- Home
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: Yeah, right, I owe them. Cos I would really send Frank off sailing without his Rachel. Oh yes. I’m so mean…. Nah, they belong to Hal McElroy, but I can borrow them. Even if for just a little while.
The poem is "Funeral Blues" by W.H.Auden. It always reminds me off when Rita lost her beloved Chris.. oh well, that’s a whole other series, and at least they got some time together!
Author’s Note: It’s my first Water Rats fanfic, but not my first try at writing.. so don’t feel any need to be gentle on me. I can take it! Note however, I have not yet seen “Tomorrow Never Comes” or the ep. where Rachel dies, so if I get a few things wrong.. blame it on Norwegian television being slow!
Author’s Note 2: I must really thank my cat Ishmael, who slept on my lap the whole time I wrote this story, looking so damn cute I couldn’t throw him off, and therefore making it nearly impossible to type. Thanks darling, your fur is excellent for sobbing into.
Summary: Finally, Frank returns, but only to find grief and guilt waiting for him.
~~~~~
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with a muffled drum
Bring out the coffin let the Mourners come.
~~~~~
Home. It was a familiar sensation, but one that had grown distant over the last few months. He’d tried to tell himself he needed this, when he in fact needed her. There it was. He had admitted it. All he had to do, was get her down to the pub, get her drinking, and make her admit it too. Really. It was simple.
But something seemed oddly out of sorts. A feeling of dread was crawling up his spine, despite his best efforts of telling himself it was just fear. Fear that she’d bite his head off for leaving, for coming back. Be just like her.
It didn’t stop the feeling of dread.
With a firm headshake he shook it off, taking the first step into his old workplace. It looked the same.
“Frank?”
He turned to see Helen staring at him, and with a wide grin he bent forward to kiss her.
“Howya doin love?”
“Frank, I thought you were..”
“In Venezuela, yeah. I’m heading there, I just had to pick up something I left behind. So, where’s.. you know.. ahh.. Rachel…”
She stared blankly at him, and again this feeling of dread washed over him.
“Don’t you know Frank?”
“Don’t know what?”
“Rachel… she.. ummm.. is dead, Frank. We tried to reach you..”
He froze. Somewhere inside him it felt like something was breaking, but he refused to acknowledge it, just staring at Helen, willing her to tell him it was a joke, a terrible joke.
“I’m so sorry, I.. I…”
Finally he was able to focus on her voice, realizing it was true, it was over, he could never wake up from this nightmare.
Blackness engulfed him.
~~~~~
Let the aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message (S)He Is Dead
Put crepe bows round the white of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
~~~~~
Memories found him. She was yelling at him for something again, he couldn’t for his life remember for what, and then.. they were at the pier again, and he was leaving her. She was smiling, a smile that turned to horror as blood started to pour from her, cover her. And suddenly he was only watching as Jack was holding her, his partner, as life poured out from her. And he could only mouth the words coming out of Jack’s mouth.
“Rachel, Rach, Rachel... Rach, I love you Rach! Can you hear me? I love you, I love you, I love you so much... “
And then to his horror, he could she her see him, far away, out of reach.
“Is that... Frank?... “
And so she fell dead, and he wasn’t even there.
“Nooooo!”
Sweating, he woke up. He’d fallen asleep on the couch despite his best efforts not to. In fear of that next nightmare, where she silently accused him, with all right, for not being there.
1 week now since he had learned, and the pictures of her bleeding to death still haunting his mind. They had told him, as gently as they could, how she’s died, and Jack even told him her last words.
It didn’t help. She’s called out, and he hadn’t even heard. He’s been off sailing into the sunrise… he had left her.
“Aaaah, Rachel…”
The house was filled with memories off her, of that last night…. They hadn’t even gotten that.
Desperate to shut the memories out, he reached for the bottle. It was empty.
“Bugger! Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger…”
Cursing he stood up, just to almost fall over. It didn’t matter. He needed more scotch to shut her out, to forget. To forget..
The look of pure sadness on her face as he sailed off, and a part of him begged him to stop, to reconsider, but stubbornly he sailed on, leaving her…
“No, I said, no!”
And with that he slammed the door behind him, and went into the night.
~~~~~
(S)He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
~~~~~
Somehow, he ended up walking near her house. He didn’t think where he was going, and suddenly, there it was. A shiver ran down his spine.
The night was colder and darker than he had remembered. Then again it was a whole new world. One without her in it. It was a void now. A big black hole…
And just who’s fault is that Holloway? Which partner wasn’t there when she needed it? Who let her die, let her bleed on the ground, who killed her by leaving her?
Anger filled him. But there was no one to lash out at anymore. The one person who would have understood, who would have let him and forgiven him, if only after many beers, was gone.
“Frank.”
“Go away Helen.”
“No Frank. It wasn’t your fault. Ya hear me?”
“I wasn’t there,” he dully stated.
She sighed.
“Howd ya know I was here?”
“Where else would ya be?”
He shook his head, then willed himself to walk away, to tear himself from the illusion that if he walked into her kitchen, she would he there, offering him a scotch and telling him how hopeless he was when dealing with grief.
“I miss her too…”
“Not like me,” he said stubbornly.
“And what makes ya think you*re the only one to feel grief, ey?”
“I SHOULDA BEEN THERE!!!” he screamed at her. “Don’t ya understand, I LEFT HER!!!”
And the tears that had welled themselves up in him, finally burst, and suddenly Helen’s arms were holding him, comforting him.
“I left her,” he said more quietly, into her shoulder.
“Nah, ya didn’t. You never left her in your heart. She knew that Frank. She knew it when she died.”
White light. It took him a second to realize what it was, then his mind finally seemed to wake up, and screamt at him.
A car, heading straight for them.
“Drunk driver,” he managed to think, before instincts kicked him, and he pushed Helen away. Threw her away.
Then the white light hit. He flew for a brief second, didn’t even feel the landing, just a numbing sensation in his chest. For a few seconds, he actually thought he was unhurt. Then the pain hit. In his head, his chest, his legs. He wanted to scream, but no sound came out. And the pain…. The pain throbbed through his body like shockwaves, hitting him everywhere. He felt more than heard Helen’s scream, and then the white light engulfed him, seeming to fill him.
And there she was. Standing just like she had that day on the pier, just as beautiful, but this time she was smiling at him, greeting him.. and only him. And with no accusation, only warmth.
All he need to do, was reach out and take her hand. “Fraaaaaaaaaank!” It was a distant cry, he recognized it to be Helen’s voice, but another voice called out to him, one he could not ignore.
“You’re not leaving me are ya?”
“Never.”
“Frank...”
“Rachel...”
The sirens were coming closer, he dimly registered, and Helen’s cries were becoming more desperate, but it didn’t matter. He was home.
~~~~~
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
~~~~~
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