indispensible | seven. video. make ash & leave the dust behind.

[No ash, no Ruin. It's not safe, but it's safe from those things.]

[Her fingertips trip over the screen, leaving smudged prints. She reaches for him.]

All kinds of places. I've seen cities and I've seen different skies. Different people.

There was a place with something called a Ferris wheel. It was like Pushing, flying, but slower. That was my favorite, so far. And I'm - teaching people to dance.

[ Fingertips reaching for him. He can see them; he even reaches back, but there’s nothing to touch but glass.

If he’s not careful this will break his heart. It’s already cracking. ]

They won’t be able to keep up with you.

[ There’s so much unsaid.

I want to see it with you.

I miss you.

I only got to dance with you once. ]

I should really be sitting at the side, shouldn’t I, emptying the library and giving you trouble.

[ His smile flickers, and he tilts his head. ]

I envy them. Seeing you all the time, seeing you in a better world than ours.

[It's impossible not to smile at him. Not to love him. They're not touching, but it feels like they are. Like something from a poem. Touching spirits.]

[She only got to dance with him once. She thinks about this every time she dances with someone else. It feels like a betrayal - of him, but also of herself. But it also feels good.]

I'm researching things, too. For you.

[Because that's what he would be doing: learning everything he could, voraciously, like a bottomless pit of knowledge. She's still not as good at reading and writing as he is, likely never will be, but it feels good to do that, too. It feels like connection.]

You see me now. And I see you, Elend. Neither of us are home.

[ He remembers Vin researching. Books and pages spread out on her floor in a fan around her, while she pieced knowledge together. It had been one of the strangest things he’d ever seen. Then she’d looked up at him, seen him with short hair and a uniform, and thought he was strange.

That had been so long ago. His fingers trail over the screen, tracing the shape of her face as though if he tried hard enough, he could touch it. He’s not that lucky. ]

Are you? Well, I’m glad. I always thought that when you were stuck, the answer was found in a book. Now I know you’ll be all right. You’ll find what you need.

[ His smile probably gives away how serious he’s not. He knows Vin will be all right because she’s Vin, because she always finds a way. And because she always wins, even when she loses. His wife is rather impressive. He’s quite proud. ]

And I’ll find you, Vin. Somehow, I will. I’ll find you properly, one of these days.

I know you will.

[She stills, quiet and content, knowing he doesn't lie to her. Somehow, some way, he will find her properly - whether it's his doing or hers, they will be united again. It doesn't seem possible that things should be otherwise. They are Vin and Elend; they belong together. The universe is cruel, but not so cruel as not to realize that.]

[Just because she's planning on giving the universe a nudge doesn't mean that's wrong.]

I miss you. Your voice and your presence. But you're here, too. [She touches the space over her heart.] So I'm never alone, Elend, not really.

[ She says that and it makes his heart want to stop. If it can. He's dead already; what worse could it do? But her words strike him to the core, because it's romantic and almost poetic, and Vin is not those things. She is practical and careful and far more vulnerable than she seems. Those words aren't poetry. They're just Vin, opening herself up and letting him see her. That's why it cuts so close, and why it hurts so much. ]

No. I don't suppose you are.

That's how I felt, you know. In those last moments, against Ruin. I felt that you were with me, and that was all I needed to know. I think you were beyond my reach then, as well. But I still felt you. I always will.

We were together there.

[Technically, geographically, spatially it isn't true. But in every way that matters, it is. She says what she thinks to him, the things she wouldn't say to anyone else, and even if they're not pretty they're true.]

[She's not a poet. She's a killer. Elend is her poet. Always will be.]

[Her fingers brush the screen again. She can't feel him, but in some of the ways that matter, she can.]

I love you.

[ He moves his hand towards her, as though she's on the other side of a window and there's only glass between them. Glass, and not a whole lifetime. ]

I love you, too. I always will.
I'll stay right here, for as long as I possibly can.

I know. I know you will.

[And she is content to stay here until he's forced to go - until the walls come down again and she's alone without him.]

seven. video. make ash & leave the dust behind.

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