Chapter Fifteen

The answer, as it turns out, is in a little over two weeks.

Alex and Elijah spend most of Thanksgiving weekend together, Alex going back to his house only when Elijah goes to work, like maybe there's a chance he can pretend he wants to be home at all. He does find the time to text his sister a thank you, and an invitation to go out to dinner sometime after the holiday chaos. Elijah lets his mom know that they want to visit Uncle Edgar, and she doesn't hesitate to give them all the information they need.

The delay has more to do with work schedules and the fact that Alex has Elena for a week, so they look at the calendar and figure out a Saturday night Elijah can get someone to cover for him at the bar. Technically, there would be plenty of time to drive down to San Diego, see Uncle Edgar, and drive back, but they're both prepared for the visit to wring them out a little, so they decide to book a hotel room for the night and make plans for a nice dinner—a getaway that really isn't going to be much of one, Nora agreeing to keep Poe with her while they're gone.

Elijah comes over for dinner with Alex and Elena the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and after she's in bed, the two of them talk more about what Elijah's learned while they do the dishes side by side.

"It's been a few months since my mom was last down there, but she was careful to warn me that he's unlikely to talk to us."

Alex takes the wine glass handed to him and begins to dry it. "Because he's unwilling or unable?"

Elijah shrugs. "Maybe some of both? Apparently, there's nothing specifically wrong with him, but he's obviously very old and his entire body is just sort of done. The nurses help move him from bed to a chair and back again, but he doesn't show an interest in much of anything. He's not belligerent, just tired."

"The love of his life died over 20 years ago, and he never made it all the way back to that peace they'd once had with your family," Alex sighs, reaching for another glass. "He stayed in their home as long as he could and now he's probably just—unsettled? Unable to let go?"

"Yeah, unsettled is probably accurate," Elijah agrees, turning off the water and pulling the dish towel from Alex to dry his hands, bringing him close enough to kiss at the same time. "And I'm so torn about my mom visiting him—about what that does to both of them."

Alex tilts his head. "How so?"

They lean back against the countertop, pinkies linked as Elijah tries to explain. "They're both living with the consequences of the mistakes they made—decisions they made for each other—and it can't be easy to sit in a room so full of memories and what ifs. You and I know neither of them were ever the bad guy, no matter how I feel about the ways their choices have messed with my head, but I'm not sure either of them knows how to forgive themselves, and seeing each other must trap them in the past every time."

"It's a matter of knowing how to let go of what's already happened so you can make whatever happens next a little bit better."

"Yeah," Elijah nods. "Which means there might be hope for my mom and me if we can just give it a little while longer, but for someone like Uncle Edgar, there's not much time left for next."

"And a whole damn lifetime of what might have been."

Elijah goes home that night, leaving Alex with Elena for the next few days, the finalization of Alex and Cassidy's divorce something acknowledged over a late-night phone call that winds up being more emotional than Alex would've liked it to be. He, Elijah, and Elena hang out most of Saturday together, all three of them indulging in an enormous breakfast before they walk off the meal by spending several hours at the zoo. On Sunday night, Alex takes Elena over to Cassidy's, and he tells Cass about the plan to spend a night with Elijah in San Diego, though he lets her assume it's entirely romantic and not at all bittersweet. Monday and Tuesday, Elijah stays with Alex, and then they spend the rest of the week texting and talking when neither of them is too busy with work, both packed and ready to leave for their short road trip on Saturday morning, as soon as Elijah has had enough sleep from the night before.

They both ignore the fact that he was never likely to get any rest anyway.

Elijah texts once he's given up, and Alex tells him he's ready to be picked up anytime, offering to drive but not at all surprised that Elijah would rather focus on traffic than stare out the window at whatever they're leaving behind. Miles roll by, and there's music from somebody's playlist, though Alex doesn't think either of them could name a single song they've heard. Their hands are linked between them, and the connection seems at least as important as any conversation they could have, except that there's something that's been on Alex's mind for a while now, and while the timing is probably all wrong, Elijah catches him thinking too hard.

"You're allowed to talk," Elijah teases, soft and sweet. "I won't get spooked by the sound of your voice."

"Mmmm, no, I know. But you don't know what my voice might say."

Elijah shoots him a quick look, his eyebrows high. "Well, now you have to talk."

"What about the spooking?"

"Probably impossible."

