luzula | due South snippet: "Gap"

Ha, turns out you can write even when you're a wiped-out zombie. Maybe it lowered my inhibitions or something. And hey, if you're in due South/C6D, do sign up for the drabble tag at

dsc6dsnippets, people! It's only 100 words.

Title: Gap
Fandom: due South
Pairing: Bob/Buck/Caroline
Rating: PG
Length: 100 words
Content note: Grief, past canonical character death.
Prompt:
* "Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you." --T. S. Eliot

Summary: Bob counts the days.
Notes: For the drabble tag at

dsc6dsnippets. Sorry about the angst, but it kind of flowed from the prompt.

It had been almost two years.

There was always a gap now, in their thoughts, in their bed, in their lives. Half-awake beside Buck, Bob rolled the other way. Nothing. No warm body. Only the empty side of the bed, winter-cold.

He rolled back towards Buck, held him tight until he grunted in sleepy protest. With his forehead against Buck's stubbly cheek, he fought not to cry. Breathe. Concentrate and count the days: nineteen plus thirty plus twenty-eight plus...no, August had thirty-one days. He started over.

673 days. That's how long it had been.

They were two now. Only two.