#i want to scream but i have a sinus fuckin thing going on and i shouldnt

[browniepokemon]

you ever just have a shit week and then you have another one and then you have another one an

[riddikulus-writings]

Distracted

Chapter 16

Did he live? Who Knows.

“No. no, no, nononono–” a wordless scream, ripped straight from someone’s throat, “I need to– he–” broke out in between grunts. A crack. A scream – pain. Shouting from more voices, more people, and– “Let me go, DuBois, he needs m– I need him!”

“I’ve always hated hospitals.”

“Me too,” Rick agreed, leaning back in his pale green chair, “Just somethin’ unnerving about ‘em.” he’d broken his arm once, playing basketball in high school. The doctors were kind, understanding, but the too-sterile atmosphere just jerked something in his brain.

He was hardwired for grime. Blood, dirt, getting down and dirty to do the things other people didn’t want to.

“I only started getting scared of them in my twenties,” she admitted quietly, “So, I guess I didn’t always hate them. Too many doctor visits, early twenties. Shoulder problems, hip problems. Sinus problems. Foot problems, fuckin’ knee problems, too. MRIs and arthrograms, x-rays, cat-scans. Parker would try to come with, but sometimes, most of the time – he was a busy boy, y’know. Too good at everything, and everyone wanted his help because of it  – so I’d be all alone, and I just started getting jumpy. Then he… the accident, back at the hospital– but he was DOA…”

Rick placed a comforting hand on her knee, squeezing to let her know she didn’t have to continue, “I know, Nyx.” He stood up, “Water?”

“I’m not incapable,” her eyebrow raised, hand swiping at the tears gathering in her eyes, “I could get it myself, but yes, please, if you’re offering.”

“You’re all bandaged up, hooked up to…” Rick waved a hand at her and all the tubes and wires– they were mainly for watching heart rate and blood pressure, but she was hooked up, nonetheless, “Those. Y’ain’t movin’.”

“I could be like my dad was and start yoinkin’ this shit outta me. He was not happy about being hospitalized that one time– I’m getting released this afternoon,” she gently took the paper cup from his too-large hands, “So, I will be moving. Thank you for visiting, though. It means a lot.”

Dad, hospitalized with stage-four inoperable brain cancer the week after her wedding. Dazed and confused, ripping his IVs out. Had a 24-hour watch put on him after that. Nyx thought it was funny.

Rick had never had the unfortunate scenario of being hospitalized with no one to come visit. His parents, a couple friends he doesn’t talk to anymore. Rick knows he himself doesn’t like to feel alone, “I also came to visit because I’m your ride home, hun.”

She shook her head, “No, I won’t make you do that–”

“Y’ain’t makin’ me do nothin,” he sat back down in the Visitor Chair and leaned on the beside, “Besides, consider us even for you drivin’ me back home when my truck had a flat after work.”

Nyx snorted, remembering the memory, “Knew you for, what? Two days? Surprised my driving didn’t scare you off.”

“It almost did.”

The windows of her truck were down, the cold spring breeze floating through, ruffling the discarded fast food wrappers and baler twine that littered the floor by Rick’s feet. An empty grain bag in the back seat crinkled. Nyx shrugged and swerved violently to the other side of the rough dirt road, hitting several potholes that made the entire Colorado shake, “I’m trying to miss the fuckin’ potholes. Goddamn, we picked a bad time of year to take time off.”

“We quit, Nyx, quit callin’ it time off.”

Her grin got bigger, and she turned her head to face him instead of watching the road, “I love quitting.” some of her hair fell into her eyes, despite most of it being held down by her grimy ball cap.

Rick admits, he’s never been to Wisconsin. It’s gloomy looking, up in the upper-central part of the state – “About right…. Here,” Nyx would say, offering her right hand as a makeshift map of the state as she pointed to the middle-knuckle of her middle finger, “Real hilly. Lots of trees. Not as hilly as Bayfield, or really further up north anywhere, but we’ll go exploring later.”. –. But, he told himself, grabbing the appropriately-named oh shit handle above his head as Nyx nearly put her truck in the ditch. One of the cats in back hissed – it is springtime. Springtime has gloomy colors. A greyscale almost sort of time.

The ditches are lined with melting snowbanks – brown with shuffled-up gravel from when the plow trucks went through – and almost overflowing with running water. The trees all lacked leaves, looking dead as the spindly branches hung over the road, “Gotta trim those,” Nyx mused, mostly to herself, “Now, be warned, there may or may not be some type of party at my house. Got it?”

Pothole. Rick’s teeth rattled. He almost smacked his head into the doorframe. How long is this fuckin’ road, “Party?”

