The Weight Of Water
The Weight Of Water
Chapter Four
Word Count: 3300
Rating: Implied George/Alex and some swearing.
Story Summary: The aftermath of the ferry disaster. George and Alex in the morgue taking pictures, the rest is completely AU as Alex must cope with personal tragedy and the emotional fall out of the crash.
Chapter Summary: Alex’s POV.
A/N: This chapter is a lot different from the previous three but it was that way for a reason. Please let me know if you thought it worked because it was harder to write but more satisfying at the same time.
Also, this is possibly the last chapter because I just read through it again and I think the ending works quite well but please let me know if you agree/disagree/don’t care either way…
xxxx
Well, the marshmallows were back, as white and as fluffy and as vanillery as they were before only…harsher now, not as comfortable. Alex couldn’t help but think the re-emergence of the marshmallows was a bad thing. His eyes fluttered open momentarily and were instantly assaulted by the sterile fluorescent light above his head; it leeched into his brain and made his heart hammer into his bones.
A groan suddenly, loud and reverberating.
Where the hell did that come from?
His throat was sore…oh, him. Shit.
‘Alex, can you hear me?’
‘No.’
He felt his lips curl into a half smile that pulled at his dry skin. It felt like he was sitting on a roof somewhere (maybe in eastern Europe, he’d always wanted to go there, maybe find his Nan, maybe she was nothing like his Dad…) looking down at an empty human shell that looked freakishly like him but was also a complete stranger.
‘Can you hear me?’
His rooftop sitting self yelled the words at the top of his lungs, feeling the sounds as they bounced and echoed and chimed their way down to the cobblestones below and up to the spire above his head. Can you hear me? There were people on the street below, rugged up and hurrying, leaning into the fierce wind that seemed to evaporate before it reached him, reclining shirt-less and sun drenched on the moss covered shingles.
He felt his ribs shake, like he was laughing maybe but he couldn’t hear the telltale sounds of mirth. Maybe it was one of those soundless laughs that some people had, where their whole body would shake and tears would creep down their cheeks and their faces would turn red and purple and lilac but no sound came out. He hated those laughs they freaked him out. It seemed to defy all logic for a laugh to be silent.
He groaned again and tried to roll over to stop the rib shaking. He didn’t want to be a silent laugher.
‘Alex, you need to keep still...’
‘We’re looking at your hand…’
‘Radiology’s waiting…’
‘There’s buzzards on the front lawn, they want to know where to park the Tarago…’
‘What?’
He was still on the roof but he wasn’t in Europe any more, it felt more open, desert-like…Africa? Australia? (Yeah, boxing kangaroos and strange ball sports and surfing). There were ripples in the sand like a wind he couldn’t feel had spent hours crafting them into existence. The body was still below him though. He saw the creature’s brow crease into a confused frown, like it didn’t know where it was…how could it not know.
Everybody knows where they are.
Don’t they?
‘Alex?’
Ohh, now there was trouble.
‘George?’
The rooftop disappeared, the creature below him shrivelling into a twisted pile of rubble before vaporising in a dust cloud, hazing his vision. The rib shaking continued but he could tell it wasn’t laughter because everything hurt and nothing that was funny really hurt that much…this much.
‘Can we get some heated blankets in here, temps still around 36…’
Ah…so he was cold.
Not amused.
Made sense.
Kind of.
‘Is he awake?’
‘I think so but he’s really out of it…’
‘We’ve got an OR booked and Dr. Chiu’s on his way over from Mercy, Torres and Sloan will be assisting…’
‘It’s an absolute mess…’
At least the buzzards were gone.
Something warm was draped over him then, hot and heavy and pleasingly suffocating. It slowed the rib shaking but didn’t make it go away completely. Alex was beginning to wonder if it would ever go away but he didn’t mind because now he knew it wasn’t freaky silent laughing he thought he could probably live with it.
Or die with it.
Whatever.
‘Are we ready for transport?’
‘I’ve phoned Radiology, they know we’re about ready…’
‘What are his vitals?’
