"Wind and Rain"

Chapter One: Black and White

Disclaimer: Mighty Orman came down to us on a white cloud and commanded us to write the Story of Carby in His name. We told him to fuck off and wrote this instead.

Summary: JC/AL. "There is a silence, an absolute silence and he realizes that it's because they're both holding their breaths."

Authors' Notes: Co-authored fic that's taken two months to get this far because we realized neither of us can write. With many thanks to Lesbias Sparrow, Starbucks and Diet Coke. :)

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The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does.
-- Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141

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He sees it on the sheets a moment before she does.

Lit with the morning sunlight it's dried into the fabric like misshapen teardrops, edges staining the blue print flower petals red.

Instinct drives forward and she looks up, glancing at him almost accusingly, as if he were part of its conspiracy. The "what?" continues from her thoughts to her tongue even as she swallows the word into silence. It wasn't supposed to be there. What was it doing there? Her thoughts go from the ridiculous to the absurd and back through the span of time their eyes meet. So flustered, she hasn't a sense of how long that is before the realization that she's again staring at the reddened spots on the bedspread sinks in.

She's on her period, she's cut, he's hurt, she's ill? She's pregnant, or it's an old stain, or it's food, or maybe it'snotthere?

The morning is suddenly rushing past and she's looking at him, at the bed, at nothing, at everything all together, and he turns away out of courtesy, somehow understanding what she can't process.

And she wants to start the day over again.

The privacy of the bathroom comfortably surrounds her, and she feels the rush of relief in the unclenching of her fingers. "What the hell?" and "shit" are smudges of black beneath her eyes before she moves away from the mirror, finding a seat and a whispered, "okay" on the edge of the bathtub.

Reasons crowd, pushing and shoving as she slows the current to filter for the logical, head in hands, hands in hair, wanting to disregard everything before acknowledging anything.

It could be a stain from...is she pregnant? Maybe it had been there for a whi...no. Her last period was...God, could she really be pregnant?

She resigns with a sigh to the ceiling, the white smoothness blurring her attempts to focus, and she's abruptly reminded of the existence of the same ceiling in the bathroom of her once-upon-a-house with Richard.

And she's almost shaking, little silent tremors, and it scares her that she's scared.

Days, going backward, and she has to count on her fingers, pressing them against her thighs as though it isn't real until she does.

Her period wasn't today; it was soon, wasn't it? But it wasn't today.

She loses count at thirteen, or maybe fourteen, and has to start again, the numbers coming out in whispered breath to accompany the mathematical complexity taking place on her hands.

Twenty four...twenty five...

She's out of days, but by three. She's only early by three.

And her smile is a flood as it washes through and drowns her in the relief of the ridiculous. It was okay. Everything was okay. Somehow she had gotten off where she was supposed to be on the pill, not that it was unusual. She had done it before, sometimes even finding the pill on the counter the next morning from where she'd forgotten about it.

It must have been on nights they didn't sleep together, or when he wore a condom, or when she was just goddamn lucky. She turns on the shower, hands shaking with giddiness and the fear of such a close call.

She is definitely going to take that birth control like clockwork from now on, but this morning, at this moment, it was all okay.

He knocks on the bathroom door as she steps beneath the hot water, his tentative, "Abby?" bringing a smile to her lips.

"Yeah?" And she wants to hum, maybe even sing to something.

The water soaks up his voice and she only catches the end of his question. "...okay?"

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah! Yes. Yes, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

She laughs and nods to the shower wall as substitute. "Yes!"

"Okay." And he sounds embarrassed. "I'm heading out, so I'll see you at work?"

"I'm on at one."

He opens the door and pops his head in. "Want to meet me earlier for lunch?"

"You buying?"

"Only the very best John Carter catered Doc Magoos' food for you."

"Really?" She slides open the shower playfully and waves him to her, planting a water soaked kiss on him when he arrives. "That's John Truman Carter III, by the way."

He manages a mumbled "mmmhmm" as she kisses him again, savoring their goodbye until she starts to shiver from the incoming draft.

"Enjoy your morning."

"I'll meet you at noon."

And she indulges in a long shower, humming the songs from her soon-to-be-released album until her fingers are prune-like and she's used enough water to deprive the whole of a third-world country.

It's only after she turns off the shower that she sees the watery red droplets falling, a tiny rivulet forming to streak across the wet floor like a pink tearstain.

She is bleeding through the tampon.

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There should be an immediate reaction, an appropriate emotion. Mothers would have taken steps, would have followed some maternal instinct into action.

And she wants to know what to do.

So she stands in the bathroom.

It seems so easy, doing something, choosing between the wrong and the right, but she's thinking about how her hair is still wet, or thinking nothing at all, knowing that she's lost touch with understanding any of it.

Sometimes she moves to the door, fingertips brushing the handle or palm resting against the wood, wanting to make sure it's still closed. And when she moves back towards the sink or the shower, she stops halfway, suddenly unsure why she didn't leave the bathroom in the first place.

