[CT] 49.1 What's missing?
Jan. 20th, 2009 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elementof_riskHe can tell how frightened she is, how traumatized. To have her whole life be meaningless, with nothing to hold on to, nothing to grasp for any sense of identity...the sense of loss in her eyes rips at something inside of him. As fluid as his identity has always been, as easy as he finds it to shift to be what the situation demands he be, there is always that core that he knows, even if it is defined by his very flexibility. To have nothing to reach for would be...he breaks off the thought, because he can't imagine it, and he doesn't want to.
Reality, it turns out, is far worse. It's not clear which is more difficult, really, to be the one not remembering, or the one not remembered. He tries everything he can to wake something in her, and there is nothing in her eyes when she looks at him that even hints at recognition. All the panic over the wedding plans is meaningless now when she doesn't even know his face, cannot recall a moment they have shared, not even an instinctual feeling...somehow he always thought some sort of instinct, intuition would remain, but that there is nothing stings. He covers it with a patient smile, wanting to reach out and hold her, but unsure if he could handle the lack of response and so telling himself he doesn't because he doesn't want to force anything on her. But with each moment that passes, each blank look, some small part of him feels like it breaks, before he tucks it away.
He moves through the day with the same efficiency as he always does. There's something to be said for years of training in emotional detachment, in getting things done, no matter what happens, no matter what is lost. Your team is gunned down around you, and you complete the mission. Your partner, and lover, is stabbed, and you get out. Your lover is gunned down, and when you escape you think about going straight, but after a few months decide its far too much trouble. The closest thing you ever had to a mother falls through a glass ceiling to her death, and you talk your way out of nearly destroying two cities and get to a safe house, and don't look back, or at least not so that anyone can ever truly tell.
He almost lost her, before, when she fell into the coma, and he thought he'd come to terms with the fact that they both lived dangerous lives. They could be killed at any time. He'd lost everyone he ever loved, after all, to a thrust of a knife or a rain of bullet fire or imprudent schemes. It was never so simple as just walking away, and he knew she lived in as dangerous a world as he.
But watching her walk through the house, a shell of herself, gone but not, he is once again forced into a position of utter helplessness in the face of forces he can not understand, and fury threatens to shatter the cooly held together facade. He doesn't know how to fight this. He doesn't know how to fix this. She is here, but she isn't, and he can neither grieve nor accept it. He is left waiting, trying to hope and not knowing how, because how to hope was one lesson Irina Derevko failed to teach him, and all he can do to get through it is shore himself up further behind layer after layer of ice that starts to chill even him, but, in the end, numbness is preferable. He can keep going from numbness, do what needs to be done without breaking down. He's always operated better from a distance, and if it feels wrong somehow with her, well, nothing about this is right, and it is all he knows to do to survive.
Reality, it turns out, is far worse. It's not clear which is more difficult, really, to be the one not remembering, or the one not remembered. He tries everything he can to wake something in her, and there is nothing in her eyes when she looks at him that even hints at recognition. All the panic over the wedding plans is meaningless now when she doesn't even know his face, cannot recall a moment they have shared, not even an instinctual feeling...somehow he always thought some sort of instinct, intuition would remain, but that there is nothing stings. He covers it with a patient smile, wanting to reach out and hold her, but unsure if he could handle the lack of response and so telling himself he doesn't because he doesn't want to force anything on her. But with each moment that passes, each blank look, some small part of him feels like it breaks, before he tucks it away.
He moves through the day with the same efficiency as he always does. There's something to be said for years of training in emotional detachment, in getting things done, no matter what happens, no matter what is lost. Your team is gunned down around you, and you complete the mission. Your partner, and lover, is stabbed, and you get out. Your lover is gunned down, and when you escape you think about going straight, but after a few months decide its far too much trouble. The closest thing you ever had to a mother falls through a glass ceiling to her death, and you talk your way out of nearly destroying two cities and get to a safe house, and don't look back, or at least not so that anyone can ever truly tell.
He almost lost her, before, when she fell into the coma, and he thought he'd come to terms with the fact that they both lived dangerous lives. They could be killed at any time. He'd lost everyone he ever loved, after all, to a thrust of a knife or a rain of bullet fire or imprudent schemes. It was never so simple as just walking away, and he knew she lived in as dangerous a world as he.
But watching her walk through the house, a shell of herself, gone but not, he is once again forced into a position of utter helplessness in the face of forces he can not understand, and fury threatens to shatter the cooly held together facade. He doesn't know how to fight this. He doesn't know how to fix this. She is here, but she isn't, and he can neither grieve nor accept it. He is left waiting, trying to hope and not knowing how, because how to hope was one lesson Irina Derevko failed to teach him, and all he can do to get through it is shore himself up further behind layer after layer of ice that starts to chill even him, but, in the end, numbness is preferable. He can keep going from numbness, do what needs to be done without breaking down. He's always operated better from a distance, and if it feels wrong somehow with her, well, nothing about this is right, and it is all he knows to do to survive.
