TM 230 - Black and white

[arrow_of_apollo]

230 - Black and white

I can't tell you how many times I watched it. Fifty? Way too few. Five hundred? Maybe not that many. Maybe so.

I asked one of my flight instructors once why gun camera footage was always in black and white. He said something about recording and file compression, and things you can see well in contrast. I just always thought it would be better, if you're trying to figure out what happened during a fight or review your flying, to be able to see the scene as it actually happened.

Now I'm damn glad I couldn't.


"They're waiting for me."

"They're waiting for me."

"They're waiting for me."

I still don't know what the frak she was talking about. The first hundred or two times I watched the footage, that was what I couldn't let go of. Kara was acting... well, she hadn't been herself for days, but that whole flight was nothing like her, nothing. She wasn't making any sense, and then, she was gone.

Who was waiting? Where were they waiting for her? People talk about tunnels of light or shorelines or any of a dozen metaphors for crossing over, but Kara was never one of them. As far as I know, she'd never given a single thought to what happened after you died because she was too damn busy living.

She sounded... so peaceful.

Couldn't figure it out, and I've got no idea to this day. Maybe it had to do with all the alcohol I was putting down as I watched the footage that night, but I'm sober now and it still makes no sense.

After she came back, I watched it again and again. Then, my father came to the briefing room and we watched it a hundred times more. Then, we were trying to figure out how in the Gods' name Kara could have survived the explosion. And that was no damn good, either.

Over and over, I heard those words. I watched her Viper turn into a gray bloom of smoke and debris. I listened to myself scream.

Yeah, thank the Gods for black and white.


(343)

Comments

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I didn't watch it.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't recommend it.

[wants-to-resist.livejournal.com]

She's my wife, Lee. Not yours.

I thought I was the one who'd gotten drunk, not you.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

She doesn't have to be my wife for me to mourn her, Sam.

You're the one who got drunk publicly.

[wants-to-resist.livejournal.com]

I just wish you'd stop doing so publicly.

Rumor was, so did you.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

That wasn't public.

Not my finest hour.

[wants-to-resist.livejournal.com]

Keep telling yourself that and maybe you'll believe it.

Right. So you don't really have any say in how I do my own mourning now, do you? Frak, Lee, it doesn't matter. She's alive. She's back. That's what matters, not the past.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Are we really doing this again?

Yes, she's back. We hope.

[wants-to-resist.livejournal.com]

Gods, I hope not.