Title: "Weep Not For The Memories" 1/1
Author: Mala
Fandom: GH
Rating/Classification: PG-13, angst, Skye/Coleman-ish.
Disclaimer: Not my characters!
Summary: A filler ficlet. Who helps Skye through Lila's passing? How does she find out?
He sees it in the morning paper. The picture of the old lady, the
headline saying she was beloved and will be missed...that she passed,
quietly, in her sleep. And then, as he's crumpling up the newsprint and
about to toss it in the trash, he remembers...
He kissed her hand once.
In the middle of a fancy party, he knelt down and took her liver-spotted
hand in his and her grip was gentle. Her eyes twinkled when she looked
up at him. She blushed. She was beautiful. For a split second, he felt
like he was, too. Like he was a nice guy, somebody who belonged in her
world, in her living room.
And, for a split second, he saw Skye.
He saw the way he wanted Skye Quartermaine to look at him.
He wonders if she even knows her granny is dead.
He wonders and, ten minutes later, he's got his jeans from the night
before on and he's grabbing his keys off the coffee table. He stumbles
out to the car, slams the door shut, and kicks up the engine. He wonders
as he takes the road out north to Pentonville, the newspaper smoothed
out on the passenger seat, its pages blowing back and forth in the warm
breeze coming through the windows.
He saw that in the paper, too. That she was convicted. Twenty years in
the can. He hasn't visited her. He doesn't think she'd want that.
Instead, he's had a couple dozen fantasies about her soaping up in the
prison showers. Since he's not a nice guy and all. Since she probably
looks fantastic in blue coveralls and out of 'em. Since he's not
supposed to miss her and not supposed to care.
But he wonders.
So, he parks in the visitors' lot and locks the door even though his
piece of crap car was up on blocks for ages and a twelve-year-old could
break into it if they wanted. He signs in and gets himself a pass and
tells the smarmy pencil-pusher at the window who he's here to see.
"Are you family?" asks the officious snot.
He wonders if her family called at all. Either one.
He doubts it. "I'm her..." 'Friend' doesn't seem right. 'Lover'? Hell
no. "I'm all she's got," he murmurs, finally, remembering telling her
that a long time ago.
It's amazing how he remembers details like that.
Like how she smelled like cucumber melon spray hastily spritzed on over
a layer of vodka...and how, one night, in his arms, she whispered,
"Besides AJ, Lila is the only one in that house who loves me...but she
loves everybody."
He doesn't know what that's like. He's never loved anybody, much less
everybody. But he lets Pentonville swallow him up. The doors make a
metallic noise as they slide open...as he walks into the stupid room
with the stupid plexiglass and the phones. He visited his bookie on the
men's side once. A crappy place to talk about the ponies. An even worse
place to talk about death.
The minute he sees her, he knows she knows.
Maybe she saw the same headline.
Maybe somebody told her in the caf line.
Maybe the Drs. Q called.
Maybe she just knows in her soul.
Her eyes are red, but the rest of her is pale and her lips are bitten
through. She looks wasted...but he knows it isn't from booze. It's from
crying. Probably up in her cell where nobody could see her. And she
wiped her face on the scratchy blanket and told Bertha in the bunk below
to mind her own business.
"Why are you here?" She doesn't pick up the stupid phone. He can read
her lips clearly. He always could...
He throws a pleading glance to the guard. A hefty woman who looks like
the scary maid chick from the mansion. Must be a taste of home for Skye.
"Come on..." He tries the charm. "Please...?"
"Go away, Coleman," Skye mouths, and he knows her voice sounds like
she's a two pack a day smoker even though she's never lit up in her
life.
She doesn't get her way.
Big Alice's second cousin grabs him by the arm and takes him through
another reinforced door with her security card. And then he's on the
other side of all the barriers. All the barriers but the one that
counts.
She closes her eyes, like she can shut him out that way. Her nails are
bitten down, too, and they're still going to cut into her palms. But he
was right...she looks fantastic in blue.
"Skye..."
"No. No, it's not true." Barely a whisper. And that's all.
He catches her as she crumples into the chair. He kneels down at her
feet and takes her hand and his grip is gentle.
Her eyes don't twinkle. They bleed.
She's still beautiful.
He'll never wonder about that.
--end—
July 15, 2004.