A/N: Here is my attempt at an Alex/Antonio interaction story, post "Ghost". It started out as a light-hearted story in which Antonio offers Alex potato chips, but it turned, weirdly enough, into a tree-climbing Alex introspection (typical of me!). If anyone's interested, the arbutus I am referring to is the Arbutus menziesii, or the Pacific Madrone. Along with the "tree of life" idea, an arbutus can also symbolize healing. It's a beautiful tree, and I apologize in advance if I get any tree-facts wrong, or if any episode details are off. It's been a long time.
Disclaimer: The following is a piece of fanfiction. No money is made off this. There is no copyright infringement intended; all characters, episodes and backgrounds belongs to Dick Wolf and NBC.
Arbutus
A spindly arbutus is growing at the edge of the rest area. The air is unusually stifling and muggy. She (this not-Alex) ducks into the shade, pressing her back against the trunk, feeling the smooth knots and whorls digging into her shoulder blades.
Above her is a boy. He's climbing up, quick as a squirrel, nimble and confident. She's worried about the branches; they feel old. Tired, drained. She wonders what an arbutus is doing there, growing so far east; displaced, like she is, spread far away from home.
"Antonio," she calls, to fetch the boy down. He's not so ready to give up. He's almost to the top. He's sure he'll make it. She's sure he'll break his neck.
"I'm almost there," he pleads, insistent. Her head dips back to meet his brilliant smile. Sunlight is filtering through the branches in a softened haze, framing his flushed cheeks, his tousled hair. Something in her breast twists strangely. Her fingers trace the trunk's uneven grains, and she remembers another child, another tree, another painstaking climb, long ago.
She wishes she could urge him to go on. But the branches are obviously too unstable. The not-Alex tells her it's too risky. (Besides, the car's waiting, with its tinted windows suffocating the sun, waiting to bear them even farther away.) And she can't take that chance anymore, if only for purely selfish reasons.
Instead she ignores the itch in her hands and tells him, "We have to go." She picks at the trunk in her worry. Red, peeling bark falls away into her clammy palm, like reluctant scabs.
The boy sighs and scrambles down. A shower of twigs follows him, getting caught in his hair, snagging on his soft cotton T-shirt. She brushes them off him with more affection than she is used to. That scares her, too, but she pushes the doubt away.
Antonio smiles his thanks, slipping a slim hand into hers. She's startled. His hand is so soft, fragile bird-bones enveloped in her palm. She wasn't prepared for this trust. Something must have shown in her face, because he's asking her concernedly, "Are you okay?"
She swallows the sudden grief rising in her throat, and focuses instead on the warmth of his small fingers, the pulse and rush of her heart. She looks back at the arbutus tree, gnarled but indomitable, growing by itself, making its own shadows. Tentatively she gives Antonio's hand a gentle squeeze. He squeezes back, dark eyes relieved.
"I'm all right," Alex says, more to herself than anybody else. And they walk back to the car together, a fittingly odd pair, each holding the comfort of a faint sun-glow in their quiet thoughts.