Hal Mason | Falling Skies (galil) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-08-02 09:29:00 |
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In front of his bathroom mirror, Hal stared at a budding scar he couldn't remember getting. It was slow healing; four weeks in and it was still an angry red scab that quite unfairly marked him as trouble long after the storm had seemingly passed. And he'd tried to dredge up memories of the misdeeds he was sure to have done, but those weeks were gone, erased, only to resurface in his nightmares. (Or maybe that was from before he'd lost all control and started walking again?) Only flashes until he woke up drenched in cold sweat and reached over for someone who wasn't even there, grasped at empty sheets, wished that he was back home so he could fix a mess of his own doing. But after being paralyzed from the neck down and relying on everybody else to feed, clothe and bathe him, he'd gotten a new appreciation for even the slightest movements his body was capable of. With the bug out of his head, he was a free man. Exonerated, but distrusted because of things they thought he might've done; things he was sure to have done. Believing that a glimpse at this television show that he was supposed to have originated from could clear the air a bit, had been a mistake. Shows moved on; he'd caught on to his future instead. And it was not looking good. Sure, they'd surmounted impossible odds before, but they always just barely scraped by. Surviving and family was all they had - and Hal had watched as his family broke apart on a TV screen. Countless dead. Lourdes was the mole. Matt had killed. Hal had lost a mother again - and a sister, barely old enough to crawl. And there was his guilt, admitted in exasperation while he was slowly suffocating to death, for all the world to see. And for the first time in a long time, he wanted to forget what he'd seen. He wasn't there to write down history - he was there to shape it, nameless and unnoticed, because that was the only way. Going to Liz was easy. Parts of her reminded him of Maggie. And whatever they were headed towards, it was going to be just as complicated and unlabeled as what he'd had with Maggie. But Liz wouldn't judge. And she was easy to talk to, easy to be with. It wasn't hard to figure out where to go in that case. It was all he'd ever asked for. He splashed water on his face (let out a tiny hiss when it hit the red mark next to his eye) and reached for his shirt, angrily pushing it down over his head. And after casting one last look at his reflection in the mirror, he s rushed out of the bathroom, stopping only long enough to grab his trusty gloves before heading out of his apartment altogether. It was only after a couple of minutes that he knocked on her door and then let himself in, looking like a lost little sheep. Which technically, he was. |