Shattered: As the World Turns fic; Luke/Reid (1/6)
Title: Shattered (1/6)
Author: erikssiren
Banner by: theSICKO
Rating: R
Word Count: 30,000+ (I just have to say HOLY CRAP!)
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid, Luke/Noah, hints of Allison/Casey and Brad/Katie. Also, appearances by Kyle/Fish from One Life to Live and others. (I'd say who, but that would give away the surprise!)
Warnings: Character death, angst (LOTS), some swearing and metions of Noah. Lots of them. In the positive light.
Summary: Set in the 2008 Valentine's Day AU. Luke and Noah have been together ever since they met that fateful day in New York City. But when a tragedy tears them apart, Luke struggles to move on. When a new doctor comes to town under mysterious circumstances, will he be what Luke needs? Set in the AU world of the Nuke Valentine's Day 2008 Episode.
Author's Notes: I wrote this for the LuRe Big Bang over at Luke and Reid Online and I was waiting to post it until theSICKO finished with the trailer, but I am participating in NaNoWriMo and I wanted to get this posted before I am completely sucked into that. I'm going to do my best to fix little errors here and there along the way, but if I've missed anything, feel free to let me know!
I've taken a few liberties with timelines and situations, like Maddie going to UofO instead of Wesleyan and Reid from CM mentions something later that happened in a more recent episode, not 2008. I did my best to keep the ATWT storylines right, but I don't remember who was with who back then. I'm pretty sure at that point Brad and Katie weren't together, but I loved them so much I am making it so. :D
A huge thanks to my beta, laurahellomoto for dealing with my lack of attention to deadlines, even when she had her own RL stuff to deal with! And thank you so so much to the amazing theSICKO for the gorgeous banner. You're the best!
Chapter One
It had seemed so easy, two years ago, to stand love struck on a pier and promise to wait. To clutch a cold piece of metal and windswept memories when their reunion was delayed (again). But as the years passed it seemed so much harder to hang on. Luke knew he shouldn’t be angry with Noah, there’s not a lot the sailor could do about his orders and yet this dark ball that had been forming in the pit of the college student's stomach since Noah’s ship first missed its scheduled shore leave by six months was starting to overtake Luke’s thoughts as he stared at the glowing screen of his computer, his eyes blurred as he clutched his cell phone tighter.
Noah was going to miss his graduation and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
“Can't you just ask for temporary leave?” Luke knew it was impossible, but he didn't want Noah to miss yet another important day. He had already missed Brad and Katie's wedding, Natalie's First Communion and so many holidays.
“What do you want me to say? That my fiancé is graduating and could I please have the day off? It doesn't work like that and you know it.” Tiredness seeped into Noah's voice and it should have warned Luke to back off, but he was tired too. Sick and tired of being alone and having nothing more to warm him but a few whispered promises from months ago.
“God, this is so unfair! I honestly don't care that you're missing my graduation but now we have to wait to get married after putting it off for so long.” In the back of his mind he knew he was whining, but damn it they should have married last year, when Noah had his longest shore leave yet. But no, they wanted to wait until Luke had graduated.
“You know, there's a ship full of people here who have families waiting for them," Noah answered in an irritated tone, no doubt accompanied by a frown. "You're not the only one whose life is on hold while we're away. You're being selfish.”
“Selfish?" Luke nearly shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of his apartment. "Noah, the difference between me and them is they get to kiss and hug whoever comes off that boat right there on the docks. We have to wait until we're behind closed doors to even get a proper hello!” Noah said nothing and laughter filtered in through the phone. “You can't even say my name because there are other people around.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Babe...please," Noah said plaintively and Luke's eyes slid close against the impending tears. He took a shaky breath.
"When you get home we have to talk.” The implication was clear, and it broke both their hearts. "But I love you so much, you know that right?" No matter how hard it was, not matter how angry he and Noah were at each other, Luke made sure he told Noah he loved him. He didn't want to regret it in case....Luke quickly left that train of thought.
“Yeah, I know….I love you too." And with that Luke shut his cell phone with a sharp click. He laid his head on his arms and cried.
***
Graduation day was a blur of pointed caps, fake smiles and general relief. They were adults now, ready to face the world, armed with that precious piece of paper they had grown up believing a golden ticket into the real world. Despite the momentous occasion, all Luke could think was I wish Noah were here.
He wasn't entirely angry at Noah for not being there, Luke knew this would be their life: always waiting for the ship to arrive, having to hide their relationship because America couldn't accept differences in their armed forces. It was frustrating beyond belief, so much more than Luke had ever imagined. But, as his family milled around him in his parents' hotel room (they had all flown up to New York and the Snyders rented out nearly the entire floor) and clutched Noah's medal in his hand, he knew he would never want a life without Noah in it.
After several speeches and many slices of cake, Luke was growing weary of his family and there were so many people packed into the room it felt like all of Oakdale were there. This also meant he could slip away unnoticed into the adjacent bedroom and slide the door shut with a sigh of relief. He breathed in the silence before flopping back onto the king-sized bed in the middle of a room. Dark chestnut side tables flanked it and the right wall made up the closet. A decent-sized bathroom sat off to the left and a giant entertainment center took up nearly the entire wall across from the foot of the bed.
Rolling over Luke started at the medal in his hand, his thumb tracing the already worn down grooves. He tried to imagine the soft brown locks of Noah's hair, the salty and musky scent of his skin and the warm feel of his hands. Yet Luke could feel nothing and see nothing.
Suddenly the silence became too much and Luke quickly turned on the TV, the volume low as not to alert anyone to his absence. He flipped through the channels with little focus until a news channel headline caught his eye.
U.S.S. Kalvin attacked off the coast of India, the white letters screamed from a blood-red background. The text scrolled across the bottom of an aerial view of a smoking and half-submerged battleship and Luke's entire body went numb, save for the one warm spot in the palm of his hand where Noah's medal rested beneath tightly curled fingers.
No, God. Please no. Please don't take him.
Luke fumbled for the remote and clumsily turned up the volume to hear the appropriately-concerned looking anchorwoman's voice over the rush of blood in his ears. He sat gripping the remote in one hand, the piece of metal in the other, waiting. He forced himself not to think of their last conversation, that the last thing he ever said to Noah was in anger and disappointment. Luke tried, and failed, not to fear those were the last words he would ever say to the only man he would ever love.
A new headline appeared: Early reports predict none survived. Luke doesn't remember anything after that. Later, Holden would tell him they came rushing into the room when Luke began to cry for help. He told Luke they found him on his knees on the floor, sobbing as blood welled his hand. He had grasped the Noah's medal so tightly in his palm, it cut into it.
