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In Silence
by DanaChapter: 1/1, complete
Summary: She doesn't ask for very much.
Characters: Amy, Amy/Colin, Ephram/Amy implied
Rating: PG
Warnings: angst
Author's Notes: Elise inspired me with her posting of 'Waiting to Exhale' and the voices in my head had a ball with that one. A 'what if' formed itself in my head... and I wondered what it would be like: Colin has woken, but there is another problem there for Amy and them all to face. Read to see what it is... (Looking back, I never would have imagined that I'd be as right as I was when I wrote this story.)
Disclaimer: The show and characters are not mine.[ * ]
She knows this isn't the Colin that she's known all her life. This is a Colin who's lost touch with the world, fresh born from a blank world she could never begin to imagine. She knows what it's like to break inside and to fall to pieces but se doesn't know what it's like to not know.
Amy doesn't like knowing because she feels like it's all been a sham. Dedication, never giving up; what is it in the end when Colin isn't there to share it with her? All the pieces of the person she's left behind cut into her as she breathes in and then breathes out again. She's at a dead end and Amy doesn't know what to do.
She was supposed to be happy, a bitter thought, happy! He'd be awake and he'd be alive and she'd be able to be held in his arms. Was that such a bad thing for her to want? Is that such a bad thing to want? Is Amy a horrible person just for wanting her life to be the way that her heart wishes it could be?
Now she's more alone than she feels she's ever been before, sitting on white covers with her knees pulled to her chest. Her arms crisscross her legs and she rests her head atop her knees. She doesn't like crying, she never has. She's learned that sometimes liking and living with are totally different things.
She never wanted to learn that, though. Amy wanted to have Colin's return piece her heart back together, but now all there is is an empty blank gaze. He doesn't know her, and they don't know if he ever will. He's unattached from the world because he can't feel its pain. He can't feel hers.
That doesn't stop Amy from going to see him as he recovers at the hospital. A familiar voice, they'd told her, could be the answer that he's waiting for. Could bring him back from the depths of amnesia. And she wants him back and she'll do what she has to. That doesn't mean that she likes it.
It's killing her to sit there and to have that pair of void eyes resting upon her. A cold sick wetness balls up in her stomach and pulls her this way and that. A mockery of butterflies, a storm of moths. It makes her physically sick and brings tears to her eyes.
But she'll do it as though she has no other choice because she wants Colin back. She really wants him back, to be able to touch him, to hold him, to feel his arms around her. She wants to kiss him and to have him kiss her, she wants to hear him say I love you.
She unfolds herself and then lies down on the bed, wrapping her arms around herself as she rests her head upon the pillow. The soft feel of fabric is gentle and soothing, and her room is rest and peace and a comfort from the storm without. Amy just wishes to be.
There's a book on her nightstand, To Kill A Mockingbird, one she's been reading Colin when she goes to see him. We're reading this in class, you know. This way, you'll know what you've been missing. A worn bookmark marks the place where she left off the evening before. Six long days she'll be waiting until she can see him again.
The seconds and the minutes are tearing at her, fat numbers that drag on an eternity before the clock moves its hand one step and then another. She'll lie there until she has to rise, and perhaps it will be Sunday again. She'll see Colin and those empty eyes might not be as empty as they were before.
Maybe there will be some spark of life and light and he'll perhaps say her name. Colin won't just sit there silent, staring at her, a blank expression, depthless and empty eyes. They got this far, though, and they can get through the rest of it.
Even if sometimes she wants to break down in hysterical sobs, wondering why, why, why! It shouldn't have to be the way it is but it is and Amy is doing all that she can. If not, she's giving up, and she can't give up. They've gotten so far, come so far...
Her mother and father, Bright, they'll all been there for her, haven't they. They've wanted her to get on with her life but not to forget Colin. She wonders she they'd think of her if she had...
Amy even wonders what Ephram thinks of this all. What Ephram really deep down thinks of her. He's still alone in Everwood, and she understands that loneliness. She's more alone now than she's ever been before. Sometimes, he's what holds her together... Not hope that Colin will wake up from this waking sleep he's sitting in, but hope that Ephram will really truly consider her a friend.
She owes him a lot.
Amy doesn't think she could ever tell him.
She falls asleep, her thoughts in turmoil, haunted by things that could be and never will be, but things that she thinks of no matter what. Her face is peaceful in sleep, a surface calm that conceals that turbulence within.
There's things she doesn't know, though, and if she did, it could change it all.
Colin listens.
Ephram loves.
The end
(c) everfic. cue edna's voice: i don't own squat, private.
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