All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
He wants to sleep.
He's afraid to sleep.
When dawn comes he raises his head wearily, looks in every direction for any sign of land. Nothing. The same nothing he's seen the last two days. He hasn't seen land since the night of his escape, and that sight barely counted as such. It had been past midnight, with barely a sliver of a moon, and the land had been a dark mass scarcely distinguishable from the night sky and the sea. He could blame the darkness for his complete failure to stay within sight of land, but really he had been so desperate, so intent on seizing the opportunity to flee that he'd focused on nothing but getting as far away as he could.
In my defense, he can hear himself saying to an imaginary Ryan and Esposito, it's a little difficult to steer a boat when you're keeping your head down out of gunshot range. He doesn't remember hearing any gunshots, just the three solid thunks of bullets punching holes in the dinghy. He'd flattened himself down in the boat's bottom as much as he could, feeling dimly grateful that the bullet holes were well above the water line.
That was the last thing that had worked in his favor.
The fuel ran out just before dawn. The morning was cloudy and it wasn't until the sun was up that he saw how badly he'd gone awry. He must have headed straight out to sea; by the time the clouds lifted he was out of sight of land, and even if he had been able to see the shore, he had no way to change course. He had no fuel, and no oar. He was at the mercy of the tides.
He's barely slept since his escape. At first, he didn't sleep because he was afraid of pursuit, though that seems silly now. It wasn't as if he could have eluded capture, and he had no defense or anything to fight back with. Then he didn't sleep because he was searching—hoping—for rescue. But there was none to be seen. All he saw was a jet flying overhead, far too high for anyone to be able to see him. He'd waved at it frantically and screamed until his throat felt raw, but the jet might as well have been on the moon for all the good that did him.
He would give almost anything to be able to sleep now. Sleep would take him away from the glaring sun and the heat and the thirst and the hunger and the loneliness and everything that's happened these past weeks and the understanding, more certain with every hour that goes by, that he's going to die out here.
But if he sleeps, he'll probably never wake up.
Dawn and sunset are the only kind times. He's been able to find beauty in those moments, to get a glimmer of hope when light returns to the world, to feel relief when the punishing sun slips below the horizon.
Days are the worst, as the sun beats down without mercy. Every day since the first has been clear, cloudless. With no relief. From the moment the sun's angle slips past the low shelter of his boat, he hates the sun.
He hates the sea as well; he never realized that the sea is essentially a desert, for all the good its water does him. It's no pleasure for him to look at it, not when the sun reflects off the wavelets and hurts his eyes. The sound of it taunts him. When the water's calm, it says, Take a drink, a big one. Never mind that I'm poison to you, just think how good it will feel to drink something. On the rare occasions when a wave rocks the boat a little, he can hear the water laughing. Care to take a swim? It won't be a long one, not in your condition, but at least it'll all be over in a few minutes. He can say no to that second temptation easily; he got a taste of drowning when Beckett's car went into the Hudson (and still has occasional nightmares about it) and he would prefer not to go through that again. The first temptation, though, is getting harder and harder to resist. So he doesn't look at the water if he can help it. He only looks when he checks for signs of land, but he does that less frequently; there doesn't seem to be much point anymore.
He hates the wind—it blows through the bullet holes and makes a ghostly hooting sound that serves only to remind him how utterly alone he is.
He hates the stars and the moon. They're so beautiful that they make him weep—or they did, before the heat and the sun burned away all his tears. They make him think of all the beautiful things in his life that he'll most likely never see again.
The cruel irony is that he got through the weeks of captivity by thinking of Kate and Alexis and his mother. By scheming a way to get a goodbye message to them so that they might know something of his fate, some day. By walling off his mind to those who wanted to break him, locking himself away in memories of his loved ones. But people are easier to shut out than sun and hunger and thirst, and his strength is almost gone. Now the memories are more a torture than a balm, and that's somehow the worst thing of all, that they bring him little comfort when he's more alone than he's ever been in his life.
He's been afraid to sleep, but it may be out of his hands soon. He's feeling more and more disoriented, and his perception is increasingly off-kilter. A few minutes ago the boat seemed to be not resting on the surface of the water, but hovering a good yard above it. He'd had to reach down and touch the water before reality realigned, and even then there was a moment when he felt water though his hand seemed to be touching air.
He sits up—slowly, painfully—and takes one last look around. A long, slow scan in every direction.
Nothing. Sky and water. Nothing.
The world grays out and when it comes back he's lying down again. Touching his head, he can feel a decent-size goose egg that's painful but in a distant way, as if it's not his pain but someone else's. The ever-present sun beats down; he licks his lips and tastes blood.
It's over. Nearly. The way he sees it, he can spend his last moments dwelling on the hand fate dealt him, or he can have some last moments of beauty, even if they're a dying man's fantasy.
He summons up every bit of his will, and turns it on his writer's mind. The mind that gave him imaginary friends when he was lonely, conjured stories for his books and to tell Alexis at bedtime, helped him capture Kate's interest, affection, and love. One last job for his mind—to take him home.
The sun beats down, and he closes his eyes against it one last time.
It's night, and too dark to see, but he knows where he is. The bedroom at the Hamptons house. He's in bed; the sheets are cool and silky against his skin. It's raining, and the window nearby is open just enough to let in the occasional breeze that's scented with rain and greenery.
He listens to the rain for what might be a minute or might be an hour. Mingled in with the rain are voices, coming from the family room. Alexis and his mother. He can't make out the precise words but he can hear that the conversation is lively, full of laughter and love. He smiles.
The scent of rain is joined by a faint perfume of cherries. A rustle of bedclothes and Kate's there, one leg twined with his, her arm across him, her head on his chest and her hair spilling over his skin. He can't see her, but he knows she's smiling, and he knows her eyes are like a cat's in the darkness of their room.
He starts to tell her. About everything that happened. But she lays a gentle finger against his lips, and he's relieved. "It's over now," she says. "It's over. You're here, and you're safe. Forget everything else."
He longs to wrap her in his arms, but he's so, so tired. It's as if he's sinking, not into a sea but into this bed on a cool, rainy night and Kate's body next to his. She lifts her head from his chest and kisses him, a lingering, sweet kiss. "I love you. I'm here with you," she murmurs against his neck. "Go to sleep."
And he does.