dulce et decorum est
Title: dulce et decorum est
Author: Charli
E-mail: promisesanddisappointments@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13? I don't know, each chapter will be different I'd imagine and it depends on what you're used to, this chapter could be quite depressing, especially if you get what it's on about, but it might just be a PG.
Archive: Of course, not that I can see why you'd want to. Just ask me first, please, I'd like to know where it is.
Description: Carby – if you hate them, the back button is in the far left at the top of your screen. Hit it now. Um, angst/romance probably.
Spoilers: None, apart from the fact that Carter and Abby are together. I'm British, I don't have digital, and I've only seen 'Chaos Theory' of season 9. Also, I'm trying to be spoiler-free this season.
Summary: Now, if I had any kind of comprehensive plan of where this seems to be going…but I don't. Only a bit. I just sit down and write, and then go and edit what has appeared on the screen. Carter and Abby: their relationship, their issues – both joint and individual.
Disclaimer: yada, yada, yada. I am neither pretty nor special, unlike tptb at WB and NBC obviously, so I own nothing. At all. Blah, blah, blah. I don't think they're really going to care about some student who has nothing better to do than make up weird stories using their characters.
Author's Note: This is written because I have nothing better to do with my life apparently. If you can be bothered to review, either here or by e-mailing me, I'd love it. All suggestions or constructive criticism are very, very welcome. Don't bother flaming because I really won't care. Credits for quotes etc. are at the end of each chapter.
To Carrie and Charlie. Carrie for providing the incentive to post this on ff.net by threatening to post it herself if I didn't; Charlie for her support and encouragement.
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Prologue – nihil humanum mihi alienum est
'I don't understand. I just don't seem capable of comprehending it, any of it, anything. I can't. I feel utterly helpless. I hate that. It feels so strange – so foreign. I've never experienced anything like that. The pain, the agony, the anguish; it all hit me so hard. I felt such panic, such hate, such, such distrust of the world. Of life.
'I know the world goes on – nothing changes because of me, I'm insignificant on that scale, and yet…I want it to stop, I want it to cease spinning. I want to get off. Just for a moment in time, so I can think, so I can stop functioning so fast. And I can't, and never will be able to. I don't want everything, everyone, to stop just because of me though, I'm not important. I don't want to be, the responsibility scares me, it is the unknown. I am nothing, and that gives me comfort.
'I'm looking for something. But first I have to search for the something I need to look for. I have to search my life, my heart. I spend my life wishing, some people would describe that as a waste. But sometimes, wishing is all you can do. It is all I have left. It is my only hope.
'Hope – there's another source of pain. To pray, to wish, to dream, to hope for something so much that it consumes you is a source of joy. But it is misplaced, unfounded, unreal joy – joy and happiness that does not last, can never come true. That is what happiness is.
'I'm drowning; I'm drowning in oxygen, in air, in life. There is so much air, and yet I can't breathe. I can't feel it, I can't. My head hurts when I try to think, and so I can't. I have no comprehension of it at the moment. It all means so much, it is beyond me and mine, it is too large to focus on. I can't concentrate. I can't.
'Was there ever a time it wasn't like this? Did that ever exist? What changed? How, why? Is understanding even possible? Or was it always the same? Did nothing ever happen, nothing ever change?
'In a way I feel special, and I'm not. I'm human, and I work so hard at being normal and I have failed once again. This has never happened before, it has only happened once. I do not see it ever happening again. I'm scared. Still scared, always scared.
'With or without me this would have happened. With or without you, with or without them. I think it was inevitable, and yet I wasn't prepared. I should have been. I should have done better. And I didn't, and I never do, and I never will. Never is such a definite word, and yet it relates to such an infinite period of time. That's me, definite and yet with infinite meanings, none of which I know, none of which I understand. Life still confuses me, it throws stuff which I can not grasp.
'I can't stop frowning, I can't smile because it hurts too much. I'm afraid of this, and I'm afraid of it changing, because I don't know if I can cope with something different now. This feeling is now my normality, and in a way that reassures me. Somehow. It makes no sense to me, I can't understand.
