A sad drabble inspired by Carrie Underwood's Wine After Whiskey. There is a major character death mentioned, and this is a Lassiet piece. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
PsychPsychPsychPsych
"I miss you."
Juliet O'Hara opened her blue eyes, and once again, she was alone in her apartment. In front of her, there was a bottle of wine and a glass that was half-empty. Fresh tears filled her eyes as she grabbed the bottle instead of the glass and took a long drink.
Everywhere she looked in her apartment, there were little reminders of him. Pictures, a Clint Eastwood movie mixed in her DVD collection, and even one of his beers sitting in her refrigerator. They were all small things, but she couldn't bring herself to get rid of them. She just couldn't.
There was a faint whisper in her head, but after another drink of the wine, it was gone, replaced by a numb sensation in her entire body. For a week straight, she had been coming home from work, pulling off her gun, and drinking from the bottle. Then she would stumble into her bedroom and collapse into the bed that they used to share. The scent of him still lingered on the sheets, but it was growing more faint every day.
Everyone had been tiptoeing around her at work, even Shawn and Gus. They treated her like she was made of fine china, like she would break at the slightest touch. But she wanted to scream at them to act normal, to be normal. She wanted everything to go back to normal, but most of all, she wanted this pain to stop. It was torture, but it reminded her that he had been there, that he had loved her, even for a brief time. And she wasn't sure that she was ready to let go of that.
She knew she wasn't.
Suddenly enraged, Juliet stumbled to her feet and began tearing pictures off the walls. Glass shattered around her, slicing into her skin, but she didn't feel it. The pain in her heart was all-encompassing, devouring her and drowning her in her own grief.
Once the haze faded and she had used up all of her energy, Juliet found herself standing in the midst of the wreckage that was her life. A tear slid down her cheek as she leaned over and retrieved a single photograph from the shards of glass.
His handsome face smiled up at her, along with her own. Two weeks ago, she had been happy. Two weeks ago, her world had been right. Now she was lost and broken, desperately trying to hang on and not really sure that she really wanted to.
Clutching the picture to her chest, she dragged herself into her bedroom and collapsed into the bed she had shared with him for such a short while. She could barely smell him on the sheets, and fresh tears of grief and rage spilled down her cheeks.
Her world had stopped spinning two weeks ago, and snippets of conversations began racing through her head against her will.
"…he's got a gun!"
"Get out of the way! O'Hara…"
"Carlton… Oh, God, hang on…"
"Love…you…"
"…sorry…did everything we could…too much blood loss…"
She sobbed and curled into herself, clutching the picture of the two of them to her chest. It wasn't fair. They had been together for a month before that tragic day, and it wasn't nearly enough. They should have had a lifetime together. But he had sacrificed his life to save hers, and now she was alone and lost.
Reaching into the nightstand by her bed, she pulled out a velvet ring box that she had found while she was going through his papers and planning his funeral. He had wanted to propose to her, and the ring was even inscribed.
I'll forever love you, my Juliet.
Finding the ring had been both exhilarating and crushing. He had wanted to marry her, and she had never gotten the chance to say yes to him.
"I would have said yes, Carlton," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. She pulled the ring out of the box and slid it onto her left hand. It fit her perfectly, and a fresh wave of grief slammed into her as she reached for the Glock that she kept in the nightstand. The metal was smooth and familiar in her hand, and the weight of it was comforting.
Carlton was gone, and the grief was so overwhelming, so suffocating that she knew she would never recover from the loss of him.
She sniffled, running her thumb lightly over the cold metal.
"I love you, Carlton."
Once you've tasted a love that strong
You can't go back and you can't settle on
Anything less, and that's what gets me
It's like having wine after whiskey
The End.
A/N: I had tears in my eyes after writing this. I purposefully left the ending open, so interpret it as you will. This is a oneshot, and I don't think I'll be adding any more to it. Thank you for reading, and please review!