The Lucky Ones
By Ana Sedai
Word Count: 683
Rating: PG
Summary: Not moving on doesn't necessarily mean not moving forward. Spoilers for the alternate ending of the first movie.
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There were days when Clear wished that she could just pack up and move on, away from this town. This town with its memories and pain and reminders of what had been. They didn't come often anymore, those days, but they were agony while they lasted. But she knew she would never leave here. Her life was here. Her family was here. And her son was here.
Alex. Alex, Jr. The one piece she had left of the boy she had loved so fiercely, and so briefly.
He had turned five two months ago, and of course was looking more like his father every day. From his light blue eyes to his unruly sandy hair to his crooked smile, he was all Alex. Sometimes she thought she could see some of her nose in his profile, but not much else. And she didn't mind a bit. Alex's parents didn't mind either, and she couldn't blame them.
Her life was stable, if not particularly exciting. Thanks to the Brownings, she had managed to finish high school and was now enrolled part-time at the local college. She worked at the bookstore, and was still able to sell a few of her sculptures on occasion. She dated a bit, but never anything serious. Small towns had long memories, and she had a little too much baggage for most men to deal with, even if Alex Jr. weren't in the picture. But that was fine with her, truth be told. She had school, her job, her art, and her son. And her memories, painful as they sometimes were.
The Brownings worried about her, she knew. As much as they loved and cherished their grandson, as she did, for his connection to Alex as well as for himself, they wanted her to be happy too. They volunteered to take care of little Alex more frequently, so she could get out more. They often dropped hints of eligible sons of friends.
She casually deflected them all, pleading lack of time or wanting to focus on her schoolwork. She knew she wasn't fooling them, but she hoped they didn't take it personally. They had been nothing but kind to her, and she would never be able to repay them for all they'd done. But she had long since concluded that while many could love and lose and then love again, she was not among that group.
She had only had Alex for a short time, and most of that time was spent in terror, running for their lives or trying to save others. But they had lived a lifetime's worth of love in that time, and she had felt him, inside her soul. She felt him there still. No one she had met had ever been able to shake him loose. And that was alright, really. She knew it might not be considered healthy for her to be in mourning for the rest of her life, but she could only be as she was.
She had told Carter years ago that what they'd been given was an opportunity to live their lives to the fullest. He had taken that to heart, oddly enough, and was now working at an ER in New York. The last she'd heard, he was engaged to a nurse he'd met there. She hoped they'd be happy together.
As for herself, she was content. She loved, and was loved in turn. She had little Alex, and he would grow into a fine man someday. She had the Brownings, and her friends, to look out for her. She had her sculptures, and school, and her job. It was the fullest life she would ever want.
And some nights, when the sky was clear, she would stand in the backyard and look up at the stars, remembering a beach not so far away. And she remembered a boy with clear eyes and a kind heart. A heart that he had left behind, even as he had taken hers away with him.
I love you, Alex.
And the breeze almost always answered back.