairwell and descended to the forge.
Her stomach was still uncomfortable, but she made herself eat anyway. She was fine and so was everything about her life. And so she would go about her normal routine. She would show what's-his-name who worked for her that she didn't need him. She didn't need anything. She was fine. Everything was fine.
At a quarter to nine, she did not descend to open the door to her shop. Vincent could wait. Five minutes before opening, she unlocked the door.
But Vincent was nowhere in sight. And then Elira remembered that he had started coming later since...Ah, whatever, she thought, interrupting herself. It didn't matter. She would sit at her desk and wait. She wouldn't look up as he passed.
The employees arrived as the minutes passed, the last one being Benita. But Vincent didn't come. Elira told herself that she didn't care if he was going to be rude and show up late.
At ten after nine, she began to get a little angry.
At nine thirty she was banging her sneakers against the metal legs of the stool, twirling her pen furiously as she read and re-read the first sentence of a government form.
And at ten, she was becoming a little worried. Where was he? He'd never been late before.
During the lunch hour as she sat in her apartment, she began to wonder if yelling at him the night before had caused him to want to quit. That's not what she'd intended. She'd just been so angry and hurt...she'd wanted to hurt him, too, to get him to change his mind. To get him to come back...
...Eagan had seemed so far away...she'd yelled and yelled, trying to make him understand...to make him change his mind...and then...
...under a train...
An icy hand of fear gripped her heart. Was it possible? Would Vincent have...?
No. It was impossible. It couldn't happen twice in one lifetime...and there was no such thing as fate, right? He had quit, or maybe he was just sick. Yeah, that was it. After all, she hadn't been feeling so hot this morning. Maybe her words had made him ill, too. So very ill...that the pain had been unbearable...and he'd decided that death was preferable...
No, no, no! How could she think this? She had no proof. It was all nonsense! It was childish to believe in fate...
And yet, Elira found herself grabbing her coat from her closet at the end of the lunch hour. She ran down the cement stairs into the forge until she stood beside Benita, who was just sitting down to work after her break. Struggling to shove one arm through a persistently misplaced armhole, Elira took a moment to regain her breath before saying, "Benita, I need you to watch things for me."
Benita, who had looked up at Elira's unexpected and blustery appearance, nodded right away. Elira smiled, suddenly aware of how much she loved the older woman. In a rush, her coat still hanging awkwardly from one arm, Elira threw her arms around Benita and squeezed. "Thanks, Benita. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Benita squeezed her back. "Take as long as ya need, child. I promise the shop'll still be here when you return."
Elira nodded distractedly as she straightened and hurried out of her store, shoving her arms into her coat and pulling at the zipper to block out the nippy air of the day. Her breaths puffed out in small wisps of steam as she jogged to the train station.
...Wait, Vincent...please wait...I'm coming...