So, while I was reading TSS (at midnight, as soon as it came out, no less) I had a mini heart attack when Sadie died and then I thought up this scene and I just now got around to writing it.
Be warned that this is my first time writing any Sadie/Walt stuff (although I've written them both on their own), so I apologize if my characterization is absolutely awful. Hopefully it is not.
I don't own TKC. (Hey, my birthday's coming up. Somebody wanna buy me the rights?)
O-o-O
heartbeat
by larkgrace
*#*#*
It's not supposed to end like this.
He's supposed to die and she's supposed to live a long and happy life and maybe find someone else and grow up and get married and tell her kids you know, when I was your age I knew a boy named Walt and one day she'll go on peacefully (or knowing Sadie, kicking and screaming) to the afterlife at the ripe old age of ninetysomething. She's supposed to hold him in his last moments as he laps up the sympathy and assures her that this is okay, he's not afraid to die even though he's terrified and the gentle touch of her lips on his forehead (or, in his more daring fantasies, his own mouth) is supposed to be the last thing he ever feels.
Not the other way around.
It's not supposed to end like this.
But this is the way it is and she's collapsed on the floor of the Dallas Museum and her eyes are open and staring a million miles away and her mouth isn't running for once and the wrist under his fingertips is still where there should be that reassuring pounding that means heartbeat.
There's no heartbeat.
The sounds of confusion and awakening and celebration are going on behind him and there's no heartbeat and the world should not be spinning on its axis.
"SADIE!"
There's no reply but the attention of the entire room is now focused on his little crumbling corner of the world. He can hear shouts and wails as the shockwaves ripple through the others behind him and there's a stampede of feet and he's dreaming, he's dreaming, he's going to wake up to Sadie yelling at him to get off his butt and get moving or maybe even back in his townhouse in Seattle, his mom bellowing up the stairs that he'd better get out of bed or she's giving his pancakes to the dog even though she won't start cooking them until he's on his way downstairs…
He wonders if his little brother—well, half-brother, but still a brother—will wind up with extra pancakes on his plate after Walt is dead, his mom having cooked them out of habit before remembering that her not-so-baby boy won't be eating breakfast today.
He wishes his mom were here with her own brand of boisterous motherly love. She'd know what to do even as the universe seemed to fall apart, even as Carter collapses to his knees because his sister is dead and he is officially alone in the world now, and Felix sobs uncontrollably while his penguins nuzzle him, and Alyssa seems to hollow out at the sight of her friend's cold body.
And Sadie would know what to do, know exactly what to say so that everything wasn't so dreadful, so that everyone felt better (if mildly exasperated) but she's—
Breathing.
She's breathing.
She's breathing and the wrist under his fingers is humming with the hot lifeblood that is once again running through her veins and she coughs and mumbles something incoherent, and then she yells "Don't leave!" and her eyes open to get a wonderful view of Khufu's rear.
And as she tries to wrap her mind around the fact that she was dead—for two minutes, although it seemed like an eternity—he grips her hand tighter and swears that he won't leave her.
Oh, no, he's not going anywhere.
O-o-O
Meh, I have this half-baked headcanon in which this is the moment that cement's Walt's decision to merge with Anubis and become a ridiculously snarky and attractive not-quite-god crush what crush I don't have a crush on Walt Stone what are you talking about.
Ahem. Well. How 'bout the weather.
Anyway, I really enjoyed writing this—more than I thought I would, actually, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.