Maritimus
Author: Kate Swanson
Spoilers: Takes place just after “Lagrimas”
Rating: PG-13 (remembered violence)
Legal: None of this belongs to me. All things related to “Witchblade” belong to Top Cow and Warner Bros.
“The sea, unmated creature, tired and lone…”
-Frederick William Faber
Sara flicked absently through case files, distantly sensing the station’s hectic pace around her.
(He spoke calmly of killing her friends, and in her uncertainty, she let the Witchblade go, felt it click into place and extend into its blade form.)
Vicky startled Sara out of her reverie with a hand on her shoulder. “Sara, you don’t look so good, are you okay?”
Sara waved her away with a smile she intended to be reassuring. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just haven’t been sleeping well the past couple nights.”
“Look, I know how hard you fell for that guy, okay? Take some time, let yourself get over him leaving.”
(He placed the blade just under his ribcage with hands that only the night before had caressed her.)
Vicky continued. “Listen, my parents have this place on Cape Cod. It’s far from here, it’s peaceful, there are cute guys on the beach—“
(He took her gauntleted hand tenderly and then, with sudden determination, impaled himself on the blade.)
“Sara? You should go there. Take a week. Just give yourself time to grieve. You deserve a little time off.”
(Even as he choked on his own blood, he thanked her, dying in her arms, leaving her bereft, alone, angry, guilty…)
Sara shook her head and forced another smile. “Thanks Vic, but I’ll be fine, really. Hey, guys walk out every day, right?”
* * *
An early morning call. Just what she needed. Work. Murder. Death. Distraction. She walked the scene quietly, looking dedicated, seeing Daniel’s face again.
(“I’ll never get used to you leaving,” she had told him.
“You won’t have to.” His gaze had lingered on her lovingly. “Ever.”)
A piece of leather lay to one side of the body and she bent in a daze to pick it up.
“Sara!” Danny hissed, grabbing her wrist. She looked up, startled, and then twisted her hand away angrily.
He spoke in a low tone, looking around to make sure no one had seen. “That’s evidence, Sara, put on a glove!” He shook his head and let his arms fall to his sides. His expression of concern was hard for her to take. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”
She shrugged, feigning indifference. “Yeah, I’m okay. Maybe I need a vacation, huh?” She smiled, making it a joke, but her hand shook as she pulled a glove from her pocket.
* * *
It was the next day that she accepted the idea, after she had spilled coffee on a case file and inexplicably, uncontrollably started crying on the station’s bathroom floor. She needed to get herself back together.
The Captain had practically packed her bags for her when she asked for a few days. Guess I’m not hiding it as well as I thought.
Vicky had been relieved to make the call to her parents, and the next day, Sara had left.
* * *
It was meant to take her away from the memories, the pain, the hectic pace and the people who reminded her of it all. Here, in the peace of another state, on a lone beach on the outskirts of Cape Cod, she was supposed to be able to forget Daniel, Irons, Nottingham…all the people who had come with the Witchblade, all the pain that had become her existence.
She had thought the ocean waves would bring a temporary peace to her tumultuous life, a calm to the thoughts that screamed through her mind, but there was no innocence, no peace there. Only violence as wave after wave exploded on the sand, dragging up shells, kelp, and things best left at the bottom of the ocean.
Sara slipped the Witchblade off her wrist, contemplating the red stone that reflected the fading sunlight like blood. What a life it had brought her, this silver trinket. It seemed like she’d had an eternity of uncertainty, danger and darkness.
She felt rather than saw him come up behind her. She smiled sadly. She should have known he wouldn’t be left behind. Like it or not, he was her self-appointed shadow. She spoke quietly, without turning. “I wanted to kill you, you know.” He was reflected darkly in the Witchblade’s stone: his short, dark beard and loose curls framed an expressionless face.
He was silent, and she stared at the ocean for a long moment before speaking again. “I’m tired, Nottingham, tired of being manipulated. By the Witchblade, by you, even by Daniel. He used me to commit suicide…used careful words to make me doubt him, and used that moment of uncertainty to end his life, to make it my fault. I’m tired of being the Wielder, tired of saving the world, tired of living up to expectations and tired of fighting. I just want to be Sara again. Nothing more, nothing less.”
She raised her hand half-heartedly to throw the Witchblade into the sea. Ian’s hand took her wrist gently, as she had somehow known it would. A knot rose in her throat as he spoke over her shoulder, his voice tinged with regret, pain, compassion and so many things she didn’t recognize.
“You are the Wielder because you feel this way, Sara. You are worthy of the Witchblade only because you do not desire it. But, even if you threw it away now, Sara, would things really be the way they were? Would you be able to go on as if it didn’t exist? Would you be able to live knowing the people who seek to use its power? It chose you, Sara, because it knew you were strong enough.” He turned her, ever so gently, to face him. “You have everything it takes to wield the Witchblade. You have only to find it in yourself.”
She lowered her hand and he released it. “But what do I get? Death, like the others? Love found but never kept?” A single tear fell. “Oh, Ian, I’m tired,” she said. She used his first name, tasting it carefully like a fine wine.
“I know, Sara,” he whispered. He took the Witchblade with one hand and her right hand with the other. Silently, reverently, he placed it back on her wrist, then kissed her hand chastely, letting his lips linger there for a long moment.
He met her eyes, finally, his hand still holding hers. “I am not always my own man, Sara, but as much as I am mine, I am yours.” Sincerity lit his eyes, and underneath it, a sadness that echoed her own.
Maybe it was the beach, so far from New York. Maybe it was that Daniel’s death was so much on her mind. Maybe it was that she had no strength left of her own. Whatever it was, she yielded to it, letting herself go completely, leaning into the strength that was Ian Nottingham, letting him hold her in his gentle embrace, letting herself be sheltered by his strength.
They watched the sun set together. And as the stars began to dot the sky, she fell asleep in his arms, lulled by the warm rhythm of the suddenly peaceful waves. For that moment, on that beach, under those stars, she was Sara again. Just Sara: nothing more, nothing less.
Finis
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