In Our Autumn Years Part 4

"What ya got there, Beanpole?" Lorax asked, looking up from lounging on Once-ler's bed as he came walking into his cottage one late evening.

"Look how many times do I gotta tell you, keep off my bed?" he scowled, reaching and picking the orange one up under the arms and set him on the floor.

"Aww but your bed's so cozy and warm!" whined the guardian, playfully, before pointing again to the thing that Once-ler had under his arm. "Again, what's that?"

"This, is called a book." Once-ler held it out to the other, and flipped the pages open and watched as the Lorax stared at it with disinterest.

"Mrf. How many trees died for this thing?" he asked, seemingly capable of being able to tell anything that was made of trees with one whiff of his nose.

"It's not about that, you furry meatloaf." Once-ler said as he sat down on the floor, and flipped through the book. "This book mentions you."

"Oh ho?" the Lorax's eyes widened as he hurried around, climbed up Once-ler's back, and balanced himself on his shoulder, peering down at the book with keen interest.

"OOF. Y-yeah but… look this isn't you at all." the young man pointed to a black and white photograph of an old painting which was dated as over eight hundred years ago. The being in the painting loomed over the trees in the picture, had powerful looking horns, was partially see through and was blowing a harsh wind upon the land. "Last I checked you aren't over one hundred feet tall, or capable of wind breath."

The Lorax rolled his eyes. "What, you think I'm always like this?"

"You're pulling my leg."

"If I did they'd be even longer 'n we don't need you being any taller."

"No really. This can't be you; he doesn't look anything like you! Now unless people back then had one Heck of an imagination or you're taking some guy's credit. For shame!" he turned his head to smirk at the Lorax, eyebrow narrowing against his eye. "For shame."

The Lorax rolled his eyes. "It don't work like that."

"Just like your quote unquote, powers, eh?" Once-ler grinned.

"Ey." the Lorax prodded his cheek suddenly, his fur tickling his skin. "Magic is as magic does. It changes its shape over the years, ya know?" he asked since no way in Truffula Trees would he admit that over the years, because people's belief in him had lessened so much, it had affected not only his appearance but his magic as well. He was at his weakest power, now, because only the animals believed in him but they would always believe in him. Even those not born yet believed in the Lorax who guarded their home, as well as themselves.

If bar-ba-loots could talk it wouldn't be a surprise to hear them saying bedtime prayer to the Lorax for keeping their grass green, their Truffula trees tall, and their fruit plentiful.

It would take a lot, and I mean, a lot of belief for him to become that figure in the picture again. Now days, in the dawning of the age of televisions and such, people were forgetting the gods of old for the shiny new things. But now he had the animals, and Beanpole, believing in him and that was enough for him. He could get along quite well without draining his magic.

"Yeah, yeah."

"So why're you readin' up on me anyway? Is it to impress your little girlfriend?" the Lorax asked with a big grin beneath his mustache.

"What—gah!" Once-ler felt his face flush at the question. He'd never tell him he was right; that he was reading up on stuff about the town and its history so he wasn't as stupid and un-knowledgeable about things when he and Norma would meet up. "Mustache! Get off!" finally irked enough, he swatted at the orange fur ball until he got down off of his back.

"You two are gettin' pretty cozy aren't you?" he asked, grinning. "What's it been, a month now? Meeting every day, holding hands, smoochin' up storms~ it's like Spring time all over again!" he giggled in glee as he pressed his hands to his own cheeks.

"Mustache you are one second away from me throwing you in the river." Once-ler grumbled as he got to his feet, taking the book with him.

"Oh don't be like that! You know I tease because I love."

"Love to see what you do when you hate someone."

"Send em floating down rivers." grinned the Lorax, causing the young Once-ler to swallow nervously.

Once-ler opened his eyes from where he'd been resting in his old rocking chair, hands resting on a book that he had read so many times in the past forty years that he knew it word for word. He knew every picture, every paragraph, even the legal information by heart. The same book that he'd gotten to read up on local legends, the tales of caution told via animals, the tale of the Lorax and how he saved the valley from a raging forest fire; all sorts of stories.

He wondered if you could even find this book any more in town. Probably not, since the store it had come from had been demolished like all the rest when he had been making Thneedville.

Slowly, carefully, he ran his hand over the book cover before holding it against his chest and shut his eyes. After a moment he set the book down on the chair once he got up, and moved across the barren floor to stare out his window. Even with the grass slowly beginning to return to the hills, they still looked so naked. There were still no trees, because the sapling in town wouldn't be at the age to produce seeds for years to come.

