I have myself half convinced of oh-so many answers for the woman living in the ghost of someone else's dream.
But there's always one, finally, to fall back on.
Alex hesitates at the threshold. She turns back - unsure if she’s about to call to Gene that she’s changed her mind, or ask him again to come with her - but he seems further away than the steps she’s taken from him can account for. The street he stands on is darker than she’s sure it had been, and when she tries to focus through the night, Gene’s face is ill defined in the shadows, like he’s a dream she’s half woken from.
So instead, Alex takes a breath, walks through.
She finds herself in, as promised, a pub. It’s dark and musty smelling, and the decor seems dated, even for the 1980s. There’s a sign swinging overhead near the door: Closing Time, 9:06.
Shaz, Chris and Ray are seated at a back table, talking animatedly with a grey haired woman Alex doesn’t know. They seem well into a round - probably not their first, by the flush across Chris’ cheekbones, but Alex shakes off the instinct warning her that time is behaving inappropriately. She’s had practise enough by now.
Shaz laughs at something the older woman says and rests her arm against the woman’s shoulder. A relative, Alex thinks. Or a very close friend. The stranger’s corner is messy with peanut shells and empty bottles and a forgotten crossword.... If she and Shaz had been expecting to meet, Shaz is late for the appointment.
Chris catches Alex’s eye and waves an invitation, but Alex nods him off. There’s a man at the bar who’s caught her attention.
The hair and the jacket are different than she’s seen him wear, but Alex has spent too long looking for Sam fucking Tyler not to recognize him fifteen feet away. He’s sitting at the bar, having a slow discussion with the bartender and two women beside him. One is Annie Tyler (nee Cartwright), Alex knows from sketches and photographs. The other...
She tilts her head to Alex, exposing a dark swirl of makeup over clown-white skin, and the world beyond Alex’s head goes abruptly silent. The other woman - a girl, really, Alex might ask to see her identification - is twisting off her stool, standing, walking towards Alex. She’s smiling; it’s the most welcoming smile Alex has seen. And she hasn’t seen it for so, so long.
When the woman is close enough, she offers Alex a hand. Alex takes it in both of her own. She’s expecting it to be cool, like holding white alabaster, but it’s not. It’s warm and soft and reassuringly solid. Alex remembers the first time she held Molly’s infant fist carefully in her palm, amazed that the slight tactile connection between them could be the most important thing she’d ever experienced. Even though it was all brain chemistry, of course. Alex wonders if that still applies - or if perhaps the habit of brain chemistry is enough - but she finds she doesn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” Alex says. “I got lost. But I’ve been trying so hard to find my way home.”
When the woman meets Alex’s eyes, it’s like there’s nothing else real in the pub. On a level Alex doesn’t like to acknowledge, she’s known that since stepping inside.
“Alex, you don’t have to apologize. No one ever gets lost,” Death promises. “Everyone comes to me, in the end. Just sometimes they take a different path.”
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Date: 2011-01-28 08:15 am (UTC)But there's always one, finally, to fall back on.
Alex hesitates at the threshold. She turns back - unsure if she’s about to call to Gene that she’s changed her mind, or ask him again to come with her - but he seems further away than the steps she’s taken from him can account for. The street he stands on is darker than she’s sure it had been, and when she tries to focus through the night, Gene’s face is ill defined in the shadows, like he’s a dream she’s half woken from.
So instead, Alex takes a breath, walks through.
She finds herself in, as promised, a pub. It’s dark and musty smelling, and the decor seems dated, even for the 1980s. There’s a sign swinging overhead near the door: Closing Time, 9:06.
Shaz, Chris and Ray are seated at a back table, talking animatedly with a grey haired woman Alex doesn’t know. They seem well into a round - probably not their first, by the flush across Chris’ cheekbones, but Alex shakes off the instinct warning her that time is behaving inappropriately. She’s had practise enough by now.
Shaz laughs at something the older woman says and rests her arm against the woman’s shoulder. A relative, Alex thinks. Or a very close friend. The stranger’s corner is messy with peanut shells and empty bottles and a forgotten crossword.... If she and Shaz had been expecting to meet, Shaz is late for the appointment.
Chris catches Alex’s eye and waves an invitation, but Alex nods him off. There’s a man at the bar who’s caught her attention.
The hair and the jacket are different than she’s seen him wear, but Alex has spent too long looking for Sam fucking Tyler not to recognize him fifteen feet away. He’s sitting at the bar, having a slow discussion with the bartender and two women beside him. One is Annie Tyler (nee Cartwright), Alex knows from sketches and photographs. The other...
She tilts her head to Alex, exposing a dark swirl of makeup over clown-white skin, and the world beyond Alex’s head goes abruptly silent. The other woman - a girl, really, Alex might ask to see her identification - is twisting off her stool, standing, walking towards Alex. She’s smiling; it’s the most welcoming smile Alex has seen. And she hasn’t seen it for so, so long.
When the woman is close enough, she offers Alex a hand. Alex takes it in both of her own. She’s expecting it to be cool, like holding white alabaster, but it’s not. It’s warm and soft and reassuringly solid. Alex remembers the first time she held Molly’s infant fist carefully in her palm, amazed that the slight tactile connection between them could be the most important thing she’d ever experienced. Even though it was all brain chemistry, of course. Alex wonders if that still applies - or if perhaps the habit of brain chemistry is enough - but she finds she doesn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” Alex says. “I got lost. But I’ve been trying so hard to find my way home.”
When the woman meets Alex’s eyes, it’s like there’s nothing else real in the pub. On a level Alex doesn’t like to acknowledge, she’s known that since stepping inside.
“Alex, you don’t have to apologize. No one ever gets lost,” Death promises. “Everyone comes to me, in the end. Just sometimes they take a different path.”