Defy Gravity | The Sequel | Eren x OC

Chapter 34: A Rose and A Lily

Cause every time it rains
You're here in my head
Like the sun coming out
Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen

'Cloudbusting' by Kate Bush

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You sleep for the majority of the day, nestling into your blankets as you try and sleep away the memories of your nightmares and waking visions. You will your mind to be silent, still, and blank as you sleep, not wanting to experience anything anymore. The only thing you see for the rest of your dreams is the vision of the ocean, crashing into the shore while your ears hear nothing but wave swells and the occasional cry of seagulls.

When you do awake late in the afternoon, you look around your room cautiously, taking in every poster and stick of furniture, making sure nothing's been altered to keep you in the dream world. You slowly get up, eyeing the floor where the puddle once stood and approach your window, grateful for once in your life to see it still faces the brick wall of the next building over.  Better a brick wall than the open ocean. You turn and say a prayer as you shakily grab hold of your doorknob, terrified that opening the door will release a wave of water into your room.

You're beyond grateful, so beyond grateful to open it to see your apartment is as it always is. Tinier but holding the memories of 50 years of a life-well-lived. You quietly make yourself some tea, trying not to let your mind wander too much, for fear that it will go back to that sight under the ice...

You give your head a shake, groaning as you hold it. You walk to your bathroom, your head metaphorically swimming and check your appearance in the mirror. Your violet eyes grow wide in shock as you see your hair, your beautiful golden red hair is now silver grey.

"What the fuck..." you whisper softly and try to use your powers to change it, but it won't budge... it won't change back. You rub your hair fiercely, trying to kick start your power but nothing... nothing happens. You sigh in resignation, great. Now your hair is grey... there's no denying it, something's going on with you. First the visions and the dreams, now your hair; it's like ever since you fully reawakened, your mind and body have gone out of sync, started short-circuiting. You look at your hair and sigh heavily, well... too bad it's not the 2020s; a lot of young women seem to like rocking the gray hair look in that decade.

You take your tea and go settle down on the couch with a blanket, turning on Fresh Prince, making sure to avoid any shows with scenes with open water for the foreseeable future. No Baywatch for you, thank god. You settle in and numbly watch Fresh Prince, not really in the mood for laughing but also not in the mood for anything darker than a show with a laugh track.

You sit in your empty apartment and think back to your days on Reisswoods, where this would be how you spent your weekends. Just watching tv, zoning out, trying to laze during the hours between Friday ending and Monday beginning. God, you wish you had your vegetable garden back or your home gym. If there's one thing you'd love to have again, it's a house; a space to constantly take care of and relax in... but with Arthur gone and no cult to run, an empty house seems like it would be too triggering for you right now. And with the dreams you've just gone through, maybe it's better to avoid wide and empty spaces for the time being.

As Fresh Prince plays on your tv, you take your tea and go settle back down on your bay window bench, once again looking outside at city life passing you by. You again watch the buildings, and the cars, and the taxis, and the people below you. As you sit on your bay window, you're sitting on a park bench next to Arthur in 1940. Arthur, the man who chose you above all others. He was your one and only from the word 'go', there was never anything near the compromise of splitting for him. For Arthur, there was only ever you.