Title: On Sailing Away
Spoilers: Season 11.
Author's Note: I live in my own little world so this is very AU. So for the purpose of this – Carter, while caring about Kem, isn't in love with her. It's set before his epiphany at the end of the season. (I'm very much in denial over that).
Feedback is adored. Criticism is welcomed; I'm out of practice.
You awaken to the sound of the tap in your bathroom ticking as drops hit the cool ceramic. It's about five am, you surmise, and your feet are tangled up in sheets that speak of another dreamless night. You are cold, your eyes feel welded together and you do not want to get up.
You get up.
You pause by the phone, because for so long your whole world hung on waking up to hear her voice, the way she spoke your name. You almost lift the receiver, but too soon you realise that the line connecting you is dead.
Dead.
So you drop it in its cradle. You've nothing to say, not today. Just that it's a shame it all fell apart, that it still feels as though she's there with you. She's closer now than she was the last time you saw her, not so boxed in – free, attainable, but definitely not yours.
The morning shifts and the sun tries to overcome the dense fog that consumes the lake. You tell it to back off and you're glad when darkness prevails once more. You aren't meant to be happy today.
Flicking the switch on your laptop you wait beside the kettle as it boils.
You can't remember what you wanted to tell her. That you're sorry, perhaps, that he was all you ever wanted, that you'd loved him from the moment you'd heard of his existence. She doesn't need to hear it, you decide. She already knows and you don't want to hurt her any more.
You want her to move on. You want her to let go, and not be like you, not keep his room as a shrine, and his blankets and teddy bears untouched on the shelves that you put up for him.
God, you can't think where to begin. There's a white, empty screen and you almost press send because its how you feel, how things seem and you want it to snow, because then you could go outside and build a snowman, pretend that he's beside you and let your hands burn and burn until they are numb and you're too frozen to dream or feel or remember.
I miss you.
You delete it.
I love you ..
Except you don't..
So you quickly say that you are thinking of her and pause before adding an'x'. Just one. Two is false, you think, unbalanced, and three – well, three is what could have been so you've brushed that aside. One. One because that's all you have now – yourself.
There's you and this well endowed cottage with no laughter to fill it.
And a lake.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
You can't let go.
You hold on to every single memory as though it's the last time you'll breathe, the last thing you'll feel.
The shift ends and you walk. Home. It's late, but then everything is now. Late, overdue and you're running to catch up yet you never quite make it before the light turns red and you're stopped in the street and you've nowhere to go.
Susan brought you coffee, and you taste it still, bittersweet and staining your tongue. You didn't see Abby as she guided your hand away from charts of the children whose cries filled the waiting room.
They were all that you could hear today.
In the ER, on the roof and on the street the sound broke about you, following you, lost like you and helplessly lonely like you. Only because, you realise, that it came from you - your head, your voice.
The house is dim, the day hasn't left it mark – it's the same as when you left this morning. Sanitary, clean. You despise it. You wish that there were someone to mess it up in your absence; your shadow, bouncing off the wall is not company. There's too much of you in this place, too little of anyone else.
You bought him a remote control boat.
It's red and it's shiny and he was going to name it as soon as he could talk, and you were going paint the name on its side and it was to be his to sail with you on the lake that meets the back garden.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The water is dark, and you imagine him.
He is everywhere about this place and you breathe in the surroundings as though remembering the scent of him; of soap and powder and tiny feet and hands that refused to grasp your finger.
You chose this place for him. Small fish dart around the bottom, and the plant life sings towards the surface. It's bursting with life. He won't be lonely.
But sometimes you think that you will be.
Slowly you wrap your coat tighter and sit down on the bench. You gaze outwards and outwards. The horizon melts into the water, the last of the days sunshine holding on to dye the clouds a deep scarlet.
It's cold and you're cold and your eye catches the shine of your leather shoe, and the metallic brightness of the small red boat that lies beside it.
You think that nobody cares.
It's been a year.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Carter?"
Sometimes you imagine things.
"Carter?"
Sometimes the fog lifts momentarily, and the crying in your head stops.
You don't look up because you don't know what to believe in anymore. But despite the bubbling of your thoughts you hear it - the quiet lull of footsteps, and you're no longer alone.
She gently fills the space beside you and you don't move away.
The wind blows the waves and the trees bend low to kiss the white lacy froth before it runs and disappears. Her hand finds yours and you grab it, treasure it and hold onto it for dear life because somehow, if you let go you might sink and never seek to look upwards again.
"He's gone."
The words are so soft you wonder if you spoke them at all. She doesn't look up, merely traces the back of your hand with her fingers. You let her.
"I still see him sometimes."
Her hands pauses and she removes it. You feel the loss immediately, until her fingers suddenly bruise your chest.
"He's here." She falters, self-consciously. "He'll always be in here."
In your heart, she means - and you feel strangely calm and wonder how it is that she understands you so well.
"I know," she begins suddenly, and a flash of regret flickers through her face. You see her bite her lip, as though she wants to say more, as though she wants to give more, but all to soon she's looked away and instead bends down to pick up the little boat.
She shines the bow with her fingertips and blows lightly on the sail. You watch as it gently billows and a shy smile curves her lips.
"It's beautiful."
You nod. You spent weeks picking it out.
"Does it have a name?" she ponders.
You slowly meet her eyes and whisper no, that it was never yours to name.
She places it in the water and it bobs back and forth and the spray laps the sides with gentle clicking sounds.
You tell her it was for him, and of how he was to sail it with you.
Then you mention that you're thinking of giving it to the boy next door because you don't know what to do with it. You're lying and she sees right through you, so you look away.
She pauses and pulls you to your feet, over to the side to the wooden quay. She sits you down so that your shoes dip in the water and you stare at her, confused.
"It can still be his," she says and hands you the remote control.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The threatening blackness slowly overtakes the sky as you start the engine. A small light burns, and you watch it fade into the distance as you drive the boat out and out into the lake.
You stand up and she stands and you feel her gaze upon your face even though you are looking at the yellow dot, focusing, fighting for it to remain in view. You point the control forwards, determined, your fingers set in that position, unrelenting, unflinching.
The light moves steadily on as the distance grows greater and greater, until the signal is lost and you waver. Somehow, as the controls slip from your hands, the boat continues to float out and onwards pushed by the breeze and the waves.
The hull light flickers and flickers and then is gone.
But you're still here.
Her arm tightens around your waist and you suddenly feel warm again.
Alive.
And for the first time in a while, you smile.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
If you made it this far.. thank you.