Title: Fallacy
Author: Running Up Fawn
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Hank Steinberg and the kids at CBS; summary/general inspiration comes from Sleater-Kinney's "A Quarter to Three".
A/N: It's been awhile..thank you so much to everyone for the kind words, I can't tell you how much they meant. Intra/Post-ep, Lost and Found.
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At the time, at the time, at the time..
Smile..wait a second, just a second more..there. Samantha's head dipped in a calculated nod that was both slightly resigned and very understanding; exactly the way she wanted it to be, patience and precision rewarded by the good doctor's own nod of approval.
She'd had sufficient time to practice, on her slow, lonely walk down the sterile hallway, mouthing the awkward lines to herself and swallowing hard as she approached the doorway to the office that would soon become her stage. A deep breath, and she stopped just short of the entrance, because tonight..tonight meant perfection. It meant a smile that held only gentle acceptance and no trace of longing, accompanied by a soft, steady voice that didn't shake, didn't waver, didn't falter for even a second. It meant words that eased and comforted, and eyes that didn't betray her (ohplease, just this once) with their familiar, overwhelmingly salted sting. It meant the performance of her life, in front of an audience that would detect even the slightest imperfection, the barest hint of uncertainty or doubt. So for tonight, anyway, for now, for this moment, she would be flawless, unblemished, her surface polished and gleaming and leaving no indication that just below the skin ran veins of raw, unadulterated anguish that mixed with blood until they were each an equal part of her.
Boxes, everything had been placed so carefully into boxes, packaged into perfect squares of cardboard that made vanishing so much easier, quicker, somehow less painless. She could still feel the emptiness that was a wooden picture frame, an award, a stack of files, all weightless in her hands and so achingly heavy on her heart, because they were his. She had put the things she couldn't quite hold into those convenient cardboard boxes, packed away his life as though she were still a part of it, and helped him become nothing.
It was good at the time..
She had dreaded this, hoped there would never come a time when her..relationship --yes, she decided, she could use that word, Dr. Harris had -- when her relationship with Jack would be slapped under a microscope and dissected, pulled apart and analyzed by someone who had all the facts and didn't know a thing. She found she'd preferred Farrell; indignance and anger had been easy and perhaps even expected, then. Now, she simply let the words float over her, pieces of them catching and embedding on her tongue, allowing her to perfect the art of repitition and satisfy the doctor's gently prodding questions. Do you understand, Samantha? Yes. Good at the time. What we needed. But just at the time..
She watched him from behind the curtain, the veil of sudden uneasiness that had penetrated the cracks of her paper-thin outer shield, and she wondered, really, why she thought she could do this. She knew her lines, pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth and tasted them, dry with untruth and soaked with new familiarity, begging to be spoken so she could finally, finally, be done with them. She knew them, but they weren't hers and she was certain now that he would see right through her before her lips parted even an inch.
God, she was so sick of this game, the game she played with Dr. Harris, with Martin and Danny and Vivian, with herself, the game that began and ended with Jack and all he had been, still was, and never would be. Sick of pretending others were right: yes, it had been about phsyical gratification, sure, it's over, no, I never mouthed 'I love you' against heated skin in the reflections of midnight and wished I could say it out loud..her life, her entire existence had become nothing more than a game of lies and half-truths that slipped with deadly precision from her lips because it was simply easier, in the end, to slowly destroy herself, twist the knife in her own heart rather than let them do it with smiles that didn't quite reach sympathetic and eyes that tried to understand but never could. And it was easier, too, to hide amidst words and phrases that had been shaped by someone else and watch him from behind a curtain of brilliant stage-lights as he nodded his acceptance and carved out pieces of her with every new empty space he created in the place that, no matter what, she knew she would always remember as his.
What we both needed..
Closure. The word struck at Samantha like a jarring chord, unpleasant and out of place, and it settled in her throat as she realized the doctor expected her to repeat it. It was, apparently, what she needed; her redemption, absolution, renewal..what she needed and knew she could never have, not when the mere thought of it blew a hole through the hope that still hung in her chest, in the places he had created and the places she would always keep him. She looked up at Dr. Lisa Harris and repeated the word, tasted its deceit and smiled along with the other woman as she dismissed Samantha cordially from her office.
Don'tgodon'tgopleasedon'tleavemehere..but that wasn't in the script, she reminded herself, choking against the desire to claw through the defenses that still remained intact, to fall to the ground and plead with him, to say something, anything, that was real and hers and honest. But she had been trained, she had rehearsed, and even if every lie, every false smile, every comforting gesture was like another drop of poison swimming through her veins, she would do what she had come here to do. Filled with a stale, tired emptiness, Samantha straightened and took the stage.
She wouldn't miss Jack, was the realization she brought with her after the last cardboard box had been filled with all of those things she couldn't feel, couldn't touch, couldn't hold. She wouldn't miss Jack. Instead, she would bleed for him, the ache seeping from every pore and crushing her heart in its vise-like grip until one day she would try to cry for him and find she couldn't, find that he had, in fact, taken all of her with him and left only a shell in New York City, a shell that could speak and listen and breathe and smile, but couldn't break down, couldn't hold on to anything that had ever mattered at all, and she would drown, slowly, quietly, in the nothing he had left behind.
The curtain fell across lights that had already begun to fade, and Samantha stepped back into the darkness.
[end]