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zg_shadows08:55
The spider in the corner of the room moved a few inches along the ceiling and stopped again, a small, black, organic shape, out of place in the sterile whiteness of the room.
Beneath it the monitor beeped its regular, quiet beep, soothing as a ticking clock. Even the figure in the bed was laid out with neat precision, body straight beneath the smoothed white blanket that tucked in neatly at the corners. On the plastic chair beside it perched a woman, knees drawn up to her chin, a picture of utter stillness from the strands of shining brown hair that hung halfway to the floor, to the single pale hand that twined fingers with those of the unmoving figure on the bed.
09:02
There was the muffled sound of a floor polisher starting up somewhere outside. Rehema lifted her head and stretched her legs down to the floor. Shifting into another not-quite-comfortable position (and ignoring the screams of pain from the muscles in her arm), she looked down at Kieran's face again.
“It was dying,” he said bluntly, the fingernail-scratches on his face already beginning to bead with blood, as he handed the limp body of the cat to its distraught and furious owner. He turned and walked away.
“I’m sorry,” Rae told the heartbroken woman. “It was hurting. It wouldn’t have got better. He... he made it quick. I’m so sorry. He... um.” He killed it so you didn’t have to, she already knew better than to say.
And after, when he stood cold and unreachable and wouldn’t cry, she had sat beside him and murmured, over and over, that he’d done what had to be done, and if he hadn't spoken to her he also hadn't told her to go away.
09:06
She had never seen him without that cynical expression on his face, that look of watching the world without belonging to it. The face on the pillow was so young, almost childlike, that it seemed impossible that it was his, even with the white burn scars that she knew so well curling whitely across his cheek.
His hand was warm and inhuman, his yellow-stained fingers curled laxly between hers. Impossible that this still thing was Kieran. Impossible that one day the eyes would open and the fire rush back, this limp body become taut with the intensity that called her like the moon to the tide.
He was your khaibit. You were his sahu. Poor lost one, you never had the strength alone. And what of him now you are whole?
09:51
Her phone was switched off. You did that in hospitals, she knew that much, even before Mark had said. When she switched it on again there would be a hundred missed calls from Andrea, asking where she was. She should go.
She did not move.
Mark would be along shortly, echoing Andrea's imagined voice, reminding her about her other responsibilities. Was it worth it, he would ask, to sit with someone who didn't even know she was there, with so much else to do, so many other people who needed her?
Everything he said was sense, and she didn't have the words to explain. To say that to be the person who could help those many, she had to be the person who would sit here with the one for as long as it took until he woke up.
They all needed someone, but Kieran needed her. How could she explain that if she were not here, beside him, when he woke up, something would be broken that could never be fixed, in them both?
10:26
She shifted again, her arm accidentally nudging his. It rolled slightly on the bed, soft and heavy, unresisting. She remembered how it had been an iron bar against the small of her back on that night when everything had gone finally, and irretrievably, wrong.
“Rae, you’re drunk. Sit the fuck down.”
“No! It’s a meeting, Kieran. There’ll be women there. Children. Babies.”
“Rae, I know. And he’ll be there. It’s our only chance. Or more than that will die.” His scarred face, blurry in her unfocussed sight, was implacable.
“You can’t hurt them! I won’t let you!”
He stood up and crossed the ring to where she stood, suddenly afraid. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her to him, and she stumbled forward into an embrace like a steel trap. He crushed her lips against his, hard enough to bruise.
He released her and she slumped to her knees, her pulse like thunder in her head.
“Take her home,” he said to someone over her head. Arms dragged her, not ungently, to her feet. She sagged against the support of someone’s body, knowing she had failed, and let them lead her away.
She hadn't had the strength to stay and not be consumed. He hadn't had the strength to walk the knife's edge without falling.
It didn't matter. He was here. She was here. All was, finally, as it must be.
“I have to be there when he wakes up,” she had tried to explain, over and over, to Mark and to Mhaire and to the girl. They hadn't understood. She wondered if it would have made any difference if she had been able to explain why.
Kieran lay on the hospital bed like a corpse, the beeping that traced his heartbeat the only sound in the room. Slowly, the badly-needed healing seeped into Rehema's soul.
The spider in the corner of the room moved a few inches along the ceiling and stopped again, a small, black, organic shape, out of place in the sterile whiteness of the room.
