Work Text:
What Could Have Been
by PurpleYin
To say this was a surprise was putting it mildly. Seven years and now he turned up, from the future. He wanted to take her back into his heart. After seven years of hoping, learning to place those well measured feelings to the back of her mind. To allow for other feelings, letting go because regrets could not be. And now he was here? The reason for the questioning of reality was that for the first 3 years she had dreamed of this, waited for him to walk through the door and for his smile to envelope her. Joy, elation, happiness found. A part of her once removed. He was here.
Should she be taken aback though by Parker’s reaction.
"It might have been nice to know. Would’ve saved one of us a lot of embarrassment"
Clear as to who that was. What was he feeling? She used her training to figure out how he felt. The training she’d received; she didn’t need it. It was in the voice, his eyes, the way he moved around her now. Around her, avoidance. Not just with the body but with the eyes. The voice, resignation, hope given up, letting go.
She thought she’d done that years ago. He was back, but how could she know whether she had done that before, had it been a lie to make life all the easier or truth?
Letting go meant you’d once thought there was hope, once you had cared and now couldn’t, simply the lack of it, couldn’t let yourself, the lack of anything on the opposite side. Unreturned feeling, unrecognised, it made no difference for them.
And so she felt those feeling stirred again. Her husband by her side, how he existed, she was a married woman. But Parker…
She told herself that could not happen. Not after Joseph. Now not because of Joseph.
She felt,… something, for Parker. Guilty that she had never told him, as a friend nor as anyone else. Just ignored the past, getting too wrapped up in forgetting. A lesson learned still, so forgetting seemed fine when she could never quite totally forget those events. And was there another feeling for parker. Something small and insignificant in the wake of Joseph and wilful because she and parker weren’t together, couldn’t be, hadn’t been but …... something there nevertheless.
And the feeling that life had moved on since 1992.
A different country, job, allegiances, relationships. A different life than the one he had been in. With people she liked, knew and he seemed to know them too but he couldn’t just stay here with her. There was nothing in it. Far too simple. She wanted it to be that but knew it wasn’t going to be. There had to be more. Didn’t mean she wanted to know what it was, what it meant. She’d been there before, all the what if’s, this time she was going to ignore them. Didn’t stop them coming. A lot of things didn’t stop because you wanted them to. There was always what could have been.
It lay in several minds that night, continuously bombarding them all with questions, thoughts, declarations and revelations. Nothing helped. There was always what could have been.
Witnessing the flash of a carved golden band. Her one true keepsake. Her key to all the happy memories. She’d trained herself so that only that could unlock them. Only that ring and him. But the ring was the key to the truth. As she watched the two men wrestle each other across the hangar floor quite a few things had crossed her mind. Had Parker flipped, was he jealous, was Joseph a threat. She gladly said she liked none of them but the ring the tanned young man pulled out his pocket answered it. Him holding it like the Holy Grail, an offering. He’d already wrestled Joseph Vukavitch to the ground but now he held it out to her. Seeking approval, help too but approval from her, to show her what was real, what was. With a silent prayer to a god she did not worship, the thought navigated its ways to her centre, she knew what must be done. She picked up the gun.
It happened so fast, the look on Joseph’s face breaking her heart. It felt like betrayal even though it was him who had lied, who was not the man he used to be. He knew her, hadn’t he? Yet he didn’t expect that, how could he have known her so well but not have known she would do that if it came down to it? They had both changed. He was a traitor in her eyes, still the man she had loved. She was a traitor too; she had killed the man she had loved. Murderer. Murderer. Oh god.
Frank’s strong arms around her as she cried almost hysterically. Gasping for air, wanting none, choking on the sobs. His quiet tender shushes, someone to comfort her at last. She’d just killed the man who’d been that comfort. He’d been missing so many years and then she had no one. Finally it was over. She could say she was a widow. She could say he’d never walk through any door on earth. That hurt. Closure. But still, not the ending she wanted. She’d wanted a happy ending, thinking Joseph was the answer. Well this was the second ending wasn’t it and it was the best. Nice world, nice life. She could say she’d killed someone today, not just anyone. The man she’d loved. She could say she was a murderer. Oh god. No, no, no, no, no……..
Frank Parker encircled his arms around Olga once more slightly tighter, glancing at the burnt out hole in Joseph’s torso. He had a surprised, confused look idling on his face, and the look of a man who never lived to see the conclusion. A dead man, the person who WAS the ending. Looking around at the scene one more time before the guards closed in to sort it out and the doctors to check Ballard, who was slumped over in his wheelchair, presently unconscious. He pulled her tighter to his body, burying her head in his right shoulder as her cries consumed her. The sounds coming from all those years back, memories long forgotten, wishes crushed just five minutes ago.
The guards, doctors, nurses and other important figures swarmed around them, every single one ignoring the two people absently. Talmadge made a hesitant nod to them that frank only just caught before he drew his attention back to Olga. Doing nothing other than holding the distraught scientist. No questions asked policy, no false pretences from her, protestations of being fine, no wondering alone to a dark room somewhere to cry. Yep, definitely the better policy, no space for the reactions we expect. People often say they don’t know what to say, can’t be there because of that. Maybe they should’ve thought that being there doesn’t always mean talking, trying to gloss it over. So he wasn’t going to try. She deserved more. She needed someone to be there. Perhaps he could be that guy.
Hours later they stood outside talking. He’d been jealous, he’d been hurt. And maybe she feared there was a part of him glad for Joseph’s death but he was trying to say the right thing.
"Just remember him as the man you loved"
It expressed plenty of things but Joseph had been the man she’d loved. He’d changed. The man she’d killed had not been the same. He’d not known her; he hadn’t seen that she’d never have understood what he planned to do. Never accepted it. There were lots of could have been’s and now there would be more. Parker’s attempt at being sensitive and caring hadn’t failed. It was her who did not hold the place for sympathy in her heart, not for Joseph. He deserved to die. And he had. At present she was with Parker, imagining the secret thoughts in his head that he hadn’t voiced after witnessing her bend her arm back and lob the ring as far from sight as possible. Joseph was gone.
She’d let go years ago. Now his grasp had finally slipped from her too.
Just right now things were simple. Bearing that in mind she got on the buggy and smiled at Mr. Parker in merriment and said, "I’d much rather go get a drink".