“They missed me,” she shrugged, coming up to a stop sign, “And, remember, everyone wants to meet the Legendary Rick Flag.”

“Quit callin’ me that.”

“Hey, you survived getting stabbed in the chest with dirty porcelain,” she floored it, drifting the truck around the corner with a laugh, rain-heavy gravel spitting in a spray behind them, “I’d call that pretty legendary.”

“And you have… whatever you have. That ain’t legendary?” Nyx had no idea what it was. No idea about it until just a few weeks ago– turns out Waller just wanted her because she was a pretty face and a good soldier.

“Yeah… let’s not mention that to anyone,” she gave him a pointed look, “I don’ want Waller coming sniffing again. Just say I’ve got good de-escalation tactics so my family can scoff and tell you I usually escalate the situations, instead.”

“Y’sure they’re gonna like me?” he wasn’t sure why he was feeling so nervous all of a sudden. Everything he’s ever faced, and having a family meeting was the thing that was unnerving him?

“Here's my driveway,” it was a narrow dirt path cutting through what was probably normally a thick forest, “Brace yourself; my house is awesome. And I already told you, they’ll love you. I bet even my asshole goats will like you. If you offer them food.” she added on, “The dogs will bark, but that’s what dogs do. Our two are the German Shepherd lookin’ ones – but they’re mixes, the one is inbred a bit, I told you that, she’s stupid but she’s cute, I guess. Cousins might have their dogs by, too – and oh lord there’s a lot. I’ve got a ton, and… Yeah, Parker has a big family. I can almost guarantee, there’s a whole schmear of people roaming about my yard. I bet even our old landlord – previous farm owner – came by.”

“You got yourself a whole welcomin’ committee,” Rick mentioned, his voice uneasy.

Nyx turned onto a highway, “I lied about this road being my driveway, I was just pointing out what I would’ve liked my driveway to be. Our farm sits right on this highway, not ideal but beggars can’t be choosers.” 

There were cars lining the highway on either side, parked closer together the further they drove, “Eris…”

“Oh, don’t let the cars bug you,” she slowed down more, reaching a white-sided farmhouse with green tin, a trailer house to match on the opposite side of the drive, a big barn in back and farmland stretching further for what looked like miles. There were people crowding everywhere, dogs barking – the two aforementioned German Shepherd mixes sprinting straight for the pickup – kids of all ages running all over the place, “Ready?”

“No,” Rick admitted, not able to hide his toothy grin anymore. He grabbed the door handle and shrugged back at her, “But I have to be.”

[dopescotlandwarrior]

The Dancer-Chapter Nine

                    A special thanks to @statell​ for all your help and wisdom

Previous chapters on AO3

Chapter Nine

Claire’s dance was torturous and punishing as she released her sadness, fear, and loss to the music. Her aerials were dangerously high as she was seeking the quiet solitude of… Madu pulled her to a chair and held onto her while she fell apart again. He was terrified by what he saw her do and wondered if she intended to smack her head on the wood floor. He didn’t care if she wanted space and alone time. He would hear her scream at him, but he would not leave her.

John saw Jamie from across the store and jogged to him until he saw the rage on his face. So she had done it, and this was the result. He felt suddenly afraid for Claire.

Jamie followed him up the stairs to the office and stood in front of John like a menacing mountain.

“Tell me what ye know of it then. Leave nothin out. Why did she tell ye who she was?”

“She didn’t, in fact, she nearly had a meltdown when I told her I knew. I recognized her the night we had dinner at Omar’s and waited a couple weeks to try to understand what was going on. I asked her about it coming back from Lallybroch last Easter.”

John did not like the energy coming off Jamie and felt no desire to sympathize or placate him. Clearly, it had not gone well for Claire and his heart hurt for her, but Jamie, he could care less about at the moment. Whatever long term pain he endured would be his own doing.

“Did ye lie to me on her behalf?”

“No.”

“Did ye know she was moving in with me in Glasgow?”

“No.”

“How did ye have such a close relationship with her?”

“I didn’t Jamie. She was the kindest soul I had ever met but we didn’t confide in each other, never spent time socializing, except for Easter with you. She was very private and refused to speak about her relationship with you or her secret life. I tried a couple of times and she just didn’t answer.”

Jamie’s anger was collapsing, and he looked around like he didn’t know where he was, his whole body seemed to deflate.

“We had one conversation, on the ride home at Easter. She told me what she did to you, but I had to pull it out of her. She couldn’t cope with her own brutality and pushed it out of her mind.”

