A Sky Full of Tears
(Nip/Tuck – CSI: Miami)
Sequel to "Martyr's Moon"
Disclaimers in part I.
A SKY FULL OF TEARS
(Nip/Tuck – CSI: Miami)
by wordwolf
PART II.
In the morning, their first surgery was a routine face-lift – especially routine, considering that it was this particular patient's third. Before they began, Liz raised a rubber-coated hand and announced, "With all due respect, gentlemen, if I have to listen to Nick Drake sob his way through Pink Moon one more time, they are going to find me this afternoon hanging from a light fixture by my shoelaces. Something else, please?"
McNamara cast an inquiring gaze at his partner and received a nod. "It's okay. Just grab anything."
A wave of relief circulated through the operating room, and Liz picked a CD at random. "How about this Ocean Rain?"
"Should be fine." McNamara hoped he didn't sound as relieved as he felt. The music came up as the blade came down...
"Under blue moon I saw you
So soon you'll take me
Up in your arms, too late to beg you
Or cancel it though I know it must be
The killing time
Unwillingly mine
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him..."
Suddenly McNamara heard a choking sound – soft, as if being suppressed, but not effectively enough. The scalpel was shaking in his partner's hand. "Liz, turn it off, please! We'll finish this one without music, okay?" Silence descended, along with relief. "Christian, do you want to sit this one out?"
"No... no, I'll be fine, Sean. It'd be best to keep going." So they did, and the patient got exactly what she had paid for: the world-class surgical artistry of McNamara/Troy. McNamara and Troy themselves got another reminder of how long healing can take.
XX
Troy was hidden in his office, deep into "The Whitsun Weddings" for time uncountable, when the telephone rang. He contemplated leaving it for the receptionist before sighing and picking up. "Hello?"
"Christian?"
"KIMBER?!" Heat rose in his voice. "Jesus Christ, how do you have the balls to – "
"Please, Christian, I'm calling to say I'm sorry!" The words were rushed, desperate. "I really am! I was really out of line last night, I know, and I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; I was just jealous, and angry, and frustrated that I couldn't say anything to make it better. Please, just give me a chance to make it up to you."
He had been going to slam the receiver down, but something about her voice held him, and he relented. "What do you want, Kimber?"
"Will you meet me this evening? At that place where we met the first time? Please. I want to apologize in person. Just let me explain what I meant to say, before it all fell apart last night."
At the other end of the line, she couldn't see him shrug. "All right, Kimber, but don't expect me to be very patient."
"You won't have to be. I promise!"
Yeah, I'll just bet you do, he thought sourly, but gave no indication to her.
So at six-thirty Troy sat at the beachside bar with his first Scotch and stared through the vast window at nothing; at six thirty-two she joined him. He barely acknowledged her presence, and after a very awkward moment, Kimber realized she'd have to initiate the encounter. "Christian, you know I already said I'm sorry and that I didn't mean to hurt your feelings last night."
"Got it," he grunted, putting away half of his drink at one pull.
"And I didn't mean to insult Karen. I know she meant a lot to you, even if you only knew her for a little while."
Troy sighed and took another gulp. "What's your point, Kimber?"
She was trying to keep her tone soft. "Well, if you're going to put it that way... I know how hurt you are, and how much you cared about her, but – but you two weren't really right for each other. I think deep down you realize that too."
His eyes were narrow and hot. "If you're going to start with some bullshit about how it was all for the best – "
"I didn't say that!" Her voice was halfway between anguished and angry. "Just hear me out before you bite my ass off, okay? Let's be realistic about this. Look, I never met her myself and I'm sorry I didn't get the chance, but I heard she was pretty, and classy, and really smart. Plus you and she were in the same kind of situation growing up. I understand how all that could have attracted you."
"Kimber, a stone could understand why I was attracted to her."
"Right. But let's say you did stay together – married, even. Could you have stayed attracted to her?"
He groaned. "More of the same insinuations? Kimber, don't you know when to quit?"
"Just think about it!" The annoyance was creeping up. "This has nothing to do with her getting old or fat or anything; she was way younger than you, after all. But I know you pretty well, Christian, and soon enough you would have gotten bored. And when you get bored... well, iffy things can happen."
