A/N: First of all, many thanks to Mrs. Eyre for her help with this.
As for the story itself, I felt very inspired by the whole season 6 - "Luka on a boat" thing and what went on between him and Sam and Abby/Jake in the 11th season. I very much enjoyed writing this, probably more than what I've previously written, because I guess the whole doom and gloom with a very happy ending is the closest to my heart.
1. Luka
He had bought a leather jacket yesterday; came home, tried it once again then dumped it in the wardrobe. She knew he had been shopping, so when she came home, she asked whether she could see what he got. He took out the jacket and showed it to her, not making a big deal out of it. She checked it, turned it inside out and, eyebrows raised, she told him it was a fake. He frowned and looked at it again, surprised. He bought other things from that store and he knew those were the real deal. So how could that one be a fake? It couldn't be a fake; he picked it up all by himself, he did so many times before and he had never been wrong. He blamed everything on going with the flow, on choosing "because it's nice and it looks good and it makes him feel good so it doesn't matter if it's not that warm". But this time…he never failed when buying a piece of clothing. He could always point out the difference between the imitation and the real one. How could it be fake? And mostly, he bought it from a well known store, a store he used to shop a lot in. He had never been wrong; that store had never failed him. And yet that was a fake. She laughed at him and threw it on the bed, joked about his age, said that he's getting old. Then she took a deep breath and picked it up again, measuring it with her eyes. She told him that, growing up, she never had the real thing; with her, fake was the next best thing. Fake clothes, fake fathers, fake friends and fake boyfriends. For her, that was the normal way so he shouldn't have made such a big deal about it. It was just a jacket and a nice one and no one could ever know anyway and it looked so good on him that he'd be a fool not to wear it.
"But I know", he said, a bit disappointed by his choice. It wasn't so much the jacket itself as it was the feeling that he had liked something so much, was sure of it, sure of his instincts, only to be proved wrong.
"Hey, these things don't last long, anyway. Wear it a couple of times so you won't feel bad about the money and you can buy a new one soon. I don't think you'll get to wear it more than…I'd say five or six times. Be a Good Samaritan again and its life expectation will be even lower. Trust me. I know these things", she smiled and kissed him, run her fingers through his hair and took off her bathrobe.
He threw a ball at the boy and made a few jokes, smiled and kissed her softly took another sip of coffee and headed for the door. It was his turn to give him a ride to school and afterwards, he'd be dropping her off at work before heading for the superstore, because they were out of milk and beer and maybe he would even pick up those cereals that she loved so much but tasted like a wash cloth to him.
When he got back home, he put everything in the fridge or the cupboard, turned the TV off when he realized that she had forgotten it was on, on some random channel, because he didn't appreciate the same reality shows as she, although it didn't bother him and sometimes he even teased her with it, until she said something rude and then he just smiled, turned around and pretended it hadn't happened. He had a few more hours until he had to leave, he was on tonight and he liked doing graveyard because it was more quiet then, not because there were fewer patients, but there was something about being wide awake while everybody slept that gave him some sort of comfort.
So he picked up a few clothes randomly thrown on the couch and, well, almost everywhere, without realizing they were all hers, all thrown on his very perfectly arranged, expensive but slightly uncomfortable furniture, like invading him, like it was the only way she could get to him, because even if he had let her have control, she would never control him and he didn't even notice that it was so very easy, even for the inexperienced eye who knew nothing about them, about their relationship, to figure out which things were his and which were hers, of course, counting out the clothes.
The boy was at school and she was at work and he had thought about cooking for tonight because he still had time but he wasn't that domestic in this life and remembered that they were a modern couple who would get some take out or go out and the boy liked pizza anyway and he took into consideration the first and only time he had tried to cook for them something traditional and how they ended up ordering Chinese because she hadn't been into lessons about cultural differences, as she'd much rather eat a few burgers, with a beer or two and ask him why he would go to all that trouble when the easy way out was just a phone call away, to which he'd replied that he had wanted to do something for them and he'd got a quip in return.
