Because we should be celebrating the new radio show with words. Though in all honesty I'm not sure this is quite appropriate as a celebratory fic. Thanks to Joodiff for the speedy beta. :) xx
Wake the Dead
…
It was never supposed to be like this.
The cottage, if the haphazard building she is standing in can even merit a description so exotic, is tiny, equipped with only the necessary essentials, and is time-worn in a very cared for sort of way.
But it is remote. So remote she can hear nothing but the sea pounding the shore, the whisper of the wind in the thick grass growing wildly in every direction, and the raucous call of swooping gulls. The peace, the solitude is exactly what he wanted. What they both did.
A year ago tomorrow their friends descended on her; refused to let her out of their sight. Muttered things like the first anniversary being the hardest. It was absolute hell. And so this year, she up and left, vanished before any of them could turn up and try, in their well-meaning and loving way, to offer support, comfort and whatever else they think she needs.
There is nothing anyone can say or do, that will make any of it better. Not unless they can wake the dead.
Maybe this time they won't turn up. She's worked hard to show the world she's coping. She's lectured how many times this year? Too many to keep track of now. And she's published a series of very well-received and respected articles. Been to parties, met the right people, walked and talked in the right circles. The new book will be out next month, as well.
Maybe they will turn up, maybe they won't. But they definitely won't find her. She paid cash, left no traces for them to follow. Deliberately.
Her grief is her own, and she will not share it with them. None of them. Semi-retired she may be, but she works more hours now than she ever did then. Anything to keep herself occupied. Anything at all to stop herself from thinking about that day. About him. About everything that was stolen from them in those few, heart stopping seconds.
She's not coping, and she knows it.
Day by slow inexorable day she is losing a little more of herself to the darkness. Just like the sea pounds rocks into gravel and then sand over time, so, too, is she becoming less and less of who she used to be.
It's late, it is increasingly cold and the sky is darkening ominously with brisk, angry clouds but she doesn't care. Abandoning the cottage, she makes her way down to the beach and drags her feet through the sand, not feeling the sharp needling of gritty rocks scouring into her soft flesh.
There are a lot of things she doesn't feel anymore.
Ten years of sitting across from each other in their adjacent offices, stealing glances through the glass separating them. Eight of those years filled with subtle flirting, raging arguments and increasingly later nights trying to merge her academia and his heroism into the combination that saved lives and restored peace. Two more spent hiding what they'd found together with one another; an ever-deepening love kept in the shadows, away from prying eyes.
Ten years of promises; someday, somewhere, somehow.
Semi-retirement, and five years of living openly in glorious, blissful sin together. The five best years of their lives. There's a ring on her finger; one she unconsciously plays with every time her thoughts turn to him. It's a symbol of a promise he made her. That they would grow old, older, together. Disgracefully and grumpily, but very much together. It's the only promise he ever broke, and every day it breaks her shattered heart just a little more.
The other ring hangs around her neck on a chain. She found it in his bedside table the night after…
One more week, just seven days, and he would have placed it on her finger in front of all their friends before whisking her away to spend a month lazing on the beach in the sun, drinking wine, eating good food; making love in the moonlight, under the stars.
If she closes her eyes and fights though the dull, heavy pain that never leaves, she can still see him, still picture him smiling at her. Still feel him leaning down to kiss the top of her head, reaching out to take her hand as they wandered along side by side.
Fifty seconds, and all of that was gone.
A stolen handbag, a child thrown towards the busy road; his courageous nature and the cold, unmistakable flash of dull grey steel. Spilled blood and raging, defiant screams. Strained, rasping breaths and desperate pleading.
His blood, her screams.
His last breaths and her begging him to stay with her.
His life stolen, and her heart along with it.
It was never supposed to be like this.
It's raining now; fierce, cold, angry drops lashing down, battering her body. The wind swirls around her, yanking impatiently at her clothes and just for a second, she can smell him. It's not a hint, not like the hundreds of times a tiny scent has caught her attention in any of the dozens of places where aromas linger and offer a partial memory of some part of who he was. No, this is him entirely; strong and potent and overwhelmingly right there with her.
