Bad day. You hear people say that all the time.

I had a bad day.

Man… what a day!

Hard day.

When you are a Preventer, a bad day can run the gamut from a network crash to…

Today.

Some days you go home remembering the sounds of slamming file drawers and muttered curses. And some days you go home with the echoes of somebody’s screams in your head.

And sometimes, when you’re a Preventer… you don’t go home at all.

It had been one of those days. A bad day. A very bad day. There was a locker mid way between where I stood staring into mine and where Duo stood staring into his, that somebody would come and empty in the next few days. The uniforms would go back to supply, to be cleaned and pressed and put back into inventory. The personal belongings would go in a box and probably be delivered to HR, where they would eventually be given to somebody that had been designated ‘next of kin’.

The very worst of days always involve the words ‘next of kin’.

I looked at the things that sat on the shelf in my locker and wondered what was in the one four down from my own. The usual necessities? Shampoo? Soap? Maybe a towel from home that wasn’t as rough and thin as the ones supplied in the showers? Maybe pictures? Maybe a sack lunch that there had never been the time to eat?

I sighed and rubbed a hand over my eyes. Was it strange that I had the urge to go up to the infirmary? I hurt, I could tell them. Make it stop. But there weren’t any pills to take the edge off the pain of failure. No bandage that could bind a wound that raw.

I should have been changing. Showering. Going home. But all I could seem to do was stand and stare; mind too busy playing the last hours over and over in my head. I could have… I should have… I would have. Let me do it again… let me be faster… let me be stronger… let me be in time.

So many little ways that a day could be changed. That a thing might not have happened. That a locker might not need cleaned out.

If I had only known. Isn’t that what it all boils down to? If we had only known not to go out that day… not to turn right instead of left… not to stop at that store on that night… not to open the door… not to trust that babysitter… not to accept that date.

All the disasters, all the accidents, all the bad things in the world had an ‘if only I had known’ attached.

A million miles away, down the row of lockers, I heard a sound; the faint creak of metal. I looked to see Duo, head bowed, body tense as a bow string, his hands clenched so tightly on the door of his locker, that his knuckles were white. I could see them from where I stood.

Duo is my partner. We’ve worked together for a long time… since just after the war. He’s not the skinny little kid he’d been then, but he still carries his emotions the way he always has. Inside. All inside. His grief now is utterly silent, but I know how it will fester within him… I know how his pain will turn into anger. The anger will grow until it has to come out. Anger at the situation… anger at the perpetrators… anger at the owner of the locker half-way between us. Anger at himself.

The anger will turn to rage and those white knuckled hands will have to strike out. I can almost hear the sounds of his fists hitting the metal of the locker. Almost hear his voice raised in fury… in denial. Can already see the bloody mess he’ll make of himself.

I’ve seen it before. I know I’ll be bandaging those hands soon, know I’ll be worrying about broken bones, know he’ll be apologizing in a voice hoarse from yelling. I know. And I know I can’t stop it.

If I’d only known. And sometimes not even knowing can help.

I was suddenly just very tired. I didn’t want to stay and watch my partner give in to the beast that ate at him inside. Didn’t want to watch him fall apart in the only way he knew how. Didn’t want to watch him put the pieces back afterward; embarrassed and chagrined, but no more healed than when he’d started. Didn’t want to… but couldn’t leave him alone. It would be too much like abandoning him in a fight. Even if the fight was all within himself. He was my partner, and I’d always have his back no matter what. No matter that I couldn’t do anything.

Even if I felt like I was in my own fight, and… losing.

Just… so tired.

My eyes rebelled first; my vision blurring and failing, and then my knees. I heard a crash and it took me a second to realize I had made the sound, abruptly sitting on the bench behind me when my legs suddenly stopped supporting me. The air seemed… cold, and thin; hard to breathe, and I choked on a gasp.

Distantly, I heard Duo call my name and then he was moving toward me so fast he stumbled, almost falling onto the bench beside me. Strong arms went around me and there were words… reassurances, absolutions, comfort. Delivered in a tone tinged with concern and fear… the anger put aside somewhere.

He could hold when he didn’t know how to be held. He could support when he didn’t know how to lean. Offer what he didn’t know how to accept.

If I’d only known…

But I knew then, and I clutched after his support like reaching for a lifeline, let him tell me all the things he needed to hear. I let myself weep against his shoulder because he couldn’t bring himself to weep against mine, and the rage went away and left us be.

 

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