Nothing Left Of Yesterday

[deeperwonderment]

Title: Nothing Left Of Yesterday
Author: not_from_stars
Rating: PG-13.
Word Count: 1,992 without the song lyrics.
Character(s): Danny Quinn, Sarah Page, implied Danny/Sarah
Challenge: The Song!fic challenge at primeval_vsx
Summary: He should have been surprised that the anomaly opened up in the cemetery instead of in the same place it had opened the last time it had brought him home.
Author's Note: Warning for angst and character death. queenmidalah is an enabler.
Song: Hello - Evanescence




Rain clouds come to play again
Has no one told you she's not breathing?

He should have been surprised that the anomaly opened up in the cemetery instead of in the same place it had opened the last time it had brought him home. He wasn't. Maybe it was because he had travelled through so many of them while he was chasing Patrick. Or maybe it was because once things were finally finished with Patrick -- Ethan. Think of him as Ethan it won't hurt so much -- it was the dead he had been thinking of.

Or maybe it was because he had been thinking of one dead in particular.

It was true that he hadn’t stayed very long the last time he came home, but he had been home at the ARC long enough to be told certain things.

Certain things like the fact that the most important person to him on the team hadn’t survived.

He had done his best to push that to the back of his mind while he was chasing after his misbegotten brother or else he never would have been able to put a stop to his killing ways. However, with the threat of Ethan ended, the thoughts of Sarah and what had happened to her had come crashing back into the forefront of his mind. It was all he had been able to think about and when the anomaly opened, he had been through it in a flash.

He hadn’t expected to end up in the one place that he hadn’t wanted to be. It was the one place that he felt too many of the people from the ARC had been to.

Taking a deep breath, he walked along the paths, running a hand through his hair as his eyes searched out that one name. He wasn’t surprised to find her headstone near where Cutter and Hart had been buried. A quick, frantic scan assured him that no other names had been added since he abandoned the fight so that he could chase Ethan. He didn’t think he would have been able to handle that.

He stood in front of her headstone for a long moment before he felt all of the strength go out of his body and his knees hit the dirt. He swallowed several times, reaching out to clean invisible specks of dirt from the crevices between the letters of her name.

Finally, he let out a choked sigh and leaned his forehead forward to touch the stone.

“You weren’t waiting for me like you promised me you would be.” He said in a low voice. “When the three of us geared up and took off after that barmy bitch, you promised me that you would stay safe and that you would be here waiting when I came back.” He shook his head. “Dead and buried isn’t quite the same thing as waiting for me, luv. I thought that a highly intelligent woman like you would know the difference.”

Danny swallowed again and shifted his position. “I knew there was a chance that when I came back, you would have decided to move on since I was gone for so long, but damn it, Sarah, this is not the same thing. Of all of the team, you were supposed to be the one least likely to get hurt. I don’t know what Becker was thinking – and believe me, I’ll be having it out with him over this – but you shouldn’t have been there in the first place. You didn’t have training and weren’t even supposed to be out in the field, much less going into the future where those predators made their home.”

He went silent for awhile, his head still resting against her headstone. Of all of the people that he thought could die in their line of work, Sarah was not supposed to be on that list. Sarah was supposed to be the one who solved the problems and would be the one arranging everything when they managed to find their way back from the places they were trapped in. Sarah was the one that he was supposed to grab and hold close as soon as he was able to get home again. Sarah was the one who had kept him going when there were times that he thought that killing himself would be preferable to the slow way that he seemed to be dying while lost in the past.

Sarah had saved his life and he had returned only to find out that he had failed her in return.


Hello, I am your mind giving you someone to talk to
Hello I am the lie living for you so you can hide
Don't cry


He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there before he felt gentle hands on his shoulders. He turned his head in confusion, catching a faint scent of the perfume that Sarah had always worn. Exotic, mysterious, a scent that had been uniquely hers.

You’re going to catch your death of cold sitting here in the rain. Her voice was as clear as if she was standing right next to him.

He hadn’t even been aware that it was raining. All he had been aware of when he came back through the anomaly was that Sarah wasn’t going to be there to welcome him back home. “Luv, with everything else that I have been through, a little rain isn’t going to kill me.”

No, it didn’t seem to matter to him that he was having a conversation with a dead woman. When he turned his head to look at her, one of the hands moved from his shoulder to stroke his cheek.

Just because you’ve been lucky to survive things up until now doesn’t mean that you’re completely invincible, Danny Quinn. Didn’t I teach you anything?

“You know that you can’t ever teach a stubborn boy like me anything new.”

Her laugh was just as gentle and amused as it had always been with him. I’m pretty sure that you knew that wasn’t going to work as soon as you thought it.