It was going to be treeless for years to come but, after over forty years of living without seeing a single living green plant from his window, what's a few more years?

But did he have a few more years left in him? He was seventy eight years old now, and his body was beginning to wind down despite how much he fought it. He'd been in a battle with his mind, and body, for all these decades in order to stop himself from going crazy in his isolation, in his grief, and so far he'd fared well. The town was on the pathway to revival, the trees would be returning and in turn so would the animals and… maybe even the Lorax. He prayed so hard that he would live to see that day, to see his friend again.

But something good had happened already hadn't it? He'd found Norma again. He had been hoping to do so, he had been going to ask Ted if he could tell him where the woman who had told him about the money, nail, and snail could be found and it turned out to be his very own grandmother. That had been quite a shock, but a welcome one at that.

And she was still a feisty and beautiful as the first day he met her, when she had lobbed that tomato at his face like that. How fondly he could still remember their walks through the Truffula valley together in those months between his abandoning his Thneeds to them suddenly becoming the hottest things since sliced bread.

She would bake for him, too. Norma had always cast herself off as a horrible baker but she would still try for him, making cookies, muffins, and various other food stuffs and bring them out to him in her basket looking like a foxy version of Little Red Riding Hood. In fact he even ended up making her a red hood, just so he could call her that from time to time. She had laughed, called him adorable, and kissed his nose.

He felt himself slipping into the memories again but stopped himself, shook his head, and moved over towards the door and pulled it open, grabbing his hat as he went. Pulling it atop his head the old man stepped out into the sunlight but stopped short, and almost instantly, the whiskers on his lip bristled in surprise.

There were clouds on the horizon. Not regular smoggy, polluted clouds that used to block out the sun forever around his house and across the expanse of the wasteland but actual honest to god storm clouds. Storm clouds meant rain. Rain meant streams. Rain meant the stream returning to its full luster and the grass growing faster and more water for the sapling in town and—he felt tears prickling at his eyes and he brought his hands up, and rubbed them furiously against his face.

"I'm getting so emotional in my old age I swear…" he mumbled to himself.

~*~

Norma hummed to herself as she walked through the supermarket, a tune that really had a rhythm at all. The elderly woman walked with a familiar spring to her step that she hadn't walked with in a long, long time.

Even if she and Once-ler hadn't really been able to have a moment alone when he came to eat with her family it had been wonderful seeing him. It had taken all the restraint in the world when she first saw him to not pull him in for a tight hug and explain how much she had missed him. That wasn't the kind of woman she was, it would be a lie as to the kind of woman she had grown to be after everything that happened between them. She sighed, softly, as she picked up a bag of marshmallows and stared at the brand name. This was the same one Once-ler and she used to share when they'd toast them in the safety of his cottage, sitting snuggled up besides one another beneath his blanket. They dare not have a camp fire outside, what with so man animals around and the last thing Norma wanted was one of them getting hurt by the fire.

Having bought her purchases she stepped outside but jumped back, startled, when something struck her face. "Oh!" she cried out, startled, and looked up and saw a sight she hadn't seen in decades. There were grey cloud sin the sky, blotting out the sun which people were finally beginning to grow used to feeling on their faces, and it was raining. Actual, honest to goodness, rain falling from the sky. Norma hadn't seen it rain over Thneedville in so long; their water having been shipped into the city from somewhere else for years now. Sprinkler systems were set up over town to give one the feeling of rain falling, but it was never real rain. She hadn't smelt the scent of rain in the air in so long; she felt her eyes beginning to mist over.

"Pardon me, miss, but you look like you're in need of someone walking you home."

Norma turned her head at the sound of the man's voice and looked up to see a familiar pair of blue eyes staring down at her. It was impossible for her to mistaken him for anyone else; she knew his voice, she knew his face, she knew so much about him even after all this time. She giggled, and waved her hand at him.

"Oh well now I don't know, my mother always told me never to talk to strangers." she replied bashfully.

"Then allow me to introduce myself!" Once-ler announced as he removed his hat and bowed to her as low as his old back would allow him. "My name is Once-ler."

"Quite the charmer, aren't you Mister Once-ler?" Norma asked, grinning like a school girl.

