Work Text:
Afterwards, it occurs to Evelyn that her Waymond still doesn’t know about everything that happened.
She reasons to herself that he doesn’t need to know unless it becomes a problem again. It’s probably for the best; she wouldn’t even know how to begin explaining it to him.
They have a long talk about the divorce papers the night after the party. He seems surprised when she takes his hands in both of hers and looks him right in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. He has no way of knowing exactly what she’s sorry for, nor how much, but he still smiles and kisses her across the kitchen counter, tentative and sweet, as though they’re new lovers.
Later, when they’re settling into bed, she asks him if he thinks they should rip up the papers. Waymond shakes his head and says to leave them.
“I want to always remember the time my Evelyn came back to me,” he says, fondly stroking her hair in the way she likes, and Evelyn wants to laugh and cry all at once, because he has no idea just how very far she strayed, and how far she travelled to return. The papers go in the bottom drawer of their dresser (though she makes sure to block out her signature and name with a thick marker first, just in case).
After that, for the first time in a very long time, Evelyn feels like she’s finding love wherever she looks. Her heart fills up at the smallest things, like the sound of her father’s wry laugh, or the way Joy calls I’m home when she steps into the apartment. Even the constant churn of the laundry machines seems beautiful.
Waymond smiles more, too, and Evelyn commits every one of them to memory. Whenever he thinks she isn’t looking he beams affectionately at her across the room. Being reminded of the warmth Waymond exudes when he’s happy makes Evelyn realize just how unhappy he must have been over the past few months. She wonders how she never noticed.
She also wonders how many of his smiles she’s missed over the years. Many of them she simply didn’t want to see, too focused on the regrets and the what-ifs. But now she knows to lose the longings and simply let herself be loved. Turns out it’s easy.
The multiverse lives just behind her eyelids now, humming at the edge of her periphery. Her mind feels like a swirling sea of possibilities — possibilities that Evelyn no longer yearns for but that are still within her reach, if she should choose to reach out and grab them.
She doesn’t. She has no use for them anymore. She knows now that she never did.
She thinks that Joy, who is her Joy again but also isn’t (it’s confusing, but the same could be said about Evelyn, so she tries not to dwell on it too much), might feel the same way. They don’t talk about it, though. Not here, anyway. Just knowing that someone out there understands is enough.
(“It’s all I ever wanted,” Joy says to her when they’re sitting on a bench in Yuexiu Park and watching the people go by. Evelyn is still getting used to the sound of fluent Cantonese coming out of her daughter’s mouth. “Just to know that I’m not alone.”
“You will never be alone again,” says Evelyn, and she knows that “never” is an impossible thing to promise, but she means it.
Joy sighs and scoots closer.
“I’m glad I found you,” she says, a tad bashful. Evelyn loves her daughter so fiercely in that moment that it spills a little into every other universe too.)
Sometimes, though, Evelyn will still catch a glimpse of the universes beyond her own. Just for a moment she sees things both familiar and strange, brief flashes of memories that aren’t quite her own.
How can we get back, she asked once upon a time, with unease sitting in the pit of her stomach. Now she can see that going back wasn’t the way to make things feel right again. In the spaces between blinks, she opens her eyes and —
— “Someone is here to see you.”
Evelyn lifts her hand to signify her acknowledgment. She hears the shuffle of footsteps behind her and the soft sound of the door closing.
“Evelyn,” says the person who’s just entered. She doesn’t recognize them – or, at least, she doesn’t think she does – and yet their voice makes something stir, then settle, inside her.
“Hello,” she says, turning to face the newcomer.
“I’m – my name is Waymond Wang,” they say, and she can hear them moving toward her. “Do you remember me?”
“No,” Evelyn says, and it’s the truth, even though she can’t shake the feeling that she knows him.
“Well, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Waymond says, tone half-apologetic. “You changed schools after your accident, didn’t you? We were in the same class for a year before that.”
“Oh,” Evelyn says, perplexed. “Why have you come to talk to me now?”