Alex's gaze wanders elsewhere, like there's actually any way out but through, and he's still somewhere around his side mirror when he talks. "Are you guys still planning to put your grandpa's house on the market after the new year?"

"Yeah. I've got most of it ready. Might have another garage sale weekend, but don't worry, I'll wear my ‘Property of Alex Ramos' hoodie those mornings." Elijah squeezes Alex's hand, but everything's a little too tight in Alex's chest, and it takes him a second to smile at the joke. Elijah squeezes another time to acknowledge the delay. "No, seriously, what's up?"

"What if you didn't?"

"What if I didn't what?" Elijah asks.

"What if you didn't put the house on the market? What if you bought your brother and sister out of their share?"

"Come on, we've already talked about this. It's silly to move into a house that big when it's just Poe and me."

"But—"

"But I have all those incredible memories there. Yeah, I know," Elijah sighs. "And not to be spectacularly cheesy or anything, but the memories will stay with me long after the house belongs to someone else."

"No, that's not—" Alex shakes his head and finally looks at Elijah again, Elijah's focus back on the road. "I was going to say, but what if it wasn't just Poe and you? What if maybe it was me, too?"

Elijah's gasp is far too loud in the quiet car, no matter how much he tries to swallow it down after it's long gone, and now Alex is the one who's spooked, about to scramble to take it all back, a shoulder pressed to the car door and his hand pulling away from Elijah's until Elijah is grabbing for anything else to hold, the sleeve of Alex's henley an innocent victim to his grip.

"Don't you dare freak out on me now. I swear to god, Alex, I will pull over if I have to."

"To leave me on the side of the road until someone takes pity on me?"

Elijah scoffs. "To kiss you senseless, even though you're being an idiot right now."

"Okay, if I don't freak out, does that mean we're gonna talk about my offer to live with your dog?"

"You really like my dog that much?"

"I love your dog," Alex says, his voice low enough that it might be hidden by the hum of the road. He isn't sure whether he wants it to be, but Elijah lets it go either way.

"What about your house, though?" Elijah asks. "I mean, either one is pretty big for us, but two seems incredibly excessive. And if one of them has to go, shouldn't it be the house that's already mostly empty?"

"Okay, yeah, it's not the most logical move, but it feels right. I'm still living in the shadow of a life I built with someone else, and it's not—I don't need to escape it. It's fine. But if you and I could be together in a place that kept you safe before you really understood why—a place where a little piece of queer history was damn near built into the foundation and painted onto the walls—it seems worth it to do everything a little bit backward. It seems worth it to live in their shadows instead." Alex takes a deep breath and finds Elijah's hand again, his own trembling as it gives away his secrets. "And I—I'd obviously want to see how Elena feels about it all, though if you haven't noticed, she's kind of a fan of yours. I'm pretty sure she'll trade the house for the chance to be closer to you."

"Jesus, Alex, I—what about Cassidy?"

"Also a big fan of yours, which should probably terrify me more than it does. Not inviting her to move in, though."

Elijah can't quite elbow him while their hands are still tangled against the console and he's keeping his eyes on the spots of traffic around them, but the attempt is a decent one, and it's exactly what they both need before Alex squirms away with a laugh.

"You know, Poe loves you too, but I'm not totally sure how he feels about all your sass."

"Pretty sure my sass is one of the things he loves the most about me," Alex bites back. "But yes, I definitely need to talk to Cassidy too, and if I sell it, she'd get half the proceeds."

"But then with some of your half, and with the money I have in savings, we could—"

"Yeah. We could," Alex murmurs. "If you want."

"I want."

"And the 9-year-old with me half the time?"

"I'll take her at 9 and 10 and 11 and—"

Alex damn near giggles. "Okay, okay, I got it."

But then Elijah changes lanes and slows down just noticeably enough, his attention turned to the signs up ahead, and Alex finally starts to read them too. His heartbeat kicks up again, and he takes his hand back.

"We're almost there," Elijah says unnecessarily.

They're quiet after that, Alex looking anywhere but at Elijah, afraid that he might become more of a distraction than a comfort. There's nothing particularly interesting around them, just the same array of buildings found in any place like it, and it takes them another ten minutes—stoplights as bad here as anywhere else—before they land in the parking lot of the care facility, and neither of them moves for a minute when Elijah parks.

"You know, when we first started reading their story, I thought I was so much like Peter," Alex says.

"Why?" Elijah rasps, anything they're about to do leaving him shakier than he probably wants to be.