Lily said no one could calm him, and there was a lot of confusion at first. But once they saw the news, once they understood, the party quickly ended and they could do nothing but wait. Lily said Luke never spoke once his tears stopped and demanded only Maddie, Casey and Allison stay in the room with him, making his family wait uselessly in the other room. This part of the story Luke started to remember, the grief hung over it like a veil, making some details hazy and hard to recall. He would never forget the cold pierce of the shrill telephone two hours after the story broke. Luke remembered a deep voice speaking the dreaded words and the despair that shattered him into pieces.
Of the 2,000 men and women aboard the U.S.S. Kalvin, 500 survived. Noah Mayer was not among them.
***
A week passed and while the rest of the Snyder clan returned to the bubble of Oakdale, Lily and Holden remained with their son. The son who wouldn't eat, wouldn't talk and spent most of his time laying in the dark or sleeping. Lily and Holden could do nothing but worry for their eldest son and the rising sense of helplessness grew so large in them, they began to fight. One such fight filtered through the blanket of nothingness Luke had wrapped himself in.
"It's been nearly a week, Holden. Don't you think we should do something?"
"There's nothing we can do. He's grieving, Lily. He's lost the person who meant more to him than anything, we aren't going to be able to fix it."
"I know that, but...but it isn't healthy!"
"Healthy?" Holden's incredulous scoff cut into Luke a little. "I'd be more worried if he was walking around acting as though everything was okay. He needs to deal with this and if his way of doing so is to behave like this, then we have to let him."
"We can't just do nothing, Holden! I am so heartbroken he lost Noah, but I won't just sit here and watch him wither away. I can't!"
"But you have to."
"He's my son, Holden. It's killing me to see him like this."
"And you think it's not killing me? He's my son too." A pause followed and Luke vaguely felt the tension rise. "Or you think because he's not my biological son I can't possibly know what that feels like."
"I didn't say that," Lily answered with the briefest pause. A pause that was enough to set the already on-edge Holden off.
"I see, it's because of Damian, isn't it? Don't you dare think he can come back -"
"Damian has nothing to do with this!" Lily's voice grew shrill and Luke sighed at the old argument. Damian had sent a very large amount of money a few weeks ago to Luke as a graduation gift. Holden was sure he was trying to buy Luke's affection, a wasted effort as Luke still hadn't forgive his biological father for all he had done. Lily thought it was a sweet gesture, as she would always have blind spot for Damian to slink into.
Luke burrowed deeper into his numbness, trying to get away from the anger of his parents as they continued to fight. He didn't want to feel anything anymore, there wasn't any point.
Sometime later, Luke woke up suddenly, consciousness and grief slamming into him at the exact same moment as he ripped him from his sleep, his only escape from the world Noah didn't exist in anymore. When Luke closed his eyes he didn't dream, he didn't think, he didn't feel. He simply existed in the darkness and it was the only peace he could find. He stared unseeing at white walls, Noah's now slightly-bloody medal still clutched in his bandaged hand, wondering what had woken him. If he had cared to look, the clock on the bedside table told him twelve hours had passed since he overheard his parents' argument. A strange, shrill sound pierced the air and Luke jumped, his first movement in days.
Holden's voice filtered through the hotel door as Luke turned on his side and curled up into himself, tears streaming into his ears. He could just barely make out what his adoptive father was saying and the words stopped him from returning to blissful sleep.
".... the only family Noah had after his father died." He paused. "Yes, I understand that but they filed the paperwork to-" Another pause followed by a sigh. "Alright. Thank you."
He knew who Holden was speaking to and what they wanted. The fallen soldiers were coming home and Luke needed to be there to collect Noah's things and... A fresh sob tore through Luke's chest and he quickly muffled the sound in his pillow. Noah's father had died not long after Luke and Noah first met, his mother had died a long time ago and with no relatives to speak of, Luke was all Noah had had left. More tears fell and were quickly absorbed into the white cotton beneath him as Luke recalled the conversation they had on Noah's last shore leave.
Luke laid in sleepy post-orgasmic bliss as he rested his head on Noah's chest, listening to the soothing beat of his lover's heart. He fought sleep, however, as the hours were quickly ticking away until Noah had to leave again. The silence and the steady motion of Noah's fingers trailing Luke's arm didn't help, shake the warm, comfortable, safe feeling lulling him to sleep.
"If something ever happens to me," Noah said suddenly, his deep voice making Luke jump, "I can't list you as my next of kin." Luke sat up quickly, staring questioningly into Noah's eyes. "But I'm working with this Navy lawyer who's sympathetic to people like us. He's going to help me give you power of estate. I've already listed you as the emergency contact."
"What," Luke said, his voice more scared than he would have liked, "what does that mean?"
"If I were to..." Noah swallowed hard. "If something were to happen, the Navy would call and notify you in case of an emergency. My lawyer is working to give you permission to claim everything if I were to...and....Luke," he sat up as well and held Luke's gaze. "I want to be buried in Oakdale." He gripped Luke's arms as the blonde tried to pull away, tried to get as far away from this conversation as possible.
"You've never been there," Luke said in a small voice, his eyes glued to the sheets between them. "Besides, won't they-" he cut off, tears clogging his throat. He couldn't have this conversation, not now when they should be concentrating on how Noah was safe and alive.
"It's your home, Luke, and my home is wherever you are." They both blinked away tears. "I don't want to be another cross in Arlington and I want to be near you, always. So please, do this for me?"
The hotel bed dipped with Holden's weight and Luke quickly scrubbed at the tears on his face.
"That was the Navy," his father began quietly. "They want-"
"I know." Luke's voice was thick and scratchy, barely audible after a week's worth of neglect. "Where is he?"
"The plane is coming into JFK tomorrow at eight."
"Have you called his lawyer? He needs to be there in case they give me trouble." Luke's voice sounded flat, even to his own ears.
"Yes, he said he'd meet you there. Do you want us to come with you?" Holden asked gently and Luke almost considered it, but he needed to be alone in this. He didn't want his family hovering over him, smothering him with their concern.
"I'll be okay," Luke said softly as he rolled over. The grim look on his father's face told him Holden didn't believe that. With a gentle squeeze to Luke's leg beneath the blanket Holden left and Luke slipped back to sleep.
The next day Luke woke up, dressed automatically and walked out the door, ignoring the concerned looks of his parents and Lily's attempt to make him eat before he left. He met Mark Simms, the lawyer he had spoken on the phone with only once, at the airport. Usually, Mark told him in a low and sympathetic voice, the caskets are taken off the plane and transferred to the funeral home. However, with this volume of casualties they had to be placed in the hangar first while the paperwork was sorted out.
Once they found the right flag-covered casket, Mark left to find those in charge and make sure there weren't any issues with Luke claiming Noah's body. The red, white and blue of the flag burned into Luke's brain and he never thought he'd hate the sight of its stars and stripes.
