Summary: Mia hasn't heard from Jacob and makes a plan to travel back to Forks to check on him. Alice sees a blip of a vision before Mia can get away and the ensuing tension brings Jasper and Mia to the brink as Jasper feels the need to protect his mate.
Characters: Jasper Hale & Mia Cullen (OC)
Request (from anon): 80 - Jasper and Mia? (A/N - so so sorry for taking almost 2 years to write this! Are you still here?)
Content Warnings: Angst!
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Mia made herself scarce following the outburst, not a particularly difficult thing to do. She found it easy enough to be on her own now. It had been that way ever since the family left Forks, but it was especially true while Carlisle and Esme were away for the week, leaving only Jasper, Alice, and Mia at the house in Ithaca.
Mia was never truly alone. She knew there was always someone nearby, but the house never seemed as full as it once had. For months, Edward had been off somewhere on his own. And now, Emmett and Rosalie had gone off as well. These days, it didn’t feel like someone was always looking over her shoulder, but she should’ve known better. She should’ve known Alice would be looking.
Mia had tried to be civil, sensing that Jasper wouldn’t tolerate anything less even if Mia was entitled to her emotions. If it was anyone else Mia was treating this way, Jasper may have supported it, but since it was Alice, his mate, Jasper was more protective and less open to tolerating Mia’s behavior.
And Mia didn’t want to go there anyway so she’d been avoiding and ignoring them both to the greatest extent possible. Had Carlisle and Esme been reachable through cell phone, she was certain her father would have been able to talk her around, but seeing as her parents were away from cell service and none of them were interested in disturbing their first solo vacation in years anyway, Mia’s emotions were still unchecked, unprocessed.
And they’d been that way for days. It was easier to let them simmer while keeping distance from Alice and Jasper. She went to school and when the final bell rang, she walked a little over a mile downtown to Ithaca’s public library. It was there she stayed until they closed at 8 pm. She would ride back home with Jasper when he finished his class at Cornell and she would keep her earbuds firmly in place for the whole ride. Then Mia went straight to bed when they arrived home. It had worked all week, but today was Friday. The library closed at 5 pm on Fridays and Jasper didn’t have class.
Mia had known it was coming, felt it rising in her from the moment she woke up with the sun to prepare for school. She knew she wouldn’t be able to justify shutting herself away in her bedroom until Monday morning, and anyway, she’d sensed that Alice was becoming impatient with the tension between them—her sister was hurt.
So while Mia had been anticipating Alice’s attempts at reconciliation while she sat through her classes at school, she wasn’t ready for them. She didn’t want it. Not yet. Mia was still too angry, too hurt. The betrayal and control and resentment was still too strong—too confused. Jasper had been the one to pick her up from school, a small kindness, and she’d passed a few hours alone in her room, but then it was dinner. Mia had to eat. Alice had approached her then, refusing to relent, refusing to let Mia simply go back to her bedroom with her dinner in peace.
Mia had released it all on her sister then.
She’d slammed her bowl of pasta down in the sink, sauce and vegetables splattering the counter as Mia released the words she’d been holding for days. She saw the hurt in her sister’s eyes as she spoke. Somewhere deep down, Mia felt a twinge of guilt, but another part of her felt a twinge of satisfaction at Alice’s pain. It was terrible, she knew, but Mia couldn’t imagine that Alice’s hurt amassed to anything close to her own.
As soon as the words were out of her, Mia left through the back door, her hunger forgotten, adrenaline pushing her through the forest behind their house. She hadn’t noticed Jasper’s presence until he grasped her arm and pulled her to a sudden stop, turning her toward him on the muddy path.
“What was that?” Jasper asked, his accent slipping through and betraying the last veils of calm he was trying to display.
Mia tried to shake her arm free. “She was the one who wanted to talk. That’s all I have to say to her.”
“You had no right to speak to her like—”
“I had no right? She had no right to do what she did!” Mia scoffed. “And you have no right to come after me now. This has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and Alice so why don’t you fuck off—”
“You need to calm down or—”
“Or what? You’re going to call dad and tell on me?” she asked, ending the question with a laugh. “Go ahead. Do what you want. I don’t fucking care.”
“You will control your anger or you’ll have me to worry about,” Jasper said. “You are allowed to be angry for not getting your way, but I will not allow you to lash out at—”
“You think this is anger?” she asked.
Maybe it seemed that way, but Mia knew herself well enough to know that it was a front or at least just a small piece of it. She wasn’t just angry—she was hurting and she was afraid…and the fact that Jasper couldn’t see that, couldn’t see past the anger or the fact that it was directed at Alice, for long enough to actually see and hear his sister…that fact compounded the hurt more than she cared to admit.
Maybe her father would have understood. He probably would have sided with Alice and Jasper about the need to keep her away from the life they’d left in Forks—it wasn’t safe for any of them to return—but he would have at least understood. And if he hadn’t understood right away, her father would have listened. He would’ve tried to understand her point of view, the way she was feeling.
Sure, Jasper could sense emotions. He could read and manipulate them without thinking, but Mia realized that those powers didn’t mean her brother could empathize. And missing Jacob…missing the life they’d all built in Forks…that wasn’t something that Jasper understood. It wasn’t a loss he felt. Sometimes, he could be drawn toward empathy by Alice, by the things she cared about, but that wouldn’t work this time.
Alice could be the kindest, most giving creature on the earth. Mia knew that, but her sister could also be hateful and othering when it suited her. While Alice loved Bella, it was no secret that she didn’t approve of Jacob Black. Alice didn’t care that Jacob wasn’t responding to Mia’s calls. She didn’t care that there was clearly something wrong. All she cared about was stopping the connection, stopping Mia from going back to Forks.
Maybe Mia should have been worried about those things. Maybe she shouldn’t have been contacting JAcob in the first place, but he was the first friend she’d ever really had, the first real connection outside of her family, the first person she’d ever truly shared a part of herself with who wasn’t a Cullen.
And no sooner had the connection been formed then they were pulling her away from Forks, away from that life and into a new one. And they just expected her to leave it all behind? To just forget about Jacob and Bella? The closest bonds she’d ever made outside of their family?
Mia could feel the emotion swelling within her, a lump burning in her throat as she worked to hold it all back and control her breathing as it grew more and more shallow, the thoughts in her mind swirling—blame and worry, longing and hurt—all of it begging for another release, though the anger would have to come out first.
Even if Jasper hadn’t seen the emotion sowed into his sister’s features, it rolled off of Mia in waves, the intensity of it cracking through the fortifications she always worked so hard to maintain. She had trained for years to control herself, but the training was failing now. It was too much, too strong.
“Mia, I need you to calm—” Jasper started.
Everything coming off of Mia crashed into Jasper, stopping his appeal. It overtook him, eliciting not a rush of sympathy for his sister’s intense emotions, but inciting fortification of the defense that had been mounting from the moment she blew up at Alice.
Mia could feel it—Jasper forcing his calm on her—the leading edge of it merging with that of her own emotions, both of them fighting for control, fighting to gain a bit of traction. A part of Mia wanted to let it in, to let her brother win, to let the all-consuming anger fall away while Jasper’s forced serenity cooled her off. It would have been easier to accept that, easier to pretend that nothing else mattered. It would have been easier to let it go, but she couldn’t.
Mia knew she would only regret it. She would only grow to be filled with a certain resentment, a starving painful curiosity that would stay with her—growing, living, and breathing within her like a living thing, begging for a fill she could never satisfy on her own. She needed answers. And she needed freedom. She needed to be in control of her future. And she needed to know she could trust her sister to not constantly interfere.
“Let me go!” Mia snapped as Jasper’s hand finally caught her arm, her sudden words accompanied by a strengthening of her protective walls. It pushed Jasper’s reaching influence out of her mind, blocking him completely. All of the rage she’d been allowing to spill out pulled back and Jasper suddenly felt nothing but his own attempts to soothe her, to dilute her.
All Mia felt was deeply alone. Edward gone. Emmett and Rose gone. Her parents away. Jacob and Bella as good as dead.
And all Mia wanted was to see Jacob or hear him, to know that he was okay. Maybe that would give her the confidence to believe everything would turn out alright, but it was impossible. There was no chance of contact. The realization had Mia sinking to the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees as she pulled them to her chest. Sobs wracked Mia’s body as she sat there on the muddy forest floor, barely aware that Jasper was still there, consciously trying to find a way in, an apology on the tip of his tongue.
Summary: 1916 in the Little Lady Blinderverse. It was an accident, Clara and Finn didn't mean to knock over Aunt Polly's picture. They didn't mean to shatter the picture frame on the hardwood, but accidents happen. And they happen at inopportune times. Left to sort her feelings on her own, Clara decides she's disappointed her aunt too much and it's almost too much for the little girl to bear.
Characters: Finn Shelby, Polly Gray, Clara Shelby, mentions of the other Shelby brothers, mentions of Michael and Anna.
Content Warning: General Angst, Guilt, Grief/Loss, Child Welfare System Trauma, Lack of proofreading.
Request (by anon): A18 polly with Clara and Finn? Maybe they knock something over when playing before the war and Clara gets upset by it x
Here’s the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there.
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Please take a moment to tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️
Clara stopped the pursuit of her brother, pausing on the cushion of the settee she wasn’t meant to be standing on in the first place. The throw pillow in her hand fell heavily to her side though she’d been poised to whop Finn’s head with it just a short moment before.
It would have been a good bit of revenge since Finn had just finished doing the same to her, but Clara stopped herself before she could accomplish the task. Suddenly, the wrongness of the whole thing settled within her, a wave of fear and guilt rushing through her. A wave of admonishment ran through her too though she didn’t direct her blame at the brother who started it. She directed it only on herself because despite only being a child, Clara Shelby had always had the sense after doing something wrong that she should have known better. She should have done better, done as expected.
Finn’s attack hadn’t set the pictures on the side table to a precarious wobble. No, that had been entirely Clara’s doing, her chosen weapon hitting the lot of them as she climbed over the arm of the chair and grabbed hold of Finn’s ankle, sending him face-first into the cushions they’d been told over and over again were meant for sitting in—not climbing over and jumping on.
And even if it had been Finn who started it…if the situation was different…if it was Finn’s hand that inspired ruin and destruction in the front parlor rather than Clara’s, that sort of behavior would have been expected from him in a way it wasn’t from his twin sister. It wasn’t any matter of the twins being treated differently in the wake of misbehavior as it was Clara picking up on some sort of nuance people always assume kids don’t pick up on.
Clara was so often praised for being good and clever and sweet, and there was some part of her terrified of what would happen if she were to turn out something else. They already had Finn to be silly and loud and rough. And Clara was meant to be a help to Aunt Polly, especially with the boys gone.
Clara watched the frames fall from the ledge. She caught just a short glimpse of them mid-air before a few of the framed portraits shattered against the hardwood, the sound of it making Finn freeze and fall silent, his head turning back towards Clara though he’d been giggling wildly and keen to get away from her.
Clara still had ahold of her brother’s ankle. Rather than letting him go, Clara gripped Finn’s ankle tighter still, her little knuckles growing white as silence blanketed the room, suspending them all there, prolonging the moment’s temporary serenity, and safety. The twins waited to see if the whole thing would simply pass, becoming the sort of memory they’d laugh about one day, or more likely, forget entirely. They waited to learn if they would get through the moment unscathed, their misbehavior hidden away before they were ever found out.
It was Clara’s fault, but it was both of them who would be paying for the sin if someone came to check on the noise. When the twins played together, their fates were tied, and whatever the repercussions, Clara and Finn faced them together. It was rarely a matter of blame being placed on one child or the other, but that didn’t mean either one of them was above trying to get out of it or trying to save themselves, so they both straightened up and sat facing forward on the settee at the sound of the approaching footsteps breaking through the self-imposed quiet.
It was Polly who had come to find out about the commotion. Clara peeked over the back of the couch. She had been hoping for Ada and her eyes were already growing damp even though her aunt hadn’t acknowledged them.
Polly’s gaze was trained on the bits of broken glass and the metal frame which had come apart in two. The twins rose slowly to their knees, leaning over the back of the couch to observe their aunt as she lowered herself to the floor, brushing aside the broken glass before smoothing out the edges of a particularly well-loved photograph.
Clara knew the picture by heart. She knew them all well enough to imagine each subject in her mind’s eye—this one, a photograph of Aunt Polly, a few years younger with a toddler and a baby settled in her arms—Michael and Anna—the cousins Clara knew of but had never known.
“Aunt Polly,” Clara started, unable to keep quiet any longer, the need to explain and apologize practically spilling out of her, “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to—”
Polly glanced at Clara then, finally pulling her gaze from the photo as she clutched it to her chest. Polly didn’t have it in her to respond to the girl, though the look on her face communicated more than enough to the child, making Clara swallow down the rest of her words and the lump in her throat.
“Really, Aunt Polly, we...”
Finn’s attempt fizzled out as Polly stood without offering a response. It was more she could bear at the moment, dealing with the twins, dealing with their excuses or their hurt. Polly wasn’t even quite aware of it, some sort of all-consuming link formed between her and the ravaged photograph, between Polly and the children who were now irretrievable. Even if she were to ever again find them, Michael and Anna wouldn’t be the children in the photograph, not any longer. Polly gripped the photograph with tight fingers, afraid that by being exposed to the smoke and grit of Small Heath, the image would be stolen from her—dissolved into the ether just as her children had done. She walked out onto the lane, the door to number six banging shut in her wake.
Finn heaved a sigh when Polly took her leave. He seemed pleased enough with the outcome, but Clara took little comfort in the fact that they’d not received a smack or an assignment to the nearest corner for their behavior. Some part of Clara felt she almost might have preferred that. Somehow that seemed less cruel than leaving her to her own condemning mind.
Finn let himself off the hook once the glass and metal bits were collected. He readily went back to playing pretend as if the whole thing hadn’t happened, scurrying off to cavort out on the lane with whoever was nearby when Clara proved to be a less than eager playmate.
—
Less than an hour later, Clara sat on Tommy’s bed with her box of treasures and a pile of other special things she’d collected from her own bedroom, the trinkets she liked to have on display or to use with a certain regularity or the ones too big for her little box—a scruffy, well-loved teddy that had been Polly’s when she was young. Ribbons that had once been tied in a younger Polly’s hair, and then Ada’s and Anna’s. Seeing it all in one place, Clara was almost surprised by the size of the pile of little trinkets her aunt had gifted her over the years, all of it steeped in history and love, the weight of her guilt when she considered all Polly had given her nearly too much to bear.
With great care, Clara organized the items on the bed along with the frame she’d emptied of her own photo. Her brothers had been away for nearly two years now, but she spoke to their picture daily. She studied their faces more often than she studied her own. Clara usually kept the framed photograph of the boys in their uniforms on the table beside her bed, allowing her to say good morning and good night to the boys every day, to feel close to them when they were so far, but she didn’t need to keep them in a frame. Not when she’d wrecked Polly’s.
