Disclaimer is on the Prologue.
oOo
Chapter Six:
Friday December 16, 2011
Eric sits in the chair opposite from Ryan, glad that the plexi-glass wall has been removed. His friend does not look well at all. He is too thin, and he shakes constantly. He stares at a spot on the table, but Eric knows he doesn't see it.
"I want to see the sunset," Ryan mumbles. "Please?" For a brief moment he glances up, catching Eric's gaze. His eyes are dead. They don't shine and they don't sparkle. Eric feels a surge of guilt—did he do this by not visiting? By not getting him out?
"I think I can manage that," Eric glances up at James, willing him to go away. James glares back at him. And then Paula bursts in, demanding that James come help with another patient who is refusing to cooperate.
Daniel, the other attendant, nods at James, saying silently that he has the visit under control. So James leaves.
Eric waits all of three seconds before punching Daniel until he loses consciousness. Then he helps Ryan stand up. He knows that Ryan has lost a lot of weight, but until he practically lifts him out of his chair with a strong grip, he doesn't realize just how severe it is.
Ryan can't stand and leans on Eric for complete support. Bloody knuckles and bitten fingernails. They make quite a pair, limping down the hallway, trying to look as if they belong. Amazingly, they don't encounter anyone until they get to the front doors. Paula winks at them from her post at the front desk. She'll lose her job, and Eric will be cited for an assault charge, but he couldn't be happier. Ryan is finally going to be free.
The first steps into the parking lot make Ryan shiver. His clothes are so thin—he is so thin—that the slight breeze goes right through him. Eric shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over him, pulling it closed when Ryan makes no move to hold it. He seems to be in a state of shock.
"Are you okay?"
Ryan turns to him, and the lack of expression on his face, in his eyes, scares Eric. "He was raping me." They stop moving, not so much because they're at the Hummer, but because Eric can't make his feet work. He can't make his mouth work either. Ryan begins sobbing loudly, but there are no tears on his face.
"I don't know what to do," Eric whispers, moving closer so that he can wrap his arms around Ryan's shaking form. "Help me understand."
"I just need to get away," Ryan turns slowly to look at the facility. Eric watches him, scared that the energy used to get him out is disappearing. What if Ryan dies?
"Don't die," he whispers, helping his friend into the passenger seat. Ryan laughs quietly, but he doesn't respond. "Please don't die."
"The sunset?" Ryan reminds him as they head towards the beach. Eric nods before looking at him and realizing that he is almost asleep.
"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat when his voice sticks on that one syllable. At a stoplight he starts a text to Horatio about meeting them there. Before he can send it, the light turns green. At the next light, he tries calling Horatio, but Ryan notices what he's doing.
"Please don't." The effort it takes for him to sit up and open his eyes frightens Eric.
"I need to. He needs to know."
"He put me there. Don't call him." Ryan starts shaking again, teeth chattering. Eric turns up the heat, directing the vents at his friend, but nothing helps. He is certain that Ryan is dying.
They sit on the beach, on the sand. Ryan shivers. He hasn't really stopped despite the heat in the Hummer and the warmth of Eric's jacket. "Hold on," Eric goes back to the Hummer and gets a blanket he keeps for emergencies from under the rear seats. He wraps it around Ryan and himself, trying to share his body heat.
Ryan presses against him
"It's been a year." His voice is almost too soft to hear despite his head being on Eric's shoulder. "Since he first raped me."
"You don't have to talk about it," Eric murmurs. It's not that he's uncomfortable discussing what's happened to Ryan, it's that he notices that Ryan's strength is disappearing. He's dying. And there is nothing Eric can do to stop him.
"I want to," Ryan adjusts his head so that he can watch the sun set over the edge of the blanket without losing any of the warmth accumulating within. "I need someone to know, someone to understand what I went through."
And Eric listens as Ryan tells him about how the man had drugged him at a bar and took him home. Eric interrupts then, asking for clarification, "That's why you moved?" Ryan nods, hair tickling Eric's chin as it runs over his stubble.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier."
"You weren't ready. I'm sorry I didn't get you out sooner."
They lapse into silence, watching the sun sink behind the buildings. Light breaks through the cracks between the structures, falling onto the resting men.
Ryan shifts again, presses deeper into Eric's side. He exhales softly.
"I couldn't make the promise earlier," Ryan's breath ghosts over his cheek. "I'm sorry."
Tears sting Eric's eyes as he realizes what's happening. "Don't. Please don't. I'll get help. I'll make sure everything's okay."
"You already have. I feel like I'm finally safe." Eric looks down, watching the light as it brushes over Ryan's upturned face, filling the scars gouged from his skin, blending the bruises covering his jaw into his faint beard, softening the sharp edges of his features.
He wants to take a picture, because this is how he wants to remember Ryan—as a strong, courageous friend who beat the odds. Not as the broken man too afraid to fight for himself. His phone chirps in his pocket. An incoming call from Horatio.
He presses ignore. Opens the phone to camera. Focuses on the light on Ryan's face. Takes a picture. Ryan looks up at the flash, blinks slowly, smiles softly.
"Don't forget to remember me," he says, exhaling and closing his eyes. He sets his head back on Eric's shoulder and, still smiling, dies.
The light fades away completely as Eric holds the body of his closest friend. Then the tears start falling.
oOo
Tuesday December 20, 2011
Natalia looks through her closet. Clothes that aren't hers, were never hers, line the shelves. Slowly, carefully, she selects a black silk shirt. She lifts it to her nose and inhales, imagining a strong scent she can't even really remember. A sob breaks from her throat and she sinks onto the floor, tears spilling down her cheeks.
