WHO: Ian Fletcher and Sydney Cubb WHEN: April 8, after the tours, around 430pm WHERE: The elevators SUMMARY: Sydney has feelings. They coincide with the elevator temporarily getting stuck. We all feel bad for Ian in this situation. WARNINGS: None, unless sobbing blonde girls make you squeamish
Sydney hadn’t been asked to watch Wes walk away before. He did it. He walked away. But it had been different. It was a disappearance then. On the beach, it had been a proper retreat. She never had difficulty talking to people. She never held back a question when she had one.Sydney could exhibit caution and tact, but her curiosity pushed her. She and Nick had always been inquisitive. And now that it was just her, didn’t she have to do all the pushing? Ask all the questions? Drive the conversations that needed to be had, because there was nobody else who would do it for her?
But she watched Wes walk away. Instead of stopping him, instead of calling out. Instead of asking him what he was going to say, because it wasn’t just about the grotto, just about his panic attack. At the very least, she should’ve made sure to counter his last words. Wes was hurting. He was still hurting. Nothing, not even their past, not even his disappearance, made it so he no longer deserved comfort. Relief. A reprieve from his pain.
She watched him go. It was the missing image at the end of their movie, the last scene before the credits of a three year old film finally rolled. Wes walking away. Sydney doing nothing to stop him. She looked in his direction until the glare of island sunlight against the sand started to burn her eyes. Sydney blinked back a different sting, and walked back to the rest of the group. She didn’t enter the grotto. She already felt like she was being eaten alive. Making that feeling worse wasn’t exactly in her best interest. Not that she was helping herself much, with any of her current choices. All the same, when it was time to leave, she did so. On the boat, she sat as far from Wes as she could, looking out at the water as they traveled back to the hotel so she wouldn’t accidentally look anywhere else.
Sydney waited until the lobby was mostly clear before she approached an elevator and stepped inside. She was breathing. She was in one piece, at least in a physical sense. A relative sense. She was okay. The elevator was empty. The ride up to her room was supposed to steady her. Get everything sorted so she could get back on mission. Go find Milo, and see how he could help her. Use the information Harmony had given her during the tour. Sydney just needed a moment alone. She needed to tuck away the image of Wes leaving her, walking away with whispered gratitude mixed with self-loathing and pain. She needed to shake the way his skin had felt against hers, how he still smelled like Wes. And once she neatly set all that aside, she would be okay again. Once their interactions during the tour were boxed up far enough from her heart to stop the aching, she’d be okay.
The doors were just starting to close when someone else stepped onto the elevator. Sydney had already hit the button for her floor. Her shoulders tensed so she wouldn’t flinch at the man’s arrival, and she ducked her head before she could even register his face. She didn’t want to be alone. Sydney needed it, and the second the doors shut, her whole body seemed to recognize it was being denied something as important, as necessary, as oxygen. She brought a hand to cover her mouth, to cover the sharp shake of an inhale, and she squeezed her eyes shut. If she focused on keeping her breaths quiet, maybe it wouldn’t matter that someone else was there.
Maybe she’d still be okay.
Ian didn’t pay much attention to who he’d entered the elevator with, at least not as he entered. His goal was to head back to his room and take a nap before he hit the bar. Wash the chlorine off from the pool. Maybe pour some soaps down the drain and then ask the maids for replacements again. He noticed that his floor button had already been pushed and took a step back.
That was when he saw the blonde.
He remembered her. The British chick who’d wanted to come to the island. If she didn’t look like she was on the verge of a breakdown, Ian would have made a quip about how she’d made it. As it was, he took a step away from her to give her some space and stared at the door, willing the elevator to get them where they needed to be faster than it had the last time Ian had rode the thing.
It was at this spot, of course, that the elevator suddenly stopped. The door didn’t open.
She wasn’t shaking. She wasn’t hyperventilating. Her eyes were squeezed shut, so she wasn’t crying. As the elevator moved, Sydney kept telling herself those truths. She wasn’t doing any of those things, and that would help her keep it that way. At least until she was back in her room. At least until she was alone. Sydney didn’t look up when the elevator stopped. They hadn’t been riding it long enough to have reached her floor, which gave her hope that her companion was the one getting off early.
