128 Crashed

[sylnl]

Word Soap: As The World Keeps Turning
Author: SYLnl
Title:  #128 Crashed
Rating: PG
Summary:  “There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” - Aeschylus
Big Thanks To: ltklo, for brushing up my grammar

Previously on As The World Keeps Turning: click here for chapters 1 - 127

“No…” Luke watched, but his brain simply refused to register. This simply could not be his reality. He saw the flight number. For some reason he had memorized it. He knew this was the plane. But it couldn’t be on the ground like this. Shattered. It couldn’t be burning like this. It couldn’t be. Reid couldn’t be…

With his arm still around Luke’s shoulder, Will started to fill him in. Again, Luke heard the words, but his brain wouldn’t make any sense of it. Snowstorm? Ice? He didn’t care. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. So he said the one thing he could say.

“No.”

Katie sat next to him too now. Crying. Taking Luke’s hand into hers. Pressing it. Caressing it.

“I can’t believe it either.”

“It can’t be…” Luke looked at her, his eyes filled with horror and pain. He let himself be pulled into her arms and he cried. Not Reid. Not his Reid.

“Rescue teams are already on the scene, but so far no survivors have been found…” the reporter stated in an impersonal tone. Didn’t she realize she was talking to human beings? About human beings? And to the human beings that now had to live on without those other human beings?

Luke felt a rage burning in his chest. Where was the justice? Why did those people have to die? Why Reid?

“Did you talk to him this morning?” Will asked, trying to get Luke’s brain working and prevent shock.

Luke shook his head. “He texted. His flight number…” Luke buried his head in his hands. “That flight number. Oh God, this can’t be real. This must be a nightmare. I’ve had those before. With a train.” His heart jumped. That was it. It was a nightmare. He missed Reid so much, he developed this terrible dream. So he pinched himself. Hard. It made him bite his lip, but he didn’t wake up. He was still on the couch, sandwiched by Will and Katie, immersed in grief.

His eyes were glued to the screen. He saw people in an airport area. O’Hare. Tears. Devastation. Luke watched it without feeling it.

“This is not happening,” he repeated to himself. He saw the time of the crash. He had breakfast with Danny at that time. They had laughed. No way Reid could have been killed at the moment. He would have known. They were so connected. He would have felt it. He would have felt something. He couldn’t have been sitting there, eating breakfast, laughing, while Reid took his last breath. Impossible. Incomprehensible.

His phone rang and for a moment hope revived. You see? That was Reid. Telling him he overslept. Or something. He couldn’t be in that field, somewhere in the smoldering remains of a plane.

ID unknown. Luke growled. Whoever it was, he didn’t want to talk to strangers. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, right now. Except to Reid. He longed to talk to Reid. His fingers worked his phone and he waited for a dialing tone. For voicemail. There was nothing. No connection. No sound. Dead. The one word he had tried to avoid these last minutes now took over his mind, his body and his soul. Dead. Reid was dead.

He felt like throwing his phone into the fireplace. Seeing the icon for the video held him back. The video. Reid’s face. Reid’s voice. Reid’s love. All wrapped up in two minutes. But it was something. It was all he had left. It was a treasure.

Without realizing, the tears just kept streaming. When the images became a blur he rubbed his eyes.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee?” Will sounded broken and Luke stared at him for a minute.

“I need Reid,” Luke whispered and Will’s smile was sad.

“I know, my friend. I know. I wish I had the power to bring him back.”

The word ‘back’ triggered a memory.

‘Whatever happens, I’ll be back with you. I don’t want to be anywhere else.’

“He promised he’d be back,” Luke whispered, desperation in his voice. “He promised.”

“He loved you so much, Luke…” Katie cried. “Whenever he mentioned your name or looked at you, something happened in his eyes. As if the lights went on or something.”

Luke just nodded, still with his eyes on the screen. He watched how rescue workers sent their dogs into strange objects that apparently once belonged to a plane. Maybe Reid made it out somehow. Before the fire. He was a genius, for heaven sake. If anyone could survive a crash, it would be him!

“He can’t be dead,” Luke shook his head. “What about Danny?” For a minute Luke looked up as if he wanted to challenge The Powers That Be. “Why did you let Danny fall in love with Reid and then take him away? Why did you let me fall in love and take him away?”

His cry filled the air and the child’s voice startled all three adults on the coach.

“Daddy?”

Before anyone could prevent it, Danny had reached Luke and seeing the tears, the pale face and the devastation, made the child instantly upset.

“Daddy?” he repeated, tapping on Luke’s upper leg. “Daddy, what’s wrong?”

When Luke looked at him, but didn’t answer, Danny watched the TV and at that exact moment the images of the burning wreckage were shown again. The boy dropped himself against Luke, who popped into his father mode without thinking about it. He lifted the boy on his lap, he then grabbed the remote and turned off reality.

“That was Daddy’s plane,” it wasn’t even a question.

“It was,” Luke agreed, softly rocking the boy.

“And it crashed.”

“It crashed,” Luke confirmed, baffled that his voice could sound so calm at a moment like this.

“That’s sad.” Danny concluded, way too calm too.

“It is.”

“But at least Daddy wasn’t on it.”

Luke frowned. He understood the mechanism. Been there, done that. Denial. Should he let Danny stay there? Should he been the one crushing this boy’s life? But he had never told Danny any lies and he wasn’t ready to start now.

“He was, Danny. Daddy was on that plane.”

The boy looked confused. For a moment he seemed in some sort of a trance, then he shook his head.

“No Daddy, you’re wrong. Daddy wasn’t on there. Daddy isn’t dead.”

“But Danny…”

“No!” he yelled now, leaving Luke’s lap and standing in front of him with his hands in fists. Ready to fight the world?

The young brown eyes flickered with anger. Frustration.

“I know it, Daddy!” He tapped Luke’s leg again. Harder this time. A lot harder.

Noticing that Luke was so overwhelmed that he wasn’t able to respond, Will took over.

“How do you know, Danny?”

“Annie just told me so.”