Jamie's face suddenly went back to rage as he prepared himself for another truth about this lying girl.

“She had done things to you when she still hated you for running her out of business. You and I both know there are ways of dealing with that situation that would have been much kinder. You opted for a different solution, get rid of the ugly bookstore by the fastest means possible. Yes, she hated you for it and she disgraced you by dancing in front of you and turning her back on you to bow to the rest of the audience, thereby shunning you. She said you tricked her into a coffee, and she didn’t hate you anymore, but the deed was done. She had laid the hurt on you so to speak and now didn’t know how to undo it.”

John watched Jamie’s face go from murderous to contemplative to baffled. He looked at John like he had not a clue this was going on.

“I told her you wouldn’t know that type of retribution even if someone pointed it out at the time. But to her, it was unforgivable and she was already in love with you.”

John spoke softly hoping his words would pierce his heart like a sharp sword. People like Jamie were used to playing the almighty with the lives he disrupted in the capacity of his job. A heartless existence that he fell back on when she was pouring her heart and soul out to him apparently.

“Tell me, when she told you what she had done were you thinking of her life, her heart, her reasons, or did you focus on your own?”

Jamie’s eyes bounced around the room like he was a caged tiger. John’s questions were upsetting him, and he could not face the answers he knew to be true. He felt worse and more confused than when he pulled into the bookstore, at the time believing he would hear more poison about her character. His head was spinning, and he launched from the couch where Claire had laid last winter when she passed out in his store. He left quickly, running down the stairs and out of the store. He sucked air into his lungs and felt tears coming. Tears he denied the night before when she was crumbling in front of him. What had he done to the woman he loved? He became the heartless businessman, a thick skin so natural after nine years of hurting people. As her truth, and tears came pouring out, he slipped into the man without a heart and abandoned her.

Jamie walked the streets of Edinburgh like a lost soul, finally his right mind was correctly attached to his heart. He replayed a mind video of Claire sparkling around his house, jumping on him when he came home, cooking all afternoon for his pleasure, becoming a goddess when he held her. When the real Claire finally came back to his judgment he started to hurt, really hurt, deep in his soul until he could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

Madu escorted Claire to the dressing room, looking away when she shot arrows out of her eyes at him. She felt the sting of tears when the normal smells of the restaurant brought her memory back. She sat on the couch and made a heroic effort to push back on the tears. She heard a voice. The voice of her best friend sounding sad and sorry. Claire looked up at Geillis standing in the corner, with her own tears shining in her eyes. Claire ran to her and the women cried together, Madu cried on the couch.

Geillis was the salve to Claire’s heartache and broken spirit. She coo’ed her sympathy and dabbed her eyes with a tissue, telling Claire she had a full and glorious life to look forward to. Geillis loved Claire like a sister and had feared this outcome from her confession to Jamie. It is why she stayed away so long, she couldn’t stand knowing what would happen to her friend. Now she had to help hold her together until she could start to heal and let Jamie’s memory fade.

On the other side of town, a car full of girls celebrating a bachelorette party came gunning for the restaurant. The girls were already high from whisky shots and a shared joint. They laughed hysterically and passed an advertisement for the world’s best belly dancer coming back from her time off. The girls did their best impression of a belly dancer and the car rocked with laughter. They were heading for the restaurant and a party sure to become legend.

Geillis helped Claire into her costume and gushed over how pretty she looked while Claire concentrated on pushing her tears back. Geillis sat with her on the couch and held onto her while Madu left for a bit. He took long strides through the streets, head down, hands stuffed into pockets. He felt like the world was ending because his world existed in the eyes of his dancer. He passed a big man on a sidewalk, head down, looking like he lost his best friend. That snapped Madu back to reality and he crossed the street to get back to Claire.

The pile of girls burst into the restaurant and Omar came running, recognizing the large number of girls who were here to spend money on a memorable night. One of the girls had become snarly and pissed off, telling the others how her brother had been hustled by the belly dancer here. The more she talked about it the madder she got. When the group was seated, Jenny got up and made her way to the door near the stage. She figured it was the dressing room and the bitch would be inside, counting her ill-gotten gains no doubt.

There was no knock, no warning of impending doom. When Jenny crashed through the door Claire looked up and nearly fainted.

“Claire? What the fuck is goin on, why are ye dressed like that? Why are ye cryin darlin?” Jenny looked around the room, looking for the belly dancer. There was no one else there, just Claire and some redhead. The truth started kicking her brain with a force that nearly laid her out. Eyes narrowed and she pointed at Claire as the memory of her broken brother filled her head. She lost it and closed the gap between her and the Jezebel in veils.

