Told in a Garden
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, concepts, or names in here. The only thing I own is the idea expressed in this story. No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: Suppose one random decision gives rise to two separate but parallel universes. What might happen in those two universes?
Lisabella's arms went around Calleigh fiercely. "Mom, it wasn't your fault. You said yourself he was stubborn, and if you'd both gotten up in bad moods and then he decided he wanted to be upset, there wasn't anything you could do to change it." Her mother's tears didn't slacken with this, though, and she wondered what more she could say. "You didn't twist one arm up behind his back and march him out to the car, did you? And belt him in and start it for him? You didn't push him in front of the car, right? Mom, it's just not your fault."
Calleigh sat up and smiled through her tears at her daughter. "Honey, I know in here," tapping her head, "that it's not my fault. But in here," resting her hand above her heart, "it's a different story. If we hadn't argued, he wouldn't have left for work so early. If we hadn't argued, he wouldn't have stopped off to buy flowers, and he wouldn't have been hit. All because we had some stupid argument!"
"What about the rest of the team? Did they blame you?"
"No, they didn't. We were all so devastated, we barely even discussed why he was there that morning. By the time it did come up, we were trying to put ourselves back together as a functioning team. We really all turned into one family...just a family with a Horatio-shaped hole in it."
"So has anyone ever blamed you, other than you yourself?"
"No, no one ever has. But over the last fourteen years, I've looked back so often and wished that I'd acted earlier on what I felt for him, and wished that things had happened differently that last morning. There have been so many times I've wished I could take back everything I said then, but I never can. And sometimes it just tears me apart that the last things I said to him were something mean and hateful."
"Oh, mom. I wish I could remember him better, all I can remember is these little, almost like photographs or freeze-frame shots, usually of the three of us together. But I do remember that I never felt anything but happy, and safe, and loved. I know that he loved you, and I'm sure that if he could, he'd tell you that he'd never blamed you for what happened."
"I know that, love. But how do I stop blaming myself?" She sat back against the bench and looked up at the sky. The sun had shifted while she and Lisabella had sat talking, but the tree still shaded them from the worst of it. "How do I not blame myself?"
A breeze sprang up again, and one branch of the Japanese maple tree above them dipped with the air current, dipped far enough to brush its delicate red-gold leaves tenderly against Calleigh's tear-stained face. Suddenly she felt a once-familiar love, a love she had not felt in fourteen years, spreading from the caress of the leaves against her face to surround her. She felt somehow more at peace now, whether it was from the soft caress of the leaves or from talking with someone else about what she had kept buried for so long she did not know. She smiled upwards, into the crimson-leafed branches above her.
"Thank you, Handsome."
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, concepts, or names in here. The only thing I own is the idea expressed in this story. No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: Suppose one random decision gives rise to two separate but parallel universes. What might happen in those two universes?
Lisabella's arms went around Calleigh fiercely. "Mom, it wasn't your fault. You said yourself he was stubborn, and if you'd both gotten up in bad moods and then he decided he wanted to be upset, there wasn't anything you could do to change it." Her mother's tears didn't slacken with this, though, and she wondered what more she could say. "You didn't twist one arm up behind his back and march him out to the car, did you? And belt him in and start it for him? You didn't push him in front of the car, right? Mom, it's just not your fault."
Calleigh sat up and smiled through her tears at her daughter. "Honey, I know in here," tapping her head, "that it's not my fault. But in here," resting her hand above her heart, "it's a different story. If we hadn't argued, he wouldn't have left for work so early. If we hadn't argued, he wouldn't have stopped off to buy flowers, and he wouldn't have been hit. All because we had some stupid argument!"
"What about the rest of the team? Did they blame you?"
"No, they didn't. We were all so devastated, we barely even discussed why he was there that morning. By the time it did come up, we were trying to put ourselves back together as a functioning team. We really all turned into one family...just a family with a Horatio-shaped hole in it."
"So has anyone ever blamed you, other than you yourself?"
"No, no one ever has. But over the last fourteen years, I've looked back so often and wished that I'd acted earlier on what I felt for him, and wished that things had happened differently that last morning. There have been so many times I've wished I could take back everything I said then, but I never can. And sometimes it just tears me apart that the last things I said to him were something mean and hateful."
"Oh, mom. I wish I could remember him better, all I can remember is these little, almost like photographs or freeze-frame shots, usually of the three of us together. But I do remember that I never felt anything but happy, and safe, and loved. I know that he loved you, and I'm sure that if he could, he'd tell you that he'd never blamed you for what happened."
"I know that, love. But how do I stop blaming myself?" She sat back against the bench and looked up at the sky. The sun had shifted while she and Lisabella had sat talking, but the tree still shaded them from the worst of it. "How do I not blame myself?"
A breeze sprang up again, and one branch of the Japanese maple tree above them dipped with the air current, dipped far enough to brush its delicate red-gold leaves tenderly against Calleigh's tear-stained face. Suddenly she felt a once-familiar love, a love she had not felt in fourteen years, spreading from the caress of the leaves against her face to surround her. She felt somehow more at peace now, whether it was from the soft caress of the leaves or from talking with someone else about what she had kept buried for so long she did not know. She smiled upwards, into the crimson-leafed branches above her.
"Thank you, Handsome."