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Warning: Attempted suicide and depression, but not really angsty (that "not really angsty" is the warning).
A/n: I was trying to write angst, but this didn't quite get there so here's some friendship and drama instead.
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Fear of falling
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Below her, the water was a torrent, crashing against the legs of the bridge and tumbling out again, white foam treading the surface and clinging onto the pointed edges of the rocks before it wandered around the obstacle in a ripple of water. Above her, the skies were bleak – grey and muted blue, the sun barely straining against the lingering storm clouds as flashes of lightning flickered between them.
Vaguely, between the ominous rumbling of thunder, the howling wind and the crashing of the water, her heart raced as she wondered what the fall would be like, and what if by some cruel twist of fate, she'd survive the landing.
Her exhale was more a laugh than a sigh.
Wouldn't that just be a big spoonful of irony? Trying to be free, only to be trapped in either a body that didn't work or caged in her own mind for the rest of her life, vegetating until someone pulled the plug on her. It really was hilarious.
Glancing down, she swallowed the whimper that trembled from the base of her throat.
Not so funny now, is it?
Her fists clenched and her apprehension mounted. Her next exhale was shaky. Slowly, she backed away from the edge again for what felt like forth time since she managed to get up here.
Frustrated, she demanded, "Are you going to do it or not?"
"I was just about to ask the same thing."
Startled, she looked around.
A few feet behind her, cars travelled up and down– too far out of reach to notice her, too busy to even care. Along the framework where she stood, there didn't seem to be anyone else to be a witness to her state beside the reddish metal skeleton of the bridge.
"God, is that you?"
"Are you going to jump or not," he asked, slightly annoyed, "otherwise I can go first."
"No way, I've been here way longer then you!"
"I've been here since last night!"
"Well…" She trailed, "I'm probably older than you."
"How do you figure that?"
"I don't really, just a hunch."
There was a brief pause before he offered, "I'm twenty-eight."
"Damn it." She stopped away. "Well you've been suffering longer, you go first."
"I insist."
"Well don't rush me then," she snapped, and again she stepped up.
When for several more minutes, she did nothing but stare, he piqued, "This is the sixth time you've done that."
"Is it so you can punish me six times for trying to commit suicide, and once for actually doing it God?"
"Whenever you decide to," he answered, and there was a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Are you laughing because I'm giving up?"
"Not when I'm about to do the same," he replied. She doubted a cold would be the least of his concerns though if he was up here.
Prolonging the moment, she asked, "Are the humans bothering you that much?"
"You have no idea."
"Couldn't you just get away?"
"What is it you think I'm here for?"
She couldn't fault him that. Strangely she took comfort that she wasn't the only one dying to escape.
"Why are you giving up?"
"It seems like the only logical thing I can do."
"Did you do something that you can't live with?"
Her laugh was humorless. "I don't think I was ever living in the first place." She could practically hear the confusion in his silence before she confessed, "I'm dying."
"Dying?"
"Of depression, can you imagine?" She shook her head. "People die from serious diseases like cancer or heart disease or organ failure, or something tangible. Me? I'm dying because my brain is messed up and it keeps - it keeps wondering – it keeps telling me that I'm not going to make it. And I've been pretending for so long that I'm okay, that I'm happy but I…"Quietly, she said, "They say depression isn't that bad. That I should just stop being sad because it's that easy, and that I shouldn't try to kill myself because it's wrong. But it hurts, and I can't make it stop even though I don't know what it is that's hurting."
"Will jumping help?"
"Maybe…"
Starring out at the wide expanse of the ocean before them, she realized that despite her reasons for feeling the need for this escape, the world was simply too big a place for such petty concerns. "Why are you escaping?"
He didn't reply immediately, and she wondered then if he was just a figment of her imagination until he answered reluctantly, "Loneliness."
"In a world with over seven billion people populating it?"
She could almost hear his smile, bitter as it was. "It's amazing isn't it?"
"Family, friends?"
"Family: None. Friends? Anyone I've called that has regretted it."
"On purpose?"
"I've made a lot of bad decisions in my life, how I treated other people is one of them."
"Well you've been a pretty good friend to me so far and I don't regret it."
He chuckled, and the crashing waves sounded louder in her ears.
"Are we going to jump?"
"I think you should go first," he answered.
"Me? Why?"
"Ladies first."
She laughed. "Trying to pass off as a gentleman, I see? Or are you just trying to make yourself feel better?"
"Either way, one last laugh wouldn't hurt right?"
Slowly, she walked to the edge and stared down at the waters before her as the wind whipped her hair against her face. "Is it wrong," she asked, "to be afraid?"
"I'd be more afraid if you weren't afraid," he replied.
Again she laughed and asked against the wind, "Are you afraid?"
"I'm terrified."
She could feel a lump form at the base of her throat, and she swallowed hard. "Good, good, it means we're still alive."
"Yeah…yeah it does…"
Staring down at the waters below, she asked "One last thing though?"
"What's that?"
"Will you tell me what your name is? Because if by some cruel twist of fate I survive this fall, I'd like to be your friend."
"And if you tell me yours, I promise I won't make you regret it."
"Deal."
The clouds above them rolled as lightning streaked the sky.
"My name is George Wickham."
"Lydia, Lydia Bennet."
A/n: Another little George and Lydia experiment. A bit darker, but I'd take it over rapey-Wickham and airhead-Lydia any day…I guess I just wanted to write about a Lydia who was battling with something serious and a George who'd come to regret the life he'd chosen to live to some extent (I didn't want to exonerate him from any of the wrong he may have done in this universe though, just give him the awareness of it).
In any case, I quite enjoy writing about Lydia – I've done ditzy Lydia (Conversations), not-insipid canon Lydia (Sibling Intervention) and a harmless, mutually in love Lydia and George (Almost ever after) just because I like to explore her character in particular for all the flak she gets (which she deserves to some degree, but that won't stop me from feeling sorry for her).
As for George – the rapey-vibes are just a no from me so here I am trying to make him not a pile of poo.
That's all. Thanks for reading.