fic: Let's take it from the top (1/1)
title: let's take it from the top
pairing: ned/chuck
rating: pg
words: 975
spoilers: all season
notes: yes, i know i'm supposed to be on hiatus. i do know that. but i wrote this a few days before i left and i'm only just getting round to posting it for
pd_fichallenge. this is a reflection on the events of the last handful of episodes, particularly 1x09 corpsicle.
It hasn't felt like this before
It hasn't felt like home before you
Joshua Radin
His cold fingers fumbling to lift the collar of his coat to protect his neck from the falling snow, Ned trudged further into the still night, passing tombstone after tombstone of all shapes and sizes. He glanced up at the pitch black night sky, and for a moment was mesmerised by the tiny, delicate white flecks which fluttered down on him from all corners of the expansive, ever-reaching navy blanket above him, before he remembered his sole purpose of being here.
He spotted her, crouched a few headstones away at what he assumed must be her father’s grave. His heart clenched painfully, in the same way it had three other times in the last few days. The first, when he blurted I killed your dad, and watched her freeze, before shakily turning to look at him with the most heartbreaking look in her eyes and running out of his apartment. The second, when he’d found her in Olive’s place and she’d delivered the words that broke him - I can’t look at you. And the third, while on a stake out with Emerson, when he’d cast his mind back to the night of Charles Charles’ death and the look on Chuck’s face as she sat on his couch, curled into his mother’s hug, tears streaking down her usually glowing cheeks.
He really had no idea how to put things right with her. Really, how do you forgive the person who took away your father, the only parent you had, since you never knew your mother?
He just didn’t know what to do. Most of all, Ned didn’t want to lose the only person he had left by his side.
&
Chuck closed her eyes and lay back on Olive Snook’s couch, listening to a bird chirping gleefully outside. She could make out the sun streaming in through the window as it made her eyelids glow red from her viewpoint underneath them.
And then her thoughts drifted back to that night, the night when she’d lost it all. Of course, the aunts were wonderful and she cared for them so much, but it wasn’t like having a mother and a father and real family, you know? In the traditional sense.
Little Chuck Charles saw her father as her galaxy of stars; he had kept her from spiralling out of control in a dark, far-stretching universe of uncertainty. He lit the way for her, her future, and she could always be sure that she had one person who would never abandon her.
But then the fate had snatched him from her, ripping away her guiding starlit galaxy and leaving her alone and scared of tomorrow. As she clutched the smooth metal of his pocket watch, the inscribed C.C. slightly dulled now after the many years of its life, she wondered what would happen to her now. As she curled closer to Ned’s mother, she thought about what her life would become and why wouldn’t Ned even glance at her?
He sat silent and still as marble, perched in an armchair across from the couch where she sat. She peered up over at him through tear soaked eyelashes and wondered why he wasn’t comforting her like he did that time when she tripped and scraped her shin on the gravel of his driveway.
She guessed that maybe, you couldn’t always count on people.
&
Ned slowly moved closer to where Chuck sat, her eyes downcast, staring at the same spot in the snow in front of her, unmoving.
He said her name, and she glanced up, saying something nonchalant about there not being a headstone for her.
His heart warmed and he couldn’t help the smile that spread momentarily over his face when she said she felt better. He watched her, her cheeks rosy from the cold, her eyes alight as she said, I have an idea.
And he continued to watch, his intuition confirmed, as she swiped her palm across the icy, snow cover head stone to reveal the words Charles Charles, gleaming from their fresh uncovering.
He closed his eyes, the pain in his heart flaring for the third time that day, as he knew this was yet another thing he wouldn’t be able to give her. Only more terribly, it was something he could physically give her, but would never, ever want to.
Ned could tell that she knew he was not going to budge, and he watched a tear slip down her cheek, followed by another two. And Christ, he had never wished he could touch her more than he did then, in the snow, as she mourned her father. He dropped his jacket down, and it splayed across her shaking shoulders, a poor substitute for a hug.
&
Chuck stared up at Ned, knowing before he even spoke that he was going to turn down the idea. She knew in her heart of hearts it wasn’t a good idea; she would just end up more devastated as she watched Ned touch him a second time, sending him swiftly back to wherever dead people go.
Chuck was desperate though, and in those few hours minutes when the idea first formed, she clung to it, being the last chance she would ever have to know any of her family. Her aunts were off limits, and because she couldn’t communicate with them sometimes it felt like she really was dead and that her life with Ned was like some bizarre afterlife.
As he looked at her sadly, and then walked around behind her to slip his coat over her back, she imagined that she could feel his arms around her, his warm hand cupping her cheek and his breath in puffs with a whispered I’m sorry against her lips.
She thought about all of these things that would never occur, and squeezed her eyes closed.
fin.
