Song for a Winter's Night

Author's Note: Response to Märrie's Winter challenge - I want one of them pretty graphics, yo! LOL
Short introspective fic to Sarah McLachlan's beautiful 'Song for a Winter's Night'. I probably don't do it justice. Lyrics at the end of the story.
Beta: As always Karen added just the right finishing touches.

I've always loved winter - even in Mississippi it still was a magical time of year. Everything is asleep, resting and waiting for spring to arrive. I sometimes felt like that, too -- as if I was waiting for change to come, while collecting my strength for whatever adventures were waiting for me.

Of course, change came, as came adventures. Only a bit quicker and a lot more terrible than I had ever been able to imagine while lying on my bed, looking through the window into the clear night sky or staring at the map on my wall. It took all the strength I had collected in those quiet winters and if I made it out alive it was all thanks to the people I met and who took me in. Specially thanks to one of them.

But I try not to think about this, but instead focus again on my earlier train of thought.

Winter. I still love winter -- probably even more than I used to.

Now winter means freedom. Freedom from the curious glances at the girl covered from head to toe. In winter I can be normal -- I can relax, play in the park with the others without fear of an accident, go shopping without looking any different.

And the snow. How much I love the snow! Out here, on the mansion grounds, the world seems to be covered by a thick white blanket.

During the day the sun makes it almost too bright to go outside, a shining, glittering world of brilliant white. So beautiful, that it makes me want to run outside, into the brightness, to scream with joy and roll in the snow like a kid. And I do all those things, together with Kitty, Jubes, Bobby, John and sometimes even Remy, when he forgets that he's too suave and cool for childish games like snowball fights and snow angels.

But at night everything changes -- in the light of the moon and the stars the whole world turns into some kind of magical kingdom. A kingdom I love to watch from the inside of my room, with only a candle casting a bit of light. I sit at the window and take in the silver light of the moon being not only reflected, but multiplied, turning the snow covered woods into works of art, a mix of texture, shape, and light.

It makes me want to be silent, quiet like the world outside, in awe of its untouchable beauty.

Untouchable. Just like me. And yet it's beautiful, not frightening at all, despite the fact that one could easily freeze to death when being in it for too long.

It gives me hope. Hope and strength.

Because although I'm far away from the sixteen year old girl that sat staring at her map at night, gathering strength for an adventure she was sure would come, I'm still gathering strength, waiting for change to come to me.

And looking down at the postcard in my lap, a postcard whose edges are shiny and worn from being read and handled over and over again, I think this time I know what that change will be.

I don't have to read the four lines of tiny scrawl that are the whole content, but I do it anyway. It has become a ritual, as has putting on that chain with its lone tag every night before taking my seat at the window, and hearing those two pregnant sentences ("I'll take care of you." and "I'll be back for this.") as if the one who spoke them is in the room.

Not that I need rituals to remember Logan.

But those silly little habits make him seem closer, as if he could come into my room at any moment, as if it hadn't been two years since I last saw him, not three months since my eighteenth birthday, when I got that postcard.

There are mountains on it, snow covered, shining in the bright sunlight of Northern Canada. A beautiful picture and Logan's thoughtfulness in choosing it touches me, although not as much as the words on the back.

Marie,
Happy Birthday!
Hope you're fine. Missing you.
Love, Logan

It doesn't seem like much, does it? But to me, it means the world.

Because those ridiculous four lines tell me that Logan thinks of me. That he made a point of remembering my eighteenth birthday. That he trusts me enough to share emotions with me.

Not bad after knowing each other barely a week, is it? Especially for someone like Logan. I don't need to have him in my head to know that.

I see dawn start to color the Eastern sky, just a faint light but a sure sign that I've spent another night lost in the beauty outside -- and in the beauty of Logan's love for me.

A love that I see every time I read that postcard, that touches me lightly every time I feel the weight of that tag, that I hear clear as day every time I remember Logan's words, and that I see shining in the moonlight reflected on the snow.

I only wish he'd come back to me. I'd exchange all those enchanted winter nights for a rainy day with Logan by my side.

As much as I love winter, I want to stop waiting and resting. I want spring to be here, together with the one I love.

Sarah McLachlan - Song for a Winter's Night

If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
And to be once again with with you
To be once again with with you