Fic: For the Ages
Title: For the Ages
Genre/Type: Romance/some angst but only for good reason/hopefully you'll laugh too
Rating: Umm...I'd give it a 12 in UK terms, I guess - occasionally some bad language.
Characters/Pairings: LuRe!!! Umm...some other people are in relationships, but they're not major players so I'll leave that as a surprise. Oh, wait - Bob and Kim...yep, I'll give you that one for free!
Warnings: Nobody dies except extras (Sorry, not even Doogie)
Summary: REID'S ALIVE!! I guess this is my version of the story if the show was miraculously uncancelled and they realised they HAD to bring Reid back cos, you know, he's the best character on the show. So yeah...Reid's alive and they have to deal with the consequences of his not-death - but there's also nice fluffy bits and happy times, and THERE WILL BE A HAPPY ENDING!!! AND LOTS OF HAPPY ON THE WAY THROUGH!!
Disclaimer: Yeah, if I owned them, they'd have spent a lot more time kissing and so forth and a lot less time trying not to offend the sponsors. So yeah, not mine, never will be, but at least I'm nice to them.
Note: So this is a slightly edited version of the story I've been posting over at lronline. There's loooads more of it to come, but I'll start with this for now, cos I want to edit some of the earlier chapters a bit. Oh, and anything that doesn't make sense from canon is cos I started before the "death" episode and never watched the ones after it, so some stuff is definitely wrong - but I figure soaps are never known for their consistency, so I'm giving myself a pass on that. I'm also still trying to get my head around all this livejournal business, so I guess I'll just see how it all works out!
Chapter 1
This is wrong. Everything feels wrong.
Well, September's done, and dusted. A lonely month that ached and stumbled its way into the dim and shattered twilight of mid-October. And it's been the worst month and a half of his life - and even calling it that doesn't seem to do it justice. They've all tried to help him: Noah, Casey and his other friends, Lucinda, his Mom and Dad, Dr. Hughes, Katie....Chris. Dammit. Chris. He has no idea how to feel about the other man. Reid wanted him to have his heart, wanted him to be healthy for Katie. He should feel better about that. But still, he can’t shake the feeling that it's wrong, so wrong. Chris Hughes...he gets to walk, and talk, and work and...love...love, dammit...while Reid is...is....
So no, that's not helping, really. He knows this is what grief is supposed to be; that's he's meant to take time to get over this...but that doesn’t make it right, doesn’t keep the greyness that's inside him from encroaching on his visions of bright Autumn leaves and glowing sunsets from turning into dusty fog; doesn’t take the black pit of empty out from under him, or put the blue back in the sky (blue - blue eyes...). It doesn’t relieve the constant aching in his chest, or the burning sensation that seems to emanate from beneath every inch of his skin. Doesn't put a heart back into a hollowed out chest. Doesn't put the future back where it's supposed to be.
As he wanders mindlessly through the streets of Oakdale, he barely notices the cold that's prickling through the thin skin of his exposed arms. The violent drop in temperature seems only fitting; it's only fair that the leaves on the trees are dying too. Soon the sky and the air and the earth will be cold and shattered and dark; a landscape to match the world of broken that's going on inside him. He tries not to think too far ahead, to what should be their first Thanksgiving together, their first Christmas, New Year, Valentine’s Day...an icy laugh stutters through him at the thought that at least Reid dodged the bullet on all cheesy holidays and over-crowded family gatherings he would’ve been forced to attend.
He tries to force himself not to think about the rest of it. About the days...the days and the weeks and the hours of just being; of together and apart and love and sex, and fights and making up and learning all the things there weren't enough days to ask. About Snyder Pond and trips to the movies and probably not getting to eat any of the popcorn ...and secretly not giving a shit. Not to think about all the birthdays and the anniversaries (that Reid would probably forget)...maybe one day a proposal? Kids? Ha!
Not likely, but I can dream, right?
Then he remembers. No. No I can’t.
Not when every night he wakes up drowning in his own sweat, gasping out ragged breaths from reliving that day again and again in every aching, bloody, heart-wrenching detail. He always knows what's coming and he always tries to stop it.
But he can't. No matter how hard he strains his voice, screams the warnings, kicks and curses at the sky and the world and all the people there; begging them, begging them to stop that damn train...
No-one ever hears.