Clara sifted through the contents of her treasure box searching for her aunt’s locket. It was stashed safely beside the items her brothers had left behind nearly two years before—John’s deck of playing cards, Arthur’s folded sketches, and Tommy’s silver pocket watch—some of her most precious possessions lent from her favorite people. She was meant to look over their things, to keep them safe until their return. Clara wished for her brothers now. She longed for their hugs and their smiles. She wished for something more than Tommy’s empty bedroom which was steadily filling up with Clara’s guilt, some part of her certain she deserved to feel this way, deserved to be alone and drowning in it. Clara felt no doubt that she deserved her aunt’s disappointment.
She certainly didn’t deserve to keep these special treasures. Not if she couldn’t behave herself and be good. Not if she couldn’t stop herself from breaking things…her Aunt Polly’s special treasures.
Clara’s lip wobbled as she plucked the locket out of the box, holding it in her small palm. She took it out only on Sundays and very special days, wearing it to church with her aunt and then putting it back away in the box directly after to keep it safe, but it was a responsibility she didn’t deserve. It was a responsibility she couldn’t handle. A hot tear burned a stripe down Clara’s cheek as she set the necklace with the other things.
“And what’s this, then?” Polly’s voice came sharp and quick, the same tone Clara had been expecting when Polly first came across the broken photograph. And despite the jolt of surprise that ran through her at the sudden interruption, Clara was grateful for her aunt’s tone, some part of her relieved by the confirmation of her own thoughts, her own guilt. She was right to collect her things. She was right to plan to give them back. She didn’t deserve them.
Clara had fancied herself alone in the house aside from her sister. Ada was napping down the hall, silent and oblivious. Clara had meant to have the treasures packed up before encountering anyone else. She had intended to leave them out for Polly with a note explaining herself. An apology. And then, she intended to be gone to Uncle Charlie’s, gone to the horses who wouldn’t ask questions and would only be happy she’d come to brush them and bring them grain, though some part of Clara wondered if she deserved tenderness as unconditional as that.
The thoughts were nearly clear in her mind, all-consuming and screaming at her, but Clara hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Writing it out would be easier. And Clara didn’t imagine Polly wanted to talk with her anyway, not when she couldn’t even stand to yell at her for doing wrong. Polly had walked away without even a glance, as if Clara and Finn were nothing, invisible. And Clara had to fulfill her aunt’s wishes. She had intended to make herself that way.
Polly remained at the threshold thinking about how routine the moment felt. Clara was always getting herself worked up. She was always turning too many thoughts in her too clever mind and running to her Tommy’s side to fix it, even now. Even with him gone to France, the girl was in his room, trying to absorb his wisdom and care from the walls and the linens and the furniture. It was all so familiar, with the house so full of memories and wishes and the echo of their boys everywhere even though they were nowhere to be found. The reality of their absence hurt all the more. It hurt Clara more.
Polly knew the feeling well. It hurt her, too. Her own house had felt empty far before the war took Tommy, Arthur, and John away from Watery Lane. It had been empty since her Anna and her Michael had gone, since their father met his end. It seemed to Polly that homes were always emptying around her, people leaving or being taken. She idly wondered if it was inherited. In the blood like the Shelby good looks. Maybe it was.
Polly was no stranger to feeling alone in a place filled with memories, feeling alone in a place surrounded by other people. Polly hadn’t had a day to herself in only God knew how long. She’d been a mother for thirteen years, but an aunt for much longer. It had been years…decades, perhaps, but looking at her solemn little niece who had gotten herself this worked up with only an hour’s worth of solitude, Polly wondered if her lack of alone time wasn’t for the best.
Clara started piling up the meager collection, squeezing the items tight to her chest as she carried them across the room to where Polly stood. Clara held out the pile, her lip still quivering and her face covered with tear streaks as she waited for Polly to snatch them away.
“What is all this?” Polly asked again as she accepted the pile before it spilled from Clara’s arms and onto the floor.
Polly thumbed through the items as Clara turned away without a word. She left her aunt’s side and moved across the room, diving onto Tommy’s long-marooned mattress. As the storm took her over, Clara pulled the blanket up from the foot of the bed. She covered her head and body as she began to shake with the full force of her tears.
“Clara,” Polly prompted. She settled beside the girl and dropped the items in her arms onto the bed.
“Take them back,” Clara mumbled. “I don’t…I don’t…”
“These are your special things, love.”
Clara shook her head from under the covers. “They’re yours,” she mumbled. Clara struggled to find the breath for her words. She struggled to get beyond the hard press of tears in her burning throat. The pain of it all was nearly too much to bear, too much to hold. “I don’t…I don’t deserve them. I…I disappointed you.”
Polly took a breath, letting her hand fall on Clara’s trembling shoulder before moving to rub gentle circles on the girl’s back. Polly had been upset about the photo. She had been wounded by it, caught off guard, but Polly hadn’t overreacted, not really. Considering the emotions Polly had running through her, she could’ve handled it worse. She hadn’t been thinking about the twins or what they’d done, not really.
She had been thinking of herself, and her babies—her Anna and her Michael. Even before she’d heard the crash in the sitting room, she’d been thinking about her babies, distracted with thoughts of them for the whole morning. And it was unfortunate timing. That the twins, who had mostly grown out of the business of crawling about on the furniture, had chosen today of all days to fool around and knock the treasured photo to the ground…It was just upsetting. And though Polly hadn’t done anything—she hadn’t shouted or smacked, she realized Clara had gone ahead and done it for her. The oversensitive little girl had created a story in her head, giving Polly the role of disappointed aunt and making herself out to be a little villain. Clara had filled the void created by Polly’s lack of response and she’d done so incorrectly, assuming Polly was upset with her.
But she wasn’t. Polly could see now that it was just an unfortunate moment, one of those times when life wasn’t meant to clash, but the conditions mixed up just right, or just wrong, and it happened anyhow.
“I’m not disappointed in you, love,” Polly said, uncovering Clara’s head and encouraging her to lay back on the pillow. Clara followed Polly’s maneuvering until she was lying on Tommy’s pillow looking up at her aunt.
Polly took a deep breath, picking up the teddy bear. “I was disappointed in what happened.” Polly held the bear to her chest, glancing up toward the ceiling as she collected herself. “I reacted as I did because my heart’s a little tender today.”
They weren’t words Polly would often share, not emotions she bore to many. She more often preferred to keep them inside, but Polly found the words couldn’t be stopped now that she’d started. And somehow, Polly felt that Clara understood.
“Today, my son…your cousin…my…” Polly took a steadying breath. “Michael’s thirteenth birthday is today.
Polly let another breath come over her, the power of it allowing her to push forward.
“And this bear…”
Polly ran her fingers over the buttons and stitching, smiling at the teddy and then at Clara while tears pricked in her eyes.
“This bear was his before it was yours.”
Clara nodded. She’d always known it was Polly’s, then Michael’s, then hers. Clara had always liked that.
“It was actually Michael who gave it to you,” Polly laughed softly as she remembered, sniffling through her tears “He insisted you’d need something special, being the youngest Shelby and all.”
Polly handed the bear over to Clara, tucking them both under the covers when Clara hugged the bear to her chest. She’d always assumed the bear would make its way back to Michael someday, that Clara would find it in her heart to gift it to her grandchild child when Michael one day had children, but that hope was distant now, unlikely. Impossible, Polly imagined.
Polly began collecting Clara’s treasures from the bed and she piled them gently on the floor. Polly could already see the girl being drawn toward sleep, exhaustion taking over now that her aunt had soothed some of the hurt. Polly brushed the hair from Clara’s eyes, tucking the wayward strands behind an ear.
“Sleep now, love,” Polly said. She pressed a kiss to Clara’s hair and cupped her cheek, wiping away the tear marks. “It’ll all be easier to bear after you’re rested.”
Clara grasped Polly’s hand when she made to move away. “Aunt Polly?”
“What is it, love?”
“Will you stay?”
Polly considered Clara, and she considered what was needed to put her niece and the feelings and this whole incident to rest. “Only for a few minutes,” Polly said, gesturing for Clara to scoot over on the small bed. Polly laid down beside her niece, and Clara cuddled into Polly’s side, setting the teddy bear between them.
It was silent in the room, both of them tied up in their own thoughts, their own pains—still a little alone in it, but together nonetheless, their clasped hands allowing their hearts to do the same. Polly fell into a peaceful rest before Clara did, her gentle snores sounding off while Clara was still perfectly alert and staring at her brother’s ceiling. Clara tugged the blanket up over her aunt’s body, pressing a kiss on Polly’s head before settling back down beside her.
“Sleep, Aunt Polly," Clara whispered. "It’ll be easier to bear after you’re rested.” Clara hoped it would be true for both of them.
Summary: Charlie is upset to learn the man she thought of as an older brother…a partner in crimes against Harvey…a best friend…is a fraud. Mike has been lying to her for years, and so has just about everyone else she considers family. In the wake of the discovery and with Harvey trying to force some type of reconciliation, Charlie seems willing to do just about anything to get away from Mike. And Mike cares too much about Charlie to just let her go.
Characters: Mike Ross, Harvey Specter, Ray Benghazi, Charlie Specter (OC), Louisa (OC)
Request: The prompt wasn’t requested, just sort of something I came to on my own. I tried to work in another request about Charlie having a severe allergic reaction. The original request was specifically for a nut allergy, but Charlie loving peanut avocado rolls is canon as per The Usual Order, so I had to find something else. (I couldn’t find the original ask/ I thought I knew who it was from but can’t find your name either anywho hope you see this and enjoy!)
Content Warning: Angst, thinly researched descriptions of allergic reactions and subsequent EpiPen usage, insect stings, giving past me lots of credit because I’m not looking this over at all!
Here’s the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there.
Angst Celebration Masterlist
Suits (Lines to Live By) Masterlist
Please take a moment to tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️
“Look at that. Lucky, lucky. You get Ray and Harvey—” Charlie groaned at Louisa’s announcement, but Louisa wasn’t nearly finished. “—and Mike today.”
“Mike’s here?” Charlie glanced up at Louisa’s words, setting her pen in the book’s crease as she looked to the street where Ray, Harvey, and Mike were all waiting for her, the latter two outside of the car, loitering on the sidewalk.
“What the hell?”
Charlie had only been expecting Ray. She’d been looking forward to having just Ray to contend with. She’d been looking forward to an easy conversation and a little quiet when she got home. Harvey was supposed to be working late and that meant she would have the apartment to herself for a few hours. She could be in bed before he arrived home and avoid him altogether if she wanted.
Charlie had recently made a project out of avoiding both Harvey and Mike to the full extent possible. She passed any of her time at the firm buried in Pearson Specter Litt’s file room or over in the library, more familiar with Harvey and Mike’s schedules than she’d ever been in her entire life—all for the sole purpose of making sure they didn’t match up with her own, that she didn’t accidentally meet either of them in the hall or Conference Room C or the staff kitchen.
And while it wasn’t easy avoiding either of them, especially the brother she lived with, Charlie had done a fair job of it until last weekend. She’d remained strong and stubborn until having to pass forty-eight unencumbered hours with Harvey, the two of them trapped in the apartment by insistent downpours.
She’d done something close to forgiving him over the course of the weekend. She’d done it tentatively, reluctantly, but some part of her had needed it. Charlie needed her brother, even if they weren’t talking about the issue at hand. Even if they were pretending things were fine. And Harvey had, for a few days at least, seemed neutral about how she was dealing with Mike.
Charlie should have known that wouldn’t last. She should have known Harvey wouldn’t simply let things go.
“Oh,” Louisa smiled. “Who do we hate this week?”
Charlie rolled her eyes. She hadn’t told Louisa or Noah anything about her feud with Harvey and Mike. She couldn’t. And it felt like there was no one for her to talk to because anyone she actually could speak to about it...well, they’d all already known. They’d kept it from her. Lied to her. Donna, Harvey, Mike, Rachel—all of the people Charlie normally confided in—had been keeping it from her, keeping the fact that Mike was a fraud. He wasn’t a lawyer. He’d never gone to Harvard.
“Not Ray, of course?” Louisa prompted, pulling Charlie from her thoughts.
Charlie shook her head, dismissing Louisa’s suggestion. “No, it’s not Ray.”
It was never Ray. He was a neutral party. Ray was the only one who didn’t push, the only one letting things lie while everyone else was working on strategies to get Charlie to forgive Mike, or at least to get her in a room with him, to get her within listening distance without her hands clasped tight over her ears, an obnoxious trill of, “La, la, la. Can’t hear you,” shouted out from between her lips.
They were all trying to avoid a repeat of that performance.
“Harvey, then?” Louisa continued.
Charlie gave a noncommittal movement of her head as she spotted her brother step away from the car. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
“Yeah, of cour—Oh, Harvey, hello.” Louisa smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “A pleasure to see you as always.”
“Hello, Louisa.” Harvey spared his sister’s friend an obligatory smile and greeting. “Charlotte, let’s go.”
Charlie shook her head, recommitting her attention to the open text in her lap, scratching out some pointless words in the notebook she had set on top. “I’m staying at Isa’s tonight. Forgot to add it to the calendar.”
“It’s a school night,” Harvey said.
“And we have a paper due tomorrow, Harvey. For school. It’s worth 40% of our grade this semester and—”
“The history paper you emailed Donna three hours ago to print off for you?” he asked. “Mike and I proofread it for you on the way over. It’s in my briefcase.”
“Great, so it shouldn’t be a problem for me to stay over at Isa’s, then.” Charlie closed her book and gave him her full attention. “Homework’s all done. Makes no difference where I sleep.”
“Not tonight. Come on.” Harvey pulled the books from her lap and shouldered her bag before guiding her up from the bench. “You’ve got plans. Let’s go. Nice seeing you, Louisa.”
“You, too.”
Charlie shrugged at her brother’s grasp, trying to get Harvey’s hand away from her. “You don’t have to lie to him, Isa. He knows people don’t actually enjoy seeing him.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. “Alright, that’s enough. Let’s go.”
Charlie pushed Harvey’s hand away as he clasped it on her shoulder, guiding her towards the sidewalk. As Charlie approached the car, she reached out for the handle of the front door, groaning when she found it locked. Ray lowered the window.
“Hi, Ray. Let me sit up front?”
Ray gave her a sad frown. “Sorry, Charlie.”
Charlie turned her stare on Harvey as Ray rolled the window up. Harvey wasn’t looking at her as he held open the door to the backseat. He just assumed she’d get in. Because she’d forgiven Harvey, or done something similar to forgiving him—something she really had no choice in considering he was the only permission-granting and caregiving adult in her life—Harvey assumed forgiveness of Mike would follow along just after. It was only natural.
But Charlie wasn’t ready and she had so recently forgiven her brother that she was almost surprised by how much Harvey was pushing this—pushing her towards Mike, towards the lie they’d kept from her for so many years, especially when he was so insistent on Charlie always telling him the truth.
