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Vivian's New Start
message 701:
by
Ji Mei , The Meticulous Secretary
(new)
Jul 19, 2013 11:47AM
Pressing her closer to his chest, Joeri sighed sadly. He didn't think that Bertand would take such news badly, thinking the man was quite understanding. But then again, there were times when family were the last to understand like his father. After a pause, he asked, "How did he react?"
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"He told me to stay away," Vivian whispered.She finally pulled away from Joeri, still completely oblivious to the fact that she was wearing nothing in front of him, and sat back against the head board.
"I don't blame him," she said. "I know what I used to do was wrong. If I was him I wouldn't want somebody like me around, either. Especially around children."
Running a hand along his jaw, Joeri looked down, slowly shaking his head. He felt his heart break for her, knowing how much she missed her brothers and her nephews until they returned. Blinking away the sudden tears he felt and swallowing the lump in his throat, Joeri mentally told himself to be strong for her. He moved to sit next to her, taking of his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Vivian," he said, not knowing what else to say.
Vivian shrugged, pretending out of habit that it didn't hurt as much as it did. She pulled his jacket around her and leaned against his shoulder. Her head hurt a bit and her stomach was rolling but she felt a bit better with him near.But I deserve what Bert gave me, she told herself.
"You know, when I told my father what happened and he turned me away, I thought that was it. That from then on, I'll be alone and I deserved it because I left my family for the sake of my own pride," Joeri told her softly. "I might not have experienced as much hurt as you, but for a time, I was an automaton. I didn't let myself think or feel, just a mindless soldier."
"I think my problem is I feel too much," Vivian muttered.
"There's no harm in that," Joeri said, wrapping his arm around her. "It hurts to trust people, to open your heart to them, but it's because you love them. You don't want to not feel. Numbness is worse than feeling too much. If you don't feel anything, you're not alive."
Vivian snuggled against him. "I love you," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him.
He nuzzled the top of her head, dropping a kiss. "I love you, too," Joeri replied.
After a while, Vivian got up off the bed and went into her dressing room to wash her face and smooth her curls. She hung Joeri's jacket on a hook next to her screen and suddenly felt the need to move.She wrapped her pale green silk robe around herself and tied it loosely around herself. She leaned against her door frame.
"Are you tired?" Vivian asked Joeri tentatively.
"Not really," he answered, realizing he hadn't taken of his boots yet. "Are you?" he asked in response.
"Can I...can I show you something?" Vivian asked. "I'll only need a few minutes to get dressed."
"Sure," Joeri said with a smile, and pulled his boots back on.
Vivian got dressed quickly, reaching into the very back of her wardrobe for one of the outfits she couldn't bring herself to give up just yet. She pulled her hair back into a tight French braid, tying the ribbon securely at the nape of her neck, and laced up a pair of sturdy heeled boots. Paying little attention to Joeri's questioning look when she reappeared, she opened the door to her balcony, motioning for him to follow.
Following after, Joeri stepped outside, the August air filled with a light breeze. Glancing over at her, he queried, "I'm sure you didn't want me to see the stars, though they are beautiful. What do you want to show me?"
Vivian went up on tiptoes - not as much as usual, thanks to her heeled boots - to kiss his nose. Then she turned around, studying the wall intently before grasping the brace of the drainpipe and shimmying up to the roof.
Surprised, but interest, he waited until she climbed up before following. At first he had difficulty, especially with his jacket restricting his arms, but he eventually climbed up onto the roof. Standing on the shingles, Joeri looked at the rooftops of London, the lights dotting the streets. "Feels like the top of the world almost," he commented with a smile.
"This? This is nothing," Vivian said with a half-smile as she surveyed the rooftops around them. From where her townhouse was situated, Saint Paul's Cathedral was a healthy run away. Absentmindedly she stretched her limbs one by one, the slight breeze trying its best to encourage her curls to pull free of the braid she'd wrestled them into. "Does military training let you work on your agility?" she asked sweetly, checking the laces on her boots.
