Title: "Can't Live, Can't Breathe"
Rating: FR13
Genre: Episode Tag, Friendship, Romance, Song Fic
Pairing(s): Tiva, McGiva
Summary: Episodes tag to "Truth or Consequences" and "Reunion". Her death causes one's life to stop, the other's faith in her to grow stronger, and her decision about him to be set.
Notes: Written for three challenges, both on Inspired and NFA. Yes, there's a love triangle. It's been a dream of mine to write it. ;)
"No Air" by Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown isn't mine.
Can't Live
Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe…
I'm here alone, don't wanna leave
My heart won't move; it's incomplete
Wish there was a way
I can make you understand
Of all the ships that had no business sinking, he thought that the Damocles should have been at the top of the list. It wasn't like it was the Titanic, whose great tragedy was greatly instrumental to Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet's Academy Award-winning love story. It was just a simple cargo vessel that was meant to traverse seas and oceans to deliver materials that were unimportant. All that were there should only be insignificant things.
Clearly, it was a place she did not belong.
Try as he may, he could not help but wonder how the waters felt now that it kept her in its care. He could see her eyes shut tight while she was fast asleep beneath the waves' cold and dark caress, and the endless flow of water brushing her jet black hair as it passed, creating a motion through the infinite strands of silk. Fishes would come by and whisper to her the tales of the world above, the world she left behind, and she would keenly listen.
What he wouldn't give to get one last shot of annoying her with a snide commentary or rude correction of a confused idiom.
Often, he would imagine her sitting at her desk, rolling her eyes at him as a smirk permeated through her lips. He'd spend too much time during those moments, trying to figure out what he could have done to bring it about-the exact words, exact sentences. He would lose connection with reality just to focus. Mostly, when his boss gave him a command, his body would automatically obey. He asked no questions, but he worked diligently.
Always, though, he left his mind at the desk across hers.
He did try to reel back his thoughts. He did not like how his peculiar…views of her absence tear asunder his relationship with the others. Yet, every time he attempted to listen, he found that they spoke terms nonsensical. He nodded and smiled and chuckled and narrowed his eyes, but their voices were all incoherent, save for one.
The Damocles went down on the storm 28th of May off the coast of Somalia. There were no survivors.
…no survivors.
She was dead. Gone. It was as simple as that, but it was a fact that proved the hardest to understand.
Days and weeks sauntered by, and the tap of that merciless truth, together with the beat of vengeance gaining crescendo, pounded in his ears. It became too loud…
Grab your gear.
…too annoying…
Grab your gear.
…too unbearable.
Grab your gear.
No. No. It was what he said that caused the spinning world around him to stop and watch.
The Boss smirked curiously. No?
No. We have an obligation. Saleem Ulman has to be stopped before one more person dies.
The noise stopped. The bulwark barricading him from everyone else evaporated into air after laying bare his troubles. When the Boss subtly nodded, giving him permission to do what he needed to do, he felt icicles of grudge pulsate through his veins. He promised himself he would make sure that Saleem paid.
He would avenge the life taken from him. Just like Matt Damon in "Bourne Identity."
Reviews are welcomed! :)