**Note** If you read part four beofre 10/7, I've edited it so that now there's a new paragraph at the end. It's a conversation between Carter and Lucy, and they are being watched by someone who is revealed in this part.
Title: Shadow of John Carter 5: Left Behind Unseen
Author: Lindy
Rated: G
"Dr. Weaver?" A knock came to her office. Kerry Weaver looked up from her work, narrowly looking down at the intruder.
"Peter. Can I help you with something?" She set her pencil down and straightened up.
Peter Benton slowly entered the room. "Yeah, actually.." His voice trailed off as he got closer. "It's... about Lucy."
"Dr. Knight?" Kerry corrected the title. "What about her?"
Peter hadn't wanted to say. If he did... he knew it would put Lucy at risk. Maybe he hadn't seen anything. Nothing at all. Everyone had issues, right? Everyone had a different way of dealing with their problems. Lucy was no exception.
"Peter?" Kerry asked. "If you think something is wrong-"
"I went to Carter's grave last night," Peter interrupted, looking all the time at the surface of Kerry's desk. He felt wrong telling Weaver, but he was worried. And he wasn't willing to take those risks anymore. "And Lucy was sitting there. And she was talking to Carter."
Kerry Weaver looked at Peter for a moment, folding her arms. "Well... we're all dealing in different ways, I know it's been awhile since he died, but it was hard for her, especially-"
"No, that's not what I mean," Peter said, shifting his weight and dangling his arms nervously. Peter Benton was never nervous, and he never ratted out a coworker... "She was... leaning against his stone. Talking to the air around her... like it was him... she carried a conversation..." Peter swallowed. "Lucy believed he was there." The images were returning; the sweet, innocent blonde-haired girl who had just succeeded at something in this world, and she was basing all of her confidences on delusions...
Kerry blinked back in disbelief. It didn't make sense; then again it did. Lucy had just flown back to reality, back to her old life, the way it was before the accident, in a matter of hours. "Are you saying she's creating illusions of John, Peter?"
Peter Benton shrugged almost instantly. "I don't know. I was just worried." He turned his head, looking at the floor. "I have to go.. I'll..." He looked back at Kerry as he reached the door. "Maybe I was just imagining it, I..." his voice trailed off as he parted from her office, leaving Kerry Weaver alone.
And alone Kerry wondered if Peter's imagination wasn't something real....
"Lucy?" Lucy Knight looked up from her chart reviews.
"Hey, Dr. Weaver. Can I help you with something?" Lucy set down her pen, leaning back to face the red-haired doc.
"Actually, there's something I want to talk to you about. Could we speak in my office?" Weaver spoke lightly motioning to the room across the hall.
"Sure." Lucy stacked her charts together, standing up slowly. She watched Dr. Weaver turn and go into her room, not hesitating to see if Lucy would follow. Lucy wondered what was wrong. Perhaps a patient complaint? No, they would've said something to her before she discharged one. Lucy moved heavily around the desk she had been sitting at, then slowed her pace again as she reached the office. Maybe she had screwed something up? Oh, shoot.. maybe she hadn't shut something, or left something on... No, Weaver would've said something in a fit of rage, not this discussion in her office...
"You can sit down." Weaver motioned to a chair in front of her desk.
"I'd rather stand, actually," Lucy said, in the hopes that this would be both short, and the fact that she had worked herself up more than this required.
Kerry nodded after a long look at Lucy. "This is about Carter."
Carter?... Lucy took the initiative to sit down at that moment. What exactly did that mean? "What's wrong with Carter?" she asked, in complete wonderment.
"One of the doctors..." Kerry changed her mind. "Lucy, you've been dealing with this whole Carter incident, right?"
Lucy didn't like the tone Dr. Weaver used, but she didn't feel the need to say so. "Yeah, I've already dealt with it. A while ago... why?"
"It's just... well, we didn't want anything to hurt you. Or... cause you to think things you normally wouldn't." Kerry sat down behind her desk as well, facing Lucy with a look in her eye that Lucy hadn't seen there ever.
"Think things?" Lucy didn't move. "What do you mean?"
"We didn't want this to disturb you in anyway."