“I’m not sitting between two liars for forty blocks during rush hour.” Charlie crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll take the train.” She glared at her brother though she couldn’t really even tell if he was looking at her, not with those dark sunglasses Harvey thought made him look cool. Maybe they did make him look cool, but right now they irritated Charlie to no end and she would’ve liked to slam the pretentious frames down on the ground and crush them beneath her heel.
Charlie thought better of it and instead took half a step away from the car, intending to head for the nearest subway station. Harvey grasped her elbow and tugged her back before her right foot could touch down on the pavement. “No, you won’t. You’re not—”
“Fine. No trains.” Charlie struggled against her brother’s grip. “I’ll walk, then. I’d rather walk all the way to White Hall, take the ferry to Staten Island and back than ride in a goddamn car with you two assho—”
“Enough, alright?” Harvey snapped, rolling his eyes. “You’ve made your point and now it’s time for you two to make nice. Play in the same sandbox again. You’re friends.”
The existence of an undeniable friendship between Mike and Charlie was a truth that had at one time bothered Harvey. It had been the bane of his existence on many occasions, that his kid sister and his pseudo-kid associate got on so well, but over the last few weeks, he’d realized that the only thing worse than their allied forces being used against him was them being on the outs.
It was quieter, for sure, but somehow that was worse.
“We’re not friends. We were never friends.”
Charlie didn’t look at Mike as she said it. The words were almost casual. She could almost make them seem as though they were true, but Harvey knew better. Some part of Mike did too, but the part wracked with guilt was just a bit louder, so he was left with nothing more than the hope that it wasn’t true.
“I said enough,” Harvey answered. “There’s no need to make this a whole goddamn scene. Just get in the—”
“Hey, Harvey?” Mike cleared his throat, pulling Harvey’s gaze over the top of the car. “I could...uh...I could take a walk.”
Charlie narrowed her eyes as she finally looked at Mike. She was so unused to thinking of him as the enemy, but the hurt and betrayal had made easy work of the switch, seemingly ripping the comfortable, brother-sister-like bond that had been between them to shreds. It didn’t help that Mike had become so tentative in her presence, so unsure how to handle things, so hesitant of overstepping in the face of Charlie’s anger.
Mike had been staying quiet in a way he hadn’t been since first meeting the Specters, since he was a new associate unsure of his boss and his boss’s little sister, unwilling to insert himself in their conversations, wary of adding in his clever little quips to their banter. He’d been wary of Charlie in general, which only served to prove a point to the girl—that the relationship they’d had before was nothing more than a show.
It wasn’t real.
This tentative version of Mike, the one who didn’t know what to make of her, who didn’t know how to fix things, or maybe just didn’t care to try…this was the real Mike. This was the real relationship that existed between them.
“I can walk all by myself, thank you.” Charlie glanced in Mike’s direction, but avoided his gaze, instead setting her eyes on the stream of traffic moving slowly on the street as Mike came around the car to stand beside them on the sidewalk.
“And I’ll probably beat you there, anyway,” she added.
Harvey raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s the back seat or you let him join you. I don’t care which, but you’ve got about thirty seconds to—”
Charlie ripped her elbow free and grabbed her bag off her brother’s shoulder in one motion. She marched away from the car, her decision made, little attention paid to Mike’s calling her name as she stalked down the pavement.
She kept her pace consistent—aggressive and unrelenting—even as Mike jogged to catch up. Charlie could’ve lost him if she really wanted to. She could’ve gotten far enough ahead and turned a few corners before slipping into a store or the subway or a passing crowd of tourists, but Charlie wasn’t keen for more shouting with her brother, so she settled for letting Mike struggle to keep up. She found herself enjoying his quickened steps and feeble attempts to dodge tourists more than she’d anticipated.
Charlie kept it up for several blocks, stepping out into intersections with perilous timing, unconcerned by the warning of traffic lights as they shifted from red to green. She smirked to herself each time Mike got left behind, separated from her by an MTA bus or a line of enterprising yellow cabs.
It was a string of back-to-back buses and a well-timed walk sign that changed Charlie’s mind about losing him for a bit, an opportunity she figured she shouldn’t give up now that it presented itself.
She popped into Central Park as the last in the line of buses passed by. She sent a smirk and a wave to Mike as she disappeared through the entrance and down one of the paths. She knew it was more probable that she would get lost in the park than Mike would—he had likely memorized the pathways in all of the city parks by the age of seven, after all—but Mike hadn’t memorized her. He didn’t know where she’d go. A few weeks ago, Charlie would have thought he knew her well enough to guess, but now…now she couldn’t be sure what she and Mike really knew about each other. And the idea of Mike twisting himself around on the sidewalk trying to figure out which way she had gone gave Charlie far more satisfaction than it should have.
Charlie knew she was being childish about the whole thing, not just in running off to the park now, but the whole silent treatment she’d instituted on anyone who had kept it from her and the smart ass comments she’d used as her only means of communication—all of it was childish. Harvey had told her as much, instructing her more than once to cut it out, but Charlie wasn’t ready to forgive Mike. She wasn’t even sure if she’d really forgiven Harvey even though they were technically on speaking terms. There was some part of her that still felt hurt by the years of deceit. She was still hurt by the fact that her friendship with Mike now felt like nothing more than another of his lies. It felt fake, like nothing more than a clever ruse.
It all did. Most of the people in the world Charlie cared about had been keeping this from her. Most of the people in her closest circle had been lying to her. Some part of her understood why they kept it from her. She knew the legal implications of it and all. She knew she was just a kid. She knew she didn’t need to know, but those rationalities didn’t make the fact that they’d hidden it from her sting any less.
Charlie glanced over her shoulder, back along the trail she’d been on for a few minutes now. A smarter person might have switched paths, but Charlie knew if she deviated, she’d never find her way out. She could navigate the grid system of New York’s city streets. It was easy enough to count the numbers up and down and traverse the avenues, but Central Park was a different monster—one she had never mastered and knew she never would. She was okay with that. She was okay with letting Harvey or whoever she was with be her guide.
But Charlie was alone now—or as alone as one could be in a city of 8 million people. There was no one on the path ahead of her, and Mike wasn’t behind her, so she slowed her pace to account for that knowledge. She could take her time. She didn’t have to wander much further from the street because her unwanted chaperone wasn’t something she needed to worry about any longer. He probably figured she’d taken a left, moving further into the park, rather than staying straight and staying along the path which stuck closest to the park’s edge.
It was what most people would do, but Charlie wasn’t most people. And the thought crossed her mind that Mike should have known that.
Don’t play the odds, play the man. Harvey always said so. They’d both heard him say it enough. And if Mike was really her friend, he would have known…
Charlie felt a wave of something, a painful confirmation of all she’d been thinking in the form of a burning lump in her throat. Her eyes pricked as they started to water and she kept moving forward, barely aware of her surroundings. She took a heavy breath and wiped her eyes before noticing the meticulously landscaped section with flowers and greenery spanning both sides of the pathway.
She’d never been to that particular stretch of the park before and she took a moment to take it all in, amazed for what must have been the thousandth time by the fact that she could feel so close to nature, so isolated, yet so connected—so alone while still being in the heart of the concrete, fluorescent jungle that was New York.
From her spot, she could barely hear the cars out on Fifth Avenue. She could barely hear the ambient hum of a million air conditioners dotting the windows of the Upper East Side. It was just her…just Charlie Specter and the gentle breeze and the hum of insects brought to life by the warming sun—enticed, drawn to this very spot and singing their thanks to the sea of flowering plants.
It was beautiful in its simplicity and for a moment, she felt more present and connected with the world than she’d been in weeks. Charlie had been so distracted, so consumed by everything with Mike and it just felt good to think of something else. A nice distraction from it all…
Charlie dropped her bag and waved her hand as something buzzed near her ear. She let out a nervous screech as she tried to shift away from the sound, backing away from the flowers. She flicked a hand through her hair. The buzzing was still there, so close. And then she let out a second scream—this one much louder—as she felt a sudden pinching in her neck, her hand colliding with something small and fragile, but powerful and determined.
The buzzing sound was finally gone, but it brought her no relief, no comfort, some part of her knowing the damage was done. Charlie clapped a hand down over the spot on her neck. She could already feel the skin pulling taut as it swelled, a burning, itchy pain radiating from beneath her fingers.
She’d experienced it only a handful of times in her life, though she could only really remember the most recent bee sting. Her father had still been alive then. She’d still been in Riverside. She’d been young, but old enough to understand, old enough for it to scare her. She had refused to go out in the backyard for half the summer after that.
It surprised Charlie how quickly a simple stinging pinch like that could overtake her, but overtake her it did. She tried to swallow. She tried to explain away the heat flowing through her, the faint tingling in her lips and throat, the building thrum of her heart.
She had never faced this alone before and it had been so long now—half a decade at least, but Charlie knew what came next. She could feel it already. Her throat tightened, restricting her airflow. Her vision darkened around the edges, the sunny afternoon no longer so bright.
She couldn’t hear the breeze or the bugs anymore, either. She couldn’t hear anything that wasn’t within her—the pumping of her own blood, the wheezing of her breaths, the internal pleas for something, for someone, for help as she stumbled back down the path seeking the bag she’d dropped.
She knew what to do. She knew she needed to find the EpiPen stashed in her bag. She knew she needed to use it—to set the needle into her own leg, but knowing and doing were two very different things. It had always been Harvey or her father administering the shot.
She’d been trained. She’d practiced. Charlie knew the steps and she knew exactly where it was in her bag, stashed deep in the pocket within the outer section of her backpack, largely forgotten. She hadn’t been stung in years. It was there as a precaution, just in case. She knew and yet some part of her was scared of what came next. Even if she wasn’t struggling to close the distance between her and the bag, struggling to make her feet and hands cooperate, Charlie didn’t know if she could do what needed to be done.
A second pair of hands—Mike’s hands—clasped down on her bag as she reached it. She hadn’t heard him approach. She hadn’t noticed him lower to the ground, his pristine suit becoming quickly covered in dirt and dust from kneeling on the pebbled path. His fingers moved quicker than hers as he opened the outermost pocket, digging out the EpiPen she’d told him about nearly two years ago. It was something she’d mentioned to him in passing, but it was something Mike would have committed to memory even if he didn’t have a photographic memory.
Just like he’d committed how to use it to memory, reading through the directions that day. Just in case. Just as a precaution. A piece of Charlie Specter absorbed and memorized with ease. Nearly unconscious, as natural as them becoming friends over the past few years. Family.
Mike met her eye as he prepared the device, removing the safety cap.
“May the force be with you,” he said. Delivery of the phrase at that exact moment was another piece of her memorized, this one from a story delivered from Harvey about their trials and tribulations with her fear of needles. Harvey always said it before Charlie got a shot or received the Epipen. It was a joke, something that relaxed her a bit. It was something Mike had also filed away just because, just in case…because, fraud or not, Mike Ross was Charlie Specter’s friend, her family. He cared for her. He listened to her. He listened to Harvey and Donna talk about her. He’d committed a good chunk of her to memory, something he’d have done regardless of his abilities. He knew her allergies and her sensitivities. He knew her likes and dislikes. He knew how to make her smile. He knew how to make her roll her eyes. Mike knew it all.
And Charlie knew him, too. She’d committed Mike to memory along the way as well, cataloging his stories and advice into places where she maybe should have been cataloging facts about the American Revolution or centripetal forces.
She had come to the conclusion that with a lie as big as they’d been keeping from her, Charlie couldn’t possibly know Mike Ross, but she did. She knew all of the little things that made Mike Mike. She knew him as well as any friend could.
Charlie nodded and Mike swung his arm, pressing the tip of the device into Charlie’s leg. He held it there for a few seconds as the epinephrine moved into her system, relaxing the muscles in her body—allowing her breath to shift back towards normal.
“Are you alright?” Mike asked, one ear to his phone though his focus was on Charlie, watching for signs that the injection hadn’t worked and his intervention hadn’t been enough.
Charlie nodded, unsure if she’d be able to talk. Her throat was no longer tight, but she could feel a sob rising, a wave of emotion threatening to overtake her. And even if she’d trusted herself to say something, Mike was busy anyway—talking to the emergency dispatcher, letting them know their precise location in the park and her status. Charlie pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, willing the overwhelm to pass her, to leave her alone so she could get through what came next without becoming a sobbing mess in Mike’s presence. She didn’t want him to see her like that, the tears feeling too intimate now even though Mike had seen them before.
Mike’s free hand moved to the back of Charlie’s head and he drew her to his chest, his chin settling on top of her head as he stayed on the line with the operator. Charlie’s resistance broke with the contact, the tears flowing freely as the force of their friendship drew her out of herself and away from the lonely, all-consuming anger she’d felt towards Mike, her brother, and everyone who’d helped to keep his secret. In the familiarity of Mike’s arms, Charlie inched closer to forgiveness, towards the realization that the situation wasn’t just black and white, right and wrong. It wasn’t so simple. Nothing and no one ever was—not Mike, not her, not the relationship that existed between them. Charlie wouldn’t be able to throw their friendship away, the force of it was too strong, too solid, too true. Mike Ross was a friend. He was family. And as Mike rubbed his hand down her back, holding Charlie close as the wave of emotion and adrenaline passed through her, his arms the only thing keeping her safe—together—Charlie was grateful that the force of her anger hadn’t succeeded in pushing Mike away. While they waited for the ambulance, Charlie was comforted by the idea that maybe no force in the world ever could.
Summary: They had given Mia three-thousand miles to process all that had happened with Edward, Bella, and the Volturi. The road trip from Forks to Ithaca with Jasper was planned for her benefit, to allow her time to think, time to sort herself, while the rest of the family was already back in their old home and getting resettled within the familiar walls they’d left less than a year before. It hadn't been enough. Mia still didn't feel sorted or settled or ready to forgive her brother for all that had passed between them, for all of the things that hurt, but had nothing to do with her.
Characters: Edward Cullen & Mia Cullen (OC)
Request (from anon): How about #55 with Edward (Twilight)? Congrats on 500 followers love! You deserve that and so much more!❤
Content Warnings: Angst (no fluff at all), Mentions of Death, The Volturi, Mentions of Suicide, Depression, Mia draws the wrong conclusion about her mental health issues/ social support available to her (I feel like this one might at some point require the fluff of a part 2), minimal proofreading
A/N: Wanted to note that I think Mia and Edward have both come to very wrong conclusions on a lot here. Our brains are really tricky and they can be real jerks, convincing us of some pretty damaging things that simply are not true. If you’re hurting, reach out for support even if your brain is telling you it’s better for you to keep it all inside, even if your brain is telling you no one cares. I promise, it’s not better and there are people out there who care and want to support you. Take care, my loves. ❤️
Here’s the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there.
