Genre: General, het, drama, dark, angst, disturbing imagery, character study
Inspired by three NFA challenges: "Lima. Oscar. Victor. Echo. Challenge" (aka love), "no names" Challenge, so no characters are named (the reader mush recognize them) and the "amnesia" Challenge.
Life's revenge
"Love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the wellbeing of one's companion."
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Stupid, stupid, stupid and did you say stupid? Past mistakes come back to haunt you and you cannot find the strength to punish yourself. It was Scarlet who lost the love of her life by not realising what it was before she had already lost it. And there you were doing the same again and again. Miss O'Hara was never one of your favourite heroines despite Vivian Lee's remarkable talent and beauty. There was something off... both in the film and the book.
The sky's colour is purple and pink hues make the sunset beautiful and romantic. If not for the sterilised hospital corridor you currently vacate with a number of friends waiting to hear something... anything. About him, about his chances. Is he going to make it? Will he recover?
The elevator doors open to and you see him face to face for the first time. He's younger than you, more innocent than you, shyer than you. Good! you think and smile one of your brightest smiles.
And he smiles too. He's cute in a boyish way.
Cuddly too. You grab him from the hand and drag him out.
"Have you finished your work?" He asks and you nod.
"I've been waiting for you!"
The doctors come and go and you cannot believe he's here, fighting for his life because your latest boyfriend was a sadistic killer. Where do you go and find them? Anywhere he's not there. Any man who looks nothing like him, any man who behaves nothing like him. Easy as that.
"You can't honestly say you're attracted to that man?" You still remember his reaction when he first saw David, your southern gentleman who turned out to be a rapist and killer.
"Jealous are we?" You taunted him and as you remember the rest of the conversation, his raising his arms up in defeat, his quiet '
be careful', his promise to look after you and your disrespect and laughing at him, tears wet your face.
A solid hand on your shoulder turns you around and you're engulfed in a warm embrace, the smell of coffee strong and old spice weaker. You wish you were a kid; a naughty kid who broke the vase with the candies and can apologise and be taken into two strong arms and never left alone again. But you aren't a kid and your actions didn't result into a broken vase and half a kilo of wasted candies.
Worried blue eyes raise your chin and you know you're going to have a discussion later on with the man who loves you like a daughter and for the first time he cannot forgive you.
Tick tock, tick tock... an annoying watch beats inside your head reminding you that when you want time to pass, it just laughs at your face and lays still.
You wrap your arms around your body and slid down on the wall.
The first time you slept with him he was timid and worried, and you had wished you were younger and more innocent. Not that it would mean anything to him, but it would mean the world to you. For those first precious moments his body was wrapped around yours, inside yours, when his face was touching yours and his lips draw patterns on your lips and cheeks, for those moments your previous experiences meant nothing. The timid, shy, young man was showing you what was to be loved by a body... and when you had both shuddered and held still and tight he had raised his head and smiled at you. A sweet, tender smile before leaning down to take your pink, with no red lipstick for a change, lips in the softest of kisses.
It was then that you made the decision that is killing you now. You promised to yourself not to love him. Sex was one thing and you could enjoy it but love, little houses and families, kids running like mad around you, were not for you.
You told him the next day when you woke up and he was confused to see where he had spent his night. Still his bright eyes reminded you of emerald waters of the river by your house, your old paternal house... and,...
Your fingers scrap the wall behind you as you are rising to your feet.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! You'd been trying to stay away from love when Love had hit you, brutally and uncaring, all those years ago, when his eyes had looked at you and wondered what he had done wrong.
Brown eyes stare at you from the other side of the room and you know they're accusing even though when it mattered the most they had taken your side laughing at him for being jealous. Now they are teary and red rimmed and looking for someone to blame.
Well, tough! No one could ever blame you more than you blame yourself.
You stare back defiantly and the accusation turns to anger. A pair of arms is wrapped around the other woman and the man that holds her is no less guilty than her. He tries to smile from afar, but he succeeds in grimacing and turns away to hide himself in the back of the brown eyed woman you call one of your best friends.
