Work Text:
It feels like anesthesia one year prior.
Being pulled beneath a veil, a heavy curtain swept over burning eyelids. A ceiling of blurred colors fading out into the corners of her vision, replaced by blinding, white, light, at the end of a shattering kaleidoscope. In the past, beneath the crumbling ceiling of her childhood, the pain exploded, briefly, in the side of her abdomen, and her mind had no time to process the tiniest flicker of a guilt-shrouded expression before she was free-falling.
Presently, white-hot discomfort shoots through her and settles deep into the dips and caverns of her bones, in the gaping holes of her mind and heart, the faintest image of family hurrying down the steps of her favorite front porch before, once more, inky blackness swallows her whole.
And everything stills.
She can’t see. She can’t hear, save for the echoes of familiar voices someplace far away. She can taste regret on her tongue and smell the frozen air and touch an overwhelming cold, like being dipped inside a bucket of ice, the chill spreading goosebumps across her entire body, shaking hard enough that any voices are quickly overwhelmed by the sound of her teeth chattering.
If this is what Charlotte feels, Vanessa is glad to have let her sleep for twenty-five years.
Time passes, she presumes, but her body is a vessel, now, and her eyelids grow heavier the longer she tries to fight the freeze invading her veins. The longer the thought rotates through her mind: Charlie, you were innocent. Please.
Eventually, as humans do, she gives in.
The next time she returns from the dead, she’s lying on her back. Her spine aches and she’s certain she collapsed, if the heat on her palms and the untrimmed grass poking her neck is any indication. Her hands fly to her throat, where breaths enter and exit her lungs in rapid succession. Above her, the sky blurs and unblurs, stars drifting slowly across a canvas of emptiness.
Faintly, the bittersweet tones of “My Grandfather’s Clock” drift through her ears. Vanessa squeezes her eyes shut for the briefest moment. Pictures Charlotte’s pink ceiling, the way Henry’s voice would reverberate off of every surface as he sang her to sleep. Sleepovers were always comforting with the Emily’s.
Vanessa always yearned to have a father. A real one, who loved her, not what she could do.
“Vanessa!” It’s Charlotte. It’s 1982 and her sweet voice is shrill and concerned. No. “Are you okay?!” Abby. It’s Abby shaking her shoulder. It’s Mike’s friend reaching out to help her sit up.
“I’m fine,” Vanessa snaps to the latter, turning to Abby with a lopsided, but hopefully reassuring smile. Strands of her hair stick to her chapped lips and sweating skin. Her eyes burn and she chokes on the chill in the air as she tries, and fails, to sit up. She blinks. “Where’s Charlotte?”
Abby is leaning over her, looking a little more than concerned. “Mike followed her,” she says simply, the tiniest waver in her voice. Vanessa’s inhale is stuttered.
“Good,” she breathes. The figurative kaleidoscope goes back over her eyes just as she becomes aware of a stinging in her abdomen. Vanessa brings a hand down to her side. When she pulls her palm back up in front of her face, her staticky fingertips are coated red. She hears Abby gasp. Mike’s friend says a curse and something about 9-1-1.
“Vanessa?” Abby sounds like she’s standing at the other end of a tunnel. Her voice is a shriek. It’s so cold.
“Abby, take my jacket— Here, put pressure on Vanessa, hold it right there—” Mike’s friend goes back to chattering on the phone right after. Vanessa tries to squirm, turn around, slink away— But everything around her is fractured, and she can barely feel the weight Abby presumably puts on her side. Vanessa wants to tell her to stop, that she’s sorry, for everything, really, but all that comes out are incomprehensible words and noises.
“Am I hurting her?” Abby’s scared voice sobs. “Is she gonna be okay?”
Vanessa doesn’t give nor hear an answer. The fight leaves her body just as the guilt enters. A little girl should never get blood on her hands.
⋆˚꩜｡
It is, Vanessa thinks, a little bit unfair.
That the universe does nothing but rob her. Dangle promises before her eyes, then snatch them away the moment she steps forward to fully clutch them in her hands. Her father always told her that wanting was the quickest way to let herself down. That if she didn’t immediately have the means to get it, she better be ready to do whatever it takes to satiate her desires.
