Joan only needed to say those words for Harker to understand the full picture. He can see it vividly in his mind.
The people burned their house down. Victoria was at the patio, taking care of their father sitting in a wheelchair. He was already old, and the solution she had been using to keep his cells from dying was less effective because of this. Their mother was already in the state of catatonia that was similar to that of stroke victims.
People then arrived with fire and pitchforks, accusing them. Victoria just stood, addressing their concerns with logical excuses for their apparent 'inability to age'.
But as she did, a teenage boy had already sneaked around at the back and started a fire.
Joan was inside, so her legs were burned. She screamed for help…..
And Victoria went inside, leaving their parents behind as they were consumed by the fire. They escaped, and Victoria gave her a pair of new legs.
"Why did you save me, and not father and mother?" Joan asked as they were about to take the train to New York.
Victoria said nothing.
Joan grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing her to face her. "Why!?"
"It's what they would have wanted. They are already at Death's door, and it is more logical to save someone young like you." She said emotionlessly.
"Logic!? Is everything you ever do for this 'logic' that father imposes upon us!?" Joan was exasperated.
"Yes. After all, logic is what differentiate men from beasts. Would you allow men to claim superiority upon us by appearing as the more logical sex?" Victoria argued. "It's bad enough that you are in hysterics over something so trivial as my rational reasoning—
"Damn what men think of my emotions to hell! I am alive because I have emotions, because I could actually FEEL things. Sentience isn't about rationality alone, Victoria. When will you ever acknowledge that you do things because of what you want, rather than what you think you should!?"
Victoria didn't answer, and just watched the train passing by leaving a trail of black smoke that shrouded her face.
"Let us just agree to disagree on the matter."
And that was when they separated ways. Joan couldn't bear to live with someone who would call her 'hysterical' for her mourning, who would not even allow herself to be free from the cage that their parents set upon them even when the door was already open.
Joan set down Victoria's things and collapsed in her bed with a thud. "Ah. Hard enough to have an apathetic sister, I'd have to deal with her funeral now. I can't think of anything to say in the eulogy. Maybe something like 'She's just as lifeless as she was alive, just as heartless. So no harm no foul'."
"She's not." Harker said, sitting by her side.
"Not what?" Joan asked, still staring at the ceiling.
"She's not heartless."
She sat up, giving a very light and almost soundless chuckle. "You're right. She had a heart, it's just made of ice."
"Joan…." Harker placed a hand on her shoulder, making her turn towards him….
And she was crying.
Crying with such a blank expression in her face. It was as if all her emotions were placed upon those tears, and she's only trying to let it go.
"I know. I know it, and that she just won't say it. It's more painful that she won't say it. Give me the reason why she saved me time and time again, why she hadn't ended my life if she hated me so much." Joan slowly laid her head on Harker's shoulder. "It's such simple words to say. Is she suffering for not being able to say it?"
"Maybe…." Harker embraced her tightly.
"It's foolish. Three simple words, and yet it holds so much weight on people like a large burden on their shoulders."
Harker sighed. "Maybe…. maybe it's because they know that we know. That's why they don't bother saying it. Still, don't they know that it's hurting us to see them hurting themselves this way?"
Joan looked up at him, and they affixed each other's eyes first.
"I love you, Harker." The words came easily to her.
"I love you too." It also came easily for him.
Pitiful were those who couldn't, who felt that they would rather die before saying those words. Who regarded those words as their most precious secret.
Victoria Seward had always treated Joan Seward as her sister, her beloved sister. She just couldn't acknowledge it, not until the very end. And... And that man….
Harker continued to lose himself on Joan's kisses to forget about that pitiful man for a moment.
They both really needed this, their open and honest compassion for one another. Joan laid herself bare to Harker, both physically and emotionally, and Harker did the same. They took off their clothes and embraced tightly on that bed.
They went on until morning, this woman's tears had long dried. All that was left was her eyes that had the void within them. Before, Harker felt a sense of vertigo when looking into that void, feeling so scared to fall…..
But now he knew that he had long fallen, and sunk into that void himself. His pupils may bear the similar effect.
At least he wasn't alone. They were in the void together.
Joan leaned on Harker's shoulder as they remained sitting up in the bed, basking in the silence of the early morning. Joan's bed was positioned so that it was right beside the window, and she could see the stars clearly outside, or the sunrise.
Or perhaps, it was actually the darkness in between the stars that she was looking at, the gaps of the sun rays.
She took a cigarette from her drawer and smoked. Harker watched her for a while, and asked.
"Can I?"
She nodded, letting him use the same one. And they just smoked on the bed like that. There was no need to move for a moment, they needed to take this rest.
Harker remembered the day he embraced both Joan and Mina. The night they shared together was different from that. Both were beautiful in their own way, but it's like comparing the beauty of a sunny morning at the beach to a chilly winter night in the woods.
No, it's not winter. It's more like autumn, the feeling of allowing the leaves to let go and die down, of things to change so that a new beginning may arrive.
Would he ever feel ready? There's always the sense that we cannot when faced with such autumn.
But maybe he will. Maybe he and Joan will be able to move on. In time.
He closed his eyes as he waited for that time.
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