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A/N: This one's dedicated to dear Hank,
who's officially now my hero. Also dedicated to Your Worshipfulness, who proved
the old adage: adversity breeds inspiration.
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= Part Six =
"Before I built a wall..."
I must have looked dubious when she pulled out the pack of cards, because her eyes flickered at me, obviously amused.
"You've seen too many card tricks," she said, putting the cards back on the shelf. She stepped past me, making little musing noises as she poked around in her stuff. "Let's see... What could I use?"
I raised an eyebrow. "You can't just read my mind..."
"--and tell you what you're thinking?" Shannon asked, tossing me another one of those little amused looks over her shoulder.
"Oh," I said. She laughed aloud, sounding almost intolerably smug. "Well, you said telekenisis, too -- can't you just move something, instead of reading my mind?"
"Books!" Shannon exclaimed suddenly. I shrugged.
"Well, yeah, books would work, just so long as--"
"No, Watson!" Shannon said, shaking her head. She waved a hand at all the numerous hardbacks lining the shelves. "Books!" she said. I blinked, then understanding dawned.
"Does it matter which one?" I asked, already moving to the shelf to sort through the books.
"Not really; pick something you don't think I'll know well enough to recite." Shannon flashed me an almost predatory smile. "We'll make a believer of you yet, Watson!"
"Let's see this," I said. I grabbed a book, something picked at random. I threw myself into a chair and Shannon took the one across from me.
"Pick a page and read it," Shannon directed, slouching back in her seat and closing her eyes. "Go slowly, and concentrate on what you read." I nodded, then realized her eyes were shut and replied aloud in the affirmative. This was, to put it blandly, going to be very cool. Sing-song thought: My best friend is psy-chic, my best friend is psyyy-chic! I looked down at the book, feeling excitement building in my chest.
I flipped the book open to a random page, smiling when I saw what I'd picked. "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost -- one of my favorites, by my all-time favorite poet. I knew a few of his poems by heart, but this wasn't one of them. I read each line carefully, concentrating on the words, and when I finished, I looked up at Shannon. She was frowning prodigiously, empty teacup in her hands. I started to say something, but she shook her head at me -- amazingly well timed, considering she still had her eyes closed. I grinned at the thought, and then yawned impressively. After tonight, I wasn't going to hear a word in class tomorrow. Not that it mattered... I waited.
And waited.
"I'm not sure," Shannon said after a long, long moment, "what you read." And when she opened her eyes and looked up at me, she seemed puzzled. I frowned.
"You're not getting anything?" I asked, feeling suddenly downcast. She shook her head, and the elation flooded out of me. I tried not to look as disappointed as a felt. "So maybe it's just that the experiment's bad?" I suggested, sounding more hopeful than I felt. She shook her head.
"I don't understand it," she said slowly. "I can always pick things up so clearly, and then... this. It's like..." she trailed off, rubbing at her temples with pale, tired fingers.
"It's okay," I said. "Maybe it's just something you can't control." She looked up at me, eyes flashing.
"Don't patronize me, Watson," she snapped.
"Don't talk to me about patronization!" I said just as quickly. It was like she'd set spark to a brush fire beneath me; I was suddenly blazing, with all the passion that a hard day and sleep deprivation can beget. "You're the one who won't tell me anything!" I yelled. "You go around spouting crap about legacies and powers, but all I've seen is your amazing ability to lie to me! You haven't told me jack about what went on this afternoon, and you can't even tell me what I was reading! You, who come from a family of psychics and witches. Some kind of magic you turned out to be," I finished, my tone dripping sarcasm. It all flooded out before I could stop it; I was on my feet without realizing it. Shannon was up, too.
"Fine!" she shouted. She took a step toward me and forcibly controlled her voice. "You want to know what went on?" she asked, that dangerous, quiet edge to her voice. Without waiting for an answer, she told me: "Her name was Marie Anderson, daughter of the William Anderson who was killed two weeks ago, asleep in bed with his wife. The thieves went after the broach they apparently saw him take him; it was his wife's thirtieth anniversary gift.
"Marie saw the killer's face, he saw hers, and so she went to the cops, scared out of her head. But Marie didn't have a name, so the cops wouldn't do anything about it. Not a damn thing." Shannon's gray eyes flashed icy blue, and she took a breath before going on. "She came to me, but it was too late; she was stabbed in the street at two this afternoon, walking home from work behind the Second Street Denny's. She never got a chance to identify the guy who got her father, and then the bastard got her, too. I couldn't do anything about it." She swallowed, her eyes still locked on mine. "And the broach, the goddamn broach the killer was after in the first pace, turns out it was only a bunch of brass and cube-zirc after all."
