Fic: A Trick of the Light
Title: A Trick of the Light
Author: muffinbutt
Words: 2,327
Rating: PG
Fandom: Debatable
Summary: Rachel Broxton goes looking, and gets exactly what she doesn't want.
Author's Note: A belated birthday present for indy_go.
She never stopped looking for him.
Not literally, of course. She knew where he was; it was all over the papers when he popped up, and when he got caught, finally…
Well. She knew where to find him. Seattle was a plane ride or two away.
But she didn’t get on that plane, no matter how many times she found herself calculating vacation time, flight costs.
Being a barrister was weird, after that few years out in the woods, but she did well, she thought. Not many women were barristers, but at least in London there were a few. She didn’t feel so alone, then. It didn’t help that men were rather intimidated by her, asking her what she did for a living and expecting her to say she worked in a secretarial pool, or a shop.
It was difficult, trying to find a peer, when one knew exactly who and where one’s peer really was.
Her match, she never quite dared think.
She missed his easy smile, his mouth on her neck, the freckles on the backs of his hands. She never, ever expected to miss the beans, the cold of the Montana winter.
The outlaw lifestyle, as silly as that sounded.
For the most part, she remembered it with a sort of fond exasperation, because for every frostbitten fingertip, there had been a soft mouth to warm it up; for every narrow escape, there’d been a stealthy visit to Walla Walla.
For every bit of pain, there’d been pleasure. Until the pain had outweighed it all, because she’d wanted to go home and, more than that, she’d wanted him with her when she left.
And in the end, he just couldn’t. Couldn’t go with her, couldn’t leave the life he’d chosen.
Couldn’t choose her over everything else. Because he was so invested in choice, and exercising one’s choice. They both chose other things in the end.
But she never stopped looking. And all the redheaded nine-to-fivers in greater London couldn’t erase the memory of just his smile.
~
“Paging passenger Rachel Broxton. Passenger Rachel Broxton, please report to Terminal 4 for immediate departure.”
Swearing and stumbling over her heels and suitcase, Rachel slipped into the shuttle just as the doors closed.
She was going to miss her flight. She was going to miss it, and then she wouldn’t have the nerve to book another.
Sidling towards an empty seat, she pulled a small sheaf of newspaper clippings out of her pocket and paged through it for what seemed like the twentieth time.
Infamous Woodpecker Blows Up Own Cell, Escapes.
Bernard Mickey Wrangle at large: What will he blast next?
Wrangle, Woodpecker, Still Silent: Has the bomber finally given up the revolutionary life?
The Woodpecker and the politics of explosives: The effect of the bomb on our postmodern ennui, and why we just don’t care anymore.
It didn’t make any sense. It had been years. He’d never gone so long without so much as a peep.
It scared her.
The shuttle stopped, and the tweedy, blond fellow next to her jostled her shoulder. “Oh! Terribly sorry, my dear.” Rachel smiled tiredly, and stood, suitcase in hand.
“Okay. Ready or not,” she muttered under her breath, and ran to catch her waiting flight to Seattle.
~
The ranch looked the same. It was bizarre. Same beat-up barn, same weathered, whitewashed house.
Rachel eyed the plain-looking sedans parked on the gravel road that edged the property as she got out of the taxi. Still here, even after all this time.
She was surprised they hadn’t stopped her on the driveway.
Her musings were interrupted by the slam of the screen door, and she turned, smiling nervously.
Kathleen Wrangle was standing on her front porch, blinking rapidly, a dripping washcloth in hand. “Well. Shit the bed.” And then she was beaming and running towards the cab, shouting back towards the house. “Dude? Dude! Get your redundant ass out here! We have company!” She stopped in front of Rachel, her smiling mouth a little tremulous. “Well. Never expected to see you again, sweetheart.”
Rachel shifted from foot to foot, almost shy. “I’m sorry, I-Should have called, I suppose.” But then the screen door swung open again, and oh. “Hallo, Dude.”
Dude Wrangle shuffled out onto the porch. “Well, I’ll be. I’ll be.” He walked over to stand beside his wife and pushed his hat back on his lined forehead. “What’s the matter, girl? What’s the matter? Woodpecker got your tongue?”
