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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
Words:
1,938
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
9
Hits:
666

Resurfacing

Summary:

Some times you can't leave the past behind you.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Resurfacing.
by Gibson

 

It had been a long day.

There'd been a bad accident on 35. Four car pile-up: five dead and two children seriously injured. One of the dead was a child, a baby really, only 15 months old. Days like today made Sarah Alexander wonder why she'd ever decided to be a medical examiner. There were so many other things she could have done; she'd always been considered bright.

Sighing, she eased out of her lab coat and picked up her shoulder bag. John would already be home from the high school; maybe they'd go out for dinner. He was always up for Chinese and she couldn't face the thought of cooking.

She walked out to her blue Toyota Camry and drove home. That was one thing about moving to Crystal Springs two years ago; their commute was almost non-existent now. The high school was about two miles from their ranch home and she was only three miles away at the County Coroner's Office. Most days they still carpooled, as they kept similar hours, but today she'd planned on staying late to finish some paperwork from last week.

Less than ten minutes late, she pulled into the driveway and walked through the garage door to the kitchen. The blue walls cheered her as did the almost total lack of clutter. John tended to be
messier, but she'd trained him well in this area. He knew that clean, neat spaces calmed and cheered her and he confined his clutter to his office--where he was currently holed up.

He looked up as she walked into his den, swiveling in his chair to face her when he saw her expression, "Everything alright Sarah?"

"How does Chinese sound?" was her only response.

"Let me send a reply to Scott while you change."

Turning, she went into their bedroom as he returned to the computer screen. They used to see Scott nearly every day before they moved; now they spoke only through the Internet and the rare phone call. When people asked who the man in their wedding photo was, they said he was John's brother--though there was no family resemblance.

Sarah went into their bedroom, the green room, and its old heirloom quilt centered her as she changed into her favorite blue jeans and a green sweater--the one that John said brought out the green in her eyes. She thought it made her look like a walking holiday advertisement, with her naturally red hair, and she generally refused to wear it in December for that reason.

Finished changing, she briefly ran a brush through her hair and reapplied the lipstick that she'd
chewed off around one o'clock, when the first bodies started appearing. Looking at her reflection,
green eyes staring back at her, she knew she'd never get used to these new contacts. Satisfied
that she was presentable, she grabbed her bag and headed back into John's office.

%^%^%^%^%^

He drove them to the Lotus. He usually drove when they rode together. He claimed it was easier for his longer legs to reach the pedals. Once she would have verbally slapped him for that, but now it was a fond reminder of their earlier days.

So many things had changed when they'd moved to Crystal Springs. She hadn't wanted to move here originally, but John had said it would be better. They "needed to have a normal relationship." They would have died if they'd stayed, or gone to another big city he'd said, and now, looking back, she had to agree.

This was the best choice for them. In Crystal Springs they were John and Sarah Alexander--high
school history teacher and medical examiner for the county. They had a great relationship--far better in some ways, and definitely more normal--than the one they'd had in D.C. And, they were safe. Here the most unusual thing about them was the fact that they had no children.

They told those people uncouth enough to ask that they were waiting, and sometimes they told a
version of the truth: "We lost our son," or "Sarah can't have children anymore." Usually the pushy
neighbor or over-familiar co-worker paused then and realized that they'd crossed a line, apologized and left. Word must have spread through the town because now, two years after they'd moved there, they didn't get asked about children anymore.

Still, days like this one, with the senseless loss of a young life, hit them both hard.

%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^

John pulled into the parking lot and stopped, waiting for Sarah to come back to herself from
wherever she'd gone. He knew today had been hard for her: someone who'd known her as long and as well as he had couldn't have missed it. It was days like this that made him wish she could still talk to her mother. Mothers were better at dealing with the pain of eternal grieving. She hadn't told him yet what had happened, but he knew. Sarah could face almost anything, but the premature death of a child always hit her in the barely scabbed over place where her own grief rested. They'd have dinner and talk, maybe watch some mindless television and then they'd turn in early. They'd lie there briefly and then turn toward each other and hold tight until their grief receded enough for sleep to come lapping at the edges of their awareness like the tide, and carry them away.

"John?" Sarah was looking at him, concern in her green eyes. "Are you ready?"

When he nodded, they opened the car doors and went into the restaurant. Once they were comfortably seated in their booth and they'd placed their orders, Sarah started talking.

"It was a car accident. Two children."

