Creepy Onion of the Night

Title: Saudade

Author: creepyonion

Characters: Wilson/Cuddy, with special mentions of The Goonies, the most awesomest movie around.

Warnings: None, no spoilers.

Summary: "She often thought to herself that she liked the way he looked in her bed, the way he looked in her house.  He eased in with the walls and furniture as if he had been there all time, and if she blinked, she could forget he was there."

Author's note: Want to know the meaning of "Saudade"? Look it up bitches! :)

Saudade

She once dreamt of a life of which did not exist.  Of her four children with dark features and gangly limbs, their arms wrapped around the legs of her husband.  Of her house on a hill in Salem.  Of sleeping into till ten, while lilies grew outside her window.

“Salem?” he only asked.

She didn’t tell him it was because of the gothic, dark look of the houses that she loved so much.  She didn’t tell him it was because of her grandmother, who died there.  She didn’t say a word.

“And who was the husband?” he asked to the silence.

She often thought to herself that she liked the way he looked in her bed, the way he looked in her house.  He eased in with the walls and furniture as if he had been there all time, and if she blinked, she could forget he was there.

He seemed to slip into her life as a perfect fit, the corners not creased, the texture smooth.

He was still talking to the air.

“I used to want to live in Astoria.  You know, because of The Goonies movie?”

He has told this story before; of being sixteen in New Jersey and embarrassing himself in front of his friends because he wanted to go see a kids movie.  Of telling the first girlfriend that he ever had that he loved her, in his father’s old station wagon.  Of sitting together, close and warm, while New Jersey winter outside the windows teased them, and that Cyndi Lauper song about the Goonies played on the car stereo.  He had told this story before; of the Goonies, of being a sixteen year old in 1985, of being in love.

And her name was Melinda, he told her.

She wondered when she should begin talking, begin replying to the call.

She liked sex with James to prelude with red wine and Lou Reed.  She liked to swing the phone back and forth in her hand, pretending that she wasn’t going to call him, wasn’t going to need him to be in her house.  She liked curling up on the chair that was too big for her, nursing her wine in her hand, while James sat on the floor and got close to the fireplace.  He would talk, and she would listen, and he would slide closer to her. 

Sex with James was quiet and desperate, pawing at each other’s skin, scratches on his back, panting in his ear.  There was touch of frailness to her that came across, a sense of panic that exposed her, in a terribly tragic sort of way.

And when she whispered Jimmy over and over again, it somehow slightly fixed the bits that were torn apart.

“You come over because you’re James,” she always told him.

Tonight, he didn’t reply.

Some things, she can predict in life.  Her mother calling at precisely 9am on each day of Hanukah.  House being a pain in her ass.  Of her constant fear that it was lost, though she could never figure out what it was.

But she didn’t predict Dr. James Wilson.

“It seems to me that you don’t necessarily need me,” he said to the air of her muteness.  “That I talk, and I get no reply.  That I feel and you…don’t feel back.  I am an entity but not a person.”

She refused to look at him, kept her face buried in his back.

“I could be anyone.”

She expected him to leave, for the left side of her bed to feel cold and un-sunken. 

But he stayed.

She liked the freckles on his back, the warmness of his skin and sometimes when she saw him around the hospital, she felt like hiding under her desk and waiting for him to find her.

He was a contradiction of terms, an adulterer with a boyish face and a friendly attitude.  He wasn’t sleazy nor intimidating and sometimes she felt like she needed a person who challenged her with the opposite of people’s expectations.

“What are you feeling?  What aren’t I feeling back?” she replied to the call.

But he won’t be the first person to say it.

When she was sixteen, it was 1987 and she spent all her summers in Salem, with her grandmother.  Her boyfriend was Todd Winslow who hated the opinionated Jewish side of her, and cheated on her while she was in Salem.  That summer, she spent hours peeling off the layers of wallpaper in her grandmother’s house, going through each layer that had been left behind.

Her grandmother died at the end of that summer, lilies around her casket while her mother cried and her hands smelt like wallpaper glue.

 
He listened to her story with his back still facing her.

“I don't mean to be like this."

And he took her hand and clasped it tight.

Sometimes, at work, she idly thought of the boy who wasn’t from Astoria, who was sleeping with the girl who wasn’t from Salem, and wondered what happened to Melinda and Todd Winslow.

She could count on two hands how long it would be till they stopped sleeping together.

But in the night, when her house is warm with a presence, her head is full of the Goonies and wine and imaginary children, she doesn’t want it to end.

“Who was the husband in your dream?” He asked her again.

And for awhile, she pretends that it was him.

Follow me to part two