RTA Oneshot: The Holy Dark Was Moving Too
Jul. 2nd, 2014 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesterladyficTitle: The Holy Dark Was Moving Too
by Jesterlady
Rating: PG
Pairing: Felicity/Seth
Summary: Felicity dies when Gus is lost. She doesn't have to come back to life again to move on.
Disclaimer: I don't own RTA. The title is from the song Hallelujah.
A/N: I honestly don't know where this fic came from, unless it's just my deep inner need for fic where two broken people come together and have to rely on each other to survive. So weird...
The Holy Dark Was Moving Too
He was nothing like Gus. He had no idea what it was like to travel the world, to step aboard a ship and make it traverse the waters. His skill in music was poor at best and, while appreciative, he had no natural talent. His family was honest and hardworking with no tragedies, empty graves, or abandoned children. As for drinking and smoking, he didn’t know what the words meant. Gus was all around her, but he wasn’t in Seth Pritchard.
He was really a lot like Gus. Seth was light-hearted, a hard worker, sincere, and guileless. There were certain times when his back was turned and all she could see was his blue shirt, his arms as he carried firewood, and she’d be swept back to the schoolhouse or the steps of the lighthouse. She would sit in the rocking chair holding the baby, pretending it was theirs, and that the man coming inside the house was her man. He’d speak from the other room and the similarity of their accents would bring a fresh pang to her heart after she realized the voice wasn’t Gus Pike's.
Her familiarity with Seth came after she’d come to some sense of new life. What she had she didn’t call life, she called existing. For the first few weeks after she heard the news, she didn’t speak, she didn’t eat, she simply remembered and she lamented. She would never have thought to go to Seth. He’d had to come to her. The baby was crying, weeping for her never known mother and, since she’d offered before, he hadn’t known where else to turn.
She'd latched onto the idea with a tenacity that startled even her. After all, she was grieving, why should she want to take care of a baby? But a baby was new life, something that hadn’t been spoiled by the horrors awaiting it. A baby was a chance to make it up to her dead friend as well as her dead lover.
Being at Seth’s house meant being away from the sad eyes of her father that followed her around, the urgent calls to action from her mother, the awkward silences with her also grieving brother, Aunt Olivia's too sympathetic glances, her sister's feeble attempts at sisterly consolation, and Aunt Hetty’s frequent bursts of temper.
She started spending every day at the Pritchard house until she came to know it as well as her own. She’d walk there in the morning after her time at the beach and Seth would go to work. Sometimes she pretended she really was Colleen taking care of her own house and her own family. She’d take care of the baby, clean the house, and have dinner ready for Seth when he got home. She’d eat with them and he’d always drive her home as late as propriety would allow. She didn’t really care what the Eulalie Bugles of the world had to say anymore, but she wouldn’t put anyone else through anything that she could help.
Being not really alive had its advantages; she didn’t have to worry about how she looked or what she sounded like. She just lived and did whatever was absolutely necessary. Being a pseudo wife and mother was just an act to pass the time of day. She listened as Seth talked, desperate to share, to feel. She didn’t know why; all she wanted to do was stop feeling. But she didn’t really care what he did, that would mean she cared at all.
And she didn’t care about anything anymore.
But she possibly needed him as much as he needed her. He gave her an outlet, an escape. He gave her someone who didn’t require her to contribute anything; who just let her exist. He gave her food and shelter and someone to think about other than herself. In all the things he said, she could find something she wanted or needed to hear. It was a strange symbiotic, parasitic relationship, but it was what she had.
Maybe she took it for granted, maybe it wasn’t something she should have ever started, but for some reason she didn’t like it when he mentioned how often he’d been writing Colleen’s second cousin. She didn’t want to hear about the girl and how she wanted to meet the baby and visit the Island and how she wished she could help Seth out more and how much she had loved Colleen. This girl didn’t know anything about what was really happening. This girl was an outsider to their grief.
Sometimes she could talk about Gus to Seth. He didn’t ask, but there were certain points on the drives home or right when she was clearing the supper table that things about him just spilled out of her mouth. She’d never been the quiet type and, in some ways, she wanted Gus to be remembered. Not just by the people who’d known him as the dirty boy from the lighthouse, or as that waiter at the hotel, or the man Felicity King had been stringing along for years, but for who he really was. The boy who’d traveled the world and become a man and fought for love and for his past and adventured to find himself and who’d written her letters that made her cry when she read them.