“It was you, ye dirty fuckin, lyin whore!”

Claire stood and tried to reason with Jenny until ruthless hands came out of nowhere and launched Claire into a makeup station. The force was so severe two of Claire’s ribs cracked in half, dangerously close to her lung. Geillis tried to pull Jenny away from her and was screaming at the top of her lungs as Jenny approached for another beat down.

Claire looked up into the eyes of her friend as closed fists were thrown at her face sending her to the floor. Every object within arm's length was bashed into the dancer’s head followed by severe kicks to the sides of her body driving the rib into her lung. Jenny stood up looking for something heavy and picked up a side table holding it over her head to bring down on Claire.

She was already unconscious. She did not feel the intensity of the blow that hit her face and brutally crushed her nose and eye orbitals. One lung was collapsed, and blood poured from every break in her perfect skin. Jenny stood to find another object and was pulled to the ground by her hair. A heavy knee pressed into her neck as Madu battled with the need to end her life. He could hear sirens coming and police were jerking him to his feet. The room was in chaos and the paramedics shoved everyone out as they worked to save Claire’s life. She was little more than a bloody pulp on the ground.

Outside, Jamie drove by the restaurant on his way out of town. In his exhaustion and depression, he didn’t look at the restaurant that had taken so much from him. He barreled toward Glasgow as Claire’s life slipped away.

The paramedics had to shock Claire three times before restoring sinus rhythm to her heart. They ran the gurney to their vehicle pushing a line into her arm, the phone to the hospital pressed against a head as doors crashed closed and the siren wailed. The ER team did their best to pull her back to the living as blood, urine, and other tests were run to the lab.

Madu and Geillis sat in the ER waiting room looking shell shocked. White faces and vacant eyes were stuck on the floor and tears fell freely every now and then as they remembered the beating and the blood. The police had questioned them at length once they were separated. They tried the usual tricks to scramble their minds as they rapidly barked questions, finally concluding they were both reporting the attempted murder of a dancer. Jenny was arrested but her buzz had worn off and her girlfriends had left without her. She wailed like a stuck pig demanding they call her brother and screaming it was self-defense.

Claire was wheeled into surgery an hour later to remove her ruptured spleen and when Geillis looked at her friend, she was unrecognizable. Several hours later the doctor approached Madu pulling off his mask and asked him for a word. The two men stood in the corner, heads bent, and Madu cried and shook his head no. Geillis thought her heart would stop as she watched him. She stood and waited for him to come back and deliver the news, whatever it was. Madu walked back to Geillis wiping his tears with his sleeve and taking a deep breath. He held Geillis’s hands and exhaled.

“We may lose beautiful dancer.” Madu broke down and Geillis held onto him fiercely telling him she would survive, she won’t die.

At three o’clock in the morning, an officer approached and sat next to Geillis. He spoke while looking at his notepad and asked Geillis several questions. He stated there were several death threats received at the restaurant after Claire was taken away. The owner signed his permission for the police to use their technology to identify the phone numbers that were hidden by the caller.

“Do ye know someone with the last name of Dunsany?”

“Yes.”

“What about Hawkins?”

“Yes.”

“Ye need to come to the station for a statement. It’s important to yer friend.”

Geillis asked Madu to stay with Claire and she has led away to a squad car.

Jenny screamed like a banshee from her cell all night long. She was promised a phone call when she stopped screaming but it didn’t stop her, and the phone call was withheld until well into the next day. The hospital staff asked Madu for the names of her family members and learned there were none. The administrator pumped him with questions to jog his memory of a brother or distant cousin to which Madu shook his head. Several hours later Madu was allowed to see her for five minutes. He almost fainted at the sight of her face swollen beyond recognition, but he dropped to his knees and whispered something in her ear, and this continued until he was escorted away.

The hospital staff hoped Madu would bring her out of the coma so she could start fighting for her life. They watched her closely after Madu’s visit and like the miracle they hoped for, her eyes opened several hours later.

Next Geillis could see her for five minutes and the two women cried and gripped each other until the nurses pulled Geillis away. Claire was inconsolable and was finally sedated.

A nurse spoke to Madu and Geillis asking them to go home and get some rest so they could be of help to her when she was stronger. They finally agreed and left the hospital with hollow eyes laced with fear.

Jamie slept fitfully in Glasgow. He had walked for hours finally returning to his truck long after the bookstore had closed. Knowing Claire was doing the dance of seduction at that very moment made his knees week and his heart pound. He had to get away from this city and his crumbling heart.

