Disclaimer: Still not owning.
AN: You have no idea how happy I am to be back in the fandom and writing again. I forgot how much the whole process means to me. It makes my heart happy.
This may or may not be the last chapter. I have another chapter planned and (get this) already written, but I'm not sure if I want to post it because this came out and ended exactly like I wanted it too. I'm afraid the next might ruin the integrity of the story. I'll decide later.
Reviews: PLEASE! I love them.
AN2: Unless otherwise attributed, all italics are Ellie.
Seven Months Later…
"Forever" was the only word left peaking through the fresh blanket of snow; the hard, black granite glinting in the early afternoon sun. Forever, for such a loaded word, was one of the most commonly used words for headstone inscriptions. At least, that's what the designer said when Sean spoke with her. It would be easy to mistake someone else's grave for the one he was really looking for, she'd said. But Sean knew, even then, that wouldn't be a problem. He knew exactly where he was. He would never forget.
With one gloved hand, he quietly wiped away the frozen flakes from the grave marker, a patch of black in the pristine, white world of the Canadian winter. A slight breeze danced through the ends of his coat, nipping at his nose and ears, filling his mouth with the strange taste of cold weather – a mix of copper and ice.
He hadn't been to her grave since her burial, a little over four years ago. Why he picked today, with the new winter settling in, he wasn't exactly sure. Maybe it was the snow that convinced his to stop on his way home. Instead of looking the other way, as he so often did when forced to drive by this particular cemetery, he felt calmed by the delicate sense of serenity and beauty that had replaced the dull gray hollow the graveyard usually looked like. With the white snow painting every inch of uncovered ground, it was almost… comforting, inviting.
Or maybe, it was just time.
"It's cold today," he whispered, staring at the cursive 'E' that curled to shape her name. "It's going to be a cold winter. You'd hate that you'd have to miss it. I remember how much you liked the cold."
"It's freezing Ellie!" Sean laughed as she flung open the flimsy screen door and ran into the snow-covered yard in her makeshift pajamas – the tank top she'd worn yesterday and a pair of his boxers.
"No, it's perfect!" Ellie shouted back, sticking her tongue out at him playfully before latching onto his arm and pushing him out the door and into a cold pile of snow, then ran away, laughing the whole time.
"I'm sorry I haven't come by," Sean said, swallowing hard, trying to coax back the awkward silence he could feel trying to pounce on him and crush the delicate moment of vulnerability he was having. "I don't really have an excuse. Not that you'd want one."
"Truth, Sean. Truth is more important than excuses are."
"Truth is, I've been kind of avoiding you, avoiding myself," Sean said, his voice soft. "It's been hard without you Els. I know you've probably been up there, rolling your eyes at me, screaming at me to just "get on with it already" but… you left me broken Ellie. It's true; you shattered me.
"I know it wasn't your fault, but it sucks. You were everything I wanted and more than I needed. You didn't try to fix me or change me. And that, I think, made me fall in love with you. I was so tired of being changed and fixed. You let me be okay with my faults and my mistakes. You let me help you with yours. You were really the first person to do that for me.
"Emma tried. She really did. After you died and Jay went to jail, she was there for me and she tried so hard to help me get past losing you. She really understood that you were the most perfect thing in my life. She – I fell in love with her again too. But I wasn't ready to. I was still pretty fucked up over you."
"I have this theory," Ellie said, pointing her pencil at Marco. "It's easy to fall in love. It really is. It's an attraction to someone else that you choose to pursue. And if they feel the same way back, then it gets bigger and deeper and you're suddenly in love."
"Do you really need me here for this?" Sean sighed, leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
"You're welcome to leave," Ellie said flippantly before continuing to lecture Marco. "So, it's easy to fall in love. But it's harder to have the right timing."
"What's timing got to do with it?" Marco laughed.
"Almost everything," Ellie insisted. "It has to be right, emotionally and chronologically. Because what happens if you fall in love at the wrong time? Disaster; or worse, nothing. Nothing happens and you're left with every cliché in the book about unrequited love. Or it ends in disaster."
"I wouldn't call it a disaster exactly," he continued, "but things with Emma ended pretty badly. We actually got married first though. And… somehow I managed to convince myself that things were good, that they were okay and it was like every other marriage. But it was wrong and fake. It's my fault, I know. I should have put her first, I know. I thought I did. I did what she asked, I helped her with her projects, I loved her, I took care of her, I held her… but it wasn't enough, I guess, just to take care of her. She knew I wasn't really there with her. I wasn't ready to be there and it breaking my heart all over again, only this time I was breaking hers too. I didn't want to; it just happened. Dr. Galeotti wonders if I was afraid to be alone.
