Uncharted - Z, PG-13

[serai]

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Uncharted
by Serai


“I think about you sometimes,” she says, leaning her head against one hand.

He smirks. “That’s nice to know.”

She laughs gently. “Don’t be a smartass.”

“You taught me well,” he replies, and his eyes are as much resigned as amused.

“I did, didn’t I?” She takes a drag off her cigarette and studies him. He’s tipped his chair back, balancing with his long legs against the table. “I’m sorry about that.”

He shrugs. “It has its uses.” At her look he sighs. “It’s too late for sorry, Mom. Let it go.” He drops his chair back to the floor and leans towards her. “I’m alright. Really.”

She doesn’t believe him. There are old shadows under his eyes, and his face has become harsher in some subtle way. She doesn’t think he’s lost weight, but he’s always been so slender, it’s hard to tell. Who did this to you?

“How’s the weather over there?” he asks.

She thinks of miles of air clear as a diamond, under a sky as hard as granite and blue like nothing else she’s ever seen. She feels like she’s wrapped in cotton wool here, buffered against a freezing landscape. “It’s never gotten below seventy-five yet.”

He looks out through the window at the snowed-in road. “Must be nice.”

“It’s convenient,” she replies, stubbing out her cigarette. “But it’s…” Flattening, she wants to say, but doesn’t know if that would make sense. No, what she wants to say she can’t say, because he won’t hear it. He looks back at her, and the wall is clear in his eyes. Even so, she tries. “Zeke.”

“Don't,” he says, with no rancor but no leeway either. He means it. The tinge of a smile is gone, and she sees the thing she used to fear has happened after all. Come back, she thinks, Not that road. There are monsters down there. But the thought is sad instead of desperate, and she knows he’s long past hearing it. He’s right. His heart has hardened, and it’s too late.

She looks out at the untouched snow and lowering, steely sky, and thinks it'll snow again soon. She’s not a tearful woman, thank god, because if she were, she doubts she could ever stop crying after today.

---

Chapter 19 of High Contrast
Chapter 20

Comments

[serai1.livejournal.com]

See my reply to mews1945 below. He's not as innocent as he may seem. And she's not anywhere near as cold-hearted as she's been portrayed in other fics. I think that's the most important thing to remember when reading this series - please forget the way these characters have been portrayed by others. She's a different woman in my story, and he's a different guy. I'm exploring a dynamic I haven't seen in other stories, especially between these two. She didn't leave him - the world tore her away. She's not the villain she's been portrayed as, at least not in my story. Definitely not in my story.

[gabi-fics.livejournal.com]

I totally get that there are different takes on a character and I'm not seeing her in the same way I do in my own fic, but the abandonment still happened and it's still hard to understand how a mother could choose anything over her child. This is why I find it hard to sympathise with her. Please don't think I'm treating her as a villain. But until a mother hears a viable reason for a mother to leave her child alone, she'll never understand.