Disturb her? Where was all of this coming from?... "I'm not disturbed-" Lucy started, then something snapped to her mind. What if someone had seen her at Carter's grave? She was pretty sure no one could see him. After all, he had been at her graduation, and no one confessed to seeing him there. Lucy mentally kicked herself, she knew she should have thought of this privacy issue sooner. "I'm not disturbed at all. Carter died awhile ago, really, I'm okay." This time she ended more confidently.
Kerry looked at her a moment. "Alright. I just wanted to double check. I don't question your mental abilities, Lucy. You know that." Lucy nodded, standing up. "You can go back to your chart reviews now," Kerry said, picking a pen up and leaning over her own.
"Okay... thanks." Lucy watched for a moment, then turned to leave, shutting the door silently behind her. She felt almost as if she had been doing something wrong, like she had been sneaking around with Carter this entire time. That was stupid; Lucy knew she wasn't at fault for anything. Still.. it irked her that someone might know something that they didn't understand in the first place...
The car pulled up. Lucy looked out her window from the passenger's side, not wanting to have to face the driver. The fall leaves were beautiful colors; it was as if a watercolor painting had dripped itself all over the hillside. She breathed slowly, pressing her forehead against the window to let the coldness touch her.
"Lucy?" the familiar voice came from beside her, but she didn't want to have to turn to face it. She looked down on the cemetery below. The car was parked along a dirt road that led down to it, covered in a wood of hemlocks and oaks that stopped a little further down. Droplets of sun sunk through the leaves of the trees, causing the ground to look like a stained glass window.
The voice beside her sighed, and she could hear him lean his head back. "Stay, Carter." Lucy said firmly, turning to face it slowly. "You don't have to go."
Carter turned to her. "You know I have to," he said softly. Lucy shook her head, staring off for a moment. "I did what I came to do. And I have to go back now." There was a moment of silence between the two people. "You'll be okay," he said confidently, gaining her attention once more.
Lucy looked him over, studying him. She knew that this would be the last time she would see him for a very long time, and she wanted the memory of him forever stained in her mind. "I don't..." she started, but the rest of her sentence faded into a mumble as the tears came. Lucy leaned her head back against the headrest of the seat, sobbing even more as Carter placed his forehead against hers.
"I know..." he whispered, wiping a few of the tears away. "I know, Lucy... It's okay.." After a moment the tears stopped, but the traces were still there, and the longing look in Lucy's eye never left.
"You taught me everything I know, John Carter," she whispered, looking into his eyes as their foreheads warmly met again. She let hers part his slowly. "I'll always remember everything."
Carter nodded, swallowing himself. He realized that this moment would be coming, ever since he had come back those many weeks ago, but it was still hard, even in death, to say good-bye to Lucy. "You do good..." he whispered, knowing his voice would crack if he even mustered himself up enough courage to speak again. "Promise me one thing," he said, looking at her with fierce emotion in his eyes.
"What?" Lucy said through tears, jumping at the sound of a promise.
"Don't learn from my death, Lucy... learn from my life..." He matted her hair back to her head, feeling the tears coming on hard. It scared Lucy to see Carter cry like this, but she understood. "Don't take anyone for granted, not anyone," he spoke almost spurning himself, "like the way I took you for granted...."
"No you didn't..." she whispered through sharp, quick sobs. "You didn't."
"Just promise me you'll live in the moment of life. Always." Carter's hands shook as he brought Lucy into a hug, not wanting to let go of this moment. Heaven seemed so close, so impending, he could feel the clock of time he had left ticking away slowly as he held Lucy.
"Then promise me you'll always be watching," she said, crying into his shoulder and smoothing down his hair.
"Just like you... you always wanted a compromise..." Lucy let a desperate combination of a sob and a laugh pass her lips as he heart leapt in her chest over and over again. "I promise," Carter declared with over amounting sincerity lighting up Lucy's face. He pulled away to face her.
"I promise, too." Her jaw quivered. Carter leaned forward, laying a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Don't go..." she mouthed one last time, as he turned and opened the car door, quickly getting out. Carter knew that if he didn't force himself, he would never be able to get out of that car.
