He Stole My Cab (Benedict Cumberbatch Fanfiction)

Chapter Fifty Three

My finger traced the familiar skyline through my window, trailing over each building outline, staring down as people embedded the pavements each with their own unique tale. The cool night air had made my window cold, but no shiver travelled through me, the condensation clinging to my skin. I have come to notice that the city never sleeps; someone always has a light twinkling, in the way that there are always unseen stars in the sky above. Drunken renditions of Auld Lang Syne could be heard from the TV in the living room and the last trails of fireworks still hung in the sky, fading into nothing. It’s funny to think it’s the start of a new year. This is not how I imagined starting it; sitting alone in my bedroom, dressed in the same clothes I was dismissed from the hospital over two weeks ago. It’s quite remarkable actually that they managed to arrange a funeral in such a short space of time. Today. 1st of January. Seems such a strange day to have a funeral, start the New Year with the longing memory of a lost loved one. Or perhaps that’s why today was chosen.

Tina had given up on me altogether I think, hardly surprising. The first few days she tried, I knew she was trying but I didn’t care, she wasn’t who I wanted to walk through my door. Each time I heard it open I hoped that it would be him, despite the impossibility of it. That’s love I suppose. She came in with food and drinks and a few newspapers when the report was issued. Then later sympathy cards arrived and get well soon cards. I was grateful for her efforts, although I don’t think I expressed them, I didn’t express anything, I didn’t even move from the window. After the first week she stopped trying, she still brought me food though. I suppose I tried as well in the first few days; I called him, texted him and even got Tina to post a letter at his work. Nothing.

I was playing a game with myself, like a child in a swimming pool. Allowing myself to fall, slipping beneath the surface but I did nothing to stop it. Unlike the child I didn’t swim to the surface when I knew I could hold my breathe no more, I didn’t try to cling to the edge of sanity but just watched as I fell deeper through the water until I sat on the bottom, staring up, or down in my case, and watch the world around me carry on as normal. Watching as each person walked past my apartment block, so many people, but none of them were the only person I wanted right now.

Tina had friends over; I could hear them through my door, talking in drunken slurs, laughing, enjoying themselves. I counted at least 30 different voices. At the start many of them asked where I was, whether I would be joining in the party. She told them I was out, which was believable as my door was shut, light out, no sound. I really thought he would come, I thought he would realise how much I needed him right now. Instead I was forced to replay my last moments with him over and over in my head to feel something, to keep him alive within me.

*The hospital 2 and a bit weeks ago*

He stood with his back to me, staring at something in his hands. Judging by the rustling I took it to be a newspaper. I inhaled deeply as I sat slightly higher in the bed, wincing slightly at the stiffness of my body. His head whipped around at my movement, his usually shimmering eyes dark, rimmed with black circles. His long strides brought him to my side in a matter of seconds. Something was very wrong I could see it on his face. He outstretched a quivering hand, his thumb trailing across my cheek and for a moment his eyes softened, his jaw unlocked and his lips twitched into a smile. But it barely lasted. The door swung open and a balding man in a white coat came in and Benedict jumped back away from me, as if afraid the doctor would scold his behaviour. The doctor asked standard questions about how I was feeling, took my heart rate down and read a machine beside my bed. All the while I kept my eyes locked on Benedict, whilst his did everything to avoid mine. He had stepped backwards into the light which illuminated his solemn features. His hair fell straight over his forehead, dirty and blackened, his arms were covered in dark red marks and deep worry lines etched his tired face.