You Could Be Happy
By Sharilyn
EMAIL: Sharilyn
Sorry this is late; real life got away from me this month and I haven't been checking my dues obligations. This is just a short vignette inspired both by "TSbyBS" episode and by this song called "You Could Be Happy" by the group Snow Patrol. I really like this album, and if you go to the following url you can stream the entire album for FREE, yeah, and listen to the whole album online, including this song. (If you go to the site, once the album starts playing, move the counter bar to around 20 minutes, 10 seconds--20:10--and "You Could Be Happy" should start playing.) So; here is the url for the free listen to the Snow Patrol album, and below is my short dues vignette.
url: http://www.mp3.com/albums/20103048/summary.html
(Just scroll down to where it says stream the entire album for free and click there.)
summary: just a bit of introspective, sad Jim
*****************
YOU COULD BE HAPPY
You could be happy and I won't know
But you weren't happy the day I watched you go
And all of the things I wish I had not said
Are played in loops till it's madness in my head
Is it too late to remind you how we were
Not our last days of silent screaming blur
Most of what I remember makes me sure
I should've stopped you from walking out the door
You could be happy I hope you are
You made me happier than I'd been by far
Somehow everything I own smells of you
And for the tiniest moment it's all not true
Just do the things that you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back-don't think, just do
More than anything I want to see you (Blair)*
take a glorious bite out of the whole world
You should be happy no matter what
"You Could be Happy" by the group SNOW PATROL
*original word here--'girl' instead of Blair, ha; I changed it to fit the fic (I highly recommend this new Snow Patrol album, EYES OPEN, and urge everyone to find and listen to this song--#6 on the album--as the music is deceptively simple, even light, yet simultaneously very poignant and beautiful. Silly me, when I first heard it and inserted Jim and Blair into the mix, I actually had tears in my eyes, sigh. But now, on with the story.)
*****
Every morning when I open my eyes, the daily countdown begins: now it is twenty days since Blair left, now it is thirty-one...and now, today, the numbers that flash bold and black and so coldly indifferent into my newly awakened mind blink '42' over and over, a mocking testament to the biggest screw-up of my life.
Forty-two.
Forty-two days since I last felt the unmistakable aura of Sandburg's unique energy sizzling like unchained lightning into every corner of the loft, filling up all the empty spaces with the echoes of his unfettered laughter or with the soft, compelling cadence of his 'guide' voice murmuring me up from the depths of a zone-out. And it isn't just the days that are hard to get through; last night made forty-one nights without the comforting sound of his heartbeat reverberating reassuringly from the warm cavern of his chest to rise up the stairs and lull me to sleep in my bed, my own pulse resetting itself to the slow and steady rhythm of his, each drowsy lub-dub, lub-dub so familiar and so redolent of the richness of his life force.
Forty-one nights of grimly exhausted wrestling with the elusive specter of sleep leading into this, the forty-second day since I drove away the best friend I've ever had with bitter, acid words that seared and corroded my tongue as I spewed them from my mouth, only to watch them eat into the foundation of the unique friendship we had built together. And as I rise from the sheet-twisted wreck of my bed to face the grayness of another day on my own, a phantom voice that reaches to the depths of my soul reiterates a truth I already know--I can't take another forty-two days of this, of the soul-sucking vacuum that resides within me now in lieu of the warm essence of my partner. I feel almost certain that I can't live even one more night with the horrible silence that reigns like some dark, evil victor in the space that was formerly occupied by Blair's heartbeat and by the small, strangely endearing snorts and snuffles of his breathing.
But I know I have no choice; I know he had to go, that he deserves so much more in his life, more than I could ever give, be, or do for him.
And despite my initial anger over his leaked dissertation--featuring yours truly as the subject--and my belief that he'd committed an egregious breach of trust with its contents (a terrible misapprehension on my part, I now realize), I have to admit that he never betrayed me, that he was only fulfilling his part of the bargain we made almost as soon as we met. In fact, he did more than his part, gave me so much more than I'd ever expected or deserved from the quirky but deeply fulfilling friendship that sprang up between us; and I have to ask myself now how much I truly gave in return. Sure, I provided him with a roof over his head, helped him out sometimes with money till he could pay me back, and sometimes even when he couldn't repay me...but those material things mean nothing, really, not when held up to the scale of all the ways Blair has helped me and enriched my daily life over the past few years. Sure, I know the friendship wasn't completely one-sided on an emotional level; more than once Sandburg let me know that he found our partnership both at work and as sentinel and shaman to have enriched his life deeply; hell, even as he was walking out the door forty-two mornings ago, he made sure he let me know that he appreciated our friendship and would always treasure the memories and having known me.
At the time, lost in a haze of bitterness and disillusion, I had nothing to say to him in reply; but now, eating a cold, tasteless breakfast in the silence of the loft, I deeply regret not having reassured him that, despite all the recent pain between us, I felt the same way toward him. If only I could find him now and let him know; if only I could look into those vibrant, all-too-perceptive blue eyes of his and apologize for being such a royal, grade-A jerk...
I suppose I could always track him down; I am a detective, after all, I think drily to myself as I rinse out my cereal bowl and put it away, my movements slow and methodical in the early morning light. But there are a lot of places a determined, heartsore anthropologist could disappear to in forty-two days, and I have a feeling Blair wouldn't appreciate such a heavy-handed gesture from me now, so long after the time when it would have been appropriate to do such a thing. No; I've let it go too long, spent too many days wallowing in my own useless pride and morbid brooding; and by now he's probably begun moving on mentally and emotionally, carefully but firmly closing the door on the Jim Ellison chapters of his life and gearing that marvelous, mercurial intellect of his to pursuing the next holy grail, the next friendship--hopefully one that won't leave him wounded, high and dry the way I left it between us. But as I move about the loft gathering up my gun, jacket, and keys preparatory to heading out to work, I can't help but wonder if maybe there might be some part of Blair's soul that's still missing me this morn as much as I'm missing him. Forty-two days and counting, and despite my attempts to get on with my own life, I have to admit to myself as I lock the loft door behind me that right now the only thing keeping me going is the faint but persistent hope that one day soon Sandburg will walk back through this same door he walked out of and that together we can make it all right again, put things back--put US back--where we belong. Friends. Together. Always.
END