(author note: this is my first tentative attempt at fic for a month or two, since my muses just decided to desert me. so, sorry if i'm rusty or anything. as always, comments are love in its most pure form.)
pairing: ned/chuck
rating: pg
words: 975
spoilers: all season
notes: yes, i know i'm supposed to be on hiatus. i do know that. but i wrote this a few days before i left and i'm only just getting round to posting it for
pd_fichallenge. this is a reflection on the events of the last handful of episodes, particularly 1x09 corpsicle.
It hasn't felt like this before
It hasn't felt like home before you
Joshua Radin
His cold fingers fumbling to lift the collar of his coat to protect his neck from the falling snow, Ned trudged further into the still night, passing tombstone after tombstone of all shapes and sizes. He glanced up at the pitch black night sky, and for a moment was mesmerised by the tiny, delicate white flecks which fluttered down on him from all corners of the expansive, ever-reaching navy blanket above him, before he remembered his sole purpose of being here.
He spotted her, crouched a few headstones away at what he assumed must be her father’s grave. His heart clenched painfully, in the same way it had three other times in the last few days. The first, when he blurted I killed your dad, and watched her freeze, before shakily turning to look at him with the most heartbreaking look in her eyes and running out of his apartment. The second, when he’d found her in Olive’s place and she’d delivered the words that broke him - I can’t look at you. And the third, while on a stake out with Emerson, when he’d cast his mind back to the night of Charles Charles’ death and the look on Chuck’s face as she sat on his couch, curled into his mother’s hug, tears streaking down her usually glowing cheeks.
He really had no idea how to put things right with her. Really, how do you forgive the person who took away your father, the only parent you had, since you never knew your mother?
He just didn’t know what to do. Most of all, Ned didn’t want to lose the only person he had left by his side.
&
Chuck closed her eyes and lay back on Olive Snook’s couch, listening to a bird chirping gleefully outside. She could make out the sun streaming in through the window as it made her eyelids glow red from her viewpoint underneath them.
And then her thoughts drifted back to that night, the night when she’d lost it all. Of course, the aunts were wonderful and she cared for them so much, but it wasn’t like having a mother and a father and real family, you know? In the traditional sense.
Little Chuck Charles saw her father as her galaxy of stars; he had kept her from spiralling out of control in a dark, far-stretching universe of uncertainty. He lit the way for her, her future, and she could always be sure that she had one person who would never abandon her.
But then the fate had snatched him from her, ripping away her guiding starlit galaxy and leaving her alone and scared of tomorrow. As she clutched the smooth metal of his pocket watch, the inscribed C.C. slightly dulled now after the many years of its life, she wondered what would happen to her now. As she curled closer to Ned’s mother, she thought about what her life would become and why wouldn’t Ned even glance at her?
He sat silent and still as marble, perched in an armchair across from the couch where she sat. She peered up over at him through tear soaked eyelashes and wondered why he wasn’t comforting her like he did that time when she tripped and scraped her shin on the gravel of his driveway.
She guessed that maybe, you couldn’t always count on people.
&
Ned slowly moved closer to where Chuck sat, her eyes downcast, staring at the same spot in the snow in front of her, unmoving.
He said her name, and she glanced up, saying something nonchalant about there not being a headstone for her.
His heart warmed and he couldn’t help the smile that spread momentarily over his face when she said she felt better. He watched her, her cheeks rosy from the cold, her eyes alight as she said, I have an idea.
And he continued to watch, his intuition confirmed, as she swiped her palm across the icy, snow cover head stone to reveal the words Charles Charles, gleaming from their fresh uncovering.
He closed his eyes, the pain in his heart flaring for the third time that day, as he knew this was yet another thing he wouldn’t be able to give her. Only more terribly, it was something he could physically give her, but would never, ever want to.
Ned could tell that she knew he was not going to budge, and he watched a tear slip down her cheek, followed by another two. And Christ, he had never wished he could touch her more than he did then, in the snow, as she mourned her father. He dropped his jacket down, and it splayed across her shaking shoulders, a poor substitute for a hug.
&
Chuck stared up at Ned, knowing before he even spoke that he was going to turn down the idea. She knew in her heart of hearts it wasn’t a good idea; she would just end up more devastated as she watched Ned touch him a second time, sending him swiftly back to wherever dead people go.
Chuck was desperate though, and in those few hours minutes when the idea first formed, she clung to it, being the last chance she would ever have to know any of her family. Her aunts were off limits, and because she couldn’t communicate with them sometimes it felt like she really was dead and that her life with Ned was like some bizarre afterlife.
As he looked at her sadly, and then walked around behind her to slip his coat over her back, she imagined that she could feel his arms around her, his warm hand cupping her cheek and his breath in puffs with a whispered I’m sorry against her lips.
She thought about all of these things that would never occur, and squeezed her eyes closed.
fin.
(author note: this is my first tentative attempt at fic for a month or two, since my muses just decided to desert me. so, sorry if i'm rusty or anything. as always, comments are love in its most pure form.)