It took years of psychology and criminal justice classes for Vanessa to learn that she would never, ever, understand why her father had to do what he did. It took another half a decade to change her name and accept that her hometown was a prison she was ready to lock herself in and throw away the key.
Vanessa is sick of hospitals.
The blood pouring out of her healed stab wound was the result of “unexplained built-up internal pressure,” the doctor said. The polite way of saying, “We have no idea why the wound reopened, but you’ll probably be fine.” It’s impossible for Vanessa to be surprised anymore. Of course Charlotte cut her open from the inside; why wouldn’t she?
That same Charlotte is, apparently, locked back inside her box fast asleep. The result of Henry’s music box and Mike’s unrelenting desire to put the past in the past once and for all.
Vanessa kind of wants to kill him, standing in her kitchen with her phone pressed against her ear and one hand gently laid over her side. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Wasn’t as bad as the first time around. Vanessa still thinks it was the brain fog that made her pass out rather than the wound.
“Abby,” Vanessa repeats, tone slow and sweet, “I miss you too. Really, I do. Things are just—” Her eyes catch on the TV mantle. Adorning it, the painted clay figurine of a rainbow Abby made and gifted her a year prior. It was the first Christmas Vanessa had ever had where she wasn’t gifted something cruelly stolen. “Things are a little complicated right now.”
The stove sizzles and reminds Vanessa of her poor attempt at creating adequate sustenance. Spurts of oil burn her fingertips and she swallows a curse for the sake of the 11-year-old on the other end, the one whose tone is drowned in melancholy as she begs, “Why are things complicated?”
You’d have to ask your brother that, says the bitter part of her isolation. “I think Mike just needs some… Space, right now,” is what she responds instead.
“He doesn’t let me do anything,” Abby grumbles frustratedly. Vanessa chews on her lip. Truthfully, Vanessa thinks it’s great that he finally cares enough about her to stop letting her do whatever she wants.
He was good about that a year ago. Tough, sure, but for the sake of keeping her safe— Exactly the way a child needs to be treated when lives are at stake. Now, Vanessa thinks he just doesn’t understand the difference between “gentle” and “permissive.”
And that’s exactly the problem.
In the background, somebody’s muffled dialogue has Abby replying, “Nobody,” followed by a quick, “Talk to you later, ‘kay?”
“Abby—”
The line goes dead. Vanessa shoves her face into the heels of her palms and grits her teeth. Then, she picks up the spatula and flips her bacon.
⋆˚꩜｡
Six hours into (and approximately seventeen minutes before the end of) Vanessa’s shift, her cell phone begins vibrating inside her jeans pocket.
It’s been an exhausting, overwhelming, thought-repulsing, night with little to show for it. Vanessa feels stupid for even being exhausted, because she’s still on paperwork duty at the station, no amount of begging and reasoning pushing her boss into allowing her back out into the field, but—
All of it is slowly killing her.
Vanessa’s never been too bothered by images and facts of the world's worst depravity, having witnessed most of it firsthand before she even knew basic algebra. Tonight, however, every little thing is getting under her skin. Even after years, her wounds, both physical and emotional, are holding her back. She loathes the never-ending frustration that seems to bubble up and leave a sick pressure on her psyche wherever she goes.
All in all, it’s shaping up to be a great night to go home, put on shitty television for background noise, drink until she can’t see straight, and pass out cold on the couch. Or the floor. Whichever she collapses on harder. With the luck she’s been having, she’s certain it’ll be the latter.
The plan cannot go into action unless Vanessa actually finishes typing up this incident report, however, which is why she chooses to ignore the vibrations in her pocket. It’s probably a scam call, anyway; Vanessa doesn’t have many contacts, and the ones she does, well—
They’re not exactly aching to talk to her.
The ringing stops and Vanessa sighs, blinking through her heavy eyelashes. She can count the colorful pixels on the computer screen right beside the crime scene photo of a detached car bumper splattered with blood. Shaking her head, she leans her chin in her palm and sets her other hand back on the keyboard—
Just for her phone to start buzzing again.
