#darechallenge

April 4, 1999 - Easter Sunday: 

Seven year old Sophia Austera Laski is asleep. Finally. She’d been hopped up excited because she gets to eat chocolate eggs the next day. Easter is one of those rare times when Sophie can enjoy her childhood without constant lessons from her mother or father. She wakes up though. Something high pitched. She isn’t supposed to hear it, but she’s been trained to know what it is. A shot of a silencer. She is quiet when she gets up. The door to the house is wide open even though it hasn’t stopped raining for the last three days. The first thing she sees is the dark brown curls of her mother across the wood floor. Then she sees her father.  The dark figure of the demon that killed them has his back turned. A mistake since Sophie’s father’s gun is  already in her hand with her finger on the trigger when he turns to face her. Before thinking twice, she pulls it and his heart is pierced.

That is the end of her childhood. 

April 4, 1999 - Easter Sunday: 

Seven year old Sophia Austera Laski is wide awake. She bouncs up and down on her mother’s lap as her mother reads the scripture. It is past midnight. She should be asleep, but she is excited for the Easter Bunny. The next night Sophie is asleep by ten because of how much lamb her parents feed her at Easter Dinner. 

September, 2006 -  Year 10

Sophie Austera Laski is seated next to another girl with brown hair, tannish skin, and brown eyes. They pretend that they’re sisters. The two girls are inseparable. Rose is a bit younger than Sophie, but her bright smile and cute family welcome Sophie in and take her on adventures. Sophie’s own strange parents with mysterious jobs never seem to include Sophie in on their secrets, but Rose’s family welcomes her. 

Sophie is a bit more of a pessimist. Her first reaction to everything is hate, but Rose is the opposite. Rose is the one nice thing that Sophie can tolerate.

Then and Now:

Rose is beautiful. Sophie and Rose spend vacations together. They’re always stuck sharing the same bed, being both girls, being the best friends. It’s what makes the most sense. Sophie feels closer to Rose than anyone else. When Rose dates Justin, Sophie hates him. She thinks of him as overrated. Rose has to cancel on their plans because Justin wants her to. Sophie goes to the hospital in a bad mood and drives Kyle absolutely nuts with her whining. But somehow, she and Kyle get along, maybe it’s because they both whine incessantly. Maybe it’s because they’re the only ones annoying enough to suffer through the other’s issues. Either way, their friendship is marked by their constant complaining and ability to scare almost everyone else out of the staff kitchen at the hospital. 

Here and There:

Reality, 16th May 2016.

The pen clicked in her fingertips, a right hand that had been saved from the line of fire time after time, her lips pushed tightly together as if she was silencing herself from speaking out loud. Maybe she was. She always read her pieces aloud but she glanced over to Zach sleeping peacefully on top of her bed, his book tucked beneath his face. She rolled her eyes and pressed the tip of her pen to the paper. Maybe this was a different kind of piece.

“Dear world, 

My name is Faybian Davis. 

You have been led to believe that you know me through flashing lights and news reports, through journalistic pieces about my morbidly critical personality. My name is Faybian Davis and you know exactly three things about me. The first, is my name. The second is that I work with Zachary Kent, a reporter that most of you hail as tall, dark, handsome and mysterious. The third and final thing that you know about me is that you don’t truly know anything about me at all. 

Over the years I have been asked the same questions a thousand times. Who am I? Where did I come from? What made me the way I am? I didn’t answer. That made me a mystery. That made me one of those fierce women who have ice growing around their heart, the kind that could stab you with a stiletto if you crossed them. If you ask my oldest friend Casey Bell then you will know, you are not entirely wrong. Except, the thing is, you can’t ask Casey. Just like you can’t ask Trevor Quinn. Just like you can’t ask Hazel Marks.

Did you read about her in the papers while you spooned cereal out of your bowl? Did you gossip about her in inner city London where she used to party? Did you whisper her name like a sin behind your parents backs like she might hear? I bet you did. It’s okay, we all did. Hazel Marks was a girl but we made her into a complexity, we turned her into a legend. Legends never die. The problem is, Hazel did. She died that day as she took one final leap of faith from a roof, for whatever reason. The stories varied, didn’t they? They became tales for parties about the boy with the blonde hair that everyone knew holding onto her hand, the possibility of her star football player pushing her, maybe her best friend and her were on a binge. Wasn’t she pregnant? How many rumours did you hear? Did the truth matter? Did you ever think that maybe she was just a girl?

Hazel Marks was just a girl. She was a pretty girl. She was a fine girl. She wasn’t all that fantastic but she wasn’t all that terrible. She had hobbies and interests. She could sing and dance but she wasn’t too smart, she scraped her grades, pretended she loved school council and cheered at every football match. She argued with her popular boyfriend, pissed off her closest friends and lied to her brother. She wore pink. She wore black. Sometimes she wore yellow. She had two arms, two legs, two eyes and some damn good hair, but she was human. She was no more special than anyone. She was a girl and then she was dead. You chose to make that into a story when it wasn’t, it was a fact. 

How many more stories did you tell? How many were about me? About people I knew? How many were worth telling? You see, world, I’m a Whittemore kid. Do they still call it that? Do you remember how you treated those kids? Every party, every corner, whispers. Rumours. You talked about that school like it was an omen, like it was a curse. You placed it on a pedestal of horror that people shaded their children from, that the filthy rich gasped at the thought of. We were rich, we were dirty rich, we could of rolled in money, but that didn’t mean we were happy. We had the world. We had you. We had you and we threw you away for the things we thought would make it right. We were just kids and we were given too much power and we lost someone and tried to live without her becoming a legend. Even after Whittemore burned down and we started our new lives we were still Whittemore kids. 

Do you know what the funniest part of it all is, world? You were still waiting. With pensive glances and gentle touches. You waited for that fire, lit by our own hands, to consume us whole. To burn down our homes like a tragedy so you could stand on street corners and peer at ruins, so you could run your fingertips against stone that looked unscorched and say “wow, imagine if I went here.” There were so many chances for us to speak up, to tell the real story about Whittemore and the horrors that went on behind those walls but we bit our tongues and we clenched our jaws and we held our head up higher than the rest in order to simply not care. Mostly it worked. I know as well as everyone that nobody ever spoke about it, like some weird clique, some weird vow of silence over the lives we had led. Why? We didn’t tell our parents, we didn’t tell our friends, we didn’t tell anyone. 

Until now.

I’m telling you.

I’m telling you about the stranger that flew us a million miles away from home in order to force an arranged marriage, I’m telling you about the man that beheaded his brother to save our lives only to find he was wrong. I’m telling you about the girl that went to rehab and never quite made it back out, the boy who had the world but it was never quite enough, the star football player who never quite made it to happy. I’m telling you about the smart, the stealthy, the wild and brave kids who arranged a cure for a deadly disease that gripped the minds of seven of us. I’m telling you about the seven stupid children who gripped a needle like it was their life and fought the invincible and won. I’m telling you about an entire war that didn’t touch the outside world until a drug epidemic was splashed on the front cover of every news paper. There was a drug problem, but it wasn’t ours. We were just an experiment. 

I’m telling you that while you were worried about who was overdosing on MDMA, who was punching who, we were in a political war ground wearing school uniforms and badges claiming we belonged to houses when we belonged to nobody. Who did we belong to? The adults who were meant to protect us turned their backs and closed their doors, they slid over the lock in more ways than one and when we pounded, nobody came. We became each others family and some of us were annoying cousins and angry step fathers who didn’t want to be here but it worked as best as it ever could of. We went to school as children and we left as adults raised by one another but mainly by those of us with enough spirit. We were raised by a boy who sung along to music and women that were born from their own destruction, each of us dragged the other violently to the finishing line and even if we spat on it, we could of still sworn that we won.

Then it was over. We were parted like the red sea by the hand of fate, everything we knew stripped away from us. 

