DISCLAIMER: Paramount doesn't own the name Kathryn. Even so, I'll let them have this one.
For someone far stronger than I.
I wrote this in 40 minutes. It hasn't been beta-read. I still like it.
Reprieve
by Harley
I looked her square in the eye and said, "No."
I wish I had her reaction on tape. She spluttered, blinked, and looked altogether like someone she wasn't. "No?" she managed to gasp.
I nodded, continued to stare at her ice blue eyes that seemed now so much colder than they had years before. "No."
She shook her head. A wistful smile appeared on her face and she sank into her chair. "No." She looked at her hands, folded in her lap, and looked back up. "If there was one response I didn't expect, that was it."
I wanted to smile at her. "I'm sorry."
She examined her hands again, and I know she was looking for evidence of age. Then, the rueful smile again, and another shake of the head. I wondered when I'd become such an observer of action. She blinked. "Why?"
I joined her in the smile then, but could not explain. She would not understand. I shook my head.
Her eyes may have teared for an instant, but she looked away - looked to the stars - and when she met my gaze again, those crystal eyes were clear. "Dismissed."
I nodded, watching her as I backed away. "Aye."
* * * * * *
I learned, years later, that she had gone on to accept a desk job. She was working for the same organization she always had, making the life-or-death decisions that made her famous. She wore a rank bar that declared to the world she was as proud as the next, that she knew she was important.
She wasn't.
* * * * * *
I caught up with her the day after she died.
She smiled that rueful smile and shook her head. "Good to see you," she said. I nodded, but did not respond. It wasn't good to see her, not really. It meant her desk chair was empty. She nodded at my silence. It was comforting to know that after thirty-seven years without a communique we could still read each other's thoughts, our moods.
"They're going to cry," she said, looking up into my eyes. Hers were the same, that ice crystal that froze everything they touched. I felt myself turn to stone. "They will," she continued.
I nodded. "Probably."
"Certainly." She took a deep breath. "Isn't that what they do?"
"Usually," I agreed. Usually, they did cry. They struggled through the days until they realized there was nothing they could do. Then they moved on. They stopped crying.
"But not for me," she said softly, turning those eyes away.
"No."
She stopped then, putting her hands on her hips in a gesture I realized I didn't miss. I hadn't missed anything about her.
"Why not?"
"You never lived, Kathryn," I told her. "Never."
"And this is my reward?" she demanded, voice cold.
I considered. "No," I told her quietly. "This is your reprieve."
* * * * * *
They didn't cry, in the end.
There was reminiscing all around. They joked about the bad times, smiled about the good. They didn't cry.
Someone said, softly to someone else, "I wonder what happened."
Someone else responded, "He was."
Someone nodded. "She wasn't."
In the end, it was about living, being alive.
She wasn't.
*END*