(no subject)

[stilljustandrew]

*There should be a word for the inverse of deja vu, Andrew thinks as he crosses the street away from Central Park, squinting against the sun. A word for the way everything he passes seems to be sliding into place to form a tableau, a single moment he saw once through a door he couldn't step through.*

*Buses, taxis, pedestrians -- a car passes by, its radio playing something with a hip-hop beat, far too loud --*

*There. There.*

*Andrew steps onto the sidewalk and starts toward the mini-mart door, and toward the young man in a tuxedo who's standing just outside it, staring back through.*

*As the door closes:*

Hey.

Comments

[balletrat]

*Meg takes an instant step backwards, towards the coffee table.

It's involuntary.*

Bonjour, *she says, inanely, as the silence stretches - unable to think of anything else.*

[stilljustandrew]

*Only a year's difference between her and the Meg he last saw in the bar. Not nearly as much as the -- five years? seven years? -- between the Warren who just got married and the one he saw last on Antar, with two small children in tow. Only a year.*

*Only a lifetime.*

*He's holding out his hands, and making himself smile at her, and saying the words he'd planned and rehearsed --*

I know. It's okay. I'm not going to tell you anything.

*He knew this was coming. He knew this was coming.*

*It shouldn't hurt this much to see her alive.*

Future's not ours to see, right?

[balletrat]

I can't -

*She hears how high her voice is, feels how stiff she's standing.

(She's staring at him as if he's the ghost.)*

Andrew, I can't do this - je te vous en prie -

[stilljustandrew]

*And of course she can't do this. What did he expect? Especially when he remembers her coming back to the bar after this, coming back to their room, too distraught for words...*

*And it isn't until that thought that it hits him: he's there. The younger him is there for her on the other side of her door.*

*And they've still got a year left together before she dies. And another year and a half after. Two and a half years he wouldn't trade for anything.*

*He manages a smile, and it's heartfelt.*

Shh. Je sais. It's okay.

*Goodbye, Meg.*

Go on.

[balletrat]

*The younger Andrew is there for her, on the other side of the door.

For how much longer, the younger Meg - though not all that much younger; a year, half a year older is all she'll ever get - doesn't know, and doesn't want to.

Maybe it's okay. Maybe it's not. Either way, she can pretend it is if she leaves, now, turns, disappears into the crowd -

And doesn't look (forward) back.*