Twilight (Mia Cullen) Masterlist
Angst Celebration Masterlist
Please take a moment to tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️
Mia sat on the floor of her bedroom as her brother settled against the frame in the open doorway. She had a fleeting wish that she could go back in time and shut her bedroom door properly, not that she had the type of family who would respect such a thing as a closed door, but at least it would have given her more of a warning.
"Hey."
Mia snorted at Edward’s grand opening. They hadn’t spoken properly since they arrived back in Forks, with Mia enacting the sort of silent treatment Carlisle didn't often allow to hold between his children for any significant measure of time. He usually took a more engaged approach in helping to repair a damaged relationship. He usually knew just the thing needed to mend and fortify a bond between siblings, but this time, their father left Mia and Edward to settle things on her own, with no prodding or prompting or confining them to the same room for hours until they worked it through. Carlisle hadn’t even broached the topic with his daughter in any sense beyond acknowledging the situation existed. Mia figured that meant some part of her father felt she was right to be upset and some part of her felt her anger fortified by that.
They had given Mia three-thousand miles to process all that had happened with Edward, Bella, and the Volturi. The road trip from Forks to Ithaca with Jasper was planned for her benefit, to allow her time to think, time to sort herself, while the rest of the family was already back in their old home and getting resettled within the familiar walls they’d left less than a year before.
But it hadn't been enough. Mia didn’t feel sorted or changed. She didn’t feel as though the time had done her any good, nothing in her shifting after she considered all of the pieces she’d been given—the secondhand bits of knowledge passed by her mother and father—from Emmett, Rose, Jasper, and Alice. None of it had come from Edward, not much had come from him in the whole time he’d been gone, really. Somewhere along the line, Mia had stopped asking questions to or about him. She had stopped reaching out. She had stopped speaking with him even when he did call.
But even so, Mia knew enough to be upset and confused and hurting, feelings she’d come to accept as commonplace, simply part of her now.
She knew that Alice had seen Bella jump off a cliff.
And she knew that Rosalie had told Edward what had happened.
And Mia knew that Edward had gone to the Volturi. She knew her brother had begged for death. She knew that he sought it out in his own way when he was politely declined by Aro, Marcus, and Caius.
And Mia knew that Bella had now made the same arrangement with the Volturi that her father had once negotiated for her, the permission to live as a human for now traded for the promise that she would one day be turned—both of them deemed suitable enough of an asset to be afforded a temporary extension of their mortal life.
Mia hadn't attended the family vote on the matter, shutting herself away in her father's study for the duration and locking up her mind, protecting herself from her siblings’ presumably well-intentioned intrusions, protecting herself from releasing anything she intended to keep locked inside. She’d been doing that quite often these days.
"Mia—"
Mia met her brother's eye for a moment, the first time in days that she'd even looked at him. She shook her head, a bit unsettled by the fact that her gaze had been enough to silence him, intimidated by the fact that Edward was tentative of her. She looked back to the books she'd scattered across the carpet to organize before replacing them on her shelves.
Mia clocked Edward’s movement as he took a step over the threshold, but she didn't acknowledge him.
"We're going to have to talk eventu—"
Mia tossed her copy of War and Peace into a new pile, a satisfying thud sounding as the tome slammed against the hardwood, cutting off Edward’s words.
"We won't,” she said, a great effort set into considering her well-worn copy of The House at Pooh Corner. She ran her fingers over the antique cover before gently setting it on the top of a pile. “You'll graduate and marry and Bella will—"
Edward cleared his throat, taking another step further into the room as he readied himself to correct her, but Mia shook her head, cutting him off before he could even get started. She did it without even sparing him a glance, knowing his mouth would be opening for a rebuttal to argue against her. She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want his excuses or platitudes.
"You'll leave us behind," Mia ground out, tossing another book on the pile. "You've done it before."
Edward nodded, settling against the empty bookshelf. "I did. And at the time, it was for the best.”
Mia swallowed, rage bubbling up inside of her at Edward’s words, all of it ready to spill out. "For the best?” she scoffed. “What if I did that to you? Would you think it was for the best or would you hate me? You were gone for months without a single word, Edward! Who exactly was that best for?"
"You," he offered. “It was best for you.”
Edward hadn’t thought about it when he first left. He’d been too consumed with his own wants and needs to consider his sister’s, but he had thought of it a handful of times since being home. Despite her anger, Edward was nearly certain that his sister had benefitted from his absence. She’d somehow come out of the time apart stronger—more resilient, less dependent.
She'd grown.
It had been good for her to be away from him.
She had been better off without.
"Look at you now, Mia."
Mia swallowed the hard lump in her throat. It was all she could manage considering the thoughts rushing through her mind at her brother’s words.
Look at you now.
Mia usually tried not to look at herself. She tried not to think too hard about who she’d become because when Mia looked at herself...when she really allowed herself to see the girl who stared back in the mirror after the last six months, she didn’t like what she saw. She didn’t like the girl who’d made it by—just barely—struggling to sleep, fighting with the people to whom she’d once quite easily agreed, put off entirely by the idea of school work, put off by the idea of family, put off by almost everything she’d once enjoyed, courting her own company more than anyone else’s, more occupied with her own pain than that of anyone around her, more concerned with being angry with the people who had left rather than being grateful for the ones who had stayed.
Mia thought back on the fights she’d had with her mother and her father, the ways in which she had pushed Alice and Jasper away, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself almost as much as she hated Edward for leaving. Almost as much as she hated Emmett and Rose for taking time to be a couple on their own, accessible to her on a per diem basis, present to her hurt only when it suited their schedule, seemingly able to forget that one of their family was gone when she was reminded of it every day.
Mia had hated the three of them for simply not being there almost as much as she hated Rosalie for her part in Edward going to Volterra, almost as much as she hated Edward for what he’d only put a stop to for his girlfriend’s sake, only brought around and brought home to them because Bella had jumped into his arms at the right moment, mere seconds before it would have been too late…
Seconds later and Edward would have left them for good.
Mia hated herself most of all though. She hated that she hated, hated that her family’s actions could do that to her. She hated that Edward’s absence could change her in this way. She hated that she cared enough about her brother to pass her ire off to the rest of them. She hated that she’d let herself become someone she barely even recognized.
The old Mia would have forgiven him already. It may have taken some gentle nudging by her father, but she would have done it. She would have shown compassion and understanding. She would have listened. She would have talked. She would have shown empathy, foregoing her rage in the name of love and family. She would have forgiven herself somewhere along in the process, too, but Mia wasn't that girl anymore.
And she didn't know if she could let go of the anger long enough to shift that way because, above all, the anger had become a comfort. The hate she felt toward them and toward herself was somehow safer than the pain of the hurt and the fear that haunted her beneath the rage.
“You’ve been better off without—”
Edward stopped himself, nearly choking on the words as an almost physical force hit him. He could suddenly hear his sister’s thoughts, Mia’s words coming at him though there was still silence settled between them. Each fragment of a thought came quicker than the last, louder than the last, more pained than the last, all of the sentiment Mia had pent up over nine months’ time, all of the anger and hate and self-loathing, all of the pain and hurt she kept hidden deep within her.
Edward had expected his sister's anger. He had braced himself to withstand it when he came to her room to try to set things right, but he had never expected this. He had never Mia to direct the bulk of it at herself. He’d never actually expected her to feel that amount of pain. Edward hadn't thought his sister was capable of feeling even a fraction of the hurt that he’d been holding, almost as if he believed that he held a monopoly over this particular type of agony. The realization that Mia had been feeling this way, was still feeling this way...the weight pressing down against him—the weight of Mia’s pain—nearly crushed him and all Edward wanted to do was take it away from her and fix it—to soothe it, to soothe her.
“Mia, this was never about—”
“I know!” Mia shouted, her eyes and her thoughts snapping shut at the sounding of her brother’s voice. “It’s not about me,” she continued, her ragged breath breaking on a sob as her brother’s unfinished words hung between them.
It wasn’t about her. None of what happened over the last nine months was about her. Mia knew that, but knowing that didn’t make it any of it hurt any less. She looked at her brother's face through tear-stricken eyes. She saw her pain reflected there, confusion and horror etched in his features.
It had been a fleeting look, something Mia wasn't meant to catch, but it was more than enough for her to decide that her relationship with Edward had changed too much for her to set any of this on him. He wasn't the brother who could take this on anymore. He wasn't the one to help her sort through the pain or soothe the hurt. And he’d moved on. They all were moving on and making plans, even if Mia felt stuck in it.
Everyone was giving her space, giving her time to process, to shift, to follow. Mia had thought she was grateful for it, grateful that her mother, father, and siblings were leaving her be, but maybe that hadn't really been for her benefit either. Maybe it was just that her pain was too much for everyone else to deal with, too much for her to be sharing, too much for them to be expected to fix... Maybe they were just ready to move on, to move past this. Mia closed her eyes and pushed it all back down, fitting the pain back into the dark depths. She put the hurt and loneliness back on the shelf of her heart and covered it all with her anger and some part of her accepted that even if it hurt, this was better.
It was for the best that she kept it to herself. Mia had never understood the real benefit of her mental shield. She couldn't protect anyone else with it. She couldn't shield anyone but herself, but she'd always thought of her gift as protection from the outside world, a protection from bad things. Maybe Mia's real gift was protecting the world from herself, to protect her family from the darkest, most horrible parts of herself.
Had Mia said as much, her brother would have readily corrected her, but Mia didn't say as much. She didn't say anything.
Summary: While Mia’s learning to drive, she gets in a car accident resulting in damage to her sister’s car and the death of a deer in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rosalie and Mia both make some assumptions about one another in the wake of the accident before finding some common ground and understanding.
Characters: Rosalie Hale and Mia Cullen
Request: From anon - Hi I asked for Rose’s one “is that blood?” so you could change it for “You didn’t think I cared about you, did you?” :D
A/N: The day I started writing this idea, I almost hit three deer going out to do the shopping and I was put off the piece for months as a result.
Content Warnings: Angst, Grief, Guilt, Car Accident, Animal Death (mentions)
Here’s the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there.
Twilight (Mia Cullen) Masterlist
Angst Celebration Masterlist
Please take a moment to tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️
Rosalie sighed and leaned into Emmett's side. She was tired of talking and hearing about her sister’s accident. Tired of them asking after her car. Tired of plotting and scheming on how best to handle the girl's current state. Rosalie didn't often fatigue. She bored easily in some cases, but this was worse. The topic grated on her. While the others were still talking about their next moves, their next offering of comfort, Rosalie idly searched her mind for the last time she’d offered her sister any true relief, the last time she’d done more than scoff at the silliness of one of Mia’s seemingly trivial woes, the last time Mia had come to her in earnest seeking support or care or advice.
Rose found herself coming up empty.
Even if she was the only one there on the scene, the first one to encounter her sister’s tears or quivering lip, or to sense something was not quite right with the girl, the others always descended quickly, Rosalie’s learned hesitation compounded by Mia’s apparent gravitation toward whoever else came next, a cycle solidified between the two of them over several years. It was entirely self-reinforcing, Rosalie and Mia continuously wedged a bit further apart by one of the others stepping in and saving the day—setting kisses to Mia’s literal and metaphorical injuries, talking through her problems, soothing her woes. They were all of the things Rosalie had once imagined herself doing for the girl back in the early days after Carlisle brought her home, back when the mere idea of having a child in their lives made Rosalie swoon.
But Mia would only take Rosalie's approaches as an affront now. The girl’s defenses would draw up, her tears and hurt falling away only to make room for the impassioned fortifications she’d mount, stronger than any she typically set in place to keep the rest of them out. Rosalie now habitually let the others go to her first, let them attempt to soothe the girl without offering an ounce of input, letting them all dote and coddle and comfort her just as they always had, some part of Rose assuming—or knowing, rather—that her sister didn’t need her.
Her sister wouldn’t want her.
Whoever went to tend to Mia first was almost always able to pull the girl around anyway, the person nominated somehow perfectly poised to mend the hurt. It should have easily been Rose every time. She had been that person at one time, back when she had been a human girl with two young brothers. The memories were murky now, the details fuzzy, but Rosalie remembered that she had been the one who swooped in and made things alright for the boys. It was Rose who had tended and kissed their injuries. It was Rose who had soothed the boys’ woes, but had she ever done so for Mia? Rose couldn’t remember the last time she’d been the successful source of comfort where her little sister was concerned.
Rosalie watched Mia come down the stairs now, leaving her room for the first time in days. The whole room shifted in response to her sudden presence—Edward, Alice, and Esme all ready to follow after her as Mia shuffled toward the kitchen, Jasper's peace spreading over all of them except the intended recipient as she moved through the room.
Edward and Carlisle discussed it in silence. Edward's clear distaste for Carlisle's thoughts, for whatever suggestion he'd made, was evident on his face before his gaze fell on Rosalie, with Carlisle's gaze following directly after. Carlisle gave a smile and the slightest of nods toward the kitchen, the gesture coupled with Emmett's fingers kneading the tensed muscles of Rosalie’s neck and shoulder.
"Go on, babe. You got this," Emmett whispered as he tucked a strand of hair behind Rosalie's ear.
Rosalie remained in her seat, already preparing herself to decline the suggestion when Mia shuffled back into the room, a milk carton dangling in her hand.
“We’re out of milk.”
Were those the first words they’d heard from Mia in days? Rosalie imagined so. Four mundane words tied to a basic human need—a want, really—and they were muttered in such a flat, emotionless tone that Rosalie could feel the pain living and breathing beneath them.
“Why don’t you and Rosalie go for more?” Carlisle suggested, stopping Mia before she could mount an argument and slither back up the stairs to the isolation of her bedroom. “It’ll be good for you to get out of the house.”
Carlisle nodded at Rosalie a moment later. She silently moved toward the door with Mia following slowly in her wake. Rosalie had expected some sort of complaint to come from Mia’s lips, a refusal or a request for someone else to come, or at the very least a polite decline, though none of it would do any good. It was too sunny of a day for one of them to run the errand themselves, too risky for any of them to cross the parking lot on such a day though Rosalie wouldn’t have faulted the girl for it if she had fought.
It would have made sense, Mia wanting to stay away from the car, wanting to stay away from Rose, but Mia didn’t say a word, shuffling towards the front door with the empty carton in her hand while Rosalie waited, the car keys wrapped around her fingers, spinning idly as she waited for her sister to slip into her shoes.
Rosalie slipped Mia’s sweater from the hook, sending a raised eyebrow to Carlisle when Mia snatched it from Rosalie’s hand before pushing through the front door with it bundled under her arm.
“Be nice to her, Rose,” Edward called from the living room.
Fuck off.
“You, too,” he answered as Rose shut the front door.
—
Though the car was unlocked, Mia was standing beside the passenger side when Rosalie entered the garage, her sweater sheathed arms drawn tight around her body while she observed the partially patched bumper.
