Bad Dreams and Broken Hearts Chapter 3: Brick, a seaquest fanfic

Disclaimer: see first chapter.

Thanks to Diena and dolphinology for their kind reviews. Also, behold! Another depressing instalment. If you need someone to blame, I suggest Mr. Folds...

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Brick

They call her name at seven-thirty,
I pace around the parking lot.
Then I walk down to buy her flowers,
And sell some gifts that I got.
Can't you see
It's not me you're dying for?
Now she's feeling more alone
Than she ever has before.
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm heading nowhere.
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly.

Ford lifted his hand to knock on the door and paused, steeling himself. He tried to remember what it used to feel like, when he waited impatiently for that door to open, his heart beating faster, forcing himself not to grin like an idiot. The feeling wouldn't come though; all there was now was apprehension, and dull misery like a solid lump in his stomach. He knocked.

She had been crying again. He could see it in her puffy face, turned away from him as she opened the door. He wished that she would at least try to act normal, so that people didn't keep asking him what was wrong with her, so that no-one would take one more step and start to suspect the truth; he wished it, and in the same moment he hated himself for wishing it. But then, hating himself was something he'd become pretty good at recently.

She went to sit on the bed, her head still turned carefully away. "What do you want?" she asked, almost in a whisper.

He crossed to the bed and knelt in front of her, trying to catch her eye, but she stared determinedly at the floor, her pretty face tight, wringing her hands over and over. "I want us to talk about this," he said, as gently as he could, not sure if it was true, but sure that it should be. She made no response, but a tear marked a new trail down her cheek. He swallowed hard, summoning every ounce of willpower. This couldn't go on. Something had to break.

"The..." He stopped. He couldn't bring himself to speak the word out loud; to do so would make it real, would make all this more than just a temporary glitch; yet to stay silent would, he was suddenly sure, be the end of it all.

"The baby..." He forced it out at last, then realised he had no idea what to say next; all his energy had been exhausted by the very mention of that word. And Henderson was looking at him now, her eyes bright with tears.

"Don't say that," she said, her voice cracking. "Don't say it. I don't want to talk about it." She was crying properly now, but silently, tears sliding down her face in an endless stream.

Ford scrubbed his hands across his face, feeling the dead weight in his stomach grow heavier by the moment. "I just want everything to be OK," he said helplessly, stretching his hand out towards her. "I just want to help you." It sounded lame, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

She shook her head, her hands cold and unresponsive under his own. "How can it be OK?" she asked. She was looking at him now, and he found himself wishing that she would stare at the floor again. "Do you still think we did the right thing?"

He blinked. What could he say to that? He didn't even know the answer. He rose slowly, and hugged her, feeling her slight form shuddering against him as she cried. But there was no connection between her grief and his, and he felt suddenly as though he were embracing a stranger.

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Six a.m., day after Christmas,
I throw some clothes on in the dark.
The smell of cold, car seat is freezing,
The world is sleeping I am
Numb.

Up the stairs to her apartment,
She is balled up on the couch.
Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte;
They're not home to find us out.
And we drive
Now that I have found someone
I'm feeling more alone
Than I ever have before.

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm heading nowhere.
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly.

As weeks went by it showed that she was not fine.
They told me "Son, it's time to tell the truth", and
She broke down, and I broke down
Cause I was tired of lying.

Driving back to her apartment,
For the moment we're alone.
And she's alone, and I'm alone,
And now I know it...

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm heading nowhere.
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly.