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Clay
His hands were gnarled. Massive, raw and bony, heavy things with little inherant grace. They were probably very ugly, he thought absently. But that didn't matter to him. What mattered was that they remembered.
Hands could remember things. They could learn, understand a thing in a way the mind, the heart, was never going to. His hands remembered her. They remembered the shape of her, the feel of her smile, the texture of her skin. His hands remembered the life that had lived beneath the fragile flesh of her face, remembered the proud curve of bone, the soft lilt of lips. The hands remembered, in aching, vivid detail.
That was all he needed them to do.
The clay was wet and heavy under them now. Malleable, unformed. But that was going to change. He was going to change that.
The raw shape was first, the movements rough and unrefined. Cleaning, shaving curls of rich clay away from her, wiping them from the rawness of her. He remembered cleaning her, too. He remembered the showers they had shared, remembered his huge hands framing her face, remembered brushing at the veil of dirt with gentle force while she smiled at him. While she laughed, and tossed her hair under the spray. The clay was more stubborn than that remembered shroud, but not more stubborn than her. It couldn't fight him as much as she had, once upon a time. Neither could it enjoy it, as they both had. Clay was just clay. It wasn't her. Not yet.
He spent hours on it, hours cleaning, shaping, ignoring how it fought him, ignoring how it clung to him. He wet his hands, time and again. Had to. Had to get it right. Human, it looked now. Mostly. The shape, a head, a face. It was there. His fingers curled over the nape of a neck, brushed over the dome of a skull. Yes, it was there. Time to go deeper.
He was hungry, he thought. He was hungry. She'd frown on skipping a meal. She'd believed in being healthy, in taking care of yourself. Better eat. But his hands ... what did it matter? A little dirt never hurt anybody.
He covered the shape of it, wrapped it tight against the air so it wouldn't dry. Keep it moist. Alive. That was important. So important to keep her alive. So ... food! Eat, man. Stay healthy, like she said. Forget ... the hands remember. It's enough. It would be enough.
It was dark when he returned to it. He turned on the lights, let them flood over the empty shape. Shadows and light. They'd defined her, once upon a time. The planes of her face, the brightness of her smile, the darkness behind her eyes ... He could see her, now. But seeing wasn't enough. Seeing was fragile, fleeting. Feeling, knowing ... he got to work.
Now was different. These movements, these feelings ... finer, deeper. The memory inside his hands rose to the surface, singing through the nerves, seeping out through the rough, cracked palms to caress the surface of the clay. To touch the shape that lay hidden within it, as yet undefined. But he could change that. He could free her, bring her back to the light.
His hands moved. Her brow, first. He closed his eyes, not needing them, frustrated by the lack of completion they showed him. Feel it. That was all that was important. The high curve of her brow, the strong shape of it, the subtly defined ridges at her temples, the sarcastic arch of her eyebrows ... he could feel her, inside the clay. Feel the mind beneath that brow, feel the stubborn strength of it. His fingertips found the shapes, smoothed them free, drew her out ... there had been wrinkles, he knew, but he wasn't ready for that yet. Not fine enough, not close enough. The bones, the spirit. The surface could come later ...
He moved down. The bridge of her nose, proud and slightly off-kilter. He'd broken it, once. With the pickup door, when she'd come up behind him. He'd been terrified, horrified, but she ... she'd laughed, once they'd set it. Caught his fingers, brought them up to trace it, like this, just like this, to feel it, to feel the shape he'd given to her, the part of her he'd changed. Pain only hurt for a little while, she'd said. Love ... love was eternal. Was meant to be.
His hands found their way away from the nose. Too much, too deep. He'd come back, when the memories didn't ache so much. Pain only hurts for a little while.
The eyes. The smooth path of her cheekbones down from the nose to cup those shining orbs. So strong, these bones. So proud and beautiful. He pushed at the clay with his thumb, as if wiping away invisible tears before they could fall from her eyes, pushing the clay away to bring those bones up, to show them for the beauty they'd once been. His palm cupped them, felt the shape of her, the strength of her in his hands. Curving up to the temples again, to the fragility that lay in the cracks between her strength, to the tears that trickled through his cracked, broken skin onto her face ... he pulled his hands away, wet them again, vigorously. No flaws! Never flawed. She had been perfect, whole despite her cracks. He couldn't ruin her, not again!
