The clock stops

[abetterlie]

He had meant to stay away. That was what his request had been all about, staying away. But Connor told himself he had to be sure. Sure that it worked. After all, magic was capricious, nobody knew that better than he did, and it wasn't like Angel, Darla and Todd Campbell were the most trustworthy of sources anyway.

On the day that the spell would be broken which gave Lawrence, Colleen and Mere Riley and their various friends and relations the memory of having raised a son named Connor, a happy child who never gave them more serious problems than the loss of teeth until he got hit by a van and survived without a scratch, Connor skipped class, drove to his parents neighbourhood, bought some pizza and showed up at their front door. He had it all figured out. If they didn't recognize him, the spell was truly broken, and he would say he was the delivery boy with some pizza. Of course, they hadn't ordered any, but it could be a simple misunderstanding, someone giving the wrong address. And he would have seen them one last time.

If they did recognize him, if the spell was still intact, he'd say it was a surprise, that he wanted to spend some time now that the new term had started. He'd find something to say. And he probably would not try to have the memories removed again, because seriously, whom could he ask?

Lawrence's car was outside, but strangely, so was today's newspaper. Which was odd. His father and mother both were always reading the L.A. Times during breakfeast; they had a well-established routine of switching various parts. Connor checked, and the mailbox was full with today's mail as well. And yet the car was there. His mouth began to feel dry. He rang the doorbell, and nobody answered.

Maybe they all decided on an impromptu visit somewhere. Aunt Jane's, for example. Or Yosemite. His parents always loved Yosemite Valley in autumn. Indian Summer and all. For a long weekend. It was Friday, after all. But why was Dad's car outside if that was so?

He wavered, then decided to use the keys he still had. Just to check. If they were was a note somewhere about that long weekend, he could leave the keys in the house anyway. He probably should.

Why would they leave you a note if they don't remember you anymore?

Connor opened the door, and the smell assaulted him at once, the smell which would not have been noticable for any normal human being yet. Not blood. No gore. Simply the start of decay.

Lawrence and Colleen were in their bed, which was where they had been at midnight between Thursday and Friday, sleeping. Lawrence's glasses were lying on the book he had been reading before switching out the light. Mere was in her room, but fully dressed for what was obviously a secret party, lipstick, eyegloss and all, lying on the floor in front of the openend window, as if she had been planning to climb out. None of them showed any physical signs of harm.

In his head, he could hear the voice of Colleen Riley, as he had never heard it in reality, reading to her small son, reading a fairy tale. Briar Rose. One prick of a thumb, and the entire castle fell to sleep, because there was a curse. Only they weren't asleep. The fairy tale had gotten it all wrong. He felt their pulses, but he knew as soon as he saw them. Dead. All three. Dead.

Time splintered. He was five years old, and finding his parents again in a supermarket, after having been so sure they were lost, but here they were, embracing him, and wasn't it silly to have been afraid? He was five, only it was hard to count the years in Quortoth, and found Father again after five days of tracking, and the skin around Father's eyes crinkled which meant Father was pleased and proud, and wasn't stupid to have ever doubted he'd find him again?

He was seventeen, or so they said, and Angel's minions Fred and Gunn brought him to the sea to deceive him and talked about Angel's secret plans for Father. He raced back, back, back, but it was too late. Father was dead. He was seventeen, and Mom and Dad gave him enough cash to buy Tracy her dress for the prom as a surprise, and Mere teased him mercilessly about his taste, and nobody ever went away. He was eighteen, and dealing out death for his goddess, though there was a choice, wasn't there, there was always a choice, and then she was gone, and how dare that man try and committ suicide, how dare he leave his family? Stupid human face splintering beneath his fists. He was eighteen, and earned a place at Stanford, and everyone was proud. A toast. A toast to family. Family was everything. Wasn't it?

Oh, I don't mean this family.

He picked up the phone next to his mother's bed and dialed Justine's number. Justine was whom you shared your parents' dead bodies with; this much he remembered. She ought to be here. They had to burn them, hadn't they? When she picked up, he said:

"Dead. They're all dead."

Then he hung up again.

Comments

[livingtwin.livejournal.com]

Now, as Connor was standing in his parents room, Justine was having an experience of her own.

One moment she'd been speaking to Daniel Holtz - differently than she used to. She was no longer speaking to him as a soldier to her Captain and they both knew it. It was a loss to both of them but neither would admit it.

She wasn't even speaking to him as an equal. She was speaking to him as a woman who has allowed her boyfriends husband to live in their home. There was a deference involved, but also a superiority. Things had changed and there was no going back.

She had turned to leave the room but Daniel had spoken -

Hate is not enough, Justine. He said to her and she'd turned to look at him but as she did she saw him fading in front of her until she was in the room alone and the phone was ringing.

Dead. They're all dead.

Stephen's voice and then the dial tone.

She hits the button to return the call, almost scared he's gone as well.

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

The phone rings. Isn't that a sign that all of this is a dream, and life is really continuing? His parents will pick up any moment now. Only they don't, and Colleen isn't asking "Connor, take the phone, will you?", so he picks up anyway, because he's a good son. Of course he is.

But once he's picked up, he needs to say a name. And he finds he can't. Because he doesn't know. Which name? There are so many.

What shall we call me? Jasmine asks in his head, and:

Nobody on earth gets to pick their own name. They are chosen by those who love us.

He's sitting there, the phone in his hand, unable to say anything. There are no names, not anymore. But he can hear someone breathing, so someone, at least, is not dead.

[livingtwin.livejournal.com]

"Stephen." She says. And her voice is sharper than usual. "Stephen. For God's sake, say something."

For God's sake. Not: For Fuck's sake. That's what Justine would usually say. But instead she's speaking like her mother. That's something her mother would say.

