Secrets Still like Songs I'd Never Learned
by: singyourmelody
Disclaimer: Don't own anyone from V. If I did, it wouldn't be canceled. Title is from Iron and Wine's "Passing Afternoon." This is somewhat a continuation after the series finale. Minus the whole "Anna blisses the entire earth" idea. I wasn't sure how to write my way out of that one (I'm not sure how the writers would have done it either, but perhaps that is another conversation for another time). I loved Joshua and Lisa as characters. I still do. Hence, the story. . .
The marker feels heavy in her hand as she uses her teeth to pull off the cap.
Scanning over the page, she finally finds it.
veneer.
noun.
: a thin sheet of a material
: a plastic or porcelain coating bonded to a surface
: a protective or ornamental facing
: a superficial or deceptively attractive appearance, display, or effect
She laughs out loud as she reads that last one. Her voice sounds hollow as it rattles around her throat before escaping from her mouth.
And then slowly, deliberately, she lowers the marker to the millimeter thin page and leaves a thick black mark in the book. The marker squeaks slightly, bleeding through two, maybe three or four or five pages behind the intended one. The words disappear as her hand moves left to right. It's amazing to her that it only takes one stroke for each of the words to vanish, evaporate.
As if they were never there.
She quickly looks around before she caps the writing utensil and sticks it back into her bag. Grabbing a second felt pen, this time a deep red, she begins scribbling in the margins, replacing her erased words. As if doing this is somehow changing their meaning in the big, wide universe surrounding her.
And after "veneer: noun" she writes "look beneath the surface, all you'll see is a lie."
Snapping the book closed, she replaces it on the shelf and walks away.
She finds him in the health section. He's holding a pile of books the length of her forearm and actually smiles when she approaches him.
"Find what you were looking for?" she asks.
He glances down at his very full arms. "I think I'll be prepared. Did you find anything?" he asks. She loves that he's always so concerned about her. No matter what.
She shakes her head. "No, but I wasn't really looking."
"The flight will be pretty long."
"I know," she says. She smiles a small smile, the invisible plaster cracking just a bit. "I'll be fine."
His eyes narrow and he opens his mouth to say something, but decides against it.
She knows he knows that she is anything but fine, but also that he knows her well enough to not press it.
"Let me help you carry those," she says, taking the top books off of his pile and his right hand.
He squeezes hers three times and she's not sure why but the pressure of his palm in hers makes her think that maybe all the secrets, hiding, and horrors they've endured won't consume them in the end.
He's right. The flight is long and there's a baby crying three rows behind them. The child has been wailing for eight hours straight when she finally buries her head into his shoulder. He looks up from his book on modern microbiology.
"I cannot take that baby's crying anymore. How are you even reading?"
He leans his head down so that his cheek is pressed against her forehead. "I've become skilled in tuning out horrible sounds."
She looks up at him then and his eyes are resigned, withdrawn, and guilty. So she does the only thing she can think of and presses her lips against his. He doesn't respond right away, he never does. Instead he closes his eyes and breathes in, as if he is reveling in her proximity, her closeness. They had both become so accustomed to keeping a distance. From all of the other Visitors, from the humans, and most specifically from each other. Being able to be so close, freely, without concern about her mother or the secret guards or anyone knowing what they are doing is unusual and yet also wonderful. He finally does respond and for a few minutes both microbiology and the screaming baby and the fact that they are wanted in two different worlds are all forgotten.
She pulls back and his eyes are still closed.
"I could get used to that," he whispers.
She already is. But she can't tell him that. So instead she says, "I don't plan on stopping anytime soon."
He opens his eyes then and the intensity in them is like nothing she's ever seen before.
She blushes a bit because she knows it's directed at her.
"What about the risks?" he says after a few moments.
She nods. There's no point sugar coating it. "I could die any point. So could you. We've both been through so much, but I want to be with you. It's as simple as that."
"I don't want you to get hurt."
She shrugs. Pain is nothing new for either of them.
"No, I mean here," he says, placing his hand over where her human heart should be. "If I die, I don't want you to be hurt emotionally."
"You don't want me to be attached to you?"
He looks down at his hands and slightly nods.
She reaches up and touches his cheek, forcing him to look at her. "It's too late, Joshua. You and me? We're already attached."
"I just don't. . ."
She moves his hand over his mouth and lightly touches his lips.
"Do you remember what you said to me? When you found a way for us to leave the ship?"
"I said, 'Trust me.'"
"And I do. With everything."