Well, the rest of the family hears when he jolts up in bed screaming his name, shouting at him to stop the fucking car and just wait thirty seconds so the world doesn't end, not to leave him, not to.... His Mom and Dad and siblings, everyone's worried about him. He figures it's probably reasonable. But it makes it hurt all the more to see the furrows of love and concern and I-want-to-protect-you etched into their tired faces; because there's no way to stop it. It's how he feels right now. It is what it is.
He knows he's not going to give up though. Reid never... It wouldn't be right. But that's not to say it's not the hardest fucking thing on the whole fucking planet just to get out of bed some days.
He does his best to act normal. He knows Reid wouldn't want him to just lie down and die, to give up on his wants and his dreams and his whole life ahead of him; but right now...he's not there yet. It's hard to imagine he ever will be, entirely. It feels wrong. In his head, he knows there's a way back to life, to surety, that he'll eventually have to find. He'll find a way to live again, to cope, survive, get by; to function day to day without feeling like a part of him is being ripped out by sharpened claws and burned to wasted ashes in front of his eyes.
Eventually. But in his heart.... He's starting to understand now, why Reid clung so hard to distance, to isolation, veered so far from the downside of caring. He's almost wishing he could do the same. But letting go of that means letting go of Reid all together and hell no, that's not happening.
Still. This hurts like hell.
He walks in a semi-daze, unsurprised when he finds his feet have brought him here again. Back to the familiar steps of a place that used to feel like more than half a home; a place that now gloats over him, glowers and mocks and sneers, with its walls of concrete and its windows cleaned twice a month and a thousand ghosts and stole moments hidden inside it.
They renamed their neuro wing, built his ashes into its foundations. But still it's barely visible. Dr Oliver, sure, they remember him. World's Greatest Neurosurgeon and all that. But Reid? Reid Oliver isn't the man they write about in the publicity material or the teeny tiny plaque they put up in the lobby. He barely registers in the literature, like he's just some minor footnote of passing interest to hospital visitors, and not the brilliant, passionate, frustrating man that he’s fallen in love with...love. He didn't say it nearly enough, and now.... Luke hasn’t been back inside since it's all been over. Mr. Snyder of the Foundation will give his everything and anything to the Wing. But for Luke, there's no more social calls, no more dropping by with paperwork that he could probably e-mail, or giving up and coming over anyway when there really isn't a excuse. Because the hospital isn't the same without him. He knows he needs to meet with his nephrologist pretty soon, but he can’t...he just can’t. Not yet. Not when everything is so...so wrong....
Time. That’s what they say. It’ll get better....with time. Time. That’s all it takes. Right?
But how can he get over it when he just plain doesn't want to. When he's still half in denial? When Reid is with him every night, talking and tasting and touching and...
And when he wakes up in the mornings, the odd days when he's not screaming to begin with, he experiences his favourite part of the day: the five to ten seconds between waking up and realising that it's all over, that he's gone. No more dreaming. For a few moments his world can be perfect, before the painful realisation stabs him in the gut and twists the knife until he's split in two and still breaking.
He sits on a familiar bench. Inevitably his gaze drifts across the entrance to the hospital. He can practically see the two of them, walking through those sliding doors, hand in hand. Sure, Reid complained, muttered about his reputation being in tatters, the fact that this was absolutely, definitely not becoming a regular thing. Why did he have to be right about that? And he can see Reid running out after him when he found out about Invicta and Bob’s ultimatum (why had they wasted so much time?!); his car pulling away from the parking lot on the way to Bay City, to the worst thing that's ever happened, to...that.
He pictures Reid so vividly that, for a second, some crazy part of his mind half dares to think that it's really him, there in front of him, heading his way.
It wouldn't be the first time his eyes have taunted him like this.
He blinks, shakes his head to force his vision back into focus. But Reid just keeps walking towards him. Crap. He could really do without the hallucinations. He rubs his eyes hard enough to see stars and looks back. But then the stars clear away and he's back to the world of cars and concrete and it's still there. He huffs an angry breath at his heartless mind, shuts his eyes firmly and chants that it's impossible, that the next time he looks reality will have been restored and the surging hope of his heartbeat will die down before it engulfs him and shatters him on the harsh rocks of truth. The truth is...Reid's dead. You saw it happen. You were there, you idiot.
He opens his eyes, expecting it to be over.
It isn’t.
The shuffle of uneven and unsteady footsteps and his puzzled gaze meets with a pair of sharp blue eyes. No...
“Hey, Luke”.
Wait! What?!