Title: Water Tower

Fandom: Wilby Wonderful

Pairings: Buddy/Carol, Duck/Dan implied

Rating: G

Summary: A snippet set a couple of days after the events in the movie.

Notes: Thanks go to Bast for beta services. Any remaining errors are mine. This story has been setting around on my hard drive for a year and a half. I looked it over last week and got the spark that led me to finish it. Watching the movie again helped too.

Water Tower

A. Kite (July 2008)

It'd been years since Buddy French had climbed the water tower. When he was growing up it'd been a rite of passage. He'd first climbed when he was fourteen, the first boy of his generation to do so. Now it was his job to keep the kids off the tower, not that any of them climbed it anymore. The rites of passage these days were a lot less innocent than climbing a water tower.

In his youth, Buddy had climbed the tower so many times; it'd become his place, the place he went when he wanted to be alone to think. Up there, he could survey the whole island. It was up there that he decided not to go to the mainland for university. He'd stayed on the island and became a cop instead.

Buddy looked up at the ladder and wondered if he could still do it. It'd been over twenty years since the last time he'd climbed up to the top. He had need of a place to think and so much to think about.

He put his arms up and started to climb. Carol, beautiful, exotic Carol, the woman he pursued and won, despite his mother's and half the town's prejudiced opinion of her. Carol never really fit in, and Buddy never really wanted her to. He was only half way up and already the muscles in his arms and legs were burning, his breath coming in gasps. He stopped a moment, clinging to the ladder as he rested.

In a lot of ways his marriage was like climbing this tower. It wasn't easy, each step an uphill battle. Until recently, it was a climb he and Carol made together. She'd changed. The old Carol, the one he fell in love with, would have never callously shoved a dying man in a cupboard. She was obsessed now with social climbing and making money, being a success. Things he'd never in a million years would have believed she'd care about. To be fair, he supposed he'd changed too.

Buddy got his breath back and started up the ladder again. Too many cigarettes. Too many nights spent sitting in front of the TV or standing around cocktail parties stuffing his face while Carol mixed and mingled. Somewhere along the line he'd gotten out of shape, lazy.

With a last grunt of effort, Buddy pulled himself over the edge and onto the platform that ran around the tower. He looked around. Wilby looked peaceful in the darkness. It'd changed too; more lights, more houses, more people. He could still see the whole island. Over there was the hospital where Dan Jarvis lay recovering from near death. He could see Duck's house setting out by itself near the water. He watched the headlights as Duck's truck pulled up to the house and stopped. He couldn't see Duck, but he made out his progress as the interior light came on inside the truck as he got out. Seconds later, the light in his kitchen flicked on.

The whole town was buzzing about Duck and Dan. About how Duck went to see him everyday and brought him flowers. Buddy wished them good luck and turned to look around again. His house and his mom's were lost among the big trees near the center of town, where the oldest, most affluent families lived. Down there in the darkness, Sandra and her daughter were closing up Iggy's for the night.

Buddy looked over at the Watch. It was quiet. No one lurked there in the darkness. No men sought other men for whatever two guys did together in a semi-public place. They'd be back, and Buddy was glad. He was happy their place wouldn't be turned into a golf course.

Somewhere, down there, Carol was packing. That's what he'd come here to think about, whether to let her go or ask her to stay. Five years ago it wouldn't have been a question that need to be asked. Like himself, Buddy had let his marriage go to pot in those five years. He wondered what Carol ever saw in him. Not just what she saw now.

Buddy reached in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. He lit it and took a long drag. The burn of the smoke in his throat made him realize what he'd done. How many of those things did he smoke in a day without thinking about it? How many other things had he just let slip by him? He dropped the cigarette and ground it to a pulp under his heel.

Not this time, by God, not this time. Buddy quickly climbed the ladder back down to the ground and got in his car. He was home in a few minutes. He mounted the steps and opened the door.

"Carol!"