Everything Reminds Me Of You (Cloverfield, Robert Hawkins/Elizabeth McIntyre, Gamma)
Fandom: Cloverfield
Pairing: Robert Hawkins/Elizabeth McIntyre
Theme set: Gamma
Rating: FRM
Spoilers: The movie, and speculation on characters’ survival
#01 - Ring
Each night the same dream, and Rob always wakes up before she says ‘With this ring, I thee wed’.
#02 - Hero
Big damn hero he was; he got his closest friends killed and didn’t even manage to save Beth.
#03 - Memory
No matter how much Rob’d want to forget that night, shove it away like a bad nightmare, he can’t; it happened, and he’d been unlucky enough to survive.
#04 - Box
After Beth’s funeral, her father gives him her carillon box, saying "She’d want you to have it", and when he opens it, and it begins to chirp No Doubt’s ‘Running’, despair hits Rob full force.
#05 - Run
In retrospect, it was foolish; he’d been running right into danger, not even knowing if she was alive, but Rob knew he’d have never forgiven himself if he hadn’t done it.
#06 - Hurricane
Rob’s never been caught by a hurricane, but he doubts it can be worse than what that monster did to their chopper.
#07 - Wings
Rob’s never been too much of a Catholic, but if there’s a Heaven, then that’s where Beth is, as the most splendid of Angels.
#08 - Cold
Rob didn’t feel anything when his Mom and Dad arrived to NYC for him, he didn’t feel anything when they told him that Jason had been found alive, he didn’t feel anything watching Jason and Lily’s reunion, and that scared him.
#09 - Red
Rob was angry with the military, for deciding to fly over that monster and for stupidly bombing Manhattan without checking if there were people still alive, he was angry with the monster for having destroyed Manhattan and put Beth in danger, but the one he was the angriest with was himself, because if he hadn’t chickened out that long ago, Beth would’ve stayed at the party.
#10 - Drink
Some people become alcoholics because of tragedies like his; strangely enough, Rob didn’t.
#11 - Midnight
To add an insult to an injury, Rob always wakes up from his beautiful dream of marrying Beth at midnight; he’s Cinderella without the happy end.
#12 - Temptation
For a few weeks after that night, it seemed to Rob that everything was calling to him, to get him to end his life so he could be with Beth; he wondered if he didn’t make a mistake by ignoring their beckoning.
#13 - View
Beth never knew that whenever Rob commented on the awesome view in her apartment, he wasn’t looking out the window.
#14 - Music
Beth was always very off-key, but Rob would give anything in the world to hear her sing again.
#15 - Silk
The softest of silk could never rival Beth’s skin.
#16 - Cover
Rob doesn’t understand why he survived and she didn’t; he threw himself on her to cover her, for God’s sake!
#17 - Promise
Rob had made no promise to anyone, but he had to move on, if only because she would’ve wanted it.
#18 - Dream
To be honest, Rob wasn’t looking forward to the day when he wouldn’t dream about Beth.
#19 - Candle
Every Sunday, Rob now goes to the church and lights a candle in Beth’s memory.
#20 - Talent
Despite how much he deserved it, Rob wasn’t disappointed when he’d gone back to work and they told him someone else had gone to Japan; truthfully, he didn’t care.
#21 - Silence
Rob was hyperventilating when he shook Beth gently under the rubble of the bridge and no sound came from her.
#22 - Journey
They always told Rob that ‘it doesn’t matter how it ends, the journey’s what matters’; and now, more than ever, he believes it’s a lie they told themselves to suffer less.
#23 - Fire
Lying on a gurney as another helicopter finally took him away from Central Park and from Beth, Rob couldn’t help but notice how much more of Manhattan was on fire than he thought.
#24 - Strength
During the flight to the camps, Rob decided that he was going to sell his apartment; after everything that happened and who he lost, he just couldn’t find the strength to live there anymore.
#25 - Mask
After a while, they stopped asking him how he felt, and saying ‘Sorry for your loss’; but Jason could see right through that barrier, and knew that Rob was nowhere near OK: and sadly knew he couldn’t do anything about it, unless he had the power to make the dead come back to life.
#26 - Ice
Rob didn’t even realize he had had a freak out until he suddenly realized someone was holding him; "I’m sorry," Casey Donovan, the guy from Advertising said, "you asked for iced tea and I…." - he didn’t know how cold Beth was the last time he touched her.
