Work Text:
September, 1999
Stallions Gate, NM
When a rain came – a good, strong, steady rain – it washed things clean. It poured down from the heavens and the water found its way into cracks and corners, creating murky streams that pulled away the dirt and the grime. It smoothed sharp edges, gently soothing hurts with continual caresses. And, when it was gone, the world was new again. The smells were fresh, the breeze was cool, and all was renewed.
So Donna couldn’t understand why, after all the tears she had shed, after the torrential downpour that had ripped from her body for hours, she felt more broken than before. Each breath in, each heartbeat was a reminder of the life she didn’t have. Even callbacks to happier times were taunts of an existence she could never have again.
She’d been brave. She’d been strong. She’d been, as Al had said, a hell of a woman.
She was done with that, now.
Tears were still marking rivulets down her cheeks, but they no longer even carried sorrow with them. They were just there, a permanent fixture that she’d have to accept.
She pulled the suitcase open and moved to pack. Her motions were stiff, robotic, and inevitable. She couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to.
She couldn’t believe God would be this cruel.
In went the dresses, blouses, slacks, makeup. In went the shoes, extra towels, toiletries.
The photos: the wedding, honeymoon, first house, first anniversary… The list went on and on.
Those could stay behind.
The program her brain was running continued undeterred and forced her hands to reach for a second suitcase. Then she continued.
Scientific papers she was working on, her laptop, her jewelry. In they went, without order or plan, just to rattle around in the bottom of the hard case.
The process almost ground to a halt when her hand hesitated over a photo of Sam, taken when he’d earned his Nobel in theoretical physics. The gears seemed to grind against each other. In the end, the photo went in the bag, then out, then back in.
She forced her fingers to release it and watched it drop amongst other mementos, grateful it had landed face down.
She hesitated a moment, hands braced on the lip of the suitcase, feeling the sharp metal press against her palms. She pushed harder, eliciting pain, but she didn’t react. Maybe the tears had erased her ability to be hurt. That would be nice, she thought. Finally, they were doing something productive.
She didn’t hear the door chime the first time it went off. She was still standing, frozen, staring at the wall and trying to make her hands hurt more. Pain would be nice, actually. Physical pain. Not the emotional torment she faced daily.
It went off again and actually felt insistent to her. She heard her own voice say, “Come in.” Her programming was apparently extensive.
Al Calavicci entered the room. His peacock suit and shimmering turquoise tie had no business in this place, this room of mourning. Once she left it behind for good, everything would be all right.
Sometimes she hated Al. He got to see Sam all the time, talk to him, share his life. He got to be the support system. The trusted advisor. The friend.
What did she get?
Oh, right. She got to work with Sam’s illegitimate daughter.
“Donna…” His sharp eyes took in the scene, scanning the room, catching the full suitcase and the work in progress. He stood very still, as if hardly daring to say anything.
She stood facing him. She thought the tears had finally come to an end, but a touch of her fingertips to her cheek revealed that not to be the case. Well, good, she thought. I can finish them here, in our quarters. Then I can be done with them.
“What’s…” He cleared his throat and focused on her. “What’s going on? You going to see family?”
She despised the fact that Al’s voice, rough and worn, was more familiar to her than her husband’s. And she scorned the sympathy in his tone, the gentleness with which he always handled her.
That’s who Al was to her, she realized. Her handler. Nothing more. He was here to do Sam’s dirty work – to appease the loyal wife and feed her tidbits and morsels. Not enough to nourish and sustain her, but just enough to keep her alive. She was Al’s prisoner.
“No.” She turned away to resume her packing, feeling the detachment slip. The first sliver of regret came and then went again just as quickly. “Not to family.”
“Then … where?” he asked cautiously. He was already suspicious, but she had no intention of hiding anything from him.
“Santa Fe. Then, wherever? Who knows? Dallas, Seattle, Chicago? Sky’s the limit.” Her own voice sounded eerily calm in her own ears.
“But…” She wished he would stop hedging and just get to it already. That way she could deal with him and leave him behind as well. She heard his sharp inhale. “You’re coming back, aren’t you?”
“No.” She said it very matter-of-factly. And she said nothing else.
“Donna,” he sighed. Here it comes. How long should I listen before I just go? “I know this is hard. Sam … he doesn’t remember you. If he did, he would never-”
She rounded on him. Now she felt something: anger. Rage. Fury. “Oh, please, Admiral, lecture me on quantum mechanics. Please, go on!”
