If its ok to ask a question about Grace heals, what was the book, Lucy threw away, was it an Apex rulebook?
Yes, Lucy was going to try to rebrand the Apex rulebook with more inclusive language and less oppression, but ultimately realized that harboring old ways and trying to recycle them wasn't actually what she wanted to do, after all. The system is broken, and if she was gonna move forward, she wanted a whole new way, not some trickled down remixed Apex theology.
This is dedicated to the growth and wellness of Grace Monroe. I hadn’t seen much fic content for where Grace may go next that wasn’t centered around “fixing” the series. I don’t feel like it needs fixing, but just wanted to venture where I’d love to see Grace go and be as she works on things after we last see her in Book 3. So, everything that was canon precedes this story that I’ve began for my beloved baby girl @pearlseleganciess and my sister @andromidagalaxie (I cannot tag you sis, I don’t understand why, so I’m sorry, but this goes out to you). @i-am-a-passenger Idek if you wanna read it, but it seems like something we’d be on about in the messages, so I’m tagging you at least to this one to see how you feel.
“How did you betray Simon?”
Grace had been standing there for a while, after having had every denizen plaything brought to her so that she could try to see if they could be mended. She was taking a break whenever Lucy’s voice rescued her from her thoughts, but it took her a moment to try to process the question. “How did I, or why did I? We have to get in the habit of clarifying our questions before giving our answers, so that we know what we’re saying. That way… There are no misunderstandings and if anybody is hurt, it’s not because we lied to them.”
“Is that how it happened? You were unclear when you lied to him?” Lucy sounded a little disappointed in that thought.
“No. I was clear. I deliberately lied. I thought that I was doing what was best, and I stand by it. But… I get that… maybe if Simon and I could’ve been clearer sooner, understood each other more instead of just leaning into what we thought we needed… Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like I needed to lie to protect Hazel. Maybe we would’ve been better for each other. Maybe we wouldn’t have misguided so many kids that I genuinely wanted to help in the same way that I thought I was helping Simon…”
Lucy picked up Simon’s book and began scribbling in it. “If we’re going to change our language, maybe I should edit out every usage of the N word.” Grace appreciated that she took the liberty of doing so on her own, instead of looking to her for permission. “Replace the Null of Dissention with… The Denizen of… Repentance?… No. That’s too long. I’ll just put H.. was it Hazel?” Grace’s eyes welled with tears and Lucy’s good eye noted it. She nodded once, “It was Hazel,” she said, going through to edit.
She stared at the book for a while longer, then finally said, “I meant how. How did you betray Simon? I didn’t know him as long as you did, and I didn’t like him as much as you did, but it was still really hard for me not to listen to him. Even when what he said sounded wrong. What he said about you didn’t sound like you. But, I believed him. I trusted him. How did you figure out how to not trust him? How did you decide not to follow the king?” Lucy looked shaky, regretful. She was asking for instructions, not for Grace to explain herself.
Still, Grace had to be certain, just like she promised, to be clear about the conversations she had with others and to answer them to the best of her knowledge. She couldn’t be a know-it-all anymore. She had to just be honest and straightforward, even when she didn’t know, and do her best to understand what was being asked of her, instead of presuming. “Lucy… Are you asking me this as a way to help you figure out how to learn to stick up for yourself?”
“I want to be brave enough to overthrow an unfit leader. Simon was an unfit leader. A lot of us had to have known. I couldn’t be the only one who didn’t like... the changes…”
Grace sighed and nodded her head. She sat down, legs sprawled and rested her elbows on her knees as she thought, “Well… I think that first and foremost, the important thing to understand is that even if you were the only one who didn’t like it, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with not thinking like everyone else. There’s nothing wrong with thinking for yourself and having a different opinion than other people. The problem isn’t in our opinions, but our actions. Whenever I… realized that I cared about Hazel, I knew that Simon had a different opinion, but… my actions. I wanted so much to keep what I had with Simon, to keep our peace, to keep him happy, I hurt a little girl that thought I cared about her. I couldn’t take that back.”
“We were going to wheel you… Can… can we not take that back?” Lucy asked, worried.