With a deep breath and all her remaining patience, Vanessa fishes it out of her pocket and presses it against her ear without even glancing at the caller. “Hello?” she snaps.
The person on the other line is not an obnoxiously pushy scam caller, nor her neighbor warning her of her apartment building going up in flames, and certainly not the man who one month prior looked at her with the same amount of vitriol as her father when he said, “Stay away from us.”
Her heart sinks as Abby’s small, scared, voice whispers, “Vanessa?”
The chair creaks as Vanessa sits up straight, unease climbing her spine. Briefly, she glances at the caller— Abby’s calling from Mike’s phone. She grabs her own with both hands and readjusts to ensure it won’t slip off of her shoulder as she blurts out, voice considerably softer, “Abby? What’s going on?”
“Something’s wrong,” Abby says vaguely, but her breathing is fast and anxious. “I— I’m at my school with Mike for conferences.” Vanessa hears her shudder and her heart squeezes. “I think somebody followed us.”
Vanessa knows Michael is one-hundred meters deep into a prison. Locked away, rotting in a cell, deprived of all the joy and sunshine he and their father stole from others far more innocent. She also knows Charlie is asleep underground, contained by the song that lulled her to sleep every night for the short years she lived.
Just the way it should be.
But she assumes the worst, of course, standing up and grabbing her coat and bag off of her chair, not even bothering to turn off her computer before she heads toward the doors.
“Followed you?” she repeats. Then, between cubicles, she stalls. “I— Hold on, Abby, I’m at work. I can send units—”
“No!” Abby blurts out. Vanessa jumps a little from the cry. “You just have to come here. Don’t tell anybody else. They wouldn’t understand.” A pause. Then, a whisper: “Please hurry.”
Wouldn’t understand.
Vanessa takes a deep breath, then continues walking. What’s one more brush with death?
“Where’s your school?”
Ten minutes and a handful of broken traffic laws later, Vanessa’s pulling into the parking lot of Abby’s school and stepping out before the car’s engine has time to settle. The cool air sticks to her skin and burns up her lungs as she pushes open the doors and catches her breath.
The lights in the school are still on. Admittedly, it’s a little quiet for a supposed “now-or-never” emergency, but Vanessa’s undeterred. There’s a pop-up sign by the empty receptionist desk that informs her that parent-teacher conferences are on the first floor, and politely asks parents not to go upstairs.
Naturally, Abby told her to come to the second-floor science lab.
There’s nobody to tell Vanessa not to— Besides, if there were, she doesn’t carry around a shiny police badge for nothing— so she locates the stairs, steps over the stanchions blocking them off, and rushes upstairs, the railing cold where her fingertips graze it.
The second floor of the school leads quiet trepidation to wash over her. All of the lights are off, save for a single, flickering, fluorescent one every few doors, making the area look more abandoned than anything. She reads the numbers on the doors until, finally, she spots it: LAB 219.
Inside of the room, it’s pitch-dark, save for what appears to be a lamp in the corner of the room that is turned on. Vanessa can’t see much inside the room, the tiny window on the door providing a less than ample picture. She doesn’t see nor hear anybody inside, but even if Mike and Abby did move, they must’ve left something in here—
So she turns the knob and slowly opens the door. Then, even slower, she steps inside, one hand over the indent of her gun on her hip, the other still on the door. There’s a handful of poster boards on the tables, accompanied by flasks and microscopes and all of the things Vanessa is unsurprised to see in a middle school science lab.
Quietly, she takes another step inside. The blinds are wide open; the glow of the moon paints the floor white. Vanessa takes another step. She turns her head to see the light switch. Her hand leaves the door, reaches for the panel—
And the door slams behind her, pulled shut.
“Abby?”
Worse: that’s Mike’s voice at the other end of the room, sitting behind a poster board with “Abby Schmidt” scrawled on the back of it.
“What the—?” Vanessa breathes.
