Life Fic: Seven Veils: Four
May. 29th, 2009 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anjouficTitle: Seven Veils: Four
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)
Posting Date: May 2009
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Crews/Reese
Spoilers: post-S2 finale, One
Disclaimer: Not mine, but they are fun to play with. All respect to Rand Ravich, Far Shariat and especially to Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi and the rest of the exceptional cast. They created something I will always treasure.
Author's Note: The series finale (:: sighs ::) of Life opened up so many interesting possibilities. Here's the direction my brain took, mostly because I can't believe that I'll never see Charlie and Dani again, so … I'm telling myself a story. Seven different perspectives, in seven parts, beginning immediately after the end of One (which I'm assuming was supposed to have taken place in April 2009) and continuing into the future over the course of the next year or so. This is a WIP, but the whole story is plotted, if not completed.
Thanks tosuzanne_laura for the beta, and the support.
~*~
Rachel walked slowly into the quiet house, turning the light off in the hallway. She picked her way across the space, hearing her steps echo, reaching out by instinct for the railing to the staircase that would lead her to the second floor. She stopped at the end of the long corridor that led to Charlie's bedroom. Her shoulders slumped when she saw no sliver of light visible from underneath his door, and for one minute she bitterly begrudged Charlie his current happiness. She sighed and walked across the hallway, past the ghostly outline of her easel, then Teddy's room with its silent toys and empty crib, before she stopped outside her own door and looked down the hall to Dani's room. The door was closed, and no light shone from underneath that, either. She had to give them credit for discretion, but she wasn’t sure what the point was. It wasn’t like they didn’t know where she’d been most nights. She opened the door to her room and flipped on the overhead before crossing to the lamp on the bedside table, turning it on, and shutting off the overhead. She sat down on the bed for a few minutes, but knew that sleep was not going to come any time soon. She was exhausted, but wide awake.
She shrugged out of the jacket that she'd worn and dropped the heavy bag she was still carrying on the floor next to it. It tumbled open and she could see the jumble of clothes and toiletries spilling out of it. Her other toothbrush had fallen out of the bag and onto the floor, bristles down, but she couldn't be bothered to pick it up. It wasn’t like she was ever going to use it again. It belonged in the cup next to John's at his house. Not here. She automatically blinked away the tears that threatened to fall and kicked her shoes off in the direction of her closet, waking her computer from its slumber on the desk. She could go online, maybe find someone to talk to there, but she discarded the idea nearly as swiftly as it arrived. If she went online, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from going to Facebook and seeing that he'd changed his status to single. Or maybe he'd defriended her already. She didn't want to know, didn't want to see how many notifications she had pending, had turned her cellphone off for the same reason. She didn't want to deal with the curiosity seekers, to know how much the spin and hum of gossip in their circle of friends revolved around them. His friends, she corrected herself, laying her phone down on the nightstand. John's friends, not hers. Not really.
She slipped on some flip-flops and left her room, hesitating as to which direction to turn. She was pretty sure that Dani and Charlie had finally started sleeping together a couple of months before, on the night of his birthday. It’s not like they’d announced it or anything, but the evidence had all been there. They’d had a small party for him, just her and Dani. Ted had said he’d be there with Olivia, but then had been totally Tedlike and ditched on the day of. It didn’t matter. They got sushi takeout from Charlie’s favorite place, and she’d gotten a small cake from a local bakery. After Charlie had blown out, and then finally doused the trick candles in her water glass, she‘d started to cut the cake. At the same time, she was giving him crap for being a poor sport while he ignored her, when Dani quietly handed him a present to unwrap.
Charlie had accepted the present with a ready smile, quipping that it didn’t smell like fruit and that it wasn’t ticking like a bomb, while Dani rolled her eyes and accepted a piece of cake from Rachel. But she didn’t eat it or even really acknowledge that Rachel had given it to her. Instead, she never took her eyes off Charlie and sat there, watching him and twirling her fork below the table’s edge nervously while Charlie meticulously and annoyingly peeled off each piece of tape, quoting Zen koans. When he’d finally opened the paper to reveal a hardback book, he stopped speaking, went completely still and stared at the book for a full minute.
Unable to withstand the suspense, Rachel had peered over his shoulder while she put his cake down and was immediately mystified by his reaction. Dani had given him a hardback version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was old and had been kind of a bad movie besides. She didn’t get what it was supposed to mean.
But Charlie clearly did, because he'd looked up from the book to Dani with such a look of intensity that Rachel suddenly felt very, very in the way. She’d excused herself shortly after, only coming back into the kitchen to say good night, and to steal some of the fruit-laden cake to share with John. She’d made plenty of noise coming back down the stairs, and when she re-entered the kitchen, Charlie was still sitting in the same chair, although it was a lot closer to Dani’s than it had been. He was also flushed, and his hair looked kind of messy. Plus, he was holding Dani’s hand while she ate his birthday cake and smiled a secret smile at him. They’d barely looked away from each other to say goodnight to her, and when they did, she noticed that there was a bit of frosting on Charlie's mouth, and that his lips looked full, like he'd just been thoroughly kissed.
She wished Charlie one last Happy Birthday, and dropped a kiss on his forehead before she mentioned that she wouldn't be home until tomorrow. For once, Charlie actually looked pleased by the announcement. She was grinning as she turned away from them, wondering if when she came home she'd find the abandoned cake still on the table, or perhaps swept into a heap on the floor along with the plates and dishes.
After John had gone to sleep, she'd spent the rest of the night reading his copy of the novel, laughing out loud when she finally got to the part where the answer to life, the universe and everything was 42.
Charlie had turned 42 the day before.
Her laughter had woken John, who pretended to be incensed that she cared about anyone else’s sex life, especially an “old dude” like Charlie who’d probably pass out after a pitiful two minutes, maybe three if he was lucky. When she'd said that he’d done the same thing the night before, well … that had been one of the best mornings of her life. She forced down the tears and the temptation to check Dani's old room and see if her bed really was empty. Part of her selfishly wished that it wasn't, so that she could go wake up Charlie.