“The good news is that I made it. I know how it feels to let down a friend and to hurt them, and I never want to make you feel that way. As long as we’re both still here, there is time to change, and time to talk it out. So, to answer your question, we can’t undo what we’ve already done, but we can use what we learn from what we did wrong to do better in the future.”
“But… Do you hate us? Doesn’t some part of you hate us, like Simon hated you when you betrayed him?” Lucy was now losing her tough exterior and clenching the book tightly.
Grace reached out and touched her shoulder. She loosened up and Grace took the book from her and tossed it aside to hold both of her hands.
“I could never hate you, Lucy. You and me, we’ve gone through something together that has forever changed us. I’m really glad that you have a better chance now.”
Lucy shook her head and started crying, “But, what if we had wheeled you? What if we had wheeled you like all of those nulls that we’ve wheeled, and now have to think about how wrong it was for us to do that to them? What if we had to think about that too? About having done it to you?”
“You didn’t! You didn’t!” Grace said, trying to calm her.
She reached for a hug, but Lucy resisted and shook her head. “I called you a void. I knew that it didn’t seem right, but I still listened to Simon. You should be throwing me to the wheels.”
Grace clasped her hands together and sputtered out a breath. “Nobody should be thrown to the wheels. Believe it or not, I wouldn’t have even wanted that for Simon. I loved him more than I can put into words. From the first time I saw that I needed to protect him, that’s… just what I did. It was nice, to be needed. It was nice to have someone see me and see the best,” Tears were in Grace’s eyes now, “And it was so hard to have him see me and see the worst. For a moment, I even thought that I deserved it. I thought, what I’m guessing you’re thinking, that because I did something to hurt him, maybe I had to do more to help him.”
“You told him a stupid lie and he tried to kill you. I feel like that’s an overreaction,” Lucy complained. “He failed us.”
“No, Lucy. We failed you. He’s just the one who didn’t live to fix it.”
“Shouldn’t all fall on you,” Lucy said and kicked Simon’s book off the table.
“And, it doesn’t. Remember, we’re doing this together. I can try to help you, but I can’t fix everything. But, you have me here and I’m telling you the truth when I say that you deserve to get to change. Everybody does.”
Grace shook her head and blinked away more stinging tears, “I can’t answer for Simon, but maybe a part of life continuing is not having an answer for everything. Maybe… we’ll all do our best to find answers that are good and sound, because we saw how… badly it could end… if we’re not willing to see any other ways but our own. I know I'm willing to give it my best shot." Lucy nodded her head and finally was ready for a hug. Grace squeezed her tightly, thinking of Hazel, but not wanting to equate Lucy and Hazel. They were both two very different little girls. She had regrets about Hazel, but she had also come to terms with that mentally. Maybe she would see her again, but probably not and she couldn’t equate every kid she knew with Hazel; just like she shouldn’t have equated every kid she met with a sad short boy in socks and sandals.
But, she was never going to stop loving either of them. That was just… How she was. People didn’t get close to her and the ones who had… Well, she was going to have to learn how to let other people get close too. It would take some of these kids a long time to trust this new evolution of hers, but most of them wanted to.
Lucy had wanted to. “Umm… Grace?”
“Yes, Lucy?”
“Can… you stop hugging me. It’s getting a little uncomfortable.” Grace quickly let go and placed her hand on the back of her neck, laughing. Lucy just smiled at her, almost like you would some poor silly fool. “Thank you for clearing it up,” Lucy said and picked up Simon’s book off of the floor. “On second thought, I don’t think we need this. I’m gonna wheel it,” Lucy said. Grace wanted to stop her, for sentimental reasons, but… None of the other kids touched Simon’s things. There would be something that she could hold on to, whenever she had the nerve to go in there. That book… it was probably filled with things that she never wanted to think about, with all the parts of Simon that she didn’t quite notice until she started changing.
“Lucy!” She called after her, realizing that she had never answered her question. The girl stopped, panicked for a moment, thinking that maybe she had done something wrong. “I changed. That’s how I betrayed him. I became a person that valued something more than I valued what we had, what we built.”
“But… you built something that was bad,” Lucy said. Grace nodded. “So, you changed into someone good.”