Right now you wish she could use you as a target practice.
It wouldn't make a difference to you.
Your boots are new and apparently a little small for your feet. You look down and bile rises to your throat. They were David's gift and are splashed by a red liquid.
His blood, your brain provides. His blood is on your shoes.
Who cares?
His blood is on your hands too. And that hurts more.
The boots are too heavy as you run in the hospital's corridors to find a bathroom, the sound of them as they come in contact with the floor tiles hurts your ears and you want to take them off.
You've been here, in this same hospital, before, more times than you want to admit.
Dry heaves bring tears in your eyes as you lean over the faucet and look at the mirror opposite of you.
You recognize the familiar face and turn the tap to first clean the mess and then wash said face. It's a lost cause really. Black mascara and coal doesn't go away with water no matter how much, how hot or cold it is.
You now look like one of those clowns who supposedly make you laugh, but their eyes hide so much sadness that a good observer knows how wrong it is to laugh with them. Faces with painted frowns… or is it pained?
"He's been accused for assaulting a girl when he was sixteen and then…"
"Stop it right now, Mister. He was wrongly accused if you must know and he had already talked to me about it." You had said when he had tried to protect you.
"But…"
"No buts…" And his teammates had been there ready to stand by your side and prove him wrong.
Because that was it. He had to be wrong.
Only he had been right.
And what kind of a serial rapist chooses as an alias a person who's been accused for sexual assault?
Yours, someone would say.
For about a month alongside his work in NCIS and his other money bringing hobbies he made it part of his daily life to be certain you were safe.
While you thought you were safe in your –loveless- relationship with David.
Name: David Swanson
Date of birth: 1966, January 3rd
Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois
Profession: Chemistry professor
Marital status: Single
Criminal record: Two arrests, charges were dropped
In other words, a handsome high school teacher, over confident and charming whom you met in a conference and went out with him because he was different…
…different from the man who is now at death's doorstep because he knew something was wrong and stopped the suave professor before he succeeded in raping you.
And probably killing you.
Now you know. Now everyone knows that David Swanson is in fact Column Jackson who was born in Louisiana in 1966 and by 1985 he had sexually assaulted three female and two male teenagers. He was always attracted by the smart ones.
Like you.
And like him.
You lean over the faucet once again feeling your stomach repelling at the idea of sleeping with that man and the thought of that man's hands on him.
The evening had started promising enough.
It ended with you shouting at David? Column? To stop when the door burst open and your rescuer was there, gun at hand pointing at your lover…
Lover, a word taken from love. Was he really your lover?
And how many lovers had you had in your life?
Oh sure, you shared your bed and body with many but how many lovers had you had?
The answer is right in front of you, inside your green eyes that look at you blaming you and your stupidity.
He was surprised to find you tied to the bed, half naked…
And David turned around and threw him a knife that caught him on the left arm, only a few centimetres away from the heart. You saw the blood wetting the shirt. He was not wearing a jacket.
"Move slowly away from the bed." He said, his voice pained but his face determined.
And your abuser mocked him, taunted him and you saw a new hunger waking in those brown eyes. It scared you more than being at his mercy.
"Leave!" You called at your rescuer, but for once he went against your wishes.
Why damn it, why?
The fight was so quick that you almost missed it. It ended up with a shot and a loud bang.
Ten minutes later your apartment was filled with people. You've been untied by his partner and you got a hug you didn't feel you deserved. You still don't think you deserve it.
But you took it greedily anyway.
Nothing new there.
Handcuffs wrapped around one man's wrists, a grey jacket folded carefully and placed underneath the other's head, with paternal care, blood seeping from his arm and his head.
You wanted to scream but your voice was conquered by sobs, snot and tears.
The same parental care moved to you and you wanted to send him away because he needed it more than you. You were proven weak for yet another time.