He saw her clothes and belongings all over his house and dropped into his bed once it was pitch dark and nothing left to see. Sometime during the night, he dreamed he was making love to the Sassenach, her face smiling up at him as she shattered. His eyes opened and he looked for her until he remembered, and his world fell apart anew.

The following day Jamie’s phone vibrated in his pocket during a meeting with the architect and a contractor who were at each other's throats. He ignored the call to play referee wishing they would both just disappear.

An hour later Jamie was hanging off a very high ladder feeling his phone vibrate as he inspected wiring laced through the metal slats that reinforced the walls on the second floor. He felt the phone vibrate and ignored it.

At eight o’clock that evening he was hunched over his blueprints after hours of unsuccessful focus, but he felt better here, protected from the reality of his life. He didn’t want to return to his home and see her clothes, or her handwritten notes making his heart hurt with her memory. His thoughts turned to John’s weird behavior at the bookstore the day before. He acted like Jamie was the enemy and brute that had hurt her deeply when he was the victim in this mess.

He reached for his vibrating phone and took his last breath in the sane world he had controlled his entire life.

She was screaming into the phone with what little voice she had left. Something went wrong at a party and one of the girls tried to kill her. She needed Jamie to come to Edinburgh and sort this out, get her out of jail. She was crying hysterically and Jamie ran out of his office to save his sister. He pushed his speed well beyond the legal limit and was in Edinburgh in forty minutes. He tried to post Jenny’s bail but was told she was held over to see the judge.

He asked to talk to someone in charge about his sister’s arrest. She had played the victim card on the phone and he was shaking mad they were keeping her. One of the responding officers pulled Jamie into a private room and calmly explained what she was arrested for. Jamie just stared at the officer like he didn’t believe him. The officer exhaled a long breath and pulled several Polaroids from a file pushing them toward Jamie.

Jamie looked at Claire’s face and body, beaten and bloody. His adam’s apple bounced in his throat as he tried to swallow, feeling the fear almost strangle him. He launched from his seat with the officer calling behind him, but he never heard a word he said.

The officer had seen enough to know this was a crime of passion. The girl would be charged with manslaughter and probably spend the next ten years in prison. Before he reported this to the chief, he called the hospital to warn them Jamie was coming.

Jamie jumped out of his truck at the entrance to the ER, motor running, door hanging open. When he crashed into the hospital looking wild-eyed asking for Claire two armed security guards flanked him and peacefully let the nurse tell him she was alive so far and he could not see her. Jamie went crazy and tried to claw his way to the patient rooms. He felt painful electricity hit his neck and his body collapsed long enough to be handcuffed and roughly set into a squad car.

On the other side of the world, a man’s voice greeted the caller in Arabic. His eyes went wide with alarm and he clutched the phone with both hands.

“Madu?”

The sobbing voice of his long-lost son hit his ears like a weeping sledgehammer as he consoled his beloved son and promised to fix whatever had befallen him. He waited for his son to gain control and speak to him about what was happening. The servants in the wealthy household alerted Madu’s mother something was terribly wrong, and she came running to her husband, wide-eyed and worried. “Madu, we are here loved son, we will help, tell me what has happened.”

His father could hear the sweet voice of his sister’s daughter, Kamilah, also lost to America for many years, He almost cried knowing he would tell his sister tonight that her daughter was alive, and she was with Madu.

Thirty minutes later his father hung up the phone and waited thirty seconds before barking orders to his staff to prepare for an emergency transport that would bring the children of the family home. He held his sobbing wife and told his assistant to order medical transport from America and report hourly. The staff jumped into action while Madu’s father led his wife to their bedroom where he would soothe her worry.

Madu collapsed after his father clicked off. He listened to the rushed questions from his cousin before turning his head to look at her, “you are coming too”, he said to her shocked face. Kamilah loved Claire, from the first day she stumbled into her studio asking for refuge from a group of bullies. She would do anything for her star performer and friend, except face her father.

The days passed, Jamie was tased and arrested again at the hospital, each time he was kept as long as the law allowed, three days in a cell pacing like a wild animal. Praying all night she would live to forgive him. When he walked into the hospital the third time, he was calm and fighting his impulse to crash into every door until he found her. His little Sassenach.

Jamie blinked at the nurse and asked again. Again he was told that Claire was gone. She had been taken out of the country for protection. That very nurse had flown with Claire to the airport by medical helicopter and watched over her until relieved by the doctor staffing the medical transport. The nurse squeezed her hand and wished her luck.

“She is gone Mister Fraser, never to return and afraid for her life. If you had something to do with Claire’s attack it will come out in court. God save ye then.”

