Disclaimer: Jack and Sam aren't mine! No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: It's the time of night when only those too haunted to sleep wander around the city... Jack & Sam.
A/N: Not much to say, unless you count the fact that this is depressing... probably the darkest thing I've written so far. No spoilers. M, thanks for the beta.
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Ghosts
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It's the time of night when only those too haunted to sleep are up, wandering around the city, sharing space and darkness with the ghosts that follow them restlessly.
A small movement of his eyelids is all that indicates he's still alive. Eyes red and exhausted, he blinks a couple of times-- blinks away the memories, blinks away the grief, blinks away death and the silence that has come with it so many hours ago and never left.
The report is on his desk, waiting, but he won't finish it.
He can't.
The park is dark-- dark like the blood on her chest, dark like the night, dark like her eyes when the fire burnt out and she closed them for the last time. The fragrance of death covers the scent of flowers and lingers in the air, an insufferable odor that he can't get rid of. He advances on the graveled path, entering a universe where no human being is allowed to trespass, undertaking the sort of one-way walk reserved to those who have nothing left to lose.
A cold shiver runs down his spine. The boy's face is cold, his once handsome features contorted into a mask of pain and shock, his mouth twisted, poised for a scream that never left his lips. Eyes stare back at him, glassy under the moonlight, no longer glittering with joy and laughter but void and silent, silent like the world around him, silent like the eerie, abandoned streets, silent like his office when she isn't in it.
He gazes unseeingly at the corridor through the glass panels, willing for her to come. He still sees the bullet that found the boy, sees the one that found her, sees the one he fired, when, as he pulled the trigger for the first time, he discovered who he really was. He remembers the sound of the gunshot, the smell of powder and blood, the weight of the gun in his sweaty palm, and above all the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach when steel met flesh and nothing was ever the same again.
Life slipped out of a body, escaped through his fingers as he tried to keep the man alive, keep her with him, keep himself whole. Somebody's son, someone's daughter, someone's friend-- they were gone so quietly that he barely felt their souls float past him.
She left before saying good-bye and after their eyes locked one final time, before he could tell her what she meant to him and after he saw the pain etched in the lines of her face. She was miles too far or an inch too close, he moved a second too soon or a lifetime too late.
He's nothing, she's everything.
She's nothing.
"Sam--"
She's at the door. Her frail and familiar silhouette heads for his desk, casually. She didn't knock-- Sam never knocks.
He's watching her as she breathes for the last time, he takes her hands in his when she doesn't have enough energy left to reach out for him. She'll wake up any second. She's just falling asleep, right?
Not asleep.
A solitary tear rolls down his cheek when she looks at him pleadingly, and he knows that this time, he can't save her. Her eyes swim out of focus, her lids flutter and fall and the--
He holds her gaze and she smiles sadly. He can only look at her and wonder how he was ever happy, how he conquered her heart, how she conquered his, how it even feels to have a heart that isn't overflowing with tears. Mostly, he dwells on the past, and wishes they'd lived a complete story. He wants something more than an introduction that was over too quickly, a beginning that has led them nowhere and a half-written conclusion that neither of them managed to finish.
He glances at his desk, at the mosaic of papers and files and reports, looking for comfort, for the right words to speak, for a reason to send her away and a reason to keep her here, a reprieve that doesn't come and an answer that never will. His eyes stop on the pictures and he weeps, weeps for her, weeps for a boy named Marc, for a teenager who will remain fifteen, fifteen forever, fifteen when the rest of the world will keep living and aging without him.
Hollow eyes gaze back at him from the white board, from his desk, and each name, each smile is now an ineffaceable proof of his failures. He knows them all, whether it's a child whose innocence was suddenly shattered or an adult whose life ended too soon, a teenager who never deserved to die or a woman he'd once touched, held and loved before and long after her face was stained with blood from a bullet she never saw coming.
They're all here, scars that no amount of patience will ever erase, lies and illusions and wounds that will never close. She's under the ground, she's above the sky, she's in Heaven, in his thoughts, in his past, his present, his future, his life and his heart. Time can't take her away from his soul; she's tangible, she's mortal, she's eternal, she's everywhere--
She's nowhere.
He wants to hear her voice. He feels so… alone.
She tilts her head aside, in a gesture that means she understands and wishes she could help, in a gesture that, at the same time, tells him she can't. She walks around his desk and interlocks her fingers with his, gently squeezing his hand with a heartfelt compassion that echoes the one he sees in her eyes.
"We're all alone," she says softly.
He tries to squeeze her hand in return, but she's slipping away. Her shadow is dissolving, receding in the obscurity, melting into nothingness as the light around her flickers out.
His fingers meet nothing but empty air as he attempts to follow her, to bring her back, to makes her real once more.
He can't.
She's gone, Jack.
No.
He's lost again, lost halfway between the door and his desk, between a quiet whisper and a gentle touch, between a dusk that left him cold and a dawn that doesn't come.
It's the time of night when everybody's resting, when only those too haunted to sleep roam around an alley or a gloomy, empty office, sharing the silence and darkness with the ghosts that never leave.
/ End