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.
That was all she'd ever wanted.