[A/N: My first Black Jack fic; I'm still new to the fandom, so don't hate me if it sucks… Written for the prompt "Clouds" at LJ.]
Before Black Jack came, Miriam had been happy and she had never cried. There was no reason, even if she was lonely, because everything was going to be wonderful in the end. She had talked about it with him and he had seemed to understand, but then…
Everything she had worked and hoped for, everything that had kept her going while everyone else left the village, it was gone. In the blink of an eye, with a cool matter-of-fact tone of voice, black Jack had taken everything from her.
How could she have been so wrong about everything? Her plan had been foolproof, and ihe/i had seemed like the perfect tool to make the dream come true.
Black Jack, the doctor who demanded an outrageous fee to cure his patients, was going to be the perfect business partner. She had hoped it even before he arrived, and then she could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. She could see ambition, hunger for money and fame. He, if anyone, was going to understand her, and together, they were going to see the dawn of a new era – no, more than see it; they were going to create it!
Together, as partners first, but later, as they lived on and on forever, perhaps something more, and it would be like walking on clouds…
Her vision had been crystal-clear.
So how could she have been so wrong?
There was no magical bird, there was no miraculous blood, there was no eternal youth.
And Black Jack who had come all this long way just to cure an old man, he didn't seem to care about any of that.
The blood sample, he said, the price they had agreed upon, was enough for him – even if it was worthless. He didn't ask for money. He had come such a long way and yet he wasn't angry, as if knowing the truth was enough for him. How was that possible?
Black Jack wasn't who she thought he was. And Miriam cried, because when he came, she had felt her dream within her reach. And when he left, she knew that she wasn't going to be walking in clouds with him but that she had been building castles in the clouds until then. Yes, she had had her head in the clouds and there was nothing more to dream about.
Shattered castles in the clouds can never be rebuilt.