Some of us became legends in our own right. Some of us followed the dreams of our parents, sliding into shoes a few sizes too big until one day we woke up and they fit. Some of carried our kind heart to a new realm where the sun shone or animals relied on us to survive. Some of us became the stars of the press where our smiles or tales of a fight where we landed a great punch were written in fonts we could not have named if we tried. Some of us opened new establishments, cut ribbons with a friend by our side but a giant space to our left where a family should of been. Some of us watched each other grow to new heights and others closed their eyes and pretended that it was truly over. Some of us were lost, some of us were found, some found one another in an attempt to make things right but the sad truth was that we could force the pieces of a puzzle together but the thing that would always be missing was Whittemore Academy. We loathed it but we loved it. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar. We waited for it to call us back. We were not surprised when it did.

We returned as if we thought we could leave, we took with us the grandest parts of our lives to live between the walls that had haunted us for three years. We took our stories and our secrets and our truth and went on a mission into the dark. I would be lying if I told you that I thought it would end well, I didn’t. None of us truly did. Even the strangers felt it creep up their spines, the thought that this would be our very sudden end. And how right I was. It seems that the past always catches up and chaos consumed us more than ever before, our head master died a savage death by our hands, our faults alone, and we allowed an innocent man to take one final swing into oblivious, severing his head right from his body. 

Yes. We killed him. We killed him in every way except the one that mattered and then we spent the remainder of the night stuffing body parts into bags, allowing a man we already knew was a killer somehow, sweep away our mess. That’s the thing about family, right? We’re in it together. It’s sick but it’s true. It was like an initiation. I bet right now you wish you were there. It’s okay to admit it, world. You can tell me the truth, you want to be a part of the drama, don’t you? You’re squirming because you watch TV shows and they’re almost as bizarre as this but not quite. You’re holding your breath because it’s not normal to want to be involved in a master plan of lies, deception and cold blooded murder but you don’t have to. I know the truth. You always want to be here... Until you are. 

There are so many things that happened, so many layers of terrible, insane, plans, that I can’t even begin to explain them. I’ve truly tried and if I ever get another chance then I will continue to. We deserve it. Justice. We deserve you to look us in the face and apologise for believing you knew what we had been through, for making us into a story of despair and confusion fit for a theatre that none of us would DARE ever step foot in. How did this all begin with a little game? None of us know and neither do you. You never will. 

In a few days under the influence of a politician that I don’t understand, I’m going to open a portal within time and space, the fabric of the universe. I’m going to tear our world right open while thousands, billions of people peacefully go on with their lives with no idea what might have changed, what might have been undone, who might still be breathing. I don’t think that it will go right, I don’t think it will go at all. To be quite honest, I think this might be the grand ending to an over told story. Perhaps this will erase the legends ever beginning. But you’ll always make new ones, won’t you? If it wasn’t us then it would of been someone else, some other scandal, some other set of heroes, villains, civilians. 

I don’t know how this will end yet, nobody does. That’s the thing about life. Especially around here. It’s the great unknown, so much like the famous title by Stevie Wonder, this letter will be signed, sealed and delivered, to you world. If nothing changes, if I end up back exactly where I began then some place, somewhere, some person will be reading this on the other side of the world in some labelled building, reading the story of those damn kids in London who went a little too far and fell a little too deep, who risked ruining the world to change their own mistakes rather than just telling the damn truth. They’ll be thinking, hey, this might make a good show, this might make a good movie, and you’ll all agree. There will be main characters who you hail and love, there will be good looking men who wash up well and pretty girls in little costumes, there will be beautiful hair and perfect smiles. It’ll be just like it really was, except it’ll just be a story, one you can distance yourself from, one we might get to see one day, watch. We have a terribly morbid need to transfer everything into a story to share, where nothing is just ours, and this is no exception. Maybe there will be a girl who wrote a letter and inspired the story, too. Maybe I will watch her and I will think, that is me. That’s who I was. Maybe we all will. God knows that you, world, were always better at telling us who we were than we were at telling ourselves. 

I guess you’ll know everything, you’ll finally know me too. 

Love, 

F. Davis.”

Alternate, 16th May 2016. 

Faye woke up suddenly. Her eyes snapped open, her eyes widened as she sat upright in bed as if she had just remembered something important that she could not quite put her finger on as her fingers brushed the arm of the boy asleep next to her. His eyes were closed and she watched for a moment as his chest continued to rise and fall, her own fingers closed around a locket around her neck that had been a gift and she took a breath. Why did she feel like there was something she was meant to do?

