Fic: Somewhere Only I Know
Written for the ar_drabbles challenge, 'you decide'
Title: Somewhere Only I Know
Word Count: 300
Rating: K
Prompts Used: 'What lies beneath', and 'The abyss' from kastari, 'New Caprica', and ‘I do my crying in the rain’ from twilight_sad, and "Laura's photo of Billy" from lacklusterfic.
Up in the hills, it was quiet. There were no raiders overhead, no bustle of people. Just the soft patter of rain and the rustle of grass.
Leaving the settlement was banned, but there were ways and means, if you knew where to go. Tigh had shown her the way past the temple, recognising the overwhelming need for solitude that was radiating from her, admonishing her to be careful, to be back before sundown.
Huddled against a rock, she watched the raindrops fall softly into the lake. Today had been a tough one, a message left on her desk that three of her children had died in a firefight the night before. Three young faces that she would never see grow up. Three futures that would never become fact. She cradled the photograph of Billy, her boy, against her chest, needing that closeness today to the last person she’d allowed herself to love.
She was strong, always strong, but here she could break. Sometimes, it felt as though there was an abyss opening up before them, just waiting for them to slip and fall. In her more morbid moments, she imagined Bill arriving back and finding just graves, ashes, scattered pages littering the ground, too late.
Here, in the silence and the rain, she could let those tears of despair trickle down her cheeks, as she cried for Billy, those three children, her people and all that was becoming of them. And for Bill, who she did not allow herself to love. Who she was afraid she might love anyway.
The stars were breaking through when she arrived back; bedraggled, cold, soaked. The glance Tigh gave her as the curfew sirens sounded was knowing, but she held her chin high, mask in place.
What lay beneath was hers, only hers.
Title: Somewhere Only I Know
Word Count: 300
Rating: K
Prompts Used: 'What lies beneath', and 'The abyss' from kastari, 'New Caprica', and ‘I do my crying in the rain’ from twilight_sad, and "Laura's photo of Billy" from lacklusterfic.
Up in the hills, it was quiet. There were no raiders overhead, no bustle of people. Just the soft patter of rain and the rustle of grass.
Leaving the settlement was banned, but there were ways and means, if you knew where to go. Tigh had shown her the way past the temple, recognising the overwhelming need for solitude that was radiating from her, admonishing her to be careful, to be back before sundown.
Huddled against a rock, she watched the raindrops fall softly into the lake. Today had been a tough one, a message left on her desk that three of her children had died in a firefight the night before. Three young faces that she would never see grow up. Three futures that would never become fact. She cradled the photograph of Billy, her boy, against her chest, needing that closeness today to the last person she’d allowed herself to love.
She was strong, always strong, but here she could break. Sometimes, it felt as though there was an abyss opening up before them, just waiting for them to slip and fall. In her more morbid moments, she imagined Bill arriving back and finding just graves, ashes, scattered pages littering the ground, too late.
Here, in the silence and the rain, she could let those tears of despair trickle down her cheeks, as she cried for Billy, those three children, her people and all that was becoming of them. And for Bill, who she did not allow herself to love. Who she was afraid she might love anyway.
The stars were breaking through when she arrived back; bedraggled, cold, soaked. The glance Tigh gave her as the curfew sirens sounded was knowing, but she held her chin high, mask in place.
What lay beneath was hers, only hers.