milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Rachel had slept. Far too deep for the nightmares to follow...and then she'd woken. An empty room, bare and lacking in personality...but safe. There'd been a tray of food, small things that didn't need to stay cool...

"I love you Rachel..."

She couldn't eat. The sandwich was glue in her mouth and tasteless; the remembered words and waves of emotion beating with her pulse.

Love me...

Love me...

Love me back!

With a wordless cry she let the sandwich slip from her fingers as she herself went out the window. The the Lake. Yes, her solace, her peace, her lake where she can sob quietly and not worry about the tears joining the waters just below her feet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Full moon, perhaps a day behind, but there are still some that it affects tonight, and so he is there. He is there as she bursts from the bar. He should have known by the faint tugging in the back of his mind. He should have known.

He is on his feet, heading for her and the lake's edge before his brain can consiously form the thought go. Something is wrong.

"Rachel?"

She whirls at the sound of her name, soft as it...and for a moment there's sheer fear on her face. A face etched in dark, harsh lines and looking far from human...of all the people...Archie...

Archie with a needle in his arm and escape in his mind, a loyal Hound growling softly at his side...

She smooths the fear over though. There are things he shouldn't know.

"Archie" she answered softly.

Archie standing straight and tall in his jeans and his old uniform jacket. Archie who is considerably more tan than last she saw him. Archie, who's got none of that particular flavor of flinching behind his eyes...

Archie, who is reaching out to touch, to hold, to comfort his friend. His sister.

"Welcome home?"

Archie, who loves her still and always.

Oh gods, that sends the sobbing into laughter, not the mirthful kind, as she drifts close enough to take his hand. "Where the heart is" she agreed.

"I don't think I was quite ready to be back yet...I forgot shielding lessons...."

...always loved you...didn't think I"d see you again...

He pulls her gently into the circle of his arms, tucking her close as she weeps, murmuring soft things into her hair as she trembles.

"Shh... at least you're still standing this time?"

"Not bleeding" she agreed, her tone equally soft. She hugs herself within his sheltering embrace, laying her head on his shoulder.

"The honey moon?" yes, distracting the Archie from what happened to make her a wreck...

"Not here."

He agrees, brushing a hand along her arm. He knows very well that there are other ways to draw blood, other places that can be worn raw and open. Still, he'll go along with her avoidance. For now.

"It was wonderful. I can't thank you enough for the extra time, I'm sure Svava would agree."

He has no idea how much he'll thank her soon.

She turns her arm under his hand, almost to prove she has no new scars or that she's hiding anything worse than exhaustion.

"I'm glad it worked the way I thought it would" She sighed, knowing how much he loved the sea and sun...

Rachel had no clue either.

"It was..."

One of the best things anyone has ever given him, aside from Svava herself. He hasn't got the words to describe it. He swallows around a sudden lump in his throat.

"Thank you."

"Welcome"

It actually drags a smile from her. From somewhere. Tear stained and shaky, but a smile.

He pets her hair gently, care and concern for pouring from every particle of his being.

"I'm not going to ask what happened."

Though he wants to know what it was that brought her to such a state, if there's any world he needs to find, anyone there he needs to fight for her.

"I'm just going to be glad that you're back now."

She'll tell him though. Yes, because he doesn't ask. And she needs to talk.

"I'm tired Archie..I've been...so many places. Realities...helping Rachels..." she mused quietly sometime after the petting started.

"I'm still tired, and I actually slept...But...Billy was here...and..." the last word just stuttered to a stop on the sob in her throat.

"Billy upset you?"

His hand stills momentarilly before resuming it's soothing stroking of her hair, though a trace of a growl trickles into his voice.

"What do I have to do to him?"

And why couldn't he have waited to do whatever it had been until she had rested? Stupid boy.

"He was older...dear gods Archie, he was...thirty? Almost forty? He grabbed me..and he kissed me...and he wanted so desperately..." that was the part that had truly gotten her. His needs and desires beating against her already weary soul...

"I just wanted sleep...and I tried to be happy to see him....what did I do wrong to make it hurt so much?"

"You didn't do anything, love. He was being selfish. If he truly cared as much, he would have waited until you could recover."

she sighs softly, hugging her genly.

"I do know a bit about finding someone you never thought you'd see again. It makes you stupid, makes you want to tear the world down so that there's nothing that can distract you from eachother ever again..."

That earned a bitter, broken laugh "He called me that" she admitted quietly. Selfish...

Was she?

Oh yes, look at her, curled against a man that in another reality could have been hers...could she truly claim now, after seeing that, that this was alright?

Gods help her.

In other realities, he belongs to an assortment of people, but if there's a Svava in that reality, he's hers. He kisses Rachel's hair.

"You are one of the least selfich people I've ever met, Rachel dear. You left to help people, set things to right. If you were all that selfish you wouldn't have done that, you would have stayed here, comfortable, or relatively so, and not have thought a bit about it."

She can't be blamed for second guessing herself now. After all...what reality is truly real?

Are any?

Can she keep them straight?

"Give and take Rachel, you never did learn that did you?"

"Would say that..." she mused quietly.

It might be difficult, after all, the emotions are still there; the love, the protectiveness, the gratitude... But there are differences, he's not that Archie, and he never will be. The scars are arranged in different patterns.

"You should still be resting..."

She knows...she knows just somethings can unsettle her enough to ask...

To question...

When she thought she was hom...

"I needed to be on the lake"

He bends to kiss her forehead, and loosens his arms from around her. He'll go with her if she wants, but he honestly doesn't expect her to. She needs to burn, not watch out for the land-bound.

Yes...yes she needs to just watch the flames above the waters...

She kissed his cheek gently and walked back out over the waves, drifting like a ghost...

He stands and watches her sadly for a few moments before heading back to the bar. He wishes he could fix it for her. He wishes that he could do anything to ease that pain even he can feel. He pauses at the door, looking back over his shoulder at the burning girl out over the lake.

"You know where we are, dear heart. I don't want to hear anything about not wanting to bother us. You're no bother."

He keeps expecting to walk out of his bedroom and find people on his couch; her, Jason, Wellard... they'd all be welcome, they would each get a cup of tea and a sympathetic ear, and no questions asked that they didn't want to answer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only