Together (1/?)
A/N - I haven't watched the ep yet. I doubt I ever will. I still haven't watched the last three episodes of the third season of The L Word - and since from all accounts this is much more horrific - chances are I'll never be able to watch it. For two days I've been trying to forget and move on. It's only a TV show, right? But everywhere I go I run into wedding dresses, Spanish cookbooks, Pepsi signs, the word "Madrid" above the entrance to a restaurant, a sign in English and Spanish for the Baby and Child (Bebés y Niños) section of the CVS, and bridal magazines on waiting room coffee tables. I'm going insane. So here's an attempt to get it out of my system. It's not fluff and it's not soothing balm. But it is meant to heal. I may continue it, or I may not.
Pepa was only dimly aware of what was going on around her. Realization would come in short bursts - bits and pieces of the story unfolding around her, viewed from another’s eyes. Like watching a television show though blinds being opened and closed by a four year old. She recalled moments of the ambulance ride, clutching Silvia’s hand. Her cold, clammy hand. Being pushed away as the paramedics shocked her. And shocked her. And shocked her. Her beautiful wife’s body seizing and arching with the electricity as Pepa sat curled in a corner, her silent screams echoing inside her own head.
She recalled when the steady blips on the machine finally started again. She recalled the swoop of overwhelming hope and joy in her chest as she clutched at Silvia’s cold, clammy hand once more. The chilled sweat and blood didn’t matter now, because the hand was alive. Silvia was alive! Silvia. Was. Alive.
The silent mantra (Alive, Alive, Alive, Alive) continued the rest of the way to the hospital. Her hand intertwined with Silvia’s, her eyes never leaving the beautiful face - the image, as if surrounded by a halo - clear and bright despite the dim lighting and the eyes that never stopped leaking hot tears.
After being pulled from the ambulance to the waiting room of the hospital by Paco…. She must have blacked out. She recalled nothing. And now she was at Paco’s home, Don Lorenzo’s home, sitting on a couch still in her wedding dress. And the two men on this earth she was closest too, sat staring back at her.
She couldn’t speak. And they showed no inclination to speak to her.
Why was she here? Why not back at the hospital? At her wife’s side. Her beautiful pelirroja… with the gaping stomach wound. The blood staining her white wedding dress. The blood gushing inside the stomach cavity. Warm, pulsing, beating organs straining. And her hands inside…
She looked at her hands. Layers of dried brown blood flaking off. Drifting to the floor. Her new wedding band and her beautiful engagement ring, brown as well. She gently rested her left hand against her flat stomach (Here. Here Silvia was shot).
It must have been hours since she was at the hospital. She looked to the window. No sign of light at all.
She knew Silvia must be gone. If her wife was alive, Pepa would be at the hospital. Don Lorenzo would be at the hospital. Paco would be at the hospital. All three of them were here. Silvia was dead.
She clutched at her stomach with both hands, now. Her heart beat faster. Her vision swam. Silvia was dead. Her brain kept repeating the message. But her heart refused to listen. Silvia didn’t feel dead. Pepa’s own heart continued to beat. She could feel the blood pounding through her veins. She knew Silvia was gone……. but she also knew Silvia was alive. It made no sense, these conflicting messages between her heart and her mind.
The only thing they seemed to agree on was the knowledge that when Silvia’s heart stopped beating, Pepa’s would too.
Secure in that knowledge, in that certainty, Pepa got up and made her way to the small bathroom (our bathroom - a voice that sounded like Silvia reminded her). She needed to wash up and change. Needed to get her head together. Maybe even needed a few hours of sleep (in our bed). Then she would find her wife.
Don Lorenzo and Paco scrambled up behind her. Pepa heard the commissioner give whispered orders to her brother. Something about lock-boxes and guns and pills and knives. But she couldn’t care less. She would need none of those things. Not to find her wife. Not ever again.
And when she found her? Then they would heal. Together. And celebrate the beginning of the rest of their lives. Together. And she would tell her princess, the love of her life, the good news. The surprise. Tell her about the baby they had made. That they had made together.