And she must have been tired from the trip, that’s all, because at that, Rachel burst into tears. Dude hustled her inside while Kathleen paid the poor, confused driver, and all she could think as she stepped into the living room that was filled with pictures and knick-knacks and homey, worn furniture was, I wish.
~
She waited all afternoon, and through dinner. Laughing with them about everything but him over awful American pisswater beer.
Finally, Kathleen thumped her Coors Light onto the table. “Cut the shit, Rachel.”
Rachel blinked. “Pardon?” Her stomach was suddenly acidic. She couldn’t quite look at Kathleen or Dude, so she focused her gaze on the whorls and knots of the oak kitchen table.
Dude’s hand covered hers where it picked at a scuff. Probably Bernard’s doing, twenty years past. “Didn’t come here to drink weak beer and sample my wife’s fine cooking, and that’s a fact. That’s a fact.”
Rachel’s mouth twisted in a weak imitation of a wry smile. “No.” A breath. Into the breach. “Have you heard from him lately?” Christ, that table was fascinating.
There was a silence, and she looked up. Dude and Kathleen were looking at each other, and she couldn’t quite-It was odd, that look. She didn’t know what they were thinking, and she’d always thought they were fairly transparent, fairly simple.
Maybe she’d got that wrong, too.
Kathleen gave Dude one short nod, and the farmer stood, his chair scraping back, and walked out of the room, silent. Rachel watched him go, perplexed. “Kathleen?” She glanced over, and got more confused.
Kathleen was looking at her with something warm, something not too far from pity, and it made her sick to see it.
“Is he--” she started, assuming the worst but unable to even articulate it.
The older woman rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue, taking a long swig of beer. “Oh, always the drama queen. He’s fine. Better than fine.”
“Oh.” Rachel shifted, uncomfortable, and pushed a lock of long brown hair behind her ear. “Then why were you looking at me like that?”
A cocked eyebrow. “Like what?” There was a sound of shuffling from the living room, and Kathleen sighed. “Dude, you best get the right ones. They’re in that white album, under your goddamn Conan Doyle novels.” She rolled her eyes again. “God. I hate Tarzan.”
“Yes, it’s incredibly racist,” Rachel replied automatically. “Um. What’s he getting?”
Kathleen turned back to her and put a hand over hers, squeezing gently. “Pictures.” She sighed and smiled ruefully. “There isn’t really any good way to tell you this. He’s married, Rachel.”
There was a clatter, and wetness, and Rachel realized she’d knocked over her beer with her elbow.
“Oh.”
~
It was very hard, not crying.
They were beautiful.
The children, that is.
Three already, and a fourth on the way.
The boy was a dreamboat. Only four years old, and she could tell. God, that black hair. And his dad’s eyes. Reading already, Kathleen said. Smart as a whip (as a whip), Dude confirmed.
Rachel smiled woodenly at the litany. Birthday parties, family outings somewhere by a lake, a beach, she knew that beach, that was St. Malo, she’d just been there last month, oh God, what if she ran into them?
“-and Sunny’s adopted. They took her in when she was about twenty months old.” Dude chuckled and handed over a picture. It was the little blonde girl, a wicked grin on her face, putting a red bunny (red bunny?) on her fa-Bernard’s chest. The little boy, Anthony, stood by with his arms crossed in the same way a fifty year old might cross his arms after his daughter came home knickerless and disheveled at 2:30 in the morning. And the youngest, Charlotte, chubby toddler legs splayed on the ground as she clutched a crayon worriedly, looked torn between fear and glee.
But the part that killed her, the part that she hadn’t prepared herself for, was the woman in the background, leaning against a doorway, laughing fit to kill at the way her children were clearly preparing to torture her husband.
Her husband.
His wife.
Kathleen had started with the pictures of the children and Bernard alone, she guessed maybe to soften the blow, but…
God. Fuck. Fuck shit fuck.
Kathleen saw the look on her face, because she couldn’t hide it anymore, and straightened her back, looking over at Dude.