Hurt flashed in his eyes but Donna didn’t care. This man already had more than her. He had more of her husband than she did. She couldn’t feel pity for him and she couldn’t let him make her feel responsible for this situation.
“Donna, you know that’s not what I’m saying.” He stepped forward and placed a hand on her arm, but she shook it off violently.
“There is nothing left to say, Al. Nothing left to do. Sam fell in love. He had a daughter,” her voice tripped over the word, but she charged on. Anger made it easier to say these things and so she clung to it. Rage could be so blissfully overpowering. “He doesn’t love me anymore.”
“He doesn’t remember you. That’s different!”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
“Donna, please…” His voice shook ever so slightly and, if she looked carefully, she could see a corresponding tremor in his stance.
“Can’t you ever come in here with anything other than, ‘Please’?” Her own voice was nasty, bitter. An unpleasant counterpoint to his.
“Let’s talk. Let’s sit and talk. We can get Verbena to come down and-”
“Screw you!” She flung the words at him, dug her heels in and put all the force she could muster into them. “Screw you and screw Sam!” She charged at him, now, and shoved him backwards.
The admiral was not a large man, but he had military background, a short stint as a boxer, and had grown up in a place where he often had the need to defend himself. He knew how to fight. Instead, he made no effort to even steady himself, but staggered backwards, his back hitting the wall.
He looked … broken. As broken as she felt.
The rage was still in control and it still felt good. She shoved him again, even though he was literally backed into a corner. She did it a third time, this time so high and with such force that his head hit the wall with a muted, dull thud. He left it there and closed his eyes. His calm infuriated her, and she flew at him, beating his chest with her fists.
He didn’t fight her, didn’t block the blows, but let them rain down on his body as if accepting penance for Sam’s sins.
“I hate him,” she gasped out, finally pulling back from Sam’s friend. Shame was hovering on the horizon, but she didn’t let it in, yet.
“Please,” he said again. He seemed unable to start a sentence any other way. “Give it some time, Donna. Just think about it for … a week. Just give me a week before you decide.”
She glared at him. His suit was disheveled, and she noticed a small tear near one of the buttons of his shirt. She had literally roughed him up. All his expression held was sympathy.
He wasn’t going to fight her and she needed to fight. She needed him to shove her back. She needed to keep the fury going.
“It’s always more time,” she said. And then, because she knew just how to hurt him, added, “If your beloved Beth couldn’t wait, what makes you think I can?”
Al had been still during her physical assault, but this hit him hard, a sharp knife into soft flesh, slowly tearing across skin and muscle, working its way through his body in agonizing lines. He seemed unable to inhale though he was struggling to.
“I hate him,” she said again, but now the anger had fled. She wanted it back so badly, but she simply couldn’t stir it up again.
Al looked up at her, his face pale. Then he did something she never, in all her wildest imaginings, thought he would do. She knew this man to be proud, brave, stubborn, loyal, but never submissive.
Admiral Calavicci got on his knees and looked up at her. The action shocked her so much that she nearly lost her balance, her hand flying to her mouth to cover for the gasp that escaped.
“Donna. I’m begging you. Please. I’m begging. Don’t leave him.”
She shook her head and now she felt the full weight of shame about how she’d acted. She’d taken this man, who was innocent of all Sam’s actions, and placed the blame and the punishment squarely on his shoulders. Instead of returning in kind, he had resorted to this. All for Sam.
“Al, I…” She shook her head and he took one of her hands in both of his. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Donna.” She met his eyes, but it was hard. Unfiltered honesty met her gaze. “It will kill him if you go. I know. I know. Please.”
She continued to shake her head and the sorrow came afresh. “I can’t, I just…”
His hands held hers firmly, almost tenderly. “I know what it is to have half of your soul ripped away. Please is all I have and I’m sorry for that. But please don’t leave him.”
She fell to the floor next to him and pulled her hand back, clenching it into a fist that she pressed into her forehead.
He gathered her up into his arms and held her tightly on the floor of Sam’s and her quarters.
“Donna,” he whispered into her ear, stroking her hair slowly. “I beg of you. Don’t go.”
She couldn’t control her breath, her body. She couldn’t control anything. He waited patiently. Finally, she said, softly, “Okay.”
And he held her as she sobbed.