Title: Raw
author: Cindy Ryan
spoilers: 1x16 and 1x17
notes: May need tissues while reading.
Ryan Hudson ignored the light rain as he walked through the park. The sky was starting to clear and the sun was fighting to peak through. A young woman with dark brown hair sat on a park bench watching a child play on the swing set. The boy with same hair as hers couldn't have been more than six. Ryan stopped and watched moving out of the way of any foot traffic that would come behind him. The boy giggled as he swung back and forth the rain not bothering him either.
Only this morning had Ryan discovered his high school girlfriend had been pregnant. On top of that his father had known and had threatened Lucy. Knowing what he did now Ryan would bet that Everett threatened his own grandchild too.
Bile rose in Ryan's throat and he swallowed it down. A strange sense of grief washed over him as he watched the scene at the swing. Boy or girl? Would he and Lucy have had a boy or girl? Boy with dark hair or a girl with blonde? She must've been so terrified to hide the pregnancy. So scared to go up to the bluffs that night.
"I'm going up to Deadman's bluff to take my life."
The words from Lucy's journal at Carson's hearing echoed through Ryan's grim thoughts. He could see her up on the bluffs in that pink SeaQueen dress. Her blonde hair whipping in the wind, tears pouring down her face, the knife in her hand. Had Lucy truly thought so little of him that she thought he wouldn't help her? Wouldn't help his child? Yes he'd been a spoiled irresponsible youth, but Ryan would've liked to think he would've taken responsibility. His father had thought otherwise.
"You were throwing away your future on a nothing girl."
Everett's words had been like a physical slap when they were at the yacht club. Now they were like salt on a wound. The wound that had been reopened through Nancy's search to clear her father. It was a wound Ryan hadn't let himself think about as the years went by. Another way he'd failed Lucy. Instead of mourning the woman he'd loved he'd run. Run to college; to a career; to marriage.
Ryan forced his feet to move and he started walking again. Early in his marriage to Tiffany they'd talked about children. Then life had gotten in the way and children had been put on the back burner. As Everett Hudson's son it was expected that Ryan would have a heir to carry on the family name. Now with his wife dead the chance of a family of his own was slipping away.
Farther down the path a soccer ball bounced into his line of vision. Ryan stopped the ball with his right foot and looked around for it's owner. A girl of seven with black hair in pig tails scurried forward. Ryan smiled at her as he kicked the ball gently back. His reward was a smile and a excited thank you as she ran back.
"I was too afraid to mourn her; so I buried it."
Hindsight is twenty-twenty Ryan thought bitterly. It was no wonder Lucy Sable was haunting Horseshoe Bay. She had every right to, so many people had let her down. He was at the top of the list. There was no way he could've foreseen her death. Ryan knew he could've protected her in other ways. She'd been his first love with all the crazy hormones that went with it. That love had created a baby. A child that would never grow up. A new life Ryan would never get to know.
The path he'd been walking wound down to the harbor. Ryan stared blankly out at the water swallowing a lump in his throat. After a moment Ryan looked to Deadman's Bluff's and found he couldn't look away. His imagination was working over time showing him images of a blonde pregnant girl splattered with blood tumbling to the sea.
"I'm sorry, Lucy."Ryan whispered to the wind.
Everett's words haunted Ryan once more. Words of a man who had claimed to love his son. Ryan knew how tainted that was; how much it came with conditions. Ryan would never forgive him. Everett may not have killed Lucy but he had taken her life even if he'd drawn the knife himself.
"You were throwing away your future on a nothing girl."
Lucy Sable hadn't been nothing. She'd been beautiful and smart. For a brief bright moment she'd been his.
end