respuesta numero uno.
Jun. 24th, 2005 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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sunshine_queen: 'SpyRents, late-night television.' Even though it kinda turned into more SpyFam. I figure she can deal since she was really heaping on the requests. ;-)
Also, this makes exactly . . . not a whole lot of sense. I think I might know what's going on, but not to the point where I could actually explain it. Just . . . go with the flow. And keep in mind that I am still working my way up to being able to write anything halfway decent.
This is post-Before the Flood. And Sydney's been through quite the ordeal, presumedly thanks to the car crash and the newly deserved quotation marks around "Vaughn". And unimpressive hotel rooms are a great spot to stay on the down-low, I guess. Who really knows?
Anyway.
She scars delicately, or perhaps it just seems this way due to your own inevitable biases. If it weren’t for the lingering scent of cigarette smoke and inadvertent dreariness belonging to this room, you’d almost convince yourself of this moment’s nonexistence in some way – strange in itself, because you seldom dream anymore. But this, with her head on your shoulder and your hand routinely smoothing strands of hair that is no longer as fine as it once was; it’s something you’d given up on. That’s all.
You glance down at her to find that her eyes are closed. She isn’t sleeping – you can sense that – but wishes to. There is a thin line winding carefully up her temple, disappearing into her hair. Perhaps she wanted to keep it hidden; perhaps, in this attempt at affection that has gone unpracticed for countless years, you’ve betrayed her somehow. You lift your hand, tentatively, and her hair falls back in place, shrouding her eyes. She is your daughter, and, more than that, near-bewilderingly, she needs you right now. This fills you with a foreign sense that you sometimes recognize traces of, dimly lit memories of another life. If you chose to examine it further, you might discover that you fear it, the prospect of failing her again. But there is no time for that now.
What became of Michael Vaughn remains a mystery at present. There is a single fact, at once elusive and concrete. He is dead, and Sydney had been oddly luminous as she’d relayed it; eyes clear and bright, tone even, almost unaffected. Is this what we’ve made her? you’d found yourself thinking in that moment, and a glance at Jack had confirmed that he had been harboring that prospect with similar unease. And after that, she’d gone dull, too quickly for ‘faded’ to have been an apt description.
She leans against you, allows you to touch her the same way you had almost thirty years ago. Like a mother, and you can’t shake the thought that this is something you do not deserve. You haven’t earned it back, not this, not yet.
You have taken, absurdly, to leaving the television on at all hours. The noise is meaningless and distracting; you don’t need it, you’ve known enough of loss, but you can’t help but suspect in some way that it might offer a sort of comfort to her. Silence does well to illuminate madness; you’d learned this acutely throughout your time as Elena’s prisoner. The static and barely-there murmur of voices, the discussion of things so laughably insignificant to each one of them has come to hold some strange worth.
Her breathing grows soft and even soon; on the television screen, a radiantly smiling woman of perhaps Sydney’s age discusses a new film with a talk show host who seems to derive more amusement from his own words than anyone else does. You feel for a second as though you should know both their names. This in itself rekindles a weakness in you you’d left behind so thoroughly it had been forgotten; Laura had used to glance, idly, at similar magazines at the grocery store. She had favoured certain actors; laughingly sized Jack up against one whose face you can envision now but whose name has long since eluded you.
Had Sydney done that sort of thing with Michael Vaughn, or the other man she’d loved? You are struck with the strange compulsion to wake her, to ask whether she knows who these people on the television screen are. Whether she is still part enough of that world that there’s some frail, still-standing chance at happiness.
Instead, you simply watch them. The woman’s hair is dyed blonde; it shines almost obnoxiously. She keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs. Her hands remain still in her lap, carefully clasped as though in prayer. You don’t bother to award any attention to what she’s saying.
The door opens and Jack steps inside. It’s been raining steadily since twilight and his coat and hair are wet. The strange vulnerability this presents reminds you of your first days together. It’s uncharacteristic of him, to not have brought an umbrella.
He’s been searching, doing what he can with the little you have. It’s difficult, frustrating, but the prospect of interrogating Sydney further has never so much as been voiced aloud. The two of you had reached an understanding about that almost without realizing it; it almost amuses you sometimes, how perfectly you’ve come to fit together. Sometimes you catch yourself forgetting that you haven’t simply been husband and wife for the past three decades.
