Chapter Text
Crashing water …
Warm wind …
Cool skin … wet …
A faint, distant smell of burning.
Callum isn’t sure which sensation he becomes aware of first, but they’re all subtly wrong. They’re all alien, a world away from his usual waking routine of the last few weeks. That’s a tiny cruise-ship cabin – the cheapest one, no porthole, and forget a balcony – where you never feel the movement of the colossal ship and the only sounds are the air-conditioning and Stuart’s supersonic snores.
Back further … this isn’t his south London flat. That feels like cold, and damp, and the fierce, orange glare of outdated streetlights and the never-ending wail of sirens and car alarms.
Back further than that … the army … getting warmer, now.
Wind, water, burning. Impossibly bright light, searing through his eyelids one minute, blocked out the next, then blinding once again. He’s aware, and unaware, of it all at once.
No, Callum isn’t aware which sensation he became aware of first. He is, however, painfully aware of the one that comes second, the one that drags him back to consciousness, mercifully before the army flashbacks can begin. Warm water – enough to choke him – is dumped unceremoniously onto his upturned face. A second later, the taste of salt.
His eyes fly open. The light is immediately explained: he’s outside, and the sun is blinding. A fuzzy-outlined shape blocks out the worst of it. Blinking furiously, his eyes stinging from the salt, he struggles to focus. The fuzzy shape is a face, a small one, and the fuzz is blonde, golden hair, whipped around into total disarray. The blue eyes are regarding him in concern, the little brow furrowed, the little mouth pursed.
Callum’s mind launches into overdrive. His peripheral vision expands to take in golden sands, white-crested waves on a turquoise sea, and sun-drenched palm trees. He gapes at it all, and his little saviour. Paradise? An angel? Surely not.
“Sorry about the water in your face,” the angel says, matter-of-factly, in what is unmistakeably both a) a London accent, and b) the high pitch of a small child. Not an angel, then. He should probably feel relieved – you know, not to be dead – but as suspicions about his new reality start to seep in, it looks like divine intervention might be in order.
She prods him, to make sure he’s listening. “Sorry,” she says again. “But I saw someone do it on the telly, once. To wake someone up. You know, when they were hurt, and wouldn’t wake up. And it worked!”
She’s proud of herself, clearly, and he smiles despite himself, taking in her sparkly pink unicorn t-shirt, and the glittery silver jelly shoe that had obviously been used to carry the water that revived him.
“Yeah. Yeah, it did,” he agrees, pushing himself up on his elbows, taking in the sight around him. Assorted wreckage. No other people. His instincts, the ones that always take care of others first, raise immediate concern for this little girl. In the back of his mind, questions finally begin to form.
How did we get here?
He can’t seem to remember. He sits up fully, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. Reaching for her hand, he makes eye contact with the little girl. “I’m Callum. What’s your name?”
“I’m Lexi Pearce. I’m seven years old,” she answers, suddenly formal.
“Nice to meet you, Lexi.” He pauses before continuing. He’s recovered enough now to understand that something terrible has happened. He doesn’t want to upset her, but he has to ask. “Where are your grown-ups?”
“Mum’s back at home. She got hurt, so Daddy took me on the boat instead.” Her little face falls slightly, her head turning to look out to sea.
“Do you .. do you know where your daddy is?”
Her face scrunches up now, fighting tears, shaking her head. When the first sob escapes, she flings herself into his arms, weeping into his shoulder. He holds her shaking body, comforting her instinctively, one hand reaching up to stroke the tangled hair at the back of her head.
*~*~*~*~*
Two weeks earlier.
“Come on, Callum, it’ll be a right laugh!” Stuart insists and really, it’s ridiculous when a man as large as his brother, who looks like that, starts whining.
“I’ll never get the time off work,” he tries, because as much as he loves his brother, he knows that after two weeks in a compact cabin with him, he’d throw himself overboard.
“’Course you can, they love you there. You work harder than all of ‘em. And they know how down you’ve been since it ended with Whitney.” He’s gone from whining to wheedling, clearly not giving up any time soon. “That’s why you’ve gotta go!”
“And the fact that you can’t afford to pay for it?” He snaps back, somewhat meanly, especially when his brother has a point.
“Yeah, well, I found the deal, didn’t I?” Stuart waves his phone around, showing the Travelzoo offer. “And I’ll pay you back, I swear!”
Callum can feel himself wavering. Truth is, he’s getting desperate. He feels like his mind’s been slowly unravelling for months. For years. For as long as he can remember. He thought when he got home from the army, started to put a life together, everything would get easier. The job in the funeral parlour, the smart suits every morning … the beautiful girl. It had all been okay when he was wrapped up in building it, putting it all together. That life. It was only when he actually had to start living it that it had all come apart.
He couldn’t go through with the wedding. He’d called it off the night before. Hurt Whitney terribly. Everyone – literally, everyone – thought he was mad. Lovely Callum, the last bloke you’d ever think to get cold feet.
Not for the first time, he’d ached to talk to Chris. Chris would get it. Chris would understand. And Chris was absolutely not the reason he called the wedding off in the first place. No.
But Chris was gone.
He pulls himself back to reality, back to the present, where his gigantic idiot of a brother is giving him puppy eyes. Well, as close as you can get when you look like Uncle Fester.
He could get out of here for a few weeks. Clear his head. Figure out how to move on.
Figure out where it all went wrong in the first place.
“All right,” he sighs, reaching into his blazer pocket for his wallet.