Closure
by Rach L
TITLE: Closure
AUTHOR: Rach L
EMAIL: rach_jiwon@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: Vignette. D/S.
SPOILERS: Set after Divide and Conquer, but not much of detailed spoiler around here. This could be a sequel to 'Dinner', or a prequel to 'Pretense' (which is yet to be posted). I don't know. This is a weird stuff.
SEASON / SEQUEL:
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNINGS:
SUMMARY: A closure for a casual observer.
STATUS: Complete
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis. Sandra's site. Statistical Outlier.
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: FEEDBACK: Yes, please. It's been a while since I posted something, so I need feedback.rach_jiwon@hotmail.comNOTE: I hate the kind of ideas that just comes up to you and make you write. This is one of them, a sort of an in-between for Part 5 and 6 of a long story I'm writing currently. But it's not necessary to read that particular story (obviously, since I haven't finished it yet...*g*) before reading this one. ***
It's only four on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I can't stop watching the clock. The metallic tick, tick, tick is music to my ears. Exactly an hour and forty-five minutes before the time he will show up.
Or not. Lately, things just don't seem to go way it used to. I was even wondering if he showed up at my break, but Mattie assured me that he didn't.
We're all speculating -- he'd moved, got hitched with a wrong woman and was now drinking himself to death, got into a horrible car accident and had to have plastic surgery. Maybe that bald guy in the first aisle looking at the canned macaroni and cheese with apparent fascination is actually him.
But I have the strangest feeling that he'll show up today. He comes in all the time unexpectedly, but I can always count on him to show up on Sunday, quarter 'til six. Tomorrow, I'm gone, finally done with this cashier job with long hours and low pay, and get to go to East Coast to take a gigantic step into my own future. So I have to say good-bye to him -- *probably* not verbally, even though I soooo hope I can -- but at least mentally in my mind. It'd be like...my closure with Mr. Blue.
Now, I do understand Mr. Blue is *such* a sappy to name for the most gorgeous guy I've ever seen in my life, but old habits die hard. Even after hearing him called 'Daniel' several times by his friends who came to the shop with him, I still call him Mr. Blue because, well, it's the nick I mentally gave him the first day he walked through this entrance, accompanied by that little bell noise as the wooden door cracked open.
It was those amazing blue eyes that made me notice him initially. You know, those ones that make a poet out of you even though you're horrified by hearing the 'L' of library? Then there is also the look -- the lost look he seems to have every single time he steps into our not-so-huge grocery store. He seems to have no idea what to look for, what to buy, and how to buy things. And even that first time he was so polite, which gave him a tick on my mental notebook for the ideal future customer -- the ones I better be nice to.
And yes, I admit, he was such a nice thing to look at.
Plus, unlike many other eye-candies I've dealt with, he says thank-you, really meaning it. The warm smile he gives me as I hand him his receipt -- which I have to restrain myself really hard not to write my numbers on -- seems to light up his whole face. But then, when he packs his things to leave, his blue eyes that are like the summer sky without any single cloud floating around changes into gray -- the darkest gray I've ever seen -- storming one. This is his expression when he isn't talking to anyone or concentrating on getting the groceries. This, I realized later on, is when he's lost in thought -- dark thoughts, probably. It kinda fits the nick too. Mr. Blue. The color of loneliness. Feels like there should to be Nina Simone song in his background, going all jazz and blues.
So yes, he's been pretty memorable even from the beginning. Definitely.
Cashier, as you can imagine, is not the most exciting job you can get, and rather than boring ourselves to death, this is the thing we the cashiers (well, at least me and my friends here) do most of the times in our heads -- remembering people coming to the store regularly and write some plausible scenarios describing their lives. Mattie and I even talk about the stories we made to each other, and compare notes. It's actually pretty fun in a mildly soap opera-ish way. But who cares as long as we love it? And who knows? We might be right about them. We try to gather as much information as we can -- little hand gestures, how they talk to the other workers, how they pay for their food, books, toilettes, and whatnot, and the people they sometimes come with.
Mr. Blue has dropped several interesting hints to us on just who he is. For one thing, he buys lots of coffee and just about a month's worth of chocolate wallet cookies at once. Sometimes he comes in only to get the exact brand of coffee he always buys -- some exotic brand that I have no wish to taste. And there's the choice of his books and magazines. He always gets newspaper, and if available, National Geographic. We don't have lots of books in the store, but he makes a point in looking over everything and finds some seriously deep essays with about fifteen three-syllable words in the title, which definitely clued us that he's a *very* smart guy.
But once, he actually got a trashy romance novel and a book about motorcycles. I think my eyebrows went way up there when I got them cashed for him.
"They're all for a friend," he tried to explain, blushing in adorable pink.
"Thought so," I said, taking a pity on him. I couldn't really picture him sitting down and reading trashy novels anyway. And as for the motorcycle book, hell no. He doesn't look the type--he doesn't *feel* like the type. He's more like a guy who'd stay quiet, only comes out to surprise everyone with gutsy side when things go bad, but until then, shows almost no sign of tougher side.