“Luke Snyder?” Luke looked up at his name to see a blonde man, a bit older than he, standing across from him, dressed in a Navy uniform. A dark-haired man with sympathetic eyes stood slightly farther back. Luke nodded. “I’m Oliver Fish, I was good friends with Noah.” He stopped for a moment, his eyes full of tears as he looked down at the flag-covered casket. Luke followed his gaze. “He told me about you.”
"Oh?" Luke said carefully, eyes glued to the wooden box between them. He didn't know if Noah had told a lie about who he was, or if any of his shipmates had bothered to ask about the man Noah always met at the docks.
"He told me the truth about you." Oliver said, lowering his voice slightly.
Luke’s head snapped up. “What?” Though he was still numb from his sorry, he could feel the tiniest bit of shock at this declaration. “But...he'd be discharged if anyone found out.”
“Yeah well, turns out Noah and I shared more than we thought,” the blonde said as he pulled the dark-haired man up beside him. “This is Dr. Kyle Lewis, my partner.” His voice had dropped to a whisper and it took a few moments for Luke's grief-addled brain to understand what they were telling him.
"Oh," he said again. "Well, it's good that Noah had someone he could talk to, though I am sorry to say he never mentioned you." I never thought to ask, he realized guiltily and swallowed some more tears. "Did he..."Luke trailed off, knowing how selfish his question would seem. "Did he talk to you about our fight? Just before..." Tears stole Luke's voice and he wiped them away quickly. "The day before the attack, we fought about him missing my graduation. I told him I..I told him I loved-loved him but I don't think-" Luke began to hyperventilate, he was near a breakdown as the emotion building inside since he saw the attack on the news began to spill over and he couldn't seem to stop it.
Kyle walked around the casket to hug Luke, who gripped his arms tightly. As he sobbed into the stranger's shirt, he realized how embarrassing this was but he couldn't bring himself to care. He needed empathy, not the hollow sympathies of everyone else around him. Once he calmed down he pulled away from the dark-haired man though Kyle didn't return to Oliver's side.
“No, he didn't tell me about it," Oliver said gently. "But...but I was there, with Noah in the end.” He barely made it through the sentence and wiped away his own tears. "He told me to make sure you knew he loved you and he was sorry he couldn't make it to your graduation." Luke clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the guilt-ridden sob from tearing through the hangar.
Oliver held out his hand that was clenched around something. “He wanted me to give you these. He had them sewn into his uniform so he wouldn’t lose them.” Both Oliver and Kyle had enough sense not to comment on the way Luke’s hand trembled when he stretched out his hand to take the objects. Two silver rings, varying slightly in size, fell from Oliver’s palm into Luke’s and the younger man would have fallen to his knees if Kyle hadn't kept a tight grip on his arms. Wedding rings. He let out a wet sound that was supposed to be a laugh.
“We were going to buy them together when he came home. I should have known he would rather have surprised me with them.” All three men shared tear-filled smiles. They stood in silence for a few minutes, ignorant to the dark glare sent their way from a few feet away.
“Well, if you need anything,” Oliver said, coming around the casket to stand at Luke's other side and placing a warm hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You give us a call.” Kyle slipped a card into Luke’s pocket, squeezed his arm in a goodbye and they both started to walk away when Luke's hand snaked out and grabbed Oliver's arm.
"The funeral..." He took a deep breath. "The funeral is the day after tomorrow in Oakdale, Illinois. I know it's late notice but if you can make it, I think...I think he'd really like it." He managed to keep himself together until the end of the sentence, his voice hitching up with tears.
"Of course," Kyle said as Oliver nodded. "We'll be there." With one last nod the pair left, leaving Luke to stare at the jewelry in his hand, tears streaming down his face. He wasn't left alone for long.
“So you’re the fiancé, huh?” A deep voice said from where Oliver had stood moments ago. Luke looked up to see a man also in uniform, staring at Luke with hard eyes. “We all teased him about the girl who was going to make an honest man out of him.” Luke said nothing. “He was distracted the day of the attack, we all noticed it. I pulled him aside to snap him out of it and he told me he had had a fight with is fiancé and he was worried. I told him to suck it up and concentrate because if there was one think I knew about Mayer, I knew he did every task exceedingly well. You two must have had one hell of a brawl to shake his concentration like that.” Luke said nothing as he clenched the rings in his hand. “Had he had his full mind on what he was doing and not half of it on you, he’d still be alive.”
Luke took a step back as though physically pushed and stared in shock at the sailor beside him. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be the reason Noah had died. The sailor sneered and opened his mouth to speak again when another voice cut him off.
“That’s enough.” Both men turned to see Mark and a man with a lot of bars on his chest glaring at the sailor, who tried to protest. “McKinley, you are tarnishing the memory of a man who died to save your ass. You are disgracing the uniform you wear and you and I are going to have a talk about whether you should still be wearing it." The sailor opened his mouth to argue but the older man spoke first. "I said enough. Get out of my sight.” McKinley looked like he might fight his superior but a hard glare shut him up and he walked away with a glare to Luke, who turned back to the coffin, body shaking with suppressed tears.
"Mayer was a brave man, he died serving his country." A heavy hand that was meant to be comforting landed hard on Luke’s shoulder and nodded at Mark before quickly disappearing. The lawyer stood watching the young man in front of the coffin as he tried to control his tears before silently walking away, back into the sunshine. Finally alone, Luke fell to his knees and rested his head against the polished wood, sobbing.
Later he would realize the colonel never denied McKinley's accusations.
***
Luke didn’t remember how he got on the plane, the flight back or landing back home. He vaguely recalled seeing a few reporters and news cameras at the Oakdale Airport but since Noah wasn’t a local and Luke had been gone from Oakdale for several years, it wasn’t the media circus his grandmother had feared. The Walsh and Snyder clans were the most influential families in town so she always feared media-controlled pandemonium. His family was there, as were the soldiers from the nearest base to transfer Noah's casket.
Before he let the funeral home take Noah’s body, Luke beside it, debating what to do with the larger of the two rings still pressed into the clammy skin of his palm. He could keep it, wear it next to his own as a reminder. But he didn't want Noah to go without. So, with tears streaming down his face and a voice choked with tears, he gave the ring to the funeral director and asked it to be placed on Noah's finger before the service. He felt the firm grip of his father's arms around his waist as they watched the Hurst pull away and only then Luke realized he would never be strong enough to stand on his own again.
The next morning, in the brief moment between fully asleep and fully awake, Luke's brain convinced himself that the entire thing had been a dream. He rolled over smiling, expecting to feel Noah's solid back beneath his hand, but the cold bed sheet he found instead shocked him back into reality.
