Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Spoilers: None as far as I am aware
Rating: I've gone with T or PG-13 just to be safe. There's a use of the f-word about once and THAT'S ONCE TOO MANY! Swearing is overrated, kids.
Summary: GCR with a little WS. After an accident affects a team member, the team find themselves revisiting old memories.
I have to say, your reviews have been incredible. They really have been the most fantastic reviews I have ever got. So I really mean it when I say thank you to sitarra, cherishedcrush (Twice! Enjoy your holiday!), Sw33tangelgrl, Lissa88, gckyr, Review1234 (Brave? I've never really had any trouble with anonymous reviewers and in fact you anonymous reviewers have left some of the best reviews – I could never skip out on that!), September, Daisyangel, D.M.A.S and bloodymary2. You honestly do say some of the nicest things which makes me feel bad for writing yet another downer of a chapter. Bear with me though! More feedback would be great but I can't ask for better than I'm getting. This chapter is especially for you reviewers who have been brilliant. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
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Perpetuity. Chapter Twelve. Of Clarity
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Gil sat, numb for a while, before tipping the rest of the contents of the envelope into his lap. Out of the envelope, following a black-and-white ultrasound photo of what he presumed was their child, dated from two weeks ago, slid a fine silver chain with a small locket on the end. He let the chain run between his fingers and with now-trembling hands, he opened the locket.
Inside it was a tiny image of an inky hand-print and, turning over the locket, on the outside was engraved in small and humble writing: "Noah".
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"Do you want to say something?" Catherine murmured, turning to him as they stood by the lake together on a cold November morning. There was no-one else for miles around. Gil looked at her and the small white box in her hand that looked as though it might hold some kind of meaningful gift.
"What can I say?" he replied. He dredged in his mind for appropriate words that were not his own:
"Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten."
Catherine looked at him and chewed her lower lip, holding tightly with white hands to the box as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and held her tightly, staring out across the still and waiting waters. She shivered unconsciously and lost herself for a moment.
"Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie."
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Gil sat up straight in bed, his hands unconsciously clenched around the papers and the necklace as ephemeral but vivid snaps of memory flashed before his eyes.
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Across the other side of the lake, a small flock of geese took off, startled suddenly by something beyond them. The ripples journeyed across the lake towards them but died before they reached their feet. Catherine opened the box with frozen, shaking fingers. Inside was a small packet of grey-white ashes – all that remained.
"Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead;"
Without thinking, she brought a hand up to lightly touch the locket on a chain around her neck. He'd bought it for her on the day she came home from hospital, the miniature hand-print being an image of Noah's own prints, standardized hospital prints of little hands and little feet, before he was cremated. Eddie caught her wearing it – demanded who Noah was, suspecting she was sleeping around, but fell into a guilty silence when she told him. She didn't cry then, though, not when she told Eddie. It didn't matter anyway. How could it matter to him? Regardless of blood running through fragile veins, of alleles and chromosomes and everything she'd been taught, Eddie could never have been a father to Noah.
"You still shall live - such virtue hath my pen -
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men." Gil finished and turned to her. His mouth felt dry and hoarsely asked her: "How was that?"
"That was beautiful." she told him. "Shakespeare?" He nodded.
"Sonnet 81."
Catherine sighed and gently opened the packet, looking inside at the forlorn mess of dust and ash.
"Goodbye baby Noah," she whispered, tipping the ash slowly into the earth and water, where death met life and became indistinguishable. "I guess I never really knew you; I never saw you smile or heard you cry or watched you sleep – but you were, and will always be, our little boy and I loved you."
She paused, considering these words with an aching heaviness and looked at emptying packet. Her voice choked as she breathed her words again, "I loved you."
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Real, meaningful tears filled Gil's eyes. His breathing quickened in the early morning light and he sat very still, afraid to move in case it slipped away again.
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The last pieces of ash fell from the packet, were caught and spiralled by the wind.
"Are you crying?" he asked her. Neither of them were looking at each other but only stared across the water.
"Yes." was her blunt reply.
"Me too."
He drew her into a tight hug and she buried her face into the deep sinking black of his coat. They stood for a long time by the water's edge until they realised they'd both stopped crying. As they turned to go back to his car and to journey home in silence, Gil turned his eyes back to the lake for one last look at the undisturbed water. He ran a tongue over his dry lips and mouthed a silent promise:
"I will always remember you."
-
"Nurse!" Gil found his voice and shouted throatily, desperately as he got out of bed. "Nurse!"
A nurse came running to see what was going on. Gil looked wildly around his room with tears coursing down his face, clutching a letter, a silver chain trailing from his clenched fist.
"I need to make a phone call."
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