He took a shower and for the first time in a long time he saw his life, this life, very simple and if someone were to ask him about future plans, like getting married, and not just in general, but to her, he'd just look confused and smile in a devilish way, maybe look away and be a little embarrassed because, frankly, he didn't really think about next week or next month, which was weird because the last time he was part of an 'us' he had always planned and over analyzed and it wasn't like he was taking one day at a time, it had just never occurred to him that things would be changing, either for better or worse.
But wasn't it weird that 'us' was actually 'them' and 'him' and no matter how often he closed his eyes, he could never pictured all of them as a whole, as part of the same entity?
He did think about having kids with her however, but to be honest he thought about her being the mother of his child which wasn't necessarily the same thing. So if that meant he had thought about their future, or his future with her, then yes he had.
He got used to living fast, smoking and drinking without anyone telling him that it's wrong and he should stop – and even if they had, he would've just frowned and left, because the nights were cold and days were colder and these were his blankets - but why did it feel that he was living someone else's life? This wasn't in the plan, even if he never had a long term one, well, not even a short term one, since he never thought that he would be a sleepwalker, mainly because he had never had that sort of trouble before. Trouble sleeping, yes, but how could he be a sleepwalker when he was wide awake?
He used to drift away, not staying in one place long enough for them to get it, not ever daring to think that his life might one day be about more than polishing the boat and making small talk with those in charge of security in countless ports and some others who used their boats for leisure and thought he was so cool, looked up to him and told him how much they envied him for being an independent spirit and added with a very confiding tone that if it hadn't been for the wife and two, three or even five kids, they would've done the same thing, because they hated their job and that lousy routine and dinner table conversation. One of them had even told him a secret, how sometimes he woke up wishing he could have gotten back the last ten or twenty years of his life, without being sure that if, given the chance, he would've made the same choices and sacrifice liberty for a family life, but didn't quite manage to finish that thought because his wife called him and she was angry because he was supposed to drive her mother to the dentist's and pick up the cake for their second daughter's sixth birthday, but he forgot and came to see his real 'baby' instead. So when he got back to his car and looked back once more feeling nostalgic, he had told him how lucky he was for having his freedom and that maybe he would've liked to trade places with him for a while, to get that wild feeling of liberation back.
He didn't answer but smiled instead and nodded and wished the man his best and looked at him pulling out his cell phone and starting to yell, at his wife probably, not because she did something wrong, but mostly because she was there and handy and it was easier for him to let everything out at her. And afterwards, he got back on the prow and looked up at the sky, wondering how long it was going to be before the blue would be turning grey and he would be needing to go again, since he had had one too many conversations anyway and it wasn't really worth sticking around to hear another nameless face tell him how much he was envied.
And soon the night would come and he'd lie outside with a book and a beer and sometimes look at the sky again and see Ursa Major and the Northern Star shining brightly and he'd know that even if there was only water around, as long as his compass pointed toward the North, that was the only direction he needed, because although he was, he didn't feel stuck between two variables, he didn't need a ground to hold on to, because water and sky are never-ending, while earth could be shattered.
He closed the door of the medicine cabinet and was somehow surprised by the image in the mirror. He shook his head and tried to forget those times and pretended those had been part of a long dream, even though he sometimes had wished he could've gotten just a hint that he was still alive and awake and not just walking in his sleep and dreaming of times when he would no longer be needing to tell her what he thought, she'd know in an instant; and he blamed everything on moving too fast and not thinking through, but he had no regrets and said to himself that this was the way things were meant to be.
He chose a shirt and a tie to go with it and remembered her words about dressing up and going through all that trouble for a bunch of people who mostly kept their eyes closed and others who really didn't care, to which he always responded that he wasn't 'dressed up' and didn't even care about what they thought, he just did it for himself and that he didn't notice he had a certain posture.
He picked up the keys again and headed for the door and hoped that tomorrow morning when he'd be back home, they'd be awake and the apartment would be alive, only that every time he went out he wished he'd come back to laughter and noise and not the kind powered by electricity, although each time he entered the door he thought to himself that there must've been something wrong with the heat again, because he had gotten an uneasy feeling.