His hands screamed at him as he scrubbed, and he couldn't tell if it was the memories that hurt him, or the dry bleeding of abused skin. Didn't matter. Pain only hurts ... she came first. Always, she would come first. His eyes were stinging, the light changing, and he wondered when dawn had started to come, but that didn't matter. His hands were clean again, strong again, and he was ready. He could keep going.
She waited, patient as ever. He touched her lightly for a second, first. Traced the brows now defined, the hollows that remembered being eyes. Not the clay, but the hands. She was there, she was waiting. She would wait forever, for him.
His touch firmed, his mastery returned. The pain receded as the memories seeped back into his palms, his fingers. His eyes slipped closed against the itchy, blooming light, the darkness of memory and touch all he needed. It was her cheeks, now. The planes of them. Oh, he had touched these so often, cupped them, brushed his thumb over them. So smooth, so soft over the bones. He remembered, he felt it again ... delicate, a little. Fragile. Not that she'd admit it. But there was gentleness in the soft curve of her cheek, and how had she not been afraid, when his huge, ugly hands had first caressed them? How had he not terrified her, the brute, raw strength of him? He tried, so often, so hard to be gentle. She'd been so beautiful, so bright and slender and laughing. He couldn't help but touch her, couldn't help but hold her. What was strength for, if not for that? His hands smoothed over clay, disappointed at the slickness of it. She'd been drier than that, soft and a little rough, a little weathered. The clay wasn't good enough, but there was the shape of her ...
Her jaw. Oh, her jaw. Strong as her cheekbones, jutting stubbornly when she was angry. So impressive, her anger. He smoothed the clay away from the line of it, from the defined round that took his finger up under the jaw to caress the softness beneath, to smooth over her throat. He came back, not ready, not yet, his two palms coming together over her chin, his fingers reaching in to find the shape of it, the cup of his hand blunting the sharpness to the perfect round curve, his thumb finding the little dent she'd flaunted so proudly. And up, to the mouth.
Her clever mouth. Delicate, this. He wet his hands again, tucked them close against his chest for a minute to take the shake from them. Had to be careful, for this. Had to get this right. The smile ... he had to find her smile, again. Had to remember her touching him, kissing his fingertips as he stroked her cheek, had to remember the feel of her smile pressed against the sensitive pads of his fingers. Laughing, exploring, caressing the roughness of him. Loving his strength. His hands ... they remembered her mouth, her kiss. Her smile.
He traced it into the clay, found the edges of it. Not close enough for more, not fine enough. His strength was only good for so much, his hands so huge, so raw ... he needed something more for this. Something finer, something delicate, like her. He had tools ... it was wrong, he knew. She deserved only him, only immediacy, the raw caring of touch. But she'd forgive him, he thought. He had to find her smile, and his hands weren't refined enough for that.
Or strong enough, now. He was tired, all of a sudden, the weight pressing on him as if he were smothered in clay himself. He blinked blindly, uncertainly aware of the light around him, the daylight filtering through his burning eyes. What time ... oh, it hardly mattered. Sleep. Just enough. Rest, so he could finish. He had to bring her back, so she could show him how to go to her. How to reach beyond ... sleep now. Rest. Remember ... she would wait for him. She always did. And the light was so heavy ...
He wrapped her up again, as if against the cold, but it was heat he had to guard her against, protect her from. And he would protect her. This time. The ache in his bones, the exhaustion ... it would be no excuse, this time. He would do his duty by her, as he should have the first time.
He curled up, curled beneath the light, his eyes closed and blind again. Sleeping ... dreaming ... she had smiled at him ...
When he woke, it was dark again. It was dark, and he was cold, but the heat was gone and that was good for her, so that was alright. That was perfect. He ate, again. Have to stay strong, stay healthy. He knew that, even though it seemed strangely distant now. But he had no time to wonder about it. He had work to do.
A tool, now. For the finer things, for the details that had shown more clearly who she was. He needed his eyes for this, didn't trust the tool to translate what his hands understood, not without guidance. Not without a check. But first ... He shaped the nose, first. Never leave a job half done. She'd laughed at him for that, for his seriousness as he said it. She touched things and moved on, left them half-formed, loving the freedom of incompleteness. Except for him. He'd been the one thing she had loved completely, the one thing she had learned and shaped whole. The thought warmed him, had the weight of love settling in his chest. He'd been different, for her. As she'd been for him. He'd mattered, so much, to her.
