Rating: PG
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A Common Thread
A Post-Episodic Musing on "Surprise"
by Pilar
I was near sleep when the soft knock came to my apartment door. I can hardly sleep anymore, sleep is a luxury only for the rich of soul and spirit and I have neither. Every night is like this.
The knock is so quiet, but it breaks the silence of the darkness. Everything is always louder in the dark. No one comes here anymore.
I pad across the floor in bare feet to the door, my hybrid fakeass fucked up meaningless created heart pounding in my chest. No one comes here anymore. Not Maria, never Max. Certainly not Isabel. Arm's length is nowhere near far enough for her, my destiny.
My ass.
I hear a hand on the doorknob and a click as the cylinders click out of lock. One of us, or one of them, none of it sounds good right now. I brace my feet to the floor and watch the knob ready to pounce if I have to.
Isabel.
I step in front of the door and she jumps slightly, as if she was expecting me not to be there, or to be asleep. I never sleep much anymore. Not since... well, not since any of it.
Sometimes, the sight of her takes my breath away. I want to shake the memory of our dreams back into her head and make her deal with it. Make her deal with me. Sometimes, I believe in destiny.
Our destiny makes us killers. Both of us are killers, now.
She's here to tell me that she understands now, that she's sorry and that she remembers even if I still don't. And she's here to hold me like I've never been held before, so I can finally feel safe and wanted and somewhere that I belong.
Or, not.
She doesn't say a word, instead crossing to the sink and running the water until it turns cold. The sound is icy in the quiet. If she would talk; say something, anything. But she just stands there, the water overflowing the top of the glass.
I've never seen her like this, hair out of place and matted with dirt, her soiled and ripped dress still clinging to her body. Her body. Put it out of your head. Can we all heal? I'm afraid to ask. I'm afraid to speak. I'm afraid of her.
But I can't just let her stand there and say nothing. It's the middle of the night, I'm less than half dressed and she's silent. And I never did get to give her her birthday present.
Focusing, I approach her and graze my hand over her bloodied cheek, nothing happens. They're getting stronger as I get weaker. Or, I've always been this weak. The only thing I'm capable of doing is destroying. When have I ever done anything else?
Then she takes my hand into hers and I can feel her blood moving in her veins under her skin. She moves our hands together over her face and the wound disappears. I find my voice.
"Are you all right?" I eke out, my ragged voice surprising us both.
"No." She finally closes the tap and the white noise that I had gotten used to is gone. We're completely alone now. "Michael?" She says my name and for the first time in a long time it's not chastising. "Tell me how you felt after... Pierce."
I sit back on my bed, my couch, and wish that the room was cleaner, that there was somewhere that was worthy of Isabel sitting on it. She crosses the room and sits beside me kicking her shoes to the floor, as if this is normal for us. Like she's been in my bed before and it's not killing me. She doesn't know it's killing me.
"I need you to tell me."
"All right."
I haven't talked about this before, not really. They saw it happen, they were there for it, but no one can know how it feels to be a killer. And I am a killer. Shrewd and heartless, I have killed.
And, now, so has she.
And I understand.
I tell her everything, of course. About how I still think about it every single night and how I imagine that I felt the force of my power slam into him and how I could nearly feel that he was dead before it hit him. I tell her about how I still see his dead eyes staring back at me lifeless and how I sometimes wish it had been me instead.
I tell her how it has changed everything and how I'm not surprised that she could never love me. How could anybody love me after I have taken a life. She rests her head against my chest and tells me that it was self-defense, cringing.
"Doesn't make it any easier, does it?"
"No. No, it doesn't. Will it get easier, Michael?"
My name again, a whisper.
"I hope so, Isabel."
And when I say her name, her eyes close slowly. I can feel her eyelashes flutter on my chest and I run my thumb across her chin. Isabel in my arms. My Isabel. My destiny.
And even though I'm fooling myself, I can believe it for just this night.
"I'm here for you, you know that, right? If you want to talk, anything..."
"I know, Michael."
She falls asleep there, as if it's all normal. And it hasn't killed me yet.
THE END