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rsadelleTitle: Everything but Truth
Author: Ruth Sadelle Alderson
Pairing: Matt Damon/Ben Affleck, Ben Affleck/Gwyneth Paltrow
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: They are all their own people and since they're all still alive, this obviously hasn't happened in real life.
Summary: Gwyneth attends a funeral.
Warning: Lots of death here.
Author's Note: Everybody else has dedicated Matt/Ben stuff to me, so could I dedicate this to myself? No? Well, maybe not. This is for Joanne, then, because she put the death idea into my head, and for Amatia, for putting the woman's pov idea into my head.
Death cancels everything but truth.
--William Hazlitt
***
The media is already calling it the end of the whole sordid affair. It's not the end. It'll never be over.
I stand under the appropriately gray sky and stare across the open grave at his family. It's deja vu all over again. And, fuck, how can I joke now? Last time, I stood with Ben, letting him clutch my hand like a lifeline, and stared across the grave with him at Matt's family. Afterwards, Matt's family gathered Ben close and left me on the edges, but not as a rejection, just because they don't know me.
Ben's family doesn't speak to me. Casey looks at me with accusation in his eyes. I think that maybe Ben had the right idea after all--one quick slice of metal through skin and let the water wash your life away, pass the trauma on to the next person.
I found him. He must have known that it would be me, that I was the one who would inherit the trauma, but I can't hate him, even for that. I did everything else, why shouldn't I have done that too? I let him cling to me in the night after Matt died. I took care of him when he refused to leave the house. I talked to the press when he wouldn't. I listened when, late one night, he confessed that he was in love with his dead best friend, that he'd denied it for so long, that only Matt's death made him face it. And I called 911 when I came home to find him lying in the bathtub, bloodstained water spilling over onto the floor.
I need a drink.
There is a reception at his mother's house where I triumphantly find a bottle of whiskey and pour myself a healthy shot.
"Isn't it a little early, even for you?" Casey asks with a sneer.
"Fuck off." I down the whiskey and pour a second shot.
"This is your fault," he accuses me. "You knew. You had to have known. *I* knew. And you didn't tell him and let him go."
"You could have told him."
"He wouldn't have believed me. If you'd told him, he would've been mad, but then he would've realized." He looks at me for a second longer, then shakes his head and leaves the room.
I sip the whiskey and close my eyes. Yes, I knew. How could I not? I knew when they won their precious Oscar together. I could see it then. I probably would've seen it sooner if I'd let myself. I couldn't let go, though. Ben was mine and there was no way I was going to give him up, even after he realized, a little too late.
Fuck this. I have to get out of here. The press doesn't even look at me when I leave. I know what they think. They think I'm some sort of stupid blond bimbo who doesn't realize that her boyfriend didn't even love her when he died. They don't know shit.
My hotel has a bar. I'll be able to drink in peace there.
********
The End.
********
Author: Ruth Sadelle Alderson
Pairing: Matt Damon/Ben Affleck, Ben Affleck/Gwyneth Paltrow
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: They are all their own people and since they're all still alive, this obviously hasn't happened in real life.
Summary: Gwyneth attends a funeral.
Warning: Lots of death here.
Author's Note: Everybody else has dedicated Matt/Ben stuff to me, so could I dedicate this to myself? No? Well, maybe not. This is for Joanne, then, because she put the death idea into my head, and for Amatia, for putting the woman's pov idea into my head.
Death cancels everything but truth.
--William Hazlitt
***
The media is already calling it the end of the whole sordid affair. It's not the end. It'll never be over.
I stand under the appropriately gray sky and stare across the open grave at his family. It's deja vu all over again. And, fuck, how can I joke now? Last time, I stood with Ben, letting him clutch my hand like a lifeline, and stared across the grave with him at Matt's family. Afterwards, Matt's family gathered Ben close and left me on the edges, but not as a rejection, just because they don't know me.
Ben's family doesn't speak to me. Casey looks at me with accusation in his eyes. I think that maybe Ben had the right idea after all--one quick slice of metal through skin and let the water wash your life away, pass the trauma on to the next person.
I found him. He must have known that it would be me, that I was the one who would inherit the trauma, but I can't hate him, even for that. I did everything else, why shouldn't I have done that too? I let him cling to me in the night after Matt died. I took care of him when he refused to leave the house. I talked to the press when he wouldn't. I listened when, late one night, he confessed that he was in love with his dead best friend, that he'd denied it for so long, that only Matt's death made him face it. And I called 911 when I came home to find him lying in the bathtub, bloodstained water spilling over onto the floor.
I need a drink.
There is a reception at his mother's house where I triumphantly find a bottle of whiskey and pour myself a healthy shot.
"Isn't it a little early, even for you?" Casey asks with a sneer.
"Fuck off." I down the whiskey and pour a second shot.
"This is your fault," he accuses me. "You knew. You had to have known. *I* knew. And you didn't tell him and let him go."
"You could have told him."
"He wouldn't have believed me. If you'd told him, he would've been mad, but then he would've realized." He looks at me for a second longer, then shakes his head and leaves the room.
I sip the whiskey and close my eyes. Yes, I knew. How could I not? I knew when they won their precious Oscar together. I could see it then. I probably would've seen it sooner if I'd let myself. I couldn't let go, though. Ben was mine and there was no way I was going to give him up, even after he realized, a little too late.
Fuck this. I have to get out of here. The press doesn't even look at me when I leave. I know what they think. They think I'm some sort of stupid blond bimbo who doesn't realize that her boyfriend didn't even love her when he died. They don't know shit.
My hotel has a bar. I'll be able to drink in peace there.
********
The End.
********