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‘Moving on’ is a peculiar concept.
At first glance, it seems simple enough. There aren’t that many options, after all: you’ve either moved on, or you haven’t. And Bess has decided to moved on.
She has.
But then, the light monster – or Burning Sorrows, however you care to call it as long as it’s not an imminent threat anymore – shows up, and the worst heartbreak Bess can think of is losing Odette. It’s the first one she lists, immediately, before her brain has even properly kicked in and reminded her that breaking Lisbeth’s heart still hurts as well, because truth be told… the pain hasn’t even started to fade yet.
And that, after the life-or-death crisis is over and she can start to process the events of day, forces her to confront something she’d tried to conveniently sweep under the rug: namely, the fact that giving yourself the right to move on and actually being okay with what happened are two very, very different concepts.
With Lisbeth, things were a lot simpler – because Bess was in control of the situation. (And by ‘the situation’, yes, she does mean breaking Lisbeth’s heart.) So, accepting the end of their relationship was… not easy, that would be a lie, but at the very least, she was immediately at peace with it.
She’s not at peace with the fact that she – to put it bluntly – smashed Odette’s soul to pieces without even getting the chance to say a proper goodbye first. Not even remotely.
And maybe, maybe, if their kiss had been their very last interaction, Bess would feel a bit less pain than she does now. But to know that Odette was still right there in George’s body, still present enough to recognize her instantly when she briefly took over during the soul splitting process… that just makes it all ten times worse.
She’d barely had time to say two words in that moment. Ma chérie is all that she’d managed to get out.
But it was enough. Enough for Bess to feel a flicker of hope that made the destruction of the crystal that much more painful; enough to make those two words haunt her now, deep down – so deep that she refuses to even acknowledge it.
Because she has moved on.
Except… she hasn’t, has she?
Sure, she decided that she should – because she does want to, because she deserves to live a full and happy life, because Odette would want that for her too –, and so she’s doing her best to actually move on with her life. There’s no denying that.
But those are conscious choices that she made.
And unfortunately, someone’s brain rarely has full control over their heart.
It takes a second for Bess to adjust to her surroundings when she wakes up. The last thing she remembers is tossing and turning for hours in bed because she couldn’t stop thinking about Odette no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t force the pain back down where she’d shoved it after she’d buried the crystal pieces, but she must have fallen asleep eventually, because the bed she wakes up in is definitely not hers.
Great. As if she hadn’t been through enough supernatural events for one day already.
She throws the covers off herself and springs off the bed as she looks around to get a better look at her surroundings (and hopefully find something to use as a weapon), but right as she notices that she’s not alone in the otherwise weirdly empty room, a voice stops her dead in her tracks.
No, not so much a voice. An accent – one that she’d recognize anywhere.
Especially when it calls her name.
“Odette?” Bess asks in return, voice breaking on the second syllable.
She can’t do this. She can’t let herself hope only to have it all ripped away again; it’ll hurt too much.
“Do you not recognize me like this?” the person who is definitely Odette wonders aloud, and Bess is too stunned to reply but the truth is… not really. The only thing that properly identifies the French woman to her is the way she talks, because Bess is in fact not that familiar with Odette’s actual voice and appearance.
It seems that she doesn’t need to say as much, though. Odette clearly figures out the answer on her own, since the shape of her body blurs for a split second to leave her looking like George again.
“Is this better?”
It both is and isn’t. It is, because Bess is a lot more familiar with this version of Odette, but it also isn’t, because Bess is too familiar with this version of Odette and seeing her like that is stealing the air from her lungs.
It hurts.
And she still has no idea what is happening.
There are a million questions she wants to ask. Is she dreaming? Is this real? If it is, how is any of this possible? Is Odette not at peace after all? Is she still a ghost, but trapped somewhere else? Speaking of, where are they? How long do they have?
She doesn’t manage to say any of them. She just keeps standing there, heart beating painfully in her chest and mouth failing to form any proper words.
“The dreamscape is a strange place”, Odette explains, as if she could hear the thoughts that Bess doesn’t manage to voice. “A world between worlds. It allows for things that are impossible elsewhere.”