Rosalie pulled the empty milk carton from Mia’s hand as she passed, tossing it into the recycling bin Mia insisted on them keeping. Mia was the only one of them who ever really consumed anything that went into the bin. It seemed to Rosalie an infinitely small contribution to such a big problem and they lived far enough out that there was no collection route in place—they had to drive their recyclables to the collection center. They all indulged her nonetheless. And Rosalie sort of liked her sister being so vocal about it, so insistent. Something always swelled in Rose whenever her sister rose to that level of passion, as if some part of her knew Mia had picked it up from Rose.
Rose stopped when she was nearly halfway into the driver’s side door and glanced back at her sister. Mia was still standing near the front of the car staring at the bumper. Rosalie had started on some of the repair work already, clearing the debris and fixing the dents, just taking care of what she could with the supplies and parts she already had. She’d made progress, but the custom paint color she needed was a special order and the headlights were on backorder. When those arrived, Rose would make quick work of repairing the rest of the damage, all signs of the accident would be removed, and her car would be returned to its pristine condition while they attempted the same type of quick restoration of their Mia.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Rosalie said, though Mia still stared at the spot as if she couldn’t comprehend its current state, as if she still saw the remnants of a massacre—a mix of blood and fur and dirt and debris settled in the car’s grill as it was still settled in Mia’s mind. “C’mon.”
Mia slipped into the passenger seat and Rosalie brought the car to life, the healthy purr of the engine followed by Mia closing her eyes, swallowing down the lump in her throat as she slipped the seatbelt over her body.
Mia looked calm—her eyes closed, her hands clasped in her lap while Rosalie pulled out onto the main road, shifting seamlessly through the gears until they were fifteen miles per hour above the speed limit. Mia had always been good at hiding what was inside, a shield through and through, a picture of neutrality despite a sea of all else whenever she wanted it to be that way, the picture of calm externally while her heart rate soared, her breathing forced to a slow, consistent pace though it longed for erratics, the pooling liquid in her eyes held at bay.
Mia fidgeted with the settings on the console, shifting the heat and the radio before moving on to fiddle with the placement of the vents—manipulations and invasions Rosalie endured with restraint. She wouldn’t normally tolerate it and Rosalie rolled her head on her neck, willing her eyes to focus on the road, though she needn’t bother. She could easily focus on all of it at once.
Mia settled her hands in her lap and Rosalie prepared herself to speak, to put some words into the air between them that would help Mia to settle, and genuinely calm down, to adjust to being back in the car after what had happened. It was the first time Mia had been in a vehicle since the accident, or at least, the first she’d been so alert in a vehicle since then. During the journeys to and from the hospital that day, Mia had been compromised, first by the adrenaline and then by pain medication and exhaustion. And she hadn’t left her bedroom since returning home.
Rosalie knew precisely where it had happened. Even if she hadn’t been there firsthand, observing the damage to her car while Emmett pulled the deer from the road, while Edward took Mia to their father in his Volvo...even if Rosalie hadn’t seen all of that, she knew they were close because she could feel the tension building within her sister, growing as they neared the curve in the road, rising as Mia shifted away from Rosalie, her eyes wide now, her gaze directed out the window to the faded patch of blood that still stained the pavement and the muddy tracks that Mia had forged when she diverted the car from its path. Her first instinct had been to spare the frozen animal—to hell with sparing herself, to hell with sparing Rosalie’s car.
“I’m sorry,” Mia said, her words, barely audible, swallowed down by the coarse sob that followed, the sob that apologized for more than the dented bumper and the scraped paint, so full of anguish, a piece of pain that resonated with some part of Rose, pulling at something she had not troubled herself with for decades.
Rosalie pulled the car onto the shoulder, stopping quickly enough that Mia jolted, her cries a bit louder as her sister cut the engine. Rosalie stretched a manicured hand out to grasp Mia’s, but Mia was busy working on her seatbelt, her other hand already pushing open the door as she gasped for air, pushing herself out of the car, stumbling back towards the curve that was now a quarter of a mile behind them.
Rosalie got out after her, thankful for the thick cover of trees and the deserted stretch of road. She found herself in front of the girl’s intended path within seconds. Mia didn’t fight the obstruction, closing in on herself in Rosalie’s shadow, the essence of her seemingly swallowed whole by her oversized sweater and an invisible weight.
“Oh, Mia.” Rosalie’s hand reached under her sister’s chin to lift her gaze, the touch and voice so gentle that Mia barely registered either, her focus all consumed with the world inside of her, the lonely little world she’d built up there behind her protective walls, so focused on stymieing the spill she’d already allowed, willing herself to put it all back, to stifle her pain and fear and…
Rose reached for Mia’s hand, pulling it away from her body and squeezing her sister’s chilled fingers with her own.
“Hey,” Rose said, the word coming out a bit more forceful, the edge of it pulling Mia out from where she was hiding deep within herself, pulling Mia’s wet eyes up to Rosalie’s as she took a shaky breath. “Talk to me.”
Mia muttered out another apology, the same two words, a pained “I’m sorry,” followed by more tears as she glanced at the car. “I wrecked your car. I...”
Rosalie pursed her lips, sighing. The car was fine, or it would be. It had a little ding. Purely cosmetic. It was a few afternoons' worth of work Rosalie would enjoy doing. But Mia had suffered more than the mild bruising across her body. She held more than the pain from the small bump on her head, and Rosalie was far more concerned about her sister than the car.
“The car’s fine, Mia.” Rosalie caught her sister’s shoulders and pulled her against her chest. “And even if it wasn’t, you’re what matters.”
“But I—”
“Don’t worry about the car,” Rosalie answered. She wanted to tell Mia not to worry about the deer either, but some part of her knew Mia wouldn’t be able to let that go, too engulfed in guilt for the life she had accidentally taken. Rose had never felt the accompanying regret and guilt for the lives she’d been responsible for expending, only ever suffering the pain of loss over a certain piece of herself that had gone from her as she drained the life of Royce and his friends. A piece of Rosalie had been forever hardened and changed—because of what she was or who she’d become as a result of all that had happened to her. She’d never truly know, and maybe it was both, but death didn’t touch her that way any longer. It was nothing more than a fact of life, a bit of the natural order.
“You couldn’t have prevented it,” Rosalie said.
Maybe if Mia hadn’t been a new driver, just learning. Maybe if she’d been a vampire with better vision and reflexes. Maybe if it hadn't been a difficult corner to see around, obscured by lush trees and brush...Maybe if these things were all different, this all could’ve been prevented, but none of those things were real. And Mia was simply Mia, a young girl with a gentle heart buoying in an ocean of grief and guilt.
Mia was mumbling about the car again and then about the deer, the same string of apologies and regrets. Rose gripped her sister tighter. She didn’t usually have trouble with responses. She was usually quite quick with a rebuttal, but Rosalie didn’t know what else could be said to convince Mia that there was no need for guilt or shame. There were no words that could bring Mia around so Rosalie just held her closer instead, letting Mia continue to expend the hurt, letting her get it all out until it finally grew quiet between them.
“I want to go home,” Mia whispered, pulling away from Rose. “I want…” Mia had been about to ask for her father, but her father was too perceptive and she knew he’d not take her home. Carlisle would make her stay. He would help her face this. And maybe that was right. Maybe that was the best way through, but Mia didn’t want to face it. She wasn’t ready. “Edward,” Mia decided, knowing that her brother wouldn’t make her deal with this if she wasn't ready. He would take her away from here and that would be the end of it. “I want Edward.”
Rosalie sighed. “Edward’s not here,” she said. You have me. Rosalie wanted to scream the words, but she kept them closed up in her mind. She held back the anger that flared, the hurt. She tried to remain neutral. “But I’ll take you home.”
Mia gulped. She was grateful that Rosalie had chosen not to be cruel. She was grateful that her sister wasn't short or annoyed. But as Mia glanced back at Rosalie's car, her pulse quickened again, her chest tight. She didn’t think she could get back inside that thing, not today at least.
“I don’t—”
“I know,” Rosalie said, rubbing her hand down Mia's arm. “We’ll walk back.” Rose pressed the lock button on the key fob. “I can come back for the car.”
Mia glanced at the road. She knew she couldn’t pass by it again. She couldn’t walk back toward the house either.
Mia just wanted to be whisked away. She just wanted to be back home, safe within those four walls. She saw the scene enough in her mind. She didn't need to see it in person.
Mia knew she would have to face this eventually. She knew she couldn’t avoid the only road into town or cars forever, but for today? That was all she wanted.
“C’mon. We’ll go through the woods.” Rose stepped into the grass, her heels immediately sinking into the ground, and Mia’s gaze settled there. Rosalie sighed, holding a hand out to her sister. “Don’t worry about the shoes.”
Mia took Rose’s outstretched hand, following her sister into the muddy grass.
“Thank you,” Mia mumbled after a few minutes of silent walking.
Rosalie squeezed Mia’s hand. “You’re welcome.”
“I am sorry about the car…and the shoes…and—”
“Do you really think I care about those things?” Rosalie said. “I’m not mad at you…I don’t care about any of it.”
“You didn’t—“ she started. “I thought—”
“You thought I was angry." Rosalie sighed and stopped walking. She pulled Mia into her arms once again. "And you didn’t think I cared about you at all, did you?”
Mia shrugged in her sister's hold. Rosalie was the only one who hadn’t come to try and pull Mia from her room. She was the only Cullen to wash her hands of the issue, to leave Mia alone with the terrible thoughts swimming in her mind. Mia had assumed her sister was simply too angry to care.
And Mia didn’t blame Rosalie for that.
Rosalie held Mia closer. “I care, Mia,” she said. Some part of Rosalie was telling her to say more, to tell Mia why she hadn’t come to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to set a voice to that particular vulnerability, to say that she feared her sister wouldn’t want her. “I should have—”
"It doesn't matter," Mia answered quickly, hugging Rose back. “You’re here now.”
Summary: When Mia and Rosalie fight, they fight. If Carlisle wasn’t so familiar with the beauty that was the two of them making up, the way they were always brought just a bit closer after a chasm was closed, he would just let it go. But Carlisle had watched them fight and then grow closer over the years, the resolution of each argument repairing a crack, healing and correcting something after they’d been opened wide and allowed to reset. Eventually, he knew they’d understand each other well enough to be whole.
Characters: Rosalie Hale and Mia Cullen
Request (from anon): Oh, oh, oh.Maybe #47 of the I hate you list with Mia? Maybe while in a argument with Rosalie that would need to be broken up? Show us the Cullen parents stricter side?Thanks love❤
A/N: (Except for some reason I didn’t do prompt #47 for this...). I have no idea why, but I accidentally/ or maybe purposefully switched the prompt because it's the same prompt that was requested for another character - I honestly cannot remember. Anyway...I wrote this one with prompt #44 (“If I have to talk to you for a second longer, I will snap my own neck”). Hope you enjoy it even if it wasn't exactly what was asked for. I imagine the spirit of the request is still very much the same.
Content Warnings: Angst, sibling argument
Here’s the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there.
Twilight (Mia Cullen) Masterlist
Angst Celebration Masterlist
Please take a moment to tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️
Carlisle checked his watch before briefly glancing up. His gaze traveled between the two girls sitting in front of him. For close to two hours the three of them had been sitting silently there in his office. Both girls had passed the time with their eyes diverted, heaving dramatic sighs, and tapping their feet while each tried to outlast the other.
It was all just a bit of show for Rosalie—the fidgeting and the sighing. She could sit still for hours at a time without the need for sighing or toe-tapping, but the movements riled her younger sister. And Mia had passed the time unknowingly mirroring the sister she seemed so angry with. Carlisle found the slightest bit of intrigue in that, a bit of sweetness sowed in the way Mia’s subconscious could do that sort of thing even when she was seemingly so devoted to her anger.
It metaphorically warmed Carlisle’s heart, but Rosalie didn’t see it in quite the same way.
From the mirrored gestures, Rosalie drew the conclusion that her younger sister was just as annoyed as she was. And she explored Mia’s behavior no further once arriving at her verdict. Their anger was undeniably equal, though Mia’s—rather obviously—was unjustified. Rosalie nearly always believed that to be the case. She was convinced that Mia was always the one being overly dramatic, overly sensitive. Annoyingly human and childish and all of the things Mia couldn’t help but be guilty of. She was young. She was mortal. She was emotional. None of those qualities were necessarily bad things. Rosalie struggled to know that those features were simultaneously weaknesses and strengths her sister possessed because more relevant to Rosalie, they were options that no longer felt accessible to her personally. She distanced herself from their value as a protection to herself.
But Carlisle knew at least one of them was available to Rosalie if she would allow herself to admit it, accept it as a strength and a bond rather than a weakness. But Rosalie had shied away from using or contemplating her emotions whenever she could.
“Don’t you have to work today?”
Carlisle had just glanced back down to his book when Mia spoke and he met his daughter’s eye. It was the first Mia had spoken since entering the office.
“In a little over an hour,” he answered with a nod.
Mia already knew as much. She was nearly as familiar with her father’s schedule as he was, but Carlisle suspected the girl was aiming to make a point, seizing an opportunity.
Carlisle would have been happy to continue on with the waiting as long as it took to get the girls talking once again. He had plenty to occupy himself with—his book, for one, and the more human of tasks he held within their family—balancing their finances and paying their various bills. He could continue on waiting for hours yet if it wasn’t for his shift at the hospital.
But Carlisle imagined the girls were both growing bored with it by now, ready to move things along. They both knew the quickest way out was a resolution, but Rosalie and Mia were both stubborn. And they both touted more than a decade of experience exercising this particular type of patience.
Carlisle wasn’t surprised they’d passed so much time already. He was familiar with their disagreements, well-acquainted with their stubbornness, but he still hoped they would have made more progress now. If he wasn’t also familiar with the beauty that was the two of them making up, the way they were always brought just a bit closer after a chasm was closed with Rosalie healed a bit of something Mia wasn’t aware she’d done to set up her sister’s perpetual anger by favoring Edward or one of the others a bit more than she’d favored Rosalie once upon a time...if Carlisle hadn’t been so familiar with all of that, he would have just let it go. But as it was, Carlisle had watched them fight and then grow closer over the years, the resolution of each argument repairing a crack, healing and correcting something after their relationship had been opened wide and allowed to reset.
Eventually, he knew they’d understand each other well enough to be whole.
Sometimes, Carlisle believed the girls were nearly there, nearly healed, but then there were days like this when something small would spark the two of them enough to bring on something like an explosion. There was little the family could do to settle them with Mia putting up her defenses against anyone who tried to sway her and Rosalie on the offensive.
“Why are you smiling?” Rosalie asked, “You do know he’s not going to let us go just because he has to go to work?”
Mia should’ve known as much, but there was some part of her that hoped her father would see the futility of continuing and let them go when it was time to prepare for his shift.
“The choice as to when this ends belongs to the pair of you.”
Rosalie scoffed. “Reconciliation or wither in Carlisle’s office for an eternity.”
Mia shifted in her seat and picked at her fingernails. “You could try apologizing,” she suggested.
Rosalie scoffed. “I think it’s you who owes an apology.”
