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[Choosing who would be last to receive Wolfe's letters was an exercise in choosing how to hurt herself. Amelia feels as if she's holding on by a single thread when she finds the wizard and she looks just the same. Everything about her screams her hurts and about how much she doesn't want to do this. But she must, and so she offers him the letter before sinking onto his stoop and letting him read while she tries to convince her legs to work again so she doesn't impose any longer than she must.]

To my dear Caleb,

If you are reading this then I have departed the city, likely not by my own will but through the inscrutable intervention of LIEs. I only hope that if that’s true it’s because I’ve made a big enough nuisance of myself that in their eyes I cannot be allowed to remain.

It would be unbearable to me were I to depart without telling you truly what the time we’ve spent together means to me and will continue to mean to me even beyond the bounds of the strangeness of our meeting. The patience with which you approach all aspects of life, from teaching to intimacy, is both a balm and a marvel, something I’ll endeavor to emulate in my further pursuits of magic and the interpersonal. Your lessons - even the many I interrupted with my inability to keep my hands off of you - have broadened my understanding of magic in ways that I never would have thought possible. I will forever thank you for that.

Please find enclosed with this letter a few sachets of dried herbs and flowers from Thedas. They are labeled with their names and the concoctions they’re commonly used for in my world, should you care to experiment. If you need more, please show this letter to Jamie as he is their gardener. He is of the Fae but he has a good heart and I would have more people know it.

I love you, my friend. I hope that fact hasn’t disrupted any more intimate developments between you and your clever elven companion - I apologize but your feelings for each other are plain as day to me even not having seen you together - but it feels important to say knowing you will read this after I am gone.

Be well, find what happiness you can, and don’t lose hope. We will see each other again someday, though Andraste willing, not in Duplicity.

Forever in admiration,
Adalwolfe Hawke

[The letter is...of interest to him, but Caleb is far more concerned about how absolutely distraught Amelia looks before she hands it over. And if that wasn't going to take all of his attention, then the way she practically collapses on his doorstep certainly does. Caleb doesn't even look at the letter again after that.

Instead, he quickly kneels down himself, placing a hand on Amelia's shoulder and peering down with not inconsiderable worry.]

Let me help you sit down inside.

[There's no point, he thinks, in asking her what's wrong or if she's hurt. She clearly is...though that hurt doesn't seem to be an external thing. As for what's wrong...well. That can wait.]

[Her breaths get stuck in her throat as he tries to help her up, sounds of pain coming out before she can utter a full word.]

N-no, Caleb-- I don't-- [She grips at his arm as she gets to her feet with his assistance. Her legs visibly shake beneath her.] Essek... I-I can't-- he doesn't need me t-to--

[To fall apart in his home. To be in the way. To prove herself the messenger of news that will cast a sad and painful cloud over their home. She shakes her head and all but falls forward into his arms, face against his collarbone as more tears roll down her cheeks.]

Please, [she whispers, begging him.] Please... I need to go.

[As she falls forward into him, Caleb's arm curls around her waist - the one with the letter still clutched in his hand - and the other cups the back of her neck as she cries into his shoulder.

He is even more concerned now. Her pain is so strong. Strong enough that it's painful in its own right for him as well, seeing her like this. They've shared quite a bit but they've never shared this before. Seeing Amelia like this shakes him, it really does.

He would tell her that Essek isn't home and that even if he were, Caleb wants her to come inside. But then she begs him to let her leave. There is absolutely no way he is abandoning her now but then again, he doesn't have to. She can leave. He can come with her.]

Then let me help you get where you are going. Please.

Shadows' Rest. My-- th-the house.

[Can she even call it a home still? She pushes the thought from her mind as she clings to him and tries desperately not to fall to her knees. If she does that, she may never rise again.]

Please. I... I need to go-- there. My room.

[Her room. Hers alone.

The tears fall harder as she begins to sob against his chest.]

