03-21-2014, 11:20 PM
The night of St. Patrick's was a low point for Sid, but it wasn't the lowest. She doesn't really have a lowest moment in the time between losing Jim and whatever moment she finds herself in, all the dips feel the same. They are bleak, desolate, terrible, interminable. Until they're not. The days when she is fine, when her mind is logical and rational and all her own are a blessing. It makes sense, it's the best for both of them, it'll be okay. But it never lasts. Always she sees something that reminds her of some precious moment - a moment that should never have happened, would never have happened - and the guilt and the heartache and the shame grip her so tight she can't breathe.
It was easier in August. The way he left her then had been so much worse, and yet it hurt less. She only then realized how much she loved him, and it was fresh enough that the pain was relatively fleeting. Things are different now, she's realized a different thing, but it's too late. This time there is no going back. There will be no demon-ridden movie to force them back into each other's lives. There will only be time, and distance of a sort.
Sid realizes very quickly that she needs a greater distance. She needs to get away from the places that remind her of him, because every time she sees them the gaping wound that has only just begun to scab over is ripped open all over again. Then there is recovery. Then she's fine. Then she sees something. The cycle begins again. Sid believes and trusts in cycles, but this one is toxic. This one will kill her if she doesn't break free of it soon.
So, steps are taken as the week wears on. It's been years since she completed her doctoral thesis and almost immediately afterward she disappeared out of the science community. She has done something that could give her a leg up on a position in a lab somewhere, but she can't bring the Hydra virus or its cure to light without risking exposure to the Union. Besides, if it hadn't been for Jim she would have died before completing her cure, and Jim might not have gone so far to help her if things had been as they should have been between them. She doesn't want to climb back onto a path through biology based on something he did, it would be one more reminder that she really doesn't need. She talks to Luke instead, telling him everything she can about where she started and how she came to be where she is, hoping that he can help her get her toe back into that door.
Then she leans into her mentor's shoulder and she cries, because even his clinic has its memories.
She turns in her notice at the university because if she keeps working under people she should at the very least be equal to she is going to go insane. It's a relief just to have a time limit on her time there. Afterward she withdraws from all of her courses because there's no longer any point to them. Then she goes home and lays on her bed and stares at the ceiling, and she doesn't know what to feel.
Sometime in the middle of the night she rises, goes to her desk and finds a pen and a pad of paper, and she writes a letter. It starts with Dear Jim and ends with Love always, and in between there are so many words. Pages and pages of them, some smeared where tears dripped from her chin onto the ink. In the letter she lays herself bare, exposes her guilt, confesses her sins. She even yells at him, too, berates him for giving up so quickly, for quitting without even trying. Everything that she can't say to him she puts on paper, and when she's finished she sets down her pen. She reads through it again.
And she goes upstairs, crumpling those pages into a wad of paper on the way up into the kitchen. She finds some matches and she lights one, watches it spark against the side of the box and blaze into existence. For a few moments she stares at that little flame, and it seems to her that so much that's happened reminds her of fire. All the little glowing lights of her past loves and lovers, still real and valid and true, but small. The brighter burning blaze that was - is, still is - her love for Jim Thompson. Then she sets the flame to the paper, and she watches that burn, her nostrils filled with the sulfurous smell of a match struck. It feels good, this little ritual. It almost feels like she can start to let go at last.
Until she looks out the window into the night-darkened backyard where her garden grew and now lays dormant, and she remembers a night under and then among the stars. Her heart shatters in her chest all over again, and the feeling is no less devastating than the first time.
=====
The next day, after getting absolutely no rest whatsoever, she sits her roommate, her friend down for a conversation. She tells him that she can't stay here. Frank reaches for her hands but she pulls away from the attempt. Shakes her head no.
They sit there for a while afterward, the silence stretching into an awkwardness they haven't had with each other since she first moved to Denver and first moved in downstairs. He breaks the silence first.
"So...what should I tell Jim if he comes looking for you?"
"He won't," she says quietly.
"But what if--"
"He won't," she repeats, more sharply than she intended. At the look on his face - surprise mostly - instantly she relents with a smile, but that smile is so weak and tremulous for a moment his heart is broken, too. Sid shakes her head again. "I still have my phone. He can still...if he wants to, he can reach me."
He does not look terribly convinced, does Frank, what with his dark eyes full of concern and his mouth twisted. But Sid is. She does not think that Jim will reach out to her, and she has no intention of reaching out to him. Only time will tell if their paths will even cross again. But it does remind her.
"I need to start packing."
"Do you have a place lined up already?" asks Frank, surprised, and a mixture of impressed and disappointed. It's been nice having her for a roommate. The place feels a little frantic with her here somehow, but happier too. And she does amazing things with that back garden.
She gives him a slight smile. "No. Where I go, it...it'll depend on what I hear about a new job. Career. I'm...hoping to get back on my career path." Reaching out, she tentatively lays her hand over his. "I'll be okay, Frank. I'm...I'm not now, but I know I'll be fine. It's not the first time my heart's been broken." There is not much reassurance in her voice, her face, her eyes which turn a little watery.
