Kaeylarae
Title: Kaeylarae
Author: Joey91
Rating: M for adult themes
Summary: Kaeylarae - the Angel of Peace. When does the world stop? What causes your heart to stop beating, your breath to stop flowing? What causes Cancer? What causes death? 6 months, 3 months, 2 weeks, 1 week, Mike.
Authors Note: Comments, good, bad and ugly are welcomed! This was me playing in third person. It was meant to be a page, clearly it took on a life of it's own. I'm worried it may be boring, but if you get to the end and are still alive and following the story, then drop a comment! Everyone you recognise, I have borrowed for the purpose of my own fun, everyone you don't, they belong to me. My mistakes are my own - I'll never be an English teacher so play nice! xo
When does the world stop? What causes your heart to stop beating, your breath to stop flowing? What causes your soul to drift into the sky, your body to lay on a concrete slab? What causes the leaves to fall from the tress, the rain to fall from the sky? What causes cancer? What causes death?
No matter how long you have to ponder these questions, the answers never come. What started with a simple why developed into a question of the universe. You still don't have the answer to either and you doubt you ever will.
The trees are rustling by the window – a storm must be brewing. The dog on the street begins to howl. The sound reaches your ears, even though the double glazed window of the fifth floor. The view looks out upon the harbour, but you never see the ships. You never watch the coloured sails of the commercial crafts catch flight in the wind, their material encasing it in their safety. You know what time to look away. You learnt what time they come in, what time they go out. You know their pattern, they work like clockwork.
You shut your eyes as you listen to the wind. Sometimes you swear you can hear voices on the breeze, but today there are no whispered conversations to be had. Even though the logical part of your mind tells you that they are only figments of your imagination, you still believe in some small way that they are real. Like the belief in Santa clause, even when you are thirty five years old and you know it was your mother that placed the gifts underneath the tree. Somewhere you still hold the hope that one Christmas you will wake up to find just a small box and some red and green wrapping paper at the base of a pine tree adorned with tinsel. The magical feeling that exists within yourself in the small seconds upon opening your eyes on Christmas morning quickly disappear when you realise that the tree remains empty yet again each year. But that feeling of hope never ceases to leave.
Hope is a fickle word. You sigh.
You leave your eyes shut for a moment, relishing in the enhanced sense of hearing that results. You can hear the breathing of the man in the room next door. In. Out. In. Out. You imagine his chest rising and falling, the corner of his eyes twitching. You can picture the grey wisps of hair that make up his moustache moving slightly with every breath. It is a reassuring sound. You've lost track of how many times you have seen someone who no longer possess the ability to live.
For a moment you wonder why. Then you realise you will never know the answer. Not then. Not now.
The door to your room opens. The hinge squeaks as the red haired lady walks in. You don't need to open your eyes to see the colour of her hair. It's Wednesday, 1400 hours. It's always Mabel. It's never anyone else on the afternoon tea run.
You hear her mutter a hello. You smile. What else can you say?
She places a tray on your table, drops the knife and fork that clang together in a distinctive metal sound as they reach the table top. You open your eyes. The smell of the food is too overpowering with the enhanced senses that prevail from shutting your eyes. You can feel your stomach churn. Not in a hungry way.
"Mabel." You hear yourself whisper. Your voice a haggard, rasping sound. A mere fragment of the once powerful one that only 12 months ago you still possessed. You remember the way in which people stopped and listened when you spoke, the way people looked at you as if you had something important to say. The way the younger ones hung on to every word you spoke as if it was the answer to the problems of the whole world. Once you put a student asked question into the exam to please the blonde haired girl that became your prodigy. The rest of the class complained. Loudly. Louise thanked you with the kind of smile that reminded you why you remained behind a desk and not at sea. She was promoted to Executive Officer last week. The invitation to her celebratory dinner still sits in your bedside draw. You didn't even bother to explain why you didn't make it. She wouldn't understand you reasoned at the time. You know in reality that she would.
