Silver Sight (Completed)

Chapter 6

Cooper was back.

He didn't announce himself at the police station.

He didn't search Carol out.

He didn't tell his father.

He returned to the hotel. Ignored the strange looks he got from the hotel staff. Went up to his room and apparently just went to sleep. Carol had returned to the hotel and cried out in both panic and joy.

Where had he gone? She had wanted to ask but she had just burst into tears and thrown herself at him.

She had been happy to see him. He just wanted her off of him.

They were sitting in the hotel, she in one of the uncomfortable chairs each room had and he on the bed. There was space between them because Carol was angry and Cooper was determined to be distant. This was not the reuniting she had pictured in her head since the morning they found his car abandoned on the side of the road right by Ruelle's memorial.

"Where have you been?" she snaps.

She'd accuse him of running away with another woman if she wasn't painfully aware that the only woman he seemed even remotely interested in anymore was dead.

Cooper stares at her. His face is calm but his eyes the same colour they are when he wakes up from a dream about Ruelle, and suspicion creeps up on Carol.

"I don't know," he answers.

"Why did you go up there?" Carol tries again. She tries to keep her tone light but the frustration seeps into it.

"I was searching," Cooper replies.

Carol tries not to growl. Tries not to let it show that these answers in three words or less are killing her.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was? How worried we all were?" she hisses. She is absolutely seething with rage, she can't even contain it anymore.

If Cooper has any guilt in him it would show on his face, but apart from a lowering of his eyes away from her there's nothing on his face.

"Probably pretty worried," is all he has to say.

At this Carol does growl, loudly. With all the frustration she can muster. Cooper doesn't show any emotion, it's like it's been stripped of him. That rage, those shadows on his face, they're all gone.

It's like an empty puppet has taken his place.

Carol stands and begins to pace. She doesn't look at Cooper, she doesn't have to. He isn't looking at her, he's looking at the ground.

"What were you searching for?" she asks. "Why couldn't you have taken me with you? Or told me where you were going? Why did you have to do this by yourself?"

Cooper's eyes turn back to her, that sky blue is still there taunting her. She knows she wasn't the one to bring back that colour in his eyes.

"I went looking for answers," he replies. It's the first time his voice isn't light and airy. There's finally some depth to it, but none of the warmth she's used to is there. He stands to stare at her, finally his face is showing something other than mild disinterest. He's angry. "And I didn't tell you because it's none of your business."

He walks past her and goes to the door. Her heart lurches into her mouth. She just found him. He can't leave her again. But she doesn't beg him to stay.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asks instead.

Cooper pauses, his head cocked over his shoulder, those blue eyes shadowed by the hair hanging over his eyes. "Yes," is all he says to her. The door shuts quietly behind him but she cringes as if he slammed it on her heart.