“Well.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll just make up the spare room. Dude, why don’t you give me a hand?”
Dude stood, hesitating, then dropped a warm kiss on the crown of Rachel’s head.
They left her with the album. With this other woman, and the wedding pictures they’d skipped over.
Rachel took a deep breath. Closed the album.
And opened it back up, at the beginning, this time.
~
The next morning, her eyes were puffy, but clear.
She had a million questions, and no real way to ask them.
Who was that blond, tweedy fellow who looked so very familiar? And the other man, the one with the good cheekbones and the wolfish grin? Why was that redheaded woman carrying a sword? Where had Bernard got all those scars?
And, worst of all, where was this place, where Bernard was safe from-well. From everything? He wasn’t just tending. He was running the place, and he had a home.
He was settled.
That alone was enough to set her off again in the shower. She stayed there so long that Kathleen knocked on the door twice before she shut the taps off and came out, dripping and shivering in the July heat.
~
Breakfast was less awkward than she’d feared. Thank God for Kathleen Wrangle and her constant, easy chatter.
“-and I told Jimmy that he’d be better off just leaving those goats alone, because best case he’ll get his ass butted and worst case he’ll catch a goddamn disease,” the farmwife snorted, stirring her coffee. “Good thing he’s not into pigs, or he’d have worms already.”
Dude smiled and shot his wife an amused look over the paper. “Reckon he’ll never learn, and the goats don’t pay him any notice. Only person getting hurt is him, Kathleen, just him.” He glanced over to Rachel worriedly. “You think you’ll stay a few days, Half Pint?”
Rachel sighed, her smile watery at the old, familiar nickname. “No. I told Kathleen earlier, when you were out in the field. I’ve got business in Seattle. But thank you.”
It was a lie, and they all knew it. But she couldn’t stay on. It already hurt so much she could hardly sit in this kitchen long enough to finish her eggs.
“Well,” Dude intoned lazily, turning his eyes back to the sports section and pushing his bifocals up his nose, “you let us know how you’re doing.” He and Kathleen shared another odd look. “And if you want to see him sometime, you let us know. You let us know that, too.”
A piece of toast nearly stuck in Rachel’s throat at that, and she sipped her orange juice to push it down. “Thank you. I will.”
Dude nodded, satisfied, then bolted his coffee. “Good. Good.” He stood, taking his plate to the sink. “Think I’ll head out to the barn.” He folded his arms and looked out across the yard at the battered barn door, his gaze a little distant. “You coming, Kathleen? You coming?”
Kathleen blew out a breath and passed a hand over her eyes. “Guess I’d better.” She turned to Rachel. “Your cab’s on the way, right?”
A horn sounded, and Dude walked out to greet the driver. Rachel ran back up to the guest room, grabbing her case, and paused.
The horn sounded again.
She walked over to the nightstand, and the white album resting on it, flipping through the pages quickly till she found it.
It was a picture of Bernard, fast asleep on his now-familiar red couch, a volume of poetry forgotten on his chest, Sunny curled up under it. She couldn’t be more than three.
The picture had caught her eye, last night. It was so lifelike; the red of his hair, the blonde of hers, curling against the black of his jumper, her sweet pink dress candy-bright. If she squinted, she could almost see the tiny movements as they breathed.
Any moment, they’d wake, and smile at the photographer, and those smiles would be bright and shining and full of love, because she knew exactly who the photographer must have been.
She took a breath, and removed the picture from the album, slipping it into her pocket.
Maybe she’d see him again. Meet his wife. His children.
But she didn’t think so.
She knew what had happened to him, all the important things anyway.
She’d found what she was looking for.
~
Rachel clattered down the stairs and out the door, waving to Dude and hugging Kathleen till they both nearly lost their breath, and if the way the barn door opened seemed a little odd, well, trick of the light.
And then she was on her way, and she pulled the picture out of her pocket, just looking, can’t look away, and oh. Huh.
Wasn’t his hand by his side, before? Had Sunny been sucking her thumb, when she looked in the bedroom?
She shook her head, and put it away.
