Hope : A ruby redfort (LBaker) fanfic

Chapter One ~ Wednesday

Hey all, well this regular updating thing is new!! I'm going to try and update on a Wednesday and maybe a Saturday? Anyway I'll see how this goes...

Set on the eleventh anniversary of Baker's Death around they time of Ruby saying 'if LB had been looking tired and twitchy in the last month then she seemed doubly so today'

Hitch's POV Anniversary of his death.

Eleven years without him.
I can see each one of them written on her face as clear as day. LB doesn't often show emotion but even she cannot conceal the marks of despair in her eyes. Can't conceal the way each time a door opens behind her she still looks around instinctively to see if it's him. As she uses his mannerisms, surrounds herself with his belongings.

She sits by me. We look out over the mountains. Every year she flies here, flies to the site of his death, every year the grief is stirred up anew.Actually that's a lie- it's ever present. She's a shadow of who she was, still now so long after. Her eyes never falter from the views as she talks.

Small sentences of nothingness.

Nothing that can be said can begin to scratch the surface of what she has lost.

How she can fly here I don't know.
Even waking up today uprooted so much pain for me. Missing him, and wishing things were not as they are. I cannot begin to imagine how much worse it is for LB. How she is functioning at all. Her facade is flickering that's for sure, it has been for the past month or so.

I was surprised to say the least when she invited me here with her. LB is without exception alone on this day. It's marked around Spectrum- 25th October.
The day our hero fell. The death of the greatest man who ever lived.
Nobody mourns him as LB does.

Yet she invited me here with her. I stare out over the mountains and hear each one whisper its sympathy. It's all I can do to stop the tears falling- but that wouldn't be fair. I can't stand here with the woman who loved him and outmourn.
I can't stand here with the woman who loved him and pretend to understand.
I can't stand here with the woman who loved him and see her so broken yet so strong.

She stands, hair fluttering in the winds. Lost so deep in the labyrinth of thought.

'LB,' I say

She turns and looks at me her face of security cracked and frayed. The shattered LB penetrates through.

'Yes' she almost chokes out,

I have no words to say to match what needs to be said. The only thing I can say is this

'He loved you, more than anything',

She is still for a minute before crumpling to her knees.

I sink down beside her and wrap my arms around her. She's not one for usual affection but since she lost him she has turned to me and in these rare moments I comfort her.

A few minutes pass before she eventually speaks

'I know it's irrational but each year I... I can't help thinking that he'll walk in, with his stupid grin... and that I'll, that I'll see him again. I know it's impossible, but it's a feeling I can't displace,' her voice projects the truth of how we all feel. His death was a cruel burden to LB, but worse still the fact we didn't find the body. As much as she tries she can't let the last bit of hope go. She clings to the memories of him.

'Hitch' she says

'Yes,' I respond

'Who am I without him?'she asks

I take a moment before I say
' You're LB, the strongest there ever was'

She gives a half hearted hm

'My only strength comes from the memory of him. And even that means nothing
What doesn't it mean to be strong when the one you love is dead?'

I sigh, I know what he meant to her I knew them both. They had that kind of love everyone dreams of yet so few receive.

All I can do is sit with her and think if only. Sit and watch as the sun splinters through the clouds and falls on the mountain.

If only...