Her light eyes skewered her path of vision in the darkness and she managed to make out the outline of a canvas, sliding out of the bed she patted over to it, pulling her silk dressing gown over her shoulders, her fingers gently brushing the detailing of the ocean that lay spread beautifully over it. It was so vast and deep, she was calm immediately. Art was everything to her. She glanced back over at the sleeping boy in the bed, his hair messy against the pillow, the ghost of a peaceful smile on his slips. Art was almost everything. 

She sat down at the desk and drew a pink pen, her fingers closed around it and she brushed long brown hair out of her face in an attempt to see in the darkness as she pressed the tip against the paper of the notebook. She wanted to write a story. Maybe she wanted to write her story. Maybe she wanted to write theirs. Her fingers were steady but it felt like she hadn’t written in years, why would she? She had never had anything to write about. She may have been achieving social justice in some way now but she had never been the type to have a voice that was strong and unwavering, she dressed herself in diamonds in the hope of becoming one. She had learned long ago how disposable she had truly been and now she felt the hint of a frown cross her face, she was entirely happy with who she had became but no words came to mind as they should have, as she supposed they did for others. 

“Dear world, 

My name is Faybian Davis.”

The words stopped there. She was stunted. What was it she had wanted to say? 

It was then that she realised that she didn’t want to say anything. She had nothing to write about, no purpose to do so. She had everything she wanted. She had nothing that writing could better, nothing to push for that she wasn’t already. They stole from the rich and gave to the poor, they had a system, one that didn’t need words written on paper. Why tell a story that the world didn’t need to hear? There was no point. A small smile pushed it’s way onto her face at her realisation. 

“I’m happy.”

May 10, 2016. Reality.

It’s late, and Justin hasn’t made it to bed yet. The hours are draining by slowly as he sits at the desk in his room, doing nothing important except for sifting through the thoughts in his head. His same routine every night, because his brain is a mess and so is everything else. It’s 11:00 PM. He blinks, and suddenly it’s midnight. He’s still thinking about how everything is a mess.

But then he looks at his bed and realizes that maybe not everything is a mess. He crawls into bed, knowing he has no plan to sleep. He’s very careful about moving too much, not wanting to stir the boy next to him. He even looks like sunlight while he’s sleeping. Sometimes, late at night, when Justin lies awake, he can’t help but watch him. He will never justify getting to be the one who crawls into bed with Tyson King every night. He’s certain that he does not deserve him, but he loves him endlessly. Admitting it was the best thing he’s ever done.

Lying his head down on his pillow, he pulls the blankets up over him. Another look at the clock and it’s already 1:00 AM. He could be sleeping or thinking about how to fix everything else in his life, but instead he’s thinking about his and Tyson’s wedding. The next one that they are planning, and how he’s not really sure how he feels about it, but he knows that it makes Tyson happy. It makes him happy.

When he’s done thinking, it’s 2:00 AM. Closer to the time that Justin finally drifts off, closer to when Tyson wakes up for his morning run. There’s a brief period of time where they’re actually sleeping together, only an hour or two usually. They both see the different sides of it, but Justin will never mind. He settles into his bed, rolling over and putting an arm over Tyson. He pulls in close to the other boy, taking a moment to realize that it’s okay. Things are okay with Tyson. He smiles a soft smile as he cuddles in close. “Good night,” he finally whispers as his eyes begin to flutter. He knows that when he wakes up, Tyson will not be there in bed, but he’ll be in his room in the morning, and that’s all that matters.

May 10, 2016. AU.

No sense can be made of the words on the paper that Justin is trying to read anymore. He stares at it with tired eyes, no longer in the mood to deal with it for the night. It’s already midnight and the hours are ticking by. He has so much to do with seemingly no time to do it. He grabs the bottle of liquor from the drawer of his desk and uncaps it, not hesitating before taking a drink. This has become his routine. He can’t think of what it was before now.

Justin pulls his phone from another desk drawer and finally turns it on again after a few hours. He has seven missed calls from Carlie, two from Rose, and one from the Kings. He does not listen to the voicemail that Carlie left, he just deletes it. Unless she’s having the baby now, he really doesn’t care. He’ll talk to her in the morning– maybe.

