Tuesday’s Child Without The Grace
Title: Tuesday’s Child Without The Grace
Author: babylon_whore
Beta: alias424
Pairing: A/R
Rating: T
Spoilers: nothing specific



Her death is inevitable. Unavoidable. Insurmountable.

Life takes many forms. (human, machine. heartbeats, circuits. both.)

Death too. (it lives inside her, inhabiting, harvesting. progressing.)

Oxygen in. Carbon dioxide out. (diloxin in, cancer out. the goal.)

She has mothered no children, will never. Has never wanted to, in honesty. It is a fleeting thought, as she tilts on the precipice − that her body will have housed one life and borne one death. Her own cells gestated this cancer.

Is it ironic?

Or circuitous?

Balance on the scales. For her. Maybe.

(Maybe it is prophecy.
Maybe it is just. Her life for her people's.
Maybe it is unfair. Her life for her people's.
Maybe it is simply... as it is. A woman, dying.)

A boat. A shore. Her past made present. (a gift. of sorts. as time loses meaning.)

The lives she lost – to be reclaimed, as the life she lives is traded for what comes next. (but not lightly, not frivolously. she will die as she lived. with purpose. with reason. within reason. mostly.)

Her death is inevitable.

But then,

so is everyone's.

********************************************************************

She is dying.

Her breath ragged. Harsh. Catching.

Stops.

She clutches. Fingers desperate to hold on to life.

Her body contracts. Fighting, almost. Relenting, inevitably.

It is time.
She breathes in the good (more more more).
Attempts to evict the bad (less less less).

She fades to white.

Not to black, not to the dark. But to light, to brightness. To pale hues splintering into colour.

White reflects.
Black absorbs.

All colours. The same. But different. Depends on the (on your) angle. On what you care to see. Perception.

(Waves change length as speed changes. Become something different. Remain the same. Perception.)

The light. Refracts.

White becomes colours and colours and colours. Her life. In colours. The blue of his eyes. The green of her headscarf. The yellow of their mug. The red of blood that beats in their hearts.

Her life.

In colours.

A single line of light shining from within her, refracts. Fans out, unfolds. Flutters, beats. Waves them both in colour. Agitates (stimulates) the molecules. (of air. of them. )

The dark. Is not what it seems.

(White is not an absence of colour.

It is the presence of them all.

It is everything.)

The light rescinds, withdraws inside; she comes back into herself, briefly.

(One chamber fills.
Another empties.
This is life. And other things.

Defibrillators do not start the heart.
They stop it.
To let it try again.

Kill a thing so it may live.
Life can be funny.
Death, too. Sometimes.)

She struggles against it for half a beat.

Perception − is sometimes the equal of fact.

(Life is what happens in between.

Birth and Death.

Bookends.)


She is dead. Her life outside her body.

She does not feel the impossible heaviness of her delicate frame. She is buoyant. She floats.

Above them. Above ground.

(You cannot be buried in space.)


She is dying (or so she feels).

Her breath ragged. Harsh. Catching (in wet hot pants against his shoulder).

Stops (for an instant).

She clutches (at his skin). Fingers desperate to hold onto life (to him, as nails digs deep).

Her body contracts (with pleasure). Fighting, almost (to hang on longer). Relenting (to his voice in her ear), inevitably. (always. with him.)

It is time. (she cries out, releases. succumbs to light)


She had died.

A little death.

Reborn to live anew. (different. but the same.)

Full of light.

The light rescinds, withdraws inside; she comes back into herself, completely.

Complete.