"He was scared. Kind of fascinated by what he felt, but he would've kept it inside him, tucked into little corners of himself that nobody else could see," Alex explains. "It was Edgar who first suggested they write in the books, because maybe Peter had already resigned himself to the smallest kind of happiness, just seeing Edgar when the world tilted the right way for him. It was Edgar who pushed for more, who seemed brave and ready and eager to embrace what they were told they couldn't have. Peter lived passively, not wholly unhappy with his son at home, but not with any genuine passion either."

Elijah nods, his exhale a shaky one. "And now?"

"Edgar ended up being the one who wasted so much time—then and now—terrified of doing everything wrong and hurting the people he loved, unable to see that his own solution was the biggest problem of them all. And I spent most of the last 20 years hiding in my marriage and he's spent that same time hiding after Peter died, and it's just—this is your family's story, but I feel so much of it inside me, too."

"That's because it is," Elijah says, leaning across the console for a long kiss, one inexplicably intimate in the middle of a parking lot, everything both cold and warm under San Diego's confused December sun. "Yeah, it's my family, but the story is mine and yours and ours, and it belongs to millions of people we'll never meet."

"Everyone who's ever hidden from something good?"

Alex doesn't get an actual answer to that, but he doesn't need one either, and he shifts easily when Elijah comes back with a question of his own. "Did you know, way back at the very beginning, that marrying Cassidy was a mistake? That you weren't being honest with yourself about what you really wanted?"

"Mmmm, no, I don't think I could have, really," Alex muses. "It would've meant pausing long enough to have a much bigger conversation with myself, and whether I wasn't ready for that, or whether I just thought everything happening was sort of an imperative, I never—I did what I thought was inevitable, I guess."

Elijah nods slowly and looks toward the sliding glass door waiting to open for them whenever they're ready. "I'm not sure he stopped to have those conversations either, or he would've remembered how hard he fought for love way back when it seemed impossible."

"So, what now? What happens today or tomorrow or ten years from now?"

"I never, ever want to forget that fight," Elijah says, his voice low. "But I need to make sure he knows it's okay that he did."

Alex watches him sit with that for a minute, Elijah almost visibly affected by his own words, then nods toward the building. "You ready?"

"I don't know."

"Careful, you're starting to sound like me," Alex warns.

"That's not the insult you think it is."

"Okay, come on," Alex says, twisting to pull the faux Edgar Allan Poe collection from the backseat, everything put carefully back inside where they'd found it, except for the picture of Peter and Elijah that Elijah's kept for himself. They plan to leave the book with Edgar when they go, knowing they're likely to get the entire collection back again soon enough when Alex can't imagine anyone else will lay claim to it once Edgar's gone. "If we stall much longer, it's gonna get really hard to go inside at all."

So, they open the doors of the truck and slam them again and are silent until they get inside, the sliding glass doors sighing their impatience behind them. The man at the reception desk is perfectly pleasant when he checks them in and asks them to take a seat in the waiting area, and they're not there long before they're greeted by the nurse who arrives to take them to Edgar's room but wants to talk to them first.

"You're Peter's great grandson," she says to Elijah, and Alex doesn't miss that she—Natasha, according to her name tag—isn't really asking.

"Elijah," he replies with a nod.

"You look just like Laura and James," Natasha tells him. "And from what I've gathered, they both looked just like Peter."

"Sounds like you've gathered a lot," Elijah says. "You've taken care of Uncle Edgar for a while?"

"Since he moved in, yeah. And Laura told you he doesn't really talk? I don't want you guys getting your hopes up too much."

"Yeah, my mom said he sleeps a lot, and even when he's awake, conversations are basically one-sided."

"Exactly," she agrees.

"Okay, but—" Elijah's frown is quick, but the furrow of his brows remains strong. "You mentioned that I look like—I mean—Uncle Edgar's memory is okay, right? He's not confused?"

Natasha's eyes are kind, her smile soft. "He won't mistake you for Peter. First, his memory is probably far too intact for his own damn good. And second, I mentioned that you'd be visiting today, and he reacted to your name. Pretty sure he knows exactly who you are."

"Reacted how?"

Her eyes get even softer, though the smile is gone. "Edgar has always been—conflicted, I think. Your name carried a lot of weight, and I think he might have curled under it a little."