His mind doesn’t race. In fact, it feels rather numb, like everything else on his body. Sometimes he uses the excuse that it’s probably from excessive drinking, but only because he never wants to admit to himself that something is wrong. It’s also why he hasn’t gone back to the Kings in a while. He isn’t sure if it’s because he doesn’t want them to know something is wrong or because he doesn’t want them to hate the person that he’s become, just like everyone else. He doesn’t tell them all that he does too sometimes.

From his pocket, he pulls a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. He lights one up and sticks it between his lips. He’s never told anyone about this bad habit that he picked up after Tyson died. It calms the stress. He’s not sure what stress it calms, but he thinks it helps. He breathes out a puff of smoke and stares at the clock on the wall. 2:00 AM. He stares at the empty bed. Takes another drink, swaps it back out for the cigarette.

Once he’s done, he snuffs the cigarette in the ashtray on his desk and caps the liquor, sliding it into its drawer. He makes his way to the bathroom, turning the water in the shower on too hot until steam fills the room. Once he steps in, he simply stands there for some time, letting the water pelt his skin until he doesn’t feel it anymore. It takes him some time to finally get everything done. He steps out into a steam filled bathroom, wrapping a towel around his waist and not bothering to clear the mirror to look at himself. Instead, he pulls on his boxers and walks straight to the bed.

A mesmerising blue light had blinded him one moment and the next he was stepping through a door to a place he did not know.

A book fell from his hands dropping to the ground, a thud as words left his lips, “What on Earth is going on?”

There he was. Orson French. The man that hours ago Sean had thought he was. They were face to face, blood spilling cruelly from his lips causing Sean to grimace, hesitating in the doorway. For a single moment horror overtook him, complete despair that he had clearly been sent back and trapped in 1993, but who was he? This made no sense. 

“Sean, our Father isn’t involved in any of this! Calm down!” Someone shouted. He turned to see the young Thomas French and his eyebrows furrowed further, glancing down at his empty hands. 

Oh God. He was himself. He had wiped out Charles entirely. A lump rose in his throat but he swallowed, he would not feel sorry for himself. There were things to be done. He had to try and keep history the same, or at least this part. His mission erased the overwhelming sadness he had spent twenty one years promising himself didn’t exist. 

His voice was cold when he spoke next to the eight siblings that had once been Uncle’s and Aunt’s, “This must be done,” his hand travelled to his waist band but his gun was gone. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he despaired, his gaze travelling to the axe on the wall, before any of them could say anything his elbow was shattering a layer of glass. 

“Don’t you see this can--” Orson was saying but Sean did not care for even one second of his monologue. Unlike Charles he did not want to know a thing at all, it would change nothing. He had already lived the future and as the axe split through air, severing Orson’s head, he had no regret. It was clear now, this was not who he was. 

“Brother,” Sylvia cried as she dropped to her knees, holding their Father’s head in a way that made even Sean cringe, “What have you done?”

“What needed to be,” Sean dropped the axe to the ground, a splatter of blood dotting his white shirt, grey eyes stormy, he turned to one of his brothers, his tone cold, “Now you must leave Whittemore or I guarantee you will regret it. This is my burden alone. Go.”

And so they did.

His gaze rested on her stomach, a child growing inside that simply could not be. Both Ricky and Hazel had to be erased, at any cost, she was not made for this world. “Emily, I will not have it,” his words were cold and cruel but necessary, he had been too late to stop this but now it must be undone. 

“Sean, I don’t want to do this. I just want to have my baby, I’ll be good, I can do it,” tears childishly streaked her face, her fingers clutched his jacket as they stood outside the old building. The clinic. 

“I will not have it,” he repeated and for the first time his voice faltered, his eyes almost stinging with tears. He did not want to do this. He could not kill Emily and live with it, he could only do this, force her hand. She had the mind of a child, “You will do this Emily, or so help me God, I promise you this life will be far worse than necessary for all of us.”

She nodded, tears streaking her cheeks, "Okay.”