"But you have to know, Lisa," he clears his throat and as he says her name, she realizes it will be one of the last times he uses it. "I have to do what's best for the Column."
She sits back upright in her seat, and stares straight ahead, feeling the fake surface slide back into place. "I know. If you ever have to choose between the Column and me, you'll choose the Column."
He doesn't say anything.
"It's okay. I know that. I've always known that. We don't have the luxury of being normal," she says, filling in the silence.
"I wish— I wish. . ." he trails off, still looking straight ahead. The inch between them is filled with all the things that might have been.
"I know."
"I need you to promise me something."
"What is it?" she asks.
"I need you to promise me that if it comes down to you having to choose between the Column or me, you'll choose the Column too."
"It won't come to that," she says.
They both know she is lying.
She doesn't tell him about the dictionaries she defaces on a regular basis. Some things are meant to stay secret. And certain words don't deserve to exist in such an innocent fashion, she decides. Words like obedience. submission. loyalty.
maternal.
There are more than a few dictionaries in Manhattan's east side that have been rewritten.
It's nice to create her own meaning for once.
He's better at, well, everything than she is. She supposes she's always known this but is reminded once again when they finally arrive in Melbourne. They quickly meet up with a member of the Fifth Column branch and are placed in one of their underground safe houses. He sets up his communication through coded messages and works tirelessly to provide vital information about the capabilities of the Visitors to Erica and the rest of the Column in the States.
She stands in the doorway and watches him. He's in his element, while she doesn't know what to do with herself. Sometimes it feels like she's not supposed to be here at all. That she deserved to be imprisoned on the ship for her foolishness in trusting her mother and that really, she wasn't worth saving.
But then hours later he reaches for her in his sleep, subconsciously, and pulls her close and she almost can believe she was wrong.
He often jolts in his sleep, sitting upright, as a small scream emits from his mouth. She always awakens when he does this and wraps her arms around him. It's the only way to stop him from shaking and to return his breathing to a normal pace, as she aligns hers with his, their inhales and exhales mingling together.
"The eyes?" she asks quietly, rubbing small circles in his back.
"They died so long ago," he says, not looking up. "Why can I still see their faces?"
She knows the answer to this. It's because he was the one to drain the life out of their eyes. She knows this, because she sees the eyes too. Those of the first test subject of the soul machine, those of Tyler. Those she has killed, those she has let die. Those images, they don't go away.
But she also knows this will be of no solace to him. So she says, "Because you don't let yourself forget them. You can't. They are a part of you and that is what sets you apart from the rest of them: your willingness to hold onto your past. It makes you value life."
He moves out of her arms then and stands next to the bed. "What if I want to forget? What if I never want to remember what I did ever again?"
She moves to stand in front of him. "You did once. After you died, you forgot what it was like to have feelings of regret. You forgot what it was like to know you have done wrong and to carry that burden with you everywhere. But you also forgot what it was like to have a soul. To have a sense of what was right and wrong. For that brief while, you were a Visitor and nothing else."
He sits back on the bed and buries his head in his hands. "It was so much easier then."
She moves next to him and gently rubs the place where his hairline meets his neck. "We weren't meant to have 'easy' or 'simple.' You and I? We thrive on complex and messy and difficult. It's how we were built. To know what we have to do and then to find a way to do it." She smiles to herself. "You were the one who taught me that."
He reaches over and interlocks his fingers with hers. "I think we both know who's always been the teacher in this relationship."
As he leans closer and brushes some of her hair off of her face, her eyes flutter shut and she thinks about him. Him, this man who has saved her from herself, then from her mother, then from a world she was not prepared to face. Him, who so strongly believes in his convictions, who will always do what is right, even if he needs some encouragement sometimes. Him, who will choose what is correct, what is true, what is necessary over what the two of them have together. She both admires and hates him for it.
The next day she rewrites another word:
future.
noun.
: time that is to come
: what is going to happen
: an expectation of advancement or progressive development
The false definitions effectively removed, she instead writes "that which is uncertain, beyond control. broken."
The first time they argue, really argue, it is over that little thing that she always knew would drive them apart: priorities. He's told her where his lie; there's never been any surprise there. She's always known where hers should be, but somehow she can't make them do what she wants. It's as if they have their own mind and drive her to do the exact opposite of what she should.
He always has been better at everything.
Including controlling himself, so when she loses it after he almost dies for the fourth time in two weeks, he begins to yell. And the words come tumbling out, one after another after another as if he is so full of them, has packed so many in for so long, that she doesn't know how he has even managed to breathe all this time.
