Disclaimer: Desperate Housewives is not mine in any way, shape of form.
Story Summary: "This is the first time they have lost together and he has no idea what to do." A post-ep for season six's "You Gotta Get a Gimmick." Takes place after Tom goes outside to drink on the porch.
Quietly We Go On Alone Together
A story by Ryeloza
The sky is blank. Blackness that stretches out infinitely, on and on and there have never been stars or a moon, just nothing. It scares him. That blank canvas that just makes him think that everything he was taught in church is a lie—there is no afterlife; the world just fades away into a bleak darkness. Endless, endless night…
He thinks that grief would be easier if everyone experienced it in the same way. His is suffocating him, slowly compressing the life from his body until it will snuffed—gone, gone, gone and no one will be able to bring him back from the dead. Death is forever like that night sky. He wants to say that it's not his time; he wants relief from the crushing weight of loss. But he thinks there is only one person who can help him and she doesn't want to. She doesn't need to because she can carry that grief deep inside of her where no one else can see it. She doesn't know that he sees everything because they're soul mates and there isn't anything that she can hide from him. He knows she's dying too.
This is the first time they have lost together and he has no idea what to do. She isn't there to hold him up and even though he's doing everything he can for her, he knows that nothing has made it any easier for her either. They are drowning together. Drowning in the deep, dark sky with no one to rescue them. And the worst part is that she won't even admit it. If she did would it make a difference? Would they be able to find the strength to save each other?
The front door opens and she comes outside. He knows that she's lost and tired and scared, and he's making it worse for her instead of better. But he's never been as good at pretending as she is. She wants to go on like someday, somehow everything is going to be okay again, and every day he's becoming more and more certain that there is never going to be anything after this moment.
It's cold. He wishes that it was snowing.
"Come inside," she says quietly. It's a question even though she says it as a command. Her arms are crossed, fighting the bitterness of the air, but he just shuts his eyes and breathes it in so deeply that it burns his lungs. There's no oxygen. "You'll get sick sitting out here in the cold."
He doesn't say anything. Doesn't look at her. Houses in the neighborhood are fading into the darkness as people turn out their lights and go to bed. Soon the world will be swallowed by the night.
"Tom?"
"Everybody dies."
She's crying. He senses it before he turns to her, and he isn't surprised to see the tears on her cheeks. He thinks she doesn't know because she does nothing to wipe them away, and he wants to do it for her. Take her face in his hands and gently kiss away those tears, make them part of himself and heal her. He should bear this burden for her, he thinks. He would if he had any room left inside of himself to feel any more.
"I don't know what to do." She's begging him now. Maybe she wants to save him too, but she doesn't know how to; she's not strong enough to. It's okay. He isn't either. "I just—I don't know."
"I don't know either." He sets down his wine glass and opens his arms to her. Slowly, she comes, almost like she's frightened. He is too. So frightened of that sky of nothing. But she sits down on his lap, leaning back against his chest, nuzzling her nose into his neck for a moment as he wraps his arms around her and holds her so tightly. One of his hands settles on her stomach and he can feel the baby inside, so alive. She's alive.
"What's after this?" he asks.
She shrugs—a minimal movement—the slightest indication of uncertainty. "Something. There has to be something."
"How can you be sure?"
"I'm not. But what's the point of living if there's nothing…You have to have faith in something."
He doesn't know what he has faith in anymore. Death creeps around their house and has finally won, taking from them something so precious and so innocent and what is the fairness, right, sense in that? "I don't know what to believe."
Her hands cover his. They're cold and dry. "You can believe in me," she says hesitantly. As though she's not sure she's enough when she's the one thing in his life that has always been everything.
"I do."
"And I'm not going anywhere without you. Ever. No matter if there's anything after this or not."
"'Til death do us part.'"
She shakes her head. "No. Forever."
"Forever." He likes the sound of that. Them, together, even in the never-ending night. He kisses her temple; breathes her in. "Don't give up on me, okay?"
"I never could."
He's forgotten how to smile, but he thinks that he would now if he could only remember. She can't save him and he can't save her, but they aren't alone. She is his reason to go on.
On and on toward that endless sky.