“I changed into someone who was thinking from a good place. I don’t know if I feel comfortable saying that I became good.”
“I feel comfortable saying it, because I have a different opinion than you, and that’s okay.” Grace smiled at Lucy as she trotted along to the door to get rid of the book. At least somebody believed that she was good.
I honestly can’t tell if I am ever gonna get back to this story to finish it. In an ideal world, I would because I love this character and the idea of this story, but I also haven’t had the time or energy, and I am very purposefully distanced from the fandom, with the exception of people I love. We shall see. In the meantime, I’m tagging this outline under my story concepts, because a b***h did work on creating it. My timestamp says September 8, 2020 Five Months Ago. 😭😭😭
This is dedicated to the growth and wellness of Grace Monroe. I hadn’t seen much fic content for where Grace may go next that wasn’t centered around “fixing” the series. I don’t feel like it needs fixing, but just wanted to venture where I’d love to see Grace go and be as she works on things after we last see her in Book 3. So, everything that was canon precedes this story that I’ve began for my beloved baby girl @pearlseleganciess and my sister @andromidagalaxie (I cannot tag you sis, I don’t understand why, so I’m sorry, but this goes out to you). And to @i-am-a-passenger My rock in this fandom. Love you, Boo!
Another person shouldn’t have the power to be able to control every aspect of your life. In fact, some power and responsibility granted to someone else in your life should be a sign of trust and appreciation, not force or obligation…
Grace collected all of the self help and self love books she could from the mall bookstore. It was a section that they rarely went to, the bookstore, a place that they never defiled. She glanced at the sci-fi and fantasy sections… they weren’t empty, but Simon had taken a lot of those to his personal quarters.
She realized that Simon would always occupy some space in her heart and in her mind, but the fact that he could still occupy space in her life was troubling her. She just wanted to get over him and what he’d done… But that would also come with having to face what he did, to look at it all and really think about it. That could destroy every semblance of dignity that she believed their friendship was based on. That could rob her of even the fond memories that she knew would never return.
But, she saw his absence in the book store, where all the spaces were in that section, where all of the journals from the journal rack were all but gone, where the section that had fanfare like models of famous spaceships or bobble heads from certain fandoms had spaces (which very well could have been taken by any number of the kids in the Mall Car, but she thought of Simon and his fanboy things. She thought of his passion for writing and his knack for constructing figures. She thought about the times when she would be reading a book and came to him and wondered, “What’s this word mean?” and how he would either know and give her a hard time, or not know and immediately consult a nearby thesaurus or dictionary. She saw his absence everywhere.
She headed back to her quarters, glanced at the photo booth as she passed, the photos of their kiss now serving as a bookmark for her to figure out how to figure out herself. How do you not know you? You’ve literally been with you since your conception. “I was distracted. By everybody’s expectations of me and by my need to be exalted as the best. Didn’t even matter what I was the best at, as long as I was the best.”
“Looks like you win again,” she heard Simon’s voice say in a memory. She shook her head. She hadn’t won anything in a long time. Maybe she could win some peace of mind if she went through enough of these books. All quotes and motivational “insights,” health advice, and spiritual tips.
The kids were still coming to her for advice on matters. “You are actually older than I was whenever I got here,” she told Shadow. Shadow wasn’t her real name. Couldn’t have been. But, it was the name that she told Grace and Simon that she wanted to be called, and she absolutely lived up to the name, as she seemed to trace Grace’s every move, copy her style, and emulate her. It was cute, to Grace. Having a mini her. She had plenty of kids that looked up to her, even Simon did, at some point. But, now that the Apex was over, and they hadn’t quite figured out what to do next, they still turned to Grace for their step by step and day to day… several of them, anyway. Shadow, definitely.
She was one of the ones who witnessed what happened. One of the ones who endured such a terrible sight as the gruesome fate of Simon. One of the ones to not mourn him herself, but to be very sympathetic to Grace for her loss. One of the ones that she may or may not have instantly grief bonded too as they were nice to her for the first time since she messed up, in the midst of her saying goodbye to not only her first, but her oldest friend… who had become her most determined enemy… There were many mixed emotions with what happened to him, but Grace appreciated the kids that were there for her. She appreciated Shadow, she really did… But she also wanted her to give her some space.
