Falls Apart
She falls apart by herself
No one's there to talk or understand
Feels the sting dries her eyes
Finds herself opens the door and sighs
People see right through you
Everyone who knew you well
Falls apart, might as well
Day is long and nothing is wasted
The
announcement was so unexpected. Completely and totally. They had fought before
the heart attack, but afterwards? They were so loving, aware that every day was
marked with a bright orange danger sign. Tread carefully, cholesterol has
struck.
But then it
had started again, two months earlier. Anger and rage unleashed—and now it was
back to the way it was before, but worse, because the absolute low had arrived.
"You cannot be
getting a divorce!" Brooke screamed, disturbing even the particles of dust from
their resting places. "I mean—you can't be!"
She stormed
off, tears beginning to snake their way down her cheeks that were reddened with
anger. Winces echoed from the forms of Mr. and Mrs. Lanier as the bedroom door
swung loudly into place. They then turned their eyes to Val with curiosity as
to how she would react.
"So, does your
opinion involve any door slamming?" Joanne inquired over-cheerfully. Val said
nothing and rose.
"I'm late for
my shift at the station," she informed them, heading out of the room. The
closing of the door wasn't loud, but it signified the end very clearly.
Runaway, runaway
Wanna hold on to you but you're going away
Runaway, runaway
Wanna hold you tomorrow but you're leaving today
"Is
something wrong?" Tyler asked Val hesitantly late that night. Tears had begun
to stain her paperwork. "What happened?"
"Nothing," she
said, swallowing and picking up her pen again. "I'm fine."
"You're
crying," he told her. "Unless you're sweating in this freezer of a station."
"Very funny,"
she sniffled.
"C'mon, Val…"
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "Tell me what's
the matter."
"Nothing's
wrong, Tyler." Don't concentrate on how good it feels to have his arm there,
concentrate on how you can't tell anyone, she ordered herself.
"Tell me.
Please?" Come on, Val… I can comfort you… That sounded like a weird pickup
line, didn't it? Okay, forget that… Connell! She can't hear your fricking
thoughts!
"Nothing is
wrong!" she insisted.
"Oh, and those
drops on the paper are from the sprinkler system?" he inquired skeptically,
drawing her head to his shoulder. "Tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing," she
mumbled. Tyler sighed.
"I won't tell
anyone, I swear."
He would
understand, she admitted to herself, and it feels so nice, him putting
his arm around me and all…
She
snuggled into his neck and confessed, "My parents are getting divorced."
"What?" Oh
God—this was happening to Val?
"They're
getting a divorce," she repeated. Tyler wrapped his arms around her shaking frame
and gently rocked her.
You walk along by yourself
There's no sound nothing's changing
They've gone away left you there
Emptiness is nothing you can share
Her eyes were
soaked with tears as she crept into the station three minutes late. A week and a
half after the announcement, but now another proclamation had been made, and
this one was equally bad.
"I have to
choose who to live with, because I'm 17," she informed them as they looked up
at her. "And—and—my dad's moving to Chicago."
Of all their eyes,
Tyler's seemed to be the most frightened. "Who are you going to choose?" he
inquired unsteadily. Val shook her head and grabbed her uniform from her
locker.
"I have no
idea." She went off into the bathroom to change.
"Well, Tyler,
you'd better tell her you like her before she runs away to Chicago and gets a
new boyfriend," observed Hank.
"I don't like
her," Tyler informed Hank and Jamie.
"Right,"
agreed Jamie with evident doubt in his voice. "And I'm an overachiever."
"I don't like
her!" insisted Tyler. "I love her," he confessed.
Jamie and Hank
exchanged glances and sighed meaningfully. This could turn out to be a bigger
mess than anyone had expected.
All those words that hurt you
More than you will let it show
Comes apart by yourself
All is well and everything's wasted
PROS: Squad.
School. Cheerleading. Friends. Caitie.
"All right,
I agree with the Caitie part, but aren't you forgetting something?" Caitie
inquired, tapping Val's Kingsport Pros/Cons list.
"You want me
to list all my friends?"
"Tyler
Connell, idiot."
"So you do
want me to list all my friends," deduced Val, taking the list from Caitie.