‘Should we push some more sedative or wait and see how quick they need to anaesthetise?’
Sedate? Anaesthetise? What? Shit.
‘No.’
Good, that was stronger than he’d hoped for which considering how he really felt was more than he should expect.
‘No more.’
Should he be polite? Would it help his cause? His mother always told him to mind his manners…his mother…Ha.
‘Please?’
‘Okay Alex, we’ll hold off for as long as we can. We’re just going to take you…’
(Yeah, whatever…)
The marshmallows were beginning to drift apart, to separate down the centre. He told himself not to open his eyes no matter what but in the next instant he was staring at the top of someone’s fuzzy head so he figured that stern talking to didn’t turn out quite as he’d planned. Couldn’t even obey his own orders. No wonder his mother (there she was again) couldn’t wait to be rid of him. No wonder his father…well…
The parting of the marshmallows was beginning to speed up, like someone had hit fast forward (hell, did people even say that any more? Wasn’t it all digital and skip and high definition?) and a movie of clouds was shape shifting and disappearing and reappearing and raining in double time across his retinas.
It wasn’t until the very last marshmallow was slowly ebbing from his vision that someone set fire to his hand.
Deliberately and calculatingly.
The fire started in his fingertips and doubled and tripled and quadrupled (and if he knew what the word was for saying multiplied by one hundred then…that too). Until all the sound that was in him built up and pushed at the surface, until liquid circumnavigated his eye balls and escaped through his clenched lids, until he felt his back arch off the mattress, sweat gathering between his shoulder blades and soaking the sheets.
He tried to move his hand away from the source of the flames but felt strong fingers latch around his bicep, while someone (something?) pressed down on his chest.
‘Alex, lay still…’
‘We’ll get you some pain meds…’
‘Alex, relax and breathe…’
‘Nice and deep and slow…’
Something cool and firm was secured tightly over his nose and mouth and suddenly breathing was no longer painful it was damn impossible.
So now they were suffocating him too.
Great.
And then suddenly the marshmallows were back, only this time they were raspberry and hot pink and sticking to his fingers and the scorching Australian sand was sliding between his toes as the hunched eastern Europeans hurried past bent into the prevailing headwind.
Wait, that can’t be right.
But it was.
And then it wasn’t.
xxxx
The next time he woke up there were no marshmallows for cushioning, no rooftops to keep him hidden from view, no sand to sink into, no Mum, no Nan, no Dad. For the first time in a long time there was just him and not for the first time, for the tenth time, the hundredth time, the millionth time he felt totally and utterly terrified of himself, in himself...for himself.
‘Alex?’
And then there was George and even though Alex had yet to open his eyes, he could feel hands on his forehead and breath on his face and he was so certain it was George he could almost taste him. In that moment Alex knew that as soon as he opened his eyes everything was going to be different. The world was going to tilt, almost imperceptibly, on its axis but it was going to rock his foundations. Walls that had taken him years to painstakingly construct would crumble (and weren’t those profound realisations for someone still half anaesthetised and doped out to be having but he guessed he should be grateful the buzzards hadn’t returned because for all he had forgotten, the memory of the buzzards remained). He kept his eyes locked shut for another three seconds; he even counted them out inside his head to preserve the moment for that precious extra few beats.
Extra beats where he could pretend it was normal to see your dead sister’s face on complete strangers. Where it was normal to taste blood in chocolate milkshakes and beer. Normal to vomit up everything you ate and to use the tools of your trade (his hands) to shatter solid surfaces that reflect your own image simply because your degree of hate for yourself is stronger than anything else, love included, you have ever experienced.
Or received.
‘George?’
His voiced wavered pathetically and the end of the word was cut off slightly as the sound echoed painfully in his ears, mocking him.
It had started already.
He opened his eyes.
There was dust at his feet.
‘Alex can you hear me?’
He could and he wanted to say yes. He wanted to scream it from those damn rooftops but his voice (had he ever had one?) was stuck in his throat. He felt mute and lost and he could tell he was crying because his face was on fire and the tears were those annoying ones that tickle as they run past your nose and drip off the edge of your jaw line.