Seth listened and commented and just understood. It was the same whenever he talked about Colleen. There was tragedy in their words and there was grief, but there was beauty and there was remembrance. She often felt severed in two, like half of her was floating in the sea somewhere waiting for the sounds of a fiddle to make her whole again. But she also felt like one part of a strange two part harmony that was built on tears and pain. And she needed that harmony to survive. She literally had nothing else.
Time passed slowly and quickly and she thought life like this could go on forever and she was okay with that. But one day Seth turned to her and there was a burning in his eyes that she’d never seen before, a throaty quality to his voice that didn’t sound like him. He asked her if she was ever going to leave, what she wanted from him, and she didn’t know what to say. He showed her a letter that Mavis, that second cousin, had sent.
She read it without outward emotion, but it sent her insides into a writhing pain she thought she’d moved on from. The letter said that Mavis was planning on coming, wanting to know if Seth would have her, wanting to take care of the baby. She folded up the letter and then dropped it into the fire. She said nothing, but whether that was because she knew what she wanted or not, she didn’t know.
Her thirteen year old self had been obsessed with etiquette and protocol, with the right way of doing things, with being approved of and having everyone admire her. If she went through with what her wildly pounding insides seemed to want she’d be doing the opposite of all that. On the other hand her younger self had loved romance and grand gestures and wanted to swoon more than she wanted anything else, making wild, ridiculous plans and defying all the normal rules to get what she wanted.
She knew what she wanted. She wanted him. She wanted the past, but she wanted him, if she couldn't have that. She wanted their weird, wild, solitary life. No matter the cost or what society thought she wouldn’t let someone else come in and ruin their tragic connection, their imperfect need, their broken union.
He had waited patiently while she played out her mental scenarios, the burning of the letter perhaps symbolizing her ultimate choice. When she stood up and told him in no uncertain terms that he was hers and no one else could have him, he was ready for her. He was ready for her arms and her lips and her hair becoming disarrayed, ready for a strange passion that neither had felt before with their previous lovers. The kiss was borne from more than love or devotion or connection. It was need and desire and kinship and possession.
She still wasn’t sure exactly how this was going to work. Their little life was flawed at best. Her family and the town would go crazy with the news and every gossip would feel justified in their censure. She supposed it was time to put a name to something that had begun from happenstance and stayed through necessity. She wondered what the baby would say when she was older, how she would feel. All of that could be dealt with later.
There were many questions, but she only needed one thing to survive. Him. Their life. Their grief. And, strangely enough, their growth.
by Jesterlady
Rating: PG
Pairing: Felicity/Seth
Summary: Felicity dies when Gus is lost. She doesn't have to come back to life again to move on.
Disclaimer: I don't own RTA. The title is from the song Hallelujah.
A/N: I honestly don't know where this fic came from, unless it's just my deep inner need for fic where two broken people come together and have to rely on each other to survive. So weird...
The Holy Dark Was Moving Too
He was nothing like Gus. He had no idea what it was like to travel the world, to step aboard a ship and make it traverse the waters. His skill in music was poor at best and, while appreciative, he had no natural talent. His family was honest and hardworking with no tragedies, empty graves, or abandoned children. As for drinking and smoking, he didn’t know what the words meant. Gus was all around her, but he wasn’t in Seth Pritchard.
He was really a lot like Gus. Seth was light-hearted, a hard worker, sincere, and guileless. There were certain times when his back was turned and all she could see was his blue shirt, his arms as he carried firewood, and she’d be swept back to the schoolhouse or the steps of the lighthouse. She would sit in the rocking chair holding the baby, pretending it was theirs, and that the man coming inside the house was her man. He’d speak from the other room and the similarity of their accents would bring a fresh pang to her heart after she realized the voice wasn’t Gus Pike's.
Her familiarity with Seth came after she’d come to some sense of new life. What she had she didn’t call life, she called existing. For the first few weeks after she heard the news, she didn’t speak, she didn’t eat, she simply remembered and she lamented. She would never have thought to go to Seth. He’d had to come to her. The baby was crying, weeping for her never known mother and, since she’d offered before, he hadn’t known where else to turn.
She'd latched onto the idea with a tenacity that startled even her. After all, she was grieving, why should she want to take care of a baby? But a baby was new life, something that hadn’t been spoiled by the horrors awaiting it. A baby was a chance to make it up to her dead friend as well as her dead lover.
Being at Seth’s house meant being away from the sad eyes of her father that followed her around, the urgent calls to action from her mother, the awkward silences with her also grieving brother, Aunt Olivia's too sympathetic glances, her sister's feeble attempts at sisterly consolation, and Aunt Hetty’s frequent bursts of temper.