Her knees buckle, and she's on the ground, the incoming tide pounding relentlessly around her. It's raining harder, the icy rivers pummelling her, sluicing across the planes of skin and muscle and bone in great torrents, and she can feel him. His touch searing her skin, his fingers wandering over her in a scalding frenzy, and it is so, so real.
Thunder crashes above making her head ache viciously; lightening forks straight ahead of her, savagely forcing the infinite expanse of sky into separate segments as the brightness momentarily blinds her. Shattered fragments of the whole, it is a brutally beautiful natural image of the torn, tattered remnants of her life.
It fades quickly, then lashes out again. The world explodes around her in an intense white light, a concentrated, burning heat; weird, fizzing electricity seems to crawl along her body, down her torso, along her arms, over her head. She shivers, wonder what on earth is going on.
All of that disappears though, because his breath is on her neck, her skin is rippling with excitement and his voice is in her ear. She can't hear the words, but it is very definitely his voice, and her blood is singing with joy like it did seven hundred and twenty-nine days ago.
Her eyes are hopelessly blurred by the burning tears, but his name leaves her lips in a breathless whisper and she feels stunningly, exquisitely alive. The sensations wrap around her, caress her. He invades her senses with such totality that everything else fades to nothing. The raging wind and the lashing rain, the biting cold and the pounding waves are utterly gone now, and there is only him.
How or why this is happening is utterly beyond her, but it is. Somehow, it is.
The weight of his body, pressed tightly against hers. His arms, strong, protective and hopelessly loving as they are, snare her to him. His skin is burning, and so is hers; his lips are hot and investigative against the back of her neck. His voice washes over her like warm honey, that exquisitely smooth, deep, and ever so slightly husky tone that was so often far more capable than alcohol of talking her into a richly and blissfully intoxicated state.
Her head is spinning with the flood of scent tangling in her nostrils, overwhelming coherent thought and when she moves, when she finally gathers the strength and ability to turn, he is right there in front of her. His face is only inches from hers and she drinks in the sight of him; her eyes burn with salt and tears, but she cannot, will not, tear her gaze away from him.
Two years, and he looks exactly the same. Exactly the same.
"Peter…" It's her voice, a breathy, disbelieving whisper.
Her fingers trace the plains of his face, stroke through his hair as he reaches for her, pulls her close. Their kiss is a thing is sheer bliss, his lips warm and welcome against her own. She's crying, sobbing even, as she clutches him, and in return he gathers her up against his chest, his embrace warm and solid and secure.
"Oh, Grace…"
All she wants is to fall asleep like this, safe and sheltered in his arms, to wake up with him and lie there lazily, to know they have the whole day ahead of them to do exactly as they please.
He's so gentle, cradles her close, strokes his fingers delicately through her hair. Kisses her again with that same effortlessness they always had.
It is glorious, and it is agonising. Devastating.
It is moments like these that she misses the most; the peaceful, quiet intimacy of just being together. A pair. Two halves of a whole.
The bleak emptiness of what she was left with when he…
It never goes away. The silence at home, the chill on the other side of the bed, the empty spaces where his car and his possessions used to be. The long, dark evenings, the lonely nights, the persistent ache in her heart that is never, ever soothed.
She thinks back to all the people she counselled over grief and feels like a fraud because she cannot take her own advice, doesn't know how to adapt and move on. Can't let him go.
It's impossible.
"I have to go," Boyd whispers. "I can't stay."
She gazes at him, absorbs his image. "Take me with you."
"I can't. It's not allowed."
"But I love you."
There, it's out there, between them.
His eyes glitter with unshed tears, with desperation. "I would do anything never to let you go again, you know I would. But – "
No. Not again.
"You promised me, Peter," she cries, distraught.
"I know." He's crying too, and that hurts even more. He almost never cried, but now… "I meant it too, Grace, I swear."
