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by
He feels her smile when he's afraid, It reminds him of his life before she went awayHe might crumble, but he'll not fall, If the memory of his only love can stay that way
And he's still wondering when she's coming home And he'll tell her what he's done todayHe doesn't want to lose this memoryOf the only part of life to him that's safe.
****
The apartment's quiet.
No big surprise there. The apartment's always quiet these days. Well, hell, that's not even right. The apartment's always been quiet, period.
She was never here with me. No one's been here.
I kinda smile to myself when I realize that. No one's ever been in this place since I got it. I'm sure these walls have seen parties and laughter and other beer-commercial scenes, but not in the three years since I got it.
Nope. Despite how much I may wish, all my happier, more social memories are back at the old house. Back with her and her new Ken doll husband.
Still, I can't help but feel a little wistful tonight. I wish I had some nice memories to go with this place. All the nights I spend here staring at the walls, I wish there were some nice memories to go with those walls.
I wish when I climb into bed every night I could shut my eyes and imagine she's there with me. But I can't. This wasn't the bed we slept together in. In fact, this feels nothing like it. Our old bed was big. Soft, fluffy. She loved down comforters and lots of pillows. She loved to get close at night. Never pushed me away, not even in the bad times. No matter what we fought about, once we were in bed we were just two bodies, drawn to each other by warmth and the remnants of love, and.
Hell. I'm morbid tonight.
I'm sitting in the dark. I'm pretty sure it wasn't dark when I first got here, but I guess I've been sitting here staring at the walls so long that the sun's set. Pathetic.
But, screw it. I'm not in the mood for illumination in any source or wattage.
If I had friends, I suppose they'd tell me to get off my ass and get a life.
Morbid and pathetic. Nice combo.
Course, I do have friends. Well, sorta. Not like the friends I had when I was respectable. When I was somebody's husband. Nope, these are fair-weather friends. And not even that -- these people are my friends when I'm in the room with them. Outside of that, not a thought's spared my way, I'm sure.
Folks at the bars I like to go to. All the women who love to hang off me while I'm buying the drinks. Chicks and even a few guys who listen to the bullshit stories I make up on the spot, laugh along with me.
If I saw any of them on the street, in the sober light of day, they'd probably shove on past without recognizing me. When I'm not turned on, a drink in each hand and charming grins flying off my face towards everyone, I'm a completely different person.
There's also the people at work, but I'm not even gonna kid myself. They're all Agency, through and through. There to do a job. They relate to me only in the ways the job dictates. They're business, pros, and I respect that. I do the same thing. It's what we have to be. What we were trained to be.
Well, except the kid. The man, the big shot, the center of attention. The MVP of our little group.
Darien's nothing like trained. He's not close to being professional, even when he's making an attempt. He tries to get to know the people there personally. He doesn't realize it's forbidden in the world of government agencies.
Still, he's done it, to a point. I've been working with the Agency for a couple of years now, and only in the last few months did I get to know the Keeper's name, or the Official's. I never knew Eberts was IRS.
Darien found all that out, just by being him. He's got an inordinate amount of curiosity about everyone who lives there.
Everyone but me.
Now that I think about it, that's true. He doesn't really give two shits what goes on in my life outside of the Agency. The one time we were forced to hang out after hours he wanted nothing more than to be away from me.
Makes me wonder why I felt I had to show him part of my life. I couldn't show the sitting and staring at walls part -- nope, too pathetic for my joker of a partner to be exposed to. I had to take him out and to the clubs, to the one place I knew my life wouldn't look pathetic. Might even look somewhat impressive.
I don't give a crap what the guy thinks of me. So what if he knows I sit on my ass every night wishing things had been different? He's not part of my life outside work.
No one is. After work, I have no life to be a part of. I have nothing. I have memories.
Jesus, I wish.
I wish a lot of things. I wish she were here. I wish we were back together. I can still imagine coming home to her. She didn't always have dinner ready or a smile on her face, but she was always there. Always ready to greet me. Offering silent comfort, removed from everything I went through during the day.