Grace was startled when the girl was waiting for her, for “morning yoga class,” and she didn’t regret to inform her, “It isn’t a class… It’s just me trying to start doing yoga, and you tagging along and doing what you see me doing.”
“I grabbed a yoga book from the bookstore to help me get better at my poses and teach me about meditation,” she said, not at all taking the hint that Grace wasn’t in the mood. Yoga was supposed to be some time to herself, but she also couldn’t just tell her to go away. The way that she had snapped at Simon at the cabin and the way it hurt him… the end of the beginning, she was pretty sure of it… She couldn’t risk shoving Shadow to her downfall, just because she was doing what she had been commended and appreciated for doing previously… though… before, they weren’t close. She definitely gave her more space before, but there was more structure back then, too.
There were rules, regulations, guidelines, laws, ordinances, whatever else in the big book of the Apex. They learned what to do and they did it and to not do it meant consequences. Nothing dire in her day - maybe not being able to go on the next raid or being responsible for some chore or something. But, Grace wasn’t positive what Simon had put these kids through without her there.
She knew that they had seemed unhappy when she next saw them, that the ones who were obediently trying to shove her off of the train and she begged for her life were just as confused as she had been when she and Simon began all of this. Confidence didn’t always mean certainty, and the guilt that she could see on those kids was as thick as the sorrow she saw whenever she returned to see Simon on her throne.
Shadow had been watching her and wanting to be her since her first day in the Apex. Seeing somebody that looked like her in charge, commanding, and carefree… 3 fun years of duty, then one day Simon returned without her, told them that she had betrayed them all, that she was unfit to lead, threw off his hoodie and revealed the most numbers any of them had seen, even on Grace. Some of them mourned her right then and there. Simon didn’t like that.
He explained to them that Grace was no longer like them. She no longer believed in the Apex. She no longer believed in the Conductor. She wasn’t to be mourned and she wasn’t to be missed. She was worse than a null, because they were created for worthless futures. But Grace? She had been given a chance by the Conductor. She had been given status and respect and honor, only to turn on all of their values. To call her a null would be an insult to nulls. She deserved nothing but to be blotted out, voided.
“She’s a void. THE void. Not even human anymore. Its number is low and its spirit is lost. The void is an unfit leader, a danger to us all!” Shadow couldn’t stop crying. This still sounded very sad to her. Simon cupped her chin and said, “Don’t worry. You won’t be punished for emulating it. None of us knew, but now that we know what the void is, we know what the Apex will do, what we MUST do.” He dropped his hand and smirked. “If it ever infiltrates the car again, we wheel it.”
The children all gasped. “You’re… you’re talking about Grace…” Lucy said.
“IT IS THE VOID!” He roared. Lucy and Todd both jumped and clutched each other. Simon pointed to Shadow, “Bring me the procedures. We have to quickly establish who is faithful to the Apex, and who is faithful to the void.” He looked at Lucy.
“I am Apex!” she said.
“And what is the void?” He asked.
“It’s… not Grace… It looks like Grace?” She felt ashamed that she was feeling sympathy for the void. Simon had just explained that it wasn’t Grace anymore. But, if it still looked like Grace, the person who had held her crying when she put her eye out with the harpoon pack while Simon tried to tend to the injury. Ultimately… she just lost the eye and it was Grace who had told her that she still was a whole person and one of her favorite kids. “That eye was important, but the most important thing is that you’re alive and safe and still one of the greatest kids here.” But… Lucy didn’t dare let Simon see her cry over Grace, not after how he had just gotten angry.
“If you see the traitor we used to know as Grace, it is now the void and only to be acknowledged as the void. What is a void, Apex?”
“A leader who is no longer fit to lead?” Lucy said, trying to fix her last mistake by mimicking what she remembered Simon saying before.
“And a danger to us all,” he completed as Shadow returned with his book for him to write in. “Again. What is a void?”
