Gladstone was Bones' only companion on her birthday, and for all his love and affection, the precious boy was still only a bulldog.
It had been a month now that she'd been out of Neverland, sequestered away in either John's flat in England or in a closed room at the rehabilitation center where she'd spent days and days trying to work out the situation with her family. It was a lonely new life for Bones to try and get used to, and it made the adjustment harder than she'd had time to imagine. John couldn't hover over her forever, after all, and she didn't begrudge him that at all. Grown-ups had jobs, it was simple as that. She wasn't worth him losing a paycheque.
Her sisters were still shaky about her, the tone set in their face-to-face meetings all the proof that Bones needed. Then again, none of them had ever been particularly warm towards her, and any affection that had ever been given had only come after a slap to the face or a particularly fierce punishment from their parents. Bones knew what it was to be loved like a little sister; Silver had given her enough afternoons of Oreos and long talks and laughter to fill whatever void her real sisters had put there. Did she need her real sisters now? No...no, she didn't believe she did. They didn't need her either, unless it was to help with their guilt. She could do that, for them. She could give them that, even if it hurt a little bit.
Colleen had wished her an early happy birthday at the end of their last meeting at the clinic, and Connie had nodded along. It hadn't felt sincere. It had felt like an apology, just like everything they said always did.
So she sat in John's flat with Gladstone by her side on the sofa, and she ate a fancy pink cupcake (a surprise from John, just before he'd left for an emergency situation at the clinic) and she stared at a single page in Gone With The Wind for almost an hour, lost somewhere between loneliness and emptiness. She didn't know if she deserved to feel lonely if she'd left of her own volition. She didn't know if she even deserved to be missing some of them, when she imagined that they all were undoubtedly wishing she were twisted and broken in a gutter somewhere. She didn't think that she had that right...she really didn't.
But then, she heard a nearly-forgotten sound coming from the guest bedroom where she'd been resting her head: the phone she'd last used in Neverland. She moved on quiet feet to the nightstand drawer that held it, drawing it out like it was a something infinitely more precious than a stolen mobile phone. The screen read a phone number that Bones recognized immediately, and the beginning of text...from Silver.
Her legs gave out, and she dropped to the floor beside her bed, hand over her mouth. Her hand shook as she typed in the passcode and pulled up the text.
Happy birthday. Have a great one and have a drink for me. Silvs.
Bones looked wildly around for a moment, unable to tell if she wanted to laugh or cry. She ended up crying in silence, her fingers frozen over the keyboard as she tried to decide between answering or not. What good would answering do either of them? Were they just going to start texting each other? OMG, still on the run from your best friend's accusation that I burned down the first place I ever felt safe, LOL.
So the lonely little girl did the best thing that she could think to do. She texted Silver back...
I always do, and always will.
...and she turned off the phone. She wouldn't have been able to hear from Silver or anyone else anymore, not without breaking. Anything more would have her running back into the teeth of the beast that was hunting her, and it wouldn't do anyone any good, especially Bones herself.
The rest of her birthday was spent on the couch with Gladstone, drinking tea and reading about the wonderfully selfish Scarlett O'Hara. She lost herself in the words, trying desperately to distract herself from the starving, gnawing feeling that was missing Silver, and for a little while, it rather worked.
The phone in question was kept in the very bottom of her old rucksack. She couldn't say why she didn't destroy it or throw it out. Maybe, just maybe, she was hoping that she'd have reason one day to use it again...if only to hear Veronica's wonderful voice again.
After the Riots: Clemence finds Veronica, after nearly six years.
She'd been standing in front of the mailbox for almost forty-five minutes before she got the nerve up to put out her cigarette and walk down the dirt drive. The mail had all read by the last name 'Pan,' so she'd known she had the right place. The marriage of two of her best friends had been a balm to her weakened heart, even though she'd found out about it four years too late. Ironically, the marriage license had been the first concrete lead Clems had been able to find, and she'd laughed and cried and been held by John until she had brought herself back to normal.
Her shoes scuffed up rocks and little dust clouds as she walked, her eyes set on the little white house half-hidden behind a few truly beautiful maple trees that were starting to get a touch of red to their leaves. The place that Silver (no, no, she was Veronica, just as Clemence was no longer Bones) had found herself. Clemence wasn't sure from her intel if her old friend had just the one baby or more by now, though she knew that behind the little blue door could be a bassinet with a little niece called Rhiannon. It filled her heart with a warmth that she'd almost forgot existed, and then Clemence was running.