She felt an echo of the old anger at the thought, at her foolish desire for a confidante. She should’ve stuck to her guns and not stayed here so long.
She shouldn’t have come back at all, but … if she was honest she couldn’t blame Charlie for that decision. She was the one who’d missed John – and she'd been furious that Charlie hadn’t told her that he’d been shot until weeks after it happened. She knew that he wanted to protect her, but the worst had already happened to her, hadn’t it? At least that had been the argument that she’d used a few weeks ago when she’d refused to leave again. Whatever had been going on was so bad that Charlie and Dani never ever took off their guns, even inside the house, and when she’d flatly refused to go, Charlie had insisted that she have a bodyguard, which she’d begrudgingly accepted.
All along, she was the one who’d made the decisions, believed in whatever she and John were building together. She, of all people, had made herself vulnerable by letting him in. She should have known better. She'd been standing at the top of the dark staircase for a long time, so she told herself to stop being a child and went downstairs. Maybe there was something on TV that she could lull herself to sleep with, something mindless that would help her numb the constant pain in her chest. She'd known for years now that heartbreak actually did have a physical pain, an ache of emptiness. She'd learned to ignore it before. She could do it again. Besides, it’s not like Charlie could fix anything – she’d just really like to see that muscle twitch in his jaw, to know that he’d want to go kick John’s ass for breaking her heart. She was supposed to be forgiving, she knew that, but those lessons had all been poisoned by their teacher. Anger was familiar, an older companion by far, and a more faithful friend than most.
Turning on the lights in the living room revealed Dani's books for the Lieutenant's exam at one end of the couch, which was just ridiculous -- Dani had to have memorized everything in them by now. Charlie's book, some massive history of philosophy, lay open and face down on the arm of the couch. She'd come across them sitting like this enough to be able to picture the scene: Dani curled up next to Charlie and focused on her studying while he sat next to her with his hand sifting through her hair and read, sometimes aloud, much to Dani’s annoyance. One night, she'd come home to find Charlie brushing Dani's hair, both of their books forgotten, and jazz playing on the stereo, while the voice of the singer, smoky and low, swirled around them.
An open DVD case sat on the coffee table and she picked it up and smiled when she saw the cover. Charlie had always liked the fact that his birthday was Groundhog's Day, and for his gift this year, Rachel had given him a copy of the movie. It had been a risk – it had come out the year Charlie was arrested, and she wasn't sure that he'd ever seen it or that he particularly wanted to be reminded of that year, but he had smiled fondly and thanked her. After all, the movie was about striving for perfection and reincarnation. It was very Zen, in its way, very Charlie. She wondered if they’d been watching it, if Charlie had used the movie to try and distract Dani from studying. She turned looking for the remote and went still at the sight of the painting that Charlie had left propped against the wall. She walked around the table and sat down on the edge of it, staring.
It was one of hers, an oversize canvas that had been one of the least planned things she'd ever painted. She'd been perfectly happy that day, happy with John, happy to be here in this house with Charlie, and she'd found herself thinking about her parents and TJ. And for the first time ever, the memory of them didn't cause her immense pain or suffuse her with rage at being left behind, without them. For the first time, she remembered acutely how happy she had been, how normal she had been before … and the feelings had tumbled out of her, vivid and real, and come right through her body and onto the canvas. It was an abstract, with no figures, but the swirls of colors were her and her mother, her father and TJ. Even Charlie and Jen were in it, along with her grandma, who'd died right after it had all happened. They were all there in the sunny swirl, all together again.
She painted a lot in the upstairs hallway because the light was so good there, and had a habit of leaving her paintings on the easel to dry. When she'd come back to check on this particular one, she'd found Charlie standing in front of it. She'd spoken to him when he’d come in the house, and knew that Dani was at a meeting. She'd expected that he'd have taken a shower and changed in the half hour since then but was surprised to see that he had only taken his shoes and socks off. He just stood there stock still in his work suit as the shoes dangled, forgotten, from his left hand; his right one still held the barely eaten piece of fruit he'd taken from the bowl in the kitchen. She'd called his name, but he was deep inside his own head, and only responded when she touched his arm.
He'd stared at her blankly for a second before he smiled at her. His eyes were full of tears. "I really like this painting, Rachel," he said to her sincerely. Then he dropped his shoes and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead. "Really."
He'd drawn back and looked at her, and Rachel knew that somehow, through Charlie magic, he knew exactly what the painting was about.
He'd been urging her to frame the painting since then, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet, couldn't see the frame that it needed in her head. Most of her finished canvases were stacked in a corner in her room, but this one seemed to wander around the house. She'd found it in the kitchen before, and once it had been in Charlie's bedroom when she went looking for it. So, although she wasn't exactly surprised to find it in the living room, it had been a while since she’d really looked at it. Tonight it just made her sad, made her wonder how many years it would be before she'd be able to make a painting of her and John that reflected anything but the pain that she felt right now. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, tucking her head down so that she could no longer see the painting of her first happiness, of all that had been stolen from her. She would not cry.
She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there like that when she felt the touch on her head. She raised her eyes, hoping that it would be Charlie, but it was Dani with sleep-mussed hair, her brown eyes looking at her with concern and compassion. Dani studied her, brows drawing down, and Rachel felt the lump in her throat grow more substantial.
"John?" Dani asked quietly, and the words just burst from her.
"He said he doesn't love me anymore, Dani," she choked out. "How did he just stop?"
She felt Dani sit down next to her on the coffee table, and her strong arms came and wrapped around Rachel, and she just … she missed her mom and everyone, and John, and then there was nothing she could do to stop the tears that poured out of her.
~
Later, she and Dani sat at the kitchen table. Dani made hot chocolate and wrapped Rachel's hands around the mug, and then sat opposite her and listened while the whole story spilled out. About all the fights they'd had lately, and how John had seemed angry with her, ever since she'd been spending more time focused on her art, on trying to figure out what she wanted to do with herself.