Now, multiple kids said, more confidently, “A leader who is no longer fit to lead. A danger to us all.” He continued writing and getting them to repeat it, until he was satisfied. “And how do we deal with voids?”
“We wheel them?” Todd asked, recalling what Simon said.
“Again!” Simon called.
“We wheel them! We wheel them!” Many of the children began to chant, as was their way. Shadow, Todd, Lucy, Lindsay and Alex looked at each other, Alex noticed Simon looking at them and immediately joined in. Reluctantly, Lindsay and Todd did too.
Simon gave the signal for everyone to stop, a quick cut of his hand across his throat and they did. He put a hand on Lucy’s back and one on Shadow’s, then called five boys’ names and began to walk the girls to the door. Shadow was panicked. She didn’t know what this meant. Simon lead the six kids outside and shut the door behind them.
In a calm voice, he asked, “What is a void, Lucy?”
“A leader who is unfit to lead. A danger to us all.”
“And how do we deal with voids?”
“We wheel them.”
“Good. So, you understood. You didn’t join the Apex when I asked.”
“It won’t happen again, Simon.”
“I have a special job for you. You’ll keep watch for the void. If it comes back, it may be injured or sick. It may try to convince you to be kind to it. Don’t be deceived, Lucy. The void is dangerous. Don’t let it near you and don’t listen to it. The Apex will back you up and we will wheel it, as a collective.”
Lucy nodded her head, “Understood, Simon.” He talked to the boys, too, giving them each assignments - sounding the alarm whenever the void arrived, taking the yokes to carry his throne… Shadow was more and more confused and troubled as it came down to her and Simon.
“Shadow, what is a void?” He didn’t sound as chill as he had with the others. More like cold. It sent shivers down her spine.
“A leader who is unfit to lead. A danger to us all.”
“And how do we deal with voids?”
She sighed and put her head down, “We wheel them.”
Simon smirked and then leaned forward to touch her shoulder. “It took you awhile today. Don’t let that happen again. I can’t leave room for another traitor. If you can’t keep your allegiance to the Apex, you will become familiar with the wheels.” He pointed towards the wheels and she gasped. “The Apex has but one leader now and if you can’t accept that, all traitors will be thrown off of the train.”
“I understand, Simon.” He put her on spotlight duty and she didn’t think that she would ever smile again.
She had been about to throw Grace off of the train. She had been about to kill her idol… She couldn’t take it back, but she poured herself into respecting Grace again as a person. Not the void, not a traitor. But, she felt like Grace didn’t like her anymore. Like… she was tired of her. Probably angry because she was going to push her off of the train..
“Grace…” Grace let out a very frustrated groan and wiped her face with her hands. Shadow frowned and shut up.
Grace tried to continue yoga, but the nagging that she had possibly just shut this girl down was getting to her. “What is it, Shadow?” She asked, trying not to sound annoyed.
“I just wanted to say that I didn’t just go along with it. Simon took me outside of the car. He threatened to wheel me if I didn’t agree with him about you. I was really scared that he was going to do it. I didn’t really want to kill you, even though I tried to.”
Grace sighed again, this time a little less annoyed. An understanding sigh, if that’s a thing. “I know. All of you were under pressure. I know that it was hard for all of you. Simon was sometimes hard for me too, and especially in the end. I can’t make heads or tails about how I feel about him from one day to the next. So, I understand that. But, I’m just trying to move on with my life. I just want to be able to get to the next step without harping on that, but whenever I’m trying, someone is always there. I love your company. I just want to be able to have an hour of time where someone isn’t looking to me for anything!” Grace realized that her voice was loud. She sighed again, “I want a moment to relax. Talking about who tried to kill me and why is not relaxing for me.”
“It’s just that, I know how afraid you must have been out there with him… and I know that I helped. I know how afraid I was with him, but I still helped.”
“Are you asking for forgiveness, Shadow? Because, I thought I made it clear to all of you that I don’t blame anybody for being tricked by Simon. How can I be mad at you for following someone that I recruited you to follow? We were a team. You did exactly what we taught you to do - listen to the leader and trust their judgment. I wouldn’t fault you for that. What I am faulting you for is the fact that I haven’t been able to have one session of yoga and meditation without you all up in my aura.” They both laughed a little.
