OOM: Conversations With Dead People - (Milliways) Halloween 2010

[isaysimplewords]

This time, he understands what's going on right away. A dream that isn't a dream, a meeting place between worlds more tenuous than Milliways. A way to make peace with those he has lost.

He knows whose turn it is this year before he even looks, and when he does look, and sees the familiar figure in the wheelchair he remembers so vividly

(It had

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[showmenomercy]

"You were never meant to see this, you know." Grahame Chandler doesn't look up from the letter he's reading. Cal ripped it in half months ago, and the tear down the middle is still there. Mended, but not whole.

[isaysimplewords]

"I know."

Cal is still in bed; he remembers having fallen asleep just a moment ago. Grahame is across the room. As far away from Cal and Cal's bed, he notices, as it is possible to get.

He wonders if that's Grahame's choice or his.

[showmenomercy]

"Of course you do," Grahame says. "That's why you read it, no doubt. One last swipe at me." He folds the letter back up. "Well, it's sentimental garbage, I'm sorry to say. I wasn't exactly at my best when I wrote it."

It's a well-worn technique of his, brusque dismissal to cover for vulnerability. Worn to transparency at this point, perhaps, at least to those who know him, but he holds on to it. It's all he has.

He has yet to look up.

[isaysimplewords]

"Did you come all this way just to tell me that?"

Cal has imagined this moment more than once, meeting his uncle for the first time since both their deaths.

("Please, Cal, I'm begging you. Look. Look, I'm on my knees, is that what you want? Is it? Please, Cal.")

Anyone could come through the door at Milliways, at any time. Just because he has yet to meet anyone from his world doesn't mean it will never happen. There has always been the possibility of seeing Grahame again, and he has always dreaded it.

Maybe it's just the dream, but right now he's calmer than he'd thought he'd be.