Beneath it the monitor beeped its regular, quiet beep, soothing as a ticking clock. Even the figure in the bed was laid out with neat precision, body straight beneath the smoothed white blanket that tucked in neatly at the corners. On the plastic chair beside it perched a woman, knees drawn up to her chin, a picture of utter stillness from the strands of shining brown hair that hung halfway to the floor, to the single pale hand that twined fingers with those of the unmoving figure on the bed.
09:02
There was the muffled sound of a floor polisher starting up somewhere outside. Rehema lifted her head and stretched her legs down to the floor. Shifting into another not-quite-comfortable position (and ignoring the screams of pain from the muscles in her arm), she looked down at Kieran's face again.
“It was dying,” he said bluntly, the fingernail-scratches on his face already beginning to bead with blood, as he handed the limp body of the cat to its distraught and furious owner. He turned and walked away.
“I’m sorry,” Rae told the heartbroken woman. “It was hurting. It wouldn’t have got better. He... he made it quick. I’m so sorry. He... um.” He killed it so you didn’t have to, she already knew better than to say.
And after, when he stood cold and unreachable and wouldn’t cry, she had sat beside him and murmured, over and over, that he’d done what had to be done, and if he hadn't spoken to her he also hadn't told her to go away.
09:06
She had never seen him without that cynical expression on his face, that look of watching the world without belonging to it. The face on the pillow was so young, almost childlike, that it seemed impossible that it was his, even with the white burn scars that she knew so well curling whitely across his cheek.
His hand was warm and inhuman, his yellow-stained fingers curled laxly between hers. Impossible that this still thing was Kieran. Impossible that one day the eyes would open and the fire rush back, this limp body become taut with the intensity that called her like the moon to the tide.
He was your khaibit. You were his sahu. Poor lost one, you never had the strength alone. And what of him now you are whole?
09:51
Her phone was switched off. You did that in hospitals, she knew that much, even before Mark had said. When she switched it on again there would be a hundred missed calls from Andrea, asking where she was. She should go.
She did not move.
Mark would be along shortly, echoing Andrea's imagined voice, reminding her about her other responsibilities. Was it worth it, he would ask, to sit with someone who didn't even know she was there, with so much else to do, so many other people who needed her?
Everything he said was sense, and she didn't have the words to explain. To say that to be the person who could help those many, she had to be the person who would sit here with the one for as long as it took until he woke up.
They all needed someone, but Kieran needed her. How could she explain that if she were not here, beside him, when he woke up, something would be broken that could never be fixed, in them both?
10:26
She shifted again, her arm accidentally nudging his. It rolled slightly on the bed, soft and heavy, unresisting. She remembered how it had been an iron bar against the small of her back on that night when everything had gone finally, and irretrievably, wrong.
“Rae, you’re drunk. Sit the fuck down.”
“No! It’s a meeting, Kieran. There’ll be women there. Children. Babies.”
“Rae, I know. And he’ll be there. It’s our only chance. Or more than that will die.” His scarred face, blurry in her unfocussed sight, was implacable.
“You can’t hurt them! I won’t let you!”
He stood up and crossed the ring to where she stood, suddenly afraid. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her to him, and she stumbled forward into an embrace like a steel trap. He crushed her lips against his, hard enough to bruise.
He released her and she slumped to her knees, her pulse like thunder in her head.
“Take her home,” he said to someone over her head. Arms dragged her, not ungently, to her feet. She sagged against the support of someone’s body, knowing she had failed, and let them lead her away.
She hadn't had the strength to stay and not be consumed. He hadn't had the strength to walk the knife's edge without falling.
It didn't matter. He was here. She was here. All was, finally, as it must be.
“I have to be there when he wakes up,” she had tried to explain, over and over, to Mark and to Mhaire and to the girl. They hadn't understood. She wondered if it would have made any difference if she had been able to explain why.
Kieran lay on the hospital bed like a corpse, the beeping that traced his heartbeat the only sound in the room. Slowly, the badly-needed healing seeped into Rehema's soul.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 03:09 pm (UTC)Poor Rae.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 03:28 pm (UTC)Don't feel sorry for Rae. She is, oddly, the most stable and centred of all my characters. And would be a lot more so if she could explain in words that would make sense to all the people who keep trying to help her by pushing her away from what she feels is right.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 03:30 pm (UTC)