Trick of the light.
Fin.
Author: muffinbutt
Words: 2,327
Rating: PG
Fandom: Debatable
Summary: Rachel Broxton goes looking, and gets exactly what she doesn't want.
Author's Note: A belated birthday present for indy_go.
She never stopped looking for him.
Not literally, of course. She knew where he was; it was all over the papers when he popped up, and when he got caught, finally…
Well. She knew where to find him. Seattle was a plane ride or two away.
But she didn’t get on that plane, no matter how many times she found herself calculating vacation time, flight costs.
Being a barrister was weird, after that few years out in the woods, but she did well, she thought. Not many women were barristers, but at least in London there were a few. She didn’t feel so alone, then. It didn’t help that men were rather intimidated by her, asking her what she did for a living and expecting her to say she worked in a secretarial pool, or a shop.
It was difficult, trying to find a peer, when one knew exactly who and where one’s peer really was.
Her match, she never quite dared think.
She missed his easy smile, his mouth on her neck, the freckles on the backs of his hands. She never, ever expected to miss the beans, the cold of the Montana winter.
The outlaw lifestyle, as silly as that sounded.
For the most part, she remembered it with a sort of fond exasperation, because for every frostbitten fingertip, there had been a soft mouth to warm it up; for every narrow escape, there’d been a stealthy visit to Walla Walla.
For every bit of pain, there’d been pleasure. Until the pain had outweighed it all, because she’d wanted to go home and, more than that, she’d wanted him with her when she left.
And in the end, he just couldn’t. Couldn’t go with her, couldn’t leave the life he’d chosen.
Couldn’t choose her over everything else. Because he was so invested in choice, and exercising one’s choice. They both chose other things in the end.
But she never stopped looking. And all the redheaded nine-to-fivers in greater London couldn’t erase the memory of just his smile.
~
“Paging passenger Rachel Broxton. Passenger Rachel Broxton, please report to Terminal 4 for immediate departure.”
Swearing and stumbling over her heels and suitcase, Rachel slipped into the shuttle just as the doors closed.
She was going to miss her flight. She was going to miss it, and then she wouldn’t have the nerve to book another.
Sidling towards an empty seat, she pulled a small sheaf of newspaper clippings out of her pocket and paged through it for what seemed like the twentieth time.
Infamous Woodpecker Blows Up Own Cell, Escapes.
Bernard Mickey Wrangle at large: What will he blast next?
Wrangle, Woodpecker, Still Silent: Has the bomber finally given up the revolutionary life?
The Woodpecker and the politics of explosives: The effect of the bomb on our postmodern ennui, and why we just don’t care anymore.
It didn’t make any sense. It had been years. He’d never gone so long without so much as a peep.
It scared her.
The shuttle stopped, and the tweedy, blond fellow next to her jostled her shoulder. “Oh! Terribly sorry, my dear.” Rachel smiled tiredly, and stood, suitcase in hand.
“Okay. Ready or not,” she muttered under her breath, and ran to catch her waiting flight to Seattle.
~
The ranch looked the same. It was bizarre. Same beat-up barn, same weathered, whitewashed house.
Rachel eyed the plain-looking sedans parked on the gravel road that edged the property as she got out of the taxi. Still here, even after all this time.
She was surprised they hadn’t stopped her on the driveway.
Her musings were interrupted by the slam of the screen door, and she turned, smiling nervously.
Kathleen Wrangle was standing on her front porch, blinking rapidly, a dripping washcloth in hand. “Well. Shit the bed.” And then she was beaming and running towards the cab, shouting back towards the house. “Dude? Dude! Get your redundant ass out here! We have company!” She stopped in front of Rachel, her smiling mouth a little tremulous. “Well. Never expected to see you again, sweetheart.”
Rachel shifted from foot to foot, almost shy. “I’m sorry, I-Should have called, I suppose.” But then the screen door swung open again, and oh. “Hallo, Dude.”
Dude Wrangle shuffled out onto the porch. “Well, I’ll be. I’ll be.” He walked over to stand beside his wife and pushed his hat back on his lined forehead. “What’s the matter, girl? What’s the matter? Woodpecker got your tongue?”