"Stephen. Where are you? Tell me where you are."

She doesn't ask who is dead. She just asks where he is.

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

Her voice and tone get through to him. It's like a button pushed, and out comes a recitation of the address, just as he and Mere had been taught to recite in case they ever got lost. In the supermarket. Only that never happened. Then he says it again, just to be sure he got it right. And again.

[livingtwin.livejournal.com]

"Stay where you are." Justine says. "I'll come and get you."

It reminds her of being seventeen. She'd snuck out to a party that had ended with her puking her guts out in some strangers bathroom while people kept trying to burst in to use the toilet. Her boyfriend had decided he wasn't her boyfriend that night and left with the car and another girl. It had seemed like a tragedy that night. She hadn't seen real tragedy yet.

Justine. Tell me where you are. Said her mother.

Just don't tell, Dad. Justine had said.

Stay where you are. I'll come and get you.

See, despite everything that had happened, Justine had all those moments that Connor had only imagined. She had all those memories that made a life. This moment was probably the closest he would have to that one. And it was very different.

People were dead.

Connor had seen nothing but tragedy - and a whole lot of memories he would need to keep reminding himself were not real.

When Justine got outside she realised he had the car. He'd taken the car. The main road wasn't far, though, and she was in a taxi before she knew it and then banging on the front door of the house.

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

By the time Connor hears Justine knocking, he's aware that he talked to her on the phone, but he still isn't sure what year it as any more. He still expects to wake up any moment now. Because the alternative is that everything here is real.

He kisses his mother on the head, and goes to open the door. Seeing Justine, he half expects her to have brought an axe, only she didn't.

"I don't think we have to behead them this time,"

he says.

"There are no wounds at the neck."

[livingtwin.livejournal.com]

She thinks he's killed them, but she doesn't know who they are. So she pushes him back into the house and closes the door behind them. It's a nice house. It reminds her of the house she grew up in.

"What happened?" She asks. And because she needs to sound like herself she repeats it. "What the fuck happened?"

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

Connor also thinks he's killed them. Correction: Connor knows he killed them. There is no way them being all dead, without any physical signs of a cause, on the very day the memory spell was supposed to be broken is a coincidence. But his thought process is nowhwere near enough structured to voice this.

"The charm's wound up,"

he says, because they talked about Macbeth earlier this morning at college. Justine pushing him gets through somewhat more. He always responded to physical clues faster than to verbal ones. So he walks in his not-parents's bedroom.

"Mere is in her own room,"

he explains with eerie politeness. This reminds him that Mere is still lying on the floor in a disorderly fashion. She'd hate for anyone to see her like this. She'd call it undignified. Mere has a thing about saving face and dignity, just like Kara. So he wanders into Mere's room and lifts her from the floor, which is not that difficult, because she's not heavy, but she's cool enough that her limbs are starting to become stiff. Silently, he puts her on her bed.

[livingtwin.livejournal.com]

She doesn't follow him into the rooms, but stands at the doors watching, as if she is a vampire who has not been invited. But her expression is completely human, her hand has moved to her mouth and she's staring at the with horror.

Because these people might have been a lie, but it was a lie that was supposed to be safe inside it's domesticity. She's seen a lot of things. But they look different in alleys and abdonded house and derelict factories and even on the cold metal slab in a morgue. They look so different there. But this is different.

Also because she has realised who they are.

"They're your - "

She can't say family, because they're not.

"What - "

Happened? The lie ended as all lies do for all of us. Justine knows this, we all know this, but no one likes their face rubbed in it.

"Stephen." She says, he was never Stephen in this house and now he is. "We need to leave. We can't do anything for these people."

But she isn't looking at him. She's looking at a girl who was trying to sneak out of a window just like Justine did a long time ago.

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

"We need to burn them,"

he says, because if he's Stephen, then that is one of his earliest lessons. You burn bodies if you don't know the cause of death. If you're not absolutely, a hundred percent sure.

"Don't we?"

Very carefully, he puts Mere's arms at her side, but for some reason, her fingers refuse not to be curled up. And that is when something in him tears.

"She's dead,"

he whispers. "Justine, they're all dead."

[livingtwin.livejournal.com]

"Yes." She says. Because there is no escaping that fact. They are all very dead. "Yes, they are."

She still stands at the door. She waits for him to join her.

"We can burn the house and them with it. I can do it. You can wait in the car."

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

"No,"

he says,

"no, we should do it together. Maybe then they'll come back. He did."

Referring to Holtz. And why not? He lives in a world of miracles. So many people come back from the dead. So many. They get undeserved new lives and new memories. He just needs to do the proper thing, and then there is a chance.

Connor goes into the kitchen, gets the lightning matches his mother keeps there, and then systematically breaks the chairs into pieces. The he uses the unread newspaper of today to make staples, together with the wood, under both the bed of his parents and Mere's, and sets them on fire.

[livingtwin.livejournal.com]

Of course, Justine knows Holtz is gone. But she can't tell him that, not now. She'll tell him tomorrow. When the sun is shining outside and they're in their room together. She'll tell him then.

He doesn't need to know now.

While Connor builds the fire in their bedrooms Justine finds BBQ fluid in the kitchen and applies it to the furniture in the rest of the house. When the flames spread the house will go up with it. The house should go up with it. This whole place feels wrong as if it died with them.

"We need to go now." She tells him. "We need to go home."

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

"Yes,"

he says, wondering where home is, and then remembering. It is her, her and Father. Feeling the flames slowly gaining strength and the heat makes him wonder whether they shouldn't stay a while longer, because he's cold, very cold, but then he remembers that the flames could hurt her. So he takes her hand, and follows her out to the car.