Mabel, the red head, is looking at you as you break out of the impromptu reminiscing. "Bucket" you say simply as she nods knowingly. Hello again lunch.
"Feeling better Kate?" Mabel asked softly, but for a moment you don't realise that she is talking to you. Even though you know that Kate is the name gifted upon you by your mother at birth, it sounds so foreign to your ears. It sounds so normal. There is no rank in the name Kate. There is no symbol of the achievements that your career has bought you. How you wish Mabel could call you Ma'am or Commander. Right now you would even consider X as opposed to Kate. You haven't wished for that name in over two years. You haven't thought about it or heard it since you turned your back and walked away.
"Thank you." You say simply, signalling Mabel to remove the bucket and your mind to stop it's trip down memory lane. These trips are becoming more frequent, you realise, as you rest your head on the plump white pillows that are resting on the bed rest. Their softness encases your head, seemingly wrapping it in their safe arms. You feel lightheaded – not a new feeling – but not a pleasant one, even after all this time. You can feel your eyes drifting closed but you force them to remain open. You need to eat. After all, it tastes better the first time round, not the second.
You sigh. Again.
"Doctor Henderson wants to see you later this arvo." Mabel says as she walks towards the door. You nod slowly. A scheduled meeting with fate. For a moment you laugh. This is the man who told you 6 months ago you only had 3 months to live. You're still here, living, breathing, eating, spewing. Not what you would call living, but you are still alive. A much better prospect than many of the illegal foreign fishermen have that have crossed your path previously.
You inwardly curse yourself. Here you go again, romanticising about the past. It's only started in the last month. Ever since Lousies' invitation came in the mail. You still don't know how it reached you here, after all no one really knows you're here. Maybe the bean counters at the office sent it over, you figure as your fingers play with the end of the silk scarf tied around your head. Today it is pink, even though pink is your least favourite colour. The first day you needed it, you wanted white, but the only option was pink, grey or green, and you certainly didn't want to wear the latter of the two options – you're spent too long in them as it is.
"Kate?" it's a males voice this time. You must have fallen asleep, as the sun is lower in the sky. You look up towards the door, only to be greeted with the face of the balding Dr Henderson. You seem disappointed, but you can't place why. It's not like you were expecting anyone else. But that strange, niggling feeling of disappointment won't budge from around your heart.
Dr Henderson sits on the edge of the bed, making the springs squeak in opposition to the movement. It's not like they have moved much in the last few months – you weigh that little that you are sure that somedays you just float on top of the matress.
"How are you feeling Kate?" you hear him ask as you roll your eyes. You wonder whether or not at med school doctors have to pass a whole unit on asking how you are feeling. That's all they seem to do around here.
"Fine" you say, hoping that the simple one syllable word will cause him to shift uncomfortably and run away. It worked on the last man that you tried it on. He ran back to his one true love faster than was humanly possible. But in that moment you discover that Doctor Henderson is not like the captain.
"When my wife says fine, I know its code for either I've done something wrong, or the world is not fine. I'm inclined to believe that it is the latter." Dr Henderson says with a chuckle, but you don't see the funny side of what he is saying.
You stare at him. You watch as the light reflecting off the glass in the window catches the blue in his eyes. You notice how in this natural light, away from the harshness of the fluoro lighting in his inner city surgery, how his skin looks brown, old and tired. There is something of a leather looking quality about it.
You can feel his eyes looking at you, boring into your soul. You shift under his gaze, suddenly feeling uncomfortable beneath his stare. He is a man with a somewhat natural likeness about him – that's one of the reasons that you chose him over the oncologist that your GP recommended. That and his surgery was as far away from the harbour and the 'school' as one could possibly be. But right now, in this very second, you feel like he is the enemy. It's the way his eyes are looking at you, as if they know.
