Well, a lot of you know that I've been working on a novel lately... But most of you haven't had a chance to read it.
I decided that I was kinda gonna change that, at least in part... Here's a bit of an excerpt... Feel free to read it, let me know what you think...
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When she had a stack of six or seven photo albums on the floor beside her, Lydia looked up at Aidan who was still standing in the doorway. "Aren't you coming?" She patted the floor next to her, lifting a curious eyebrow.
Aidan laughed. "You've got a lot of pictures there! Why don't we sit on the couch instead?" He waved a hand absently at the sofa. "It'll be a lot more comfortable." Lydia shrugged and clamored to her feet again, trying to bring all of the photo albums with her. "Whoa! Let me take a few of those!" He crossed the room and took most of the stack out of her arms, just before it toppled to the floor.
They walked together to the couch and sat down, spreading the stack of albums out on the table. "These two are the newest ones…" She picked two out of the stack and dropped them into Aidan's lap. "They've got everything I've done in the last 6 months or so." She pulled another album out of the stack. "This one is all holiday pictures… Some I took at Rowynne's school parties, some from family dinners and things, and then a bunch I took just around the neighborhood." She picked out another two albums, and stacked them together on one corner of the table. "These two are pictures of Rowynne. All the best ones I've taken since she was born." Her fingertips seemed to linger on the albums, and a soft, unendingly tender smile lit up her face. She stared off into space for a minute, only coming back to herself when Aidan waved his hand in front of her face and chuckled.
"Hey… You in there?" Once he had her attention, he reached over and took the last photo album off the table. It was an older album. The dark green cover was battered and worn, and the once-bright picture of a sunflower on the front was faded almost too white. At one point, it had been wildly decorated with stickers, mostly of other flowers, but a lot of them had peeled off, leaving either graying paper or a trace of dark adhesive behind. Something about it seemed familiar to him, but before he could open the album to flip through the pages, Lydia snatched it out of his hands. He blinked once, and regarded her with wide eyes, one eyebrow cocked in surprise.
Lydia clutched the album to her chest, her head bowed over it. "This one's mine." Her voice was quiet.
"Oh." Aidan just shrugged to himself and opened one of the albums that Lydia had dropped in his lap. Keeping the old, faded album clutched to her chest, she peered over his shoulder as he flipped slowly through the pages. "Dia, these are … really good!" The pictures were mostly landscapes and nature pieces. Some beautiful sunsets, a few close up shots of flowers or of frost-covered branches. Each image had something special about it, something that made it stand out from all the other pictures like that.
Lydia grinned as she watched him turn pages. "Some of those I took with my old camera phone, even. I was really surprised with how they turned out." She peered over his shoulder for a few minutes before curling up in a corner of the couch and opening the old, worn album that she'd been clutching so protectively. The two of them sat together without talking for a long time. The only sound in the room was the soft turning of stiff pages.
After a while, there was a sigh from the corner of the couch. "Aidan?" Her voice was quiet, dreamy, wistful. And maybe a little nervous. Aidan was engrossed in the photo album he was flipping through, so his only reply at first was a distracted mumble. "Aidan?" When she spoke again, the nervousness was more pronounced, the dreaminess fading. "Aidan… tell me what happened with Crissy?"
That got his attention. There was a bang as he slammed the photo album closed, and another one as he dropped it onto the coffee table. When he turned to look at her, his eyes were dark, his face cold. Not as cold as his voice was when he spoke though. "Lydia…don't." It was a simple statement, but it was full of danger and warning. There was a sense of tightly controlled anger about him in that moment, and Lydia shrank away from him a little bit. "Just…don't."
She blinked at him a few times. "I need to know, Aidan." Nervously, she licked her lips. "Please…"
His gaze was piercing as he stared into her eyes. "Why, Dia? Why do you need to know so badly?" It was barely more than a whisper. Pleading almost, but more angry and dark than anything.
"I don't know!" The expression burst out of her, and she threw her hands in the air. Tears began to creep down her cheeks. "I don't know why I need to know, I just do!" Reaching out, she gently, tentatively, touched his shoulder. "Please, Aidan…?"
With one violent shrug, he threw off her hand and rose to his feet. "Dammit, Lydia, I don't want to talk about it, okay?" He wouldn't look at her now, but crossed the room and stood looking out the window. "You don't need to know all the details about what happened, and I don't want to talk about it!" The last was almost yelled, and he whirled around just in time to see her flee the room.
"Lydia!" He called after her, but didn't follow, and wasn't surprised when he heard her bedroom door slam a minute later. Rubbing a hand across his face and through his hair, he heaved a sigh. "Great, Aidan… Do you think you could have handled that any worse?" He fell back onto the couch with a grunt and buried his face in one of the throw pillows, continuing to berate himself for a few moments in a spate of muffled exclamations. When he was done, he heaved a sigh and rolled over onto his back to spend another few minutes staring at the ceiling. "Lord…"
Heaving himself to his feet, Aidan made his way into the kitchen and turned on the kettle. A cup of coffee would do wonders to clear his head, but Lydia only had instant. As he spooned the dark crystals into a mug and waited for the water to boil, he leaned against the counter and surveyed the kitchen. It was a small, cozy room, painted in warm colors and decorated with little artistic touches that showed Lydia's hand in every corner. Like the rest of the house, it was a room that anyone could feel welcome in.
