Topic: There There

Luna Eva

Date: 2008-06-03 03:37 EST
((This thread will contain mature content.))

The tinkling of a bell announced Eva's entrance into Bartleby's Apothecary. Sunlight shone in through the windows of the little shop just off the Marketplace, glimmering off the rows and rows of glass bottles in a variety of colors and sizes. Eva pulled out the little bottle of rose oil that Mrs. Bartleby had given her as a Christmas gift, now empty, and moved down the aisles to try and find its full match.

"Oi, Doctor Luna, you're out and about so soon?"

Eva looked up as Mrs. Bartleby squeezed her round body through the narrow gap between the sales counter and the wall, her skirts swishing as she came towards her. The red-headed woman looked at Eva with a warm smile, but Eva could sense some concern behind it as well.

"I'm sorry?" Eva smiled at her, confused, her attention drawn away from the variety of scents in front of her.

"I said, you're up and about right quick," Mrs. Bartleby reached a hand out and touched Eva's wrist and looked back behind her in the store, then towards the door as if she expected someone to be accompanying Eva. "Mighty quick indeed for someone who's recently been in the way."

"In the way?" Eva blinked, looking down at Mrs. Bartleby's plump fingers on her wrist, still holding the empty green bottle of rose oil in her hand. "I don't... I don't know what you mean."

"Aye, in the way... was it a boy or a girl?" At Eva's blank look, Mrs. Bartleby frowned deeply. "You did just have yourself a little babe, nah?"

Eva's eyes widened. "A baby?" She laughed and shook her head. "No, no definitely not."

Mrs. Bartleby leaned back, releasing Eva's wrist to smooth her hands over her apron, looking down as she concentrated. "That is powerful strange... I could swear to the heavens I just saw you across the square not two days ago..." Mrs. Bartleby shook her head and looked back up at Eva and smiled. "Tis no matter, I must have been mistaken. Did you want some more of the rose oil, love? Here we are, I'll just go ring it up."

Mrs. Bartleby selected a small green bottle from one of the racks and then moved back to the sales counter to wrap it up. Eva stood staring after her, then reluctantly crossed the floor, following.

"That's pretty strange... that you mistook someone else for me... don't you think?"

"Aye, it is pretty strange, but I've seen all manner of strange here in Rhy'Din. That'll be 12 silvers for you, love."

Eva counted the correct coinage into Mrs. Bartleby's palm. Mrs. Bartleby watched the coins drop into her palm, then looked down further to place them in the till. Without looking up she slid the small package across the counter towards Eva. With a frown, Eva realized that Mrs. Bartleby was avoiding her eyes.

"Mrs. Bartleby, what exactly did you see?"

Mrs. Bartleby smoothed her hands down her apron again and then finally looked up at Eva. "A pretty girl, just as yourself, well in the way... in a few weeks it looked like...she were going to have a baby."

Luna Eva

Date: 2008-06-05 15:58 EST
"Hey Doc!"

"Morning, Credo." Eva smiled as she stepped out of the shelter of her alleyway into the hustle of the Marketplace. The morning was bright and warm, but everything still glimmered with the previous night's dew. Credo usually set up his produce stand just across the walkway from the bookstore, and he had taken to greeting Eva each morning. In return, she'd begun buying her daily apple at his stand.

Heavy foot traffic passed between them on the edge of the square, and Eva started to push and weave her way through in his direction.

"Heads up." Credo, his young, tanned face grinning, lobbed a yellow apple over the heads of the passersby. The fruit arced towards her, but Eva could tell it was going to fall short. She lunged for it, squeezing past some shoppers. Just as her hand closed around the yellow apple, Eva bumped into a woman who in turn bumped into the table of fruits and vegetables. A basket of cherries dropped from the woman's hands, the red fruit spilling out on the cobblestones at her feet.

"Oh damn, I'm sorry!" Eve knelt beside the woman, sticking her apple into her pocket, freeing up her hands to help collect the cherries back in the basket.

"No problem." The woman just barely glanced up at Eva with a smile.

"Elinor! Are you okay? What happened?" A man's hands reached down to help the woman up from her position kneeling. Eva looked up, the sound of the voice familiar.

