Family is never simple and Ellie knows that better than anyone. When he speaks of Henry – and she would not pretend she knows their relationship, it has always been uncomfortable for Flynn to talk of it – Ellie's fingers brush his hand, because she doesn't know how else to comfort him, to let him know she's here, she's always here, from now until the end of forever. Maybe for longer. And her mind flicks away from forever as Flynn speaks again because she doesn't want to hear the words he's saying, even though they are seared into her head so strongly she feels she will hear them for the rest of her life, even when her ears have stopped working and nothing else can get through; she fears that the last thing she ever remembers is Flynn's face at this moment. She leans back, blinks away the tears that she will not let fall, brushes her blond hair from her face as she prepares herself in every way to stand up, to walk away.
But she doesn't need to.

“I'll do that,” she says, and there could be no doubt that she means it with every cell in her body. They can start again, and haven't they always started again, every time she flitters back into his life? But this will be the last start, the last time they have to get to know each other from the beginning. “I know we should be together, I know it's right for us,” she tells him.
She leans forwards again, closer than before, the look in her eyes as bright and childish as the day they met. And she looks into his face and knows that she loves him, that she wants to be with him as she has never wanted anything in her life. This time they will make it work, they will be together, because she isn't sure if she could do this all again, she doesn't think they could survive it. She doesn't think she could live with herself if she put Flynn through this another time.
She takes his hand, squeezes it with her own, and then turns to look out the window. It's beginning to darken outside, but the air is still warm, and she pushes away her chair. “Maybe we could start now?” she says; “I don't know the castle grounds as well as I should, if I'm going to live here. You could start showing me around them?”
Then she can find a room in the castle, and perhaps find a small job or something to keep her occupied while Flynn is at work or with his siblings. But for now she wants to spend as much time as she can with him. She has to make up for all those lost hours she let slip away.

i o d i n e .

kiss me,
beneath the milky twilight.