“I took my parents to the opera and I just couldn’t believe it when I saw you up there. I had to come and say hello – and tell you that you sing very beautifully.”
The simple praise spoken in a warm and sincere voice makes Evelyn feel uncharacteristically shy, and it shows in her gratified smile. There’s something about Waymond that she likes very much, though she can’t quite pinpoint what it is.
“Pleased to meet you,” Evelyn says, extending her hand. “Again.”
Waymond takes her hand and she’s struck with the sudden feeling that something, somewhere, has just found its right place. His touch is strangely familiar as his fingers curl around hers —
— Oh, hey.
Joy? What are you doing here?
Why wouldn’t I be here? I’m always here, just like I’m always not. The real question is, what are you doing here?
I don’t know. Sometimes I close my eyes and for a moment, I’m somewhere else, without trying. Then I blink and it’s like it never happened.
Yeah. Things slip through the cracks occasionally. So how much longer do you think you’re gonna be here?
Not much longer.
Okay. Can I suggest something?
Okay.
Scream something. Anything you want. It feels great, and nobody can hear you! Except me, but I’ll cover my ears.
…
Go on.
…
AAAAAAA
ha ha ha, very creative
AAAAAAAAAAA —
— the guy from Animal Control seems pretty pissed off that they’ve stalled his truck, but Evelyn manages to distract him long enough for Chad to get away with the raccoon. Animal Control Guy is evidently so annoyed by Evelyn’s aimless chatter that he doesn’t even notice the cage is empty when he speeds away.
Chad is all smiles when he shows up to work the next day. He’s wearing an even bigger hat than usual. As she stifles a laugh and turns back towards her customers, Evelyn thinks to herself that her daughter would find this story very funny.
Only – she doesn’t have a daughter, does she? Evelyn frowns, faltering in her movements for a second. But then —
— time has wrought its changes on Waymond, in more ways than one. He’s certainly more dashing and put-together now, wears tailored suits and arrives at her hotel in an expensive car, but Evelyn can’t help but miss the Waymond she once knew, and let go. When he looks at her across the rim of his wine glass his gaze is soft like it was before, but there’s a sadness there now as well.
She asks him if there was anyone else in the thirty years they were apart. He gives a rueful smile and doesn’t say anything, and she can tell the answer is no.
There was a time when he had looked at her like she hung the stars in the sky. Now he looks at her like he knows better. Evelyn doesn’t mind that so much. They’re both far too old for youthful reverence. She just wishes his eyes would twinkle like they used to.
Still, he holds her like he knows her. Evelyn hasn’t felt known in a long time. The city lights outside the window fall away as Waymond pulls her close to him and gently brushes a lock of hair out of her face. Evelyn takes a quiet breath, closes her eyes —
— “Evelyn?”
Waymond is calling her name. Evelyn blinks a little too hard, disoriented, and shakes her head to clear it. It takes her a second to remember they’re sitting together on the couch. A rerun of some old show – the name of which Joy would certainly laugh at her for misremembering – is playing on the TV.
Waymond puts his hand on Evelyn’s arm and the comforting, familiar weight of it is enough to ground her in this reality again.
“Are you okay?”
Evelyn looks over at him. His eyes are shining with concern in the dim light of their living room lamp. For the hundredth time since she learned about the many versions of herself without Waymond, she wonders how she could have possibly forgotten why she fell in love with him, why she agreed to cross an ocean with him. She has known him a thousand different ways in a thousand different universes, but this is one of only a handful where they’re together, and the only one where they’re together here. She wonders how she got so lucky.
“I’m okay,” Evelyn says with a reassuring smile. “I’m glad to be here with you.”
He surely doesn’t know just how much she means that, but he beams at it anyway. Evelyn lifts her hand to touch his face, fingers skimming tenderly down his cheek and slipping off at his jaw.
“It’s you,” she says sweetly, feeling like a girl again, and giggles when he shifts closer to sling his arm around her shoulders and press a kiss to the top of her head.
Joy is coming home in the morning. Evelyn thinks about every single other Evelyn out there and feels relieved that none of them know what they’re missing. It might drive them crazy.