The couple was angled away, but Eva could see now that the woman was pregnant. Very pregnant. The man attended her protectively, a hard-worked hand stroking down his wife's back with concern and affection.

Eva got to her feet and extended to the couple the basket of cherries. "Sorry about that."

"That's alright." The woman turned and smiled at her, taking the basket, then turned back towards her husband.

Eva froze. The woman was herself. Her younger self. She'd bumped into her younger self. Defying all logic, Eva knew with a certainty that this wasn't a lookalike, a strange occurrence of a doppelganger. No, it was definitely her. She was looking at an earlier version of herself. Herself when she was pregnant. When everyone still called her Elinor. Before... before everything. Blissful, optimistic Elinor. Eva watched as her younger self rested a hand on her pregnant belly.

Then it hit. The man beside her was Gus. Her ex-husband. Only before... before everything. Elinor, her younger self, held Gus at the crook of his elbow. He bent down and kissed her swollen belly, then straightened to kiss her cheek. They both looked so young, she looked so young. Just starting her twenties.

"How's baby Gus Jr.?" Gus grinned as he rubbed his hand over Elinor's belly. Eva stared, as her younger self blushed. Everything about her manner was easy, her hair loosely swept back from her face, unworried, serene, not a scar in sight.

Elinor playfully elbowed Gus in the ribs, adjusting the basket of cherries. "He's fine. Don't wake him or he'll start the jogging action again."

Eva could feel her blood drain, and she reached out to steady herself on the produce table. They were oblivious to her, the way that young couples were, the way she remembered being when that was her, when she was Elinor. Eva felt sick to her stomach. How long had it been since being happy came so effortlessly?

"You alright, Doc?"

Eva nodded, absently pulling the now bruised yellow apple from her pocket as she turned towards Credo. "How... how much?"

"Just two coppers like always... you sure you're alright?"

Beside Eva, Elinor laughed. "See, you woke him."

"He's kicking?" From the corner of her eye, Eva could see Gus reach out his hand to lay over Elinor's belly, feeling the baby.

Eva extended a shaky hand towards Credo, and dropped the coppers. She wanted to look, to watch them more, but she didn't. He was feeling her baby. Her baby was still alive to them. That was her moment, even if she couldn't remember it, it should belong to her, not to them. They still had everything, and she had nothing.

"I'm fine." Eva turned away from the table, away from her younger self and the younger Gus, and dazedly headed in the direction of the Inn, clutching her yellow apple.

Luna Eva

Date: 2008-06-06 01:21 EST
Eva couldn't sleep. She wasn't even trying. Her bed remained perfectly made, white sheets tightly tucked. She paced in front of the window looking out at the darkened Marketplace. Elinor was out there somewhere. Elinor. The person she used to be. Where did she come from? Where did she stay at night?

The entire day, Eva alternated between feeling hopeful and feeling nauseous. She paused in front of the window and closed her eyes. Maybe if Elinor were out there somewhere... maybe it meant that she could be her again. Maybe there was still a chance, to change the way everything had turned out.

A knock on the door startled her. Eva opened her eyes. Since leaving town, she hadn't been bothered for business, and she couldn't imagine who would come to see her so late at night.

"Coming." She brought her gun with her down the stairs, holding it low at her side, and then tugged the door open.

Elinor stood in the dim light of Eva's doorway, in a cotton night gown, one hand holding her pregnant belly, the other holding herself up by the door frame.

"Help me... please... I need help." Elinor's face was shiny with sweat. Eva looked into her eyes and searched for recognition. There was nothing there but desperation. Elinor didn't recognize herself in Eva. "Please... you're a doctor, right? Someone said you were a doctor."

Eva tried to swallow back another wave of nausea. It was all coming back to her. The way it had felt. The fear. The pain. She couldn't do this. She couldn't live through it again this way. "You need to go to the hospital. Right now."

"Please! AHHH!" Elinor screamed as a contraction came, her hand balling into a fist against the door frame. Eva looked down and saw blood spattering her front doorstep between Elinor's legs beneath her night gown. "Please... something's wrong."