Raising a brow, he didn't bother to ask her what she meant. If it was meant to be a surprise, Joeri decided to not ask. "Yes. Agility is important, especially when you're on the field," he answered. As he considered it, he pulled off his jacket and threw it down so it landed on the balcony. "There. Ready for whatever we're doing," he added.
Vivian's smile widened a bit and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his head down for a kiss. Trust me, please, she thought, hoping the message went through. Then she pulled away and turned, mapping out one last time the final route to the cathedral spires. Taking a deep breath, Vivian gave Joeri one last word of advice.
"Don't look down."
She took off like a shot, jumping the three-foot gap between her rooftop and the neighbour's easily as she ran.
((Vivian's outfit:))
((But instead of red, the detail is in green - of course - and the lace skirt is longer))
***END OF SCENE***
When she finished Ben's letter, Kitara wrote a letter to a florist in London to have the following bouquet delivered to Vivian's address with the enclosed note on her cream colored stationary with her purple ink: Congratulations, Vivian darling!
I am so happy for you! Of course I will be your maid of honor!
All my best wishes to you and Thomas and may you both find comfort, solace and strength in each other forever and always!
Love,
Kitara (and Geoff)
Flower arrangement:
***END OF SCENE***
They still had a few hours before dawn and despite their nocturnal adventure Vivian was wide awake with anxiety. They entered the townhouse quietly, taking care not to disturb Bridget as they passed by her room.Shakespeare was puppy-snoring in the basket by Vivian's balcony doors, and she disappeared behind her screen in her dressing room to change out of her dress and boots. Sliding a thin, short shift over her head and draping her pale green silk robe around her delicate frame, leaving it open, she tiptoed back into her room and sat down on the foot of her bed.
As she went to change, he took the liberty of changing himself, taking off his boots and making sure to grab his jacket from the balcony before going into nightclothes. When Vivian came out, Joeri moved to sit next to her. He was quiet, letting her talk first if she wanted to.
Vivian absentmindedly twirled a curl around her finger, wondering how she ought to start. She looked down at her free hand in her lap and saw Joeri's ring and was reminded that it was all a chance for a new beginning."I...did I ever tell you how I lost my arm?" she asked quietly.
"Not the particulars," he answered.
"I said I fell off a balcony, right?" Vivian clarified.
He nodded. "Yes. I always assumed it was just a clumsy accident, just a fall," Joeri commented.
Vivian bit her lip and shook her head."I was arguing with my father and...he pushed me too hard. Too close to the rail."
Stunned, he was silent at first. Then he reached out to wrap an arm around her. "That's...that's terrible, Vivian," Joeri said silently, at a loss for words.
Vivian shrugged and fiddled with the lace on the hem of her shift."It kind of started there."
"Started?" Joeri looked at her in disbelief, his brow furrowed.
"I was a teenager. I didn't have anyone to talk to and we were going to move back to London. We were arguing because I didn't want to go."Vivian sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. "When all my father did was say I fell off the balcony and when my mother didn't question it, I realised that my family's...dysfunction ran much deeper than petty rivalries and ridiculous ambitions."
"We moved back to London and a few years later I ran into a friend of mine. From Dublin. The one who made my arm. He fixed me up and...and all my father could say that I was being ridiculous. I think it was more to do with the fact that it was Stephen who did it and not with the fact that it's illegal."
Staring ahead, Joeri sighed, shaking his head as he listened. "And why this Stephen in particular? Was it because he knew the truth about your fall?"
Vivian bit her lip again."He...he was a boy I met when I was thirteen and ran away from home. Somewhat successfully, as I managed to elude capture for three weeks."
"Then I'm guessing that your father caught you again?" he asked.