“So we can see each other here?”
Bess doesn’t mean to sound so hopeful. She doesn’t even mean to speak, really; her brain and her body just seem to have permanently disconnected at this point. And it’s a problem – because she’s not supposed to want this, damn it, she’s supposed to move on from Odette!
It’s just, as Bess is coming to realize, nearly impossible to find any kind of resolve about that when faced with her once more.
“No”, Odette says softly, and Bess feels the world shatter around her yet again. “Just this once.”
“Why?”
“Because then our bond will be severed for good.”
“I don’t understand”, Bess chokes out. “What will this change? Are you not— Nancy said your soul would move on and be at peace once I—”
She can’t even bring herself to finish that sentence. Because if destroying the crystal didn’t help, if on the contrary it doomed Odette to another eternity trapped in this world, alone and in pain, how is she supposed to cope with that?
“Nancy was not wrong. Destroying the crystal did release me.” There’s a small smile on Odette’s lips, but the look on her face still speaks of pain as she crosses the room to stand in front of Bess. (Bess who is still rooted to the spot, Bess who is seconds away from crying.) “You did the right thing”, she continues as she pushes a strand of hair away from Bess’s face and lets her hand linger there. She’s gentle, the way she’s always been – as if Bess is the most precious thing she’s ever touched. “You made the right choice.”
“But you’re not at peace”, Bess insists, because she can see as much.
“I will be, ma chérie”, Odette promises. “Where I am now is… difficult to describe; it is the edge of your world, I suppose. You can think of my situation like this: parts of me did move on already, but I could feel your anguish when you destroyed the crystal and I could not leave you like this.”
Hearing that actually makes everything worse for Bess. “So I’m the reason you’re still trapped here!”
“No”, Odette whispers. “All of this is my fault. I started building something between us and never stopped, even when I should have. I was selfish.”
Bess shakes her head, and Odette’s hand finally falls away from her face. “Stop. Stop, don’t— Don’t do this. Don’t blame yourself for my feelings. It’s not as if you ever deceived me – I knew exactly what was happening, I was well aware that you were essentially a ghost, but I still chose not to put an end to it. I didn’t – I didn’t want to, okay?” The first tear falls, and the others are quick to follow. “I didn’t want to resist this pull between us, even knowing everything. And no matter how much it hurts, I’d still do it all over again if I was given the option to go back.”
That seems to mystify Odette. “Why?”
“Because I’d rather have the memory of you than nothing at all.” And, since there’s nothing that’s worth keeping to herself at this point, Bess opts for saying the full truth. “I fell for you. I wouldn’t want to forget what that feels like.”
Odette’s breath hitches and, through her tears, Bess can tell that she’s struggling not to cry as well as she closes her eyes for a few seconds. She gets herself under control quickly enough, though, and when she finally looks back at Bess, it’s with nothing but unadulterated wonder filling her gaze.
“Bess Turani Marvin. You are the best thing that ever happened to me”, she says, voice thick with emotion. “I so wish we could have had more.”
Bess laughs sadly. “Me too. It’s not fair.”
“No. It’s not. But I think this is my curse, because neither life nor death were ever very fair to me.”
And Odette seems to have accepted that, somehow, but it hasn’t yet stopped – and might never stop – revolting Bess. Because it’s the horrible truth, isn’t it? Nothing ever worked out for Odette. In life, she had to hide her identity for fear of repercussions, but in the end it didn’t even matter that she avoided death for that reason, since she was murdered for the money that she managed to make on her own through smart decisions instead. And it was violent, traumatizing enough to turn her into an evil sea spirit for centuries – but even after Bess and her friends released her, her relative freedom lasted for all of an hour before Nancy involuntarily trapped her soul in George’s body by using the shroud. To put the final nail in the coffin, the only thing Odette could have held on to at this point was her love for Mary… but Mary had moved on long ago, after living a fulfilling life, and Odette was left with nothing but a second heartbreak.
