Chapter Text
carmen is sick for his job. in all his body, all his mind. tick, tick, tick. in his bones. in his ears. in his breath. you could feel all the hunger, all the passion in a glance on his eyes. how could he not be? how could he avoid obsession? it belongs to him. all through blood, soul, heart. since family, since home.
attention. everything in the right place, always. every second counts. tick, tick, tick. paperwork, phonecalls. court, performing. a phonecall.
he hears her voice. her. her voice?
"carmen?"
carmen feels the pain in his head changing places. spreading to stomach. the hand going numb on the phone. he couldn't perceive how many times he blinked in the first 10 seconds since she spoke. seven times? maybe eleven. trying to breathe slowly, casual. say something. breathe.
"carmen berzatto?"
"sydney?" carm could feel all the passed years freshing in his mind again just by hearing sydney calling his name. she senses it. she flies through to the nostalgia for just a few seconds, then breaks it for her own choice. danger alarm. carmen's system fails in the silence before her answers finally arrive.
"oh hello!" she is gently. she seems sincere to carmen. is sydney. his sydney. the sydney adamu. why is she calling? sydney? why would she call? 20 years passed. he yearned for one call from her for all of those years and this was something that he could never denial. she was in everything place, every corner of chicago. she was not his sydney. not in 20 years.
"hi.. how, how are you?" he tries. he is trying. all his muscles seem to stop working. the words haggard, the hands numb. cigarretes. he searchs in his mind. not in his pockets. not in the desk. in the desk drawers? slightly shaking hands travel to the drawer handle. 5 seconds. sydney hears the noise of the lighter and the answer seems closer, in her tongue.
"oh, im... are you a lawyer, right?"
carm feels his bones tightening. he understands. a lawyer. is he a lawyer? she wants to know. he did law college. he graduated. he worked for six years as a lawyer by now. three back in chicago. is he a lawyer?
he clears his throat.
"ahm, yes... what, what about it?"
why do words seem to demand so much from him? stupid. fuck, fuck, fuck.
"good!," she hesitates and takes a deep breath. "my husband is dead", sydney says.
more blinking, obsessively blinking. the line dies. the 20-second silence exposes the unavailability, the raw absence of an individual in the life of another. carmen's mind freezes and heats up too quickly. he tries to digest every word he remembers coming out of sydney's mouth. husband, dead. he tries to connect these words. he tries to establish her absence in his life from the life she built without his knowledge. she is married. was.
"shit, syd. im, im so sorry"