But the doors never opened.
And that was when, brow furrowed, Sydney opened her eyes and looked up. Her gaze was shining with unshed tears as she looked from the button panel to the closed elevator door, and then finally to the other person. She recognized him, but there wasn’t much comfort in that. He hadn’t been able to help her last time.
“Is it…” But Sydney didn’t want to say stuck.
Ian took a step out of the way when he saw her going for the panel. There was no sense in both of them trying that angle. He took out his phone before he remembered that he was on an island.
Her hand was shaking as she tried pressing the Door Open button. Not because she was scared of being on an elevator. Because she just...couldn’t deal with this. Not on top of everything else.
When the door didn’t open and instead, the number above the door started to flicker and spazz. Ian exhaled a slow breath, resigning himself to the fact that he’d gone from a moment of mundane to a moment of trouble. “Do you see an emergency button?”
Did she see...right. Next button attempt. Of course. Sydney bit her lower lip and pressed the emergency call button. She had never needed to press that button before, so she wasn’t entirely clear on what was meant to happen next, but when the panel made a popping sound and every single one of the buttons flashed on, Sydney was positive that wasn’t right. She jerked her hand back, and the panel made another popping sound.
“That's...not normal.” Ian observed. He knew the place was old, but you'd think the hotel with so many floors would make sure their elevator worked before they arranged to reopen it. Ian was starting to see why his daughter won a trip here for free. He tapped at the sides of the panel around the buttons, hoping to jostle the electric bits inside back into working order.
Ian had to admit that handiness and mechanics had never been one of his strong suits. He looked over at his companion.
Shaking her head, Sydney stepped backwards until she hit the back wall of the elevator. Hand covering her mouth again, she squeezed her eyes shut, but she could feel a tear had escaped down each of her cheeks.
This just...could not be happening.
Unfortunately, all of his years in a courtroom, studying his jury and witnesses had taught Ian to be very observant. He couldn’t say he didn’t notice the tears. The way her hand covered her mouth. Whatever reaction she’d been saving for her hotel room wasn’t going to wait anymore or let her suppress it.
“Are you claustrophobic?” Ian asked. Even though he knew that she’d been on the verge of this before the elevator stopped.
The sensation of tightness in her chest, the shake of her hands, Sydney knew that all boiled down to panic. But recognizing what she was experiencing did nothing to actually equalize her thoughts, calm her panic. Which...was fine, assuming she was in private. Sydney tried not to cry often. She was very English in that respect. Stoic approach to intense negative emotions. Stiff upper lip. But she couldn’t help it sometimes. She felt too deeply, and too much. Especially where certain people were concerned. People who walked back into her life as easily as they had walked out.
If she was alone, Sydney would’ve just let go. Cried into a pillow. Accepted that, no matter how much she could help Wes, he would always rather walk away once his own panic subsided. And then she would’ve been okay again. As okay as she ever was.
But the elevator stopping was the universe throwing a wrench in her plan, and Sydney just...didn’t have it in her to deal with that. She couldn’t be stoic until the elevator moved again. Her upper lip was not stiff. When she looked up, she tried anyway. “Yes,” she said, flinching the second the lie settled. She shook her head immediately, and felt the first few tears slip down her cheeks. “No. It isn’t...this. It isn’t the elevator. It’s...” She stopped herself, biting her lower lip. This wasn’t his problem.
Crying had always been an occupational hazard for Ian. At his former office, the tissue boxes (there were two) were refilled by interns every week. Jail and fines and divorce tended to bring out tears in other people. So, too, did middle school.
Ian could safely say that no matter how many times he saw it, he was never going to be used to it. The show of emotion made him uncomfortable. Tears in Bambi eyes especially.
It was probably a good thing that Andrea had custody of their daughter during her most weepy stages.
It was definitely a bad thing that Ian was reminded of her right then.
