Guilty SecretSecond Story in the High and Dry AU, a very short snippet, that will make more sense if you have read the first story, Changes in Latitude.
Guilty Secret
By Purple Lacey
Peals of laughter rang out through the evening air making the men listening below in the caldera of a once mighty, but now extinct volcano smile. Six year old Ezra Standish and his new foster father, Chris Larabee, survivors of a plane crash that left them stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific with five other men, were tussling on the wide, flattened rim of the now quiescent giant - each trying his best to tickle the other into submission although both were careful to keep their bit of wrestling confined to the middle of rock path that had been carved decades past around the circumference of the crater rim.
It had become something of a nightly ritual for the pair in the ten weeks that they had been on the island. Chris took the first watch of the evening and Ezra took it with him. It was a cherished part of their day; a bit of time snatched out for themselves from the time consuming tasks that ensured their survival.
To any observer, it would have looked like nothing more than a recently formed father and son unit playing the kind of games that bonded them into a strong, solid family. Any observer would have been right...but only partially. What was not apparent to anyone but one of them was the guilty secret the playfulness was helping to hide.
He knew it was wrong. He knew if the others ever found out what he was doing they would be upset and disappointed in him. He knew it. He hated the very thought of hurting the others ...but it did not stop him and there in lay the guilt.
It did not happen every night. No, even though he climbed up those stone steps each evening - his hand clinging to the now beloved hand for safety’s sake and just because it felt so good to finally have someone of his own that wanted to hold his hand - he only betrayed HIM and their friends every other week. For the rest of the time he could pretend it had never happened. He could pretend he had never noticed that far off spark of light that made its way across the distant horizon when he was being hugged and chanced to glance over the shoulder of those encircling arms to see the ship sailing by their island in the night. He could pretend he had not known that it returned every second week at about the same time, like clock work. He was good at pretending.
The first time he had seen it, he had said nothing because he had convinced himself he had been seeing things. He had honestly believed it had only been spots in front of his eyes from looking too long into the small watch fire they kept going on the rim, and then he had forgotten about it.
Until two weeks had passed and he had seen them again.
That was when his true betrayal had occurred because he had consciously made the decision to remain quiet, and had purposefully manufactured distractions every other week at the time the ship came past to keep the secret of its passage from the others. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night hating himself for what he was doing to the others, to HIM, but not once had he even come close to spilling the truth. He could not bear to - not yet anyway. He was too afraid.
He loved the unbounded feeling of freedom he got from running and laughing on the beach as they played, or swam, or even fished for their dinner. He even loved the quiet camaraderie of days spent struggling together to secure the basics needed to exist in this new world of jungle, sand, and sea. He had never felt so much as if he belonged. He felt as if he finally had a family, a REAL family. He was terrified of loosing everything he had found on this remote island; everything that had been missing from his existence in the OTHER world. Put simply, he was afraid of losing his family.
He was too frightened of leaving this place and having his new family torn from him, having them go back to their own lives and leaving him unwanted, unloved, and alone...again. He could not stand the thought of it, so he vanquished that little voice that was his conscience and pretended. Oh yes, he was exceptionally good at pretending- so good that sometimes he could almost convince himself that it really did not matter...until the day for the ship rolled around again and he was forced to battle with himself over the question all over again: tell them and help them light the bonfires to signal the ship, or remain silent and put that possible rescue off for another two weeks? So far, his fear had won each skirmish.
So he kept careful track of the scratches Josiah made on what he called the calendar tree to mark the days as they passed, and he plotted ways to keep his secret, and all the while his guilty shame grew.
One day, he knew, it would reach the point where he would have to tell...but not yet. For now, he would continue on as he had begun, and live each day the best that he could, wresting as much joy and happiness from it as possible, storing it away for the long dark times that he believed would come with their rescue from their island home.
Once again, he watched those lights disappear into the darkness of the night and remained silent.
“What are you looking at?” a soft voice by his ear drew his eyes away from the now unrelieved black of the seascape and he turned to face his watcher.
“Not a thing,” Chris Larabee said, deliberately putting a smile on his face as he looked back at his new son. “Not a thing.”
He’d tell them next time, Chris told himself. He would. Really. He would.
The End
7/23/06