Impossibly worse: the door is locked. No matter how hard Vanessa jiggles the doorknob, it doesn’t budge. Finally, her head snaps up to gaze through the window, half-expecting a set of claws or a razor-sharp smile to await her—
But it’s just Abby, and she’s crossing her arms, and boy, she does not look amused.
Footsteps approach from the right, and Vanessa opens her mouth, then closes it. She can’t read the expression Mike is wearing— A mix of bewilderment and anger simmering beneath the surface of his demeanor. How does she even begin to explain herself?
“What the hell are you—?” he starts.
“Abby, please open the door,” Vanessa interrupts, voice strained. She doesn’t want to let go of the doorknob. She tries it again like it’ll get it open. It doesn’t budge.
The kid on the other side of the door straightens up and firmly says, voice muffled through the glass, “Not until you two are friends again!”
Vanessa squeezes her eyes shut and bites on her lip hard enough to draw blood. “There’s nothing for us to talk about, Abby. It’s complicated.”
“Did she lock us in here?” Mike asks, brows furrowed, all of that anger no longer a surface-level observation but rather an emotion he wears with recklessness.
“Then make it not complicated!” Abby argues. “Or I’m never gonna let you out!”
Did I just get fucking parent-trapped?
“Can you—?” Vanessa turns to Mike and gestures to Abby. She doesn’t look at him for long. He looks like a stranger.
Mike’s jaw sets and he takes Vanessa’s spot. “Abs, come on. Open up. This is childish.”
“It’s not childish,” Abby defends childishly.
“Abby—”
“Stop it and talk to each other, not me!” Abby yells. “I’m leaving now, okay?”
Mike’s eyes widen. “You’re not leaving, Abby, I— Abby! Hey!” He slams a palm weakly against the door, but Abby doesn’t even flinch. Vanessa can only catch a glimpse of her back as she walks down the hall before she disappears from sight completely, nothing but the flicker of the hallway light left to accompany the two of them on the other side.
For a long moment, Mike doesn’t even turn to look at Vanessa. It makes her feel like a kid in time-out again. It’s a conscious effort not to shrink into herself.
“Why are you even here?” Mike asks, snappy, and she can’t tell how much of the hatred in his voice is toward the situation and how much is toward her.
Vanessa wrings her hands. “Abby, she, um… She called me. Said you two were in danger.”
Mike makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan. Vanessa hums in agreement.
“I’m… Gonna call someone to get us outta here,” Mike mumbles, fumbling with his pockets. Vanessa doesn’t say anything, but she does look up when he mutters a curse under his breath. “Did she—? She took my phone. Great.”
Oh, yeah. She did do that, Vanessa recalls.
Mike’s looking at her now. Expectantly, even. Vanessa clears her throat and uncrosses her arms, then pulls her phone out of her pocket. She opens her contacts.
And there’s nobody.
On the entire short list, comprised of less than ten people, there is only one person Vanessa would’ve ever even considered calling in an emergency, and it’s the person locked in here with her.
“I… I don’t have anyone I can call,” Vanessa says quietly.
“What?”
Vanessa meets his eye, unable to keep the frustration out of her tone nor off her face. “There’s nobody, Mike.” She laughs dryly. “I don’t have anybody in my contacts who would drive all the way out to a middle school to crack a lock, alright?”
Mike leans his back against the door and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What, nobody?”
“No need to rub it in,” Vanessa snaps bitterly without thinking.
Mike frowns, narrows his eyes. Vanessa feels like her skin is burning under the weight of his judgment, and she’s already digging a grave, why not get a little deeper? “I know you may have the support of a sweet younger sister, and good coworkers, and— And friends, but that’s not the case for everybody, Mike. Not all of us are that lucky. And it’s certainly not the case for me.”
“Is it?” Mike’s venomous retort is instant. “Tell me something— The whole time I’ve known you, this entire past year, have you been alone? Completely on your own?” He’s louder than the buzz of the lamp on the other side of the room. “So isolated, you couldn’t even tell me about your family?”
“Oh, please,” Vanessa breathes, her statement overlapping the end of his. “Don’t start, Mike.”
“Even now, you won’t talk about it.” It’s his turn to laugh. The sound is humorless. Vanessa is silent. He sounds so—
Defeated.
