Partnership

[PennyLane]

“…I don’t know what happened! One moment she was standing next to me and then…”

 

“…no, Thomas not the gazebo!”

“She needs fresh air…”

 

“…you go Nana, I’ll stay here with her…”

.               .               .

                Even against the crisp October air, Thomas felt the heat of urgency. His mother’s precious navy-blue blazar lady haphazardly on the ground, along with Emma’s shoes and purse. Sitting against the gazebo’s glass wall, Thomas propped his head on his hands. Anxiety swirled on his head and prickled underneath his skin. It was enough to make a grown man beg it to stop. White sleeves sat perched on his forearm, rolled up to allow for better movement as he rubbed circles into his temple.

                What a fucking night.

                What kept him grounded was the sound of Emma’s even breathing, reminding him she slept peacefully on the wooden bench. She hadn’t stirred once since she passed out, not even as Thomas picked her up and carried her through the pavilion archway.

                “I’m sorry.”

                Wording his emotions, expressing how he felt… it was never Thomas’s strong suit.

                “I know it’s not my fault you got sick, nor that you passed out after the party. Although, both of those circumstances seem to leave me wounded but… I’m sorry for reading your journal. I shouldn’t have done it, I know that now, and I knew that then.”

                Glasses were place on the blazar to make room for the hands now covering Thomas’s face.

                “I was just so scared of losing you tonight, and I guess I went looking for something. A reason for you to stay? Maybe? I don’t know. That’s not an excuse, but it is my explanation. Nothing in my life has ever made me feel so desperate as to cling to it to stay. I’ve thought for a long time what these feelings for you are.

Some words, they feel too important to be used lightly. I like this campus. I enjoy sewage ice-cream on our ice-cream dates. I look forward to our walks in the park. I find your humor amusing, and even downright absurd sometimes. There’s a lot of things I like about you, Emma, but…

No word quite fits how I feel about you, except one.

I love you”

Moonlight dripped in from the glass ceiling, illuminating the rustling leaves on the vine as they seemed to applaud to lonely speech. Thomas was about to reach for his phone to check on Nana’s progress when-

“…Thomas?...” A whispered plea. Glasses hastily found their home on the bridge of his nose again in time to see her beauty rise from the trance. Strands of hair hung loose around her pale neck in the moonlight, along with one loose strap of her dress hanging off her right shoulder. Sleeping beauty, it seemed, had come to comfort Thomas in his time of need.

“…Thomas…is it true? All that you said?”

He knelt before were she sat, looking up in awe at the power his words held on her. She gazed down at his messy appearance, searching for any sign of falsehood in what he had spoken.

“Thomas, do you love me?”

“Yes…yes I do. Emma I- I love you.”

She took his hands in her own, beaming as radiantly as the flowered vines that hung around them. On his knees still, Thomas beheld her touch, and his ears grew a fearsome red.

“Say it again”

“I love you, Emma.”

“Oh Thomas, I love you too.”

The man leaped into her awaiting arms. Heart to heart they pressed, enveloping in the warmth their light created. Longing fingers combed through her hair, pulling her close until Thomas could bury his head in the crook of her neck. Emma reciprocated the sentiment as she leaned into his ear and whispered,

“I forgive you.”

.               .               .

“What do you mean you didn’t see my fetish website??”

“I mean just that! The day we met, when you went all bonkers for me knowing your dirty little secret, I hadn’t really seen anything at all! It wasn’t until you brought it up in the partnership agreement that I learnt the goods about you and sneezing.”

“But if that’s all true, then why did you come running up to me that day?”

“Well that’s the thing…”

The pair sat on the bench of the gazebo, gazing up at the stars through the glass ceiling. Thomas broke his hand from hers to retrieve something out of his pocket. A red velvet box.

“That day, you’d dropped this bracelet. I meant to catch up with you and give it back, but amidst all the commotion I never got the chance. It was broken anyway, so I thought I might fix it up before I gave it back.”

Emma let out a small gasp seeing the jewelry that lay in the red packaging. Her old golden bracelet. It looked better than it ever had. So shiny and new, and around it dangled a dozen charms she’d never seen before.

“Not to sound all and all, but when I took it to the jeweler, and we saw it wasn’t real gold… I sorta got them to replace it with the real stuff. It’s still the same bracelet of course! Now its just sorta the old wooden boat paradox: after you’ve replaced all the wood, which is the original boat? I’d like to think this is still your bracelet, now with something new. May I?”

Emma wordlessly put out her hand, accepting the new weight on her wrist with awe.

“These charms were my personal touch. Each one represents one of our date spots: the ice-cream parlor, the park, comic con, all of it.”

Above them, fireworks began berating the night sky with color and light. The Soleil gala was complete, and now their partnership had concluded, except…

“Emma?”

She followed him as he stood and guided her to the steps of the pavilion archway. Little yellow flowers dangled above them on the vines, colored red and blue by the cascading light of the fireworks.

“Emma Mond, will you give me the honor of extending our partnership?”

“You mean, like boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Not a partnership anymore, but more of a…”

“A relationship, yes Emma.”

“And you’d want to date a busy pre-med, barely paying her way, messy, controlling-“

“-Wonderful, beautiful, creative, princess? Yes, sign me up.”

And as the finale of the fireworks began, the two joined in loves first kiss, enveloped by the light and wonder of a sneezy, beautiful future.

[Kolen]

AWWAAHH!!! *fanboys intensely* THIS HAS SUCH A DARLING ENDING!! Thank you, PennyLane, for having the ending be just as good as the rest of it, satisfying and sweet 😍

I wait with fingers crossed for your next story, and I will wait for however long it might take~!

[Privatedancer]

So nice to see this happy ending

[Kiwifruit]

Whoo hoo, you've returned! I didn't  notice until after my last comment how long it had been since your last update and mostly lost hope of seeing this story resolved. But, I remembered it and logged in today just to check if there were updates and there were TWO! Such a sweet resolution for the story arc, and you painted such a pretty, romantic scene with your descriptions. I hope the promise of more plot arcs to come means that this isn't the ending though!? I'm glad to hear you're alive and well and your life seems to be full and hopefully satisfying for you, regardless of if we get more story or not.

Also, I have to agree that I prefer sneezes with my plot rather than plot with my sneezes. More plot-driven with meaningful sneezes is the best kind of story in my opinion!

 

[EveP]

Please tell me this wasn't the end. Please say that it was just the beginning, that we'll get to read much more about Emma, Thomas and their sneezy, beautiful future. 🤩

[sneezygirl97]

Keeping my fingers crossed for an epilogue where Thomas catches her cold 😉😂

[DanniSneeze]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I love this!! So so adorable!!!!

[NotWho]

Aww this is so sweet! Also as a side note, I’m glad to see you’re getting better! ❤️

[ID2006]

This I so good, but I was really hoping to see some more caretaking from Thomas 

[Catsgotyourtounge]

I know this story is a little older! I keep coming back wishing it would continue! I absolutely love it!!