'I stand on my own. I must. I always have. But now things have changed, and I'm frightened. I am my own responsibility, only I have control. And now I don't, and can't. I can't. So much for independence, I've never had life without it and now it has gone. And it never gave me a warning that I'd pushed it too far, it never said goodbye. It deserted me when I needed it the most.
'I'm lost, I'm confused, I'm broken, I'm alone. Everyone has left me and I've pushed them all away. Along the line I stopped realising, stopped thinking, stopped knowing. Did I want this? I don't know, but I don't think I understood.
'I can still feel the pain, the swelling, the blood. It wouldn't go, nothing could stop it, and I had to cope. And I don't know if I did. I don't think I coped. I should have done, I should have done. I never can do that. I failed, again.
'I quit, I quit. I can't go on; I don't want to go on. It makes nothing better, it helps no one. There is nothing I can do, I quit. I don't know what to do, I don't understand. I can't cope. I can't.
'It's some kind of wonder; it's a form of magic. Just like that. No more, no less. I lost it so fast, and have mourned for so long. Grief is a black cloud, inescapable and everywhere present. But we would not want to lose it, because in the process we would lose our ability to love. While the pain is so stark, the joy is incomparable. I've fallen into heaven, and earth is not tolerable any more. Reality has hurt me. So cold and so true.
'Eating me, swallowing me, consuming me whole. I want an ending, I want a resolution to this. I can't cope with it, I can't. I'm breaking down. I can't break down, it will kill me. I must cope, I must be strong. But I'm not. I can't be.
'There is a wall. It looks so thin, so frail. It appears like net with sunlight glancing through. And yet it's thicker than concrete, stronger than steel. I can see all that happens, and I can't reach it. I try, I try so hard. I've tried so hard and for so long.
'I'm done, I'm done. It's over, I'm over, I'm through. There's nothing left for me to do. I don't think there's anything left for me here. And yet I can't leave. There are ties so strong they feel like iron chains pulling me back, not letting me out. Escape is impossible, I don't even think I want it.
'I relax, I open. I lose it and I cry. I cry and I lose it. That is what this means to me. It was everywhere, and it is everything. It happened so naturally, and it felt like so much a euphoric, drug, high. Nothing this good can be real or true. Yet it was. It seemed to be. It even is.
'It was everywhere, all around me, on top of me and smothering me. Under it I writhe, I faint, I collapse. I lose reality, and I gain this. I am in another place. One with no connection to here. And yet I come back every time, I always come down. Always. It enters me and I am engulfed. I feel such an extreme.
'I've been there and I've done that. I don't know what to do next. Everything seems to be in limbo – my life, my relationships, even my feelings. In a way, my emotions seem to have been numbed, I can't feel them properly. I feel so distant from it all, nothing can connect properly. Scientifically I'm in shock, and yet I'm not. I know what has happened and I accept it. I just can't feel it properly, and I just can't understand. On the outside looking in upon myself – again.'
The listener leaned back in the red armchair watching the speaker, focusing solely on them to the exclusion of everything else. This was a world where just the two of them lived, where there was nothing that could come between them. The big, deep brown eyes of melted chocolate seemed to reflect every emotion, every intensity, of the other player in the game. The speaker continued to talk, the listener continued to listen, and all emotions were spoken aloud, made real in the still air which filled the space around them.
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Author's Note: If you don't get who's talking or who's listening, and what is happening, good. You're not supposed to. It should become slightly clearer as the chapters go on – virtual ice cream sundae for the first person to guess everything right!
The title of this fic, 'dulce et decorum est' is, of course, Latin. Literally translated it means 'it is sweet and proper'. You will probably have heard of the WWI poem of the same name. This fic is not following that poem, I've just used the phrase because it seems to fit this story. All titles of chapters will be in Latin; I love the language and think it always sounds so 'nice'. I'm going to put the translation of them at the bottom of the pages. The title of the prologue, 'nihil humanum mihi alienum est' means 'nothing human is alien to me'. It does make sense in relation to the prologue. Come on, think…!!!
Again, review please! If people like this I will write more chapters – not in this style – but I won't be able to until next weekend anyway, I have a lot of university work to do this week.
