A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Like Ships

Photographer Unknown

AN: This one is a bit more abstract than stories in this series tend to be. It is also linked to another short story of mine: "The Ten Rules of Time Travel" which can be found on my tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spiderqueen8 (I'd like to think this works as a standalone but it will definitely make more sense if you read the other story first)

Do you know what it feels like to understand with resounding certainty that something is not meant to be? That's what meeting him felt like.

I think about this saying a lot, like ships in the night. I used to think it was a sad sentiment. I mean, the idea that two people might enter each other's lives for just the briefest of moments before disappearing forever. Pulled apart by the tides of time. Doesn't that seem so bittersweet at the very least if not downright tragic? Why would you ever wish that upon anyone? But now, I'm not so sure.

These days, I think that maybe it could be a hopeful sentiment.

To think that somebody who would never stick around long enough to matter in the grand scheme of things might choose to reach out. If for but a moment. And try to make a positive influence on you. That's rather a nice feeling, isn't it? Because what can we do but hope that the next stranger we bump into becomes something less strange. Better to shine that light. An acknowledgement of yes, I am here, I see you.

Like ships in the night... Regardless, back to him.

He stumbled his way into my life, head over heels and seemingly determined to pull the world down with him in his attempt to grab onto something, anything, that will slow his descent into madness. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on him that to get involved would spell nothing but trouble. And yet I reached out anyway because I wanted to believe. Wanted to be a light, no matter how dim, for this strange man wreathed in darkness. And darkness he had in spades. Anybody could see it just by talking to him for more than a few minutes. Of course, at the time I had no idea where this darkness came from. But I wasn't about to just come out and ask him. It would have been needlessly cruel. I could tell he just needed a distraction, you know?

Of course it didn't stay that way for long. And I'm sure it's because we should have just let each other go into the night. Passed without rocking the boat. But he wanted to drop anchor in my life and I foolishly let him.

Hell, I was the one who gave him my number. Can you believe it? How forward of me, when every fiber of the universe screamed at me that he did not fit. Not into my life, not into my time, not into the past I knew or the future I wanted.

But each time we met, the sirens got a little quieter until it no longer felt like I was trying desperately to outrun fate. But rather, I let the wrongness wrap around me like fog and settle into my bones. I accepted the ill-fitting relationship as a part of myself, of my life. And I think he did too.

I mean, he must have. He knew better than I did how much this would not work. Knew the whole time and chose to do nothing about it. Not that I'm blaming him. If I held any resentment at all for him I would not be here telling you this story now. After all, he is as much a part of me as I am of him. Even if we never should have been so desperately intertwined...

You know, now that I think about it, maybe he didn't know. Or probably more accurately, he didn't want to know. After all, he seemed genuinely surprised that I believed him so readily when he told me the truth about who he was. A time traveller, that is. I think I actually laughed out loud. When he broke the news to me it was less a revelation and more akin to being reminded of a fact you already knew but forgot. Because of course I already knew. I still felt that feeling of wrongness in the middle of the night when he hadn't called for too long and I feared the worst. That maybe the future had finally caught up to us.

It did eventually. Catch up to us I mean. Which you're already aware of us or you wouldn't be here interviewing me. Right? But bear with me because this is important to the story. And that's what you want, ultimately. A story, from the one witness you have left. It's okay, I get it. Just keep your promise, that you'll let him see this someday.

That's all I ask of you...

I think about that day a lot. Because it wasn't the fact that we met that was the issue. It was the fact that we didn't keep on moving after that initial greeting. Like ships in the night. Only instead of passing we decided to chart a new collision course. Destination, each other. Full steam ahead. So rather than calling it quits right then and there like we should have, we threw caution to the wind and went out burning brighter than ever before.

Go big or go home, right? And I had no home without him.

The final thing I want to make clear of is this. I am not an idiot, I was not naive or delusional. I knew he was never coming back. That's not the real reason I never married or even dated again. That's just what I tell people because it's easier to explain. But you wanted the truth so the truth you'll get.

I never tried to replace him because I didn't think it mattered. Romance was not a goal of mine before him and so why should it be after? He was something I could never have planned for because he was something that shouldn't have happened.

Now I let ships pass when they're supposed to. Life has so many things to offer anyway. And besides, it's not like anybody else could ever be Jack Killian.