Stopping one last time before he shut the door, Carter bent down, peering back in to behold Lucy's figure once more before stepping off. "You're a great doctor, Lucy. But you're a better friend." The last of the tears rolled down their cheeks as he looked at her one last time before shutting the door. "Goodbye.." Carter uttered.
As Carter walked around the car, he wiped the tears from his eyes, drying his face. The wind flooded his skin, drying his moistened cheeks quickly. About twenty feet from the car, on Lucy's side, just slightly off of the road by an oak, he turned to face her, putting his hands in his pockets, and waiting.
"Bye..." she whispered under her breath. Lucy watched him the entire time, taking it in once more, for the final time through her window. The sun came for a moment, coming through the clouds of the blustery day, and the glare of it on the window blocked her view of Carter. Then she saw it; his translucent reflection in her window, blinking back at her. Where was it coming from? The driver's seat? Maybe he had decided to stay!
She turned, but instead faced an empty seat, as the shadows came back slowly, the sun fading through the window. Lucy gasped softly, turning to face the window and look out toward Carter. In the spot where Carter had been lay the remnants of fall's leaves, gracing the slowly dying grass of the hill. Lucy got out of the car, stepping out slowly to look around. A slight breeze passed through her hair, over her body.
For that moment, it felt like Carter had never been there, and that Lucy had woken up from a dream. She looked around her again. It didn't seem weird, bad, or good either, but it seemed like reality had dawned in these shadows where Carter had just been, and suddenly their conversation in the car seemed like ages ago.
The air around Lucy stood still as she wondered these thoughts. The sweet smell of fall apples filled her nose then as she looked up to an apple tree. She hadn't noticed it before, but it was there now, and she cleared her throat and her nose as she looked upon the apples that lay upon the ground.
Lucy knew that living without Carter would take some getting used to. She let a sob-filled sigh escape her as a wind sent shivers down her spine.
"Lucy..." she heard as the wind hit her ears. Lucy closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She felt like she was absorbing something more than just the sweet smell of the apples lying next to her. Lucy felt like she was taking in a part of her past that she would never see again. Someone she would never see again. Lucy opened her eyes to the long and winding road before her that led down to the cemetery, knowing that it was just her now. She was on her own.
Title: Shadow of John Carter 5: Left Behind Unseen
Author: Lindy
Rated: G
"Dr. Weaver?" A knock came to her office. Kerry Weaver looked up from her work, narrowly looking down at the intruder.
"Peter. Can I help you with something?" She set her pencil down and straightened up.
Peter Benton slowly entered the room. "Yeah, actually.." His voice trailed off as he got closer. "It's... about Lucy."
"Dr. Knight?" Kerry corrected the title. "What about her?"
Peter hadn't wanted to say. If he did... he knew it would put Lucy at risk. Maybe he hadn't seen anything. Nothing at all. Everyone had issues, right? Everyone had a different way of dealing with their problems. Lucy was no exception.
"Peter?" Kerry asked. "If you think something is wrong-"
"I went to Carter's grave last night," Peter interrupted, looking all the time at the surface of Kerry's desk. He felt wrong telling Weaver, but he was worried. And he wasn't willing to take those risks anymore. "And Lucy was sitting there. And she was talking to Carter."
Kerry Weaver looked at Peter for a moment, folding her arms. "Well... we're all dealing in different ways, I know it's been awhile since he died, but it was hard for her, especially-"
"No, that's not what I mean," Peter said, shifting his weight and dangling his arms nervously. Peter Benton was never nervous, and he never ratted out a coworker... "She was... leaning against his stone. Talking to the air around her... like it was him... she carried a conversation..." Peter swallowed. "Lucy believed he was there." The images were returning; the sweet, innocent blonde-haired girl who had just succeeded at something in this world, and she was basing all of her confidences on delusions...
Kerry blinked back in disbelief. It didn't make sense; then again it did. Lucy had just flown back to reality, back to her old life, the way it was before the accident, in a matter of hours. "Are you saying she's creating illusions of John, Peter?"
Peter Benton shrugged almost instantly. "I don't know. I was just worried." He turned his head, looking at the floor. "I have to go.. I'll..." He looked back at Kerry as he reached the door. "Maybe I was just imagining it, I..." his voice trailed off as he parted from her office, leaving Kerry Weaver alone.
