Author: Kristin
Rating: PG-13 to R (possibly)
Disclaimer: They're not mine, wish they were, Hank owns them and I love him for it
A/N: Thanks to Dev for the awesome feedback and enthusiasm, and help choosing the title. And, as always, to Maple Street for being the best forum ever! I'd be lost without you guys. Enjoy!
Summary: Perhaps we're all lost. WIP.
*****
This has been my life; I found it worth living.
-Bertrand Russell
*****
I see them in my dreams. I see the posters on the makeshift shrines, the hastily scribbled names slightly blurred by tearstains on old paper, the edges taped, the words fading. I see the phone numbers, the names of loved ones, the faces so hauntingly and perfectly preserved forever in a photograph. I see the silent pleas in the ribbons and the flowers and the way they grip my shoulder when they beg me once more to find their daughter, their son, husband, wife, sister, brother.
They all have names and faces and some of them never come back.
I see them on the shrine where the Twin Towers once rose majestically above a flawed city, a flawed nation, providing a beacon of hope no one thought to notice until they were gone. I see their faces in my dreams, the ones that went to work, got on a plane, and never came home. I see them, because my job is to find people who are lost. I see them because they couldn't be found.
I see Annie's poster on a tree, tarnished by rain and dirt and wind. She never came home either, so some nights, she meets me by that same tree with that umbrella she carried with her, asking me if I'd care to use it.
I hear the gunshot as Barry Mashburn's voice breaks in a solemn observance of his wife. I feel the sting as the bullet slides through muscle and tissue and hits bone, sending me to the ground. I feel myself shake, feel the cold liquid seep through my fingers and around my knuckles, staining my skin, my clothes.
I see that lonely street where those buildings once stood, where I used to walk and think about Jack and why I couldn't love him and why I couldn't stop. I see the plane hit and the building shake and feel that same pull on my heart that I can't ever escape. I feel the lives of those lost, those that won't come back. I think of them all.
I see them because they're lost.
I see them because I'm not sure I want to be found.
*
"You're not sleeping well."
"No."
"Why do you think that is?"
Her notebook rests comfortably in her lap, her pen idly poised above it as she prepares to make notes on my answer, analyze the way I raise my eyebrow and fold my hands and tuck my hair behind my ear.
"I keep seeing it in my dreams."
The bookstore. Barry Mashburn.
"The bookstore? Why do you think you dream about it?"
Her tone is condescending and I inwardly curse Jack for ordering me to see this patronizing grandmother whose concern for me ends when I write my check and walk out the door.
"Because I got shot. I thought I was going to die."
"And that scares you?"
I force back a laugh. No, I'm happily awaiting the day when my life ceases to exist. In fact, maybe I'll reach for my gun and shoot myself right now. Couldn't be worse than this little farce.
"Yes, it scares me."
She looks at me for a moment, through me. It's unnerving, though strangely reassuring. As though I have a right to feel the way I do.
"Our time's almost up, but I'm going to write a prescription for some sleeping pills and next week, we're going to talk about your fears."
This time I laugh as my hand weakly meets hers in a shake.
"That'll be a short visit."
"Well, you might just be surprised."
I shrug inwardly and pay my money, looking at the other patients as I leave. They flip the pages of some old magazines, paying half-attention to the stories and focusing more on the pictures of people they wish they could be, blissfully unaware of life around them.
Perhaps we're all lost.
*
At any given time, any given moment, there's always at least one person in my life that I miss. Somedays I'm not even fully aware of it, while others leave me with a dull ache in my heart. It varies, of course, depending on the circumstances and the time of day, the month, the weather even.
Winter makes me think of my brother, mostly because we seemed most content when the snow allowed us hours away from the confines of our cold, empty house. I miss, I suppose, the snowball fights and sled races, the hot chocolate we'd bum off of Mrs. Sullivan. Hell, I even miss Mrs. Sullivan, whose old, wrinkled face sometimes tightens my scarf even still, like a ghost.
Summer reminds me of my mother. Her homemade lemonade is still fresh in my mind. It was a perfect combination of lemons and sugar and a little touch of love, she used to say. Sweet and sentimental, my mother.
And all other days in between, well, I mostly miss Jack. He's still around, still at work and home. But I miss what we were, what we might be. I wonder if you can miss what you can't even have.
He haunts my dreams as well; haunts the bookstore and the coffee shop, and that little deli down the street. Invades the space of normal life I've established slowly and surely; he comes into those places I've built to escape him, reminding me that I never will.
*
The limp is barely noticeable to those who spare a casual glance in my direction on the off chance I might smile at them or have a drink with them or become one of those early morning indecisions for a brief second before they shrug off their regrets and head to work.
Jack's hand is covering his eyes, a sign of defeat and loss, and I notice suddenly a certain gold wedding band is missing from the fourth finger. I know its place like the inside barrel of my standard issue government gun. He pulls his glasses from his eyes and dangles them in midair for a brief moment before setting them down and glancing up at me as I lean on the doorway.
"Trying to decide what to order for lunch?"
I try to keep it light because I know what's about to come and I'm suddenly thankful for the solid support beneath my left shoulder.
"It's over."
My breath catches and releases softly. I've heard this before in a different time, a different place. I wonder guiltily if it's enough to hope what I think it is has finally transpired.
"Jack-"
"We're getting a divorce."
I don't know what to say. I love you, Jack. I need you, Jack. Why did we do this? Why did we stop? Why can't it be simple, and why can't I say goodbye?
"I-"
"We tried, you know. It just -- God, I don't know how to do this."
His hands shake for a second and he stares at them as if all the answers will magically appear in the aging lines between his thumb and forefinger.
"It's hard, Sam. It's hard to let go of what you have."
It's hard to hold on to what you don't.
My voice fails me and we can only stare at one another, both of us waiting for the other to speak, waiting for a confirmation of wrongdoing or positive reinforcement for the future. All I can think at the moment, all my frenzied brain can suddenly process is this one thought.
I have nothing left to give.
*
TBC...