Deja Vu

Author: Kaia Mariacle

Disclaimer: Not mine, but boy, I wish they were.

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Colin/Ephram

Summary: Futurefic; A boy in love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he looks at me, it's like the lights dim.

And I can't believe that I'm quoting Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

You see, this is what love does to you. It makes you stupid and silly. It makes you have these thoughts, and of course you ignore them until they're so strong there about to burst out at the most inopportune moments.

Like, say when you're laughing with his girlfriend over pizza at the local diner.

And he walks in, no....no....he struts in, so uncharacteristically, and saunters over to where you're sitting and throws a pair of concert tickets down on the table.

You look down and the words FOO FIGHTERS jump out at you. They're your favorite band, and they're for next week.

And there are only two of them.

He just stands there arms crossed, completely oblivious that his girlfriend is sitting across from you, and he gives you this wonderful grin. So bright and beautiful, and he says:

"Happy birthday."

Then he plops down next to you, throws an arm around your shoulder, and finally notices his girlfriend. He says, "Oh, hey" steals a fry from your plate, and looks over at you to see your reaction to his gift.

That's when you know you're in love with him.

What you do next is definitely not your fault, it's really not.

You avoid him until the night of the concert. When he walks one way, you make sure your walking the other. When he tries to seek you out, you're lucky you know him the way you do, and you manage not to go run into him.

It's not your fault that he's so hurt and angry, and wondering just why his best friend doesn't want to hang out with him anymore.

Except....it kind of is.

You always knew that there was something more there that you couldn't explain. You just couldn't handle it on top of everything else, so you pushed it to the back of your mind, and you ignored it until it took on a life of it's own.

You always knew why you couldn't stand to see him with her. Why you spent hours watching him sleep. Why you could never seem to stop touching him -a casual brush of the arm, a leg pressed against his, an arm around his shoulder.

So on the night of the concert, you're sure he's not going to come, that he's going to take her instead. Even though they're your favorite band, and your birthday present.

But you throw on a some clothes -just in case- and you sit in front of the television with the sound muted, and you wait for the familiar rings of the doorbell.

Several hours pass, and if he was planning on coming over, he would have been here by now. So you flick off CSI, and you sigh.

And the doorbell rings.

You're afraid to hope, but can't seem to rid yourself of the knot of tension building inside your stomach. Because you know it's him at the door, and you know he's going to have that angry, miserable look in his eyes.

But when you open the door, you don't find the unrequited love of your life.

You find a girl, crying and shaking, with a horrible, haunted look in her eyes.

"Something's....something's...happened," she says, and you know it has to do with him. You pull her inside, and you hug her, and you ask her what's wrong.

She sobs against your chest, sputtering words, before she calms down enough to tell you something coherent.

She tells you that he was so angry at you, so depressed, but he needed to know what was wrong, if he'd done something to hurt you. She tells you that he said he needed a little courage.

She sobs that he raided his dad's liquor cabinet and he stole the jeep, that he told her he was going to see you. To get his best friend back.

She tells you that the semi didn't even see him coming.

~~~~~~~

You're standing here, staring through a pane of glass.

Dr. Brown's beside you, but you can't seem to find any words to comfort him, so you reach over and place a trembling hand on his arm. That's all it takes for him to break down, and you watch numbly as a nurse helps him into a nearby chair.

You turn back to the glass, the clear wall that is separating you from a boy on a bed, with various tubes hooked up to him.

He can't breathe on his own.

You wonder if this is how Amy felt, how she feels.

This is the second boyfriend she's lost to a coma.

As you stare at the bandages wrapped around his head, at the pasty color of his skin, at the eery stillness inside the room, you tell yourself that this is your fault.

You can't help but think that if you hadn't avoided him, that if you'd just told him what was going on, if you'd been a best friend.

If, if, if.

All these if's floating around in your mind are making you crazy, but you can't stop them.

You watch Ephram, laying on the bed, chest moving with the help of machines, and you cry.

Fate has a sick sense of humor, because there's the guy you love, in the same place you were three years ago.

This isn't your fault, you tell yourself.

You didn't know you were in love with him.

Except you did.

And now he's here.

You can only pray that he remembers you when he wakes up.

And he will, you tell yourself.

He will.


~Finis~