As was often the case, Carlisle was of the opinion that both girls owed one another an apology, and while they were bickering—a behavior he did not love—he could at least see a way forward now that they were talking.
“I think I’ll leave you two to talk more while I prepare to leave,” Carlisle said as he tidied his belongings and readied to leave them.
“I don’t want to talk to her,” Mia groaned. “Can’t we just—”
“I’ll be back before I leave for the hospital.”
“See what you’ve done?” Rosalie asked. “If you’d just kept your mouth shut, he probably—”
“Can you just stop?” Mia asked. “Just stop talking for once!”
“Gladly,” Rose answered. “Because if I have to talk to you for a second longer, I will snap my own neck.”
“And if we’re lucky, someone close by will tip over a candle.”
“Probably you,” Rosalie scoffed. “And you’d end yourself that way, too, you clumsy little—”
“This conversation stops right now.”
Carlisle stopped, turning about on the threshold he’d just walked through. He lingered in the doorway and both girls sobered a bit under his gaze before scrambling for explanations.
“Rosalie started it—” Mia began, only to receive a glare from her sister before Rosalie took over.
“Carlisle, we were only—”
“We do not joke about death.” Carlisle shook his head. “Your existence is precious, both of you. You girls know that.” Carlisle sighed. He was trying to make a point, but the conversation also made him tired. The mere thought hurt whatever there was left of his soul. “Would you truly wish to imagine a world with either of you not in it?” he asked. “I certainly wouldn’t.”
Mia gulped, closing her eyes for a moment to quell the emotion rising within her—the flush of watering to her eyes and the growing lump in her throat. She wasn’t sure what it was precisely that got to her—the content or disappointment—in her father’s words. Either way, she suddenly felt every shade of remorse. One glance at Rosalie and Mia could tell her sister was feeling the same.
Rosalie reached across the small space between them and squeezed Mia’s hand. Carlisle watched as Mia raised her face to meet her sister’s eye, squeezing back.
“We’re sorry, Carlisle,” Rosalie said, her words accompanied by the nod of Mia’s head.
Carlisle turned to leave them, content in knowing that the great chasm between the girls would soon be closed.
Summary: Emma finds out her brother has been lying to her about her biological father, but Christian doesn’t know everything.
Characters: Christian Grey & Emmeline Grey (OC), w/ Taylor, Ms. Jones, and Ryan.
Content Warning: general angst, cursing, sibling fight (shouting and a bit of manhandling), mentions of past child abuse/ estranged family members, adoptive family relationships, some (canon, I think) overly-controlling behavior from Christian in the name of protecting people he cares about.
Request (by anon): 47 of the I hate you prompts... I am imagining Emma accidentally walking in on her brother’s meeting and being slapped in the face with that 😳 that’s so mean omg
Here’s the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there.
Fifty Shades (Emmeline Grey) Masterlist
Angst Celebration Masterlist
Please take a moment to tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️
Emmeline barely remembered the journey across town. She had made it all the way from school to Escala in record time, traversing the city streets with little caution despite the harsh rain...and the rush hour traffic...She had still made it to Christian's doorstep before her psychology class was even due to be over.
She was lucky she hadn't gotten pulled over somewhere along the way. Lucky she hadn't crashed the car her best friend had let her borrow for the purpose. Lucky she had slipped away before Ryan noticed she was no longer learning about operant conditioning.
But Emmeline wasn't feeling lucky.
If she had to place an emotion, something she had yet to even consciously attempt, she would have settled on anger. That was the one at the forefront of her mind, the one to blame for the steady shake in her limbs and the warmth she felt throughout her whole body, the one that had her taking shallow, unsatisfying breaths and pacing in the small space of the elevator as it crawled toward the penthouse.
She wanted to cry, the tears borne out of confusion and hurt and frustration, but she tried not to. She endured the searing pain in her throat and swallowed down everything that meant to consume her. She willed herself to remain focused on her outrage, to which she felt entirely justified. She knew well enough there was something else building up behind the more righteous parts of her anger, but Emmeline wasn't sure she could manage the rest of it. Not now. Not yet.
The elevator doors weren’t yet fully open when she squeezed through. Her mind remained settled on her brother's home office—on getting there, on getting to him, on letting him have it, on letting Christian take on some of what she was holding, some of what he’d settled her with through his lies and withholding…his precious protection. Things Christian seemed to think were well within his right to inflict on those within his grasp simply because he could. Because he had the means and the power. Because he knew what was best. And while Emmeline wasn't sure what exactly she intended to say when she saw him, she figured there was enough bottled up inside of her that everything pertinent would eventually work its way out.
Ms. Jones set aside the salad she was preparing and stepped out from behind the kitchen island to greet the girl. Ms. Jones was staff, but she was practically family. Emmeline knew she owed the woman a modicum of respect—a dash more than the meager slowing of pace she'd allotted as she passed through the kitchen, but she couldn't bring herself to give any. The words she directed the housekeeper’s way lacked any reciprocal greeting, any warmth. Emmeline cut Ms. Jones off in the middle of her hello.
"He's here?" Emmeline asked, nodding her head toward the hallway ahead.
"Miss Grey.” Ms. Jones pressed her lips into a line before giving her a smile. She knew. Emmeline shouldn’t have been surprised. She supposed all of the staff—and probably all of their family as well—knew they were arguing. They knew Christian’s side of things, at least. “Mr. Grey is—"
"Here?" Emmeline suggested. She stopped walking, then she turned and waited for Ms. Jones to confirm. “Christian’s home?” Emmeline forced her hands to unclench as they hung at her sides. She dropped her heavy bag on the counter when Ms. Jones finally nodded, her laptop thudding carelessly against the marble.
She started off once again in the direction of her brother’s office, a gruff thank you tossed over her shoulder to the housekeeper. The pounding of Emmeline’s heart hammered as loud as the click of her heel across the marble floors as she went.
The door to Christian’s office was closed, but not locked and Emmeline pushed the door open without a thought. She had long ago lost count of how many times Christian had gotten after her for not knocking before entering a room, but surely she knew better. His voice always rose whether she was barging into the middle of a private call or a meeting or, as happened most often, interrupting his sacred train of thought.
He had asked after his privacy since the time Emmeline was a little. As an unknowing child, Emmeline was prone to bounding through the bedroom doors of her teenage siblings without a thought. She hadn't understood their exasperation until she was old enough to value it for herself.
Emmeline knew it was a request she should have heeded. Christian often attended to it for her—the knocking, at least. His patience with waiting for her to admit him came with varying results depending on the situation, but he at least gave a bit of fair warning either way.
Stepping over the threshold to Christian’s office, Emmeline prepared herself for a fight. Her body tensed as a few different opening statements flooded her mind. Each of them was not quite right, not nearly enough of what she wanted to say. She hoped the right words would come to her once her brother mounted his argument, but as she stepped forward into Christian’s office, no argument rose to meet her.
A set of unfazed glances was the only thing to meet her sudden presence in the room. Her arrival held their attention for only a second or so before Christian looked back to the computer screen. Taylor’s gaze followed shortly after without either of them sparing a word to acknowledge her.
Emmeline expected her presence to elicit a bit more of a reaction from her brother. Of which sort of reaction...she wasn't so certain, but his indifference somehow felt unfair. It was both condescending and like an assault at the same time. And considering all that Emmeline was holding, the snub made her feel more justified.
Emmeline cleared her throat, straightening her back and shoulders. She grew no taller, no stronger, but the gesture fortified her words, her resolve.
"We need to talk,” she said.
Christian pulled his gaze up again as his sister took a step forward. The tilt of his head posed a question, the heave of his chest an admission of his weariness. They were both gestures Emmeline ignored or missed entirely.
"Not now." Christian shook his head and looked back to the computer. "I'll find you when Taylor and I are—"
"Yes, now!" Emmeline stepped further into the room, her boot stomping down on the hardwood as she went. “Right fucking now, Christian!"
Christian’s gaze remained on his sister this time. His jaw clenched as he forced himself to take another breath. He rolled his neck in a small circle, relieving the tension before he focused on his sister again. "Excuse me?"
Emmeline was nearly at the edge of Christian’s desk now. She was quickly running out of space to close between them with her steps, quickly running out of volume in her voice, too. She felt the threat of untamable emotion rise within her. "Don't act like you didn't hear—"
Christian cleared his throat. A manilla folder sat open beside him, beside the laptop. He closed the folder and laced his fingers, continuing to stare at his sister throughout. His demeanor was so calm and still that Emmeline forgot herself for a moment. A dryness settled in her mouth as her stomach churned. She swallowed a lump in her throat. She wished she could forge on. She wanted to pick up her words right where she’d left off, but she couldn’t quite remember what she’d wanted to say. Not a single one of the points that had flooded her mind while she lingered near the threshold came to her now.
Taylor reached for the laptop and file as he stood up. “I’ll give you two the room, Mr. Grey.”
"No, Taylor. You stay.” Christian shook his head before meeting his sister’s eye. “Emmeline was just—"
Something in hearing Christian utter her full name in that particular tone shook her loose. Emmeline swallowed down the sickness rising in her throat and shook her head. She took another step forward to reach the front edge of Christian’s desk. "I’m not going anywhere. We need to talk and you're not just going to push me off, so don't talk over me and don't act like you didn't hear—"
"Oh, I heard you," Christian said. He pushed his chair back as he stood up.
Emmeline leaned away from him despite knowing the desk was safely settled between them.
"I was offering you the opportunity to take a moment to consider what you will accomplish by barging into my office like this. Would you still like that opportunity?"
Some part of Emmeline paused at his words. It was a threat posed as a calm, yet condescending, question. But more than the words, it was something in Christian's tone that always got to her. Something in the timbre and intonation sent reason and logic and self-preservation out the window.
When he spoke to her like that, it always made an infuriating fight take her over and Emmeline scoffed at Christian’s offer now.
"If either of us needs an opportunity to reassess what they're doing, it's you." Her hands gestured wildly, supplementing her words to release the frustration that speech alone could not.
She swallowed as her brother stepped around the side of the desk, but her eyes didn't stay on him. Instead, she considered the file he’d closed moments before. He’d left it unattended. She somehow knew that file was exactly what she wanted.
No, not wanted—it was what she needed.
It was the file that held the information Christian was keeping from her, the information about the man believed to be her biological father. The one Christian had told her was locked away. The one Christian had told her wanted nothing to do with her. It was information about who he was. Where he was. It was hers for the taking.
Christian had told her only lies about the man, but the truth was right there in black and white. Emmeline fixated on it, her mind imaging the feel of the manilla folder and the freshly printed documents stashed inside, imagining what it would be to read and know the truth. Her distraction lasted only a few seconds at most, but every second her gaze lingered a searing burn grew within her limbs.
Every piece of her was on fire.
She reached for the folder, but Christian stepped in front of her before she could shift. He caught her wrist in his hand and held her close.
"Let me see it,” she said, her voice nearly cracking, the words coming out as a plea more than an order. Emmeline tried to pull out of Christian’s grasp, twisting and pushing harshly though his grip was gentle. She hadn’t realized.
His hands shifted to grasp both of Emmeline’s arms. He tried to move her back, away from the desk. "Em, you don't have any need—" Christian started. His words were gentle now, too, but she couldn’t hear the nuance.
"It's my file..." Emmeline shouted, continuing to fight against him, his hold seemingly searing against her skin. "He’s…he’s my...he's my family, Christian."
My family.
Christian swallowed at the words and he dropped his hold on her. He was almost surprised by the flash of anger they brought on. Those particular words generated more anger and fear than her slipping away from her security. More frustration was borne from the words than her journey across Seattle at 80 miles per hour. The phrase angered him more than the vexing show of attitude and rebellion he was receiving from her now.
"You really think—” Christian gestured to the folder. “—that man is your family?" he asked, nearly shouting it, the slimy film of disgust coating his words so thick that it couldn’t be missed or confused.
Christian wanted to understand where his sister was coming from. Some part of him wanted to empathize. He wanted to see her point of view, but he was falling short. He didn’t get it. Emmeline had never known her biological father. He was a worse sort of human than her mother’s boyfriend had been and that was a trauma his sister actually could remember. That should have been explanation enough for her to understand why Christian wanted to keep him away from her.
And the man had never had any interest in her all these years, not until he found out who had adopted her, what she was worth. Not that the ransom his family could afford to pay came anywhere close to what she was worth to them.
This man, her supposed father, was dangerous. Even after years in prison, the man had connections. He had power. Couldn’t Emmeline see she was better off not knowing him? Couldn’t she understand why he was doing this? He was only protecting her. The less she knew of the man, the less she would feel inclined to connect with him, and the better off she would be.
It wasn’t an easy truth. Christian knew what it was to wonder after his own parents, the father he never knew, the mother he’d lost while still so young. It had taken years of therapy to sort. In truth, he was still sorting it out, and he had over a decade of progress on Emmeline’s journey when it came to that.
There was no threat of them losing her, not legally. Emmeline was too close to her eighteenth birthday. That wasn’t what Christian was afraid of. Not even if she had been younger. No judge in their right mind would pull a child from the family who had raised and provided for her for a decade and a half to settle her in the care of a criminal with no means or prospects.
But Christian knew the man. He knew what he was. He knew the things the man had done, the things they couldn’t put him away for—the murders and the kidnappings that were there behind the formal charges he’d served time for. Christian knew the things he was capable of now. Maybe it wasn’t fair to define a man by the things he’d done, but if the best predictor of future behavior was past behavior, then…
The man believed to be Emmeline’s father was a murderer. A kidnapper. A blackmailer and an extortionist. And Emmeline was worth too much to them for Christian to risk it, especially now that he was out of prison.
He had told her only enough of the situation to keep her safe, to explain the increased security. Christian had told her that someone had reached out and he told her the basics. He figured that would be enough to scare her off of it, but he should have known better.
Had Paul Robbin’s letter come to Escala, or even to their parents’ home, Christian knew things could have been very different. If the letter hadn’t come to his office—to his hands first—Emmeline could have received it. She could have found it. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find his sister come up with a plan to see him, to meet him. It made him sick to imagine what could have happened, what still could.
"Mr. Grey?” Taylor prompted, the interruption pulling the eyes of both siblings as Taylor’s gaze remained trained on the computer screen. “You should see this."
Christian dropped Emmeline’s arm and moved far enough around the desk to view the screen. He pulled the file from Emmeline’s reach as he went. Christian pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment as he watched the security footage on the screen.
They’d been tracking his movements since his release two weeks before. He’d stayed local up until three days ago. It had been unclear where he was heading, but there was no question now. Emmeline’s father was making his way to Seattle. And Christian knew why. There was no other reason for him to leave California. No reason for him to travel North.
He was coming for Emmeline.
And there was no way Christian would let that happen. There was no way that man was learning more than he already knew. Emmeline may have been inclined to indulge in her sympathies…their parents, too, had argued for the more humane reasons to consider allowing her connection with the man who had never even been listed on her birth certificate, but Christian knew better.