The kettle whistled and he poured the boiling water over the coffee crystals, then took his mug over to the table against the wall. He was just getting the sugar bowl and a spoon when the phone rang. Without even thinking, he grabbed the phone off the charger and lifted it to his ear. "H'lo, Kelly residence."
"Aidan? Hi, it's Daniel. Good to talk to you again. Is Lydia around?" It all came out in one breath, and there was some kind of commotion going on in the background.
Aidan nodded and headed down the hall towards Lydia's room. "Yeah, just let me get her for you." At that moment there was a piercing wail on the other end of the line. "Daniel, is…Is that Rowynne? Is she okay?"
Daniel sighed. "I'm sure she'll be fine. I think she just had a bad dream, or maybe she's just feeling a little homesick, but she really wants her mother." There was another howl on the end of the line. "Trinity is with her right now, trying to calm her down."
"Of course, I'll get Lydia." Aidan took the phone away from his ear and knocked lightly on the bedroom door. "Dia? Dia, Daniel's on the phone. They need you to pick up Rowynne." There was no answer, so he knocked again, a little louder this time. "Dia?"
When there was still no answer, he opened the door and peeked into the room. Lydia was lying on the bed, sound asleep with tearstains on her cheeks. She looked peaceful in sleep, even with tears streaking her face, and he couldn't bear to wake her. Very quietly, Aidan backed out of the room and eased the door shut again before lifting the phone back to his ear. "Daniel? Lydia's asleep already. I'll be right over."
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Rowynne fell asleep in the car on the way home. She'd thrown her arms around Aidan with a wail as soon as he'd gotten to Trin's, and sniffled quietly in the backseat until she drifted off. He watched her in the rearview mirror, and he couldn't help but smile a little to himself. When he took her out of the car to go inside, she snuggled close in his arms. It was so sweet, so trusting, that he just stood there for a moment looking down at her before gently kissing the top of her head. Still holding her close, he headed into the house to put her into bed.
Once Rowynne was tucked in, Aidan went into the kitchen to get himself something to drink. He decided against the coffee that he'd been planning to have earlier; it was getting a bit late for that much caffeine. Instead, he poured himself a small glass of juice and took it up to the guest room.
He spent a few minutes unpacking his suitcase, then crept back down the hall. Very quietly he opened the door and peeked in on Rowynne, smiling softly at the tousled chestnut hair under the pale yellow blanket. He closed the door softly behind him and then moved on to Lydia's bedroom, but he hesitated before going in. He didn't want to disturb her, but she'd been so upset when she went to bed. He just wanted to check on her. It would only take a minute. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, just far enough to stick his head into the room.
Lydia was sprawled on the bed, obviously more restless than she'd been the last time he'd looked in on her. The peacefulness that had sat to easily on her face was gone, replaced by a drawn, tense expression. It made her look older somehow, where the easy peace had given her a youthful glow. She lay on her back, her head to one side, and one arm thrown up above her head as though to protect herself from something falling. The heavy afghan that usually lay neatly across the foot of her bed had been kicked off and lay in an untidy pile on the floor instead. Aidan picked it up and unfolded it, then gently laid it over her, bringing her arm down from above her head and tucking it in under the blanket as well. He reached to brush a strand of hair off her forehead and chuckled as she turned her head away from his fingers with a grumble. Lightly touching his fingers to his lips for a moment, he gently pressed the kiss to her cheek then turned on his heels and crept back out of the room.
When he got back to the guest room, he changed into a pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt, and climbed into bed. He turned off the bedside lamp, tucked his arms behind his head, and tried to get comfortable. He lay there, staring at the ceiling and listening to the darkness around him, until his eyes drifted shut and sleep overwhelmed him.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been sleeping when a shrill scream cut through the night like a sword. It jolted him awake in an instant, and before he even registered that he was awake, he threw open the bedroom door and was pelting down the hall to Lydia's bedroom. Part of his mind was aware of the small face with wide eyes peering around the doorframe, but most of his focus was on the screaming woman behind the door at the other end of the hall.
When he burst into Lydia's room and saw her sitting in the middle of her bed, Aidan nearly stopped dead in his tracks. Her face was pale, almost as white as the wall behind her. Her golden-green eyes were wide and blank, as though she was staring at something in some other world. Her legs moved on the bed, under the blanket, in slow, awkward running motions, and screams still poured from her open mouth with such force that her voice was already getting hoarse. Aidan sat down beside her and drew her resisting body against his chest. He held her close, stiff as she was, and rocked slowly back and forth. "Wake up, Dia. Come on, kitten, come back to me now." He kept his voice soft, trying to soothe her, not wanting to scare her any more than she already was. Eventually the screaming faded to sobs and her body relaxed, almost melting against him. She turned her face into his shoulder, and let her arms creep around his neck. He held her like that until the sobs faded to sniffles, and then pulled away just far enough to look into her eyes.
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*hides* Well, there's the excerpt... It wound up being rather longer than I was expecting it to be... It looked shorter in Word...
Now... *shrugs* Your turn...
