Title – It Was Dark When She Opened Her Eyes
Author – Niamh McNamara
E-Mail address – niamh666@hotmail.com
Rating – PG-13
Summary – Three words on a piece of paper…

Disclaimer – Don't own 'em… never have… and *sob* never will…

A/N – Please do not archive anywhere else without my permission. However, if you ask for it, you are likely to get itJ

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It was dark when she opened her eyes. The fire had since long burned out and all that remained was ash. Ash and burned fragments of the paper, which she the night before had thrown into the fire. The paper with the three horrible words. She didn't have the strength to even think about them. The pressure, stress and all those nights without sleep had done a good job tiring her brain, so that she now wasn't capable to think in longer sentences then ''more coffee'' or ''have to eat''. The long funeral with all ingratiating relatives, every one of them wanting the house, the car, the money… It had required all her strength and now there was nothing left. But she just couldn't sleep. She had tried; god knows she had really tried. But it seemed impossible. The treacherous peace was out of reach, and the dreams, oh the dreams… she had not dreamt for so very long time. She couldn't even remember the last time. Must have been before. Before all this started, in a time when harmony filled her life, when she could walk the street whenever she felt for it, when she felt safe. Now, all that was left was emptiness. Emptiness, sadness and loneliness. A broken heart that wouldn't heal, and the only one that might help her was gone.

It had been a dark, rainy day, just like today. The same kind of dark clouds, that seemed to cover more of the sky than they usually did. The same foggy light, as if the sun no longer were able to beam all of his light over the globe. Like if something hold him back. She had come home from work that Monday, happily, like any other day. She opened the door, wrinkled her forehead over the surprising event that no one came to greet her at the door. She had put down her bag, noticed his slippers, which he always wore when home – he must be at home then, she thought. She called out his name, but no answer. Not a sound. The house was dead. She slowly moved into the living room. No one was there. Neither in the bedroom, bathroom or kitchen. Everything was like it always was whenever he was at home. At this time she had began to be a little worried. She opened the door to the workroom. She didn't see anything unusual at first. Everything seemed normal, piles of paper on the desk, his black suitcase on the floor… Then she saw it. A slowly growing puddle of blood, coming from behind the desk. She gave a scream and rushed forward. But it was too late. His face was too messed up to be recognisable, but she knew it was him. His body, his fingers, his feet, his clothes… She knew him far too well to be mistaken. Even though she most of all felt for taking his gun and finish her own suffering as quick as possible, she of course didn't do it. The long years when she was training for the FBI hadn't been wasted; she knew what to do and how to control her own emotions – at least for a while. She called the police and for an ambulance, even thought it was too late for the to do anything. A careful look around told her that no one had, as she first thought, been here and murdered him. To her horror she quickly understood that this was no case of vengeance from a criminal he'd arrested, or someone else that might had want to see him dead… It was suicide.

Her legs gave way under her and she fell onto the floor. She must have remained in that position for at least 15 minutes, for when she woke up the police was already there. An older police with a friendly smile made her a cup of tea. At first she refused, but after some persuasion she realised that it was better if she took the tea after all, if nothing else so for to make the kind old police happy. Besides, she had nothing better to do anyway. She just sat there, letting the warm tea slowly warm her frozen body, trying not to think about what had happened earlier. Her eyes started to fill with tears again, how the hell could he do this to her? Leave her all alone…  Why hadn't he talked to her about it, why hadn't she seen what was coming…Even though she knew deep inside that she couldn't have done anything, it was hard to realise. She began to remember all those times that she so easily had forgot; his sudden mood changes, the quick guilty glance he had given her so often recently, his sudden urge to ashore himself that the insurances were paid and in order… All these things that by themselves didn't mean anything, but together gave a whole different meaning to it all. But what could have driven him to kill him self…?

'Hrrm… Excuse me...'

Her train of thought was interrupted by the voice of a young officer, probably just graduated from the academy. He looked a bit nervous, was balancing from one foot to another, and gave her a piece of paper.

'We found this on the desk, Ma'am.'

