Moment Looking Down
"If Avon gets to the ship and we're not there I wouldn't put it past him to leave without us ... now come on. We're wasting time." (Tarrant, Rescue)
~oOo~
Turn to climb the stairs back up to the ground levels of Xenon. You hate the place already, but there's no way out that you can see yet. Oh, there will be a way - there always is, isn't there, Del? - but it'll take time to find, and that character who brought you all here might have other plans for your time.
But just at this moment, you don't care. You're alone for a minute, for the first time since it all ended. Terminated. At Terminal.
Take off the smile you've had pinned on for too long, the smile you'd almost forgotten about, that is there for Dayna's sake. Lean against the rail for a minute, sinking down onto the stair tread. She'll follow you too soon, but god, you need to stop for just one minute, a few minutes, just a few ...
Twenty-one more minutes and this hour will be over.
Six more hours and we've managed it through this day. Three more days, and the week's been lived through. Another week, another month. And in a few months - two, three, six or eight... it will get better than this. Avon won't look like this. It won't hurt like this.
It has to get better than this.
Never thought I'd be willing away my own life.
Breathe slower now, the light laughter that felt like lead in your mouth all gone. Odd, isn't it? - laughter after Cally - and Zen - and the part of Avon that died when that woman said what she said -
You were never used to living with other people's pasts, were you, Del? Not till you came to be with these people, with their memories, and their loves and hates, and their formidable ghosts.
Olag Gan. Jenna Stannis. Hal Mellanby, Lauren. Kerrill.
Ghosts of the living and the dead, and the not-sure-which...
Kerrill, Zelda, Anna Grant. Blake.
Blake...
Vila's face after he was told about Blake: like a broken clown, his chatter also broken, out of sync, shying away from his own thoughts. Cally, cold and tear-streaked, unforgiving at her death, and the cry that you heard while dazed and half-conscious, and will still hear at your own. Avon's eyes - you were the only one who saw his eyes, weren't you? When the bitch said that Blake was dead. Did you look like that when you felt Deeta? Did he mean as much as... as...
Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know any more. But I have my own ghosts now.
We have nowhere to go, we have nothing but each other and tomorrow - well, maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. But however long, it's got to be lived through. If you can call what we may have to do, what Avon is going to do, living...
No, Del. Don't think of that. Don't think any more after this minute, you can't afford to. If living is too hard just now, there's always surviving instead. Think only of getting through today, and then tomorrow, and the day after... until you find something else. Some way out. Some way to leave their ghosts to them, and your own behind.
Pin the smile back on, Del, and call to Dayna to get a move on.
Seventeen more minutes and the hour is over ...
-the end-
