Notes: Response to Challenge #9: Scars at the Ray/Neela LJ community. This is really angsty. I've overdosed on the happy a bit lately, and I need to start flexing my angst muscles again.
Rating: FRT (Fan Rated suitable for Teens)
Spoilers: None.
Content Warning: Some language, and angst ahoy!
Disclaimer: ER and its characters are the property of Michael Crichton, John Wells, Amblin Entertainment and Constant C Productions. No infringement intended, please don't sue, yadda yadda yadda.
To Leave A Mark
© 2005, By: Ash Carroll (a.k.a. ShadowDiva)
His mother says time heals all wounds; that the scars remain but the pain fades. He thinks it's bullshit.
It's been three years. Three years since she smiled weakly and told him - for the first and last time - that she loved him; three years since she let go of his hand and this life and quietly slipped away.
And he still feels the pain; searing and raw, like it was the day she died.
Because this scar isn't on his body.
It's on his soul and it won't heal. Just when it begins to form a scab, something reminds him of her - her favorite song, the scent of her perfume, a memory - and it rips open again; bleeding the life out of him little by little. He knows this will be what kills him and wishes it would hurry the hell up; he doesn't have the guts to do it himself.
He remembers all those years of Catholic school in Philly; his mother sent him to St. Ignatius because it was better than the public schools. Their family isn't Catholic and he never bought into all the dogma, but he still had to sit through the lessons. The nuns said suicide was a mortal sin; there was no way to get to heaven if you did it. He doesn't know if there's a God or a heaven, but he knows there's a hell; he lives there.
Still, even if he did have the guts end it all, he wouldn't. Because if there is a heaven, he knows that's where she is; all the angels are supposed to go there. And he's not going to piss on the only chance he might have at ever being with her again.
So he waits.
And he plays at living. He was back at work the day after the funeral; ignoring the whispers of the hospital gossip mill because he couldn't stand the whispers of their empty apartment. But he knows he's not fooling them. He'll catch them staring sometimes, and he knows they're wondering. But he pretends that it's business as usual and so do they.
But it's not. Even Morris, who was never at a loss for words, doesn't know what to say to him. He doesn't blame him; if it had been Jane instead of her, he wouldn't have had the words, either. He does now, but he hopes he never has to use them; he wouldn't wish this on anyone. Not even Morris.
He takes the doubles that no one else wants, and he volunteers to work all the holidays; anything to fill up his days so he doesn't have time to think about her. But it doesn't work; a slow shift, in between traumas, doing his charting - he always finds time.
And he bleeds a little more.
He knows he looks like shit. There are days he forgets to eat, and sleep doesn't come as easily to him now as it once did. But when he does sleep, it's in her room - in the bed he imagines still smells like her even though he knows it doesn't, and in his dreams he holds her close and tells her all the things he'd always meant to say.
If he's lucky, maybe tomorrow morning the alarm won't wake him before he's finished. And if he's really lucky, he'll slip away with her forever and the alarm won't wake him at all.
The End