"Okay. So… Jamie, Hank, Tyler…"
"Oh God, Val,
for how long are you going to pretend you don't like him?" Caitie grabbed the
paper from Val's hands and took a pencil from the desk. "There. Crush on TC."
"Caitie!"
exclaimed Val, removing the pencil and notebook paper from Caitie's hand. "For
the last time, I do not have a crush on Tyler!"
"What about
'Oh, Caitie, he's so hot,' huh? Remember that?"
Val turned a
bright scarlet. "That was a long time ago." She erased Crush on TC. Caitie
shook her head disbelievingly and grabbed a pen.
"Gimme…
that… list…" she ordered Val, jumping for it.—but Caitie was five two and Val
was five nine, so it didn't really have the desired effect.
"No. I do not
have a crush on Tyler. Admit it."
"Val, you do!"
"Do not. Say
it or I won't give you the list."
"Okay, you
don't have a crush on Tyler," conceded Caitie. Val smiled triumphantly and
handed Caitie the list. Caitie grinned and scribbled something on it.
In love with
Tyler Connell read the corrected paper.
Runaway, runaway
Wanna hold on to you but you're going away
Runaway, runaway
Wanna hold you tomorrow but you're leaving today
Sometimes I feel around
It scares me some I can't be down
"Has anyone
noticed that the only person Val's really been speaking to lately is Caitie?"
Tyler asked the other two in the station. Val was in the supply closet doing
inventory. "I mean, seriously. It's weird."
"Caitie is Val's
best friend and the court order is in four days. Val has to decide who she
wants to live with in less than a week so that they can work out custody
arrangements," said Hank patiently. "She's going to be withdrawn."
"She already
is," said Tyler, sadness in his eyes as he rose from the couch. "I'm going to
go—help her with inventory. Or something."
*
"Hey, you need
help?" Tyler questioned, looking down at Val, who sat in the middle of boxes of
saline.
"Yeah." Val
pushed her hair back from her forehead and managed a small smile, one of the
few he had seen from her since the announcement. "Thanks."
"So you have
four days to decide where you're going to live?" he asked. Val nodded, biting
her lip.
"25 saline
packages in here. Yeah. Chicago or Kingsport." Her tone was undecided and
neutral.
"It's hard,
isn't it?"
Val nodded,
then seemed to realize what he had said… he had been through this. "How old
were you when they split?"
"Thirteen." He
looked down at his hands. "Originally I was going into partial custody but—my
dad didn't want to take care of me. So he just sent child support money every
week… those were pretty much the only things we ever got from him. Not greeting
cards… not hey, how are you letters… not even postcards from Greece or Romania
or wherever he was at the moment… just child support checks." He swallowed. "30
saline packages."
Val was still
looking at him curiously. "You know what it's like when parents split?" she
whispered, sounding as if she was desperate and needed to know that someone
knew what she was going through.
"Too well."
Her gaze broke
from his eyes, unsure of what to do. "I'm sorry."
"You don't
need to be. Are we done with saline?"
All this time to be on my own
In is out to be again
This time will waste another friend
I know where they will know
Where they'll runaway
The court
order was in three goddamn hours and she didn't even think she knew
where to go. Kingsport had Caitie, the station, the squad, Tyler… Chicago had…
well, Chicago had everything Kingsport didn't, but she wasn't sure if that was
good or bad.
She walked out
of the house and down the sidewalk, not sure of where she was going, not sure
of what she was doing, just letting her feet walk…
The
tricycle was red, a supposed boys' color, but Val was a tomboy anyway and she
loved it. Too small to ride a bicycle, the tricycle was perfect for her. The
wheels spun wildly as she pedaled quickly down the sidewalk, voices of her
mother and father drifting to her—"Honey, slow down…"
The memory
ended there. She couldn't remember what happened next. Val sighed. So many
memories here—but that might just as well be a reason to go.