The ones you want to wipe away viciously with a swipe of your hand but you never do because they always come at a time when even lifting a hand to your own face feels like a move you would need to sleep for a week to gather the energy for.
And then George did it for him and the annoying tickle was gone and there was nothing about to drip off the edge of his jaw line (well not until the next tear arrived anyway).
‘Oh Alex? What happened?’
Well, first I was being an inconsiderate asshole in the morgue where my dead sister and her unborn child were stuck in a thick plastic body bag. Then I desecrated her memory by traipsing around the hallways with her like some kind of martyr. Then my mother said she hated me (or did that happen first?). Then you looked at me like I was something you could break, like I wasn’t something that did the breaking any more, like I was broken already. Then I smashed a mirror (seven years…just add it to the list).
Well, first I beat the shit outta my Dad and he screamed that he wished my Mum had aborted me like he told her to, like she had wanted to and then he left and he never came back and she never contradicted what he said even though she was right there in the room when he said it.
Well, first my dad beat the shit outta me. More times than I can remember. More times than I can forget.
Well first…I was born.
‘I don’t know.’
But he did.
He just didn’t want to.
George’s brown liquid eyes were melting his resolve and his quivering lower lip would have undone Alex if he wasn’t already completely unzipped and unbuttoned and untied. His arm was pulsating pain from his fingertips to the top of his head and even though it was making his teeth clench so tight he thought any minute he going was to break his own jaw, he also knew the pain was a good thing because the alternative was numbness.
Numbness in his head, in his heart would be a welcome relief but numbness in his hand, well if he ever gets through this he might just need that hand again for something important.
Because even if he wasn’t important, maybe his hand could be.
And maybe that would be enough.
Maybe.
‘Do you want me to get you something for your hand?’
So George was worried about his jaw too? Well that was something new. Alex didn’t think he could recall a time someone actually worried about him, he couldn’t even remember worrying about himself. It had always seemed kind of redundant to do that, to worry about something that no one else even realised existed. It was much easier to not care and he thinks that’s probably why he chose that option, it was easier and easier meant not hard which was good because hard things he had a tendency to fuck up.
Like his boards, like his college friendships, like drawing circles in kindergarten and speaking in front of his whole class in year six when the night before he’d received a black eye and bruised ribs as a birthday present.
Like being a good big brother.
Like being a good son.
‘I’m okay…’
‘Are you sure because they haven’t given you anything yet, they wanted to wait until you woke up
Was he awake? Alex wasn’t really sure yet. He thought maybe he was getting close to something resembling awake but if this, how he felt at this exact moment, was awake then he thought maybe he should just go back to sleep again because asleep was so much easier (and he always did like the easy option).
‘Alex?’
He opened his eyes, startled momentarily for two reasons. Firstly he’d forgotten George was there which was strange in itself because George’s short white fingers were interlaced with his own darker, longer ones and were gently scraping back and forth across his knuckles in a way he guessed George probably thought was comforting (and maybe it was…for George) and secondly, he didn’t even realise he’d fallen asleep.
That’s how easy it must be.
‘Are you okay? Do you want me…’
…to stop scraping your fingers across my knuckles? Yes.
…to stop looking at me like I’m made of porcelain and fine bone china and cotton candy and about to shatter in your arms? Yes.
…to cover my face with a pillow and hold it down until I stop struggling and screaming because they will only be reflex and not an indication of what I really want? Yes.
… to forget about me? Yes (everyone does eventually, you may as well do it now).
‘I’m fine George, don’t worry about me…’
Alex shifted slightly under the covers, deliberately making it uncomfortable for George to keep his grip on his fingers and without that anchoring pressure Alex felt himself begin to float away again and keeping his eyes open became a desperate struggle which he could feel himself losing.
‘Why don’t you get some sleep? There are a few people that want to talk to you but I’ll tell them you’re asleep…’
‘Who? What do they want? What did I do?’