"It was like, when we were focused on him and his music and his career, that was fine, but there wasn't room to talk about me or what I wanted to do. And he would get so mad at me, like how could I not know what I wanted to do? How could I say that I 'think' I might want to be an artist? That ‘maybe’ I should go to college now, when they’ve all graduated already, him and all his friends. You know I have to let them know by May 1st, and he was all … " She moved her head dismissively, still sketching the quotes in the air as she spoke in the mocking tone he'd used, "like it was just a yes or no thing. Either I want it or I don’t, and how could I not know? And how could I explain that to him, Dani? How can I explain how hard it is to know who I really am?” She could hear how bitter her voice was, but didn’t try to stop the angry words. “Because first I was Rachel Seybolt, and then I was Rachel Hollis, and now I'm Rachel Seybolt again, and who is that, exactly?"
Dani listened, nodding.
“And the thing was, I thought he got that about me, I thought that he knew that my father," she stopped herself and said sharply, “Kyle – about everything that happened …” she shook her head. “What am I saying, though? How could he understand it, you know?” She looked across the table at Dani. “I don’t understand it, and I lived it. I was there, through the whole thing. But I don’t know how …”
When it had become clear that Rachel couldn’t find the words to continue, Dani quietly asked, “To explain that you’ve been more than one person?”
Rachel nodded. “I forgot who I was,” she said quietly. She looked up at Dani speculatively.
“Because it was too hard to remember who you’d been,” Dani said evenly.
“Yes,” Rachel said, realizing for the first time that maybe Dani did actually know what she was talking about, that maybe she’d done the same thing. Not for the same reasons, but she’d done it, too, just like Charlie.
Dani nodded. “Did you try to tell him?” she asked.
Rachel spun the hot chocolate cup, gone lukewarm now after all this time. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t, but … I don’t know if I wanted to, exactly. I was …” she looked up at Dani. “Happy.”
Dani nodded.
“He wasn’t the first boy, but he was the first one I …” she couldn’t say it out loud.
“The first one you loved,” Dani finished for her.
“Yeah,” she said bitterly. “Stupid.”
“Because it didn’t last?” Dani asked.
Rachel laughed, but it was a hard laugh, pushed up by the tears that were starting to come back. “I wish,” she said through gritted teeth. “I wish it wouldn’t last.” She wiped a tear away and stared at Dani, who was waiting patiently for her to explain.
"All those years, when I told people that Charlie hadn't killed my family? You know that they all told me over and over again that I was wrong?”
Dani shook her head no. Her eyes looked troubled.
“Yeah, they did.” Rachel said, “Over and over and over.” She paused, and took a deep breath in to stem the anger she still felt. “Well, after a while? I started to believe them, to hate him when he’d been my favorite,” she couldn’t help the smile that came across her face, “Uncle. He was my Uncle Charlie, and I loved him so much.” She laughed a little. “You know, he used to take me out on dates on his day off, give my mom a break after TJ was born. He’d take me to the beach, because I loved it so much, and even though he’d just fry. And he’d carry me on his shoulders when the sand got too hot on my feet,” she smiled fondly, remembering how much she loved being so tall.
She paused to explain, not really sure how much Dani understood about her parents and Charlie, about how close they really were. One of her earliest memories was of sneaking downstairs in their old house, because before he married Jen, Charlie used to crash on their couch the nights he worked at the bar. She could never wait to wake him up so he would play with her. She smiled at the memory. “They were really young, my parents,” she told Dani. “My mom was in college when she had me – she never finished, like Charlie did. By the time she was my age, she'd already had both of us.” She shook her head in wonder. “She was planning to go back to college when TJ started school, the fall after … " The fall that never came. She took in a deep breath. "She was going to become a librarian.” She stopped. “I don’t even know who I am, but she knew who she was, and who she wanted to be. She always told me how much she wanted me to go to college.”
She looked across the table at Dani who was listening, quietly.
“But then, my father – Kyle," she clarified, "he said that college was useless, that all I needed to learn, I could learn from the Bible …" a sob choked out, half a laugh. "He did love me," she insisted to Dani. "But he killed my family. He killed my real father. How could I forget that?" She whispered. "I can't forget the way my mother screamed. How could I forget what he did? How could I love him?"
Dani peeled Rachel’s hand off the cup she was gripping and held it, looking her in the eye. "You didn't do anything wrong," she said firmly. "You were a little girl who wanted to be loved. And he told you that he was your father, that he'd love you and take care of you."
Rachel nodded, exasperated, knowing that she wasn't making her point. "I know that he loved me," she said. "And I know that he manipulated me, too. And even though I know that he loved me, and I know that he killed my family, and I hate him, I still love him." She looked at Dani. "What I don't understand is how John could stop loving me. How did he stop?" She laughed bitterly. "I don't know how to do that. I wish I did. How do I learn how to do that?”
Dani was quiet for a long time. “There are things that you can do to stop feeling,” she said deliberately. She drew the sides of the open purple terry robe she was wearing together, closing it over her t-shirt and shorts, and tying the sash. Her voice was thoughtful. “But they aren’t real, either. And when you sober up, or you come down, you still have all the feelings.” She hesitated and looked at Rachel. “And sometimes, they’re worse than before.”
Rachel watched Dani’s face, and the question came to her. “Did he stop loving you?” she asked Dani, honestly curious.
“In a way,” Dani said slowly. “He died.”
Rachel sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. But … that was different. She suddenly wished that Charlie was awake, because she knew death, knew how it felt to be left behind by it, and this wasn’t the same thing at all. Charlie knew, though. Charlie knew what it was like to be left behind by someone who’d loved you and just … stopped -- moved on, away from you, while you still loved them.
Dani nodded. “Thank you,” she said faintly. “But it’s not really what you’re talking about …” she picked at the surface of the table. “Although, it really hurt me to know that he loved something more than me, that I didn’t change, but suddenly ...” she drifted off. “That was really how he left me, before he died. ”
Rachel had the strange feeling that Dani wasn’t just talking about the boy who’d loved her and died, but also knew that Dani wasn’t going to tell her the whole story.
“The only way to really stop is to not love anyone again, to not allow yourself to feel anything,” Dani said. “That doesn’t work, either.” She paused, and a faint smile curved her mouth. “Well, not forever.”
