Until I Cry
by Dream Painter
Time frame: Late Season 3, post-Sunday
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The music washes over me again, causing me to draw in a breath and hold it. My surroundings lose focus as the mournful tune echoes through my mind and I want to cry—to cry until there's no strength left in me... but the tears won't come.
"Lieutenant?" I blink a time or two to find Sergeant Landess staring politely back at me.
"What?" I snap, annoyed that he would look at me in such a way.
"You stopped in the middle of what you were saying... again," he tells me, his tone soft and respectful, concern in his brown eyes. "Ma'am..."
"I'm going to my quarters to rest," I cut in. "Fill in for me." With that, I push past him, unwilling to allow him to ask that question that I've already been asked a million, no, a trillion times. I accidentally bump shoulders with the source of my sudden reverie—one of the new techs. He apologizes but I just scowl back at him. Every time he opens his mouth in my presence, I find myself resenting him, because every time I hear his accent, I can't help but think about...
I reach the safety of my quarters, sinking down onto the bed and closing my eyes in the hope that the Daedalus' steady hum will cause everything else to vanish from my mind. It's a futile effort, as it only allows that damned song to play my head uninterrupted. I cover my ears, as though that will make it stop. It doesn't.
"Why?" I scream angrily. "WHY??" My pillow flies into the opposite wall before I realize I had even thrown it. As I rest my hand on the bed side table, my finger brushes against the corner of a rectangular object. I pick it up and gaze at it. The picture frame had been turned face down when I could no longer bear to look at it anymore; when I could no longer bear to be reminded every time I entered the room. Almost three weeks have passed and still it feels like there's a raw, gaping hole in my chest. Without thinking, I lift my hand and trace the outline of the man in the photo with my finger.
"Carson..." I whisper. God, how it hurt. When I'd heard that he had... that he was gone, I had felt like someone had ripped out my heart. I never even got the chance to tell him how I felt, never got to hear how he felt. And yet, despite the sadness and the heartache which is driving me to distraction, I do not cry. Even at the memorial service, surrounded by grief-stricken faces and the sound of bagpipes, I didn't weep. It's not that I don't want to—I'm not trying to put on a brave face. It's just that, despite everything, the tears won't come.
"Why'd you have to be such a good guy?" I murmur to the photograph. "Why couldn't you just look out for yourself for once?" Carson's image simply smiles back at me, honest and earnest and warm, just as he had been every time I'd seen him. The song from the memorial continues on instant replay in my head as I press the picture against my chest. I know I can't stay this way, that I'll eventually have to move on, but I can't. I can't move on with my life until I cry, until I truly vent my anguish over the loss of the man I love. But the tears won't come. I can't cry tonight—I can't move on—because the tears won't come... Maybe they'll come tomorrow.
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End.
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A/N: Special thanks to Tigereye for helping me with the title!