fic: nothing (lost)
alex/richard, pg-13, ~750
She leaves the island the first time too late to enjoy it.
She asks him when she's young, the way she asks him a thousand things she'd never have any interest in asking anyone else, what he dreams about. Because she's curious, and he's Richard. He laughs, short and guileless, and says nothing and walks past her. She thinks for a second, considers the possibility that he's just being annoying and then remembers that he isn't like that with her, and so turns and follows him through the people that drift around him like he's all they know. (The fact that she's the only one to ever do this won't occur to her until she's dead and gone and still at his side.)
She leaves the island the first time too late to enjoy it, dresses in jeans and a too-big shirt, pulls her hair through a baseball cap and talks to Walt while he follows the girl with the bruised eyes through foster homes. Walt says, we can't do anything for either of them, or her, and Alex presses her lips together and hates it. Sympathy pain too severe to be controlled, she tells the girl I'm sure he'll be fine one night in Alabama and watches the girl's tongue swipe across her lip, watches her shake her head slightly and turn away, leave the convenience store too quickly. These things... happen, we can't change it like that, Richard says when she comes back full of questions, speaking from years of experience, and she'd hate him if she didn't know he understood.
Richard once told Alex that only living people think in terms of "dead" and "alive," said the words in the calm, open tone that was only ever for her; and she's always known what he meant, the way she knows dirt and growth and shadows in the dark, but now she understands. Things end, begin, and end again, and the constants search for variables amongst the wreckage each time. The island saved her once, growing life in a body saved from death, and it saved her twice, bullet through the brain as the shadows twisted raw, and it asks only that she return the favor. She says, this isn't fair, and Richard shrugs and doesn't say this is how it is in the tone he only has for her.
She leaves the island the second time, and nothing makes sense. The dog god's gone rabid and she can't find the girl in Korea (Walt grimaces and mutters and looks enviously human in his frustration even while the window rattles behind him) and they can't find the other one, none of them know where to look- and of course it's the girl that finds the ER doctor who sets her number in his phone and marks it CLEMENTINE, because reactions are equal and opposite even now that things have been pulled apart. When she gets back, it's the first time Alex has ever seen him look surprised. Then he looks at her, expression tumultuous and if he were younger, she realizes, he'd be saying I'm tired, I don't want to but he doesn't. She sits with him that night the way she always does now (whether they're in one world or the other) as he pretends to be focused on one of the books he surrounds himself with.
This is the holding pattern, and things shift and settle, shift and settle until they're comfortable enough to manage. There is no exact moment when she begins to stand just beside him instead of just behind, no exact moment when they begin to look to her for validation when he is off the island- but then it's second-nature and she fits a role instead of a form, leads bodies through the jungle and back out again. Things happen, things don't; he's gone, he's not; she's gone, she's not. When he returns from one of his trips, bringing not only news but clothes for her (along with books and shoes and a hundred useless items that won't last that she needs) it becomes regular for him to settle beside her after he's satisfied that things are fine (and he's never worried now but old dogs and old tricks are a fact of existence, period) and he's told her what he knows. He smells like wet dirt and brine when he sets his clothes aside, slides against her and murmurs words she can't actually make out. They echo, fragment, sink into her skin and only quiet when she touches the back of his hand, assures him until he's dreaming of nothing.
She leaves the island the first time too late to enjoy it.
She asks him when she's young, the way she asks him a thousand things she'd never have any interest in asking anyone else, what he dreams about. Because she's curious, and he's Richard. He laughs, short and guileless, and says nothing and walks past her. She thinks for a second, considers the possibility that he's just being annoying and then remembers that he isn't like that with her, and so turns and follows him through the people that drift around him like he's all they know. (The fact that she's the only one to ever do this won't occur to her until she's dead and gone and still at his side.)
She leaves the island the first time too late to enjoy it, dresses in jeans and a too-big shirt, pulls her hair through a baseball cap and talks to Walt while he follows the girl with the bruised eyes through foster homes. Walt says, we can't do anything for either of them, or her, and Alex presses her lips together and hates it. Sympathy pain too severe to be controlled, she tells the girl I'm sure he'll be fine one night in Alabama and watches the girl's tongue swipe across her lip, watches her shake her head slightly and turn away, leave the convenience store too quickly. These things... happen, we can't change it like that, Richard says when she comes back full of questions, speaking from years of experience, and she'd hate him if she didn't know he understood.
Richard once told Alex that only living people think in terms of "dead" and "alive," said the words in the calm, open tone that was only ever for her; and she's always known what he meant, the way she knows dirt and growth and shadows in the dark, but now she understands. Things end, begin, and end again, and the constants search for variables amongst the wreckage each time. The island saved her once, growing life in a body saved from death, and it saved her twice, bullet through the brain as the shadows twisted raw, and it asks only that she return the favor. She says, this isn't fair, and Richard shrugs and doesn't say this is how it is in the tone he only has for her.
She leaves the island the second time, and nothing makes sense. The dog god's gone rabid and she can't find the girl in Korea (Walt grimaces and mutters and looks enviously human in his frustration even while the window rattles behind him) and they can't find the other one, none of them know where to look- and of course it's the girl that finds the ER doctor who sets her number in his phone and marks it CLEMENTINE, because reactions are equal and opposite even now that things have been pulled apart. When she gets back, it's the first time Alex has ever seen him look surprised. Then he looks at her, expression tumultuous and if he were younger, she realizes, he'd be saying I'm tired, I don't want to but he doesn't. She sits with him that night the way she always does now (whether they're in one world or the other) as he pretends to be focused on one of the books he surrounds himself with.
This is the holding pattern, and things shift and settle, shift and settle until they're comfortable enough to manage. There is no exact moment when she begins to stand just beside him instead of just behind, no exact moment when they begin to look to her for validation when he is off the island- but then it's second-nature and she fits a role instead of a form, leads bodies through the jungle and back out again. Things happen, things don't; he's gone, he's not; she's gone, she's not. When he returns from one of his trips, bringing not only news but clothes for her (along with books and shoes and a hundred useless items that won't last that she needs) it becomes regular for him to settle beside her after he's satisfied that things are fine (and he's never worried now but old dogs and old tricks are a fact of existence, period) and he's told her what he knows. He smells like wet dirt and brine when he sets his clothes aside, slides against her and murmurs words she can't actually make out. They echo, fragment, sink into her skin and only quiet when she touches the back of his hand, assures him until he's dreaming of nothing.