The blonde laid still and tried to control the sadness bubbling up his throat. His eyes traveled unseeing over his childhood bedroom, feeling rather out of place in the juvenile setting, until they focused on the suit he planned to wear to Noah's funeral tomorrow. He didn't remember unpacking when they arrived at the farm last night. Just then his door opened, revealing his grandma Emma dressed in black and a tray laden with orange juice, coffee and toast in her hands.
“Hello dear,” she said softly as Luke rolled over. “I wanted to make sure you’re up, we’ve got about an hour before we have to leave.”
“Leave?” Luke asked as he slowly sat up and Emma sat the tray over his lap. His eyes flickered back to the suit mocking him from the across the room. “I thought we weren’t going to do a visitation.”
“No, Luke, the funeral.” She answered gently as she pushed away his sleep-mussed bangs. “We have to go to the church.”
“But that’s tomorrow.” Luke’s voice sounded panicked but he still felt a little detached from his own body. His fingers picked up the dry toast and his throat swallowed the tart juice, but he couldn’t feel any of it.
“It’s today, honey. You’ve been asleep since you came home from the airport.” The pity in her eyes sliced into him and he flinched. "I wanted to wake you earlier, but your mother said-"
“The funeral is today?” Luke said as he moved suddenly, knocking the mug off the tray as he did so. The hot brown liquid seeped quickly through the threads of his blanket, though the thick fiber of his jeans and onto the thin layer of skin beneath. It should burn, he thought as Emma jumped up and stripped the warmth away.
“Why don’t you take a shower, dear,” Emma suggested with the mess secured within her arms to be quickly washed away and forgotten. Luke wished everything was that easy.
He showered and dressed, again in the automatic way he did when he left the hotel for the airport days ago. He hadn’t heard from Oliver and Kyle, but he hoped they would be there today.
Noah hadn’t asked for a specific church service, so Lily took it upon herself to have a full Catholic burial held at St. Mary’s just outside of town. How she managed to get the priest to agree to the ceremony Luke would never know but eventually he would be glad for it. He hadn’t been here much since he left for school, yet he always felt home in the church with its high vaulted ceiling and the sight of the large crucifix always left him in awe. Today, however, black cloth hung from Jesus’ outstretched arms and the sight of it made Luke sick.
Once again, he didn't remember much. His parents read Bible passages and they said the priest gave a moving homily about life and death, but it had all sounded muffled and far away to Luke’s ears; the already tasteless Host was melted air on his tongue; the incense burned his nose and he would forever associate the scent with the ache in his chest. No one gave a eulogy, it wasn’t customary, and Luke felt all the more glad for it. He didn’t think he could stand hearing anyone talk about Noah as though they knew him because Luke wouldn’t have been able to say a single word.
Luke could recall, however, every painful step from the church to the graveyard. Since it was a mere block away, the entire congregation followed the six soldiers, including Oliver, who had the unenviable task of carrying Noah down the street. Luke must have looked terrified because suddenly Kyle was at his side, his arm securely around Luke’s shoulders as they took their first step through the cemetery’s gates. His parents stood behind him, he could feel their presence like a steady warmth on his back. It helped give him the strength to continue forward and he hoped no one noticed how his knees buckled as they reached folding chairs enveloped in velvet slipcovers.
More words buzzed in his ears and the white smoke clouded his vision before he found himself standing alone, staring down at the coffin as men in cheap suits cranked the wooden box down into the six-foot hole. For a wild moment he envisioned throwing himself into the ground and hugging the casket as the men threw dirt on top of him. How could he live if Noah wasn’t there? But before he could take a step forward, a hand firmly gripped his elbow.
“Come along, darling,” Lucinda’s voice whispered in his ear. “Come along.” They walked back to her car in silence and he noted with relief that the two figures standing beside it weren’t his parents, but rather Oliver and Kyle. Luke broke away from his grandmother’s comforting grasp and walked ahead of her toward them.
“Thank you.” Luke was surprised at the lack of tears in his own voice. “I’m so glad you came.” He shook both their hands before they drew him close, so in sync they could have been one person (just like he and Noah had been once) and held him close for a brief three-person hug that should have been more awkward.
“We would stay,” Oliver said in a voice husky with tears as they pulled apart. “But we don’t want to intrude on your family and I’ve got to be ready to go back once they reassign our platoon.” Kyle tensed at this but said nothing.
“I understand,” Luke said as Lucinda stopped behind him. “If you need anything you guys can call me.” His eyes paused on Kyle longer, letting him know the invitation applied especially to him. The doctor nodded, understanding on his face. Luke watched as they walked to their car parked a few feet away. As the taillights disappeared down the road, Luke turned his grandmother with a sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
The entire family, and probably all of Oakdale, gathered on the spacious lawn of the Snyder farm, some with plastic plates and cups in their hands as they waited for Luke to arrive. The idle chatter stopped as he walked through the crowd and he would have run away if Lucinda hadn’t kept a firm grip on his arm. He talked to a few people, but the energy he managed to gather to get through the funeral had left him and all he wanted to do was sleep for days. He sat in a chair shaded by a large oak tree and let the mourners come to him, though it seemed they weren’t sure if they should approach.
It wasn’t long before it all became too much: the unusually warm spring air, the sympathetic glances and whispered conversations; and Luke found himself racing into the farmhouse, screen doors slamming behind him. Soaking in the silence of the indoors, Luke slowly walked into the parlor, deeper into the quiet. But it turned out he wasn’t alone as spotted Katie sitting the couch, a blanket covering the top of her body and Jacob’s tiny feet sticking out from beneath.
“Oh, sorry!” He blurted once his brain caught up with the sight before him. “I’ll just…”
“No, it’s okay, stay. I’m almost finished.” Something in Katie’s voice, perhaps the lack of sickly-sweet sympathy, made him stay. He quietly walked around the couch and sat at the other end, sinking into the soft cushions and closing his eyes. He tried to recall seeing Brad among the many familiar faces outside, but it had all become a blur and all he could think was Noah is gone.
They sat in a strange sense of peace, the room filling with Jacob’s small squeaks and soon with a lullaby hummed slightly-off key. What it lacked in pitch it made up in comfort and Luke found himself relaxing as Katie’s voice filled the room. She continued to hum as the rustle of cloth assured Luke he could open his eyes, even if he didn’t particularly want to. He did, however, and looked over to see Katie staring not at him as he expected but her now napping son.
“May I hold him?” Luke asked suddenly, startling them both yet he soon had a tiny bundle of striped blanket and month-old baby nestled in his arms. As he stared at the small face, Luke remembered all the plans he and Noah had made; the family they wanted to start and all the children they hoped to adopt.
If Katie was bothered by the steady fall of tears splashing onto her sleeping son’s blanket, she said nothing and simply sat next to Luke and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, allowing him to rest his head on her shoulder and cry.
***
A/N #2: Don't worry! Reid will show up soon. Also, I decided to make the Snyders Catholic only because that's the religion I know and I don't believe it's ever been specified what religion, if any, the characters on the show practice.