And there're also his glasses. His glasses seem to be a low maintenance thing, not a fancy CK brand frame. Just a plain wire rim. And he mostly wears cotton shirts and comfortable pants, sometimes jeans. Nothing fancy, but it suits him well, giving a feel like a poor college student, which at first made us think that he was working toward his Master's degree or doctorate of some kind. But then he comes to the store at the most unpredictable times. Sometimes early in the morning, sometimes really late at night, almost at the closing time, or in the middle of the afternoon. Those times he shows up disheveled, like he hasn't slept for a week.
So after all that information and with limited imagination, there was only one thing Mattie and I could come up with. He's a writer-freelancer kinda guy. I saw him coming in with a handful of books several times, wide varieties of stuff, most about the humanities. He's probably writing a column on histories or something like that, I told Mattie.
Mr. Blue mostly comes alone, but he sometimes has company. A big black man with nicely toned body (Oh yes, drooling factor all over the place) and a decidedly funny looking hat, who always stands up straight and comes into the store like he's marching into a battle field or something. And there's that lean, grey-haired man who's always restless, picking things up and down and making a mess of the carefully arranged sets of *everything*. Rick, the storage manager, hates him. And yes, there's that blonde lady with beautiful (and I really mean beautiful) blue eyes and blonde hair, which I get to jealously compare with my straight black hair that has no volume.
We also tried to come up with that each scenario for those people as well. The most perky one we came with is the one where that gray-haired guy is a famous athlete of some kind -- since he seems to have that flippant, devil-may-care, self-important attitude about everything -- and that black guy is his bodyguard, because well, he definitely acts like one. And maybe Mr. Blue is writing a biography of that guy. Why not? But what Mattie and I haven't agreed upon is the role of the blonde lady. Mattie insists it's Mr. Blue's sister. They both have blond hair, although his is darker, and blue eyes. And if we look at them closely, Mattie contends, we could see the resemblance. And they seem very close, always talking about *something* we can't quite hear.
But that doesn't really say anything. I still don't think they're brother and sister. See, I have a brother, but he doesn't act like that around me. By 'like that' I mean that glint in his eyes -- joy, all joy -- that erases any hint of his 'Blue' look. Plus, no brother blushes when he's getting gifts for his sister. (Judging by her unusual interest in the book called "No Love Like This Love" that Mattie was reading at the time, the trashy romance novel and a motorcycle book belong to that blonde lady.) Brothers usually have annoyed looks on their faces.
But then, what was she? At that time, I didn't think she was his girlfriend either. The four of them didn't seem to have that third or fourth wheel kinda feeling to it. They were all close together, like a big family or something. And he was not married. No one was wearing a wedding ring in that group. So, maybe she was a fellow writer of some kind, I thought. She seemed pretty smart, and the way she walked and talked had certain weight to them, demanding to be taken seriously. Probably a successful career woman of a sort who also liked motorcycles and wore a leather jacket. Cool. I decided I liked her.
What else? Oh, and judging by his all-blue mood, we decided long ago that there had to be something dark and mysterious about his past, which was infinitely cool, in our humble opinion.
But time passed, and as my interest in him increased, I realized that there was always one day of the month he always comes in at the exact time, looking especially...sharp. Always fifteen minutes before six o'clock, carrying pizza, Chinese food, interesting looking Thai food on the cartons, or something I just couldn't name in Styrofoam boxes, ready to go to the place he apparently visited on the second Sunday of the month. He comes in and buys a pack of tea and a bottle of diet coke. Then he happily walks out of the store without that 'Blue' look.
The first time it happened, I was amazed. Apparently he was getting over his dark past thingy, whatever it was. And even though my secret fantasy -- with me being the one who saves him, making him smile all the time -- was totally broken, I was sorta happy for him. That 'Blue' look of his always made me worry, so not seeing that look was a pretty good thing.
And then, there was this thing that happened a few months ago, on the exact time of that second Sunday again. That day, Mr. Blue didn't come in with any food. He actually bought things to cook, like chicken breasts, dried pasta, mangoes, peppers, chocolate ice cream and such. And just before he came to me to cash, he stopped at the flower section.
*The* flower section, I tell you. We have a pretty nice flower corner in the store with a lady who does an excellent job with all the decoration, wrapping papers, and ribbons -- the ultimate Valentine's Day favorite.
And he stopped right there.
That's when I realized, oh, so this is a date thing. Mr. Blue was going to cook for a date. Boy, was I jealous. But then he had a hesitant look on his face. He touched the petals of the pink and red roses, thinking something with his brows furrowed deeply. Then soon he shook his head, grinning sheepishly as if he was laughing at his own absurdity.
He only bought the food that day.
