Universe: The Following present, season 2
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Claire Matthews/Ryan Hardy
Summary: He spent a lot of his time thinking about what would come next.
Author's Note: Based off of the promo for season two where we see Ryan looking at a picture of Claire and Joey and later loading a handgun.
.
. . .
But, life is for living,
we all know,
and I don't wanna live it alone.
. . .
.
He stared at the gun for a very long time before finally deciding. Though he made up his mind quickly, it was not a snap decision. He'd been thinking about it for days, weeks now; it was all he ever thought about it. When he'd woken up in the hospital, and seen Jenny's face hovering before his, and Weston's, waiting there nervously by the door, he'd known what had happened.
The only questioned he'd had to ask was, Why am I still here?
He remembered little pieces—snippets of a memory that was broken and scarred—but he didn't have enough of them to finish the puzzle. He didn't much care—what was the point of finding out what happened now that it was already over?—and so he let the remembrances pass over him, undiscussed and undocumented. What did the official reports care about the way she'd looked when she died, or the about the fact that he'd been able to feel it when her dead body had hit the floor of his apartment? No one cared about those details. Even he wished he could discard them.
. . .
She was gone, but still she haunted him everywhere he went. She stayed beside him like a shadow during the day, and visited him at night like a ghost. Sometimes, when he dreamed, she was there. It was the only time he welcomed her eternal presence, for his dreams were never terrible like his memories. It seemed even his subconscious knew he couldn't take visions of her death assaulting him twenty-four hours a day. He would go insane from that, though the argument could be made that the daily reversal between the two realities could drive him mad as well. He wouldn't mind going crazy, not so long as his unstable mind made itself a party to the fake reality.
When he dreamed, he found himself recalling things he hadn't thought of in years, and experiencing things he knew were not and could never be real. But he was dreaming and so it didn't make a difference what was real and what was not. It was all real to him while he experienced it—so real—and that was all that mattered until he woke up.
In his dreams, she smiled and laughed and was happy. When she held him, he could feel her; when she kissed him, he could taste her. She was real, for just those few hours or minutes they spent together, and she was alive, too—not to the world, not to anyone else—but to him.
And that was all that really mattered, until things began to change.
She grew sad over time in his mind, unhappy with their time apart and dissatisfied with their short time together. It didn't take her long to stop laughing, to stop smiling. She still said she loved him, still held him close, but there was a sense of fear underwriting her actions, a sense that this cannot last much longer, and he promised her silently that he would do whatever he could to make sure it did. He wouldn't fail her this time like he had so many other times.
But even that wasn't enough.
The next time he dreamed, they were not together like they had always been, but separated. He could see her, just a couple of yards away, but when he tried to move towards her, something stopped him. He reached out for her then, but the same thing blocked his hand before he could touch her. He tried moving around, tried pushing against the invisible barrier, but the wall of glass didn't budge and didn't end. He pressed his palm flat against the wall, straining against it, hoping if he just tried hard enough he'd be able to touch her again. But when she reached out to him, and put her hand right up against his, their palms didn't meet. Didn't touch.
Her pale blue eyes were filled with an aching sadness when they rose to meet his, and something in them told him that this was it, that they would never touch each other again, hold each other—these once-heavenly dreams would soon becoming nothing more than the horrible reality, the hell, that he woke up to every morning.
She shuffled forward and, despite the barrier, leaned her head against the glass, still wanting to be close to him. He did the same, as if magnetized to follow her every movement by some base instinct. He didn't take his eyes off hers as they stood, so close yet completely unconnected. She began to speak, but he could not hear her through the boundary, and so he was forced to read her lips just to know how she felt. I miss you, she said, and his heart twisted as he watched her eyes fill up with tears knowing there was nothing he could do to comfort her. I miss you so much.
When he awoke soon afterward, it was not with the usual sadness and powerlessness that accompanied coming back from those glorious dreams to wretched reality. He felt a new and deep stab of fear this time, a terror that cut right through him and overshadowed every other emotion.
It had been more than the glass keeping them apart that had disallowed him from hearing her, he realized, not having a name for the complete and utter despair he was feeling at that moment. It had been his own mind, his own memory, that had failed him.
She had been gone for so long that he had forgotten what her voice used to sound like. Even in the blank canvas of his dreaming mind, he could not so much as imagine it.
. . .
The next time he dreamed, it was worse. Not only was she cut off from him as before, but she was further away now, and continuously moving away from him. He could not hear her, and could hardly see more than her back and the flock of curls around her head as she walked away from him. He had no idea where she was going, but he felt a unquenchable need to follow her. No matter how hard he tried, or how fast he ran, however, he could never catch up to her.
Why aren't you coming? a voice asked—one he did not recognize anymore, but somehow knew in his heart was hers. Why are you taking so long?
He tried to explain that he was coming, that he was moving as fast as he could, but she didn't seem to want to hear that. He tried again and again to explain, but she always brushed off his words, shaking her head at the wrong answers. She continued on, and so did he, despite not understanding what she wanted from him or where she was taking him.
