A/N: This was just an idea that, after reading Lord of the Flies (I keep wanting to say Rings) I couldn't get out of my head. At first it was just meant to be one-shot, but if you like it, I'll write a second chapter, with more fluff between the two. I hope you like this!
Disclaimer: Ralph and Simon and Jack and Samneric and the whole island and plot from LotF doesn't belong to me! (And while we're at in, Convent Garden doesn't belong to me either.) Adair does though. So no stealing! (Hah. Like anyone would want to.)
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He walked through Convent Garden, trying, as he had tried everyday for the past four years, not to notice any of the people around him. There were the children, running around, laughing and playing, watching the street performers. He couldn't bear to see their happiness, not when he had none inside himself. There were the street performers, who he didn't want to see, with their tricks and their games, all foolishness. These months were worst then usual; tourist season, he thought in disgust, when all those foreigners flocked here to goggle at the people going about there ordinary lives and to buy trinkets, all so they could go home and boat about it. He didn't want to see any of them.
He didn't want to see them because he envied them.
He kept walking, scowling at his feet so they were the only things he had to see. He didn't see the girl in front of him, didn't see her until they had collided.
"Hey!" she said, as they lay sprawled across the cement, the foot traffic swerving around them as people laughed at the tangled teenagers. She pushed herself into a sitting position, brushing long brown hair out of her eyes. "Watch where you're going."
He didn't say anything, just looked at her. "Sorry," he said politely, pulling himself to his feet. He offered her a hand. "I wasn't looking were I was going." He grinned. He had realized, when he returned from the place, that when he smiled most things went his way. He didn't know it was because of his charming smile mixed with the sadness of his eyes made a good deal of people sympathize with him, even if they didn't know him.
The girl sighed. "That's okay. I was just in a hurry." Her eyes narrowed, and he felt the urge to get away. This didn't often happen, but when it did he hated it. "Do I know you?" she asked. "You look familiar."
Damn right I do, he thought. After all, she had undoubtedly seen his face splattered all over the papers when he was twelve. Four years later, most people didn't recognize him. Why should they? It was a story of the moment, and most people didn't attach faces to it. Some did, though. Probably including this girl.
"What's you name?" she asked tactlessly as he helped her to her feet. "Have we met?"
He hesitated, then shamelessly borrowed a name of someone he'd once known. "I'm Eric," he said, politely offering his hand to shake. He didn't want to see her, didn't want to speak with one of these people, but when he did he was unfailingly polite.
"I'm Adair," she said, shaking his hand. This time she hesitated. "I'm - I'm not from around here," she admitted. "I'm looking for an office. I think it's near here . . . But I'm not sure. Can you help?"
He shook his head. "Sorry. I need to go." He didn't want to spend another moment with this pretty girl, with wide, clear eyes who didn't look like she'd suffered a day in her life. He'd suffered. And because of that, he'd changed from the light hearted, happy little boy into someone closed in on himself. And because he'd taken responsibility for the boys - there, in that place - he was the one charged with the crimes. Him. Just him, because no one else had opened their mouth to help him. Because the only ones that would have been on his side, that would have stood up with him - were dead. Murdered.
"Oh, come on!" the girl interrupted. She tugged on his shirt, then slipped a piece of paper into his hand. "Look, I have an address. Just point me in the right direction."
He sighed, reluctantly reading the paper. He didn't care bout this girl; he didn't care about any of them. They were all too happy, too carefree, like they didn't know any of the tragedies of the world. Or they didn't care.
He skimmed the words, and involuntarily his hand clenched, crumpling the paper. "Why are you going there?" he asked in a strained voice.
She shrugged. "The guy there's a shrink. A special one, who specialized in - well, what I'm going there for. A specific type of personal tragedy. Dr. Roans - that's my physiatrist - thought I should see him, but my parents disagreed. They say, what's in the past is in the past, let's not drag ourselves through it again." She rolled her eyes. "Stupid. If you don't drag yourself through it' you can never get over it. God knows I haven't, and it's been four years."
He stiffened even more, and really looked at the girl this time. She was a year or two younger then him, with pale skin and the longest, prettiest brown hair he'd ever seen. She wasn't beautiful by any means, but she had a smooth, attractive face, an almost familiar face, and he recalled her question - "have we met before?"
"What was four years ago?" he asked, wondering if it could actually be true.
She glanced up at his, her brown eyes meeting his blue ones, and he saw a flash of pain, mirroring the pain that had never left his eyes. "My - my twin died." She glanced away, and when she glanced back, her eyes were fierce. "Not that it's any concern of yours. After all, what do you know about pain?" She looked him up and down scornfully. "A guy like you - tall and blond and blue eyed - you look like you could take on the world itself, but it's not worth your time. You act like it too." She grabbed her paper from his hand. "I'll find the way myself." She started to walk away quickly, but as he watched her go, he realized - fully who she was.
She, like the boy Ralph, had undergone enormous tragedy. But unlike Ralph, she didn't have the weight of it hanging over her, forever.
"Wait!" Ralph called, running a few steps to catch up to her. He grabbed onto her upper arm, holding onto it tightly. She tugged at it, then spun around to confront him. As she did, he took a hold of her other arm, keeping his old too light to chafe, but not light enough that she could break free of.
"You freak!" she said, looking scared for a moment. "Let me go!" She pulled at her arms, forcing him to tighten them so she couldn't escape. "Let me go, or I'll scream!"
"Listen to me," Ralph said fiercely. "Just stop for a moment, will you? Just tell me, who was your brother?"
