Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Monday Morning ❯ Missing You ( Chapter 6 )

Monday Morning

Missing You

 

It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve, but in all honesty, Jack Sparrow didn't give a damn. Like Kim had done the night before while watching the news, he was sitting on his own couch, except…it wasn't the same at all. The room was purposely dark, all the shades drawn to keep out the daylight (there was no sun due to the overcast clouds outside), and not a single light was on. The apartment was in a stupor, a constant state of grief.

Jack sat on the edge of the couch, his head in his hands. Rum bottles, long empty, were scattered all over the floor. The TV screen was fuzzy, a blur of black and white particles all swarming together to make nothing at all, a buzz filling the air dully, doing nothing to fill the emptiness that was constantly present.

She was gone. Really gone, and nothing he could scam, barter, or con could ever bring her back. He couldn't talk his way out of this one. He couldn't take his revenge. He couldn't do…anything.

And it was frustrating.

Lifting his head, Jack examined the television. There were dark circles around his eyes, and there was emptiness behind them now. He didn't care about anything. There was nothing left to care about.

There was a picture of her beside the couch…the stand that used to hold it up was broken, because he'd snapped it down and lifted it back up so many times. Slammed it down so that he didn't have to see her face and the painful memories that came with it, and then lifted it up to what little light was in the apartment, ashamed of himself, terrified that he'd somehow insulted her memory by doing so.

 

Look at this photograph…every time I do, it makes me laugh…

 

He'd gone down to her grave every day, without fail, but the day was wasting away and he still hadn't left the room. There was something else he needed to do first.

With one blind, flopping hand, he groped around through the cushions, searching without actually looking, before he found the remote. A ghost of a smile almost crossed his face as he looked at it. Four of the buttons were missing, because the three girls had gotten annoyed at them one day because they didn't work, and had each ripped one out, and then one for `good luck'.

Luck hadn't gotten them anywhere.

Now, Jack pressed one of the still-working buttons on the old remote, and the fuzz on the screen suddenly became a clear picture. A knot caught in his throat.

He'd found these videos stashed under their bed, when he'd chanced to go in there to look for a spare picture frame he could use. And instead of finding that, he'd found these. And now, for the first time since he'd found them…he thought today it might be safe to see them.

 

Without you…the ground thaws…the rain falls…the grass grows…without you…

 

He held his thumb down on a button, and the tiny green bars on the screen lit up to show that the volume was rising. And suddenly, he could hear her voice.

 

“If you turn that camera on, I swear I will show you what it means to burn and die under a rock!”

 

There they all were, walking down the street downtown. He remembered it…it had been last spring, and they'd been walking down to get some ice cream when Max had decided to try out her new camera. Jack leaned back against the couch, watching in fascination as their lives played out onscreen. If he hadn't been in this era longer, he would have been shocked by it, but the girls had explained it to the rest of them when they'd first bought the camera. And now he was thankful that they had. Because now he had just another small piece of her left…

The picture was bad and the camera was shaky, but, at the moment, it seemed perfect.

 

 

The screen zoomed out from a shot of the side of Meg's face, and then grew as the person holding the camera moved in front of the group to get a shot of all of them. There was Kim and Seto, holding hands, dressed in identical trenchcoats, kicking at trash on the sidewalk, getting stares from other people walking by. InuYasha was there, beside them, and then there was Jack and Meg, his arm around her waist comfortably as they walked along, his hat on her head.

“Oh come on Meg,” came Max's voice from behind the camera. “I'm sure whoever sees this video will forgive you for that rum-soaked pirate on your arm.”

“Hardy har-har.” Meg swiped at the camera.

The screen suddenly jerked violently, and whipped upwards to show a view of the sky. Collective laughter could be heard.

“That's what you get for trying to walk backwards Magazine!”

“Oh, and I'm sure you could do so much better!” The screen straightened out to focus on them again.

“Sure I could! Try me.”

Kim moved over to the screen, and there was a lot of jerking and shots of coats and elbows as the camera switched hands. Now Max's back could be seen, bounding over to InuYasha. The time of year was confirmed, because it had only been around Easter that Max had put pale violet streaks into her hair.

“See? I own this filmmaking thing.”

There was a thud, a squeal, and the camera apparently plummeted to the ground, and then everything went fuzzy again.

 

 

The glow of the TV was the only thing illuminating the apartment as more clouds rolled in outside, making it darker, but Jack didn't notice. He sat, transfixed, completely stunned at hearing Meg's voice again.

 

Without you…the seeds root…the flowers bloom…the children play…the stars gleam, the poets dream…the eagles fly…without you…

 

 

The picture clicked on again, and this time it was Kim's face onscreen, obviously holding the camera up to face herself so she could talk into it.

“Okay boys, we know that all three of you are at work right now, and we're bored, so we decided to do something productive with our time! I don't know if you'll ever see this, or find this, but for the record, this is what happens when you leave your women alone during the day. They do crazy things.”

