Unanswered
Cheride
Somewhere in Paris, a young man awoke with a sudden gasp, covered in a sheen of sweat. Blue eyes widened in the darkness as he bolted upright in bed, drawing in ragged breath after ragged breath.
It took a minute for his eyes to adjust enough that he could see the room around him, longer until he got his breathing under control. He slowly uncurled his fingers, releasing the sheet he hadn't realized he'd clenched against his chest, then slowly blinked his eyes once again before blowing out a long, shuddering breath.
"Just a dream," he muttered, but his heart was still racing, and he had to clench his hands again to keep them from trembling. It had felt so real. Too real.
He'd had these sorts of dreams a lot when he first got here, alone, living through the worst things his mind could throw at him night after night. And he'd never overlooked the idea that the dreams were some kind of karmic justice, retribution for leaving his friends to deal with a "reality" that rivaled the worst nightmare his subconscious could conjure. There'd been nothing he could do about it then, nothing but suffer through the dark nights of guilt and fear. But it had been almost a year now. He'd followed news of the Pink Panther trials, and the last of them had been shipped off to maximum security weeks ago.
Of course, he still wasn't sure it was safe. He, of all people, knew that maximum security wasn't foolproof; that's why he hadn't reached out yet. He'd wanted to be sure.
But now, in this empty apartment with terror coursing through every nerve, he couldn't shake the need for reassurance. He knew he should wait for morning, check discreetly, not make a rash move that could ruin everything, but the images from his nightmare were still bright in his mind's eye. This didn't feel like all the times before.
After another moment, he rolled over and grabbed his phone, but then hesitated again. And it wasn't just fear of alerting the Panthers, of exposing them all to a danger they might not survive. No, this was a deeper fear than that, one he'd dealt with too many times, a fear that this time, the dream might be real.
He shook his head roughly and steeled himself. This wasn't the way he'd wanted to do this, but there was a dread twisting inside his gut that he couldn't push aside. He had to know.
Paranoid security meant different phone numbers almost weekly, but there was one, just one, that had always stayed active, just for him. Of course, any reasonable person would have disconnected it during the past year, never expecting it to ring, but reason had never been the thing that held them together. He dialed.
He double-checked the phone as he listened to the phone ring the requisite three times and then hung up. Not even nine o'clock in New York, so at least the call wouldn't wake him. He waited exactly sixty-three seconds, then dialed again. He hung up after two rings, waited another fifty-two seconds, and dialed one last time, his heart pounding in his chest. "Pick up, Moz," he whispered.
When the line wasn't picked up after the first ring as they had planned so long ago, Neal's eyes filled with sudden tears. He had never doubted that this phone would always be answered.
"It was only a nightmare," he insisted to the room around him. "It has to be.
"Pick up, Mozzie!" he pleaded through his tears. "Pick up!"
But the only answer from the darkness was the ringing of a telephone that would never be answered again.
Goodbye, Willie. Thank you for Mozzie and all the rest. I will miss you. RIP.