(9/5) Spoilers: Still none, but should further sections be written, they'll be written and set in season 5 after the premiere airs on the 18th.
Notes: I tried to stick with past tense, I did, but my brain just refuses to work that way. I'm not always logical.
Word count: 765
Moonlight in Brazil
Part II: Restless
In the adjoining room, Eric hasn't even bothered with sleep. Blood running hot, the endless hours until dawn are an unbearable expanse of time. Pacing the room and forcing himself to sit still by turns, he occupies his mind by envisioning exactly how he'd like the man who ordered his sister's death to suffer. He imagines it in gruesome, painstaking detail until his hand actually trembles.He relishes the anger, because the minute he stops imagining the future, he'll start remembering what's past.
That's all he's been doing all night anyway, really. Remembering.
The funeral.
His elder sisters clinging to one another like lifelines while their husbands stood by helplessly. His mother, unable to stop sobbing. His father's countenance, usually so stern and composed, red-eyed and etched with misery. More friends than he'd ever dreamed she possessed; a veritable sea poured out to pay their respects. Most heartbreaking of all, the haggard faces of her former support group determined not to let her down, even though it's not their first or even second memorial service of the month.
He remembers how lost Horatio looked, keeping apart from the crowd, subdued. By unspoken agreement, the entirety of the team was in attendance, but even from them he'd remained distant, accepting a few condolences with hollow formality and little to say until they respectfully let him be. Head bowed and hands folded, eyes cast downward, he stood at the graveside, locked within himself.
They made her up beautifully, yet Eric's mind keeps exchanging the memory of the forgiving makeup at the wake with the washed-out pallor of her body lying in the hospital bed. For some reason, it's the latter that's burned into his brain. So much for trying to create a better image.
He remembers how afterwards, work was just work except suddenly every one of Ryan's words drove themselves under his skin like slivers, and by the third time he erupted at nothing more than the coffee pot's temperamental lid, Calleigh was already keeping out of his way. He asked for solo assignments and Horatio granted them without comment, while the two of them assembled an airtight case against Antonio Riaz (ultimately worthless) on the side. That's where his thoughts ought to be; that's what brought them to this country, thousands of miles from home, in the first place - to fix what their own government won't.
But still his mind won't stop, won't stop running over every memory of her, pausing on the bad more often than the good. Memories of childhood, of high school, sneak past the edges and he watches instead her first battle to eat after chemotherapy, coaxing her through spoonful by painful spoonful - a victory if she kept down half a bowl of soup. Feels her breaking down in his arms after yet another treatment in the endless round, naturally slender frame growing skeletal, begging him to make it stop or let her quit.
He brought her through eight months of that hell; he traded his bank account and borrowed on his job security to obtain whatever would keep her hope alive, keep her fighting until she was strong enough to handle it on her own. And fight she did, until she was free, but fate barely gave her time to celebrate before one bullet ripped everything away. Then she was right back where she started as he desperately dialed for help and even more desperately worked to keep her breathing until they both heard the siren of the ambulance approaching. He didn't realize at the time, or maybe just didn't want to, that what she said then would be the last words he'd ever hear from her. Her voice was weak and slightly slurred as she looked up, head cradled in his lap, but she managed to mumble, "It's okay now, right? They'll fix it…"
Fix it, fix it, fix it, has been echoing in his head for days now.
So he sits under the glow of a bedside lamp, methodically cleaning his gun again and again until its gleam rivals that of Ryan's, and then repeats the process. It's oddly soothing, if not particularly productive, and feels much better than another bout of gazing dully at the TV before realizing he forgot to turn it on.
Three hours until daylight, then two, and then he just stops. Fatigue hits him in a rush, overtaking everything in a matter of minutes, and as he staggers to the bed, collapsing on the mattress without bothering to pull back the covers, sleep blessedly washes the memories out of existence.