Jamie looked at the fat nurse and wanted to shake her and tell her he could never hurt the Sassenach. But he had hurt her, twice he had wielded his power against her. She had reached out to him, sobbing and crumbling, and he walked away from her.

They should have been allowed the time to heal the wounds and come back together but his sister had seen to that. He drove back to Glasgow in a trance. The only thing he knew for sure is he would not be working on Jenny’s behalf. Let her rot in prison with no hope of a reunion with him.

The days turned to months and then to years. Claire haunted him, year after year. She spoke to him in his dreams and drifted through his mind during the days. He was never so sure, it was she who attached her soul to him. His soulmate, gone forever.

When Claire finally woke up from her medical coma the first person she saw was Madu. His presence calmed her, but her surroundings were screaming sirens in her head. She reached for him, “Madu”. Their eyes connected and he spoke about how he was able to get her out of Edinburgh. There were threats against her life, and he had taken her to safety.

“Where are we?”

“Egypt.”

Claire felt the ground come up to smack her in the face as she fainted against her pillows. Madu called to the in-house medical staff as Claire spun into the darkness that calmed her. She found loving hands there, to hold her close, a voice that promised love and protection. Eyes that beheld her like a treasure. She fell into Jamie’s arms and remained there for many days while the doctor tried to revive her.

Claire’s challenge was finding enough in her life without Jamie, to stay alive for. She couldn’t find anything that would make her tortured life worth living so she gave up, refused to wake or eat, making the doctor concerned for her life.

The first time she was pulled to consciousness, Madu sat on her bed and took her hands.

“By some miracle, your gift survives Claire. You must fight for that life, he or she is depending on you to fight.”

Claire stared dumbly at Madu trying to understand what he was saying.

“What?”

“It was the size of a pea when you were attacked, and survived against all odds.”

Claire’s eyes were wide and frightened. Her hand moved across her swollen abdomen and she freaked out.

“What the fuck Madu, what is this?”

It has been months you have hidden from the world, deep in sleep, but the baby grew. The doctor says you must get up, and walk, eat and drink. Please, Claire.

It was unthinkable to condemn this child to a life without parents, or a parent at least. The baby growing in her body gave her a purpose and a strong will to survive. It was a hard recovery, but she dug in and made the progress that everyone around her said was miraculous. She worked and she worked until her strength came back along with her reason to live.

Geillis reached for her phone hearing the airy sound of a caller far away. She dropped to the floor hearing Claire's voice and cried. It had been almost a year since they took her away and she feared the worst all this time. Claire cried with her and the girls tried to speak and catch each other up. Geillis knew she would never come back and it touched her that Claire would call.

Two years later, Geillis was living in Glasgow and ran to her ringing phone. She held it to her ear and smiled at the news of a growing boy and his loving mother. The women talked for twenty minutes and Geillis prayed she would not ask about Jamie Fraser. Geillis clicked off the call. Heartsick from missing her friend, relieved there were no questions about Jamie. He was getting married to Geneva Dunsany in two months. He worked in Germany, made a fortune, and was living large without Claire. Geillis would walk over fire not to tell her about his happiness.

Her phone rang again and Geillis answered before looking at the caller, it was Claire again.

“I couldn’t stop myself because I have to know. How is Jamie?”

Geillis clicked off, knowing she had delivered the death blow to her friend's broken heart. She prayed that Claire would find the strength to get through this. It was the second-worst day of her life.

Claire slept on the floor, next to her son’s bed for the next four months. Her grief wrapped around her throat first thing in the morning and hung on until she fell asleep. Her only break from the agony was when her wee son smiled at her with his sparkling blue eyes, just like his father. The pain and loss grew less painful as the months rolled on, but each year on his birthday she cried for a whole day.

Claire sat on the train, hearing her stop called out, she made her way to the door. She had been hired by a dance company in London and relocated one month before today. She was finally getting her feet under her and her confidence inched up daily. When the door opened, the crowd of people behind her pushed her out the door with enough energy to lay her flat on the smooth concrete. That hurt, she thought.

Big hands reached for her pulling her to her feet, “there ye are lass.”

She looked up at eyes so blue they took her breath away, the burr in his voice pulled her heart to his, waking her sleeping soul.

“Sassenach! Are ye alright?”

Jamie was in shock seeing her after so many years. The girl who would not leave his thoughts and dreams was standing right in front of him. They were frozen in time, staring at the face that was seared on their hearts. Claire suddenly came to her senses and quickly looked around, for a wife, who would take his arm and lay claim to him. She decided to live the rest of her days without that memory and broke away walking as fast as she could.