Eva cursed under her breath as she holstered her gun, and reached out to slide an arm beneath Elinor's shoulders, helping her younger self inside. "Where's Gu- your husband?"

"Working. He's busy with the harvest. He'll be here." Elinor bit her lower lip as if to keep from crying out as Eva helped her up the stairs. Eva winced, her stomach balling tighter and tighter. She could remember saying those words as if it were yesterday. In the hospital she'd repeated them like a mantra. He'll be here.

Blood splattered the stairs with every step that Elinor took. Eva helped her up onto the white sheets of the bed, and propped some pillows behind her.

"Lay back. It's going to be fine." The words felt like sawdust in Eva's mouth.

"Just make sure the baby's okay. Please check on the baby." Elinor screamed again as another contraction hit, her hands clawing at the sheets.

"Don't push!" From the closet, Eva dragged out her medical bag, setting it on a chair beside the bed. Though her pulse was racing, her hands were steady. Maybe she could change things. Maybe she could save her son. Maybe she could save herself.

"Oh god it hurts! Something's wrong!"

Eva threaded a stethoscope around her neck and turned back to Elinor on the bed as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. With her hands, she reached out to push up Elinor's night gown. The thin cotton was patterned with little blue-green hexagons. A hospital gown. It was the hospital gown. Eva shook her head and pushed it up, exposing Elinor's belly.

"Oh god! Oh god, please help me. Please god deliver my son safely. Please god." Tears rolled down Elinor's cheeks as she looked at the ceiling and prayed.

Eva stared at Elinor's stomach. Dark red streaks reached across the curve of her belly. Blood was filling inside of her beneath her skin. She was bleeding into her abdomen. Eva swallowed and tried to take in a breath.

"I need you to try to be quiet for a moment, I'm going to try to get the baby's heart beat." Eva pressed the stethoscope to Elinor's belly. Elinor bore down against the pain, fists twisted in the sheets.

Eva closed her eyes and listened. She couldn't hear anything. She couldn't hear anything at all. "Oh, hell." Eva ripped off the stethoscope and pressed her hands to Elinor's stomach, trying to feel the baby's position.

"What's the matter? What's wrong?" Elinor tried to sit up as if there were something to see, her hands clutching at the sheets, as she fell back in pain. "Tell me what's wrong with my son!"

"It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine." Eva couldn't feel the baby inside her. She moved down, her gloved hand positioned to see if she could feel the baby in the birth canal. Eva felt carefully inside of her. A gasp escaped her lips and she pulled away stumbling a few steps back from the bed. She couldn't feel anything. Nothing at all. There was no baby. Just a womb full of blood. "Oh my god."

The white sheets between Elinor's legs were soaked with blood and gore. Eva stared at her in horror. There was no baby.

"God, please protect me and my baby. Please see us to safety. Please god... please... please." Elinor's voice started to fade as she prayed. "God please save me."

Tears blurred Eva's vision, her hands soaked with blood. There was no baby to save. There was only Elinor. Eva raised her arm and wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve. She had to do this. She had to save Elinor. She stepped forward to Elinor, checking her pulse. Slow. Thready.

Elinor's blood pressure was dropping and she was bleeding internally, but Eva had no idea how or from where. She needed surgery, equipment Eva didn't have. She couldn't do it. She watched as Elinor fell unconscious, her head flopping to the side.

"Oh god, no. Please don't let this happen. I only have two hands. What am I supposed to do? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?" Eva sobbed watching the life bleed out of Elinor, helpless.

"No. No!" Eva lunged forward as Elinor stopped breathing. She felt for her pulse, and finding none, she thumped her chest. From the closet, Eva dragged a portable defibrillator. She tore open Elinor's night gown with her bloody gloves while the defibrillator charged, and then shocked her. Again. And again. She shocked her until the room was filled with the rank smell of singed flesh.

But there was no heart beat, and there was no breath.

Eva shoved the defibrillator to the floor and ripped off her bloody gloves. She pushed her hands through her hair and looked down at Elinor on the bed. She looked so peaceful. She looked like she was sleeping.