This time, Rachel did laugh through her tears. “For you, maybe,” she said. “But I can’t see …” she stopped herself. “I can’t see how I’d actually do this again.”
“I know,” Dani said. “I know that feeling. But it won't be the same."
Rachel nodded sadly. "Because it's not the first time," she said. "It won't be as good."
"No," Dani said, "that's not true." Her brow furrowed. "It's different. I think it's better."
"How?" Rachel asked her, honestly confused. "How could it be better when you know what you could lose?"
Dani stared back at Rachel, pressing her lips together. She looked confounded.
"It's better because you appreciate it more," Charlie said quietly. Rachel jumped, not having heard him come downstairs, while Dani just looked relieved. "It's better because you work harder, because the first time around, you take things for granted. You assume things are going to be strong, be permanent. The second time around, you know that things are fragile, that things happen. You know how rare it really is. You take better care of it."
Rachel stared at Charlie as he stood in the doorway, not entering the room. "I didn't mean to interrupt, but I couldn't help but overhear."
"It's OK," Rachel said. "And I won't even bitch when you say I told you so," she said sarcastically.
"Rachel," Charlie said, stepping into the kitchen. His tone was sorrowful.
He was shirtless, and Rachel could clearly see the round angry scar of the bullet hole that had come too close to his heart, and her breath caught in her throat. Too close. Charlie was too close to danger all the time.
She angrily wiped away her tears, but they just kept on flowing.
"Can't I just punch him instead? I’d rather punch him," Charlie said cheerfully. "I’m good at punching, ask Reese. I won't hurt him …" he paused, and lowered his pitch. "Much … maybe … just a little?"
Rachel laughed as Dani pushed the tissue box closer to her. She couldn't stop crying either, and part of her really wanted to say 'yes'.
"Rabbit punch?" Charlie said, crouching next to her chair. He held out his arms, and Rachel put her head down on his shoulder and just cried while he patted her back.
After a few minutes, she sat back and reached for some tissues to blow her nose and wipe her face. Charlie used the sleeve of Dani's bathrobe to mop up his shoulder, then went over to the sink to get a glass of water. It was then that Rachel saw them, and felt her jaw drop. She looked across the table, questioning what she was seeing, but Dani just looked amused.
"Uncle Charlie!" she said, and Charlie almost dropped his water glass on the granite countertop, he was so surprised, but not more than she was. "You have tattoos?! How many?"
"Oh," Charlie said, looking over his own shoulder to where the faded blue ink crept across the blade. "Four." He paused, and pursed his lips. "Ish."
She squinted across the kitchen at them, then stood up and went to take a closer look.
"Rachel," Charlie protested, turning his back to the sink. He looked vaguely embarrassed, but there was sincere concern on his face. "I'm not sure now is a great time," he began, then looked at Dani for support.
"I'm not the one walking around without my shirt on, Detective Crews," she pointed out.
"Let me see," Rachel said quietly.
Charlie turned around with a sigh. Over his right shoulder blade, twelve hash marks had been made in blue ink, not all by the same hand. Below them, the only tattoo that was semi-filled in looked like an Asiatic character that had pixilated, then faded like an old pair of blue jeans. Someone must have made the ink in prison, probably from a pen. Her best guess was that it represented a part of a Zen koan, although it almost looked like two characters had been smashed together. She could ask, but she thought that he'd rather not tell her, and she'd rather not make him lie. Besides, neither of those tats were the one that had caught her eye. Over the left blade, above his heart and below the ragged edge of the exit wound, was a group of letters outlined in script. A P and a T on either end sheltered a smaller R and a TJ in between them. P for Paulette, T for Tom and TJ … she traced them gently, touching the first letter of her own name last, while her eyes blurred with tears.
Charlie turned back around and caught her hand in his. "I never forgot you," he said quietly. He kissed her on the forehead, and she smiled tremulously.
"Thank you," she whispered back. She studied Charlie’s kind face, his blue eyes that had always told her that they loved her, even when she didn't want to see it. "I think I want to be an artist," she told him.
"You already are," Charlie answered in his steady voice, no smile in his tone whatsoever. "But I wasn't kidding about college. Go and learn, explore. It'll be fun. We’ll talk about it tomorrow." He looked over at Dani, who picked up their cups and put them on the counter next to the sink as she joined them. Charlie turned Rachel toward the door and pushed, just like he used to do when she was little and would rather stay up and talk to him than go to bed.
"I have to let them know next week," she said, suddenly exhausted. She walked slowly toward the staircase, hearing them murmuring quietly behind her over the water running in the sink. "Charlie?" She had noticed one other thing when he'd turned his back to her, aside from the fact that he seemed to be missing a tattoo – the gun tucked into waistband of his pajamas at the small of his back. She looked carefully at Dani, noting how low her short robe was on one side. "How bad is it?" she asked.
Charlie shut off the water and looked at Dani. His back was still to her, but she could see most of Dani's face while they had one of their silent conversations and she felt her anxiety level rising. Just when the tension was building to the point where she was going to yell at them to tell her what was going on, Charlie turned around.
"Paul might be driving you around for a while," he said quietly and she knew that if he was bringing back the former FBI Agent to help him, it was bad. Charlie reacted to her expression, hastening to reassure her. "It won't be for long."
"And you'll be careful, right?" Rachel said, her voice cracking with strain and anger. She could feel her broken heart pounding in fear.
"I'll be careful," Charlie said. He looked at Dani, who had crossed her arms across her chest, and suddenly Rachel understood why she'd been wandering the house in the middle of the night. She was worried, too. "I promise," he said firmly, looking from Dani to her. "I promise."
~*~
Three
Author:
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)Posting Date: May 2009
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Crews/Reese
Spoilers: post-S2 finale, One
Disclaimer: Not mine, but they are fun to play with. All respect to Rand Ravich, Far Shariat and especially to Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi and the rest of the exceptional cast. They created something I will always treasure.
