Title: 'Til death...
Author: Dira Oceansea
E-mail: dira_oceansea@yahoo.com
Category: Post-CYN, 2 POV's, you'll know who...
Rating: R for language, I guess, 'cause the F word's around...
Author's note: My first non-shipper fic. I don't know if it's any good, I don't know if it works at all... It's just catharsis, I guess, but I still would love to hear your comments on this...
Part 1a
I think I know why women can't be pallbearers.
It's not because we cannot take the weight.
It's because we already carry it. We carry the weight of death on our backs, squaring our shoulders as we walk in pain. We carry it in our wombs, because the person who has died came from a womb, came from deep inside another one of us. We carry it in our outstretched arms.
To carry the casket would be to make us carry the body twice.
I could feel your deadweight in the pit of my stomach, in the depth of Maria's voice, in every step Isabel took.
You said you had miles to go before you could sleep.
You said you had promises to keep.
What promises? Which miles?
What did you have to do? Where did you have to go?
I owe you. I must do this for you. To walk the miles you could not walk, take the paths you did not choose, keep the promises you can no longer be held accountable for.
I am here, Alex.
Can you hear me?
I am here.
I am not moving on. I know that you want me to figure this out. I know that you want me to find out.
I know I shouldn't have snapped at Max that way.
If anyone is responsible, it is me.
You were supposed to be there. Two years from now, in Vegas, at my wedding.
I changed the future, twisted it slightly, and now you are gone.
I carry your weight as I drag my feet from class to class.
I know you would want me to move on.
But I will only move along until I figure this out.
I dream endless strings of ones and zeros.
I'm sorry we strayed so far from you, Alex. Surprisingly enough, you were the glue holding us together.
I can almost see you raise an eyebrow at my comparison. You are glue. I almost snort out loud at the thought.
Two years. It's been almost two years and I can hardly breathe now.
I'm alive and I shouldn't be. You're not, yet you should be.
Things don't always work out the way we wanted them to.
You speak to me in code.
Everything is so cold and... wooden.
Even Tess cried. And all these people who... don't know you. I've held your hand.
And now...
It was Kyle's birthday, the day after you died.
I wanted to scream at your casket. I really did.
Now it's us against them. I can't believe it's us against them.
Max tried to bring you back. But he couldn't. I can't even think about how he felt.
Yes I can.
I try to bring you back every second of every day. It has only been a week since your funeral.
Why are you sleeping, Alex? You still had so much road left in you...
Wake up, please wake up.
Please...
I am going to find out.
Do you know how hard it is to breathe without you here?
Glue. Hilariously funny.
I touched your blood, in the seat of your car.
Don't worry about the mess. I really doubt your parents will want to drive it.
You would have laughed. Laughed at all of us, at the entire fucking town.
I've waited an entire week for you to pop out of some dark corner and say "I'm here! Look at me, please!"
But you didn't. So now I have to find out.
A jumble of zeros and ones.
Till death do us part.
It will not separate us. Just because you don't breathe anymore...
I hate crying. You always knew how to make us laugh through the tears.
Oh, Alex...
I'm so sorry.
And Maria... Maria can't stop crying. And I don't let tears fall because if I do...
I need to know what happened.
I know you didn't kill yourself. I know...
Zeros and ones.
I carry your weight in zeros and ones.
It's not a burden. It's just a fact.
Even after I figure this out, you will always be here.
Your death might have split us up, put friend against friend, turned love into... spite. But I will figure this out.
And then... then I will bring us all together.
You would have wanted that.
You would have wanted us to laugh together.
I have to bring us all back together, because if we are together, then you are there, laughing with us.
And I don't think I can bear this weight without ever hearing your laugh reflected in ours.
I think I know why women can't be pallbearers.
We let tears fall and make this space inside us so that the weight can be carried within us, forever.
I will walk the miles you did not walk and I will keep the promises you made.
I will not sleep.
Just one thing...
Stay with me? Please?
Zeros and ones.
Zeros and ones.
Part 1b
I'm sorry Alex.
I didn't want to touch you.
