more_magic | we kept our hearts from view, this time we're problem solving

To say they get back to normal wouldn't be true. There's enough that's changed, that's needed to change, that whatever they'd been before isn't a place they can return to now. Darlington moves his things out of the Bramford and back to their apartment in Dimera, paying the exorbitant repair costs the landlord quoted him for the bedroom door just so he won't have to look at the splintered frame and all it represents. He and Alex talk, sometimes more deeply than he thinks they ever had before, other times about absolutely nothing at all. He still takes Kirby for a run in the morning, and he's still over there for dinner almost every night.

Day by day, over the next few weeks, it starts to feel like something's building out of the ashes.

When they'd first begun, Alex had said it could be like dating, starting fresh in a way they hadn't really taken the chance to do before. So far, it's felt like that; slow, and careful, and a little cautious as they feel out the edges of these new boundaries. Almost normal, when so little in their life--here or at home--had been that way for years.

Darlington brings up the idea, dinner out instead of in, one day when they're just sitting on the couch with Kirby. An actual date, maybe, to mark another step forward in the thing growing between them. He picks one of their favorites, a place downtown that's upscale and intimate, making the reservation for an evening Alex has off of work. That night, he showers and dresses, calling a cab and asking the driver to wait outside the Bramford while he goes to the second floor and knocks on Alex's door.

He still has a key, just as she has one to Dimera, but tonight he wants to do everything right.

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more_magic

"Other than that," Darlington says, not realizing how bitter it sounded until it's out in the air. He layers a bit of blue cheese onto a cracker, drizzling it with honey before taking a bite; enjoying it, but giving himself just a minute or two to think of what to say.

"I never figured out what my father did for a living," he says. "Something financial, hedge funds or investing, something like that. Never very well, as far as I could determine. But my mother's an art history professor, specializing in the Renaissance." He looks over at Alex, a wry half-smile on his face. "And before you ask, her name actually isn't Eileen. It's Harper."

What they do isn't who they are--no matter how often people, including the Layabouts, tended to conflate the two--and Darlington pauses, considering what else to say. "My grandfather always said they liked the idea of being parents more than the reality, and I think that was true," he says. "They'd come to Black Elm fairly regularly when I was younger, up from the city for a weekend or over Christmas, but it was always to get more money. Seeing me was usually incidental."

From:

takecourage

She catches the one, her free hand slipping under the table to squeeze his knee as she pops another piece of crumbly cheese into her mouth. She'd definitely discovered the joys of fancy cheese during her time at il Bastogne.

"Harper Arlington," says Alex, and pictures a chilly woman with perfect hair who didn't have time to spend with this perfect boy she'd somehow bought into the world. She sighs. "She sounds like the opposite of Mira."

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more_magic

"She definitely is," he says, warmth seeping into his chest when Alex so gently squeezes his knee. "More cashmere and expensive perfume than crystals and incense. I can only imagine what either of them would think of the other."

He dredges a radish through one of the crudité dips, something creamy and flecked with herbs, and eats it. "Every visit of theirs, the ones I stayed around for, ended in an argument over something. Money, the house, my grandfather's health, close to the end. Once or twice, they threatened to bring me back to New York with them, send me to Dalton or off to board somewhere."

He remembers those arguments best, the way they'd terrified and thrilled him in equal measure. He'd have lost the magic of Black Elm, and his grandfather, and the quiet secrets New Haven hadn't yet had time to reveal to him--but for the first time, he might have have had his parents. Everything would have been different.

"It got to a point when I was...twelve? Thirteen? I'd get on my bike in the morning or hitch a ride into town with Bernadette, and just stay away as long as possible. I always hoped they might notice, but I don't think they ever did."

From:

takecourage

She leaves her hand where it is for now, working one handed to load up a cracker with cheese. "Mira would probably love her. Mira loves everyone, no matter what they're actually like." She sighs. "Mira always noticed when I was gone. That was part of the problem." She strokes her knees against the shape of Darlington's kneecap. "I can't imagine them not...wanting you. I just don't get it. You're..." A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "You're you."

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more_magic

"From everything you've said about her, that doesn't surprise me," he says. "I wish now I'd had the chance to meet her then, back home. Even if we weren't anywhere near the meeting the parents stage of anything by Halloween." Darlington only wonders for a moment if that might have changed, too, if it hadn't been for whatever had happened at Rosenfeld.

He watches her assemble another one-handed stack of cracker and cheese, her other hand still warm along his knee, and everything about it is more perfect than he even expected. "I gave up on trying to find an explanation why a long while ago," he says, echoing her faint smile with one of his own. "Their loss."