Author's Note: The series finale (:: sighs ::) of Life opened up so many interesting possibilities. Here's the direction my brain took, mostly because I can't believe that I'll never see Charlie and Dani again, so … I'm telling myself a story. Seven different perspectives, in seven parts, beginning immediately after the end of One (which I'm assuming was supposed to have taken place in April 2009) and continuing into the future over the course of the next year or so. This is a WIP, but the whole story is plotted, if not completed.
Thanks to
suzanne_laura for the beta, and the support.~*~
Rachel walked slowly into the quiet house, turning the light off in the hallway. She picked her way across the space, hearing her steps echo, reaching out by instinct for the railing to the staircase that would lead her to the second floor. She stopped at the end of the long corridor that led to Charlie's bedroom. Her shoulders slumped when she saw no sliver of light visible from underneath his door, and for one minute she bitterly begrudged Charlie his current happiness. She sighed and walked across the hallway, past the ghostly outline of her easel, then Teddy's room with its silent toys and empty crib, before she stopped outside her own door and looked down the hall to Dani's room. The door was closed, and no light shone from underneath that, either. She had to give them credit for discretion, but she wasn’t sure what the point was. It wasn’t like they didn’t know where she’d been most nights. She opened the door to her room and flipped on the overhead before crossing to the lamp on the bedside table, turning it on, and shutting off the overhead. She sat down on the bed for a few minutes, but knew that sleep was not going to come any time soon. She was exhausted, but wide awake.
She shrugged out of the jacket that she'd worn and dropped the heavy bag she was still carrying on the floor next to it. It tumbled open and she could see the jumble of clothes and toiletries spilling out of it. Her other toothbrush had fallen out of the bag and onto the floor, bristles down, but she couldn't be bothered to pick it up. It wasn’t like she was ever going to use it again. It belonged in the cup next to John's at his house. Not here. She automatically blinked away the tears that threatened to fall and kicked her shoes off in the direction of her closet, waking her computer from its slumber on the desk. She could go online, maybe find someone to talk to there, but she discarded the idea nearly as swiftly as it arrived. If she went online, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from going to Facebook and seeing that he'd changed his status to single. Or maybe he'd defriended her already. She didn't want to know, didn't want to see how many notifications she had pending, had turned her cellphone off for the same reason. She didn't want to deal with the curiosity seekers, to know how much the spin and hum of gossip in their circle of friends revolved around them. His friends, she corrected herself, laying her phone down on the nightstand. John's friends, not hers. Not really.
She slipped on some flip-flops and left her room, hesitating as to which direction to turn. She was pretty sure that Dani and Charlie had finally started sleeping together a couple of months before, on the night of his birthday. It’s not like they’d announced it or anything, but the evidence had all been there. They’d had a small party for him, just her and Dani. Ted had said he’d be there with Olivia, but then had been totally Tedlike and ditched on the day of. It didn’t matter. They got sushi takeout from Charlie’s favorite place, and she’d gotten a small cake from a local bakery. After Charlie had blown out, and then finally doused the trick candles in her water glass, she‘d started to cut the cake. At the same time, she was giving him crap for being a poor sport while he ignored her, when Dani quietly handed him a present to unwrap.
Charlie had accepted the present with a ready smile, quipping that it didn’t smell like fruit and that it wasn’t ticking like a bomb, while Dani rolled her eyes and accepted a piece of cake from Rachel. But she didn’t eat it or even really acknowledge that Rachel had given it to her. Instead, she never took her eyes off Charlie and sat there, watching him and twirling her fork below the table’s edge nervously while Charlie meticulously and annoyingly peeled off each piece of tape, quoting Zen koans. When he’d finally opened the paper to reveal a hardback book, he stopped speaking, went completely still and stared at the book for a full minute.
Unable to withstand the suspense, Rachel had peered over his shoulder while she put his cake down and was immediately mystified by his reaction. Dani had given him a hardback version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was old and had been kind of a bad movie besides. She didn’t get what it was supposed to mean.
But Charlie clearly did, because he'd looked up from the book to Dani with such a look of intensity that Rachel suddenly felt very, very in the way. She’d excused herself shortly after, only coming back into the kitchen to say good night, and to steal some of the fruit-laden cake to share with John. She’d made plenty of noise coming back down the stairs, and when she re-entered the kitchen, Charlie was still sitting in the same chair, although it was a lot closer to Dani’s than it had been. He was also flushed, and his hair looked kind of messy. Plus, he was holding Dani’s hand while she ate his birthday cake and smiled a secret smile at him. They’d barely looked away from each other to say goodnight to her, and when they did, she noticed that there was a bit of frosting on Charlie's mouth, and that his lips looked full, like he'd just been thoroughly kissed.
She wished Charlie one last Happy Birthday, and dropped a kiss on his forehead before she mentioned that she wouldn't be home until tomorrow. For once, Charlie actually looked pleased by the announcement. She was grinning as she turned away from them, wondering if when she came home she'd find the abandoned cake still on the table, or perhaps swept into a heap on the floor along with the plates and dishes.
After John had gone to sleep, she'd spent the rest of the night reading his copy of the novel, laughing out loud when she finally got to the part where the answer to life, the universe and everything was 42.
Charlie had turned 42 the day before.
Her laughter had woken John, who pretended to be incensed that she cared about anyone else’s sex life, especially an “old dude” like Charlie who’d probably pass out after a pitiful two minutes, maybe three if he was lucky. When she'd said that he’d done the same thing the night before, well … that had been one of the best mornings of her life. She forced down the tears and the temptation to check Dani's old room and see if her bed really was empty. Part of her selfishly wished that it wasn't, so that she could go wake up Charlie.
She felt an echo of the old anger at the thought, at her foolish desire for a confidante. She should’ve stuck to her guns and not stayed here so long.
She shouldn’t have come back at all, but … if she was honest she couldn’t blame Charlie for that decision. She was the one who’d missed John – and she'd been furious that Charlie hadn’t told her that he’d been shot until weeks after it happened. She knew that he wanted to protect her, but the worst had already happened to her, hadn’t it? At least that had been the argument that she’d used a few weeks ago when she’d refused to leave again. Whatever had been going on was so bad that Charlie and Dani never ever took off their guns, even inside the house, and when she’d flatly refused to go, Charlie had insisted that she have a bodyguard, which she’d begrudgingly accepted.
