The voices and the silence of the dead
I haven't felt like writing anything lately, so this is me trying to jumpstart my writing mood. I'll try to stick to my resolve to write a few other drabbles and ficlets set in the grey "universe" (or whichever fannish name it took). So it won't be chapters per se, but since they'll be all set in the same time/space line and mostly revolve around Peter and Lincoln, I decided to put them all together.
My logic is indeed astounding.
The room is completely dark, except for the feeble stream of light through the closed blinds. He is sitting at his desk, head cradled in one of his hand, as the other is still clutching at the list.
He looks down at it and observes for a while (how long ? He doesn't know. It doesn't matter). His eyes strain to see, but he thinks he can make it out. The light tremors. The smudged ink.
One single tear he had tried to erase, thumb pressed down, forceful enough to break up the thin layer.
Guilt.
Desperation.
Anger.
Jumbled up...No. Sown together in crude stitches. The grotesque figure of regret.
Not six months ago he had destroyed an universe. Billions of lives annihilated. Billions of voices silenced in a matter of seconds.
Months with the weight of this fate he got wrong. Walls to build relentlessly against the murmurs of the dead.
The world is crumbling around him. It helps somehow.
It didn't when he saw the familiar name.
He is reading the names, slowly. It's late and he feels exhaustion of the long hours day settle on his bones. He doesn't resent it. Today has been good: only four hours to close the vortex, and only twenty-seven casualties (a quiet spring day, few people in the park). It is always too many of course, but he has learned the value of small mercies.
Olivia had given him the list and walked out. She disapproves -she worries- but doesn't say anything. They've already had this discussion.
Catherine Lanegan.
His index trails down. Trembling a little. Then more and more as it stops on the next name, smudging the first letter.
"... lot more exciting than.. Such a beautiful rose garden too... Welcome to the fringe division... This morning... Should have the names in a few hours... Elizabeth Park... Another vortex... Hartford, Connecticut."
(L)incoln Lee. His heart is drumming in his ears, pounding against his chest but he doesn't hear it. He doesn't hear his ragged breathing, nor the half-gasp, half-sob he lets out as he reads the information between brackets -(FBI agent).
He hadn't realized the noise that had been surrounding him since he stepped out of the machine. Not till this moment when it felt like he was breaking on an atomic level. When it is so quiet when it should be so loud.
His eyes are heavy with the tears that didn't run down, his throat raw from the screams he kept there, his fists sore from the blows he didn't give.
He turns on the light, squinting his eyes against the sudden brightness. A tear and a smudge where the name was. How fragile.
(He doesn't know yet the image of his name, before his sorrow and rage marred it, will never leave him.
Fifteen years later. He thought he heard her laugh, clear and happy in a way it hadn't been for such a long time.
He calls her but only his voice answers him. He closes his eyes against the echo, the silence behind it.
He sees his name amongst the pinpoints of light dancing in the darkness behind his closed eyelids.
Walter doesn't comment on his red eyes and bloody knuckles as he explains him how they could fix it.
"What would I need to do?" His voice is hoarse. He can hear every modulation as the words ring in the silence of the early morning, and he imagines he can see every syllabus, every letter shimmer in the air.
He doesn't share the silence and the voices of the dead anymore.)