fandomhighdorms | The Roof, Saturday Evening

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The Roof, Saturday Evening

It was so sudden. One moment, Eleanor had been carving up a harpie, and the next -- it was gone. So were the zombie piranhas. And Eleanor was ... Eleanor, again. Finally. Somehow.

But the memories of it -- who she had been, what she had done -- were clawing at her. She'd been someone careless and dark, and before that, the Messiah her mother had tried to shape her into becoming. An utter absence of self.

She spent at least an hour in the shower, scrubbing, but she couldn't get that feeling out of her skin, the itch, the memory of other voices speaking through her. As her. In place of her, in the empty space where she used to be, where no one was ...

She gave up, finally, and pulled clothes on -- not the shift. Maybe she would burn the shift. Maybe that would be satisfying.

Maybe she would go up to the roof and scream and find something to break. Or maybe she could sit and watch the stars. Anything, so she didn't feel trapped under a roof right now.

(OPEN. WARNING: thread with Celia discusses suicide of an NPC and its aftermath, in some really harsh terms. (Also, Eleanor's views are her own, not mine.))

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And that ... and that was when the dam burst. Because that was exactly what had been eating at Eleanor herself. That in some reality, she had failed. She had never been rescued. She had died, and her body had been made over into ...

"Sh-she was happy," she managed, thought it came out as a sob. "Mother. She ... she th-thought it was a great success. She ..."

How pitiful, to realize that some small ache in here was to know that her mother really didn't love her. Really would be okay with Eleanor disappearing, forever, if it meant heralding the New World Order. Would be delighted at her success.

"She's a monster," Celia said quietly, rubbing Eleanor's back. She'd never really comforted anyone before, but -- it came oddly naturally. And selfishly enough, it kept her mind off her own doubts about herself, and who she truly was.

That would wait until she tried to sleep, she was sure.

"She's a monster, and she made you the way she wanted, but that's not who you are, Eleanor," she continued. "You're not. I mean -- how can anything mean anything if we don't believe that?"

"How can we know anything?" Eleanor continued, her voice shaking. "Am I the real me? Is she? Or the other one, the angry one who liked to hurt things? Is there even such a thing? I don't ..."

The world seemed adrift, tossed by the sea into a deep abyss. Like the trench that Persephone had fallen into, after Mother had set off those bombs.

"Do you ..." She cleared her throat, hesitantly. "Did you ... at least see her? Your mother. Do you know what she ..."

Looked like? She could hardly have taken a picture, but maybe the memory would stay fresh, somehow.

"Like a shadow, or a reflection," Celia mumbled. "I remember her more clearly than I did, but...she has flaws, now. She didn't before."

Celia's mother had been an angel, a hero, an idea before. She was human now. And humans have flaws.

"I -- I don't know. I don't know which one is right. I've never known, not since I changed. I just know that this me feels...right. Better, than I was. And you-as-you, too. For all the pain we've experienced in this life...maybe that's what makes it ours."

"Is that good?" Eleanor asked. "To know her, as a person? Everyone has flaws. If they were unpleasant ... it may not have been her. She may have been altered, the way we were."

So if she liked her mother, it may have been real, and if she didn't ... she could pretend it wasn't her at all.

"You're how I remember you," Eleanor said. "If you remember me, and I remember you, then we're probably all right. I ... I suppose I'm lucky, not to be either of those Eleanors."

"Depends on how you look at it, I suppose," Celia mused, finally getting ahold of herself a little better. "The other me was afraid of her powers, but she couldn't control them because she didn't learn from my father. There's good and bad in either option." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "But I like...this better, if I'm given the option. Having come out the other side and being stronger for it. You, too. But I almost wish I didn't know there were other options, if that makes any sense."

"I think that says a lot about you," Eleanor mused. "Good things. That you'd rather have come through the bad and learned to master your abilities than have a happy life but be in fear. Why ... are you upset about the options?"

She tilted a head. "Because you resent that she got that life, and you didn't, or because you're sad that anyone has that life?"

The latter was what was bothering her, but Joker had been upset about his legs in a manner closer to the former.

"Because now I know," Celia said quietly, simply. "Now I have a memory of a mother that's a little too clear for me to pretend that I had a happier childhood than I ever did."

She cleared her throat, blinking rapidly, and shook her head.

"And I'm sad that that version of me has to live that way, just as I'm sad I've lived as I have, and you as you have, and -- though the One Who Speaks with the Voice of Many does sort of put things in perspective." She shuddered. "I'm so, so glad you're back, Eleanor."