--- // ---

She stood in front of him, her pyjamas buttoned, her face paler than it had ever been, blonde hair piled on top of her head in a bun, her hand resting on a stomach that would now never be the home of a child. It made him sick. The hot water bottle pressed into his hand seemed to be the last thing burning in that moment. Her eyes were bright and green, they never left his, wide and worried, “I’m scared.”

“I know, Em,” he tried to keep himself composed, his feet bringing him to stand in front of her, he dropped the hot water bottle, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, pulling her body to his were it didn’t quite fit. Her tears dampened his shirt and he couldn’t help but think about how he had done this. He had chosen to erase Ricky. He had forced her hand. He had ruined her dreams. Just as the world had before. He sighed into her hair, shutting his eyes, “It was for the best,” not that she would ever know. 

The woman cried for hours, Sean held her as if he was not the source of her pain, as if it had not been his choice at all. He told himself it wasn’t.

Finally he crept from the bed and went to the bathroom, the door locking behind him. He fell to his knees, pulling back the cover, his stomach emptying itself immediately, throwing up everything inside of him in disgust of what he had done. Tears prickled his eyes, acid rising in his throat, “Oh God,” he whispered, “Where does this end?” 

It was only the beginning and yet that was the worst thing Sean French would ever do.

The next Morning Emily would be led out by men in white jackets, her eyes filled with betrayal and sadness. Neither him nor James would ever see her again. Ricky and Hazel were never born.

He waited for the blonde haired girl he loved to be born. He kept track of the Valances over the years preceding the date of her birth but nothing happened. He found there was no interlude, no pregnancy, no hospital records. In fact, one day Kitty simply existed as if she had been born from thin air, a beautiful creation but an illogical one all the same.

“Mrs. Cricks, I am not one for debate,” he turned, his gaze falling to the baby in her arms. A few hours old. “Your husband will become a maniac, he will believe he is a God. Your son will fall to a greater evil than you understand, lose him to me today or lose him in eighteen years when he falls to darkness. Believe me now, this is not the life you want to give.”

The woman stared at him in wide eyed horror, tucking the edge of the blanket beneath the baby, her hand unsteady, “Why should I believe you?”

Sean’s gaze never faltered, he did not even look at the boy that lay now in a small Moses basket, he simply stepped towards the woman, his eyes full of understanding, “If I am wrong, if your husband does not become who I say, it will not be too late for you to get him back, but you fear as well as I do that I am correct and that is why you will do as I say.”

The woman didn’t reply. Her arms dipped to collect the child and she spent a few long moments staring at him before nodding, her arms relinquishing as she passed the baby over to Sean, her eyes untelling of her true feelings as she sat down on the edge of the hospital bed, wrapping her blanket emptily around herself. Perhaps she already knew he was right. “Take him.”

And so he did.

“Howard, what are you doing?” He was out of breath himself, his eyes tired and irritated, a hint of concern.

Howard Cross stood, wide eyed, light hair pushed back, a horrified expression on his face as he held a newborn baby, his normally well kept appearance completely ruined by the blood that drenched his shirt. Sean did not know if this was from the baby or a woman, he did not need to, he had long since realised he did not like the answers, “I-- I don’t know what to do... My campaign,” the man burst into tears, his hand hovering over the lid of a bin, crippled by an emotion that was foreign to Sean.

He stepped forwards, “Give her to me,” he took the baby from Howard’s arms, wrapping his jacket protectively around her, his eyes sadder than ever as he looked to Howard, “Get out of here, Howard. Go home to your wife, I will not speak of this.”

Howard nodded, his gaze lingering, eyes wide and horrified for a moment before he began to run away.

Sean shut his eyes for a moment, the cries of the baby in his arms shooting through his head. He looked down and his eyes met hers, so much life in them left to live that he did not know, “Sh, it’s okay, Zoe,” he smiled, “We will be alright. Won’t we?”

A small hand pulled him back, “Daddy, can you tell us a story?” Jonah begged.

Zoe sat up, “Please, Daddy,” her eyes wide, hair wild despite how many times he had brushed it. 

