Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. I would fix them. Now contains ideas from Risky Business Class, Dead Air and Forget Me Not.
Author Notes: I watched Forget Me Not yesterday morning... and I certainly won't forget it. I have re-watched it and I still can't believe it's really over, "Truth is, he's not my husband anymore..." You can't help but be sad when you think of all the years before now.
I will admit that I really enjoyed watching it; Jorja Fox did an outstanding job. I did squeak a little to learn that TV Sara has been drinking wine and taking sleeping pills just like this fic Sara – and that there was the possibility that she was doing things she can't remember...
Apologies that this is only short - consider it a bridge between the old and the new...
Home Is Where The Coded Notebook Is...
By Rianne.
Chapter Six.
The silence stretched.
The phone connection, faint and crackling was the only sound.
Nothing ticking onwards to infinity.
Except there wasn't an infinity anymore.
There was a weight to the silence, a growing weight.
Of eerie finality.
She said nothing, merely waited, fingers curling into the support of the wooden desk behind her.
The ring on her finger felt unnaturally cold.
Until his voice came again, "Are you still there?"
The lump in her throat was the size of an egg.
"Yes," she croaked, barely above a whisper.
"I think we need to talk some more about what we decided last night," he continued.
She turned cold.
Last night?
She had thought their connected call was just a malfunction with her phone.
All the feeling had gone from her legs.
There were no memories at all in her head.
What had they spoken about?
Had she told him about Doug, had she told him about the heartache, the loneliness, about how much she missed him?
All that came into her head when she thought of last night were blurry images of them making love in her dream.
How did she let on that she had no idea what they had spoken about?
Her eyes welled up.
He didn't sound like he was calling to arrange a reunion for them.
"Sara, I know this isn't what we had in mind when we started this, but I think it's for the best."
She was beginning to panic now. The pulse in her throat beating tightly.
Started what? Their research? Their work in Costa Rica? Their move to Paris? Her move back to Vegas?
"Look I know it's hard to talk about." He continued, but there was something lacking in his tone.
She wished she could see him right now, read his expression, his eyes.
Maybe she would understand then what he was talking about.
He paused. "But I think this is the right thing."
"Gil," her voice was so unlike her, trembling into the phone. "I don't remember."
The tears came.
The shame of the confession ahead of her.
"I uhm, I..."
She just couldn't. The tears were too much. Leaving her gasping for breath.
"I a, took a sleeping pill. I don't remember speaking to you."
She heard his intake of breath. He sounded like she had stabbed him.
He was in pain and she hated that. Hated that she was in pain too.
Bad.
This was bad.
She knew he was used to her odd sleeping behaviours. Sleep walking, sleep talking, the occasional sexual advance when her hormones were full, and the screaming. No one could forget the screaming.
He knew about the pills too, that she needed to have seven hours of uninterrupted sleep to not have memory lapses.
His silence let her know he believed her.
And somehow that was worse.
Even with the wine omitted.
His call must have awoken her.
Had she taken a pill with the wine? She didn't think so. But this latest batch from the pharmacy seemed more potent than the last.
He was still there, still breathing and she realised she could hear him crying. Each intake drawn deep with a shudder.
"I miss you, I want you here with me," she sobbed out, pleading with him.
No longer caring that she wasn't hiding her tears, no one was that strong.
The hand that had been gripping the desk let go to wrap around herself in desolation.
"I can't do that." He told her. So final.
His voice had gone dead. The life just gone. The way it did when he just couldn't do things anymore.
"It's over isn't it?" She barely got the words out.
Sinking to the floor, curling her knees up to her chest.
She gasped, in near disbelief. "That's what we talked about."
Rhetorical. No need for a question.
Her head and her heart were screaming.
"No..." she sobbed out, "no... no..." she was instinctively rocking, her body shaking.
She heard him murmur her name, but she barely caught it.
He sounded like a stranger.
The Gil she knew, that she had vowed to love forever, wasn't the man on the other end of this phone.
Things got blurry.
The room, the sound, overwhelmed by the stuttering irregular pound of her broken heart.
She got angry then, but the hurt had beaten nearly all the fight from her.
"You couldn't even come here to tell me that?" She begged. "You're a coward."
Missing their anniversary was one thing, but ending eight years of relationship over the phone?
He didn't fight her. He didn't speak.
"You bastard."
She disconnected.
Letting the phone fall to the floor.
000000
She remained motionless.
Empty.
So long that the energy saving motion sensor office lights went off leaving her in darkness.
She must be in shock.
When she had told Finn she would leave the conversation sad she wasn't even remotely close.
She was dead inside.
A sickly blackness filling her stomach and chest.
Her forehead pressed to her knees.
The tears run dry.
He had tried to call twice.
It hadn't tempted her to answer.
She hadn't even looked up from the shelter of her thighs.
She thought she had been alone before with him thousands of miles away.
Well now...
She had never felt more alone in her entire life.
000000
She had barely any recollection of getting home.
She hadn't been able to drive. No car. So she had walked.
Sunglasses on, through the dark back alleys, distantly lit neon streets of Las Vegas far behind her.
On into the suburbs.
Walked for hours.
Round in circles.
She knew the city now, but that didn't matter.
It was about the motion. If she could keep moving the overwhelming wave wouldn't be able to catch up with her.
The sun was rising as she eventually took refuge. Needing to get away from the light.
But her place was too bright, she had rented it for that very same reason.
Beautiful indoor garden oasis at the entrance, high warehouse ceilings, skylights, cream walls, open space.
It had reminded her of Costa Rica.
The way the light had fallen in beams between the dappled leaves.
She had chosen it with him in mind.
She was too drained to cry, merely letting her gaze move from area to area.
She had thought he would like the garden, had filled it with cactus that looked fresh and smelt sweet.
Had imagined him lounging, reading in the living space, the clean light the perfect illumination.
Even the painted tones had been a combination of their favourite colours in an eclectic mix.
Yet he had never been here.
Not once in three years.
She had always gone to him, met in a hotel for a treat, or met somewhere in the middle, and once they had stayed with his mother when he had come for a quick stopover.
The closest he had come to getting a tour was when she had lifted her iPad and let him see the place via Skype.
Why had she not insisted?
Why had she not demanded?
Why had she not questioned why he hadn't shown as much interest in her life back in Vegas as she showed about his?
The thought that he might never come here wasn't something she wanted to consider.
Her limbs ached. The hours she had walked had left the soles of her feet burning in her boots.
Her bed called.
The comfort of the heavy, soft covers like the promise of an embrace.
She took her phone from her purse.
To shut it down.
She couldn't avoid the screen.
Five more missed calls.
Yet right now they meant nothing.
And one text message.
She considered deleting it.
She read it anyway.
'We can't keep waiting to be together. You are too young and I'm too old and we are both too far apart. It needs to be this way.'
Numb she killed its power.
Tossing it aside.
Stripping off only the necessary clothing she knelt as if to pray.
But her focus wasn't for help, forgiveness, or a sign.
It was to scramble under the bed for the little orange bottle which had rolled beneath so many hours ago. In a different life.
She shouldn't do this.
But what did it matter now.
The bitter tablet was gone in a flood of water from the same bottle as before.
She mounted the bed at a crawl.
Was barely aware of lifting the covers over herself, up over her head too.
And then blissful nothing.
TBC