Who: Effie Nashton What: Visiting "Tim's" Grave Where: Salvatori Family Tomb, Boston, Mass When: July 9th Rating: PG-13 Warnings: Suicidal thoughts
Grief will make you do strange and stupid things, Little Onion, be careful where you allow it to lead you…
Effie sat in her family’s tomb, leaning against her husband’s empty coffin, her grandmother’s words echoing around her head. She had asked Grandma Sophia if the older woman was going to re-marry, now that her husband was dead, and that was what the answer had been. At the time, Effie had no idea what her grandmother was talking about, having never gone through the loss that her grandmother had suffered.
Now...it seemed she had lost too many and knew too well.
She sighed, her shoulders shuddering for a moment before she swallowed thickly, burying her emotions again, closing her eyes until they passed, until she could breath again. It was stupid, unhealthy and just an all around bad idea to keep stuffing her feelings away, hiding them, refusing to grieve, but she was afraid to do it. Afraid of the end result.
There was too fine a line between experiencing grief, and being consumed by it...and Effie knew how easily that line could...would be crossed if she let go.
“I miss you,” she whispered, absently plucking at a hole in her stockings, not caring that she had made it wider, ruing more of the fine silk. “I miss your smile and your laughter...I miss waking up and hearing your heart beat against my chest...I miss you threatening thugs in that voice you use in the middle of the night. I miss the feel of your hair under my fingers as I massage your scalp.”
She drew her knees up to her chest, clutching at them desperately, fighting herself, fighting her emotions. “God Tim...I miss you and I need you and I can't breath anymore…” she whispered, resting her head against her thighs, crying silently despite her wishes against it.
She knew what everyone thought about her dating Peter, of her speed and her seemingly un-reaction to Tim’s death. She would care if she had the strength..but she just didn’t anymore. She didn’t want to fight, she didn’t want to defend herself or her thoughts or her feelings.
She didn’t want to feel anymore, because all she felt, when she allowed it, was pain.
She needed Peter in ways she couldn’t quite put into words, but knew it had nothing to do with love or friendship and everything to do with needing something else to focus on other than getting herself killed on the street in her husband’s name.
Yes, she cared for Peter in a way that was beyond a best friend, and yes, she enjoyed being with him, but that wasn’t what had pushed her confession that night...honestly, she wasn’t sure what had pushed her confession...but her grandmother’s words had come back to her that morning, after Peter had left.
Grief had once made her almost kill a man...it had made her run away from her life, made her fight and struggle and throw herself into the night to escape it. And now, it was making her run again.
She wondered, absently, as she picked at a thread, if she would ever stop running, but that thought was fleeting, chased away by blue eyes and raven black hair, a crooked smile peeking out at her from under a cowl.
“Would he have loved me?” she asked the empty casket, wishing she never had to think about it...that she could have remained blissfully unaware of who was wearing her husband’s face. “Would you have...if you had been yourself?” She wanted to accept that the Skrull who she had loved and married and given...everything to had died loving her, that she had died as Tim, without realizing what was truly going on, but she couldn’t be sure, and that idea haunted her. Did the woman regret dying as Tim? Did she hate Effie and the ten months they had spent together?
Did Effie?
She paused her actions, her head tilting slightly, turning this thought over in her head. She had spent ten months as a lie. In love with someone who didn’t exist...or at least, not in the manner she knew of him. She knew Tim’s name, both of them, she knew every scar on every inch of his body (and had kissed each one), she knew his fears, his nightmares and his dreams...and yet...she knew nothing of Timothy Drake.
...did she regret loving an illusion?
She shifted, looking up at the white casket that bore her husband’s name, gently tracing a finger over the finely engraved letters. “I love you,” she whispered, hoping that wherever Skrulls went when they died (did they go to heaven? Was that only for human’s?) she could hear her and understand. “I love who you were...and who you may have been. I know it’s weird...I didn’t even know your name...but...even if it was all a lie, you loved me...for a moment and….you saved me.”
She curled her hand again, pain lancing through her. It hurt so much, to think of so much happiness, and to remember it was all gone. She coughed thickly, trying to bury it again, to make it go away, but it was getting harder and harder each moment she was in that tomb, each breath she took of the dead and long rotted bodies...of the dust covered caskets that would forever be empty.
“I...I wish I could have known you...I doubt it would have been pretty, I mean, Skrulls hate humans, right? But...it would have been nice. You were nice...to me...I guess that means Tim’s nice? I’m so confused on that. How much of it was him...and was any of it you? I can’t even find out. I can’t...he wouldn’t want me anywhere near him. Probably thinks I’m some two bit gold digging whore or something like the papers said. I know the articles vanished but others know the story…”
She shook her head, sighing. “I’m babbling...I do that, you may remember.” She stood, trembling as she crawled on top of the casket, drawing her knees up to her chest, just barely fitting in the alcove with it. “May I rest here for a bit? I’m still so tired…” She didn’t want to leave him...not yet. She wasn’t ready to leave...she even wondered, for a brief, wild moment if she could just stay there forever, asleep with him.
Her eyes drifted shut, a hand resting on the casket, where she would have placed it had her husband been with her, right over his heart. Her tears splashed down onto the polished surface, slowly rolling away as she cried, shaking and trembling, clinging to the only earthly remain she had left of the man she loved.