Thankfully they are standing in the bedroom they've shared for the past eight months so no other Fifth Column members are witness to the total breakdown of their strongest member. Because that's what this is. Ideals and expectations and all those things he's always stood for are crumbling and deep down, she recognizes that it's her fault. He has been disciplined while she has not and it will be the undoing of both of them.
She's never been spoken to so forcefully, not even by her mother, and it makes her feel like a child, so she withdraws by tucking her knees to her chin as she sits on the corner of the bed.
"You—you" he sputters out, finally slowing down to catch a breath, "you don't get to do this. I have enough pressure on me without having to be constantly reminded of the one thing I can't have. The one thing that I want more than anything, more than saving the humans or removing Anna from power, or saving my own life or restoring peace to this planet."
He turns away and makes some sort of noise that reveals how frustrated he is.
She looks up at him then, "What?"
When he turns back to look at her, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, as she tries to make herself as small as possible, she sees the same intensity he had on the airplane.
"You, Lisa. A future with you. That's what I want more than anything. Most of the time I can just convince myself that you don't really care about me that much, that there isn't this invisible bond between us, that we are just together because of this situation, but every so often, every so often you throw it in my face. You break down any walls I've set up to keep myself separate from you. You don't let me forget about what we have." He pauses and smiles to himself. "You freak out when you think I'm dead. And suddenly all of the possibilities of what we could have come rushing back in and I can't handle them. I need to be removed to do this work. But you keep making it so hard." He takes a step back so that his back is pressed against the wall. She can't help but notice that he's as far away from her as he can possibly get without actually leaving the room.
Yet she also notices that she has never felt more of a pull, more of a connection, more of a ripping away of the fake surface that has so often covered both of their lives than right now, at this moment.
She untangles her limbs and slowly stands. She takes one step and then another and his eyes look both terrified and also challenging, as if they are daring her to take the next step. She is less than an inch from him when she says, "I don't mean to make things more complicated for you. I just, I just can't do what you do, Joshua. I can't control myself as well as you can. You are so perfect all the time, and I'm well, not, and I know you don't want me to be attached to you and I know that my feelings for you are distracting you from the Column's cause. But all I can think about is your safety and how I want to protect you with every part of me and how I know you made me promise to choose the Column over you, but I can't. When it comes down to it, I will choose you. Every time."
His eyes soften for just a moment, before he regains his steely resolve.
"No, Lisa," he says, looking away. "We can't do this. I was wrong to kiss you when we left the ship and every time since then."
She's taken aback as he says this. She was expecting a lecture on self-sacrifice and what is right and wrong and all those things he holds so important, but she wasn't expecting a year's worth of regret packed into one sentence.
"Fine," she says as she turns away from him. She forces herself to place one foot in front of the other as she walks out of the room, trying to forget about the fact that he just did the thing he always told her he would. She knew it was coming, she knew it. But it still feels different from what she was anticipating, each of his words stinging against her human skin.
She finds herself walking to a nearby park. She shouldn't be out in the open like this. She's too well known and it's too dangerous, but she decides that maybe she can afford to be a little reckless for once. For herself. For both of them really.
As she sits on a park bench and feels how the wind makes her hair dance around her face, she can't help but be angry. Anger has always been her strongest emotion; the one that reminds her that she is different from her mother. Yes, her mother had exhibited anger, but she would always channel it into something passive and horrific. Lisa is different. She takes her anger and uses it as an exercise in self-control. A chance to remind herself that no matter how much she may feel like a marionette, forced to dance and sing by invisible strings, that she is still in control of herself. Of course, she still doesn't have his kind of control. She never will.
Watching the water ripple out in the small pond, she decides that maybe the worse part of all of this is that despite what he has just told her, she still can see a scenario where they are together and happy and in the future. The promise of what if is haunting, but she chides herself for even being willing to entertain the idea.
When she returns home, he is already asleep. She contemplates sleeping on the couch, but it is only a loveseat, and even though she knows he doesn't think this way, a part of her doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he's hurt her. So she quietly slips into the room, changes into her pajamas, and slides in next to him.
Sleep won't come, however, and she lies there for a half an hour, counting the small squares that comprise their ceiling. He shifts next to her onto his back and she realizes that he has been awake the entire time.
Finally he says, "How close am I to losing you?"
"Does it even matter?"
"It does to me."
She doesn't say anything for a while as they lay there, hands almost touching. Almost, but not quite. Isn't that how things have always been with them?
"Why is that the question you are asking?" she says quietly.
"Because I don't what other question to ask."