#27 - Fall
They’d repaired Lady Liberty, with its head back at its place, and Rob felt like they were trying to shove what had come to be called '‘Cloverfield’ under a rug, like his family and (surviving) friends tried to do; problem was, the head did fall, and Beth did die.
#28 - Forgotten
A year after Cloverfield, Rob went to Beth’s grave, for the first time since her funeral, and was pretty shocked when he saw that the first bouquet on it was his.
#29 - Dance
The tape had surprisingly ended up being shown on TV as a documentary, creating even fanforums in which people with weird nicks like ‘Clovie245’ or ‘MarlenaGoesBoom’ - he can’t even begin to fathom how tasteless the last one is - talked about it almost like it was a movie, having a say on everything, from how they thought Lily’s helicopter arrived to safety (it didn’t; none of its occupants died, but it didn’t) to how much Hud’s constant joking was annoying (he couldn’t help it, he wants to type, it was his way of dealing with fear), when he came across someone describing his and Beth’s behavior, during it, like a dance; first together, then separated, then finally together; and Rob felt it was weirdly appropriate.
#30 - Body
Rob kept holding Beth up until the rescuers had to wrench her cold dead body out of his arms, not wanting to accept that she was gone.
#31 - Sacred
He’d always been an Agnostic, but after Cloverfield Rob felt he believed again, even if a small part of his brain was telling him that it was because he couldn’t accept to never be with Beth again.
#32 - Farewells
He’d never been good at goodbyes, which was the reason the whole Beth in danger brouhaha started.
#33 - World
"I just… without her, my world has just… stopped."
#34 - Formal
He hasn’t worn the suit he wore to Beth’s funeral yet again.
#35 - Fever
During one particularly bad bout of fever, Rob heard something… something which sounded like Beth’s voice.
#36 - Laugh
Rob couldn’t help, but find those ‘American Godzilla’ comments pretty funny, and he knows that Beth would’ve agreed.
#37 - Lies
For some days the pain was so hard, he tried to lie to himself about Beth, but it made things even worse.
#38 - Forever
Rob’s never loved another like he did her; he doesn’t think he ever will.
#39 - Overwhelmed
Sometimes her memory is so strong Rob is out of breath, out of everything, and Rob is torn between his heart’s longing for her and his strong will of survival.
#40 - Whisper
Rob can’t stop listening that Evanescence song, even though the memories it evokes are of fear and terror; they’re still memories of Beth.
#41 - Wait
Rob can’t help it, but a part of him will still be there, hoping for her return.
#42 - Talk
With the tape being public, he’d also become sort of a public person, and the offers for TV appearances arrived dozens a day; but he never accepted, because he didn’t want to demean Beth’s memory in some program like ‘Ellen’ or ‘Oprah’, or, God Forbid, ‘Jerry Springer’ (yes, they all wanted him).
#43 - Search
His resolve to move on arrives when he’s looking at himself in the mirror and has to look for himself in the image; he loves Beth, but he can’t keep living like this.
#44 - Hope
That night he raced through New York, right into danger, hoping that she was still alive; after everything that happened, hope is something he doesn’t know if he’ll ever feel again.
#45 - Eclipse
Cloverfield seems to have eclipsed 9/11 in the minds of the media, who are greedily launching themselves on the tragedies of that day; and when clips from the tape Hud made that night begin to appear on TV and on the Internet, Rob’s worrying that Beth’s family will see it, especially the beginning, and the rage over whoever put it on the Net overshadow anything else.
#46 - Gravity
Rob hasn’t told his therapist he still thinks Beth’s death - not to mention Marlena’s and Hud’s - are completely his fault, but he’s sure the man knows.
#47 - Highway
Yet another painful and Beth-related memory was triggered by a famous ACDC song, ‘Highway To Hell’, and Rob asked himself when would this ever stop.
#48 - Unknown
Nobody knows where that monster came from, or if there can be others; Rob doesn’t care very much for it, because knowing won’t bring Beth back.
#49 - Lock
He’s put everything that even remotely reminded him of Beth away in a locked chest he can’t bear to even gaze at.
#50 - Breathe
Every now and then, something will bring what happened that night back to his mind, and when it happens, thinking of her is the only things that prevents him from hyperventilating.
[ Our doctor today is |
nostalgic ]