“I can keep up with ye easily Claire so ye might as well slow down, or give me that heavy bag yer carryin.”

Claire looked around again for a woman walking toward him. She took off again, telling Jamie over her shoulder it was nice to see him. She walked toward the exit, breathing hard from the effort. Looking back he was nowhere in sight. Guess the wife caught up to him. Coming out to the soggy day she felt relieved to have some natural reason for her wet cheeks. She squeezed her eyelids closed so she could focus and there he was, right in front of her.

[nikaharper]

Unrelated Happenings in a Big Apartment Building

It was considered a regular Tuesday.

James had a productive evening, catching a quick drink with a coworker who was stuck completing a project he had moved on from a month ago. It was still as fucked as ever, and James grinned inwardly as he got the leftover fried rice out of the fridge. Time for some Hulu.

Alex had a sinus infection, again, and was resigned to laying on the patched couch full of bleary-eyeing cold medicine. He fell asleep while flipping channels and woke with memories of a strange dream about the American Revolutionary War. No more napping to the History channel.

Marielue always felt awkward in the evening, the transition between day and night, and this particular walk home had perturbed her. A discarded brown sweatshirt in the gutter had, at a glance, appeared to be a dead dog, and after a double-take she couldn't shake it from her mind. Everything became an abandoned animal corpse. She saw three more "dead dogs" and one that looked like a slain kitten, but was actually a gnarled tree root poking out of a lawn. She closed her eyes as she closed the door of her apartment, took a few deep breaths. But the rest of the night didn't fare much better. Every bit of discarded laundry was a lifeless form; she saw a skull in a bar of soap.

Naseem was cooking up a stew for dinner, and he checked his phone for texts from his girlfriend. There was a flash of pain on his forearm; he had rested it against the stew pot on the stove. He washed it under cold tap water, but it glowed a livid red. He remembered thinking it would blister, and considered taking a picture for his girl. 'This is what I go through for you!"'

Charles was out of the apartment, watching the basketball game on Ian's couch and talking too loudly about a girl he'd met that weekend. He didn't know it was too loud, though.

Amelia was plucking her eyebrows in the bathroom mirror. One, two stray hairs, grooming to the perfect shape of arched but still natural. The phone rang as she gave one last look in the mirror. Odd, that one had bled, and left a smudge of red on her dark skin. That never happens.

Caleb was doing laundry in the basement, full of coin-op machines and scuffed linoleum. He sorted the wet items into dryer-ready heaps, except one of them... That wasn't his. Maybe it was leftover from another tenant? A cotton pair of too-small boxer briefs, he was about to discard it before he remembered what happened last week. Best to put them in the trash. He bit his lip too hard as the garbage can top swung and creaked.

Jackie just woke up. Her head pounded, and she always swore Monday night drinking was the most abrasive of them all, because you'd be around people who may have no jobs or may have nothing left in life, and keeping up drink-by-drink was a hazard. She remembered some names... Michael or Mike or maybe something unusual like Makivar. One look at her phone said she was right. Skyla was asking how she felt, punctuated by emoji of which she could only see half and the rest were rectangular blocks. Then there was two missed calls from "Makkovar." She must have really liked him. She wondered if he had a job.

Kevin removed his headset. The raid wasn't going well. Wiped five times on a boss that they considered farm-status. He rubbed his eyes and didn't notice the shadow passing by his fifth-story window.

Thomas and Stephanie lay on sweaty bedsheets, panting in the glaze of newfound love. Three times that night! It wasn't even midnight. "Need anything from the bathroom?" he asked. "A towel." Stephanie turned over and smiled into the pillow, feeling the stickiness between her thighs. But it wasn't all just passion. "Um, maybe I'll... get it myself," she called, carefully rolling on her back and edging out of the bed, trying to hide the blood on her fingers. "Fuck," said Thomas from the bathroom, the lights on, "Are you okay? I mean there's—" "It's fine, I got my period, sorry sorry." Stephanie hadn't had a period in two years.

Ed was home early. It was bullshit. He pulled off his hat and cheap, dark wig, slamming himself down into his favorite lounge chair, the same chair his dad used before he died. The costume party was an annoyance at best, a disaster at worst. "IT'S FROM TRIGUN," he finally yelled out over the keg at a dumbstruck partygoer dressed as Finn. He didn't mean to scream, but Ed had never been good at environments where music was blaring and everyone was drunk by the time you arrived. He really cared about his outfit, it was good shit. A bottle of shochu washed the taste of cheap beer out of his mouth, and the remote flicked through his library to find Trigun, the episodes with Rai-Dei. He pressed 'Play.' Ed looked awesome. Fuck anyone who didn't get it.