[Well, that's a small blessing. Caleb is more than familiar with her home which makes his offer incredibly easy to make good on. As Amelia begins to sob, he strokes her hair, feeling a little bit helpless in the face of her distress.

But he isn't.]

I will take us there, then. [He murmurs.] Keep holding onto me.

[Under his breath, he recites the words to trigger the Transport spell, keeping her home - her room - firmly in his mind while he does that.

The world blurs and shifts around them briefly - paired with a strange tugging sensation - before their surroundings resolve into Amelia's room in Shadow's Rest. Even when it does, Caleb doesn't let go. Not yet.]

[He doesn't need to ask twice. Teleporting around the city is easy for her by now, what with how often she's come back from The Crucible under Chris' power. It makes her feel woozy when they shift into her room, but she doesn't let go. She holds on as tightly as she can.

She never wants to let go.

Her tears continue even as both Patience and Cookie perk up at hearing noises through her open door. The latter bounds in, excited to see one of her humans and with an obvious excitement about going outside. Patience, on the other hand, has figured out that something is very wrong and makes her way to the pair standing in the middle of the room to bolster Amelia's legs before the woman can fall. Try as she might, the rogue can't take her hands off Caleb to greet them the way she knows somewhere in her mind that she should. Instead she holds tighter, tries harder to lose herself in the safety of the arms around her.]

Stay with me. [Don't let go.] Just... just f-for a while. Please. [Don't make her face this alone.]

[More and more and more, Caleb thinks he knows what's waiting for him in the letter he still holds onto. Not the exact contents, of course, but the reason for its being at least. His chest tightens a little as he thinks about that reality and it's a pain entirely his own. Nothing to do with the way Amelia clings to him and cries into his chest.

But it's a pain he can confront later. The woman crowded up against him is more important by far.

The dogs crowd in around them but Caleb doesn't move to acknowledge them either. He's not...all that good with dogs anyway. And he still doesn't want to let go of Amelia.]

I'll stay for as long as you'd like.

[Even long enough to get himself into trouble, maybe.]

[Time passes slowly as she cries against him, each second drawn out longer and longer as she weeps and fights everything running through her mind.

That she can't be alone. That she doesn't want to do this to him. That she's not strong enough for this. That he needs to know what's happening. That she needs to pull back and take care of the dogs because they never got around to installing the 'doggy door' as Wolfe called it on the door at the back of the kitchen. That she's said nothing to Yennefer or the rest of Wolfe's friends or the city and they need to know, too.

Her legs finally give out and make the decision for her. She sinks to the floor, slowly for the help down that Patience offers, clawing at Caleb the whole while so he doesn't get far.

Don't let go. Don't leave me alone.

Her chest tightens as she takes in a slow, pained breath. It's all she can manage before she whispers the truth he suspects.]

He's gone. [And now her heart is completely and utterly shattered.]

[She doesn't have to claw very hard. Or at all. As soon as Amelia begins sinking to her knees, Caleb sinks with her. Holding on to her the same way she holds on to him.

(In aid of neither of them bashing their knees against the floor, he also murmurs a few arcane words under his breath and their descent in fact slows even more than it would with Patience's help.)

Then they're both kneeling on the floor. Then Amelia admits what Caleb does know in his heart. His stomach lurches a bit, throat going dry. But all he does is stroke Amelia's hair.]

I'm so sorry, Amelia.

[She hates those words.

She's said them hundreds of times to those grieving and she still hates them. What does it mean to be sorry to someone who's suffering a broken heart? What does it do for anyone to be told that someone feels sorry for them, especially when the person saying it has lost that same person? The heart aches and wants so much in moments like these and there's nothing a set of words like "I'm sorry" can do for any of them.

It's a cruel, unnecessary thought to have right now, but she can't keep her mind on any one thing for long. Later, she'll feel terrible for having thought it and be glad she said nothing in return to Caleb saying this to her. He means well and she knows it. The intent is what matters. It's all that matters right now.