And she must have been tired from the trip, that’s all, because at that, Rachel burst into tears. Dude hustled her inside while Kathleen paid the poor, confused driver, and all she could think as she stepped into the living room that was filled with pictures and knick-knacks and homey, worn furniture was, I wish.
~
She waited all afternoon, and through dinner. Laughing with them about everything but him over awful American pisswater beer.
Finally, Kathleen thumped her Coors Light onto the table. “Cut the shit, Rachel.”
Rachel blinked. “Pardon?” Her stomach was suddenly acidic. She couldn’t quite look at Kathleen or Dude, so she focused her gaze on the whorls and knots of the oak kitchen table.
Dude’s hand covered hers where it picked at a scuff. Probably Bernard’s doing, twenty years past. “Didn’t come here to drink weak beer and sample my wife’s fine cooking, and that’s a fact. That’s a fact.”
Rachel’s mouth twisted in a weak imitation of a wry smile. “No.” A breath. Into the breach. “Have you heard from him lately?” Christ, that table was fascinating.
There was a silence, and she looked up. Dude and Kathleen were looking at each other, and she couldn’t quite-It was odd, that look. She didn’t know what they were thinking, and she’d always thought they were fairly transparent, fairly simple.
Maybe she’d got that wrong, too.
Kathleen gave Dude one short nod, and the farmer stood, his chair scraping back, and walked out of the room, silent. Rachel watched him go, perplexed. “Kathleen?” She glanced over, and got more confused.
Kathleen was looking at her with something warm, something not too far from pity, and it made her sick to see it.
“Is he--” she started, assuming the worst but unable to even articulate it.
The older woman rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue, taking a long swig of beer. “Oh, always the drama queen. He’s fine. Better than fine.”
“Oh.” Rachel shifted, uncomfortable, and pushed a lock of long brown hair behind her ear. “Then why were you looking at me like that?”
A cocked eyebrow. “Like what?” There was a sound of shuffling from the living room, and Kathleen sighed. “Dude, you best get the right ones. They’re in that white album, under your goddamn Conan Doyle novels.” She rolled her eyes again. “God. I hate Tarzan.”
“Yes, it’s incredibly racist,” Rachel replied automatically. “Um. What’s he getting?”
Kathleen turned back to her and put a hand over hers, squeezing gently. “Pictures.” She sighed and smiled ruefully. “There isn’t really any good way to tell you this. He’s married, Rachel.”
There was a clatter, and wetness, and Rachel realized she’d knocked over her beer with her elbow.
“Oh.”
~
It was very hard, not crying.
They were beautiful.
The children, that is.
Three already, and a fourth on the way.
The boy was a dreamboat. Only four years old, and she could tell. God, that black hair. And his dad’s eyes. Reading already, Kathleen said. Smart as a whip (as a whip), Dude confirmed.
Rachel smiled woodenly at the litany. Birthday parties, family outings somewhere by a lake, a beach, she knew that beach, that was St. Malo, she’d just been there last month, oh God, what if she ran into them?
“-and Sunny’s adopted. They took her in when she was about twenty months old.” Dude chuckled and handed over a picture. It was the little blonde girl, a wicked grin on her face, putting a red bunny (red bunny?) on her fa-Bernard’s chest. The little boy, Anthony, stood by with his arms crossed in the same way a fifty year old might cross his arms after his daughter came home knickerless and disheveled at 2:30 in the morning. And the youngest, Charlotte, chubby toddler legs splayed on the ground as she clutched a crayon worriedly, looked torn between fear and glee.
But the part that killed her, the part that she hadn’t prepared herself for, was the woman in the background, leaning against a doorway, laughing fit to kill at the way her children were clearly preparing to torture her husband.
Her husband.
His wife.
Kathleen had started with the pictures of the children and Bernard alone, she guessed maybe to soften the blow, but…
God. Fuck. Fuck shit fuck.
Kathleen saw the look on her face, because she couldn’t hide it anymore, and straightened her back, looking over at Dude.
