|
|
Author: Casca
Title: And the Rain Pours Down -Part 2
Classification: Carter/Lucy friendship/angst
Spoilers: season six and seven
Feedback: Yes, please!! Casccara@yahoo.com
Archive: Not without permission from moi! J
Disclaimer: They’re
not mine, I don’t own anything and I don’t make money from this. (Although I
should)
Time Frame: A rewrite of The Greatest of Gifts, however the time frame is NOT at Christmas time, it’s around September, a month after Carter returns from rehab. I strongly suggest you read the first few parts of my series located at my fanfic archive Between the Lines.
Chapter Two
“ . . . And always remember that we’re here to share. Go in peace and sobriety.”
“Peace and sobriety,” the regulars repeated and everyone got up from their respective seats and began milling around.
Lucy and Carter walked in silence out of the room, and down the steps of the recreation hall. The night air was cool, but dry as the rain had let up since they’d arrived. “Want me to drive again?” she asked him.
“Naw,” Carter slid behind the wheel and took the keys from her. There was a thin sheet of weariness floating over their heads and a fatigue that they both understood. The meeting hadn’t cheered or encouraged them, it had made things all too crystal clear. “Want to get something to eat? I’m starving.”
Lucy nodded, remembering how her stomach had been growling during the meeting. “Yeah, me too. Let’s get it to go,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “We can eat by me.”
A little while later they were seated around Lucy’s kitchen table eating Chinese takeout in silence. It wasn’t until they were on their last few bites that Carter spoke. “I have to tell Weaver.”
Lucy put down her fork and sighed. “Yeah. You do.”
“Dammit.”
“Look, it’s not going to be that bad- At least I don’t think it will be.” Then she sighed “I don’t know. I really don’t know how it’s going to be. But you have to tell her. Everything about that meeting said you should.”
“I know. I know, I know. I just wish . . . I wish I’d never even laid eyes on that bottle.”
“Look at it this way,” she said, taking their plates to the sink. “You said that you didn’t crave it, you just took them because the opportunity was there. So that proves that it’s all in your mind and not in your body. So now that you’re aware of that . . . your mind can be on alert.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that does make sense.”
“Some things I say do,” she joked.
Carter smiled for the first time in the last few hours. “Yeah, you’re getting wise in your old age.”
The grinned at each other.
“So where’s your mom, working late?” Carter asked, cracking open a fortune cookie and frowning at the words on the little piece of paper.
“No. She left.”
“Left? Where?” He quickly hid the fortune from her view.
“Back to Boston.”
Carter turned in his seat to look at her. “Back to Boston? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She waved her hand. “I guess I forgot with everything going on. She left this morning.”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah.” They were interrupted by a phone ringing. Lucy made a move to get her cell phone, but Carter had reached into his pocket and pulled his out.
“It’s mine,” he said. “Hello? Dad!”
Lucy glanced back at him with a surprised look on her face. She’d never heard him speak about either of his parents.
“Yeah, I’m . . . well, I’m at a friend’s house. Dad, how did you get this number? You called the house? Oh. Well, I don’t know what she’s worried about, because I’m- she said that?” Carter yanked a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand why she would say that because-“ he abruptly glanced at Lucy as if Mr. Carter had asked about her. “A friend, Dad, just a friend, what exactly did Gamma-“
Lucy started to walk out of the room to give him privacy, but stopped when Carter stood up and took her arm. He held up his hand as if to tell her he’d be done in one minute. Lucy stood awkwardly next to him while he finished his conversation.
“Look, Dad, I’m not going to talk about this right now. No, it’s not a good time, I’ll call you when . . . well, where will you be? Barcelona? How long . . . Okay. Fine, call me when you know where you’ll be,” he almost snapped and clicked off the phone. “Sorry, Luce.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I should go,” he said. “Thanks for everything.”
“Thanks for dinner,” she said as they walked into the living room.
He shook his head as he shrugged into his now dry jacket. “It was the least I could do.”
“Be careful on the road, the storm is raging again-“
And on a huge crash of thunder, they were enclosed in darkness.
Lucy couldn’t see a thing. That familiar, sudden fear that had dulled with time since the stabbing was now back with full force. “Carter,” she said urgently, reaching out and gripping his arms.
“I’m right here. It’s the storm; it must have cause a power outage. You okay?”
“Don’t leave,” she said, holding onto his arms tightly.