Because I knew you were not you.
Your eyes were so cold.
Open. Why would they leave your eyes open?
That's how I knew it wasn't you... that it would never again be you.
Still, I touched you. Tried to breathe life back into you.
But you were so cold.
Liz is right.
I am responsible.
Even if you did kill yourself, this is my fault.
I take that weight upon myself as I took your weight in my hands.
I helped carry your casket. I saw your mother cry. I shook your father's hand.
I don't think I knew you as much as I would have liked.
Beth Orton tickets. Liz has a theory based on Beth Orton tickets.
I had a theory once. It was brought down by Gomez tickets. But that's another story... one I don't want to relive.
I want you alive again.
I want this not to be my fault.
I want Liz to stop this witch-hunt.
I want Isabel to smile.
I want...
I wanted everything, but see how that turned out?
I read your file. Liz didn't need a file. All she needed were Beth Orton concert tickets.
I wish I had her faith.
I shouldn't have snapped at her, but I know why I did.
It's not just because recognizing that she is right would make me responsible.
It's because it would make me a killer.
If it was an alien, any alien, then it was me.
Do you know why so many TV shows blame aliens, witches, demons or vampires for the evils of society?
It's because no one wants to be capable of murder. No one wants to be the root of all evil. No human wants to see another human as a murderer.
I don't want to see my mirrored self... killing.
Even though I have killed.
I don't want your blood on my hands.
It's us against them, now.
How did things get so fucked up?
It was us. We could do it all.
For a fraction of a second.
And then the world just spun out of control, and it hasn't stopped.
Ever since you died, it has spun faster and faster and faster.
I hold on to what I can. I... yell at Isabel to stay, wanting things to be unchanged forever. Holding on to the moment before you died, as if it could bring you back. I hold on to Tess, because if I really were to move on I would have to talk to Liz. Accept what she says, deal with it.
With Tess, everything is simple, predetermined, preordained.
Destiny is simplicity. It's the lazy man's romance.
It is all written down. You just follow the steps...
Liz called me last night. Told me she was leaving town, to investigate, figure things out.
She said, "I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."
She said I should wake up.
I... I can't stop shaking, and I can't start crying.
None of us is mourning properly. We still expect you to pop out of a birthday cake, with a giant grin, and say it was all a very bad joke.
Liz is going hunting.
I know what I should do. And I know what I will do.
Your death is the reason that they are not one and the same.
I should go with her. Instead, I will stop her.
Alex, please stay with us. Alex, please watch over us.
You would have laughed, that I am praying to you.
Of all things to believe in, I believe in Alex, the protector. Not God, or Buddha, or Mother Earth. Alex Whitman.
Alex... why did you go?
Why did you...?
Why didn't you take me with you?
Everything would be much easier then.
The sheriff said, "Alex died."
He said it, and then he couldn't take it back.
And Isabel weeps endlessly, and Michael knocks into walls, and Tess is a cane to lean on as I try to walk.
I don't walk. Liz is doing the walking for you, keeping the promises you can no longer be expected to uphold.
I am an obstacle. I am not a leader. I am nothing.
I am a murderer.
Your blood is on my hands.
And try as I might to wash it away, it won't leave me.
Me and my bloodstained hands.
Will you stay with us, please?
Your death has separated us.
And Liz is trying to bring us back together, somehow, trying to figure out a puzzle of ones and zeros. Because she wants to hear your laughter mirrored in ours.
I can't remember your laugh anymore. I can only hear screams of pain and I can wish that your sleep is peaceful.
We owe you that, peaceful sleep.
If I ever heard our laughter again, I think I would only hear your screams.
And Isabel's tears, and Michael's bumping-into-walls, and the sound of Tess trying to kiss the pain away.
It doesn't help.
Sleep peacefully, Alex. Try, at least.
Liz will walk and keep promises and stay awake.
I will stand still and break promises and never again sleep.
There is a difference, a clear difference.
A difference as clear as that between zeros and ones.
Sleep, Alex.
Stay with us in sleep.
We will not sleep, so that you can.
-------
The End.
