A/N: Sorry about how long I've taken to get around to writing this, I have no excuse other than the lazies. Anyway, just to clear something up, I will be switching back and forth between Cat's POV and Sean's POV with the Italicized and Bolded word Fade. Enjoy.
Cat briefly wondered why she was standing in front of an old projector screen, she couldn't remember how she had gotten to this dark little room and couldn't see a way to get back out again. And it was very important that she get out, something bad had happened and someone was waiting for her…somewhere. Before she could grasp the memories, the screen lit up and Cat saw a red haired woman walking towards an old movie theatre, the woman looked so familiar but Cat couldn't place her in her memories. She leaned closer and the film enveloped her.
Weary of the tedium of her days, her lonely life going nowhere, the fiery haired woman skips work and steps inside a half-empty old movie house showing a scratched and grainy romantic film from her youth; she takes her favorite seat in the middle of the seventh row, hoping to experience once again the consoling power of sudden uncomplicated love, even if not one's own, love that has no trajectory attached to it but is a pure and immediate enrichment of the soul and delight of the body.
In the film, two strangers separately board a train back in a time when trains had compartments with sliding doors and windows that could be pulled down for lingering, handkerchief waving farewells. The woman, her orange hair blowing in the wind, waves goodbye to her husband if that's who he is, the man to a woman who may be his fiancé , or perhaps his sister. There are shouts from the stationmaster, whistles, the slamming of heavy doors, slow wheezy movement, wisps of steam curling past as if to erase one reality in anticipation of another. He raises the window, and then they turn and nod politely to each other, settling in for the journey.
"Going far?" he asks, a half-smile gracing his handsome face, made only more so by the slanting scar across his left eye.
She looks up with a smile.
The smile fades.
Something seems to happen between them. The train is chugging along just as trains used to do, and for a magical moment they seem to be all alone, rocking through space, their hearts beating to the rhythm of the train, though in fact the compartment is full and they are being watched closely over newspapers and knitting.
They lean toward each other to speak earnestly about the weather and the vexation of travel, their hearts visibly melting, and receive from a severe old lady sitting near the compartment door a particularly withering glare, but there is a telltale tear in her eye, as if she might once long ago have been similarly struck—just as there is a tear in the red haired woman's eye, as she sits there in the musty old movie house.
All of these people in the film are, of course, dead, which reminds her, as if she needed reminding, of the irreversible passing of time, adding to her sadness, for, sooner or later, she, like they, will also be dead, but without ever having had a man gaze into her yes that way, a moment so human, so iconic, so unspeakably beautiful—essential really, to a well-lived life—but one never granted her or to be granted.
As the dead actor and the dead actress fall into an immortal clinch, the film breaks and rattles in the projector and the lights come up while the repairs are made. She knows how it will all turn out, and knows it will only deepen her melancholy, so she rises to leave, pulling her coat on, just as a man four rows down rises and gathers up his own hat and coat, glancing at her fleetingly, revealing a handsome, yet scarred face.
As she steps out into the aisle and he does the same, they will accidentally bump into each other, or maybe it won' be an accident but something ordained.
The film rattles again and Cat is released from the heart-wrenching scenes only to feel herself slip into blackness.
Fade…
Sean shakes his head, clearing the fuzzy feeling from his thoughts, and then he smells the stench of burning rubber and gasoline. He jerks his head up quickly and sees the twisted wreckage that is the front end of his car and the truck that had slammed into them. Panic grips him as his eyes find Cat, her body unmoving.
He rips the seatbelt from him and stumbles out of the car, and then to the driver's side of the now destroyed Jaguar. The door is deformed from the impact and he can't get it open. The smell of gas is stronger now, as is his panic. Seeing no other option, Sean draws back his fist and slams it into the window, over and over, the pain is nothing to the relief he feels when the weakened glass shatters.
Quickly he reaches into the car and detaches Cat's seatbelt, then, after clearing as much glass as he is able, pulls her from the burning remains of the Jag, feeling the drag of a sharp shard against his face cutting from chin to cheek.
Once free of the car, Sean shifts her in his arms, cradling her as a parent would their child; he can feel her breathing against his neck. Hurrying away from the burning wreckage, his only though to get Cat to safety, Sean suddenly feels the curious sensation of flight, then there is a deafening roar and hellish heat consumes him from behind.
Once more his world goes dark.
End notes: And yet another cliff hanger, I do apologise for my unseemly desire to keep you in suspense. Hopefully you'll review and tell me what you think. Until we meet again in chapter 2, goodbye and good luck.