Wish you were here - Fic for rp_shadesofgray

[open_flame]

Character: Liz Sherman
Fandom: Hellboy
Setting:rp_shadesofgray
Rating: PG
Word Count: 900
Prompt: scifi_muses vol2.week2
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Half of writing history is hiding the truth.

I haven’t been to church in what feels like forever. Not since before Pittsburgh. I can’t bring myself to walk in the door, so I just keep walking, to the graveyard. To see him.

The air is bitter cold, making my fingers and toes numb before I’m even halfway there. Numb is what I’m going for, though. Physically, emotionally…numb. The way it was before. The way I’m used to it. The way it should be.

My gloved fingers trace the outline of Trevor Broom’s name on the granite stone. A massive angel is looming behind his grave. It’s frightening yet comforting in the same glance. He of course won’t actually hear me, but then again I’m not really here expecting him to answer. He hardly ever did, even when he was alive.

“I…” I don’t know what to say. I kneel in the snow, wrapping my coat around me as tight as I can to shut out the wind and blowing snow. There’s so much to say but…nothing I can say.

I want to tell him I’m sorry. Sorry that I didn’t know he was sick. Sorry he didn’t think he could tell me, tell Hellboy. Tell his own family that he was dying. I want to tell him I’m angry with him, angry for keeping part of his life from his so-called family a secret. Everything about the BPRD was secret but…not to us. Not to the family we created.

Or so I thought…

I want to tell him I screwed everything up in my life again. I want to ask him what he thinks I should do. I want to tell him that monsters are easier to deal with than humans. I want to tell him he was right; in the absence of light, darkness does prevail. When all the lights go out, it’s the only thing left. The nothingness; the cold black abyss of your own empty soul.

You can’t outrun it. You can’t hide from it. You can’t escape what you are, deep down inside. You can try and hide it…but it always finds a way out.

People don’t change.

They can try; I tried. Tried to be more friendly and open and forge relationships and actually care about people. I tried letting the walls down, letting people in. I took a chance, a chance to be a normal girl.

But in the end, nothing changes. People will let you down. And you will let people down, more often than not. People will always let you down and hurt you and then what are you left with?

The same thing you started with. Nothing.

My hands shake as I pull away from the headstone, a small piece by the name crumbling off, sticking to my gloves.

Everything I touch…I break. Just like before. When the fire came, I was 11 and I killed my family, every time I had to leave the BPRD, every time I tried to be…better. I can’t run anymore. It won’t do any good. There’s nowhere to hide from your own self.

The only thing to do now is make sure I keep the people who were foolish enough to think my presence could make their lives better from making that mistake again. Its time to remember how important those walls were; not for me, but from them.

And that’s the one thing I know I can’t tell Trevor Broom. Somehow I think the angel up there staring down on us would come to life and get that look on her face that he used to get when I came to him and told him I was leaving. Every damn time. He’d never say anything. He didn’t have to. He knew he couldn’t stop me, and I knew he wouldn’t try.

I told Broom everything when he was alive. I don’t think there was a moment in my life I felt I couldn’t come to him. He’d listen; he’d just...listen. So often he never said a single word. He’d just slide a cup of coffee or tea in my hands and smile that knowing smile of his. That’s all I needed. Because really the answer was there all along, in the words I would say to him. I always knew what to do, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was finding the strength to actually do it.

And now?

He’s not here to talk to. Not here to listen and hand me something hot to drink that somehow would sooth my soul. He’s not here to say… nothing at all.

He’s not here to tell me it was foolish to let those walls down. He’s not here to tell me that the way I am will never lead to a normal life. He’s not here to tell me that alone…is better. Broom wouldn’t have said that anyway, because he had too much faith in me. He always had too much faith in everyone.

I scoff as my fingers slide in my pocket, pulling out the cross I was given when I was 7. It was supposed to make the fire stop. God…was supposed to make the fire stop.

He didn’t. God never listened.

But Trevor Broom always did. No matter what I said. He always listened.

“I wish you were here.” I choke out finally as I drop the cross on the snow next to his grave and walk back to the car.