"It's a gift." he replied with a chuckle before replacing his hat and standing back to his full height. "Good to see you again, Norma, though I must say the last time we crossed paths you certainly had your little game with me didn't you? Though," the old man chuckled, "I suppose you're entitled to that."

"I would say so." she smiled, softer now.

He suddenly produced an umbrella from beneath his jacket as those around them were still reeling from the rain falling from above. It was bright yellow, the handle designed to look like  Swomee-Swan. Once-ler opened it up and held it above Norma's head, "Shall we?" he asked.

"We shall." she replied holding her bag of goods closer to her as the two began to walk down the sidewalk together. Norma took her time, using her walking stick, as she glanced up at the taller man walking alongside her. He had always towered over her, even back then, yet now it felt even worse. She had shrunk a little in her age and yet it seemed as though he had remained as tall as always. Maybe it was because he was wearing that silly big hat, instead of the adorable fedora he used to wear all the time. Also he had a jacket on that trailed down to the ground.

In the wet weather, it was growing damp.

"I suppose you have questions, don't you?" Norma asked.

"Yes." Once-ler replied softly. "I have a few. You can't blame me for that, can you?

She shook her head simply.

"Promise to be serious?" he asked.

"Over this? Oncie please, I know when it's time to be serious and when it isn't." Norma replied curtly.

"Right." he said as they stopped by the lights together, the same ones that she had dragged him across on the first day she saw him after so long. "…did you ever marry another man?" Once-ler asked, softly, so no one else would over hear.

"No." she answered. "I never did."

"Hmm." Once-ler mused, as the lights clicked green and they safely crossed the road as the rain continued to gently fall around them. "So… Helen…" he said, finding himself incapable of finishing the question.

"Yes." Norma looked up at him. "She is."

The elderly man seemed to shudder all over at the confirmation that he had been wondering ever since he first saw the woman. She was so tall and slender, with her mother's good looks, yet hair a darker shade than what Norma's had once been. He had assumed that she, Norma, had married again or found somebody who could rightly look after her because he simply couldn't but no. She hadn't gotten married. And that woman, Helen, with her sassy attitude and playful grin was… his. Once-ler was a father and he hadn't been there for her at all. At least he had memories of his own father, Theodore, before he had left but her... Helen... she didn't even have that luxury. Not only had he disappointed the Lorax, the animals, and everyone else but his own child had been let down. He felt his stomach twist painfully.

"So you never told me." Once-ler said quietly.

"Granted, I didn't know I was pregnant until after everything happened. You'd already left, gone into isolation and by that time I couldn't risk going all the way out there to find you. It was too dangerous for a pregnant woman to sneak out alone, I had no one to rely on." Norma explained, sighing, and moved closer to him to avoid the rain since it was beginning to come down harsher. Around them, cars beeped and tires screeched in alarm, and people ran for cover from the rain with newspapers and briefcases and bags. All of them totally unaware of what was transpiring between himself and Norma.

"…does she know who I am, to her?"

Norma was quiet for a moment, and shook her head after a moment. "She doesn't know. Nor does Ted."

"Why? W… were you ashamed?"

She sighed. "I can't say I was happy. But I understood, Once-ler." she looked up at him, eyes cloudy with signs of the past. "I understood."

They walked in silence for quite a while, both of them lost in their thoughts, Once-elr wondering if telling Helen the truth about who he was would be a good idea or not; she seemed happy, why would he want to ruin it by telling her who he was? It may disrupt everything for it was one thing to know Norma from a while ago, but another entirely to be your father who you didn't even know existed until now. And the fact Norma hadn't told her… what had she told her? That she had a one night stand with a man? What? He dare not ask; he didn't think he wanted to know the answer.

It was one thing to have your name and legacy tarnished by your own actions, another to have your 'title' within a family dragged through the mud because of lies. Once-ler gave a heavy sigh, and shut his eyes.

"…I'm sorry. I don't really know if that's enough to make up for what happened, I just—"

"Oncie, no." Norma stopped him straight away, holding up a hand and placing it atop of the one he was using to hold the umbrella. "Don't apologize for this. For what happened. Now I know what happened was ugly and it hurt both of us but it happened, and you can't change the past, but you have to learn to move on, to go on, because staying stuck in the past isn't the right way to go is it?"

He looked at her sadly.

"Hrm. I am talking to the man who locked himself up in his house for forty years, aren't I?" Norma asked, tilting her head with a sad smile on her face. "You didn't have to do that, either you know."