And alone Kerry wondered if Peter's imagination wasn't something real....
"Lucy?" Lucy Knight looked up from her chart reviews.
"Hey, Dr. Weaver. Can I help you with something?" Lucy set down her pen, leaning back to face the red-haired doc.
"Actually, there's something I want to talk to you about. Could we speak in my office?" Weaver spoke lightly motioning to the room across the hall.
"Sure." Lucy stacked her charts together, standing up slowly. She watched Dr. Weaver turn and go into her room, not hesitating to see if Lucy would follow. Lucy wondered what was wrong. Perhaps a patient complaint? No, they would've said something to her before she discharged one. Lucy moved heavily around the desk she had been sitting at, then slowed her pace again as she reached the office. Maybe she had screwed something up? Oh, shoot.. maybe she hadn't shut something, or left something on... No, Weaver would've said something in a fit of rage, not this discussion in her office...
"You can sit down." Weaver motioned to a chair in front of her desk.
"I'd rather stand, actually," Lucy said, in the hopes that this would be both short, and the fact that she had worked herself up more than this required.
Kerry nodded after a long look at Lucy. "This is about Carter."
Carter?... Lucy took the initiative to sit down at that moment. What exactly did that mean? "What's wrong with Carter?" she asked, in complete wonderment.
"One of the doctors..." Kerry changed her mind. "Lucy, you've been dealing with this whole Carter incident, right?"
Lucy didn't like the tone Dr. Weaver used, but she didn't feel the need to say so. "Yeah, I've already dealt with it. A while ago... why?"
"It's just... well, we didn't want anything to hurt you. Or... cause you to think things you normally wouldn't." Kerry sat down behind her desk as well, facing Lucy with a look in her eye that Lucy hadn't seen there ever.
"Think things?" Lucy didn't move. "What do you mean?"
"We didn't want this to disturb you in anyway."
Disturb her? Where was all of this coming from?... "I'm not disturbed-" Lucy started, then something snapped to her mind. What if someone had seen her at Carter's grave? She was pretty sure no one could see him. After all, he had been at her graduation, and no one confessed to seeing him there. Lucy mentally kicked herself, she knew she should have thought of this privacy issue sooner. "I'm not disturbed at all. Carter died awhile ago, really, I'm okay." This time she ended more confidently.
Kerry looked at her a moment. "Alright. I just wanted to double check. I don't question your mental abilities, Lucy. You know that." Lucy nodded, standing up. "You can go back to your chart reviews now," Kerry said, picking a pen up and leaning over her own.
"Okay... thanks." Lucy watched for a moment, then turned to leave, shutting the door silently behind her. She felt almost as if she had been doing something wrong, like she had been sneaking around with Carter this entire time. That was stupid; Lucy knew she wasn't at fault for anything. Still.. it irked her that someone might know something that they didn't understand in the first place...
The car pulled up. Lucy looked out her window from the passenger's side, not wanting to have to face the driver. The fall leaves were beautiful colors; it was as if a watercolor painting had dripped itself all over the hillside. She breathed slowly, pressing her forehead against the window to let the coldness touch her.
"Lucy?" the familiar voice came from beside her, but she didn't want to have to turn to face it. She looked down on the cemetery below. The car was parked along a dirt road that led down to it, covered in a wood of hemlocks and oaks that stopped a little further down. Droplets of sun sunk through the leaves of the trees, causing the ground to look like a stained glass window.
The voice beside her sighed, and she could hear him lean his head back. "Stay, Carter." Lucy said firmly, turning to face it slowly. "You don't have to go."
Carter turned to her. "You know I have to," he said softly. Lucy shook her head, staring off for a moment. "I did what I came to do. And I have to go back now." There was a moment of silence between the two people. "You'll be okay," he said confidently, gaining her attention once more.
Lucy looked him over, studying him. She knew that this would be the last time she would see him for a very long time, and she wanted the memory of him forever stained in her mind. "I don't..." she started, but the rest of her sentence faded into a mumble as the tears came. Lucy leaned her head back against the headrest of the seat, sobbing even more as Carter placed his forehead against hers.