Eva crawled up on the bed and lay down beside Elinor. She could feel the sheets wet with blood beneath her, but she didn't care. It was her own blood. Her hand shakily stroked Elinor's cheek, and she pressed her face against her neck, closing her eyes as she held onto the body.

Luna Eva

Date: 2008-07-06 22:56 EST
Eva awoke to the feeling of a hand caressing her cheek. It was a rough hand, earth seasoned, calloused. It slid heavily across her forehead and down her cheek in a gesture that was at once soothing and rousing. She opened her eyes and looked directly into the rheumy blue eyes of her father.

His face was deeply lined, though not as much as it had been when he died, his skin wind hewn from outdoor work. Eva reached up and touched his face, fingers sliding over the shape of his cheekbones, his jaw, feeling the texture of his skin, the face that she'd watched wither and age along with his mind and his body until there was nothing left of the lively man she saw before her now.

"Hey dreamy." His smile was tender, as familiar as her own, as safe as any feeling of home she'd ever known.

"Dad..." She tried to sit up, and found herself cradled in his arms, in her apartment's one cushioned chair. She lunged with her torso, her too long arms wrapping around his neck and shoulders, holding onto him tightly as he struggled to keep her adult body balanced on his lap like that of a little girl.

"Easy now, Eli... there there..." He held onto her, one arm stroking her back, his breath hot in her hair.

Eva cried into his shoulder, instead of into his chest where she'd cried when she was a little girl, when she'd rubbed her dripping nose on his shirt front because the kids at school were picking on her, when she didn't know and couldn't find words to express her feelings, when she couldn't bear to speak at all. He held her as he had then, making quiet sounds in his throat, and rubbing her back until she calmed down.

"Is this my brave girl? Where's my brave girl?"

"You're not real." The words were muffled into his shoulder as Eva's tears slowed.

His chuckle was deep, and she could feel it vibrating through his chest. "Never could sneak anything past you."

Eva pulled away suddenly and turned to look behind her at the bed. Elinor's body was still there on blood soaked sheets, her round pregnant belly obscuring her face. "Then she's not..."

"No, Eli, she's not real. Of course she's not real." He slid a hand through her hair as she turned her face to look back up at him. "You think about her an awful lot though, yeah? And me too."

"I miss you." She said it plainly, her chest taking shuddering breaths.

"We're both gone, baby."

"But... you're here now." Eva looked up at him, hopeful, as if she were willing to trade the dead body behind her for the presence of her father. He simply looked down at her, fingers caressing her mussed hair. Over his shoulder, a light summer rain began to tap at the window.

"Don't be afraid, Eli."

"I don't know what to do."

"Sure you do. You just gotta live in this day, right, Eli? Otherwise the days start piling up unused-like, like newspapers at your door while you're on vacation."

Eva nodded. She just had to let go. She was always holding on, when she just needed to let go.

"You ready, brave girl?"

She nodded again, and helped her father as he moved to settle her onto her feet, standing her up in front of him. She backed up a step so that he could stand as well, then reached for his hand. He gave it a squeeze and smiled.

Eva released his hand and stepped towards the bed. She looked down at Elinor's serene face, brushing the hair back from her forehead, and then bent to kiss her there gently.

"Dad, can you carry her?"

"Sure can." He bent a bit, sliding an arm under Elinor's legs and under her shoulders and lifted her body off the bed, cradling her the way that Eva had been cradled not moments before. Then he started for the stairs. Eva moved quickly, touching the switch to light the way down.

She followed her father into the entry way, then unlocked and opened the door for him. The rain was coming down harder now, and she could see it falling in the circle of orange light cast from her apartment.

Her father turned to look at her, then carried Elinor out into the rain. He took just a few steps into that circle of light, and then turned back to face Eva. As she watched the rain pour down over them, she could see their colors begin to run, as if they were a painting being washed away. Her father's broad frame was smoothed by the water, wearing down like a stone before her eyes, the edges of Elinor drifting away. They melted down to the cobblestones, until she could see only their colors, blue and red and the pale pink of their flesh, running with the water towards the gutter.

Eva stared at the place her father had stood holding Elinor, at the spot they just had been, and she felt for a moment as if she had melted with them. She exhaled, and then she shut the door.