“It’s hard to trust somebody you know nothing about, Vanessa,” he adds, quieter, but not lessening the blow.
The teacher’s desk is covered in clutter, papers, and a nameplate. Vanessa takes a seat on somebody’s essay, which, apparently, received a C+. Mike’s pulling a thread on his sweater. Vanessa tugs on her fingers and cracks her knuckles until there’s nothing more to mess with and no more lies to stumble over.
“I was trying to keep you safe,” she admits earnestly. Mike looks up. “None of this— None of this was ever supposed to happen.” He starts to respond, but she cuts him off, words rushed, voice wavering. “And I— I know that’s— That’s a shitty excuse. And I should have told you about myself. About all of this. If I had, maybe you’d have known what you were dealing with better.”
Her heart races and the right words are lost on her. The past month has hurt her more than she ever thought it could, worse than the emotional sting of discovering where her favorite toys came from when she was 10 and the physical ache of a stab wound that is still red around the edges.
Somewhere buried deep beneath the surface of her skin, she can feel white-hot anger slowly fizzling out into the melancholic emotion it's been all along.
“Mike, I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so, sorry.” She takes a deep breath, forces herself not to get overwhelmed. “But I tried.” She shudders. “And you haven’t exactly made it easy, either. I hope you know that.”
He flinches almost imperceptibly as though burned, and Vanessa knows that even if she’s ruined things, now, at least she can live with herself. Finally, he knows half of what that slap in the face felt like.
It takes him longer to gather his thoughts, it would seem, but eventually, he says, “I know that.” He’s staring at the floor beside her “What I said… Back there.” Vanessa holds her breath. “I didn’t mean it.” And exhales.
“You didn’t?” she repeats dumbly, more so to confirm to herself that he’s actually apologizing to her for once.
“I’ve been a complete idiot, these past few months,” he admits, and it's like a weight is lifted off of Vanessa’s shoulders. “To— To you, and to Abby. I was trying to put everything behind us, but instead of trying to understand you, I… Ignored that part of you. I lied to Abby, even when you told me not to, and I ignored all the warning signs with her and let everything happen again, and I—”
She knows this one.
A sigh. Then, a genuine, “I’m sorry, Vanessa.”
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but two apologies certainly make Vanessa feel like she’s not drowning anymore.
“I understand why you said it,” Vanessa blurts out. “I— I mean— It’s okay. I forgive you. I wouldn’t have trusted me either.”
“Well, I mean—” Mike stutters, trying to counter. “I didn’t make it easy to talk to me, either—”
“Right, but still—”
“Well, by that logic, then, you shouldn’t—”
“Mike,” Vanessa says firmly. “We’re gonna go in circles like this.”
He huffs a breath and Vanessa actually smiles. “Right.”
Vanessa eases herself off of the desk and puts her hands in her pockets, not yet daring to approach Mike, happy to simply stand a good distance away and lock eyes.
If there’s ever going to be somebody who can understand her, she hopes it can be him.
“As much as I’d love to tell you more about myself,” Vanessa starts, “I feel like there’s a time and place better than your sister’s middle school science lab.”
Mike’s looking at her like he’s won another consolation prize. “Yeah— Yeah, I’d have to agree.”
Vanessa’s not stupid enough to think a year of emotional distance and lies poorly covered-up will be fixed in one conversation. If she could go back in time, she’d pick sitting by the river with his sleeping pills in her hands, and she’d tell him at least half of the truth. Baby-step her way into a family of her own rather than stand on the sidelines and insist she belonged.
Growing up, the truth was always a very dangerous thing for Vanessa to hold onto. Something she buried deeper and deeper and deeper into the back of her mind in the hopes that one day, it may fade completely and leave her clean, untouched, unmarred.
She’s not so naive, anymore. She circles the drain of her hometown like a soap bubble clinging to the steel of the sink.
Still, stupidly, she wants to let this happen.
So Vanessa pulls out her phone and dials Mike’s number, and when Abby picks up and asks, “Are you friends again?” she doesn’t have to lie when she says, “Yes.”