Common ground by fawsley, green cortina
Title: Common ground
Author: fawsley
Rating: green Cortina
Characters: two mothers
Warning: reference to character deaths, spoilers for 2.08, and you need to have seen both that and 1.04
Word Count: 340
Disclaimer: all the property of the BBC and Kudos
Notes: Me mum and me are going on a trip. Joni Newton to Sam, 1.04
Common ground
She doesn’t come to visit as often as she used to nor as often as she feels perhaps she should, but she’s getting on now and it’s a stiff walk up the hill and what with her dodgy hip after that fall last winter it’s not as easy as it once was.
Not that it was ever easy. No mother should ever have to visit her own child’s grave.
She struggles more than she used to with lifting down a watering can from one of the hooks, with filling it at the tap, nearly slops water all over her best shoes, but then a younger, stronger hand takes the can from her.
The younger woman’s smile is warm, genuine, and she’s grateful for the assistance. In many people's books the younger woman might be classed as old herself, but she carries the full can with ease along the neatly raked gravel path, turns off as directed onto the smooth turf near the maple tree, three rows back then fourth on the right.
They chat amiably as women always can, find common ground in the loss of a child, a beautiful beloved child, wrenched violently from life far too young, far too soon. They sit together in the sunshine on the bench beneath the maple tree and tell each other of their losses. There is no shame in the mutual tears that fall.
They know things, share things, that they do not have to speak of. The younger woman’s grief is still raw, her loss recent, so recent as to make her own seem like ancient history, as if it happened on a different planet. There’s an invitation to tea, gladly accepted. They will see each other again soon.
No mother should ever have to visit her own child’s grave, and she doesn’t come as often as she used to nor as often as she feels perhaps she should, but Mrs Newton is so very glad she came to visit Joni today, or she would never have met Mrs Tyler.
Author: fawsley
Rating: green Cortina
Characters: two mothers
Warning: reference to character deaths, spoilers for 2.08, and you need to have seen both that and 1.04
Word Count: 340
Disclaimer: all the property of the BBC and Kudos
Notes: Me mum and me are going on a trip. Joni Newton to Sam, 1.04
Common ground
She doesn’t come to visit as often as she used to nor as often as she feels perhaps she should, but she’s getting on now and it’s a stiff walk up the hill and what with her dodgy hip after that fall last winter it’s not as easy as it once was.
Not that it was ever easy. No mother should ever have to visit her own child’s grave.
She struggles more than she used to with lifting down a watering can from one of the hooks, with filling it at the tap, nearly slops water all over her best shoes, but then a younger, stronger hand takes the can from her.
The younger woman’s smile is warm, genuine, and she’s grateful for the assistance. In many people's books the younger woman might be classed as old herself, but she carries the full can with ease along the neatly raked gravel path, turns off as directed onto the smooth turf near the maple tree, three rows back then fourth on the right.
They chat amiably as women always can, find common ground in the loss of a child, a beautiful beloved child, wrenched violently from life far too young, far too soon. They sit together in the sunshine on the bench beneath the maple tree and tell each other of their losses. There is no shame in the mutual tears that fall.
They know things, share things, that they do not have to speak of. The younger woman’s grief is still raw, her loss recent, so recent as to make her own seem like ancient history, as if it happened on a different planet. There’s an invitation to tea, gladly accepted. They will see each other again soon.
No mother should ever have to visit her own child’s grave, and she doesn’t come as often as she used to nor as often as she feels perhaps she should, but Mrs Newton is so very glad she came to visit Joni today, or she would never have met Mrs Tyler.