And then ... her mouth. Her smile. He curled his thick fingers around the slim wand, the sensitivity belying the size. Her lips were there already, pouting a little, laughing a little, but the smile had been deeper ... the lines at the edge of her mouth, the delicate web, they had played a part in it. The age of her, the memory of laughter past, the remnants of old frowns. They had formed so much of that smile. He touched the surface lightly, gently, tracing into it the patterns he remembered, frowning in concentration as the wand moved through the clay. Gentle. Be gentle for her. This part of her, the memories she had kept in her smile to show the world ... they demanded care, from him. Her memories were as dear to him as his own, which was as it should be. They had shared so many of them.
There was a little dip, at one corner of her mouth. A slightly deeper dent, because she smiled more with that side of her mouth. It was where she kept her sarcasm, that dent, where she kept the sly humour that shaped her eyebrows too, and her eyes. He caught that, teased it gently out, and felt his eyes well with tears.
He pulled his hands back to his chest before they could start to shake again, clutched them close as she smiled blindly out at him, raw and unfinished and free. Loving him, all his solid self, for the tiny things that were all he could do for her. His chest heaved, his heart pounding inside it, a heavy, bass beat, and he could feel the tears slide over his cheeks. He felt them fall, and tilted his head back so they wouldn't fall on her. Blind and shimmering, the liquid radiance of a light that seemed to wear her face, that seemed to smile her smile, and all he held in his hands was clay, empty earth, a facsimile that, no matter how detailed, could never hold all that had been her.
He felt the scream climbing inside him, felt the titanic shaking in his chest, the raw, ripping breaths that shuddered down to feed it as it built. He heard, dimly, the wand snap between his fingers, a timid little shattering, and like the pebble that starts the avalanche, the storm burst free of him to carry him out into an endless sea of grief. He spun, tossed and tumbled, his heart shrieking and full, hammering at his bones, pounding at the wall of his ribs in a desperate effort to rip free, to pull free of hollow clay and find her, find the light that wore her face, find the unformed freedom she had loved so dearly. He reached and reached, his raw, massive hands stretching vainly out in search of her touch, his scream a hollow roar of loss and pleading.
Come back! Or show me how to follow!
Please?
But she did not come. She never came. She would never come again, never smile as she pressed her lips to his fingers in a kiss, never laugh as she tossed her hair in the spray, never touch the broken bridge of her nose and wink. Never again. Never ... never ... never ...
He crumpled, barely aware as his knees hit the floor, completely unconscious of the great keening moans he made, of the ugly, grieving sounds that poured unceasingly from him. He pulled his hands in tight, pulled them to his chest, pressed them over his heart so hard they bruised, but he didn't care about that. He didn't care. He hugged the memories, hugged the empty mastery, held tight to everything he had left of her, and cried and cried. And behind him, the unfinished bust smiled at him with her smile, it's blind eyes hollow and uncaring, and the light weighed so soft and heavy on his shoulders. She touched him, half-formed, incomplete without her, and fled, her laugh and her love floating behind her to settle forever around him.
Maybe that was what it had meant, to love her.
---
He spent some time in hospital, later. Malnutrition, fever. They'd found him on the floor of his studio, shaking, delirious, his hands bloodless and near-broken from being clenched. No-one was sure quite how long he'd been there, least of all him. But that didn't bother him.
Nothing much did, anymore.
They were afraid for him, after that. His friends. Her friends. Everyone who had cared for them. The depth of his grief had stunned and terrified them all, the self-destructive passion of it. He shook his head, rumbled meaningless reassurances, but he had never been a man of words, and he didn't know what to say to lay their fears to rest. Because they did not need to fear. Not now.
His hands never recovered all the mastery they'd had before. He'd hurt them too deeply, taken too much from them. They were clumsy, now, fumbling and hard to close. Not a problem for most things, but he couldn't grip the tools as he once had, couldn't move his fingers with the grace they had once known. He could still sculpt, still create, but it was slower, more ... thoughtful, now. It pained him, and it sometimes showed in what he created, what he brought to life.
But for all the pain in his hands, the pain in his heart had lessened, as if those days, the time he'd poured into reaching for her, had drained it all away through the vessels of his hands. Well, not all. Never all. But he'd remembered, in that time. Remembered what it was to love her, remembered what it meant. He had never gone back to finish the bust. It had hardened by then, anyway, making it impossible, but he wouldn't have even if he could. She was better this way, more real. Unfinished. Free. A creature of light and air, of fleeting laughter and enduring love, unburdened by the hollow weight of the clay, the pain that she had suffered in her last days. She was free, now, somewhere beyond what he could see, and he knew that wherever it was, she would wait for him. She would wait forever, for him.
Pain only hurts for a little while. Love is eternal.
