Fic: Ghosts (Sanctuary)

[grav_ity]

AN: Tiny tag for “Carentan”.

Spoilers: Carentan, Normandy

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Rating: Teen

Characters: Will Zimmerman, Helen Magnus

Summary: There’s a rug on the floor that Helen never looks at. More than that, she never steps on it either. It takes him a hundred days to notice. He has a few other things on his mind.

+++

Ghosts

There’s a rug on the floor that Helen never looks at. More than that, she never steps on it either. It takes him a hundred days to notice. He has a few other things on his mind.

Something happened in this bunker. He can feel it in the air, the way you’re not supposed to feel anything when you’re a normal human being, but the way the Sanctuary teaches you to look for anyway.

So he rolls up the rug.

There’s a dark stain there, and when Josie comes in, she apologizes for it. That’s why they put down the rug. They scrubbed and scrubbed, but they couldn’t get it out. It’s been there since the war, since the day the beaches were stormed. It’s almost like there’s something in the stone that keeps it from leaving the room.

+++

He’s sitting in a chair, fiddling with some tubes and wires and a dial he thinks might have come from the same toaster she cannibalized earlier, and she’s sitting across from him, a table strewn with the detritus of a hundred small gadgets between them. She looks up, and he catches her eye and smiles, because he’s starting to think she doesn’t smile enough anymore.

She freezes, and there’s something in her face he recognizes even if he still can’t name it. Deliberately, she slides her chair across the cold cement floor, legs scraping under the weight, until she’s not across from him anymore.

There are always invisible people in here with them.

The next day, all the furniture has been moved. She tells him it’s about light and something about energy conservation, but he can’t help noticing that the chair he sat in yesterday isn’t across from anything anymore, and the tubes and dials have all be separated neatly into separate boxes. He doesn’t ask. He’s not sure he wants the answer.

+++

“It was more than just a fire elemental, wasn’t it?”

“There’s always more, Will.”

“What happened in that bunker?”

“I don’t know, not all of it. There was a lot James wouldn’t tell me.”

That’s a lie, he knows. James not telling her something was probably as good as shouting it from the rooftops, but he’s not going to press.

“My grandfather was here that day, you know,” he says instead. “He died near the coast. I wonder if he saw you.”

“It’s a small world, Will,” she says, and he can feel it humming all around him. “Anything’s possible.”

That’s probably true.

+++

finis

Gravity_Not_Included, June 7, 2011

Comments

[shadadukal]

Of course, there are memories, and the blood stain not leaving because of the rocks! WOW!

Fantastic missing scene!

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was poking at me, and I'm glad it worked. ;)

[samjohnsson.livejournal.com]

Beautiful!

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. Oooooh. *thinks thinky thoughts*

I really like this, and wish they'd done a bit more hinting in Carentan... then again, the audience already knows these things, so... yeah.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

There's a moment where she's standing against the pillar, and I was all "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh!"

So much payoff, I love it.

[geonncannon.livejournal.com]

I loved that line of "Fond memories," and this fic expanded on it beautifully. You know she didn't spend over two hundred days in that bunker without having some dark memories. She probably heard a lot of screams echoing. :(

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thanks! The architecture jumped out at me...and then there was a rug.

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

I like this a lot! Of course this place is haunted to her, even if it seems that it was hundreds of years ago. Ouch. Really, really good!

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

It's easily my favourite set re-use of all time! ;)

Thanks.

[cata-clysmiic.livejournal.com]

I just.

I love this.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[querulouspeg.livejournal.com]

Oooh love this.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[rowan-d.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this. I really love this. I want MORE of it. But it's perfect Helen and haunting just as it is. ::loves::

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

All the Normandy tags I wrote ended up as Revelations tags, so it's only fair that a Carentan tag ends up about Normandy. ;)

Sooooo many memories.

[colej55.livejournal.com]

I love how you see the tiny details in life and then expand them into compelling stories. Bravo!

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Architecture, I tell you. It's in my blood. :)

[vickysg1.livejournal.com]

Great one! I love it!!!

I wish we could have had another mention besides 'Fond memories'.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[oparu.livejournal.com]

yay fic!!! I really like it. :) it fits in and explains things and it's good Will. *snuggles*

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I just...the ARCHITECTURE. It TALKS. And sometimes they let Will do his job, and that's a GOOD THING.

[midwifeonboard.livejournal.com]

I really liked this. It could so easily have been a scene in the ep. Nearly a year leaves a lot of room for spackle. :)

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The architecture very nearly killed me. ;)