"He was a wonderful boy," she said, and she did stop moving, but still glared at him. "And he was killed - murdered! - by a group of boys, irresponsible, idiot boys, and they don't even know how! It was an accident,' they all say, but none of them explain it. If it was an accident, why are they scared to talk?" She wrenched her arms free as he stared at her in surprise. "He was the best twin anyone could ask for, and a bunch of idiot boys, idiot boys like you! - who killed him." She turned away, eyed glinting with tears, and started t march away again in the opposite direction of the office.
"Adair!" he cried, and maybe some of his desperation reached her, because she turned around. "My name is Ralph Kay. Your brother was Simon, wasn't he?"
She nodded, wordlessly. "Ralph Kay," she repeated, taking it in stride that previously he had lied about his name. Suddenly her eyes widened, and Ralph could pinpoint her thought process at that moment. "You were the leader," she whispered, aghast. "You were . . . the chief." Her eyes now narrowed to slits, the deep brown color looking like it was on fire. "You killed Simon."
Ralph had faced the families of all the boys four years ago, feeling very adult as he walked around and was introduced to them, as he explained the society they had had, and how it had crumbled. He had barely mentioned that, as he had skimmed over the deaths, and all the other boys had followed his lead. What Ralph said was what had happened, in everyone else's mind, and all the boys backed him up, even Jack. Here in civilization, Ralph was again the leader, and therefore he had lessened the terrors of their life to a much more humane degree. Even at twelve, he understood how disgusting their savagery would seem to the rest of the world.
Even now he acted as chief, traveling around England every year to talk with the boys, to boost their spirits, until this last year where he had deemed them fully recovered the nightmares gone, the scars faded. He even spoke to Jack in a civilized fashion, who smiled, and talked and was civilized right back to him, though each knew they had a bond that could not be broken.
He hadn't visited two of the families, though. He couldn't bear to face Piggy's aunt, or Simon's fail. He vaguely remembered two adults and three children at the funeral, the children glaring daggers at him amidst their tears. And now here he was, with Simon's twin sister, and he was guilty. He would not have been surprised if she jumped at him, tried to kill him. He almost would have welcomed it.
"How did it happen?" Adair asked, walking towards him again. He opened his mouth, but before he said anything she continued, "I want the truth! I want the truth about everything, not just those feeble lies you told the adults. I want to know what happened to my brother, and I want to know now."
Looking at her, at this girl still ready to avenge her brother, Ralph felt a twist inside, some feeling he had though was gone. Sorrow - for an outsider, for someone other then himself or his boys. This girl had undergone enormous pain already. In her place, he wasn't sure if he'd have wanted to know what had happened, but she did. "If you don't drag yourself through it' you can never get over it," she had said. Was that true?
"All right," her said, and she looked surprised, as if she had expected Ralph to fight. He led her over to an outside cafe, where he bought them sodas, while all the while Adair was eyeing him suspiciously. He looked at his hands, then he looked at her, and then he started at the beginning, when the plane went down.
He never stopped, and he never left anything out. He didn't stop when he reached the part where the fire spread across the island, and he didn't neglect to tell her about the beast. He repeated every last word Simon had ever said in his presence that he could remember, and kept plunging through the story. He didn't stop at the point when her twin died the horrible gruesome death, and he didn't leave out a detail, because he couldn't - because by then he was too caught up in the tale, like a snowball gathering momentum and mass as it rolled down a hill, he let his story pour out of him. He had never told it before; never, in four years had he actually admitted everything that had happened, not to the other boys, who knew, of course, but they never spoke of it. Now, with this girl he didn't know but did, he couldn't stop if he had wished to.
He finished finally, ending with the chase as all the boys ran after him, hunted him down with the determination to stick his head atop a stick for the beast to devour. Finishing with the naval officer who landed on the island and immediately sent them all home. Home to lie.
He was staring at his hands when he finished, and then he slowly raised his eyes to hers. When he had reached Simon's death he had kept his eyes on his hands, almost afraid to look at Adair. Now he saw the look of pure horror on her face, absolute terror as he stared at him, both hands clasped over her mouth, her drink untouched. Tears ran helplessly from her eyes, and though Ralph hadn't noticed, his face was also tearstained. But seeing the tears, the horror on her face somehow cut him, hurt him when he thought he could never be hurt, when he had convinced himself his heart was made of stone. He felt rejected, somehow, though he had never been accepted, and he felt like a horrible monster for making her cry. He would gladly have hurt himself to take the pain from her; after all, he ha been hurting non-stop for four years.
The first words from her mouth were not words of disgust, but ones he had not expected at all. "I'm sorry," she breathed, and she could see the tearstreaks on his face. "I am - I . . ." she shook her head, apparently unable to find the words to describe how she felt. Ralph watched her, still feeling hurt by her horror, but feeling confused as well. "Why are you sorry?" he asked, unconsciously taking a paper napkin from the table and wiping her cheeks with it. "You never did anything. You're . . . an innocent."
She looked at him with something unknown in her eyes. "Yes," she whispered. "But I'm sorry for you - because you suffered." She pushed her chair back, standing up, and Ralph hurriedly did the same.
"And . . . Ralph?" she said, addressing him by his given name for the first time. She swallowed. "You - you didn't kill my brother. It wasn't you. It was the others, the ones who were leading, who were in the other tribe. Not you. I - I don't want you to blame yourself anymore." And with that, she turned and ran, leaving Ralph in a shocked state as what she had said sunk in, and as he realized how much strength it had took her to say that. "Goodbye, Adair," he whispered to the wind, and went to pay for the sodas.
He didn't know that, several blocks away, Adair had stopped running and was looking out over the Thames. "Good-bye, Ralph," she whispered. And at the same time, both of them stared into the past, and said their final good-byes to Simon.