"It shouldn't be a matter of how close. I don't want to go back to doing things halfway. They didn't feel halfway at all."
She closes her eyes as he turns to look at her.
She can feel herself pulling away from him. He doesn't stop her.
As she types the final conclusions of her report on the political structure of the Visitors, something Chad Decker has requested, she realizes that he's chosen for her. She told him she'd pick him and yet he has still somehow made it so that she will choose the Column. She looks up at him, sitting across the room. He is the very picture of determination, slightly biting his lower lip as he concentrates on constructing a virtual blueprint of the Visitors' fighter planes for Erica.
He might be a genius.
And she is still a pawn.
She has to admire his strategy.
Three weeks later, Jack is wounded.
Neither of them take this well. She curls up on their bed and cries for the better part of an hour before she hears the door shut and feels his side of the bed sink down a little. The next thing she knows he has wrapped himself around her. Neither move, but just lay there and think about how much they have given up for this war, how much the people near to them have sacrificed, and how much more they may still be required to give.
It's the first time he's touched her since that day but she quickly wipes the thought from her mind. There are more important things at stake here. Now. No one knows that better than he does.
So she's surprised when she turns over to face him and sees the tears in his own eyes. She watches him for a few minutes before he quickly leans towards her and kisses her softly. He tastes like salt water and regret. She doesn't respond at first; she's trained herself not to and she can't help but think of how the roles are reversed. How she must be the strong one now. She lets him kiss her for a few moments, before pulling back.
"Lisa," he says so softly that she can almost believe that nothing ever went wrong between them. He runs his hand down her arm and lightly holds her hand in his own.
"Why are you doing this right now?" she asks directly. There are no more opportunities to be coy or reserved or to hold back, as the future and present collide, meshing together so that she is not sure where the one ends and the other begins. "Is it because you are trying to comfort me or because you need to be comforted?"
He shrugs. "Both."
"This isn't helping me." She sits up and moves away from him. "You don't always know everything."
"I know when you are hurting. Like right now. I know when you are trying to be strong."
"And I know when you're being a coward," she says.
He recoils at her words at first, but then moves to sit next to her.
"He could be dead," she whispers after a few moments of silence.
"I know," he says, staring at the floor.
She thinks of Jack, the man of God, the most innocent one of them all, lying in a hospital bed as a monitor beeps erratically, struggling to keep him alive. She knows he is thinking of the same thing and she is suddenly acutely aware of the words unspoken between the two of them. The silence wraps around them like a soft blanket, filing in their cracks and making them feel bigger than they are.
"You have to know, Lisa, that I want to be with you too," he says, voice barely louder than a sigh. He doesn't look at her. She doesn't look at him either.
"Then let yourself be with me."
"Okay," he whispers.
"Okay."
He reaches over and kisses her then and although they've kissed many, many times, this one feels different. It starts slow and soft before quickly developing into something intense and fervent. He pulls her closer and she realizes that he has been holding back this entire time.
Their fingers intertwine as they fall backwards on the bed and she finally understands why he was so afraid to get too close to her. What she is feeling right now is more than attraction or a connection. No, it's something very different. Something that fills the silence that had wrapped around them, consuming all the unspoken words in its path.
Much later, she wakes up to find him watching her, his hand gently stroking her hair.
"Hi," she says and buries her face in her pillow.
"Hi," he says, smiling.
"Stop looking at me like that!" she states, as she feels her cheeks flushing red.
He shrugs. "I can't."
She reaches up and cups his face with her hand. "What about the risks?" she asks, echoing his earlier words.
He nudges his head down so that it rests in the small space between her head and shoulder. "Just don't die, okay?" he says, placing a light kiss on the base of her neck, his tone more serious than his flippant words would seem to be.
She knows he means it. So she counters with, "You either."
"Deal."
Later he'll tell her that he got her a present and she'll eagerly open it to find herself holding a brand new dictionary.
"I always see you looking at them whenever we're in stores and I know you don't have one. Although I have to admit, I'm somewhat puzzled as to why you would want one. . ." he'll say.
She'll look up at him with glassy eyes and will lean over and kiss him.
"I first found one in Erica's house. It helped me figure things out on my own terms," she'll say simply and he won't press her for more.
She'll rewrite one more word, but this time there won't be a black marker, thick and destroying. No, this time there will only be an addition. She'll find the word in the "h" section.
hope.
verb.
: to cherish a desire with anticipation
: to look forward with desire and reasonable confidence
: to believe, desire, or trust
Underneath it she'll write, "the only thing that matters."
Thanks for reading and reviewing. Love to all.