Alive (Simon, G) for Challenge 143, 'voices'
Title: Alive
Author: Jen (jazzfic)
Rating: G
Prompt: Voices, for Challenge 143
Character: Simon
Words: 538
Disclaimer: Property of Joss.
Summary: Simon has always tried to do what's right.
Late at night, when the stream of admissions into surgery dropped enough to leave the corridors empty, and the cries and echoes that little bit more distant, he would hear his father's voice in the silence, and wonder if it was disloyalty or simply fact, that he almost hated it for being there.
You, Simon, are the smartest boy I know. Don't ever lose sight of your talent. He'd said it so often that it had become a sound bite, a loop stuck in Simon's head. The voice was there when he took the scalpel to hand; it was in the constant beep of the cardiac monitors; the shouts and confusion of the ER, and the rush of fierce adrenaline that came when he put his hands into a man's chest, electrocuted and returned life where before it would only have killed. And for a time Simon was thankful, when he was still that boy who loved his father and knew no other life but this.
It lasted only a year.
At first, when River was away, things were quiet, and full of hope. He read her letters with a wry smile and didn't think of the hospital, until something made him look again, and his father's words disappeared at last.
If Simon had hated the old voice, this one he truly feared. Because he could no longer hear it. It was as if his sister was crying and all that reached his ears was a ragged scratch of code to paper.
He started replacing one burden with another. His father's expectations became his own fears for his sister. His father's pride became his determination to unveil the truth. Don't ever lose sight of your talent turned defiantly into I won't ever forget her again. And her voice became a loop like his father's had been, but where once he had pushed it aside, now it drove him to act: Simon, they're hurting me. Simon, I hear them, they won't go away. Simon, I'm trapped.
Simon, Simon, Simon.
When it became too much he ignored his body and let it wash over him, like he might have once pushed through a twenty-hour shift at the hospital, knowing there had to be something at the end to acknowledge it all. He didn't sleep. One day he made the mistake of explaining it all to his father, only to have River's pleas crushed by Gabriel Tam's disappointment.
Pride. He heard it again in his father's voice, and as he turned his back on the older man and walked away to start the process of freeing her, he was finally able to open his mouth and answer them both.
To confront the first voice was hard, but he bullied himself with a resolve he hadn't believed was in him, until now. I won't ever lose sight, father, Simon thought.
But to the second he pulled his coat tight against the wind, tried his best to not think of the hospital and the life he was leaving, and let the words out loud into the cold, dark night.
"River, I'm coming..."
After that, there was only one voice Simon listened to. The one that told him they were both still alive.
Author: Jen (jazzfic)
Rating: G
Prompt: Voices, for Challenge 143
Character: Simon
Words: 538
Disclaimer: Property of Joss.
Summary: Simon has always tried to do what's right.
Late at night, when the stream of admissions into surgery dropped enough to leave the corridors empty, and the cries and echoes that little bit more distant, he would hear his father's voice in the silence, and wonder if it was disloyalty or simply fact, that he almost hated it for being there.
You, Simon, are the smartest boy I know. Don't ever lose sight of your talent. He'd said it so often that it had become a sound bite, a loop stuck in Simon's head. The voice was there when he took the scalpel to hand; it was in the constant beep of the cardiac monitors; the shouts and confusion of the ER, and the rush of fierce adrenaline that came when he put his hands into a man's chest, electrocuted and returned life where before it would only have killed. And for a time Simon was thankful, when he was still that boy who loved his father and knew no other life but this.
It lasted only a year.
At first, when River was away, things were quiet, and full of hope. He read her letters with a wry smile and didn't think of the hospital, until something made him look again, and his father's words disappeared at last.
If Simon had hated the old voice, this one he truly feared. Because he could no longer hear it. It was as if his sister was crying and all that reached his ears was a ragged scratch of code to paper.
He started replacing one burden with another. His father's expectations became his own fears for his sister. His father's pride became his determination to unveil the truth. Don't ever lose sight of your talent turned defiantly into I won't ever forget her again. And her voice became a loop like his father's had been, but where once he had pushed it aside, now it drove him to act: Simon, they're hurting me. Simon, I hear them, they won't go away. Simon, I'm trapped.
Simon, Simon, Simon.
When it became too much he ignored his body and let it wash over him, like he might have once pushed through a twenty-hour shift at the hospital, knowing there had to be something at the end to acknowledge it all. He didn't sleep. One day he made the mistake of explaining it all to his father, only to have River's pleas crushed by Gabriel Tam's disappointment.
Pride. He heard it again in his father's voice, and as he turned his back on the older man and walked away to start the process of freeing her, he was finally able to open his mouth and answer them both.
To confront the first voice was hard, but he bullied himself with a resolve he hadn't believed was in him, until now. I won't ever lose sight, father, Simon thought.
But to the second he pulled his coat tight against the wind, tried his best to not think of the hospital and the life he was leaving, and let the words out loud into the cold, dark night.
"River, I'm coming..."
After that, there was only one voice Simon listened to. The one that told him they were both still alive.