"If I hadn't have left, Swain would have noticed sooner." You find yourself whispering. For a moment you don't even recognise that it was you who uttered the words, as the small voice seems so foreign to your ears. Then you realise what you said. Swain. Chris Blake. A name you hadn't uttered, thought about in the past two years. What relevance would Swain have to Dr Henderson anyway, you wonder, as you mentally scold yourself for being so stupid. Stupid for not stopping your mouth from opening. Stupid for letting the thought that had been plaguing your mind for a little over a month, out into the open. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
You watch as the doctor smiles at you. You still don't know what is meant to be pleasant about this situation. "Swain. Now there's a name I haven't heard of in a while." The doctor says, as you give him a look that used to be reserved only for young, immature sailors who far too frequently found themselves trying to lie their way out of trouble. "I used to be Navy." Henderson says by way of clarity, and you feel your gaze softening slightly.
"Great" you mutter. Now you have something in common with the man. How are you supposed to hate a person that shares the universal bond of the sea?
"You always struck me as a big ship kind of person, but I swear there is a hint of patrol boat hiding away behind that fair skin of yours. That glare is definitely worthy of a young patrol boat Seaman."
And there he has it, you think to yourself. The man can see into your soul. You nod, all the while wishing that you could become a piece of paper and slide under the door and away from the kindly looking man whose eyes were shining brightly under the influence of fond memories that were most likely replaying in his mind.
"Hammersley. Cairns." You say softly, as you fiddle with the tissue in your hands. Small flakes of white land in your lap, as the tissue becomes a mangled mess. You glance at it, but make no move to clean it up.
"You're a long way from home."
"Yes."
"Bet this dreary Sydney weather is a bit strange."
"Yes."
"Moved down here for a promotion?"
"Yes."
"Miss it?"
"Yes." There, you've said it. You try to blame it on the rush of questions that share the same answer, but in reality, you know it's the truth. Lecturing doesn't have the same feel to it, as the ocean had below your feet. The buzz from a room full of students, eager to learn, is no match for the buzz of the galley, the adrenaline rush of a boarding. But as you clench your hands together in your lap, you know you had to leave. You still stand by your decision.
"How are you sleeping Kate?" You hear Dr Henderson ask. You seem content to let him believe there is no more to the story, but you know that he wants to ask why you left. Why Swain didn't notice your loss in appetite, you loss of spunk. Why it took a fainting spell in the middle of a lecture for you to go to the doctor. Why it took months after that for you to see the specialist. You can see the unasked questions in his eyes, but you appreciate the change in topic and grab the diversion with both hands.
"I'm not." You say simply.
"Nightmares?"
You pause. You know they aren't nightmares in the traditional sense, but to you they are much worse. They are images of the past that haunt your dreams. The devil inside your head that brings alive the near death experiences, is the reason for no nigh time slumber.
"Why do I see the past? Why now?" You find yourself asking, as you feel the tears brimming in your eyes. You don't mean to become an emotional wreck. This is the man that is going to tell you how long you have left on this Earth. You are meant to hate him. But there is now a bond that to everyone else seems tangible, but to you it is indestructible. You need to know why for almost two years you haven't given the Hammersley and her crew a second thought. When you walked away from that dock, your sea bag over your shoulder and the Captain casting a lone shadow along the deck, you never looked back. When you boarded the plane to Sydney and emailed Commander White saying you wouldn't be back, you had blocked out the last five years. A clean slate, you had promised yourself, and achieved that in the familiar surroundings of academia. Then as you lay somewhat on your death bed, his face reappears and plagues the only pain free moments of your day.
"You're not at peace Kate. You have unfinished business."
You laugh. You scoff. Unfinished business indeed! Everything that needed saying had been said on the bridge that day. It's over. It will never work. You love the ship more than me. You remember the words as if they were spoken moments ago. You selfish bastard. You ran away. You broke my heart. Again. There was screaming, you remember. Then a resolve. To take the position in Sydney, leave the patrol boat, Mike and the hurt behind. Everything that needed to be said, was said that day. You know that.
"Do you ever see them? Every month I have dinner with my crew. Even now."
You shake your head. You hadn't really thought of them before you were diagnosed, let alone sat down to dinner."