"Was none of it happy?" Eleanor asked, gently. "Your mother, was she ..."

Evil? Cruel? She didn't know how to ask, wasn't sure it was her place.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry that you've lost her, lost something you only thought you had, before. And ..."

She shuddered, again, feeling that same skin-crawling tingle when she remembered ... that.

"I want to cry for her," she said, feeling old and tired suddenly. "For her, the Eleanor who was never rescued. Who died in that room, alone. And the other one, the angry one, and for a Celia who never learned who she was, and all of us, and then ... and then it seems like there's so much I could drown."

"It was better not to know," Celia repeated quietly. "To not know about the other Eleanor...other Eleanors, or to know what it felt like to have made the other choice, or to understand why she's angry, or to -- "

She took a deep breath, glancing at Eleanor.

"My mother didn't die naturally," she started, carefully. "In that reality, she continued to raise a child who had powers that were unfathomable to her, rather than...choosing not to, as she did when I was five. It's not just that she lived, for the other Celia. It's that now I can't pretend I don't know why she killed herself."

She looked away quickly, blinking away a sudden wash of tears, and wished she could just banish her emotions like she'd taught herself to do around her father. It didn't matter if she now understood her mother's suicide. The facts were, and would always be the same: that she was never wanted.

No use crying over it now.

Oh. Oh. Celia's words hit Eleanor like a cresting wave; they broke over her and it took a few stunned silent moments before she could speak.

And then she was pulling in her dearest friend even closer than before, so tightly maybe the other girl couldn't breathe.

"Don't say that," Eleanor insisted, her voice shaking. "D-don't ... don't you dare ... don't you d-d-dare blame yourself."

She was angry, suddenly, at Celia's mother. How dare she? How dare she leave Celia with this pain, make Celia think for even an instant that she ...

Celia was gasping against Eleanor's shoulder -- part in due to the grip, yes, but mostly so that she wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry, she didn't cry in front of other people, not even Eleanor.

Her cheeks seemed wet all the same.

"How can I not?" she mumbled. "Not me, but -- what I am. I know it didn't happen without cause. And the simplest solution is always the right one, isn't it? Having a magical child is a burden."

"You were not the cause," Eleanor said viciously. "People don't k-kill themselves because they have wonderful people in their lives who are also burdens. That would be stupid and horrible and selfish, to -- to do that to a child you're supposed to love, and i-if it were true, your mother would be an even bigger monster than mine."

"I -- " Celia faltered. "Sometimes I wish it had been my father, instead, but then I'd have turned out like her, like the other me, and she didn't understand her gifts at all. But -- I don't blame her. My mother, I mean. It must be difficult. I only had Margaret for a few days, and I was able to magically clean up after her. I c-can't imagine how hard it was for her to have a child who could d-destroy her with a tantrum."

She shook her head, pulling back. "Your mother is a monster, though. Mine was just weak. Yours -- I can't believe the soulless thing she made you. My mother only abandoned me. Yours tried to sacrifice you."

"If your child is difficult," Eleanor insisted, "then you love her, and you show her the way. You don't ... you don't give up on her. That's ridiculous. There's no way that she did, Celia. I don't believe it."

She shook her head, dismissing thoughts of her own mother. "Mother did her damnedest not to love me," she said, "so I was just the same as anyone else, to her. She believed in the greater good. Yours was weak, but -- you didn't make her weak. You didn't."

"No, she was weak, and gave birth a problem bigger than she could handle," Celia sighed softly. "And all because for some foolish fortnight, she fell in love with my father, the snake-charmer."

She chewed her lower lip a little, getting herself a bit more under control with each passing moment. "I think Mama wanted to love me, at least," she offered. "That's the impression I'm left with, after this. Papa never tried. I hope there's never any way for him to meet your mother. The universe might implode from narcissistic self-righteousness."

"She did love you," Eleanor said, firmly. "Being weak doesn't affect one's ability to love. Maybe she couldn't deal with life, or a hundred other things you don't even know happened, but that doesn't mean she loved you any less."

She wished she knew more about suicide, that she might argue the point better, that she might convince Celia that she wasn't the reason for her mother's actions. Perhaps there was a way to learn.

As for her father meeting Sofia ... Eleanor considered the idea for a moment. "She'd try to convert him to rational selflessness," she said finally. "Would he try to get into her skirt?"

She couldn't imagine a man that could succeed at that. She wondered if her mother had ever been intimate, ever, with another person. She couldn't picture it.

Edited 2014-04-04 23:27 (UTC)

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The Roof, Saturday Evening

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