From:

takecourage

"God, she'd love you," says Alex, rolling her eyes, her hand still resting on his leg, shifting slightly higher to rest against his thigh as she reaches for her drink, taking a sip. "The only way you could possibly be better is if you were a nice Sephardi boy. Though, honestly, that would have mattered more to Estrella." She nods. "It was definitely their loss, babe. One hundred percent."

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more_magic

"Well, we all have our disappointments, Stern," he laughs. "I can't even argue I'm not that much of a WASP, can I?"

A little more heat floods through him when her hand slides higher against his thigh. It's not dangerous, it's not unwanted, but it's another step forward after both of them being so careful. He doesn't pull away.

"What was your grandmother like?" he asks, picking up his glass. "I've heard about her whenever you cook something she used to, but I want to know more."

From:

takecourage

"You're the fucking WASPyist," she says, grinning. "Estrella was...formidable. Haughty, sometimes. Deeply proud of...where she came from. All that diaspora stuff, you know? I didn't really give a shit about it as a kid, but I'm starting to...see it, a bit more now. Maybe because I'm speaking Ladino more regularly than I used to. She taught me how. I look a lot like her. Minus the tattoos, obviously. And her hair is way curly. Was." She tilts her head. "What would your grandfather have thought of your bringing me home? A..." She stops just short of calling herself a mongrel, knowing that he hates it. "Jewish girl from fucking California?"

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more_magic

"She sounds fantastic." The more she says, the better he can picture it, some smaller, older version of Alex with a mass of curly hair and that same, often intimidating, look in the darkness of her eyes. The kind of woman who knew things, had learned them, maybe even survived them. Exactly the kind of person Alex should have had in her life, even if it hadn't been for very long--or perhaps not long enough, in the end. "And I can see why so much of that, the Ladino, the history and importance of diaspora, I can see how it came to mean more the older you got."

Their starters and plates are cleared away, and their entrees set down in their place; enough time for Darlington to really think about the question she'd asked. He hadn't missed the pause and the correction there, any more than the rest of it.

"I want to tell you he was a man of the people, egalitarian thanks to all those lunches at Clark's and spending summers on the factory floor alongside the other men. The ones his father had hired from the Italian or Slavic sides of town, the immigrants," Darlington says, looking over at her. "He always said he was as much blue collar as blue blood, and when it counted, he always had manners. He would've been polite, and he probably would've gotten a kick out of how good you are at pushing my buttons."

He lets out a heavy breath. "But behind closed doors, after you'd gone, I know he'd have told me not to let things get too serious with someone like you."

From:

takecourage

"Yeah. She really was."

Alex is quiet for a moment while she tries her food - salmon, green beans, a fancy kind of potatoes. It's all delicious and she just lets herself enjoy it for a moment while she takes in what he's saying.

"What would you have said to that?" she asks, in the spirit of honesty. "What would you say to him now? Would it...you know...be any different?"

From:

more_magic

Darlington takes a quiet moment of his own, cutting into his steak and savoring a bite of it.

"He died when I was fifteen, and I idolized him, and if he'd lived long enough to know you I don't think that would've changed very much," he says, trying to strike a balance between the honesty she deserves and the care he wants to take in saying all of this. "Then, back home, in this imagined place where the two of you had met? I would have told him not to be like that, but I'd have taken it into account and wouldn't have stopped him from saying it because..." He looks down, then back up. "He couldn't help it is a mealymouthed excuse, but it's what I'd have said."

He sits with that, makes himself sit with it, taking a sip of his drink as though the alcohol will temper any bit of it. "It would be different now," he says. "Not that I'd be brave enough to tell him to shut up, not even now, but I'd have told him all the ways he was wrong."

From:

takecourage

Alex takes that on board, the way he sits with it, the way he gives himself a chance to think it through before he says it. She nods, her hand still on his thigh.

"Do you..." She frowns. "Do you think we're in the long haul with this? Would it have been worth having that argument about me?"

She laughs, shaking her head. "Shit. Sorry. That's way to heavy for a first date."

From:

more_magic

She works through it, listening to what he has to say, and it's a relief to see her nod. Her question doesn't take him by surprise, but the fact it puts into words something that had been in his own head, more and more, is unexpected even though he's not sure it should be.

"Heavy for a real first date," he says, his smile coming easily as he cuts a piece of asparagus. "For us? Maybe not so much." Darlington sets his fork down, his knife, reaching to take her hand in his. "I'd have had that argument about you," he says. "There, or here. It would have been worth it, and I would have wanted to." He runs his thumb over her knuckles. "There are things we still need to figure out, but I'm in this for good, Alex. I promise."