I stared at her, horrified, the anger all gone out of me. She'd gone two shades paler out of sheer rage, and even though she'd shoved her hands in her pockets, I could still tell they were shaking. She was shaking all over. I'd never seen her so torn up -- the amazing, unflappable Holmes looked like she was about to cry. A sick, dizzy feeling was rising in my stomach.
"God, Shannon. I'm--" I started.
"Yeah, you're sorry." She spat the words like a curse. "Well, don't be. You don't want me to patronize you, then I won't." She growled the last of it and turned her back on me, stalking over to the desk. "Don't tell me you're sorry," she said again, softer this time but just as angry. She stood staring at the softly glowing computer monitor for a long moment, then sat down in the chair -- just sort of buckled, like her knees had been knocked out from under her, and fell into the seat. Her back to me, she bowed her head.
I stood, torn and miserable and suddenly tired again, bone-deep and weary tired. I wanted to go somewhere and sleep until all this went away, but at the same time, I felt something aching, towards the back of my chest, like someone were tugging at part of me. Tugging me toward Shannon.
"I'm sorry," I said, and that time she let me say it. I walked over, standing far enough behind her that she wouldn't feel crowded. I stifled the impulse to hug her; she'd hardly ever let me, or anyone else for that matter, touch her -- something like a pat on the shoulder was intimate by her standards. So I just stood there, in silence, until--
"I know," she said. As close to a thank you as she ever got, and it was enough. I wondered what she must be thinking; she was tired, stressed, angry, embarrassed. After spending all night, literally, trying so hard to prove she was strong and trustworthy and full of powers and history and God-knows-what-else, I couldn't imagine how she had to be feeling. I didn't know whether she could read minds or not, but right then, I wished, for the both of us, that she could. If what I wanted was to curl up and sleep, she probably wanted to crawl somewhere and die. Thoughts of a soft bed almost had my eyes closed before the thought, small and insistent, started seeping into my thoughts--
"Where are you going to sleep?" I asked her.
"My bed," she answered vaguely. I shook my head.
"Mrs. H may work wonders with carpet, but there's no way she can have gotten your bed clean by now." I wondered why I hadn't thought of it the first time we separated for bed. Whoo. Bed. Looong overdue, thank you. Shannon can't sleep in hers because it's bloody, because Marie-Somebody died in it today... I shuddered, deciding to save that for later contemplation. Going to be hard to get back to sleep, I decided with a sinking feeling. Going to be dead tomorrow, yup...
"...on the chair," Shannon was saying when I managed to focus myself enough to listen. I snorted.
"You're sharing my bed, and that's all there is to it," I announced. I would have sworn she blushed, and I hoped my tone had sounded dire enough that she wouldn't argue. I turned and headed for my room. To my satisfaction, I heard her following after a moment, clicking off the lights. I crawled under the covers, rolling over on my side to give her room. After a long hesitation, Shannon slid in next to me, still in all her clothes, still with her cuffs buttoned. She kept herself pulled away, not even brushing me with her shoulder. I sighed; she was still so paranoid around me.
But at least she wasn't sleeping sitting up, I reminded myself. 4:17 AM the glowing green letters on my alarm clock told me. I closed my eyes and before I knew it, I was asleep.
And then, just a moment later, I woke again to hear Shannon speaking. She'd said, her voice quiet and pale, "And on a day..." and then she'd trailed away strangely. I almost thought she'd fallen asleep, or that maybe I'd dreamed it, when she started again. "And on a day we meet to walk the line, and set the wall between us once again."
"We keep the wall between us as we go," I mumbled automatically, and it only took me half a heartbeat to place the lines. "Mending Wall," I said sleepily, feeling myself starting to smile despite the hour. "It's my favorite poem... Didn't think you knew Frost."
"I don't," she said softly. Her tired tone held an undercurrent of triumph, and I believed her, of course, but it took me a second to figure out what she was getting at. When it all clicked, I started laughing silently in the dark. Frost. It was Frost -- not what I'd read, but certainly something I'd thought of. And here she was, quoting lines. The thrill it sent through me was almost enough to wake me all the way up again. Almost, but not quite. Still, the stomach-butterflies were back in business. This meant--
"It's not proof," she said.
"But it's a start," I said. And it was sometime after I said it that Shannon stopped trying to make herself disappear; we fell asleep with our backs pressed together.
* * *
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.
--Robert Frost, "The Mending Wall"