"I'm too heavy for him, but you're still—" Elijah shakes his head, frustrated, and he looks out the glass doors like maybe he needs the fresh air on the other side. When he doesn't continue, Alex does his best to finish for him.

"You're still okay with us visiting with him today?"

"I'm very okay with it," Natasha promises, her stare gentle when she levels it on Elijah. "I don't actually think you're heavy at all."

She turns to lead them through the corridors that will take them to Edgar's room, and Alex hears everything Natasha didn't say—that the past was the heaviest thing of all, Elijah's name something that contained so many memories in a single breath. His birth had been the breaking point, after all. The moment Edgar finally tried to turn everything back around for their last chance at filling up an empty life he'd made them live for too long.

Alex presses the Poe collection into Elijah's hands just as they reach the door and Natasha knocks, a courtesy more than something requiring a response of any kind.

Then they step into the room and meet the man whose idea to express his love in the small space left next to other people's words, an idea from nearly 80 years ago, might be the only reason they're standing here now. It's absolutely the only reason Alex is here at Elijah's side.

Edgar is asleep. Natasha leaves them.

"Alex?"

"I'm right here," he says from just over Elijah's shoulder. "Not going anywhere unless you want to be alone with him."

"No, I—please."

Elijah steps closer to the bed then, two chairs already set up for them there, and he drops into one, the book resting in his lap. Alex follows easily, his eyes settling into a slow back and forth between Edgar and Elijah, one currently at peace and one very much not, though the rest of their lives have usually been the other way around. Elijah sets the book onto the mostly bare nightstand and lets Alex take his hand, no matter how much it might shake, their fingers threaded together atop the armrests pressed between them.

"You think your mom has talked to him about you?" Alex asks. "Or do you think he just remembers your name from when you used to visit?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. I can't—I still haven't fully wrapped my head around the fact that my mom was holding on to this my whole life," Elijah admits. "After those family visits when I was a kid, only one of which I even remember, she put a pretty swift end to any sort of honesty with me, but I don't know—maybe that still needed somewhere to go. Maybe she had to have those conversations with someone."

"And this room might have become one hell of a confessional for both of them."

Elijah turns his head toward Alex, something of a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. "And here I was working on forgiving them for the choices they made. You think they've just needed forgiveness from each other?"

"My family will be the first to tell you that I'm not one to be talking about the absolution of sins when I don't seem to be properly sorry for committing them," Alex snorts. "But I think they probably need all the forgiveness they can get, and for the last couple of years, they've only had each other."

"And only my grandparents before that."

"A family full of people who loved each other so much and did it far too quietly for far too long."

They fall silent for a bit, Edgar's soft snoring the only notable sound, but then Elijah squeezes Alex's hand to get his attention, like Alex hasn't been focused on him all day.

"I get why Edgar would think he needs my mom to forgive him," he starts. "I mean, hell, that goes all the way back to the day of the raid. But why do you think my mom would need that from Uncle Edgar? What does she think she's done to him?"

Alex frowns and catches his lip between his teeth for a few seconds, trying to buy himself the time to piece together the explanation in his head. He knows so little but thinks maybe he's figured out just a little bit of this.

"She kept the wrong legacy alive," he murmurs.

"The wrong legacy?"

"It's like we already said. They fought—all of them," Alex answers. "Edgar fought for ways to be with Peter, even after he was almost killed. Peter fought to bring him closer, even when the neighbors might have been watching. Both of them fought to find others like them, and then they fought to get all the way out of the margins they'd been born into, helping the community rage against a whole world that might have wanted them written out of the book altogether. And James fought too, first to embrace their love even if he didn't understand it, then to bear witness to it, long after Peter and Edgar made it so much harder to see."

Elijah sighs. "But then there were all the secrets."

"Then there were all the secrets, yeah. Or just the one, maybe, surrendered and renewed over and over again. And what hurts so much is that everyone's decision to keep Peter and Edgar's relationship a secret was always motivated by a desire to protect the people they love. Edgar didn't want Peter to risk losing his career or his son, Peter didn't want Edgar to be in physical danger, James didn't want to put either of them at risk, Peter and Edgar didn't want to put James, Annie, and your mom at risk, and then your mom—she protected them until they stopped demanding it, but then she thought she needed to protect you from all the same things."

"And the world around them wasn't getting any worse. Hell, you just came out to your daughter in the middle of a pizza parlor," Elijah huffs. "But the more love they let in, the more they ended up hiding from it, and everyone followed their lead. Everyone kept the secret."