"You can't tell me that you worked on a patrol boat and the crew didn't become like family?" Henderson prodded as you feel the deep seated anger bubble to the surface. Of course they were family, you want to yell, but the amount of required energy is something you no longer posses. Instead you simply bow your head and focus on tearing the remaining tissue into thin strips.
"Kate, it's not good news." Henderson says, as if seemingly trying another tact. But you barely hear him. All you can think of is them. The memories that invade the dark of night appear in the light of day and there is no way you can stop them. Somewhere deep inside you, you don't want to stop them. But then you feel bad, ashamed. For two years you have worked so hard to construct the barriers that destroyed any thoughts, any feelings, any emotion towards your former crew. While in the rose tinted view of today you realise that blocking the entire crew out was harsh, you remember why – it was easier. Easier to pretend that none of them existed, rather than trying to ignore the constant reminders of him, that memories of them conjured up. It was simply easier.
"Two weeks Kate. At most." Dr Henderson says, and you feel the words hitting you brain. They hurt. You feel the bottom of your stomach drop. You feel empty. Two weeks. What can you achieve in two weeks? You were meant to be married by now, with a dog, a mortgage, a family even. You were meant to be the CO of a patrol boat. CO of the Hammerlsey. You were meant to have been overseas. Tahiti specifically.
You nod. "Thankyou." And you look away. You glance back towards the doctor, memories of the past still shinning in his eyes. You can't help but see him in the older man. Him. You can't even speak his name. Dr Henderson sees you looking back and he smiles. A sad kind of smile. You find this odd – he's told more people than you that they have a couple of weeks left to live. But there is something in his eyes, in the way his mouth sits, the way he tilts his head in your direction.
"I never thought we would have this conversation." He says simply, as you remember how he told you that you had three months left. Six months ago. You smile slightly, the corner of your mouth rises towards your eye. You know you have to fight. In fact you didn't really take in what he said – you plan on being around long enough to get out of the hospital and mark your classes final exams. Even though Commander Goult has taken the lectures, you want the exam. There is something strangely satisfying about sitting at the front watching the calm and the overly stressed students hunched over their paper. It really is more of the fact that you wrote it and aren't sitting it.
"See you in three months." You say and hear a chuckle in return as the doctor shuffles his paperwork into his brief case. He stands to leave, but pauses as his hand closes around the door handle.
"Would you like to go out on the water?" He asks, surprising himself and you. "I've got a little run about, down at the harbour. Actually you can see it from here, the little green one." He points towards the window to your side. You look at the clock, almost 18:00. They come in at 18:00. You don't look out the window, You can't.
Dr Henderson stares at you, his arm falling limp by his side as he realises that you aren't looking where he was pointing. "I just thought you might like to feel the swell again, but since I was mistaken." He trails off and you realise you are being unfair to the man who is only trying to help. But you can't force your head to move.
"I'm sorry." You whisper, unsure of whether or not he heard. Unsure whether or not you said it, or just thought you did. But the Doctor nods back in your direction and shuts the door behind him.
You look down at your hands. Your fingers are thin, the bones stick out more noticeably than ever before. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the reflection of the lamp by your bedside. Your face is sucked in, hollow ever. Your skin colour has a strange yellow tinge to it and your eyes are black. You run your hand up your arm, across the ball of your shoulder and along your collar bone. You repel your hand in disgust the moment your fingertips touch the protruding bone. You didn't realise that you had gotten so thin.
At that moment you realise that maybe you will die in two weeks.
The phone rings. You jump. The phone never rings. Slowly, you reach over and pick it up, silently praying that in the time it takes you to reach it, the person on the other end will have hung up. But as your fingers close around the cordless phone by your lamp you realise that you will have to answer it. For a moment you freeze. You haven't answered the phone in almost ten months. What button do you press?
The phone stops ringing.
Just as you are about to put it back it starts again. The person on the other end really must want to speak to you. You hit the button with the picture of the phone on it and with a click the line opens.
You don't even get the chance to say hello before a voice comes down the line.