She has no right, and yet she has every right. She never loved him as more than a friend or a brother when he was walking around, hanging around, but over the course of his incarceration, she'd fallen in love with him—not the old him, but the new him, the damaged soul.
Still crying, she slips off her shirt and pulls his on, buttoning it with fingers that feel clumsier than grief should be. Using one of his ties, some pretty little green affair, to tie back her hair, she stands up, heading through her house, checking and double-checking things like he would have done if he'd been standing in her apartment.
Someone knocks on her door as she grabs her purse. She knows who it should be, but her heart says it's him. Disappointment floods her when she lets Eric Delko in, eyeing his black suit and green tie.
"I see we dressed alike," he says, voice choked and thick. "I think he'd be proud to have inspired that."
"I think so, too."
He holds out his hand, "May I have the honor?"
She nods, "Only if you check to make sure I've locked the door when we leave."
"And have turned off the stove."
"And watered the plants."
"And made the bed, put away the dishes, swept the floor, cleaned the windows—"
"God," she says, laughing through her renewed tears, "how'd he ever get out the door?"
"By believing the world needed him."
"It did. It still does."
"I know."
oOo
Epilogue:
January 1, 2012
Eric stands at a lone headstone. This is his third stop today. His third toast of apple juice at a graveyard. First Marisol, then Speed, and now Ryan. His sister, his first best friend, and now his second best friend.
It's misting and foggy. Only in Miami in the middle of winter, he thinks as he raises the glass, catching some raindrops in the cup. He stares at the contents for a long moment. He couldn't have done anything to prevent Marisol's or Tim's deaths, but he knows he should have fought harder to save Ryan.
They had discussed Heaven once, when Ryan was high on some kind of medication and Eric was letting him sleep it off. Ryan didn't believe in Heaven because, as he put it, he couldn't stand to think there was a place where he wouldn't be allowed. Eric had done his best to convince him that even if Saint Peter rejected him, he'd drag him in himself.
It hadn't worked.
He's not sure Ryan can go to a place he didn't believe in. He's not sure he believes in Heaven if Ryan isn't there. Mamá made sure to tell him before he left her house this morning that Ryan had made it to Heaven, that God wouldn't dare deny such a sweet soul, but that's still hardly any comfort for him.
He thinks of the young woman who arrived a week after Ryan's funeral, hands shaking, palms sweating, ready to replace another friend. Eric tried to follow the examples of the others who welcomed her heartily, but he knows, after the chilly reception he gave Ryan, it wouldn't feel right to allow another person such easy access to his emotions. It took Ryan two years before Eric didn't hate him, and it took another two years for Eric to realize he was his friend. Ryan must have been so strong to withstand the hate directed at him.
"Things aren't the same anymore," he sighs, lowering himself to the damp ground. Ryan's decomposing body is beneath the place where his feet rest. It's easier that way…to pretend that he's facing his friend. "Walter has a date tonight with the new CSI girl. Molly something-or-other. You would like her. She's got OCD like you." The words tumble from his mouth. No one is near to hear him, so he indulges himself, imagining Ryan sitting across a small table, apple juice glass raised in mock toast.
"I gave you grief for it, didn't I?" A small smile, a brief chuckle. "By the way, Calleigh and I are back together. I guess sex trumps brotherly love any day. You knew, though. You knew even when we didn't. Thanks for not ratting us out."
Eric wonders, again, how Ryan was able to put up with him. How was he so forgiving? The apple juice glows amber in the faux crystal goblet Ryan had given Eric for the last New Year. A small sip nearly makes him choke. It tastes like ashes.
"You know, Natalia has worn one of your shirts every day since you died. I think she's in love with you, man." He tries to chuckle, but instead the sound he releases sounds suspiciously like a sob. "You changed a lot of lives for the better. I'm sorry we didn't tell you when you were alive, but you made things better. Especially for me." He drinks the apple juice, swallowing hard when the liquid leaves a sour taste in his mouth. "Ryan," he tilts his head to the sky, opening his mouth and savoring the syllables. "I'll miss you, my friend."
One by one
I suffer you badly
One by one
You're all I don't need
And life on the road
Makes you feel old
Remember the time
When friends were around
When friends were around
When we were all friends
And is this the way to be?
And is this the way to be?
One by one
One by one
~The End ~
oOo
A/N: The mental institution is real, but the staff and the layout has been completely fabricated to fit the needs of the story. I apologize to anyone who is or may be associated with Highland Park Pavilion Jackson.
I realize that I did not include any scenes of Frank although he was mentioned to have visited Ryan. I feel he stopped soonest because he realized he couldn't ask the questions Ryan needed to hear, and so was actually the first to give up (even though he never truly gave up) and was the basis for Horatio forgiving the others their inability to continue visiting Ryan. Horatio's perception of Natalia is obviously wrong, but I never quite got the feel that he fully trusted her aside from a handful of times throughout her career as a CSI.
I do not feel I write an adequate portrayal of Alexx, so she was never shown to visit although, in a perfect story, which would be so much longer, and maybe better, she would definitely feature. If I do rewrite it again, I will definitely add Frank and Alexx.
The importance of the song One by One is that I wrote most of the story (i.e. Ryan's initial sections and most if not all of Eric's sections) to that song. I added the others later, and I think Walter wasn't even included at first since it was supposed to take place during Season Seven. It was a very conscious decision to never show Ryan's POV after the Prologue, because I didn't want the story to focus on him so much as his effect on others, especially Eric.
Thank you for reading this story and for any comments, favorites, and alerts you've invested in it. It is greatly appreciated.
- Scaredbeingsinthedark aka WalkingDictionary