Grace crawled over to her and wrapped an arm around her, “Seriously, you can’t just depend on me to give you what you’re looking for. You have to be able to forgive yourself for things that you don’t understand why you did. You have to be willing to ask yourself why and explain it to yourself to correct yourself. Never look to somebody else, not even me.”
Shadow smiled and said, “I just needed you to know the truth. I just needed to clear the air.”
Grace smiled, “It’s clear. It’s clean and clear and pure, okay?” Shadow smiled and then noticed her number changing.
She looked at her hand and gasped whenever it turned into a zero. Grace looked at the door that appeared and quickly got up to help Shadow off of her mat. Shadow looked excited for a moment then frowned, “Why me? There’s other kids more deserving of their door…”
“You did all that you needed to do!” Grace cheered. “And you didn’t have to model after somebody else to do it. You just had to be clear and honest and willing to accept the truth. I’m very proud of you.” Shadow opened her door and saw her family, still putting up posters and handing out fliers, three years later. Her eyes welled with tears. She hadn’t thought that they would even miss her, but there they were, still looking…
“Grace… My name was Sunny,” Shadow said. “Is Sunny, like the song. You should listen to it. It’s perfectly fitting for you.” She went through the doorway and Grace watched it all go. She felt her own number move and she looked down. It had gone up? She sighed and flopped back down on her mat. She knew that song, but not the lyrics. Just the melody. It was back to the bookshop, she guessed. There was a little music section and she could probably find that old song in there.
.
*Sunny plays in the background*
It was her go to yoga song, now. She kinda missed having Shadow around, despite how irritating it had been her last days there. Grace passed by Lucy and Lindsay, sitting on the floor looking at each other and giving affirmations. “
Lucy: When I look at you, I see me.
Lindsay: When I look at me, I see you…
Grace smiled, but kept going, grounding mat beneath her arm, water jug in her hand and a bag on her arm. Alex and Todd ran by her, both swerved to miss her.
Todd: By, Grace, we’re gonna go check out this go kart car that Mandy told us about!
Grace: Have fun!
Alex: We’ll bring you something back!
Grace: No need!
That kid was terrible at tributes when it was a thing. She set up her yoga space and looked at the empty place where Sunny would have been. It didn’t feel the same without the kid, but she also didn’t have that stress of her watching so intently either. She was finally able to actually relax as she went through this new little ritual. Afterwards, she did feel better. The other kids didn’t bother her the entire time, though whenever she finished, Lindsay and Lucy were there to each grab one of her hands and drag her to some place.
It was the signature wall. Apex kids would tag their names onto it and it became a mural of sorts. Grace had seen the wall before and guessed that they were about to show her some new art or something, when she noticed that the taller kids had sprayed over the red “Down with the False Conductor” that had been sprawled across the top, with curvy block letters that read “We Made It Out.” Lucy pointed to a four picture set from the photo booth of Sunny, posing like Grace used to in the mirror, with shoulders out and lips puckered, one of her looking thoughtful, one silly face and one simply smiling. It had “Shadow” written in marker on the slit of white just before the last one. Grace told Lucy, “Gimme a marker.” Lucy still had it and handed it over. Grace drew a line through Shadow and above it wrote “Sunny.” She and the girls smiled at each other.
“It’s a new tradition,” Lucy said. “We came up with it ourselves, without asking you.”
“I love it… Do… we have pictures from the photo booth of everybody?”
“Yep. They were in Simon’s ledger.” Lucy reached into her fanny pack to pull out hers, “We took them for his records. Our skills and weaknesses are on the backs. But me and Lindsay decided to use them for good stuff.” She showed Grace her own photo set, in which she still had two good eyes and flipped it over where she had a list of strengths and under weaknesses: Literally put her own eye out. Grace growled. “My sentiment exactly,” Lucy said.
“Look at you, Luce! If this place was going to continue, you’d be running the joint next.”
Lucy took Lindsay’s hand and pulled her forward. “Didn’t do it on my own.”
