Here's my second attempt! It's a bit different and should be a pain to write but ah well! Let know know what you think!! Read and review.
Thanks to Lucida Bright for the beta and lilgreenmomo for support!
I don't own Ashes or Alex.
One Second
One:
They say that just before you die your entire past flashes in front of your eyes.
Alex Price sees her future. In one second she sees everything. She's only 24, too young to die. She hasn't even really lived yet.
In that second she sees every memory and mistake that hasn't happened yet. She sees herself in the mirror six months pregnant with no wedding ring. She sees a shower of rice and white satin wedding shoes. She sees the hospital chart of a suicide who threw himself off a building: Taylor, or Tyler, the name is smudged. She sees a little girl blowing out birthday candles and a man with lank hair and smudged sunglasses stretched out in the backseat of a car. Alex sees a woman in a short red dress crumpling to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut. She sees a wall of roses and a garden in flames. She sees a tall man holding her in his arms in the rain, it feels like coming home.
When she thinks of Evan's last words to her at the airport she shudders.
"You'll see, Alex, you'll live to regret this," he'd said as he handed her the carry on bag and a newspaper. But Alex isn't in the habit of regretting things. And she isn't going to live either by the look of it. Why didn't she try to reassure Evan? It would have only taken one second. Just a hug and a reassurance that she'd be back. That she loved him. Alex had walked through that gate straight backed and merciless, limping slightly in her new heels. She'd walked straight towards death.
The oxygen masks pop out of the compartment above her and she grabs one. She pulls at the elastic band struggling to remember how it works. The man beside seems calm enough; he helps her adjust the mask.
She grabs on to the nearest object, grits her teeth and closes her eyes. Let it be quick, she prays. For one sweet second there is no sound. Alex opens her eyes again. There is no movement, the world stands still. In this world, she sees the passengers frozen where they sit, heads in hands, bent in prayer, hands clasped in other hands. The stewardess petrified in the process of helping an unaccompanied minor. An old woman motionless, her tears paused in mid-track caught between the folds of skin. Is this the way her parents saw the world seconds before the bomb, that day in October all those years ago? The unmoving world? The peace?
This must be it Alex thinks, not scary after all.
"Hey there." An amused voice says. Alex blinks. Sound rushes back. Excited cheers of relieved passengers, the bawling of babies, someone behind her, giving his thanks to god in Hebrew.
The man next to her is smiling he looks down at his knee pointedly. The knee she's
gripping with all her might. She draws her hand back in a hurry.
"It's all right now, it's passed. Gave us a good scare for a while but we got through the worst of the storm."
He has green eyes. That's the first thing she notices. He has eyes so green they can't possibly be real. He has a boyish smile and dimples. Dimples! She smiles back at him, amazed at herself. She's flirting. She's actually flirting with a green eyed American with dimples when only seconds before she thought she was going to die.
"First time?"
She gives him a quizzical look. He's a pretty one. Dazzling smile, long lashes, expensive suit but not flashy. Too bad he's not my type Alex thinks. Too smooth, too young, too pretty, too nice.
"First time flying?" He clarifies.
"Of course not!" She says, hoping he can't see the truth.
It isn't her first flight. There had been trips to Spain with Evan, school trips, a few days in Munich with an ex boyfriend for Oktoberfest. But it was her first time flying to the United States. A flight she had always hoped to take with her father. He'd promised to show her New York, together they would climb the bronze statue of Alice in Wonderland in Central Park; they'd eat cotton candy on Coney Island; he'd buy her a new dolly at FAO Schwartz. They would write postcards to Mum recounting their adventures. Alex sees these things in her head like a film made with a hand held camera. It all seems so real, so poignant, she can smell the leaves in the park; she can taste the ice cream and spun sugar.
But these things never happened. Tim and Caroline Price are dead. Only their charred remains were laid to rest in the cold earth. Alex attended their funeral holding her Godfather's hand; her new black shoes chaffed and her dress was scratchy grey wool. She remembers fidgeting uncomfortably trying to twist free from Evan's grasp. Looking for someone. Someone not close enough to see properly. Even now she cranes her head over the tops of seats and passenger's heads, automatically searching for that elusive figure, the habit ingrained. Was he her friend? Or was he the man who planted the bomb? She can't remember, no matter how many times she replays the scene in her head. No matter how many times she sees them die in her mind's eye. The explosion is reflected in the green eyes of the man sitting next to her. She flinches.
He notices. "Are you okay?" The man asks.
Alex nods. It's a lie; she isn't okay. The turbulence has shaken loose memories better left buried. And in one second she's been reduced to a nervy mess. That's nonsense though; no point burying memories. Alex, qualified as a psychologist, knows that. But why did they resurface now that she's finally free? Just as she's left Evan and began her life in earnest?
"Just had a bit of a shock, that's all." She tries to steady her voice. Why does she keep seeing them explode over and over and over again? The red balloon floating and the hand grasping her own as if leading her into a dance.
"You're fine now."
She looks down. He's holding her hand. Alex marvels at the intimacy for a good few seconds before pulling away. How dare he? She looks him straight in the eyes and lifts her chin.
"Yes. I'm fine now."
He has an honest look, a straight nose, nut brown hair that flops in his face somewhat, even his ears are nice. But there's something in the eyes, something sharp. Something old. What are you hiding green eyed American boy?
"What's your name?" He asks.
"Alex." Alex answers and pointedly doesn't ask him for his.
She thought, her first trip America, would be different: that she and her father would be driven from JFK to their New York hotel in one of those yellow taxis. She never thought she'd be flying to Washington DC, on her way to Langley, to take up a job. It is all so dreadfully exciting. Like a James Bond film. Except for the fact that she is staying with Aunt Carol, who arranged this job for her.
The thought of seeing Aunt Carol, who isn't her aunt at all but an old school friend of her father's, is daunting. They had last crossed paths at her parent's funeral and it hadn't been a pretty sight. Carol had been emotional, weeping openly and cursing Evan. At last the police had to escort her away. She still remembers the sight of glamorous Aunt Carol, her long dark hair streaming down her back, her nails painted bright red, being dragged bodily from the room by two policemen. They hadn't been in uniform, but all the same she knew what they were, one with curly hair and a moustache and the other slighter with brown hair. Alex curses her selective memory. It all seems like a puzzle she needs to solve in order to gain closure.
They land uneventfully at Dulles International Airport and Alex struggles towards Immigration in her new high heels, her hair coming loose from its silver hairclip. Carol will be waiting for her at Arrivals. Alex tries to paint a picture of her sixteen years on. Still stick thin and willowy? Still dressed in the latest Paris fashion? Her lips a stab of crimson in her pale face?
Will she approve of me? Alex thinks desperately. She stops to smooth the front of her suit and brush off the narrow skirt, both a conspicuous ruby red. She curses herself for not finding the time to colour her hair and have her fringe trimmed. Her natural dark blonde is hardly sophisticated.
"Hey, British girl!" Someone yells. Alex keeps moving.
"Alex!"
She stops. It's her fellow passenger. He isn't a tall man Alex realises, now that she sees him on his feet. But he holds himself well. There's something casually elegant about him. And a fluidness when he moves. Yes, he's shorter than Alex even without her heels; a twinge of disappointment tugs at her chest. He dips into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out his wallet; presses a square of paper into her hand: Daniel Davis. Accountant. And then a mobile telephone number.
"Call me sometime." His smile could light up the sky.