Never Ever.
Title: Never Ever.
Word Count: 2000-something.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Connor/Abby
Warnings: None.
Spoilers: None.
Abby had simply quit the whole anomaly project, glad to rid of the responsibility that came with it, happy to forget about the deaths and the loss. Connor had stayed, of course. He wanted to figure it all out. He didn’t quite get how one would just appear one day, then another, and another…. then after seven whole years of closing anomalies they decided to not open altogether… they just disappeared.
That’s what he didn’t get. That’s what led them apart. He stayed at the half-open ARC which was like a shop that forgot to call in an order, empty here and there while some people still walked through its corridors, while Abby tried to forget about it all.
He hadn’t seen Abby in eight years now. They’d stopped writing to each other, letters were out dated, emails lay unread and phone calls unanswered. He should have let her go a long time ago but the truth was; she’d always have a hold of his heart. He’d spent seven years with her, and eight without her, but those seven years were still fresh in his mind, her laugh still echoing in his ears as he sat alone mumbling to himself over something new that didn’t quite make sense.
So, he gives up, on the anomalies. She was right, he realises, that he would just end up wasting his life on them, these holes in time. She told him to find something real worth living for and at that time he’d been too blind to actually see what she’d been hinting at. Hadn’t realised it until she was gone, ignored it for too long and now here he was, eight years later, standing in front of her house door.
They’d swapped addresses, sent one or two letters, but he’d never thought to go and see her home, to see her.
He knocked on the door and stepped back off of the stairs, waiting to be let in, or maybe told to go away. The door opened.
“Can I help you, mister?” It was a child’s voice and it took him a moment to realise where it was coming from. A little girl stood in the doorway in her dressing gown, staring up at him.
“Oh, uh…”
“Carla, how many times have I told you, when I’m in the bath you don’t answer the door!” Abby came rushing down the stairs, she too wearing a dressing gown, and Connor began to wonder if she wore anything beneath it. “Oh.”
And they stop, for a moment, and it’s as if time stops. The little girl is silent, staring towards Abby as if for permission to close the door in mister’s face or to let him in. Abby stands at the bottom of the stairs, her wet hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, water dripping down her forehead and towards her wide eyes.
“Hi.” Connor manages to say, steadily.
“Hi.”
“Hello.” Carla says, gleaming towards him. “Am I allowed to let mister in, mum?”
And it all makes sense. Of course, brown-blonde hair tied into a messy bobble behind her ears, blue eyes that glisten when she smiled, Carla was Abby’s. Connor wasn’t quite sure who he thought she was, but a lot of things in the last couple of years hadn’t made any sense why would it be any different now…
“Uh…yeah…”
They’re sitting in the kitchen and Abby’s made him a cup of tea without asking. They haven’t said much, not a word to each other, Abby mumbles a few words to Carla but the kitchen is silent as they drink their tea.
Eight years and she still remembers he likes one sugar and a quarter.
“She’s…”
“She’s what?” Abby asks, harshly.
“She’s got your eyes.” He says, almost whispering the words into his cup.
He knows she’s not his, because they never got that far, and that’s what hurts him most. For eight years he’s been waiting, hoping for a fantastic reunion of some kind, but she’s found someone else.
At 39 he was still as childish as the 24 year old she first met. He supposed he’d always reassure himself with a stupid lie, every year that someone would come along, someone he could buy a dog with, and to kiss under the mistletoe at Christmas. The only thing he hadn’t realised was that person had already been in his life, and he’d been stupid enough to let her go.
“Are you going to eat those biscuits, mister?” Carla asked, pointing at a plateful of biscuits he didn’t even notice Abby place on the table.
“No, I’m fine, thank you.” Connor smiled, pushing the plate towards her. “She’s got some manners, too.”
“Yeah, I’ve done all right for a single mum, I suppose.”
Connor’s head shot up, frowning, slightly confused. “You mean, her father he’s not… around?”
“No, he left. Like every other man.”
He had a feeling the harsh statement was somewhat directed towards him but he ignored it and drank the last bit of tea left in his mug.
“How old is she?”
“I’m five, six in twenty one days.”
“What she said.” Abby smiled.
“How old are you?” Carla asked, like an adult speaking to a child.
“Thirty-nine.” And as he said it he spotted Abby mouthing the numbers, looking down towards the kitchen table, her fingers tracing along the wood. “I’m old.”
“Mummy’s thirty eight, she’s old too.”
“Yeah, thanks, Carla. You’re not that old, Conn, got another year ’til the big four-oh, then you’re old.” She smiled, and for a moment Connor saw the old Abby seep through her single mum façade. He knows she hasn’t forgotten those seven years either.
“Thanks, you make me feel a lot better about myself. At least you’ve got something to show for your thirty-eight years.”
“What and you’ve got nothing? No girlfriend? No wife? No pet dog?”
“Nuh-huh. A one bedroom apartment I share with a load of notes I wasted the last eight years on.”
“You found nothing out, huh?”
“Yeah, I found something out, the fact that you were right. All along.”
“I’m right about a lot of things, Connor, it just takes time for people to realise it. Myself included.”