“Ah, see, once again you’re assuming that I think before I speak.”

Sometimes you do, Danny. Sometimes you think and then you say the best things that anyone has ever heard.

“They weren’t meant for just anyone, Sarah. They were meant for you.”

And I loved every one of them, Danny. But this, this is not something I enjoy seeing or hearing. You’re torturing yourself.

“The woman I love got killed because I wasn’t here to protect her. I believe that gives me good reason to torture myself.”

He could feel her sigh, her breath rustling his hair. It is not your fault that I died, Danny. You can’t blame yourself for something that you had no part in.

“I should have been here, Sarah. If I had been here, you never would have gone into that bloody world looking for us.”

No, Danny, no. You were doing something that was so much more important than one life.

“No one was more important to me than you, Sarah, and you know that. Don’t insult me by trying to make it otherwise.”

I would never say that, but Danny, you did something so wonderful. You saved mankind. You protected the future of the world; our world.

“At what cost, Sarah? Tell me what could have possibly been worth the price of your life?”

You stop that right this minute, Danny Quinn! Don’t you dare wallow in doubt and self pity. That attitude is not worthy of the man who you are.

Danny had to fight hard not to let a small smile cross his face. She sounded almost cross with him. It was so much like she had been in life that it almost eased some of his sorrow. Almost.

“I lost the woman I love and had to kill my brother, Sarah. I think I’m allowed to wallow a small bit.”

There is a difference between grieving and wallowing, Danny. I’m sorry about what happened with your brother, because I know that you never gave up hope that you would find him one day. I wish that it could have turned out differently for your sake.

“He wasn’t the kid I remembered, Sarah. I should have realized that being that long away from his world would have an adverse affect on him. We all saw what it did to Helen.”

Hope is never a bad things, Danny. Hope is often the one thing that keeps people going when it looks like there is nothing more to hold onto.

“There’s hope and there is reality, Sarah my love.”

And sometimes they can be one and the same, love. We both have seen too much happen to discount that.

“I’m too old for this crap, Sarah. I never felt like I was old until all of this.” Danny sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I never felt this wrung out and empty.”

You’re not old, love, and you’re not empty. But you need a break. You need to rest and heal. You have been through more than anyone else can ever hope to understand.

“That’s not exactly true, luv.”

Oh?

“Abby and Connor would probably understand completely.” He could swear that he felt her kiss on his hair.

You’re right. They would understand and that is why you have to heal. They need you, Danny. There was a pause. Abby needs you.

“What’s wrong with Abby?” Danny heard the thread of steel entering his voice.

All I can tell you is that she feels alone … like she doesn’t have a place in this world any longer. Connor is focused on his work and Abby is afraid to reach out to anyone else. She needs a friend that understands how it was to be trapped someplace like you guys were.

“Why doesn’t she reach out to Becker or Lester? God knows they care about her.”

Because she thinks she needs to pretend to be so strong for them so they don’t see how badly she’s falling apart inside. As for Matt, she doesn’t know him well enough to lean on him. He’s a co-worker and maybe one day will be a friend, but right now she can’t risk getting close to anyone else.

“Are you sure that this isn’t all some grand plan of yours to keep me from giving up like I really want to right now?”

I wouldn’t use Abby’s pain to manipulate you.

“Ahh, there’s that annoyance that I so missed.” He shook his head tiredly. “I don’t know if I can do this, Sarah.”

You can, love. I know you can. He felt the faintest sensation along his scalp, like her fingers were threading through his hair. Your time isn’t up yet, Danny. One day, it will be, and you’ll see me again, but today is not that time.

“Damn it,” he sighed quietly. It was almost a sob. “I miss you, Sarah.”

I’ll always be with you, Danny, and I’ll always love you. However, right now, you have to begin the process of living again because the people you love need you to.

Danny closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them again, Sarah’s warm presence was gone. All that was left was the heavy rainfall and the grave he was kneeling on.

“Damn it, love. You certainly know how to cut a bloke off at the knees.”

He would have said more, but he heard vehicles pulling up not too far from him and heard the excited chatter of voices. They must have been alerted by the opening of his anomaly. He got to his feet and turned in time to catch the tiny blonde that had launched herself into his arms.

“You’re home, Danny,” Abby said in a tearful voice. “Oh thank god, you’re home.”

He closed his arms around her, sheltering her, even as he felt Connor and Becker hugging him, too.

“You’re right, Abby,” he said softly where only she could hear. “I’m home and alive and it’s time for you to start living, too.”


Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping
Hello, I'm still here
All that's left of yesterday...