Title: Lonely Sheets and the Dead of Night
Author: mblab
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Any and all comments to: mblab@bellsouth.net
Timeframe: General Season Three
Category: Angst/Romance
Disclaimer: I own nothing, except the words that have come off of my keyboard. The characters belong to JJ Abrams and ABC; the music belongs to AudioVent.
Summary: "So he stays, his breath evening and staring out into the night's sky." He couldn't sleep and she does not understand why. Vaughn angst.
Credit: Thanks to Kat and Jade, who twist wrists and claim to be the voice of reason and truth.
Author's Notes: This wrote itself, with fury and insistence. Its style is different, so bare with me. This piece came second. It was what came from thinking about what happens now. Sydney goes on missions: how does Vaughn handle them?
"When will I wake/ From this dream?/ It's a never-ending painful scene" –AudioVent; "When I Drown"
She wakes up, again, to an empty bed. Her hand had reached over, surprisingly, to a lukewarm pillow besides her. He had been left their bed, but he had been there—he hadn't been gone for too long. She glances at the clock, reads the neon red digits, and turns again. She tries to fall back asleep. But when she opens her eyes again and she turns to the red glow, only two minutes have passed. She thinks, because it is too early, or too late, and her eyes are unable to clearly make out the numbers—it could have been two minutes or five. She estimates, guesses, but is rather sure she's somewhere near the truth.
She cannot lie in bed with a getting-colder-by-the-minute pillow besides her and an emptiness that surrounds her. She gets up, cautiously, and maneuvers around the bed and through the doorway. Although she contemplated glancing at her reflection in the mirror, she does not, she doesn't want to see the reflection she's sure would look back at her.
Making her way through their home, she hears a noise. A faint smile comes to her, he must not have been able to sleep, and put some sports on. But when she finally gets to the television, the volume is turned barely above mute, the remote lays haphazardly, alone, on the table, and he is nowhere in sight. She makes her way to the kitchen, thinking that maybe he's gone for a midnight snack. But the kitchen is empty too. The reflection of the neon green lights from the microwave onto the pristine tiled floors begins to give her a headache.
She walks through their entire house, as if she's on a tour—for the first time seeing this home, a potential buyer—and she's come up empty handed each turn. He was not back in front of the television. He had not walked outside, to the front. He had not gone back to the bedroom. He was not loitering in the hallway. The bathrooms were uneventfully clear. She had gone around, twice, and could not find him. She almost gives up, wanting to go back to sleep, to attempt to battle the red glow of the clock, beat it, for once, and sleep, without worry.
But she turns one way instead of the other. And she thinks she knows where he's gone. The back door is open, slightly. The moon hangs in the sky. It seems too low for this time of night. But the lights mostly off give everything an ethereal feeling as the black almost overwhelms all it touches. The grass is moist beneath her feet; she almost trips on a small rock, but recovers just in time. She takes another step and hears something. She was sure she'd been hearing things, imagined the door being opened. He must have gone somewhere, for some reason, she's sure there was a reason—good reason—and he's fine.
She's making things up now and that's not helping her mind or sleepy body. But there's a noise, that's not the slight breeze, or the palms rustling, or even her feet moving because she is standing still. She turns around and sees something—a shadow, his shadow—almost hidden in the shadows themselves. His head is bent at an odd angle, like he's focusing or concentrating on something. His body is moving slightly with the breeze. And as she gets closer to him, she sees that while his head is almost pointed up to the sky, his eyes are closed. She bites back a laugh, something about the way he's standing and air around him: a kind of odd prayer.
She's not sure if he hears her. She's rather positive that no matter how tired he is, he's had to have heard her movements, or maybe the laugh she's not sure she held back now. But he continues to stand as he has since she spotted him. They both stand in silence, only her's is in muffled confusion. After what seems like forever his head moves a bit and she thinks she sees his eyes flutter, and then close again. His breathing changes, from the deep steady breaths, to slightly erratic ones. She goes to say something, but the words catch in her throat—what is she supposed to say?
He cocks his head to the side. His eyes open, briefly, and she sees his red, sleepless eyes; above the dark circles, only she could see forming, because they're not that dark, but he always had perfect eyes. Before she realizes it his eyes are closed and facing the opposite direction.
She doesn't remember him going to bed. But after seeing him, all that that one 20 second glance afforded her, she's sure that he didn't sleep long—if he did at all. He was restless, she decides. And before she can stop herself she has come up with a plan in her head of everything he's done that night, morning. He's done this and then gone into this room and then did this and went here and ate this and talked to this person and did this, this, this.
But of all the things he's done that day, she's sure that sleep hasn't been one. And she's worried now. He was restless, she knows. The pillow had been warm, the TV had been on, and the door had been open. She's no longer sure he's only been out here for a few minutes. And she shivers, but she's not sure if it was the wind or something else.
It's all a little too much. She came in with open arms. And he'd loaded her, eventually, with bags until her arms felt so heavy she they would almost break. It wasn't supposed to be this hard. But it wasn't supposed to be that easy either. She didn't think they'd found a perfect median. She didn't think they'd found a perfect anything anymore. She's second guessing and over analyzing, hoping hindsight will give her a better perspective on it all. And she's not sure of anything anymore. And his silence only makes things worse.
Just when she thinks she's going to burst out in tears, he speaks. Her eyes are watery and she can't tell if he's facing her or not. But he says that he couldn't sleep. And he tries to explain, goes on about never being able to sleep before. He starts to say that she should get used to it, go back to bed, everything's alright. But he stops himself, and she knows—knows from his voice—even without seeing him, that he's stopped because he's afraid he's said too much. And she remembers what it was like, frustrating, to think of all that he keeps from her—this is just one more thing.
She also remembers that there wasn't a damn thing she could do. So he stays, his breath evening and staring out into the night's sky. And she wonders what he's thinking about, but becomes jealous of whatever it is, because she knows it's not her.
As she walks to bed, she looks out each window on her way, and those that aren't, that point in his direction. And he stands there, as the minutes pass by, a half hour, an hour. And she truly knows that he's troubled, but that there's nothing she can do to help him. And she climbs back into her too-big bed, alone, and cold. And as she tries to emulate him, in their bed, all she can hear are the crickets chirping faintly, the buzz of the electronics in their home, the creaks and hums of the air conditioning and the silence that's killing her. So closes her eyes and hopes she has the strength to withstand more nights like these. She knows that they'll come.