WHO: Steve and Sharon WHAT: A tour and clearing the air WHERE: Outside the apartments to start, then around the town WHEN: May 30th RATING: PG-13 for talk of death and past violence STATUS: Incomplete/closed
He saw it every night. It was worse when fully submerged in slumber, where the images were a claw upon his psyche, ripping a hole right down to his heart and jerking him awake just before he drown in the blood-red memorial river of thoughts. No, it came at quieter moments too, when his mind was a graveyard and ghosts of memory crept up to haunt him. When he was still floating in the haze that bordered between consciousness, he heard the gunfire. He saw the pool of red form on Ian's chest, he saw his hand reach for his son as the limp, small body fell and left Sharon standing there. Sharon, who'd come to save him. Gun held high, she appeared to him in Ian's stead with a look of triumph and concern on her face. Of course, she'd followed after him. Of course she'd seen the fight taking place, and hadn't known from a distance that Steve had been reaching the boy through Zola's manipulations. She was doing what she always did, trying to protect him.
She hadn't known. He knew that. He wished it made it better.
He hadn't been able to save her, either.
At that point, at any point but especially that moment, Steve would have gladly traded placed with her. He would have relished leaping off the transport and into the gaping maw of Zola's remains, a kamikaze mission of spite and righteousness. Instead Sharon had made that sacrifice. She'd bitten the bullet, pulled the trigger, blown the threat apart and left him to carry on. He'd done what he always did, in the wake of the deaths of the two people who mattered most to him. He got up. He brushed off. He carried on. Bootstraps were pulled, a mantel worn, the shield picked up and other fights waged. Never once did he say a part of him was forever left buried in Dimension Z. He shoved those thoughts aside until the sight of Sharon brought them careening back. Death was a fluid concept back home, but one couldn't live expecting sorrow to undo itself.
It appeared death was fluid here, too.
He stood outside the apartment complex where he'd been set up, hands loosely held in the pockets of his jeans, waiting for her to appear. So much of their time together was spent doing that. Waiting, in various forms. A dozen years on his end separated them now, to say nothing of two deaths and another alternate dimension. He wasn't entirely sure how seeing her would feel, but he needed to. She was a part of him, and she always would be. He would always want there to be a world with her in it. Hearing someone approach he shook his head to clear the thoughts, and when seeing her he tried to smile. He knew what coming back from the dead was like. None of this could be easy on her end, either. Yet she'd also reached back. After an awkward pause he finally said, "I made sure I was early this time."