English
French
Their conversations deepened steadily over the following weeks, Rosalind arranging her entire schedule around whatever hours seemed to align best with Julian's own timeline, desperate not to miss even a single precious exchange across their impossible connection.
"I've been thinking," Julian said one afternoon, uncharacteristic seriousness in his musical phrasing, "about whether there's any way to bridge this properly. Not just conversation, Rosalind. Something more permanent."
Rosalind's bow paused, curiosity and cautious hope both evident in her sudden stillness. She played a questioning phrase, encouraging him to continue.
"My grandmother," Julian explained carefully, "the one who always claimed this violin remembered things she once mentioned an old family legend. That truly powerful connections, forged through this particular instrument, might occasionally allow someone to cross the boundary entirely. Not simply communicate, but actually step through time itself, briefly, if the bond proves strong enough."
Rosalind felt her chest tighten with impossible hope and equally impossible fear. She played a hesitant, questioning melody.
"I don't know if it's true," Julian admitted. "Family legends often exaggerate considerably. But I find myself desperately wanting to test it regardless, Rosalind. I want to properly see you hear your actual voice, not simply feel it through careful musical code."
Rosalind considered the enormous risk and equally enormous longing tangled together in his proposal. She played her own hesitant agreement, curiosity finally overtaking caution.
"Then let's try," Julian said, determination evident despite obvious uncertainty. "Play something entirely from your heart, Rosalind. Not code, not careful communication. Simply everything you feel, exactly as genuinely as you can manage."
Rosalind closed her eyes, drawing the bow across trembling strings, pouring weeks of impossible, growing affection into a single, achingly vulnerable melody every hope, every fear, every genuine longing for a man separated from her by over a century of impossible distance.
The workshop around her blurred suddenly, colors bleeding together exactly as Julian's memories always had, though this time the sensation felt different more solid, more permanent, less like witnessing a fragile echo and more like genuinely crossing some impossible threshold.
When the blurring finally settled, Rosalind found herself standing beneath an actual cherry tree, blossoms drifting gently around her, spring air warm and genuinely present against her skin in a way no simple memory should have allowed.
Julian stood before her, violin lowered in his trembling hands, disbelief and overwhelming joy evident across his handsome, entirely solid features.
"Rosalind," he breathed, taking a hesitant step closer. "You're actually here. Properly, completely here."
"I don't understand how," Rosalind said, equally breathless, staring at hands that felt entirely real despite logic insisting this should be utterly impossible.
"Does it matter?" Julian asked, closing the remaining distance between them with sudden, desperate urgency. "However this happened, whatever magic made it possible you're here, Rosalind. Actually, genuinely here with me."
Rosalind laughed through sudden tears, joy and wonder overwhelming logical uncertainty entirely. "I suppose it doesn't, truly. Not when weighed against finally, properly meeting you."
Julian reached tentatively for her hand, relief evident when his fingers met solid warmth rather than passing uselessly through empty air. "I don't know how long this connection will hold, Rosalind. I don't know if you'll return to your own time eventually, or whether this crossing is somehow permanent. I only know that whatever time we're given, however brief or lasting, I intend to treasure every single moment of it completely."
to be continued... 🎻🌸
