Reach out for the Sun [UsUk]

Thirteen: Maybe I've Done Enough

Evening made its way to the British isles, and soon everyone who was previously visiting the Jones household already left, making their way to their own homes. The exception to that was Adrienne, who stayed with Matthew in his room and comforted him about the situation which interrupted their dinner party. He explained everything, from word to word, and she couldn't help but feel her heart clench when she read the letter in the blue envelope. After all, she liked Alfred a lot, and they were close considering how she constantly visited since she met Matthew.
It came to her as an enormous shock that the cheerful, energetic, young American boy she had once known was losing his true self, and slowly his life as well.

Arthur had gone home by Alfred's request, as strange as that sounded. Though, he understood that the other needed some personal space to comprehend and process everything that was going on with him - and he knew very well that the second the dinner party ended, Alfred must have gone to his room to hang out with his violin.

And that was exactly what happened.

He had to make it to that competition with Elizabeta, he just had to. Even if it meant taking a bunch of medicine that probably doesn't even help in reality. He just needed to play on stage one more time in this life.

Now, Matthew and Adrienne were lying on the American's bed, breaking the situation into pieces to discuss it and perhaps find a possible solution themselves. Though right now, the possible slowly became impossible, and all they were left with was the unbearable dread on the inside, since both of them knew what was coming. Or at least expected it.

"You know, there must be something that the doctors can do about it. Maybe a surgery, or therapy... It seems to me he is still really fine for the most part. He can walk properly, talk a lot, and still play the violin." The French girl sighed, taking her lover's hand and making him turn his head towards her. She always knew he was very sensitive, unlike most men that she had met during her life, and in moments like these, he needed all the comfort he could get.

"I don't believe that, Adri... He was always a bit too clumsy for it to be normal, but lately it got so much worse. He even dropped the violin from his hands, imagine how that must've felt for him, not to be able to play properly." Matthew chuckled bitterly, the endless pain visible in his previously teary eyes. "I just... I don't want to lose him."

"I know it hurts." She gently spoke, cuddling up to him and slowly running her fingers through his soft, golden hair. "And I wish I could tell you that he'd survive, that everything would be okay... But those words are such a cliché, and we don't know if they are true for sure. So I'll just be here for you, kind of like silent moral support."

Matthew just blinked away the tears that threatened to spill, putting an arm around her and bringing the two of them even closer together. That was just what he needed to hear. He knew she would always be there for him, but hearing it being spoken so tenderly made everything so much easier.

"Thank you."

That was all he was able to say.

- - -

In the room across the hall, a boy was sitting on his bed and playing the violin with graceful movements gracing each beat of the piece he performed to himself.

It was Chopin's Mazurka in A minor, and every note filled the air with melancholy, a different kind of sadness that suffocated him from deep within, it was unexplainable. He choked back tears as he played, trying to concentrate on the present moment and become one with the music as he usually did it, but this time it just wasn't working. The sorrow got the best of him, and even though he desperately tried to fight back with the power of music... He was failing. Not in the piece itself, which sounded beautiful in mesmerizing, but in the attempt to heal his broken mind with the sound.