We're Miles Adrift, We're Inches Away
It hung between them. She could feel It, depending on so much, just there, across the table, between them in bed, the space where they sat next to one another on the couch. Everything began anew, when he mentioned It.
She looked at him more softly again. The light as it hit his soft brown hair, now speckled with grey, the new creases at the corners of his eyes, the tenderness of his smile and the gentleness of his hands; Gentle. Not a word she had ever though she would use to describe him. Passionate, driven, intense, but not gentle. Now, the tenderness was in the way he touched her waist in the mornings when they made breakfast together, in his fingers brushing a strand of her hair from her eyes, and then trailing down her cheek. Gentle. Because of It.
The Hospital were she worked as a pediatrician was as dreary as the winter scenery; Virginia was not a very cheerful place any time of year, so she begged his gentle self for a vacation, somewhere warm and vibrant as her own hair had once been. "But we need you here," Her colleague had complained. "I'm going on sabbatical. I need some time,"
They sat together in a rowboat. She was sprawled at one end, and he sat across from her, gentle hands and strong arms rowing steadily against the current. Her touchstone. He was her island in a lonely sea. And maybe that was the problem. Because even islands couldn't keep the tides from washing them away. "Anything you want," He had said when she asked to go away for a while. "Anything," His tone was earnest and it had tugged at her relentlessly.
Before they had left, she had pulled her swimsuit out of the bottom drawer of the clothes chest that they shared. One strap was coming off, hanging by a thread. Holding it, she had dropped onto the bed, her legs unable to support her weight. Shocked tears ran down her face and it was an hour before she had strength enough to stand and pull out her meager sewing kit. She had cried again where there was no thread in her collection to match the suit. Knowing how silly a thing it was to cry over only made things worse.
He had found her there, on the bed, holding the suit and unthreaded needle, sobbing uncontrollably, and he took her hand, his roughly calloused thumb rubbing light circles on the top of her hand.
"Maybe we can get you a new one yet?" He asked her, less than confidently.
Not trusting herself to speak, for fear that It would push it's way between them again, she shook her head 'no', and picked up the needle, threaded pure white through the eye and began to loop it through the broken strap seam over and over again, her hands practiced and sure, sewing both swimsuit and bodies with equal ease. He sat next to her on the bed, as silent as she. She could feel It creeping into the room.
Healer, Heal Thyne Self.
The vacation was nearing over and they lay on that last night in the unfamiliar bed, no covering save for the sheen of sweat from the humidity, with It resting /unruhe/ anxiously between them when she finally spoke. "I don't want to go back to Virginia,"
They weren't facing one another. She was on her side, looking out the window with wide blue eyes at the moon shining in. He was on his back, next to her, spread eagle, but when she spoke, he rolled, spooning her, covering the distance where It had made it's bed. She felt both empty and loved all at once, when one of his arms comes to rest over her frame and he used the other to prop himself up beside her.
"So where do you want to go?"She wondered how she could feel so empty with him beside her. She wondered in that moment, if he felt it too.
"Not back to Virginia. Not back to that hospital. I can't-" Her voice broke, and she settled herself closer to him, yearning to bridge the gap where It was, even though the movement resulted in the sticky discomfort that came from such closeness in a tropical environment. How long since they had held each other like that? "Somewhere without snow, right now,"
He let out a bark of laughter with a sort of quiet loudness, mysteriously muted by the sounds of nature coming from their open window. It was out of place. Had she looked up, she thought, she would have been able to see the hollow mirth in his glassy eyes. They were both empty. She wondered why it had taken her so long to realize it.
"So, somewhere without snow, right now, that's a hard criterion to meet. How about somewhere without memories?" He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead in a languid manner, his lips lingering in feather soft contact with her heated skin.
"Okay," she conceded. The emptiness clawed at her insides like a starving child. There was silence for a minute. Two. It might have even been hours, the silence felt so heavy between them.
"Do you want to talk about It? " His voice was so soft that she hardly heard the question, afraid it was only in her head.
In a small voice, she answered "Do you?"
Once, she had gone to get him for dinner, and he usually noticed her come up behind him, or standing in the door of his office and would acknowledge her presence. That day, he did not even flinch. It was the first time she had seen him cry in a very long time. That had been a bad day for both of them.
She felt a drop fall on her naked shoulder, and he rolled over onto his back again. It was firmly protesting between them, then. The wind kicked up a particular gust and the scent of vegetation and saltwater was harsh and jarring. She shivered...
rolled over, putting her arm out and pulling him to her. He complied and their foreheads touched in an intimacy that they had not shared for years. It had pressed against the empty spaces of both their hearts in that moment. He blinked, eyelashes clumped beautifully with the wetness of his tears; she pressed gentle kisses to his eyes. So many of their conversations had been held in utter silence over the years, yet it was the important things which they both needed and refused to speak aloud.
The words always congealed in their throats like blood.
It's blood.
"Let's talk,"
In the morning, the went for one last swim and he rowed the boat around the bay at her whim. Her swimsuit strap had held strong, and she was happy, even though the thread was the wrong colour and anyone who looked could tell that she had attempted to patch it. But they would also know that it had held together.
They were on their flight home to Virginia when he whispered in her ear. "You find our new house, and I'll take care of the memories,"
She smiled at him, and for once she put out her hand, tender and gentle, so like he, to caress his cheek, which was smooth from shaving that morning.
"We'll take care of the memories together, both old and new," He had the window seat, but she knew from the expression on his face that he thought the best view in the world was his view of her.
"Together," he intoned, and smiled. And for once, his eyes were smiling too, holding no trace of the melancholy with which she associated bother her own smiles and his.
On the space between their seats, It sat comfortably, warm and at rest /ruhe/.
He covered her dainty hand his his and squeezed.
Together.
Song is Broken by UNKLE
X-Files belongs to 1013 and Chris Carter