Title: Thieves in the Night – Completely ripped off from the title of
one of my favourite tracks, Thieves in the Night by Black Star.
Rating: PG-13 - Yeah I have no idea.
Author's Note: I think I might hate this chapter, but I was tired of
reading it over and just want to post it and have done; move on. So... read it
and tell me what you think if you will, I would appreciate what feedback you
have, positive or otherwise. Thank you.
Disclaimer: Computer? Check. Digital camera? Check. Cell phone? Check.
Nearly four years of engineering? Check. Rights to or ownership of Gilmore
Girls? Nope.
III. Not Free
"I can't do this anymore."
The words spun around in her head, as though giddy to find the entire space free. It had been nearly an hour and they had yet to settle into a form she could comprehend or cope with. She noticed that her hands were clasped and forced them to relax. Smoothing out the blanket covering her legs seemed a tolerable distraction until Rory remembered that her compulsive leveling of wrinkles had led to her tightly linking them in the first place. Annoyed, she splayed her fingers on her lap, trying to appear relaxed, maintaining defenses despite the weak vantage afforded by a hospital bed.
I can't do this anymore.
He was standing at the window, unmoving, his forehead pressed against the glass, hands buried in pockets. The images assailed her peripheral vision, despite her refusal to look at him. His jeans were stained, complementing the hole in his t-shirt, and his hair showed no sign of the requisite half hour he usually spent grooming. Stubble roughened his cheeks, matching the dark circles under his eyes. They were open. She had seen him looking more unkempt and she had seen him looking more refined. Something in his stance, however—the bowed shoulders or the way his chest was drawn in to round his back or the sheer stillness of what had to be an uncomfortable pose—something bespoke a degree of frailty she'd never witnessed.
Rory might have wondered what he saw outside, what activities passed before his sightless gaze, had her head allowed any thought beyond his admission. She would have wondered what caused the fragility apparent in his every line. But only one other phrase could vie for attention in that pulsating void.
He is leaving me.
At some point, she had registered that he was giving up on her. After inflicting an initial stab of pain, the recognition was banished and its wound went unheeded. The realization that she would be left alone was more difficult to ignore. Terror had left her breathless as the concept grew in her mind, a vacuous bubble pushing all other thought to the fringes until only his words remained, taunting her with their carefree twirling.
I can't do this anymore.
Different words pushed at her lips, pulled off a script she had stored somewhere, called forth by his statement as adequate responses. A reflex action prompting her to echo the dialogue of fictional characters.
Why not?
Don't go.
What happened?
Do what?
I'll change.
It won't happen again.
They were all pathetically laughable; patent lies, questions already answered. All except one, and those two words would never cross her lips.
"What the hell were you thinking? Were you even thinking? What—what the fuck is wrong with you? What in the fucking world were you thinking? Just answer me that, give me that goddamn much for Christ's sake." He stops pacing and faces her from the foot of her bed, clasping the metal bar at its end to keep still.
She stares at her hands, spindly clouds of white against the sky blue sheet pulled over her legs.
He throws his hands up in frustration. "I don't know if I can fucking do this anymore!"
"Do what?"
"Don't give me that shit, Rory."
"What happened?"
He stares at her, but she hasn't moved, not a muscle other than to offer the cheap sentences that seem to irritate him more. Resuming his angry pacing, he pauses near a chair by the window. Casually, he grips it and flings it against the wall. "Stop fucking with me!" he shouts over the loud crash. "I can't take it!"
"Why not?"
She can pinpoint the moment he understands. He stills, head dropping forward in defeat as he realizes what she is doing, what she is saying, and why she's saying it. Minutes pass before he returns to his position at the foot of the bed.
"Rory, please, talk to me," he pleads, leaning in. His voice takes her aback. He's not one to beg, never one to ask a favour. She draws a shaky breath and lifts her gaze to her feet; small, azure mountains against a horizon of denim.
He waits, suddenly patient. Her action has been taken as encouragement, she knows. More time elapses, people and meals rattling by outside the room on creaky wheels. Coming around to sit at her side, he takes her hand in his. The simple gesture fills her eyes with tears, and she tenses, desperate to dull the dizzying emotion flying along her veins faster than blood. He takes no note of her reaction, simply rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand soothingly, his eyes lowered.
"It won't happen again." The whisper is faint and she hates herself for the weakness it reveals.
"Rory..."
"I'll change, I will." This time, she hates herself for the lie.
"I—I don't know, Ror. I don't know if I can—"
She squeezes his hand and he glances up. Her eyes can't meet his, still fixed on her feet. The words never rose in her mouth, never came near her lips, but her unconscious movement betrays her.
He hadn't moved. A halo of fog framed his head, his warmth generating it as if to shield him from the cold urban wilderness without. She stared openly now, aware that it no longer made a difference. This time, where her eyes went or didn't had no effect.
"I need you to talk to me."
His words had the power to still her thoughts, and they settled back, eager spectators at the special screening of her life's newest twist.
"I need you to tell me why you're here, how you got here, okay? That is what you have to give me."
I don't have to give you anything, Old Rory wanted to rebut. The audience would lean forward in anticipation.
He fiddled with a strand of his hair, twisting it nervously. "You see, Rory, they're not going to let you go without my permission. They'll keep you here as long as needed, because you're a threat to yourself and they know of only one person capable of dealing with you and if I'm unwilling then they'll take it as their responsibility. I don't want that, and you don't want that, but—" he cut off abruptly.
Fucking coward, Old Rory piped up, surprisingly vulgar. Edges of seats would wobble precariously.
"But," he continued, turning toward her, "unless you open up, I will leave." Finality. The pocketed hands, the direct look, the set of his tired jaw: they dangled it before her, taunting the ultimatum threateningly.
You can't blackmail me, Old Rory was aghast. A collective gasp would break the silence, viewers expecting closure.
She never said a word, though. New Rory had stifled her well.
Instead, she countered his torment with an expressionless gaze, aware that it would cut through him. Tears, she hadn't expected; she noted absently that cruelty was called forth as easily these days as her mother's wit. Wincing, a grudging twist of her lips acknowledging karma, she decided that this poorly written melodrama had carried on long enough.
"Take care of yourself," she handed him these final words, gratitude and dismissal with a side dish of have-a-nice-fucking-life. Sorry about the copper platter, the silver one has a dent, and don't worry about returning it, I have eight more.
He merely shook his head and walked to the door. Every step echoed in the hollow room, smothering the beating of Rory's heart to her own ears. Reaching for the doorknob, he paused, and everyone—Rory and the detached audience that was her thoughts—tensed at the familiar scene. Next, they knew, was a final, impassioned effort followed by some form of reconciliation; or the moment of reflection would become bitter and empty, punctuated only by the shutting of the door and the receding pad of footsteps.
"You know how to reach me. I leave in a week." Option B ensued quietly.
Dissatisfied, the theatre sat back. It would have to be a compromise, they supposed. Bored, Rory's thoughts slipped off for rest, leaving her alone with the sound of her pulse.
Idly, she wondered whether the next morning would again dawn upon her swollen eyes.