It is the first time it's hurt this much after, though. But weak as that assurance is, she at least believes what she says. She'll be okay, it's just going to take time. Time and distance. One she'll get as soon as possible. The other?
All she can do is try to be patient, with herself most of all.
It was easier in August. The way he left her then had been so much worse, and yet it hurt less. She only then realized how much she loved him, and it was fresh enough that the pain was relatively fleeting. Things are different now, she's realized a different thing, but it's too late. This time there is no going back. There will be no demon-ridden movie to force them back into each other's lives. There will only be time, and distance of a sort.
Sid realizes very quickly that she needs a greater distance. She needs to get away from the places that remind her of him, because every time she sees them the gaping wound that has only just begun to scab over is ripped open all over again. Then there is recovery. Then she's fine. Then she sees something. The cycle begins again. Sid believes and trusts in cycles, but this one is toxic. This one will kill her if she doesn't break free of it soon.
So, steps are taken as the week wears on. It's been years since she completed her doctoral thesis and almost immediately afterward she disappeared out of the science community. She has done something that could give her a leg up on a position in a lab somewhere, but she can't bring the Hydra virus or its cure to light without risking exposure to the Union. Besides, if it hadn't been for Jim she would have died before completing her cure, and Jim might not have gone so far to help her if things had been as they should have been between them. She doesn't want to climb back onto a path through biology based on something he did, it would be one more reminder that she really doesn't need. She talks to Luke instead, telling him everything she can about where she started and how she came to be where she is, hoping that he can help her get her toe back into that door.
Then she leans into her mentor's shoulder and she cries, because even his clinic has its memories.
She turns in her notice at the university because if she keeps working under people she should at the very least be equal to she is going to go insane. It's a relief just to have a time limit on her time there. Afterward she withdraws from all of her courses because there's no longer any point to them. Then she goes home and lays on her bed and stares at the ceiling, and she doesn't know what to feel.
Sometime in the middle of the night she rises, goes to her desk and finds a pen and a pad of paper, and she writes a letter. It starts with Dear Jim and ends with Love always, and in between there are so many words. Pages and pages of them, some smeared where tears dripped from her chin onto the ink. In the letter she lays herself bare, exposes her guilt, confesses her sins. She even yells at him, too, berates him for giving up so quickly, for quitting without even trying. Everything that she can't say to him she puts on paper, and when she's finished she sets down her pen. She reads through it again.
And she goes upstairs, crumpling those pages into a wad of paper on the way up into the kitchen. She finds some matches and she lights one, watches it spark against the side of the box and blaze into existence. For a few moments she stares at that little flame, and it seems to her that so much that's happened reminds her of fire. All the little glowing lights of her past loves and lovers, still real and valid and true, but small. The brighter burning blaze that was - is, still is - her love for Jim Thompson. Then she sets the flame to the paper, and she watches that burn, her nostrils filled with the sulfurous smell of a match struck. It feels good, this little ritual. It almost feels like she can start to let go at last.
Until she looks out the window into the night-darkened backyard where her garden grew and now lays dormant, and she remembers a night under and then among the stars. Her heart shatters in her chest all over again, and the feeling is no less devastating than the first time.
=====
The next day, after getting absolutely no rest whatsoever, she sits her roommate, her friend down for a conversation. She tells him that she can't stay here. Frank reaches for her hands but she pulls away from the attempt. Shakes her head no.
They sit there for a while afterward, the silence stretching into an awkwardness they haven't had with each other since she first moved to Denver and first moved in downstairs. He breaks the silence first.
"So...what should I tell Jim if he comes looking for you?"
"He won't," she says quietly.
"But what if--"
"He won't," she repeats, more sharply than she intended. At the look on his face - surprise mostly - instantly she relents with a smile, but that smile is so weak and tremulous for a moment his heart is broken, too. Sid shakes her head again. "I still have my phone. He can still...if he wants to, he can reach me."
He does not look terribly convinced, does Frank, what with his dark eyes full of concern and his mouth twisted. But Sid is. She does not think that Jim will reach out to her, and she has no intention of reaching out to him. Only time will tell if their paths will even cross again. But it does remind her.
"I need to start packing."
"Do you have a place lined up already?" asks Frank, surprised, and a mixture of impressed and disappointed. It's been nice having her for a roommate. The place feels a little frantic with her here somehow, but happier too. And she does amazing things with that back garden.
She gives him a slight smile. "No. Where I go, it...it'll depend on what I hear about a new job. Career. I'm...hoping to get back on my career path." Reaching out, she tentatively lays her hand over his. "I'll be okay, Frank. I'm...I'm not now, but I know I'll be fine. It's not the first time my heart's been broken." There is not much reassurance in her voice, her face, her eyes which turn a little watery.
It is the first time it's hurt this much after, though. But weak as that assurance is, she at least believes what she says. She'll be okay, it's just going to take time. Time and distance. One she'll get as soon as possible. The other?
All she can do is try to be patient, with herself most of all.