Author: erikssiren
Banner by: theSICKO
Rating: R
Word Count: 30,000+ (I just have to say HOLY CRAP!)
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid, Luke/Noah, hints of Allison/Casey and Brad/Katie. Also, appearances by Kyle/Fish from One Life to Live and others. (I'd say who, but that would give away the surprise!)
Warnings: Character death, angst (LOTS), some swearing and metions of Noah. Lots of them. In the positive light.
Summary: Set in the 2008 Valentine's Day AU. Luke and Noah have been together ever since they met that fateful day in New York City. But when a tragedy tears them apart, Luke struggles to move on. When a new doctor comes to town under mysterious circumstances, will he be what Luke needs? Set in the AU world of the Nuke Valentine's Day 2008 Episode.
Author's Notes: I wrote this for the LuRe Big Bang over at Luke and Reid Online and I was waiting to post it until theSICKO finished with the trailer, but I am participating in NaNoWriMo and I wanted to get this posted before I am completely sucked into that. I'm going to do my best to fix little errors here and there along the way, but if I've missed anything, feel free to let me know!
I've taken a few liberties with timelines and situations, like Maddie going to UofO instead of Wesleyan and Reid from CM mentions something later that happened in a more recent episode, not 2008. I did my best to keep the ATWT storylines right, but I don't remember who was with who back then. I'm pretty sure at that point Brad and Katie weren't together, but I loved them so much I am making it so. :D
A huge thanks to my beta, laurahellomoto for dealing with my lack of attention to deadlines, even when she had her own RL stuff to deal with! And thank you so so much to the amazing theSICKO for the gorgeous banner. You're the best!
Chapter One
It had seemed so easy, two years ago, to stand love struck on a pier and promise to wait. To clutch a cold piece of metal and windswept memories when their reunion was delayed (again). But as the years passed it seemed so much harder to hang on. Luke knew he shouldn’t be angry with Noah, there’s not a lot the sailor could do about his orders and yet this dark ball that had been forming in the pit of the college student's stomach since Noah’s ship first missed its scheduled shore leave by six months was starting to overtake Luke’s thoughts as he stared at the glowing screen of his computer, his eyes blurred as he clutched his cell phone tighter.
Noah was going to miss his graduation and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
“Can't you just ask for temporary leave?” Luke knew it was impossible, but he didn't want Noah to miss yet another important day. He had already missed Brad and Katie's wedding, Natalie's First Communion and so many holidays.
“What do you want me to say? That my fiancé is graduating and could I please have the day off? It doesn't work like that and you know it.” Tiredness seeped into Noah's voice and it should have warned Luke to back off, but he was tired too. Sick and tired of being alone and having nothing more to warm him but a few whispered promises from months ago.
“God, this is so unfair! I honestly don't care that you're missing my graduation but now we have to wait to get married after putting it off for so long.” In the back of his mind he knew he was whining, but damn it they should have married last year, when Noah had his longest shore leave yet. But no, they wanted to wait until Luke had graduated.
“You know, there's a ship full of people here who have families waiting for them," Noah answered in an irritated tone, no doubt accompanied by a frown. "You're not the only one whose life is on hold while we're away. You're being selfish.”
“Selfish?" Luke nearly shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of his apartment. "Noah, the difference between me and them is they get to kiss and hug whoever comes off that boat right there on the docks. We have to wait until we're behind closed doors to even get a proper hello!” Noah said nothing and laughter filtered in through the phone. “You can't even say my name because there are other people around.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Babe...please," Noah said plaintively and Luke's eyes slid close against the impending tears. He took a shaky breath.
"When you get home we have to talk.” The implication was clear, and it broke both their hearts. "But I love you so much, you know that right?" No matter how hard it was, not matter how angry he and Noah were at each other, Luke made sure he told Noah he loved him. He didn't want to regret it in case....Luke quickly left that train of thought.
“Yeah, I know….I love you too." And with that Luke shut his cell phone with a sharp click. He laid his head on his arms and cried.
***
Graduation day was a blur of pointed caps, fake smiles and general relief. They were adults now, ready to face the world, armed with that precious piece of paper they had grown up believing a golden ticket into the real world. Despite the momentous occasion, all Luke could think was I wish Noah were here.
He wasn't entirely angry at Noah for not being there, Luke knew this would be their life: always waiting for the ship to arrive, having to hide their relationship because America couldn't accept differences in their armed forces. It was frustrating beyond belief, so much more than Luke had ever imagined. But, as his family milled around him in his parents' hotel room (they had all flown up to New York and the Snyders rented out nearly the entire floor) and clutched Noah's medal in his hand, he knew he would never want a life without Noah in it.
After several speeches and many slices of cake, Luke was growing weary of his family and there were so many people packed into the room it felt like all of Oakdale were there. This also meant he could slip away unnoticed into the adjacent bedroom and slide the door shut with a sigh of relief. He breathed in the silence before flopping back onto the king-sized bed in the middle of a room. Dark chestnut side tables flanked it and the right wall made up the closet. A decent-sized bathroom sat off to the left and a giant entertainment center took up nearly the entire wall across from the foot of the bed.
Rolling over Luke started at the medal in his hand, his thumb tracing the already worn down grooves. He tried to imagine the soft brown locks of Noah's hair, the salty and musky scent of his skin and the warm feel of his hands. Yet Luke could feel nothing and see nothing.
Suddenly the silence became too much and Luke quickly turned on the TV, the volume low as not to alert anyone to his absence. He flipped through the channels with little focus until a news channel headline caught his eye.
U.S.S. Kalvin attacked off the coast of India, the white letters screamed from a blood-red background. The text scrolled across the bottom of an aerial view of a smoking and half-submerged battleship and Luke's entire body went numb, save for the one warm spot in the palm of his hand where Noah's medal rested beneath tightly curled fingers.
No, God. Please no. Please don't take him.
Luke fumbled for the remote and clumsily turned up the volume to hear the appropriately-concerned looking anchorwoman's voice over the rush of blood in his ears. He sat gripping the remote in one hand, the piece of metal in the other, waiting. He forced himself not to think of their last conversation, that the last thing he ever said to Noah was in anger and disappointment. Luke tried, and failed, not to fear those were the last words he would ever say to the only man he would ever love.
A new headline appeared: Early reports predict none survived. Luke doesn't remember anything after that. Later, Holden would tell him they came rushing into the room when Luke began to cry for help. He told Luke they found him on his knees on the floor, sobbing as blood welled his hand. He had grasped the Noah's medal so tightly in his palm, it cut into it.
