Blegh is one for Anni :P Some chunks of this near the end are completely copied from the forum, so some of the Blaze POV in the end scene is Anni's, as is Blaze himself :P
So there :P Have a Belinda oneshot :P
Title is crap, but couldn't think of another one :P
Melinda and Blaze
Silence
The two figures lie still on the dusty apartment floor.
Both of their eyes are closed.
They remain silent, the seconds stretching out into minutes, the minutes stretching out even longer.
The man's arm is curved over the woman's stomach, as if he's trying to protect her from harm.
On the wall, the hands of the clock turn round with a soft 'Tick. Tick.'
Slowly, the man opens his eyes and looks down at the woman's face, gazing at her with a look of what could almost be called reverence. It's like he can hardly believe that she's there, lying with him on the dusty old carpet that really could do with a hoover, that she's only a breath away, her midnight hair pooling around both of their heads, tangled with his. Slowly he strokes the curve of her stomach, and receives an answering nudge against his hand, where a small body is shifting, beginning to feel rather cramped inside his mother.
The mother in question sighs softly, shifting herself, her dark lashes fluttering. "This floor is bloody hard." she mumbles. "Whose idea was it to lie on this again?"
He glances at her, amused. "Well you were the one who grabbed me as soon as I came through the door and started complaining of sex withdrawal."
"Hey- not my fault I have a high sex drive!" she pouts.
"But not high enough to stop you breaking down in tears and demanding cuddles right now before I even had the chance to take off my shoes." he says, still sounding amused.
"Er...hello? Eight months pregnant here?"
"Don't tell me; hormones?"
"Got it in one."
He laughs, sitting up and rubbing his head. "Want anything to eat? Any cravings?"
She considers this. "Pizza. Pepperoni."
"Anything for mi lady." He grins, standing up before helping her to her feet and the heading into the kitchen.
She sinks down on the sofa, watching him as he moves around the kitchen. For a moment the harsh turn to her lips softens, the icy stare melts, the hard set to her face grows more gentle. She watches him with just as much reverence as he watched her, her eyes lingering on the body she knows so well, the soft hair she loves to run her fingers through, and meeting, as he turns around, the blue eyes which make the hard shell around her heart disintegrate.
"What?" he raises his eyebrows. "Have I got lipstick on my face or something?"
She shakes her head mutely, the smile still lingering around her lips. "Nah."
"Well what is it then?"
"I love you." her smile widened slightly.
He smiled back, walking over and taking her face in his hands and kissing her gently. "I love you too."
Watch the scene change before your eyes.
"I never regretted it."
The room is broken. The sky is visible through the ceiling. The Walls are crumbling. Floorboards are splintered. Furniture is scorched. Plaster dust coats everything.
"No matter what they said, what they called me. No matter what they did to me, I never regretted loving you."
A blood stained, dusty hand rests on the man's cheek.
"And I never will. Not for one second."
The blue eyes are the last thing she sees.
"No. No, don't be stupid. Open your eyes. An ambulance will be here in a minute, just hold on. Hold on, dammit!"
There is no one left to hear him.
The woman on his arms lies so still that she could be a statue. But statues are harder to break. Her face, still stained with grey dust, is slack, emotionless, empty of all the energy and vitality that she'd possessed in life, except for the small upwards tilt of the left corner of her lips.
The inky black hair holds a greyish tinge, tinted slightly with red where the dust had mixed with blood to create a sticky, grainy paste.
The man stares down at her, the silence deafening, crashing in his ears more painfully than the explosion itself. "Wake up," he whispers, his voice a hoarse croak. "Wake up. Stop screwing with me. I gave up everything for you...you can't leave me...you can't leave me..."
Only the wind answers him as it blows dark, blood stained tendrils of hair around her face, but her lips don't break into that rare, secret smile, free of malice or spite, the smile she held only for him and her son; her eyes don't open, she doesn't wink at him as she usually would when he walks through the door, the purple irises glittering with promises that she was going to rock his world in a way that no other girl could (and if they did she'd kill them); she doesn't say something slightly insulting, but well intentioned in her rich, lazy drawl, or whisper the secret things that only lovers know. Her lips are still, her eyes are closed and her words are gone where nothing and no one can reach them.
"Please," he murmurs, keeping his eyes fixed on her face, drinking her in; even in death, in this place, she is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "Please, darling, stop it now. I love you too much to play your games for long."
She doesn't answer, her eyes stay closed, the lashes clumped together with dust and tears. The splinter, rough and coarse against the smooth white skin of her stomach, still pins her to the ground, darkened with blood around the point of impact, fine needles of wood lodged in her skin around the area.
He reaches out a trembling hand to stroke her face, now half blinded by tears. "I'm sorry. So fucking sorry, you wouldn't believe. We should never have done this, any of it... So sorry."
He doesn't even see the piece of masonry that falls from the ceiling.
Overhead, a crow caws, it's ugly croak rudely breaking the stillness and silence which has descended over the ruins of the small flat. It perches for a moment on the rooftop, before flying away into the sky, leaving the silence to descend once more, the lifeless, numb silence of the dead.
The two figures lie still on the dusty apartment floor.
Both of their eyes are closed.