Troy drained his glass and signaled for another without taking his eyes off her face. His gaze was cool, very cool indeed. "Bored," he said tonelessly.
"Yeah, bored. Think about it. You, with a real old-fashioned girl. Yeah, so she worked out with swords, and that's really cool, and you could have gotten into that. But she worked at a bookstore, and liked poetry. Probably she was into museums, and movies with subtitles, and all that arty stuff that doesn't interest you at all. After a while, how would you have had any fun together? You'd have started taking her to YOUR favorite places, introducing her to YOUR kind of entertainment. And if she really loved you, she'd have gone along, trying to please you, meeting you halfway... maybe trying some blow for the first time, maybe a little kinky role-play, maybe her first threeway... Then you'd recommend the surgeries to make her better, fix her for you, and she wouldn't be able to refuse you. Sooner or later you'd look at her, and your sweet innocent Karen wouldn't be there anymore; you'd see just another disposable cut-up slut! It's just human nature, Christian; you wouldn't plan it that way, you wouldn't mean it... but give it time, and you would have ruined everything about her that you loved in the first place."
He stared, silent; Kimber met his eyes, her own glittering defiantly, and went silent herself. They were like that for a long moment, the chatter and clink of the bar around them unnoticed, until Kimber lowered her gaze. She closed her eyes briefly, then raised them and met his again. "I'm sorry, Christian." Smoothly she rose and left, and he was alone.
XX
After he got home and deep into the night, Troy continued drinking slowly but steadily, and gave a lot of thought to what his former lover had said. Surely it didn't have a basis in reality... but was that how she saw him? Corrupt, toxic, defiling everything – and everyone – he touched? Could he even contemplate bringing Karen Avalon into his world, let alone actually do it if given the chance? One thin thread of comfort he had been able to seize and hold was the thought that he had at least given her a few days of love, of hope and heady excitement before the ordeal of her final night. Was it possible that he would have been a curse upon her in the long run; that not only had he failed to save her from her murderer, but in some sick way, James Pierce had saved her from him?
It grew darker minute by minute, but Troy didn't bother to turn on the lights. Staring out the window, he watched the weather line move in from the southeast in advance of the season's next major storm, stretching black cloud cover over the sea and the city. Just a matter of time before the wind and the rain lashed them again, mirroring Troy's emotional state with an irony almost beautiful. Philip Larkin would have appreciated it, he mused bitterly.
That was when the telephone shrilled him out of his reverie. Acting on habit ingrained into instinct, he picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hi, Christian. Remember me?"
That voice! It wasn't possible; not that smooth, mocking tenor, last heard a month ago under the dark of the moon... Troy was too astonished to form words and only listened, stunned. "Of course you do. Wish you didn't, right? But I'm sure you'd rather talk to HER, wouldn't you?"
A crackle of laughter faded, to be replaced by a very different voice, one that sobbed, "Christian? Dear God, Christian, help me!"
It was not possible, simply not possible... "KAREN?!" Was he losing his mind?
"Oh, Christian, it's really you... "
But was it really her? How could it be? Was there any way to tell? Something they shared, something special... "Karen, if it is you, tell me: Who was the last poet?"
"What?" The voice broke on another sob. "Why ask me that?"
"I'm sorry, so sorry, but please, I have to hear you say it!"
A moment's pause for sniffling, more tears. "Philip Larkin. Please, Christian, it is me, I'm alive... and I love you."
A blade to the gut couldn't have hurt more. "My God, Karen, how? I was there, I held you, I felt as you... " He couldn't finish.
"I don't know, Christian, I don't understand at all... I remember the pain, and the cold, and everything going dark... I woke up and I was here."
"But where is 'here'?"
"I don't know!" The voice rose to a thin wail. "There are no windows, there's nothing but the white tile and the bars, and I'm alone – until HE comes!"
"You mean that bastard Pierce? Jesus Christ, what has he done? Is he going to kill you?"
A pause. "I wish he would." There was a sudden click, then nothing but the groan of the dial tone.
TO BE CONTINUED