Lily said no one could calm him, and there was a lot of confusion at first. But once they saw the news, once they understood, the party quickly ended and they could do nothing but wait. Lily said Luke never spoke once his tears stopped and demanded only Maddie, Casey and Allison stay in the room with him, making his family wait uselessly in the other room. This part of the story Luke started to remember, the grief hung over it like a veil, making some details hazy and hard to recall. He would never forget the cold pierce of the shrill telephone two hours after the story broke. Luke remembered a deep voice speaking the dreaded words and the despair that shattered him into pieces.
Of the 2,000 men and women aboard the U.S.S. Kalvin, 500 survived. Noah Mayer was not among them.
***
A week passed and while the rest of the Snyder clan returned to the bubble of Oakdale, Lily and Holden remained with their son. The son who wouldn't eat, wouldn't talk and spent most of his time laying in the dark or sleeping. Lily and Holden could do nothing but worry for their eldest son and the rising sense of helplessness grew so large in them, they began to fight. One such fight filtered through the blanket of nothingness Luke had wrapped himself in.
"It's been nearly a week, Holden. Don't you think we should do something?"
"There's nothing we can do. He's grieving, Lily. He's lost the person who meant more to him than anything, we aren't going to be able to fix it."
"I know that, but...but it isn't healthy!"
"Healthy?" Holden's incredulous scoff cut into Luke a little. "I'd be more worried if he was walking around acting as though everything was okay. He needs to deal with this and if his way of doing so is to behave like this, then we have to let him."
"We can't just do nothing, Holden! I am so heartbroken he lost Noah, but I won't just sit here and watch him wither away. I can't!"
"But you have to."
"He's my son, Holden. It's killing me to see him like this."
"And you think it's not killing me? He's my son too." A pause followed and Luke vaguely felt the tension rise. "Or you think because he's not my biological son I can't possibly know what that feels like."
"I didn't say that," Lily answered with the briefest pause. A pause that was enough to set the already on-edge Holden off.
"I see, it's because of Damian, isn't it? Don't you dare think he can come back -"
"Damian has nothing to do with this!" Lily's voice grew shrill and Luke sighed at the old argument. Damian had sent a very large amount of money a few weeks ago to Luke as a graduation gift. Holden was sure he was trying to buy Luke's affection, a wasted effort as Luke still hadn't forgive his biological father for all he had done. Lily thought it was a sweet gesture, as she would always have blind spot for Damian to slink into.
Luke burrowed deeper into his numbness, trying to get away from the anger of his parents as they continued to fight. He didn't want to feel anything anymore, there wasn't any point.
Sometime later, Luke woke up suddenly, consciousness and grief slamming into him at the exact same moment as he ripped him from his sleep, his only escape from the world Noah didn't exist in anymore. When Luke closed his eyes he didn't dream, he didn't think, he didn't feel. He simply existed in the darkness and it was the only peace he could find. He stared unseeing at white walls, Noah's now slightly-bloody medal still clutched in his bandaged hand, wondering what had woken him. If he had cared to look, the clock on the bedside table told him twelve hours had passed since he overheard his parents' argument. A strange, shrill sound pierced the air and Luke jumped, his first movement in days.
Holden's voice filtered through the hotel door as Luke turned on his side and curled up into himself, tears streaming into his ears. He could just barely make out what his adoptive father was saying and the words stopped him from returning to blissful sleep.
".... the only family Noah had after his father died." He paused. "Yes, I understand that but they filed the paperwork to-" Another pause followed by a sigh. "Alright. Thank you."
He knew who Holden was speaking to and what they wanted. The fallen soldiers were coming home and Luke needed to be there to collect Noah's things and... A fresh sob tore through Luke's chest and he quickly muffled the sound in his pillow. Noah's father had died not long after Luke and Noah first met, his mother had died a long time ago and with no relatives to speak of, Luke was all Noah had had left. More tears fell and were quickly absorbed into the white cotton beneath him as Luke recalled the conversation they had on Noah's last shore leave.
Luke laid in sleepy post-orgasmic bliss as he rested his head on Noah's chest, listening to the soothing beat of his lover's heart. He fought sleep, however, as the hours were quickly ticking away until Noah had to leave again. The silence and the steady motion of Noah's fingers trailing Luke's arm didn't help, shake the warm, comfortable, safe feeling lulling him to sleep.
"If something ever happens to me," Noah said suddenly, his deep voice making Luke jump, "I can't list you as my next of kin." Luke sat up quickly, staring questioningly into Noah's eyes. "But I'm working with this Navy lawyer who's sympathetic to people like us. He's going to help me give you power of estate. I've already listed you as the emergency contact."
"What," Luke said, his voice more scared than he would have liked, "what does that mean?"
"If I were to..." Noah swallowed hard. "If something were to happen, the Navy would call and notify you in case of an emergency. My lawyer is working to give you permission to claim everything if I were to...and....Luke," he sat up as well and held Luke's gaze. "I want to be buried in Oakdale." He gripped Luke's arms as the blonde tried to pull away, tried to get as far away from this conversation as possible.
"You've never been there," Luke said in a small voice, his eyes glued to the sheets between them. "Besides, won't they-" he cut off, tears clogging his throat. He couldn't have this conversation, not now when they should be concentrating on how Noah was safe and alive.
"It's your home, Luke, and my home is wherever you are." They both blinked away tears. "I don't want to be another cross in Arlington and I want to be near you, always. So please, do this for me?"
The hotel bed dipped with Holden's weight and Luke quickly scrubbed at the tears on his face.
"That was the Navy," his father began quietly. "They want-"
"I know." Luke's voice was thick and scratchy, barely audible after a week's worth of neglect. "Where is he?"
"The plane is coming into JFK tomorrow at eight."
"Have you called his lawyer? He needs to be there in case they give me trouble." Luke's voice sounded flat, even to his own ears.
"Yes, he said he'd meet you there. Do you want us to come with you?" Holden asked gently and Luke almost considered it, but he needed to be alone in this. He didn't want his family hovering over him, smothering him with their concern.
"I'll be okay," Luke said softly as he rolled over. The grim look on his father's face told him Holden didn't believe that. With a gentle squeeze to Luke's leg beneath the blanket Holden left and Luke slipped back to sleep.
The next day Luke woke up, dressed automatically and walked out the door, ignoring the concerned looks of his parents and Lily's attempt to make him eat before he left. He met Mark Simms, the lawyer he had spoken on the phone with only once, at the airport. Usually, Mark told him in a low and sympathetic voice, the caskets are taken off the plane and transferred to the funeral home. However, with this volume of casualties they had to be placed in the hangar first while the paperwork was sorted out.
Once they found the right flag-covered casket, Mark left to find those in charge and make sure there weren't any issues with Luke claiming Noah's body. The red, white and blue of the flag burned into Luke's brain and he never thought he'd hate the sight of its stars and stripes.
