Rachel Eos (runrachelrun) wrote in darker_london, @ 2017-12-09 16:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | cai finch, rachel eos |
What it means to be ready (Rachel, Cai)
Rachel’s hands shook as she laced up her shoes in the stairwell of the council flat. It might have been the cold. It was very chilly in the staircase. Inside her apartment it had been warmer, as Harley had set up the single oil heater in her room and had made her a hot water bottle and a hot chocolate, although hers was not smothered in marshmallows like Zoe’s had been.
She’d read Cai’s post over and over again, then gone back through his journal and read all of those posts over again. Cried at seeing him so happy over a treehouse. Cried at his excitement over the thought that they could all go to Chile with him. Cried till Harley came in and hugged her and rocked with her back and forth and promised that he would make it better, that he would fix everything.
As if he could bring anyone back to life.
It was a bullshit thing to say but also, he was saying more to try and comfort her than she was saying to Cai, so who was really the bullshit one here?
When Cai reached out, Rachel shattered. She was a creature of guilt and grief and helplessness and she didn’t know how to do any of this and she wanted to go hunting Harley’s gun again but then Cai was going to come and get her and go for a drive, and Rachel could not do that to Cai.
She shattered, and then, as Cai was driving across the city, she gathered up the broken bits of herself and tried to find a way to hold them all together so they would not cut him.
Cos Cai was coming.
And Cai had lost Dom.
And Rachel did not want to run away from that and leave him alone.
When she’d first met Cai and Danny and Zoe, that was around the time she’d decided that she wasn’t going to be Elaine anymore. She was going to be Rachel and Rachel was going to be a different person. The person who reached out to Zoe and gave it all her all to become friends with her and earn her trust and keep it. Rachel still vividly remember the note that Zoe had written her, the one that she'd stuck to Rachel's window with a plastic arrow, the one that said things like I want to trust you and you are so so far from stupid, that's what I really think. It had been Rachel that earned those words from Zoe, not Elaine.
Rachel was the person who fell in love with Danny. She'd been the one who was strong enough and caring enough to look after him after he cut himself, to stay strong when he crumbled, to stay with him through the trauma and the trial and the nightmares. Rachel didn't know where that strength was now.
Rachel was person who finished high school and made the whole school auditorium cheer wildly at her final dance recital. The person who'd been able to say 'No' to Joshua Harding during the school lockdown. The person who almost eagerly asked Cai to try and have visions about her so he could see Indigo’s spider-wings too, because somehow that had become scarier than him seeing her past, and had been brave enough to ask that of Zoe and Danny as well even though it had backfired spectacularly.
But then the failures had just kept piling up as she had failed spectacularly at getting a passport and failed spectacularly at not getting kidnapped and failed spectacularly at looking after her friend when his granddad died.
And oh, how she wanted to leave Rachel behind like she’d left all her other names behind.
But Cai was coming over and Rachel did not want to run away from that.
So her hands shook a little as she laced up her boots, in the stairwell, so that her booted footsteps wouldn’t wake Harley up as she snuck out of the house.
Rachel lingered in the stairwell till Cai sent a text, then ran across the carpark to meet him. He didn’t try and hug her, but that didn’t seem so weird, since he was buckled in. She noted it, though; the cold wasn’t the only reason she’d worn gloves. Cai looked quickly over her shoulder, which made Rachel look too. The empty carpark, the closed front door, and far above them, the lights that were still off in her flat. “It’s fine,” she said. “He knows I’m going out.”
“So it’s okay?” Cai worried, watching the door to Rachel’s building a moment longer before turning back to look at her instead.
“Yeah it’s okay,” Rachel said, rubbing her arms. “He’s been… super nice lately. Really freaked out about losing me, but super nice. Not, eighteen marshmallows in my hot chocolate kind of nice like Zoe’s getting, cos we don’t have any marshmallows, but… hot chocolate.” She wanted to tell him that Harley had let her have their one heater in her room as well, but held back, thinking that Cai wouldn’t see it as the gesture it was supposed to be.
“Good,” said Cai. “You deserve nice.”
“You do!” Rachel protested. Cai was a much better person and deserved to be treated much better and the world was treating him like crap! Rachel held back saying this as well.
“We can both deserve it,” Cai said, which sounded fake to Rachel. “Where do you want to go?”
Rachel shrugged, looking forward. “Wherever you want to go,” she said.
“Okay,” said Cai, who didn’t have a plan, and started to drive.
He let Rachel flick through his music, and she changed and changed and changed her mind so many times he kind of wanted to snatch it back and just pick a track. Cai tried extra hard to ignore it and think about driving. Being surrounded by people all day was hard. Keeping his guard up constantly against visions was hard. Waiting for one of his best friends to pick a track should not be hard.
Eventually she settled, or maybe she just got frustrated as well and stopped hitting next.
Music played. They drove. Eventually Cai pulled into a drive through for more hot chocolate and ended up getting burgers and fries as well, because he was hungry; because Rachel looked hungry. They parked near a park, but didn’t leave the car. Everything smelled of chips.
“Funeral tomorrow,” said Cai.
Rachel nodded slowly. “Are you…” she didn’t know. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Cai almost laughed. “No. Zoe is ready. Zoe has her maps and her people standing guard in case anything happens. I’m not ready. I don’t know how to be ready.” He wrapped his hands around the hot chocolate, letting the warmth soak through the cup, through his gloves.
Rachel stared off into the darkness of the park. I won’t run, she promised herself. Not from Cai. I won’t run. “She thinks I’m going to run,” said Rachel softly. “I’m not going to run.”
“Maybe you have to,” said Cai. “Maybe we all have to. I don’t know. Being scared about this is a terrible way to go into a funeral. Zoe told me not to worry about it, not to think about it. She has it covered, she’s ready. I am supposed to read my eulogy and get through the day. You run if you have to, Rachel, I don’t…” Rachel pulled her gaze away from the park to look at him. He’d turned toward her in his seat and his eyes were wet with tears. “I don’t know how to prepare for this. I don’t even know what to be ready for.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“What if I don’t come?” Rachel asked. She felt like she was going to ruin everything.
“Then maybe something does happen or maybe it doesn’t, we don’t know, Rachel,” said Cai. “And if you’re not there, you don’t get to say goodbye.” And I have to do it without you, he thought, selfishly. He wanted everyone there with him together. Danny and Zoe and Rachel, Nonnie and Liz and Val. “Fuck whatever might happen,” he said, crying again. “Please come.”
“I’ll come,” Rachel promised. Her own eyes felt hot and hard and dry. “I’ll be there, Cai.”
Cai sniffed, messily. “Thanks,” he said, and she held out the last of the chips and he said thanks again, and ate them.
The time on the dashboard said clicked toward midnight. Eleven hours to go, Cai thought.
I just want to spend the day in peace, Cai thought. I hope Dom is spending the day in peace.
Death isn’t the end, Cai thought, and looked at Rachel. Dom was with Cai’s mum and Danny’s sister and Rachel’s family and Zoe’s friends. Cai had a silver cross over his heart and a bullet in his back and death wasn’t the end.
Death was not the end, but Dom was gone, like the others. And tomorrow was a sacred moment in time, for Dom. Cai needed to have it. Cai needed Nonnie to have it. Nonnie deserved the perfect day to say goodbye to the love of her life.
Zoe was ready.
Cai had to be too.