Work Text:
Stormy nights are the worst.
The sea pitches and rolls. Swells and retreats in a never-ending battle against the thunderstorm above. It feels too familiar.
Stormy grey-blue eyes watch from the safety of thick windowpanes in a darkened room as the sea fights against the sky. If the sun peaked through, would the sea be blue or green today? Would it shift with the waves? The storm would be grey and the sea blue green. The thought alone makes the eyes shift away.
“The weather station says it’s not a hurricane,” says a gentle voice and the eyes switch focus to the source, a tall young woman with hair black as night and eyes the color of the sea. “But that doesn’t mean you should sit by the window, Uncle.”
Uncle.
The word is like a slap to the face and a balm to his heart.
“I like to watch,” he replies.
The woman smiles kindly, but her eyes carry a sad light. She walks over to his spot by the large bay window and sits beside his wheelchair, watching with some coldness at the battle of the sea and sky. “It reminds you of then, doesn’t it.”
“Yes.”
“Of him?”
“Always.”
“What was he like?”
“Like you. Loud, annoying, fierce, and beautiful.”
It’s a song they sing almost every storm. She knows the words by heart, hers and his, she knows what to ask and what to leave well alone. He speaks of a person she doesn’t know, never knew, of a man who haunts them both for different reasons.
Her father.
His lover.
The traitor.
The monster.
They love him still.
“She called again,” she says quietly, barely disturbing the tranquility of the moment.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I’m staying here, with you.” She reaches up and puts her hand on his, mindful of the two missing fingers. “We’re family after all, and this is what he wanted, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure what he wanted in the end.”
She squeezes his hand, and he rubs her thumb with his. “I had a dream.” He nods for her to continue. “I was on a hill by a tree.”
“His grave.”
“I was with you.”
“I took you once. The first and last time for us both.”
“We didn’t cry.” She tilts her head in a way that reminds him of her father, and he swallows the bile in his throat. “Should we have?”
He shrugs. “Did you feel sad?”
“No, just hollow.”
“So did I.”
The sea rises higher to meet the sky and lightning flashes, lighting up the battlefield below the window. He hates how much it reminds him of the end, of their end. He hates that it reminds him of her birth, of her beginning.
“Why did you raise me, if I remind you of him?”
“Because you remind me of him.”
“Is that why we left?”
“You’d remind others of him, too.”
She hums thoughtfully, still holding his mangled hand. “I wish I could remember him, too.”
He squeezes her hand. “I’m glad you don’t.”
“Would he have loved me?”
A new question requires a new answer.
“Probably, yes, for different reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“You’re determined, strong, loyal, and honest.”
“Like you.”
“Like me.”
“Do you only love me because of him?”
The look he gives her tells her plainer than words that she crossed another line, so she gives his hand a final squeeze before rising from the floor with grace and ease he once had himself. Gently she leans down and kisses the top of his head, once full of hair like hers now peppered with silver, and since he doesn’t push her away, she knows she’s forgiven.
“I’ll bring dinner up soon,” she says kindly and the tension eases from his face. “With a fresh pot of tea, too.”
He nods, pleased with the thought of warm food and his favorite drink. Like him, she’s an excellent cook, and food is a blessing amidst this terrible storm.
“Thank you.”
She smiles as she leaves the room, though she doesn’t close the door. She knows he doesn’t like being closed off, from the house, the world, or her she isn’t sure, but he hasn’t been in a closed room that isn’t his private bathroom since she can remember. Gabi told her it was because of his injuries, that he didn’t want to be trapped in the event of an accident, but that always felt like a lie. She used to think it was because she would get lost at night, confused after a nightmare, crying while she looked for him, but Falco said he kept them open when she was small and couldn’t walk yet.
She’s sure it has to do with him. With the secrets he kept. With the walls he built.
Maybe it reminds him of the walls her father destroyed.
The storm builds to its crescendo as he watches. His good eye tracks the movement of the waves and lightning. The thunder distantly sounds like the rumbling of dozens of large feet.
His hands clench and unclench the handles on his wheelchair, fingers flexing and tapping as if working a mechanism. They only move like this in storms, the muscle memory second nature despite the lack of use. He can almost feel the wind rush on his face, the weightlessness of flight.
His freedom.
Stripped.
This chair is his cage.
He traded one for the other.
He’d give it back in a heartbeat.
But only if . . . only if . . .
Lightning flashes as bright as day and for a moment he sees the sea, sees the brilliant blue-green color and he slams a palm against the window.
Perhaps instead he’d trade the memories for his freedom.
The memories that settle in his brain like a disease.
That plague his every thought.
That make his every move.
He’d like to say he’s learned to move past it, past him, but he can’t, he knows he will always be a slave to these memories. To him. He will always be doomed to remember why the color of the sea soothes and stabs his heart. Why the sound of thunder keeps him from sleeping. Why the child he raised will always wonder and ask.
Why he will always wonder and ask.
He’s burdened with the memories. With the answers and the questions. He’s burdened and blessed.
“Please,” he begs, his hand curling into a fist against the glass. The lightning flashes and for a split second, the sea becomes a pair of eyes he only sees in his dreams. “Let us go.”
Thunder rumbles overhead.