Title: one
Author: Cath
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine
Summary: one day, one week, one month, one year since she left. RH. Post 5.05
Notes: Again, many thanks for the wonderful feedback received for the last story. I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoy this one; it's a slight departure from my more fluffy entries, and with any luck now that I have this one out of my system I can return to happier pastures.
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One day has passed since she left.
24 hours have passed since she departed on a boat headed for an unknown destination. 24 hours and he finally makes it to her house.
If he had the ability to feel any emotion, he'd feel sorry for the fact that her cats have been 24 hours without food. But at this moment he feels nothing but detachment and numbness.
He has spent 24 hours without her before and so the reality that he is unlikely ever to see her again does not fully sink in. It does not stop him thinking about her, but that is nothing unusual.
He tries to imagine a life in which she is not present, but is unsuccessful.
The cats – bemusedly accepting their sobriquets of "fluffy" and "the grey one" – miaow demandingly at him as he enters their home. They follow him as he makes his way to the kitchen, irritatingly attempting to trip him up as they wind round his feet.
He tries not to remember his visit to this very kitchen less than 48 hours ago, when sweet tea seemed to be the answer to all their problems. Obviously, it was woefully inadequate.
He finds a cat transportation box in the utility room then spends the next half an hour attempting to coax both cats into it with various bribes of food, attention and careful physical persuasion.
Tins of cat food collected in a bag, cat box in one hand swaying side to side as the restless animals wander, he exits the house. He has no intention of returning.
Over 1440 minutes have passed since she left. And each one continues to drag slowly on into infinity.
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One week has passed since she left.
168 hours of being Alison Lewis. Still the name doesn't seem familiar to her. It feels as though it never will. She says it repeatedly, but it trips awkwardly off her tongue. Alison Lewis.
Before she left she was given a legend, complete with passport, credit cards, birth certificate, some money, background, CV.
Alison Lewis was a lecturer in classics who decided to leave her old life after the death of her husband.
Alison Lewis stays initially in a cheap hotel in Paris and wonders about her future.
Maybe Alison Lewis will start afresh in France. Or Italy. Or Spain. She has, at the very least, passing acquaintances will all these languages.
Maybe Alison Lewis will return to her teaching career. Or perhaps the death of her husband, John, will prove too much for her and she will start a new career.
Her new alter ego doesn't invite too many questions from strangers. She is allowed to remain as introverted as her will decides, she can be lost in thought, and doesn't need to disclose many details.
Over the last week she has attempted to familiarise herself with Alison, tried to understand how it would feel to be Alison. But the truth is, in some ways the character fits too well while the name doesn't. She understands about losing someone she loves only too clearly.
She thinks about what she, Ruth, did.
The knowledge that what she did had the right outcome, that Harry was saved and can continue fighting for MI-5, keeps her going through the first week.
In her 10080 minutes of being Alison, most have been preoccupied with thoughts of Ruth and her past and what her future could have been. And she curses herself for having spent so much time alone.
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One month has passed since she left.
More than 672 hours have passed since she left. He doesn't allow himself to say her name, and those around him silently comply with his wish. It is a constant source of frustration to him that her desk cannot remain unoccupied; hopefully awaiting its previous tenant.
He has visited her house only once since he assured himself he would not; it was after a particularly difficult day and he realised that he could not allow every single item in her house to be sold off or removed by her family. He needed something to remind himself that she was still living; to remind himself of what she meant to him and what they should have had.
So, he snuck in late one evening, feeling like an intruder, and tried to familiarise himself with her whole house, with the very essence of her.
She could take very little with her when she left – anything significant would lead to questions – and so there is plenty of 'Ruth' paraphernalia that he can choose from.
Minutes pass by as he learns her house, tries to understand Ruth as much as he can, before the inevitable dismantling of everything that made the house hers.
He selects a few items: Homer's Illiad complete with scribbled notes, obviously a souvenir from her university days; a photograph found hidden in a drawer, from the days of Danny and Zoe and Tom; a necklace; a mug. Items that will not be missed. Items that are so indescribably her and that cause a lump to build up in his throat when he thinks of what they mean.
Back at home, he places them in a cupboard and attempts, once again, to remove her from his memory.
He no longer thinks of her absence in terms of minutes; they number far too many for his liking. He tries to convince himself that she is dead - in many respects she is – but a part of him continues to live in hope that she will return.
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One year has passed since she left.
She no longer counts the hours.
She has almost entirely become Alison Lewis, and being Alison Lewis consumes most of her time.
Alison Lewis has a bright future as a classics lecturer at a university in the north of England. After three months of travelling the world aimlessly but inquisitively, she felt the need to finally settle in one place. She could not live in London, there were far too many memories there for both Alison and Ruth, but equally she felt as though she needed to return to Britain. Alison needed to hang onto some surroundings that provided her with happy memories of her husband; Ruth clings on to the fading hope that she might pass by a former colleague in the street, or hear news that would make her transformation into Alison all that much more worthwhile.
Alison lives a fairly quiet life. She has friends, mostly fellow lecturers and professors, but spends a substantial amount of her life devoted to her teaching and her studies. She hopes to get a paper published soon. Ruth's old work habits remain a part of Alison's life.
Alison does not date; not that she has not had offers. She suspects that a fellow lecturer would like to go out with her, but while he is sweet, Alison is still unable to get past her husband's death. Ruth still struggles not to think of Harry.
She wonders what he is up to these days; briefly flirts with the idea of contacting him, but decides that it is too risky and not conducive to her long term aims of moving on and starting afresh entirely.
She knows that soon Alison will need to start thinking of her own future, and she wonders what that future will hold.
One year has passed since she left. One year has passed since she became Alison Lewis. But it is not Alison who looks frequently at a photograph of old friends and a man she loved enough to give up her whole life to save.
And it is not Alison Lewis' former life that she dreams of returning to.
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End.