Her body language said to go away. She hadn't turned around; but she obviously knew he was there.
She was making him speak first. He hated that. Internally, he heaved a sigh.
"Ness…"
She went right on washing dishes, banging them extra loud for his benefit.
"Ness?"
"What?" she snapped. "Is it important…because, if not then you had better…"
Her manner angered him, the way she assumed he was just coming to argue. But then, that's all he and his wife seemed to do of life.
Jim considered turning and letting the silence in their house go taught again. She stayed, her back rigid, her long hair in a tangle down her back, scrubbing furiously.
"I wanted to talk…" he tried, unable to bear the silence.
"I have nothing to talk to you about," she said, shortly. It was probably true; after their hundreds of arguments, it didn't seem like there was anything left to say. But here he was, in his own house, being treated like nothing.
Jim took her shoulder and roughly spun her around. She looked ready to strike.
"Then you're going to listen," he growled. She crossed her arms—Ness-language for, "I'm not listening."
"I can't stand this."
"Can't stand keeping me from my work? I don't enjoy it either. Now, if you'll kindly let go of my shoulder, I'll…"
"Ness."
"Jim," she sighed and shrugged. "We don't have anything to say. Not right now. I cannot listen to your countless excuses right now and I doubt you want to hear my rebuttals."
She walked over to the hover-stove, looking like she was walking on eggshells.
How had they gotten this way? So that Ness, his own wife, wouldn't speak to him, and always looked half-rebel, half-afraid of him. She was always angry now, claimed she did all of the work, claimed he was always gone—that he would go and never come back. And, truth be told, the young airman had wished that sometimes. He'd always had wanderlust. But now, now he felt like he was being driven away. But it wasn't Ness. It was something else.
He ran his hand over the rough, wood of the door frame, of this house that they'd built, with the neighbors house. That they'd been proud of, and talked of, and hoped for a family to grow up in.
When he glanced up, his wife was watching him, a strange expression mixed remorse and confusion. It was replaced by her costumary toughened look.
She seemed to wait for him to say something else. But when he didn't, she turned, and—more-quietly, went back to washing.
He inwardly sighed, running a hand over the stubble he'd let grow on his face, seeing her I-can-take-anything look. It was one of the things that had made him fall in love with her, her unwillingness to give anything up. She'd said once, very briefly, that she and vunerability didn't get along to well—that this face was her weapon against it. But that had been brief. For the confession itself, was a brief vunerability. She still fought. But now she looked like she was fighting the inevitable.
If asked, Jim would have said that of course he loved her. It wasn't a lack of fidelity. It was a vague sort of fear.
"You always were good at running away," he thought. He'd always run away when things got hard. When he couldn't take life, growing up, he'd run away, to the skies. As he grew older he traveled farther and farther, believing he'd stopped running when he came back home.
Good at running away. It was in his blood.
He thought back to his home-coming, to meeting the smiling, sarcastic Ness. Thinking that someone like that could help keep him down, in one place.
"Ness," he almost choked. "I think…I need some time off," he managed, trying, straining to sound casual.
His wife turned around slowly. "Time off," she repeated, less a question than a statement.
He nodded, not looking at her.
She slowly cocked a hip and placed her hand on it, fighting face on.
"One of your, 'gone on work trips?' or one of your 'leaving-for-two-months-with-no-forwarning-whatsoever?"
He slumped farther, his hair, long uncut, falling into his face.
He thought he saw a look of sympathy cross her face. And her voice was impossibly sad as she finally asked,
"Or a going away and not coming back, leaving?"
He didn't answer. She sighed. He wanted to look at her. To try to read her face. To see if she would try to stop him, if she would say something—anything, to change his mind, to see. She was looking out the window onto the vast mud-flats and cliffs of their home-planet (she hated holographic panes). Those empty, confused spaces, echoed in him.
"I won't stop you," she said finally.
"You what?" he choked out.
She turned around, her face earnest. "I won't stop you, if you are determined to go. I don't think I could if I tried." She looked away. Ness never admitted weakness.
"But…" he started.
"Of course I don't want you to go," she said, slightly more fiercely. "But, you are your own person," she said, sounding resigned.
"Ness?" His eyes searched her face; she looked away. "I can't stay," he managed, sounding cowardly in his own words.
"I know," she said, quietly. And he heard a subtle, quiet anger in her voice. She looked up.
He felt condemned, immediately.
"You're angry."
"Angry?" she almost laughed. "You are telling me that your eternal promises are breakable and our marriage is moot. And you want to know it I'm angry?"
She turned around, pacing, with angry energy. "I know you know, but I gave up my job, my future, for this family!"
She stopped and looked at him. "But we never became a family."
He looked at her guiltily. She shrugged and looked out the window. "I guess it would have been worse if we'd had children—would've been harder on them."
She leaned towards the window, gripping the sink.
"I'm sorry," she said, finally. "I'm sorry for complaining. I'm sorry for blaming. I'm sorry for holding you here." She wouldn't look at him.
"But if we're over, you have to make the move. I'm not ending a marriage."
Jim shifted, a turmoil of emotions welled up.
"I get the house," she said. "You wouldn't be needing it anyway, spacing. Take your bag, and your clothes. Then you can leave."