"You're to have nothing to do with that man, Emmeline. And it's not going to be a discussion. You’ll take security with you wherever you go and—"
“I’ve already had contact!” Emmeline held up her blackberry, her hand shaking with rage. “You don’t control everything. You don’t know everything. You don’t control everyone!” Christian grabbed her hand and the phone, holding them both still so he could read the wall of text sent from an unknown number, a perfectly crafted message of pleas and promises.
Christian ripped the phone from her hand. “You’re not responding to that. I’ll get you a new phone number and the rest of what I said stands. Increased security. Ryan goes everywhere with—”
"No! You don’t get to just make decisions like that. Taylor, tell him he's—"
"Miss Grey.” Taylor did not need to say more than those two words. It was clear in his tone whose side he intended to fall on, conciliatory even in just issuing her name. Emmeline was familiar enough with the practice. She got on well with her brother’s head of security, but he was just that—her brother’s. Taylor’s loyalty was spoken for, paid for, but that couldn’t stop her from arguing the point.
"You can't actually tell me you agree with him? Just because he signs your checks doesn't mean you can't have an opinion—"
"Emmeline, that's enough," Christian interrupted her badgering, hoping he could stop her. He needed her to stop.
"No, it's not enough. You think you’re in charge of the whole fucking world. That you know best about everything, but if I want to see him, you and Taylor can't just—"
“It’s enough, Emmeline," Christian ground out. "The smart people are talking. It's time to shut up."
Christian wasn't sure if it was the sentiment, the tone, or the step he took in Emmeline’s direction, but she finally listened, finally heeding his request. Emmeline stood before her brother in silence, her mouth pressed in a straight line.
"Thank you, Emma,” Christian said, his tone softer now as he acknowledged her compliance and pocketed his sister’s phone. Part of him regretted the words. He hadn’t meant to say them, but they'd been building up inside as Emmeline badgered him and Taylor. He had needed a moment’s quiet to think, to speak. He needed her to go so he and Taylor could develop a plan.
"Ms. Jones can prepare you something to eat. We will discuss this when Taylor and I finish."
Christian returned to his spot beside Taylor, shifting his attention back to the computer as he leaned into the desk. With her lack of immediate argument, he considered the matter settled, but Emmeline shook her head, following him back toward the desk, regaining the steps she’d lost.
"I'm not hungry," she said, the words quiet, but firm.
"Fine.” Christian took a deep breath. He refrained from shaking his head or pinching the bridge of his nose again though both gestures were calling to him. “Go wait in your room, then. I will come to find you when—"
"No.” Emmeline shook her head. “No. You can't just send me away, Christian. We need to—"
Christian scoffed, turning toward her once again "Alright, you want to talk?"
He pushed himself up off the desk, straightening to his full height. "How about we start with the fact that you're supposed to be in a psychology lecture right now? Or the fact that you tried to ditch your security once again? Or how about that joy ride you took across the city just now? Because all those conversations, along with the one about this goddamned attitude of yours, are happening first...Long before whatever conversation you think you and I are going to be having, so unless you’re ready for those conversations, get out.”
Christian had taken a step closer with every question, his aim to move her back, but Emmeline held her ground, considering her options as her brother continued.
“Emmeline, you can either go out with Ms. Jones or you can go to your room, but Taylor and I have work to do. We’ll talk about this later.”
“I want my phone back.”
“You’ll be getting a new one.”
“And what am I supposed to do until then?” she asked. “I have plans this afternoon and I have to return—”
“No.” Christian shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere. Someone will return Miss Harmon’s car and I’ll get you a new phone, but you’re staying here until we figure this out.”
Emmeline felt the futility of continuing to fight, but she couldn’t let it go. Her phone was gone from her, but the file was still accessible to her and she needed something. “At least let me—” Emmeline saw an opportunity and took it, reaching for the file once again.
Christian caught her arm. “There’s nothing in that file you need to know. The less you know of him, the better.”
Emmeline fought against Christian’s hold as he moved her toward the door, and something seemed to break down in her, all of the still-pent-up emotional energy coming out through hot, angry tears and a surge of energy pulling to release Christian’s grip. Christian recognized the change and he tried to be gentle. He tried to keep the frustration out. “You’re free to go where you please within the building, but—”
Emmeline turned, loosening Christian’s grip enough to shove hard against his chest, angry tears flowing freely as she tried to hurt him, trying to transfer some of her pain through her words and her fists. “Just because you never knew your father, doesn’t mean you can keep me from mine.”
Christian huffed out an incredulous breath. He caught Emmeline’s wrists before she could bang against him another time. “Your room it is, then," he said as he moved his sister the final few steps towards the open door. He easily passed her to Ryan’s waiting arms. "Ryan, please escort Miss Grey to her room.”
Emmeline tried to fight. She still wanted to argue, but it was useless arguing with a closed door. Ryan prompted her, issuing her name and holding out an arm to guide her away from Christian’s office. Emmeline shrugged out of his hold and walked towards her bedroom as the hot tears continued to fall. It wasn’t worth it. Arguing with Ryan was only slightly more productive than arguing with the door. She wouldn’t be getting her phone or leaving Escala. She wouldn’t be getting the file or the truth. Emmeline knew she had lost those opportunities when Christian shut the door in her face, or maybe she had never had them to begin with.
She didn’t even know if she wanted to meet the man who was supposedly her father. All this fighting and hurt was over a man she wasn’t even sure of, only curious about. Emmeline knew it was more about the lies than anything else. It was more about being able to make choices for herself. It was more about decisions being made without her opinions and thoughts being taken into account. It was more about a life’s worth of opportunities she was being denied. As many opportunities as her mother and father and siblings had given her—all of the education and love and support—Emmeline couldn’t help but think they’d taken away just as many, closing a number of doors in her life in the name of safety and what they thought was best.
Maybe Christian was right. Maybe Paul Robbins wasn’t worth it. Maybe he was dangerous and she’d be better off without, but Emmeline had the right to decide on that for herself. She deserved an opportunity to know him if she wanted. She deserved to at least be a person in the room when decisions about her life were being made.
Emmeline slammed her bedroom door as she came through it, not a care spared for how close Ryan may have been following behind her. She knew she wasn’t taking out her frustration on the person she wished to, but the reach of her agency had been so diminished, that she held tight to what power and choice she did have. Despite her brother’s decrees, Emmeline knew it should be up to her to decide which doors—which opportunities—remained open and which she wanted to close.
Summary: It’s 1925 in the Little Lady Blinderverse. Clara Shelby has been restless all week, desperate for a wild weekend on the lane, though when it arrives she finds herself more eager for a quiet night at home. She doesn't get either of those things, though.
Characters: Arthur Shelby and Clara Shelby
Content Warnings: Angst, Grief, Guilt, Mentions of death, Alcohol as a coping mechanism, Blood, Cleaning wounds. This one hurt.
Here's the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there. Tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️
Clara didn’t often stay on Watery Lane. She usually settled there only on the nights when she was looking for an evening out, chasing after a few hours passed in the pub, far away from the docile domesticity and casual bridling she associated with Arrow House. She ran from her older brother’s home when she wanted a little time away to goof off with Finn and Isiah, a rendevous comprised of a small sampling of excitement without any real danger.
Clara often found it to be a nice reprieve.
The drink. The laughs. The company.
It was different than the reprieve she found while out at Arthur and Linda’s. Different than settling at Aunt Polly’s place in Sutton Coldfield for a few days or traveling to Ada’s flat in Primrose Hill.
Coming to Small Heath meant she could let loose in the safety of her family’s pub without fear or pretense or conversation about anything of any real substance. In the snug, Clara allowed the particularly trying weeks to roll off her shoulders while imagining a different sort of life, sampling the freedom Finn tasted almost every night. Clara could fancy herself to be one of the girls with no obligations other than finding a bit of sweet release.
She liked that, basking in the spoils of her twin’s license to do as he pleased. Imagining themselves to be as wild and free as their older siblings had been at her age with no one to get after them except Aunt Polly, who was practically a kid still herself.
Clara indulged in it for a day or so every few weeks, gorging herself on the freedom and nostalgia for a life that had never really been hers, to begin with before something called her back to reality, back to Tommy’s home, back to her nephew and their comforting routines, back to her responsibilities—school, family, the company.
Just that morning she had come into Birmingham feeling desperate for the freedom and release of a Friday evening in Small Heath, running from Warwickshire and Tommy and his rules more than she’d been running to anything on Watery Lane. She’d been eager for the drink and the loosening of her reins most of the week, feeling its call rise up in her no later than Tuesday morning. Something in her had been unsettled for days, restless and melancholy as she went about her days at school and the office, but rather than heading for the pub after Clara finished her hours at the office after school, she ended up passing the evening alone on the lane. She busied herself with tidying the house that only Finn ever stayed in. She tucked herself into bed early with a book, answering to a different call within her, some call to set things right, to put things back in their proper place—to straighten and tidy and repent, all of that removing the dust of time.
For a few hours, she’d been calmed by the simplicity of it all. Cleaning was hard, honest work, but it wasn’t complicated. It didn’t make her mind ache the way that Mr. Bailey’s equations did. Or the way Tommy’s half-explained strategies did.
Quiet moments alone on Watery Lane always reminded Clara of the modesty of her childhood, flooding her with memories long ago sweetened by the veil of nostalgia and softened by the passage of time. Even the hard things seemed easier now, a bit of good found easily enough even in the more difficult of memories.
She supposed it had always been that way though. Clara was always trying to convince herself there was good out there, searching as though her life depended on it for the scraps like autumn leaves in a swirling breeze.
There was a simple truth to that. And those around her called Clara naive. Young. Silly. Their talk about the trait was colored by pity and amazement and frustration all in equal measure, often accompanied by eye rolls that had them justifying their protection. As if by finding the good, she couldn’t possibly understand the reality of things.
But Clara had needed the silver linings of the bad in her life—the absence of her parents, their poor upbringing, the imprisonments, the deaths, the illegal business. Clara forced herself to acknowledge the things that were good. That Esme and John were distant from her, but their family was closer than ever now. That Arthur lived a more gentle existence now than he’d ever done in his life. The families who had lost someone in the throes of Blinder business—the Hancock family, the Ross family, the Owens family, and who knew how many others—they were at least cared for. They didn’t worry about their next meal or money or being bothered. Whatever it was, the Blinders took care of it.
Clara knew it wasn’t enough—the money—but it was something. And she never would have known Mrs. Ross or Mrs. Owens, or their lovely children, had things been different. Clara never would have sat with the kids of either family if the men of their families hadn’t been lost. She knew she was reaching when she thought like that, a part of her certain she was just being selfish in naming that particular silver lining, but Clara hoped her small offer of help had meant something over the years.
Just this week she had been to see the Ross family, bringing with her food fresh from the Arrow House kitchens and a book to read with the little ones. Mrs. Ross had seemed thankful for the break. She’d gone out and Clara had stayed for hours. Surely, there was some good in giving a single mother a break? Surely there was good in the fact that the Ross kids had developed a love of stories? That each of them had a library card? That Mrs. Ross didn’t have to make dinner for a night?
Clara felt certain it was true, or at least she worked to convince herself it was. She went there on a schedule she kept tidy in her mind, every other week, but it was more than ticking off a box, more than crossing a task off her to-do list. Just as tidying number six was more than a task. Clara didn’t do these things for a thank you. She didn’t feel it was deserved from the Ross family or from the Owens family, either. And Clara simply knew better than to expect a thank you from her family or the men in the shop for her work cleaning.
The issuance of goodwill simply meant something to Clara. She certainly imagined it couldn’t hurt things to put a bit of good out into the world, though Clara didn’t often come out completely unscathed.
She’d gladly take a little of the pain if it could ease the burden elsewhere even if she wasn’t quite sure whose burden she was easing in cleaning up the house. Finn’s, she supposed, though no one got after him for keeping it tidy. As she relished the well-earned ache in her muscles, Clara had a nagging thought that maybe it had been her own burden she was trying to ease.
Every bit of her was exhausted from scrubbing and dusting and tidying and reminiscing when she tucked herself into her old bed. Clara expected sleep to come easily after all that. She was certainly tired enough after several nights in a row of tossing and turning.
She could feel the pull of sleep weighing heavy on her bones, but lying there under the covers, Clara felt a familiar restlessness creep in, something prodding at her from the edge of her thoughts. Despite Clara’s wish for rest, she found herself too alert, too attentive to every sound and movement outside her window, too observant to the dark clouds in her mind as well—the silver linings somehow shed in the dark of night.
Clara had grown unused to hearing the sounds of Watery Lane with a sober mind, unused to trying to sleep while the drunks stumbled home with their shouts and hollers, unused to the melodic thrum of the streets, the people loitering about in the back courtyard. She wondered when she had grown unaccustomed to the very customary creaking of the home she’d been brought up in, the settling of number six’s parts she’d once considered familiar as a good friend a stranger to her now. Clara Shelby had become spoiled by the quiet of Arrow House, overindulged by a very different kind of life. Frustration leeched into her at the thought, the sudden dissonance washing over her after an evening of feeling at ease, at home.
When had Clara Shelby become too fussy to sleep on Watery Lane?
Clara tensed at the sound of a crash out the back, the noise originating from just outside her open window. She pulled the covers closer, wishing to herself that Finn and Isiah would make their way back from the pub soon, admonishing herself for not just staying in Warwickshire after all.
In Warwickshire, she’d be tucked under the gentle protection of her soft, downy covers. She wouldn’t be the one to deal with the unexpected sounds and intrusions. Her brother had a history of sending her back to bed whenever she did investigate such late-night matters, putting himself between her and the unknown, but there was no one to protect Clara here on Watery Lane, not from the sounds out in the courtyard or the challenging thoughts in her head. She couldn’t stumble into Tommy’s office for a late-night bit of company, not that she often did so these days anyhow.
Clara pulled her blankets tighter as a fist pounded against the back door with insistence.
“Aunt Pol! Open the bloody door!”
Clara sighed and released her grip on the blankets at the familiar voice, a bit of relief mixed with a bit of frustration at hearing Arthur shouting from the back, probably fumbling in the dark for a spare key that hadn’t been there for close to a decade. Clara didn’t know that there even was a spare anymore, probably not considering the amount of money locked up in the shop’s vault next door, but if there was one, she imagined it was kept down the lane at Uncle Charlie’s house, in a place not so easily accessible to a drunk man on a mission.
Arthur should have had his own key on him somewhere anyway, on the very same ring that he kept the key to the farmhouse he shared out in the country with Linda and Billy, the farmhouse where Clara expected her brother to be passing his Friday evening.
“Polly Gray! Pol-ly! Pol—” Arthur sounded like he’d lost himself in a bottle or two, his words cut off by th sound of something tipping over.
Clara imagined he must’ve been drunk if he was in the city at this time of night looking for their aunt who hadn’t stayed on the lane for years.
“Elizabeth!”