“He didn’t give you a rough time, did he, her…y’know…”
There were a lot of things Abby never told him, even when they shared that apartment, and it was something he came to respect, that he would never know everything about her. But he knew, if this man had hurt her, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself because he was the one that left her to walk straight for it. No matter how strong Abby pretended to be, or what mask she decided to wear, Connor could see past it all and read her eyes when she lied.
She shook her head. “He was just a more of a one-month-relationship sort of guy, and moved on to the next girl, still thinking he’s twenty-one and in uni.”
“Does he know about Carla?”
“Oh, yeah. He sends some money once a month, which is better than nothing I suppose.”
Carla falls asleep on her mother’s lap as they talk about the last eight years without each other. Abby has more to say than Connor, of course, and he starts to feel embarrassed of the years he sat in the ARC doing nothing. It’s at least three a.m. when they both notice the clock above the fridge. For a moment neither of them moves, and he forgets about Carla on Abby’s lap, and he forgets where he actually is.
For a moment it could’ve been eight years ago and they could’ve been sitting in their old apartment’s kitchen talking about nothing but their old nonsense. For a moment he could’ve been twenty-four again, he could’ve been younger and had meaning.
“I’ll take her upstairs.” Abby whispers. “I won’t be a minute.”
So he waits, sitting on the kitchen chair and trying to make out the faces in the photos on the fridge. And he sees it, him and her. It’s the highest picture on the fridge, besides a drawing by Carla. They smile at the camera, both oblivious to how the other felt, oblivious to their future.
“Is mister still here?” Abby asks, smiling.
“Huh? What?”
“It’s what Carla asked but she went straight back to sleep as soon as she hit the pillow.”
He’s still staring at the photograph and Abby follows his stare.
“How old were we there?” She asks. “Twenty-six?”
“It was before Cutter died…” He hasn’t talked about Cutter for eight years, and even now it stabs at his heart, makes him wince when he mentions his name. “Yeah…”
“I’m gonna be tired tomorrow.” Abby smiles, as if it was worth staying up until three in the morning, that she’s not actually complaining, she’s boasting.
“So am I. I best get home.”
“How long will it take you to get there?”
“If I get the train it shouldn’t take that long.”
He’s lying, obviously. He’s terrified. Its three o’clock in the morning and the next train is at four. He’s going to walk home, or at least chance it.
“Okay. So, I guess I’ll see you in another eight years?”
Connor laughed, “I hope not. I mean, I hope to see you before that…”
And it becomes a weekly thing, and Carla doesn’t call him mister anymore but Connor. When he doesn’t go round to see her, he phones her, and she phones him, and it’s like it was eight years ago only over phones and they live in different apartments on the opposite sides of London.
There’s a new picture on the fridge, as well, taken on Carla’s sixth birthday, a simple picnic in the park with sandwiches without the crusts and pieces of sliced apple.
And when he went home he felt lost again. He knew what he wanted, again, and this time he wouldn’t waste any time contemplating, he’d wasted enough already. He’s only just arrived home but he grabs his jacket again and leaves.
It’s midnight and he’s standing in front of her house door when his mobile phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Abby.”
A smile grows on his face, one that pulls at his heart so it’s in his throat, making it difficult to talk.
“It’s boring here without you, there’s nothing good on TV.” She whispers into her phone.
“You should watch a DVD, then.”
“I can’t really be bothered to move…”
“Well, that’s no good.”
“If only you lived closer you could put one on for me. Well, I suppose you’d need a key then, to let yourself in. Then you’d need to bring a DVD so we could watch ’cause all I’ve got here is some Peppa Pig and I don’t think Carla would approve if we watched it.”
“So you want a DVD to watch?”
“Well, I want a DVD to watch ’cause you’re not here and Carla’s asleep.”
“What if I was there?”
“Then I’d watch the DVD with you, wouldn’t I?” Abby says and it makes Connor laugh.
“What if we didn’t have a DVD?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m standing outside your place right now and I don’t have a DVD. If you’d told me sooner I would’ve gotten one.”
She was silent on the other side of the phone but he could hear some sort of shuffling before the door opened and she stood there, her phone still against her ear. For a moment they stood silently, smiling, and Connor knows exactly what to do, and this time he’s going to do it.
She takes the phone away from her ear, sensing what’s about to happen, and he drops his to the floor. This is so much more important.
He hasn’t held her in a long time. They’ve had the odd nudge when they joke or the simple arm over the shoulder for reassurance. But never had he placed both his arms over her small shoulders and placed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes to savour the moment.
He didn’t kiss her straight away; he was waiting for some sort of permission. And he got it. She placed her hands on his hips, pulling him closer to her, away from the streetlight and towards the warmth of the house.
This was it. This was what he’d been missing.
It was a long kiss, almost beautiful, they only stopped when he felt her smile beneath his lips and he pulled away to see her glowing. And they stood there again, silent, their foreheads pressed against each other as he stroked the back of her neck with his thumb.
“I’ve missed you.” She says, smiling, with her eyes closed.
“I’m here now and I don’t plan on leaving.”
“Ever?”
“Never ever.”
*