“And Lindsay. You’ve always been the silent but strong type.” Lindsay shrugged her shoulders and made an uh uh sound. Then she and Lucy exchanged looks. “What?”
“Well… We know that you’re probably gonna be the last one out, but just in case… There’s no photos of you. We want you on the wall one day too. But, Simon destroyed all of your pictures when he voided you. Can you take a set, and put it on the wall whenever your number drops?”
What if she was nowhere near the wall when she reached zero? What if she never reached zero? “I’ll try,” she said.
They dragged her to the photo booth to take her pictures and the first one was a big, fake smile, the second was a slightly faded one, the third a frown and the last she was starting to cry. She snatched it from the slit and sat down. “Maybe I’ll try another day.”
Lindsay took the photos and the magic from Grace and began to write on the back.
Strengths: Takes responsibility for her mistakes. Good feelings. Big heart. Leadership skills. Makes people happy...Grace was sniffling as she read along with Lindsay writing. She was scared to get to the weaknesses, but Lindsay capped the marker instead of writing any. “What, no weaknesses?”
“Plenty. But, that’s because you’re human and not an asset, like Simon saw us as.” She and Lucy fist bumped, and Lucy handed Grace the photos. “We’re gonna go check out that go kart car too, actually.”
“We won’t bother to bring you anything back.”
“Good!” Grace said. She looked at the photos and sighed, got back into the booth, wiping her eyes. The first one, she still looked sad, the next she tried to fix her expression, the third a smile started and the last, she had a bright smile with slightly damp eyes. She pulled them out. “I’ll get there. I’ll make it out.”
Grace had to write something down. There were kids who had left the Mall Car, confident in their own abilities to take whatever journey that lies ahead of them, some who were still processing in their private areas, and some who were out and about, just enjoying life at the moment, but Grace needed writing supplies, as she realized that there were several things she needed to write down.
She wasn’t the list maker. She didn’t take notes of inventory to determine when they needed to go on a raid. She didn’t record number changes of the highest ranked Apex members. She didn’t even make a roster of the kids. Simon made the lists.
He was very big on the fact that details needed to be written down and plans needed to be described. Relying on your mind was tricky. Only do that for the unimportant things, but keep a record of the things that matter, the things that will make a difference, the things that you would need to remember later.
She’d just shrugged her shoulders at the time of his impassioned lecture and told him, “Write whatever you want.” (Boy, did he take THAT advice and run with it).
Before she knew it, they had codes, procedures, laws… stuff that she was definitely gonna listen to him when he ranted about it, but she’d likely not memorize them. They were important or whatever, but… Simon knew them all and she always had Simon, so learning all of them seemed repetitive and unnecessary to her. Fun fact: She could repeat just about everything he said in that little rant before she cut him off by giving him the permission to start records that he seemed to be requesting by making her listen to his very strong opinions about writing things down. She could even remember exactly what he said whenever she gave it to him. “Way ahead of you. I’ve been keeping record of everything important. I just don’t like to take credit for my great ideas.” She smiled to herself as she repeated his words under her breath, his voice saying it in unison with her, in the back of her mind. Her smile faded as the memory did.
But, this was important… and she realized that she didn’t have a single thing to write with. She rarely came into the throne room after everything. It felt… bad. Plus, Simon or maybe the kids at his behest, had gone in there with lipstick and written in big red letters “VOID” on everything that was specifically hers… everything she guessed that Simon didn’t want after he overthrew her.
There were a few things that were salvaged, and in the drawer. Must have been saved in one of his short moments of clarity during that time. There were torn up photos of them from the photo booth, some with her face scratched out of it, or with her cut out of it, some with VOID etched across her Apex symbol, some burned… But, there was one that was them in the photo booth, about 14 years old or so. They had kissed, and it captured 4 photos of the moment - the kiss, her breaking it, her laughing and him turning away, blushing… She stared at it for a while, noting things that she didn’t remember noticing that day. The look on his face when they kissed, the way he looked at her while she was in the midst of a laughing fit, the way he looked embarrassed about it…
When she remembered that day, she remembered it as a fun little experiment that they both agreed had been a hilarious mistake. The photos didn’t seem to tell that story at all. That was something that she was coming to learn about Simon and her… They never quite had the same story in their minds. They simply went with whatever each other said about a story. They were really cozy in their bed of lies. She wondered why he wouldn’t have destroyed this one. This record of what she figured now was probably painful for him. This evidence of her wronging him yet again… Oh. Maybe that was why. It could remind him that he couldn’t trust her, that he didn’t love her anymore. She blinked away tears and placed it into a pocket inside the satchel that she brought along with her to collect valuables, before attempting to get things cleaned out of their chambers.