From:

takecourage

Relief floods through Alex -- it's an answer that she hadn't known she was waiting for -- and, without really thinking about it, she lifts his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles.

"Good," she says, finally.

From:

more_magic

He'd seen her naked the day she was discharged from the hospital, sat with her in the bath and washed her hair the same as he'd done before everything broke between them, but after that moment both of them had pulled back--out of choice, or necessity, or both at once. That physicality has been slow to return: hesitantly curling up with one another as they lay on the couch watching television; an idle, easy kiss dropped against the part in her hair or along the smooth skin of his temple; hands linking or their feet tangling together beneath the table when they've met for coffee at the museum cafe during his lunch break. They fell too fast and too far the last time, and neither of them seem willing to make that mistake again.

Alex lifts his hand now, her lips grazing his knuckles, and there's something so natural about it that Darlington only wishes he'd thought to do so first. "Good," he echoes, squeezing her fingers before he pulls away again.

With their dinners before them, it's easy to focus on enjoying the meal for a time, their conversation getting easier and lighter. There's still something prodding at him, though, there at the back of his mind, and Darlington decides to trust in the honesty that's pervaded their evening just a little bit more.

"Alex," he says, smiling as he catches her savoring a smear of the sauce that had accompanied her salmon off the pad of her thumb. "Can I ask you the thing I should have before now?" He lifts one hand, sketching a vague gesture in the air just above the tablecloth. "This can wait until we're home. But that night, with Hellie...will you tell me why, instead of how?"

From:

takecourage

She thinks about that for a second, her dark eyes gone wary before she makes herself relax, taking a breath through her nose. She nods.

"You sleep over tonight, and I'll tell you," she says. "Nothing has to happen, and I'm okay if it doesn't, but...Please stay. Deal?"

From:

more_magic

He'd expected her to balk at it, and worried that even now it might not be a conversation she'd want to have, but it still hurts a little to see that wary flash in her eyes. The nod eases that a bit, and he has to take his own moment of hesitation when she lays out her conditions.

"I'll stay," he says, and it already feels like the right decision. Whatever happens, even if it's everything or nothing. "Of course I'll stay."

From:

takecourage

"Okay, good," says Alex, flashing him a little smile before she takes the last bite of her salmon. "Kirby will be glad that you're there, if nothing else."

From:

more_magic

"He will, won't he?" Darlington says, smiling as he finishes off his potatoes and the last spear of asparagus on his plate. "I swear, sometimes I wonder if he's learned to tell time with how often I find him waiting at the door in the mornings." Keeping up that routine has been important, having that time with Kirby--and most days, by the time he's back, Alex is finally awake. It's worked for them, as well as anything else has.

Their plates are cleared, and the waiter drops off a pair of dessert menus. Darlington picks up one, skimming through it before looking at Alex. "Do you want your own, or should we share?"

From:

takecourage

"Let's get one each and share them," she says, scanning down the list. "What the fuck is Eton Mess? It sounds disgusting."

From:

more_magic

Darlington laughs, reminded suddenly of the impromptu tour he'd given her, New Haven rolling past the windows of the old Mercedes; the Brutalist monoliths on State Street, and Alex saying It does feel like they're ganging up on you. He'd corrected her, but she hadn't been wrong, and in some strange way her disgust now feels equally as untutored and exact.

"Mess is in the name for a reason," he says, his grin warm and fond. "It's berries, merengue, and cream, mixed together. It's not bad, despite appearances, and...I was thinking of suggesting the chocolate torte, down at the bottom of the list? It might go well with that."

From:

takecourage

"That actually sounds fucking delicious," says Alex setting the menu down. "Let's get that and the chocolate." Under the table, her hand finds its way back to his thigh.

From:

more_magic

"Perfect." Her hand slides back onto his thigh, warm even through the fabric of his trousers; even though he's going back to the Bramford with her tonight, and staying, he does his best not to think of it as some kind of prelude. It's more difficult than he might have assumed at the start of the night.

The waiter takes their order, and it's not long before he returns, setting both desserts and a pair of spoons at the center of the table.

From:

takecourage

Alex picks up a spoon and takes some of the Eton Mess first, her eyes widening at the creamy sweetness with the edge od sharp berries.

"Oh, fuck," she says. "That is good."

From:

more_magic

There's pure enjoyment on her face, surprise and wonder as she savors the taste of it, and it's beautiful. Darlington picks up the other spoon, cutting smoothly through the dense chocolate of the torte to scoop up a piece along with a bit of the honeyed mascarpone accompanying it alongside.

"This might be even better," he says after a moment, his own surprised, pleased smile growing on his face. "God, we picked well."