"Norma…"

"No, you didn't. Locking yourself away didn't help fix anything, did it?" she asked softly, though he could hear the slight annoyance to her tone.

"It was how I was paying my debt." Once-ler said quietly. "Do you think it was easy? Doing that? Destroying my factory, on top of destroying everything else? What we had?" he turned, stopping in his tracks, and looked down at her. "Norma it wasn't easy, it wasn't meant to be easy. I'd become a monster, I wasn't the man you fell in love with any more and you knew it. I had destroyed everything and I had no right to live in town, where no one believed in trees any more. Because of me."

She lowered her gaze, and sighed. He was right; of course he was. After O'Hare had so readily taken over, and at such a young age, people were already being brainwashed by the perfect world they now lived in. Even when the wall was still being constructed she had heard that the Once-ler had appeared in town. How he had been desperately trying to tell people about the trees he'd destroyed, that the world needed them but he was more or less chased out of town by a lynch mob since everyone blamed him for the state of things to begin with. O'Hare offered safety, security, while the Once-ler only offered empty promises and lies.

If she had been able she would have defended him, though sadly she'd been a bit busy in the hospital and only heard of the attack upon the man after, when a dark brown haired baby had been in her arms in the hospital bed. Naturally at the news that Once-ler had been in town, Norma had wanted to go to him but her mother had informed her she was better without him; that he was a monster, and she deserved better than a man who had done what he'd done not only to the trees and valley, but her. Of course, once she found out Norma was pregnant though and her obsession with getting to him had nothing to do with her love for him, it had changed matters entirely.

And with a baby in her life, and nobody supporting her to baby sit, by the time Norma found time to get away for a moment that giant wall around Thneedville had been erected. He was sealed off to her, and she had no choice but to settle into the position of a mother, and raise their daughter.

"I missed you." she whispered in the rain, staring up at the man who had entered into her life with a pink hand knitted invention hanging around his neck. Funny, how, now he stood there with a long pink scarf around his neck and shoulders in the drizzling rain. "I really did. Even if you had explained everything you did and why, I still missed you."

He was quiet for a while and Norma, for once, feared if she had said the wrong thing which was a big deal since Norma was the kind of woman to speak her mind without fear of what people would say to her in retaliation, or what she had said. But Once-ler was different, wasn't he? He was somebody very special, more than special, to her. She had been genuinely afraid that he would have moved on, or even died, without being able to see him again. Without the chance to tell him how she felt, still did feel.

"I missed you, too." he finally answered after a moment, looking down at her, pain in his eyes. "It wasn't just another layer to the guilt I was feeling over what I'd done, it was.... a.... a whole other part of it. Knowing you were out here, alone, because I couldn't.... and wouldn't...." he groaned and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm still a guy who has issues with communicating... you know. Feelings."

Norma, unable to help herself, laughed. "Oh you old fuddy." she teased before reaching up with her walking cane and once again, hooked it around his neck before jerking him down until he was closer to her, this time standing up on her toes. "Now you owe me this much." she said and before he could splutter a question, just like that night next to the river, their mouths met but this time it was in a far more public setting and it was Norma taking the initial step this time.

Funny how things turn around full circle, isn't it?

His whiskers stood on end and brushed against her face now, her nose, her upper lip and her cheeks as well but that hardly mattered to her. It wasn't the first time she'd kissed a man with a mustache and it wouldn't be the last, not if she can help it.

His whole frame had frozen, and he almost dropped his umbrella entirely which would have been unfortunate since they would have both gotten wet. But no, he kept his grip upon the umbrella with all of his might as the rest of him found itself suddenly very interested in what was going on. The initial shock of what was happening passed over relatively quickly, and his eyes that had been wide with shock finally eased shut and he found himself kissing her just as softly in return.

Nobody paid any heed to the old couple kissing in the rain, and it was probably best left that way.

When they finally pulled away from one another, they didn't remove themselves from one another entirely. Norma's walking stick was still around his neck, and he had ended up grasping at her shoulder with his free hand whilst the other had managed to keep its grip on the umbrella. Blue and brown eyes stared into one another's for a moment, before Norma giggled, released her hold on her cane to reach up and smoothed down his mustache.

"You're all red." she whispered.

"Yes well in case you forget I haven't really had the privilege of kisses from beautiful women for a long, long time." he replied, face well and truly set to a bright red shade.

"Oh for that you're going to have to get another one."

"I fail to see a downside to that."