Water Music
by Alicia McKenzie
DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters mentioned in this belong to Marvel, and are used without permission, but Clare (the narrator) is mine. Don't use her without asking.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Part of the Pantheon series, but not part of any of the subarcs. The setting of this is fairly explanatory, once you get into it. Dedicated to Duey, for being ceaselessly inspirational. :)
I can remember when we used to walk along the rocks, just him and me. I always kept pace with him. Never ran ahead, not even when I was a child.
It was worth it. The quiet. . .just being with my father, this incredible man who taught me to listen to everything, who smiled down at me when I was almost too young to understand and opened my mind to a world full of music beautiful enough to shatter your heart. He taught me that the world sings, and even now, with responsibilities and griefs and burdens of my own, if I take a deep breath, and close my eyes, I can still hear it, singing through me, glorious as the first time.
I missed those walks, when my own life took me away from here. I suppose we all grow up, and leave places. . .and people. But I can still see myself walking down there with him, if I look closely enough. When you walk a path as often as we did that one, you leave something of yourself behind.
You want to know where Mom was when I came down this morning? Sitting on the couch, holding his cane so tightly I expected to see it crack. His cane. She hated that flonqing cane. Looked at it with such loathing, when she thought no one was looking, but there she was, holding onto it like it was all that she had left of him.
I don't know what to do. What to say to her. There's nothing in this world that can fill up the emptiness inside her, I know that, and I'm so afraid I'm going to lose her, too. I think of all the years they had together, everything they saw and did, all that pain and joy, and I wonder if I would be strong enough to go on, in her place. They were each their own person, don't get me wrong, but they were so much a part of each other. . .they shared so much.
I sometimes wonder if it's worth it, in the end. To love someone, and know that you're going to suffer that sort of. . .desolation, if they. . .go.
I remember falling on that rock, right there, when I was about six. Dad scooped me right up out of the water, telekinetically, before I could even start to cry. I bumped my head, wound up with a gash on my arm that needed stitches. I remembered feeling more stupid that anything else. After we got home from the emergency room, Mom carried me right in to bed and tucked me in, and I knew damned well I wasn't getting around that. She had that 'disobey me and die, child' look on her face. Her eyes sort of spoiled it, I must admit. . .
They took turns watching me, that night. . .suppose I must have had a concussion, or something. And I dreamed about falling on that rock again, this time with Nick and Zara and Harry looking on, laughing. I woke up so mad and so embarassed. . .
Then I heard Dad's voice in my mind, telling me that it was okay, that it was just a dream. Do you know what he said then? I remember it like it was yesterday. 'Don't be so hard on yourself, Clare. You were already getting up when I pulled you out.' He knew exactly what I needed to hear. Exactly. I went back to sleep and slept like a baby for the rest of the night.
He always knew when I needed to walk my own path, and when I needed him, even when I was too proud to ask. I suppose I never rebelled. . .what did I need to do that for? I had a mother who smiled when I tried out my wings, and a father who knew what was in my heart before I did, sometimes. There was nothing to grow away from. There was just love, and support, and respect.
I'm not idealizing my childhood. There were hard times, dark times. More, as I got older. Denver. Ian. But when I look back, my parents never caused me any of the pain I've known in my life. They'd fought their battles before I was born, signed their treaties. Learned to live with each other's little flaws and occasional pettiness and deeper shadows. It wasn't that they didn't argue. . .far from it. . .but they were content with who they were and the life they'd made. And it showed.
Their life together was a testament, not a monument. Just this. . .joyous little secret they thought they had all to themselves. I wonder sometimes if they knew that all anyone had to do was look at them, to see it.
Mom and I had a yearly ritual. Every Christmas shopping season, we'd go out to this little gourmet coffee shop and buy the wildest, most exotic flavors of coffee we could find. I remember Dad laughing himself sick one Christmas morning, roaring about 'who the flonq would drink blueberry coffee?'
And Mom was watching him, and her eyes just glowed. . .they had all these little in-jokes, you know. It shouldn't have surprised me; they were together for twenty-five years before I was born, after all. Yet I never felt left out. Not once. I wasn't some. . .afterthought to their life together, and they always made sure I knew it. There's a picture of the three of us that I drew when I was three still hanging on the refrigerator inside.
The three of us. They were always here, both of them. I don't quite know how. . .how to deal with that empty spot in my life, either.
Mom didn't want the official visitation, at XSE headquarters. Gina talked her into it, in the end, and then stayed with her, here at the house, that whole day.
I went. I'm not sure why, but I put on my formal uniform and stood there beside his coffin, for eight hours. I watched the constant stream of people. . .so many people. Some of them looked at me and smiled. Others just gave the flag a little pat, and moved on. It was the New Lands flag; Magnus insisted, since Dad had been his ambassador.
I think every XSE agent on the Eastern Seaboard came to pay their respects that day, too. Bishop showed me later some of the footage from the ceremonies they'd held in other places. It was really something. They didn't know him, except as 'Ambassador Summers', one of the Founders, and yet they stopped, all around the world, and remembered him.
Was he real to them, I wonder, or just an icon? Or does that even matter? They lost something, someone they believed in, just like I did.
Mom insisted we have the funeral here, and do it the Askani way. I think a few people would have objected, but Dana and Sulven were standing right beside her, and no one in their right mind was going to say no to the three of them.
I. . .don't remember much about the funeral. Holding Mom's hand, and seeing Uncle G.W. cry for the first time in my life. . .
Watching sparks fly up into the starry sky, like new stars, all for him.
I stood there all night, long after the others had left, or gone inside. I stood by my father's pyre until the morning winds blew his ashes out across the water.
And I listened. I listened to his voice, murmuring in the waves, telling me that he loved me, and I knew I'd always hear it.
fin