She didn't say anymore; she didn't have to. They talked about his classes, the track team, the fact
that they'd asked him, again, to coach the team. He'd stalled them, he couldn't accept a commitment like that, a year in advance. They didn't know where they'd be in a year.

They talked about the new Tom Cruise movie coming out and whether or not they'd go see it this
weekend. Dinner was good; they were lucky to have a good Chinese (really Asian, John was a stickler about the distinction) restaurant in town. They mourned their usual place in D.C., but the Lotus wasn't a bad spot to get some decent food.

After dinner, they held hands on the way to the car. A natural act for them now, though in the past it was completely alien. The move, their lives now, allowed for a relationship that they'd never have managed back home. At home there was always the threat of an emergency, and the risk of their relationship becoming public was enough to keep them apart. There'd always been rumors of course, but nothing could come of the talk if they never did anything to confirm it. And, from the beginning, they'd been unusually close--most people thought they'd been together within weeks of meeting. They hadn't been of course, but the persistent jokes and rumors had both helped and hurt them. Her loyalty had been questioned early on, her loyalty to those they were responsible to that is. Her loyalty to John had been established that first night in the hotel and had never faltered. The immediate intimate nature of their relationship had perplexed many and been misunderstood by almost all. Only Scott and her mother seemed to have any real understanding of what they meant to each other.

Still, those assumptions and rumors had proven some sort of shield when things had deepened between them. After all, they were only doing and becoming what many had long considered an established fact. The result of being thought together actually shielded them from the actual risks of being together. Still, in the end, it had been too risky to stay. They'd married in D.C. before they left, with Scott taking care of all of the legal issues. They had been preparing for this eventuality for several months now. The paperwork was already finished and waiting--it was inevitable that they'd have to leave eventually. They would never be completely safe, and no one could truly protect them.

Scott and her mother had served as witnesses as they became John Alexander and Sarah Alexander.

So, they'd been ready, when after the trial, it was clear they couldn't stay in D.C. They'd come to
Crystal Springs for the normalcy, and because there had been an opening for a medical examiner. Sarah's line of work had fewer opportunities than his, and he could always sub for a while if it was necessary.

%^%^%^%^%^%^

John looked at Sarah again, lost in thought, and said, "Sarah, we're home." She startled, turned and smiled. "Oh, sorry; just thinking about home."

John knew she wasn't referring to the pale blue sided ranch they rented but rather the colorless room that they'd met in, with his farcical poster on the wall behind them. He smiled at her. "Miss it
that much?"

She knew he wasn't referring to the city, or even really, their work. It was their old lives, their old friends that he was referring to.

"Sometimes," she said. Then she grinned and opened the door.

They entered the house, and John turned on the TV. They never watched the news; the news that never contained anything new and frequently trafficked in conspiracy and lies. All the true news, Scott made sure they received. John, however, was fond of the Sci Fi channel. His frequent outbursts about the credibility of the programming and their sources notwithstanding, he watched the shows, able to lose himself in the inaccuracy and myth. She lost herself in the images and the closeness of him and his arm, loosely, carelessly draped over her shoulder. They sat there, his arm over her small shoulders, her hand casually on his knee--their position speaking of their intimacy, their comfort for and with each other.

Although their physical relationship wasn't old, this casual intimacy was. It was this that had started all of the rumors back in D.C.

She was tired. Her day had started early, at 5:30 AM, and she was exhausted by the day's emotions and reflections. She moved closer, into John's embrace and closed her eyes.

"Sarah, Sarah," a nudge and a light kiss on her forehead. John was sitting up, pulling her to bed,
the TV already off. Since they'd married, he slept in their bed with her, and the TV was off at night.

As she changed into one of his old t-shirts and he stripped down to his boxers, she muzzily thought of the daughter she'd never had and the son they'd had to let go. This was why she'd been so affected by the accident, and why all evening her thoughts had been consistently drawn back to the city where so much of her life still remained. She pulled back the covers, crawling in and feeling the warm length of John behind her. He pulled her close and she drew her legs up. His movements, as always, echoed her own, or maybe she predicted his. At any rate, he was warm, comforting and alive at her back, and wrapped in his arms, she knew that she'd had to
leave to keep this man at her side, and she knew there had never truly been any other choice. As she drifted back to sleep, she heard him murmur her name and in a forbidden gesture of love, she sleepily murmured his in return, "Mulder."

 

Fin.

Notes:

This orphaned work was originally on Pejas WWOMB posted by author Gibson.
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