In another situation she would have laughed at his way of addressing her, but right now she just didn't feel for laughing at all. She looked at the paper. It looked as if it had been crumbled up several times and on it someone had written only three words. She saw straight away that it was her husband's handwriting; there was no doubt that he had written it. Oh those horrible words… She read them over and over again. For every time her eyes filled with more and more water, so that she soon almost couldn't read. But she resolutely blinked them away and suddenly realised that the young policeman was still there, waiting for her to say or do something. He looked a bit uncomfortable, weighing from one foot to another. She didn't know what to say, so she went away to her own thoughts again. He gave a cautious cough and asked a little embarrassed if he could do anything for her. She still didn't know what to say, so she just shook her head and he left quickly. She could see him talking to the older police, but they were too far away for her to be able to hear anything. But of the way they looked at her and the gestures the younger man did towards her, she guessed that it was about her. Why couldn't they just leave her alone? She knew how terrible she must look; her hair was a total mess and her make-up was slowly flowing down her cheeks. But her outer appearance didn't bother her. That was nothing compared with how she felt inside. That large, dark hole deep inside, that didn't seem to know how to go away. She most of all felt like she wanted to throw something, perhaps a glass, hard at the wall and hear it break in thousand pieces. If she did so, through the cup in her hand at the wall, perhaps she could use on of the shards to cut up her wrists… But no, she quickly abandoned that idea. Suicide wouldn't be a solution, that would only hurt the people she knew, the few that actually cared for her. Besides, there are so many things she needs to do. She has to tell his parents. And her mother and father and brother… Oh dear God. Where could she get the strength from, the strength she needed so much, but that seemed out of reach. Perhaps it would be better if she just let the emptiness and darkness take over… She couldn't imagine anything better than to just lie down and let it carry her away. She closed her eyes slowly and leaned against the wooden chair, in which she had spent he last half hour. She had just started to float out in the dark, when a harsh voice suddenly interrupted her.

'Excuse me… My name is Assistant Director Kersh and I would like to ask you some questions. '

She woke up, daunted by the sharp sting in his voice.

'Well… ' She started, but before she had time to finish A. D. Kersh interrupted her once again:

'Did your husband ever tell you that he was in trouble? At work maybe? '

'Well… No…'

'Has he acted strange lately, or perhaps said something that might have lead you to believe that he was going to do anything this drastically?'

'Not that I can recall, no…'

'Nothing at all? He didn't start to arrange things for you? Perhaps change his will for example?'

'No…' 'So you mean that you had no idea he was going to kill himself?' 'No! I didn't…'

Her voice trembled and she was close to tears. At the same time she was angry. How did he dare to accuse her for this? How could he even think that she would have let this happen if she had known what was going on? She resolutely stood up and looked into Kersh's eyes.

'If you excuse me, I would like to take a shower.'

He looked a bit confused, but couldn't find any excuse to hold her any longer.

'Sure, don't let me stop you. I'll call if I come up with some more questions.'

She left without a word, trying to state that she was the one that made up the rules. She even tried to smile to the other cops as she passed them. It didn't succeed, but at least she had tried.

Once in the bathroom, she quickly jumped out of the once clean, but now creased and bloody clothes. She let the warm water stream over her body, rinsing away the tears and the blood. After about fifteen minutes began to feel a little better. The water seemed to be able to rinse away also the fear and darkness around her. She felt warm, comfortable and as long as she concentrated real hard on the water, she could shut out the terrible reality. But like everything good, even this had an end. The warm water started to get colder and colder, and finally it was freezing. She didn't care though. Like the warm water rinsed away her sorrow, the cold water seemed to numb it. At last she thought it to be a good idea to get out, her skin had become white and wrinkled. But at least she was clean. The shower hadn't taken away the pain, but she did feel a little better. It was hard to get a grip over the situation. She couldn't really understand what had happened. Her husband was gone, but it hadn't sunk into her mind yet. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his arms around her this morning. This morning? Had it just gone one day? Oh God, it felt like an eternity ago… he had kissed her goodbye, told her to have a nice day and to be careful. What else did he say? Oh dear God, he must have said something else… Suddenly she remembered. He had told her to look after herself and not to give up… She now understood what he meant by that. Oh, why hadn't she understood that before? Why hadn't she noticed that something was wrong…? And how could he do this to her? The questions rushed through her mind all at once. Dizziness came over her, and before she could take support from the wall, everything went black and she fell to the floor.

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End? Unfortunately…