You meet his gaze; his expression softens slightly. He’s not a forgiving man, in the conventional sense, and yet he watches you, almost with fondness, as you cradle a daughter he’d once sworn to protect at all costs from you, from the destruction you wrought with such careless precision.
How things change. Much as the days might run together, it seems that each new one brings some small reminder of your gratitude where that is concerned.
“Any luck?” This has become an obligatory exchange. The lines never change.
“Nothing worth pursuing,” he returns evenly. Disappointment no longer bothers to make an appearance.
“Tomorrow, perhaps.” Saying this, you feel more like Laura than Irina; funny, as most of those particular lines had seemed to have blurred by now.
He doesn’t respond. You watch as he takes off his coat and hangs it over the back of the chair. From the television, laughter swells; you glance back fleetingly to see the actress blushing prettily while the host grins. She raises a hand from her lap to swat at his arm. The noise is enough to momentarily attract both Jack’s attention and yours; you find that you are waiting for something and after a moment realize that it is for Sydney to stir. Offer an indecipherable murmur, maybe. Instead, she remains still. You think, inadvertently, of Nadia. She hadn’t perished completely; she had defied prophecy; only pieces of her had been taken. You understand the importance of balance. There is perhaps a chance it evens out; that an equivalent of death has been reached somehow, between the two of them.
As Jack crosses the room, he pauses to place a hand on your shoulder. It is an unnecessary gesture, the sort of comfort that is still almost new from him. The first time you had lost Sydney, hotel rooms like this one had served a different purpose: the important thing had been to conjure some sense of feeling, to continually rekindle the injustice and the pain of it. Healing hadn’t been an option then. You cannot be sure if it is now either, but in a different way.
You press your fingers over his, careful not to shift your position enough that Sydney might be disturbed.
“If you’re tired . . .” he begins, and this is enough.
“It’s all right,” you interrupt, careful without having intended to be. “I don’t want to wake her.”
He nods, understanding, and kisses your palm before disappearing into the bathroom. The sound of the shower appears, then fades as you find yourself listening to Sydney’s breaths. Light and perhaps fragile; your finger traces the line of the new scar once, barely brushing her skin, before you redirect your attention to the television screen.
The next actress interviewed talks with her hands.
sunshine_queen: 'SpyRents, late-night television.' Even though it kinda turned into more SpyFam. I figure she can deal since she was really heaping on the requests. ;-)Also, this makes exactly . . . not a whole lot of sense. I think I might know what's going on, but not to the point where I could actually explain it. Just . . . go with the flow. And keep in mind that I am still working my way up to being able to write anything halfway decent.
This is post-Before the Flood. And Sydney's been through quite the ordeal, presumedly thanks to the car crash and the newly deserved quotation marks around "Vaughn". And unimpressive hotel rooms are a great spot to stay on the down-low, I guess. Who really knows?
Anyway.
She scars delicately, or perhaps it just seems this way due to your own inevitable biases. If it weren’t for the lingering scent of cigarette smoke and inadvertent dreariness belonging to this room, you’d almost convince yourself of this moment’s nonexistence in some way – strange in itself, because you seldom dream anymore. But this, with her head on your shoulder and your hand routinely smoothing strands of hair that is no longer as fine as it once was; it’s something you’d given up on. That’s all.
You glance down at her to find that her eyes are closed. She isn’t sleeping – you can sense that – but wishes to. There is a thin line winding carefully up her temple, disappearing into her hair. Perhaps she wanted to keep it hidden; perhaps, in this attempt at affection that has gone unpracticed for countless years, you’ve betrayed her somehow. You lift your hand, tentatively, and her hair falls back in place, shrouding her eyes. She is your daughter, and, more than that, near-bewilderingly, she needs you right now. This fills you with a foreign sense that you sometimes recognize traces of, dimly lit memories of another life. If you chose to examine it further, you might discover that you fear it, the prospect of failing her again. But there is no time for that now.
What became of Michael Vaughn remains a mystery at present. There is a single fact, at once elusive and concrete. He is dead, and Sydney had been oddly luminous as she’d relayed it; eyes clear and bright, tone even, almost unaffected. Is this what we’ve made her? you’d found yourself thinking in that moment, and a glance at Jack had confirmed that he had been harboring that prospect with similar unease. And after that, she’d gone dull, too quickly for ‘faded’ to have been an apt description.