I try, sometimes, to place those memories in this apartment. Maybe I try to relive one of the few times I made it home before she did.
I would hear her coming up to the door. The sounds of her heels on the concrete of the porch try to morph into the padded clicks of those heels on the carpet of the hall outside my door.
I would hear her key in the door. That sound wouldn't have to change.
I would see the door sliding open, and I would smile. Always, no matter what kind of shitty day I had, I'd see her and grin like a moron.
It never works. I can never quite get the memory to uproot itself from that house. I can't place her here. I can't see her face and these walls at the same time.
This apartment has nothing to do with her. This is the place I was banished to during the divorce. The walls that always meant I was going to be alone.
Fuck, I hate this place. Never realized how much I hate before tonight. Don't know why it struck me just now.
It used to be some kind of haven. When I got home and shut that door behind me, it meant safety and peace. I never get visitors, rarely get phone calls. When I'm here, it means the rest of the world was gone for the night. I got more relaxed when I got here. Things didn't seem so bad. Like no matter what happened, no matter what criminal scum we went after, no matter what bad news struck the Agency, or the people I knew from it, I would still go home to these walls every night.
Put things into perspective, a little.
But I guess time's changed that. Tonight I got home, shut the door, and felt pretty fucking bad. Another night alone. More hours to throw away sitting by myself. This isn't a life. I'm not living, sitting here on my ass. I'm passing time. I'm waiting.
Waiting. Huh. Waiting for.
For her. To come home. To come here, to click her heels on the carpet, put her key in the door, and to make me smile by just being there.
To laugh, fight, talk, just sit there and watch TV. To curl up with me when we sleep.
I can't.Jesus. It seems stupid. It should be so simple to go out and really talk to any of those women who know me at the hot spots. To get her home with me, to start some sort of relationship. It would be simple. Hell, everyone loves me out there. I buy drinks, I charm with stories, and they love me.
Don't know my name, or my job, or my past. But they love me.
But I can't. I can't make myself go out all that much anymore. I can't make myself pick up the phone and call one of the phone numbers I've found in my pockets getting home in early morning hours. I can't make myself stop living this miserable life.
I can't let go of her. I can't let go of the memories. I don't want a new woman, new memories.
I don't.shit. I don't want this anymore. I want Vivian in my head. I can't let her go. But I can't keep doing this to myself.
I can't keep sitting here alone in the dark until it's time to sleep. There's more out there, more to life, and I could find it, if I just got up and looked.
Dammit. Dammit, dammit. I hate this. I can't stand thinking in endless circles about this shit.
I want her back. Anything else is too risky, too uncertain.
Any other woman would leave me. Or not like me in the first place. Or else I wouldn't like her. She'd be too dark, too different.
She'd leave. That's what life means. It sucks, people leave. That's all there is out there. All there is.
Shit. The phone.
Why's my phone ringing? No one calls me. No one but..
Dammit.
"Hello?"
"Hobbes."
I was right. Darien. Work. "What's up, Fawkes?"
"Nothing much. I was just sitting on my ass at home, and I don't wanna do that anymore. How about a burger or something? My treat."
The irony doesn't escape me.
"I don't know, kid. It's late."
"Late?" He sounds.knowing Darien, I can see him in my mind. Sprawled on his couch, one foot on the ground, the other over the arm of the couch. Twirling the phone cord in his hand, making some face up at the ceiling. Grinning and easy-going and everything I'm not. Including brave enough to call for company.
"Yeah. Late." I glance at my watch.
Huh. Only nine. Not late.
"Bobby, it's nine o'clock. Give me a break. I've spent time with you, Wild Man. I know about your bar-hopping and crazy life. Leave it for one night and hang out with your partner."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
Dammit. I forgot how damned persistent he is. Nosy punk. "You know what curiosity did to a certain feline, don't ya?"
"Bobby. Stop with the private secret-agent-man schtick. You got plans?"
Gotta be honest. "Nope."
"Then.what?"
I sigh into the phone. Wonder why he's so eager to play buddies tonight. "Darien.find someone else."
There's a pause. With Fawkes, a pause is never a good thing. Means he's thinking. And the kid's smart.
