(A/N): I am rendered wordless by the fact that we have at last reached the finish line. This fic was originally intended to be ten chapters max, and ended up becoming one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I have ever worked on. It's so hard to write a life, and I'm ridiculously grateful that no one scorned my folly or anything. This is so not perfect. With woefully inadequate thanks to all who stuck with me throughout this; for all the encouragement and reflection and empathy. It's been brilliant.
Anyway. Here I present to you the final act of this funny little tale:
...
...
You cannot fall up. Of this, Skye was once very, very certain.
But someone taught her different.
If she makes the effort, she can fly, and when she gets back to the edge she will jump again, because she's insane like that, because diving up is what she does, because there will only ever be one abyss that matters.
...
Skye falls asleep in a tatty old armchair beside dying firelight. Doesn't know it's the last thing she will ever do.
...
They say that when you die your whole life flashes before your eyes.
Which is extraordinary, isn't it. An entire lifetime scrolling past in a matter of seconds. It's one of the brain's most interesting phenomenons. A miracle, really.
They say that your whole life flashes before your eyes, but what if instead (her eyes, fixed on him), she sees what might have happened, what it could have been if a boy with too many freckles to be called noble had not crashed into her one summer afternoon, amidst thorns and leaves and aching light?
Would she know the difference, then, between dream and reality; would she know whether his fingers gripping her wrist are real?
...
He is touching her, you know; that grip she feels, it's real.
He loves her. And she loves him.
...
Loved
him