“Well.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll just make up the spare room. Dude, why don’t you give me a hand?”
Dude stood, hesitating, then dropped a warm kiss on the crown of Rachel’s head.
They left her with the album. With this other woman, and the wedding pictures they’d skipped over.
Rachel took a deep breath. Closed the album.
And opened it back up, at the beginning, this time.
~
The next morning, her eyes were puffy, but clear.
She had a million questions, and no real way to ask them.
Who was that blond, tweedy fellow who looked so very familiar? And the other man, the one with the good cheekbones and the wolfish grin? Why was that redheaded woman carrying a sword? Where had Bernard got all those scars?
And, worst of all, where was this place, where Bernard was safe from-well. From everything? He wasn’t just tending. He was running the place, and he had a home.
He was settled.
That alone was enough to set her off again in the shower. She stayed there so long that Kathleen knocked on the door twice before she shut the taps off and came out, dripping and shivering in the July heat.
~
Breakfast was less awkward than she’d feared. Thank God for Kathleen Wrangle and her constant, easy chatter.
“-and I told Jimmy that he’d be better off just leaving those goats alone, because best case he’ll get his ass butted and worst case he’ll catch a goddamn disease,” the farmwife snorted, stirring her coffee. “Good thing he’s not into pigs, or he’d have worms already.”
Dude smiled and shot his wife an amused look over the paper. “Reckon he’ll never learn, and the goats don’t pay him any notice. Only person getting hurt is him, Kathleen, just him.” He glanced over to Rachel worriedly. “You think you’ll stay a few days, Half Pint?”
Rachel sighed, her smile watery at the old, familiar nickname. “No. I told Kathleen earlier, when you were out in the field. I’ve got business in Seattle. But thank you.”
It was a lie, and they all knew it. But she couldn’t stay on. It already hurt so much she could hardly sit in this kitchen long enough to finish her eggs.
“Well,” Dude intoned lazily, turning his eyes back to the sports section and pushing his bifocals up his nose, “you let us know how you’re doing.” He and Kathleen shared another odd look. “And if you want to see him sometime, you let us know. You let us know that, too.”
A piece of toast nearly stuck in Rachel’s throat at that, and she sipped her orange juice to push it down. “Thank you. I will.”
Dude nodded, satisfied, then bolted his coffee. “Good. Good.” He stood, taking his plate to the sink. “Think I’ll head out to the barn.” He folded his arms and looked out across the yard at the battered barn door, his gaze a little distant. “You coming, Kathleen? You coming?”
Kathleen blew out a breath and passed a hand over her eyes. “Guess I’d better.” She turned to Rachel. “Your cab’s on the way, right?”
A horn sounded, and Dude walked out to greet the driver. Rachel ran back up to the guest room, grabbing her case, and paused.
The horn sounded again.
She walked over to the nightstand, and the white album resting on it, flipping through the pages quickly till she found it.
It was a picture of Bernard, fast asleep on his now-familiar red couch, a volume of poetry forgotten on his chest, Sunny curled up under it. She couldn’t be more than three.
The picture had caught her eye, last night. It was so lifelike; the red of his hair, the blonde of hers, curling against the black of his jumper, her sweet pink dress candy-bright. If she squinted, she could almost see the tiny movements as they breathed.
Any moment, they’d wake, and smile at the photographer, and those smiles would be bright and shining and full of love, because she knew exactly who the photographer must have been.
She took a breath, and removed the picture from the album, slipping it into her pocket.
Maybe she’d see him again. Meet his wife. His children.
But she didn’t think so.
She knew what had happened to him, all the important things anyway.
She’d found what she was looking for.
~
Rachel clattered down the stairs and out the door, waving to Dude and hugging Kathleen till they both nearly lost their breath, and if the way the barn door opened seemed a little odd, well, trick of the light.
And then she was on her way, and she pulled the picture out of her pocket, just looking, can’t look away, and oh. Huh.
Wasn’t his hand by his side, before? Had Sunny been sucking her thumb, when she looked in the bedroom?
She shook her head, and put it away.
Trick of the light.
Fin.