When he woke, though, it all suddenly made sense. When he woke, he had an answer for her. Unlike the others, he knew this one would please her, and make her smile and nod in approval instead of shaking her head and turning away and continuing on her solitary path. This answer would take him with her—not leave him behind, not make him struggle forever to catch up to her—but bring them together in a way they had never been able to achieve while she'd been alive.
He closed his eyes, thinking about what he was going to do next with something close to happiness warming his numb body. She was disappearing from him in his dreams as she had in life, but he had found a way to follow her, a way to be with her again.
. . .
It did not take long, after that, for him to realize he'd made the right decision. The first night he woke up in a cold sweat, having relived her murder, every instant, over and over again, turned into the first day he held his gun in his hands and thought, in very literal terms, about killing himself.
It wasn't a wholly unattractive idea to him; it never had been, really. He'd considered it a few times before—for a while, after his father had died, and again, briefly, after they'd lost Ray—but he had never thought about it as seriously as he was now. He looked at the gun in his hands, running his fingers over the smooth metal, and he thought, I can actually do this. There was no one stopping him now, no one holding him back.
He knew if Jenny were aware of what he was planning to do, she would try to stop him, and he was glad they hadn't spoken in some time. The silence wasn't her fault—she had tried, tried so hard to help him—but he hadn't put up with it, hadn't said even a word, and eventually she'd stopped trying so hard. She still stopped by, she still called, but she seemed to know, like everyone else, that Claire had been the last straw. He could only be kicked so far down the hill before hitting the bottom, and even with help, he was unable to climb back up.
He knew Jenny would suffer when he went through with it. She would be heartbroken and all alone now—the last Hardy—but that was better, wasn't it, than being kidnapped and tortured all over again? If he killed himself, he might be able to protect her. If he kept himself alive, however, there was no doubt in his mind that she'd eventually be the one to pay the price for his sins. After everything she'd been through, she didn't deserve that.
She didn't deserve to lose him, either, he knew, but sometimes one has to choose the lesser of two evils.
. . .
He spent a lot of time thinking about what was going to come next, wondering if the next world—if there even was one—would be as cruel to him as this one had been.
He wondered if, when he finally closed his eyes, he'd open them and be able to see her again. Would she be waiting for him, smiling and holding out her hand to draw him into whatever new realm awaited him? Would his family be there; would he see his mother again, his father, his brother? Would Parker and Reilly and all those that had died violently and innocently be there, too?
Or would there be nothing and no one, not even her? Was this—this mostly horrible and only briefly, briefly happy life he'd led—was this it? Was this all he was going to get? If it was, he couldn't say he minded. It wasn't like he had anything else to lose. He barely had a family anymore, hardly had a life, and, on top of it all, he didn't have her.
Truly, what did he have left to lose?
. . .
His hand didn't shake as he held the gun to his temple, sitting alone in his apartment with the blinds closed tight against the morning sunshine. He pressed the barrel tight against his skin, and rubbed forefinger over the trigger. In his mind, he began counting upwards slowly.
He hadn't left a note, not having thought it was worth the bother. There was no explanation he had to give that those who found him wouldn't guess; no apology to write out that hadn't already been said a thousand times.
He looked down at the picture resting on the tabletop in front of him as he held the gun, pressing his thumb against the bottom left corner. He remembered the day Jenny had given it to him; it had been a gift from the orphan boy whose parents Ryan had killed.
He stared into the happy faces of the two people smiling up at the camera, and let his mind run briefly through the what-ifs one last time. There was the woman he loved, who might've one day become his wife if they hadn't let things between them fall apart without a word. And there was her boy, who could've become his son if he hadn't backed out upon getting nervous at that very prospect.
They smiled up at him, the family he could've had if he hadn't been so selflessly selfish, trying to put her wants and needs above his just so he didn't have to do things with her that scared him.
He readjusted his grip on the gun, fueled by self-loathing now as he changed the angle to be absolutely certain it would be a clean shot when he did it. He wanted it over and done, now more than ever. His hand did not sweat and his fingers did not shake. Steady as a surgeon, he pressed the gun against his head as he looked down at the picture. She was no longer really here, but he still wanted her to be the last thing he saw before he died. He could still remember what she'd looked like the first time he'd met her.
She had been so beautiful once, so long ago. Before all the blood and the tears.
He wondered how she'd look when he saw her again—and he knew he would see her again, because he could no longer stomach any other possibility—and he chose to believe that she would be happy and smiling when he arrived, just like in the picture.
There would be no more blood where he was going; no more tears.
The next life—even if it did not exist—would be better to him, and to them, than this past one had ever been. Her smiling face and happy eyes promised that to him, right up until the moment he pulled the trigger, dousing her in red one last time.
.
. . .
But, life is for living,
We all know,
And I don't wanna live it alone.
. . .
.
Author's Note: Now, I know the promo isn't actually hinting at Ryan committing suicide—far from it—but I was unable not to think of it while watching the season 2 promos. Again, I am sorry for this dose of reality/sadness. I swear to God, such a happy fic is on the way! It's almost finished. This one just came to me quicker.
Reviews would be greatly welcome. Thank you so, so much for taking the time to read. It means the world to me.