She leans against you, allows you to touch her the same way you had almost thirty years ago. Like a mother, and you can’t shake the thought that this is something you do not deserve. You haven’t earned it back, not this, not yet.
You have taken, absurdly, to leaving the television on at all hours. The noise is meaningless and distracting; you don’t need it, you’ve known enough of loss, but you can’t help but suspect in some way that it might offer a sort of comfort to her. Silence does well to illuminate madness; you’d learned this acutely throughout your time as Elena’s prisoner. The static and barely-there murmur of voices, the discussion of things so laughably insignificant to each one of them has come to hold some strange worth.
Her breathing grows soft and even soon; on the television screen, a radiantly smiling woman of perhaps Sydney’s age discusses a new film with a talk show host who seems to derive more amusement from his own words than anyone else does. You feel for a second as though you should know both their names. This in itself rekindles a weakness in you you’d left behind so thoroughly it had been forgotten; Laura had used to glance, idly, at similar magazines at the grocery store. She had favoured certain actors; laughingly sized Jack up against one whose face you can envision now but whose name has long since eluded you.
Had Sydney done that sort of thing with Michael Vaughn, or the other man she’d loved? You are struck with the strange compulsion to wake her, to ask whether she knows who these people on the television screen are. Whether she is still part enough of that world that there’s some frail, still-standing chance at happiness.
Instead, you simply watch them. The woman’s hair is dyed blonde; it shines almost obnoxiously. She keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs. Her hands remain still in her lap, carefully clasped as though in prayer. You don’t bother to award any attention to what she’s saying.
The door opens and Jack steps inside. It’s been raining steadily since twilight and his coat and hair are wet. The strange vulnerability this presents reminds you of your first days together. It’s uncharacteristic of him, to not have brought an umbrella.
He’s been searching, doing what he can with the little you have. It’s difficult, frustrating, but the prospect of interrogating Sydney further has never so much as been voiced aloud. The two of you had reached an understanding about that almost without realizing it; it almost amuses you sometimes, how perfectly you’ve come to fit together. Sometimes you catch yourself forgetting that you haven’t simply been husband and wife for the past three decades.
You meet his gaze; his expression softens slightly. He’s not a forgiving man, in the conventional sense, and yet he watches you, almost with fondness, as you cradle a daughter he’d once sworn to protect at all costs from you, from the destruction you wrought with such careless precision.
How things change. Much as the days might run together, it seems that each new one brings some small reminder of your gratitude where that is concerned.
“Any luck?” This has become an obligatory exchange. The lines never change.
“Nothing worth pursuing,” he returns evenly. Disappointment no longer bothers to make an appearance.
“Tomorrow, perhaps.” Saying this, you feel more like Laura than Irina; funny, as most of those particular lines had seemed to have blurred by now.
He doesn’t respond. You watch as he takes off his coat and hangs it over the back of the chair. From the television, laughter swells; you glance back fleetingly to see the actress blushing prettily while the host grins. She raises a hand from her lap to swat at his arm. The noise is enough to momentarily attract both Jack’s attention and yours; you find that you are waiting for something and after a moment realize that it is for Sydney to stir. Offer an indecipherable murmur, maybe. Instead, she remains still. You think, inadvertently, of Nadia. She hadn’t perished completely; she had defied prophecy; only pieces of her had been taken. You understand the importance of balance. There is perhaps a chance it evens out; that an equivalent of death has been reached somehow, between the two of them.
As Jack crosses the room, he pauses to place a hand on your shoulder. It is an unnecessary gesture, the sort of comfort that is still almost new from him. The first time you had lost Sydney, hotel rooms like this one had served a different purpose: the important thing had been to conjure some sense of feeling, to continually rekindle the injustice and the pain of it. Healing hadn’t been an option then. You cannot be sure if it is now either, but in a different way.
You press your fingers over his, careful not to shift your position enough that Sydney might be disturbed.
“If you’re tired . . .” he begins, and this is enough.
“It’s all right,” you interrupt, careful without having intended to be. “I don’t want to wake her.”
He nods, understanding, and kisses your palm before disappearing into the bathroom. The sound of the shower appears, then fades as you find yourself listening to Sydney’s breaths. Light and perhaps fragile; your finger traces the line of the new scar once, barely brushing her skin, before you redirect your attention to the television screen.
The next actress interviewed talks with her hands.