She waggled her eyebrows, and then turned the camera around. It was in Max and InuYasha's apartment, their living room that they'd all sat in a million times. Max was wearing an old pair of overalls, spattered with paint, with a red tank top underneath, and Meg was in an old pair of ripped jeans and a white tank top, equally splattered with paint, some of it in her hair, and colours flecked on her cheeks. She walked over to the camera, and suddenly there was a close-up of her neck as she spoke.

“Is it off?”

“I dunno, I pressed the button…Max, c'mere and show us how to work this thing.”

“Okay okay, look, it's this button right he-.”

It cut out.

Almost instantly, it was back. It was obviously the same day, because they were still dressed the same and covered in paint, except now they were in a back alleyway near the apartment building. The camera shook around a bit, and then Kim appeared in front of it, apparently trying to balance it on something. Slowly, she backed away, hands out in case it fell, but then moved and turned to run to the wall the camera was facing. Max and Meg were both there, and they stood in “tah dah!” kind of poses, modeling the wall.

“See!” Max called towards the camera. “Extreme boredom, and access to dangerous materials!”

There on the wall was a sort of `mural' they'd painted; a bunch of pictures scrawled all over the wall in a million different colours, with the words “Pirate Rose”, “Catalina NekoYasha” and “Minoko” written proudly overtop of it all, in fancy lettering.

 

 

Jack almost smiled as he watched. He remembered that. They'd forgotten to look at what types of paint they were using, and at the first rainfall the whole thing had pretty much washed off. But apparently they'd made this video, and so it was stored somewhere.

 

Without you, the hand gropes…the ear hears…the pulse beats…without you…the eyes gaze…the legs walk…the lungs breathe…the mind churns…the heart yearns…the tears dry without you…

 

He was finding it hard to breathe as he watched these. Meg was in these tapes, smiling, laughing, free and happy. She was oblivious to the fact that she was going to die a terrible, painful and sudden death. She didn't know that she was going to die young. She never knew that she'd never grow to see her own children, to watch them grow. She didn't know that she'd never grow old. In these tapes, she was oblivious. It was twisted.

 

The earth turns…the sun burns…but I die without you…

 

 

Another segment of the tape flicked onto the screen. The light was sort of dim, but Jack recognized it as their own apartment, the kitchen to be specific, focused on the digital clock on their coffee machine. He knew what he'd hear…this had been made only two months before her fatal crash. Apparently this tape didn't follow a specific timeline, because he remembered clearly that they'd taped other things before this was made…but then again, when did they ever pay attention to what part of the film they were filming on? As long as it worked.

And sure enough, there was his own voice, speaking quietly. “'Tis…two in the mornin'…August 21…22…wha'ever. An' we're here, with yer camera Max, `cause ye left it here this morning…and this…” He panned the camera over to the other side of the kitchen, where Meg was standing, dressed in her pajamas (which were really just PJ pants and another tank top), beside the stove where the light was coming from, her back to the camera as she mixed something in a bowl.

“This is the lovely Meg, makin' cookies, because she can't sleep.”

She turned around at the sound of her own name, and stuck her tongue out at him. “Don't you break that, you bloody pirate, or Max will have your head.” She shook the batter-covered spoon at him.

“I won' break it, don't ye know me better by now love?”

“A little better than I'd like.” She grinned cheekily, then went back to stirring the cookie dough.

“Alrigh' then, lil' miss sarcasm,” Jack heard his own voice say quietly. “If ye wanna play that way, we'll see how much whoe'er watches this video would like te see this shot…” He'd started to zoom in on her butt, since she was turned away, but unfortunately (for him), she heard him and whipped around.

“You know what Sparrow, you're just asking for war.”

The camera panned up to her face, where she was brandishing the spoon like a sword again.

“Yer cute when ye're mad.”

She strode over towards the camera, poking towards it with the batter-covered spoon, and Jack hastily put the camera down on some books on the table so she wouldn't knock it out of his hands. The screen now showed Meg trying to wipe the batter on his face and in his beard, the picture slightly tilted because of the way Jack had put it down. The Jack onscreen snatched the spoon from her hand before she could wipe the sticky batter all over his face, and before she could try and grab it back, he pulled her to him and kissed her.

 

 

The screen went back. Jack, unable to bear anymore, had turned off the television with a sudden click. Anguish welling up inside of him, he stood up quickly, and threw the remote to the floor in a sudden burst of anger. The back popped off, and the batteries fell out, but he didn't care. Grabbing his coat and hat, he put them on and hastily left the apartment, half-slamming the door behind him, in frustration and anger at the unfairness of it all.

She shouldn't have died.

She shouldn't have left him.

 

He needed her.

He missed her.

He loved her.

He couldn't live without her.

 

 

Life goes on, but I'm gone…'cause I die without you…

 

 

 

[[Song lyrics: Photograph by Nickelback

Without You, from the Rent soundtrack.]]