All along, she was the one who’d made the decisions, believed in whatever she and John were building together. She, of all people, had made herself vulnerable by letting him in. She should have known better. She'd been standing at the top of the dark staircase for a long time, so she told herself to stop being a child and went downstairs. Maybe there was something on TV that she could lull herself to sleep with, something mindless that would help her numb the constant pain in her chest. She'd known for years now that heartbreak actually did have a physical pain, an ache of emptiness. She'd learned to ignore it before. She could do it again. Besides, it’s not like Charlie could fix anything – she’d just really like to see that muscle twitch in his jaw, to know that he’d want to go kick John’s ass for breaking her heart. She was supposed to be forgiving, she knew that, but those lessons had all been poisoned by their teacher. Anger was familiar, an older companion by far, and a more faithful friend than most.
Turning on the lights in the living room revealed Dani's books for the Lieutenant's exam at one end of the couch, which was just ridiculous -- Dani had to have memorized everything in them by now. Charlie's book, some massive history of philosophy, lay open and face down on the arm of the couch. She'd come across them sitting like this enough to be able to picture the scene: Dani curled up next to Charlie and focused on her studying while he sat next to her with his hand sifting through her hair and read, sometimes aloud, much to Dani’s annoyance. One night, she'd come home to find Charlie brushing Dani's hair, both of their books forgotten, and jazz playing on the stereo, while the voice of the singer, smoky and low, swirled around them.
An open DVD case sat on the coffee table and she picked it up and smiled when she saw the cover. Charlie had always liked the fact that his birthday was Groundhog's Day, and for his gift this year, Rachel had given him a copy of the movie. It had been a risk – it had come out the year Charlie was arrested, and she wasn't sure that he'd ever seen it or that he particularly wanted to be reminded of that year, but he had smiled fondly and thanked her. After all, the movie was about striving for perfection and reincarnation. It was very Zen, in its way, very Charlie. She wondered if they’d been watching it, if Charlie had used the movie to try and distract Dani from studying. She turned looking for the remote and went still at the sight of the painting that Charlie had left propped against the wall. She walked around the table and sat down on the edge of it, staring.
It was one of hers, an oversize canvas that had been one of the least planned things she'd ever painted. She'd been perfectly happy that day, happy with John, happy to be here in this house with Charlie, and she'd found herself thinking about her parents and TJ. And for the first time ever, the memory of them didn't cause her immense pain or suffuse her with rage at being left behind, without them. For the first time, she remembered acutely how happy she had been, how normal she had been before … and the feelings had tumbled out of her, vivid and real, and come right through her body and onto the canvas. It was an abstract, with no figures, but the swirls of colors were her and her mother, her father and TJ. Even Charlie and Jen were in it, along with her grandma, who'd died right after it had all happened. They were all there in the sunny swirl, all together again.
She painted a lot in the upstairs hallway because the light was so good there, and had a habit of leaving her paintings on the easel to dry. When she'd come back to check on this particular one, she'd found Charlie standing in front of it. She'd spoken to him when he’d come in the house, and knew that Dani was at a meeting. She'd expected that he'd have taken a shower and changed in the half hour since then but was surprised to see that he had only taken his shoes and socks off. He just stood there stock still in his work suit as the shoes dangled, forgotten, from his left hand; his right one still held the barely eaten piece of fruit he'd taken from the bowl in the kitchen. She'd called his name, but he was deep inside his own head, and only responded when she touched his arm.
He'd stared at her blankly for a second before he smiled at her. His eyes were full of tears. "I really like this painting, Rachel," he said to her sincerely. Then he dropped his shoes and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the forehead. "Really."
He'd drawn back and looked at her, and Rachel knew that somehow, through Charlie magic, he knew exactly what the painting was about.
He'd been urging her to frame the painting since then, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet, couldn't see the frame that it needed in her head. Most of her finished canvases were stacked in a corner in her room, but this one seemed to wander around the house. She'd found it in the kitchen before, and once it had been in Charlie's bedroom when she went looking for it. So, although she wasn't exactly surprised to find it in the living room, it had been a while since she’d really looked at it. Tonight it just made her sad, made her wonder how many years it would be before she'd be able to make a painting of her and John that reflected anything but the pain that she felt right now. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, tucking her head down so that she could no longer see the painting of her first happiness, of all that had been stolen from her. She would not cry.
She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there like that when she felt the touch on her head. She raised her eyes, hoping that it would be Charlie, but it was Dani with sleep-mussed hair, her brown eyes looking at her with concern and compassion. Dani studied her, brows drawing down, and Rachel felt the lump in her throat grow more substantial.
"John?" Dani asked quietly, and the words just burst from her.
"He said he doesn't love me anymore, Dani," she choked out. "How did he just stop?"
She felt Dani sit down next to her on the coffee table, and her strong arms came and wrapped around Rachel, and she just … she missed her mom and everyone, and John, and then there was nothing she could do to stop the tears that poured out of her.
~
Later, she and Dani sat at the kitchen table. Dani made hot chocolate and wrapped Rachel's hands around the mug, and then sat opposite her and listened while the whole story spilled out. About all the fights they'd had lately, and how John had seemed angry with her, ever since she'd been spending more time focused on her art, on trying to figure out what she wanted to do with herself.
"It was like, when we were focused on him and his music and his career, that was fine, but there wasn't room to talk about me or what I wanted to do. And he would get so mad at me, like how could I not know what I wanted to do? How could I say that I 'think' I might want to be an artist? That ‘maybe’ I should go to college now, when they’ve all graduated already, him and all his friends. You know I have to let them know by May 1st, and he was all … " She moved her head dismissively, still sketching the quotes in the air as she spoke in the mocking tone he'd used, "like it was just a yes or no thing. Either I want it or I don’t, and how could I not know? And how could I explain that to him, Dani? How can I explain how hard it is to know who I really am?” She could hear how bitter her voice was, but didn’t try to stop the angry words. “Because first I was Rachel Seybolt, and then I was Rachel Hollis, and now I'm Rachel Seybolt again, and who is that, exactly?"