And now? Now, Bess is supposed to do the exact same thing to her. She has to move on and make history repeat itself for Odette.
How could one person be put through so much and never get to experience any lasting happiness? How is any of it fair?!
“I wish I could take at least some of your pain away”, Bess says quietly. “You didn’t deserve any of it.”
Odette shakes her head. “You did more than enough for me already. My story is not your burden to bear.”
No, Bess thinks, but it certainly will be hers to tell, because she does intend to wipe from history the lies that were fabricated by her murderers and introduce the whole world to the real life of Odette Lamar instead. Setting the record straight is the least she can do.
And, in order to do that properly, she’ll need to know as much as she possibly can. But before she starts asking questions, since she actually has that opportunity right now… there’s one very important factor she has to consider.
“How long do we have?”
“I’m not sure”, Odette answers. “But I think… I think we have until you’re ready to let me go.”
Bess snorts in what she would consider, under different circumstances, a very ungraceful manner. “Well, that’s going to take a while. Because I’m obviously not very good at moving on.” She wipes her latest wave of tears from her cheeks, then pauses as some of Odette’s earlier words come back to her. “Hey, speaking of… Why didn’t this, whatever this is, happen sooner, if your soul didn’t immediately move on when I destroyed the crystal? Why now? It’s been several days.”
Odette gives her a sad half-smile. “I couldn’t reach you before. I tried, but you were shutting me out.”
Bess opens her mouth for an apology, horrified to find that she not only is the reason why Odette’s soul is still trapped in this world but also held her back longer than was strictly necessary, but Odette stops her by grabbing her hands and linking their fingers together.
“Bess, ma belle, arrête. You are not at fault. You were trying to protect yourself, and a few days aren’t much of a difference for me anymore. Besides, it was my choice. You couldn’t know.”
“You…” Bess swallows, and squeezes Odette’s hands without even thinking about it. “Wait. You chose to stay back?”
Maybe Odette had already implied as much earlier, but if she did, it hadn’t registered for Bess – because it doesn’t make sense. Why would Odette ever choose not to move on completely?
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Had I left completely, I would have been free, but you would not. I could tell you would never manage to fully let go of me – not with the way everything happened. So I stayed. That way, I could give you the true goodbye you need to be at peace too.”
Well, there go Bess’s attempts to stop crying anytime soon.
Odette chose to prolong her suffering, just so she could ease Bess’s heartbreak.
How can someone who’s been through so much still come out on the other side so selfless?
“And once I can let you go… You’ll be free as well, right? No more pain?”
“Yes. I will have nothing tying me to the world of the living anymore, and I will be at peace.”
Bess manages a resigned laugh through her muffled sobs. “Then I guess I don’t really have a choice anymore, now do I? I have to free us both.”
She doesn’t know how she’ll do that, but the one thing she does know now is that there’s no clock ticking over their heads that’ll rip them apart again without a warning. This goodbye doesn’t have to be rushed, or even hurried. They can make sure that they have as few regrets as possible once this is all over.
And, for Bess, it starts with something simple. Something she always held back from doing in the real world, because Odette was in George’s body and Bess respects her friend too much to ever cross her boundaries – except, of course, the one time she was given explicit permission.
But this is not the real world. And George is in no way part of this.
“Do you remember?” Bess asks as she brings up their still-intertwined hands. “That day, at the ice ring?”
Odette nods. “Of course. It was the first day I ever felt free to be myself.”
And that answer breaks Bess’s heart all over again, because she can’t even imagine growing up in a time and place where loving women could have gotten her killed – so, to go from this to the modern world? Getting to experience the freedom to be yourself, only to willingly give it up a few weeks later?
There’s so much that was taken away from Odette. So much, and it’s not fair.
Still, dwelling on it won’t accomplish anything now. So Bess forges on with her own answer.
“It’s the first time I felt something for you. I wasn’t expecting to, I didn’t… I didn’t even think it could happen. But you were… You caught me by surprise. And it was a whole mess, because you were in my friend’s body and I was supposed to watch you, not… not want you! I didn’t know how to cope. That’s why I got us drunk.” She shrugs helplessly. “I didn’t know then that my feelings for you wouldn’t fade, that they’d only get deeper instead. I just knew that when I looked at you, I wanted to kiss you. And I couldn’t.”
