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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 1:44:32 GMT -5
"I would prefer to not think of how recent that was-"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Jul 1, 2010 1:45:53 GMT -5
"Oh, I see..."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 1:50:19 GMT -5
"I hope you understand my position."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Jul 1, 2010 1:53:23 GMT -5
"Yes, I imagine you have the same sort of doubts about yourself as others have about you. Well.... Paul, my, my husband, as you saw, was very righteous. 'Veidt is older than I am. I was your son's father, he doesn't need another one'... and I know people print much worse; I don't like to read that. And it does go both ways, but I doubt Adrien takes any of that into consideration. He never had a mind for money. He found a spare franc once, and tore it in half so that I could have some, too." She laughed.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 2:09:39 GMT -5
Adrian smiled weakly.
"That sounds like him."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Jul 1, 2010 2:14:02 GMT -5
She brought another photo of two-year-old him to the front again and smiled fondly. "When he was a baby - even though he didn't speak - he had this peculiar way of being excited - it was like this - he'd bounce up and down in his seat and beam and start to laugh, but only through his breathing. He'd be breathing excitedly and bouncing up and down, and each breath was really this little, excited, baby laughter.
"...I was lucky," she added thoughtfully, brushing a thumb over the picture; it was of him all pretty and adorable for a belated baptism. "I don't know how well I would have managed if he'd been like Claire. He's the sort of baby you dream about having when you're too young to know what babies are going to be like. He was more like a fantasy than a real child, quiet and loving and trusting."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 2:22:39 GMT -5
He thought of the fax from the city's records indicating that Adrien had been executed by guillotine years ago.
More like a fantasy than anything real.
A sick, nagging feeling at the back of Adrian's mind uncoiled and whispered that something had gone wrong, very wrong, that there were too many things crossing and slipping out of their places and twisting reality around. Adrien seemed for a moment to be some kind of little phantom that shouldn't exist at this point, not without the dissolution of the orderly boxes of cold logic and science.
Adrian crossed his arms, not stubbornly but with a shuddering, folding motion. It was like suddenly being Jon, except somehow completely opposite him.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Jul 1, 2010 2:24:37 GMT -5
"Are you - sure you won't have this?" asked Lucie timidly, looking up to him, pressing the photograph gently against the table.
She hadn't seen Adrian fold his arms. She was lost in her own thoughts about the boy who'd run off in 1937...
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 2:26:45 GMT -5
"I suppose I'll take it," he said uncomfortably, uncrossing one arm to reach out for it.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Jul 1, 2010 2:28:13 GMT -5
She didn't immediately let it go, holding on a bare second longer. She continued to stare at him, nearly fearfully.
"We're the only two people in the world who love him," she said - " I want this, this photo to mean something to someone - to anyone who isn't me. He can't just have a mother..."
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 2:37:45 GMT -5
"I understand," Adrian said, looking back at her with a wide-open, painfully direct stare.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Jul 1, 2010 2:38:53 GMT -5
Eye contact wasn't broken until Adrien, alone, breathless and beaming and rosy, bursted into the upstairs, beginning to whistle whole-heartedly, then stopping and grinning at them both.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 2:42:40 GMT -5
Adrian looked as though he'd seen a ghost and automatically reached out to touch him.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Jul 1, 2010 2:47:50 GMT -5
Adrien kind of scooted on over and leaned over them. "Ohh, maman, did I ever wear anything so pretty as this?" he asked, looking at the photograph in Adrian's hand. "Yes, when you were baptized." "What!" He peered at it. "Why was I so old?" "Because the old priest was a ninny who wouldn't allow me in." She pinched his stomach - he clutched at it cautiously - and stood up to take care of her teacup. "Well, you've grown," she said cheekily. "Yes," he said proudly, and then suddenly and without warning swooped and picked her up, while she laughed very brightly in surprise. When he'd set her down by the sink again, he gave Adrian a see-what-I-did look. "Paul's not mad, is he?" "No, maman. But I do think we ought to go..." Even as he said this, he wrapped his arms around her morosely and squeezed, looking like a schoolboy who's outgrown his mum and wants to go back. She paused, looked suspiciously bright-eyed, and held onto him, until squeezing his shoulder. He stood up again, awkwardly. "If you really insist..." Adrien crossed to stand beside Adrian again, as though preparing to leave when Adrian stood up.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Jul 1, 2010 16:15:02 GMT -5
Adrian stood too.
"It's been a pleasure."
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