“Luke Snyder?” Luke looked up at his name to see a blonde man, a bit older than he, standing across from him, dressed in a Navy uniform. A dark-haired man with sympathetic eyes stood slightly farther back. Luke nodded. “I’m Oliver Fish, I was good friends with Noah.” He stopped for a moment, his eyes full of tears as he looked down at the flag-covered casket. Luke followed his gaze. “He told me about you.”
"Oh?" Luke said carefully, eyes glued to the wooden box between them. He didn't know if Noah had told a lie about who he was, or if any of his shipmates had bothered to ask about the man Noah always met at the docks.
"He told me the truth about you." Oliver said, lowering his voice slightly.
Luke’s head snapped up. “What?” Though he was still numb from his sorry, he could feel the tiniest bit of shock at this declaration. “But...he'd be discharged if anyone found out.”
“Yeah well, turns out Noah and I shared more than we thought,” the blonde said as he pulled the dark-haired man up beside him. “This is Dr. Kyle Lewis, my partner.” His voice had dropped to a whisper and it took a few moments for Luke's grief-addled brain to understand what they were telling him.
"Oh," he said again. "Well, it's good that Noah had someone he could talk to, though I am sorry to say he never mentioned you." I never thought to ask, he realized guiltily and swallowed some more tears. "Did he..."Luke trailed off, knowing how selfish his question would seem. "Did he talk to you about our fight? Just before..." Tears stole Luke's voice and he wiped them away quickly. "The day before the attack, we fought about him missing my graduation. I told him I..I told him I loved-loved him but I don't think-" Luke began to hyperventilate, he was near a breakdown as the emotion building inside since he saw the attack on the news began to spill over and he couldn't seem to stop it.
Kyle walked around the casket to hug Luke, who gripped his arms tightly. As he sobbed into the stranger's shirt, he realized how embarrassing this was but he couldn't bring himself to care. He needed empathy, not the hollow sympathies of everyone else around him. Once he calmed down he pulled away from the dark-haired man though Kyle didn't return to Oliver's side.
“No, he didn't tell me about it," Oliver said gently. "But...but I was there, with Noah in the end.” He barely made it through the sentence and wiped away his own tears. "He told me to make sure you knew he loved you and he was sorry he couldn't make it to your graduation." Luke clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the guilt-ridden sob from tearing through the hangar.
Oliver held out his hand that was clenched around something. “He wanted me to give you these. He had them sewn into his uniform so he wouldn’t lose them.” Both Oliver and Kyle had enough sense not to comment on the way Luke’s hand trembled when he stretched out his hand to take the objects. Two silver rings, varying slightly in size, fell from Oliver’s palm into Luke’s and the younger man would have fallen to his knees if Kyle hadn't kept a tight grip on his arms. Wedding rings. He let out a wet sound that was supposed to be a laugh.
“We were going to buy them together when he came home. I should have known he would rather have surprised me with them.” All three men shared tear-filled smiles. They stood in silence for a few minutes, ignorant to the dark glare sent their way from a few feet away.
“Well, if you need anything,” Oliver said, coming around the casket to stand at Luke's other side and placing a warm hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You give us a call.” Kyle slipped a card into Luke’s pocket, squeezed his arm in a goodbye and they both started to walk away when Luke's hand snaked out and grabbed Oliver's arm.
"The funeral..." He took a deep breath. "The funeral is the day after tomorrow in Oakdale, Illinois. I know it's late notice but if you can make it, I think...I think he'd really like it." He managed to keep himself together until the end of the sentence, his voice hitching up with tears.
"Of course," Kyle said as Oliver nodded. "We'll be there." With one last nod the pair left, leaving Luke to stare at the jewelry in his hand, tears streaming down his face. He wasn't left alone for long.
“So you’re the fiancé, huh?” A deep voice said from where Oliver had stood moments ago. Luke looked up to see a man also in uniform, staring at Luke with hard eyes. “We all teased him about the girl who was going to make an honest man out of him.” Luke said nothing. “He was distracted the day of the attack, we all noticed it. I pulled him aside to snap him out of it and he told me he had had a fight with is fiancé and he was worried. I told him to suck it up and concentrate because if there was one think I knew about Mayer, I knew he did every task exceedingly well. You two must have had one hell of a brawl to shake his concentration like that.” Luke said nothing as he clenched the rings in his hand. “Had he had his full mind on what he was doing and not half of it on you, he’d still be alive.”
Luke took a step back as though physically pushed and stared in shock at the sailor beside him. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be the reason Noah had died. The sailor sneered and opened his mouth to speak again when another voice cut him off.
“That’s enough.” Both men turned to see Mark and a man with a lot of bars on his chest glaring at the sailor, who tried to protest. “McKinley, you are tarnishing the memory of a man who died to save your ass. You are disgracing the uniform you wear and you and I are going to have a talk about whether you should still be wearing it." The sailor opened his mouth to argue but the older man spoke first. "I said enough. Get out of my sight.” McKinley looked like he might fight his superior but a hard glare shut him up and he walked away with a glare to Luke, who turned back to the coffin, body shaking with suppressed tears.
"Mayer was a brave man, he died serving his country." A heavy hand that was meant to be comforting landed hard on Luke’s shoulder and nodded at Mark before quickly disappearing. The lawyer stood watching the young man in front of the coffin as he tried to control his tears before silently walking away, back into the sunshine. Finally alone, Luke fell to his knees and rested his head against the polished wood, sobbing.
Later he would realize the colonel never denied McKinley's accusations.
***
Luke didn’t remember how he got on the plane, the flight back or landing back home. He vaguely recalled seeing a few reporters and news cameras at the Oakdale Airport but since Noah wasn’t a local and Luke had been gone from Oakdale for several years, it wasn’t the media circus his grandmother had feared. The Walsh and Snyder clans were the most influential families in town so she always feared media-controlled pandemonium. His family was there, as were the soldiers from the nearest base to transfer Noah's casket.
Before he let the funeral home take Noah’s body, Luke beside it, debating what to do with the larger of the two rings still pressed into the clammy skin of his palm. He could keep it, wear it next to his own as a reminder. But he didn't want Noah to go without. So, with tears streaming down his face and a voice choked with tears, he gave the ring to the funeral director and asked it to be placed on Noah's finger before the service. He felt the firm grip of his father's arms around his waist as they watched the Hurst pull away and only then Luke realized he would never be strong enough to stand on his own again.
The next morning, in the brief moment between fully asleep and fully awake, Luke's brain convinced himself that the entire thing had been a dream. He rolled over smiling, expecting to feel Noah's solid back beneath his hand, but the cold bed sheet he found instead shocked him back into reality.
The blonde laid still and tried to control the sadness bubbling up his throat. His eyes traveled unseeing over his childhood bedroom, feeling rather out of place in the juvenile setting, until they focused on the suit he planned to wear to Noah's funeral tomorrow. He didn't remember unpacking when they arrived at the farm last night. Just then his door opened, revealing his grandma Emma dressed in black and a tray laden with orange juice, coffee and toast in her hands.