Brandon took out the trash and found himself face-to-face with an oppossum. He hadn't recognized before how much their face looked like a skull.

Alejandro let the faucet run for a bit, waiting for hot water to make some rice. His nose was in a book, so he didn't notice that for a moment, the water ran blood red.

Makayla wasn't into that witchy shit, it seemed like stuff for dispossessed white girls. But on the websites, as fucking footnotes, there was a mention of Marie Laveau, and voodoo, and the things that called to her. She had more power here than she thought, without the fuckin' salt lamps and quartz crystals that cost nine dollars each. Nah, there was good shit in here, and it called to her. She held half a dead cigar in one hand and grabbed an oily eel filet, the best she could find at the Asian market, in the other. It jolted through her like a seizure. Something was very wrong, and very near. Makayla gasped and dropped her reagents. Nah, fuck this. She'll fry that damn eel and not fuck around with this shit anymore.

John's business worked at night. So he didn't recognize the flickering lights in the hallways, excited squawks and yelps from other apartments doors as he passed. This was all normal. Eyes followed him from the underside of dark doors, squinted through the keyholes of post boxes as he went to get his mail that evening. He paid no mind. Why should he?

Renee had the worst night. Newly single, full of glass-shard memories that hurt to remember but they were everywhere.... It was easy to exist, to do normal things in a normal life because there was a repetition that was comforting. Coming home was the awful part. Moments to rest were the awful part. She felt unloved. Worse, she knew she wasn't loved anymore. Things had ended that badly. An hour passed sitting on her bed, thinking about a bottle of wine. Any bottle. It didn't matter right now. Then it was an hour and a half. Mentally taking note of all the things in her space which SHE had touched, the candles they had lit on romantic evenings, the way the pillow still smelled like her, the dress and leggings still piled into a corner from the last time they... It was three days ago. That they touched, that they felt each other's heat and Renee felt the heartbeat of her as she lay her head on that chest, that perfect chest that held the most golden heart, the person she loved. It all seemed to be going so well.... Or well enough. Good enough. Enough to go on, to continue, to keep being in love as they were, as they had been for over a year now. Maybe Renee hadn't seen the signs. She must not have, because it all felt so sudden. Two days ago. Three days ago they had been twisting limbs in a galaxy of jersey bedsheets, and one day afterward, nothing. She wanted to wash the sheets. But she didn't dare. There was no wine, so that... couldn't have been the problem. Renee didn't take any pills, she had always been a rather healthy person but admittedly she hadn't eaten much that day and didn't plan on putting together a dinner. Her friends didn't know yet, so they couldn't provide survival comforts. It was just her, on a bed, in a tiny apartment, alone. So it wasn't wine or pills or attributed to anything particularly chemical, but it just so happens that on that night, Renee got a nosebleed. In the midst of her tears, a dark stain spread on her palms and she realized she was bleeding. It felt so dramatic, she walked to the bathroom pinching her nose and looked for the nearest towel to wipe on her face. As she removed the washcloth, a threadbare thing she would probably throw away after this incident of staining, she realized it had changed color. It was a yellow handcloth, she had wiped her hands on it for years, probably too long without replacement, but it was yellow. It was a bit blanched with wear and wash. But it was yellow. Not now. The cloth in her hands was a deep red. Renee's eyes snapped to the mirror, inspecting her face and nose—maybe she had bled a lot more than she thought— but her face was clean. The cloth stayed red. A single tear snuck from the corner of her eye... she followed its path in the bathroom reflection... and it was dark, moody, red. Like wine. She felt wet, like having walked out of a steamy shower, the air was warm and full of vapor and she could barely breathe. A drop of blood splattered the hexagonal tiled floor, but her nose felt dry. Dropping the towel, Renee watched as her fingernails pooled with thick burgundy liquid and spilled to the ground. This time the mirror showed her looking clean, and pale, and scared. The floor was splattered art, white tile and grey grout, artful splashes of deep red. Her sandals stood in pools of crimson, a steady flow easing out of the peep-toe opening. This wasn't just grief, it was worse than that. Renee knew she wasn't losing her mind. The world, like many other things, was here to blindside her, and she had no control over it.

Maybe the other tenants could have seen the sloshing red liquid in the other washing machine. The mysterious stains on the stairs. The pupils of their eyes that looked red and luminous in the mirror's reflection. The metallic tang from a bitten lip.

But it was a regular Tuesday night. Easy enough to forget, anyway.