"I know..." he whispered, wiping a few of the tears away. "I know, Lucy... It's okay.." After a moment the tears stopped, but the traces were still there, and the longing look in Lucy's eye never left.
"You taught me everything I know, John Carter," she whispered, looking into his eyes as their foreheads warmly met again. She let hers part his slowly. "I'll always remember everything."
Carter nodded, swallowing himself. He realized that this moment would be coming, ever since he had come back those many weeks ago, but it was still hard, even in death, to say good-bye to Lucy. "You do good..." he whispered, knowing his voice would crack if he even mustered himself up enough courage to speak again. "Promise me one thing," he said, looking at her with fierce emotion in his eyes.
"What?" Lucy said through tears, jumping at the sound of a promise.
"Don't learn from my death, Lucy... learn from my life..." He matted her hair back to her head, feeling the tears coming on hard. It scared Lucy to see Carter cry like this, but she understood. "Don't take anyone for granted, not anyone," he spoke almost spurning himself, "like the way I took you for granted...."
"No you didn't..." she whispered through sharp, quick sobs. "You didn't."
"Just promise me you'll live in the moment of life. Always." Carter's hands shook as he brought Lucy into a hug, not wanting to let go of this moment. Heaven seemed so close, so impending, he could feel the clock of time he had left ticking away slowly as he held Lucy.
"Then promise me you'll always be watching," she said, crying into his shoulder and smoothing down his hair.
"Just like you... you always wanted a compromise..." Lucy let a desperate combination of a sob and a laugh pass her lips as he heart leapt in her chest over and over again. "I promise," Carter declared with over amounting sincerity lighting up Lucy's face. He pulled away to face her.
"I promise, too." Her jaw quivered. Carter leaned forward, laying a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Don't go..." she mouthed one last time, as he turned and opened the car door, quickly getting out. Carter knew that if he didn't force himself, he would never be able to get out of that car.
Stopping one last time before he shut the door, Carter bent down, peering back in to behold Lucy's figure once more before stepping off. "You're a great doctor, Lucy. But you're a better friend." The last of the tears rolled down their cheeks as he looked at her one last time before shutting the door. "Goodbye.." Carter uttered.
As Carter walked around the car, he wiped the tears from his eyes, drying his face. The wind flooded his skin, drying his moistened cheeks quickly. About twenty feet from the car, on Lucy's side, just slightly off of the road by an oak, he turned to face her, putting his hands in his pockets, and waiting.
"Bye..." she whispered under her breath. Lucy watched him the entire time, taking it in once more, for the final time through her window. The sun came for a moment, coming through the clouds of the blustery day, and the glare of it on the window blocked her view of Carter. Then she saw it; his translucent reflection in her window, blinking back at her. Where was it coming from? The driver's seat? Maybe he had decided to stay!
She turned, but instead faced an empty seat, as the shadows came back slowly, the sun fading through the window. Lucy gasped softly, turning to face the window and look out toward Carter. In the spot where Carter had been lay the remnants of fall's leaves, gracing the slowly dying grass of the hill. Lucy got out of the car, stepping out slowly to look around. A slight breeze passed through her hair, over her body.
For that moment, it felt like Carter had never been there, and that Lucy had woken up from a dream. She looked around her again. It didn't seem weird, bad, or good either, but it seemed like reality had dawned in these shadows where Carter had just been, and suddenly their conversation in the car seemed like ages ago.
The air around Lucy stood still as she wondered these thoughts. The sweet smell of fall apples filled her nose then as she looked up to an apple tree. She hadn't noticed it before, but it was there now, and she cleared her throat and her nose as she looked upon the apples that lay upon the ground.
Lucy knew that living without Carter would take some getting used to. She let a sob-filled sigh escape her as a wind sent shivers down her spine.
"Lucy..." she heard as the wind hit her ears. Lucy closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She felt like she was absorbing something more than just the sweet smell of the apples lying next to her. Lucy felt like she was taking in a part of her past that she would never see again. Someone she would never see again. Lucy opened her eyes to the long and winding road before her that led down to the cemetery, knowing that it was just her now. She was on her own.