It's a female's voice. It sounds familiar but you can't place it.
"Kate. It's Maxine. Maxine White."
You groan inwardly. You've just been told you have two weeks to live and then she rings. If it's an invite to THEIR wedding, you don't want to know.
"Listen Kate, it's the 20th anniversary of the 'original' Hammersley and we're having a ceremony to mark it. I'm trying to get all her old crew together, I can add you to the list can't I?"
"When is it?" You ask, more out of courtesy rather than genuine interest. After all genuine interest from her is lacking. Surely when you get the direct line for a hospital ward you ask how the person it doing, don't you?
"22nd. Three weeks from now."
"I'm sorry I can't make it. In three weeks, I'll be dead." With that, you hang up the phone and take it off the hook. You know she'll ring back.
A week has ticked by. You constantly keep looking at the calendar on the far wall. You can't really read the dates anymore – they are simply a blur. But you know it's been a week, you can still see the lines that make up the boxes and the big red cross that marks the day that you are meant to be dead. It's only there to show Doctor Henderson in 3 months time.
You shut your eyes. A dog howls from down below. The door to your room opens. The hinge squeaks as the red haired lady walks in. You don't need to open your eyes to see the colour of her hair. It's Wednesday, 1400 hours. It's always Mabel. It's never anyone else on the afternoon tea run.
You wait for the smell of afternoon tea to hit your senses, while you mentally prepare yourself for lunch to come back up. These days you have more coming up than staying down. But the smell never comes. You open one eye – your left – as you wait for the metal knife and fork to clang together as they hit the table. The room remains silent. You open both eyes.
He's standing there.
You jump and scamper across the mattress to the other side of the bed. It's only a single bed, so the distance between you and the man standing half way across the room, doesn't increase much, but it's the act, the movement that makes a difference. You can see it on his face.
It's not the same face you remember. Even in the ten years between Watson Bay and Hammersley, you could still recall every laugh line, every crease when he frowned. It looks strange now. You don't realise you are staring until he opens his mouth. But he doesn't say anything. Just shuts it again.
"You look tired. You look like you haven't slept in months." you whisper, the silence rapidly getting on your already frazzled nerves. The fact that you can see him standing there makes you question your mental state. The silence was only compounding the angst.
"Two years. I haven't slept in two years."
"Oh."
Then silence. Again.
He's still standing there when the door opens and Mabel comes in. She looks at you worriedly - you never have visitors. You smile, reassuringly that she doesn't have to remove him. Yet as soon as she shuts the door, you want to call her back in.
He's still standing there when dinner comes.
He's still standing there when the dinner dishes are collected.
He's still there to witness you bring it all back up again. At least he has the dignity to turn away.
Then as the nurses do their final rounds before the lights go out, and as the last light in the top window of the university library across the street dims, he speaks.
"I didn't know." He says softly and you roll your tired eyes.
"No one does. That is the point. The world doesn't need to know I'm dying." You say, bitterness evident with every syllable. But he shakes his head undeterred.
"That you were leaving. You could have told me. No one knew. I went round to your place every day, I rang you, left messages on your machine. I almost broke your window to see if something had happened. Then I get the message for sea and I turn up at Navcom and Maxine is introducing me to our new XO."
In the hours that he was standing staring, you were waiting for this. There was only two possible reasons he would come all this way, one, to see you before you died and two, to ask the question that you had waited two years for. Clearly, you know this man too well.
"Dutchy knew." You saw the anger that flickered behind his eyes. It didn't last long, but it was there.
"Dutchy knew, but you couldn't tell me. You're..." Then he halted
"You're what Mike? Girlfriend? Lover? Ex? Floozy? What was I to you Mike? A chance to relive your younger years?"The anger flashes again. Then it's replaced. Shades of hurt, of sadness cloud his eyes.
He mutters something inaudible but you don't press him to repeat it. If he wanted you to hear it, he could have spoken louder.
