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PotC Oneshot: Fragile Things
Title: Fragile Things
Fandom: PotC
Disclaimer: Er, not mine.
Rating: PG
Warning: Character death and unremitting angst.
Summary: It's far too late for miracles or mercies, and not even the Devil's listening. Short (just a little over 400 words.)
Note: This is not in any way what I planned to write next, but I am sick, dosed up on far too much cold medication, and have been reading Neil Gaiman, to whom the title of this fic is a tribute. Your honor, the defense rests.
Fragile Things
She's burning up with fever, wasting from it, firm flesh shrinking to little more than brittle bones and hot skin, dry as parchment. And eyes, huge and brilliant in their deepening hollows, that never see me.
I wet the cloth again, lave her forehead. I am dry too, wrung out even of rage against this Fate, of tears, of prayers for miracles or mercies. Far too late for that, and not even the Devil's listening. She's already gone, leaving this rail-thin creature in her stead who, when I lift her to change the linens or dress her sores or spoon weak gruel into her unprotesting mouth, seems impossibly light, like a child, like a doll. A changeling in the place of my love. Dead leaves which had been fairy gold.
"I'm sorry," she says, tossing her head from side to side under the touch of the damp cloth. "Sorry. Never said it, but I meant to, and I thought you knew it...thought you'd understand..."
"It's all right," I say. "Shh, it's all right."
But she can't hear me; perhaps she isn't speaking to me, anyway. "You were right," she mutters, a mocking echo of my words. "The world ended, and I never got a chance to tell you. Damn you, you were always right about me. Hated that, hated you...loved you...pirate..."
"Elizabeth," I whisper. All these years, and she never said it, 'til now.
She sits up suddenly, staring past me: eyes wide, irises drowned in black, and any stray hope sparking in my chest would have been quenched by the equally desperate hope written in the blade-sharp angles of her face.
"He's here," she says wildly. "He's here. Quick, open the door--" And such is the urgency in her voice that I leap to comply, flinging open the door to peer out into the dark corridor.
But there's nobody there. There never was anyone there.
She's fallen back among the pillows now, and her eyes are fixed, but her lips curve: a smile, softening the harsh lines carved by illness and the tides of Time. One limp arm hangs outstretched over the edge of the bed; the fingers curl, loosely, as if someone else's hand is holding hers.
I do not take it, for she is no longer mine. If she ever was; if it was ever sooner than too late; if what we were was ever more than a dream of the sea, a flame, a bird in flight hurtling towards the vanishing point of a bright horizon.
Fandom: PotC
Disclaimer: Er, not mine.
Rating: PG
Warning: Character death and unremitting angst.
Summary: It's far too late for miracles or mercies, and not even the Devil's listening. Short (just a little over 400 words.)
Note: This is not in any way what I planned to write next, but I am sick, dosed up on far too much cold medication, and have been reading Neil Gaiman, to whom the title of this fic is a tribute. Your honor, the defense rests.
Fragile Things
She's burning up with fever, wasting from it, firm flesh shrinking to little more than brittle bones and hot skin, dry as parchment. And eyes, huge and brilliant in their deepening hollows, that never see me.
I wet the cloth again, lave her forehead. I am dry too, wrung out even of rage against this Fate, of tears, of prayers for miracles or mercies. Far too late for that, and not even the Devil's listening. She's already gone, leaving this rail-thin creature in her stead who, when I lift her to change the linens or dress her sores or spoon weak gruel into her unprotesting mouth, seems impossibly light, like a child, like a doll. A changeling in the place of my love. Dead leaves which had been fairy gold.
"I'm sorry," she says, tossing her head from side to side under the touch of the damp cloth. "Sorry. Never said it, but I meant to, and I thought you knew it...thought you'd understand..."
"It's all right," I say. "Shh, it's all right."
But she can't hear me; perhaps she isn't speaking to me, anyway. "You were right," she mutters, a mocking echo of my words. "The world ended, and I never got a chance to tell you. Damn you, you were always right about me. Hated that, hated you...loved you...pirate..."
"Elizabeth," I whisper. All these years, and she never said it, 'til now.
She sits up suddenly, staring past me: eyes wide, irises drowned in black, and any stray hope sparking in my chest would have been quenched by the equally desperate hope written in the blade-sharp angles of her face.
"He's here," she says wildly. "He's here. Quick, open the door--" And such is the urgency in her voice that I leap to comply, flinging open the door to peer out into the dark corridor.
But there's nobody there. There never was anyone there.
She's fallen back among the pillows now, and her eyes are fixed, but her lips curve: a smile, softening the harsh lines carved by illness and the tides of Time. One limp arm hangs outstretched over the edge of the bed; the fingers curl, loosely, as if someone else's hand is holding hers.
I do not take it, for she is no longer mine. If she ever was; if it was ever sooner than too late; if what we were was ever more than a dream of the sea, a flame, a bird in flight hurtling towards the vanishing point of a bright horizon.