And for a while, he looked pretty happy. His 'Blue' look was gone most of the times. So I naturally assumed things were going well for him. I was pretty busy then, working on my college applications, so I was happy enough daydreaming about my own future, rather than other people's lives.
Then, one second Sunday, he didn't show up.
Holy Macaroni. That day, I was totally depressed and couldn't even concentrate on my work. Call me obsessed, or weirdo, but for the oddest reason, the second Sunday was like my clock of a kind. Some things weren't supposed to change.
But he didn't come, and I spent most of that week wondering what happened.
When he showed up a week later on a Tuesday, he was wearing that 'Blue' look again. Geez, I thought, they must have broken up or something. (At the time, I firmly believed that he and that blonde lady were going out, no matter what Mattie said) Then I noticed he was walking kinda funny. When I finally mustered the courage to ask him about it after really long period hesitance, he told me he had an appendix surgery. Poor guy, he looked totally gray. But I wasn't sure if he looked all bluish gray all because of that. He just didn't look happy, if you know what I mean.
And then on, there was no second Sunday outings that I know of from him. He came and went on weekdays, buying more and more coffee -- Rick finally started ordering more of that brand -- and that look of his didn't seem like was going to disappear any time soon. For about a month now, I haven't seen him at all. Mattie saw him once late at night three weeks ago, and she said he looked terrible, scraps and scratches all over. Probably was in some kind of accident. She didn't have guts to ask him just what happened, and since his forehead, she insisted, was tattooed with "Leave Me Alone", she let him be.
Today is the second Sunday and my last day in this city. Finally I got my acceptance to the college I wanted, and I'm heading forward to my future. Although I'll miss this place, I'm incredibly happy.
It would be better, though, if I could see him again. I'd look at his face and say "Hi." And he'd look up at me with his almost shy look and say, "Hello." Then I'd tell him to smile more and get rid of that 'Blue' look, because, darn it, life is short and you gotta grab what you can and run with it.
"Laurie!" Mattie yells at me all of a sudden, then I know I've been daydreaming again.
"Sorry," I fumble at the customer standing in front of me, patiently waiting for me to snap out of it.
"It's fine," a light, content voice answers in somewhat very familiar way.
And when I look up, it's, yep, the same deep blue eyes, the same lock of dark blond hair...it's him.
Oh geez.
I want to scream at TPTB. But it's NOT the time yet!
When I glare at Mattie for not waking me up sooner from my fantasies, she makes 'It-can't-possibly-be-my-fault' look and shrugs, pretending to go back to work, but I know she's hanging onto every single word that is said in this counter.
I try not to look frightened or panicked, and look up at him again. The first thing I notice is his hair. It looks a bit longer now and...nice. And oh my, he seems very well -- what's the word? -- uh, eatable. He's wearing a white turtleneck sweater and dark blue jeans that really bring out his eyes. I didn't think he was a guy who cared too much about how he looked, but obviously, this time he did put some effort to change. I could even smell the nice shampoo from his soft blond hair, which just melts me on the spot.
Then I notice his hands. They're scarred, and battered. It seems like he just recently pulled out bandages that should be covering them. I remember Mattie's observation about him getting into an accident of some kind. She was right. His fingers seemed to have broken or something recently.
And they thrust a set of really beautiful red roses at me.
My heart skips *several* beats.
"...uh..." But, being who I am, I can only make one vowel sound. Stupidddddd!
"Something wrong with the cashing machine again?" He asks sympathetically, knowing just how good this old piece of so-called machine is at giving us problems.
...Okay, so I knew he wasn't planning to give the roses to me. I knew it. But darn it. Can't blame a girl for dreaming, can they?
The roses turn out to be pretty expensive, but he doesn't seem to mind. He brings the roses close to him, and smells them with his eyes closed. I'm not trying to get all mushy, but oh god. If one of my exes ever did that in front of me, I'd've cried in joy. That has to be the look of a man thinking about someone special, and every girl would want to be that object of the affection.
"Thank you," he says, like always, meaning it.
"You're welcome," I say, meaning it too.
He's about to leave, giving me a friendly smile. Then for some reason, I have to tell him.
"You seem happy."
He turns around, surprise evident in his face. He didn't seem to have noticed that he looked happy to others, and it is quite a shock to him. There's a bit of nervousness, panic, and even anxiety passing through his expression now because of this revelation. But then he looks down at the roses, still holding it carefully as if he's a clutching fragile crystal glass. The edge of his lip slowly curls up into a full, gracious smile and finally reaches his eyes, which glisten with bliss.
"Yes," his voice is full of conviction, "I am happy."
He thanks me again, then hurries out of the store, and I watch him disappear beyond the entrance, then outside into the brilliant sunlight.
Not a bad closure for my obsession, I think.
"Laurie?" Mattie is at my side, nudging me. "Hey, are you alright?"
And I feel my face breaking into a smile too.
"Yeah," I tell her, "I'm happy."
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