She bounded up the steps of the front poor, stopping before the door to take a breath and put a hand to her side. It was a habit from the many months of recuperation all those years ago, and beneath the layers of finely-tailored clothing, the scar still marred her pale skin. That bullet wound had almost taken Clemence away from the world, but something had kept her anchored in reality...and Clems had liked to think that it was this moment, or the hope for such a moment, that had kept her breathing.
A hesitant set of knocks was given to the door, and Clems frantically straightened her scarf and her bright blonde hair. The change had been mostly for safety, as there were still a good handful of people looking for the thief and murderess who called herself Bones Keaton, but the look had stuck. Not to mention, her hair made it easy for her to pass as John's family, which she had so easily become part of, even after her former counselor's marriage to his ironically-named wife, Mary.
But then, that door opened, and Veronica was there.
They stared at each other for a long time, both in shock, both beyond movement or speech. Clems started up first, though, taking a deep breath that was already shaking with the tears in her eyes. "I found you, sweetheart...I finally found you." And then they were in each other's arms, sinking down to the floorboards and Clems was sobbing and Veronica was crying just as hard and they were rubbing each others' backs and if there was ever a moment that Clems had felt more emotion than she did now, she could not recall it.
"Oh, sweetie..." Veronica was murmuring, between sobs. "Oh, sweetie, you're...you were dead, I saw you. And Caleb...we had to run, oh my God, you're alive...sweetie, you're alive."
Clems nodded, rocking her friend back and forth. "They got me out. The paramedics, they...they fixed me up. I was in hiding for...for so, so fuckin' long, then...then I started lookin' for you." She pulled away, her spindly hands going to either side of Veronica's face. "Holy shit, you're fuckin' beautiful, Mama Pan."
And then both women were laughing with tears still on their faces, and Veronica was pulling Clems inside and they sat down on a couch and just rocked each other again, perhaps for hours. They were only interrupted when a little hand touched Veronica's back, tears on chubby cheeks that belonged to none other than Rhiannon Pan. "Oh, hello Miss Rhiannon. It's so good to finally meet you, love." Clems said by way of introduction, wiping the tears from her face as she watched Veronica pick up her daughter and smooth her hair down.
"Rhi, this is your Auntie Clemence. She's been waiting a long time to meet you." Veronica pressed a kiss to her daughter's temple, her chin still wobbling with tears.
Rhiannon regarded Clems with big, deep eyes that belonged completely to one Jake Pan, wherever the big man was, and just like that, Clemence was completely enamored. "Hello. I'm four." And then the little cherub stuck her thumb in her mouth, and Clemence was even more lost than before.
"You are? Oh my goodness! FOUR years old? You ought to be runnin' things around here! You're such a big girl!" The smile on Clems' face was so genuine and so bright that it almost hurt, but nothing felt as good as that smile.
"I know. I am a big girl." Rhiannon said matter-of-factly, before wriggling off of her mummy's lap and regarding them with a seriousness completely endearing on such a little face. "I'm going to wake up Toph. He's my brother. He's two. He needs to see Tante Clemence too, Maman." The little girl turned on her heel and was gone, disappearing down a hallway and up a flight of stairs.
"That's your daughter. You have a daughter, Veronica. And a son, it sounds like." Clemence was crying again. It felt wonderful.
Veronica smiled, tears clouding up her eyes all over again as well. "Yep, I'm a mama-squared...Clemence, I'm...sweet Jesus, I thought..." She started crying all over again, hard and long-awaited Clems thought, so all the younger woman could do was bundle Veronica up in a hug and try to soothe her as best she could.
"I'm here, sugarplum. I ain't goin' nowhere until you force me to leave, I...I just need to realize that I finally found you. It...it hasn't sunk in." Clems laughed a bit, and suddenly she was so tired, with the last five years rushing up to meet her. Those years of searching were finally over. "And we're going to have dinner together tonight, and I'm gonna meet your baby son and see your little girl, and I'm going to smack a big kiss on Jake's cheek when he rolls home at last, and we're going to drink some French wine from the bottle in bed, and get cookie crumbs everywhere, and we're going to grow old and be happy, and everything will be alright. Nothing will ever, ever be wrong with us again, sweetheart. Not ever."
And so, time started moving once more for Clemence Rose Keaton. It had stopped many years ago, with that first gunshot that had started the fall of Neverland, and the shattering of the life a girl called Bones had built for herself. The pieces of her life fit themselves back together completely as she sat in Veronica Pan's house and met Christopher Pan, and heard Jake's blue truck coming down the dirt track, never letting go of Veronica's hand. The pieces were crooked, and they would never fit together as perfectly as they once had...but they were whole again.