He rolled his eyes, exasperated he stopped, “You do not want to hear my stories,” but a small smile tugged upon his lips, his eyes softer than they had been in the twenty years he had lived an entirely different life, he rested his hand on a dresser, “Once upon a time there was a man who lived a very awful life, he did not know that there was somewhere else he was meant to be until he arrived there, until he found a little Prince and a little Princess and he took them home so they could grow into far better rulers than they would of otherwise,” his tale made him cringe but he would put up with it from time to time to appease them. Zoe’s eyes were closed, she fell asleep easily, he thought that Jonah’s were too, his finger pressing the light switch off.

“Daddy,” the voice caused him to turn, “Does the story have a happily ever after?”

In the darkness Jonah would not see him wince, his heart squeezed by the hand of fate that kept it’s firm grasp on his life, a tightrope, “Sometimes we do not know the ending until we arrive.”

The night Texas White died was one that would haunt him.Sean knew he had to save her, he had ran through the list of churches in London, each door knocked down in his violent rage. He had to get to her, it was imperative to his story. 

He had failed. Each one a dead end, until he had eventually pulled up his car on the outskirts of London, flames danced in the dark night sky, a church alight. His stomach turned. 

He ran to the sight and when he arrived he found Bethany White on her knees in the damp winters grass, he turned to see the immune seven standing around, their eyes wide and sad, their hands damp with blood. He closed his eyes to stop himself tearing them to shreds, his heart breaking in his chest, “What have you done?”

They did not answer, they fled. All but Bethany who remained sobbing hysterically into the ground, “Just make it stop. Make it stop.”

Had it been a plea? He did not care. In the darkness he pulled his gun, the silence icy as he pushed it to her head, pulling the trigger before she could argue against his actions. She had killed her daughter, he did not know how, but as his stormy eyes watched the flames rise, he knew this was one death that had been necessary. 

She spun tirelessly in circles around his feet. Her smile was wide. Her dress flowing. It felt like a lifetime since he had seen that smile, perhaps it had been. Her innocence had been lost in his true world a long time ago. His niece, his sister. Whichever came first, he knew that this was a love that had not been undone with time.

“Come and play with me, Uncle Sean!” she pleaded, her eyes full of joy as she shook a present from the table beside them.

“Come here,” he gestured, dropping to a crouch, “Can I tell you a secret?” His eyes were cool, his hand gently resting beneath her chin but his grip quickly relinquished.

“You can tell me anything, I’m great at keeping secrets.” He already knew that.

He leaned in and his voice was even when he spoke next, “I don’t like children very much.”

She stepped back, eyebrows furrowing, “That’s not very nice.”

“My dear,” he winked, a thing that she would now hate because of him, “Neither am I.”

Just like Charles, she would grow to hate him, the only difference was, for Sean, this had been a conscious choice. He would not allow her to lose him twice. 

"Aiden," his voice was calm, he turned the pages of a notebook in his hands that was unfamiliar, gaze meeting the boys, taking in deep blue and blonde hair, "A time will come in your life when you will understand your greatness. You will come to my school and I will be proud of you, for you will do many wonderful things, things that right now you cannot imagine. You must not allow indignation to destroy you," a small smile lit his eyes, "Trust me. Your Father will be proud."

The young girl collided with his legs and he glanced down, his eyebrows furrowing, “Lily?”

She looked up and a woman grabbed her by the shoulders, “I’m so sorry,” Penny gushed, her eyes fleetingly panicked, a case by her side. 

“Where are you going?” Sean queried. He did not know this story. He had never cared for it but in the dead of night he could not contain himself.

“I’m... Me and my husband, I have to get out of here, for my daughter,” her words were cryptic, her eyes crying of a story that she wished to tell. 

He did not care for stories any longer, the time had passed him quite literally a lifetime ago for these things, but the last shreds of humanity that remained inside of him caused him to nod, “Tell me your story, I will help you.”

And so she did.

Penny Kent never ran away.

Lily never remembered.

He sat in his study, the lights dim as he poured over notes he had made. A method of reversal for something he had began.

The presence of a figure did not startle him until he looked up, the shadow of a man transforming into the body of Harrison French who stood, his hands dampened with blood, his eyes full of tears, "Sean, I have done something terrible."

Whether this man was his Father or his Brother, he rose, his own expression untelling, "My God, tell me your daughter is safe," he pressed. His only concern.