Until you saw the blood on the shirt that could have been dark green once and you pushed him away, your big eyes looking up at his blue ones asking for forgiveness without knowing it.
You would never ask to be forgiven knowingly. Still it's who you are. Never to be blame. Always to be looked after.
"What happened?" Soft voice, tender voice, a worried voice.
"He…" you pointed Dav… Column. "He attacked me." You think that he can understand you. He always does. "And then…"
"Shhh it's OK. He called me. We just didn't have much time." He turned to the other side and yelled, you still safely wrapped in his arms. "Where's the ambulance?"
"On it's way, Sir…" What was said after that was lost to you.
You didn't care.
Your eyes looked at the bloody figure on the floor.
Your fault.
He saved you.
He saved you. And he will always do that as long as there is breath inside him.
Because he knows how to love… and he knows how to care. And he's not ashamed to show it.
It doesn't make him weak.
Love doesn't make someone weak; only those who're afraid of love, of loving and being loved in return.
A throat is cleared from behind you and you turn around quickly, totally forgetting you can check the mirror. You grudgingly push away the tears from under your face with the back of your palm like an angry child and stare at the man who interrupted your self pity.
Back at normal. No tears, no blaming.
"Are there any news?"
"No."
You stand close to each other and at the same time you've never felt him so far away from you.
Still he swallows the accusation he wants to throw at you asks.
"How are you?"
And you break. All over again.
"Me? Fine! I had an affair with a sexual predator who tried to rape me and sent my…. Friend at the hospital. And I didn't believe him."
"None of us took his words…"
"I thought he was jealous."
"So did we."
"Will he survive?"
"There are not certain yet."
"But… he has to, right?"
He doesn't answer you. He has lost more people than you can dream, he has lost his family in just one day, and many of his agents, so why should he care.
He's here. He's easy to take your anger.
"You don't care. You never cared for him." You shout to him or to yourself you're not sure. "No one cared for him." You whisper. "No one cared until it was too late…"
He doesn't answer.
Three days pass like this and you need to get back to work, but you stay there waiting for him to wake up, to ask his forgiveness. Because you know that if… no when he wakes up, he will forgive you. It's in his nature. He has to forgive you.
Your life revolves around that. Home, shower, hospital, home, shower, hospital…
…and some hugs and pats in the between and accusing looks you decide to not understand them for what they are.
His doctor permits you to see him in the second day.
"You may see him, one at the time. The shot was not serious but the head injury was. We will know more when he wakes." And everyone listens to the hidden 'if he wakes'.
And you're lucky.
He does wake. And you're there as his emerald eyes open and slowly, so terribly slowly take everything in.
You lean over him, big smile in place because you're so happy! You take his hand in yours and he turns to look at you.
"How do you feel?" You ask.
"Drowsy. In pain. I think last time I woke up I was feeling better…" The words are slurred.
Last time? This is the first time he's waken.
"You're not a nurse or a doctor, are you?" He says, his wide eyes take in your attire and you whisper his name in fear.
"Don't you know me?"
"Should I Miss?"
A doctor and a couple of Nurses come in and push you gently away to examine their patient. You look around and don't know what to do.
Your ancore comes in and pulls you away.
"He doesn't remember me…" You say again and again until the doctor comes out.
"It happens after serious head injuries and he had a similar injury when he was sixteen. His amnesia is probably only temporally but he only remembers until the time of his accident."
"Will he recover?" You cannot talk so your supporter starts his usual questioning, in a slightly different manner. You don't recognize his worry because you're too lost in your own fear
"It is a big possibility. Right now he needs his rest."
"Can we help him?"
"You cannot. Not right now at least."
This is a possibility it hasn't crossed your mind.
You knew he was going to forgive you because he loves you, because he always forgives you.
Not this time.
The world starts turning the other way.
He won't forgive you because he doesn't remember you.
Thus he doesn't love you.
But you do and you're determined.
You'll win him back.
"Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear."
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre