Standing Date
Rating: PG
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Warrick has a date
Notes: For the LiveJournal Writer’s Choice “Date” challenge
You do your
best to ignore the salacious smirks that spring to Greg’s and Nick’s faces when
you decline their invitation to breakfast, the ones that grow wider when Nick
asks, “Got a hot date man?”
Both show
great interest in the reply, but you don’t show that you know that, grabbing
your jacket from your locker and slamming the door with a resounding clang.
“Prettiest girl in Vegas,” you tell them, and Greg opens his mouth to say
something, but you don’t hang around to field any more questions. Instead, you
haul ass out of the lab, heading home.
Once there,
you don’t waste any time doing what you have to do, because you know you’re
late already. A quick shower and shave, the hot water doing wonders to make you
feel just a little more human, wash off the dust and sweat of shift, not to
mention that dirty feeling that comes as part of the job. A couple of mouthfuls
of very strong, very hot coffee, just enough to keep your eyes open through the
next few hours. A cursory scan of the wardrobe to see what’s clean before
picking out the best, most conservative looking ensemble you can find. Then
it’s out the door and into the car, on your way to pick up your date.
You drive
the familiar roads on autopilot, pretty sure that by this stage, all you’d have
to do is speak the destination and your car could find its way there on its
own. On your way, you pass landmarks, the history of your life, each one with
its own particular memory, and today, each memory is that bit more vivid, and
if the car notices when you take a turn you don’t normally take, skip an
intersection you normally wouldn’t think twice about going through, then it
complains not, just continues on its way.
When you
park the car, you stand for a moment at the kerb, look at the house, the house
where you grew up; the tree you used to climb, the front porch that has your
two front teeth in the foundations, the flowerbeds that Grams spends hours
weeding, even though it kills her back.
It still
looks just the same.
Just like she does. You’ve been taller than she is since you were a gangly
thirteen-year-old, and now she doesn’t even come up to your shoulder, but those
green eyes, just like yours, just like Mom’s, are as lively as ever, and
diminutive or not, when she says jump, you still say how high. In fact, most of
the time, she doesn’t even have to say the word; you know exactly what she expects
of you and you act accordingly.
Which is
why, even though you’re not that hungry, you obediently sit down at the kitchen
table and eat every morsel of the huge breakfast she hands you, wash it down
with the tea she favours over coffee. You let her fill you in on all the
neighbourhood gossip, you talk to her about your day, about Greg’s latest
antics, and you watch her laugh and you think that in spite of the reason,
there’s nowhere in the world you’d rather be.
Her smile
fades when the dishes are in the dishwasher, when she shows you the flowers
she’s bought, one bunch for her, one for you. She
refuses to tell you how much they cost, as she always does, refuses to take any
money for them, and you make a big show of being chastened, of letting her get
her way, but when she leaves the kitchen to get her walking shoes, you slip
three twenty dollar bills into the housekeeping jar, knowing there’ll be hell
to pay when she discovers them. You don’t really care.
She is
uncharacteristically quiet in the car, her mind years away, and when you stop,
when you get out and take her hand in yours, you realise for the first time,
how small, how fragile it feels. You tread the by-now familiar path, come to
stop at a neatly-tended gravestone of black marble, the name Joyce Brown
engraved on it in shiny gold lettering. You hear her sniff beside you, and you
squeeze her hand just a little tighter, the way you always do, because it
doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been coming here to see your mother, her
daughter.
She always
cries.
You used
to, but you haven’t for years, and you wonder if you should feel guilty about
that, if you should feel guilty because you don’t really have that many
memories of her. You know what she looks like of course, from pictures, and you
know what kind of person she was from stories that people have told you. But
you were only seven when she died, so you’re not sure which memories are really
yours and which are appropriated from other people.
There are
some things you can remember, some things that you know really happened. You
remember her hearing your reading for school, remember her taking you to get
those thick Coke-bottle glasses you used to hate so much, remember how she made
you laugh by trying on different styles of glasses and making faces at you. You
remember her taking you to the playground, remember her spinning you around as
she lifted you from the roundabout, and you remember her perfume, lavender and
lilac.
Mostly
though, you remember coming down to breakfast one morning, seeing Pops crying
and Grams with red eyes, and you remember what she told you.
The next
year was the first year that you and Grams made this pilgrimage on this date,
and it’s a date that you’ve been keeping ever since. Just like always, you lay
down your flowers beside Grams’s, and she reaches up to pat your cheek.
“She’d be
so proud of you,” she tells you.
You want to
believe her, more than you’ve ever wanted anything.
So you do.