There’s a slight pause, and then Bess slips her hands away from Odette’s so she can cup her face instead. “But I can now”, she finishes in a whisper.
They’re so close already that she barely has to lean forward. All it takes, really, is a tilt of her head for her lips to find Odette’s.
This kiss isn’t like the one they shared in the real world – it’s slower, softer and somehow more wistful than desperate. It feels more like a first than a last; because while it’s filled with regrets and could-have-beens, it’s also a release of all that pent-up longing that they didn’t get to explore when they were saying goodbye. It’s the kiss that they didn’t get to share at the ice ring and a kiss that speaks of loss all at the same time, and Bess gladly loses herself in it, despite the mingled salt on her lips that makes it impossible to ignore that they’re now both crying.
Odette called them a fantasy once, but can you get this attached to something that is just a fantasy? Whatever it is that grew between them, it feels like so much more than that – so much more real.
They have to part at some point, albeit reluctantly, but Bess still can’t find it in herself to move away. So instead, she drops her head on Odette’s shoulder and wraps her arms around her, sighing when she feels Odette’s fingers on her back pull her just a little bit closer.
She doesn’t want to let go.
(She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to let go.)
They stay like that, holding each other without a word, until Bess feels like she has no tears left in her body. Only then does she break the hug, stepping back on wobbly legs until she’s close enough to the bed to sit on it. She doesn’t trust herself not to crumble if she stays standing at the moment.
“Okay”, she mumbles, voice raw from all the crying. “Okay. Focus.” She pats the bed next to her, and waits for a slightly confused Odette to join her before she continues. “If you’re okay with that… I’d like to hear your life’s story. Properly.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to write it. I’m going to fix the history books, and I’m going to make sure that people learn your name. They should know about your life, your real life, not the stories that were made up about you.”
“Bess…”
But Bess holds up a hand before Odette can go any further. “I know that I don’t have to, but this is something that I’m choosing to do – just like you chose to stay back for me. I’ll have to let you go, that’s a fact, but it doesn’t mean that I want to forget you, okay? Because I don’t. I really don’t. And this will be a nice thing to remember you by.”
“Oh, ma chérie”, Odette murmurs. Her eyes look incredibly shiny again, even though she stopped crying a while before Bess did. “Even if I do tell you, I doubt you will remember any of it in the morning. Much like anything that happens in the dreamscape, I suspect you’ll have forgotten most of it by the time you wake up. Only the feelings will remain, not the memories.”
Bess shakes her head. “I don’t care. Even if I only remember bits and pieces, it’ll still be more than I know now, and it’ll be worth it. This is also not a normal dream, so… I can do my best to hold on to it and hope it works.” She smiles at Odette and adds: “Besides, even if I forget it all… I’d still like to hear it. If you want.”
“Alright”, Odette finally decides. “But it will be long, so we must get comfortable first.”
She shuffles back so she can pile up pillows against the headrest, and Bess lets her, only moving to sit next to her once she’s done. Since they don’t have unlimited time to spend together, though, she wants to make the most of what they do have – and cuddling seems like an incredibly appealing idea. Odette seems to agree, because she wraps an arm around Bess the second she realizes what is happening.
“I hate that this is literally a one-time thing”, Bess says, face half-buried against Odette’s shoulder. “I’ll miss this. I’ll miss you.”
But even as she says this, she can feel that she’s not resisting Odette’s looming disappearance as much as she did when she first got here. (How much time has it even been since then? Minutes? Hours? Time doesn’t seem to flow in this not-quite-dream the way she’s used to. It’s been a while is all she can tell; it took her a long time to stop crying in Odette’s arms.) She’s going through the last stages of grief in an accelerated fashion, slowly moving towards a level of acceptance that felt impossible at the start.