“I’m right here,” he said again. “Where do you keep a flashlight?”
“In the kitchen closet,” she said, trying to keep her panic under control, but the noise in her head was her own voice screaming as she relived the darkness of the stabbing.
“I’m right behind you,” Lucy felt him reach for her hand and she held on tight as if for dear life.
Carter closed his eyes to try to keep himself in line. He had to be the strong one here. He had to be the sane one because this time around he knew that Lucy couldn’t be. Her entire body was shaking; he felt it, as they squeezed they’re way through the kitchen door together. He pushed his own fears, his own panic, aside and focused on being strong for the both of them.
They clumsily made their way to the kitchen closet and found the flashlight. Lucy had just flicked it on, when every single light in the apartment lit up.
“Oh!” she sighed, weak with relief. “They’re on.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at her. He saw that the relief in her eyes covered up unshed tears. “Are you okay?” he asked gently, rubbing her forearms.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, brushing at her cheeks when the tears spilled over. “I’m fine. This is so stupid . . . It’s just . . . the dark. I hate the dark.”
“Me, too.”
“Yeah,” she took a deep breath and started to tell him that he could go now, that she was okay, but something stopped her. “Do you think . . . do you think it’ll go out again?”
He looked at the fear in her eyes and knew they were thinking that same thing: if the storm kept up like it was, the odds were that the power would probably go out during the night. “Probably. If this storm keeps up the way it is.”
She nodded, thinking that she would probably lose her mind if it went out again. “Well, I’ll deal with it if it happens. You can go ahead and go.”
Carter looked at her closely.
Lucy tried to seem nonchalant. “I’m fine, Carter. Don’t worry about me.”
He wondered if she knew how transparent she was. “Luce, I have nothing against sleeping on your couch tonight.”
“No,” she said firmly and repeated it. “I can deal with it myself, if the power goes off. I have to deal with it myself.”
“Why?”
She looked taken aback. “Because, that’s why. Because I cannot be, no I refuse to be, a victim forever. I don’t need help anymore, I don’t need anyone to “protect” me, I can protect myself. I have to start being my own person or else I’m just going to get lost in this pity everyone seems to want to throw at me. I don’t need my mom protecting me, I don’t need you protecting me, or anyone else for that matter. I can find my way in the darkness if the power goes out, I can live in this city alone, without anyone if it comes to that. I can.” Lucy said all this very fast and getting louder and stronger as she went.
Carter raised his eyebrows and shook
his head. “I really don’t feel like
driving home in this. Come on, Lucy.”
Her eyes were dry now, and very stubborn. Carter watched with amusement as she stuck her chin out and braced her body for defense. “You’re just saying that! You think I’m stupid, Carter?”
“No, I don’t think you’re stupid. Fine, I’ll go, I was just thinking about myself, anyhow.”
“Wait a minute.”
Carter smiled secretly.
“You really don’t feel like driving in this?”
“Would you want to drive on the expressway in that?” he pointed to window.
“Okay,” she said and gave him a look. “As long as it’s not for me, because I can handle it myself-“
“I know, I know. You told me already.”
Carter and Lucy spent a couple hours watching “Yours, Mine and Ours,” an old movie with Lucille Ball. At around eleven, Lucy started yawning. “I think I’m ready for bed.”
“Party Pooper,” he said on a yawn.
She laughed. “I know. Just a couple of wild kids, we are. I have to take a shower first. You can grab a pillow and the spare blanket off my bed, okay?”
“Okay.” Carter waited until she’d closed herself in the bathroom before getting up to get the pillow. When he entered her room which was dimly lit by a small bedside lamp, he found himself face to face with a huge stuffed sheep dog seated on her bed. Carter grinned and walked over to snatch a pillow from her bed. That’s when he spotted a photo album lying open on the floor. He picked it up and sat down on the bed to look at the photos.
But when he sat on the bed, the album was soon forgotten. Carter gasped as he sank deep into the soft fluffy cushions of the unmade bed. He sat with a furrowed brow, hitting the fluffy cushions with his hands and making huge dents in the layers of covers. Experimenting a little, he laid back against the pillows and nearly groaned out loud. It was the most comfortable, the most feathery, the most cushy bed he’d ever been in contact with. Tossing the photo album aside, he kicked off his gym shoes, spread his arms out, and laid on his back in sheer contentment.