She started spending every day at the Pritchard house until she came to know it as well as her own. She’d walk there in the morning after her time at the beach and Seth would go to work. Sometimes she pretended she really was Colleen taking care of her own house and her own family. She’d take care of the baby, clean the house, and have dinner ready for Seth when he got home. She’d eat with them and he’d always drive her home as late as propriety would allow. She didn’t really care what the Eulalie Bugles of the world had to say anymore, but she wouldn’t put anyone else through anything that she could help.
Being not really alive had its advantages; she didn’t have to worry about how she looked or what she sounded like. She just lived and did whatever was absolutely necessary. Being a pseudo wife and mother was just an act to pass the time of day. She listened as Seth talked, desperate to share, to feel. She didn’t know why; all she wanted to do was stop feeling. But she didn’t really care what he did, that would mean she cared at all.
And she didn’t care about anything anymore.
But she possibly needed him as much as he needed her. He gave her an outlet, an escape. He gave her someone who didn’t require her to contribute anything; who just let her exist. He gave her food and shelter and someone to think about other than herself. In all the things he said, she could find something she wanted or needed to hear. It was a strange symbiotic, parasitic relationship, but it was what she had.
Maybe she took it for granted, maybe it wasn’t something she should have ever started, but for some reason she didn’t like it when he mentioned how often he’d been writing Colleen’s second cousin. She didn’t want to hear about the girl and how she wanted to meet the baby and visit the Island and how she wished she could help Seth out more and how much she had loved Colleen. This girl didn’t know anything about what was really happening. This girl was an outsider to their grief.
Sometimes she could talk about Gus to Seth. He didn’t ask, but there were certain points on the drives home or right when she was clearing the supper table that things about him just spilled out of her mouth. She’d never been the quiet type and, in some ways, she wanted Gus to be remembered. Not just by the people who’d known him as the dirty boy from the lighthouse, or as that waiter at the hotel, or the man Felicity King had been stringing along for years, but for who he really was. The boy who’d traveled the world and become a man and fought for love and for his past and adventured to find himself and who’d written her letters that made her cry when she read them.
Seth listened and commented and just understood. It was the same whenever he talked about Colleen. There was tragedy in their words and there was grief, but there was beauty and there was remembrance. She often felt severed in two, like half of her was floating in the sea somewhere waiting for the sounds of a fiddle to make her whole again. But she also felt like one part of a strange two part harmony that was built on tears and pain. And she needed that harmony to survive. She literally had nothing else.
Time passed slowly and quickly and she thought life like this could go on forever and she was okay with that. But one day Seth turned to her and there was a burning in his eyes that she’d never seen before, a throaty quality to his voice that didn’t sound like him. He asked her if she was ever going to leave, what she wanted from him, and she didn’t know what to say. He showed her a letter that Mavis, that second cousin, had sent.
She read it without outward emotion, but it sent her insides into a writhing pain she thought she’d moved on from. The letter said that Mavis was planning on coming, wanting to know if Seth would have her, wanting to take care of the baby. She folded up the letter and then dropped it into the fire. She said nothing, but whether that was because she knew what she wanted or not, she didn’t know.
Her thirteen year old self had been obsessed with etiquette and protocol, with the right way of doing things, with being approved of and having everyone admire her. If she went through with what her wildly pounding insides seemed to want she’d be doing the opposite of all that. On the other hand her younger self had loved romance and grand gestures and wanted to swoon more than she wanted anything else, making wild, ridiculous plans and defying all the normal rules to get what she wanted.
She knew what she wanted. She wanted him. She wanted the past, but she wanted him, if she couldn't have that. She wanted their weird, wild, solitary life. No matter the cost or what society thought she wouldn’t let someone else come in and ruin their tragic connection, their imperfect need, their broken union.
He had waited patiently while she played out her mental scenarios, the burning of the letter perhaps symbolizing her ultimate choice. When she stood up and told him in no uncertain terms that he was hers and no one else could have him, he was ready for her. He was ready for her arms and her lips and her hair becoming disarrayed, ready for a strange passion that neither had felt before with their previous lovers. The kiss was borne from more than love or devotion or connection. It was need and desire and kinship and possession.
She still wasn’t sure exactly how this was going to work. Their little life was flawed at best. Her family and the town would go crazy with the news and every gossip would feel justified in their censure. She supposed it was time to put a name to something that had begun from happenstance and stayed through necessity. She wondered what the baby would say when she was older, how she would feel. All of that could be dealt with later.
There were many questions, but she only needed one thing to survive. Him. Their life. Their grief. And, strangely enough, their growth.