Dani listened, nodding.
“And the thing was, I thought he got that about me, I thought that he knew that my father," she stopped herself and said sharply, “Kyle – about everything that happened …” she shook her head. “What am I saying, though? How could he understand it, you know?” She looked across the table at Dani. “I don’t understand it, and I lived it. I was there, through the whole thing. But I don’t know how …”
When it had become clear that Rachel couldn’t find the words to continue, Dani quietly asked, “To explain that you’ve been more than one person?”
Rachel nodded. “I forgot who I was,” she said quietly. She looked up at Dani speculatively.
“Because it was too hard to remember who you’d been,” Dani said evenly.
“Yes,” Rachel said, realizing for the first time that maybe Dani did actually know what she was talking about, that maybe she’d done the same thing. Not for the same reasons, but she’d done it, too, just like Charlie.
Dani nodded. “Did you try to tell him?” she asked.
Rachel spun the hot chocolate cup, gone lukewarm now after all this time. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t, but … I don’t know if I wanted to, exactly. I was …” she looked up at Dani. “Happy.”
Dani nodded.
“He wasn’t the first boy, but he was the first one I …” she couldn’t say it out loud.
“The first one you loved,” Dani finished for her.
“Yeah,” she said bitterly. “Stupid.”
“Because it didn’t last?” Dani asked.
Rachel laughed, but it was a hard laugh, pushed up by the tears that were starting to come back. “I wish,” she said through gritted teeth. “I wish it wouldn’t last.” She wiped a tear away and stared at Dani, who was waiting patiently for her to explain.
"All those years, when I told people that Charlie hadn't killed my family? You know that they all told me over and over again that I was wrong?”
Dani shook her head no. Her eyes looked troubled.
“Yeah, they did.” Rachel said, “Over and over and over.” She paused, and took a deep breath in to stem the anger she still felt. “Well, after a while? I started to believe them, to hate him when he’d been my favorite,” she couldn’t help the smile that came across her face, “Uncle. He was my Uncle Charlie, and I loved him so much.” She laughed a little. “You know, he used to take me out on dates on his day off, give my mom a break after TJ was born. He’d take me to the beach, because I loved it so much, and even though he’d just fry. And he’d carry me on his shoulders when the sand got too hot on my feet,” she smiled fondly, remembering how much she loved being so tall.
She paused to explain, not really sure how much Dani understood about her parents and Charlie, about how close they really were. One of her earliest memories was of sneaking downstairs in their old house, because before he married Jen, Charlie used to crash on their couch the nights he worked at the bar. She could never wait to wake him up so he would play with her. She smiled at the memory. “They were really young, my parents,” she told Dani. “My mom was in college when she had me – she never finished, like Charlie did. By the time she was my age, she'd already had both of us.” She shook her head in wonder. “She was planning to go back to college when TJ started school, the fall after … " The fall that never came. She took in a deep breath. "She was going to become a librarian.” She stopped. “I don’t even know who I am, but she knew who she was, and who she wanted to be. She always told me how much she wanted me to go to college.”
She looked across the table at Dani who was listening, quietly.
“But then, my father – Kyle," she clarified, "he said that college was useless, that all I needed to learn, I could learn from the Bible …" a sob choked out, half a laugh. "He did love me," she insisted to Dani. "But he killed my family. He killed my real father. How could I forget that?" She whispered. "I can't forget the way my mother screamed. How could I forget what he did? How could I love him?"
Dani peeled Rachel’s hand off the cup she was gripping and held it, looking her in the eye. "You didn't do anything wrong," she said firmly. "You were a little girl who wanted to be loved. And he told you that he was your father, that he'd love you and take care of you."
Rachel nodded, exasperated, knowing that she wasn't making her point. "I know that he loved me," she said. "And I know that he manipulated me, too. And even though I know that he loved me, and I know that he killed my family, and I hate him, I still love him." She looked at Dani. "What I don't understand is how John could stop loving me. How did he stop?" She laughed bitterly. "I don't know how to do that. I wish I did. How do I learn how to do that?”
Dani was quiet for a long time. “There are things that you can do to stop feeling,” she said deliberately. She drew the sides of the open purple terry robe she was wearing together, closing it over her t-shirt and shorts, and tying the sash. Her voice was thoughtful. “But they aren’t real, either. And when you sober up, or you come down, you still have all the feelings.” She hesitated and looked at Rachel. “And sometimes, they’re worse than before.”
Rachel watched Dani’s face, and the question came to her. “Did he stop loving you?” she asked Dani, honestly curious.
“In a way,” Dani said slowly. “He died.”
Rachel sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. But … that was different. She suddenly wished that Charlie was awake, because she knew death, knew how it felt to be left behind by it, and this wasn’t the same thing at all. Charlie knew, though. Charlie knew what it was like to be left behind by someone who’d loved you and just … stopped -- moved on, away from you, while you still loved them.
Dani nodded. “Thank you,” she said faintly. “But it’s not really what you’re talking about …” she picked at the surface of the table. “Although, it really hurt me to know that he loved something more than me, that I didn’t change, but suddenly ...” she drifted off. “That was really how he left me, before he died. ”
Rachel had the strange feeling that Dani wasn’t just talking about the boy who’d loved her and died, but also knew that Dani wasn’t going to tell her the whole story.
“The only way to really stop is to not love anyone again, to not allow yourself to feel anything,” Dani said. “That doesn’t work, either.” She paused, and a faint smile curved her mouth. “Well, not forever.”
This time, Rachel did laugh through her tears. “For you, maybe,” she said. “But I can’t see …” she stopped herself. “I can’t see how I’d actually do this again.”
“I know,” Dani said. “I know that feeling. But it won't be the same."
Rachel nodded sadly. "Because it's not the first time," she said. "It won't be as good."