"Bobby. What's wrong?"
See? Smart. Picks things up like a pro. "Nothing,"
"Jeez, you drive me nuts. What's wrong?"
What does it feel like to have someone ask that and be able to answer honestly? I don't know. Never have. Even with Viv I'd sugarcoat things. She didn't need to know the way my thoughts work. No one does.
"Bobby? Talk to me, buddy. You need anything? Need me to come over?"
"No." I answer fast. Probably too fast. The kid picks up on things like that.
Still. Much as I may hate what my life's become, it's my life. It's routine now, and I don't want to.hell, maybe I just can't.change it.
"I'm good," I say, 'cause I gotta say something else. "I just need some down time."
"No one ever said you can't have down time with someone else around."
"Darien, drop it! I just don't want to hang out with anyone. If that's not good enough for you, I don't give a shit. I want to be alone."
Dammit. I hear the words come out, loud and angry and wrong, just wrong. False, untrue, lie, and the tone's off. Too angry. I don't want to talk to Darien like that.
I don't want to be alone. I just don't know how to change it.
It can't be as easy as taking him up on his offer and going out for a burger. Can't. 'Cause even then, I'd come home to an empty apartment, and I'd probably be such lousy company that he'd never ask again, and what would that get me? One night respite? No thanks.
He's quiet on the other end. Sorting through things and analyzing my tones, or maybe just plain hurt. "Bobby."
"What?" Dammit, I'm still snapping. Calm down, Hobbes. This is your partner. Calm down.
Darien's voice when he replies is quiet. "You're the loneliest person I know."
I don't answer. What the hell do I say to that? What can he want me to say? Where the hell did that come from?
My chest is starting to hurt. I think if he keeps prying into me, I'm gonna panic. I do that, a lot more than people think.
My hand's moving before I can stop it, and the phone's back in its cradle.
Loneliest person I know. Fuck, where did that come from? Why would Darien say that?
Jesus. I just hung up on him.
"Dammit." I hiss the word out loud. Doesn't do any good -- no one's around to hear -- but I can't stop it. "Dammit, dammit."
Maybe this is why I sit alone. You let someone close, and they call, they pry, they refuse to take no for an answer. They think they know you. What's best for you. If you're lonely or not.
Jesus, I am. I'm so lonely I think it's killing me.
I don't want to deal with what repercussions that phone call might have. I want to pray for Darien to get sudden amnesia and just lose the last five minutes.
I don't want to feel what I'm feeling. I hate analyzing my life. I hate studying my own feelings. I pay doctors to do that, for all the good it does.
I don't want to feel this way. Like my chest is starting to compress, and I can't draw in a full breath. Like my heart's suddenly getting squeezed under the pressure. Like everything I'm doing night after night is wrong, and there's no way to fix it.
I hate him sometimes. Darien. I think I really do. I hate that he tries to be friends with the world. I hate that he succeeds. I hate how decent and caring, and perceptive, he is. I hate that it's so easy for him to go out and make friends and get to know names and have people really care, after ten minutes of knowing him, whether he lives or dies.
I'm so insane jealous of that. He eases through the very things that keep me locked in this shithole apartment. He glides his way through life so easily.
That's right, Bobby. Hate him. Does you a hell of a lot of good. Everyone knows jealousy's the most useful emotion you can feel.
God, why can't I just keep going like I am? And I don't mean sitting here every night, because I can do that. I will do that. I mean, mentally. Why can't this be enough anymore? Why can't I sit here and lose myself with thoughts of her and let that be enough?
I can't change who I am. These feelings that keep me shut up here are strong, and they aren't going to change. Despite how unhappy I am all of the sudden, the facts are still true -- the world sucks, people suck, and if you let them close, they hurt you. Never fails.
I sit back in place on my couch. I stare at the dim shadows on the walls. I will myself to forget the last few minutes. Forget the phone call, forget the mental processes. Forget everything.
It works for a while. I'm not actually sure how much time passes. No more calls, nothing else drags me out of my stupor.
Then.
A knock on the door.
And I know who it is.
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