"She is," Harrison choked, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, "I need to leave. I need to get out of here."

"You do," Sean agreed, but behind his back his finger pressed the barrel of a gun.

Harrison French went missing. Charlotte French did not.

Kitty stood, a guitar in her hand, her eyes brighter than they had been in the world that he remembered her during the last days of their dying love. Her hands were gentle upon the instrument and he stood, for the first time, he knew that she was not a magical creature, she was not beyond the world of realism. He had made her into something she was not and in the end, they had both paid the price. Now he paid a greater one but at least he would never be allowed to hurt her again. Without him, she had remained in tact.

“Oh, sorry,” she smiled at him. The same smile. “I didn’t know you needed to be in here. Do you want me to get out of your way?”

He watched her for a few long seconds and then he shook his head, his hands pushed into his pockets, “You do not fear me, do you?”

Kitty looked at him, her eyes filled with recognition. Or maybe he was hoping, for a moment later it was gone, puzzlement replacing it, a confused laugh leaving her lips, “Why would I be? You’re just a man.”

He laughed. He had to. Otherwise he would of cried, “Indeed.”

He sat beside Millie’s body, the beeping of the machines that kept her chained to life all too loud. It had been a week. He knew that Mr Hastings would never make the call to kill his daughter, he was too weak to understand that his love was only prolonging inevitable pain.

Grief had a way of clinging to you and he still had not quite gotten over the death that had been left in his wake, Tyson King had died in the flames because he had not been able to carry both girls, his arm still in a sling strapped to his shoulder from a violent encounter with his niece, or rather, his sister, Daisy during the outbreak of insanity. He would never stop thinking of the lives that had not been spared but perhaps it was a necessary loss, a price that must be paid. 

“How ironic,” he thought aloud, “That I only tried to save you and now I must be the one to let you go. You did not deserve this,” he told the girl as if she may hear him, perhaps she would. He leaned forwards, switching the machine off, the nurses turning a blind eye. He did not know how they would explain this, it was not his problem. He watched as the screen flatlined and for the first time, “Neither did I,” he admitted.

Whittemore went up in flames before his eyes.

For the second time.

He looked to Zoe, sadness in his eyes, "You will go away and your brother will be changed. But it will be alright."

He looked at Jonah, the wedding band falling to the table. Even in this life the name had sent a shudder down his spine but Sean was fair, he would not argue, "This is not the right choice, Jonah. I will tell you only once, this woman is a curse. You will not believe me, I know this already but I warn you anyway. I know things you do not."

“A reunion. I must rebuild Whittemore,” he spoke on the phone, “It will be wonderful.” It will be the end.

"Have some wine, Father, I got it especially for tonight.”

“No thank you,” he politely declined, brushing past his son. It was not the correct time for him to die, although, he wondered, if it really mattered.

This was the third time that Jonah had attempted to kill him.

It would not be the last.

He was cut off mid-sentence by blood rising in his throat, his gaze meeting Elizabeth’s. The reunion dinner set out, the starter had not even began, just as it had with Charles, the world was claiming him, blood gushed from his lips and poured down his shirt, his chest clenched uneasily, his fingers clutching the tablecloth as he fell to the ground. 

The cries around him faded out, the look in Zoe’s eyes, the last piece of his heart broken physically and metaphorically. Blood splashed the floor, he couldn’t breathe, he was entirely choking on it, his fingers releasing the tablecloth entirely.

“You must know something else!” Daisy cried, Jonah too, in the background, an angry scream leaving his lips, “This was not how it was meant to go! This isn’t right!” a harmony of hysterics, Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears, Zoe grabbing onto his arms as if they could save him. He could not be saved. He had been born into this world to die and so he had. Gracefully. 

Aiden was sobbing, Jade was trying to help Zoe, Chase was saying a prayer. This reality was nothing like his. It was worse and yet better, they had lived without so much pain. He would not have that luxury.

Zoe’s hands wrapped around his shirt and in his dying moments his eyes flickered to her, a strange loss of storm in his eyes, as if finally his fight was coming to an end, his hand gently rested on her cheek leaving a bloody trail behind, “One day, tell your brother, this is the start of your happily ever after,” he choked on his last laugh.