The Exiled Gem

Attractions

When I fall in love, it will be forever.
- Jane Austen

At everybody's funeral, there is one person, who is inconsolable. At Master George's funeral, that inconsolable person was Alexandra.

She sat in the very last row, as far away from the center as possible. A thick, absorbent napkin in her hand which was so wet with tears that if she put it on her face, rather than drying tears, it made her face wetter.

Diana was sitting beyond her, leaving a few seats' gap; she looked distracted and guilty - maybe because she had never been polite to the man. She was musing something to Fannel, who was nodding, but his eyes we unfocused - he was not really listening to her.

Kane and Watson were near the Master- their jaws were firm, but their hands shook. Almost twenty people - including Daniel, had called off their weddings for the next six months - as a mark of mourning.

The rest of Alexandra's year, with whom she had somehow lost touch, were to be seen around. Paul was looking in her direction every two minutes or so - something she didn't find strange. Everybody was stealing looks at others' faces, trying to decipher the amount of misery each one was going through. And still, nobody was talking to anybody. Nobody was paying attention to anybody else. Everybody seemed to have lost some important medication - their anchor to this Council.

Those men around her were no less distraught. But they were proper, uptight... men. Men didn't cry... not the men in Alexandra's times.

The atmosphere was gloomy and disconsolate. Above the rows of chairs, the dark day seemed to be joining in their mourning. The Sun had hid its face, as though silently wiping its own tears in the clouds. All of them had claimed to be scared of Master George. Claimed that the man was a terror. That he appeared in their nightmares. But today, when he was no longer around - everybody seemed to have understood how much he really mattered.

The espionage council was not the same without Master George.

Alexandra sniffed and wiped her eyes once more, turning to her left, to see the Head Office - it looked forlorn and dejected. Like it too had realized somebody very special was no longer with them.

Alexandra did not want to think about her times in the Head Office. She looked down, more tears streaming out. She tried to wipe them with the napkin, but it was too wet.

'Here, have another. That is too wet.'

Alexandra almost gasped  in shock. For a second, she was scared the Master's death had addled her mind - that she was hallucinating.

'Don't worry. I really am here. I cannot miss the Master's funeral,' Liam assured, he was holding out another napkin to her.

Alexandra accepted it, remembering her thoughts and words that night. They felt wrong now, and she felt slightly guilty, though largely relieved that nobody had heard those. Liam could not be blamed. And Alexandra was glad he wasn't asking her to stop crying. It wouldn't mean anything. He sat down on the chair next to her and crossed his hands, looking ahead. In close proximity to him, she realized her liking of him had just grown over the past month.

Nobody said anything for the next ten minutes. Alexandra wiped her face, sniffing.

'Aren't you going to-' she then began

'Show myself?' He asked, turning. Their eyes met, and Liam's were so ravishing that she was ashamed of having ever mistaken them for any other color than of solid gold. 'Out of question. Their attention will shift to me - this is his time. I have no right to barge in between him and his students.' He turned front once again, and looked on, his arms still crossed. Alexandra was pretty sure he didn't try to appear that way, but Liam had an aura of, I'm the best. Like polished gold, always shining, dazzling- if kept in a dark room, it gave out light of its own. He carried his own luminosity, his own sunshine, everywhere. She had grown to see him differently than before. No longer, was he the humorous and easy-going man she had earlier thought him to be. Liam was deeper: he kept secrets, silently destroyed his enemies and even though he was on a completely different plane himself, he never looked down upon anybody.