AN: Just a little thing that popped in my head over vacation. It's a little rambling, and not my best work, but I figured I should post it before the new episode.
Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: own nothing :(
Erased. Most things never truly are.
She knew this, and yet she fought this, just like she did in grade school. She went through countless erasers, diligently trying to erase any mistake. And yet, those erroneous lines never truly went away; they were etched forever on that smooth white surface, forever emblazoned with her faults and follies. The faint pencil marks could still be seen, even after the finest eraser's brushes.
Life was the same.
How many times had she tried and failed to erase the past?
It was almost a relief to come back to 1977. After all, she wasn't supposed to know any of these people. It was a daily challenge simply remembering not to wave at Sawyer (who was now Mr. LaFleur), not to seek Jack out in a group. It was a challenge not to mention the past. And in that, there was relief because by the end of the day, after working in the motor pool with Juliet, she was too exhausted from remembering to think about home and what she had left behind.
But as time wore on, she realized. It was all still there. She may have erased her past, but the new lines she was writing on the paper that was her life could hardly mask the indistinguishable lines that ran underneath.
The more she looked, the more apparent they were.
It happened one morning on the way to work. Amy, out with the baby. A group of women came from behind cooing at and tickling the child, and her heart nearly ripped open with the pain. Seeing this woman, reveling in the joys of motherhood, pushed all the buried emotions to the surface, and she could barely keep her composure long enough to turn around and walk back to her barrack. One lone person saw her, and he knew better than to come wipe away the tears that were now streaming down her face. He had tried before. But she saw the look on his face before she closed the door, and she knew he was concerned. That was enough for now. Just knowing he was there, even if she couldn't bear to see him.
On the way back to her barrack a couple nights later, she passed by Sawyer's porch as he sat in his chair nursing a beer. He called out to her retreating back, and as she turned, she didn't bother to hide the exhaustion clearly palpable in her features. He looked nervous or maybe startled (she didn't know him well enough anymore to tell the difference), and asked the one question she knew she never could answer.
What were you up to while you were back in the real world?
Where should I start, she thought. I raised the most beautiful sweet natured boy who called me 'Mommy' and he loved me for me, and not for who I was or who I could be, he just loved me, and it became easy to forget that he wasn't mine because he had always been there and he was there during the hardest times. He was there when I was acquitted of the murder charges. He was there when Jack left the first time, and then the second. He was there when I needed him most.
And Jack. What to say about him? I loved him. I love him. But every time I look at him, I see that bright good-natured boy. It's in a furrowed brow or a stubborn look, and then all I see is brilliant blue eyes, and I feel like a ton of bricks have fallen on my chest. Remembering what we had, just reminds me of what we no longer have.
But she can't say those things. So she says, "Nothing worth dwelling over" because she just wants it to be over, for life to hand her a new piece of paper.
It is two weeks later when she throws up for the first time. And she doesn't need to get a blood test to know what it's going to say. She just knows, and she wonders if this is a good thing. Is it something she wishes to erase?
That night, their last night there, she goes back there, and for once remembers the gentle way he held her after they made love, the way he cradled her in his arms and told her he loved her, the way he took her pain away if only for a minute.
She's suddenly filled with warmth as she places her hand to her belly and realizes that maybe life can bring new beginnings even if you thought the paper was too marred to write on.
Erased. Most things never truly are.
And sometimes, it's for the best.
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