"He saw me at the airport. He was picking up his sister." You say, as way of explanation. You're somewhat pleased that Dutchy managed to keep your secret just that, as he had promised. You never imagined that he wouldn't have told soul. "He came up to me and picked up my luggage without saying a word, just carried it to the check in and then walked with me to the gate. He was so happy – excited to see his sister, excited I was going on a holiday." You say with a sad smile, as you remember the look on his face as he came bounding up to you that day. "He asked me where I was going, whether I was going for the whole two weeks of shore leave. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't a holiday." You look over at Mike before continuing. "I just left him holding my luggage and said I needed to go to the bathroom before I boarded. Gave him my tickets to hold. I didn't get more than a few steps away before he called out. He'd read them of course."
You can feel Mike looking at you, staring at you. There are unanswered questions shinning in his eyes and this forces you to continue – no matter how much you don't want to.
"He knew about you. Us. For one of the Navy's biggest womanisers, he really was a true romantic that day. He wanted us to work. He wanted me to be CO. He wanted you to get the shore posting. He wanted to see us off to Tahiti, not me off to Sydney. I had to beg him not to tell anyone. You or the crew. " You say, realising for the first time that if Mike still has contact with Dutchy, that your confidant will be in big trouble in the not too distant future.
"You hurt them, you know." Mike says and you nod. You know this was coming. It was after all the hardest part of your decision. "You killed little Bird. She looked up to you so much. One day you where there, a constant reminder as to what she could achieve, why she was in the job. Then you were gone." You gulp. You're not sure whether it is the tiredness or the internal pain that is making a lump rise up your throat. You want to ask whether she stayed, but you're too scared of the answer. "She stayed." Mike says, answering your question. He can still read your mind, after all this time. "You might have been a big ship person, but you killed the team. You broke us in half. You were the glue that kept us all together, like it or not."
Here it was. The guilt trip. But instead of making you feel bad, it creates anger deep within. It's not just your fault. But Mike doesn't give you the chance to yell, to scream, he just continues with his rant, barely taking a breath at all.
"I remember that day. I gathered the crew on the bridge and introduced Rommie Mitchell as the new Executive Officer. She's Italian, fiery, passionate. But she's not you."
And that is when you break. You feel the tears start rolling down your face. Then you feel your shoulder quiver and your head finds its way towards your chest. Even now he doesn't understand. The tears are not solely of pain, but mixed with a large amount of hurt, of anger, of frustration.
"You could have left." You say as your hand without the drip brushes away the tears that draw streaks across your cheeks.
"I did. I went to Fleet Command. I organised to go. Then you up and said it was over. A month later you were gone. You would have hated me if I had followed you."
Somewhere deep inside you, you know it's true. No matter how much you wanted to see him walk through the door, or see his name calling your phone, you still would have hated him. A different city wasn't enough to solve the problems between you both.
There is silence, and you realise you are letting him win. But the strength that has kept you awake this long has begun to fade and you feel your body slipping down the pillows. You put your hand n the mattress – a feeble attempt to keep you in a sitting position.
He notices and in a matter of seconds he has closed the gap between where he was and your bed. You feel his strong hands at your hips and you wonder why it took a sign of weakness for him to come closer. After all, you can't be Rapunzel when you have no hair.
He sits you up and you breathe in his scent. Instantly it calms the racing butterflies in your stomach that have developed as a result of his proximity. You realise that after all this time his presence is still intoxicating. Intoxicating enough to no longer feel any pain.
"Sleep Kate. You need your sleep." He says softly, backing away. In that moment you think it is all a vivid dream. He is stepping away, running away. Again. But instead you are pleasantly surprised when he collapses his form into the armchair by your bed – his long limbs crumpled in a position that can only give pain.
For a moment you think he has muttered the word sorry, but you can't be sure. You would like nothing more than to believe that he had said the word that you wanted him to say. Love was too much. Sorry was a start.
As he shuffled in his seat, your eyelids drift closed, and the fitful sleep that you are so accustomed to seemed as far away as your beloved ship. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, you are able to sleep – with the angel of peace by your side.