‘Relax Alex, it’s okay. Just Dr. Bailey and maybe the chief, plus the surgeon from Mercy who operated on your hand wants to have a look at it and…’
But wasn’t okay because they would want answers and they would want to know how and how come and for how long. Alex could handle George because George was a puppy dog and Alex could simply ignore him and George would know, instinctively, that he needed to shut up. But these people, they would press and push and pry until everything was gone and usually, maybe, Alex could fight that. Fight with a smirk and a wave and a shrug of the shoulders (especially if they were girls). But he was completely out of fight. He had left it all on that cold bathroom floor and it had drained away with his blood in a swirl of blue water and red life and black strength.
‘No. I don’t want them in here. Don’t let them come in.’
(Alex, where are your manners?)
‘Please George, please don’t let them in.’
But it was too late because there they were and all Alex could do was pray his heart stopped beating, or his lungs stopped expanding, or his brain died.
Or buzzards appeared on the lawn.
‘Alex? Dr. Chiu just wants to have a look at your hand then we’ll get you some pain meds and…’
Dr. Bailey was the worst because he’d had to try so hard with her. Right from the beginning. To get her to like him, to understand him, to help him, to leave him alone and to not ask questions. He could tell they were all staring at him, and the way she spoke to him, slow and overly articulate. Like suddenly (suddenly?) he was stupid.
But he couldn’t even look at them. Not that he wanted to, but even if he did. His eyes were stuck. Open and unblinking and…
Oh no. That can’t be right.
Because other people could see and he never, ever let anyone else see.
(Except George)
But there they were. Tickling the side of his nose and dripping of the edge of his jaw line and because he hadn’t slept at all for a month, let alone solidly for a week, his hand stayed limp and unmoving by his side and refused to wipe them away.
‘Dr. Bailey? Can we uh…maybe…just have a minute?’
And then they were gone and Alex could have kissed George but George was too far away and pacing and not looking at Alex.
But at least the tears had stopped.
He hoped.
‘George?’
That got his attention. George stopped pacing and spun to face Alex. His own eyes wide and unblinking and bright with unshed tears which Alex just knew instinctively were his fault (because everything was). And suddenly all Alex could think about was letting George swallow him up. He wanted to climb into George’s skin with him and to live in there because it looked so much warmer and so much more inviting than his own skin had ever been.
‘George…please?’
‘What Alex? Tell me what’s going on because I don’t know what to say and I just…’
‘Please don’t cry George. Please don’t cry because of me.’
The because I’m not worth it was implied.
But it was there.
On the tip of his tongue.
‘Alex, please tell me what’s wrong…’
Everything.
Nothing.
Maybe.
Probably.
‘I don’t know.’
And he was sobbing now. The tears were beyond tickling because they didn’t stop enough to start again and they didn’t drip any more. They curled under his chin and crept down his neck to soak the hospital gown he’d been draped in. Like they were now a part of him and couldn’t be separated.
And he was sobbing now.
Because he did know.
Because there were wires coming out the end of his fingers and his wrist was in traction and he didn’t even know if he cared any more.
Because he was meant to be an uncle and now he never would be and he’d already bought presents that were in a box in his closet and now he couldn’t even bring himself to open his closet door even though he’d sealed the box up with a whole roll of packing tape and shoved it right to the back under an old blanket he’d found in there when he’d moved in.
Because recently he’d decided he wanted to be a neonatal surgeon and now the very thought of a pregnant woman made him want to scream, or vomit, or punch something and sometimes he did all three when no one was looking.
Because the last time he’d broken bones in this arm was when he’d punched his Dad and the time before that was when his Dad had thrown him down the back stairs and the time before that…
Because he loved his sister but he’d never once told her.
Because he wanted his Mum to love him but she’d never once said that she did.
Because he told his Dad he hated him.
Because his Dad said he hated him back.
Because they both meant it.
Because neither of them meant it.
Because it was too late.
And he was sobbing now.
Because he loved George.
Because he knew he’d never say it to his face.
Because if George didn’t say it back then he’d slit his wrists (metaphorically and literally).
‘Alex, I love you…I want to…’
And then George said it first.
TBC?
…’