"Instead of remembering to fight."

"Which would"ve been the right legacy," Elijah says. "Fighting to get away from a lifetime of hiding places."

"And onto the middle of the page."

Elijah scrubs his free hand over his face, but his grip immediately tightens around Alex's hand when there's movement in the bed, Edgar's head rolling against the pillow until he very slowly blinks up at them. He says nothing, and it seems like maybe it takes him several seconds to drag himself all the way back from sleep, but he gets there eventually. Edgar offers Elijah the very faintest nod, and then whether he actually catches the sight of it or whether he just senses that there's something more to find if he continues to look for it, Edgar turns a little further and his gaze lands on the Poe collection, the spine facing him and so easy for him to read, though Alex imagines he must have memorized every detail about it long ago.

Alex clears his throat, and Elijah begins to talk. "Um—I—hi, Uncle Edgar. I'm Elijah and I—I met you a really long time ago, when I was just a little kid. And I'm sorry it's taken me so long to visit, but I—I'm glad I could be here with—this is—I'd like you to meet Alex."

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," Alex says with a shy smile. Edgar's eyes are red and watery, but he doesn't cry, and Alex wonders whether it's an indulgence better saved for when his audience is gone, or whether such tangible grief is something he denied himself long ago. "And thank you for sharing your story with us, even if you never wanted it to happen that way."

Elijah nods. "Yeah, we—my mom told me you asked my grandpa to take all the books away after my—after Peter died, but you—they changed my life, and you deserve to know that. I think maybe it's easy to remember how much didn't go the way you wish it had, or to blame yourself for the ways it all went wrong, but all your love was too big to stay a secret forever, and I will always be grateful for the pieces of it I got to know."

Edgar seems to track everything Elijah says, but doesn't respond, nor does he react much more than someone might if they were reading the back of a box of cereal, except that there's the quick lift of an eyebrow here and there, a silent invitation to say a little more. Alex brushes his thumb over the back of Elijah's hand, maybe to keep himself grounded as much as to soothe the man sitting next to him, and then he exhales, slow and steady.

"Reading everything you and Peter wrote to each other—it sort of feels like your life was the inverse of mine," Alex tells him. "You were so open and brave, and you let yourself love honestly, and you only tucked that all back inside when you thought you might be hurting anyone else with that love. I spent 20 years never knowing how to let any of the truth out in the first place, loving the way I was supposed to because I wasn't courageous enough to believe there was any other way. And I'm so, so lucky that I have the time to finally do it right, and I'm sorry that you keep looking back, but none of it's really that simple anyway. All the mistakes I've made are always going to be part of my story, and all your mistakes will be part of yours, but we get to keep all the rest of it too. All the joy and the love get to be ours, too."

There's another glance toward the nightstand, and Elijah's free hand moves to the cover of the book, fingertips brushing over the embossed title there. "Do you want me to open this for you?"

Edgar doesn't say anything, but there's something about the way his eyelids flutter shut that answers for him. He's seen plenty and isn't ready to look again now, but maybe there's still time for that another day.

"We'll leave it here for you when we go," Elijah promises. "It's the story of how much you"ve loved my family, and how much they"ve loved you, and it's yours again."

"There's so much happiness in there," Alex adds. "Your happiness."

Elijah looks to Alex, cautious maybe, and then he turns back to Edgar. "I want you to remember it and I want you to remember me, too. Everything you gave to my great grandfather and to my grandpa and to my mom—that all helped get me here, to where I could—where I could fall in love and know it was okay. Your honesty made it so much easier to recognize how to hold on to mine, and to know it was—"

"Good."

It's only because they're both already so focused on Edgar that they catch the word as it falls from his mouth, an interruption neither had expected. They're both breathless when they watch Edgar's eyes fill up with tears, ones that finally spill over when he nods toward where their hands are still joined against the armrests, clinging to each other in here because they haven't stopped shaking. And Alex wouldn't be able to let go anyway, stuck on Elijah's quiet confession and how much it hasn't surprised anyone in the room at all.

"Loving him is very good, yeah," Elijah whispers, pulling a tissue from the box he'd pushed aside with the book. He finally moves away from Alex only long enough to help wipe away some of Edgar's tears, but then he sits back and curls an arm around Alex's shoulders, tugging him close enough to press a kiss to his temple before he rests a hand over Edgar's wrist. "Thank you."