A few minutes later Lucy padded into the room, clad in flannel pants and a tee-shirt, drying her hair with a towel. When she spotted Carter laying flat on his back looking like he’d died and gone to heaven, she grinned. “What are you doing?” she asked with amusement.
He opened one eye. “You’re bed is amazing,” he allowed himself to mutter.
She giggled and jumped on the other side of the bed, bouncing them both. “Isn’t it comfy?” she asked.
He pointed to the door. “You’re sleeping on the couch.”
She giggled again. “The comforter was on clearance at Fields for seventy percent off. The feather cushion on top of the mattress, I’ve had since grade school. I can’t sleep anywhere without it. I even had it in my dorm last year,” she said. Then she yawned and stretched, laying her head down on one of the pillows and settling herself next to him.
The window next to the bed was open and the sound of rain beating against the screen and thunder crashing in the sky made them both feel very content to be exactly where they were.
Lucy turned her head against the pillow to watch Carter. He was staring at the ceiling, one arm underneath his head, his eyes deep in thought.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked him.
He was silent for a long time. “I’m thinking about . . . how unfair it was for my father to accuse me of not putting family first in my life.”
“Did he say that?”
Carter nodded and was silent again. Thunder rolled and crashed against the steady sound of the rain. “How dare he say I’m the one who has his priorities screwed up? They didn’t even come to see me in the hospital. ”
Lucy reached over to squeeze his hand, to comfort. “You’re grandmother came. She’s the one who means the world to you, I can tell.”
Carter nodded and turned his hand to link his fingers with hers for the second time that evening. “She does. You mentioned once that you never knew your father. Did he call you or see you after the attack?”
Lucy shook her head. “No. I asked my mom if he called . . . he didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I don’t need him. I never have.”
Carter was beginning to notice a theme for the evening where Lucy was concerned. Lucy didn’t need her father just like she didn’t need anyone else. He wondered if she had any idea how wrong she was. Even so, he squeezed her hand to comfort her.
“You never saw him?” he asked her.
“Once,” she replied, yawning. “I saw my father once. I was about thirteen and home sick from school. He came to talk to my mom about something. I never even asked her what it was. Anyway, he came during the day, thinking that I would be in school. My mother never lied to me, ever. So when she introduced him, she said, “Lucy, this is your father.” And I was very polite almost too polite. I could sense that he wanted to be anywhere else in the world. And that made me not even care about him. It didn’t even affect me at the time . . .”
“At the time,” he repeated and turned his head to look at her.
She met his gaze.
The lamp flickered dangerously and they both held their breaths until it stopped flickering and remained on.
“That was close,” she laughed nervously, reminding Carter of a little girl. He glanced over to see her turn her head to snuggle into the pillow.
“I used to actually like it when the lights would go out at home,” Lucy muttered, shutting her eyes against the fatigue. “My Mom and I would camp out in the living room and light a whole bunch of candles. And she would tell these stupid ghost stories which I knew the endings to so I would spend the whole time laughing at her.” Lucy let out a yawn and snuggled even further into the pillows.
He smiled. “Once when I was about eleven, my cousin Chase was spending the night and the electricity went out. We built this huge fort in the den and pretended like it was our spaceship that had lost power and was careening towards Mars. When we crashed the ship, we flung ourselves all over the room, like idiots. Chase bumped his head on an end table and we had to take him to the ER.”
Lucy laughed and muttered, “boys.” She yawned loudly and closed her eyes.
Carter yawned as well, and turned his head to look at her. Her cheek was pressed against the pillow, her eyes closed, her breathing deep and steady. She was fast asleep. Something inside him stirred. He couldn’t put his finger on the feeling because he’d never experienced it before. Perhaps he was learning what it was like to truly care about someone. Why the uneasiness? He continued to study her and felt another twinge of something he didn’t recognise.
Oh, well.
Carter closed his eyes against the tension and was shocked at how easy it was to get rid of the restlessness if he truly wanted to. He was sick of worrying, sick of telling himself what not to feel. Sitting up, he grabbed the jumbled covers at the foot of the bed and covered her.
She shifted at the movement and snuggled further into the pillow and comforters. “Thank you for staying,” she mumbled in her sleep.
He had to smile. “No problem,” Carter whisperred. He considered going into the living room and sleeping on the couch, but he truly didn’t want to leave the comfort of the bed when he was so tired. So Carter laid back against the cushy bed and fell asleep listening to the thunder crash and the merciless rain pour down.