Her forehead presses to his collarbone as she shifts her face in a small shake of her head.] I-I know it doesn't... doesn't change anything, but it's-- it's unfair. For them to do this. [To her. To Chris. To Caleb. To everyone Wolfe loved and appreciated.] It's not fair we have to be hurt.

No. It isn't fair at all.

[Some of his own grief seeps into those words...and some of his anger. Amelia's confirmation is slowly sinking in properly and becoming more and more of an upsetting reality. His grip on Amelia tightens a little bit though not enough for anything to become painful.]

[She can hear it, feel it, the start of his pain, and it... helps. A lot more than she could describe if asked. Her eyes fall closed as she nuzzles her forehead against him and redoubles her grip on him.]

I'm sorry. [That she was the one to tell him. That she even had to deliver the news. That she's so overwhelming in her grief that he hasn't had a chance to read Wolfe's words yet. Her heart aches as she thinks about what she's keeping him from by asking him to stay.]

I don't-- I-I want to have... something for you. But... [But there's nothing. No doubt he can tell, but dreams, it's unfair to have nothing after she's asked him here. She exhales a shaky breath and bites her lower lip.]

Promise... promise me you'll hold tight to what's still here. To who i-is still here. [Not to her, but to Essek. She's a Dominant, she can take care of herself. Or she can't and it'll be her own fucking fault for being so weak. That's not on him.] People s-still need you, and Wolfe... [Her Wolfe. Their Wolfe...] He'd want th-the same.

Will you promise me the same thing?

[It feels laughable, in an absurd sort of way, that Amelia is trying to make sure that he takes care of himself when her pain is so much more than his.

Still, his tone isn't chiding so much as it is both concerned and deeply sincere.

He's brushing aside her apology entirely, deeming it wholly unnecessary. In fact, he's not completely sure what it is she's apologizing for at all. It doesn't matter either way, though.]

[It's unfair that he asks her for anything. Unfair that he wants her to promise something she's always done. Unfair that she's trying to take care of him and he's refusing to let her. She wants him to be safe, to be loved in the way he deserve and that this place barely allows when it tears them apart like this so often. To be appreciated by someone who's known him long enough and well enough to be something more to him and who won't hurt him like she can, like she will if he stays this close.

Can't he see she wants to protect him from herself?

Can she hold on to all those she loves... cares for here? Can she promise she'll do that when it means being so selfish with him?]

I will. I... I promise.

[She's going to hurt him with this someday, she knows it, can feel it in her bones. But dreams damn her and nightmares take her, she doesn't ever want to let go of him.]

[Caleb's tighter embrace loosens, though he certainly isn't letting Amelia go. His lips brush over her temple before he answers in a murmur:]

Thank you.

[He does not for one second believe that what he's asked of her is easy at this moment. But that doesn't mean that it isn't important or that he very much hopes that she'll be able to keep that promise. He will do his best to support her in keeping the promise.]

Let's lie down for a little while?

[She nods, not trusting her voice at all after this. What if she says the wrong thing to him? What if she says the right thing and it turns out to be the last she has the chance to say before he's gone forever? The spiraling thought is enough to have her crying against him again once they've struggled into the bed.

Her bed. Only hers. No one else's. It belongs to her alone.

Again.

She means to send him away at some point, to encourage him home to Essek and to avoid getting in trouble on her behalf. As weak as she is right now, she cares more about his well-being than her own. Sacrificing herself, her happiness or body or whatever else it takes, for those she loves-- cares for is always her first choice over any other option that may present itself. This time, though... she can't. Tears cloud her vision and warm arms hold her, and before she can stop herself or tell him to leave, she drifts away in his arms, sleep taking her to dreams that will pain her more when she wakes. It's terrible and she should have told him to go, but she didn't.

Dreams, she hopes he'll forgive her or let her pay whatever fine the city imposes if he stays all night. He deserves so much more when he's hurting too, and she'll do everything she can to give that to him in the weeks to come.]

ic inbox | duplicity

Evening of July 25

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