Clara pushed off the covers with a sigh, loathing every drafty second after she got out from under them. She missed the lush carpeting and stoked fires at Arrow House as her bare feet moved over the dusty chilled hardwood. She grumbled to herself as she moved down the staircase, instinctively bypassing the creaky step though she had no need to hide her movements, rolling her eyes as more pounding sounded on the door.
Clara couldn’t remember the last time she’d answered a door in the middle of the night, or at any time at all for that matter. Knocks that arrived in the middle of the night always had Tommy sending her off, to her room or to Charlie’s, his words or his looks getting her out of the way, out of his hair for whatever business had landed on their doorstep.
Clara hadn’t answered a door aside from the one that separated her bedroom from the rest of her brother’s estate in years. And if she hadn’t known it was Arthur on the opposite side of the door, she’d not be answering one now either, not in the dead of night when she was at number six by herself. It was one of those things trained into her when she was small, the idea that anyone who had any sort of business coming through that particular door at this time of night should have their own key, or know easily enough where to find one.
It was a conservative list—the people who held a key to number six—limited only to those who had at one time or another called the building’s four walls home, just seven individuals in total, all of whom bore the name Shelby. A few more had been afforded keys to the shop—Lizzie and Esme, Scudboat and the cousins, Nipper and Henry, Uncle Charlie—but not even Michael had been offered a set of keys to number six. It was just one of those things that Tommy and Polly had decided on with a bit of eye contact and it had never been spoken of again.
As Clara came down the stairs, she could hear the jangle of keys through the heavy wooden door, the original door, the one in the kitchen that the Shelbys had barely updated aside from a few modern additions. The heavy slab of wood still stuck, its maintenance neglected, its general difficulty long ago accepted by the lot of them, and you needed to push the door forward and hold it there while you messed with the key, a whole routine engaged in before the lock would by some miracle unlatch and give way.
And give way it did as Arthur stumbled through the now opened door, a bleary-eyed mess of limbs crashing into his sister, steadied and kept upright only by Clara’s weight pushing back against him, her arms wrapping around Arthur’s middle while he fell over her shoulders, spinning them both around the room once he realized it was Clara he was holding.
“Well, look who it is,” Arthur slurred, pulling himself together just enough to remove his arms from Clara’s shoulders though she still steadied his swaying with her own hands set at his sides. Arthur squeezed her face, cupping both cheeks in his hands. “Our Clara. Where’s Aunt Pol, eh love?”
Dark as it was in the kitchen, Clara didn’t see the blood covering her brother’s hands and clothes, but she could feel something slick against her cheek and she pulled Arthur’s hands away without answering him.
“She’s asleep already, eh?” Arthur laughed to himself as he slid into a chair at the table, somehow finding it without slipping to the floor. Polly hadn’t lived there for years, something Arthur might’ve remembered sober, but it was clear he was anything but.
“That’s where you should be too.”
Clara sighed and went for the light, swallowing hard as she turned back to her brother. She took in the mess of hair that had fallen over his face, sweaty and disheveled from what she would have thought was just the alcohol until she saw his hands and the slick of red covering them, the blood splattered on his shirt collar and face.
Clara reached up to her own face and Arthur sobered for a moment as he watched her, some sort of realization appearing in his crazed eyes, his gaze softening, and Clara caught him swallow just as hard as she had, his adam’s apple bobbing once before he pushed his hair back from his face, forgetting the blood on his hands as he carried it through his hair.
“Clara, I—” Arthur cleared his throat, diverting his eyes for a moment as Clara felt her breath hitch, a wave of nausea hitting her. She swallowed it back down.
“Arthur, what...you’ve got...there’s…there’s blood—” Clara restarted the sentence a few times in her mind, a few times aloud too, unsure of exactly what she wanted to say first, unsure of whether she wanted to stop him from getting the blood anywhere else, or to ask him what had happened or, well—Clara wasn’t certain what else she was thinking on, her mind moving too quick for her to really catch any of it.
Arthur cleared his throat and stood up, taking a step toward her. She hadn’t seen her brother in close to a week. She’d last seen him out at the farm. Arthur had insisted on passing his day fixing fences though they’d looked in fine shape to Clara. She’d spent most of the weekend with Linda and Billy, but they’d gone to church together—Clara and Arthur. It had been Linda’s suggestion, a nice way to end the weekend before they sent Clara back home, she had said. Clara had a long list of things she preferred to a church service, but she couldn’t say she hadn’t enjoyed passing an hour with Arthur seated in a pew.
Clara should’ve known then something was off. She should have recognized the shift in him, the desperation with which he hung on the words being spoken in the front of the room, like he was about to slip away.
They all said Arthur was a changed man now that he had Linda, now that he had God, but some part of Clara knew her brother followed two religions. Attended two churches. When things were good, Arthur read from the bible, but when things were bad…Arthur slipped.
“Clean your face,” Arthur said, gesturing towards the towel on the counter. “Go on,” he prompted with a tilt of his chin when Clara didn’t move, didn’t pull her misty eyes off of him.
Clara shuffled her feet before reaching for the rag, dipping it in the basin she’d left there after getting ready for bed, using it to wipe her face and hands, just a bit of rust-colored smudge coming off onto the fabric as she brought it down over her cheek.
Clara leaned over the basin for a moment longer, collecting herself before she dumped the contents into the sink, watching the dirty water drain.
“We need to clean you up,” she said. “I’ll just go and—” Clara looked toward the door and Arthur nodded once before she hurried out, intent on filling the basin with fresh water, intent on truly gathering herself with the help of the cool air and a moment’s silence, tending to herself so she could tend to her brother.
She was plenty used to seeing blood, familiar enough with her brothers coming home bloodied and bruised after scrapping, but she hadn’t seen it on Arthur in some time. More than seeing him covered in blood, it was something else giving Clara pause. It was something about Arthur’s demeanor, something in her oldest brother’s eyes, some pain that didn’t often show through these days.
Arthur most often seemed content now, able to be soft and slow on the farm, sweet with Billy, seemingly satisfied with the quiet life he and Linda maintained. She hadn’t seen it at the farm or in the church, but here on Watery Lane, the mix of realization and regret on Arthur’s face was like a jolt running through her, reminding her instantly of what she’d forgotten. Clara remembered it all so strongly it was almost as if she had experienced it firsthand, as if the pain of it all was her own to hold.
In a way, the pain had been hers to share, or at least it felt that way, like whatever Arthur had been feeling back then about the Ross boy had merged with whatever Clara had felt about the whole thing, that Tommy telling her to suck it up and get her story straight with Isiah and Finn hadn’t worked one bit, but she had bucked up in Tommy’s presence, played the good little soldier, and then Clara and Arthur had processed it in their own way.
Arthur had been looking for Aunt Polly back then too, on one of the many days when he felt beyond broken and needed someone to put him back together. Clara had always thought it wasn’t necessarily by chance that he’d come across her instead because, in the end, it was Clara who’d helped him through it.
And it was Arthur who’d helped her through when Tommy’d simply washed his hands of it and told her to do the same, to get her story straight and move along, to get back to the books and back to school. Clara had gone back to those things, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it back then, couldn’t stop her mind from returning to that day in the ring and to all of the days that boy missed because of what had happened, everything his family lost.
Everything she’d lost, so scared she was of her eldest brother after seeing what he was capable of. Tommy had expected her to simply get over that too. The Shelby men fought in a war. They ran a backstreet gang. Clara was old enough by then to know what they were capable of.
Tommy had been content to give the Ross family money, to make sure they were looked after and provided for in that way, but Clara hadn’t been. And she wasn’t sure that Arthur would ever be content with himself. Back then, Clara could barely remember a time when her brother had been.
And she hated herself for not realizing, for not noticing the change in him over the last week, for not seeing clearly enough or reading her own mood properly. She hated herself for forgetting, for being with the Ross family this week without acknowledging…for the selfishness of ticking off that box without a thought to the date. Without remembering or acknowledging the importance of the day.
Clara braced herself against the back door, struggling with the weight of the basin as she worked to open the door, some part of her unsure if she wanted to manage it, unsure if she could go back inside with the walls of her childhood home resonating with a new set of uncomfortable memories, every part of her taken over, saturated in an ache heavier than the one in her muscles.
She swallowed the burning lump in her throat before pushing the door open, her eyes spotting the bottle of whiskey before she spotted her brother, light glinting off the glass as he tipped the bottle to his lips.
Clara wanted to admonish him, to tell her brother that he’d had enough. That she’d had enough. Clara set down the basin on the table, her mind fighting to find an argument he might listen to.
Arthur slammed the bottle down and took hold of one of the fingers on his right hand, its alignment wonky and swollen beneath a ring. He pushed then pulled on the digit, swearing loudly as the bones of his finger shifted back into place and a wave of sickness came over Clara. She stood rooted to the floor, frozen there as he eyes lingered on his freckled hand.
“Wrap this for me, eh?” Arthur said softly, nodding towards the meager medical supplies Arthur had collected for the purpose.
Clara nodded slowly, shaking herself free as she moved for the strip of cloth and scraps of wood. She’d seen it done several times. She knew exactly what to do, how to place and wrap, but Clara still felt unsure of herself, her limbs shaking as she lifted her hand and got to work, quiet as Arthur lifted the bottle to his lips once again, wincing and hissing as she finally tied off the fabric.
Clara got lost in the blood on Arthur’s face once again. And it was like no time at all had passed, like she was still thirteen, like Arthur had just killed a boy, like Tommy was asking she move on and put it behind them, but here it all was once again banging on the back door demanding entrance.
Arthur dipped a rag into the water, attempting to wring it out before Clara could bring herself back. Clara blinked, pulled back to now by the sound of dripping water. She took the cloth from Arthur and finished wringing with a deliberate focus. Clara started wiping at the blood covering Arthur’s face, moving gently as she could over the places already growing red with bruises and cuts.
“What happened?” Clara shifted her attention to cleaning his knuckles.
The question was barely loud enough for Arthur to hear it and for a moment, Clara wondered if he had since there was no answer. Arthur sat still and quiet while Clara rinsed the blood from his battered hands.
“Arth—” Clara started before he pulled a hand free to clasp the whiskey bottle, once again taking a long swill before taking a second rag from the table and wetting it by tipping the whiskey into it.
“Nothing I don’t deserve,” Arthur said before pressing the cloth into Clara’s hand and pulling both to the cut on the side of his face, hissing as he pressed the cloth and Clara’s hand over the wound. Arthur’s hand returned to the bottle as Clara moved on to the others, dampening the cloth as needed before pressing it to his skin.
Clara moved to the back door when she was finished, dumping the water out the back and leaving the basin and the rag there on the stoop. She struggled with the lock, grateful for something to struggle with other than the thoughts in her head. She nearly had it back in place when the sound of a chair scraping and a body slipping to the floor startled her.
Clara left the door, scurrying across the room to help Arthur to his feet.
“Let's get you to bed, Arthur,” she said, prying the whiskey bottle from his hand and settling it on the table.
Clara pulled Arthur toward the stairs, both of them struggling to get up the narrow passageway. Each step was labor with Clara attempting to shoulder most of her brother’s limp weight, to keep him moving, one foot lifted to the next step and then the other.
She released a frustrated whimper when Arthur started slipping. His weight pulled them both back down to rest on the steps in a matter of seconds. Clara crumpled under his arm, giving in for a moment, listening to Arthur’s sniffling in the dark. He was crying and Clara was close, the frustration thrumming through her as they sat only four steps from the threshold of the second floor, Arthur’s old bedroom mere steps away.
“Come on, Arthur,” she said, a desperate prayer and an order all in one.
Clara set herself under her brother’s arm, heaving once again, lifting his dead weight until they were both upright and she got to prompting him upwards. Part of her mind was stuck on the idea of a fall—just the slightest tip in any direction could have them tumbling back down the stairs. Clara was once again wishing for Finn and Isiah to come back from the pubs, or wishing she’d stayed in Warwickshire and avoided it altogether, but then there was another part of her hating herself for even thinking such a thing because where would Arthur be if she wasn’t there?
Clara finally took a breath when their feet arrived at the second-floor landing and she eased her brother through the doorway of his old bedroom. Arthur flopped down on the empty bed. He was no longer sniffling, whatever wave of emotion that had come over him on the stairs that fleeting. Clara lowered herself to the floor to help with his boots, loosening the laces and easing each foot free as she willed her own emotion to be fleeting.
Arthur’s hand settled on Clara’s head, his fingers settling out over her messy hair like a crown.
“I’m a good man,” Arthur mumbled as he pat her head. “I…”
Clara stilled on the floor in front of him, waiting for Arthur to finish his sentence. She looked up when Arthur pulled his hand away.
“Right, Clara?” Arthur whispered, pushing both hands through his own hair.
Clara nodded once, the movement feeling somehow detached from her. She tapped her brother’s leg, lifting Arthur’s feet as she stood, coaxing him to lie back on the bed.
“There’s good in you, Arthur,” Clara said as she pulled up a blanket from the end of the bed, draping it over him. “I’m gonna go lock up,” she said. “You get some rest, alright?”
Arthur caught Clara’s wrist as she made to step away.
“Thank you.” Arthur pulled Clara’s hand toward his face, aiming to press a kiss there but instead holding it against his cheek. “For not giving up on me.”
“Of course, Arthur.” Clara nodded in the dark, a chill passing through her as she spoke. “Now, get some sleep, alright?” she said, but Arthur had already slipped away, leaving Clara alone with the clenching feeling in her chest.
Clara headed down the stairs in no particular hurry, her mind stuck on her pain and her confusion as she fussed with the stubborn lock, nearly to her breaking point before the rusted metal decided to click into place. Clara reached for the forgotten whiskey bottle before moving back to the stairs, draining the remnants to fill a glass.
Arthur’s snores reached her as she ascended the stairs. He was already so peaceful in his rest and some part of Clara was soothed by seeing him that way. The easy, gentle lines of Arthur’s resting face convinced her that her words held some truth. There was still good left in her brother, good left in all of them. She held onto that even as she grappled with the uncomfortable idea—that both things lived inside of them all—the good and the bad.
Clara had never given up on the idea that her family was good—that despite the look of it, the good outweighed the bad. She didn’t know if she could accept anything else, if she could condemn the lot of them in such a way. If she could condemn herself in such a way.
Was there anything in the world Clara wouldn’t forgive? Anything she wouldn’t eventually accept, or explain away, casting aside the doubts in her mind in order to keep receiving a bit of what passed for love, belonging? Would there ever be a time when Clara would stop believing there was some bit of good in them all?
Clara slipped into the wooden chair beside the door, gulping at the whiskey as she watched her brother sleep. She welcomed the liquid’s burning warmth, her only company as her mind worked through the catalog of her doubts, sifting through the evidence she had filed away over the years, all of the things that left her wondering if the small moments of gentleness and kindness were still enough to tip the scales towards goodness.
To Clara, it seemed a harder balance to keep with every passing day.