That was all. That was all she said.
He mentally kicked himself. He almost wished she'd fight him, scream, blame. Or that she'd break, she'd cry, she'd do something to keep him there. But she wouldn't. Not Ness. Ness never broke.
One of the reasons he'd loved her. She was something reliable and steady to hold on to. She had been funny, and laughing, and loving. And firm. But his longer absences and quietness, or outright arguing had stripped her of her youth, and laughter. He saw himself from her vantage point and hated himself. He wished she would turn away. Wished she would save him. But Ness didn't turn. Because Ness never broke.
So he turned, and almost ran. He didn't know where to. He just wanted out of that house, out of her presence. In arguments he blamed her. And in his thoughts he blamed his blood, blamed his father.
Grabbing his bag, standing by the door and running out onto the barren flats, he blamed a million people. But he remembered.
He remembered his mother, his mother who'd been left, left alone and broken, stripped of her laughter and youth, when he'd asked her, she hadn't broken in his presence, had been strong for him. And when he asked about his father, she answered, she answered that some people have it harder than others, but that all had a choice, in the end, regardless of circumstances, had a choice. Right or wrong. Stay or go. Leland had gone. Then she'd ruffled, the child's hair, as he worked on builing an airship model.
"Hey!" the child said, pushing her hands away and steadying his model's mast.
"Don't worry about it," she said, cupping her son's face. "I know you'd choose right."
He was still running. He hadn't chosen right. He'd chosen easy, same as his father. Same as his lousy, awful, cowardly, selfish, father.
He sprinted until he reached the edge of the cliff and stood, face in the wind. He liked the wind—it let one just be, without thinking. He turned on his heel, putting a brisk, slightly rakish, traveler's face on. It was his mask, like Ness's fighting face was hers. He briskly stepped onto the Benbow ferry, and didn't look back until halfway across. You couldn't turn the ferry midway. He saw his speck of a house—the house he'd built for the future they'd envisioned. He was running away. He didn't want to think about what his mother would say, her shock and disappointment. Didn't want to know what the Dopplers, his benefactors would say, exchanged looks-meaning they would discuss it at length, later. The Doppler children, who saw him as an uncle, looking around and asking in whispers where he was. He didn't want to think about Ness, wandering alone in their house, set single on a hill overlooking nothing. But Ness never broke.
He was wrong. Ness broke. Ness broke, but only in private. She hadn't moved, still staring out her window, without a holograph to disguise the bare expanses, no disguising it. Her face was still, no fight in it. A tear had escaped each eye, and were tracing their slow course down her face. Ness stood in the emptiness, having lost all that she was, and was broken.
Halfway across the channel, Jim stood on the raft, over the emptiness with his brisk expression and accusations in his head and was broken.
He looked back again, but couldn't make out their—no, her—home any longer. The voices in his head berated him.
Coward.
Run away, Jim.
Just like your father.
Just like your father, Jim.
"Shut up," he told them.
They didn't listen.
He looked back and couldn't see his old home. But maybe, he told himself, maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe, someday he could deserve it again. Maybe someday he wouldn't be the coward. The one who ran away. Who broke things and ran before anyone could look around to blame him. Maybe, maybe someday he could go home.
Ness stood in the emptiness and was broken because she'd thrown in her lot and it had failed.
Jim stood over the emptiness and was broken because he was like his father, because he ran away.
In an infinite, beautiful universe, filled with millions of people and worlds and secrets and souls, they were alone.
Ness looked at the stars as they came out one by one and was overcome by their beauty and vastness.
Jim stood on the other side of the gulf and saw the universe of stars.
Ness was alone, but seeing the stars calmed her. They were so infinitely big. And their bigness comforted her slightly, in her brokenness.
Jim was alone but looked at the sky of stars. They were so hopeful and promising. And their promises comforted him slightly, in his brokenness.
They were alone. Their worlds had changed. But the stars didn't change.
They were alone.
But there was a little hope.
Maybe, maybe, someday, they could go home.
The stars stayed and glowed long after Jim had disappeared of the streets of Montressor to find lodging for the night.
The stars glowed long after Ness went back inside and lit a candle, and held up a book to keep her company for the night.
The universe darkened for the night, preparing for the future. Over a broken past and an uncertain future. They were alone. And the stars glowed.
Author's Note: Even though this is nanowrimo, FF plot-bunnies have given me no peace. This was the result of a persistent bugger than just happened to come to fruition. One less bunny in my writing room.
About the story, if it doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. And I know the writing gets a little spacey towards the end; but at that point all I had was imagery—I had these pictures in my head, and no comprehendable way to get them on paper. I wanted to write something that a little different than most in the Treasure Planet fandom, no happy ending. But, to my mind, no matter how screwed things are at the end of the day, the last thing I feel before going to bed is hope. Kind of like Scarlet O'Hara, at the end of Gone With the Wind, or Markus Zusak.
I'm getting carried away, and shall leave you alone, now. It is raw and un-betad, as I have no time for betaing, or much of anything else, in November. My brain is fried, so excuse the grammatical errors.
Obviously, reviews are love. And love is always very welcome.
Treasure Planet © Disney
Ness © TheInkgirl