Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dexter holds Jasmine’s hand steadily inside his as they enter Edinburgh University. 

Before him, the green lawn spreads endlessly but only in his mind as he pictures the night he met Emma wearing a black dress and an impish smile. 

The summer wind whistles in his ears. 

“Come on, Jazz, let’s keep moving.” 

It's not too warm for a summer day but something burns inside him, strangles his throat and his mouth dries up. How does one get used to loss? How can one build around what is missing, what engulfs, what destroys all light?  

“It’s so pretty!” his daughter giggles beside him. 

Dexter smiles, lowering his head to stare at her small face. She is his light. That is how. 

“I’m glad you like it! Come, I’ll show you inside!” 

He drags his angel with him towards the loan.

“Hey!” Someone screams, but he is thinking of Emma, her dress flowing in the wind that first night, the cold biting his lips tasting of alcohol, he thinks of her eyes, big, brown eyes as he sees her face for the first time, he thinks of the feeling that had swollen inside his chest – he thinks it was love and he knew it at once and too late. 

He wishes he would have looked longer, wishes he had grabbed her hand that night and never let her go, not for the next ridiculously small eighteen years they would get together. 

Oh to live once again and to never work, to never part one minute from her, to gaze at her face and hold her for all eternity, and her eternity is not much, it’s barely thirty-six years but god, if he had known, if he had…

“Don’t walk on the lawn!” The voice calls again, and it’s a cold shower. 

Dexter blinks, swallows down painfully. “Oh.” Emma’s dress flowing, flowing, her laughter echoing. “We used to be able to…dance here.”

He thinks about it, sometimes, about what would have happened if he had stayed with Emma that day. If he had come home sooner, if he had picked her up, if he had only warned her, “Hey Emma, grab a taxi please, it’s raining like hell” but he did not and now he has to deal with that for the rest of his life. 

In his darkest dreams he is convinced he could have saved her. The hero complex never did quite leave him.

“Sorry, we’ll go that way.” 

How does one dance again?