"No," Dani said, "that's not true." Her brow furrowed. "It's different. I think it's better."
"How?" Rachel asked her, honestly confused. "How could it be better when you know what you could lose?"
Dani stared back at Rachel, pressing her lips together. She looked confounded.
"It's better because you appreciate it more," Charlie said quietly. Rachel jumped, not having heard him come downstairs, while Dani just looked relieved. "It's better because you work harder, because the first time around, you take things for granted. You assume things are going to be strong, be permanent. The second time around, you know that things are fragile, that things happen. You know how rare it really is. You take better care of it."
Rachel stared at Charlie as he stood in the doorway, not entering the room. "I didn't mean to interrupt, but I couldn't help but overhear."
"It's OK," Rachel said. "And I won't even bitch when you say I told you so," she said sarcastically.
"Rachel," Charlie said, stepping into the kitchen. His tone was sorrowful.
He was shirtless, and Rachel could clearly see the round angry scar of the bullet hole that had come too close to his heart, and her breath caught in her throat. Too close. Charlie was too close to danger all the time.
She angrily wiped away her tears, but they just kept on flowing.
"Can't I just punch him instead? I’d rather punch him," Charlie said cheerfully. "I’m good at punching, ask Reese. I won't hurt him …" he paused, and lowered his pitch. "Much … maybe … just a little?"
Rachel laughed as Dani pushed the tissue box closer to her. She couldn't stop crying either, and part of her really wanted to say 'yes'.
"Rabbit punch?" Charlie said, crouching next to her chair. He held out his arms, and Rachel put her head down on his shoulder and just cried while he patted her back.
After a few minutes, she sat back and reached for some tissues to blow her nose and wipe her face. Charlie used the sleeve of Dani's bathrobe to mop up his shoulder, then went over to the sink to get a glass of water. It was then that Rachel saw them, and felt her jaw drop. She looked across the table, questioning what she was seeing, but Dani just looked amused.
"Uncle Charlie!" she said, and Charlie almost dropped his water glass on the granite countertop, he was so surprised, but not more than she was. "You have tattoos?! How many?"
"Oh," Charlie said, looking over his own shoulder to where the faded blue ink crept across the blade. "Four." He paused, and pursed his lips. "Ish."
She squinted across the kitchen at them, then stood up and went to take a closer look.
"Rachel," Charlie protested, turning his back to the sink. He looked vaguely embarrassed, but there was sincere concern on his face. "I'm not sure now is a great time," he began, then looked at Dani for support.
"I'm not the one walking around without my shirt on, Detective Crews," she pointed out.
"Let me see," Rachel said quietly.
Charlie turned around with a sigh. Over his right shoulder blade, twelve hash marks had been made in blue ink, not all by the same hand. Below them, the only tattoo that was semi-filled in looked like an Asiatic character that had pixilated, then faded like an old pair of blue jeans. Someone must have made the ink in prison, probably from a pen. Her best guess was that it represented a part of a Zen koan, although it almost looked like two characters had been smashed together. She could ask, but she thought that he'd rather not tell her, and she'd rather not make him lie. Besides, neither of those tats were the one that had caught her eye. Over the left blade, above his heart and below the ragged edge of the exit wound, was a group of letters outlined in script. A P and a T on either end sheltered a smaller R and a TJ in between them. P for Paulette, T for Tom and TJ … she traced them gently, touching the first letter of her own name last, while her eyes blurred with tears.
Charlie turned back around and caught her hand in his. "I never forgot you," he said quietly. He kissed her on the forehead, and she smiled tremulously.
"Thank you," she whispered back. She studied Charlie’s kind face, his blue eyes that had always told her that they loved her, even when she didn't want to see it. "I think I want to be an artist," she told him.
"You already are," Charlie answered in his steady voice, no smile in his tone whatsoever. "But I wasn't kidding about college. Go and learn, explore. It'll be fun. We’ll talk about it tomorrow." He looked over at Dani, who picked up their cups and put them on the counter next to the sink as she joined them. Charlie turned Rachel toward the door and pushed, just like he used to do when she was little and would rather stay up and talk to him than go to bed.
"I have to let them know next week," she said, suddenly exhausted. She walked slowly toward the staircase, hearing them murmuring quietly behind her over the water running in the sink. "Charlie?" She had noticed one other thing when he'd turned his back to her, aside from the fact that he seemed to be missing a tattoo – the gun tucked into waistband of his pajamas at the small of his back. She looked carefully at Dani, noting how low her short robe was on one side. "How bad is it?" she asked.
Charlie shut off the water and looked at Dani. His back was still to her, but she could see most of Dani's face while they had one of their silent conversations and she felt her anxiety level rising. Just when the tension was building to the point where she was going to yell at them to tell her what was going on, Charlie turned around.
"Paul might be driving you around for a while," he said quietly and she knew that if he was bringing back the former FBI Agent to help him, it was bad. Charlie reacted to her expression, hastening to reassure her. "It won't be for long."
"And you'll be careful, right?" Rachel said, her voice cracking with strain and anger. She could feel her broken heart pounding in fear.
"I'll be careful," Charlie said. He looked at Dani, who had crossed her arms across her chest, and suddenly Rachel understood why she'd been wandering the house in the middle of the night. She was worried, too. "I promise," he said firmly, looking from Dani to her. "I promise."
~*~
Three
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-30 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-30 09:14 pm (UTC)Signed,
your mushy fan
Thank you for talking me into it.
Date: 2009-05-31 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-30 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 11:50 pm (UTC)Thanks for all the kind words.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-01 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 08:40 pm (UTC)Nice Facebook reference there - can't have a relationship without that, can we?
Poor Rachel. I love Charlie's new makeshift family.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 09:17 pm (UTC)This is very good, and I can't wait to see the rest.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-05 03:34 am (UTC)I can't wait to read the following chapters.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-05 05:36 am (UTC)We were totally robbed... *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 06:40 am (UTC)I love the way Charlie and Dani held their silent conversations and Rachel figuring it out and how worried Dani was. I love the way you write this created family.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-19 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-28 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-29 02:19 am (UTC)