She turns off the light, preferring the dullness of daylight and the way it pools out in windowed squares on the floor. She means to sit, but can't get comfortable so stands on the unlit tiles holding her breath because it reminds her to let it out again.

Sometimes she wishes he is there, mostly on the other side of the door, mostly to be a distraction and give her a reason to hide, but sometimes because she needs him to tell her what to do.

Because she stands with her hair dripping onto her shoulders and down her back and she doesn't know what's her fault or how to feel or what has happened or if everything she's thinking and everything she's decided has simply become irrational.

No one needs to tell her that she would make a terrible mother. Look at the first time. She might have just done that again.

And maybe that's why. Maybe this is why. Maybe she isn't supposed to be a mother.

She doesn't even know if he wants children. Wants them with her. Or if she wants them with him. Or even at all.

Because she looks in the mirror and sees relief and guilt, and rests her hands on the sink because she's scared yet safe, and all she wants is to make up her mind and find a way out of the bathroom.

Her hair is falling over her face to mix with tears of frustration and it doesn't matter what's wet or dry anymore.

But she feels the thickening silence build around her and opens the door only to find it crowded in the rest of her apartment.

And she needs to breathe, to do something.

She doesn't stop moving until she's outside at the bottom of her steps unable to choose a direction to turn, but her hands are getting the cigarette by the time she remembers why she's here.

It doesn't make it to her mouth, doesn't get lit, but rests in her shaking hand until she spreads her fingers and watches it fall to the sidewalk.

Sometimes she wants to be good enough, wants to take back everything she's done and redo it the way it should be, wants to fix whatever isn't working.

But she doesn't know who she can call. Everyone seems so threatening.

She doesn't want to do something wrong. Doesn't want to do anything.

So she calls Susan.

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Ironically, her hand is calm as she dials the numbers on the phone, but her shuddered breaths reverberate through the mouthpiece back to her.

Ringing...ringing...

She avoids looking in the mirror, so stares absently at the blur of wood from the dresser in front of her. She's caught by the sight of her hand clenched around its edge, knuckles white with the strength of her grip, and for a minute she's convinced that the hand doesn't belong to her.

Ringing abruptly becomes the click of a receiver.

And she says "Susan?" before there is even a "hello?" suddenly knowing she shouldn't have called and wanting to hang up.

"Abby?"

She hears a shift in the background, a creak of the bed and a clearing of a sleep-logged throat in the fleeting pause.

"Abby, is that you?"

"Uh...yeah." The reason for the sounds finally dawns on her. "I woke you. I'm sorry I should have thought...I didn't realize...I was just calling to, because, for...it's not important, I'll tell you at work, sorry, thank you, go back to sl-"

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. I was just...it's not-"

"Abby." Her warning is unmistakable. "What happened?"

"I...I think..." A breath. "I..."

There are no words, and the whitened hand remains the property of someone else. "Do you think you could come over?" It even sounds pathetic to her.

But there is no hesitation on the line. "Let me change and I'll be right there. Your apartment?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Abby? I'll be right there."

Her hand has returned, blood flowing into her fingers in an angry red rush. And she hears her thank you given to a dial tone.

====

She moves as though playing a role on stage; rehearsed movements, stiff and slightly exaggerated in their normalness.

She puts the kettle on for tea. She pulled the sheets off her - their - bed, pulled them off, bunched them together so that the streaks lost themselves in the folds and the stenciled flowers and stuffed it into the laundry basket.

There is nothing she can do about the blood that has seeped into the mattress.
It's a dark angry bruise that will never wash out, will never heal.

The kettle whistling snaps her back into her role. She places the teabag into a mug carefully, pours out the water. As though dreaming of herself making tea. Her hands tremble and the boiling water splashes onto the rim and to her hand. She hisses and curses, withdrawing from it.

The immediate pain is almost a relief - it is something to focus on other than the dull and steady ache coming from her stomach.

She sips the tea twice before taking it to her main room and sitting on the couch, reaching for the TV remote. She flicks through TV station after TV station looking for something familiar, a movie, a face, a comedy. Something that she knew all the words to and could say along with the actors, feeling like part of something other than herself.

A news channel: someone important had died. Photos of the person flickering across the screen as other people said he'd never be forgotten for whateveritwashedid. Death echoing death echoing death.

It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart was coming back down from the railing of the bridge and she quickly changes the channel before she can see him running down the fake movie set streets proclaiming the wonderfulness of life, reciting the lines from a script, leaving footprints in fake snow.

She switches back over to CNN. The stock market. Things were going up, things were going down, this making a bunch of men gather together rather primitively into the middle of a room and yell things at each other whilst holding bits of paper.

She turns the volume down and continues listening, closing her eyes tightly. A deep breath. Then another. The sharp pain subsiding back into the familiar ache.

When the intercom comes to life she is thrown momentarily, before quickly remembering her role, her lines.

Her hands shaking as she buzzes Susan into her apartment the only thing betraying her.

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