She had been
pulling away from everyone, and she knew it… but who could she not pull away
from? Tyler knew what she was going through, and Caitie was her best friend,
but even they didn't know how suffocated she felt…
And slowly she
was pulling away. Slowly she was dying—and there were only three more hours to
continue dying, and then she would either start all over again, like a phoenix
from the ashes, or let herself fall. She didn't know what was happening, and
she didn't expect to know anytime soon…
The park was
calm and inviting. Amazingly, not many people were there, even on a warm
Saturday morning. Val slowly crossed the emerald green grass and sat down on
one of the swings, looking down at the ground and closing her eyes…
She falls apart no one there
Hold her hand it seems to disappear
Falls apart might as well
Day is long and nothing is wasted
"You decided
yet?"
She opened her
eyes in surprise and looked up into the face of Tyler.
"What are you
doing here?"
"Worrying
about you."
Val sighed. "I
don't know where to go… you know that Tori Amos song? 'My scream got lost in a
paper cup, do you think there's a heaven where the screams have gone…' Yeah,
well, I think my scream has gotten lost, and if there's heaven for it, then I
might as well just go up there anyway…" She upturned her face to the sky.
"No!" Tyler
grabbed her arm fiercely. "You are not going to die, Val, and do not think
about it. I know what you mean, I know how you feel, but suicide is not an
answer!" Seeing the tears that fell from her eyes, he wiped them away. "Do you
know how much I'd miss you if you went?"
"You'd miss
me?" she asked.
"Of course."
His voice was choked in his throat. "I'd miss you so incredibly that I don't
think you can even imagine…"
There was a
long pause.
"You don't
have to worry," she told him, looking at the sky again. "I don't think I even
want to. 'Cause I'd miss you and all, too."
"Look, I went
through the exact same thing five years ago. The end of seventh grade and my
parents were splitting… it was horrible. But you know what I learned? There's
always someone who will be able to help you get through it. Your best friend,
or your sibling, or a guidance counselor, or your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or
whoever. They'll be there for you, and you know, you've got to remember that
this isn't your fault—it was your parents who started fighting, and you can't
stop it. If they made a mistake, you weren't it. It probably would have
happened anyway. You've got to learn to accept the fact that they're divorcing…
and they won't be together… but that doesn't mean it has to ruin your life
completely, because it was not your fault."
There was
another long pause after his speech, as Val looked up at the sky and thought.
"There are
guardian angels, you know," she informed him.
"Yeah."
"I thought I
lost mine, but you know what?" She turned and smiled at him. "It was here all
the time."
"Oh, yeah?" He
stood up and held out his hand to her. "So, you made your decision?"
"Almost."
Before he was completely sure what was going on, she had placed her lips on his
and was kissing him.
"Now, about that decision…" he
began as the kiss ended.
"Come off it,
Connell." She grinned, a genuine smile that had been missing too much lately
and might take a while to get back permanently, but was here right now all the
same. "I wouldn't run away from you."
"You were
about to," he reminded her.
"I just fooled
you."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"Come on,
there are better ways to compromise," he told her with a grin. Val tentatively
put her arms around his neck.
"Yeah. And we
have as long as we need to do it."
"As long as you don't run away."
"Of course not."
Runaway, runaway
Wanna hold on to you but you're going away
Runaway, runaway
Wanna hold you tomorrow but you're leaving today
Runaway runaway
Hold on to you but you're going away
But you're leaving today
But you're leaving today
Whoo yeah, that was sucky. That's okay though, I like sucky
fics! Even though I *do* like good fics better… huh. Anywhos. I'm leaving for
camp EARLY Saturday morning, so for two weeks I will disappear from ff.n… and
then I go to Maine for three weeks… anywhos, I'm not going to be here for a while,
though I'll try to post the other fic… this is SORT OF part of the Broken
Days duet, which is about basically the *sob* angst of Tyler and Val's
family life. Yes, they suck. Yes, I am aware. The first one might be posted
before I leave, if I can hurry up and finish it. The second one? I dunno when
that comes out, but… anyways. See you laters.
---IVY
Disclaimer: Song is "Runaway" or "Falls Apart" by Sugar Ray,
and it duly belongs to them. Thanks to Aricraze with the whole song thing. The
Tori Amos song is "Silent All These Years", and is an excellent song. I love.
Maureen did write a songfic with it… I might… probably not—I have too many
stories as it is. {Still Waiting For You is under construction, for all those
who wanted to know.} Characters belong to Alliance Atlantis, and the sucky
story belongs to me. *sighs* Why do I always get the bad stuff?