“It will not be the same thing at all”, Odette says, “but I promise I will watch over you. I will be… nowhere and everywhere at the same time, but I’ll still do my best to stay close to you.”
Bess shuts her eyes tightly. “Don’t make me cry again.”
“In fact, I have already started watching over you”, Odette whispers conspiratorially instead of keeping quiet. “Addy will be good for you.”
“Yeah, I figured you approved”, Bess says, because the timing was too perfect to be a coincidence, “but can we also maybe not talk about this when I’m still not ready to let you go?”
“That is a fair request”, Odette replies, but Bess can hear a smile in her voice.
And it’s… strange, to witness the dichotomy between the two parts of her – the one that stayed behind and cried with Bess over what they wish they could have yet never will, but also the one that is looking towards the future because she’s already at peace. They seem to coexist perfectly, and it kind of gives Bess whiplash.
“So”, Odette continues. “What do you want to know exactly?”
“As much as you can tell me. Everything, really.”
“Will you tell me about your life in return?”
And Bess likes that idea, but she also can’t resist a little quip. “That is a fair request.”
Having her words sent back her way draws a soft, quiet laugh out of Odette, and Bess can’t help but smile as well. She feels warm – and a little proud too, because she made Odette laugh. On purpose. And that’s something she didn’t let herself do before, either: be playful with Odette. She always held back; never allowed herself to respond to the more or less subtle flirting, much less initiated it on her end.
She finds that she likes it. Even though it’s going to be ripped away from her soon.
“Clever, ma belle”, Odette says in Bess’s ear before pressing a kiss against her hair.
“I try”, Bess replies. And then she tilts her head so that she can reach Odette’s lips.
It would be so easy to lose herself in the moment, to pretend that this is not all existing on borrowed time. It’s so tempting. Odette won’t disappear while Bess still holds on to her, after all, so why not make this last as long as they possibly can?
How is she supposed to give up something that feels so right?
In the end, it’s a stray thought – and the accompanying guilt – that ends up reminding her of their harsh reality. But…
“I don’t mind”, Odette says as soon Bess breaks the kiss.
“You—” Bess stops and stares, because how is Odette replying to a question that she didn’t even say out loud yet? “Can you literally read my thoughts?”
“Not quite. But I can… feel things in a way that I didn’t before, and you needn’t worry. My body hasn’t been mine for centuries; it feels almost as foreign as George’s – if not more. So I don’t mind this appearance.”
“Okay”, Bess breathes out. “Good. I’m glad.”
But as much as it eases her guilt to hear Odette claim George’s appearance as her own, now that she’s thought about it, she still can’t help but feel a little bit sad that, after everything, Odette doesn’t even get to experience her final moments with Bess looking like herself. What’s worse, though, is that she also can’t help but feel relieved: Odette always looked like George to her, after all, much like a twin would, and she wouldn’t be that comfortable cuddling against or kissing a foreign body. Even though it’s technically Odette’s.
It’s a whole mess of feelings that Bess has a hard time detangling.
“Before we get sidetracked again”, Odette says with humor, although the look on her face makes it clear that it pains her to have to focus too, “I believe you wanted to hear my story.” When Bess hums in agreement, she takes a deep breath, then starts: “I was born in a region in the North-West of France, called Normandy…”
Bess wouldn’t be able to pinpoint how long exactly it takes for Odette to tell her entire story – including, on her own accord, what she remembers from her death and her time as the Aglaeca. All she knows is that she tries to commit every word to memory, hoping that’ll be enough to recall as much as possible once she wakes up.
“Your turn”, Odette simply says when she’s done.
“Mine is going to be a lot shorter.” Bess sighs, then closes her eyes. Keeping them open makes her feel way too exposed. “I was born and grew up in East London—”
“Yes. It would seem I have a weakness for English women”, Odette chimes in teasingly.
Bess purses her lips to keep from smiling, but she fails miserably. “Is it the accent?” she asks on the same tone.
Odette slides a finger under her chin to tilt it up, which succeeds in getting Bess to open her eyes again and look at her.
“It certainly helps”, Odette quips.