“Hello dear,” she said softly as Luke rolled over. “I wanted to make sure you’re up, we’ve got about an hour before we have to leave.”
“Leave?” Luke asked as he slowly sat up and Emma sat the tray over his lap. His eyes flickered back to the suit mocking him from the across the room. “I thought we weren’t going to do a visitation.”
“No, Luke, the funeral.” She answered gently as she pushed away his sleep-mussed bangs. “We have to go to the church.”
“But that’s tomorrow.” Luke’s voice sounded panicked but he still felt a little detached from his own body. His fingers picked up the dry toast and his throat swallowed the tart juice, but he couldn’t feel any of it.
“It’s today, honey. You’ve been asleep since you came home from the airport.” The pity in her eyes sliced into him and he flinched. "I wanted to wake you earlier, but your mother said-"
“The funeral is today?” Luke said as he moved suddenly, knocking the mug off the tray as he did so. The hot brown liquid seeped quickly through the threads of his blanket, though the thick fiber of his jeans and onto the thin layer of skin beneath. It should burn, he thought as Emma jumped up and stripped the warmth away.
“Why don’t you take a shower, dear,” Emma suggested with the mess secured within her arms to be quickly washed away and forgotten. Luke wished everything was that easy.
He showered and dressed, again in the automatic way he did when he left the hotel for the airport days ago. He hadn’t heard from Oliver and Kyle, but he hoped they would be there today.
Noah hadn’t asked for a specific church service, so Lily took it upon herself to have a full Catholic burial held at St. Mary’s just outside of town. How she managed to get the priest to agree to the ceremony Luke would never know but eventually he would be glad for it. He hadn’t been here much since he left for school, yet he always felt home in the church with its high vaulted ceiling and the sight of the large crucifix always left him in awe. Today, however, black cloth hung from Jesus’ outstretched arms and the sight of it made Luke sick.
Once again, he didn't remember much. His parents read Bible passages and they said the priest gave a moving homily about life and death, but it had all sounded muffled and far away to Luke’s ears; the already tasteless Host was melted air on his tongue; the incense burned his nose and he would forever associate the scent with the ache in his chest. No one gave a eulogy, it wasn’t customary, and Luke felt all the more glad for it. He didn’t think he could stand hearing anyone talk about Noah as though they knew him because Luke wouldn’t have been able to say a single word.
Luke could recall, however, every painful step from the church to the graveyard. Since it was a mere block away, the entire congregation followed the six soldiers, including Oliver, who had the unenviable task of carrying Noah down the street. Luke must have looked terrified because suddenly Kyle was at his side, his arm securely around Luke’s shoulders as they took their first step through the cemetery’s gates. His parents stood behind him, he could feel their presence like a steady warmth on his back. It helped give him the strength to continue forward and he hoped no one noticed how his knees buckled as they reached folding chairs enveloped in velvet slipcovers.
More words buzzed in his ears and the white smoke clouded his vision before he found himself standing alone, staring down at the coffin as men in cheap suits cranked the wooden box down into the six-foot hole. For a wild moment he envisioned throwing himself into the ground and hugging the casket as the men threw dirt on top of him. How could he live if Noah wasn’t there? But before he could take a step forward, a hand firmly gripped his elbow.
“Come along, darling,” Lucinda’s voice whispered in his ear. “Come along.” They walked back to her car in silence and he noted with relief that the two figures standing beside it weren’t his parents, but rather Oliver and Kyle. Luke broke away from his grandmother’s comforting grasp and walked ahead of her toward them.
“Thank you.” Luke was surprised at the lack of tears in his own voice. “I’m so glad you came.” He shook both their hands before they drew him close, so in sync they could have been one person (just like he and Noah had been once) and held him close for a brief three-person hug that should have been more awkward.
“We would stay,” Oliver said in a voice husky with tears as they pulled apart. “But we don’t want to intrude on your family and I’ve got to be ready to go back once they reassign our platoon.” Kyle tensed at this but said nothing.
“I understand,” Luke said as Lucinda stopped behind him. “If you need anything you guys can call me.” His eyes paused on Kyle longer, letting him know the invitation applied especially to him. The doctor nodded, understanding on his face. Luke watched as they walked to their car parked a few feet away. As the taillights disappeared down the road, Luke turned his grandmother with a sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
The entire family, and probably all of Oakdale, gathered on the spacious lawn of the Snyder farm, some with plastic plates and cups in their hands as they waited for Luke to arrive. The idle chatter stopped as he walked through the crowd and he would have run away if Lucinda hadn’t kept a firm grip on his arm. He talked to a few people, but the energy he managed to gather to get through the funeral had left him and all he wanted to do was sleep for days. He sat in a chair shaded by a large oak tree and let the mourners come to him, though it seemed they weren’t sure if they should approach.
It wasn’t long before it all became too much: the unusually warm spring air, the sympathetic glances and whispered conversations; and Luke found himself racing into the farmhouse, screen doors slamming behind him. Soaking in the silence of the indoors, Luke slowly walked into the parlor, deeper into the quiet. But it turned out he wasn’t alone as spotted Katie sitting the couch, a blanket covering the top of her body and Jacob’s tiny feet sticking out from beneath.
“Oh, sorry!” He blurted once his brain caught up with the sight before him. “I’ll just…”
“No, it’s okay, stay. I’m almost finished.” Something in Katie’s voice, perhaps the lack of sickly-sweet sympathy, made him stay. He quietly walked around the couch and sat at the other end, sinking into the soft cushions and closing his eyes. He tried to recall seeing Brad among the many familiar faces outside, but it had all become a blur and all he could think was Noah is gone.
They sat in a strange sense of peace, the room filling with Jacob’s small squeaks and soon with a lullaby hummed slightly-off key. What it lacked in pitch it made up in comfort and Luke found himself relaxing as Katie’s voice filled the room. She continued to hum as the rustle of cloth assured Luke he could open his eyes, even if he didn’t particularly want to. He did, however, and looked over to see Katie staring not at him as he expected but her now napping son.
“May I hold him?” Luke asked suddenly, startling them both yet he soon had a tiny bundle of striped blanket and month-old baby nestled in his arms. As he stared at the small face, Luke remembered all the plans he and Noah had made; the family they wanted to start and all the children they hoped to adopt.
If Katie was bothered by the steady fall of tears splashing onto her sleeping son’s blanket, she said nothing and simply sat next to Luke and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, allowing him to rest his head on her shoulder and cry.
***
A/N #2: Don't worry! Reid will show up soon. Also, I decided to make the Snyders Catholic only because that's the religion I know and I don't believe it's ever been specified what religion, if any, the characters on the show practice.