He smiles as he looks out the window at the ocean. It's so peaceful here.
Not like….
(…here, please hon', please come back- we miss you so much… Why would he go back? All of his friends were here with him…)
The town is a short walk from his house down gently rolling country roads. He never would have thought he would've liked living in a place like this back…
He smiles as he walks into town. His friends all live here- he waves at Artie, who's setting up his bookstore for the day. No one uses electronics in town anymore
(had they ever? He can't remember.)
Rachel gestures for him to come over with a broad smile. …
His house is open and breezy, gauzy curtains swaying lazily into the room. There are empty picture frames on the walls and the side tables. He thinks that he should fill them up again. Did he have pictures in them before? He frowns for a second. He picks up a frame with unfamiliar faces in it. They smile out of it and he wonders if he knew them before….
(Please, baby, please wake up…I don't know if I can…)
Finn and Rachel come to visit sometimes. Kurt happily prepares them tea and they chatter over inane subjects. Sometimes, when he doesn't have company, he stares unseeing out the windows at the sea for hours, a mug of cooling tea clutched in his hand. Sometimes he draws with the materials he founds in the attic- bright gold-brown eyes on paper and canvas and napkins and….
Sometimes he sleeps and dreams that he's in a small white room filled with small flashing lights and a steady metronomic beeping. He dreams that someone is holding his hand and he wants to squeeze back, but he can't for some reason. He wakes up because he's crying and doesn't know why….
He lies down on his sofa that doesn't match his loveseat and stares at the ceiling trying to place what he's feeling. The word escapes him. It's a word from Before. Lo….
He shakes his head and goes to make himself another cup of lemon tea…
(I brought you coffee again- I think I might change my order soon if I keep drinking yours…)
"Who's this?" Rachel asks, holding up one of his unfinished drawings of gold-brown eyes.
"I don't know." He says sadly….
"You're not dead you know." Mercedes tells him one time. "You can wake up anytime you want now. They're waiting for you."
He laughs at her nonsense.
"Of course I'm not dead. But why would I go back to Before? I like it here."
A flash of heart-breakingly sad gold-brown honey eyes flashes across his mind and Mercedes stares at him sadly as he stammers out his excuses to leave. …
Sometimes he sits at the old worn-down piano that he found and dragged into his living room and plays a somewhat melancholy tune that he can't seem to shake out of his head. Eventually his hands drop when his head starts to ache too much and he stares out the window again and he dwells on how lovely it is here….
(Where have gone away too, darling? It must be pretty great there to keep you away for so long. I hope it's beautiful there. Rachel keeps talking about how she wants to wait for you to come back before getting her leading role on Broadway, because you promised to come to her first show and… please come back. )
Rachel is here though, he thinks when he wakes up with tears on his face again…
When he goes into town the next day, he asks Tina where Rachel got too.
"Oh, she went Back." Tina says. "Mike and I are going tomorrow."
Artie's bookstore has been closed for a week. He sits down next to Mercedes and they have tea. Mercedes slices him another slice of cake as they sit in a comfortable silence. A dry breeze is blowing in fro the mainland- fall will be on them soon. A window rattles somewhere, echoing through the empty buildings. He can't remember the last time he heard someone speak.
"You can wake up anytime, you know." Mercedes tells him as she rinses out the teapot. "We miss you Here."
He wanders through his empty house and looks at dusty pictures of people he hasn't met. He wonders who they are.
(I blame myself somedays- if I hadn't kept you, you wouldn't have been rushing and you wouldn't have…wouldn't have….please wake up. Please. I can't make this decision without you.)
He draws such sad honey colored eyes. Big, small, ink, oil, lead, paper, canvas, walls, bathroom mirror- crash. His breath hitches as he stares at the shattered shards of glass. He can't remember why he's crying. But he can't stop.
"I'm fine." He says. "Really, I'm fine, it's alright." Who was he talking to again? …
Town is empty now. Everyone has gone, leaving him in his big house by the ocean. But maybe, maybe if he goes Back too…
Maybe he'll find the eyes that haunt him. If only he weren't so scared. Of what he doesn't know.
He sits at the piano and plays and plays and plays. That persistent beeping he hears sometimes clashes with the echoes of guitar music that floats around the house. Tea without Mercedes is thin and bitter. More often than not he curls up in his bed- big and comfortable and empty- and lets himself ache for something he can't feel. He is so lonely here. Sometime after everyone else is gone and town has been empty for years (days? Minutes? Seconds?) he summons the energy to walk back into town.
There is a small graveyard that he hadn't noticed before. He opens the small rickety gate and walks over to the small group of graves. His mother's grave is there and he allows himself a bittersweet moment of memory. He moves on to the next grave, the dirt still damp, but before he can read the name on the stone a young girl taps him on the shoulder.
"Can I ask you a question?" The girl asks. "I'm new around here."
He feels as though he should remember something.
"Of course."
"I need help." She tells him.
"Help with what?"
"My dad- he won't wake up. Papa says that he's not dead, but he's been asleep for so long…" Her gentle honey-brown eyes are glossy.
He almost stumbles back. Her eyes are the same as the eyes that he keeps drawing. He lifts a hand to his cheek and stares when it comes away damp with tears.
"I feel as though my heart is breaking." He whispers. The little girl looks at him with such a sad expression on her face.
"You could come back, you know." She holds out her hand. He almost reaches for it, but pulls back.
"I don't know if I can."
She smiles at him.
"Of course you can. It's time to wake up now."
He looks around. The empty town is gone, the wind blowing gently through the long grass in the field. His house is gone and so is the dirt road leading up to it. He turns back to the girl. She's gone- in her place is a wooden door.
Hesitantly he reaches out and opens it. There's a moment where he thinks he sees a white room with someone lying in the bed surrounded by people, and then there is light.
Then nothing.