Her hands are clenched in the fabric of his shirt. "I can't do it without you, not anymore."
"Grace…"
"No," she sobs, still clinging to him. "I've tried, I really have, but I just can't do it. I don't want to. Not now."
"One day," he promises, but the words are weak and she can see in his eyes just how much it tears at him to have to tell her.
She shakes her head, refuses to let go. "Not good enough. I want you now. I need you now."
He's trembling as he clutches at her, tries to bind her to his body. "I know," he whispers, face buried in her neck, and that's when she can feel him breaking, too.
A violent force slams into her chest, rips them apart. For long moments she can't breathe, and when she tries, icy water floods her nose and chest. She's tossed around, limbs flailing beyond her control and then her head hits something, leaves her dazed, confused. There's nothing but darkness and cold until she thinks that finally it is her time too, and then suddenly she's on the surface, coughing uncontrollably.
Boyd is still there, looks panic-stricken until he sees her. "Get out of the sea, Grace," he urges, begs. "Please, for me."
"Peter…"
He's moving away from her though, that's all she knows. She's bloodied and bruised and barely breathing as she coughs and chokes, but she can't let him leave her again. He disappears slowly, fading into the swell of the stormy sea. Grace screams, and it is rage and fury and all the desperate agony of a devastated, broken woman.
She can't do as he asks, she really can't.
The brilliant white light flares again, Boyd slips back into the darkness of the crashing waves, and Grace throws herself after him, utterly blinded by the light, the water and her grief.
…
Sprawled on the gritty beach, half-drowned, thoroughly battered and heading for severely hypothermic, Grace becomes vaguely aware that someone is calling to her. Nothing makes sense and everything is hopelessly blurred as she manages to blink and squint the world into some sort of half-focus but she can't mistake the panicked eyes that are looking down at her.
"It's okay, it's okay, Grace. You're going to be fine, it's okay. Just let the paramedics do their thing."
It makes no sense at first, none at all, except…
This can't be happening, not now. But flashes of dark green in her peripheral vision and the touching, prodding, poking of her body tell her it is.
"No." The word doesn't emerge from her scoured and savaged throat; none of her would-be rescuers hear her.
Pale grey dawn light is wrapped around everything, everyone. A new day.
That day.
The anniversary.
Two years.
It's not fair, not now. Not after everything else.
"No," she screams, the sound finally breaking free, the tears streaming down her face. Her rage, her pain, is a visceral, debilitating, yet defiant thing. "No!"
"Grace," tries Eve, and though her face is stricken, distressed, Grace can't give in.
She just can't.
"Let me go," she sobs, "let me go. Bring him back to me. Either wake the dead, or let me go."
They don't. She's fading again, but even as she goes she can feel them wrapping blankets around her, sliding a needle into her arm, bracing her head and neck.
It's not fair, but they don't seem to care, or understand. And there's nothing she can do, no fight she can put up. Her body isn't working; everything is a strange mixture of agony and numbness.
Eve is right beside her, leaning down and filling what little space she can see. A hand, cool, but gentle, brushes across her forehead, sweeps her hair back, caresses softly. "Relax, Grace. Let them help you."
"No." It's a hiccupping mumble that's half-choked, half-screamed whisper, because she has nothing left to give now.
Eve's unmistakeable voice is beside her ear now, the roar of the wind and the sea drowning everything else out. "If I could bring him back for you, I would, I swear, but he's gone, Grace. He's gone." There is desperation in those words, deep sadness and regret, too.
Grace can taste the salt of her own tears now, along with the brine of the sea, the gritty sand that seems to be ground into her skin, embedded in her throat. "Then let me go," she pleads, feeling the darkness creeping in around her, dragging her down. Her voice is hoarse, barely audible. "I don't want to be here anymore…"
Eve speaks again, but Grace doesn't hear her.
Instead she lets go, stops fighting. She already knows she will wake again – that they have taken her control over that from her, but for now she can chose to fall into the black abyss, so she does.
And it is effortless. Easy. Painless.
Wonderful.