He stood there, unsure of what to do or how to get rid of the tears without a tissue box or handkerchief. Ian looked at the elevator. He listened to her badly contained sniffles for about thirty seconds, hoping they'd right themselves. When they didn't, Ian exhaled, resigned. Surrendered.
“Alright,” he opened his arms, and gestured for her to come into them. “Come're.”
Emotional unrest, in private, was a fire that would put itself out. Contained, starved of oxygen, that outcome was inevitable. But this wasn’t private. Sure, they were apparently stuck, but the “they” was the problematic aspect. It was a great deal harder to self-soothe when she wasn’t by herself.
At his offer, another piece of her emotional dam crumbled, and Sydney found herself moving into the arms of a relative stranger, holding on for dear life. She could feel the hot burn of her tears, the way each sob shook her whole body against his, but there was no helping it. She couldn’t contain it.
“I thought I could see him here…” she said, because at least if she was forcing out words, she wasn’t properly sobbing. The tears kept pooling and falling, but she had to focus her breathing to talk. She had to keep herself from choking on each word, so her sobs weren’t ragged, broken, terrible things. They were pauses. Trembles. Sad, sharp breaths. But they were momentary. Something she could work through. “Loving someone isn’t the same as still being in love with them. But…”
Sydney shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. The downside to speaking was hearing what she had to say. Hearing her truth. Acknowledging how ragged and broken and terrible it was. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I lost my brother here, and I’m crying over a boy who broke my heart. That’s…” She didn’t even have words for it. “I’m sorry.”
Ian had no words of advice for her. He'd never cried over a breakup. Ian hadn't even really cried over his daughter. His heart wasn't the kind of heart that broke. Ian's heart was the kind of heart that brittled. It thinned and it cooled so slowly he didn't see the thousand cracks until his heart had shattered into cold glass sand and slipped away so artfully that Ian couldn’t be sure it had been there before.
He remembered trying to come up with the right words when his daughter was upset and the door slams that had told him he hadn’t. Three years later, Ian knew he hadn’t gotten any better. Regret didn’t sharpen a skill or lack thereof. Missing someone didn’t make him a better father.
Instead, Ian was quiet. He held the girl and he let her cry. What else could he do?
As soon as she spoke the words, Sydney knew she had needed them out of her system. Even if they had been whispered into an empty room, pushing the words into the universe meant they weren’t weighing her down. But it wasn’t quite as simple as telling a stranger her sorrow and moving on. Speaking made her more aware of her reality, of what this day had already thrown her way. She had spoken the words she needed to speak, but there were still tears she needed to shed.
Sydney was embarrassed, but she cried into Ian Fletcher’s chest anyway, holding him tight because he didn’t stop her. As the sobs and the shaking calmed, her breathing slowly settled as well. With a final sniffle, Sydney released his shirt where she’d balled it in her fists, and wiped rather hopelessly at her cheeks. There was no helping the blotchy mess of her face, but at least she could brush away the sheen of tears.
“I…” Sydney looked at Ian. The elevator jerked. Another apology had been on the tip of her tongue, but when the buttons went out save for their requested floor number and the elevator started moving up like nothing had happened, it made for something of a distraction. “It’s...just fine now? Just like that?” Surprise made it easy to step away from the emotional wreck she had been just a moment earlier.
Ian’s head turned to look at the door too. What in the..? “Apparently it just needed a rest.” The quip was dry, but tinged with a certain bitterness that Ian only afforded this place. It didn’t make sense for an elevator to break down so thoroughly and then work again, but that was exactly what had somehow happened. If Ian was a little bit less rational, he might have said it was a sign that the hotel shouldn’t be trusted. Like the place needed more of those.
Now that she’d stopped crying, Ian didn’t draw any attention to it. As far as Ian was concerned they didn’t need to.
The doors opened on the seventh floor, and Ian stepped out. He needed to change his shirt. Turning one last time to Syd, “What happens in an elevator stays in an elevator.” The man shrugged before turning back and disappearing down the hall.