Title: A drop in the ocean
Summary: It's been two months, but some wounds are so deep that no time is ever enough to heal them….
Characters: Alaric, mentions of Jenna, Jeremy and Elena
Spoilers: 3x01 The Birthday
Timeline: 3x01 The Birthday
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, and unfortunately never will be
Author's Note: Inspired by 3x01 The Birthday, the photograph moment and the song "A drop in the ocean" by Ron Pope. I watched this episode a few times over the weekend, and every time I was waiting for Jenna to show up…
~A drop in the ocean
A change in the weather
I was praying that you and me might end up together
"A drop in the ocean" by Ron Pope~
He remembers it all, the good and the bad…
He remembers her laughter and the sound of her voice calling his name. The smell of her hair and the gentle scent of her skin that was making him lose his mind time and time again. The way it felt to wake up next to her in the morning and know that this was happiness. The touch of her hands that was turning his body into a live wire…
Long slow kisses that were leaving them both breathless but that were never enough all the same… the mischievous glint of her eyes and how she was the only thing worth living for simply by being Jenna Sommers... talking about everything and nothing... the smell of the morning coffee in the kitchen… sunlight tangled in her honey-colored hair making it look like a halo around her head… Jenna's habit of wearing his shirts… holding her hand… the softest of whispers in the dark... her fingers running through his hair… her breath on his skin… the way she was making him feel complete…
He knows the pattern of her heartbeat as well as he knows his own, and there was nothing – apart from the obvious, of course – that Alaric liked more than listening to the sound of her breath as his hand stroked her hair absently while Jenna slept soundly in his arms. He can't help going back to these moments now, can't help clinging to them and holding on tight as he can…
The memory of tears and pain in her eyes, of betrayal and confusion – it wrenches his body, echoing in every part of his soul. He buries his face in his hands and squeezes his eyes so tight that it hurts, willing himself to stop thinking, feeling. There is nothing he regrets more than wasted time, lost opportunities to make everything right, taking things for granted when he should have done more, should have tried harder. Her "I thought you were different" look will haunt him forever, and Alaric knows he deserves it.
He wants to go back in time, to put his arms around her and explain everything, and make this hurt go away. To hold her close… just once, just for a little while longer… and tell her how much he loves her over, and over, and over again…
These memories, each and every of them, are his salvation and his end. They keep him together and they destroy him.
And he hates himself, he hates himself so much that it takes an almost inhuman effort to go through the day, one minute at a time, one heartbeat after another. He hates himself for failing her, for not being there for her when she needed him most, for being the cause of all of this from the start, for more 'what ifs' than he can count. These 'what ifs' are cutting right through him like an ice-cold blade, sinking deeper, shredding his heart, making him bleed and die slowly on the inside. He hates himself for being alive when she isn't anymore.
It has been a while, but he long stopped counting the hours, the days. He tries to shut it off but every time he closes his eyes, she is right there with him, smiling softly, and he snaps them open again to stare sightlessly at the ceiling, gasping for air and praying to God to simply stop existing if only to put an end to this never-ending torture. It hurts so much that he wants to scream at the top of his lungs. Instead, he turns his face into the pillow and lets it mute his silent tears, biting into his lip until it starts bleeding. He reaches mindlessly for the stash of bourbon in vain attempt to dull the pain and sink into the oblivion and nothingness where she is still with him. Where he can hold her tight and never let go. If only he could stay there forever…
I love you. I'm sorry. Please, don't leave me. Please, come back…
It never stops, not even for one goddamned moment. A sick cycle he has no hope of breaking out of, and on the worst of moments Alaric doesn't quite know if he really wants to. Where would he be if it suddenly stopped? Empty, crashed, alone…
It shouldn't have ended like that. She shouldn't have left before her time. She shouldn't have been taken away from life, from him, from people she loved, from everything she was or wanted to be. She was so full of life, so vibrant, so… alive in more ways than he can imagine. She was his life, his everything, a part of him, a part of his soul…
And now he has no other choice but to learn to live without her. With the weight of this guilt that he knows will never go away. It never gets better and on some level Alaric knows that it never will. How could it? They didn't even get to say goodbye...
He knows that he fails her again now. He can't get himself together, can't take care of the children she has left behind, and he despises himself for it as well. But it's too much, his own pain is so strong that it is hard to breathe, hard to think, impossible to function with. How can he be any good for anyone else if he can't feel the ground beneath his own feet? He fears of making it worse, of damaging them even more.
They are stronger than him, and Alaric feels proud and guilty at the same time. They are stronger and they will get through this, and he knows that they are better off without him. There is nothing he can offer them, nothing he has any right to ask for. He will only hold them back, pull them down into his own misery and darkness – misery and darkness he doesn't quite mind anymore – and they deserve better than that. He knows that he needs to stop and take a breath, to look around and try to figure out where he stands, where he wants to go next. And he has to do it on his own. They are not his rely on, he has no right to put any of this on Jeremy and Elena…
He stands there, surrounded by memories, and looks at the photo of him and Jenna for what feels like forever, his mind blank and his head empty, and the shatters of his heart break into a million of tiny pieces, leaving the scars that will never heal.
He goes back to the day the photo was taken, to fooling around and laughing so hard that his stomach hurt, to stolen kisses and knowing that she was his. The sound of her voice is so clear and real in his head that Alaric has to turn and look around in desperate hope, half-waiting to see her standing right there beside him. He misses her so bad, he loves her so much… and he needs her. He needs her to survive, to make it through, to break this fall. But the house is empty, and the clock is ticking loudly on the wall, and he feels the cold rise inside of him, thick and strong, and oddly soothing. The cold that he knows will make the pain go away… She is gone, and he is too tired to keep fighting. What is the point if he can't win?
He feels scared, and empty, and endlessly lonely, but he knows that he has to leave before he lost his mind completely. He knows that he needs to give them all a chance to find their balance in life… and he sees no other way to do it but to pack his things and drive away... and pray that he is not making the biggest mistake of his life…
…the taste of her lips… her hands on his skin…
I'm sorry, Jenna…
~It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert
But I'm holding you closer than most,
Cause you are my heaven…
"A drop in the ocean" by Ron Pope~
[insert emotional breakdown here]