And while the smile that curves her lips is amused, the look in her eyes is so soft, so full of affection, that Bess almost forgets how to breathe for a moment. She can’t remember the last time she felt so loved, so safe.
For the longest time, in the real world, getting close to Odette felt like Bess was playing a dangerous game, but now… she doesn’t want to imagine a world where things went a different route – and she can’t, even. It sounds silly, but she feels as if it was always meant to happen. Hundreds of years away, yet their paths were somehow always meant to cross.
This time, when she starts speaking again, Bess keeps her eyes open. Somehow, laying herself bare for Odette doesn’t feel as difficult as it did a few minutes ago.
She doesn’t hide anything, even when it hurts. Her mom throwing her out when she was thirteen, her shoplifting, her life in a van after she moved to the USA… She tells it all, even the weeks that Odette partially witnessed when she was sharing George’s body. And with every word, she feels just a little bit lighter.
“Thank you”, Odette says once Bess has caught up to present time, voice thick with emotion. “And it may be selfish, but I’m glad I got to be a part of your life, however small.”
The tear that rolls down her cheek takes Bess by surprise. Until then, Odette had been the one who kept it together the best.
“Not as small as you seem to think”, Bess whispers as she raises a hand to wipe that tear away. “It was short in time. Not in meaning.”
Perhaps the most surprising thing about that statement, Bess suddenly realizes, is that she doesn’t feel that bitter about it anymore. It leaves her with a bittersweet aftertaste for sure, but… there’s no anger left. Only sadness; and even then, it’s almost completely faded away, leaving exhaustion in its wake instead.
And then she knows. She couldn’t explain how, but she knows. Once she falls asleep in the dreamscape, she’ll open her eyes in the real world, and it’ll be over.
But it doesn’t feel unbearable anymore. Letting Odette go is something she’s almost ready to face now, with just a little bit more time.
She needs to say goodbye.
“No regrets”, Bess whispers, almost to herself.
“No regrets”, Odette echoes, but her smile is sad and it doesn’t even come close to reaching her eyes.
That’s when Bess understands what’s happening. “You’re going to need to let me go too”, she gently tells Odette.
“I know. And I am trying!”
“But it’s hard”, Bess breathes out, because she gets it. She gets it all too well.
They’ve slouched in the bed while they were telling each other their life’s story, to the point where they’re hardly sitting anymore, and Bess barely has to tug on a pillow or two for Odette to be lying on her back while she stays propped up on an elbow. She runs a hand through Odette’s hair, committing the moment to memory, before bending down to kiss her one last time.
Because it is the last time. The real last time. The one that leaves no room for doubt or even a sliver of hope for anything more. And they both know it.
Besides, Bess feels so tired. Her eyes are closing on their own, and it’s getting harder and harder to resist the urge to just fall asleep.
She knows what it means.
She’s so close to accepting their fate.
“I’ll remember you”, she promises, forehead resting against Odette’s. “I’ll remember you, and I’ll do your story justice.”
Odette lets out a shaky breath. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Bess smiles before pushing herself to the side, just so that she can rest her head on Odette’s shoulder and drape an arm over her waist. She’s lying half on top of her, trying to be as close as she possibly can. “Will you hold me?” she asks, voice small. “As I fall asleep?”
“Of course”, Odette murmurs, wrapping an arm around Bess to hold her close while the other one reaches up to gently play with her hair.
“In case I didn’t make it obvious, I’m glad you chose to stay back”, Bess says a few seconds later. She can feel herself drifting off already, but she doesn’t want to leave before she’s told Odette that one last thing. “I really needed this. So thank you.”
There’s no reply for a while.
But the last thing Bess feels before she falls asleep is a kiss on the crown of her head, and the last thing she hears is a soft no, I’m the one who should be thanking you. So merci pour tout, ma chérie.
(Odette was wrong. She remembers it all when she wakes up.
It doesn’t hurt, though. Not the way it would have a few hours ago. Not anymore.
Bess smiles as she savors the memories for just a moment more, before she blows a kiss to the sky in one final goodbye.)