"He's my shrink, by the way. He's okay. I'm still seeing him after seven months so I guess he's better than okay."
The wind blew, forcing Sean to wrap his jacket around him tighter. Nothing had changed, physically. It was still white. It was still pure. It encouraged him, that something could be a stoic, as static as he was at the moment. Not changing, but still there, still being.
"I'm divorcing Emma. It's a mutual thing. She was uh… building houses downtown for these families whose houses burned down or the homeless or something. But anyway, you know, she met some guy. He's a carpenter, I think, but he was volunteering and they kind of hit it off. They've been going out for awhile now and, I can tell, she really likes him.
"She asked me for the divorce actually, but it's not like I haven't been expecting it. It's just… sad. She was like the last part of my old life. Now, I'm alone. And it's… different. I don't know how I feel about it, but you would tell me that it's time that I figure out how to be by myself.
"I still miss you. I think I'll always miss you. But I think I've figure out that I'm not supposed to completely shut you out. I just need to find a way to live with your memories and everything you were to me. I need to be more to myself first.
"I don't know what I'm going to do exactly. You would. You always had a plan or at least the start of a plan. I'm just kind of going with it as it comes; dealing with it instead of shutting down.
"I know it's stupid, but for the first time in my life, I'm all on my own and I hate it. I hate having to tell myself what to do. I feel like such a fucking loser; sometimes I don't even want to get up in the morning. I always had someone, either the state, Tracker, Emma, you… I really don't know what to do without someone giving me directions. I know it's pathetic.
"I just… God, it's all twisted up Ellie. I miss you so much. I would give anything to have you back, but I know that can't happen. So, it's time to be okay with what happened to you, or to at least accept it.
"Galeotti was telling me about the "five stages of grief" the other day. They're supposed to go in order, like the first one is denial, then anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance… I went through the first three stages in like, a few hours, but I've been stuck between depression and acceptance for more than four years now. And sometimes I go back to being angry. But you know what? I don't care. I can be angry and sad and hurt because I lost the most important thing in the world to be. That's what I accept, that I can feel that way about what happened. I accept that you're gone, that you're dead. I don't accept that it was "okay" because it wasn't fucking okay and it wasn't fucking fair.
"I'm going to make myself okay, Ellie, and I'm going to be okay. But I'm not going to hide you from people again. I won't bury you. They'll know about what we had and they'll be fine with it if they want to know me. But I won't let this define me anymore. I have to… I don't know what I have to be, but whatever it is, I have to be that without this disaster hanging over my heart anymore.
"I won't forget you. I can't forget you. But I have to let go a little bit or I'll lose myself forever, or I'll lose you completely by shutting down for good. If I don't start changing, really changing this time, not pretending to, I'll lose everything… again. And I can't take that again; my heart can't take it.
"But I do love you. So much. And I miss you… and I'm starting to talk in circles," Sean laughed, the resonating sound out of place in the stark silence or the graveyard. "I guess I'll see you later. Maybe next time I come back, I won't sound like a fucking lunatic. Maybe you'll understand what I'm trying to say."
Sean dropped down to his knees and slowly traced her name with an ungloved hand. The cold stone greedily sucked the warmth from his hand, but he left it there, lingering over the final curve in the "H", signaling the end of her name, her life.
"Wish me luck with this, Els."
"Changing sucks. It hurt, but-"
"But it has to happen. And I think I'm strong enough to do it now."
The snow crunched under his boots, the same way it had when he walked in. The wind blew, the snow fell, the sun struggled to shine through the clouds, but Sean could feel it – the difference. It wasn't big; he was still hurt and insecure, but it was there, patiently tending to the tiny spark of conviction that had suddenly appeared in his soul, encouraging it to rage into a wildfire.
Change, he knew, was coming. He was ready.
AN3: I know, it's a super long monologue and very Sean-centric, but the nature of the story deemed this necessary. And people do talk to headstones like that, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility. Sorry if you hated it…
AN4: Reading the two chapters in sequence, before posting this one, I've managed to convince myself to post the last, alternate-extended ending to Behind the Static, so there will be one final chapter that will be posted sometime in the next week.
I write, you read, you review, I write more.