Vivian nodded and told him the abbreviated version of how she and Stephen had been discovered, and how after thrashing her within an inch of her life her father had sent her downstairs to send Stephen away. "After the balcony incident I thought my father might have a bit of remorse but after I showed him what Stephen had done for me by way of my arm I realised I would never mean anything to him," Vivian whispered. "And the worst part is, it's always been that way and...and I don't know what I did. Because I don't remember a time when my father showed me any kind of affection."
At that moment, Joeri wanted to go to her father and punch him in the face, never feeling so much anger before. He gave her a kiss on the side of her head and squeezed her. "Then he isn't a father that ever deserved you."
Vivian didn't really hear him say it but she leaned into him and kept worrying at the lace on her shift. "You asked if...if becoming Ivy was a way of dealing with loneliness," she said after a moment. "In a way, it was. I started after my arm was made and I'd forgotten how it was to feel so free and alive, to be able to run and climb and do all sorts of things I couldn't do for so long."
"I was always running away, as you know - for days at a time, sometimes weeks," Vivian told Joeri. "But every time I was found and dragged back home and...and it was the only attention I ever got after the twins went to Germany and Tasmania. But then I stopped running away for that, because I met Long John down at the docks, and also a man named Archer...well, his real name is Raphael Roarke, but he likes to be called Archer. They were my first real job as Ivy."
Nodding, Joeri recognized the feeling. "And you realized you could do something more, something that is worthwhile for others, for anyone?"
Vivian nodded. "It...it felt good to be useful, and to be relied on," Vivian confessed. "I...I thought that what I could do would make a difference. That maybe somewhere out there was somebody just like me, and if what I did could help them escape too? Then...wouldn't that be worth something?"She told him how she'd starting spying and informing in earnest, moving up to petty thievery and blackmail as the months slipped by. The targets slowly became more important and the clients started paying more - not just in money, because most of her clients were the little people in society, but there were favours done in exchange that helped Vivian along her own merry way.
"You stuck the foot in the door and it snowballed from there," Joeri commented. He understood her reasons and slowly as she explained, he felt his earlier hesitation dwindle down. Despite what Vivian might have done, it seems like she still had good intentions. He wasn't even sure if he would have been able to resist what she had felt and he knew that at one point in his life, Joeri would have acted the same.
"I...I decided to stop after I helped Geoff. Right...right before I met you," Vivian whispered.
"And the rest is history," he said with a nod. Joeri leaned closer against her, resting his chin on top of her head. "I'm just glad you've made it out safely. It would have been a nightmare to have met you and then you disappear."
"I...I won't lie, Joeri. I miss the freedom and I miss being...being useful, yet anonymously common," Vivian admitted. She pulled away and scooted around to sit on the bed in front of him and grasped his hands. "But when I met you I realised that living that life was just living another lie," Vivian told him, looking down at their hands on her knee, "and what was the point of being Ivy Locke if I couldn't be myself around the one person that I..."
Her voice faltered and she bent down, her forehead almost on their entwined hands.
"I know. I understand. Same reason why I gave you my name so quickly," Joeri replied gently. He rubbed her hand with his thumb. "I really do understand, Vivian, and I feel that I don't have to worry about Ivy Locke. Ivy Locke never existed for me, nor Vivian Kaylock. Just Vivian, just you, right here, is the only one that matters most."
"Really?" Vivian asked, looking up at him with wide eyes.
"Of course. It's just Vivian who I love. I don't care about Ivy or the Kaylocks, because they can't compare to the real Vivian I know," he said reassuringly.
Vivian threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. "Thank you," she said, her voice muffled by his body. "I...I only want to be your Vivian, Joeri. I'm just...scared that I don't know who she is."
"Why be scared? You are my Vivian every time I'm with you, no matter if you come to me under a different name or not," Joeri replied with a small smile.
Vivian giggled and pulled a way a bit to look him in the eye."I want to be your Vivian even when I'm not with you," she told him before giving him a kiss. Then she settled down again sideways to his chest with her knees drawn up and her arms clasped round his.
After a long moment Vivian said, "I'm sleepy but I don't want to miss any moment that I'm with you, Joeri."
