This fic is going to need a little explanation. It's the product of a too vivid imagination and I will apologise in advance if it hits too close to home for anybody. It isn't connected to real events, and no connection is ever inferred. I wanted to write something with a little more drama in it than I usually do - so this is what I came up with. It promises to be as dark as hell later on - just as a warning! It's A/U to a point, thought some points relate to early season 8. I hope it'll make more sense as it unravels - this is just to serve as an intro.
Disclaimer: All I own of this story are the words on the page and the idea in my head. The characters (and places) are not and never will be mine. I make no monetary profit from the writing of this fanfic.
Divided We Fall
By Fiona C Wark
There just doesn't seem to be a point. No point in getting up, no point in switching on the light. I could stay in bed all day, and I probably will. I'm not eating, I know I'll get ill, but what does it matter? What does anything matter anymore? Life is utterly pointless without them. Life isn't life without them. Why was death so selective? Why them and not me? I curse my survival instinct now, it's the reason I'm in this pain. And long after the physical scars have healed, I'll still be in pain. That's what makes me feel worse. I feel sorry they died but living on is so much harder. So much harder. I used to think survivors were lucky, now I know otherwise. Surviving really is the toughest thing to do
****
Lucky, I've been told over and over I am. I don't feel very lucky. I'm useless, pointless and hopeless. I look down on my bandages. I'm scarred too. Scarred and hopeless. The prospect of hundreds of skin grafts is torture, the prospect of never working again terrifying but the worst thing of all is preparing myself for a life without them. That's going to be hell. I gave my all to try and save them, I couldn't have given them more, there was nothing more I could have done, but still I've lost it all or so it seems. Life is never simple the way it should be, is it?
****
It's bad enough that what happened happened but that fact it's taken away so much from so many people makes it all the worse. Logically, I've been lucky. I'm still here. But that's so screwed up. I'm not the lucky one. The lucky ones are the ones who don't have to face up to the aftermath, who don't have to carry on living. Finding the strength to pick yourself up again, that's the hardest thing for any survivor to do. But what other choice do we have?
****
My actions weren't heroic. I'm not a hero. I don't deserve to be looked up to. I did what comes naturally to me, nothing more and nothing less. I hate myself for it now. It sounds terrible - I saved lives after all. It grows a little more distant every day, the scale of what happened begins to fade. I'll have to live with it, and myself, for ever. There's nothing in any training that can possibly prepare you to face something like this.
****
Sometimes I think if I pinch myself I'll wake up and this has all been some terrible nightmare. But it hasn't. This is reality. This pain I live with, seared into my heart indelibly, nothing can take it away. I can't wake up from this, I've just got to find it in me to find a way out. It gets harder by the day rather than easier. Time has never passed more slowly in my life, when all I want is to fast-forward to better times, a time when technicolour returns to my life, a time when I don't feel hopelessly stuck on pause. My whole life is on pause. Everyones is. Irrevocably and drastically changed, nothing will ever be the same again. But I'm surviving. There's really no other way. Day by day, 24 hours at a time, never looking ahead and trying not to look back either.
On February 14th 2002, Valentines Day of all ironies, and a year to the day since Lucy died, something happened in County ER which changed their lives forever. This is the story of that day, it's events and it's consequences, through the eyes of the survivors.
Disclaimer: All I own of this story are the words on the page and the idea in my head. The characters (and places) are not and never will be mine. I make no monetary profit from the writing of this fanfic.
Divided We Fall
By Fiona C Wark
There just doesn't seem to be a point. No point in getting up, no point in switching on the light. I could stay in bed all day, and I probably will. I'm not eating, I know I'll get ill, but what does it matter? What does anything matter anymore? Life is utterly pointless without them. Life isn't life without them. Why was death so selective? Why them and not me? I curse my survival instinct now, it's the reason I'm in this pain. And long after the physical scars have healed, I'll still be in pain. That's what makes me feel worse. I feel sorry they died but living on is so much harder. So much harder. I used to think survivors were lucky, now I know otherwise. Surviving really is the toughest thing to do
****
Lucky, I've been told over and over I am. I don't feel very lucky. I'm useless, pointless and hopeless. I look down on my bandages. I'm scarred too. Scarred and hopeless. The prospect of hundreds of skin grafts is torture, the prospect of never working again terrifying but the worst thing of all is preparing myself for a life without them. That's going to be hell. I gave my all to try and save them, I couldn't have given them more, there was nothing more I could have done, but still I've lost it all or so it seems. Life is never simple the way it should be, is it?
****
It's bad enough that what happened happened but that fact it's taken away so much from so many people makes it all the worse. Logically, I've been lucky. I'm still here. But that's so screwed up. I'm not the lucky one. The lucky ones are the ones who don't have to face up to the aftermath, who don't have to carry on living. Finding the strength to pick yourself up again, that's the hardest thing for any survivor to do. But what other choice do we have?
****
My actions weren't heroic. I'm not a hero. I don't deserve to be looked up to. I did what comes naturally to me, nothing more and nothing less. I hate myself for it now. It sounds terrible - I saved lives after all. It grows a little more distant every day, the scale of what happened begins to fade. I'll have to live with it, and myself, for ever. There's nothing in any training that can possibly prepare you to face something like this.
****
Sometimes I think if I pinch myself I'll wake up and this has all been some terrible nightmare. But it hasn't. This is reality. This pain I live with, seared into my heart indelibly, nothing can take it away. I can't wake up from this, I've just got to find it in me to find a way out. It gets harder by the day rather than easier. Time has never passed more slowly in my life, when all I want is to fast-forward to better times, a time when technicolour returns to my life, a time when I don't feel hopelessly stuck on pause. My whole life is on pause. Everyones is. Irrevocably and drastically changed, nothing will ever be the same again. But I'm surviving. There's really no other way. Day by day, 24 hours at a time, never looking ahead and trying not to look back either.
On February 14th 2002, Valentines Day of all ironies, and a year to the day since Lucy died, something happened in County ER which changed their lives forever. This is the story of that day, it's events and it's consequences, through the eyes of the survivors.