The entire mall needed a cleansing, but she didn’t just want to tear everything away and start from scratch. They rescued, fixed, and freed any denizens that they could that hadn’t been wheeled. They paid respects to the ones that they couldn’t save and all of the others that they could remember wheeling, and now, they were salvaging. The kids who stayed were all getting all of their things that they couldn’t live without while here and trashing whatever they could live without (or things that made them think of things that they didn’t want to think of). Grace had something important to write down, but figured she’d bring a bag for gathering, in the meantime. There weren’t much to salvage of what she had left. Simon made sure of it.
The throne was still in one piece, still resting at the bottom of the escalator, like a memorial to Simon, as the last person to reign on it… a jar of what he left behind was placed on it. Lucy said she didn’t put it there and tried to wheel it, but Grace had asked her to leave them. “That’s probably where Simon would have wanted them to be kept.” Lucy shrugged and set them back down. As far as she knew, nobody had touched them since.
And because grief was a confusing and hard thing, the kids that might be too embarrassed to speak about how they were handling no longer having Simon, or having to see what happened to him were given a way to pay respects to him through this display and the confidence to do so, because Grace didn’t erase him, even though, technically, according to his own laws, Simon was a “void.” But, she still found herself in his room, clutching the very coat that he used to distract her enough to try to kill her. It smelled like him, and she hated how used she was to that scent, but, it was something in her memory that she knew would eventually fade.
Like her mother’s. She’d often go into her mother’s boudoir and admire all of the things that made the woman the art that she was whenever she went out into the world. But her favorite thing used to be grabbing her night robe and draping it across herself. It was a little like a hug from someone that she knew she might not get another one from. They didn’t hug very much. Sometimes for photos and publicity gatherings. So, hugging herself in a robe scented like her mother was her secret joy and imprinted into her mind…
But, some time ago, whenever she thought about it… she realized that her brain couldn’t conjure up as many details. Like how the material felt against her skin. She recalled thinking when she was young that it felt like fuzzy towels swaddling her, but she couldn’t remember that feeling in her body. She couldn’t remember if it was peach colored, off white, or pink, later on. And eventually, she couldn’t recall the exact smell of her. She had wanted so badly to hold on to it, but it was gone. She would hold on to Simon’s for however long she could.
“Aha!” She said, finding a drawer full of pens and notebooks. Most of them were written in. Stories, journals, poetry, notes, procedures… Some had drawings. Characters, blueprints, battle plans… One of them had her name on the front and she pulled it out and opened it. “If I should fall before you do, this is a collection of the things that I wanted to say to you but never had the nerve…” She shut it. That seemed… highly personal and given how he felt by the time he… acted out… She doubted that anything that he wrote in that thing still applied.
For all she knew, it had been buried in the bottom of this drawer for years. Still, she tucked it into her satchel. She took a few of the other ones too… Then eventually put all of them inside. She collected every notebook that Simon had in his room, and all of his pens, too. She stared at shelves of his figures, at the bed that was made with military-like accuracy, pretty much as soon as he got up out of it… She could tell that he hadn’t been sleeping in there during his last days. Probably was in the throne room.
She sat down on the foot of the bed and opened an empty notebook. She clicked a pen and took her own advice. Write whatever you want… She set the satchel down, because she was feeling heavy enough, and started, even though she had no idea how you start something like this. She decided on, “Simon Laurent’s Eulogy…”
A/N: I do not plan on writing Simon’s Eulogy for Grace, so that will not be the next chapter, though the eulogy may be mentioned in later installments. Though this chapter was highly centered around Simon, the story isn’t and his appearances are in relation to her memories and her feelings about him.
